Chapter Twenty-Two
“Amanda? What’s g-going on?” Jessie tried hard not to show any fear, but she failed. To think Jessie had been worried about her deputy. She’d never make that mistake again.
When Jessie started to turn around to ask for an explanation, Amanda jammed the gun harder against her head. “Don’t move.”
“Ouch. W-Watch it.” Wait a minute. It was October 31th. This must be a Halloween prank. “Oh, I get it. Trick or Treat.” Her body sagged in relief, but when she tried to step away from the pressure, Amanda clamped a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from getting out of the gun’s range.
“What are you doing here?” her deputy asked with more bitterness than had ever come from her mouth.
Jessie’s heart stammered in her chest. Oh, shit. Anger overtook the fear that had soured her stomach. “What am I doing here? The real question is what are you doing here? And with a gun to my head for God’s sake?” Jessie struggled to get out of her grasp, but Amanda held tight.
Holding her hostage, Amanda ripped the cutters from her hands and tossed them on the ground before Jessie had the chance to use them as a weapon.
Amanda then grabbed Jessie’s right wrist. “You’ve gotten in my way one too many times, bitch.”
Bitch? Who was this woman? Amanda shoved a palm against Jessie’s back, smashing her face against the rusty steel door, forcing her to gasp for air.
Don’t panic. Think.
The pressure against her head temporarily disappeared, and Jessie took the opportunity to rotate toward her assailant. In her brief moment of freedom, she reached across her body to grab her gun from her holster, but before she could, Amanda latched onto Jessie’s wrist again. The click of the steel cuffs made Jessie’s heart almost stop.
Jessie whipped her other arm out of the way, hoping to avoid capture, but Amanda wrestled it back down, flipped her back around again, and clipped on the other cuff so that her hands were behind her back. Man she was strong. Being in the Navy must have whipped her into shape.
Now Jessie was really pissed. “How dare you cuff me, and what do you mean I was in your way?”
Amanda spun Jessie around, grabbed her gun out of the holster then lobbed the weapon a good twenty feet away into a pile of rubble. When she pushed Jessie back again, the door handle bit into her spine, radiating an intense ache in every direction. The metal cuff caught the skin on her wrist and gouged a hole that caused a slow burn to crawl up her arm. Then blood dripped down her hand.
“We’re going below,” Amanda said, her face contorted.
Sheer panic gnawed at her gut. No way she was going into a mine with a mad woman. It was one thing to go on her own, and yet another to be forced down. “Don’t do this, Amanda. We can work something out,” Jessie said in as calm a voice as she could manage given the adrenaline was running rampant through her system.
“No, we can’t.”
She couldn’t let Amanda ruin her own life—or Jessie’s. Think fast. “You don’t need to keep me cuffed. I won’t try to run, I promise. I can barely walk.” She softened her voice. “Amanda, tell me what’s wrong. I can help, I swear.”
Amanda laughed. “You are a piece of work. You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
Amanda stepped away to unlock the mine entrance but kept the revolver pointed at Jessie’s chest. “Get inside and don’t make me ask again.” She cocked the gun and firmed her lips. Her blue eyes turned steel gray.
Once Jessie stepped into that elevator, she’d never come out alive, which meant she had to disarm Amanda. With her hands behind her back, she didn’t know how she was going to do that. If Dax had been with her, Amanda never would have gotten the drop on her.
Jessie glanced at her cruiser. Even if she made it to the car before Amanda reached her, opening the door would take time and driving away would be impossible. What was she thinking? Amanda would shoot her dead if she tried to escape.
What Jessie needed was a diversion. She sorted through her few options and decided her best tactic was surprise.
Amanda shoved her. “Move.”
Now! Standing on her good leg, she rocked back on her heel to deliver a sidekick to Amanda’s midsection. As her foot was about to connect to Amanda’s body, her deputy feigned to the right, lifted her arm, and smashed the butt of her gun into Jessie’s temple.
The blow staggered her. A second later Jessie’s butt hit the ground and then her face smashed against rough cement. An ache worse than a hundred migraines nearly took off her head.
“Why?” Jessie managed to spit out.
“Get up and do as I say.”
She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t even move. Pain had paralyzed her. Amanda delivered a swift kick to her belly. Ooof. Bile raced up her mouth, and a trickle of blood dribbled out.
She couldn’t die now. She had to fight, had to stay alive.
