Free Hostage by Emlyn Rees Page A

newspapers had given to the murderer of Danny’s wife and son, after the details of the ordeal they’d each suffered before being executed had been released to the police.
    He’d made them play the childhood game of ’paper, stone, scissors’. He’d made them play it for their lives, until both of them had lost.
    The serial killer had wanted Danny to play too, because he’d wanted to kill him also, but Danny had escaped. He’d escaped and had saved his daughter, Lexie. He’d not failed her, at least.
    Lexie …
    Danny remembered now how she’d watched in open-mouthed horror that grim morning, as he and the Paper Stone Scissors Killer had fought in the woods in the snow. Danny would never forget Lexie’s screams and the swirl of fresh snowflakes and the spattering of his blood upon the ground.
    And Danny would always remember the killer running. Danny had already disarmed him. He’d taken his pistol from him. He’d aimed at the killer as he’d run off into the woods, becoming a blur, moving so fast that Danny could hardly track him.
    A squeeze of the trigger and Danny had watched the killer shift sideways and shudder, but somehow, impossibly, not fall. Danny remembered watching him start running again then, before finally fading into the gathering snow.
    But most of all Danny remembered Sally and Jonathan. When his wife and son had needed him most, he had not saved them. He had failed to save them and because of that they had both died.
    Again he saw his son, little Jonathan. He saw his eyes shining with fear and disbelief in those final seconds. Again he heard Sally’s last, tortured breath.
    Danny would never forget.
    He would never forgive.
    Here in the back of the cab, he cut the memories from his mind. Automatically. Like a computer firewall cut a virus. He threw them back down into the dark pit inside him where he locked away all the bad things that had happened to him.
    â€˜It looks pretty cold out there …’ the cab driver said.
    â€˜No kidding,’ Danny answered.
    The skeletal poplar trees which studded the surrounding hillside were flicking back and forth like whips. Hard enough to flay the skin from your back.
    Danny took a deep breath, like a kid standing at the side of swimming pool in winter time. He could still change his mind, he knew. He could tell the driver to take him back to the hotel. And from there to the airport. He could quit this life for something safer. It was always an option.
    But instead he said nothing. The taxi engine idled.
    â€˜You going to need a ride back?’ the driver asked.
    â€˜No.’
    Danny slipped a piece of nicotine gum into his mouth and started to chew. He was here by choice. By compulsion. To be tested once more. To test himself. But he’d been brought here by the needs and fears of other people. Weaker people than him. People he couldn’t let down. People who’d paid him to take this risk.
    He took the black leather attaché case from the seat beside him and got out and paid.
    The icy Wyoming wind cut through his clothes, as he watched the Ford’s red tail lights retreat across Richards bridge and follow the curve of Cemetery Road. Round to the right. Back into town.
    The vents of Danny’s suit jacket flapped like the wings of a bat. The suit wasn’t Danny’s usual look. The same went for his shirt, shoes and tie. He’d left his own tattered denim jacket hanging in the closet of his hotel room. With a note for Samantha tucked into its pocket. In case he didn’t return.
    Danny’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the darkening scrubland for signs of life. Nothing moved.
    Which didn’t, of course, mean that no one was there.
    With a world-weary shake of his head, Danny took off his clothes and stood naked with his hands in the air. Exactly as the kidnappers had instructed.
    Inside the discarded suit jacket was a snakeskin wallet. In the wallet was a set of