As she lay in the bed of dried leaves panting, watching Lucy’s struggles slow, Angela felt herself slipping away into unconsciousness.
The cold and icy snow against her flesh brought Angela awake. She didn’t know how long she had lain in the snow. It might have been that the cold had to a degree overcome the effects of the drugs, but for whatever reason she was starting to be able to form coherent thoughts. Angela realized that if she lay there on the ground she was going to die. Even if she didn’t die of exposure, Clay Baker was going to come back and find her there. When he did, he would kill her.
Angela forced herself to her feet. She couldn’t feel her toes. Her fingers were numb, too. She needed to get away before he came back. She needed to escape, or hide, or something. She just knew that she had to move if she wanted to live, and she desperately wanted to live.
In the moonlight she could see that Lucy was dead. A little bit of blood still dripped from her chin, so Angela knew the woman couldn’t have been dead for long.
Angela looked around. She remembered the place from the day she had hiked in. She remembered where the dead woman had been. She could go back the way she had come when she hiked in.
She decided that naked, in the dark, she would not make it far. The fastest way out or to get help would be the road.
She forced herself to start moving down toward the road. It was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. She was so cold all she could think about was getting warm again. She staggered along and soon saw the moonlight on the ribbon of road off through the trees. That gave her a bit of hope and she moved more quickly. If Clay Baker came back and found her she was a dead woman.
Not quite to the road yet, she stopped in the place where the big Lincoln had pulled in off the road so she could listen for cars. She didn’t want to walk out on the road and be in the open just as he came driving up. She decided that if she couldn’t hear any cars, she would walk along near the ditch, and if she saw car lights or heard his car coming she would dart into the woods and hide.
As she considered that idea, she realized that if it wasn’t Clay Baker coming back and it was just someone driving down the road, she would lose the chance to stop them for help. She would lose her chance to get into a warm car. She very well might lose her chance to live.
She was so tired she just wanted to lie down and rest, but she knew that if she did that she would never get up. Instead, she stood while she rested, hands on her knees, letting her head hang for a moment. As she stood panting from both terror and the effort of moving with the cold and the drugs in her system, she saw moonlight reflect off something.
Frowning, she stared for a moment, trying to figure out what it was. She realized it had square corners.
Angela finally squatted down and picked it up out of the tire track in the forest debris.
It was a phone.
The cheap phone was bent a little and the lower right corner of the glass was cracked. Clay Baker must have dropped his phone when he went back to his car. When he drove away he had run over it, breaking the glass.
Angela pressed the button and was stunned to see the screen light up. It wasn’t locked. It had over half its battery life left.
Hope shot through her in a flash of hot excitement.
She could call 911 and get help. They would come. She would be safe.
She hit the button for the phone. A number pad came up.
Angela pressed the 9 to call 911. Nothing happened. She pressed all the other numbers and they all worked. But the severe crack going right across the 9 kept it from working.
Angela wanted to scream up at the sky for fate bringing her so close to salvation, yet leaving her so far away.
She reminded herself that she didn’t believe in fate. She believed in herself. She racked her drug-hazed brain trying to think of something.
Deputy Nolan’s number popped into her head.
She had seen that number on his card. She remembered it because of the repeating 2s. Hoping against hope, she hit the first number. The phone beeped and put the number up on the screen. Shaking with excitement, she dialed the second number and then the third. They worked. She dialed the 2s and they all worked.
Giddy with excitement she put the phone up to her ear, listening to it ring. The call rang and then went to a recording. Angela growled in frustration. She dialed it again, and again got voice mail. She left messages, telling him it was Angela Constantine and she needed help. She told him where she was.
Her moment of relief faded. She knew it could be hours before he woke up and got the messages. Some people didn’t even look at their messages until later in the day.
She would be dead by then.
In frustration she dialed the number over and over. Listening to it ring, and then go to voice mail. She kept dialing, furious that he wasn’t answering.
“Who the hell is this!” an irate voice suddenly said.
Angela blinked. “It’s Angela.”
“What? Who the hell are you and why do you keep calling me?”
He was clearly angry. She remembered his angry eyes when he looked at her.
“It’s Angela Constantine.”
“Who?”
“Trouble’s child.”
There was silence for a moment. “Trouble’s child? You mean the girl who found that body? That Angela Constantine?”
“Yes!” she said, tears in her voice. “Help me! Please, I need help. He’s going to kill me.”
“Are you drunk? You sound drunk.”
“They abducted me. They drugged me. I’m sorry I can’t talk very good. They stuck me with a needle and drugged me.”
“Who drugged you?”
“Reverend Baker.”
“Who the hell is Reverend Baker and why in the world would a reverend drug you?”
“He’s the one!” Angela cried into the phone as she sank to her knees. “He’s the one who murdered that woman—Kristi Green—and dumped her in the woods! He’s a psychopath. He’s going to be back soon. He’s going to murder me. Please, I need help.”
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
“I can’t, goddamn it!” she screamed. “The phone’s broken! The nine doesn’t work! I remembered your number.”
