He was on his feet and out the door before he had time to think, his legs on automatic pilot as they moved him to the elevator. This time Morrison’s foyer was empty, and no slender legs greeted him as he approached the giant wooden doors. Noticing they were slightly ajar, Connor wandered toward them.
“Come in, Connor.”
Saul’s voice startled him as he raised his right fist to knock, but Connor steadied himself, slipping between the open doors, before closing them behind him.
“Thanks for coming so fast.”
“You’re welcome,” Connor replied as he headed in the direction of the large glass desk again. “It sounded important.”
His attention flitted from Morrison’s face, which looked even more tired than his own, to the awesome spectacle of London behind him. It was a gray, wet day outside. Much like the one last summer when he’d snatched his kitten from the streets, but despite that, the view was still breathtaking.
“I have some more questions.” Saul sighed. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
Connor eyed him intently as he dropped into the waiting recliner, taking in the open collar at Saul’s neck, and the dark stubble growing at his jaw. It didn’t look like he’d had much rest last night. Maybe he hadn’t even gone to bed at all. The thought was unsettling. Whatever kept Saul Morrison at his desk was serious.
“I’ve been thinking on your little bombshell,” Saul began. “Trying to work it out in my head.”
That wasn’t a question at all, but Connor bit back the urge to point it out. “Don’t bother,” he scoffed. “You won’t find any logic. I know it makes no sense when you evaluate it in the cold light of day.”
Saul blinked at him. “Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.” He smiled bleakly. “I’m glad you see things the same way.”
“Do you want to know why I told her?” Connor asked.
He needed to cut to the chase. All this dancing around was fine, but either Saul was going to make his move, or he wasn’t, and Connor sensed neither of them had gotten enough sleep to play the game for long this morning.
“That would be a start,” Saul responded.
Connor nodded. He had known it would come to this, but saying the words out loud was no easy feat. “I was totally immersed,” he explained. “I mean, we both were. You probably couldn’t understand the mindset unless you’d been in it.”
Saul inhaled slowly. Connor could see he was working hard to keep his patience. “Are you trying to tell me that you fell in love with the woman?”
The question hung in the air around them. Was that what he was trying to tell him?
“Yes,” Connor conceded after a lengthy pause. “Yes, I think I did.”
Saul closed his eyes as he absorbed the news. “You implied as much yesterday, but I just want to try and understand.”
“And do you?” Connor’s tone was curter than he’d intended, but somehow, he had to know the answer. “Have you ever fallen for anyone?”
Saul’s expression softened as his blue orbs flickered open. “Sure I have,” he replied, “but not for a long time, and not like this, Connor. You fucking kidnapped the woman, remember. It barely qualifies as a romantic introduction!”
Connor snorted at his answer. Saul was right. The whole situation was mind-achingly fucked-up, and all of his own creation.
“So, that explains why you told her.” Saul’s voice had lowered, taking on that back to business tone in a heartbeat. “Now, what about how she received the news?”
Connor raised his chin as he searched his mind for the memory. Molly had been shocked, appalled even. She’d reacted like any normal person would have done, with repulsion for the crime and empathy for the victim, but after that? After they’d talked it through into the small hours, she’d calmed down, and he recalled how he had cradled her as she fell asleep in his arms.
“As you’d expect,” he told Saul. “She was stunned and angry at first, but she seemed appeased after we talked about it.”
“You talked about it?”
“Yeah,” Connor answered. “I know you think I’m insane, and in many ways you’re damn right, but she was easy to talk to.”
Saul’s gaze met his as Connor concluded, and there was a moment of silence as the two appraised one another.
“So, when did this happen?” Saul asked. “How long between your confession and your arrest.”
“Not long,” admitted Connor. “Twelve hours perhaps, maybe fifteen.”
“Shit,” sighed Saul running his hands through his graying hair. “That didn’t give you much time to smooth things over.”
“True,” agreed Connor, “but Molly’s a good pet. She obviously didn’t spill to the authorities.”
That made Saul falter, his chin coming rest on the hand propped up by his elbow. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“Oh, come on!” Connor exclaimed. “I was in custody for a while, Saul. And in that time, not one copper mentioned anything about Lydia’s murder. That was what they were sniffing around for in the first place after all, and I’d assumed that Carson had fucked up, that they must have found evidence, but they didn’t have shit. Molly’s story would have been enough to try and pin Lydia’s death on me, but they never even tried to connect the dots. Molly didn’t tell them.”
There was strained silence.
“We can check,” Saul said at length. “Find out one way or the other.”
“Do it then,” snapped Connor. He knew he sounded petulant, but he didn’t care. He knew Molly hadn’t ratted him out.
“I’ll add it to my list,” Saul answered wryly. “All I’m saying is that we don’t know. She might have told them, but without a body, they’d struggle to put you up on a murder charge.”
Saul was right, and it rankled Connor beyond reason.
“I just don’t think she did,” he continued, crossing his arms over his chest. “Someone would have let it slip to me in all that time. Those detectives would have loved to dangle that one over me. They’d have relished it.”
