HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) Page 10

  The fact that she and Linden had discovered the dark sedan was nothing short of a miracle. After the motel, they had had little to go on in terms of what route north Hunter might have decided to take. There were more than four clear cut options if she wanted to stay on the back roads, and over a dozen if Hunter preferred to stay creative and wind her way to the farmhouse.

  Sarah had flipped on the police scanner and gotten lucky. She knew the cop that pulled them over wasn’t aware that Hunter was a person of interest in the Brooklyn murders. Rather, he was conducting a thorough investigation of the possibility that the vehicle had been stolen. Sarah and Linden had heard it all over the scanner. Which meant that Sarah had precious little time to forage a connection with Hunter Mann before they were either arrested for grand larceny or let go. In either event, Sarah’s time with Hunter would end, and since she had nothing to hold Hunter on regarding Brooklyn, she needed to use her time wisely.

  If worse came to worse, Sarah could make a phone call and ultimately get an arrest warrant and a US Marshall to apprehend Hunter, but that would risk getting into hot water with the department for having left the state. Sarah didn’t want that. She wanted to look Hunter Mann in the eye and get to know her. She wanted to see firsthand which way the gears in Hunter’s head were turning. Were they turning in the same direction as Sarah’s?

  Sarah walked over to the kids. She couldn’t take her eyes off Hunter. The messy mop of dark brown hair, its waves that were both disheveled and wildly seductive, reminded Sarah of how her hair could look if she left it unattended for days. Did Hunter resign herself to wearing ponytails every so often when the task of controlling her wild mane was becoming a nuisance?

  Hunter’s eyes were so round and large. It was as though her face were all eyes. The brown, rich chocolaty hue seemed endlessly deep when Sarah looked into them. They looked alive, fiery, and scared.

  It was getting uncomfortable the way this woman kept her eyes on Hunter without saying a word. Hunter glanced back at the squad car. The officer behind the wheel had taken no notice of the gray sedan, the odd older woman in her trench coat, nor the peculiar nature of how long all this was taking. If this woman had come here to arrest them, wouldn’t Hunter be in cuffs by now? Or at the very least, wouldn’t the lady cop have a few words with the uniform officer? It was almost as though one didn’t know the other.

  The lines on the woman’s face, her wrinkles, each fine and soft, was oddly beautiful. Hunter wouldn’t mind looking that way when she was in her forties or fifties. The woman’s eyes seemed huge. They dominated her face, large, round and brown. The rest of her features seemed small, dainty by comparison. Hunter could get lost in the mysteries behind those eyes. Most importantly, the mystery of why they had been pulled over. In her gut, Hunter felt she ought to trust this stranger, but she sensed from Ash that would be a bad idea.

  “You look thin,” said the woman, suddenly breaking the silence, though the comment was more under her breath than out loud.

  “Jealous?” Hunter asked, her voice full of angst and a bad attitude.

  Ash nudged Hunter, silencing her.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Sarah.

  Hunter pursed her lips, pressing them together, refusing to answer, then finally did. “No,” she said, her voice even, agreeable, flat. “Should I?”

  Sarah paused. She knew Hunter wouldn’t know who she was. If she did, she might hate her. But it was a place to start.

  “My name is Sarah Voss. I’m a detective with the NYPD. I work cases in Brooklyn,” she explained, being sure to keep her tone high, friendly, and calm. “I’ve been worried about you, Hunter,” she went on.

  Hunter’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes grew wide, though she was trying to do everything within her power not to give away so much as a hint of fear. She had never been in a line of questioning like this, interrogation. She knew enough to know she had to keep on a poker face. To reveal any emotion would tip the detective off, in one way or another, towards her guilt.

  “If you think I’m going to ask you ‘why’, I’m not,” said Hunter, shifting her gaze from the woman detective to the expanding field behind her on the other side of the road. “I’m enjoying my vacation here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Hunter could feel Ash sigh, collapsing slightly with a pang of remorse. She was being over the top and she knew he hated it.

