Last Seen Alive Read online

  When Rusty had finally slunk down the stairs, his father had been sitting in an armchair reading the evening newspaper. “I brought home some hamburgers from one of those drive-through places,” he said, not looking up from the newspaper. “They’re not very good, but at least they’re filling. I’ve already phoned in an ad for a housekeeper. It will

  take a while to find someone suitable, but it can be done, even in this town.”

  And Rusty had neither seen nor heard from his mother ever again.

  He hadn’t loved his mother, but he’d been fascinated by her beauty, her bold sensuality, her clingy clothes, her don’t-give-a-damn attitude. She’d intrigued him, even though he knew she was as contemptuous of him as his father was. Sometimes, though, she hugged Rusty, kissed him on the mouth, and outright fondled him in front of Owen. Rusty had known she was only doing it to make his father mad, but he’d loved those sexually charged strikes at Owen anyway. When she left, Rusty had felt desolate because he knew no one would ever fondle him again. He’d also wondered what had happened to her. Had she simply outrun his father that night and gone on to live the kind of life she’d always wanted?

  Or had his father—his domineering, strong, emotionally storm-ridden father—caught up with his escaping wife and she’d never gone anywhere? What if his mother, not Zoey Simms, had actually been the first of Black Willow’s “lost girls”?

  Rusty began to tremble and nearly ran to the drawer in his nightstand, searched wildly for the bottle of Valium he’d had in his hand not twenty minutes ago. When he finally found it, he popped another one into his mouth with shaking fingers. Then, as he choked while trying to swallow it dry, he stuck another pill in his mouth before rushing into the bathroom and drinking cup after cup of tepid water.

  He went downstairs and slid a CD of classical music into his stereo system. Unfortunately, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto: Adagio filled the room, the same song that had played repeatedly in the “slumber room” where Nancy had lain right before her funeral. Rusty nearly broke the stereo, punching buttons wildly until the drawer holding the offending Mozart CD emerged. He grabbed out the CD and slapped it down on a tabletop, knowing he was scratching it but not caring. He, who was always so fussy about how his CDs were handled

  and stored, didn’t care if he defaced this one. He hated it. He’d never listen to it again. Never!

  He got control of himself before he snapped the disc in two, then looked at his collection for something with better memories. But he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t remember what songs he liked and didn’t like. He grabbed up a CD his father had given him last Christmas: Great Waltzes. It had been Owen’s only Christmas gift to his son and Rusty hated it. He decided to force himself to play it tonight, though, almost as a punishment.

  After inserting the CD, Rusty nearly ran to the kitchen and found a bottle of sherry. His father said sherry was an old lady’s drink and looked disgusted whenever he caught Rusty with a glass in his hand. But Owen wasn’t here tonight. Owen was with Rex.

  For the time being, at least.

  Rusty poured the golden sherry into a glass and drank nearly half of it without stopping to take a breath. The liquor hit his stomach like a bomb, and for a moment Rusty thought he was going to vomit. Then his stomach slowly stopped cramping while the sherry spread through his system, warming him, easing him. “Nectar from Heaven,” he said aloud, then almost slapped a hand over his mouth. His father hated when Rusty uttered what Owen called “sissy” phrases like that. Owen. Owen Burtram, always so perfect, so manly, so oratorical in public. In public. In private … well, that was a different matter. Defiantly, Rusty looked around his empty kitchen, raised his glass, and almost shouted, “Nectar from Heaven!”

  He expected a rush of power to surge through him after he’d bellowed that phrase. Instead, he felt silly. Silly and small and scared. He closed his eyes in misery for a moment, then wandered back into the living room, glass in one hand, bottle in the other.

  The room felt stuffy. He looked at the thermostat, which read eighty-four degrees even though it had been set to keep the room at seventy-two. Dammit, he thought. Furnace on the fritz again. Tomorrow he’d have to call the place that

  fixed things like furnaces—he couldn’t remember the name of it now—and have a repairman come out for the second time since the new furnace had been installed in September. And he would refuse to pay them, he thought rebelliously, even though the last time the workmen had come, they’d told him the furnace was under a year’s warranty and therefore he owed nothing. He supposed it was still under warranty.

