It Can't Be Her Read online

  Such caverns, it was believed, were dense enough to protect vehicles and other equipment from being destroyed by coronal mass ejections or electromagnetic pulses.

  Of course, it was all theoretical. No one knew what would really happen until it happened.

  In 1991 a coalition led by the United States of America kicked Saddam Hussein’s ass in Iraq. It wasn’t even close. Like many dictators before him, he threw spit balls at the mighty United States of America and paid a heavy price.

  America invested billions in the war, fully expecting to be in it for the long haul.

  It was over in a New York minute.

  One of the problems the Department of Defense faced was an excess of equipment. It suddenly had thousands of vehicles, dressed up in a desert brown paint scheme, which it no longer needed.

  Some Desert Storm vehicles were donated to museums or National Guard armories.

  Others were donated to police departments around the country, and represented the first step in what many now call the “militarization” of local law enforcement agencies.

  Most of them, though, the vast majority, were placed in what the military called “strategic reserve.”

  It’s a fancy way of saying they were parked by the thousands in a salt cavern in south Texas, awaiting the day when EMPs would bombard the earth and render nearly all other vehicles absolutely useless.

  In Pentagon vernacular the vehicles were “put on ice.”

  No one was certain they’d ever run again.

  But run they did, once the batteries were reconnected and they were tuned up a bit.

  They were given a second chance to live as well as a new mission.

  They were no longer war-fighting machines, but rather machines put into service to perform once and for all a full and nationwide damage assessment.

  And they were in San Antonio to take an official census of the survivors and to determine what, if anything, the federal government could do to help.

  -2-

  Tillie needn’t have been frightened but was anyway.

  She was never one who trusted the United States government much farther than she could throw it.

  The vehicles kept rolling past her.

  Occasionally a driver would wave or nod his head in recognition as they passed her by.

  She didn’t respond. Instead she stood rather stoically, wondering why they chose this particular day to appear.

  And wondering as well what they wanted.

  Even if they’d stopped and offered her assistance she’d have refused it.

  In her experience the government mostly took and seldom gave anything back.

  They took away the freedoms of their citizens one by one. Took away the citizens’ money as well, in the form of one tax or another. One fee or another. One toll or another.

  Tillie, like most Americans before the blackout, pretty much despised the federal government and considered them a bunch of self-serving thieves.

  No, if the convoy had stopped to offer her assistance she’d have politely declined and sent them on their way.

  Finally, twenty minutes after the convoy had first appeared, after she’d counted a total of two hundred and twenty seven vehicles, it came to an end.

  The rumble slowly dissipated and gradually faded away as the last of the convoy disappeared from view.

  Tillie wasn’t sure whether the Army was there to help the survivors, or to shoot them all down by orders of the scum bags in Washington who pulled the strings and held all the power.

  She was just glad she was headed in the opposite direction.

  Tillie had been through the wringer in recent days.

  She was not in good health. Her high blood pressure had bothered her since her early twenties. Now that the medication was getting harder and harder to find she was taking half-doses trying to stretch it as long as possible.

  She was getting more exercise these days. Everybody was, and that helped. And she was careful to stay well-hydrated and to get plenty of rest.

  But she couldn’t shake the periods of light-headedness or dizziness. Especially when she was stressed or tired from walking.

  The fatigue was easy to handle. She occasionally took a day off from the fifteen miles a day she was averaging and spent the day lying beneath an oak tree or fishing.

  The stress, that was a different thing.

  She’d gone through pure hell since she left Alpharetta, Georgia over three months before. She’d almost died a couple of times. Almost been assaulted a couple more.

  She’d persevered, determined to make it to San Antonio to reunite with her only brother and his family, but it wasn’t meant to be.

  She’d made it only to find her brother and sister-in-law had been brutally murdered months before.

  Many would have given up at that point. Would have said it wasn’t worth it and ended it all.

  Many would have sought eternal peace and would have swallowed a bullet or wrapped a rope around their own neck.

  Not Tillie.

  Tillie still had one living relative.

  A young niece named Millicent.

  A niece who in all likelihood didn’t even know if Tillie was dead or alive.

  Many would have reasoned that since Millicent was now adopted she was therefore taken care of. Given plenty to eat and protected from harm.

  Not Tillie.

  Tillie hoped that was the case. For she loved Millicent as she would have her own daughter.

  But Tillie had changed in a lot of ways since the first blackout hit more than two years before.

  Tillie no longer trusted anyone.

  No longer took anything for granted.

  No longer believed that most people were honest and forthright and good.

  She hoped beyond hope that Millicent was indeed with a good family who loved her and cared for her and provided for her.

  But she needed to see for herself.

  And really, what else did she have to do?

  Millicent was the only thing she had left to live for.

  Well, Millicent and Hero.

  But Hero was more than capable of taking care of himself.

