Unforgivable (Romantic Suspense) Read online

  The windows were boarded up. There was a small fireplace, but he never lit it for fear of drawing attention. Details like that got the others caught. He had no intention of getting caught.

  The girl looked around. If they came here voluntarily, which was rare, they always took in the place. That gave him the opportunity to remove the handcuffs from beneath the sofa cushion.

  “Pretty rough, huh?” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve thought about fixing it up, but I’m just not here enough to warrant it.”

  “What else do you do here?” She was looking at the bed.

  “When you’ve got three kids, you need some down time. We have a farm, and I’m with them all day. Sometimes I need a break, or I feel like I’ll explode.”

  The mention of the kids took the edge off her expression. “Where’s the stuff?”

  He knelt down beside the bed and slid his hand beneath the musty gray mattress. “Right under...” His hand slid in deeper. “Wait a minute. I had most of a dime bag right here. Maybe it slipped through the frame.”

  She knelt down near him and helped him look. “Could someone have found it?”

  “I doubt that. No one even knows this place exists, as far as I can tell. It’s got to be here somewhere.”

  “There’s an old bedpan under here,” she said, distaste in her voice.

  “Oh, that’s where it is. I forgot, I’d stuck in there just in case. Can you reach it? Just shove it this way.”

  He reached beneath the bed and clamped the handcuff on her wrist. The disbelief was always the best part.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” She jerked back, but he had a firm hold on the other cuff. “Oh, my God, what are you doing?”

  She started to scramble to her feet. He knocked her on the bed and landed hard on top of her. A gust of breath whooshed from her lungs, leaving her temporarily weakened while he clamped the other cuff around the iron rod. The second pair of cuffs was within reach beneath the mattress. He grabbed it just as she started to struggle again.

  “No, please, don’t do this. If it’s sex you want, I’ll give it to you. Just please don’t cuff me.”

  He cuffed her other hand, hearing the pleasant sound of metal against metal as she started to jerk her hands downward. In a cold voice, he said, “It’s not just sex I want.”

  “Oh, no, please, God, no.”

  He settled back, straddling her waist. This was the fear he enjoyed most, when they were manacled to the bed, knowing there was no escape, no hope. They were going to go through something terrible, and the best they could hope for was to get out alive. He sometimes told them he’d let them go if they behaved, and they believed him...for a while anyway.

  She started screaming then. He could tell her that no one would hear her, that they were too far away from the road or any other house. That sounded trite and overused, so he grabbed the rag he kept beneath the mattress and stuffed it into her mouth. He wondered if she could taste the other girls’ saliva.

  Her nostrils flared as she took in air in her panicked breathing. He simply watched her. Sweet anticipation surged through his loins. If only this part could last forever. He had been keeping them longer lately, several days sometimes, visiting them when he could. He drew such pleasure just thinking about them waiting for him. Keeping them indefinitely would be trickier. He doubted they could escape, but one never knew. That’s how the others were caught, when one got away and identified them. They kept trophies, too, adding to the evidence. He was smarter than that. Sure, he liked having something to remind him of the pleasure they’d given him. He had a better plan.

  He slid down her legs as she bucked beneath him. The leg cuffs were already clamped to the corner rail hidden beneath the mattress. He gently removed her green Converse sneaker and closed the cuff around her ankle. Then he did the same to her other foot.

  He caressed the sneaker with affection. It was ingenious, really. A shoe was often tossed carelessly out a car window. There it sat for weeks, months, even years, lying among the other litter along the side of the road. Nobody thought twice about it as they drove past it every day. Nobody but him. He looked for them, the pleasure of anticipation building as he neared where he left one. Always a distance from the town where the girl lived. He’d remember everything about the girl, every delicious detail.

  Until the need grew too large for the fantasy to sate it. Then the slow build of anticipation grew again as he searched for the next girl, the next opportunity.

