“Yes,” he hissed. “I knew what was happening at the clinic.”
His gaze was locked on Paula, so he didn’t see Ellie sway, feeling as if she was going to pass out.
He knew. Her father knew the clinic was being used for prostitution. And worse, he’d been responsible for bringing Paula to the place with the promise it would keep her out of jail.
She’d been sick with fear before. Now she felt sick with horror.
She’d known this man forever. She would have sworn on her life that he was the most tight-laced, respectable man in the entire state of Oklahoma. He was devoted to his family, he went to work each day, he paid his taxes, and gave generously to charities.
Surely this all had to be some hideous misunderstanding.
“It was your idea.” Paula continued to press for a confession. “Admit it.”
Colin’s head dropped back against the wooden cross. Ellie inanely wondered if Paula had installed them herself, or if they’d been a fixture from the previous owners.
“I might have suggested we could make extra money, but I wasn’t alone in the decision,” Colin protested.
“Decision.” Paula’s humorless laugh scraped over Ellie’s raw nerves. “You make it sound like you were deciding what pizza to order, not forcing women into the sex trade.”
“You were already a prostitute.”
Paula held the prod less than an inch from the judge’s heart, naked hatred in her eyes.
“And you were an immoral bastard.”
“Why?” Ellie sharply interrupted.
In the back of her mind an angry voice whispered that she was being an idiot. She should use Paula’s distraction with her father to try and escape. But she couldn’t make her heavy muscles move.
She needed her father to explain. There had to be a reason why he would do such an awful thing.
Turning his head in her direction, Colin grimaced. He looked at least a decade older than when he’d arrived in Curry.
“For everyone else it was the money,” he said, his words faintly slurred as if his tongue was swelling. “For me it was an opportunity to get out of this town before I was buried alive.”
Ellie studied him in frustration. Her father had rarely discussed his past. She assumed it was embarrassment that he’d come from such humble beginnings. After all, most of the social elite in Oklahoma City didn’t have parents who were poor farm workers. But it was disgusting to use his childhood poverty as some sort of excuse.
“You weren’t held here against your will. You could have left any time you wanted,” she said.
He shook his head, then immediately winced. Ellie sympathized. Her own brain continued to throb with a ruthless pain.
“Just like my parents left,” he muttered.
Ellie frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“My mother ended up pregnant when she was just fifteen. As soon as the rumors began circulating through town, she and my father were driven out of Curry. The good citizens weren’t so forgiving back then,” he explained in derisive tones. “Three years later they came crawling back with a young son they couldn’t afford to feed and another on the way. My grandfather allowed them to move in with him, but he treated them like dirt. My mother died in childbirth a few months later, and my father died working the fields before he ever reached his fortieth birthday.” His expression hardened, revealing the steel that had always lurked beneath his polished façade. “That wasn’t going to happen to me.”
Ellie felt a pang of regret for the grandparents she’d never had the opportunity to meet. Their lives had clearly been ones of brutal survival, but her father had managed to graduate from high school and had gone on to become a lawyer.
“It wasn’t the same,” she argued. “You weren’t dependent on your family to earn a living. You had a career.”
His bloody lip jutted out. It was a familiar gesture, but for the first time, Ellie realized how childish her father could be when he wasn’t getting his way.
He’d always been so cold and authoritative, but beneath his aloof composure was a petulant toddler. Was it because he’d lost his mother at such a young age? Or because his father had been a broken man? Whatever the cause, it had obviously allowed him to remain dangerously egocentric.
“I had a law degree, but to have a career I needed contacts. The sort that could help me get out of the prosecutor’s office and into a position as a judge.” His petulance became more pronounced. “Most men had families with the right contacts. I had to make my own networks.”
Ellie lifted her hands, ignoring the rattle of the cuffs. It felt like someone had reached into her chest and was squeezing her heart. She’d wanted her father to reassure her; instead he’d only made everything worse.
“I can’t believe it,” she croaked.
Colin looked offended by Ellie’s blatant horror. Had he expected her to offer him forgiveness?
“I did it for your mother,” he said in an attempt to deflect his guilt. “And for you. How do you think you were able to live in a big house and attend the best schools?”
Ellie held his gaze. “I never asked for any of that.”
His lips parted, only to snap shut. They both knew that she’d hated moving from one house to another. And the fancy clothes that had itched her skin. And stupid dance lessons her mother insisted on when all she wanted to do was play softball.
“I can assure you that your mother did,” he muttered.
She didn’t doubt his claim. Her mother had been addicted to the finer things in life. But she wasn’t the one who’d sold her soul to acquire them.
“You can’t blame her,” she snapped.
The color returned to her father’s face, an ugly flush at her refusal to accept that he was above reproach.
“There was no blame,” he rasped. “It was a business decision. Pure and simple.”
As if tired of being forgotten in the drama between father and daughter, Paula gave a sudden wave of the cattle prod.
“There was nothing pure about it,” she snarled. “You sold women to have a big house and wear those fancy robes.”