  “Hunter, I was in your apartment very early this morning,” said Sarah, studying Hunter’s face, keenly anticipating her reactions. She knew Hunter had killed, she just didn’t know why specifically. What she wanted to find out was who the other killers were, and why did they need to kill.

  Hunter felt like she was breathing too rapidly, as though she couldn’t catch her breath. A wave of paranoia was seizing her. Her chest wasn’t heaving, thank God. From the outside she looked fine, she told herself. It was only inside that she was breaking down. She begged herself to keep it together. She pleaded with herself not to fall for this woman’s niceness, not to believe it, it was a trap.

  When Hunter said nothing in response, when she seemed unwilling to react in any way, Sarah went on, “There was a young girl, Hunter. A young girl in your bathtub. She was dead, Hunter.”

  Hunter sipped in a breath of air, drawing it in shallowly. The detective was referring to Molly. Hunter knew she had left Molly in the bathtub. It was her biggest regret.

  “Hunter,” said Sarah in full awareness that she was overusing Hunter’s name, but hoping it would help her get through to the young woman. “Molly wasn’t the only person found dead in your apartment. But she was the only one who had your name carved into her forehead.”

  Hunter’s mouth dropped open, gaping in disbelief of what she was hearing.

  Ash grabbed hold of Hunter’s hand and squeezed it, aiming to jar her. He needed Hunter to be anchored to reality, and not slip away, drifting on the surface of her shock. It would only carry her into dangerous and uncharted waters.

  Sarah leaned in closer to Hunter, “The other body was Travis Wilcox. Do you know who that is?”

  Hunter said nothing. She didn’t even breathe.

  “Travis Wilcox is a friend of your father’s. So is Dale Williams, a man I found dead in a back alley in the Gowanus.”

  Sarah let that hang in the air a moment so the information could register with Hunter and inspire fear. She needed Hunter to be extremely afraid in order for her to cooperate in the way that Sarah needed.

  “Some people deserve to die, Hunter,” said Sarah. “I’m more interested in your father. If you can tell me everything you know about him, then I’ll make your connection to all this go away.”

  Hunter shifted her gaze, meeting Sarah’s dead in the eye. Her breath quickened. But she didn’t know if this was a trick, a trap, a lure to get her to say what needed to be said in order to put Hunter behind bars.

  Ash’s grip on her hand tightened further. Hunter thought her hand might break. What if he snapped the bones? She had better not react, say a word.

  Hunter glanced down, saying nothing.

  Sarah slowly nodded to herself. Hunter was smart, cautious. Sarah had to respect that. But Sarah wasn’t trying to trick her. She had no intention of arresting Hunter. Sarah’s efforts in large part had been spent getting Linden to back off from pursuing the girl. What could Sarah possibly say to convince Hunter Mann that no harm would come to her if she talked?

  “Tell me about your mother,” said Sarah.

  “What?” Asked Hunter, forgetting to lay silent.

  “I’m just curious,” said Sarah. “What do you think of her?”

  “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” asked Hunter, ignoring Ash’s bone crushing grip.

  Sarah gazed deeply into Hunter’s eyes before answering. “I didn’t have a mom,” she said. “People don’t understand what it’s like.”

  “How would you know I don’t have a mom?” asked Hunter, holding the tears back from welling up in her eyes.

&nb
sp; The police officer approached them, breaking up the intensity of Hunter’s emotions. Hunter wished she could feel relief thanks to the interruption, but it only served to terrify her further. The cop would surely hand them their fate. Hunter prayed it wouldn’t turn into an arrest. She prayed she would be free to arrive at the farmhouse in time, find Blair, and put a stop to Grizzly’s madness once and for all.

  The officer handed Ash his license and the vehicle’s registration, nodding to the detective simultaneously.

  “Officer Mark Bradey,” he said, extending a hand to Sarah.

  “Detective Sarah Voss,” she said. “From New York. Coincidence only,” she added with a smile. “These are old friends.”

