Page 78 of The Whisper Place
A rustle in the brush snapped my head up. I looked in every direction, flattening myself against the tree. No one. No one that I could see. Leaves swayed and shimmered around me, flashing green and gold, hints of light and darkness. I spun and felt around with my hands until I found the knife and worked to open it. My fingers were numb. They felt huge and awkward, impossible to manipulate. I chanced looking away from the woods to focus on the knife and managed to flip it open. It cut my wrist, slicing along, thin line that bloomed red and spilled over, trailing down to my hand. I could hardly feel it.
The zip tie was impossible to cut. I juggled the knife awkwardly in my fingers, cutting and nicking my hands, trying to find the right angle, the right pressure so I could hit the plastic and not my skin. Every moment that I was still here was time wasted, seconds ticking closer to being discovered and tossed back into the earth. A branch creaked. I didn’t look up. Couldn’t. I flipped the knife again and stretched myself into a bow to get the zip tie on my ankles instead. Pressing, gripping against the slide of sweat and blood on my hands. I pushed and sawed and finally, the tie broke.
Grabbing the knife, I stumbled up and looked around. Which way? I circled the gnarled tree, staring down the shadows. There were voices. Birds? Animals? I didn’t know. I picked a direction I thought was west, the way Mom and I had gone the night we’d escaped Ted the first time. It had brought us to safety once. Maybe it would again.
I ran and my lungs expanded and began pumping—not in panic but that familiar, welcome bite in my chest as I jogged the morning into being, watching the sun crest Charlie’s horizon. I could do this. I could find the shore.
I hadn’t gone more than fifty paces when I heard the voices again. This time it was a shout, high and clear, a woman’s voice.
My mother’s.
Max
“I’m Max Summerlin.” My hands were still carefully raised, my voice as casual as if I were making some Keurig coffee for a new client. “I’ve probably got a business card in my wallet if you want to go through it.”
“Max.” Ted Kramer’s arm tightened even further on Valerie’s throat. “New boyfriend?”
He surveyed me with loathing, lingering on the empty gun holster. Valerie gasped and tried to shake her head. Somewhere in the distance, a twig snapped and a bird flapped out of its nest, screeching.
“My wife puts up with a lot, but I think she’d draw the line at another woman. I’m a private investigator. My partner and I had the pleasure of meeting your first wife the other day.”
A shadow of fear passed over Ted’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you didn’t see the parade of first responders in and out of the woods a few days ago? You must’ve been pissing yourself sitting there with another woman imprisoned in your basement. The authorities have already determined that Andrea Kramer wasmurdered, by the way. Strangled to death, which seems to be your preferred method of torture.” I nodded at his arm, still wrapped tight around Valerie’s throat.
“The police are on their way again now. They’re deploying search and rescue this time.” At least I hoped to god they were. “They’re going to find you, find Kate, and anything else you’ve tried to bury in these woods. If you don’t want to be shot on sight, I strongly suggest you come quietly now.”
Ted cocked his head, shifting a look around the stand of trees. “Funny. I don’t hear any sirens, no search parties marching through the underbrush. And I think Valerie can tell you,” he nuzzled the back of her head, making her shudder, “I have friends on the force.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
The voice came from behind Ted. He whirled, dragging Valerie with him, to reveal a young woman standing between two trees. She was covered in dirt, her hair plastered to her head, clothes torn and bloody. She held a small camping knife in one hand that was scraped raw and dripping red.
“Kate!”
The sight of her daughter jolted Valerie into action. She fought against Ted’s grip, struggling to free herself. He pulled a gun from behind her back and pressed it into her temple.
Diving behind the tree, I grabbed my own gun and rolled up, ready to take aim, but the Campbell women had already descended.
Whatever twisted showdown Ted Kramer had planned was drowned in a fury of yells and hacking limbs. Valerie had his gun hand in both of hers, pointing the weapon at the sky. Kate kicked Ted in the knee and he screamed, dropping to the ground. They were both on him in a flash. Kate pinned him as Valerie wrenchedthe gun away. He grabbed for her, but Kate sliced his arm open and his bellow of rage and pain shook the trees. They rolled him onto his belly, shoving his face in the dirt.
“Kate.”
Her head snapped up, almost feral, but her face broke into a savage smile as I held up the pair of handcuffs. “Want to do the honors?”
She cuffed her stepfather and stood up, looking down at the writhing, cursing body in the dirt. Valerie stood on his other side, glassy-eyed and panting. There was a pause, a moment full of dark, malignant intent. I thought they would resume attacking him, and I wasn’t going to do a thing to stop them, but Valerie looked at her daughter instead and reached across the space that separated them. At her mother’s touch, Kate’s face transformed. Hatred melted away, replaced by pure, gripping grief.
“Momma.”
They stumbled and fell to the forest floor, forgetting about the man handcuffed next to them. Valerie murmured and rocked Kate back and forth, and they held each other as though they’d never let go.
Jonah
“Nicole put a twenty on me getting shot in the arm again.”
Max marked the bet on one of the whiteboards in the back room. It used to be my Kate Campbell board, and as soon as I’d erased it we’d started an office pool: which one of us would be injured on our next case. Max had come out of the woods relatively unscathed on this one, but he’d been shot on three separate occasions in the past. I’d only been shot once, but the stab wound from Theo Kramer almost evened our score. I didn’t have precognition—thank Christ—but I had an unsettling feeling in my gut that Max wouldn’t keep his injury lead for long.
“So that’s eighty on me and sixty on you.” He capped the marker and stuffed the money in the mason jar next to the board. I grabbed a beer and considered the spread. The left side of the board listed our names and across the top we’d settled on categories ofshot,stabbed,broken bone(s),head injury, andmisc. internal bleeding, which was the catch-all for anything else that landed us in the hospital.