“I did what I thought necessary for my family. I wasn’t going to follow in the footsteps of my father,” Colin insisted.
Was he trying to convince them that he’d been forced into becoming a part of Hopewell Clinic? Or himself?
“Such a sob story,” Paula mocked. “Tell me, Judge, do you want to hear about my past? How my daddy would sneak into my bed late at night? Or how my mother gave me my first hit of meth when I was just twelve? I ran away at sixteen to go to Omaha for a fresh start, but there’s never a fresh start. Not for women like me.” She managed to reveal the stark brutality of her past with a few words. “There’re always creeps like you, whether they’re wearing T-shirts and boxers or expensive suits, waiting to take advantage of young girls.”
Ellie had tried not to listen to the woman’s story. It truly was heartbreaking, but that didn’t excuse what she’d done. And what she might be intending to do in the near future. Still, her attention was captured by one word.
“Omaha?” The fact that this woman had come from Omaha and the file folder that had been hidden in Barb’s cooler had listed the hometown of the patient as Omaha couldn’t be a coincidence. “You’re Jane Doe,” she burst out.
The older woman sent her an annoyed glance. “What?”
“Your patient file was in Barb’s cooler.”
Paula shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ellie felt another flare of disgust. Of course Paula didn’t know about the file. But someone else did. Someone who’d searched Barb’s house trying to find it.
She turned her attention toward her father. “It was you. You knew about the file and you went looking for it.”
Colin didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Barb had attempted to use the file years ago to try and force more money out of me. I knew she would never g
o to the authorities, so I ignored her threats,” he said, and Ellie wondered how he’d been so sure Barb wouldn’t rat him out. Had he known his onetime secretary had been desperately in love with him? Probably. “When she died I knew we had to destroy it,” Colin continued. “We broke into her house, but obviously we were unsuccessful.”
Ellie released a choked laugh. So much for her father’s claim that he’d rushed to Curry to attend his loyal employee’s funeral. He’d come because he wanted to ransack Barb’s house in case someone discovered he wasn’t the upright citizen he pretended to be.
Abruptly, Ellie jerked her gaze back to Paula. She couldn’t bear to look at her father.
“Why didn’t you leave the clinic?” she demanded.
Paula’s face darkened, an ancient fury smoldering in her eyes.
“They were smart enough to fill the place with women who had young kids,” she said. “I either did what they wanted or they threatened to take away my daughter.”
A daughter. She had a daughter and they’d used that innocent child to force her to . . .
Ellie lowered her head, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. There had to be something mentally wrong with her father and the other men who’d been a part of Hopewell. What other explanation could there be?
“I can’t listen to anymore,” she whispered.
Clearly angered by Ellie’s reluctance to continue with the dark reminiscences from the past, Paula stormed forward to grab her chin. Digging her fingers into Ellie’s skin, she yanked her face up.
“But I was too smart for them,” she assured Ellie, her eyes glittering with a hectic excitement. “When I realized I’d been scammed I didn’t cry and whine like the other women. No, I convinced one of my johns to bring me a camera. I told him I wanted pictures of us together. The dumbass believed me,” she boasted. “I used it to document what was happening at Hopewell.”
“You have proof?” Ellie demanded in surprise. Why hadn’t she revealed what she had?
As if able to read her mind, Paula released Ellie’s chin and straightened.
“Yeah, I had proof.” She spat out the words. “But, I couldn’t go to the authorities. Not when they were the ones in charge.” Paula glanced toward the judge and the still unconscious mayor. “Instead I called a reporter who I was friendly with.”
Ellie frowned. “One of your customers?”
“No,” the woman snapped. “It was a female reporter who’d done a story on prostitutes in Omaha. She interviewed me for hours. She told me that she wanted to shine a light on what was happening to women who were forced into the sex trade. Once I watched it I realized that it really was just a way to make the housewives in the suburbs feel better about having crappy husbands and boring lives. They at least weren’t having to sell their bodies.” Paula shook her head in disgust. “I thought it was all a bunch of hooey, but I kept the woman’s business card. I thought I might have some other stories she might be interested in. Only the next time, I was going to get paid.”
Ellie ignored Paula’s rambling explanation. She was far more interested in why no one had tried to bring an end to the clinic.
There had to be someone who was willing to step up and protect those poor women.
“You sent the picture to the reporter?” she asked.
Paula gave an impatient shake of her head. “No. I asked her to meet me near the clinic. I wanted to personally hand over the pictures,” she explained. “I couldn’t risk having them stolen or destroyed.”
Understandable. Ellie would have done the same thing. And, of course, Paula was no doubt hoping she’d get a few bucks for handing the woman a blockbuster scoop on the most powerful men in Oklahoma.
“What happened?”
Paula hunched her shoulders, her expression oddly vulnerable before she was giving a sharp shake of her head and her lips curved into a bitter smile.
“I don’t know if the woman decided not to come or if she was late, but while I was waiting for her, your father and his buddies showed up. I was hauled to the courthouse and thrown in jail.”
Ellie leaned forward. At the moment, she’d forgotten that she was in a damp, musty basement with a crazed killer. She was lost in the nightmare of the past.
