She Can Scream (She Can Series) Page 2

  In the main room, George was clicking off the light switches. “Do you need something?”

  “I think I heard someone scream in the woods. I’m going to check it out.”

  He pulled a huge ring of keys from his pocket, peered inside the supply closet, and then locked the door. “Lots of feral cats back there. Owls too.”

  “I know, but I’ll feel better if I take a look.” She hoped he was right, but to Brooke, the cry had sounded more female than feline.

  More prey than predator.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’ve already kept you later, but would you please call the police if I’m not back in ten minutes?”

  Keys jangling, he crossed the room toward her. He shook his balding, white-rimmed head. “Nonsense. I heard you tell all those girls just a few minutes ago to avoid going places alone, especially at night.” George opened a utility closet in the main hall and grabbed a heavy-duty metal flashlight from a wall hook. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Thank you.” The Maglite wasn’t exactly a sword, and George was an unlikely champion. But he was right, and she was grateful.

  They rounded the building, waded through a strip of tall weedy grass, and headed into the trees. Despite a Santa belly and an arthritic hitch in his gait, George kept up. The forest was cooler, darker, and damper than open ground. They switched on their flashlights and played the beams on the pine needle carpet. A hundred feet into the forest, they stepped onto a path.

  Brooke stopped and listened. George waited patiently beside her. A small animal scurried through the brushwood. Above, branches rustled in the breeze. They walked forward. Dead leaves crunched underfoot. A fresh scream came from the left, cut off abruptly by the smack of something striking flesh.

  George silenced the keys on his belt with a fist.

  “Shut. Up.” A man’s voice, terse and staccato, ordered. “And hold still.”

  A shriek, muffled. Another fleshy blow. Then crying.

  Brooke dialed 911 and described the situation to the dispatcher in a low voice. Ignoring the operator’s request to stay on the line, she ended the call and ran toward the sounds. George wheezed somewhere behind her.

  She rounded a bend in the trail. Fifty feet ahead, shadows moved on the ground. Two figures, struggling. Brooke pointed her flashlight into the darkness. The bright beam spotlighted a masked man sitting on top of a young woman. His hands encircled her throat while the girl thrashed and gasped under him. His head jerked up and swiveled toward Brooke.

  “Hey!” Brooke ran forward.

  The assailant jumped to his feet and faced her. Hatred and hostility reached across the darkness. Brooke stopped. They stood frozen, staring at each other. Brooke’s hearing blocked out everything but the sound of her own breathing and the throb of her pulse echoing in her ears.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The assailant spun and took off down the path.

  “Stay with her,” Brooke shouted over her shoulder at George, still a hundred feet away. She sprinted after the black-clad man. The beam of her flashlight arced back and forth on the dark trail as she pumped her arms. With his head start, he pulled away. Though the five-minute mile from her college track days was no more, she kept in shape. She coached the high school track team and ran with the kids a few times a week. Brooke dug her toes into the sandy soil, pushing off with each stride, starting block–style. Her legs responded with a surge of speed. The distance between them closed. One toe caught on something on the dark trail. Her leg buckled, and she went down in a tumble of limbs. Pain, hot and sharp, burst through her knee. Her face struck the ground. Blood flooded her mouth.

  She sat up and pointed her light down the path. He was gone. Damn! She shined her flashlight behind her. A gnarled tree root bulged out of the dirt.

  Her clenched fist smacked the dirt next to her. She climbed to her feet. Her right knee wobbled, and when she tried to put weight on that leg, pain zinged from her toes to her hip. She couldn’t inhale fast enough. Tiny pinpoints of light dotted her vision. She bent over and leaned her hands on her thighs. Her lungs bellowed, and her knee throbbed with each racing beat of her heart. Something gritty crunched between her teeth. She spat blood and dirt into the underbrush. Wiping her chin, she called 911 and gave them an update.

  “He ran toward the Coopersfield reservoir.” Lightheaded, she gasped between harsh intakes of cool air. “Average-size guy, wearing a ski mask, black pants, black windbreaker.”

