Stalker In the Shadows Read online

  “Hunter, I know there’s a lot at stake here, but we have to have a plan. You know we can’t go in blindly. That could cost Colette her life.”

  “Logically I know that,” Hunter replied with frustration. There was a clock ticking in his head, and he had the bad feeling that it was ticking down to Colette’s death.

  COLETTE KNEW THESE were the final minutes of her life. Her wrists burned and hurt from her trying to get loose from the ropes that bound them. Unfortunately no matter how she tugged and twisted, she’d been unable to make any headway in getting free.

  She’d stopped praying for help for herself and instead prayed for some kind of intervention that would keep her daughter away from the evil man who had sired her.

  She prayed that Hunter wouldn’t carry the burden of her death, something he was in no way responsible for. Finally, she prayed for a quick and painless death even though she knew that wasn’t going to happen. There was no way Peter was going to let her die quickly and painlessly.

  For the last hour or so, he had berated her, screamed at her and slapped her cheeks over and over again. He told her what a terrible wife she had been, what a horrible waste of breath she was. Then he’d told her how much he had loved her and that she had once been his entire world. He’d finally stalked out of the kitchen, and she was now alone.

  She found it hard to believe now that she had ever loved anything about this man...this obsessed sociopath who would go to any ends to get what he wanted.

  She found everything about this situation to be surreal. The fact that he’d obviously gone through extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance, the fact that he’d apparently bought this pig farm for the sole purpose of being close to her, to be able to torment her and then to kill her.

  Who in their right mind would go to these lengths? It was obvious he wasn’t in his right mind, had never been in a sane frame of mind.

  She realized now she would have never been able to get away from him. He had enough money to find her wherever she might have run. She could have run for years and he still would have chased her.

  Peter was her fate. As much as she’d wanted it to be otherwise, his face would be the last one she’d see before she died. There was no way she wanted that to be so.

  She closed her eyes and imagined Melinda’s sweet face. She saw the cute little wrinkle in her nose when Melinda smiled, the happy sounds of her giggles when she got tickled. Melinda had been the best daughter a mother could ever want.

  She then imagined Hunter’s face in her mind’s eye. How she loved the way his smile lit up her heart and the beauty of his deep green, dark-lashed eyes made her want to melt into them. His face displayed so much of the character of the man he was. His warm eyes and laugh lines showed him for the good man he was.

  Whether he ever found love for her again, she hoped with the information he had about Peter, he would somehow keep Peter from gaining custody of her daughter. She would also hope that after her death he would find forgiveness for the lies she’d told him in an effort to survive.

  She wanted to weep for all the dreams she’d wanted to build with Hunter, dreams of happiness and family that had all been shattered. Still, she would take her last breath loving him. She would love him through eternity.

  She opened her eyes and tensed as Peter came into the room once again. “It’s time, Colette. It’s time you pay the ultimate price for running from me. My pigs are very hungry, and I’m eager to end this and get on with my life with my darling daughter.”

  She fought back a shiver. “You’ll burn in hell for everything you have done,” she said fervently.

  He laughed. “Maybe, but in the meantime I’m having such a wonderful time.” He moved behind her and began to untie her hands. “Oof, I see you’ve been a bad girl and tried to get loose. You’ve got your hands all bloody, but that’s okay. My pet pigs absolutely love blood.”

  Once he had her untied, he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her upright. She immediately fell to the floor on her butt. There was no way she was going to make this easy for him.

  “Get up,” he commanded, anger rife in his voice.

  She no longer feared his anger. What was he going to do to her? She was going to die within minutes anyway. “Make me,” she replied.

  He yanked harder on her arm, but she made herself deadweight. “Don’t be childish, Colette. Now stand up before I lose my patience.”

  “What are you going to do if I don’t? Kill me?” She laughed. She had nothing to lose now. “You’re pathetic, Peter. You’re a loser who has wasted the last three years of your life chasing after a woman who didn’t give you a second thought. You might have wanted me, but I never, ever wanted you.”

  Peter’s face reddened, letting her know she was making him very, very angry. “Shut up,” he yelled.

  “Why should I shut up? You’ve been talking to me the whole time you’ve had me here. Now it’s my turn to talk. You were a terrible husband, Peter. You’re a little man who is abusive to women. You really think you’re a big man because you can slap around a woman? Because you can get a knife and stab me? You abused me throughout our whole marriage. I ran from you because I hated you and I never, ever wanted to see you again. Even if you hadn’t tried to stab me to death, I would have left you anyway. You don’t deserve the love of any good woman, and you definitely don’t deserve my beautiful daughter.”

  “Are you through?” A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  “Not quite.” She drew in a deep breath and laughed. “You also sucked in bed.”

  She barely got the words out of her mouth when he slammed his fist into the side of her face. An intense pain caused bright lights to flash in her brain, and then there was nothing.

  “THERE’S ONLY TWO of them in the house,” Nick said breathlessly. He and Greg had just come back to where Hunter and Barry had waited. “It’s just Colette and Hank Bridges. We saw no sign of Peter Waverly.”

  “Was she alive?” Tension pressed tight in Hunter’s chest.