Angela froze when she heard a car. As it sailed past she saw that it was a pickup, not Reverend Baker’s car.
Phone to her ear, Angela staggered back into the woods. She had to hide.
“Where are you now?” Deputy Nolan asked.
“The woods,” Angela mumbled.
“That doesn’t tell me anything. What woods? Where?”
Her head was spinning. The whole forest was spinning.
“The woods where he left the body. He took my clothes. I’m freezing to death. He’ll be back any second. He’s going to find me and kill me.”
“All right, you stay on the phone. I’m going to get help.”
Angela started crying with relief. Her fingers were so numb the phone fell to the ground. She staggered a few steps, knowing that she needed to run and hide. She couldn’t take another step.
Her head spun. She felt sure she was going to throw up. As blackness overwhelmed her, she collapsed to the ground.
Angela was jolted awake when light and sound suddenly flooded through the woods. The engine and headlights cut off and she heard a car door open and then slam shut.
“Lucy!” he called out. “I’m back!”
Angela blinked, trying to wake up enough to think what to do. She had to get away. She had to run and hide.
She heard another car door open as he got something out of the backseat. By the metallic rattle, she assumed it could only be his bag of torture tools. When he found her, he would use those things on her. He would see his sister dead, and then he would find Angela.
Angela forced herself to her feet. If she didn’t get away, she was going to die. Sheer willpower made her move. Sheer terror of him catching her made her put one foot in front of the other. He must have heard the no
ise she was making as she stumbled through the forest, because she could hear his footsteps rushing in her direction.
Angela’s legs gave out and she fell on her face not far from Lucy’s impaled body.
Clay Baker saw them both at the same time. The canvas bag he was holding hit the ground with a metallic clank.
“What have you done? What have you done!” he screamed. “What the fuck have you done!”
“I killed the bitch,” Angela said. “And now I’m going to kill you.”
She rose up with the metal jack handle that was on the ground where she had fallen. As he came for her she started swinging. She could hear the bar whistling through the air as she swung at his head. She connected with his forearm when he thrust it up to protect his face. By the sound, she broke the bone.
Clay Baker staggered back, howling in pain and rage.
Angela kept swinging as she advanced. She wanted more than anything in the world to kill this monster. She wanted him dead. She swung with all her might. She swung with everything she had.
He caught the metal jack handle in his fist.
The crosses tattooed on Clay Baker’s cheeks distorted when he grinned at her in the moonlight. His broken left arm hung down. He held the jack handle in his fist with more power than she had any chance to overcome. The metal bar might as well have been stuck in stone.
“Now you die,” he said in a terrifyingly soft voice.
He ripped the jack handle from her hands and threw it off into the woods. She heard it thunk against a tree trunk.
Angela turned and started to run, but it felt like her legs were trying to run through knee-deep mud. She knew she wouldn’t be able to run fast enough to get away from him, but driven by sheer terror all she could do was run. The drugs were weighing her down, but at the same time a flood of adrenaline was lifting her up and helping her run.
Over her shoulder Angela saw him bend down and open the canvas bag. When he stood, she could see the moonlight reflect off the blade of a big knife.
Angela ran faster. At least, in her mind, she was running faster. But he wasn’t running. Taking big strides, he had no difficulty closing the distance to her.
When he caught up with her, he shoved her from behind, trying to push her down. Angela staggered forward and managed to stay on her feet. She spun around to fend him off.
He was still grinning. “First, I’m going to stick you good. Then I’m going to cut you open and let your guts spill out on the ground.”
He smiled as he showed her the knife in his big fist. Angela was spent. She knew she had no strength left to fight off a knife-wielding killer.
Knife high overhead, he lunged forward to stab her.
In the moonlight she saw the blade flashing down toward her.
All of a sudden, Angela saw teeth come out of nowhere. The big black wolf crashed into Clay Baker, clamping its jaws onto his arm.
As he tumbled back to the ground, the wolf madly shook the arm, ripping flesh from bone. The reverend screamed, trying to bat the wolf away with his broken arm. But the wolf had a death grip on the arm. He shook it so hard it flopped Clay Baker’s body across the ground like a rag doll. He shrieked as the wolf shook violently, twisted, and yanked.
As the reverend tried to pull the mangled arm back from the jaws, Angela could see white bone down through torn flesh. Baker was still shrieking at the top of his lungs.
Angela tried to stand and couldn’t, so she crawled on her hands and knees, groping around on the ground for the knife he had dropped.
Clay Baker finally managed to get his arm out of the wolf’s jaws, and started kicking frantically to keep the animal off him. As the wolf circled, the reverend turned himself on his back and kicked at it.
When he kicked again, the wolf snatched the ankle in its teeth and started wildly twisting and shaking. Clay Baker screamed and kicked with his other foot. He landed a powerful kick on the animal’s rib cage. The wolf yelped in pain as the blow sent it rolling through the snow.