“What about your daughter?”
Paula released a grating laugh, turning her head toward the judge. “Ask your father.”
She didn’t want to. Any love or respect that she’d ever felt for Colin Guthrie was being stripped away. But she had to know the truth.
“Father?”
He didn’t answer, the stubborn expression returning to his face. Paula angled the prod until it was just an inch from his neck.
“She’d violated her parole, plus she was found with drugs on her,” Colin snapped, sweat dripping down his face.
“Drugs you planted,” Paula accused.
“It was your word against mine,” Colin protested.
“And we both know you’re a lying sack of shit.” Paula turned to glance back at Ellie. “It was my third strike. They sent me to prison and threw away the key.”
Ellie’s attention remained locked on her father. “What about the child?”
“We put her in the back of Dr. Booker’s car,” he said. “In the confusion she managed to wander away.”
The truth hit Ellie with the force of a freight train. Now she understood why Barb had hidden the newspaper clipping in the same envelope as the patient file.
“The mystery child,” she breathed. “She was found near the highway.”
Paula made a sound of pure fury. “Not that they cared. She could have been hit by a car. Or kidnapped.”
Colin glanced down at the prod less than an inch from his throat. “She was found and taken to the sheriff,” he reminded the woman in a hoarse voice.
Ellie swallowed a curse. Nate had confronted Walter, and the ex-sheriff had lied right to his face. Of course, that was the least of his sins.
“What did you do?” Ellie asked her father.
Her father hesitated and Paula leaned toward him. “Tell her,” she hissed.
More sweat poured down Colin’s face. “We put her in a place where we knew she would be safe and well cared for.”
“You put her in a place where you knew you could keep me from using the pictures to expose your sordid business,” Paula shot back. Her gaze flicked toward Ellie. “You see, I was quick enough to hide the camera before they could get their greedy hands on it.”
Ellie no longer cared about the pictures. She didn’t need proof of the evil done by her father and his partners.
“Where is your daughter?” she demanded.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Here.”
The word came from the darkness behind her. Ellie craned her head around, ignoring the sharp pang behind her right eye. At first she couldn’t see who was speaking. There was just a vague shadow.
Then the form moved closer and the overhead light revealed the last person Ellie had expected to see.
“Tia?” she gasped, her gaze moving over the woman’s sturdy body stuffed into a red sweater and too-tight stretchy pants. She had a purse hanging from her shoulder like she was going to the store, not entering a basement where there were three people being held captive.
“Hello, Ellie,” she drawled, circling the chair to stand directly in front of her. There was a smug smile pasted to her lips.
Ellie knew her mouth was hanging open. She couldn’t help it. Her battered brain was struggling to process yet another shock.
Her gaze moved between the two women, taking in their large, stocky figures and the blunt features. They weren’t identical, but there was no doubt a resemblance.
“You’re Paula’s daughter,” Ellie said, as if it wasn’t perfectly obvious.
Tia continued to smile. “I am.”
“But I thought . . .” The words dried on her lips as she glanced toward the mayor, who hung loosely from the cross.
Who’d beaten him? Paula or Tia? Both
? Not that it mattered.
Tia didn’t bother to glance toward the mayor. Instead her gaze flicked over Ellie, a hint of disdain in her expression.
“So did I. At least until I was sixteen and I overheard the ladies in the church gossiping about the mystery of my arrival in the Chambers’ household when I was just a babe. No one seemed to know where I’d come from, or why the mayor would want a child at his age.” A muscle next to her eye twitched, as if there was some dark emotion churning just below the surface. “I confronted my parents and they told me that I was a foster kid they decided to adopt. At first I was angry, but eventually I realized that it answered a few questions for me.”
She studied Ellie, clearly waiting for her to respond.
“What questions?” she forced herself to ask.
Tia looked pleased. “Like why I had nothing in common with my supposed parents. And why they didn’t love me.”
Ellie felt an odd twinge in the region of her heart. Tia’s words echoed what she’d endured her entire life. The knowledge that she was an outsider in her own family. That her parents had never expressed their love.
Still, the dysfunction of her childhood had driven her to become a defense lawyer, not a homicidal maniac. And no matter what the public might think, the two were very different things.
Ellie cleared the lump from her throat. “How did you discover the truth?”
“My father.” Without warning Tia spun around and smashed her fist into the face of the unconscious mayor. The sound of her knuckles hitting the man’s fleshy cheek made Ellie wince. Suddenly she knew exactly who’d beaten the man. Tia turned back, her expression remarkably bland. As if she’d handed her father coffee, not a punch to the face. “He accused me of being a talentless slug. But I proved him wrong,” Tia continued. “It turns out that I have a talent for detective work. I started searching through his office when he was gone. I knew there had to be paperwork if I was adopted. Do you know what I found?”
Ellie gave a wary shake of her head. “No.”
“My birth certificate.”
It took Ellie a second to realize why the birth certificate would matter.
“You found the name of your mother.”
You Will Suffer Page 30