5

Mark kept screaming, kept trying to break the ropes that no human strength could break, to part the layers of cloth-​reinforced tape. His wife’s screams drowned his out, and polluted his mind and soul.

Ruger had pulled out his wickedly sharp knife and with quick, deft movements had slashed the ropes on Connie’s legs. She had tried to kick him, she had that much sanity left, but he slapped her and punched her and tore at her and left her beaten in spirit as well as body. Then the real horror had begun.

He had torn at her clothing, revealing her in the cruelest way, robbing her of what shreds of dignity still clung to her. The knife either cut at fabric or pressed threateningly into the soft flesh of her throat, but it was always there, a constant ugly extension of Ruger’s violent lust.

Mark screamed throughout.

Ruger laughed out loud as he stood over her, slowly unbuckling his belt, blowing kisses at Connie, dragging it out.

There was no warning at all when the thunderbolt slammed into him.

One moment Ruger was reaching for the metal tab of his fly and the next he was bowled off his feet, driven away from Connie, driven into the backrest of the couch by something that screamed in a continuous high-​pitched wail of inhuman fury. The knife went flying out of his hand, vanishing behind an overstuffed chair. He almost fell, but his knees hit the seat and it doubled him over. He collapsed awkwardly onto the couch, still bearing the weight of whatever had struck him. Most men would have sat there, stupid and dazed, shaking their heads, disoriented.

But Karl Ruger was not so vulnerable a creature.

Hissing like a cat, he turned, lashing out with his elbow even before he could see his attacker. As the elbow struck, there was a howl of agony and Val Guthrie toppled away, clawing at her left arm. Ruger’s elbow had slammed into the already sprained tendons and muscles with terrible force.

“You fucking bitch!” he snarled and reached down and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her feet. He cuffed her across the face, bruising the spot he’d struck earlier. Val was far beyond the reach of that kind of pain. She lashed out with her foot, aiming for his groin, but Ruger turned and took it on the hip. Still, the kick had enough desperate force to stagger him. He lost his grip on her, backpedaled a step, and came within reach of Mark, who lashed out with his bound feet and knocked Ruger sprawling.

Val spun and ran for the door, hoping to lure Ruger out into the fields, away from the house, away from Connie, to make him chase her long enough for those blessed sirens to arrive.

Ruger was up in an instant. He didn’t waste time punishing Mark but set out after Val like a bird dog, growling in pain and fury. He went after her barehanded, forgetting his knife, forgetting his automatic. He wanted to hurt her with his naked hands.

Leaping off the porch, cradling her arm as best she could, Val ran straight up the road. Through the thunder and the rain, she couldn’t hear how close he was.

She ran.

Twice he almost caught her, twice she faked and darted and changed direction, drawing away from him while he was skidding in the mud.

“You bitch!” he howled.

Val ran back toward the house, dodged around a tree, past a parked tractor, then ran along the side of the house toward the backyard, where her father’s Bronco was parked. There was a shovel in the back. If she could get to it…

She screamed when she felt the tips of Ruger’s fingers scrabble at her hair.

Dodging, darting left and then right, she rounded the corner of the house and burst into the backyard.

Bright lights dazzled her, stopping her in her tracks with all the power of a force field. She slipped and fell.

Ruger caught her by the hair even as he skidded to a halt, startled by the intense brightness of the headlights of Crow’s car.

Chapter 17

Karl Ruger closed his hand tightly, knotting it in Val’s hair as he stood tall, facing the harsh white lights. He reached down and around her and clamped his viselike left hand on her windpipe as the driver’s door clicked and opened.

Through the lights and the driving rain he could only just make out the figure of a man, a small thin man, rising from the car. The car door slammed, but the man didn’t move.

“Val…?” the man called. His voice was distorted as he shouted over the wind.

“Cr—” Val started to yell a name but Ruger’s fingers squeezed the sound from her throat and allowed nothing more to pass.

“Just move along, sonny-​boy,” called Ruger. “This is just a little domestic disturbance. You be on your way.”

The slim man shifted uncertainly, again calling out, “Val?”

“I said fuck off! And I mean now!”

“I don’t know who the hell you are, pal, but I want you to let the lady go. Right now.”

“Fuck you,” sneered Ruger.

The slim man reached into the car and flicked off the headlights, and then took a long step forward, raising his right arm as he did so. Lightning made flames dance along the barrel of the Beretta.

“No,” said Crow, “fuck you.” He took two more steps forward. “Now let her go!”