On her knees, the knife held in both fists, Angela lifted her arms high over her head. His eyes went wide as he saw what was coming. Angela slammed the blade down through the center of Clay Baker’s face, where the bones were most fragile.
His legs fell limp to the ground. She let go of the knife. Only the handle and an inch of blade stood proud of the bloody face. He had died in an instant. She wished she could have made him suffer, but she would take simply killing the monster.
In the sudden silence, with both of the killers dead, Angela’s strength was exhausted. She crawled a short distance away and fell over into a thick bed of leaves.
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep the darkness from taking her. She knew that, this time, she would never wake. This time, death would finally have her.
Angela felt hands on her shoulders. She struggled, pushing with her heels, trying to back away from the grip of the killer.
“Easy,” a voice said. “You’re safe now.”
She didn’t know how the monster was still alive, but somehow he was and now he was grabbing her.
“Easy. It’s all right, Angela. Calm down. You’re safe.”
Angela blinked. It was the stern face of Deputy Nolan. He was down on one knee beside her.
She half laughed, half cried in relief.
He straightened and took off his black leather jacket, then swung the coat around her bare shoulders and pulled it together over the front of her.
He had driven his patrol car right up past the Lincoln and into the clearing. The lights from the car lit up the scene.
“They drugged me. They were going to kill me,” she said, “like they killed that other girl in this same place. Kristi Green. They wanted to kill me here as revenge for interrupting them before.”
He was nodding as he unlocked the handcuffs. “It’s all right now. You’re safe now.”
Angela could hear sirens wailing in the distance.
“I killed the bastard,” she said.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Killed him dead,” he confirmed. “He looks pretty badly torn up, too.”
“It was a wolf that saved me. Just as he was about to stab me to death, the wolf came out of nowhere and took him down. He dropped the knife. I grabbed it. As he was fighting off the wolf, I stabbed him with it.
“After that … I don’t know what happened after that.”
Deputy Nolan frowned down at her. “Well, without any clothes and as cold as it is you should have died of exposure out here.”
Angela shook her head. “I don’t understand why I didn’t.”
The deputy gave her an odd look. “When I ran in here I had my gun drawn. In the headlights I saw those eyes shining at me from over the top of you. It was a wolf.”
“What? He was still here?”
“He sure was. He was laying down, pressed up tight against you. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to keep you warm. Craziest thing I ever saw.”
“Bardolph. That’s his name. He was keeping me warm?”
Deputy Nolan nodded. “Damnedest thing. When I first pulled in here and saw him I almost shot at him, but I decided not to for fear I might hit you. He just looked up at me a moment, then he ran off.”
“Yeah,” Angela said, “you pull your first shot low and to the right.”
He puzzled at her briefly. “Come on, let me help you up. I need to get you to my car where it’s warm.”
He finally gave up trying to help her walk and instead scooped her up in his arms. He carried her to his car and gently placed her in the front seat where the heater could blow on her. His patrol car was toasty warm inside. Even so, she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering. With shaking fingers she clutched his warm coat tight around herself.
“I think some of my clothes might be in the trunk of his Lincoln. There’s another of their victims in there as well—the body of a young man.”
He shook his head at the news. “Okay, let me go see if I can find you some clot
hes, then you’re going to have to explain all this to me.”
Angela nodded, not entirely sure how she could explain it all.
Deputy Nolan, hand on the window frame of the open door, paused and leaned back in. “Anthony.”
Angela frowned up at him. “What?”
“You asked my first name before. It’s Anthony.”
Angela finally smiled. “Thank you for coming to help me, Anthony.”
For the first time she saw him smile, too. It wasn’t a big grin, but it was a smile. She could tell he was a man who didn’t smile often. He probably thought it made him look weak.
“Sit tight. I’ll see if I can find your clothes,” he said before shutting the door of his patrol car.
Angela sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, huddled inside his warm leather coat.
She looked out the front window and saw eyes shining back from the woods. Bardolph was sitting on his haunches, watching her from back in the woods.
She smiled out at the wolf and lifted her hand so he would know she saw him.
He turned then and trotted off into the dark forest.
She looked over and saw Deputy Anthony Nolan coming with her clothes. Clay Baker was dead. Lucy Baker was dead. Angela was alive. Bardolph, the fierce wolf, was safe and free.
But Angela had learned a hard lesson. It was illegal to carry a gun and having it in her truck wasn’t close enough to always save her. From now on she was going to carry a knife.
A serious knife.
COMING SOON
IN HIS NEWEST HEART-POUNDING NOVEL, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR TERRY GOODKIND INTRODUCES THE WORLD TO HIS MOST UNFORGETTABLE AND DEADLY CHARACTER YET.
ANGELA CONSTANTINE IS … THE GIRL IN THE MOON.
A SNEAK PEEK AT THE GIRL IN THE MOON, COMING MARCH 2018
ONE
When Angela glanced up and saw him out in the parking lot beyond the neon beer sign hung in the bar’s small front window, her first thought was to wonder if this was the night she was going to die.