  That’s all she could say about him. Not much of a description. After being assured cars and an ambulance were en route, she ended the call.

  The sound of someone crying summoned her. Brooke limped back toward the victim. The young woman was curled on the ground at the base of a tree. George stood a few feet away, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The woman cringed as Brooke’s flashlight illuminated her. Brooke averted the beam, but not before she registered the young woman’s battered condition. The left side of her face was bloody and beaten, her lips split, her eye blackened and swelling. She’d probably been pretty before he got his hands on her. Angry red marks encircled her neck. Pity blunted the ache in Brooke’s leg. She halted and held her hands up. “It’s OK. We’re going to help you.”

  The woman held up shaking hands, bound at the wrists. She was trembling so hard Brooke could hear her teeth chattering.

  “Here.” Brooke stripped off her jacket and wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders. “The police are on the way. What’s your name?”

  The voice was barely a rasp. “Maddie.”

  Maddie didn’t look familiar. Since they were in Coopersfield, she’d probably gone to school here rather than at Westbury High where Brooke taught.

  “I’m going to look at these ropes, Maddie.” Brooke used her flashlight. Not ropes, but plastic ties encircled Maddie’s wrists. Thin and unyielding, the binds had dug into her tender flesh. Blood smeared her skin and stained her sleeves. “I’m sorry. These have to be cut, and I don’t have a knife. Hold still so they don’t hurt you anymore.”

  Maddie shook harder. Brooke wrapped her arms around the girl and held her tightly against her body. Hot tears soaked through her shirt.

  A beam of light bobbed through the trees. George pointed toward the woods. The lights of the community center filtered through the half-bare branches. “Here are the police now.”

  An officer rushed in. Behind him, more lights approached. Two more uniforms burst into the clearing. Brooke pointed down the trail. “He ran that way.”

  Two cops jogged in the direction she indicated. One stayed behind. Tense and wary, he scanned the dark woods and spoke into a radio on his shoulder. A siren sounded. A few minutes later, two paramedics crashed through the underbrush.

  Brooke eased the girl off her chest. “Maddie, I’m going to get out of the way so the paramedics can work.”

  Maddie didn’t answer. Brooke leaned back. The girl’s head lolled sideways. Brooke cradled it in one hand, easing it to the ground.

  The paramedic knelt and opened his kit. “I’ve got her.”

  “Her name is Maddie.” Brooke moved away to give them room.

  The remaining cop pulled her aside. He looked to be about Brooke’s age. It was hard to tell in the dark. “Your name, ma’am?”

  “Brooke Davenport. I called 911.” Hobbling, Brooke followed the policeman far enough away from Maddie so she wouldn’t hear in case she regained consciousness.

  “I’m Officer Kent.” He shined his light on Brooke’s face. “Are you all right, ma’am? Do you need medical attention?”

  Brooke shielded her eyes, and the cop lowered the light. She ran her tongue over a swollen lump on her lower lip. “I’m OK.” Brooke lowered her voice. “Did you catch him?”

  “No, ma’am, but we’re looking.” He pulled out a notebook. “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Not much.” She detailed the encounter from the scream to the present. “I didn’t get that close. He ran. He wasn’t excessively tall or short. Build appear
ed average. He ran like he was in decent shape, but he seemed… a little bulky.”

  “I’ll walk you back to the parking lot.” He started toward the trail.

  Brooke turned to follow him, but as her adrenaline faded, the throb in her knee crescendoed.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” The cop gave her leg a doubtful look.

  “Just banged my knee. It’ll be fine.” But as they stopped next to her car, her knee gave out. Officer Kent caught her by the elbow.

  He opened her car door and eased her to the seat. The overhead light gave her a clear view of the cop. He was blond and just shy of forty, with sharp eyes that dominated otherwise regular features. “You better have that looked at. Can I call somebody for you, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you.” Brooke perched sideways. Her jeans were torn and her knee skinned. Two years ago, before her divorce, she could’ve said yes. Scratch that. Even when they’d been married, her ex had rarely been around when she needed him. But now the only person she could call was her younger brother, Wade. Tonight, Wade was moving his stuff into her house to get ready for his deployment with the Army Reserve. And at the house with Brooke’s fourteen-year-old son, Chris, was exactly where she wanted her brother to stay. Her fifteen-year-old daughter was at a high school field hockey team fundraiser. Haley was supposed to get a ride home from a friend, but the idea, which had been totally normal this morning, now made Brooke uneasy.

