“She was a beautiful girl,” Olivia repeated. Driscoll turned to her. “Bruce was a bad man to hurt her.” She sounded like she was speaking to a child, but Driscoll seemed responsive.
“Bruce was mean. He touched her and made her cry. I dried her tears. I kissed her bruises and made the pain go away.”
His gaze drifted out the front window once again.
Olivia braced herself. She would have only one shot at escape. She needed a sharp turn that veered right. No hesitation.
“Angel must have loved you a lot for taking care of her.”
“I wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t.”
“You were just a kid yourself,” she said.
“I would have killed him. I would have,” he repeated, defiant.
Through the trees ahead she saw the turn she’d been waiting for.
Olivia dropped her left hand from the steering wheel and placed it on her lap. The knife was more than a foot from her.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
Silence. The turn was seconds away. Now or never.
Without braking, she flung open the door and threw herself from the car, rolling. Her first impact with the rocky dirt road knocked the wind out of her and she couldn’t catch her breath. Gunshots echoed around her as she rolled down into the shallow gully.
A sickening crash of metal vibrated in her head.
Zack watched in horror as Olivia fell from the car and hit the ground violently, rolling away. Had Driscoll killed her and thrown her from the car? After her failed escape attempt ten minutes ago, Zack feared the worst.
“Travis!” Quinn shouted.
Zack raised the rifle and aimed at Driscoll’s tires. From the passenger seat, Driscoll was trying to both control the vehicle and move over into the driver’s seat. Quinn drove right on his tail, feet from the bumper. Zack fired, threw back the bolt, fired again. Driscoll’s car swerved left as he overcompensated and drove hard into the gully. The rear end of the police car lifted from the ground, then slammed down.
Zack dropped the rifle and drew his.45. He opened the passenger door and knelt behind the steel shielding, waiting for gunfire.
Had Driscoll been injured? He probably wasn’t dead, but Zack could hope.
He pushed aside the sickening thought that Olivia lay dead up the road.
She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead.
“Travis!” Quinn, in the same position as Zack but behind the driver’s-side door, nodded his head toward Driscoll’s vehicle.
Movement.
Driscoll opened fired through the shattered rear window. Zack and Quinn ducked, then returned fire, but Driscoll was already on the move. He ran down the road, away from them, toward the steep slope to the north. He could lose himself in the woods too easily.
Zack ran after him.
Driscoll ran fast, but Zack ran faster, the image of Olivia slamming into the road burned into his mind. Driscoll suddenly stopped, turned, and raised his gun in one slick move.
Zack was right behind him. He body-slammed Driscoll, knocking the gun from his hand. They rolled down the embankment.
Raw rage flooded Zack’s senses. When they stopped tumbling, Driscoll lay on his stomach. Zack flipped him and held him down with his left hand while he pummeled his face.
No killer had angered and scared him more than this bastard. What he had done to those girls, to their families.
He pictured Jenny Benedict’s small, lifeless body.
Jillian Reynolds’s decomposed body on the coroner’s table.
Olivia held hostage.
Driscoll struggled and Zack used both fists and pounded into the killer’s face, his chest, his stomach. Zack’s breath came out in harsh, ragged gasps. He grunted and swore, but didn’t know what he was saying. He heard someone shout, but didn’t hear the words through the river of bloody rage that flowed in his veins.
He’d never hated anyone more than Driscoll. He didn’t see a man; he saw a monster.
“Dammit, Travis!”
Quinn pushed Zack off Driscoll and he hit the ground with a thud, a rock scraping his back.
He blinked, remembering where he was.
The Cascades. The car chase. Chasing Driscoll.
Driscoll moaned, half conscious. Quinn handcuffed the killer.
“Shit, Zack, you could have killed him.”
Zack stared at his bloody fists. His blood mixed with the killer’s. He rubbed his hands on his jeans over and over, hating what he’d done. The anger that still embraced him had almost turned him into a killer himself.
Making him no better than Chris Driscoll.
He could barely catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Olivia.
He jumped up, stumbling as he scurried up the slope.
“Olivia!” he called, running back up the road.
Inner rage turned to bone-numbing fear. If anything had happened to her… no. No. If Driscoll had killed Olivia, Zack would never recover. He loved her. He needed her in his life.
He retraced his steps, passing the crashed police car, Quinn’s sedan. “Olivia!”
He ran around the sharp bend. She lay by the side of the road. Blood soaked her white blouse. Her throat… dear God, he’d slit her throat. Blood smeared her neck, her collar.
Stumbling, he half ran, half crawled to where she lay, not noticing the tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Liv, oh God, Liv.”
Then he saw her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Gently, he gathered her into his lap.
“Liv?”
He stroked her cheek and her eyes fluttered open.
“Hi.”
Her voice was faint, but a smile curved her lips.
Zack kissed those lips, his tears falling on her face. “Olivia, I thought you were dead. The blood.” He stared at her neck.
“It’s not deep. I’m okay.” She reached up and cupped his face in her hand.
He kissed her again, urgently. She was alive. Whole. He shuddered as his heart rate finally began to slow, holding her tightly in his arms. He didn’t want to let her go.
“Did you get him?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. He won’t hurt anyone else.”
“It’s over,” she murmured into his chest. “Missy can rest in peace.”
“And so can her sister.” Zack stroked her hair, closed his eyes. Olivia was alive. Safe.
The past could finally be buried.
CHAPTER 30
Zack and Olivia went back to the lodge while Quinn stayed at the crash site to help the sheriff process evidence; then he would pick Zack up and take him to the Cascades sheriff’s substation, where they would interview Driscoll.
An ambulance was already at the lodge and Zack brought Olivia to the EMT to be checked out, since she’d refused to go to the clinic herself.
“You should go to the hospital,” the EMT, a burly guy named Trent, told her. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“See, I told you,” Zack said.
“I’m fine,” Olivia said. “Just clean the cuts.”
Zack winced as Trent sanitized the cut on her neck and applied a bandage.
“Um, do you want to unbutton your blouse?” Trent asked, glancing from Zack to Olivia.
Olivia frowned and looked at Zack. “Are you sure you don’t want to check in with Quinn?”
Zack looked at her, his heart thudding. She was worse off than she’d told him. “Unbutton your blouse, Liv. Or I’ll do it.”
She hesitated, then complied, wincing as she pulled the material from the dried wound on her chest.
Zack stared, feeling the rage building again. Her left breast had been stabbed, the cut at least an inch wide. The blood had dried, but in pulling the blouse off the wound had restarted a light flow.
Saying nothing, the EMT efficiently and discreetly cleaned and dressed the wound. He then turned to the cut in her side, shook his head, and took care of it.
Zack stared at Olivia. That he’d come so close to losing her affected him a million different ways. He wasn’t comfortable examining his feelings under such circumstances. He wanted to step back, think logically about what had happened, accept it, and move on. But he was stymied, unable to rid his memory of the image of Olivia jumping from the car, and now the obvious signs of violence on her body.