Saul was nodding. “Yep, you’re probably right. But now I have another question, Connor, and it’s a big one. You did God knows what to this girl, and she rewarded you by keeping quiet about a murder confession? Why? Even if you hypnotized her while she was in chains, why would she still be loyal?”
Why, indeed, Connor mused? It was the question he had pondered more than any other since he was broken free. “I think maybe she loved me, too,” he brooded. “Or at least, she was starting to.”
Saul sat there looking stunned. “This sounds like quite a romance, Connor.”
Connor could tell by his tone that Saul’s sentiment was cynical at least, but still, his words resonated somehow. It had been quite a romance.
The best of his whole life.
Chapter Seven
Molly collapsed through the entrance of her house, dropping her bags to the ground as she kicked the front door closed. Finally, she was home, back in Pennsylvania, and alone. It had taken some convincing to persuade her parents that she was ready to come back, but in the end, she thought they had seen it as progression. If Molly wanted to come back, then she must be ready. Ready to live alone again, ready to be independent; ready to get on with the rest of her life.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
The real reason Molly had boarded the flight from New Orleans – the only reason – was to run. To run from her mom’s concerned expressions, to run from Hannah’s reassurances, to run away from the weight of it all. Of course, there was no running, and Molly knew that, but somehow, making the journey home helped to delude everyone into thinking she was getting better.
She sighed as she made coffee, ignoring the mountain sized pile of mail which had accrued in her absence. Gazing around the place, Molly decided that it was good to be back in her space, even if it was going to take some getting used to. As she watched the coffee brew, her attention was drawn to the hazy light spilling in from her kitchen window, and the shoot of a new
idea bloomed in her mind. She saw an image of her heroine being nuzzled by her tormentor, as he fucked her ruthlessly over some type of counter. Molly paused, closing her eyes to capture the idea. It wasn’t much. Nothing really, just one scratchy image, but it was the first inspiration she’d had since she’d got back to American soil, and right now, beggars could not be choosers. She had to write it down, and she had to do it now, before the intensity faded. Before her first muse in months flitted away into dust.
Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she dashed to the hallway, and grabbed her laptop from her hand luggage. Firing the machine up, she sank into her comfy chair, sipping the hot liquid. Molly wasn’t sure how long it would take her to get used to actually drinking from cups again. Instinctively, she always found her eyes darting to the floor, expecting to see her trusty dog bowl there. No, not anymore, she reminded herself. Those days were over for good, and the thought – as usual – made her gloomy.
She pushed the notion aside, opening a new document and resting her fingers over the small black keys. While they hovered there, Molly inhaled. She had a real sense that this moment was significant. This was it. Time to find out if she was still a writer at all, or if she’d left the soul of that person in England with her enigmatic captor. Slowly, she allowed her digits to fall, tapping out the first few sentences of the mental image she’d seized in the kitchen. After a couple of paragraphs, she paused, finally permitting her gaze to go back and re-read the composition. What she saw made her heart sink. It was trash, utter rubbish, possibly some of the worst tripe she’d ever churned out, and as her gaze returned to the start again, she could feel the tears welling in her eyes.
Shit, shit, shit. No! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, this wasn’t what she’d promised herself. Her home was supposed to have been the answer Molly had been looking for – the missing link. In her mind, that’s how she had conceptualized it. If she went back to the privacy of her home, to the place she always used to work, and away from the smothering interest of her family, then she’d be able to write again. Somehow, Molly had persuaded herself it would work, that it wasn’t the lack of Connor that was holding her words back. It was only the loss of normality. And Molly had unwittingly held onto that notion like a life raft. Even though the tiny voice in her head knew it was bullshit, she’d deluded herself that she was right. Pennsylvania would mean a return to her old life, and with it her muse would be waiting at her writing desk, tapping her fingers as though she’d been sitting there the whole time.
The stark reality that the whole appraisal had been nothing but a crock of shit was overwhelming. Molly blinked away the tears, moving her laptop to the near-by coffee table. Shit, she thought again, watching how her hands began to shake. This was not good. She had squeezed out a few hundred words of meaningless trash, but it had done nothing to comfort her. Molly wasn’t a novice. She knew drafts needed to be reworked multiple times to be decent, and she had no fear of the editing process, but still, this was more than that. This was different. Usually when she wrote, it was like another part of her brain took over altogether, disabling all non-essential functions, and allowing her focus to be on the words. That was the magic, and when it was conjured, it had a life all of its own. Molly could literally switch off her conscious thought, and just allow her fingers to fly over those keys, creating the plots and characters which could later make up her bestsellers.
Yes, she had been able to write a few hundred words today, better than anything she’d achieved in Louisiana, but that magic was no longer there. She could sense it; she could feel the difference. The last time she’d been able to weave that spell for herself was during her time in captivity, in Connor’s small house. Molly shuddered out of instinct, the realization landing over like ice. It didn’t matter where she went, or how far she ran, this would never be over. Not until she could write again. Creating new stories used to be as easy as breathing, but now it seemed a step too far. He had taken that away from her, Connor had seized it, just like he had seized her body and soul. Without her writing, Molly felt worthless. Without her writing, she was nothing.
