Snapshot Page 2

  The body of a man lay there, twisted like a discarded rag doll, eyes just as vacant. Flies swarmed around his body. I was surprised that his face wasn’t bloated. I imagined that a dead body smelling like this would’ve shown more signs of decomposition. Yet his eyes were a clear bottle green, hair a dusky brown with gray patches over his temple. The cause of death: a bullet to his forehead.

  But that man had been tortured. His tormentor… and I say tormentor because someone had cut and flayed most of his body. Those wounds looked much older than the one between his eyes. Some had festered and leaked a green, oozing pus, all in varying stages of infection.

  I found myself fascinated. I stumbled, the dark thought rocking me to the core. But I was intrigued. Who would be strong enough to take this man down? He wasn’t small, easily a foot taller than me. He was well muscled, though, not quite fit.

  I don’t know what compelled me to do what I did next, but I lifted my camera to my face and pushed the shutter release. The snap of the shutter blades made my muscles tense like it was the sound of a guillotine’s blade. Flashes of guilt and intrigue warred within me like I’d just witnessed my first beheading. I took a step closer and clicked again. Again.

  I only stopped when the hand wrapped around my mouth, cutting off my ability to scream, and I was pulled against a hard body. It was then that I noticed the shovel and the half-dug hole next to the body. It was so stupid of me not to be more aware of my surroundings when finding a dead body in the woods. I pulled up my feet to kick at him. Fight. I was sure this was the killer and I’d just signed my own death warrant.

  Curiosity being the cause of my downfall was not surprising in the least. Especially as he dragged me backward through the trees, away from the dead man.

  Safety

  “Silencio,” a voice grated in my ear.

  I didn’t know Spanish, but I grew up in Texas. It’s hard not to know some words. I knew he was telling me to be quiet. He wasn’t the first person to make that mistake with me—to assume that I spoke the language of a Mexican based off my olive skin and my proximity to the country of my ancestor’s origin.

  “Voy a dejarlo ir ahora. No grites o el asesino te escuche,” he whispered.

  And though the meaning of his words were lost on me, the tickle of his breath on my ear and the tingle that followed its path rushed through me. The weight of his arm and the feel of his hard body pressed against my back calmed me a bit. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before, and the sensation stunned me.

  His muscles relaxed. “No voy a lastimarte. Estoy dejando ir ahora.”

  I shook my head, not sure if I was trying to tell him I still didn’t understand him, or if I was trying to dislodge his hand. Both urges were forefront in my thoughts. The other urge that reigned was to hurt this fucker for having his hands on me in the first place. He was definitely going to kill me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I’d been fighting my whole life to survive.

  He released me and stepped back. I didn’t scream. There wasn’t anyone to hear if I did, and it would be a waste of precious time. I barely registered the widening blue eyes because in a blink I spun, throwing my weight into it when I flung my giant purse at his head. It hit him with a heavy thud, and he stumbled back, trying to regain his balance. I stopped thinking and turned on my heel, running. His heavy footfalls chased me.

  His arm came around me again like a vise. He pulled me back and halted our forward momentum. I grunted, and his hand was back over my mouth again. He grunted as my elbow flew back into his gut.

  “You do not speak Spanish, do you?” he asked in a murmur.

  My eyes bulged at his stilted European accent. It was obvious in the way his voice rolled over the P sounds almost like it had its own syllable, but the rest of his words came out in a staccato rhythm. It sounded like a cross between the Russian and German accents I’d heard in movies before.

  I shook my head as much as I could in his grip.

  His lips grazed my ear as he spoke quietly. “You do speak English?”

  I whimpered as fear flooded my system, but gave a nod.

  His arms tightened before they relaxed a bit. “I will not hurt you, but you need to keep quiet. There is a man out here. The one who killed that man. Can you be quiet before you get us both killed?”

  I hesitated because I didn’t believe him, but gave a nod anyway.

  He spoke in hushed tones. “I think he heard you sing, but did not know where you came from because your voice echoes through the trees. He went that way.”

  He used the hand from my mouth to point. Using the distraction, I bucked hard and fell away from his grip. I stumbled and turned to face him. His sandy-brown hair was cropped close to his head, not the usual mullet or short waves or long stringy hair that I was used to seeing on most guys. And his eyes. His eyes were a clear blue, like sea glass. He wasn’t much taller than me, only a few inches, but I could see the hint of defined muscles underneath his clothes.

  The corner of his mouth tipped slightly like I’d spoken my assessment out loud. I frowned at him, but I didn’t run. There was no use; he’d only catch me again. And he didn’t seem interested in killing me at the moment, so I waited.

  “I will not hurt you. You come with me? I will show you.”

  He walked past me, motioning with his hand to follow him. I stood still. My mind warred with the intelligence of following a possible killer through the woods. He realized I hadn’t moved and turned back to face me. Our eyes locked across the distance. I could hear the whirring of my Walkman as it still played, but as I looked down at it, I realized that I’d lost the earphones in the struggle.

