Page 71 of Silent Ridge

The woman slips the rope over her head and gets up. She brushes the dirt and grass from her jeans, shakes her hair out and pulls it back off her shoulders. She’s my height, a little slimmer, but has at least fifteen years on me. I’m not good at guessing ages. She tosses the syringe into the woods.

“I have a little surprise for you, Rylee,” she says, and even though I’m paralyzed I feel my skin crawl. I was stupid coming here alone. Michael has a partner. A psycho partner.

She stands over me, bends down and pats my clothing down and finds my .45. She pulls it out of my waistband and tosses it. I’m unable to see where she threw it but I hear it thud a good distance behind me. She finds the knife I keep in my boot and tosses it away.

I should be frightened at this point, but I’m too angry to be scared.

She gets down on one knee and looks into my eyes. “You won’t be able to move for a while.” She smiles. Her teeth are perfect. Bright white against her olive skin.

“You’re probably wondering who I am. Sorry. You’ll die without ever knowing who killed you. Just know that you killed people I cared about.”

My mind is running a marathon. I’ve killed a few people. I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her but she must be Michael’s girlfriend. She must be talking about Alex or Marie. Or maybe there’s a sister.

“What? Cat got your tongue? Well, you don’t have to talk for me to read your eyes. You want to kill me as badly as I want to kill you.”

She stands but keeps her eyes on mine. “My, my. You still think you can. I’ve been thinking of doing this for so long. Michael said you were surprisingly tough and relentless. Did you know Michael was afraid of you? He was. But I thought you’d be easy and I was right, Michael was wrong. How someone as reckless as you overcame Alex and Marie is a wonder. You would never have lasted five minutes with me, even without the drug.”

I want so bad to tell her to shut the hell up. If she’s going to kill me, she should do it and not talk me to death. When I get feeling back in my body, I won’t talk. I’ll just gut her like a fish.

“I want to show you something.” She grabs my ankles and drags me across the rough ground. I can feel pressure in my hips and ribs and my head bounces over rocks and sticks but there is no real pain. Whatever she shot me up with has anesthetic properties as well as paralytic. If I live, I’ll have to tell Marley.

She drags me around behind the motor home. I can see a window in it but there are no lights on inside. I wonder where Michael Rader is. Is she dragging me to a grave? My anger starts to lessen and fear seeps in. If I could only move. Just a little. Is Michael the one who is supposed to kill me? Or will they do it together?

She drops my legs and rolls me onto my side. My face lands in loose soil. There is a mound of red dirt, freshly dug up and piled a foot high. Some of it gets in my mouth, but I can’t spit it out. I can feel it dissolve.

“Sorry, Rylee. I didn’t mean for you to eat dirt just yet.” She kicks the dirt away from my face and leaves me staring at a depression dug into the ground.

“Go ahead. Get a good look,” she says, and I feel myself being shoved forward onto the mound of dirt. She turns my head until I can see into the shallow pit. Michael Rader’s severed head lies on his chest. His hands are placed on each side of the head as if he is holding it and preparing to put it on like a hat. His eyes are open, not really looking at anything.

I’m pulled onto my back again and I see her moving toward my feet. She picks up my legs and drags me toward the back side of the motor home. My head bounces against the ground, hard; I can see stars above me and behind my eyes. I stop moving and can see the back of the motor home. She leans down and I feel myself jostled, but don’t know what she’s doing until I see one of my arms held up with a noose slipped around the wrist. She pulls the other arm and slips a noose around it as well. My arms disappear over my head.

My toes and the tips of my fingers feel like they’re being pricked with a thousand pins. The paralytic agent is beginning to dissipate. I have no idea how long it will take to do so, but I hope she takes her time with the preparations of my destruction. She likes to talk. I think of blinking to let her know I’m still alert, but it might make her give me a stronger dose of her poison.

She hoists me up with my back against the motor home, hanging by my arms. I think my feet aren’t touching the ground. I try to make myself angry again. Adrenaline is my friend. I think of Monique when I first met her. How she took a chance on me and helped me get into college and continued to fund me and support me until Michael Rader came into her life. I think of how frightened she sounded when she told me that she couldn’t help me anymore. And that she’d given copies of evidence I’d collected to Michael because he’d threatened to kill her daughter.

I wonder who this woman is. How does she know about me? “What the hell?” I say, and I surprise myself on hearing my voice. I hear her on the other side of the motor home.

“You should get your feeling back soon. Don’t go anywhere. You’ll miss the party.”

I can feel my hands. They feel like balloons attached to my wrists. The rope is cutting off the blood supply. I try to stand and feel my toes touching the ground. I don’t think I can stand to take the pressure from my wrists but I try.

I hear something go thud, thud, thud, and anoompfand the woman marches Dan around the side of the motor home. His arms are bound behind his back. A rope is stretched between his ankles, allowing him to walk very limited steps. She pushes him next to me and puts a hangman’s noose around his throat. His face is bruised and swollen and bleeding.

“Dan.” He knows I’m here but he doesn’t look at me. I don’t blame him. He’s here because of me. He’s here because I lied and didn’t warn him.

The drug is wearing off fast, but I don’t let on by trying to stand, although the pain in my hands makes me want to scream.

She steps in front of Dan with another syringe and is about to give him an injection. He doesn’t look like he can take it.

“I want to ask you something,” I say. My words are slurred.

She stops and looks at me.

“Come here. I want to look in your eyes so I can know if you’re lying.”

She pulls a second syringe from her pocket. “Don’t worry. I have enough for you.”

“You skanky insane bitch. I can’t imagine what either of the Raders saw in you. Were you their maid? I mean, look at you. Alex preferred sweet young blonds like me.”

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