CHOSEN TO DIE
421
picked up the phone again, but he’d lost the call. His wipers scraped against the windshield, rubber screeching on dry glass. He snapped them off and pressed hard on the throttle.
There was still nearly ten miles of twisted, icy road before he reached the silver mine and Regan. And what then? When you get to the mine, what will you do? How will you find her? There are miles upon miles of tunnels running beneath the acres that consti- tute the mine. How the hell will you locate Regan before it’s too late?
He knew the answer to that one.
He’d start with Billy’s house.
From there he might get a clue as to where the creep was holding his victims.
He might not tell you.
Wrong, he thought, his mind imagining just what he would do, if he had to.
Billy would spill his guts under the right kind of persuasion.
Usually, Santana was a nonviolent man, a person who could understand animals, commune with them with only touches. But when it came to humans, especially those who exacted their own torture and cruelty, Santana knew just what to do. Compliments of the U.S. Military.
The bitch isn’t giving up.
I run after her, steady, barely breathing hard. I’ve got her and she knows it.
I watch as she stumbles, then falls down the embankment. Stupid woman. Didn’t she see that potential slide? She falls faster and faster down a ravine as I jog around the lip of the ridge, keeping her in 422
Lisa Jackson
my line of vision, staying on the deer trail that cuts along the edge of the hill.
She cries out and something flies from her hand. A stick . . . no, the bitch had a knife in her fist! One of mine! Now it’s gone. Lost in the snow. This is getting worse and worse.
More and more out of control.
Rage thunders through me.
She thinks she can steal from me?
Then cut me with my own blade?
She deserves everything I give her and more!
While she tumbles toward the bottom, I find the path that angles deep into this depression and never once let her out of my sight.
She finally slows, stops, and forces herself to her feet, but she’s unsteady. Dizzy. And I’m closing the distance as she staggers away.
For the first time I feel a bit of satisfaction. She can’t last forever.
And the snow has stopped falling, patches of blue above. I vault over a frozen log, and a weasel, a blur of white with a black-tipped tail, scurries away deeper into the undergrowth. I take that as a good sign.
Yes, in many ways, it’s a perfect day for her to die. Of course, I would prefer to break her spirit. To make her depend upon me.
To have her think she’s in love with me. To want me.
To offer herself up sexually.
I would love to see the hope in