“No,” she attempts to yell through her gag and I hear the word, know the meaning though her voice is garbled and muted.
“Let’s go.”
She is crying now, pulling the limp dishrag routine on me, as if her legs won’t work. Some do this. Others try to flee. One tried to fight. In the end it’s all the same, and as I lift my knife again, she gets the idea.
I loop a length of rope around her wrists; there’s no time for chasing after her in the woods, and with my backpack in place, I prod her forward. She doesn’t want to go.
As much of an idiot as she is, she realizes that this is the end: There is no escape.
She is shivering as she stumbles along, plowing through the unbroken snow, cutting her own death path.
I hurry her along.
There isn’t a lot of time.
I have places I need to be.
“Move it,” I say, as I know the cold has settled into her bones. Through the ice-draped thickets of saplings and over the top of a ridge, I force her to follow a deer trail I’ve used for hunting since childhood. 346
Lisa Jackson
She’s visibly shaking now, either from fear, the cold, or both. Not that it matters. Down we walk, over a fallen tree where the jagged stump is now softened by the inches of white powder over it. The sky is obscured with clouds and the wind is blustery, blowing in fits and starts.
She contemplates running, I sense it, but she’s an obedient doe, one who has given in to the whims of men her whole life, the way she tells it. A domineering father and then a string of boyfriends who never were quite the Prince Charming she’d hoped for. She’d told me about all of them, including Cesar, the latest, the one she’d wanted to marry. Elyssa, of all the women I’ve hand-picked, is by far the least confident, a mouse of a thing . . . I probably shouldn’t have chosen her, but her name . . . so perfect.
That thought brings a smile to my face as I realize that already my gift for the police might have arrived. If so, the sheriff’s department will be set on its ear.
Chaos is bound to erupt.
The news, today, will be much more interesting than that boring press conference Grayson held. Posed on the steps of the sheriff’s department with his stern expression, trying to appear like a U.S. Marshal on some old T.V. or movie Western. Yeah, Grayson, you boring tool, get real.
“This way,” I say as Elyssa stops at the icy remnants of the creek. I nudge her with the knife and she jumps, starts walking faster across the icy stream and up a rise on the far bank. We’re close now, having hiked nearly a mile. And she’s probably going numb, frostbite setting in.
CHOSEN TO DIE
347
I don’t want to carry her, so I say, “Run!”
She’s startled, nearly slips, but catches herself and with my knife within reach, she gallops awkwardly over the hill to the clearing, and there stands the lonely cedar tree. A perfect spot.
Her eyes round as she spies the tree.
She gets it.
She’s shaking her head, denying the inevitable, but I won’t hear any further protests and while she silently pleads with me, her eyes wide and beseeching, her cuffed hands reaching outward, I ignore her and without any trouble lash her to the tree, pulling her back tight against the rough bark, hearing the muffled cry as her skin makes contact. I can’t take any more time and she’s failing anyway, her body leaning into her bindings, her hair stiff with the snow. As she whimpers, I reach into my backpack for my kit, then nail the appropriate note over her head and carve out the star in the perfect position with my knife.
She’s weak.
Pathetic.
Deserves to die.
Bits of bark drop onto her scalp and shoulders and I let it stay.
She’s not saying a word now, seemingly out of it, and that just won’t do. Hurriedly I pack my things, swing the backpack over my shoulder, and walk to the edge of the clearing. Then I pull my camera out of my pocket. “Hey!” I yell as I focus. Nothing.
Damn it, I took too long!