Page 90 of Dark Roads
I plunged my knife into his back and wrenched it out.
Mason twisted around. I slashed across his neck, cutting his jugular in one long gash. He made a choking sound, a frothy red bubble at his lips as he clutched his throat. Blood spurted through his hands in a dark stream. He collapsed to his knees, then fell sideways, and sprawled out with his eyes wide and shocked. One last gurgle leaked from his body.
Beth’s feet had landed back on the stool. She was staring at Mason and sobbing through the gag. I pushed one of the barrels closer and sawed at the noose. The fibers were thick, but finally the rope snapped. I wasn’t strong enough to hold her, but I tried to use my body to slow her fall. She toppled forward and hit the cement with a heavy thump. She didn’t move.
I jumped off the barrel and removed the gag, wet with her saliva and blood. I patted my fingers against her bruisedcheeks. “Hey, wake up.” Her eyes fluttered open and she took a heaving gasp, then another, choking and wheezing. “Easy, slow breaths.”
She clutched at my wrist, panicked as she looked around. “Where is he?” Her voice was raspy and sore-sounding, but she could talk. That was good news.
“Gone. He’s dead.” She dropped her head back, eyes rolling. “Don’t pass out again, please. Beth? Beth?” I touched her neck, felt for her pulse. She took a gulping breath. Her lungs and heart were trying to catch up. Her skin was so red and bruised. What if her throat swelled shut? I had to get help. Mason would have a phone inside. I got onto my knees. Her eyes opened.
“Don’t go,” she whispered.
“I’m going to call 911 from his house. I’ll pretend to be you.”
“It has to be my voice.” She winced as her throat contracted. “They’ll listen to the recording. Help me walk.”
I thought for a moment. Could I carry her? She wasn’t much bigger than me, but she’d been hurt. She should stay still. She reached out and pinched my calf. I gasped.
“Do it, Hailey.”
“Fine. But if you pass out, it’s not my fault.” I slid my arm under her neck and gently lifted her to a sitting position. Her body weaved, her eyelids flickered, but she held on and nodded when she was ready for the next step. I got to my feet, dragging her up with me. She staggered, and I gripped her around the waist, then we slowly limped to the house.
We made the last few wobbly steps and I opened Mason’s door, scared for a moment that he might have rigged a trap or bomb of some type, but nothing happened. The inside of the house was dark, with wood paneling and brown linoleum.
In the kitchen, I let Beth slide to the floor, pulled a bag of peas out of the freezer, wrapped them in a towel, and held thecold pack to her neck. “You kicked ass in there. That leg move? It was like watching WWE.”
“Are you being nice to me? Have I died?” she whispered.
“Shut up or I’ll gag you again.”
She snorted, but I knew she was grateful for the dumb joke. I didn’t know how else to deal with everything that had just happened. Mason’s bleeding body in the garage. Beth naked in front of me. I pulled a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around her. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, with a serious voice this time as I looked her in the eye. “It’s over.”
She rested her head on her knees and started to cry. I rubbed her back. I couldn’t make her feel better. She needed help beyond me.
“You have to get to the hospital. I’m going to find the phone.”
She lifted her face. “You can’t let Vaughn see you.”
“I don’t plan on it. I’m going to remove the security cameras.” I would have to take Mason’s computer or whatever he had been downloading the recording onto, which was stealing evidence, but Beth didn’t seem to think about that part, and I didn’t want to bring it up.
I found Mason’s landline on the coffee table in his living room. I glanced down the hall. The bedrooms must be back there. Maybe an office.
Beth wasn’t looking good, her face pale in the places that weren’t bruised purple and bloody. I pressed the numbers and held the phone to her ear. She spoke in her raspy, damaged voice to the operator. “Help, I need help.”
I gnawed at my fingernails and looked out the window as she finished telling them as much as she could. She nodded at me when she was done.
“He has knife wounds in his back. You’ll have to explain everything.” I wiped my knife with a paper towel, removing any fingerprints I’d left in the past.
I pressed her fingers around the knife. “They’ll want this.”
“I’ll say he cut me down. We fought. I got the knife away from him.”
“They’re not stupid.”
“They’ll be distracted. I’m the victim, not a suspect.”
“Vaughn will be looking for proof that I was one of Mason’s victims.”
