Read The River Runs Dry Online
Authors: L. A. Shorter
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Romance, #Suspense, #romantic mystery, #romantic thriller, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Crime, #Thriller
Jessie flung herself to the floor beside Jack, her eyes wide, and pressed down onto his wound. “Jack...you're going to be OK.”
She tore off the sleeve of her loose fitting shirt and pressed it to Jack's stomach. “It's all right...we're going to get you out of here Jack....you're going to be fine, just fine.”
Jack lay there, a smile rising in the corners of his bloodied mouth, and gingerly lifted his fingers to Jessie's face. His cold, red, palm cupped around her cheek, and her eyes lifted from his wound to his face.
“You're OK,” he said.
She nodded. “I'm OK,” but tears were still gathering in her eyes.
His smile widened. “It's all right Jess....really. I found you. That's all I care about.”
“No...don't go speaking like that,” said Jessie, looking anxiously around, as if there was someone to help, someone to shout out to. “We're going to get you out of here....come on, get up.”
She pulled at Jack's shoulders, trying to lift him to his feet, but he groaned in pain. “Jack...please...come on, you have to stand.”
He moved a touch, but soon fell back to the floor, grimacing and groaning once again. “Please Jack, you have to try.”
But her words were fading fast now from his mind, the blackness beginning to overcome him. He felt his hand at her face, his eyes focused on her. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, wiping the tears away once more.
The world kept closing in as Jessie kept tugging, kept pulling, kept trying. But it was no use. Jack's body was giving way, his mind drifting into unconsciousness, the darkness he'd experienced engulfing him for one final time.
This time, it would be forever.
Chapter 28
“She'll never get over this.”
The voice came from Jessie's side, Darcia standing next to her, looking through the window at the woman in her bed. She was staring up at the ceiling, an emptiness inside her eyes, her mouth muttering, always muttering.
“They're taking her to a special mental institution, somewhere she can get proper care. She's going to need it,” Jessie said, looking through the glass. “That could have been me...it could have been you.”
Darcia nodded. “But for Jack.”
They turned from the window and wandered slowly through the hospital, a rush going on around them as doctors and nurses hurried this way and that.
“I suppose he'll get the death penalty,” Darcia said, drawing a grimace to Jessie's face.
“I thought I'd already given him that,” she said, a bitter edge to her voice.
She hadn't.
Trey Hunter, the Butcher of Burgess, had survived the two bullets that she'd sent through his body. By the time the cops got out there to cordon the place off, he was all but dead, a faint pulse just around running through his body.
They should have left him like that, Jessie had thought to herself when she heard the news. The things that he'd done, the pain and suffering he'd caused, he deserved to be left there to bleed out in that pit, that dungeon in his house of horror.
When the police searched the place, they found the eyes of his victims, each of them locked in a jar in his kitchen. They were his trophies, gruesome souvenirs that he kept to himself. The police said that there were two empty jars, jars intended to be filled by the two girls locked down in that cellar.
For Jessie the sentence had been brief, but for the woman opposite her, it had been a months long cycle of pain and suffering. She never knew when he'd come, whether he'd leave her there for hours, or days even without food, with hardly any water to live on.
In the blackness Jessie hadn't seen it all, not the small bowl of water in the corner of the room, not the old moldy bread that he fed her. It was an existence that had driven her to the brink of sanity, a life without time, without contact, without light or laughter. It was a life that Jessie was saved from, and that was something she'd never forget.
Jessie learned that it was Tracy Blackman down in that cell with her, the woman who'd already felt the sting of Trey Hunter's knife almost 20 years ago. He'd been a boy then, tortured and abused, not only by his mother, but by Tracy as well. He'd killed his mother that fateful night, but Tracy had got away, and it was something he'd never forgotten, a loose end that he always wanted to tie up.
So he'd taken her, dragged her from her life in LA and into that lonely old shack in the middle of nowhere. It had been abandoned for years, a place long since forgotten out on the plains, the perfect place to abuse and torture the woman who'd done the same to him all those years ago.
And Jessie? Well, she was just what he'd been looking for. Someone to partner Tracy, someone to play his mother in his little game of revenge. He'd been killing and searching, searching for that special someone who clicked in his memory, who looked like his mother. Brunette, blue eyes, average height, slim, pretty, and young. He'd killed as he went, searching for the perfect match, and when he found her, the whole game changed. After he'd met Jessie, he knew that she was the only one for him.
