As she swerved around a bend and hit the logging road, a bullet shattered the back window. The woman screamed.
CHAPTER 45
Shitshitshitshit.Angie glanced into the rearview mirror, trying to see through the shattered back window. No lights followed. For now.
“Buckle up,” she barked at her passenger as she spun the wheel, skidding the Crosstrek through another bend, wipers flipping madly across the slushy windshield.
The girl or woman—Angie still couldn’t tell from her appearance—was shaking so hard she appeared devoid of any fine motor coordination as she struggled to pull the sheaf of papers out from where she’d stuffed them down her dress.
“Stick the papers in the glove compartment,” Angie snapped, hands tightening on the wheel as she took the Crosstrek around another curve, trying to remember exactly where along the logging road they’d lost cell reception. It was miles and miles away. She needed help, backup now. “Just put the papers in the damn glove compartment and get that seat belt on.” Whatever those papers contained could prove pertinent to this case.
The woman managed to fumble the pages into the compartment and buckle up.
“What’s your name?”
She began to cry. “No ... name.”
“You have no name?”
“Nameless. He said I’m nameless. Just called me ...” Her voice came out in dry rasps, as if unused to speaking. “December.”
“December?”
“He ... he took me in December. Other was ... was September. I ... I think there were more before. Signs of them in the cabin.”
“He tookotherwomen? He gave them names of the months in which he abducted them?”
She nodded and began to sob.
“Where did he find you?” The car skidded. Shit. She took her foot off the accelerator, tried to steer into the skid. The action took them almost over the edge. She corrected, getting them back onto the road. The river lay below. They’d negotiated the loop in the road and were now on the section that ran parallel with the Nahamish. It gave Angie a rough idea where they were—somewhere upriver from the falls. She peered into the rearview mirror again. Her stomach bottomed out.
Lights approached. Soft halos were coming through the mist. Two front lights and hunting spotlights across the top of a truck cab.The Dodge RAM.
It was coming fast, chewing up the distance between them.
Heart in her throat, Angie put her foot down on the gas. But the truck was faster, looming closer as she sped wildly along the slippery, rutted track. She had no doubt that this time the people in that truck would kill both her and this female. Desperation burned into her. Help was miles away. They’d never make it like this.
Her brain raced. Holgersen’s case. Possible ties to Sea-Tech. Freight. Delivery vans. Coveralls. The converted freight container on Axel’s property. December—this woman said she was taken in December.
“Are ... you Annelise Janssen? Is that your name?”
Behind them the lights grew big in the fog. Angie’s tires skidded again, and she felt the all-wheel drive engage. But she kept on the gas as they careened along the twisting mountain track with the sheer drop down to the churning river at their side.
The woman nodded.
Her pulse spiked. Fresh energy dumped into her system.
“He’s had you for almost awhole year? In that container? He took you from the bus shelter near the campus after you had a fight with your boyfriend?”
She nodded, whimpering, tears streaming down her face, her body shuddering. God, this woman was going to die if Angie couldn’t get her warmed up and into medical care quickly. She turned the heater and fan on full blast. “There’s a coat in the back.” Holgersen’s rain jacket. Angie’s heart crunched at the thought of him, the arrow through his neck. “Reach into the back, put it over yourself. Should be a hat there, too.”
The woman struggled to reach for the clothing on the rear seat while the car lurched. She managed to grab the gear, and she pulled on the hat, then covered herself with Holgersen’s black raincoat. Angie got a whiff of cigarette smoke off the coat, and tears seared into her eyes.
“Whotook you? Did you hear his name? Was it Axel? Or ... Wallace? Or Beau or Joey?”
Another bullet pinged into the back of the car. Shit. The Dodge came closer, closer. They fired again. The bullet hit the shattered back window, and it collapsed inward. The cold and wind inside the car was instant. Angie swerved around a bend. The truck came right up behind her. She saw the silver RAM letters. She saw a hand coming out of the passenger window, followed by a head in a red balaclava, then part of a torso. She saw the gun. The man fired.
The rear tire of the Crosstrek exploded with a loud bam. Angie gasped. The woman screamed. The car lurched into a hectic spin, crashing through brambles, hitting a tree, more trees, a rock, then tipping over the embankment.
