Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery

  “Dude, you threatened to shoot her. Maybe that tipped her off.”

  “No. She knew. Which means he knew. And I’m betting”—he turned toward Clare—“he’s still out there. Which means we got a chance to stop him before he gets to the Corners and calls in.”

  “He’s already called in. He’s been in touch with the state police.” Clare threw out a bomb, hoping it wouldn’t explode in her face. “They’re the ones who ran your license number, Travis.”

  The bearded man winced. “Shit.”

  The big guy looked skeptical. “Then why hasn’t there been any action? One state cop car this morning? And nothing since? Unless you’re a cop.”

  Travis shook his head. “Amber said she was some kind of minister. That girl was in a huge hurry or something to leave with that boyfriend of hers. I didn’t ask her too much.”

  “Good.” The big guy grabbed Clare’s arm and yanked her toward him. “C’mon.” He nodded toward Travis. “This is the best chance we’ve got. If we can make her and her husband disappear, the only thing they’ve got is your truck out here. Mikayla and I can be long gone before anybody shows up asking questions.” He stripped Clare’s coat off and tossed it on the kitchen table. “Switch with me.” He held his rifle out to Travis, who swapped his automatic. Clare had time to see the muzzle and think .45 before the big guy twisted her hair in his fist and brought it to her temple. “Are you gonna be a good girl?”

  She tried to nod, but her head was immobilized. “Yes,” she said.

  “Good. Travis, tape her hands behind her back.” Travis opened a drawer and held up a roll of duct tape. He wound the sticky stuff around and around her wrists in a figure eight.

  “That’s good,” the big guy said. “Open the door.” They walked outside awkwardly, Clare’s head tilted back, her belly thrown forward, the man tight behind her, using her as a shield. He pushed her to the edge of the low front porch. She could hear the creak and groan of ice-heavy branches, the spattering of rain on the roof overhead, the click as Travis shut the door behind them. He stepped to the side and raised the rifle.

  “What was his name?” the big guy asked.

  Clare thought he was addressing her until Travis said, “Van Alstyne. Russ Van Alstyne.”

  “Van Alstyne!” The big guy’s yell nearly deafened Clare. “We know you’re out there! We got your wife!” He poked her with the gun. “Say something.”

  “He’s not there.” She was praying it was true. Or if not, that he’d ignore her captors and keep going for help. They would keep her alive as bait. She hoped. But once they had Russ …

  “Did you hear me, Van Alstyne? We’ve got your wife! Come on over and check it out! You can see her from the road!”

  That was true. The lamps bracketing the front door clearly illuminated Clare and her captors. She swallowed. Breathed in. Breathed out. Tried to calm her thudding heart. Please, God, no flashbacks right now. She just had to keep it together. They weren’t going to hurt her. Not until they got what they wanted.

  “Dude. What if he just waits us out?”

  “He’s not going to sit on his ass out there and watch us waste his wife.”

  Travis made an impatient noise. “So say we waste her. What then? He calls the po-po down on us.”

  “He’s not going to let her die.”

  “Dude, you don’t get it. We can’t off her. If we do, we got no hold on him. But if we can’t off her, we got no hold on him anyway.”

  “But…” The big guy sounded like his brain was screwed around that conundrum.

  “If I can figure that out, I’m guessing he can figure it out, too.”

  “That’s great. So what does your genius tell us is the solution?”

  “We rape her.”

  Oh my God. Clare’s mouth went dry. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

  “I’m a married man.” The big guy sounded outraged. “I’m not gonna cheat on my wife.” If she hadn’t been so terrified, she would have laughed.

  “I’ll do her,” Travis said. “I’ve always wanted to try a pregnant chick.” He stepped next to Clare. Grinning, he raised her sweater. She heaved, trying to break the duct tape binding her wrists. He ran his hand up her belly and fondled her breast. “Nice tits. Yeah, I’ll do her.” She kicked, lashing sideways with her foot, but she couldn’t connect.

  The big guy yanked her hair. “Do that again and we’ll hit your stomach. We can hurt the baby without killing you, you know.”

