Madness (Asher Benson #2) Read online

  He waved a hand in front of her face.

  She didn’t respond.

  Didn’t even blink.

  “Hello? Anyone in there?” Jim snapped his fingers right in front of her eyes. “They’re out to lunch, Bobby.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Bob leaned over the counter and waved both of his hands in front of Mel. “What’s happening to them?”

  “You’re the smart guy around here.” Jim straightened out his back. “You tell me. I just turn wrenches for a living.”

  “The guys outside are doing the same thing.” Bob pointed at the window. “It’s really freaking me out.”

  “I hear ya.” Jim stepped forward and stopped beside the next woman. “It’s like they ain’t even here.”

  And then, all moving in unison, the women lowered their phones and blinked several times. The men by the gas pumps did the exact same thing.

  “Mel? You all right?” Bob waved his hand in front of her face again.

  Melody blinked twice more and then her eyes cleared, as if she’d stepped back into the moment. She met Bob’s gaze with her own. His hand stayed in front of his face as he frowned at her.

  Jim let out a deep, nervous laugh. “Welcome back to the land of the living, ladies. How was your little vacation?”

  The woman directly behind Melody put her phone back in her purse and then pulled something else free. Bob could see that it was tiny and black, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was.

  “What do you have there, little lady?” Jim asked. The height advantage he had over the woman had him bending down to her as if she were a small, fat child. “Hey, wait a second. Is that a—?”

  His question was cut off by a cloud of dark mist that sprayed into his face.

  And then Bob saw what the woman held—a can of pepper spray.

  Jim howled.

  He dropped the gallon of chocolate milk, the thick liquid spilling onto the floor as it gushed from the neck of the jug. His hat fell from his head and dropped into the milk.

  Jim shouted something incomprehensible and then fell into a fit of coughs. He held his meaty hands to his face and bent over at the waist, hacking and sputtering through his splayed fingers.

  “Whoa! What the hell are you doing?” Bob tried to reach under the counter, intent on grabbing the baseball bat he kept there for emergencies. He never could have imagined having to use it, let alone on a short, squat woman.

  Melody grabbed onto his wrist with both of her hands.

  The sudden movement took Bob off guard. “What are you—?”

  Melody’s mouth popped open as she yanked Bob forward and stuck his index finger between her lips.

  A flash of panic grabbed Bob as he realized what was about to happen.

  And then, Melody’s teeth clamped down on his finger.

  The pain was blinding.

  Bob’s knees threatened to buckle.

  Blood coursed from between Melody’s lips as she ground into his finger with her incisors.

  Bob’s screams blotted out Jim’s angry shouts.

  He felt her teeth dig all the way to the bone.

  “Let me go!” Bob’s left hand swung out in a looping, desperate punch.

  His knuckles caught her in the eye.

  The blow sent her off balance and she staggered backward, pulling Bob with her.

  The skin on his finger tore underneath her sliding teeth.

  And then her jaw popped open, and she released him.

  He screamed again and retracted his hand, staring at the mangled digit.

  It hung forward, the muscles no longer able to keep it erect.

  White poked through the red, seeping mass between his knuckles.

  Blood poured down his forearm.

  A woozy, lightheaded sensation washed over him. His good hand grabbed the counter to steady himself as he fought the dizzy fog that threatened to drag him into unconsciousness.

  The woman with the pepper spray took a step toward Jim and depressed the trigger again. Another cloud ejected from the can, hitting him in the forehead.

  He tried to ward it off with a wave of his hand that accomplished nothing.

  His boots slid in the chocolate milk as he stumbled down one of the aisles, his hand knocking over bags of chips and pretzels.

  Two of the women followed him, one still aiming at his back with the spray.

  Melody found her balance again and lunged toward Bob, her belly slamming into the counter. Her hands grabbed at his forearms.

  He pulled away from the counter, still holding his wounded hand in front of him. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screeched.

  The last woman came around the side of the register, squeezing behind the counter.

  She grabbed a pen from a tiny cup that sat beside the lottery-ticket machine.

  “No!” Bob took another step back and slammed into the cigarette rack behind him.

  Packs showered over his shoulders and head.

  The woman clicked the top of the pen with her thumb, extending the tip from the bottom.

  Her eyes held a rage that both shocked and dismayed Bob.

  There wasn’t confusion there.

  No remorse.

  Just anger and determination.

  These women knew exactly what they were doing.

  She smiled at him, then drove the tip of the pen into his chest.

  Fresh pain made his entire pec contract around the foreign object.

  He screamed and jerked back, knocking the cigarette rack from the wall. It fell on his head, the rest of its contents discharging to the floor.

  Jim bellowed from the back of the store.

  Bob couldn’t see him.

  Wouldn’t have cared even if he could.

  Without thinking, he grabbed the rack with his good hand and tore it away from his head. With his damaged hand, he threw a punch at the fat woman with all the strength that he had.

  It connected flush with her nose.

  Blood poured from her nostrils like a faucet.

  She staggered backward, hands flying to her face.

  Tears welled her in eyes.

  They feel pain, Bob thought stupidly.

