Murder in the Smokies - By Paula Graves Page 0,66
the gash in her scalp, but she’d stanched the flow with her suit jacket. The wound had settled down to a slow ooze instead of a gush. But that was the end of the good news. She was still stuck in the back of the locked truck, still forced to sit in one place to keep from being pitched around by the vehicle’s motion.
She took advantage of every time the truck stopped moving to feel her way around the truck box, trying to remember the details of the interior from her brief inspection earlier that morning.
Had it been only that morning? Somehow, her first trip to Bramlett Nurseries felt as if it had happened a lifetime ago.
The truck stopped again, and she pushed to her feet, resuming her tactile search of the truck box. She came across a loose bit of metal batten covering a seam and plucked at it with her fingers. It gave as she pulled, and she jerked harder. The strip tore away from the box. “Yes!” she breathed.
The piece of batten wasn’t long, as it seemed to have covered only a short seam, and she could have hoped for something a little more substantial than a ruler-thin strip of flexible metal to use as a weapon. But it was better than nothing, and a moment later, when the engine died away and she realized they had parked, she was glad to have it.
It was short enough to conceal behind her back, she realized, tucking it into the waistband of her trousers. It lay flat against her spine, the top of the batten resting against her neck. As long as she didn’t turn around to give Bramlett a look at her back, she could use it as a weapon if she needed it.
She heard the rattle of the lock on the back door and braced herself for a fight. The door opened, letting in a blinding amount of light. She slid into the corner at the back, praying for her eyesight to adjust quickly.
Bramlett’s silhouette filled the doorway, bigger than she remembered. She wondered if that’s how he’d appeared to his previous victims, faceless death, too powerful and relentless to defeat.
To hell with that. She might go down, but not without giving the bastard a damned good fight.
“You killed the other women.” As her eyes adjusted to the flow of light, she began to make out his features. Her words made him smile, and he clapped slowly.
“Brava, Detective. You figured it out.”
“Clearly, you knew I would. Since you took the stupid chance of kidnapping me from your very own nursery.”
He shrugged. “I’m done here, once I take care of you and one more little bit of unfinished business.”
“Business? I’m not buying that.” The strip of batten felt ridiculously insubstantial where it lay against her spine, but she refused to let any hint of defeat creep in. “You enjoy killing. It shows in your handiwork.”
“I do. I really do.” Bramlett’s smile widened. “But it is business. I’ve been paid well to do what I did.”
“By whom?”
He shook his head. “No big confessions from the killer, Detective. This isn’t a movie, and you’re not going to live to tell the tale anyway.”
In a flash, so fast she barely had time to react, he threw himself at her. And it was only in that last second, as she whipped the strip of batten from behind her back, that she caught the glimmer of light on the blade of a deadly-looking hunting knife in his right hand.
Chapter Fifteen
If there was a truck parked on the side of Old Lumber Mill Road, it wasn’t readily apparent. Sutton pulled his truck onto the shoulder of the road at the mile marker and tried not to panic.
Had Seth screwed up the GPS tracking? He reached for his phone and started to dial Seth’s number when he spotted the flash of white barely visible through a stand of poplar trees just off the road. A light breeze was making the leaves and limbs dance, revealing what looked like the side of a white box truck mostly hidden from view several yards off the shoulder.
Sutton checked the Glock’s ammunition and got out of the truck, trying to move as silently as possible. The crunch of gravel beneath his feet led him quickly off the shoulder and onto the grass beyond. There wasn’t much of a drop-off from the shoulder to the ground, which would have made it easy for the truck to leave the road and