  “Hang tight,” Officer Kent said. “I’ll get a paramedic over here.”

  Brooke opened her mouth to argue. But with her right knee in its current red-hot condition, she doubted she could drive. Without her jacket, a shiver swept through her. Chris had left a hoodie in the backseat, and Brooke gratefully tugged it over her head. She grabbed a bottle of water from the cup holder in the door, but her hands were trembling too hard to twist off the cap. She gave up and watched the scene unfold. An ambulance pulled into the drive, followed by two more marked police cars. A news van drove up. That was fast.

  She did not want to be part of tonight’s breaking news story. While she scanned the growing crowd for the officer who’d taken her statement, Brooke pulled out her phone and texted Chris to let him know she’d be late. The details would have to wait.

  What happened tonight was not something she could tell him over the phone.

  Where was the cop? Oh, no. A female reporter tottered across the asphalt toward Brooke’s car. Using the car door, she pulled herself to her feet, grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, and hobbled toward the swarm of emergency personnel. Her vehicle chirped as she locked it with the fob. There was no way she wanted her photo on the news, not when the police hadn’t found Maddie’s assailant. Brooke had to face facts. Without an accurate description, catching him didn’t seem likely. Once he’d left the area and changed clothes, he could be anyone.

  And she was the one who’d stopped him.

  With a sweep of headlights across grass, Luke turned at the metal mailbox and nosed his BMW onto the rutted drive. Ahead of his car, the dented black pickup driven by his friend, Wade Peterson, stalled. Luke braked. Wade’s engine sputtered and then caught. The tires spun, spewing dirt onto Luke’s silver sedan. A piece of gravel dinged off the hood.

  Luke let the truck pull farther ahead. The drive curved around the big yellow farmhouse that Wade had grown up in. Luke parked next to the oversized detached garage that had once been a dairy barn. Wade didn’t live here anymore, but he used the outbuilding as a base for his house-painting business. Luke got out and sucked in two lungfuls of damp meadow. Fresh air was one thing New York City was sadly lacking.

  Wade backed the truck up to one of the two overhead doors and jumped down from the cab. He winced at the dirt showered on Luke’s sedan. “Sorry about that. The truck needs a new transmission. Hope I didn’t scratch your car.”

  “It’s just a little dirt.” Luke flicked a pea-size clump of soil from his windshield. “I’m not sure why I even bought it. I’m not home enough to drive it much.” He stared at the old house. Memories stirred in his gut: girls, pizza, video games, first cars. Until high school, Luke had grown up in a posh suburb of Philadelphia, but he’d spent a few weeks every summer with his grandparents. After his parents had died, he’d come to live with his grandmother in Westbury. He and Wade had run the gauntlet of teen years together. “Just your sister lives here now?”

  “And her kids. Brooke bought the place from my parents when they retired and decided to see the country by RV.” Wade opened one of the overhead garage doors. “Speaking of leaving, when are you going back to work?”

  “I report to the New York office next week.” Luke followed his friend to the back of the truck. “Then I’m off to Argentina.”

  Wade climbed into the back, his boots clanking on the metal bed. Inside, furniture and boxes were packed like a 3-D puzzle. He squeezed between a cherry dresser and a headboard. He slid the dresser forward until the end protruded a few feet from the pickup bed. “Bet your grandmother is happy to see you.”

  “She is. I haven’t been around much these last few years.” Guilt nagged at Luke. He wanted to believe he was in Westbury to check up on his grandmother and see his best friend. But Luke’s visit was just an excuse to get away from New York. There were way too many skyscrapers in the city for him to relax.

  Luke steadied the heavy piece while Wade jumped to the ground. They lifted in unison. Luke’s muscles strained, and the scarred skin on his back burned as it stretched.