  Nick nodded affirmatively, and a rush of relief swept through Hunter. “She’s tied to a chair in the kitchen,” Nick said.

  “If there’s just one person with her, then this should be an easy takedown,” Barry said.

  “Are you sure there was nobody else in the house?” Hunter asked.

  “Positive. We got eyes on all the rooms in the house. There’s nobody else there.” Nick looked at Barry. “And there’s nothing easy about this. Hank is obviously a dangerous man. If he hears or sees us coming, there’s nothing to stop him from killing Colette.”

  Hunter didn’t know what the deal was with Hank Bridges. He and Peter Waverly had to somehow be in cahoots. Hank could only be looked at as an assassin who had been paid to kill Colette. All Hunter really knew was one false move and Colette would die.

  “We need to go in carefully and use the element of surprise to take down Hank,” Nick said. “Barry, do you have the door ram in your trunk?”

  “I do.”

  “Okay, I’ll take it and go in the front door. Greg, you take the south side of the house, and Barry, you take the north side. Hunter, you go around to the back. That’s where the kitchen is located. We not only want to get Colette out of there, but I also want to get Hank under arrest,” Nick said. “Earbuds in and I’ll give the signal to move in when I think everyone is in place.”

  The four of them took off, moving as silently as they could through the field. Hunter’s heart raced with the need to get her out of the farmhouse and to safety. He hoped and prayed that this rescue effort didn’t go wrong. One mistake and he knew Colette would die.

  Every muscle, every single nerve in his body tensed as a rush of adrenaline flooded through his veins. His need to get to her before anything happened was single-focused and overwhelming.

  He changed his direction to come around to the back of the old farmhouse. Ther
e was no way to predict what Hank would do when he realized the police were on top of him.

  And where was Peter Waverly? Where was the man behind all this? There was no doubt in Hunter’s mind that Colette’s ex-husband had orchestrated everything that had happened to her. So, where was he? He would think a man with such focus on killing a woman would want to be present when she died.

  Still, he couldn’t think about that right now. All he wanted to do was bust down the doors, release Colette and hold her warm, breathing body against his.

  As he got closer, the smell of the pigs grew stronger. Hunter had been around pigs before, and normally they didn’t smell so unpleasant. But this was the odor of neglected animals, of filth and waste.

  When this was all over, Hunter would make sure the pigs were removed by the humane society so they could be placed with farmers who would properly care for them.

  The farmhouse came into his view. A shed sat between the edge of the backyard and the house, a perfect place for Hunter to take cover until he got the signal to move in.

  Keeping low and moving fast, Hunter raced for the small building. He slammed his back against it and held his breath, waiting to see if anyone in the house had possibly seen him.

  When the air remained quiet, he breathed a sigh of relief. So far...so good. The only sound was the grunting and rustling coming from the pigpen.

  He froze as he heard the sound of the back door opening. He peeked around the corner of the shed and saw Hank with a prone Colette across his shoulder.

  What the hell? Was she already dead? Horror screamed through Hunter as he suddenly realized the man’s intent. The pigs squealed as Hank raised Colette high enough to throw her over the porch railing and into the pen.

  “Move in. Move in,” Hunter screamed through his radio as he raced toward the pen.

  Hank looked up in stunned surprise. “Put her down, Hank. Put her down on the porch,” Hunter yelled as he drew his weapon.

  Hank froze. Colette looked like a limp rag doll in his big arms. “Put her down on the porch!” Hunter yelled again and ran across the lawn toward the two.

  “She belongs with the pigs,” Hank yelled back. Once again he raised her up to his shoulders. “Say goodbye to Colette,” he said and laughed.

  A crack sounded in the air, and Hank’s laughter stopped abruptly. As if in slow motion, he sank down to his knees and spilled Colette out of his arms and onto the porch.

  Nick stepped out of the house and onto the porch, his gun in his hand and a bullet hole through the screen door. Hunter stumbled forward, his sole concern the woman lying lifeless on the deck. Was she already dead? Had they been too late after all?

  His heart nearly stopped as he finally crouched down beside her and felt for a pulse. Let there be one...please let there be one, his mind begged.

  Her face looked red and bruised, and if Hank Bridges wasn’t next to him dead, then Hunter would have killed him with his bare hands.

  “She’s got a pulse,” he cried out to Nick. “We need an ambulance out here.”

  “Already been called in,” Nick replied.

  Hunter moved around so he was cradling her head in his lap. “What did he do to her?” he breathed more to himself than to anyone else. Had she been drugged? “The bastard was going to throw her in with the pigs.”

  “That’s why I shot him,” Nick replied. “I was afraid he was about to toss her right in, and those pigs look like they are starving to death. Sheriff Black is on his way, and needless to say we’ve got a crime scene here.”

  “And where in the hell is Peter Waverly?” Hunter said as he stroked a strand of hair away from Colette’s forehead.

  “Maybe we’ll find something inside that will lead us to him,” Greg said.

  “We’ll ransack the damned place until we find the connection,” Nick replied.

  “There’s got to be something that will lead us to Peter,” Barry added.