  I sighed as I hit the Stop button and unclipped it from my pocket, stuffing it into my purse. When I looked up, he was gone. Fear raced through my veins like wildfire. My heart kicked into overdrive as I spun in a circle. Expecting an attack, I brought my hands up in front of me. But when I didn’t see or hear him, I lowered them. I didn’t call after him. That would just be stupid. If he was the killer and he left me, then good riddance. If he wasn’t and a killer was out there as he’d suggested, calling him over would be even worse.

  The sun had set, but still lit the sky in shades of pink, orange, and purple. I could still see, for now, but I couldn’t follow it back to the car. Plus, I didn’t know how far offtrack I was after that encounter. I ran in the first direction my feet would take me, without thought. I pulled my compass out and moved quickly in the direction the car should be. Even if I was offtrack, I should be able to find the road. And I should be able to see my car.

  Should. Fuck this shit.

  This day had started out amazing; now I was traipsing around with a killer and a crazy man. And perhaps they were one and the same.

  As soon as the road came into view, I pocketed the compass. Just as I was about to breach the tree line, a hand landed on my arm. I gave a startled yelp, and the other hand clapped over my mouth. Then his face was in front of me, striking blue eyes imploring me. Releasing my arm, he raised a single finger to his lips. Quiet, his eyes said.

  He grabbed my hand and started leading me down the road, just inside the trees. He stepped carefully, making no noise, so I tried to do the same. I still didn’t believe his story, but what harm could come from going along that would be cured by running? He’d catch me; I knew that well enough.

  We walked about fifty feet before he turned to me and pointed at his eyes with two fingers and then pointed toward the road with the same fingers. I followed the direction of his gaze, and my heart stopped. There was a man walking around my car. He wore a green camouflage sweatshirt and jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. Despite the cap, I could see that he was bald underneath, and what I could see of his face were hard frown lines burrowed deep in his skin.

  A cold shiver ran down my spine. He was right. There was another person out here. But I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that one was the killer and the other was not. They could be working together. Though I didn�
�t know what this man’s motivations were for helping me.

  The man next to me released my hand and made hand motions, indicating he and I should walk the way we’d come, down the road away from my car. Under raised brows, his eyes begged for me to follow.

  Shit. I couldn’t make my mind up. I bit my lip as my brows furrowed, and I wrung my hands. I ran the scenarios through my mind, and in every one, I came up dead. But maybe I could give him a chance. If he was telling the truth, then it was my only way out.

  Reluctantly, I nodded. He grabbed my hand, and we were moving again, at a much quicker pace. Hearing the door to my car slam shut behind us had us full-on running.

  It’s a horrifying thing to put your life in the hands of a stranger. I don’t know how long we ran, but as we approached a clearing where a small farmhouse sat, the sky was an inky purple bruise.

  “We should go inside in case he followed us,” he said.

  I halted, the sound of his voice snapping me out of the blind panic that had fueled my run. I was breathing hard and gasping for air. I was not in any shape to run anywhere, much less run through the wood at dusk from certain death. Or toward it.

  A sharp pain in my shin made me hiss, and I suddenly remembered the cactus. I bent down giving myself a moment to think this through, looking at my leg which much resembled Pinhead from the Hellraiser movie. My hands hovered over it as I sucked in a breath, trying to decide which to pull first. I wasn’t one of those bimbos in the horror movies that stupidly trusted the stranger and walked into his house without thought.

  Gentle, long, lean fingers wrapped around my wrist, stopping me. “I have a first aid kit in the house. Let me take care of you.”

  His voice did strange things to my stomach, causing it to somersault inside my body. My lips parted, and I nodded. He pulled me to standing by the wrist he held and we started walking toward the house. Well, I was more or less limping, now that the adrenaline and shock had worn off. But whether I was headed toward safety or certain torturous doom… I would find out soon enough.

  First Aid

  The house was an old, dingy gray farm house, with a covered front porch and two stories to claim. It was small but still larger than my trailer. It sat in a clearing, flanked by a large red barn and a small shed-type building that sort of looked like it served as a garage. To my right, there was a fenced-in area that seemed to be a chicken coop with a small yard that was bare of grass or weeds, though it was quiet as night descended. But only a dirt drive broke the tree-line barrier that surrounded it from the outside world.

  When we stepped onto the front porch, he walked right in, stopping only to brush off his cowboy boots on the wiry porch mat. No locks, no key. No shouts of “Honey, I’m home.” He definitely lived alone, or knew that whoever else lived there wouldn’t be around to call on.

  I froze in the doorway. My knees locked up, and I watched from the porch as he walked to the kitchen to pull a wooden box from under the sink.

  He opened the box, pulling out bandages and other first aid implements. Only once he had everything he needed did he look up to find me standing in the doorway. His clear blue eyes locked on me, and his eyebrows raised in question.

  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. To voluntarily walk in and trust a stranger was beyond my skill set. The more I thought about it, the more the fear of him and his house grew to match the killer behind me and the dead body in the woods.

  “I don’t know your name,” I mumbled as an excuse, looking away.