  However, this time they would try to charge him, he arbitrarily decided. Yes, they’d try to charge him a bundle. Rusty took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes into what he thought were dangerous slits. Well, they’d get a surprise! He wasn’t a pushover like everyone thought. He’d put them in their place. He’d report them! Report them to whom, he wasn’t sure, but the threat of being reported usually scared workmen to death. He’d seen his father use the tactic a hundred times.

  Mentally practicing the tirade he would turn loose on the furnace repairmen tomorrow, Rusty unlocked and opened one of the sliding glass doors an inch. Cool air leaked into the room. It felt so good on Rusty’s sweaty body that he slid the door open another inch. That felt even better. That felt just fine.

  He wobbled over to the couch just about eight feet directly across from the open door and sank down on it. He was now nearly deafened by “Carousel Waltz” and he knew he should turn down the music, especially with the door open—neighbors and all—but he couldn’t seem to make himself move from the couch once he settled onto it with his sherry. The Valium was beginning to work, the effect of three pills heightened by the sherry. Rusty took another gulp of the sherry, almost choking on it. “It’s not an old lady’s drink!” he declared to the empty room. “It’s a gentleman’s drink!”

  The music roared on. Rusty emptied the bottle of sherry. Then, slowly, he felt sleep creeping up on him. Thank God, he thought. Sleep. Oblivion, at least for a little while. He slumped on the couch and his head fell sideways onto his shoulder. He dreamed of his mother, looking him up and

  down with her lazy, sloe-eyed gaze, and even in sleep he felt a thrill.

  Maybe the sudden silence had awakened him, Rusty thought as he jerked to attention on the couch. Great Waltzes had mercifully ended and Rusty’s CD player didn’t simply repeat the same CD until it was removed. When a CD was finished, the player shut down. Otherwise, Great Waltzes could have gone all night. That could have caused a neighborhood uprising, Rusty thought, giggling at the scenario of the house under siege because of his father’s favorite CD.

  After Rusty stopped giggling, he struggled to sit up on the couch, yelping as pain shot through his neck, which he’d twisted in his sleep. He was also cold. He must have slept longer than he thought and the temperature had dropped, because the air coming in through the open sliding glass doors wasn’t crisp, it was downright cold.

  Rusty staggered to his feet and weaved across the room to the glass doors. One living room lamp burned behind him, casting his reflection on the glass and preventing him from seeing outside. He opened the door farther and leaned out to see that frost had turned the grass spiky behind his house. Damn, it had gotten cold tonight, he thought as he retreated into the home, then pulled the door shut. He was clicking the lock shut when he thought he heard a movement behind him.

  Rusty looked up. He thought he saw a reflection in the glass—a large, hazy form a few feet behind him. Just as he started to turn around, he heard a rushing noise before something slammed into his body with such force he crashed through the sliding door and landed in a sea of shattered glass and sharp, frost-sheathed grass.

  “My head,” he muttered, although his head wasn’t the only thing that hurt. His entire body seemed to sting. “Death by a thousand cuts,” he murmured, remembering the phrase from a movie he’d seen long ago. The phrase had sent a chill over him at the time. M
aybe it had been a premonition, he thought for a moment. But just for a moment. Then the instinct for

  self-preservation took over. He was badly hurt. He knew that. He needed help.

  Rusty tried to call out, but his voice was weak. No lights in neighboring houses came on. Perhaps everyone had stopped paying attention to noises from his house after the blasting music that had lasted for nearly an hour. I need a phone, he thought in a growing fog of pain and confusion. Have to get inside to a phone and call 911 while I can still make sense.

  Rusty reared up slightly, then nearly screamed as he felt warm blood flowing from his scalp into his eyes. His eyes. He lifted his right hand and gingerly touched his forehead, where he could feel the long slice about an inch above his eyebrows. His stomach roiling, he tried to wipe some blood away from his eye area, then place his hand tightly over the laceration to prevent more blood loss. Still, he could feel the warmth seeping between his fingers.

