Endurance - Jack Kilborn [24]
Mal shrugged. “Well, I’m tired and I need a shower, and there’s no place else to go, so let’s give it a shot. What do you say?”
Deb didn’t like it. She didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t on the map. She didn’t like the creepy manager who suggested the place. And she didn’t like Mal’s sudden enthusiasm for driving off the main road and into the woods.
What do I know about Mal anyway?
She hadn’t asked him for ID or credentials. He smooth-talked his way into her car, and now he had her out here, all alone, in the middle of bumblefuck. Hell, maybe there was no inn at all. Maybe this was some scheme Mal cooked up with that manager guy.
Then a very bad thought hit her.
What if that strange man who slapped the hood hadn’t done that to the deer?
What if Mal had done it?
Mal was covered in blood. And he had a few minutes from the time he left the car to the time she saw him…
“You look freaked out,” Mal said. He reached out to touch her arm, and she flinched away.
“Let’s keep our hands to ourselves, okay?”
He backed off, fast. “No problem. Do you want me to hike over there, check it out first?”
If this was all part of his plan to abduct her, what was to stop him from lying and saying everything was fine?
She stared at him. Hard. He was cute, charming, and seemed to be bending over backwards to accommodate her.
Of course, all of those same things could have been said about Ted Bundy.
“Let’s go back to the hotel, Deb. I’ll grab Rudy, and you can have our room. That’s what I should have done in the first place. Then I could have interviewed you over dinner, and we wouldn’t have almost hit that guy, gotten soaked in deer blood, and then wound up here, on the set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 8.”
It was funny, but she kept a straight face without much difficulty. “Do you have a press pass?”
“Sure.”
“Can I see it?”
Mal seemed to study her, then he reached for his back pocket. He pursed his lips.
“My wallet is in the trunk. In my other pants. Look, if you’re still mad about me touching your prosthetic legs, I was just trying to be friendly. I knew I was going to ask some hard questions, and I didn’t want you to think I was a jerk.”
So he hadn’t been flirting. He’d been softening her up before the interrogation.
Deb went from paranoid to hurt.
That’s when the rear tire exploded with the sound of a thunderclap.
Deb’s eyes went wide as Mal lunged at her, his expression crazed as his fingers wrapped around her neck.
Felix hadn’t ever dwelt on the necessity of good hygiene, but its importance overwhelmed him when John climbed into his truck.
The hunter reeked.
It was a pungent stench; body odor, sour milk, and some sort of perfume that smelled like the soap his father used. Sandalwood. Felix tried breathing through his mouth, but it left a lingering taste on his tongue, so he opened his window and inhaled the air coming in.
“Am I going the right way?” he asked quickly before turning back to the window.
John didn’t answer. Felix flipped on the interior light. John’s eyelids were drooping, and his jaw hung slack as he stared straight ahead.
“John? Are we going in the right direction?”
“Huh?”
“The Rushmore Inn. Is this the right road?”
John scratched his hairless cheek with dirty fingernails. “Yeah. It’s right up here. Pull over.”
“Where? Here?”
“Yeah.”
There were no crossroads. No buildings. It was just highway and forest.
“There’s nothing here, John.”
“Driveway is hard to see.”
John still had that vacant look on his face. Felix wondered if the guy was crazy. Or taking some sort of drugs. But on the off-chance that John was telling the truth, Felix pulled the Chevy off the road and onto the grass.
“Okay, now what do—”
The hunting knife was at Felix’s throat so fast he felt it before he saw it, the blade pressing against his Adam’s apple, forcing him against the headrest.
“Here’s what we gonna do, Mr. Type A. You gonna climb out, slow and easy, and then we takin’ a little walk in the woods. Your blood ain’t no good, so I won’t have no problem spillin’ it.”
The knife was incredibly sharp.