“I guess no one thought I was pretty enough back then.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He planted a light kiss on the back of her neck.
The warmth ebbed from her face, creeping back into her veins.
“Don’t feel nervous,” he said into her ear, kissing her earlobe. “I can teach you things, show you how to feel good.”
Her pulse built up speed again, her heart a revving engine.
“I-I’m just a little shy, that’s all.”
“Don’t be, Mallory. Not with me.”
She hesitated, once more afraid of putting him off. He shifted beside her, one hand going to his crotch to readjust the bulge in his pants.
“Can we start again, then? You’re okay?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“You can trust me,” he told her. “I just want to make you feel the way you make me feel.”
He leaned in, kissing her neck again as her own words repeated in her mind.
I don’t know.
Mallory’s lips parted, ready to accept Derrick’s next kiss, when her eyes popped open and she pulled away.
“What now?” he pleaded.
She looked into his eyes and saw only the threat of rejection. Not comfort or understanding, not concern or compassion. All night she had worried about disappointing him somehow, fearing she would say the wrong thing or not make the right move. It was the same on-guard feeling she’d forced herself to endure in her last school, and no matter how passionate his words, she still didn’t know how he felt about her.
Tim’s voice filled her thoughts.
You always know who your friends are.
Derrick tried pulling her closer.
She shook her head, sliding away from him. “I can’t do this. I made a mistake.”
He took a deep breath. “Mallory, I already said you can trust me.”
“It’s not you,” she replied. “Not really. It’s something Tim said to me earlier. Something I was too stupid to realize sooner.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Before she could reply, a cry rose out of the night.
Mallory faced the loading doors. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Someone yelling,” she said. “Shouting in the distance.”
She stood up and hurried to the loft’s open doors, looking out at the expanse of parched and withered weeds in the fields beyond. The cries sounded like they originated within the far trees, from the same woods through which she’d first come to find this place. When the shout came again she recognized the voice of someone calling her name—screaming it.
“It’s Tim,” she said.
Derrick joined her at the loading doors.
Tim burst from the trees on a mountain bike and plowed into the field at break-neck speed, yelling her name with every breath.
“Up here,” she called.
Halfway to the barn, Tim’s bike hit something hidden in the weeds, and he crashed to the ground, impacting with the sound of punched dirt and crisp grass.
“Tim,” Mallory cried.
Derrick stifled a laugh.
The others had gathered near the front of the building, drawn by Tim’s shouts, and now they stood at the entry doors making remarks about his landing.
“Don’t just stand there,” she shouted down at them. “Go help him!”
But when she looked up again, he’d already scrambled to his feet and started sprinting for the barn. Even from a distance he looked like he’d just run through a minefield. His arms and knees had been scraped raw in numerous places, leaving dark clots of blood across the skin. Streaks of dirt and plant matter stained his torn clothes.
“Mallory,” he wheezed, speaking between strides. “We’ve got to get out of here. Y-you’re in danger.”
“What?”
“Listen,” he said, “T-this is going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me, okay? S-someone’s after you… this psychopath… I-I don’t have time to explain right now. It’s probably on the way here already… We have to get someplace safe, and we have to move fast.”
“Dude’s lost it,” Derrick commented under his breath.
She ignored his remark. “Hang on, I’m coming down.”
Tim opened his mouth to say something when a gunshot thundered out of the dark, taking the place of his reply.
CHAPTER 46
Having ignored two stop signs and driven nearly three times the posted speed limit, Paul pulled to a stop in front of his house—right behind Officer Hale’s cruiser—less than three minutes after leaving Rebecca’s driveway.
Two police cars already occupied the street, emergency beacons flashing. Paul’s heart rate increased to a thousand beats per minute when he saw them, and he nearly tore the vehicle’s door off to get out quicker.
Rebecca came to his side and took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. On the way over, she’d done a noble job of keeping his mind on the gratifying fact that both BJ and Lori were safe and unharmed.
“Dad! Dad!”
Paul had just started across the lawn, toward an officer waiting near the open front door, when BJ called to him from behind. He turned and found the boy padding across the lawn from the neighbor’s driveway. Harry, clad in PJs and a suit coat, trailed close behind.
He rushed to his son and lifted him into his arms, hugging him.
BJ burst into tears the moment he leapt into Paul’s grasp. He tried to relate the story of what had happened between sobs, mentioning headless monsters and his imaginary nemesis, “Voodooman.” Paul knew they could sort out the details later; right now, he just wanted to hold his son.
“He’ll be okay,” Harry said. “Hell of a thing, but he’ll pull through.”
“Where did they find him?” Paul asked, straining to keep his tone passive.
“Alex Lancaster’s place,” Harry said. “He and his wife had just come home from up north when BJ started pounding on their back door. Apparently, Lori helped him out a window, but she didn’t get out until the police showed up. Poor girl’s a wreck. The son-of-a-bitch cut her head pretty good; she’s waiting on an ambulance at my place. Jesus-All-Mighty, what’s this world coming to?”
The cop at the front door had left his post and now walked toward them.
“What about Mallory and Tim?” Rebecca asked. “Have they come home yet?”
“Haven’t seen them,” Harry replied.
The howl of tires drew their attention, and a dark, beat-to-hell SUV with no front windshield or side windows rounded the far end of the street.
Paul held his son closer when the driver sped forward, headed straight toward them. It braked to a halt at the end of the driveway, and Hale signaled the driver not to come any closer. He kept one hand positioned just inches from his holstered weapon.
Two people emerged from the vehicle, a man and a woman. Paul couldn’t help but notice the woman’s disheveled appearance and hurried pace when she identified herself as a police detective to Officer Hale.
“Are these the people who reported the break-in? We need to ask them some questions.”
“Is this the boy?” her companion asked, indicating BJ.
Despite knowing that one of the two newcomers wore a badge, Paul didn’t like the urgent manner in which they spoke. Their troubled expressions and eagerness to question his son told him that he had yet to learn the full story of what had gone on here tonight, and he feared the impending news would include Mallory or Tim or both. Beside him, Rebecca’s hands closed on his arm.
“We didn’t make the call,” Paul said, “but it was my house that was broken into. Is there something else I should know?”
The man with the eye patch opened his mouth first, but Detective Humble cut him off. “We believe the person who was in your home tonight is a suspect in another crime, and we’re hoping one of you could confirm that for us. Did anyone here get a look at the perpetrator?”