  The officer seemed not to care, as he shifted his attention back to Ash. “Watch your speed. You’re in a borrowed vehicle. I’m not going to write you a ticket this time. It wouldn’t be fair, it’d only fall on the owner’s shoulders, so be careful. Good day,” he concluded.

  Ash didn’t hesitate for a second. He quickly walked back to the dark sedan, and Twitch followed suit. In an instant, they were inside.

  Hunter couldn’t seem to move, as she stole glances at the lady detective. But when Ash leaned on the horn, startling her, Hunter walked briskly back to the car and hopped in.

  Through the windshield Hunter stared at Detective Sarah Voss.

  And Sarah continued to stare back, noting all the features they shared.

  How could Sarah possibly tell Hunter that she was her mother?

  Chapter Eight Hunter cruised through the winding back roads of Belknap County heading north, as night twisted into pitch blackness, its darkness so thick it seemed to absorb the car’s headlights, sucking the beams into the abyss beyond.

  Ash rested in the passenger’s seat. His eyes were closed, his knees tucked up against the dashboard, but Hunter sensed he was awake.

  Twitch remained in the back, as always. There was something about him that had changed since they left New York. He seemed thinner somehow, paler. She wondered if she looked the same. She hadn’t looked at her face in a mirror since the motel. She had looked skinny then, but not empty. She had looked alive. She was drained now, behind the wheel, driving into the wee hours of the night. Hunter wondered if she still looked alive, or if the stress of nearly being caught by the police had robbed her of all liveliness.

  That lady detective had known about Hunter; what was her name? Sarah Voss. Sarah had known about everything that had happed at the apartment. She had traveled north evidently, making it all the way across the New Hampshire border to find Hunter. She had nearly succeeded at getting her, she had Hunter in her grasp. Why hadn’t she arrested Hunter, instilling fear, getting Hunter good and scared, and ultimately using that terror as a bargaining chip to get Hunter to spill everything she knew about her dad?

  It didn’t make sense. It had almost been as though Sarah wanted Hunter to believe that Sarah was on her side, really on her side, really not out to get her, really only interested in her father. But that had to be a trick.

  And the fact remained, the detective had let them all go. Why had she let them go? It put Hunter on edge. It disturbed her.

  Hunter slowed the car, removing her foot from the gas, and checked to see that they weren’t being followed by looking in the rearview mirror. Ash had warned her that they would be. Now that the detective had pinpointed their whereabouts, she wouldn’t need to follow a paper trail of debit card receipts. She could simply tail them directly. Hunter didn’t see headlights back there. Maybe the detective had backed down.

  Of course she hadn’t. She was probably back there somewhere. But oddly Hunter didn’t feel afraid by that probability.

  The detective was interested in Hunter’s father. She could be heading to the farmhouse directly. She could be heading back to Brooklyn. Hunter didn’t know. All she knew was that she wasn’t afraid of the woman, but she had to remain cautious. Ash had told her that the detective hadn’t arrested them because she didn’t have enough to arrest them with. Maybe she was planning on waiting, watching, allowing Hunter the space to kill, so that she could get her on something new. There was really no telling.

  The thought that Sarah could have been telling the truth, however, made Hunter’s heart rate quicken. If Sarah Voss really was more interested in her father, which implied that Sarah knew about or at least suspected what was going on up there in the barn, then Sarah could end up being their greatest ally. It just seemed like such a reach. Why would a two-bit Brooklyn detective care about anything that happened far away in a different state?

  It seemed off to her. And why had the detective brought up Hunter’s mother? That was especially strange. It had been as though Sarah Voss thought she could find some common ground between the two of them since Sarah also didn’t have a mother, but why had that even come up in the first place?

  That detective obviously knew much more about Hunter’s life on the farm than she had let on. What was she after?

