Vanessa
Vanessa opened her eyes, the light burning them, and her head still pounding. The ropes were still tight on her wrists, digging in painfully. This chair was too hard, and she’d sat in it too long. Her bottom ached, and her back, and her feet and legs. No part of her wasn’t in some pain or discomfort.
As her eyes focused, everything became worse. In her darkest nightmares, she couldn’t have envisioned the situation that was before her. She thought at first that she must be dreaming still, because it couldn’t be true.
In front of her sat Jeremy, holding Opal in his arms as she sat on his lap. Her daughter’s face had thin lines running from her eyes down her face and she looked terrified and worried. But she seemed unhurt. There was no blood at least. Emotional hurt didn’t show on the outside as easily as bruises and cuts. Vanessa tried to give her daughter a look that said things would be okay, not to worry. But she doubted it looked anything like that. Vanessa was full of worry and doubt and she didn’t believe for a second that things would be okay.
“Oh, look who’s finally awake,” Jeremy said.
A man beside her pressed a gun to her temple. Any thought of trying to comfort her daughter went out of her head. There was no look she could give that would make Opal think this was okay.
Vanessa swallowed hard and tried not to cry. That wouldn’t help anything. “Do not kill me in front of my daughter.”
Jeremy laughed. “Always the concerned mother, aren’t you? How sweet.”
“Jeremy, please. Just don’t do it in front of Opal. Take her in another room. Do one thing for your daughter’s sake. Don’t make her witness this.”
Jeremy put his hand on Opal’s head and stroked her hair. The sight of it, of him touching her daughter in a way that was meant to be tender, made her sick. Her teeth ached, she clenched them so tightly. In that moment, anything she’d told Hunter about keeping him alive seemed absurd. How could she ever think that was best? Maybe if she would have been okay with it, he would have killed Jeremy already, and they wouldn’t be here. She’d failed her daughter again. She hadn’t hid her in this city well, and Jeremy had found them. She hadn’t hid her at Mari’s well enough, either, and he’d found her. And she hadn’t even taken out the biggest danger that faced them both. She deserved to die. She couldn’t keep Opal safe, and she couldn’t keep her from this madman.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Jeremy said, still stroking Opal’s head. “My daughter trusts me, don’t you, Opal?” He paused to smile at her, then Vanessa. “She knows I would never ever hurt Mommy, don’t you, Opal?”
Opal looked to her mother, then glanced sideways at her father, not sure how to answer. Of course, Jeremy didn’t really expect her to. Opal had seen him hurt Mommy more times than she could count. Probably more times than she knew. Kids had a way of seeing things their parents didn’t want them to see. They figured out too much and saw too much, and it always hurt them deeper than anyone knew. And now, she was about to witness the most violent thing she could.
Jeremy nodded to the gunman by Vanessa’s side. She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking this was it, she was about to die. In her final moment, she couldn’t bear to see Opal’s terrified face and Jeremy’s smile.
The gun moved away from her head. Was he going to shoot her somewhere else? She opened her eyes and let out a strangled gasp. The man had removed the gun from Vanessa’s head and was now pressing it against Opal’s.
Opal let out a whimper and fresh tears streamed down her face.
“No, no, no,” Vanessa said. “Kill me, kill me. Don’t hurt her. You can’t hurt her.”
Her mind spun. The world seemed to stand still and time itself crawled. Her ears were muffled and the loudest thing was a ringing through her brain that wanted her to black out and not see this. She couldn’t really believe this was going to happen. She couldn’t swallow. She could barely get out the words to plead for her daughter’s life.
“I figure it like this,” Jeremy said, looking down to inspect his fingernails. “I could kill you, sure. I could do it in front of the kid, but I don’t really want to make her suffer. After all, she wasn’t the bitch who left me and took everything. That was you, darling.” He gave her an evil smile. “And since you’re the one I really want to suffer, I thought long and hard about how I could do that. What would hurt Vanessa the most? What would ruin her whole life?”
Jeremy slid Opal off his lap and sat her on the chair. The gunman didn’t budge. He pressed the gun so hard into Opal’s temple that it made her head tilt to the side. Jeremy stood up and faced Vanessa, standing out of the path of the bullet that was planned for Opal’s brain.
“When you and my hit man hooked up, I thought at first, maybe that was it. I could kill him and that would make you suffer. You two seemed to be getting so close and all. I also thought maybe I could just disfigure you. Cut off a limb, throw acid in your face. Then Hunter wouldn’t want you and neither would anyone else.”
He paced a few steps and turned back to her. “But then, it came to me in a burst of inspiration. What do you love more in this world than your daughter? Of course, my original plan always was to take her from you and make you suffer that way. But the legal hassle, and there was always a chance you’d somehow find her and get her back. No, this was brilliant. I kill Opal, and nothing could make you suffer more. Oh, except there is more.”