  White-hot agony ran into his arm, and he remembered that he’d just hit her with his mangled finger. Just the thought of it made his hand hurt even more.

  He raised it in front of his face again and cried out when he saw that his finger had acquired a new joint that made it skew sideways at a ninety-degree angle.

  Splintered bone stuck out through the skin.

  “You bitch!”

  Furious anger dulled the pain. He glared at the woman in front of him as she held her hands to her nose, blood pouring through her fingers. Before he had time to think of what he was doing, he marched forward, his shoes trampling the discarded packs of cigarettes on the floor.

  “You goddamn, fat bitch!”

  She looked at him through tears. “Fuck you!”

  The woman lowered her hands and grabbed two of the freshly brewed pots of coffee beside her.

  Bob saw what was coming and stopped in his tracks. “Wait—”

  She threw almost thirty cups of piping hot coffee in his face.

  His cheeks and forehead felt cold for a split second and he paused, confused at the sensation.

  Then the burning set in, a million watts of misery lighting up his nerve endings.

  Bob tried to breathe, to scream, but he couldn’t get in any air. His entire body was on fire, incapable of cooperating.

  He heard a hollow crack that reminded him of the sound his bat made when he played in the local softball league.

  His vision skewed and dimmed.

  Legs gave out.

  The need to vomit surged up from his stomach.

  Bewilderment set in as he collapsed on top of the packs of cigarettes.

  How had he gotten on the floor?

  His eyes darted around wildly, and he saw Melody stepping beside him.

  She held his baseball bat in both
hands.

  Was she borrowing it from him?

  Did they have a game today?

  Dear Mother of God, did his face ever burn.

  The fat woman stood behind Melody, glowering down at Bob. She dropped both coffee pots to the floor, the glass shattering.

  Mel raised the bat above her head, her copious bosom swaying slightly from the movement.

  “Mel?” Bob croaked. His tongue felt huge and tender in his mouth. Puffiness had already attacked his lips from the burns.

  Why was he burned? He couldn’t seem to get his thoughts in order.

  The first blow hurt, but not as much as he would have expected.

  It wasn’t loud either, more of a muted thump.

  His eyesight darkened.

  The second strike cracked like a shotgun.

  He didn’t hear the third.

  Or the fourth.

  Or the fifth.

  6 – Trapped

  The phone in Sheriff Adam’s hand vibrated over and over. The number was private. Normally, he would have answered it, but he didn’t have time to deal with what was probably a telemarketer.

  He sent the call to voicemail.

  Allison stood by the front window, hiding just out of sight, eyeing the road. “What if they come back?”

  “Relax, will ya?” Adams had a bad feeling about the events of the morning so far, but he knew that expressing that to Allison might cause her to slip into a full-blown panic. “The ambulance will be here soon, and then I’ll go and check your story out.”

  Allison hissed, “Someone is driving by!”

  The sheriff looked up from his phone, squinting. “They do that from time to time, you know? It’s a road.”

  A pickup truck drove by the office, heading out of town. Adams recognized it as belonging to William Jury, a professor who commuted all the way up to Morgantown to work at the college. He had a long trek every morning that he always bitched about when he ran into George at the pub or grocery store.

  The man stuck out like a sore thumb around the town because of his advanced degree and the prim way about him. But he was liked well enough and always extolled the benefits of country living, despite his upper-class income and profession.

  “He’s going to hit the spikes!” Allison wheeled around, coffee sloshing from her cup. “Those men haven’t come back yet, so the spikes are still sitting out there.”

  The sheriff stared at her for a second. “Goddamn it.” He turned his attention back to his cell. “Let me call up Deputy Roberts, and then we’ll—”

  He stopped midsentence.

  The phone didn’t have any service.

  A few seconds before, when the call was coming through, it had four bars.

  “What the hell?” he asked.

  “What is it?” Allison’s hands began to shake, and she spilled more coffee. She put the mug down on Mel’s desk. “What’s going on?”

  “Cell service is out.” Adams scratched the back of his head. “Both of the phones are down.”

  “Oh God.” Allison fell into the chair behind Mel’s desk, holding her head with both hands. “Do you believe me now? Do you think this could all be a coincidence? Those men tried to kill me, and now none of the phones work.”

  “I highly doubt that two men in a van managed to block the signal to my cell phone.” Adams tried to add an air of confidence to his voice, but failed.

  He didn’t know what was going on, but he intended to find out.

  Allison said something else that he didn’t hear. His focus was on the phone again.

  Adams tried to make a call to Roberts, just in case it would go through, even though it didn’t have any bars.

  It didn’t work.

  “Shut up for a second,” he grumbled. “Can’t hear myself think.”

  Allison just got louder. “We have to go after that truck! If he hits those spikes and dies, that’s on you, George.”

  Adams closed his eyes for a second. Though Allison’s babbling was approaching maddening levels, she had a point. Even if the phone worked, there was no way Roberts would be able to get down the road in time to stop the professor from running over the supposed spikes.

  The sheriff would have to do that himself.

  “Goddamn it to hell and back.” Adams stuffed the phone in his pocket and went to his desk.

