Searching for Shadows, page 27
Nobody moved or spoke.
“Fine. I’ll take Connelly’s plane.” She pushed through the sea of bodies that had taken over her living room. Once she reached her front door, she glanced back toward the couch. Rebel standing at attention, ears perked. Alfie sat nearby, wagging his tail uncertainly.
“Come,” she commanded, and the two dogs followed her as she marched out the front door.
The cool morning air felt like a slap to her face. Around her, the world was waking up; birds chirped overhead. A family of deer grazed at the edge of her yard. Nature carried on as if nothing was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
The man she loved was missing.
Maybe dead.
No. He was alive. He had to be. No other option was acceptable.
Veronica climbed into her car, Rebel and Alfie leaping into the backseat. Her hands trembled as she swerved out of the driveway.
She never noticed the Ford Taurus pull out onto the road behind her.
chapter thirty-four
The sweet, pungent odor of aviation fuel and oil filled her nostrils as she opened the large doors to the hangar. The King Air 260 sat in the middle, right where they’d left it, gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
It was a gorgeous workhorse of a plane. More plane that Connelly needed, but he’d said he’d bought it for her. At the time, she’d thought it was ridiculous of him to drop several million on a plane that sat nine passengers and had a range of nearly two thousand nautical miles. But it handled beautifully and suited her needs now.
She ran her hand over the sleek wing, and tears pricked the back of her eyes as she remembered the last time she’d been here.
How he’d kissed her. Touched her. Woke up all the parts of her she’d thought long dead.
She would find him.
She wouldn’t let their story end this way.
The dogs whined and paced, matching Veronica’s own anxious energy. Alfie barked once sharply, and Rebel growled low in her throat. She was as ready to hunt as her human was.
Veronica quickly completed the pre-flight checks, noted the fuel level, and texted Ash, hoping he’d see it before she took off. She picked up Alfie to carry him up the steps to the plane, then called Rebel. The athletic dog bounded up the steps without a problem.
“I’ll be right back,” she told them before shutting them inside and crossing the hangar to the aircraft tug parked in the corner.
The crunch of tires outside had her pausing. She expected to see Ash’s Tahoe, Cal’s electric blue Camaro, or maybe one of the guys of Redwood Coast Rescue. Instead, it was a car she didn’t recognize.
A Ford Taurus.
The engine idled for a moment before finally cutting out, leaving an oppressive silence in its wake. She glanced around for anything she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. Only her, and the plane with her protection K9 shut inside, and the dark figure now stepping out of the car.
Jeremy Firestone.
The world went cold around her, vision tunneling down to just him. His face was half-lit by the security light, casting long shadows across his features and making him look even more sinister. Every memory of fear Veronica had ever felt rushed back at once. She struggled for breath, chest heaving like she was drowning.
But she couldn’t drown, not now.
Not when Connelly was missing, and it was up to her to find him.
Drawing on every ounce of courage she had left, Veronica stood tall and met Jeremy’s gaze head-on.
“Veronica,” he said with a smile, drawing her name out as if savoring it. “I thought it was time we meet.”
“Where’s Connelly?” She silently congratulated herself when her voice didn’t shake because her hands certainly were.
Jeremy smirked and held up his phone. There was a countdown timer on the screen, ticking away the seconds. “Facing his fears. He has about... five hours left, give or take. Less if he panics.”
“Five hours? Five hours for what?”
Jeremy’s oily smirk spread wider as he watched her, his dark eyes gleaming with wicked delight. “Doesn’t matter.”
Every fiber of her being screamed at her to run, to escape, but she remained rooted in place. She had to know where Connelly was. She had to save him.
“Where is he?” she demanded again, stepping towards Jeremy. His smile faltered for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jeremy tilted his head, his eyes narrowing in annoyance. “He was in the way, but we’re alone now, just how it was always meant to be. You’re my muse. You’ll be my masterpiece, and I’ll finally take my place in legend. I’ll finally become The Shadow Stalker.”
Suddenly, it wasn’t fear flooding her system but rage. It burned through her veins like liquid fire. “Like your dad?”
He scoffed. “Dad wasn’t the real thing. He hid behind the name. He didn’t understand its power.”
“Power? Jesus Christ. It’s a legend, Jeremy.” Her voice carried an edge that surprised even her. The adrenaline coursing through her was a bitter taste on the back of her tongue. “It’s not real. There’s no such thing as The Shadow Stalker, and you have no power.”
His lips curled into a snarl. She’d struck a nerve.
“You don’t believe there’s power in fear? Just ask Connelly Davis.” Jeremy’s smile returned, and she could see the glint of madness in his eyes. “Oh, right. You can’t. But he’d tell you there’s so much power in making others feel just how small and helpless they are. He got rich doing it. We’re a lot alike, me and him. He just expresses his dark side in a more... ah, socially acceptable way. I am truly sorry he has to die. I admire him.”
He prowled closer.