  The best part was that his trophies were right there for everyone to see. Trash to them, memories for him. His secret. And if one was connected to the missing girl, it told them nothing about the crime or her whereabouts. He always washed them before carefully setting them in their spot. Sometimes the authorities found them and the news would report the great “lead.” They would launch a search in the area to no avail.

  Muffled cries brought his attention back to the girl. He slid off her and went to the drawer. Her eyes bugged out even more when he pulled out the twelve-inch knife. He approached slowly, knifepoint held facing upward. He liked the opposite of terrified surprise, too. When they were sure he was going to cut them, he cut their clothing instead. Very carefully, he sliced away the seams. He enjoyed every whimper, as the blade touched their delicate skin, as the point sometimes grazed them. It was too early to draw blood.

  Once she was naked, he set the knife down. Then he stared at her with dispassionate eyes that belied the burning lust in his soul. Her legs were spread to each corner of the bed, as were her arms. She was ready for him, like a bug in a spider’s web, trapped without hope of escape.

  “Now, the fun begins,” he said as he stepped closer.

  Silas woke with a jerk, but the dread started even before he found himself in his vehicle parked along the side of the road. Fingers of dawn’s light were creeping up over the line of trees to the east. One lone car drove past, sending the weeds into a frantic dance. The images of the night before crowded back into his mind, as vivid as they’d been while it had been happening: the terrified girl shackled to the bed, the feelings of pleasure as she struggled and pleaded with her eyes. The vile acts that followed. Nausea rose in his stomach, though he’d learned to keep it at bay. Still, he broke out in a cold sweat.

  Every time the killer struck, he took Silas with him. Since that day in prison, when Charles Swenson had reached across the table and grabbed Silas’s arm. When Silas had seen and felt the atrocities Swenson had committed, and worse, why he’d committed them. Silas had understood the man’s mind, had felt all the shadows in his black heart.

  It had opened a door he wished he could close. A door that allowed evil to flow into his soul. Since that day, he witnessed the deeds of the man he called The Ghost. And every time he struck, Silas got closer to being there at the moment of the kidnapping.

  With weary resignation, he climbed out of the vehicle and searched for the signpost he’d seen in the final image. He looked down the slope and saw what the killer had discarded: a green sneaker. He felt nausea rise again. It was still damp where the killer had washed it. It was the first time he’d been this close. Usually he had to go searching for it.

  He was getting closer to the killer. Silas had never seen his face, only the heinous crimes he committed. And when he caught up with him, what then? How long could one stare into the abyss before the abyss swallowed him? And the question that haunted him most: What if the killer wore his face?

  CHAPTER 4

  The All-Animals Hospital hadn’t changed much in the years Katie had known it. She had planted some rhododendron bushes along the front of the building and at the road, but the driveway and lot were still gray gravel. The building had been a house back in the early nineteen hundreds. Later, it had been transformed to a law office, and years later into the animal hospital.

  Inside, the bright walls were nearly blinding. Ben liked everything to look clean and professional. That’s why she wore her standard black polyester pants and white blouse. He wore
his smock. Not that he had anything to worry about; they were the only veterinary hospital in Flatlands, and the only one within a great distance that serviced the rural areas and farms.

  In all the years she’d been married to Ben, all the years she’d known him, he’d never changed. He treated the animals with love and gentleness and their owners with respect. That was what won her respect for him, that the residents of Possum Holler were treated with the same civility as those who lived in the nicer areas.

  “Don’t you worry a thing about that,” Ben was telling one plump woman who’d brought her cat in after it had lost a fight with a neighbor’s dog. “Bellflower will be fine, and you can pay me whenever you’ve got the money.” That meant never, but it made the customers feel like they weren’t getting charity. They had pride, just as her mother had had pride.

  Katie smiled as she wrote up the slip and gave the woman the medications Ben had prescribed. “You remember my kitten, don’t you? Boots, the one Gary threw against the glass window?”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember.” The woman obviously also remembered that no one believed Gary had done it.

