Chapter Thirteen
LEXI WOKE UP with a godawful headache and a sore neck. She squinted against the light, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to figure out where she was. She remembered Lambert jabbing her in the arm with a needle then lowering her to the floor…then nothing.
She opened her eyes again, more slowly this time. She tried to lift her hand to push her hair back from her face, but it wouldn’t move. Frowning, she shook her head to clear the last remnants of unconsciousness from her head and realized she was tied to a chair, her wrists bound behind her back. Panic surged through her as she discovered her ankles were secured to the legs of the chair as well.
Heart thudding, she struggled against her bonds. Lambert was the killer, not Patton. He was the one who’d taken the other bodies to do heaven only knew what to them, and now he had her. She had to get free.
But no matter how hard she yanked, all she accomplished was abrading her wrists. Whatever was holding her to the chair was too strong for her to break, and too tight for her to slip out of. Her fingers and hands were already numb—so were her feet, for that matter. How long had she been down here?
Lexi took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She was a paramedic, for heaven’s sake. Freaking out wasn’t going to help anything. She needed to figure out where she was and what kind of immediate danger she was in.
With that in mind, she lifted her head and let out a startled yelp, almost tipping the chair over as she tried to get as far away as possible from the disgusting scene set out before her.
In front of her was a meticulously set dinner table, complete with a white linen tablecloth, fancy silverware, and a holiday dinner. There was even a big turkey sitting in the center of the table. It looked so perfect, she almost thought it was fake, but the smell couldn’t have come from anything but a real bird. Along with the turkey, there were the traditional holiday fixings—cranberry sauce, gravy, vegetables, and biscuits. There was no way she’d been unconscious long enough for someone to cook all of this…right?
But it wasn’t the food on the table that really attracted her attention. That privilege was reserved for the three dead people sitting around it with her.
Wayne Moore sat to her left at the head of the table, dressed in a retro mint-green leisure suit. Debra Wallace sat to her right at the other end of the table. She was wearing a red velour dress, her hands closed in prayer on the table in front of her. Jessie Strickland sat across from Lexi. He wore a T-shirt with Rocky and Bullwinkle on it, his lifeless eyes fixed on the turkey. Beside Jessie, another place was set at the table, but there was no one seated in the chair.
Lexi looked away from the eerie tableau and down at her plate. That was when she realized she wasn’t wearing her DF&R uniform anymore, but a white ruffled peasant top and flower print skirt. Knowing Lambert had undressed her while she’d been unconscious was almost as disturbing as waking up to find herself sitting at a table with three dead people. Had Lambert done anything else to her while she was out besides dress her? And how long would it be before she ended up like Wayne, Debra, and Jessie.
It took everything in her to not lose it completely and start screaming her head off for help. Lexi had never considered herself a person prone to panic. In fact, because of her occupation, she’d always prided herself on maintaining a level head. But that was before she’d been drugged, kidnapped, stripped, and redressed, tied to a chair in a semi-dark room, and posed like a doll in an episode ofThe Twilight Zone. The only thing stopping her from screaming was the knowledge that if she made a sound, Lambert would probably come back. She really didn’t want that.
She forced her attention away from her dead companions and looked around the room. While the single chandelier positioned perfectly over the turkey on the table illuminated the tableau, it left much of the remaining space around her in shadow. The lack of windows and the heavy wooden stairs disappearing upward into the pitch darkness were a dead giveaway that she was in a basement, even though basements were as rare as hen’s teeth in this part of Texas.
Lexi could make out two couches, a recliner, and a huge console TV to one side of the room, and beyond that, there was a small fish tank with water gurgling in it. She wasn’t able to make out any details, but the whole thing looked like it came out of the 1970s.
She turned back to the silverware on the table in front of her, wondering if she might be able to somehow use it to get loose, when she heard the thump of footsteps on the stairs. She jerked her head up to see Lambert coming down the steps. He was carrying a big bowl of mashed potatoes, and he smiled when he saw her.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said as he set the bowl down, positioning it just so on the table. “That’s good. I was so worried the food would get cold while we waited for you.”
The man’s voice was so completely casual and conversational that it made goose bumps rise on Lexi’s arms. The urge to scream for help crept up again, but she pushed it down. Whatever she did, she couldn’t provoke him. Maybe then he might not do anything drastic.
“You killed these poor people,” she said softly.
He straightened, drawing himself up. “It was necessary. Besides, no one will miss them anyway.”
Lexi’s blood went cold. “Are you going to kill me?”
Lambert smiled warmly at her again, like he had that day when he was comforting her over Wayne’s death.
“Of course not dear,” he said. “I’m going to save you from the fire.”
She swallowed hard. “What fire?”
“The fire I have to start,” he said in that casual, almost serene voice as he moved about the table, carefully adjusting Wayne’s tie, gently patting Debra’s hair into place, positioning Jessie’s knife and fork just so. When he was done, he looked over the three dead people at the table then at Lexi. “Everything has to be perfect, like it was before. But, this time, I’ll save all of you.”
That’s when it hit her. “Oh God. Your family died in a fire, didn’t they?”
Lambert didn’t say anything. Instead, he spooned out food carefully onto the plates, positioning the potatoes, green beans, and dressing as if getting them ready for a photo shoot. Then he picked up a knife and slowly carved the turkey.
“I was young, little more than twelve,” he said in a voice so soft Lexi could barely hear him. “It was Christmas, and I was over at a friend’s house, playing with the new toys we’d both gotten.”
Lambert paused for a moment, staring off into the darkness of the basement, his eyes far away. “It’s funny. I can remember in clear, vivid detail what every member of my family was wearing that day, but I can’t remember my friend’s name. Strange, isn’t it?”
He turned back to the turkey, carving as if he didn’t expect her to answer. In reality, Lexi wasn’t quite sure he was even talking to her.
“It was getting dark when I finally ran home to have dinner, but I was still able to see the smoke billowing up from the back of the house as I approached. I thought it was coming from the fireplace, so I didn’t pay attention to it. Not until I reached the front yard and saw the flames through the windows.” Lambert placed perfectly cut slices of turkey on the plates. “I ran through the front door, shouting for them, but the heat was so intense that I had to stumble back outside. I ran around the back and went in that way. That time, I made it to the living room. I saw them sitting at the table. They weren’t moving.”
