The Masked Man Part 20

"At the Foresters' lake cottage."

He hung up. He wasn't far from the Foresters'. He could be there faster than the sheriff's department could get there. And unlike the deputies, Mac knew what to expect when he got there.

AS SHE STEPPED into the dark cottage a little before eight-fifteen, Jill sensed Mac near her-just as she had that first time. Only now something was different. At first she didn't know what. Then she caught the faint scent of his aftershave.

Mac hadn't worn aftershave that first night. In fact, she couldn't remember ever smelling it when he was around her. He always smelled of soap and sunshine.

"Mac?" Her voice sounded tight, nervous even to her. She heard the scuff of shoes on the tile floor. He was close. Close enough he could touch her. She felt a chill, a combination of desire. And fear. Something felt wrong. She'd been so excited that Mac had come back. Excited he'd wanted to make love again in the cottage. That he'd changed his mind about the two of them.

She stepped back, banging into the door she'd just closed behind her. "Mac?" The urgency in her voice seemed only to send her fear escalating. "Turn on a light. You're scaring me."

There was a whisper of sound in the pitch blackness, then a light flared from the corner, momentarily blinding her.

She blinked. "You're not Mac." She was feeling for the door handle behind her, her blood pounding in her ears, and yet she was telling herself there was no reason to be afraid.

The man before her was no homeless person off the street. In fact, he looked as if he belonged here. He wore gray jeans, a white polo shirt and deck shoes, and he was sprawled in a chair, a gla.s.s of red wine next to him on the end table.

"Sorry if I scared you," he said. He seemed amused, rather than upset, that she'd just walked into the cottage. "I'm a friend of Alistair's. I'm staying here tonight, keeping an eye on the place. I was just enjoying watching the lake in the dark," he said as if antic.i.p.ating her question, and smiled. "I can see you're disappointed that I'm not this Mac you were looking for. Sorry."

She was the one who was sorry. And confused. Where was Mac?

The man rose gracefully from the chair. "I don't think we've ever met." He held out his hand. "I'm Nathaniel Pierce and you, I know, are Jill Lawson." His smile broadened at her surprise. "I've seen you around and heard volumes from Alistair. He's quite a fan of yours."

She tried to relax, but felt strung tight as piano wire as she reached for his hand. She told herself it was from her disappointment. Her surprise to find someone other than Mac in the cottage. In the dark.

His larger hand enveloped hers and she felt a jolt of something like...fear. Her gaze flew up to his. She knew she'd never met him before, but something about Nathaniel Pierce seemed familiar. "I should be going." She tried to free her hand, but he held on to it.

"So soon? What if your...Mac shows up? Why don't you join me in a gla.s.s of wine while we wait for him?" His gaze held hers as securely as his hand trapped hers in his.

"No, thank you. Maybe he's waiting for me by the house."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Jill."

A shaft of ice cut down her spine at the change in his voice. She'd heard the voice before. Her heart hammered in her ears. He was pulling on her wrist-just as he had fourteen years ago that night beside the lake road. The night he'd tried to give her a ride.

"No!" She brought her free hand down hard on his wrist, breaking his hold, and bolted for the door. But he was right behind her. He hit the door with his palms, slamming it shut with a thud, one hand on each side of her.

"Did you like the roses?" he whispered.

She didn't breathe. Didn't move.

"You know, I'd forgotten about you," he said in that same whisper. "It had been so many years. You were the only one who got away. Really messed up my summer. Quite a few of my summers. I had to leave after that, get rid of that car. I did love that car."

She remembered the car and him. It had taken her years before she could sleep without a night-light because of him.

The realization made her fear spike. It hadn't been Trevor who killed those teenaged girls. And those years when no girls had disappeared were when Nathaniel had been gone. Her legs were jelly. She had trouble taking her next breath. There was no one around but them. No one to hear her scream. Nathaniel Pierce had killed all those girls. She'd been the only one to get away.

And now he'd caught her.

"I didn't know who'd robbed me until Heddy was telling me about the antique ring Trevor had bought you. She knew I'd always been interested in jewelry and had some expertise-I'd taken enough of it off girls' dead bodies." He laughed, a bloodcurdling sound. "Heddy wanted to know what it was worth. She was probably wondering where her son had gotten the money for such a ring. I almost laughed in her face."

He pressed Jill closer against the door with his body, his face next to hers. "I asked what other presents her dear son had given you. She told me about the silver charm bracelet. She thought it was sweet. Sweet. Sweet. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was giving you jewelry that belonged to my girls, the jewelry I'd taken off their bodies after I'd...enjoyed their youth, their innocence, their last moments of life." The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was giving you jewelry that belonged to my girls, the jewelry I'd taken off their bodies after I'd...enjoyed their youth, their innocence, their last moments of life."

She shuddered.

"What else did Trevor give you from my stash?"

She shook her head.

"Don't lie."

It had been dark that night when the car stopped to pick her up. She hadn't really noticed it-nor had she seen the driver's face in the dark. Later she recalled there was no light inside the car when he'd stopped for her. He had turned off the dash lights. He would need to work in the dark.