  There was a roaring in her ears. Bright spots shot upward across her field of vision. You’re hyperventilating, a part of her brain said. Get it under control or you’ll pass out.

  “Move her on back, dude. I don’t want my ass to get iced.”

  “Van Alstyne!” The big guy bellowed even louder as he dragged her toward the door. “You out there, Van Alstyne?”

  “That’s good.” Travis leaned the rifle against the door. He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans.

  “You better show yourself, Van Alstyne! My buddy here’s fixing to fuck your wife!”

  Travis closed in on her again, blocking her vision. He grinned. “Just relax, sweet thing. You might even enjoy it.” She twisted her head, but the big guy’s grip in her hair held her fast. She squeezed her eyes shut as Travis reached for her pants.

  14.

  After leaving their unsuspecting host’s house, Russ had gone up to the road. If there had been any tracks to tell him where the tow had taken off to, they were gone now, erased beneath a steadily thickening layer of ice. Russ had broken through the trees and walked down South Shore Drive till he was near Travis Roy’s house. Across the road was its small garage, just a windowless box, large enough to shelter a couple of cars from the rain. He’d figured one way or another, there were vehicles inside. He’d just begun breaking into the garage when he heard the rifle shot.

  Oh, hell no. He should have insisted Clare stay in the cabin with Bob Mongue. He should have told her to wait in the house they broke into. He never should have suggested splitting up so he could surveil Roy’s lake house. Plodding down the forested, snow-swamped slope as fast as he could, Russ made his way toward the house. The only good thing about the storm was that the constant spatter of freezing rain and the groan and snap of overburdened timber hid any noise he might make.

  He got as close to the cabin’s side as he dared. He rested the barrel of his rifle in the crotch of a sapling that would likely never make it to spring and peered through the scope. Kitchen. No one there. Two windows down, a roomy living room, and there was a man sprawled out in a way that suggested watching a TV. Russ could see the back of his head and the tops of his shoulders over the edge of the chair he was sitting in. Buzzed hair, almost bald—not the one he had met at the door. Then the bearded man walked past the window, headed for the kitchen. So, two. At least. He breathed a sigh of relief when there was no sign of Clare in danger. But there was no sign of the little girl, either. She could be in one of the bedrooms on the other side of the house. Or she might be someplace else entirely, along with the tow rig or his truck.

  The thought of the truck reaffirmed his plan. He unhitched his rifle and slogged back uphill toward the road back to the garage. Russ figured he could break his pickup—or Roy’s SUV—out of the garage, get it going, and be down the road at the rendezvous point without the cabin’s inhabitants knowing. He needed backup. The two men weren’t the problem, exactly. It was the presence of Mikayla Johnson that was the unknown quantity. Was she there? Did they know where she was? Either way, he wanted enough manpower to shut the house down utterly when they moved in, without a shot being fired.

  The garage door was just like the one at their cabin—with the very same lousy lock built into the handle. Russ leaned against the door, centered his boot over the top of the handle, then stomped hard. The cheap metal snapped off. He bent down and hooked his gloved fingers in the circular opening left by his vandalism. He yanked the door up. Yes! His truck was parked nose-in, snug against the SUV.
r />   Another rifle shot cracked, metallic and unforgiving. Russ dropped to the road, flinging his arms over his head against splinters from the garage door. Then Oscar, barking and barking. Another shot. This time, he could hear its echo, which was too far away to be from the front of the house, and realized with cold certainty that he wasn’t the target. Which meant—

  Clare. He scrambled up. He sprinted down the road, skidding and flailing to keep on his feet. When he reached the thicket of trees standing between Roy’s house and the darkened cabin next door, he plunged downslope, heedless of the branches whipping across his face and torso. He heard another shot, differently pitched—a sidearm?—and a sharp canine yelp.

  He almost missed the glint of the flashlight. He stopped his headlong flight by thudding whole-body into a birch, the shock radiating along his bones.

