So be it. I’ve had a good run.
“Revenge,” he said, looking at the rearview mirror.
Her face dipped in and out of patches of darkness, depending on how thick and tall the walls of trees around them were. There was just enough occasional light for him to see her staring back at him silently.
“I’ve been wondering why Wade and Rachel haven’t called 911 yet. You told them not to, didn’t you? Convinced them somehow. Well, it probably wasn’t too hard after what I did to Donnie and Sabrina.”
He searched for the telltale signs that he was right — or at least close — but saw nothing on her face to confirm it.
“I don’t blame them. I don’t blame you, either. You spent ten years looking for me. Studying me. You’re obsessed. I know a little bit about that, too. How long have you been setting this whole thing up? How long were you out there, driving back and forth, waiting for me to notice you? A week? Two weeks? Months? It must have been months.”
The only response was her body swaying slightly from side to side in tune with the car’s motions.
“And that fancy driving you did back there, that’s some pro stuff. Someone taught you tactical driving, didn’t they?”
Did she just blink, or was that his imagination?
“Spent a lot of money, too, I bet. A lot of time and effort went into this, I can tell. You didn’t even go to the cops with what you knew. Or thought you knew. I’m guessing you didn’t have anything concrete, but you had a lot of guesses. A lot of maybes. Then, of course, there was that shotgun in the trunk.”
She might have smirked. Or was that just the movement of the car again?
“But your biggest mistake so far? You should have let the college kids call 911. Instead, you dropped the ball. Call it overconfidence. Either way, it’s going to cost you.”
“You think so?” she said.
Finally.
He smiled. “Who’s the one sitting in the backseat of a police cruiser?”
“We’ll see.”
“You got a plan? I know you have a plan.”
She clammed up again.
“Of course you do. It better be a good one, cause this might just be the last time you get to breathe fresh air.”
He slowed down before easing off the dirt road and onto a narrow hiking lane. Overgrown grass slapped at the sides and brush scraped against the undercarriage of the cruiser. He dropped the speed to ten miles per hour until he was moving almost at a crawl. It couldn’t be helped; this part of the wood, even more so than the previous stretch, was potentially treacherous.
“I admire your persistence,” he said. “Ten years. Of course, you could say I’ve been doing this for just as long. So we have that in common.”
He expected (wanted) the back-and-forth to continue, but she apparently decided not to respond to his latest volley.
“Except I’ve been far more successful,” he grinned.
Nothing.
“What did you do while you were preparing for this? Secretary? Lawyer? You look like a lawyer. You definitely worked in an office, I know that for a fact.”
She was looking out the window at the passing trees.
“Fine. Be boring.”
He drove on in silence for a few more minutes before making a final turn and coming to a complete stop in the middle of a rough clearing. He put the Crown Vic into park and turned around in his seat.
She was staring back at him.
“Is it everything you thought it would be?” he asked.
She looked past him for a moment. “What am I looking at? Your invisible lair?”
“Look closer.”
“I am.”
“Closer.”
“You’re delusional,” she said. “There’s nothing there.”
“Oh, but there is,” he said, beaming now. “Home sweet home. The best part? They’ll never find you out here, and I’ll be able to play with you for as long as I want, however I want. Won’t that be nice? Well, for one of us, anyway…”
Chapter 19
If you go down there, you’ll never come back up.
The problem was doing something to stop it from happening. Even if Harper believed her and talked to the kids back at the cabin, he’d still have to find where Beckard took her first. She didn’t know the area, so she didn’t have a clue where they were, only that it was densely wooded, similar to where she had clashed with Beckard earlier that night.
It was some kind of backup location, she guessed. A hideout. Beckard probably always knew that sooner or later his luck would run out. Her instinct was to call this a mistake on his part — staying around in the area knowing he might be (or had already been) exposed. But the more she thought about it, maybe it wasn’t such a stupid thing to do after all. Beckard would know, more than most, about the risks of staying on the road if he was being pursued by the police. He would understand the effectiveness of a statewide roadblock, especially in this part of the country, where the closest big city to get lost in was still a long way off.
Of course, there was a very real possibility he wasn’t thinking straight, that the pills he was popping liberally (that he didn’t think she noticed him doing) were playing tricks with his mind. Was it possible for him to overdose on painkillers? Or at least choke on them?
Not with my luck.
It was some kind of old building, about twice the size of a backyard shack, and made of brick. Its exterior had, over the years, been partially swallowed up by the woods that surrounded it, making it very easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for, or where exactly to look. How long had it been here? Decades and decades. Forgotten, until a psychopath in need of a place to hide showed up one day.
The entrance was behind a rusted-over black metal gate covered in vines and moss, and to get to it, Beckard had to pull down what looked like a large green and brown tarp covered in branches, leaves, and dirt. It wasn’t anything natural, but some kind of makeshift hunting canvas that he had put together to camouflage the opening.
Beckard disappeared around the building for a moment before returning with a key he had apparently gone to retrieve from somewhere. He used it now to open a large padlock and swung the metal gate wide open in order to get at the wooden door on the other side. It was old and heavy, and Beckard had to put his entire body into it just to move it. She prayed he snapped his stitches and would maybe bleed to death.
No such luck, because he pushed the door open just enough to reveal bright LED lights hanging from the ceiling. She couldn’t make out much of anything else from the backseat of the police cruiser where Beckard had left her. The only reason she could see what he was doing and where was because of the car’s headlights.
He walked back to her now, drawing the Glock when he was almost at the car. He opened the door and motioned her out, and Allie once again wondered if he was ambidextrous, and if not, how accurate he would be shooting with his left hand.
“Find out,” he said, smiling at her.
Shit.
She climbed out silently, clumsily. She had to grab onto the open door with both hands to maintain her balance because of the handcuffs.
He moved behind her and poked her in the back with the cold gun barrel before she was completely outside. “Into the abyss, Allie Krycek.”
She walked toward the building, drawn to the open door and the warmth of the lights flooding outside. Against the backdrop of the darkened woods, it looked very much like an ominous entrance to someplace that was not meant for human visitation.
If you go down there, you’ll never come back up.