  Tillie put the Army convoy out of her mind and walked west on Interstate 10 toward the tiny town of Comfort.

  It would be but the next way station on a very long journey.

  Comfort sat at the base of the Texas hill country. In the miles ahead the highway would become steeper and more mountainous.

  By the time she made it to Kerrville she’d gain over a thousand feet in elevation.

  It would be cooler there, which would be nice.

  But her calves would ache from trudging day after day uphill. The fifteen miles she was averaging on flat terrain would likely drop to somewhat less. It would take her longer to get to Junction, and delay her verification that Millicent was okay.

  The only other option was to push herself beyond her limits. To cause herself undue stress and risk a stroke or a heart attack.

  Either would have a good chance of putting Tillie out of her misery forever.

  But neither would do Millicent any good.

  No, like it or not she’d have to take her time getting up the mountains south of Junction.

  She not only had herself to think about now.

  In the absence of her brother and sister-in-law, it was incumbent on her alone to make sure Millicent was alive and well.

  And she would not, could not, let Millicent down.

  -3-

  At almost exactly high noon the day before two San Antonio Police cruisers had sped past Tillie and Hero as they walked up the on-ramp to Interstate 10.

  It was an odd sight at any time. Especially since the second car’s back seat was stacked to the ceiling with luggage and its bumper wasn’t far off the ground.

  Under these circumstances, though, it was even more out of place.

  Tillie wondered where in the world two police cars were speeding off to.

  They were obviously heading out o
f town.

  And they looked more like moving vans than squad cars.

  But they weren’t anything other than that… a curiosity, for Tillie had no idea they were closely tied to her mission to find Millicent.

  For in addition to helping John Castro move his family to Junction, where they would likely live in the same compound as Tillie’s Millicent, they were also acting as reinforcements to help find Sara Harter.

  The same Sara Harter Tillie was told adopted young Millicent.

  The same Sara Harter who was now naked and tied spread eagle to a bed in a basement in western Kerr County.

  But she wasn’t alone.

  Sitting in a recliner he’d dragged down the basement steps was a sadistic killer who leered at her, telling Sara how beautiful she was and how much fun he was going to have with her.

  He seemed to take great delight in watching her struggle to work herself free.

  And the tears on her face.

  He’d gone over twice and licked the tears from her cheeks, gleefully telling her how he loved their salty taste.

  Her mouth was covered with duct tape. But her nose wasn’t, and she wanted to puke at the putrid smell of his breath and the sensation of his tongue upon her face.

  At the same time, though, she knew that to vomit was to die, for without a way to expel the vomit from her body she’d surely choke on it.

  The only solution, as Sara saw it, was to stop the tears.

  And not crying, under the present circumstances, was a monumental task.

  He stood over her, salivating.

  She wondered why he didn’t just kill her and get it over with.

  She knew she was going to die.

  He’d been quite clear on that point.

  He’d said it not to calm her. Not to answer the questions she undoubtedly had but could not verbalize.

  No, that would have been almost… humane.

  Rather, he’d been honest with her up front and told her she would die when he was finished with her simply so he could see the terror in her eyes.

  Sara was a sensitive soul by nature.

  She was a delicate flower. She withered at the first sign of pain.

  But inside she was as tough as anyone else.

  Sara was an empathetic sort. She was the child who constantly brought home sick puppies or birds with broken wings.

  When her high school friends were spending their weekends gathering in hidden places to drink beer or smoke pot Sara was volunteering at a nursing home, reading books and newspapers to old people.

  She donated a sizeable portion of the meager paycheck she received to a children’s cancer hospital.

  Some of her friends scoffed at her.

  “You can’t cure cancer with thirty eight lousy bucks a month,” they said.

  She countered with, “As each month goes by, they’re thirty eight dollars closer to a cure than they were the month before. And someday it might be my thirty eight lousy bucks that pushes them over the top.”

  Some soft hearts harden over time.

  Not Sara’s.

  As she lay there, naked and afraid, her concerns weren’t for herself.

  Her thoughts and concerns were for the people she loved.

  She worried that little Christopher surely knew that something was wrong.

  He was almost two now, and so bright for his age. He was good at reading the moods of the adults around him, even when they tried to hide things from him.

  Even when they lied to him and told him nothing was wrong.

  He’d be asking Jordan where his Mommy was, and when she’d be coming back again.

  He’d be saying he missed her and wanted her to come home.

  He’d be crying himself to sleep at night.

  Oh sure, his Grandma Stacy would hold him and rock him and try to soothe his fears. Stacy would tag-team with Nana Linda and Jordan. They’d pass him back and forth so he was never alone.

  But he’d be able to see right through their efforts to convince him nothing was wrong.

  Normally Jordan would try to distract him by taking him fishing. The little guy wasn’t big enough to catch his own fish, but he loved watching the process. And he loved holding his dad’s fishing rod and pretending.