She held her ground, refusing to let him see her fear. “You and Connelly are nothing alike. He can distinguish between reality and fiction.”
A fierce anger blazed in his eyes, but something else flickered beneath the surface. Doubt? Fear? She couldn’t tell, but she knew for sure he was underestimating her. He saw her as a victim, as prey. He didn’t think she was a fighter.
He was wrong.
She took a step toward him. “And fear isn’t powerful. It’s weak. You’re weak.”
Something dark and dangerous moved behind his eyes. “Brave words.” He jabbed a finger toward her as he moved closer. “But you’re scared. I can smell it on you.”
“Being brave isn’t about being fearless. Fear keeps you alive. Connelly taught me that.”
“Let’s see how long that fear keeps you alive now,” he said, reaching behind him and pulling out a wicked-looking knife. The blade glinted menacingly in the dim light as he twisted it in his hand with the undeniable proficiency of a practiced killer.
Veronica could feel every beat of her heart, each thump echoing inside her head, but she took another step toward him, her eyes locked on the small aircraft towbar hanging on the wall just a few steps in front of him.
“Sure,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Come and get me.”
His laughter was a harsh, grating sound that bounced off the walls and echoed back to her. He lunged forward, but she was already moving. She stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the knife blade, and caught his arm in a lock exactly as Connelly had taught her during all of those hours of Judo lessons. In one smooth, seamless move, she used his own momentum against him and flipped him onto his back. He landed on the floor with a crack of his head against the concrete.
But he didn’t stay down.
She grabbed the towbar off the wall and swung it at his head as he struggled to his feet. The heavy bar made a sickening thud as it connected with his skull. She hit him again and again, and he slumped to the ground with a choked groan. He lay still, unconscious but breathing. His knife skidded across the hangar floor and came to rest at Veronica’s feet. She kicked it away and held the towbar ready in case he tried to get up again.
He didn’t.
But there wasn’t any time for relief.
Connelly was still missing, and the clock was ticking.
She tied Jeremy up, though judging by the blood leaking out of his glassy eyes, he’d sustained serious brain damage and wasn’t going anywhere except to maybe meet his maker.
Good riddance, she thought and grabbed his phone. The timer was still ticking down. She jumped on the tug, pulling the plane free of the hangar.
Once she was airborne, she set Jeremy’s phone on the plane’s console so she could see the clock and then called Ash from her own phone.
“Where are you?” Ash barked.
She ignored him. “Jeremy Firestone’s here.”
“What? Where’s here?”
“Hangar four at Sierra Skyfields. You’ll find him tied up with a cracked skull. He attacked me. I defended myself.”
“What?” Ash said again, anger and surprise warring in that one word.
“Did Jeremy have any more of Connelly’s books? Other than the one he stole from me?”
The line simmered with silent annoyance for several seconds.
“Ash!” she shouted. “Connelly’s running out of time.” She looked at Jeremy’s phone. Under four hours now. “I need a clue. I need… something. I don’t know. What books did Jeremy have?”
Ash exhaled in a rush. “All of them.”
“Did he write any notes in any of the others?”
“No. Just the one. Except...” He trailed off, and there was the sound of pages turning. “Wait. No, there are highlighted scenes in several of the books.”
She exhaled in a rush. “Okay. Jeremy said Connelly was ‘facing his fears.’ Do the scenes have anything in common?”
Ash was silent for too long. She wanted to shout at him to hurry, but she knew it wouldn’t help, so she bit her tongue. Alfie, sensing her unease, crawled into her lap. Rebel rested her big head on the seat next to Veronica’s shoulder. She gave them both a pet.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to them. “I’m okay. Connelly will be okay.”
“Yeah,” Ash said finally. “In every single highlighted passage, a character is—”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I write horror for a living. I’m afraid of everything.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“No, but really. What scares you?”
“My biggest fear? Being buried alive.”
“—buried alive.” Her choked voice joined with Ash’s to finish the sentence. “Oh my God. Jeremy buried him alive.”
And she’d never spot him from the air without radar.
“Holy fuck,” Ash whispered.
Every breath was suddenly filled with shards of glass. She swallowed, trying to keep her voice steady. “I can’t see anything from the sky. We need ground-penetrating radar. Do you have access to any?”
“Get back to the airport. I’ll have it there waiting.”
chapter thirty-five
Connelly woke with a start and instantly banged his head when he tried to sit up. He opened his eyes but saw a blackness so thick it felt as if he was drowning in it. He stilled his breath, listening. All he could hear was his own rapid heartbeat pounding in his ears and a steady thump, thump, thump from overhead.
Where the hell was he?
He remembered being in the Firestone’s house. He remembered finding his book on their coffee table, the chill of realization prickling his skin as he flipped through the pages and saw it was full of notes and signed to Veronica. Then there was a sound behind him, a sharp blow to the back of his head... and nothing.
No. Wait. Not nothing. He’d woken up once before in the back of a van. He’d still had his phone, had managed to call Veronica… tried to tell her…
What?
He couldn’t remember.