He stopped to laugh.
“Here’s the thing, darling. Not only do you get to watch your daughter die and know it was all your fault, but take a look around you. You’ll be the only one here. The only one found near the body. When they test you and see all the drugs in your system, there’ll be no question. They’ll assume you turned to drugs to escape your horrible ex-husband. And of course, I’ll make sure they know about your history of drug abuse. How I should have seen this coming, I should have done something to help you when I still had the chance and could have saved my beloved daughter. They’ll assume you went crazy and killed her. Then you’ll be sent to jail, charged with the crime of murdering your own child. I don’t think your fellow prisoners will take too kindly to that, either. They’ll make whatever life you have left even more hell. And there I’ll be, on the news, telling everyone how horrible it was living with you, how you screamed at me and hit our daughter, how you needed help desperately, but refused to get it, no matter how I begged. I’ll paint the saddest story anyone could imagine. They’ll put you away forever, and the drugs will ensure that no one believes a word you say.”
He stopped to smile at her. It was a smile she recognized. The one he gave her right after he hit her. The one that said, aww, you’re hurt? Well, I’ve got you now. You’re under my control, and you can do nothing about it. The smile that said, “I will make you suffer and enjoy it.”
Well, he was right about one thing. Seeing Opal die would be the greatest torture he could ever make her endure. Nothing else would compare, and nothing else would matter. She wouldn’t care if she were alive or in jail or what happened to her. She would have nothing left to live for, and no reason to go on.
Her mind wandered to Hunter for a moment. And she did think, maybe having him would make things okay some day. But no. She would never be the same, and he wouldn’t want her like that. If she went to jail, he didn’t need to wait. If she didn’t, she’d probably end up in a mental hospital, and he shouldn’t have to deal with that, either. She would let him go and face a life of pain on her own, waiting for her time here to be through.
# # #
Hunter slammed on the brakes when his car reached the front of the farm house. He jumped out and ran to the door. Here, too, the door looked to have been kicked down. There were dents in the wood where a foot might have hit, and it hadn’t been closed all the way. At least here there were no cops. So, not everyone knew about this place, then.
He tore into the main room, the living room. He expected to find signs of struggle, and they were there. Photos knocked over, furniture askew. He figured they came and took everyone, or took Opal and left Mari’s parents like they’d left Nicholas.
What he didn’t expect to find was blood. When he saw the first puddle, his breath caught in his throat. Who? Was all he could think. He approached the bedroom cautiously. The blood went from the hall to the bedroom. Maybe someone had been dragged or crawled, judging by the smeared trail.
He held his breath and stepped into the room. Two bodies lie on the bed, facing each other. They must not have been killed in this position. It looked more like a final embrace.
Hunter inspected the scene for several seconds, his thoughts and emotions running wild. Mari’s parents had allowed Opal to come here, to hide. They’d promised to protect her and it looked to him like they’d done so with their lives.
There was no reason to kill them. They were innocent in all this. They didn’t really play a part besides this one small piece of trying to keep Opal safe. And now they were dead. His best guess was that they’d been shot. Perhaps one of them in the bed. The other had been shot and crawled here so they could be together to die.
He covered his mouth and blinked through the tears.
He couldn’t help feeling relieved. It wasn’t Vanessa. It wasn’t Opal. Even Mari’s death would have hit him harder. And he felt terrible that he was relieved. These sweet people didn’t deserve this, and there he was, witnessing their heart-wrenching final scene, and all he could think was, thank God.
He turned from the room. If the cops weren’t here yet, they might be soon and the last thing he needed was to leave behind any sort of evidence. He walked out of the house and made a sweep around the perimeter.
In the back of the house, several hundred feet away, sat a large barn. And in front of the barn, two men in black were walking toward him.
Fresh, raw rage exploded in his chest. The death of Mari’s parents, Vanessa missing, Opal gone, Nicholas’s inability to do anything—it all crashed over him in an instant and set him into action.
He took off running as he pulled his gun from its holster. He fired and the first guy dropped. The sound alerted the second one, and he turned, coming face to face with Hunter’s gun. He shot again. This one hit the guy in the shoulder. Hunter paused his running, took better aim, and hit him in the head. He fell beside his friend, two black-clad thugs dead together.
He resumed his running toward the barn. They had to be in there. If Jeremy’s thugs were walking around outside and they were lurking around the barn, they had to be in there. His heart raced, thinking about what he might find. Would Opal be in there? If they’d killed two innocents already, would they hurt her? And the biggest questions were—was Vanessa inside, and was she still alive?
The adrenaline pumped through him, making him run faster and grip his gun tighter. He reached the door and pounded it open. It slammed against the wall. He stopped and looked around. The barn was dim. No electric lights on and only the sunlight shining through the open door illuminated the building, but it was enough. There were scuffles in the dirt on the floor. Someone had been here. But right now, it was empty.