“No, thanks.”
“Something stronger?”
It’s ten in the morning. “I’m good.”
Her nod is no-nonsense and professional. She opens the door and walks away.
Dr. Dickenson gets to his feet when I enter. His gaze is attentive and his handshake strong. “Please, sit down.”
When we’ve taken a velvet sofa facing a chrome coffee table, Dr. Dickenson gets straight to business. “Tell me more about your wife.”
“Privacy is my priority.”
“We’re all about integrity at Willowbrook, Mr. Botha. Our staff signs confidentiality agreements. How did you say you heard about us, again?”
I didn’t. I left that part of the questionnaire blank. They operate strictly by word-of-mouth. There’s nothing about Willowbrook in the media or online.
“Harold Dalton,” I say. “He submitted his daughter for a year.”
I couldn’t risk them calling Dalton and asking questions about my false persona. They would’ve checked me out before our appointment—credit history, criminal records, and the like—and found the history one of my old cellmates created for Ben Botha. Wealthy, ruthless. All true, down to unscrupulous. A wife with a big inheritance. A business in trouble. The last part is untrue, but one quickly gets the picture.
Dickenson rubs his chin. “Ah, yes. Lina Dalton-Clarke. She was indeed a patient.” He puts on a polite act of interest. “How is she doing?”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t met her. Dalton and I were business partners. We didn’t socialize outside of work.”
“Terrible what happened to Harold,” he says.
“Mismanagement and fraud.”
“Indeed.”
He seems to say indeed a lot. “Dalton was happy with your service.”
“That’s always good to hear.” He gives me a close-lipped smile. “You said on your questionnaire your wife suffers from dementia.”
I put out my first piece of bait. “That’ll need to be clinically confirmed.”
“Of course. We have a fulltime psychiatrist on board.”
My second piece of bait is more direct. “For how long can you offer treatment? I was thinking two years.”
“You must understand an establishment with our reputation is in high demand.”
“Can you do it or not?”
“We are fairly booked up, but anything is possible if you can afford it, Mr. Botha.”
“I don’t want her to suffer unnecessarily.”
“That can be arranged.” He crosses his legs. “If you have no objections to drugs, we can go that route.” He says it like no objection is a given. “The patients tend to suffer less when they’re sedated.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Isolation.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Some patients get disruptive. It’s in the best interest of the other patients.”
“Drugged or isolated.” I drum my fingers on the armrest. “What if they don’t put up a fight?”
He smiles. “They all do, Mr. Botha.”
He says Mr. Botha a lot, too. I already feel like breaking his neck. It takes everything I have and more to return his smile.
He stands. “Shall we take a tour?”
“Gladly.”
We go through the hallway. There are doors on both sides, and each door is fitted with a window. There’s an old woman in the first room. She sits on a bed and stares at a television. The second room looks the same. Its inhabitant is a teenager with his nose pressed up against the window, looking zonked out.
I stop at the third one. A man is spread-eagled and strapped to a bed. The room is bare and white. Except for that bed, there’s no furniture. His eyes are closed, but he’s not sleeping. He’s twitching and jerking.
I barely swallow my rage. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Let’s just say he’s not being cooperative,” the doctor says behind me.
This is worse than prison. In my cell I had books, access to study materials, a laptop, music, my own private toilet, and whores once a week, if I desired. These people are innocent, their freedom not stripped by bars but by a certificate that declares them insane.
“Which one was Lina’s room?”
“We move them around as their needs demand.” The doctor tilts his head. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering. Was she a good patient?”
“That information is confidential. As you know, we don’t discuss our patients. You’ll have to ask Mr. Dalton how his daughter adapted.”
It was worth a try.
We follow the hallway to the end. There are more isolation rooms than the poorly furnished rooms Dickenson calls private suits. On the top level is a bathroom with a row of open showers and toilet stalls. No privacy. For security and safety reasons, the doctor says. The psychiatrist and nurses’ offices are at the end.
According to the good doctor, the food is high quality, the hygiene A-plus, and the weekly exercise compulsory, except in the case of special requests. In other words, it’s an unethical house under the disguise of mental institution where rich people can lock up and forget about the family they can’t kill. Dickenson and his staff are paid not to heal, but to bury people alive.
“Don’t you want to see the dining room?” Dickenson asks when I announce I’ll take my leave.
“I’ve seen enough.”
Misunderstanding, he smiles. “We look forward to seeing your wife soon.”
For the amount they charge, his eagerness is understandable.
The nurse sees me out. I can’t get through the gates fast enough. I imagine Lina in one of those rooms, locked up and alone. Strapped down on a bed. The mental image alone is enough to make me want to murder the lot in cold blood.
This place is going down. Not today. Not tomorrow. Soon, though. I’ll need to gather ammunition, first.
In too much of a state to go to the office, I drive home. Russell is posted at the door. I give him a tight nod and tear at the knot of my tie. My jacket feels too hot. I want to get out of these clothes stained with the stench of contemporary madness and artificial flowers.