He winced as pain sliced through his skull and reached up to probe the sore spot on the back of his head. His fingers came away sticky with blood.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he rolled onto his side...
And hit a wall.
And another wall at his other side.
He moved his hands around in the darkness to gauge his surroundings. Cold sweat trickled down his back.
A box.
He was...
In. A. Box.
And that noise? That rhythmic thump, thump, thump. That was dirt hitting the lid.
It was right out of his nightmares.
Right out of his books.
Panic burst through him, rushing through his veins like wildfire, burning him from the inside out.
“Help!” he screamed, hammering his fists against the lid. It didn’t budge an inch. His voice was a raw echo in the small space, the sound bouncing back at him.
Okay. He needed to control himself. Panic wouldn’t help him now.
Calm down.
Connelly took a deep breath and held it as he tried to clear his mind. He needed to think, but the suffocating darkness made it difficult to gather his thoughts. Each breath felt more labored than the last. He tried to slow the rising panic with each inhale, each exhale. The air was getting thin, stale. If he wanted to survive, he needed to find a way out.
Suddenly, the thumping noise from overhead stopped. The silence was deafening. Connelly stopped moving and strained to hear past his own thundering heart and sawing breaths. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like he was alone.
The bastard had left him here to die.
And not even in an original way. He was just re-hashing what he’d already done to Lucy Harper.
Or, no.
Jesus.
Connelly realized his mistake then. He’d assumed Lucy had been the imitation of the buried alive scene because that was the second death in his book and she was the second victim. But Lucy hadn’t been buried. She’d been shot and left in a pitch-dark cave. Her fear had been nyctophobia—fear of the dark—the fourth death in the book.
Jeremy Firestone had saved the taphophobia scene for him. Because he’d told fucking told the whole fucking world it was his biggest fear every time he wrote it into a book.
No.
He wouldn’t accept this. He had jumped out of planes and survived wars behind enemy lines while caring for the injured. He could survive this. He would survive this.
He curled his fingers into a fist, drew back his arm as far as he was able in the confined space, and punched upward. Pain splintered through his knuckles.
Again.
Pain.
And again.
Nothing.
The box was harder than he thought, and with a sinking feeling, he realized that it was probably metal, not wood. His breath hitched in his throat, a terrified sob tearing from his chest as the reality of his situation crashed down on him. He was trapped, and each second that slipped by was one closer to the end.
“Veronica,” he whispered into the darkness. “I love you.”
He imagined her beautiful smile. Her soft touch. Her heated kisses...
If he died, it would devastate her. She’d never leave her house again.
Despair gnawed at his insides, but the fear morphed into a blinding rage. He was trapped, but he was not yet defeated. He slammed his fist against the box once again, then again, and again. Over and over until blood trickled from his already bruised knuckles.
Veronica had fought her demons, faced them head-on, and was winning the battle. He would do no less to see her again.
But seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into hours. His strength failed him, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep his eyes open.
Desperation sunk its teeth into his soul. He was on borrowed time, breathing borrowed air. His breaths grew shallow, quick, and he could taste the bitter tang of death in the back of his throat.
Veronica.
The name was a chant, a mantra, the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. She was waiting for him, he knew it. She was looking for him, just as he knew she would be. They had always found each other before, in spite of life’s efforts to keep them apart. This time wouldn’t be any different.
He had to hold on.
His fist hit the box again and again, but each strike seemed to echo back at him with mockery. The darkness pressed against him from all sides, a living entity intent on swallowing him up whole. The whispers of unconsciousness began to beckon him into its seductive arms, promising sweet oblivion. But he fought it, fought with every fiber of his being because he knew that if he succumbed... it would be the end. He knew a final chapter when he saw it. The irony wasn’t lost on him that he was facing his own end when his new book still didn’t have one.
Would it have been happy or sad?
Would he have ended it with hope or fear?
It should’ve been happy, he thought as he slipped into unconsciousness. Should’ve been a happy ending...
Overhead, Veronica circled in the plane and watched the rescuers dig. She couldn’t see much through the trees behind the Firestone house, but she could clearly see the metal coffin-sized box on the ground penetrating radar. She checked the phone still propped among her instruments.
The timer hit zero.
“Oh, God.” Air stalled in her lungs as she searched out the window for any sign that Zak and the others had reached him.
They were still digging.
“Zak,” she said into the radio, fighting to keep from sobbing. “You’re out of time.”
“I know,” came his gruff response over the static-filled line. There was a desperation in his voice that mirrored her own. “We’re going as fast as we can.”
The world seemed to move in slow motion. Every passing second felt like an eternity. She mentally willed them all to move faster, work harder. She wanted to be down there with them, scooping away handfuls of dirt, but if she had been on the ground, if she hadn’t thought to fly over the Firestones’ property, they never would have found him. They’d needed her to stay in the air to pinpoint his location until they got there. Now it would take too much time to land the plane and drive there. She didn’t want to be out of contact for even a moment.