  Hunter barely listened to the conversation. His sole concentration was on Colette. He stroked his fingers over her forehead, down her fevered face. Dear God, why wasn’t she awake? What all had she endured in the hands of this madman? It appeared she had been beaten around her face—what injuries couldn’t he see?

  Thank God he heard the ambulance approaching, the siren screaming with urgency. He needed them to take her, to fix her. He needed to see her smile again. He needed, wanted to see the beautiful blue of her eyes again.

  He didn’t care whether she had loved him or used him. None of that mattered right now. He just wanted her to be okay. He wanted her to survive this horrendous ordeal and live to thrive.

  Within fifteen minutes the ambulance screamed away from the scene with Hunter in hot pursuit. She had regained consciousness as they’d loaded her into the ambulance, although Hunter hadn’t been able to speak to her.

  It felt like déjà vu as he parked in the hospital lot and ran for the emergency waiting room. Once again Sandy Silver sat at the desk.

  “I know why you’re here, and I’ve already told Dr. Lockwood you would be here,” she said sympathetically. “He’ll be out to speak to you when he can.”

  Hunter gave a nod and then sat in one of the chairs. Once again he was alone in the waiting room. How badly had she been hurt by Hank? What had she endured in the couple of hours she’d been in captivity? What kind of horrible pain had she suffered?

  Thank God Nick had shot Hank and not Hunter. It would make the investigation into Hank’s death clean. Hunter just wished they had captured or killed Peter. As long as that man was out there, Colette would always be at risk.

  She would probably go on the run again. An aching hollowness blew through him as he thought of never seeing her again.

  Emily lied to deceive. Colette lied to save her and her daughter’s lives. Nick’s words repeated in Hunter’s head. Everything she’d lied about had been for self-preservation from a man who wanted her dead. And Hunter now understood what kind of sick monster she’d been running from.

  How could he be angry with her for her lies? All he wanted...all he needed to know was if she’d lied about caring for him. She’d told him she loved him. Had that been a lie?

  He wasn’t confused about his feelings where she was concerned. He was just confused about hers for him. Not that it mattered. If she chose to run again, then she would just be a happy, yet hurting memory, like that of his son.

  The main thing right now was how she was doing. He had no idea what kind of torture she might have suffered. Did she have internal injuries? He’d seen her wrists, bloody and raw, and he wanted to weep as he thought about her being tied up and struggling to get free.

  As bad as the physical pain might have been, he couldn’t imagine the mental pain she must have suffered. She had to have believed that she was going to die, that her ex-husband would then have custody of Melinda. Those thoughts must have tortured her.

  He jumped up from his chair as Dr. Lockwood came out. “We meet again,” Dr. Lockwood said.

  “Unfortunately. How is she?”

  “According to her, she was slapped a number of times and one of her cheeks is definitely bruised. She also told me that she took a hard blow to the head that rendered her unconscious. We did some X-rays and I don’t see any permanent damage. We’ve cleaned up and wrapped her wrists, and we’ve drawn blood because she told us initially she was drugged. Still, she’s alert and doing remarkably well given the circumstances. She’s a very strong woman.”

  Hunter expelled a deep sigh of relief. “Can I see her?”

  “Room 109.”

  Hunter raced down the hallway, his heart beating a quickened pace. He turned into the room and breathed another sigh of relief as he saw her sitting up in the bed. She smiled. “I’m not sure how you all found me, but thank God you did,” she said.

  Hunter sat in the chair next to her bed. “You can thank George. H
e was bringing me some plants and saw you being taken from the house. He let us know it was Hank Bridges that had kidnapped you. I’m just sorry that we didn’t get Peter.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “I thought you all knew.”

  “Knew what?” He hated that one of her cheeks was a fiery red. He wanted to place his hand on it and draw away the redness and pain.

  “Hank was Peter.”

  He looked at her in stunned surprise. “What?”

  “Peter had a bunch of plastic surgery done to completely change his looks. That’s why nobody saw Peter in town.”

  At that moment Nick walked into the room. He nodded at Hunter and then smiled at Colette. “How are you feeling?” he asked as he sat in the other chair next to the bed.

  “Pretty banged up,” she replied. “But I’m happy to be alive.”

  “Are you up to answering some questions?” Nick asked.

  “Absolutely,” she replied.

  Nick was just as shocked as Hunter had been to learn that Hank was Peter. As Hunter listened to her tell about how Hank had gotten into the house, drugged her and then she’d awakened tied to a kitchen chair, he wanted to kill Hank all over again.

  She told them about Peter slapping and hitting her. Hunter wanted to cry for the pain she had suffered and still suffered.

  “He planned on feeding me to the pigs,” she said. Her eyes darkened. “He fed Ted and Sheila to the pigs.” She shuddered, obviously thinking of what could have happened to her.

  “It’s over now, Colette. Peter is dead, and he’ll never bother you again,” Nick said.

  “Thank God he’ll never kill another person,” she replied. “He can spend his eternity in hell.”

  “That’s for sure,” Nick replied. He got to his feet. “I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you as the investigation unfolds. You’ll be around?”

  “I’ll be around,” she replied.

  “It’s finally over,” Hunter said to her once Nick had left the room.