  “You OK?”

  “Fine.” Luke smoothed the grimace from his face.

  They shuffled toward the open door.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go back to work? You look like you could use some more R and R.”

  Three months ago in the Philippines, a terrorist bomb had blown a giant hole in a Manila high-rise one floor above Luke’s meeting. He’d been pitching a comprehensive network security overhaul when the bomb had gone off. Six people had died and twenty more had been seriously injured, including Luke. “The doctor gave me the all clear.” But his physical recovery wasn’t the issue.

  “Yeah, but are you really ready?” Wade tilted his head in the direction he wanted Luke to back up.

  Luke glanced over his shoulder. The path was clear. “I need to get back to work.” Face his demons and all that shit. Sleeping fourteen hours a day wasn’t doing anything for his mental state. “I’m ready.”

  Wade raised an eyebrow in silent question.

  “I’m here moving furniture for you, aren’t I?”

  “You are.” Wade grinned. “Damn, I wish I didn’t have to leave in the morning. But I’m glad you’re going to hang for a while. A vacation in Westbury will be good for you.”

  “I’m sure it will.” Just thinking about sitting in an office twenty stories up made Luke’s skin itch and his stomach curl up like a scared kid. Note to self: Most fire truck ladders don’t reach above the seventh floor. His boots scraped across a giant rust stain on the cement. The big white Peterson’s Painting van was parked in the last bay. Supplies and equipment were stored on shelves next to it. “Where do you want this?”

  “Let’s squeeze it in with the rest of my junk in case Brooke needs space while I’m in Afghanistan.”

  Luke’s gut soured at the thought of the danger his friend was heading into. “Do you need anything else taken care of before you go?”

  “No. This is the last of my stuff to store.” Wade shook his head. “The business is shut down. I let both my employees go.”

  “That sucks.” Luke wiped clammy sweat from his forehead. They shuffled sideways and set the heavy piece down.

  “One of the guys took it hard.” Wade led the way back to the truck. He climbed into the bed, and they maneuvered the headboard into the clear. “He’s been out of work before. In fact, can I give Brooke your number in case Joe bothers her this week?”

  “Of course.” Seeing Brooke again wouldn’t be a hardship. He remembered the last time he’d seen her, te
n years ago at the town’s Fourth of July celebration. She’d been blowing bubbles to entertain her two young children, her smile wide as the kids raced in circles popping them. Watching them, emptiness had spread through his chest. She had married someone else, though her husband’s absence had been as notable as Luke’s heartache. Luke had cut his visit short and gone back to New York the next day.

  “Luke?” Wade prompted.

  Luke shook the vision from his head and rubbed his sternum. How could the memory be this sharp a decade later? “What’s the guy’s name?”

  “Joe Verdi. Medium build. Extra-large temper.”

  “Great combo.”

  “Always.” Wade said. “Just to round things out, he’s a heavy drinker.”

  “Wonderful.” Luke grabbed the end of the headboard. “Give her my cell number.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, can I help, Uncle Wade?” A skinny teenage boy slouched behind the pickup. An unbuttoned plaid shirt hung over his T-shirt.

  “Sure.” Wade motioned between Luke and the kid. “Chris, do you remember my friend, Luke Holloway?”

  Holy shit. That was Brooke’s son? Luke still pictured him as a preschooler strung out on fireworks and cotton candy. The kid was adult-size. How the hell did that happen?

  “Not really, but, hi.” Like Wade, Chris was all dark brown hair and serious eyes. The teen wore his locks shaggy, while his uncle went with a buzz short enough to show scalp in the right light.

  “Grab whatever you can lift, Chris.” Wade hefted his end of the headboard, prompting Luke to do the same. Chris grabbed a box. With the kid’s help, the unloading went faster than planned.

  “You want these in the house?” Chris picked up a corrugated box marked CLOTHES.

  “That’d be great. Thanks, Chris.” Wade pulled his wallet from his back pocket and took out a couple of bills. “And you can order a couple of pizzas.”

  “Sweet. I’m starving, and Mom texted that she’d be late.” The teen snagged the money and headed for the house.