“Do it,” he barked.
Maybe I should walk back inside the station and tell them what really happened with Randall. This situation kept getting stranger and more terrifying.
“Jeni,” he growled, “you will not make it two steps inside that door if you do not do as I say. What did you see?”
I gritted my teeth. I just wanted this to end. “I think the box is actually a safe, made of heavy steel. There were no markings. No letters.”
“The lock? Did you see the lock?”
I nodded. “Just your normal everyday safe with a keyhole instead of those dials with numbers. Why?”
I noted a hint of disappointment in his eyes. “I inspected the container yesterday and hoped I might have missed something—to tell me where it was made.”
He was searching out clues to support his delusions. Wonderful. “I’m sorry this didn’t pan out. Can I go now?” I wiped the water from my face with my hands. I was sopping wet now.
“You will go when I say so, and if you attempt to leave, there will be consequences.” His tone was as cold as this afternoon.
“I don’t understand why you need me.” He could easily find someone else who had more money. I was nearly broke. Every dime I made went to helping my dad and me keep our home in Tallahassee.
“You have enough. And it must be you because you are the only person I know I can trust.”
“Sorry?” I frowned.
“I saved your life. You owe me a debt.”
Maybe I did, but that didn’t mean I could get past how dangerous Jack was. “You tortured him. Why?” I said in a low voice. “Why not just tie Randall up or something?” We could have had him arrested.
“He got what he deserved. If you had seen inside his mind, you would not argue.”
What’s inside that mind of yours? “What do you plan to do to me?”
He reached out and grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard it felt like my bones were bending.
He lowered his head and stared deeply into my eyes.
Ohmygod. I felt him pushing against the walls of my mind. Death. Despair. Evil. That was what I felt.
Suddenly, I was staring down at myself, at my own face getting rained on.
Fuck. He wasn’t inside my head. He’d pulled me into his. I was looking through his eyes.
How? How was he doing this?
Either way, I knew that nothing good lived inside this man. There was only pain and rage, and he didn’t know why. He just wants to kill everything that gets in his way. Even me if I didn’t do as I was told.
I had to get away from him.
I snapped my arm free and ran for the station. My fears of going to jail didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did except for getting away from Jack.
“Jeni, do not do that,” his calm voice called out as I hit the station’s front door and ran inside.
“I need help!” I called out.
The female officer at the front desk stared at me but didn’t move. In fact, everyone inside the station was frozen in place. Even the officer, the one who’d helped me before, stood to the side of the desk with a glazed look in his eyes, his hand on his sidearm.
My eyes followed his gaze toward a thin blonde woman. She looked to be in her forties and wore skintight pleather pants and a red pleather jacket.
She turned, and when her pale gray eyes met mine, I could hardly breathe. Whoever she was, whatever she was doing to me, she’d just done it to everyone in this room, too.
“Well, well, and who do we have here?” Her voice was sugary sweet, like a treat laced with cyanide.
I felt her starting to rummage through my head—it was like a painful prickly itch, followed by pressure.
“Dear God.” She flashed a sinister smile with her blood red lips. “I knew it! I knew the fucker wouldn’t stay dead. Where is he? Tell me!”
Somehow, I understood she was talking about Jack. What I didn’t know was why I suddenly wanted to help him. Maybe the devil outside was better than the one in here.
I shut my eyes and flooded my mind with thoughts of random crap. Numbers. FEMA forms. Randall’s tobacco-stained teeth.
“Very fucking funny.” The woman marched over and wrapped her cold boney fingers around my neck. “Tell me where he is, you little cunt, or I will leave you paralyzed.”
An image of my father flashed in my mind. He wasn’t paralyzed, but after the accident, he’d been unable to walk for months. The doctors said he might not be able to regain full function again. Both his legs had been crushed. Dozens of pins and hundreds of hours in therapy would be his only shot. Even then, he’d always need help getting around, and the pain would be with him forever.
“Awww…” The woman stuck out her lower lip and crinkled her hook nose. “Did your poor daddy get hurt?” Her narrowed eyes turned into a promise of my pain. “That’s right, girl. I’ll break your legs and make you just like him.” She snapped her fingers, and everyone in the room fell to the floor, convulsing and clawing at their own necks. “You’re next. Now, where is he?”
As terrified as I was of this woman, I couldn’t bring myself to give her what she wanted. Something inside me didn’t want to betray him. I had no idea why. “I don’t…know…who you’re talking about…” I choked out my words.
She tilted her head to one side. “Fine. Then I guess I have no more use for you.” She raised her free hand to snap her fingers.
From the corner of my eye, I saw something fly toward the back of her head. The woman fell over, blood gushing from her skull.
Jack stood there holding a two-by-four. “We must go now.” He grabbed my hand and yanked hard, dragging me out into the pouring rain. I felt like my head was about to explode from the pressure.
“Who was that?” I asked as we got to my car.
“No clue.” Jack got behind the wheel this time.
“Will the people in there be okay?”
“No clue.”
“I should call for help.” I dug out my phone and dialed 9-1-1. The line was busy. I’d have to keep trying.
“Do whatever you like, but we cannot stay.” He started the engine.
“Do you know how to drive?”
“We are about to find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I eventually got through to 9-1-1 and reported a “medical emergency” in progress at the station. As for us, it turned out that Jack did know how to operate a vehicle, but whatever else he knew, he kept it to himself.
Oddly, though, I believed him when he said he hadn’t recognized the blonde woman. But she sure as hell knew him. She also has his same bag of evil tricks.
“No. Not the same,” Jack said, his shockingly blue eyes glued to the road. “She was something entirely different.”
“Different how?”
“I cannot explain.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I asked.
He ignored me.
I ground out a frustrated groan. Whoever this man was, being anywhere near him was getting increasingly dangerous. People were after him. And how had that woman known where to look? How did she know I was connected to him when I walked into the station? The only answer was that she had read my thoughts. Just as he’d been doing all along—something I wasn’t ready to accept but couldn’t ignore any longer. Mind reading? Seriously?