  Clare. Thank God. He could make out her silhouette, along with two men, one of them carrying … Russ raised his rifle and scoped again. The light was lousy, but he was pretty sure one of them was carrying a little girl. He began to squeeze the trigger, then released it. No. He was a good marksman, but he wasn’t going to risk this shot, not with the rain and the darkness and his wife right there between the two of them.

  He tamped down the part of him that wanted to tear across the open land and knock the bastards down. If he was going to help Clare, he needed to think, not react. He could use his truck radio to call for assistance, but given the weather emergency, God knew how many hours it would be before help arrived. Roll DeJean’s SUV down the hill and hope it smashed into the house? Draw them away from Clare and the house somehow?

  Yeah. Make him the one they should worry about, not a pregnant woman. He could call down to them, claim he’d broken his leg, offer to turn himself in. Use his truck as cover and pick them off when they popped over the top of the stairs and stepped onto the road. He was already headed back upslope, churning through the trail he had broken minutes before, as the plan took shape in his head. It wasn’t, he admitted, a very good plan. But he had run out of good yesterday. Maybe the day before. Now all his options were crap and crappier.

  “Van Alstyne!” A shout he could easily hear over the freezing rain. “We know you’re out there! We got your wife!”

  Russ shivered involuntarily but kept going. Forget the truck. No time. His only hope of luring them close would be if they thought he had no chance and no cover. Sprawled out on the frozen road with a “broken leg” fit the bill.

  “Did you hear me, Van Alstyne? We’ve got your wife! Come on over and check it out! You can see her from the road!”

  Clare. Hold on, darlin’. Hold on. He focused on reaching the road. Only on reaching the road. If he gave in to the fear urging him to break cover and charge, they could both die.

  “Van Alstyne!” Russ topped the hill and skidded onto the icy surface of the road. Careful now. He didn’t want to bust a bone for real. “You out there, Van Alstyne?”

  Russ half ran, half slid back up the road. Scanning for the spot to lay his trap. Back by the garage, as far away from the light at the top of the stairs as possible.

  “You better show yourself, Van Alstyne! My buddy here’s fixing to fuck your wife!”

  Russ’s brain whited out. He whirled and staggered to the lip of the hill. They were framed by the door lights, Clare bound and struggling, one man tight behind her with a gun at her temple, another man yanking—

  He raised his rifle. At the last split second a sliver of rationality pierced his mind-wiping rage. You can’t reach the other guy. If you shoot his partner, he’ll shoot Clare. He swung the bore away and blasted the door lights, one, two, exploding in a shower of sparks and glass. He galloped down the hill, ignoring the ice-covered stairs, slipping, falling, rolling back onto his feet. He reached the front of the house while the men were still shouting at each other. He raised his rifle again.

  “Police!” he roared. “Drop your weapons and step away from the woman!” In the faint ambient light from the side windows, Russ could see Clare’s would-be rapist raise his hands and shuffle backward.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” His partner sounded disgusted. “He’s not going to shoot us while we have her.”

  Russ fired at the other man. The bullet thudded into the side of the house, showering him with splinters. The man yipped.

  “Van Alstyne.” Behind Clare, her captor shifted. “This is your wife, right? So I’m guessing this is your kid in here.” He removed the automatic from Clare’s temple. Pressed it against the side of her straining abdomen. “I could shoot her right through here. Wouldn’t kill her right away. Might even survive if she got to the hospital in time.”

  “Please.” Clare’s voice was a gasp. “Please, don’t hurt my baby. Please.”

  “Put the rifle down, Daddy.”

  “Listen—”

  “I’m not negotiating with you. Put the rifle down or she has a very messy abortion.”

  Russ squatted and laid the rifle on the snow.

  “Kick it away.”

  He kicked the stock. The rifle slid across the ice-crusted snow.

  “Travis, get his gun.”

  The other man crossed behind Russ and picked the rifle up. He heard the crunch of the guy’s boots. His pause. The swish of something swinging through the rain. Russ only had time to register the stunning pain before he pitched forward into blackness.

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 13

  1.

