Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [168]
Don’t think about him. Push the attack out of your mind! It’s over.
But now that the image was planted, she couldn’t forget her assailant, how his hard, angry body had been as it pressed her to the concrete, how he’d smelled of some faint aftershave mingled with sweat and a trace of cigarette smoke. He’d been so big and strong ... built like ... the men she’d met today, her brothers! Some of them had that same strong, athletic build. Hadn’t she thought of Judd as a football player, and even Lance, Clarissa’s husband, had that same primal, nearly jungle cat–like quality?
The others?
What about Robert or Thane or the twins?
And they all had those cold blue eyes.
Heart pounding, breathing in shallow gasps, feeling the taste of fear in the back of her throat, she slid down the post, then crawled to the flashlight, scooped it up and after giving herself a quick mental shake, struggled to her feet.
You have to find Eli!
Shaken, she pulled herself together. Up the stairs she climbed.
Maybe he’d gotten out of bed and followed Trace to the barns. Perhaps he’d been disoriented . . . hadn’t he called her “Mommy”? There was a chance the medication had caused him to sneak downstairs and outside ...
How?
Wouldn’t you have seen him? Heard him?
This was ridiculous!
She needed help!
She threw on her coat, gloves, and boots, took the time to light the one candle she’d seen in the living room with an ember from the fire, then, with her phone clutched in her hand, she walked to the door and punched out Detective Alvarez’s number.
What would she say? She’d lost the kid? Trace hadn’t come back from the barns?
That was foolish.
She didn’t care.
“Better safe than sorry,” she said, looking through the windows, feeling the seconds ticking by as the snow continued to pile and drift. When the detective didn’t answer, Kacey hung up, didn’t leave a message.
Not yet.
She’d find Trace first, she thought, pocketing her phone and opening the door to the cold, dark night.
As she stepped outside a wall of cold air hit her so hard it seemed to strip any warmth from her body. Her skin chilled immediately and she wished she’d taken the time to grab a scarf and hat. Over the keen of the wind, she thought, again, she heard chains rattling, like those on an empty flagpole, or the clinking sound of shackled prisoners walking.
All in your imagination. Keep moving.
Swallowing back her fear, she followed the trail of footprints she’d seen earlier that were nearly covered now, but she kept after them, not toward the barns, but around the corner of the house, past a snow-covered rhododendron bush to the side of Trace’s home where more footprints had clustered.
It was impossible to confirm, of course, to make out anything definitive with the snow blowing over the area. Over the wind she heard the branch still battering the house. Looking up, forcing the dying flashlight beam skyward, she not only saw the pine slapping at the siding, she noticed one of those fire-escape ladders hanging from the window of the extra bedroom.
The ladder moved with the wind, its chains rattling like the bones of the dead.
Her heart plummeted.
She knew in a heartbeat that Eli, with his broken arm, had somehow slithered down this ladder and disappeared into the frigid, unforgiving night.
CHAPTER 35
Noreen Johnson had sunk onto the piano bench, her shoulders hunched together, but, Alvarez observed, hadn’t yet given up the fight. “For the love of God, Gerald, why couldn’t you keep your pants up! First Robert, with that awful Lindley woman ... and of course you had to hire him so that I could be reminded every single day of your betrayal and now ... now another one? How could you?” Her cheeks flamed red.
“What’s done is done,” Gerald said wearily. “We can talk about this later. For now, I think the detectives