  My eyes took in the rest of the space. It was quaint and comfortable-looking. The little living room area had a brown tweed couch and a blue recliner, with a crochet blanket and a quilt draped over the back of each. The walls were natural wood clapboard, except for the kitchen, which had wallpaper with what looked like tiny ducks in flight. There was brown shag carpeting throughout, except where it gave way to the linoleum in the kitchen. A short hall led off the corner of the back wall of the living room, probably to the stairs that led to the second floor. It didn’t look like the home of a psychotic man-torturer. Though I hadn’t been in many of those, so I wouldn’t really know.

  I sucked in a breath, startled when my gaze tracked back to his direction, and I found him directly in front of me. He moved in silence, which sort of freaked me out.

  “Xander… Novak,” he said, holding out his hand to shake.

  I eyed his hand warily, but eventually took it, answering, “Rosie Dominguez.”

  “Rosie.” The way my name rolled off his tongue with that accent sent a chill down my spine.

  If he never opened his mouth, I would’ve assumed him to be a simple cowboy. The Wrangler jeans and dusty boots, the flannel shirt and sweat-stained collar of his tee all fed into the illusion, but the accent was off. Hot European guys didn’t usually move out to the bum-fucked middle of nowhere, Texas, to play cowboy.

  “You want to come inside so I can get the needles out of your leg?” He struggled over the W in want, and it came out as a soft V, more like vant. But not in a Dracula way. It was definitely a German sound. A German cowboy?

  “Huh?” I jumped a little and met his gaze.

  His eyes held a hint of laughter, though he remained stone-faced. I was ogling him without forethought. My embarrassment had me stepping over the threshold while there was still that voice in the back of my head screaming at me that I shouldn’t. He shut the door behind me and locked it. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place made my shoulders relax a smidge, until he brushed past me, grazing my shoulder. My stomach gave a little flip at that.

  I hardened my resolve and followed him back to the kitchen.

  “Hop up,” he said, patting his hand on the counter next to his medical supplies. Refusing to put my purse down, I struggled for a moment before Xander stepped in. “May I?” He motioned to my waist and waited.

  My lips flattened out to a thin line as I pressed them between my teeth. I nodded.

  His hands circled my waist, and he lifted me up like I weighed nothing. Whenever he decided to kill me, I was so dead because he didn’t bat an eyelash or show any signs of strain at lifting another human, and I was a good buck thirty-eight.

  “Turn sideways and rest your legs up here.” He gestured to the expanse of counter next to me.

  I got stuck on the soft V of sideways. Sidevays. Then I snapped out of it and did as he asked, tucking my purse in my lap and resting my arms on it like it was a shield.

  “I’ll do the big ones first, but this will probably hurt. How about…” He opened a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of some kind of dark alcohol. He walked back, turning the label to face me. Jack Daniels. He raised his eyebrows. “You want to steel your nerves?”

  I didn’t know if it would have any effect on the pain or nerves, but it would probably calm my racing heart. He unscrewed the cap and held it out for me. I pressed the bottle to my lips and tipped it back. The liquid burned down my throat, warming my belly. After the second drink, I could feel a numbness spread over me. I was a such lightweight. I handed the bottle back to him, and he bent over my leg.

  His warm palm cupped my knee, pressing it gently against the counter so I wouldn’t jerk. He worked quickly, pulling them out with deft precision. Either his whiskey helped, or he had some skills. I barely felt the pull, and it was more relief to get them out than leaving them in. When he got down to the tiny microscopic hairlike spines, I could feel his breath roll over the skin of my leg. Goose bumps rose, causing those to hurt more. I sucked in an audible breath.

  “What were you doing out there?” I asked, to distract myself from his work.

  He kept his concentration and focus on my leg as he continued to work. “I walk the property every day. Not much else to do. Chicken husbandry and car repair can only hold your interest for so long.”

  “That’s all you do every day? Where do you work?”

  “I do not work. I am retired.”

  My mouth formed an O as my brows rose. I looked around.

  “
You don’t have a TV?”

  “I do in the bedroom,” he answered. “But I’ve watched all my tapes more than I care to admit.”

  A slight blush colored his cheeks, but it was gone just as quick. I blinked several times, thinking I imagined it.

  “There. All done,” he announced.

  I looked down at the rectangle of gauze taped onto both shins. He did a nice job, almost like he was a pro at this. I relaxed a little. A killer wouldn’t patch you up before killing you, right? It was then that I noticed the phone hanging from his kitchen wall next to a door I assumed was a pantry.

  “We should call the sheriff,” I say.

  “Sorry. We cannot do that. The phone line does not work. It has been down for a week now. I am waiting on the phone company to send someone out to fix it. It is hard to get anyone out this far.”

  I studied his face, looking for a hint of a lie, but found none. “I imagine so.”

  I was tempted to jump down and grab it to see for myself, but that would be rude—if he wasn’t a killer.

  “You have a car, then. Could you give me a ride?”

  His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “My truck is not working.”

  “You’re stuck out here? Alone?”

  “Normally, I do not mind it so much. It is what I moved here for. To be alone.”

  I thought back to Joanne and Billy—what brought me out here in the first place. It was quiet. Peaceful. We weren’t so different, were we?

  “I am sorry. I can help you get back to your car in the morning. You are welcome to stay in my guest room. There is a lock, from the inside, if you do not feel comfortable with me. You will be safe there.”