Amanda yanked on her arm, nearly ripping her shoulder out of its socket, and jerked her to her feet. “Obey or pay,” Amanda said. “Get it? Obey or pay? It rhymes. Like it?”
“You’re a real laugh a minute.” Jessie spit blood out of her mouth from where a tooth had come loose.
In high school, Jessie used to enjoy Amanda’s clever use of puns and rhymes, but no longer. The girl, or rather the woman, had lost her mind. Jessie couldn’t believe she’d suspected nothing. To think Amanda had bought Jessie clothes, found confiscated photos, and helped her investigate. Their friendship was clearly a ploy to mislead, and that hurt.
She needed answers. “My shooting wasn’t an accident either, was it?”
“Not by a long shot. Ha, ha. Get it? Long shot.” She waved her gun when Jessie refused to laugh. “Actually, I was trying to save you.”
Her arrogance amazed Jessie. “Like I’m supposed to believe you?”
“It’s the truth. I thought if you were bedridden, you wouldn’t come snooping around the mine.” Her demeanor changed—evil-eyed, bitter, disgusted. “But not the great Jess Nash. Oh, no. You wouldn’t lie still.” She shook her head. “You always were an overachiever, and I had work to do, which meant I couldn’t let you interfere.”
Without warning, Amanda opened the elevator door and shoved Jessie inside. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would leap from her chest. She twisted her wrists, hoping her sweat and blood would provide enough lubrication to get them off, but nothing worked. Her skin burned, but she kept trying. Amanda stepped into the cage with her, keeping the gun at Jessie’s chest. As they descended, cold air, along with the musty smell of dust and dirt, shot up the shaft.
Amanda smiled. “I bet you never thought I would do something like this, did you?”
“You mean kill me? No, I didn’t, but then, ten years is a long time, and people change.” Jessie softened her voice, trying to win her over. “What happened?”
Amanda’s face contorted. “The stupid President kept sending more and more troops to Iraq instead of where they were needed—to Darfur, where women are abused and treated like slaves. Congress claims the United States is a humanitarian nation, but that’s a crock of shit. Women and children are starving in Africa, and we stand around doing nothing.”
The bitterness seemed to run deep. Whatever happened to Amanda in the service must have messed her up. “How does killing me help your cause? You’re no better than those who imprison and enslave women in Darfur.” Jessie’s voice cracked. The slap across her face came so fast and hard, her vision blurred.
“Don’t be so naïve.”
Okay, Amanda was seriously unbalanced. She’d served off the coast of Somalia, so Jessie could understand her wanting more aid to the women in Africa, but why Darfur specifically? She’d never mentioned it before, or had she befriended someone from there? The cage stopped, seemingly caught on a cog, but then rattled for a shaky moment before jerking downward again. The air turned chillier and Jessie shivered. If Amanda was insane, what other things had she done? “Did you kill Cl-Clinton?”
Maybe that was why Amanda’s car was at the farm, but then she realized he’d been killed a week or so ago. Or was she there to check up on the body?
“Yeah, I killed him. Showed you those photos of the mayor and his lover to keep you and that P.I. from looking in my direction.” She almost sounded proud.
“It didn’t work, did it?”
Amanda jammed a fist into Jessie’s stomach and white pinpricks of pain stole her breath. She’d never been more pissed off or scared in her life.
“You are so stupid. You and your questions. Now that I’ve confessed to murder, I gotta kill you. Good going, Sheriff.”
While Jessie couldn’t decide if Amanda was bluffing about murdering Clinton, she was certain Amanda was serious about doing her in. “How did you kill him?”
“Ah, I see you’re testing me. A blow to the temple, just like the one I delivered to you, only he died.”
Jessie swallowed hard, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Did he suffer?”
“How the fuck would I know? I came at him from behind, smashed him on the temple, and he went down. End of story.” Amanda leaned back against the cage with a smug look. “Your own grandmother sealed his fate, you know. She found a pair of night vision goggles, or rather Sadie found the NVG’s, and your Nana turned them in to Clinton. The good sheriff was suspicious and came snooping at the mine just as I was coming out of the shaft. When I ran into him, what was a girl to do?”
If life meant nothing to Amanda, why care about the women in Africa? “Did you kill Sadie too?” Jessie’s mind reeled with horror.
“I had to. She was a bigger snoop than the sheriff.”
As long as Amanda was in the confessing mode, she might as well learn all she could before she died. “And the attempt on Dax’s life?”
