The Prey Read online

  “We’ll see.” He grinned.

  The videotape started rolling again. The baby picture stayed on for another minute, before switching to a picture of Bobby, Melanie, and Rachel. A portrait, taken at the shopping mall. Bobby was three or four, Melanie a year younger, and Rachel a baby.

  They were three beautiful children, Bobby fair, Mel and Rachel dark-haired like their father. Young, happy children.

  Bobby didn’t look cruel. But was any four-year-old capable of knowing he was going to grow up and kill his family? Kill innocent human beings in his warped sense of vengeance and revenge?

  Bobby didn’t pause the pictures. Several snapshots of the three oldest MacIntosh children rolled across the screen. At birthday parties. At Christmas and Easter and wearing their Sunday best. Playing in the yard, in the park, having a tea party in the backyard.

  Rowan searched Bobby’s eyes for the turning point, when he had changed from a happy little boy to a murderous thug who terrorized his younger siblings.

  Then she saw it. Not in Bobby, but in Melanie and Rachel.

  They were young girls, four and six or so, and Rowan saw their eyes change. Bobby’s didn’t. Bobby looked the same. But one snapshot of Rachel showed fear as she glanced at him, the photograph preserving her emotion for all time. Another showed Mel hugging Rachel. It could have been the sweet scene of two sisters embracing; instead, Rowan saw anger in Mel’s eyes and tears in Rachel’s.

  Had their mother known? Had she known what Bobby did to her other children? She would have had to, Rowan thought. Rowan remembered many times when her mother had told her to take Peter outside, away from Bobby. All the times Mel had taken them for ice cream. The sullen look in Rachel’s eyes whenever Bobby had been in the same room.

  Her mother had known. Yet she kept them all in that house. Knowing Bobby terrorized them. Taking the abuse of her husband yet welcoming him in her bed. Rowan would never understand her mother. She couldn’t hate her, though she wanted to. After all, she was dead. Murdered by her abusive husband.

  They were all dead.

  Except Bobby and her. And Peter, Rowan thought gratefully. Peter was safe in Boston.

  If Rowan died at Bobby’s hands, she would die knowing Bobby hadn’t won. Peter was alive. And because Bobby thought he was dead, he was safe.

  The images started flashing by rapidly, pictures of Mel and Rachel and Mama. Where had they come from? As she watched, she realized that the same ten or so pictures repeated. Over and over. They looked familiar to her, but why?

  Her photo album. He’d found her cabin in Colorado and stole the one thing she had left of her family.

  Suddenly it stopped on Mama’s bloody body.

  Rowan screamed, then closed her eyes.

  Bobby whipped her across the neck and she winced. “Open them!”

  “Go ahead, whip me to death! I don’t care!” She tried to control her pain and anger but couldn’t.

  “Open them, or your lover will be next.”

  Her eyes shot open and she glared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Though Bobby didn’t know it, John was dead. He’d never have left Tess.

  She quickly blinked back her tears. She couldn’t think about John now. She wouldn’t be able to focus on what she needed to do.

  Bobby leaned back, smirking, tucking the whip into his lap. “Yes you do. Watch.”

  Stone-faced, preparing herself for more bloody images of the family she loved, she stared at the television.

  Music started. Loud, surrounding her through speakers in all corners of the room. Some unidentifiable rap tune with verses that highlighted the word “kill” and a beat she felt in her gut. She wanted to vomit.

  Mama’s picture was in black and white. The shades of gray did nothing to mask the terror of the scene. The blood almost black against the pale gray of the linoleum, arcs and splatters across the too-white cabinets, the stark lighting giving everything an unreal feel, like a bad B-movie.

  Mama was followed by a picture of her father taken recently. His dark hair gray, his eyes vacant, empty, hollow. Bobby must have taken it when he visited Daddy. He looked just like Rowan remembered seeing him last week.

  Then Mel and Rachel, together, smiling. Then lying dead and bloody in the foyer.

  Kill, kill, kill the bitch!

  Rowan shivered at the lyrics, wondering how Bobby had obtained the crime-scene photos. She almost laughed out loud. She could hardly believe he’d escaped from prison and had found a fool to replace him. Stealing crime photos would be child’s play.

