Page 16 of Mountain Murder

“Whitcher.” The officer’s voice warbled. The more Lance tried to focus on the words—to keep himself in the present—the faster they slipped away. “Shit. Don’t touch him. Get some water…”

Movement registered in front of him, but there was no telling if the soldier standing in front of him was real or from the past. “Whitcher, you’re in Battle Mountain. You’re safe. Nobody here is going to hurt you.”

It didn’t matter.

The past superimposed over the present. The officer’s voice deepened, the syllables accented with a southern drawl that could always put him at ease. The man’s face contorted, his skin darkened, until it fit into his teammate’s blank, dead expression. His second-in-command stared back at him. Unmoving. Frozen forever in pain.

Lance’s shoulder burned from the bullet wound. Fresh and gut-wrenching as he dragged himself across the hot, cracked earth. He latched onto it to chase back the numbness coursing through his chest, but there was no stopping it.

The recovery unit fanned out around him, started isolating bodies.

He should’ve been with his unit. He should’ve been there for them instead of babying this damn bullet wound fifty miles away in a medical tent. Lance dropped to his knees, memorizing the pattern of char marks over his teammate’s skin, and something inside of him cracked. “I failed them.”

“Come on, Whitcher. Snap out of it.” There was that voice again. Tight, authoritative, aggressive. “Damn it, that’s an order. Audrey needs you.”

Audrey. Warmth infiltrated through the cold in his veins. He knew that name. He knew her. And the past released its hold. The Battle Mountain PD officers stood frozen, waiting to respond in case he turned feral. And hell, he wasn’t sure if he was totally himself right then, but his flashback had given him an idea. He’d gone back to recover his unit, knowing it was too late. It’d been instinct, an attempt to ease the pain burning him from the inside. Audrey might be trying to do the same.

Lance relaxed his hands. “I think know where she went.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Her head pounded in rhythm to her steady heart rate.

Crusted carpeting scratched and prickled into the side of her face. Audrey tried to get her hands beneath her to push upright, but they wouldn’t budge. Something cut into her wrists, sharp and solid. Zip ties?

“Oh, good. You’re awake.” Her defenses skyrocketed as recognition flared. That voice. It was the same one that’d come from the shadows in her room. The one that’d haunted her since the funeral.

Audrey tried to get her bearings. A sharp odor filled her nostrils. Something rancid and…familiar. Shapes broke through the darkness. A leather sectional was in the same place as the last time she’d been here, with the recliner perpendicular a few feet away. She could almost make out the checkered pattern. A round, glass coffee table with thick gold legs bit into the side of her arm. This spot… This was where she’d found the body. And the smell in the rug…

Her stomach revolted. Nausea charged up her throat and burned in her chest. She tried to pry her upper body off the floor to put as much distance between her and the blood still soaked into the fibers, but it was no use. She’d never been good at building her physical strength. “You…you did this. You killed Jake Dugan. You knew he’d stalked me, most likely had information on me you needed. My address. Then you killed Inez to get into Whispering Pines Ranch. To get to me.”

Dominic Cote. The brother of the patient who’d committed suicide under Audrey’s watch.

“Did my sister ever tell you about the time some boys had chased her through a construction site? We must’ve been around eleven, maybe twelve, at the time.” Movement shifted off to her right. From the end of the sectional. She could just make out his silhouette. Waiting there. Positioned to strike. “You see, Audrey. Our parents weren’t around much. We got ourselves out of bed, made ourselves breakfast every morning, made sure we were on time for the bus. We’d come home to an empty house and make sure there was enough food in the house for dinner. Of course, there were moments we couldn’t stand each other. We yelled. Fought. Said vile things to one another, but as we got older and our parents died off one by one, we understood what that time together had done for us. We understood that we were all each other had.”

Audrey tried to breathe through the rise in her flight response, but she didn’t have any control here. Plastic cut into her wrist the harder she pushed against the binds. Rolling onto one side, she landed on her back, but no closer to the door. “Dominic, you don’t have to do this. Your sister was in pain. Unimaginable pain. I tried to help her. I gave her everything I had. Hurting me isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

He didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe.

