Page 75 of A Lonely Road
“I suggest you head home to your woman without contacting the police, or you’ll make me very angry. So angry that I’m afraid little Nora won’t survive it. If you call the police, she dies. On the other hand, if you arrive alone, I’ll give you the chance to say goodbye. Do you understand? Say yes or no, Mr. Lincoln, I’m quite busy at the moment.”
“Yes, I understand—”
Shawn dropped the phone and used his booted foot to kick it into the shrubs on the other side of the deck.
I gritted my teeth against a wave of nausea, though I couldn’t tell if it was from the pain in my scalp or the feel of his body against my back. My brain scrambled at lightning speed as I tried to decide if it was better to talk or keep quiet, torn between wishing Jake would get here quickly and hoping he’d stay away, because I knew Shawn intended to kill us both.
Between the painful grip on my hair and the knife at my throat, I was at a loss as to how to get out of this on my own without risking serious injury.
Shawn didn’t seem to expect a response, since he continued talking as he half dragged, half shoved me toward the house. “You thought you were so smart, didn’t you, convincing your loving mommy to block me from her accounts? That was a stupid move, Nora, but now you’re going to make it up to me. It’s the least you can do.”
“Please,” I gasped, then clenched my jaw to stop myself from begging.
I stumbled over the lip of the doorframe and felt the tip of the knife prick my skin. A tiny, hot bead of blood welled up before trickling slowly down toward my collarbone.
I’d taken down Scarpella at The Mermaid. Surely I could fight my way free of Shawn.
Words my father had spoken long ago echoed in my head.Stay calm and wait for the right opportunity, Bear.
“Oh, you’ll say please, all right.” Shawn laughed, low and ugly, as he dragged me through the kitchen.
The French doors were still wide open behind us and I nearly screamed, wondering if my father would hear me. Before I could open my mouth, Shawn slammed me against the kitchen island, the edge of the counter striking me solidly in the stomach and forcing the air from my lungs in a painful rush.
Without loosening his grip on my hair or the knife, he pressed in close against my back, close enough that his face brushed my ear. I almost gagged again.
“Do anything stupid and I’ll gut you like a fish. Then when your little boyfriend gets home, he won’t have you there to defend him, will he?”
For a long moment, he kept me pinned there, the edge of the countertop digging painfully against the bottom of my ribcage. My right arm was trapped against my body by his, but my left was free. I closed my eyes against the sting of fresh tears and triedto calm my frantic heartbeat enough to figure out what the hell to do.
“I was there that night, at your boyfriend’s restaurant,” he rasped against my ear. “I saw that guy who grabbed you—could’ve been my twin, huh? The way you flipped out on him, it was because he looked like me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” A shudder wracked my body.
“I couldn’t have planned it better myself. He was a perfect scapegoat. Once he was out of the way, I could toy with you to my heart’s content and no one would think it wasn’t that loser with a grudge against you and your boyfriend.”
My body jerked, but there was nowhere to go. “What did you do to him?”
“Let’s just say Barney Fife at this hick town’s police department won’t ever find his body,” Shawn replied.
I closed my eyes, wishing I’d done a million things different—that I hadn’t brushed off the resemblance between Shawn and Scarpella, that I’d told my father and the police everything from the start, that I’d seen the fuckingtruthright there in front of my eyes.
Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
Then he yanked my head back again, baring my throat to the bite of the blade, and forced me to look at him. I tried to focus on his features, to find some evidence of compassion or kindness I might be able to reach, but there was nothing except cold, hard fury.
“I had to abandon all my plans because of you, did you know that? One more con after your sweet mommy and I would’ve been set to disappear, but you just had to fuck it up. After you and your boyfriend pay for that, your father is next. He’s the one who tracked me down, set investigators after me so I had to go into hiding instead of living the good life. Oh, he’s going to pay most of all. I can’t wait for him to find his little girl after I finish here.”
Though I was sorely tempted to throw out a sarcastic reply about my father kicking his ass, my vocal chords were frozen in fear. I tried to look contrite, but the tears rolling down my cheeks only seemed to excite him. Even though it did nothing to loosen his grip, I managed to grab onto his forearm at my throat without him stabbing me. It was pathetic, but I would take what I could get.
“Now, we’re going to go upstairs and wait until your boyfriend shows up. He’s going to watch while you make it up to me for your little stunt.”
As he wrenched me away from the island and started to shove me down the hall to the stairs, I stumbled again, but my grip on his arm prevented the blade from slicing into my neck. He kept up a steady stream of curses as he forced me to my feet.
I knew, as clearly as I’d known anything in my entire life, that if I let him drag me up the stairs, that was it.
Not only would my life be over—just when it was finally starting—but so would Jake’s.
That thought gave me the strength to start struggling. I couldn’t do anything about his hold on my hair, but I was confident I might be able to get the knife away from my throat, if I was careful.
