tips of her toes. The pain buckled her knees and she landed back on the floor.
She lifted a hand and touched the band around her throat. It felt like the sort of thing you put on a dog.
A shock collar.
Oh, heavens.
* * *
I chuckle as I watch the woman squirm on the floor.
I’m wearing night-vision goggles so I can see without being seen. Besides, it seems appropriate to watch her flounder in the darkness.
How many children did she lock in the gloomy classroom closet for hours at a time?
I hold the remote to the shock collar in my hand as I speak directly into the intercom.
“Back on your feet.”
Ms. Randall pushes herself onto her hand and knees, panting as if she’s actually a dog.
Good. I smile in satisfaction.
“You have until the count of three,” I snap. Just like she used to do. “One, two . . .”
“I’m doing it,” she mutters, managing to straighten and glare around the darkness. “Who are you?”
“The one in charge,” I remind her. “How does it feel to be at the mercy of someone bigger and stronger than you?”
Ms. Randall lifts her hand, tugging at the collar. “This isn’t funny. I demand that you reveal yourself.”
I press the button on the remote, listening to the woman’s scream with a shiver of excitement. “You’re a slow learner, aren’t you, Ms. Randall?” I mock. “Do you know what I do to slow learners?”
The woman licks her lips. Was she remembering how she would call a student stupid and then shove their nose against the chalkboard, forcing them to stand there for hours?
“I think there’s been a mistake.” Her voice has lost the shrill arrogance that haunts my dreams. Now it is whiny. And equally irritating. “I’m just an old woman.”
“Close.”
She blinks like an owl. Blink, blink, blink.
“What did you say?”
“You’re not just an old woman,” I assure her. “You’re a dead woman.”
I press the button, closing my eyes as the symphony of her screams fills the air.
Bliss.
Chapter 9
The Bait and Tackle bar was sandwiched between the dentist’s office and the laundromat just a block from Main Street. It was a plain brick building with a tin roof and large windows that were fogged from the heat inside.
Kir parked in front and allowed his thoughts to travel back to when he’d lived in Pike. This place had been called the Sugarland Saloon back then, and it’d belonged to a woman with garish red hair and false teeth that fell out when she laughed. She was a decent woman, even if she did drink most of her profits, and she would call him when his father was too drunk to walk home.
Hurrying across the icy sidewalk, Kir shoved open the door and stepped into the welcome warmth. Then he stopped, an unpleasant sense of déjà vu jolting through him.
The place hadn’t changed. The battered wooden bar was still located in the shadowed back of the room. There were the same old lights that advertised beer and the local hotel flickering on paneled walls. The same tables and stools scattered around the planked floor. He was willing to bet there were the same nasty jokes scrawled on the bathroom walls.
An urgent desire to turn and run out of the bar gripped him with surprising force. He hadn’t expected such a violent response. He’d already faced the funeral and packing his father’s belongings. So why did he feel as if he was being battered with painful memories?
Perhaps because this was the place where he’d seen his father at his lowest. A once proud sheriff who’d turned into a drunk, feeble man crying alone at a table in the corner.
A strange breeze brushed over him, almost as if his father was urging him forward.
And maybe he was, Kir silently conceded. He didn’t really believe in mystical mumbo jumbo, but he wasn’t so arrogant to think that he knew everything about everything. Maybe Rudolf could reach out to his son.
With a shake of his head at his morbid imaginings, he glanced around the long room. At the back a middle-aged woman was tending bar, and three younger men were playing pool.
No Nash.
Kir turned his attention to the tables. Most were empty. There was a couple who were cuddled near each other, trying to carry on an intimate conversation over the blare of honky-tonk music. And close to the large window a woman who was sitting alone, a bottle of beer in front of her.
He narrowed his gaze. There was something familiar about her.