  Supported by one elbow, he tried to rise even farther, hoping he could clamber to his feet. He could make it into the house, he told himself, even with his eyes closed. And the phone was right next to the sliding glass doors. Thank God. He could make it to the phone—

  “Going somewhere?”

  Rusty nearly screamed as a voice rumbled above him. He stifled back the embarrassing sound. An instant later he thought that might have been a mistake—maybe someone would come to his aid if he screamed, no matter how girlish he sounded. Then, intuitively, Rusty knew that screaming would end his life instantly. “Please,” he murmured.

  “Please, what?”

  “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” said the voice in a mocking, mincing tone before returning to normal. “Did Nancy say please? No, I’m sure she didn’t say anything when she fell. That rock knocked her into immediate unconsciousness.”

  Rusty tried to swallow and couldn’t. His throat muscles worked as he tried to stifle humiliating tears. His eyes were filling up again with blood and he tried wiping them clear so

  he could at least look his attacker in the eye, at least be that much of a man, but there was too much blood. Too much.

  Someone stooped down beside him. “God, you’re a mess. And after all that plastic surgery, too. What a heartbreak, kid.” Suddenly Rusty felt something sharp, surely a long shard of glass, slide neatly along his neck, under his ear, and around to his throat. “You should be glad you’re going to die, Rusty, because believe me, no plastic surgeon can help you now. You’re going to look like the goddamned monster you are.”

  Rusty collapsed back onto the cold, stiff grass. A monster. He’d tried so hard to make his parents love him, always to be polite, to work hard at a job he hated, to act as a good person, even if he knew many people would find his peccadilloes disgusting. He even had spent thousands of dollars and undergone painful surgeries to look like the handsome son his father wanted. And it was all going to end here in his own backyard with him slashed, bloody, and repulsive.

  Rusty could feel blood spurting from the carotid artery in his neck. He closed his eyes, oddly surprised that he didn’t care that he was bleeding to death. In fact, he was oddly peaceful, almost glad that it would soon be over.

  Yes, death would be a gift, he thought almost giddily in his last moments of consciousness. Death would be the wonderful gift of freedom, because he wouldn’t have to try anymore.

  2

  Deirdre had expected to feel a rush of exultation if she managed to free her feet of the duct tape. When it finally gave way and she pulled her feet apart, though, all she’d felt was exhaustion. I’m going to sleep now, she thought dully. I’ve worked for hours and I’m cold, worn-out, and so sleepy. I deserve to sleep.

  “Don’t sleep!” an ephemeral voice nearby seemed to order urgently.

  But I’m so tired, Deirdre mentally answered the urgent if ghostly voice. I’m too tired to move.

  “Don’t give up. Stay strong for a while.”

  Deirdre moaned, thinking, I don’t know you.

  “Trying to help. Chyna trying to help.”

  Chyna? Deirdre wondered. “Chyna Greer?”

  “Chyna … trying to find you.”

  Deirdre shut her mind to the voice, marshaling her energy, her focus. She lay facedown, still as death, for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, rolled onto her left side, pulled her knees to her abdomen, rolled back to her original position, and rose up on her knees. Then she placed her right foot on the floor and slowly, stiffly, stood up, weaving for a moment as she tried to get her balance on stiff, cold legs she hadn’t used for probably close to twenty-four hours. At least, Deirdre hoped it had been at least twenty-four hours, because that would mean it was night again. She was afraid to try to escape in the day. She believed she could only get out here, wherever here was, and make it to safety in the dark. If her abductor happened to be close by, he could be on her in minutes if it were light out. Night was her only refuge, her only hope.

  If only I could have gotten my hands free, Deirdre thought in frustration. Then I could have gotten this duct tape off my eyes and seen where I was going. Escaping blind is impossible. No, it might be impossible, she said mentally, trying to adopt a bit of the confidence of the ephemeral voice she’d heard earlier. The voice had urged her to make an effort to escape because Chyna Greer was trying to help her. Deirdre was aware that the voice might have only been a hallucination, but it had still given her a morsel of faith. At this point, she was willing to believe someone like Chyna actually might be able to find her. Deirdre didn’t know why she thought this, except that when she’d met Chyna, she’d felt something. What was it? Some kind of weird kinship?

