The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [393]
He was on his feet in an instant. “It’s all right. It’s okay, you’ve found me. I’m an FBI agent. It will be all right.” He left his SIG in his belt harness for now. She was so terrified she was heaving, speaking fast and high, hysteria smearing her words like thick grease. “The man, he’s in the house! He’s trying to kill me. Oh God, help me!”
She threw herself against him. Savich was startled for just a moment, then he took her arms and gently drew her close, patting her back. She wasn’t wearing a coat, not even a sweater, only what appeared to be a light summer dress with thin straps. “It’s all right,” he said against her hair. A young woman, not more than thirty, he thought, but so frightened she would collapse if she didn’t calm down. He tried to soothe her, but it wasn’t working. She kept saying over and over again, her voice breaking, her terror slamming him in the face, “The man, he’s in the house, he’s trying to kill me. You’ve got to help me!”
The same words, over and over, nothing specific, no names, nothing more than what she’d said since she’d run out of the woods. Her voice was hoarse now, but her hysteria kept building. Her eyes were dark, wild, and terrified.
He clasped her face between his hands and looked right in her eyes. “Listen to me. I’m a cop. You’re going to be all right. I’ll protect you. Just tell me, where do you live?”
“Over there.” She threw a wild hand in the direction off to their left.
“All right, is the man still there?”
“Yes, yes, he’s there, he wants to kill me.”
“It’s okay, just hold yourself together. I’m going to call the sheriff.”
“No, please, please, help me now, you’ve got to, take me back to the house, the man’s there, please! Help me!”
“Why do you want to go back there if someone is trying to kill you?”
“Please, you’ve got to take me back. You’ve got to get him, stop him. Please!”
Savich drew back, held her arms in his hands and stared down into her white face. Her eyes were very dark, and her face was so white he thought she was going into shock. “The sheriff,” he said, but she jerked away from him and began running away, off the main road.
He caught her in an instant. She fought, sobbing, the wild frenzy bubbling out of her, until he said, “All right. I’ll take you back home. You can trust me. No, don’t try to move. But it would be stupid for me to go there with you alone. I’m calling for help.”
He held her by one arm, pulled out his cell and punched in 911. She made no move to get away. She stood docile and quiet beside him, saying nothing. The phone didn’t work. But that made no sense. He’d spoken to Sherlock just a half-hour before, calling from the very same spot. He tried again. The cell was as dead as those shriveled carrots he’d just brought. It made no sense. He tried one final time. Nothing. What was he to do? “My cell doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t.”
“You’ve got to help me.” He looked down into her white face. There was no choice. He could haul her into the car and drive to the sheriff’s office, but he knew in his gut that she’d fight him like a madwoman. He saw her urgency, her fear, pumping off her in vicious waves. “Listen to me. I’ll take you back to the house. It will be all right. Come back to the car with me.”
He moved the bag of groceries into the back seat, then helped her into the car, fastening her seatbelt. She whispered “thank you” a dozen times, maybe more, over and over. In that moment, there was no doubt in his mind that someone was trying to hurt her. He shook his head at the vagaries of fate. All he’d wanted was a nice long weekend where he could go for walks in the woods with his wife and his son, teaching him how to tell a spruce from a pine, and now he was back on the job. He turned the heater on high, but she didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t even seem to be cold.
“Where do you live?”
She pointed to a side road, up off the main road, to the right. “Up there, up Clayton Road, please hurry. He’s going to kill me, he’s waiting, he’ll—”
Savich drove, turning onto Clayton Road, narrow,