  Russ was underwater. It was cold, a deep surrounding cold that left no space to be warm, and he could hear the pulsing of a motorboat engine as it throttled its way across the surface of the lake, far overhead. Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. Every pulse sent an answering throb of pain through his head. He wanted to sink to the bottom of the lake, curl up, and go back to sleep, but he had to get out of here. Had to swim up, up, up as flashes of memory and emotion slid past him, closer, the motorboat so much closer now, and then he broke the surface and opened his eyes.

  He was lying on a wooden floor with his head in Clare’s lap. It was dark, and there was a heavy, rough blanket over him. For a moment, he saw the faint glow of the electric oven and thought, I fell asleep. We need to leave this place to get past Roy’s before morning. Then the glow resolved itself into a thread of light beneath a closed door. The motor roar was louder than ever, and his head was pounding. He groaned.

  “Russ?” Her voice was low. “Oh, thank God.”

  “You”—his voice was rusty—“okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sounded shaky.

  The last minutes before he had been clubbed into unconsciousness reassembled themselves in his brain. “Are you … did they—”

  “No. No. He didn’t.” She paused. “Although I may have competition with my helicopter nightmares from now on.”

  “Sorry. So sorry, love. Shouldn’t have…” He trailed off. The list of shouldn’t-haves was too long to enumerate. He realized his head was pillowed against her belly. “Baby? Okay?”

  “Yes, thank God.”

  “Where … we?” He winced. He could form the sentences perfectly in his pounding head, but they weren’t coming out right. “Concussed,” he said raggedly.

  “I think you’re right. You’ve been unconscious for hours. I was so—oh, God, I wish I could put my arms around you.” She took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was firmer. “We’re in a kind of attached storage shed.” He could feel a slight movement—Clare looking around. “There’s a canoe, life vests, lawn chairs. That sort of stuff.”

  “Noise…”

  “It’s the generator. The power went out about an hour or so after you … after you were hurt. That’s when they stuffed us in here.” He could hear a grim satisfaction in her voice. “When the lights went out, I head-butted Travis into the next room and took off. Didn’t get any farther than the front door. But I thought it was worth a try.”

  “That’s … girl.” He flexed his shoulders. His arms were stretched behind his back, something unyielding around his wrists.


  “It’s duct tape. I didn’t find anything sharp enough to cut through in here.”

  “How long…”

  “I don’t know. I’ve dozed on and off. I stopped hearing people moving around some time ago. I’m pretty sure everyone’s in bed.”

  Well, he and Clare hadn’t been shot outright. That was good. “How many?”

  “The little girl is here. I tried to get her away. That’s how they…” She breathed in. “There are two men, Travis Roy is the one with the beard. The other is Mikayla’s father.”

  “Hector … DeJean.”

  “Listen. I’ve been thinking. The whole place is being heated by electric heaters right now. Travis and Hector set them up after the power went out.”

  Russ made a go-on noise.

  “If we could sabotage the generator, this house would become unlivable pretty quickly. They’d have to pack their things and pull up stakes. Maybe bring us with them.”

  “How … help us?”

  “I’m not sure. But my SERE instructor used to say, ‘Sow confusion, reap opportunity.’ Anyway, I figured that would sow confusion. To be honest, we may be reaping the opportunity to freeze to death. If they leave with us still locked in here.”

  “Without them … hear … escape.”

  “Without them around to hear us, we can escape?” He heard the smile in her voice. “You have a lot of confidence for a man with his brains scrambled.”

  “Still … smarter … them. Let me look … generator. Let me look … it.” He curled his knees toward his chest and rolled until he was kneeling with his head bowed against Clare’s legs. It felt like someone was playing tympani inside his skull. He took a deep breath and knelt upright, the blanket crumpling around him.

  “Here. Let’s see if I can help.” Clare, he saw, had been leaning against a wall. Now she braced her shoulders and wiggled her way up to standing.

  “Impressed.” He followed her lead, walking on his knees to the wall and tumbling himself into a seated position. His flannel shirt snagged over the rough timber as he slid to his feet. Uninsulated walls. The heat from the house bleeding through the door and the warmth thrown off by the generator were the only things keeping them from slipping below freezing.