He crushed his body against her. She could feel him reaching for something. The next thing she knew, he slapped a wet rag over her mouth and nose. She fought the smell. She fought him. But not for long.

JILL AWOKE to a blinding white light. The pain in her head a.s.sured her she was not dead. That and the rock of the boat and the sound of him breathing over her.

She closed her eyes tightly as the light moved closer and she felt his hands on her again. It wasn't until he'd lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the boat that she opened her eyes and saw that he wore a headlamp.

As she followed its beam, she saw where he'd brought her. Her heart dropped like a stone.

The old mansion on the island stood stark against the night sky. Suddenly she couldn't get enough air through her nostrils. She began to panic, her breathing shallow. Tiny flecks of light danced before her eyes. She was going to pa.s.s out again.

He stopped, shifted her in his arms to free one of his hands and ripped the tape from her mouth.

She gasped at the pain and began taking large gulps of night air. Sobs rose from her panic and she was crying and gasping.

He carried her up some stairs, the steps groaning under them from the weight. The smell hit her first. Rotting decay. Then the whine of the wind as it moved restlessly through the empty structure.

She'd feared where he was taking her the moment she'd seen the house. All the years of hearing the stories about Aria Hillinger. Her beauty. Her tragic life. And worse, her tragic death. The stories about people hearing a woman's screams coming from the island. Jill's blood turned to ice when she realized those had been real screams over the years. Young women who'd been carried up these same stairs to their deaths.

He put her down on the edge of the fourth-floor balcony, but his hand remained on her neck, his fingers biting into her flesh. The railing was gone.

Jill was so close to the edge she could feel the wind blowing up the side of the house into her face. All he had to do was straighten his arm and let go of her neck and she would be airborne. This time, the fall would kill her because she would land in the rocks below, not in the water. Not in the water as she had when Arnie had thrown her off the cliff. Oh, G.o.d, Arnie. It had been Pierce after him. Arnie had saved her life.

The wind blew back her hair, stole her breath. She tried not to panic. Tried to think. But she knew as she teetered precariously on the edge of the deck that she stood no chance of besting this man physically.

It was clear he had stood here many times before. That alone terrified her. How many other women had stood here, knowing they were going to die? Jill could feel their fear as keenly as she could feel the evil inside these walls. Women had screamed for their lives. Just as she would scream for hers.

MAC REACHED the cottage, saw Zoe's Beetle parked near the Foresters' dark house. No other cars. Pierce must have come by boat.

Mac was out of the pickup, running down the hill to the cottage, knowing he was too late when he saw the dock empty. He burst into the cottage, anyway. Would Pierce expect him to come back? Mac doubted it. Pierce thought he knew him so well. Pierce thought he would run from a woman like Jill Lawson as fast as his pickup would take him.

No, Pierce wouldn't expect him.

The cottage was empty-except for Jill's purse. Mac picked it up, held it to his face, the soft leather smelling of her perfume.

Why had Pierce left her purse behind? For the same reason he'd sent the roses and note? To make everyone think Jill had gone to the cottage to meet Mac? When she disappeared, the sheriff would be looking for Mac-not Pierce.

He rushed out to the dock. He and Pierce had stolen a few cars in their youth. Hot-wiring a boat would be a piece of cake. He jumped into the fastest of the Forester boats. Within minutes he was roaring across the water, headed for the island. He'd remembered something Pierce had told him about his mother one night when he'd been drunk and his defenses down. The next morning he'd sworn it was a lie.

But even then Mac had heard a ring of truth in Pierce's story.

"Katherine isn't my real mother. My real mother killed herself when she was young," Pierce had said. "Really young. My father doesn't think I remember her, but I do. I used to stand on the balcony with her. I used to worry that she would try to jump. She could never have reached the water from the fourth story."

"Did she jump?" Mac had asked.

"No. She hung herself."

JILL HEARD Nathaniel Pierce take a breath and watched him look out at the lake as he began to speak. It was some sort of a ritual, she thought.

"She was so beautiful," he said. "Childlike. She used to stand here and look out at the lake. She loved this room. I would stand here with her. Her hair was long and blond and she smelled of summer and something sweet like strawberries. Her arms were slim and she wore a bracelet my grandfather had given her. A tiny silver bracelet."

Jill's throat closed. Aria Hillinger. My G.o.d, he was talking about Aria Hillinger. Gooseb.u.mps skittered over her bare skin. Nathaniel Pierce had been the child. The child believed to have drowned or starved to death on this island.

"She loved me," Pierce said. "She was so sweet and innocent. You would see it in her eyes, as if her life was just beginning and nothing could hurt her."

He looked at Jill and she knew the ritual was almost over. Her fear spiked, a shot of adrenaline that sent her heart into overdrive.

Those other women, had they fought? Had they tried to talk him out of killing them? Had they believed that they could come up with a way out of this?