  You’re losing your mind, Deirdre thought as she staggered around the building that held her captive. But if I’m going to die, it doesn’t matter if I lose my mind, she mused. It doesn’t matter one bit.

  Abruptly she banged into a piece of equipment. She and it crashed to the floor with a clatter. She had no idea what she’d fallen over, but the sound it had made against the concrete let her know it was metal. She would have tried to discover what it was if she’d had use of her hands, but she wasn’t going to waste precious energy rolling over and exploring the object with her bound hands. All that mattered was that she wasn’t seriously hurt. She was shaken up and something had jabbed at her right thigh, but she didn’t think she’d even been cut. She was lucky. Lucky.

  I’m lucky, she kept telling herself as she slithered off the metal object and managed to get her footing again. I’m a very lucky girl. I will get out of this. I will get out!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  1

  “The Whippoorwill Grille?” Chyna asked as Scott pulled into a gravel parking lot. A long wooden building sat in front of them. Every window glared with a neon beer sign. Country music roared from the inside. A few people stood on the long porch outside, holding beer bottles and laughing uproariously. “Isn’t this a madhouse?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never been here, either?” Scott asked in feigned shock.

  “I haven’t.”

  “Boy, you really were all work and no play when you were a teenager.”

  “I was not! But this place has a bad reputation. You’re always reading about patrons getting in bar fights and Hell’s Angels come here when they’re in town, and there’s even a wet T-shirt night.”

  “Yeah. It’s great. Got your T-shirt on?” She looked at Scott, slightly shocked. “Close your mouth, Chyna. I didn’t bring you here to compete. Besides, this isn’t even wet T-shirt night.”

  “Well, thank goodness!” Chyna exclaimed. “Do you really want to go in here?”

  “Yes, I really do. You’ll enjoy it, Chyna. Don’t be such a prude.”

  “I am not a prude.”

  “Then come in with me, have a couple of beers, dance to some music, and forget your troubles for a while.” She hesitated. “Look, not only isn’t it wet T-shirt night, I don’t even think we have any Hell’s Angels here pr
esently, not that there’s anything wrong with them. In fact, they usually make things even livelier.”

  “I’m sure,” Chyna said drily. “What about Michelle?”

  Scott looked in the backseat. “She’s sound asleep. Snoring even.” Chyna double-checked. He was right.

  “I don’t know …” Chyna still demurred.

  Scott sighed hugely. “Well, if you’re going to be a stick-in-the-mud, we can go back to your house and brood and wait for more eerie phone calls.”

  Chyna was already opening her door. “Not on your life, Scott Kendrick. I’d even compete on wet T-shirt night rather than go home right now.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Scott said enthusiastically.

  When he opened the roadhouse door, Chyna was hit by a barrage of light, cigarette smoke, the smell of beer, and the sound of loud music. She looked around to see a country band playing on a dais. The lead singer was obviously trying to be the next Shania Twain, with flowing brown hair and a midriff-baring top. She seemed oblivious to the fact that even heavy makeup couldn’t hide that she was in her late fifties, and her short top revealed a wide, flabby waist whose loose skin hung over the top of her tight pants and jiggled when she bounced along to “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” Nevertheless, she looked thrilled to be singing her heart out, and at least a third of the crowd inside danced to her music with abandon and sang along with her.

  “Wow, have I been missing this all these years?” Chyna said into Scott’s ear so he could hear her over the noise.

  “Yeah, you have. Great, isn’t it?”

  Chyna started to say something sarcastic, then noted Scott’s happy expression. She hadn’t seen him look this jovial, this carefree, since she’d come home. “Actually, it

  does look like fun,” she yelled back at him. “Shoulder your way up to the bar, cowboy, and get us a drink.”