  Peter at five, his kindergarten photo. Then Peter dead.

  No, not dead, Rowan reminded herself. He wasn’t dead.

  There was a photo of a cop carrying Peter out of the house. Peter wore his dinosaur pajamas and they were covered in blood. It was Dani’s blood, not his. Dani’s blood. But Peter’s eyes were closed and his mouth was open and he appeared lifeless.

  The image changed to Dani. Dani. A whimper escaped her throat but she forced herself to look. Beautiful Dani as a baby. As a toddler. At three, playing tea with her stuffed animals.

  Then the small body bag. Somehow, the black bag was worse than seeing her dead again. So generic, so sterile.

  Rowan didn’t know she was crying until her cheeks felt hot and damp.

  Her tormentor grunted. “I never understood why you liked that little crybaby so much. Oh, well, she’s dead and buried, isn’t she? You couldn’t protect her. What’d you do? Put her body in front of yours? So she’d die in your place?” Bobby barked out a laugh, and Rowan wanted to strangle him with her bare hands. She had never hated anyone so much in her life. Black fury burned as she steadily worked on the ropes that bound her, careful not to let him see what she was doing.

  The music changed to the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” the upbeat tune paradoxical to the gruesome photos that followed.

  A bloody body massacred, cut into bits, lying in a Dumpster. It took Rowan a moment to realize this was Doreen Rodriguez. Bobby had taken pictures of his crimes. Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed it back.

  The florist, stabbed to death, pretty blonde hair matted with blood.

  The Harpers. The little girl while she still had her pigtails. The mom staring dead into the camera.

  Pretty Melissa Jane Acker, raped, strangled, her body left spread-eagled in the signature style of Rowan’s fictional killer in Crime of Corruption.

  “You’re sick,” she muttered.

  Bobby laughed, and her fingers continued working on the ropes. Were they looser? She thought so. Her fingernails were raw and wet with her blood as they broke in her quiet fury.

  Then she stopped.

  Michael.

  He was half lying, half sitting against the wall in what she presumed was his apartment, his chest a bloody mess, his eyes unfocused. Dying.

  A sob escaped her throat and Bobby said, “I thought you were screwing him. But you’re the ice princess.” His tone was mocking. “Ice cold, no feeling. The press didn’t like you. I don’t think you’ve made any friends now, have you?”

  Michael. He didn’t deserve this. None of them did. “You fucking bastard,” she whispered. “I’ll kill you!”

  The whip stung the back of her neck again and she felt warm blood ooze down her back.

  “You’re hardly in a position to threaten me, Lily Pad.”

  The videotape rolled. Images of Tess. John. Roger. Herself. Many taken from the vacant house next to hers. Roger in Washington. Tess going into her apartment.

  He paused it.

  “Well, she’s in a bazillion pieces, or burned to a crisp. Either way, your lover’s sister is dead. Along with Roger Collins. Asshole. He deserved it. His fucking mocking attitude, thinking he was so much better than me. Well, I showed him, didn’t I? Didn’t I?” Bobby lashed out with the whip again, this one cutting across her arm.

  “Yes, you sure did.” Oh, Roger! I’m so sorry.

  “I was going to get
his stupid wife, but didn’t have the chance. Now it won’t be any fun to knock her off. So, I guess she’s going to live.” He sounded almost sad.

  “You are sick,” she said quietly. That they shared the same parents, the same blood, made her nauseous.

  “No, Lily Pad, I’m not sick.” He paused the videotape and turned to her. “Look at me.”

  She did, her hatred for Bobby filling her soul.

  “Our father is sick,” he said, his voice bitter with hate. “Weak, pathetic, sick. Stupid fuck let that woman pussy-whip him into getting her way every fucking time. When he finally stood up to her and slapped the bitch down, he cried and apologized. Of course she forgave him. What’s one bruise when she had whatever she fucking wanted? If he’d only showed her who’s boss, she’d never have gotten away with screwing around.”

  “She didn’t. That’s your own twisted logic.”

