“Did Donovan happen to mention that he’s my son?” Parrish asked.
I didn’t answer.
Parrish smiled. “It’s so ridiculous that you have two layers of underwear on now, you know. He’s seen you completely naked. He undressed you. He watched while you took a shower. As did I.”
I wasn’t able to hide the fact that this news disturbed me.
“Yes,” Donovan said calmly. “You had thrown up on yourself and Nick. You weren’t in any condition to be left alone.”
Matter-of-fact, not salacious.
Parrish frowned, but the frown quickly eased into another of his leering smiles. “He asked me to let him have you before I kill you.”
Donovan didn’t respond. I followed his lead.
Parrish chose a new tack. “Say good-bye to Violet. While she’s doing that, Donovan, get her things.”
Donovan didn’t argue. He just walked into the other room.
I wasn’t able to stay quiet. “What do you mean, ‘Say goodbye to Violet’-what are you planning to do to her?”
“Why, nothing.”
“Then why-”
“You ask too many questions. All you need to know is that we’re leaving, Violet is staying.”
“Without someone to care for her-”
“Enough!” he snapped.
I moved closer to the bed. Any further protestations I might make-that it was murder, that it was cruel-were unlikely to be seen as anything but points in favor of carrying out his plan. He thought nothing of murder. He enjoyed cruelty.
Hands bound, I could not touch her. I leaned over and said, “I’m sorry.”
I am not. Go.
And then she baffled me with the next string of letters, not because I didn’t know what they meant but because this one word had already nagged at my memory:
.-..-.-. -.-.-
Parka.
“Why not let Donovan stay here and care for her?” I asked, stalling, hoping she’d further enlighten me.
No.
“No,” Parrish said. “Although that may be what he’d really prefer. He’s made a point of visiting her when he stops by.” He called out, “Right, Donovan?”
Donovan either didn’t hear or pretended not to.
“Do you have any idea what will happen to her if you just abandon her here?”
“You, my dear Ms. Kelly, have much more to worry about than what becomes of Violet Loudon. Besides, who said she’d be abandoned?”
I didn’t find that at all reassuring.
Donovan returned carrying the duffel and-I was quick to notice-a dark green parka that looked expedition-worthy. Parrish held the gun on me as we went downstairs.
Donovan said, “We didn’t think this through. She needs to have the parka on in the vehicle. We all need to wear our parkas and keep the hoods up-the hoods will make it harder for anyone in a passing car to identify us. And we’re going to have to change the way she’s bound,” he said.
Not much later, I was carried outside by Donovan. My hands were bound in front of me, and after another struggle-no matter what advice he had to give me-my ankles were now bound, too.
Parrish had been all for taping my mouth shut, but Donovan had dismissed this idea, saying it could easily be noticed by others and be difficult to explain, and it would make it hard to feed me or give me water. “Irene,” he said, “given your claustrophobia, do you see that it is smarter for you to stay silent? Otherwise we’ll have to tape your mouth and put you down on the floorboards for a long ride.” It was not hard to agree to be quiet.
It was dark outside, and cold, although I felt the chill air only on my face and hands. I was placed in the backseat of a green Subaru Forester. I was wearing the parka, the hood pulled up in a way that hid most of my face from anyone who might happen to look at the passengers in the SUV. Parrish was always very close to us. Donovan did not attempt any further communication with me.
Everyone in the car wore parkas, which was why the air-conditioning was cranked up full blast. It was still almost too warm. I noticed Donovan’s parka was also dark green. Kai’s and Parrish’s were a light tan color, and of a higher quality. My parka felt a little lumpy, although of course I couldn’t reach my hands into the pockets to discover what they held. My imagination supplied possibilities from hidden weapons to remote-controlled explosives (making me a human bomb) and, more reasonably, energy bars, lip balm, and perhaps a scarf or the gloves I’d found earlier. Depending on which way I leaned against the door or seat and how panicked I was feeling at any given moment, the guesses changed.
Kai was in the front passenger seat, his injured arm tucked inside his open jacket. At first he seemed to be having a hard time getting comfortable, but he soon fell asleep.
Donovan drove.
Parrish sat in the backseat, holding a gun on me, barking directions to Donovan.
After we drove away from what I thought might be the Running Springs area and were winding our way down to Interstate 15, I wondered if we might be on our way out of state. But Parrish’s next instructions were to go north on 395.
We were headed toward his old hunting grounds, the southern Sierra Nevada. He had killed dozens of people and slain animals there as well. One of his favorite moments, he had once bragged to an interviewer, came when he watched a victim dig her own grave. He’d had many such moments to treasure.
Two facts about my situation disturbed me. First, he was letting me hear directions. Second, there was a shovel among the gear in the back.
Added together, it seemed likely that I was on my way to my own execution.
THIRTY-NINE
Frank Harriman was alone when the text messages arrived, for which he was grateful. Pete had been by earlier, promising to keep him informed of anything he could learn about the ongoing investigation into Irene’s kidnapping. Rachel insisted that none of her cases were anywhere near as important to her as locating Irene, and Frank gladly accepted her offer to help him out. In her years working as a P.I. in Las Piernas, she had cultivated sources who would never talk to the police. That might be especially helpful when it came to the Moths.
Ben, Ethan, Jack, Lydia, and Guy had also offered their help. Irene’s cousin Travis Maguire, who owned a helicopter company with Jack, was equally eager to be of assistance. Frank had thanked each of them and promised to be in touch.
“Start with some sleep,” Rachel advised. “When’s the last time you got any?”
He admitted that, between casework and Irene’s abduction, he hadn’t been asleep more than four hours in the last forty-eight. Sleep was something he deeply desired but found unthinkable. He told himself that poor judgment brought on by exhaustion wouldn’t help anyone.
So they had left, and Frank had lain down, his thoughts troubled but so tired that he had no memory of anything after the moment the cat had curled up next to him, until five hours later, when the chiming of his phone awakened him.
He stared at the text messages for a long moment. He didn’t recognize the sender’s number, but he tried it. No answer, no voice mail. An attempt to reply by text returned an error message.
He did not give this cell number out to many people.
He was well aware that this could be a trap, that his number could have been tortured out of Irene. He told himself not to let his mind always go to the worst-case scenario.
He had also spent almost twenty-four hours feeling as if there was little or nothing he could do to prevent Irene from suffering and being killed by Parrish. He knew she was a survivor, had managed to escape Parrish before, but Frank had now reached a point at which he was desperate for anything that would increase the chances of finding her alive.