Page 91 of Husband Missing

The bullet didn’t come. After what felt like an eternity, Erica opened her eyes. The man looming over her lowered his pistol, sending her heart into an erratic rhythm. His smile unleashed an army of invisible insects over every inch of her skin. Predators like him were a dime a dozen and she knew exactly what waited behind that creepy-ass smirk. He was going to prolong her demise and enjoy the hell out of it. Make her wish that he’d simply shot her and called it a day.

Despite the terror invading every cell of her body, she couldn’t let the moment pass without lashing out at this skeevy bastard. It wasn’t even a conscious choice. If it was, she’d probably keep her mouth shut. But submission wasn’t an option. She wasn’t built that way.

“Keep your nasty, rapey, Neanderthal hands off me, you piece of trash.”

Laughter came from behind him, but he wasn’t amused. Not even a little bit. Shocker. With one fluid movement, he flipped the pistol in his hand and brought the grip down on her head, turning her world black.

Erica had no idea how long she was out. Time didn’t exist in this crap hole. All she knew was that her brain had its own drumsection now and every beat was like a skewer straight through her skull. The events of the night came back to her in fragments, each one more horrifying than the last. Patting her body, she was relieved to find herself fully clothed. She didn’t think these guys were the types to mess with an unconscious girl. No, they’d much rather get off watching her die inside while they took whatever they wanted.

The weird, coppery smell of blood filled her sinus cavities. Turning her head, she saw the shadowed corpse they’d left her with and scrambled to her feet. Blood pooled around his head. She must have fallen onto her side when she was knocked out because half her body was soaked in his blood. One of her sneakers had come off at the hotel and now her sock was wet. So was her hair. Blood, blood, and more blood.

“Oh God.”

Dizziness hit her so hard, she almost passed out. She held onto the wall as she waited for it to abate.

A bang from above startled her, followed by heavy thuds, and then male voices. She couldn’t make out the words over the pounding in her head. Drawing in several deep breaths, she tried to pull her shit together. This was a second chance—or a third or fourth depending on how she viewed it—and she wasn’t about to waste it. She used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe the death remnants from her face and realized some had gotten on her lips, into her mouth. Dry heaves doubled her over.

“Did you take care of him?” Through the ceiling, Erica heard Mace’s voice, slightly muffled.

“Downstairs.”

“What?” Mace shouted and even through the floorboards, Erica could hear the anger and incredulity in his tone.

“You told us to tie up all the loose ends.”

“Not inside my fucking house! Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to clean up a mess like that?”

Erica managed to quash her nausea. Survival mode. That’s where she needed to be. She’d done it as a child, she could do it now. Shoring herself up, she took a good look around her. The man crumpled at her feet didn’t have a face anymore. Was it Holden? She hadn’t seen him or heard his voice this time. Did she care if he was dead? The last time they brought her here, he’d been the only thing standing between her and the other men. Apparently, holding her captive with the intent to kill her was just fine by him but letting some other guy touch her wasn’t. That was his only redeeming quality. The way he’d stabbed Gina Phelan so viciously was permanently imprinted on Erica’s mind. That knife had been meant for her. Tears stung the backs of her eyes at the memory of Gina. They’d had only moments together, but it was obvious that Gina was the best one among them. A good person. Erica hadn’t deserved her heroics, and she hadn’t deserved to die.

Maybe it made Erica a shitty person but no, she wouldn’t be upset if Holden was dead.

“At least tell me you got the girl,” Mace said.

“We got her. She’s downstairs. Out cold.”

The dumbasses left the door open this time. They probably figured the blow to the head would knock her out until they came back. Or maybe they weren’t worried about her getting away. Wherever this place was located, it was surrounded by forest and she had the feeling that even if she made it outside, there would be no Gina to save her this time.

Erica stepped over the body and crept toward the door. The first time they brought her here, she’d been hogtied in the back of an SUV but once inside the garage, they’d untied her and marched her inside the house. Although most of her time had been spent in this dank concrete cell, they had let her into other parts of the house when she needed to eat or use the bathroom. That was how she knew that turning left led to a flight of stepsthat went to the first floor and turning right took her to the garage.

“Don’t kill her in the house,” Mace said. “But if you want to have a little fun with her before you do it, that can stay indoors.”

“That was the plan.”

Erica’s stomach lurched. No way was she risking those degenerates getting their sick, filthy hands on her. She ran. There wasn’t a strategy, only two words screeching inside her mind on repeat:get out.

SIXTY-FOUR

Josie’s hands clenched the steering wheel of Trinity’s rental car. On the horizon, the first rays of sunlight bled through an array of striated clouds, painting them pastel pink edged in fiery orange. A soft ding came from the dash, indicating that she had forty-five miles before she had to fill the gas tank. She’d been driving for hours, ever since she left Alec Slater at his hotel, both of them bewildered and hopeless. The smart thing to do would have been to return to Gretchen’s and get some sleep, but she couldn’t. It was as though her body was keeping vigil, like she wouldn’t sleep again until Noah was found.

Calls and texts to Gretchen and Turner had gone unanswered. With nothing left to do but wait, Josie started driving, visiting each place on the list of properties she’d made, starting with the closest one and working outward in an ever-expanding circle. It was pointless, since she couldn’t actually search any of them. She didn’t know what she expected. Noah trying to squeeze through a gap in the fencing around one of the construction sites? Or escaping through the window of one of Mace Phelan’s residences? Maybe some inexplicable psychic pull when she drove past the place they were keeping him? She’d been blindly following her instincts for days, counting on themto steer her in the right direction. If she was being honest with herself, she was counting on them to provide that psychic pull.

Obsessing over Erica Slater’s necklace kept her awake more effectively than any cup of coffee. She kept feeling the weight of it in her palm. The smooth metal against her fingertip. That flicker of recognition, too fleeting to pin down. The more she thought about it, she felt certain that she hadn’t seen the five in Lila’s box before she and Trinity had found them in her garage. Recalling the way the liner had separated—or been torn—from the inside of the lid, Josie wondered if Lila had hidden them there. But why? They were unremarkable. Even the men who’d broken into their house hadn’t taken them.

They weren’t valuable. Nothing in that box held any monetary value. Lila kept things because they meant something to her. Each object was a memento from one of her evil conquests. A symbol of the damage she’d so gleefully inflicted. Yet, she’d hidden these. Kept them but secreted them away in a hidden compartment. Were they a reminder of a failed conquest? Was that why she didn’t want to look at them every time she opened her trophy box? Then why give one to her daughter as a parting gift? According to Alec, even Erica didn’t know what it was. Or were they so precious to Lila that she didn’t want to risk losing them should someone access her collection?

Regardless, Josie couldn’t shake the feeling that the small, confounding items were the key to unlocking a crucial question that she hadn’t even articulated yet. She also had the sense that both question and answer were tantalizingly close, hovering just out of reach of her consciousness.

The chime of Josie’s cell phone jarred her from her thoughts. She’d connected it to the in-vehicle infotainment center so she could use the hands-free feature. Trinity’s name flashed across the console. When Josie answered, her voice filled the car.

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