Page 73 of Unraveled

“Eli was on to me. Did you know that? I had no choice but to take care of him when he confronted me. Can you believe the idiot came to me first, instead of going to the police?” He tapped the end of her nose with the flat edge of the scalpel. “You almost ruined it for me, Dr. Stanton. I think you should make it up to me.”

Her stomach tightened in fear at the implication. He must have seen something in her eyes because he grinned. “It’ll be so much more special with you. Now that there’s no rush…” He shrugged. “I can take my time.”

She watched, unblinking, as he lifted the blade, flashing in the glow of the industrial lighting overhead, and lowered it toward her torso. Silent screams filled her head as the blade burned a path down her sternum.

“Feel that, doctor?” Another tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and he smiled. “Where should we start, do you think? Liver?”

She felt the blade slice into her lower stomach and fought the nausea rolling in her belly.

“Hmm…” He hummed a little sound, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Don’t want you passing out on me just yet.”

Reaching off to the side somewhere, she heard the soft clank of metal before he turned back to her. He held up some sort of device that resembled an ice cream scoop.

Oh, God.

Inwardly, she thrashed as it moved closer to her face. Outwardly, her body didn’t even twitch.

“Such pretty eyes, Audrey.” The cool metal pressed against the skin near her temple. “Someone would pay a pretty penny for those.”

He lifted the instrument closer to her face, allowing it to hover over her eye socket. A feral smile curled his lips as he lifted it away. “Maybe not. I want you to have a good view.”

She fought against the drug coursing through her system, trying to spur her muscles into moving, but they remained infuriatingly still. Nate turned away again, and a tiny spasm rolled through the muscle of her forearm. She anxiously held her breath, praying for it to happen again.

There.

Just the slightest twitch, but her heart leaped as the index finger on her right hand moved. She tested it again, and she felt the cool brush of metal against her fingertip as she stroked the surface of the table. She focused as hard as she could, channeling all of her energy on trying to move her other fingers, her toes—anything.

To her left, Nate was still rustling around, digging for something. Finally, she was rewarded by a tiny twitch of her foot. She was restrained, so she wouldn’t be able to just hop off the table and run away, even if she did have control of her muscles, so she focused on the next best thing.

She pushed her tongue forward, trying to get it to cooperate. She hadn’t seen much as he carried her into the trailer, but maybe if she could scream for help…

Her hope was short-lived as Nate loomed over her once more. “Open wide, doctor.”

It took barely more than a second for his words to sink in as he pried her jaw open and lifted the channel locks he held. She tried to scream as the cool metal pushed past her lips, but nothing came out.

The scrape of metal against bone filled her ears, and she mentally cringed as the grooves of the instrument grasped for purchase on her saliva-slickened tooth.

His face contorted in concentration as he adjusted his angle and pulled. The pressure was so intense it lifted her head off the table.

Nate chuckled. “Sucker’s really in there, isn’t it?” Tears burned her eyes and slipped down her cheeks as he pressed one hand to her forehead, holding her in place. “Don’t worry, Dr. Stanton. It’ll be over in… just… one… second.”

Blinding pain swept over her like a tidal wave, paralyzing in its intensity. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except taste the metallic tang of blood filling her mouth and tremble from the pain radiating through her body.

The pliers were suspended in midair, the tooth clenched tightly between them, and she watched as a trickle of blood slipped down the side and fell out of sight. Every muscle in her body tensed, and her lungs contracted as a scream started low, then worked its way up her throat. It bellowed up and out of her mouth, startling them both when it coincided with the sound of screeching metal and splintering wood.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

Carter threw his weight against the door, and it finally gave way with a loud screech as the metal bent and the wood of the doorjamb cracked. His heart hitched, and the scene in front of him stole his ability to breathe.

The inside of the small trailer was almost completely empty. The floors were covered in cheap vinyl, stained dark in places with God knew what. The only thing of substance in the room was the stainless steel table in the middle of what should have been a kitchen, dated cabinets lining the wall. But that wasn’t what grabbed his attention.

Audrey lay on the table, wrists and ankles bound, stripped down to nothing but her underwear. The red trails of blood were stark against her pale skin that had been sliced open. She was still—so still. She didn’t move, didn’t scream, didn’t even look his way. Those azure eyes he knew so well stared vacantly at the ceiling, and a trail of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, down her cheek and onto the table beneath her.

He felt his lungs constrict and his heart tighten as fury billowed up, radiating through every inch of his body. Ripping his gaze away from her, he slowly lifted it to the man standing over her. The man’s eyes were crazed, his cheeks flushed pink, and in his hand he held a pair of channel locks. And was that…?

Oh, Christ. It was a tooth. Audrey’s tooth.