Chapter Twenty-Five
Deputy Gyer was in on it too.
Recovering from the shock, I turned and ran for the trees behind the house, but he quickly caught up and snaked an arm around my waist, hauling me up to his chest.
“I think you’ve done enough running, little Rose.” He reached between us and pulled the handgun out of the waistband of my pants. “Crocker warned me you liked to hide guns on you. Looks like he was right.”
He dragged me toward the house and I kicked and squirmed, trying to break free. After I landed a solid kick to his shin, he grunted and grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerking his hand back.
I released a cry of pain and he growled in my ear. “You’ve caused me nothing but trouble since I showed up at your farm yesterday morning. Crocker wasn’t happy that we let you get away. While he told us to keep you alive, he didn’t say anything about what shape he wants you in. Don’t think I won’t beat the shit out of you to get you to cooperate.”
He practically carried me into the house and I craned my neck, desperate to see whether Mason was still in the woods. There wasn’t any sign of him. Deputy Gyer dragged me into a bedroom and my fear escalated, especially when I saw that another man was already in the room. He looked like a teenager and he was sporting a busted lip.
Gyer shot him a look of disgust, shaking his head. “What the hell happened to you?”
He turned bright red. “He put up a fight.”
“How? He’s got a busted leg and looked too weak to kick a kitten.” Deputy Gyer set me down and I tried to elbow him in the groin. He twisted my arms around my back with enough force to make me cry out. “Good thing I took care of this hellcat myself because Crocker would have both our asses if she got away.”
The teen glared at me.
Gyer shoved me toward an open walk-in closet. I struggled not to fall on top of Mason, who was sprawled face-first on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.
“Mason!”
“You just sit tight while we wait for Crocker to show up,” Detective Gyer said with a sneer. Then he slammed the door shut and we were plunged into darkness.
“Mason.” I blindly reached for him, coming into contact with his arm.
“I’m sorry, Rose.” He sounded devastated.
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I rubbed his back.
“Did you get a chance to call anyone?”
I closed my eyes and tried to keep from bursting into tears. “Yes. But I didn’t know the number for the state police, so I called Joe.”
“Did you leave another message?”
“No, he answered and I even found this house’s address on a stack of mail in the kitchen.”
“So he’s sending help?”
I stayed silent.
“Rose, what happened?”
“He told me he was coming and he’d call the state police.”
“Then why do you sound so worried?”
“Because he didn’t get my call yesterday and when I told him that Hilary must have deleted the voice mail, he got defensive of her. I got angry…”
“And?”
“And I told him not to bother coming, that I’d call the state police myself. I made him give me the number.”
“But you didn’t get a chance to call.”
I heaved a long breath. “No.”
“It’s okay. Joe will probably call them anyway. Just to make sure they got the message.”
I wasn’t so convinced, but I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen if he didn’t. “We need to move you, Mason. You’re lying flat on your face. Do you want to lie down or sit up?”
“Can you help me sit up?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed his arms and we maneuvered him into a sitting position, his back propped against the wall. I tried to undo the binding on his hands, but it was a zip tie.
“I can’t get it undone.”
“Do you still have your gun?” he asked.
“No. Deputy Gyer, the guy who showed up to help Deputy Miller, took it. Crocker had warned him that I might have a hidden gun.”
“Deputy Gyer? He’s one of them too?”
“It looks like it.”
“We never stood a chance.” He sounded disgusted. “Okay. Let’s figure out something we can use to defend ourselves. Check the hangers.”
I stood and felt around, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. We had to be in a spare bedroom; there were linens stacked on the shelves and just a few articles of clothing hanging from the rod. “There are about ten plastic hangers.”
“No wire?”
“No.”
“Will the pole that’s holding them come out of its brackets?”
I lifted the rod, banging the end into the wooden shelf above it. “Yeah.”
“Be careful,” he whispered. “We don’t want them to realize we’re up to something.”
“What am I going to do with this?”
“Fight like hell.”
He was right. I couldn’t sit calmly and wait for Crocker to show up and get his revenge. But I was scared to death. I laid the pole on the floor and after a bit more rustling around, found two shorter poles in brackets, one stacked over the other. “Now what?”
“Keep searching the closet and see if you can find something to cut this zip tie.”
I searched the entire closet, finding only more linens and clothing and two objects that felt like stuffed animals only with real fur and they stunk to high heaven. “There’s nothing.” My voice broke. I sat next to Mason, discouraged. “Mason, I’m scared.”
“I know. I am too.”
I laid my head on his shoulder, trying to keep from crying. “You know what I regret most?” I asked.
“What?”
“I regret not visiting the farm sooner. I love it there. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and if we get out of here alive, I think I’m going to move to the farm.”
Mason rested his cheek on my head, his breathing slightly labored. “Not if, Rose. We will get out of this.”
I wasn’t so certain. “I also regret not telling Violet off sooner. That was a long time coming.”
“She deserved it, that’s for sure.”
“And I regret not telling you about Joe’s father and the evidence he falsified.”
“When we get out of this, it’ll be on the top of my list of things to deal with.” His tone was stern.
I still didn’t want him to get tangled up in the whole mess, but this hardly seemed like the time to say so.
“I have regrets too,” he said softly. “I regret being so harsh with you when we first met.”
“Mason…”
“And I regret that Joe met you first. I lived in Henryetta before you two started dating. In theory, I could have met you before you and Joe became involved.”
“I’m not the same person I was then, Mason. I’m not sure you would have noticed me.”
“Joe did.”
“Because he thought I was a suspect. He only paid attention because it was part of his job. He insists that’s not true, but he’d lived next to me for a month before we so much as exchanged a word. The first time we spoke was when I knocked on his door after I found Momma’s body.”
We were silent for a moment.
“I can’t regret Joe,” I whispered. “He’s part of who I am today.”
He kissed my forehead. “And I would never ask you to regret him. I didn’t mean it that way. I just wish that we could have had more time together.”
“What would you have done if Joe and I didn’t break up?”
“I would have moved on eventually, I suppose. The fact that I could see cracks in your relationship gave me hope, although I never wanted you to be hurt, Rose.”
“I know.”
“And I regret not being a better brother to Savannah. Maybe if I’d been there for her more she wouldn’t have made so many bad choices.”
“Mason, I’m sure you were a great brother. Look what you did after she was murdered. You found the guy and beat him up.”
“And you know I regret that too…”
“Enough regrets,” I sighed. “We can’t change the past. We can only look toward the future.” I turned my head and gave him a soft kiss.
“If something happens to you…” His voice broke. “My biggest regret of all will be that I never got the chance for a future with you.”
I grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him, showing him how much I regretted that too.
Suddenly, the closet door flew open and sunlight flooded the small room. I jerked backward, edging behind Mason as I tried to make out who was in the doorway.
“Hello, my sweet Rose.”
I nearly passed out from fright.
It was Daniel Crocker.