  “He came out of it all right. He survived, even with brain damage, lived a good, long life. Bellflower will come out of this, too.”

  “Thank you. And thank your husband again for me. He’s the nicest man in the whole universe, he is.”

  “He sure is.” She pulled the paperwork for their afternoon patients. He was wonderful, every woman’s dream. He was older, yes, but he wasn’t out sowing his wild oats with the other young bucks in town, either.

  “The Williams’s puppy is coming out of anesthesia,” Ben said, walking out of the recovery room. Skunk been hit by a car, unfortunately a common occurrence in the rural areas. “I think he’s going to make it.”

  “Oh, good. I made them promise to fence in an area for him if he made it through.”

  The waiting area was empty, and Ben took the opportunity to slide up behind her. “I see shadows in your eyes, Katie. Aren’t you happy?”

  “Of course I am.” He had a way of making her feel guilty for every bad feeling she ever had.

  “I want to know what my girl’s thinking.”

  She turned to him. “I’m okay.”

  “You know I want an open marriage, Katie. What’s going on?”

  “I just...sometimes I feel lonely. Disconnected from the world.”

  His mouth tightened. “Aren’t I enough for you?”

  “Yes, you’re enough for me.”

  “What’s the problem then?”

  “Just a mood, I guess. It’s nothing.”

  “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “I love you , too.”

  Instead of lightening, his face shadowed. “Sometimes I hear the words, but I don’t see it in your face.”

  She hugged him, trying to emphasize her words with a hard squeeze. “I do love you, Ben. You’re my life.” That was true. She did love Ben, in some way. She’d loved him since she was a girl, when he’d saved Boots, and then saved her. And he was her life. Maybe that was the problem. He was her whole life.

  When the door opened, they stepped apart. Bertrice dropped her glitter-painted book bag and looked at them.

  “What’s wrong? I know that look. Don’t tell me you’re fighting. I get enough of that at home, with my mom threatening to divorce my dad every ten minutes. You two can’t get divorced. You’re like, the best example of a happy couple I know, otherwise I’d probably never get married.”

  Ben smiled. “We’re fine, just discussing a patient.”

  Her eyes widened again. “Someone die?”

  “No, but a puppy was hit by a car this morning. He’s okay,” he added at her crestfallen look.

  “Cool. Let me wash off my makeup, and I’ll take the dogs out.” She emerged without the half-moons of purple over her eyes and matching lipstick. Her short brown hair ended in blonde tips. She was a never-ending font of diatribes about the arguments she had with her mother (over makeup, boys, girlfriends, boys, and clothes) and the fights between her parents. She was helping out after school during this, her senior year, before deciding what she wanted to be in life.

  Katie envied her beyond belief. What she wouldn’t have given to have had teenaged fights with her mom about anything. Or to have had a choice in what she wanted to do with her life. Not that she minded working with Ben. She’d had thoughts of going into nursing, and being a veterinary assistant was close to that in many ways. Since her mama had died, though, Katie hadn’t made one choice of her own.

  “How was school?” Katie asked Bertrice later as they shampooed a Great Dane. She held onto the dog while Bertrice lathered. The dog kept eating the suds.

  “Blech. Marcy and I got caught smoking in the bathroom, only I wasn’t smoking, she was, but I still got called into the principal’s office. Mom’s gonna have a cow, cause she smelled smoke on me last week and thought I was, like, smoking. I told her, no way, and she said, ‘I catch you smoking and you’re gonna be, like, under house arrest or something’.”

  “You weren’t smoking, were you?” Katie asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Naw. I hate the way it leaves my mouth feeling, like an ashtray or something. I got detention, too, next Tuesday, so I’ll be late.” She got a twinkle in her eye and after checking to make sure Ben wasn’t around, lifted the bottom edge of her striped tank top. A gold ring winked from her belly button. “Don’t tell anyone, or Mom’ll, like, skin me.”