  Hunter tried to follow the logic, piece together the fragments of information connecting that Sarah had revealed to the possible motivations behind why she needed Hunter to know, but every time two pieces seemed to fit, the reasoning fell apart. It was turning into more of a cat’s cradle the harder she thought about it. But the mystery of it all, how illogical it all seemed, helped Hunter realize the ever-churning constant feeling that was underlining it all: Sarah Voss had seemed familiar.

  Hunter racked her brain for an answer as to why that might be. She flipped through the names and faces in her memory of everyone she could recall that had come into the Brooklyn coffee shop she had worked at, but it didn’t feel right that Sarah had been from there. There had been no women at the farmhouse during her years there, so that couldn’t have been the connection.

  It would have been maddening if Hunter hadn’t been so tired. She needed to find a motel for them, or at least start the hunt for a place to stay that would take cash. Ash had realized that it had been Hunter’s debit card that drew the Brooklyn detective up north, leading her straight to them. Under no circumstances were any of them to use a debit or credit card, nothing that could link them to a location.

  Hunter turned onto a main road that she knew would cut through a series of towns. There would have to be a number of motels along that strip. And hopefully one of them would take cash.

  As she traveled along, it occurred to her why Sarah Voss had seemed so familiar. They had the same eyes. Sarah’s eyes had been large, round, and deeply brown. Hunter figured a lot of people had eyes that fit that description, but there had been something about Sarah’s that weren’t just similar to her own, it had been as though they had the same exact essence. It had been like looking in a mirror.

  Hunter looked over at Ash, who was lifting up from his slouched position in the passenger’s seat, his eyes blinking, his mouth stretching wide with a lazy yawn.

  “I’m looking for a place to stay. There should be a number of motels on this strip,” said Hunter, returning her gaze to the road ahead.

  “We could push through,” he said. “We’re less than an hour away.”

  Hunter thought about it for a minute.

  “I want to be well rested,” she said. “I also don’t know what to make of that detective. I don’t know if we should be expecting more surprises.”

  “She was messing with you, Hunter,” said Ash abruptly. “I know how the police work. The can either arrest, or they can’t. When they can’t arrest someone, their tactics degrade into all kinds of weird, psychological crap. She was trying to get under your skin. Don’t let her.”

  “But even still, she found us. Shouldn’t we consider the possibility that once we get to the farmhouse, she will too?” asked Hunter.

  It was a decent point. A point he had made to Hunter the second they had gotten back on the road after that cop had stopped them. They were now being followed and had to anticipate that the detective could show up anywhere at anytime.

  “Then maybe we need
to let her do our work for us,” said Ash.

  “What do you mean?” asked Hunter.

  “Grizzly is expecting you to show up. That detective is obviously interested in the farmhouse. She either knows a lot or a little, either way she has enough to go on to check it out. There’s no way Grizzly is expecting that. Let’s let her get there first. Let’s guide her there. And let’s make sure she shows up at just the right moment.”

  “That would mean Blair’s fate is in her hands, not mine,” said Hunter. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

  Ash stared at Hunter’s profile in the low light. The issue for Hunter wasn’t that Blair might be left vulnerable, or that her rescue was now at risk. Ash knew that the issue for Hunter had to do with killing. If the detective led the way, Hunter wouldn’t have the opportunity to murder all the men who had so viciously and heartlessly tortured her for nearly her entire life.

  “Sometimes you have to let someone else get their hands dirty,” said Ash.

  “How would we even orchestrate that? It leaves too much to chance. Ash, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “What if we sat down with the detective?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if we talked to her?” he said.

  “You mean tell her everything and let her deal with it?” Hunter asked, raising her voice. This conversation was making her angry. “We could’ve done that back in Brooklyn before all of this started. I could’ve done that years ago when I escaped. We would’ve done that if it were a good solution, Ash. It’s not. That’s why we haven’t.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, Hunter, but that woman has a screw loose. She’s not doing anything by the book. She probably shouldn’t even be here. Who knows what kind of vigilante mission she’s on.”

  “So to you that makes her reliable in terms of taking on the farmhouse?” Hunter challenged.

  “No,” he said. “It makes her an excellent pawn.”