I won’t do it.
He wanted Maria back, but he wasn’t about to give up the woman he needed more than air.
Help’s coming. The bitch’s words replayed through his mind as he ran through the tunnel. He wanted to go back to her. Wanted to play with Agent Hollow some more.
She’d done so well at keeping quiet.
Until he’d stabbed Fiona. Then Agent Hollow had cried out.
She should be punished for that. She’d broken the rule.
He’d planned to leave her in the dark. The dark made his prey afraid. It was the silence and the darkness that broke them so quickly.
Then he’d heard…Help’s coming. That was what she’d whispered to Fiona. He realized what a f**king fool he’d been.
Cadence had been too confident. Too certain. He had to get out of there. Had to check to see where McKenzie was.
He can’t be here.
As soon as he was sure Cadence’s words were a lie, he’d be back for her.
He’d finish what he’d started.
“Are any of the others alive?” Cadence asked as she bent over Fiona. Her fingers were at the other woman’s throat. Feeling the pulse struggling to beat.
Fiona’s breath wheezed out.
“Are the others alive, Fiona?”
“Jud…”
Judith isn’t alive any longer.
“Are others in these caves? Are more girls here?”
She felt the slow shake of Fiona’s head. Her pulse was even weaker beneath Cadence’s fingertips.
I have to get her help.
Cadence surged to her feet. She walked forward, with her hands out, movingly blindly in the darkness.
Trapped.
The blackness was so complete. Not a hint of light.
Every ragged breath seemed magnified.
Her hands scraped against rocks. The side of the cavern. She started walking around, moving her hands up and down as she tried to find an exit. A way out.
Wood.
Her breaths were even louder now as she slapped her hands against what she prayed was a door. But there was no knob on the door. Just old, rough wood. She shoved against the door.
It didn’t budge.
Again and again she hit the door. Pounding.
Then Cadence remembered…
Thud. Thud.
The sounds that had drawn her to Lily in the dark.
Lily had been trapped. Desperate. But she’d kept hitting out, kept making the thuds that had led Cadence and Kyle to her.
Cadence hit the door again and again.
She wasn’t just imagining what it was like to be a victim anymore.
She was one.
But Kyle was coming for her. She’d guide him to her location, the same way Lily had pulled them in.
Cadence lifted her bound hands and rammed them into the door.
Again and again.
She didn’t care if the sounds alerted her captor. If he came back in, she’d attack him with everything she had. Cadence was not going to just wait in the darkness, not just sit in the silence like a good little girl while Fiona died.
She drove her hands into the door.
I didn’t scream.
Cadence did. She screamed as loudly as she could.
Kyle froze when he heard the sounds. Pounding, like a hammer. Echoing. Sound traveled so well in the cavernous darkness.
Cadence.
He lowered his light to the ground. Made sure no trip wires were in place.
Then he f**king ran toward the sound.
The others were right behind him. Dani, who never went in the field but had stayed with him for Cadence. Heather and Randall. Two more cops trailed in the rear. They knew just how close they were to their prey.
His light hit a door. Old, wooden, with heavy slats running its length. “Cadence!”
The pounding stopped.
He saw a thick, metal latch and shoved it aside. It groaned as it slid free.
Then he shoved open the door.
His light hit Cadence—and the blood covering her. She stood just a few feet from the door, frozen like a statue.
“Baby.” He grabbed her, pulling her close, his hands running over her desperately.
He couldn’t find her wound.
“Fiona,” she whispered. “We have to get her out!”
He turned. Dani had already found the other woman. Her flashlight bathed the still figure on the floor. The figure with blood soaking her shirt, and a knife still stuck in her chest.
Dani reached out a tentative hand. Touched the woman’s throat.
“She’s still alive,” Cadence said, speaking quickly, desperately. “We can help her.”
“She’s dead.” Dani’s soft voice told them.
A hard sob choked in Cadence’s throat. “It’s Fiona! She just wanted to go home!” Then Cadence yanked away from him. “He’s still here! He was just here! We have to find him!”
They were going to find the SOB. No, he was. Cadence needed to get to safety. “Dani, take Cadence out of here. I’ll keep heading through the tunnels. I’ll find the bastard.”
“No!” Cadence’s shout. Then she didn’t wait for him to argue. She lunged away from him and ran through the door. Heather hurried back, but she moved too slowly. Cadence grabbed the flashlight from the woman’s hands and fled deeper into the caverns.
“Cadence!” The echo of his shout reverberated as he raced after her.
She didn’t stop at his call.
Was she even looking at the ground? The bastard had planned to cover his tracks before. Why not this time?
“Cadence! Look out for trip wires!”
She didn’t slow. He saw the light bobbing as she ran.
He kicked up his speed, getting closer and closer to her.
He reached out his hand, but before he could grab her, she fell, tumbling down, face first, and he knew she’d tripped on something.
Kyle expected the explosion to rock through those caverns at any moment.
He expected hell to come calling and he threw himself toward Cadence. He’d protect her with his body. Maybe she’d make it out alive.
Only no explosion came.
A sob broke from Cadence. “I found them.”
Her light had fallen to the ground, too, and its beam focused in the middle of the tunnel, on the object that had tripped her.
A skeleton.
No, not just one skeleton.
His own light flashed down the tunnel.
One.
Two.
Three.
The bones stretched in the darkness. A deadly trail.
The victims were now found. Bones. A graveyard in the dark.
But where was the bastard who’d done this to them? Where?
Kyle pulled Cadence to her feet. Held her close. She was shaking against him. Trying to jerk free. “He’s here! We have to go after him!”