Contrary to Willowbrook, my steps are cushioned on the carpet. My house is not white and cold, but its velvet curtains and wood-paneled walls are equally depressing. It’s not a home created over years with memories. Lina had no choice in it. It’s just a place I’d bought in a hurry to give an unwilling bride a roof over her head. That’s going to change. Starting tomorrow, Lina is house hunting. Suddenly eager to see her, I push our bedroom door wide open and freeze. The linen chest is moved to the side and the carpet rolled up. Lina kneels in front of the safe, her night-blue eyes wide and guilty.
Chapter 16
Lina
“What are you doing?” Damian asks.
He can see for himself, but he wants a confession.
On my knees, I give it to him. “I’m trying to open the safe.”
“What are you hoping to find in there?”
“You didn’t put the necklace away.” It’s weak and a lie, and he knows it.
Unknotting his tie, he throws it on the bed. “What are you looking for?” The line of his jaw tightens. “Don’t tell me another lie and make me have to ask again.”
The darkness in his eyes scares me, but I can’t look away from their hypnotizing depths. Even in anger, maybe especially in anger, they’re magnificent, like the black diamonds he mines.
“I’m waiting, Lina.”
There’s no point in denying what he already knows. “The evidence.”
He removes a cufflink and puts it on the table by the fireplace. Clink. The other cufflink drops.
He rolls back first one, then the other sleeve. “What are you planning on doing with the evidence?”
His calmness of voice doesn’t fool me. His anger is like the branch of a willow tree, bent so far, it’s ready to snap.
Walking to me, he gently pets my hair where I kneel on the floor. H
e smells of citrus and man, of winter and coldness. “I asked you a question.”
I tremble under the caress. “I need it.” If only Zane had agreed to help me, I wouldn’t be in this position. Damn Zane. Damn Damian for coming home early.
“Why do you need it?”
“I can’t say.”
How can I tell him the awful truth without going to pieces, without going to prison, and without ever finding closure? If I tell him, Harold will never give me what I want. Harold is an accomplice. It’s our sordid, deadly secret, and for the first time I wish it never was. I wish I’d been caught and incarcerated, but I hadn’t, and I still have a shot at freedom. Or maybe not.
He offers me a hand. “Get up.”
Taking it is a sentence, but I don’t have a choice. I place my fate in his broad palm. He’s stronger. No one is going to help me. There’s nowhere to run.
“Undress.”
“What are you going to do?” I’ll be stronger if I’m prepared for what he plans.
“Undress.”
I pull off my shoes and dress and kick them away. The door is open. It’s the only thing that gives me hope. If he was going to torture me, he would’ve closed it. He’s going to punish me, but he won’t cut off my finger. I haven’t stolen anything. Yet. Surely, he won’t treat actions and intentions the same?
He takes a coil of rope from the bedside table drawer. “Everything.”
Having me naked is his way of making me vulnerable. I won’t give him that. It’s just a body. He’s seen it enough times. This is what I repeat in my head as I take off my bra and panties.
He walks back to the foot-end of the bed and points at the space in front of him. “Come over here.”
When I’m positioned, he ties my wrists together and strings me up by the top bar of the four-poster bed, facing the headboard, until my toes barely touch the floor. My arms are already aching and my leg muscles taking strain, especially after this morning’s brutal workout.
“Last chance,” he says behind me. “Why do you need the evidence?”
Biting my lip, I shake my head.
“Very well.” He drags a finger down my spine. “I gave you a choice. Remember that.”
His touch disappears. His footsteps are muffled on the carpet, only audible on the slab of marble on the step.
He gave me a choice, but there isn’t one. He offered me a gilded cage and dangled all its pretty glory under my nose with a request to try and be happy. He gave me a choice to answer, but the truth is mine to hold, mine and mine alone. Damn him to hell if he’s going to punish me for that.
A sound at the door alarms me of his return. I strain to look over my shoulder and freeze. Damian closes the door. Firmly and irrevocably. He doesn’t turn the key, but the click is in place. In his hand, he carries a whip. It has several straps knotted at the ends. I start to tremble when he approaches, not only from the sight of the whip but also from the fear of the closed door tearing through me. The way the manly veins bulge in his forearms and the dark hair that coats his skin, these are the details that imprint on my mind. His maleness. His superior strength. But only in the physical sense. I’m stronger in spirit. I will not break.
He massages my shoulders gently, working his way down my spine to my lower back. He kneads and prepares me while I battle to breathe through my fear.
I’m stronger. I’m stronger.
The heat of his body is replaced with a rush of cool air. His touch disappears.
I’m stronger. I’m stronger.
A whoosh races through the air before a firework of pain explodes on my back. The agony hits me in too many places at once for my brain to process. I’m a shambled mess of cross-wired messages. My neurons go haywire. My skin is on fire, and my flesh aches, but I’m not sure which one of the many intricate pains I feel is worse.
“Why do you need the evidence, Lina?”
I’m stronger. “I can’t tell.”
I hear it. I feel the air move, but I’m not ready for that pain when it crashes down on me again. It’s everywhere—my shoulders, back, buttocks. A flash of fire curls around my side. Another hits the curve of my breast. My thighs. It’s happening too fast and too slow. My legs give out and my arms stretch painfully above me.