  “Oh, Lily, you are naÏve. Dad finally confronted her that night. They were in a huge fight when I walked into the kitchen. Dad pounding on her and I thought finally, he was going to kill her.”

  “What?” Rowan wasn’t sure she was hearing Bobby correctly. He saw their father kill their mother? But—hadn’t he come in later?

  “You heard me. I told him to kill the bitch. And you know what the fucker did? He hit me.”

  Bobby sounded surprised. Rowan was stunned.

  “So I did what he never had the balls to do. Took Mama’s biggest knife and sliced her open. And he just watched. Stupid fool.”

  “You? You killed Mama?” Rowan’s stomach dry-heaved. She’d seen her father with the knife. Saw him kneeling over Mama’s body. Saw him drop the knife. Watched as Bobby walked in and said The bitch is finally dead.

  “Of course I did. He’d never do it. All he ever did was beat up on her and then cry and apologize and whine. Over and over. I was sick and tired of it. I’d have killed him, too, but he wasn’t putting up a fight. Just knelt there and picked up the knife and held it. Lost it completely, by the look of him.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “You think I’m sick? What about you? I’ve read all of your books, Lily. All of them. You came up with crimes so horrific I was shocked.” Eyes wide, he splayed his hand across his chest in mock surprise.

  “Really, Lily,” he continued, “your mind is twisted. I only did what you are too weak to do. Made your fantasies real.”

  She turned from him, hot with rage she couldn’t act on. She started working the ropes again. Almost free. Patience, Rowan. Patience.

  He’d killed their mother. Her father was no murderer. It was Bobby. She hadn’t seen her father stabbing Mama, but assumed it because she’d walked in right afterward and he had been holding the bloody knife.

  But it had been Bobby all along.

  He started the video again and demanded she watch.

  Running on the beach. Taken from this house. “I never understood why you run on the beach when there’s a perfectly good gym two miles up the road. It’s cold, and that awful smell of kelp and salt. Fucking gross.” Then a picture of her and Michael on the beach. Then her and John.

  Then her and John on the stairs leading up to her deck. John’s hand was on her cheek. She remembered that moment. When she first realized there was a connection between them.

  I love you, Rowan.

  She willed herself not to show any emotion. It was so hard not to break.

  Then the image changed and she was kissing John again, in the dining room. The picture was fuzzy, taken through the window, but it was obvious they were in a passionate embrace.

  Her stomach rolled at the thought that Bobby had watched an intimate moment between her and John. That he’d photographed it.

  She still felt John’s phantom kiss on her lips. She’d take that last taste of him to her grave.

  Bobby stared at his little sister. “Well? Do you have anything to say?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come now, Lily. You must be all torn up inside. Knowing that you’re responsible for the deaths of all those people. Doreen. Gina and Natalie and Kimberly Harper. Michael Flynn, your stupid-ass of a drunk bodyguard. He was practically crying in his Scotch that night. Pussy-whipped, just like Dad. Pretty much accepted the fact that you and his brother were doing the dirty deed and he should step out of the way.”

  What? Michael had actually talked to Bobby? But he wouldn’t have known Bobby from a stranger; they’d just been two guys drinking at a bar.

  Rowan squirmed with frustration. “You asshole! You know nothing about Michael or anyone else. You’re going to rot in hell, you pig.”

  Bobby laughed, feeding on her rage. “Oh, yeah, bring it on, babe. Bring it on. I knew that ice-cold exterior would melt. I’ll bet you’re just itching to get to me. After I break your scrawny neck, I’m going to shoot your lover in the back. Seems fitting, doesn’t it? Sort of a re-done ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Too bad you won’t have time to write about it.”

  She leapt from her seat, hands free. She launched herself at Bobby, oblivious to the sting of the whip across her chest. She didn’t realize a scream came from her lungs until she heard it, loud and ringing in her ears.

  She had the element of surprise. She put her arms together and swung them at the side of his head. He fell out of the chair with the force of her blow, swearing.

  She lunged at him and grasped his neck, pushing her thumbs hard into his windpipe. He thrashed and kicked, throwing her off him. She tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her legs and pulled her back.

  Screaming in anger and pain, she fought to escape.