A dark cloud descended as she began to accept what she had inherently already known. She needed Connor. She actually needed him like oxygen. And it wasn’t just the man, or the monster which she missed now, it was the muse.
It took an hour or so of coffee and tears before she could pick up the laptop again. This time she ignored the word-processor altogether, heading instead for her social media. It had been literally months since she’d been present online. Initially, she’d asked Hannah to go through things, and weed out the comments and messages about the abduction which she just couldn’t face. Hannah had been an angel with that, deflecting a barrage of interest with her regular weekly updates, but Molly sensed that now it was time for her to post herself again. If she couldn’t write, then at least she could post. She reconciled that the interaction with her readers might help spark a new series, or even better, help her to finish all the books which were still waiting for her magic to return.
As she loaded up her author Facebook account, Molly pushed away the furling knot of anxiety that accompanied it. Connor had once told her that they’d chatted online before he’d taken her, and in the midst of all the torrid experiences she’d been subject to at his hand, she had never really gotten to the bottom of it. She hadn’t told the police about it either, choosing to keep it private, just like the shocking confession about Lydia’s murder which Connor had trusted her with.
Trust, eh? the little voice in her head mocked. Trust was a fine concept to be bandying about when it came to the man who’d kidnapped her, and Molly knew that voice was right, but somehow, being right wasn’t enough. She had fallen for him in those last days, felt something for the man, and she couldn’t bring herself to destroy that visceral connection by divulging things to the authorities. They had seemed to think they had enough on him to send him to jail anyway, at least until he had mysteriously vanished on the way back from the court.
Molly’s mind flitted back to that early October day. It had been the same one that she’d dreaded, the one where she was forced to take the stand. She recalled how bizarre the whole experience had been. Not only had speaking in court been hellish—every inch as bad as the introvert in her had feared—but she remembered the odd way in which the proceedings had been brought to a close that day. It was Connor himself who had ended them, being held in contempt of court for arguing with his own counsel, Mosley, when the lawyer had tried to cross-examine Molly. She remembered the shocked gasps of the public gallery, and the way the media had eaten it up like some awful Hollywood romance, but more than all of that, she remembered how it had felt.
Standing in that box she had been so exposed and alone. Her legal team had tried to prepare her for it, but in truth, there was no preparation for an experience like that. She knew Connor’s lawyer would come for her, and she knew all she could do was stand there and answer him. Frankly, it was tantamount to the kinds of ritualistic humiliation Connor had made her endure, but there were no reassuring words to look forward to at the end, no tender touches to wash away the ignominy. Only a packed courtroom, the judge, her lawyer and the odious Mosley. Molly had known her cheeks were blazing as he’d asked his damn questions, and she’d known there was nothing she could do to defend herself. Getting upset or angry on the stand never helped anyone, and she’d known that, too. So, instead, she resolved to take it like a good little masochist. Endure the inquiring line of questions, endure the scores of eyes absorbing all of that personal information.
Endure.
She hadn’t expected anyone to come to her rescue that day, least of all the man who’d been the cause of the whole ordeal, but it was Connor who had spoken out in her defense. Molly remembered the way he’d looked that day, his gaze boring into her with an intensity she hadn’t recalled since the house. It was almost as though he was trying to send her a message, to let her know something important, and as she took a sip of the second
batch of coffee she’d made that morning, Molly began to wonder. Maybe he was. Perhaps he knew things were about to change, and that he’d be on the run by the end of the day. Was that why he’d spoken out in court? Was that why he’d rattled his own counsel, landing himself in contempt, rather than allow Mosley to denigrate her in court?
It was messed up, but in so many ways it made sense. This was Connor she was talking about. Nothing about the man could be considered normal. Had he intentionally interjected that day to spare her the pain and embarrassment of cross-examination? The idea took her breath away, and for no real reason, Molly found herself smiling at her laptop. Christ, she missed him. She missed his touch, his scent, hell, she even missed his crazy discipline. More than anything though, she missed Connor’s voice. That gravelly tone that made her insides turn to mush on demand. She knew it was wrong, but she craved him all the same, and she knew she’d give anything to be with him again right now. Just to talk to him, to hear the resonance of his voice. But there was no chance of that now. She was back in Pennsylvania, and she didn’t have a clue where the hell he was. Even the British police didn’t know.
That was when the concept hit her. Possibly her craziest one yet. Connor had been one of the readers in her group, right? He’d told her he’d spent some time chatting with her in her readers group before he snatched her from the street. Maybe he was still there? Maybe, his account was still active? Her heart raced as she switched tabs and began to explore the members of her group. According to her records, no users had left since her abduction, so he had to still be there. Somewhere.
Entwined: (A Dark Romance Kidnap Thriller) (The Dark Necessities Trilogy Book 3) Page 4