“Why, Lina?”
With the next lash, I give up on keeping the sounds in. A wail leaves my chest and bubbles in an ugly sound over my lips.
“I told you not to try and escape.”
The swing of his arm is rhythmic now, but the many straps fall too haphazardly. I can’t predict the paths of the pain. The sting penetrates my butt and thighs, and the burn lingers deep under my skin. It stays like a resonating sound, its music continuing as Damian makes new notes and different scores on my back and my legs.
“Why?”
I nearly faint with the next blow. I’ve forgotten my mantra. All my energy, all of my being is focused on surviving the pain, on dealing with the sensory onslaught.
“Why?”
The same question, over and over. I don’t know which blows are new and which are old. New and old blurs, until there’s only lasting pain. Horrible pain.
“Damn you, Lina! Why?”
“I-I can’t.”
I sob. I scream. I cry. I shake. I just want to die, but I’m stronger.
“Why?”
I can’t tell. I don’t want to tell. It’s too hurtful. Too shameful. Too private. Too devastating. Who the hell is he to demand these corners of my soul? It took me a year to breathe without breaking down, a year to sleep without waking from the pain of the part that’s been ripped out of me. This is a missing part of my body, my heart, my mind. It’s not his to share.
“It’s none of your fucking business,” I scream at the top of my lungs, anger and agony mixing together. “Fuck you! I’m stronger.”
He lets it rain down on me. It comes from everywhere. There’s a fire under my skin, in my body, in my throat, and in my eyes. I’m consumed by flames. My arms are being torn from my body. I’m not so strong, after all.
“Why? Say it.” He’s out of breath. “Make it stop.”
My head drops back. The whip flies past my cheek, barely missing. Or maybe it’s just the sound. Everything sounds closer, deeper, further, darker.
“Say it.” He’s lost his coolness, his utter control. His voice is angrier than the whip. “Say it’s to buy your no-good father’s freedom. Say it’s because you hate me. Say it’s because you need your overrated freedom.”
Isn’t there a point where the pain is supposed to start feeling good? Isn’t there a point where my brain is supposed to start fooling me with endorphins?
He gives himself free reign, this time not speaking, not giving me a reprieve to drag in air, not killing me to be kinder.
I’m not so strong, and I hate myself for it.
“Why?”
“For my baby!”
For my baby. I wail and sob and hurt, not for him, but for my baby. My sweet, dear, innocent baby. The pain he gives me is not enough to smother this bigger pain, the one I’d buried so well after so long. There’s no physical pain in the world that can make me forget, and for the very first time in my life I truly wish I were dead.
“Lina, fuck. What did you say?”
He’s on me, behind me, I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m not so strong.
I’m drifting.
I’m gone.
Chapter 17
Damian
The door crashes into the wall. Russell enters. I jerk the throw from the bed and cover Lina’s body before grabbing her around the waist, taking the strain off her arms.
Russell stares.
“What the fuck do you want?”
He drags a hand through his hair without moving his eyes away from Lina’s unconscious form. “I came inside for a glass of water. Heard screaming.”
“Get out.”
“No.” He braces his hands on the doorframe as if he needs to keep up the walls, as if the room is going to collapse
around us. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Hand in your resignation tomorrow morning. You’re dismissed.” Fuck. She passed out. She had this. I was sure of her limits.
“I’m taking her to a hospital.”
“She doesn’t need a hospital.” She needs me.
“Mr. Hart, you’re not thinking rationally.”
Damn wrong. I’ve never been more rational. “My wife is naked. I need to tend to her. If you get as much as a glimpse at her body, I’ll have to kill you. For the last time, get the fuck out.”
He hovers, rolls on the balls of his feet, and punches the wall. “You need to take care of that.” He points at a red welt on her naked shoulder. “I’m leaving for Lina, not for you.”
He cares for her. I knew it. I let it carry on for too long, but he’s a damn good bodyguard. I understand his reaction. He’s never seen a woman whipped, but he trusts me with her life, or he wouldn’t bang the door shut and let me hear his footsteps fall down the tiled strip before the carpet swallows the sounds.
As if one intrusion wasn’t enough, the door opens again. This time, it’s Zane.
He looks from me to Lina. “Fuck, Dami. What have you done?”
“Bring a knife. Cut her loose.” It’ll take too long to untie her.
“Damn you, Damian.”
I know how upset he is for using my full name. He takes a utility knife from his pocket and starts sawing at the ropes. The threads come undone, one by one. When the last one snaps, her arms fall limp.
Keeping the throw around her, I lower her onto the bed.
“Fuck, Damian.” Zane paces up and down. “Fuck, fuck.”
“Leave us.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I said fucking leave us.”
“Shall I get tea? Sugar water? A doctor?”
“It looks worse than it is.” She had this, dammit. I wasn’t pushing her beyond her limits.
“Shall I get Anne?”
“If you don’t get out now, you can bring me my gun. I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap. Will that help you understand?”
“Fine.” He holds up his hands. “I’m going.” He retreats to the door. “I’m going.”
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