  “Bitch, you’ll pay!” He slammed her head into the floor. Her vision blurred. He flipped her over so she faced him, then slapped her. “You’re going to die. Then I’ll get your boyfriend.”

  He swung, missing as she kicked him hard in the groin. He grunted and she scurried away, running toward the door.

  She had it open, but he slammed it closed behind her and knocked her down.

  Then she saw it. The fireplace.

  She crawled toward the fireplace and he kicked her.

  “Oh, this is too much fun!” Bobby yelled. “Run again.”

  He kicked her in the side. She hissed, sucked in her breath. A sharp, knifelike pain dug into her side. She lost her breath and willed herself to breathe again, focus. Control.

  He pulled her up, his breath heavy and ragged. She stared into familiar blue eyes, eyes filled with a wild, sick pleasure. A slight smile turned his lips up.

  Bobby took a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at her face.

  “Run,” he said, laughing. “Run!”

  John jumped from the car before Agent Thorne stopped and ran down the sloping driveway. There was a crash from inside, and then the door swung open and he saw her.

  Rowan. The dim streetlights cast odd shadows on her face; then he realized it was blood. A man loomed behind her and slammed the door shut.

  He’s killing her.

  Peter was right behind him by the time John reached the door. He turned the knob with his left hand, his gun in his right. The door was unlocked and he swung it open.

  “Run!” he heard MacIntosh scream at Rowan.

  “MacIntosh!” John yelled.

  Bobby swung around, blood streaming from the side of his head. He had a gun.

  Rowan slipped from his grasp and stumbled into the brick fireplace, her head hitting the hard surface with a sickening thud.

  John’s heart jumped as he watched, out of the corner of his eye, Rowan fall. He didn’t take his gaze off of Bobby.

  “I was going to get you next,” Bobby told him. “Now Lily can watch you die.”

  John started to pull the trigger when Peter stepped from behind him.

  “No, Bobby.”

  “Peter! Get back!” John snapped, trying to block the priest with his body.

  A hint of recognition flickered across Bobby’s face. “No. It’s not possible. You’re dead. I saw you.”

  “You saw w
hat you wanted to see,” Peter said. “This must end now. No one else needs to die, Bobby. Put down the gun.”

  Bobby’s features twisted in rage. John kept trying to maneuver in front of Peter, but the damned priest wouldn’t stop moving.

  Rowan moaned from the fireplace as she tried to sit up, and Bobby’s attention momentarily wavered. John rushed him.

  Bobby caught sight of the movement and turned, firing his gun at the same time. The force of the bullet struck John’s right arm and his gun flew from his grasp.

  Bobby laughed and took two steps over to him. “Now you die. And it’s even better than I thought—Lily Pad can watch her lover die. Oh, Romeo.” Bobby aimed.

  “And then him.” He sneered, jerking the gun toward Peter. “You were supposed to be dead!”

  Peter stood in the foyer.

  “Bobby, stop this insanity. Now.”

  Peter’s voice was firm, strong. Rowan opened her eyes. Peter? What was he doing here? Her vision was blurry, clouded. She fumbled around for something, anything to defend herself with. To defend Peter.

  John was unarmed, blood dripping from his arm. Shot. But he was alive. A huge weight lifted from her heart and soul. John hadn’t been killed in the explosion.

  Everyone I love dies . . .

  Not anymore. Bobby’s killing spree would end here. Tonight. Now.

  “What, preacher man, you going to send me to hell?” Bobby spat out, waving the gun between Peter and John. “Whatever happened to forgiveness?” He barked that cruel, wild laugh he had. It grated on Rowan’s mind, her head pounding, echoing. She shook it, trying to regain her full senses.

  Weapon. Weapon. She spotted John’s gun, but she had double vision. She tried to focus, but it was too far away.

  “Bobby, you must want forgiveness. You have to be repentant.”

  Again, that wild laugh. “You want me to be sorry? Okay, I’m sorry.” He giggled. “Sorry you were all born.”

  Rowan finally felt something solid. Metal. Glancing to her right, she saw she was holding a fireplace poker. She tightened her grasp. She had only one chance.

  The two men she loved—John and Peter—would die if she didn’t succeed.