The girls continued to walk through the corridors, the horrors that they'd been through growing lighter on their backs. Darcia would never forget what her fear had forced her to do, that she'd shot her own brother for fear of the killer, but over time she'd begin to move forward, begin to live her life in a manner one might consider normal again.
It wasn't the same for Jessie. She'd lost people, people she cared for, people she loved, but locked in that basement, she thought her life was over. She thought the rest of her days would be reduced to the suffering Tracy had experienced, a life that no one should have to endure.
She walked with a light step now, the daylight giving her rest from her own nightmares. Despite it all, despite the events of the last few weeks and months, she could see a future, a brighter future than she expected not so long ago when she was languishing in a dead end job in a dead end town.
Life had moved on at pace over the last few weeks since she'd escaped the killer's clutches. With the summer drought ending and the news of the killer being captured, interest in her house had suddenly grown. Only in the last week, she had 2 separate offers, one of which she had already accepted.
With the house sale came news that she could restart college in the fall, her life turning full circle as she prepared to move to LA. So, even with everything that had happened, she had a hell of a lot to be thankful for, and she wasn't going to dwell on the bad when she'd been blessed elsewhere.
But her biggest blessing wasn't selling the house or going back to college. No, her biggest blessing was Jack.
…
Darcia and Jessie stopped outside room 206 at Kanton hospital and turned to each other.
“I'll leave you to it babe,” said Darcia, smiling and giving her a hug. For the first time in a while her smile seemed almost real, as if there were moments now when she didn't think about what she'd done. Jessie hugged her tight and spoke over her shoulder.
“You know the offer's still there about LA. I think it would do you good to leave this place.”
Jessie could feel Darcia's chin nodding down into her shoulder, but she didn't answer. She'd make the decision in her own time, and Jessie didn't like to push it.
Then Darcia pulled back and turned, walking off down the corridor to leave Jessie alone, her heart beginning to race. She walked a few more steps forward towards the door and opened it up.
Her eyes fell immediately on the bed ahead of her, occupied by a man, a wide smile across his face.
“Well look at you,” he said, “you look great.”
Jessie smiled and moved forward towards the bed, the incessant beeping of monitors ringing around the room. “You don't look so bad yourself, for someone who's supposed to be dead.”
“Who said I was supposed to be dead?” asked Jack quickly, a smile in his eye.
“Oh, you know, the doctors, the cops, the press, just about everyone.”
“Well that's nice. Good to know people have faith in me.”
“I knew you'd be OK though....so did Carla. She's the one who saved the day after all.”
Jack nodded, an appreciation ringing across his face. Carla had traced Jack's phone when he went out of signal range and went dark after nightfall. She'd tracked him to the shack, heard gunshots from afar, and managed to get down there just in time to help Jessie lift him out, into the car, and to the hospital.
But it had been Jessie who'd driven him, with Carla waiting at the house to ensure that Tracy was safe and the Butcher remained incapacitated. The two women Jack had grown to trust the most were the ones to save his life, and for that he couldn't be more grateful.
He told Jessie as much as they sat there, but really, she didn't need to hear it. He'd saved her, and then she'd saved him. It was together that they took the killer down, together that they'd saved each other, and the town of Burgess, from further heartache.
As they spoke Jessie moved further forward, and their hands met. Soon she leaned in and their lips met as well, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she shifted her weight onto the bed. He groaned mockingly as he shuffled to the side, his stomach still wrapped in heavy bandaging, but only pulled her further towards him when she tried to move off.
“So I hear you're moving to LA for college,” Jack said suddenly between kisses, drawing her eyes back to his.
She nodded. “Yeah, it's gonna be weird not being near you after everything.”
He held a solemn look on his face, which slowly morphed into a smile, his eyes starting to sparkle.
“Oh, so you're happy we're gonna be hundreds of miles from each other are you? That's nice!”
He shook his head. “Not hundreds....just one or two.”
Her eyebrows fell with the mocking look on her face. “What do you mean?”
“Well...let's just say I never intended on living out here for more than a year. You know...nothing ever happens!”
“So....?”
“Yep....I'm coming home with you.”
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More by L.A.Shorter
This book was my first go at something involving crime, killers, and that whole world, but I've written a few others in the suspense and mystery category, always with a romance attached of course!
If you want to take a look, here are the links:
Logan Brothers Books Series:
Twin Passions (Gemma, Zack, and Cade)
Always for You Series:
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