"He found me," Pierce said. "My father. He'd finally come to save her, but it was too late. So he never told a soul. He was married, you see, to Katherine. So he brought me to her, made her lie. Katherine did anything my father told her. She pretended I was hers, hers and my father's. They just pretended my real mother never existed, that my father never had an affair..." His voice trailed off, the silence even more frightening. "But he bought up the island and all the Hillinger property."

He seemed to come back as if from a distance. "But I remember her. She was so beautiful. So young. Don't you see, she will always be young. My father is old now, a wrinkled, crippled-up old man who has suddenly developed a conscience. That's why he sold the island, you know. The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d knew what I'd been doing all these years but he didn't have the guts to try to stop me."

Pierce laughed, a horrible sound that held no humor. "He knew if anyone tried to develop this land, they would find the bodies. He was counting on that stopping me." Pierce shook his head, the headlamp swinging back and forth, making her stomach roil. "The old stupid fool. Now he is old and dying, but my mother will always be young. Just like you, Jill."

He began to take the tape off Jill's ankles. She watched him, gauging her chances of fighting him off physically once her hands were free. Bad plan. He was stronger, larger, and he'd obviously done this more times than she wanted to consider. She doubted anyone had gotten away from him. At least not for long.

"Of course, you will want to scream when the time comes," he said. "They all do."

She thought she heard a boat, but she couldn't see any lights. It sounded as if it was coming this way, fast. But Pierce didn't seem worried about it. He turned her around and that's when she saw the noose hanging from the rafters. He smiled at her surprise. "Let me tell you about asphyxiation," he said.

THE SOUND OF A BOAT grew closer. Still Nathaniel Pierce didn't seem to notice. Or care. Probably because no one came to the island, especially at night.

He dragged her over to the noose, the glare of his headlamp blinding her again. She tried to fight him-just as he'd obviously hoped. She heard a horrible sound and realized it was laughter. Nathaniel Pierce had thrown back his head and was laughing as he wrestled the noose around her neck.

The rope was coa.r.s.e and chafed her skin. He tightened it around her throat, then stepped back to look at her as if posing her for a painting. Or a photograph.

Then he stepped close to her again, reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver charm bracelet with a tiny silver heart on it. He smiled with satisfaction as she saw the name engraved on it. Jill.

"It's yours," he said as he carefully clasped it on her wrist. "There, just as it should have been all those years ago. Fourteen, right?" His eyes sparkled.

She listened for the sound of the boat motor and realized she couldn't hear it anymore. Despair swept over her. The boat must have gone on past to the east side of the lake. She'd been praying that someone had seen the light from Pierce's headlamp. Would come to investigate.

But what fool would come to this island this late?

"Oh, you look so sad," Pierce said, lifting her chin with his finger and gazing at her face. "Just think, you will always be this age. Young. Not as young as you would have been fourteen years ago." He tsked. "Your own fault. You should have gotten into the car."

She tried to find her voice. If she could get him talking, she could buy herself a little precious time. "You killed Trevor, didn't you? And Rachel and Arnie and all those girls? Why?"

He shook his head as if disappointed in her, then walked over to where he'd tied the other end of the rope. She tried to run. To shake her head out of the noose. To get away.

He laughed again, clearly enjoying her delaying efforts. He pulled the rope. The noose tightened, then loosened again. "Are you sure you don't want to scream?"

She closed her eyes and thought of Mac, remembering their night in the cottage. She clung to that memory as Pierce jerked the rope tighter and tighter, lifting her off her feet. Mac was wrong. They would have been amazing together.

The rope cut into her neck, the pain excruciating. No air. She gasped, determined not to scream. Determined not to give Pierce that satisfaction, knowing it hadn't saved the other women he'd killed here, knowing it wasn't going to save her, either.

She could feel a different darkness. Stars glittered behind her lids. Then she heard it. The sound of footfalls thundering up the old wooden stairs. She opened her eyes.

Pierce had turned toward the sound, the headlamp shining on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Jill thought she only imagined Mac as he burst through the doorway, a gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other. She tried to call out to him, but the noose was too tight and she could feel herself pa.s.sing out. She fought it with all her will. Don't give up now! Not now!

AT FIRST all Mac saw was the light shining at him. He dived to one side, expecting gunfire, and swept the beam of his flashlight across the room. The light wavered as it fell on Jill suspended above the floor, the noose around her neck.

Oh, my G.o.d! He was too late!

"Let her down!" he ordered, his voice breaking as he shone the beam of his flashlight on Pierce. "Let her down now!" He rushed over to Jill and lifted her, putting slack in the rope, all the while holding his gun on Pierce. But the man had tied the rope off and just stood watching as if with interest what Mac would do next.

"Untie the rope!" Mac yelled. "Or I'll blow your blue blood all over this room." He could feel a slight movement from Jill. She was alive!

"You don't want this woman or her mediocre life," Pierce said, the headlamp shining on Jill's face. "Why are you doing this? Can you imagine yourself making cinnamon rolls? She means nothing to you. Walk away, Mac. It's what you do best. Anyway, it's too late."