“All me. Well, not actually me, since I was with you both, but one of my men tried to take him down. The same one who shot you—on my command of course.” Her face looked disgusted but only for a moment. “Brilliant plan if I do say so myself. Too bad you pushed your man out of the way.” Amanda spread her feet and stepped closer to Jessie. “I’m disappointed in you. You didn’t ask about the gas theft or the grocery store heist. Can’t connect the dots yet?” Amanda got in her face.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me you pulled those off too?” The woman seemed ready to take credit for everything.
“Of course I did. After the nuclear waste begins to spread, I have to have food, fuel, and supplies. Didn’t see any need to spend my hard earned cash.” Amanda sighed. “The good folks of Kerry are going to feel the effects of the radiation and will die a long, painful death, but not me and my crew. We’ll be safe and sound down here. When the waste blows over, we’ll surface.”
Jessie couldn’t wrap her head around anything Amanda was saying. “Nuclear waste? Are you crazy?” Jessie couldn’t fathom her hate. “What are you going to do? Drop an atom bomb?” There was no way she could pull that off.
Amanda shook her head. “Jessie, Jessie, you live such a sheltered life.”
“If not an attack from the air then what? You going to blow up a nuclear power plant or something?” She wracked her brain to come up with one that was nearby but failed.
Amanda laughed. “No, no.” She turned serious. “I can’t blow up a plant. Don’t you know anything? For your information, a nuclear sub is about to arrive in Annapolis for repairs. A little C-4 on the cooling pipe and voila, a nice, little unstoppable leak.”
“A sub?” Annapolis was near Washington, D.C. Oh, my God.
“Don’t you worry your last few hours of life about something you can’t stop.”
“What about your father? You want him to suffer too?” He lived in town.
“Of course I do. God only knows my father deserves to get cancer. Why do you think I left town right after high school?”
Jessie had always wondered. “Why?” She needed to keep Amanda talking. Perhaps she’d lose focus and give her an opening to escape.
Amanda’s features hardened. “My father decided I was a better lay than my mother.”
The revulsion nearly strangled her. “Your dad’s a judge.” While she’d never liked him, she never imagined he’d abuse his own daughter. Perhaps that was why Amanda wanted the women of Darfur to be saved.
“He might be, but he still has a dick and likes to use it. Doesn’t seem to matter where or when.”
No wonder Amanda was so screwed up. If only Jessie had known, she might have been able to help.
The car reached the bottom of the shaft with a thunk and a loud groan. With the gun still trained on Jessie’s chest, Amanda opened the squeaky cage door and motioned her out. Even though lights lined the walls every fifty feet, they barely lit the gloomy mine. Apparently, Amanda had found a way to turn on the electricity or else she had a generator.
“I hadn’t planned on you being the one to use my special tunnel,” Amanda said, “but it’s all yours now.”
Jessie’s stomach revolted, and vomit rolled into her mouth. Amanda really was going to leave her in the mine to die—without saying goodbye to Dax or Nana. “You c-can’t d-do this!”
“I already have.”
Amanda shoved her backward, and Jessie’s feet tangled up. She landed on her butt and the air rushed out of her lungs.
Amanda hovered over her. “You are so clumsy. Get up.”
Jessie rolled onto her knees. Without the use of her hands, she fell again. Her head ached and her stomach threatened to erupt.
“I can’t.”
“I can’t,” Amanda ridiculed, then kicked her again, this time in the leg.
Jessie cried out.
“Wimp.” Amanda grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her another twenty feet into a short tunnel, one that went nowhere. Rocks scraped her legs through her tights. Amanda dropped her and Jessie’s mouth slammed into the ground.
“Oh, God.” Jessie didn’t have the strength to fight back as tears stung her eyes.
“God ain’t going to help you now,” Amanda said.
Jessie managed to roll onto her side and look up at her captor. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you. I want to get Congress’s attention. If they don’t send troops to Darfur, my friends and I will set the charges. Now, if you get any ideas about getting out of here, I need to tell you I’ve set a few charges in some of the shafts. If you cross one of them—kaboom! It’ll be bye-bye, Jessie. If, by some miracle, you do reach the surface, the door will be locked from the outside.” She laughed.
Jessie was tempted to ask her to kill her now and put her out of her misery, but she had to believe there was something she could do to save herself.
Amanda strode off, kicking up dirt in her wake. Jessie sank back to the ground to gather her strength, to plan, to plot. The gate grated closed. She was now all alone and scared to death.