  Katie was so tickled to be let in on a girl secret, she didn’t even think of admonishing Bertrice. “Where’d you get it done?”

  “Guy in Milledgeville does body art and piercing on the side. He’s legit,” she added at Katie’s worried look. “Isn’t it awesome?”

  “Cool,” Katie said, using one of Bertrice’s favorite words.

  Bertrice beamed and continued to scrub the dog. “You ought to get something done like that. For a change.”

  “Ben would skin me. Besides, I’m not into that kind of thing.”

  “What, like being fashionable? You’ve worn your hair that way for as long as I’ve known you. I’ll bet it’s always looked like that.” Bertrice reached over with a soapy hand and took a strand of Katie’s hair. “Have you ever done anything to it? Like highlighted it or cut it? You’re starting to get the grays.”

  “Just a few.” Katie glanced at her distorted reflection on the paper towel dispenser. She’d worn her hair straight and just past her shoulders since she was a teenager. “Ben likes it this way.”

  “And what about you?”

  She shrugged. “If I had my way, I’d cut it short. Especially for the summer.” Even in the distorted image, she could see the wine stain on her neck. “Maybe to my shoulders. Ben would kill me if I dyed it.”

  “Even to cover the grays?”

  “Yep. He likes it just the way it is.”

  Bertrice rolled her eyes. “I like Ben and all, but I don’t understand why you can’t do what you want with your hair. He’d get used to it.”

  “I’ll think about it.” And that’s all she’d do. She didn’t even want to start the discussion with Ben.

  “And what about your clothes? I know you wear this boring outfit for the hospital, but what about after work?”

  Despite the gentle badgering, Katie was enjoying the conversation. She’d never had a girlfriend before. “I don’t do much after work. Sometimes I pick out something at the K-Mart when Ben and I go out of town. And he orders me things from catalogs.” She pretended to love everything, the same way she’d pretended to love her one Christmas gift from the Emersons every year. Like the bra or the box of tampons.

  “Cool stuff?” Bertrice looked skeptical already.

  Now it was Katie’s turn to see if Ben was in the vicinity. “Boring stuff,” she whispered. “I don’t go anywhere, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Bertrice eyed Katie’s waist. “You wear what, a seven?”

  “Or eight. But
I’ve got a flat butt.”

  “No, you don’t.” She glanced at her own behind. “At least you don’t have a fat butt, like me. Anyway, I’ve got some stuff you can have. It’s a little out of style, but, like, what does it matter? Step out of middle-aged-lady stuff and start dressing your age.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Katie said with a smile. The prospect of getting something stylish, even teenage stylish, made her giddy. “I wish I’d had someone like you for a friend when I was your age.”

  “But you had sisters, didn’t you?”

  “Not really. I was the intruder. They were nice, but I didn’t really belong. Don’t get me wrong; I was lucky to have them, to have a home.”

  “I know what you mean. Sometimes I hate my mom, but then I think what I’d do if she weren’t around.” She gave Katie a sympathetic look. “Hey, we should go shopping sometime.”

  “Uh oh,” Ben said, walking around the corner. “Sounds like a conspiracy we can’t afford.”

  Bertrice rolled her eyes. “You must make a fortune here, with all your customers.”

  “Not when he gives his services away half the time.” Katie never wanted to begrudge Ben his generous nature.

  “What else can I do? Turn away a sick or injured animal? It can’t be helped.”

  “You’ve got a good heart, Dr. Ferguson.” Bertrice’s smile was genuine.

  “Katie, the town council is having a meeting tonight, trying to come up with strategies about the land.”

  That’s what everyone called the acreage the town had been trying to buy for two years: simply, ‘the land.’ Now that the historical district had been fixed up, even with a board depicting where the old jail and courthouse used to be, the town was vying for more business. Without a historical claim to fame, it was tough to woo people to move to Flatlands. A lot of folks were moving closer to Gray or Macon.