Page 17 of Into the Veins
“They won’t find your body for a few days. By then, there won’t be enough evidence left to prove I had anything to do with your death or the others.” A low laugh penetrated through the slight ringing in Blair’s ears. It was still too dark to note the color of her attacker’s eyes. No recognizable features. Nothing to confirm hers and Colson’s theory that Cardin Townsend had poisoned Rachel Faulkner after a public argument downtown.
“You won’t get away with this,” she said. “My partner—”
“Your partner? You mean Colson Rutherford?” Her attacker shook her head. “Do you really want to put all of your faith in a man who isn’t interested in anything but his own pleasure? Come on now, Sheriff. You’re smarter than that.”
Colson. His name lodged into the few remaining brain cells that hadn’t been compromised by the drug. She could see him clearly. Hear his voice. Feel his heat as he’d swiped milk from her ankles. His fingers had glided over the mug she’d sculpted as though he’d been trying to memorize every detail, his gaze liquid pools of impulsiveness and desire. No one had ever appreciated her art as much as he had for those short few minutes. He’d been right there, within arm’s reach, challenging everything she’d come to believe about private investigators, threatening her case, crumbling her control. Blair pressed her knuckles together as hard as she could while she held her attacker’s attention. The zip ties cut into the outside of her wrists, but the pain wouldn’t stop her. “He’ll find you. No matter how good you think you are, he won’t stop until he exposes the truth.”
“You like him.” Her attacker pulled back slightly as though in surprise. The ski mask shifted over her attacker’s mouth as she leaned in close. “Despite what happened with your parents all those years ago, you’re willing to put your trust in a private investigator who’s only agenda is to collect his fee and leave you behind.”
Her parents. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Her attacker draped an arm over her knee, getting that much closer. “No. I’ve known men and women like him my whole life. I’ve seen the damage they leave behind. They’ll do anything to convince the world they’re something they’re not, all the while making a profit along the way. He doesn’t care about you. Just as Rachel Faulkner didn’t care about the people she hurt with her lies.”
“You killed her. You left her on that trail.” That was all the confirmation she needed. Blair threw her wrists above her head then slammed them back down. The zip ties snapped, and she swung her interlaced hands into the side of her attacker’s face.
The killer stumbled back, a groan escaping up her throat, but recovered faster than Blair had estimated.
Blair rolled to dodge the arc of her attacker’s fist and swept the woman’s legs out from under her. She pushed to her feet and crouched as fast as she could to break the second set of ties around her ankles. Blood trickled from her wrists, her skull throbbing, but she wasn’t going to die here. She sprinted for the trees. She didn’t know where she was going or how long it would take her to get there. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay here. Unarmed, disoriented, weak from the drug’s effects.
“You won’t get far, Sheriff. Nobody knows these woods like I do, and it’ll take hours before the ketamine wears off.” The suspect’s voice raised in pitch, closing in. “You can’t hide from me.”
Blair broke through the tree line. Branches and leaves scratched at her face, hands, and neck as she forced one foot in front of the other. Her shoulder slammed into a tree as she passed. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think. Couldn’t fight. Shadows clawed from the edges of her vision and rocketed her paranoia into overdrive. Rain burned along her skin. She had to keep going.
She’d had enough experience finding addicts overdosing on ketamine to know the drug’s main side effects would distort her senses, increase agitation, and disorient her. Shapes lightninged across her vision. Her blood pressure spiked in response to her fight or flight triggers. “It’s not real. It’s not real.”
She knew that, but saying the words out loud and convincing her brain to believe them were two different things. The forest floor threatened to trip her up as she scanned the landscape for any sign of a main trail or the outline of Tiger Mountain above the tree line. It was no use. She’d run from one threat straight into the maze of another. No weapon. No cell phone, ID, or watch. The killer had taken anything that might be helpful in identifying her remains had Blair stuck to the plan, but that didn’t mean she was completely helpless either. She was in a state forest. There were ranger stations, signs, emergency supplies. She just had to find one. She had to think.
Running through the woods blind only increased her chances of dehydration, starvation, and hypothermia. If she wanted to live, she needed her own plan.