“One of the boys lived behind us. He was in her same class. Rode the same bus. She had to see him every day, and every day he would devise a new way to torture her.” He shoved to stand, positioned directly above her. The gleam of a blade reflected down at her as his voice dipped into dangerous territory. “But on this particular day, he and his friend ganged up on her at school after her orchestra rehearsal. They were waiting for her by her locker. Everyone had left for the day. There was no one to stop them from breaking her violin or to make sure she got on the bus. She did the only thing she could do. She ran. They chased her for over two miles, threw rocks at her. Called her unspeakable things and told her exactly what they were going to do to her, which bones they were going to break. For no other reason than to prove they could. The terror you’ve been living with the past few days is only a taste of what my sister went through, Audrey.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Pressure intensified in her chest as her attacker rounded to her side. Crouching, he set the cold steel of his blade against her face and drew the tip along her neck. Warmth beaded in the knife’s wake. Blood. Audrey tried to bury the sob. And failed. It escaped her control and gave Dominic exactly what he wanted. Her. Afraid. Helpless. Dominated.

“She was about to give up until she saw a house under construction. She thought she’d be safe there.” He pressed the knife tip harder against the column of Audrey’s throat. “But they found her hiding in the exposed rafters. Clinging to a single two-by-four for her life. It wasn’t enough they’d terrorized her. They needed to leave scars, you see. Something that always reminded her of their power. So they broke a glass bottle they’d found. They were about to throw it at her when I tackled the first one to the ground. That bottle never touched my sister.”

The way Dominic said that last part clenched the muscles around her stomach. She pulled against the zip ties, captive in every way. If she could keep him talking, maybe she’d could give herself enough time to work out a way to escape. “What did you do?”

“I did what big brothers are supposed to do. I protected her. After a couple of days, rumors started around school. Their parents begged for answers on the news. The police interviewed everyone in their friend circle as well as the teachers. A search team was formed, but the bodies were never found. We made sure of it.” Dominic towered over her—so much bigger, so much stronger. “That day, I proved how willing I was to fight for my sister, to keep her. Though, looking back, I suspect keeping our little secret is what drove her into depression. Burying two bodies in the wet cement of a building development isn’t exactly unicorns and rainbows. That’s where you came in. You were supposed to protect her, Audrey. You were supposed to help her.”

“Your sister didn’t want help, Dominic.” Audrey pressed her heels into the floor. To get as much distance between her and her attacker as possible. Carpet slowed her escape, grating against her shoulders. She pushed off again. Her shoulder hit the TV stand. She felt for something—anything—to use as a weapon, to cut through the zip ties. Lance’s keys bit into the soft of her thigh from her front pocket. There was no way she’d be able to reach them. Not without giving away her intentions.

Lance. Her hero wasn’t coming this time, but right then she wanted nothing more than to feel his hands around her, to absorb his strength, his warmth. Because she loved him. She wasn’t sure how that was possible. They both had come to Whispering Pines Ranch for healing, for escape, and for understanding, but had found something more. Something real. Something she wasn’t ready to give up.

“She told me about that day. How you took that glass bottle and kept stabbing those boys over and over until you were covered in blood. She lent you her sweatshirt because you had to get rid of your shirt and shoes. She even took the blame for them smashing her violin when your parents asked what had happened. She was punished for that.” Her shoulder socket screamed for relief, but there was no breaking through the zip ties with force alone. All she could hope for was Dominic coming to terms with his own trauma, in facing that he was as responsible for his sister’s undoing as she was. “She wanted to be free of the weight she was carrying for the both of you, but that required her to give you up to the police, and she didn’t want to lose you. Don’t you understand? She chose to take your secret with her. She chose to protect you. Just as you protected her all those years ago.”

Her heart threatened to beat straight out of her chest. This was it. This was where she would die without ever really letting herself live or letting herself love outside of her purpose, her work, her incessant need to help.

“Well, that’s not good enough.” He swung the knife down.

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