  Jordan, though, would be out searching for Sara. So would Scott.

  In essence, the men would do what they always did in times of crisis and leave the women to guard the fort while they went out and did the “man stuff.”

  Sara couldn’t get mad at them for that. She knew their hearts were in the right place. And since the killer seemed to have a preference for women it made sense for the women to stay back where they weren’t in danger of being abducted as well.

  There were a lot of things going through Sara’s mind.

  Concern for baby Christopher’s peace of mind. And, to a lesser degree, the peace of mind of Charles and Millicent as well.

  She was concerned for the safety of Tom and Scott and Jordan and whoever else was out there with the intent of rescuing her.

  For certainly the sadistic killer who’d captured her wouldn’t make it easy on them.

  It was ironic, and said a lot about the type of person Sara was, that the one person she wasn’t concerned for was herself.

  She’d already accepted her fate.

  She’d already given herself up for dead.

  Jeff Barnett disappeared for an hour. She heard him knocking things around in the house above her head and wondered what he was doing.

  She wondered if he was building some type of sadistic torture machine.

  In her mind she could see what was left of Katie Jamison’s body after he’d finished with her.

  The thoughts made her want to retch again and she forced the image back out of her mind.

  Whatever he did to her she hoped it caused her intense pain. For she knew the body had a way of shutting down when the pain was too much to bear.

  In her mind, the best course of action was to lose consciousness. If she was helpless to stop him from carrying out his evil plans, the next best thing was to pass out so she didn’t have to see or feel it.

  When he returned he was dragging large pieces of carpet and padding he’d cut from the floors of the house.

  With a staple gun he proceeded to attach the pieces to the wooden ceiling above them.

  “It’s to soften the sounds of your screams,” he stated matter-of-factly with a sadistic grin.

  “Once I’m done we’ll have some fun.”

  -4-

  Sara had no clue what her captor’s vision of “fun” was, and she tried her best to put it out of her thoughts.

  Instead she occupied her mind with potential escape plans.

  Since she had no idea what lay in store for her, she had to be ready for anything. She had to, for example, know ahead of time what she’d do in any situation, so that she didn’t have to consider her options if presented with an opportunity – any opportunity – to get away.

  She didn’t know if his plans for her would require him to untie her hands to reposition her or move her to another location.

  If he untied her hands she had several options to try to incapacitate him.

  Her best chance was to blind him by driving her thumbs into his eyes.

  By doing so he’d undoubtedly fall away in pain and she might have the time she needed to get her feet untied.

  Of course, the whole thing was fraught with risk.

  If she failed in her attempts to blind him he’d undoubtedly be enraged. He might kill her on the spot.

  Or break her hands to prevent her from trying such a stunt a second time.

  He’d taken the tape from her mouth once, but threatened to knock her out immediately if she’d screamed. He said he merely wanted to know her name.

  Terrified, she complied.

  He immediately retaped her mouth, leaving her to wonder for hours if she’d messed up.

  She wondered if she’d missed the only opportunity she’d ever have to let
someone know she was there.

  Did the mere fact he’d warned her not to scream mean someone was within earshot? Was there someone close by who could have heard her cry out and come to her aid? Or at least told the searchers they’d heard a woman scream?

  It was a maddening proposition, not knowing whether she’d frittered away the only chance she might have had for a rescue.

  It made her resolve to scream like a banshee if she were ever given another chance.

  Then Jeff soundproofed the ceiling.

  Damn him.

  As for her thoughts about little Christopher and what was going on at the compound, she was mostly right.

  Christopher was indeed having trouble coping with his Mommy’s disappearance.

  So was Millicent and Charles.

  Jordan was at his wit’s end, and was driving himself past the point of exhaustion. He was using the compound’s Gator to search each and every farmhouse and ranch within five miles of the compound.

  Given enough time, that would include the ranch house where Sara was being held.

  The problem was he started his search going in the exact opposite direction.

  It wasn’t his fault. He was working blind.

  At his current rate of progress he wouldn’t get around to Sara’s location for a week or more.

  Sara was right in that Scott and Tom left the women to safeguard the compound and joined in the search themselves.

  She couldn’t have known, though, that the women had several new helpers.

  That Hannah Castro was now there with her daughters Rachel and Misty.

  And that all three had been trained in the proper handling and use of firearms.

  Under the circumstances, they’d come in handy indeed.

  John Castro, who’d just resigned as San Antonio’s deputy police chief, had gotten quite comfortable as a horseman in recent months when San Antonio had a severe shortage of working vehicles.

  Now he was on horseback, hitting the back roads on the south end of Kerr County.

  He was as unfamiliar with the county residents as they were of him, and it wasn’t making the going any easier.

  But every time he flashed his SAPD badge and mentioned he was augmenting Sheriff Tom Haskins it helped.