Blair slowed, taking cover behind a large pine. The brush of needles pierced through the drug’s haze as she listened for footsteps closing in, but the woods had gone eerily silent. Her heart thundered hard behind her ears, her rough exhales too loud. If Cardin Townsend had driven out here and hauled a victim up the southwestern trail as the evidence revealed, she couldn’t have gotten far with the dead weight. Add her attack on Blair and being forced to improvise with a second body, Blair had to guess she was somewhere north of the abduction site. Far enough away from the main trailhead, but near one of the main roads for escape. It was the only way she was getting out of here with Colson and Deputy Garcia guarding her vehicle.
But the blood at the trailhead… The suspect hadn’t moved as though she’d been injured. Where had it come from?
Her would-be killer had been fit as far as she’d been able to tell in the dark, athletic even, but the body could only be pushed so far before muscle fatigue set in. She couldn’t have taken Blair far. There’d been a ranger station two miles north of the trailhead on Thompson’s map, but it was impossible to tell her exact location without some sort of GPS or trail indicator. Damn it.
A slither of shadows shifted in her peripheral vision. A crunch of dead foliage nearby. Voices reached through the trees. You can’t run… We see you…
Blair held her breath. She pressed the crown of her head into the bark of the tree at her back. Her hands shook, and she curled her fingers into the center of her palms. The ketamine had stolen control of her nervous system. The numbness had spread.
A streak of light dashed through the trees. Gone as quickly as it’d materialized. The killer? The voices intensified. She’s coming…
“You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be, Sheriff.” Her attacker moved through the forest as though she were part of it, taking advantage of the darkness, holding as motionless as the trees surrounding them. She whispered as though she expected the wind to carry her distorted voice or had sensed Blair nearby. “I know you’re out here. Your body and your brain are at war right now. Your mind is playing tricks on you. You don’t want to believe what you’re seeing and hearing, but you can’t help it. You can’t be sure the hallucinations aren’t real, that you’re hearing my voice. I can only imagine what you must be feeling. Someone like you, desperate to control the world around you, the cases you investigate, the people you work with, you must be scared. I can help you if you let me.”
A manipulation. Blair secured her mouth against the compulsion to answer and closed her eyes. She willed herself to become as small as possible, craning her head to one side, but she felt bigger than her bones. Bark bit into her temple as she scanned the invisible path she’d followed into the thick density of the woods. A trail of footprints seemed to light up in front of her but faded as she blinked. It wasn’t real. None of this was real.
Turning to face the tree, she tracked her attacker’s movements by ear. She lengthened one leg behind her, careful to keep her steps light, and peeled away from her only sense of safety. The soft soil gave under her weight but kept her escape silent. Gaze anchored to the last spot she’d noticed movement, Blair forced herself to move slower than she wanted to go. One mistake. That was all it would take to seal her fate, and she wasn’t ready to give in. Not yet. Not with Rachel Faulkner’s killer free. Not with another victim in these woods. Not with Colson relying on her to solve this case.
The suffocation of being stranded in the middle of these woods—alone, unarmed—swelled in her throat. Her mind instantly retreated into the moment she’d worked hard never to remember. The moment she’d stood directly in front of a killer, a gun in his right hand, before he fled her childhood home out the back door. She’d stared after him as the seconds had turned into minutes—hours—afraid if she moved, he’d come back and finish the job. She’d frozen when her parents had needed her the most, needed her to get help, but by the time she’d been able to move, it’d been too late.
She wasn’t ten years old anymore. The fear didn’t get to win, and neither did Cardin Townsend. Closing her eyes against the pockets of light glowing around her, Blair stretched backward as quietly as she could.
The ground fell out from underneath her.
Shadow and light muddled together. She threw herself forward to counter the fall and slammed into the ground. She clawed for purchase, but the mud slipped through her fingers. Dirt packed under nails just before she dropped. Her stomach lurched into her chest cavity. She rolled down the decline, faster and faster, until she felt weightless and broken. The scream escaping past her lips cut short as cold engulfed her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The scream pierced through his senses.