The room was bathed in light.
I’d found it. The Phantom’s lair. Relief mixed with triumph surged through me.
I’d made it through the hellish hallway of bugs, and I’d gotten to the goal. I was like a Greek hero emerging from the underworld.
It was okay now. There was light. There was space. I was going to make it.
I drew in several quaking breaths, ashamed of the half-sobs that punctuated each of them. I’d really let everything get to me way too much. And I wasn’t that kind of girl. I didn’t get freaked out at that kind of stuff.
I was here to do a job. I needed to be calm.
“I’m Cecily Kane,” I said out loud, my voice echoing through the chamber. “I’m a reporter. I’m strong. This doesn’t freak me out.”
My next few breaths were more steady.
I looked around the room.
It was carved out of stone, an underground cave. The ceiling was smooth above me, hollowed out long, long ago. It was high, maybe ten feet or so. Someone had gone to the trouble of putting in recessed lights all over it.
In the center of the room, there was a table, bolted to the ground. The lights seemed to focus on it.
I went closer to examine it.
There were leather straps lying on its surface, the kinds that could bolt down a person’s arms, legs, and neck.
This was where he brought the girls, I realized. This was where he killed them.
Looking closer, I realized the table was awash in reddish brown stains, and the floor underneath my feet was spattered in them too.
Blood.
My stomach convulsed.
With trembling hands, I got out my camera. This was what I needed. I had all the evidence right here. I began to snap photo after photo. Of the straps. Of the table. Of the bloodstains.
Something caught my eye.
A splash of bright color.
Purple.
I turned in the direction.
It was a purple shoe.
It was attached to a leg.
It wasn’t the only leg.
The legs were set up on a raised dais against the wall. They were surrounded by red curtains—like they were on a macabre puppet theater stage.
The legs were preserved in the same way that Maria’s had been, wrinkled and dessicated, like dried apricots.
He’d arranged them. He’d dressed them. Some were in fish net stockings, some in lace garters, some bare. The toes were all stuffed into high heeled shoes.
One long row of women’s legs. All on display.
I stood, staring, my whole body shaking.
This was what I’d been looking for, but I hadn’t expected to feel this way when I saw it.
One of those sets of legs belonged to Darlene.
He’d killed her. Destroyed her. And all so that he could display pieces of her like she was a dismembered doll?
Barclay was sick.
And I was feeling a mixture of revulsion and rage.
I wanted him dead. I wanted to cut off his fucking legs and make him watch while I dressed them up. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted—
Slam.
A distant sound of a door shutting, far away.
The passageway. Someone was coming down the passageway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
My heart raced.
He couldn’t be here. He came near sunset. It was much too early.
But I thought I could hear the faint sound of footsteps on the dirt floor, coming closer.
Closer.
I dashed across the room and shut off the light.
Had he seen it?
I remembered the passageway as incredibly long, but I couldn’t remember if had been straight or twisting. I’d been too concerned with trying to put one foot in front of the other. With brushing off the imaginary insects. With getting through it before the walls closed in on me.
If he’d seen the light go off, he knew someone was here.
But I couldn’t have left it on. That would have given me away too.
It would have meant that he could see me.
Of course, I realized, my heart in my throat, the minute he got down that passageway and turned on the light, he’d see me anyway.
I had nowhere to hide.
I slid along the sleek walls of the cave, feeling for something—anything—that could conceal me.
There was nothing.
I inched further away from the opening of the passage.
It was dark.
I closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of my own pounding heart so loud it drowned everything out.
I tried to force myself to calm down, to regulate my breathing.
My breath! He’d hear me panting away down here. It wouldn’t matter if I was hiding. He’d know where I was.
It was dark.
It was quiet.
Hugging the wall, I kept feeling my way along it.
It was perfectly smooth and cool. There were no indentations. There were no hollows.
I was exposed.
It was dark.
I strained to try to hear him.
Nothing.
No sound whatsoever.
What if I’d imagined it? What if I hadn’t heard the door slam after all? What if I was simply cowering here in the dark, frightened out of my wits for absolutely no reason?
My pulse stammered just below my skin.
I listened.
Silence.
Something crawled over my foot.
I kicked out instinctively, knocking it off.
My shoe collided with the wall of the cave. A dull thud echoed through the room.
Shit. If he didn’t know I was hear before, he did now.
Assuming he was there at all. Assuming it wasn’t all my imagination.
Oh god.
How long could I stand here, waiting? If I waited for ten minutes, could I assume that he wasn’t actually in the passageway, that I’d been hearing things when I heard that slam? Twenty minutes?
But how would I know how much time had passed?
It was dark.
It was quiet.
I didn’t hear anything.
I remembered that I had weapons. Besides the club/flashlight, I had a knife. I set the club down softly. The flashlight wasn’t helping me too much at the moment. I drew my knife out of its sheath, gripping the handle tightly with one hand.