  He grabbed his overloaded key ring from the top drawer and sifted through it until he found the key to his cruiser. The fat ring was entirely too big for him to keep in his pocket. He kept a spare set to most of the doors at the elementary school, the library, and a few other local businesses.

  The town would rather have him unlock the doors in case of a burglary or fire, instead of having to break them down.

  Unfortunately, he was terrible with losing his things, so he didn’t dare keep the keys to his office or cruiser on a separate set. More than once, he’d called the locksmith in the neighboring town to get him into his own damned car.

  “Stay here until the ambulance arrives. I’m going to head on up the road and see what I can find.”

  “To hell with that.” Allison jumped out of the chair and practically ran to him. “What if those men come back?”

  “You’re in the sheriff’s office. I doubt anyone is crazy enough to storm a police station.”

  Allison let out a cynical, high-pitched laugh. “I’m pretty sure that everyone knows you don’t have a SWAT team stashed in the back, George. You aren’t leaving me alone here.”

  “But—”

  “We’re wasting time arguing,” Allison said. She spun on her heel and walked to the front door, turning back to him as she put her hand on the knob. “Let’s go.”

  Adams let out a sigh and then grabbed a sticky pad from Mel’s desk. He scrawled a quick message to her saying that Allison Henley had been in an accident, that an ambulance was en route, and that the phones were down.

  While he finished his note, it occurred to him that Melody should have been there by now.

  Another coincidence in a morning full of them.

  At what point did coincidence become conspiracy?

  He grabbed his pistol and holster from the desk, clipping them to his belt.

  As they climbed into his cruiser, him behind the wheel, Allison in the front beside him, he swallowed down the dread that wormed its way up his throat. Things weren’t right and he knew it, no matter how much he argued with Allison.

  Most of his days on duty had him walking around and talking to the townsfolk.

  Maybe he would write a ticket or two.

  Watch some ESPN.

  It didn’t take Detective Colombo to figure out something was amiss that morning.

  They pulled onto the road, heading out of town.

  Allison’s hands fidgeted in her lap.

  The sheriff kept his speed low, eyes glued to the pavement.

  If there was a spike strip out there, he didn’t need to hit the thing and disable his cruiser.

  Three minutes later, they came upon the professor’s truck.

  It idled along the side of the road, the driver’s side door ajar.

  “Told you,” Allison said. She sat ramrod straight and pointed through the windshield. “And there’s my car right in front of it.”

  Her old, rusted-out sedan sat on its roof in a drainage ditch beside the road. The windows were smashed out, all four tires flat.

  “I’ll be damned.” Adams pulled in behind the truck and put the cruiser in park. He switched on his emergency lights and let the engine idle. He climbed out, grunting as his knees cracked. “Stay here.”

  Professor Jury stood by the front of Allison’s car, inspecting one of her flat tires. He wore a white dress shirt, slacks, and brown loafers. Round glasses glinted as the rising sun punched through the tree canopy surrounding them.

  He wore his dark brown hair in a ponytail that made Adams roll his eyes every time he saw the man.

  William turned back at the sound of the sheriff’s door closing. “I can’t f
ind anyone. There’s a little blood behind the wheel, but—”

  Adams held a hand up. “Everything’s fine, Will. It’s Allison Henley’s car, and she’s fine. I’ve got her in the cruiser with me now.

  “Oh, thank God.” William’s hunched shoulders fell. “It isn’t every morning that you stumble upon a wrecked car without anyone in it.” He turned back to the vehicle. “All the tires are flat.

  “Yah.” Adams climbed down into the drainage ditch beside him and looked at the front, driver’s side tire. The rubber was shredded. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What do you think could have done that?”

  The sheriff looked over the top of the car, further down the road.

  Straddled across the pavement, several yards away, sat a row of spikes.

  “Ahh, damn.” Adams climbed out of the ditch, his pulse quickening.

  Even with all the oddities of the morning, he hadn’t quite believed Allison about the men causing her accident. It just seemed so implausible, so ludicrous.

  But there was the evidence she’d told him he would find.

  “Sheriff!” Allison cried from behind him.

  “What?” He turned around, startled at the frightened tone of her voice.

  Allison stood beside the passenger door of his cruiser, pointing behind her. “Here they come!”

  Adams’ mouth dropped open when he saw the white van driving down the center of the road, heading straight for them.

  “What’s happening, George?” William asked. “I—”

  The professor cut himself off when he saw the sheriff place his palm on the handle of his pistol.

  “Get back in the car.” Adams hustled toward his cruiser. He pointed at the professor’s truck. “And you get in your truck.”

  The van stopped in the middle of the road. The passenger door opened.

  A man wearing overalls stepped out.

  He pulled a rifle out of the van and took a knee beside the door.

  “Holy shit!” The professor ran for his truck, his ponytail swooshing from side to side.

  The man jammed the butt of his rifle against his shoulder.

  For the first time in his decades-long career, Sheriff George Adams had to pull his gun. He stood in the middle of the road and aimed at the man with the rifle. “Drop it!”

  He was a solid fifty yards away from the van.