Val saw his face, clear in the lightning flashes, and her heart leaped in her chest. She tried to pull away, wanting to run to him, to take that gun and turn it on Ruger, but Ruger held her fast, pressing her knees into the mud and choking her throat completely closed. She scrabbled at his hands with her one remaining hand, but she might as well have been trying to chip away at a rock. Her lungs wanted to breathe, but he allowed her nothing, not even a cupful of air.

Ruger stared at the gun, not believing what he was seeing. He almost smiled. How could so many fucked-​up things happen all in one day? With a snarl he yanked Val to her feet and pulled her in front of him. “Go ahead and shoot, sonny-​boy, but you better be a good goddamn shot or you’re liable to blow a hole in this young lady.”

“As it happens,” Crow called, “I am a good goddamn shot.” He fired the pistol. The bullet burned the air a foot from Ruger’s ear. He jumped and jerked out of the way far too late, but the bullet hadn’t been aimed to hit flesh, just pride.

“Now let her go.”

Ruger’s fingers were digging so tightly into Val’s throat that she saw sparks dance in her eyes and the world was taking on a drunken, swimmy feel to it. She was vaguely aware that it was Crow there, but her shocked and oxygen-​deprived brain was losing its ability to care.

Crow fired another shot, closer to Ruger’s head. Ruger didn’t even flinch this time; instead he pulled Val’s head up level with his, lifting her onto her toes, using her battered, weeping, strangling face to block his own.

Crow took another step forward, steadying the gun with both hands. Now he was no more than ten feet from Val and Ruger. “That was the last warning shot, Bozo. This baby carries fifteen shots. The next one’s going to go up your nose.” Even with Val as a shield, Crow knew he could clip the man in the arm or leg, but he didn’t want to gamble. He read the darkening of her face and saw the horrible tension in the hand that was clamped around her throat and felt fear and fury lash at him from within. Fear churned his gut into a greasy mush and despite the rain his mouth was bone dry. He swallowed, trying to lubricate his throat.

“I said, let her—”

At that moment, Ruger lunged forward and shoved Val right at Crow. He shoved her with all his force and she went flying. Crow barely had time to bring the gun up, to wrench the barrel away from her. He tried to step forward to catch her, but just as forcefully as Ruger had shoved her he had also thrown himself forward. He used her as a ram as well as a shield, and slammed into Crow with freight-​train force. Val’s released throat opened as the two bigger male bodies caught her in the press and she screamed.

Suddenly Crow had too much to do. He tried to catch Val as she crumpled, screaming, to the mud; he tried to pull her away from the madman; he tried to bring his pistol to bear; he tried to evade the man’s rush.

In all of these things, he failed utterly. Fear of hitting Val and fear of the man himself made Crow hesitate a fraction of a second too long.

Ruger was on him with all of his terrible force and speed and rage bursting forth. He trampled Val as he leaped at Crow, fists swinging. Ruger knew he had no time or chance to wrestle the gun out of this man’s hand, so he swatted it away, sending it sailing end over end into rain and muddy darkness. It struck the side of the car with a muffled metallic clunk! His forward rush sent Crow tumbling backward, and Ruger rode him down like a surfer setting for a wave. Crow landed on his back and slid, and before the slide had spent itself, Ruger was smashing him with rock-​hard fists.

Karl Ruger had only lost one fight in his life. He had been eleven at the time and a sixteen-​year-​old kid had plain whipped the tar and tears out of him. The teenager had beat him so bad that young Ruger had lain in the street, crying, peeing in his pants, trying to stanch the bright red blood that blossomed from his nose. The older kid had laughed at him and kicked him when he was down, and other kids, most of them older, but some of them his own friends, had watched and laughed.

That was the only fight Ruger had ever lost.

A week later he pushed the sixteen-​year-​old under the iron wheels of the elevated train, watching with bruised eyes as the bully’s body was torn and reduced to red rags.

Since then, no one had ever beaten Ruger. No one had ever even stood up to him for very long. It was the ferocity of his attack. He went into a fight at full speed, not building to it like most people do. Every blow was backed with a deep knowledge of how to hit, and where, and how to hit hard and fast and often. He’d learned that in South Philly bars, in a dozen jails, in back alleys, and in a score of fights he himself had started just to test himself, to learn how good he was. It mattered to him that he was good enough to survive anything that came down the pike. Anything. If a person stood up to him, no matter how tough, how big, how well armed, Ruger took him down. All the way down. Down to blood and death and closed coffins.

He went after Crow like that, and tonight he had all his frustrations and disappointments boiling inside him, putting more steel in his fists, stoking the fires of his rage.