Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake (лучшие книги без регистрации txt) 📗

“Please …” the girl said, her voice drifting off. So pathetic that Laura felt a warm surge of emotion, tears climbing up into her throat.

When she heard Summer’s voice, her resolve came back.

She willed her eyes open.

When Buddy was a kid, he was obsessed with American Indians. He read books about them, watched movies, pestered his parents to take him to Indian ceremonies—especially the Apaches, who were the toughest people on earth. During the Indian wars, an Apache could cover seventy miles a day on foot. The Apaches trained their infants not to make noise because they might alert the enemy. They lived on stealth because otherwise they would be eradicated. Now his days of stalking the low-rent neighborhood in south Phoenix where he grew up came back to him.

He was quiet. Like air, threading through the cracks of the world.

Silently he tracked Lundy through the dark parking lot of the Chiricahua Paint Company. Adhering to his training: Always find cover. Cover was something a bullet couldn’t go through, like the engine block of a car. That was something that had been hammered into his head over and over. Find cover. If you can’t find cover, find concealment. And if you can’t find concealment, look for an escape route.

Lundy was a lightweight: A guy who picked on little girls. Watching him creep along the warehouse wall, flinching at every noise—it could have made Buddy complacent, but it didn’t. The minute you let your guard down, that was when fate got you. He’d seen it many times in his twenty-three years in law enforcement. Just a little bit of inattention, and you were dead.

So he did not underestimate this man. Hated him, yes, but even the hate he had to push down deep inside. He had to clear the fear for his daughter out of his mind if he wanted to help her.

Not much cover around here, so he went for concealment.

The little man had his back to the warehouse wall, inching around like he was on a ledge twenty floors up. Clear he didn’t know what he was doing.

Time to take him out.

Buddy was behind him in an instant, one arm around his neck and his other hand over his mouth. He was tempted to administer a choke hold, tempted to take the choke hold too far.

He said quietly in Dale Lundy’s ear, “Make a sound and I will kill you. Do you understand?”

A quick nod, his eyes bugging out.

He dragged Lundy backwards, off his feet—the guy was as light as a feather. Dragged him under a tamarisk tree. The salt cedar’s boughs trailed almost to the ground, affording him all the privacy he needed.

He had Lundy cuffed and on his stomach, one knee pressed into his back. Thinking about how much he’d like to pound his head into the pavement, crack it like an egg.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“I don’t know—“

“Don’t fuck with me. Where is she?” Pressing his knee harder.

“She’s in there.”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t my fault. I tried to save her, but he got her anyway, I tried, I tried …" Blubbering. New blue Keds skating in the dirt.

Buddy fighting panic now—who got her? “Is she hurt?”

“I don’t know—I don’t think so. She looked okay when he took her in there.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two, three hours ago? I can’t remember—it could be longer than that.”

“Who is he?”

“Dark Moondancer.”

He shook Lundy until he rattled. “Are you playing games with me? Because if you are—“

“No no no! Dark Moondancer. That’s his name. It’s the truth, I swear to God, it’s his nick. He took her away from me, all I ever wanted was for her and me to—”

“Shut up!" He heard the savagery in his own voice. Out of control. Gritted his teeth, tamped down his revulsion. His voice quiet. “If you don’t shut the fuck up about that I’ll kill you.” He took a deep breath. “Tell me about Dark Moondancer.”

“I don’t know him really, except from the Internet. He … he and I have had transactions over the years. He knew I was in town and he wanted to … to meet Summer.”

Buddy gave him a hard slap to the head. “Go on.”

“He’s evil. He likes torture. That’s why I refused to let him meet Summer. I wanted to protect her.”

“What are you saying? He’s torturing my daughter in there?”

Lundy gasped. “Your daughter?”

“Answer the question.”

“Oh God. Ohmygod, I’m dead. Oh God, please don’t hurt me!”

His voice hopeless.

Buddy felt something crack in his heart.

Laura stared, taking in everything at once, but unable to completely assimilate it. Breaking it down object by object, things she could name. A gas can on the floor. A trouble light. Extension cords. A video camera. A work table. Tools arrayed neatly on the table’s pristine surface—pliers, a vise, an electric drill, a staple gun. The tool cabinet was like the one her father owned, candy-apple red. The kind you got at Sears.

Shackles bolted to the walls. Meat hooks dangling from the ceiling. A machine that looked custom-made, padded, something you’d see in a gym, but with shackles, chains, and pulleys at each end. A modern-day rack? Photos tacked to the wall, eight-by-tens of the hell he had committed on young women and girls—she counted three different women, photographed from all angles. Tied up, eyes bulging with fear. Before and After shots.

Digital photos of Jessica Parris after death.

A place for Let’s Go People! to unwind.

Laura took it in, trying to stay clinical. She almost lost it as she stared at the mattress on the floor, though, soaked through with old bloodstains. So many reds, browns and blacks they formed a hard, shiny slick.

Mickey prodded her deeper into the room.

“You two girls know each other?” asked Galaz.

When Laura finally looked at Summer, she felt both relief and revulsion.

The girl was bolted to one wall, huddled down as far as she could get, but her arms were held high above her head. Wearing a little girl’s dress.

Unhurt, physically. But how did you face something like this without losing a grip on your soul?

Twelve years old

She looked at Galaz, the supercilious smile on his face. Seeing living, breathing women as something to torture for his pleasure, because he was so empty he couldn’t get a high any other way.

If there’s a way for me to kill you, she thought, I will.

Buddy secured Lundy to the tree with the cuffs after tearing strips of the man’s shirt for a gag. Arms behind him, cuffs looped around a sturdy bough. Lundy on his knees.

That would hurt before too long. His back would be in agony. Good.

Buddy started for the back of the warehouse.

The cars were there, Laura Cardinal’s and Galaz’s. He made a circuit of the building, which was uniformly dark except for the one area near the corner, where a dim light leaked out through the holes in the painted-over windows.

That’s where they were.

Buddy leaned his back against the brick, which still retained heat from the day. He needed to call it in. The cell phone would have to do. But before that, he took the knife he always carried and stabbed the tires on the two vehicles.

He called 911, explained who he was, that he was a cop. Gave the exact location. The South Tucson police were on their way. He got through to DPS, to Jerry Grimes.

He’d give them five minutes.

Laura was aware of Galaz standing near her. He was smug, pleased with himself. But there was something else.

Something going on with him.

Working out a problem.

“Why don’t you check her shackles?” Galaz said to Harmon.

“They’re fine.”

“Humor me, Mick.”

Ponderously, Harmon walked over to Summer and bent down to check. He straightened, said, “I told you they were fi—“

The bullet took him in the chest, throwing him against the wall.

Galaz was holding Laura’s weapon, looking down at Harmon.

“Sorry, Mickey, there’s been a change of plans,” he said.