I began to ease my way back the way I’d come—back towards the light switch.
If he was really coming, that was what I would do. I’d wait by the light switch. And the minute he turned it on, I would stab him.
I could do that.
I began to work my way back, my fingers crawling over the smooth wall. In my other hand, I clutched the knife.
It was dark.
The only noise I could hear was the fabric of my shirt sliding against the cave.
I moved as quickly as could. As silently as I could.
My hand was starting to sweat.
I was afraid that I would lose the knife, that it would slip out of my fingers.
Then—
There it was.
The light switch. I could touch it.
I stopped moving, holding tight to the knife, standing there, waiting.
I waited.
It was dark.
I listened.
I couldn’t hear anything.
I had to have imagined it. He couldn’t be here. Maybe I’d heard something, but it hadn’t been the door closing. If it was The Phantom, wouldn’t he have made it down here by now?
I should just turn on the light.
I was being ridiculous.
There was no one there.
And if there was, well, I had my knife, didn’t I?
I reached out and ran my fingers over the switch. I should turn it on.
There was no one there.
I drew in a breath.
I held it.
I turned on the light.
The room was bathed
in brightness.
I could see the table in the center. I could see the legs on display.
But there was no one there.
I let out a long, relieved sigh.
And then I let out a short burst of laughter—nearly hysterical.
“You really are losing it,” I told myself.
“Are you?” said a voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
He was right next to me. He wasn’t wearing The Phantom costume. Instead, he had on jeans and a t-shirt, and he was grinning.
He’d just come out of the passageway.
I was stunned by how normal he looked.
“Good to see you again,” he said, eyeing me. “I have to admit I’ve always favored the less-clothes look where you’re concerned, but that’s easily remedied.”
Oh fuck that.
I struck out with my knife, a slashing motion aimed at his face.
He calmly stepped out of the way, leering at me.
Slashing didn’t work? How about stabbing? I leveled the knife and drove it at him.
He danced backwards, laughing. “Are you here all by yourself, Cecily?”
I went after him, stabbing at the air even more forcefully.
He stepped to one side and grasped my wrist. He squeezed and twisted.
I cried out in pain, letting go of the knife.
It clattered against the floor.
We both went for it.
He picked it up.
I backed away from him, wary.
He grinned, his face lit up in sadistic glee. He brandished the knife. “I think I’ve had a little more experience with one of these than you have.”
I turned and ran the only place I knew to go.
Back up the passageway.
Immediately, I was plunged into the warm dankness.
I started to cry, running even faster.
He laughed again.
He didn’t sound close.
I shot a glance over my shoulder.
He was coming after me, all right. But he wasn’t running. He was walking slowly, leisurely, the knife glimmering as he came.
Fuck.
Why should he run? I was going back up into a dead end. The door was locked.
I was trapped.
I turned back to the passageway, still running as fast as I could.
My feet tangled in themselves.
Down I went, down on the ground, down in the darkness, down to the crawling insects.
I hit hard, skinning up my palms. The pain was bright, surprising.
I whimpered, struggling to my feet.
My hands were bleeding.
I had the same sensation, that the walls were closing in on me, crushing me.
The ceiling coming for me.
I started to run again, my breath coming in sobbing gasps.
He was still laughing.
He was closer.
I turned around.
All I saw was the knife.
* * *
I was bleeding, but they were all shallow wounds. He’d used the knife to cut off my clothes, and now I was only in my underwear and bra. A few times the knife had cut into my skin, just little nicks and slashes. They were bleeding pretty good, but I was okay.
At least that was what I was trying to tell myself.
He’d tied me up on the table in the middle of the room, my bare skin lying flat against the dried blood of the girls before me. Darlene’s blood was there somewhere. I knew it.
He’d hit me over the head too. I’d lost consciousness, been sucked into dark oblivion. I’d been so afraid as the world winked out. Afraid I wouldn’t wake up.
But I was awake. I was bleeding. I was tied up.
But I was okay. I was okay.
I was okay.
Maybe if I told myself that often enough I’d feel like it was true.
He stood over me in the Phantom outfit. The white theater mask. The black cape. He must have put it on when I was unconscious. It made him look blank, the mask did. Like he wasn’t actually a person, just an empty, malevolent force.
I was terrified.
No one knew where I was.
I’d been a huge freaking idiot to come down here all by myself.
I was going to die.
No, I screamed inside my head. I can’t think that. I have to stay positive. I have to keep my head. I’m going to live. I’m going to live.
He smiled down at me. “You know, this is very nice. Saved me the trouble of hunting a girl down. You’re already here. Like a gift.”
“You can’t,” I said. “I’m not like the other victims. I’m not a stripper or a prostitute.”
“Oh, sure you are. I read the papers. Besides, I’ve had the pleasure of your lap dances more than once.” He rested a gloved hand on my naked thigh. “Do you remember that, Cecily?”
I shut my eyes. Of course I did. No matter how much I wanted to block those kinds of memories out, they always came back to me. I remembered feeling like an object, feeling on display, feeling like my body was detached from the essence of myself. That I could make it do things that I found abhorrent as long as I kept the detachment up.
I opened my eyes again. Thanks for that reminder, Hayden, I thought. This could be the same. I could detach from my body. I could let go of the fear. I could find my analytic head somewhere away from this.
“I remember that you always dickered with me over the price.” My voice came out sarcastic and cold. Good. I was on top of this. “I never understood why. Like the money matters to you.”
His fingers crawled up over my leg, inching higher. “I don’t have to pay you anything now.”
I felt his touch, but I refused to let myself react.
“Do you know what I’m going to do to you?” he asked me.
“I have a pretty good idea,” I said. “Is talking to the girl beforehand part of the deal? What’s it all about, Hayden? Did the guy on your dad’s pornos taunt his girls too?”
He drew back. He wasn’t touching me.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I know about that.”
“He told you?”
I knew that the “he” we were talking about was Callum. I nodded. “He told me all about you.”
The Phantom grimaced.
For a second, I thought I’d scored a point. I thought I’d shaken him somehow, found a weakness I could exploit.
But then his hand flew too quickly for me to see.
He backhanded me across the face.
The impact stung.
I cried out.
He leaned over me, his face close to mine. “Don’t talk to me like that, bitch. You’re the one lying on my table. I’m going to fuck you, make no mistake about that. If you behave yourself, it’ll be your cunt I fuck. If you aren’t, I’m willing to explore more painful orifices. Hell, I’ll make some.”
I cringed away from him. I couldn’t help it.
“After I do that, I’ll either kill you and then cut off your legs, or I’ll cut off your legs and then I’ll kill you. If you behave yourself, I’ll let you pick which order it happens. So, shut up, because as bad as you think this is, I can always make it worse.”
I shut my eyes.
Okay, okay, it was getting harder and harder to maintain a detached amount of distance from my body when he said stuff like that.
He covered one of my breasts with his hand. He squeezed it roughly.
I forced myself not to shudder in revulsion.
He hooked two fingers in the band of my panties. He began to pull them down, exposing me.
I started to tremble. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want him to do that. I didn’t want him to see me.
He chuckled softly, and the hell of it was that when he chuckled like that, he sounded exactly like Vigil. “This is going to be a lot of fun,” he whispered.
My panties were around my ankles. I tried to quell the tremors going through my body.
He seized me by the hips. He yanked me down to the edge of the table, so tha
t my ass was right at the lip. “It’s okay. I like it better when you’re afraid. Turns me on.”
Oh god. Oh god.
I squeezed my eyes shut. This was going to happen. This was actually going to happen.
I waited, tense and frightened. I bit down hard on my lip.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Phantom yelled in surprise.
My eyes snapped open.
The Phantom was on the ground. Vigil was over him, pounding on him with another of those clubs from his lair. It landed against The Phantom’s head with a crack. Then against his neck.
“You’re here,” I said.
He hit The Phantom again. “Nolan told me you where you went. What the fuck were you thinking, Cecily?”
The Phantom grabbed the end of Vigil’s club. “Does it matter what she was thinking, brother? She’s here now.”
Vigil struggled to free the club from The Phantom’s grasp. “Not for long. I’m getting her out. You don’t get to touch her.”
The Phantom laughed. “Too late. I had my hands all over her.”
Vigil let go of the club. He kicked The Phantom in the face.
The Phantom slid backwards on the floor, grunting. “Fucked her too. Fucked her hard.”
“He didn’t,” I said. It seemed important that he know.
The Phantom got to his feet. “Now, big brother, it’s just like I said before.” He gestured with the club at me. “Your turn.”
Vigil ran for him.
The Phantom held up the club with two hands, cutting him off.
Vigil grabbed the club, and the two wrestled over it for several minutes.
Abruptly, The Phantom let go and punched Vigil.
Surprised, Vigil dropped the club.
The Phantom grabbed Vigil, twisting his body so that he held him from behind. The Phantom pinned Vigil’s arms to his sides. The Phantom held him tight, peering over his shoulder. He turned the both of them so that they faced me.
“There she is,” said The Phantom. “Stripped and ready for you. We’ll do it together.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “We’ll take her. And then we’ll cut her. Don’t lie to me and tell me you don’t want it. I know you want it.”
Vigil’s gaze raked over my naked skin. His jaw worked.
I shook my head at him. No. Was he hesitating? Was he thinking about it?
“You can’t imagine the release,” said The Phantom. “You can’t imagine how delectable it is until you’ve tried it.”
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