by Karen Rose
Without breaking eye contact with Stephanie, Ken backhanded Chip, sending his chair crashing to the floor. ‘You don’t give any orders here, Anders,’ he said coldly, still looking only at Stephanie. ‘Now, my dear, I can make your future home more hospitable or less hospitable, depending on what you tell me.’
Stephanie stared at the crumpled form of her father, confusion warring with the fear in her eyes. But as the seconds ticked by, something new began to flicker around the fear. Understanding and wary calculation replaced the confusion, as if she’d suddenly comprehended her situation and was searching for a way out. ‘I . . . don’t . . . What was the question?’
Ken saw the reply for what it was – a stall tactic – and had to admit a certain admiration for the girl. But her father couldn’t see her face, hadn’t realized she’d grasped their reality.
Chip moaned. ‘Just . . . hold on, baby. If you tell him what he wants now, he’ll kill us all. Or worse. Just wait. She’ll . . . tell.’
Ken watched Marlene and Stephanie exchange quick glances. Marlene’s was harsh. Commanding. Stephanie’s was wide-eyed. But even less terrified.
Ken’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who will tell . . . what?’
Stephanie closed her eyes. Pursed her lips. Her shoulders squared.
Ken’s rage exploded. ‘Who will tell?’ he shouted.
‘Go to hell,’ Chip moaned.
Ken spun on one heel, grabbed a knife from his cart, and pressed the tip to Marlene’s carotid. ‘I will cut her fucking throat, Chip.’ He gripped Stephanie’s chin and forced her face toward her mother. ‘Open your eyes, Stephanie. Open your eyes or your mother dies. Now!’
Stephanie’s eyes opened, then filled with fear anew as her gaze locked on the drop of blood slowly rolling down her mother’s throat. ‘No. No. Don’t kill her. Please don’t kill her. I’ll talk. I promise I’ll talk.’
‘Who is the she that’s going to tell?’ Ken demanded.
‘Our servants,’ Stephanie spat. ‘I let them go. Mila and her daughter Erica. They’ll go to the police.’
She’s lying. But about exactly what, Ken wasn’t sure. ‘Why?’
Stephanie frowned. ‘Why . . . what?’
Ken had to chuckle. ‘Oh, some sheik is going to pay dearly for the privilege of taming you. You’ve got a quick mind, Stephanie darling.’ He dragged the tip of the knife down Marlene’s jaw, drawing a new line of crimson. ‘But it won’t work, sweetheart. So come clean, or I will kill her.’
‘I’m not lying,’ Stephanie insisted hoarsely.
Ken smiled at her. ‘All right then. So why did you let the servants go?’
‘To create a distraction.’ She clenched her teeth. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Ken said, feigning bewilderment. He hadn’t believed a word she’d said. ‘Why would you want to create a distraction?’
‘Because my father was angry with me. He was threatening to hurt me because I’d taken Tala out last night. Now please take the knife off my mother’s throat.’
‘I’ll decide when I’ll take the knife away, sweetheart.’ He pressed it a little harder, just to hear Marlene’s panicked whimper. ‘Why did you take Tala out?’
Stephanie’s throat worked frantically. ‘I . . . I’m not . . .’ Her eyes scrunched shut. ‘You’re making me too scared to think.’
‘That’s the point, Stephanie darling.’ He stepped back, deciding to trade the knife for the wired electrodes. He didn’t want to get too angry and accidentally kill Marlene too soon. ‘That is exactly the point. I have questions, but you’re still thinking too much about keeping your lies straight and not enough about giving me the truth.’ He twisted the cap off a bottle of water from the cart and poured it liberally over Marlene’s head, just smiling when she glared at him. Then he snapped the alligator clips to her ear lobes, squeezing to make sure she felt the maximum pain. ‘This device has four settings. This is level one.’
He turned it on, enjoying Marlene’s muffled screeching, the arching of her back, her unintelligible begging for the pain to stop. After a minute he turned it off, gratified when Marlene’s shoulders sagged. Her eyes wore a glazed look.
‘That was level one, Stephanie. Think about it for a few minutes, won’t you?’
Ken stepped away and jogged up the stairs to the first-floor foyer. ‘Decker!’ he called, walking to the base of one of the twin spiral staircases that made his family home unique.
Decker appeared at the top of the stairs, his latex gloves covered in blood. ‘Yes, sir?’ ‘Did you find signs of anyone else at the Anders house?’
Decker frowned. ‘No. No one. We swept every room, looking for the missing workers. There was a spare bedroom that appeared to have been used recently, but Mrs Anders swore that’s where their dog handler slept when she visited.’
‘Dog handler?’
‘Yes, sir. Mrs Anders owns a champion poodle. The large size, sir,’ Decker clarified when Ken’s face twisted in a grimace of contempt. ‘Not one of those yappy little ones. There were photos of the dog on the walls in their living room, and lots of ribbons and trophies. The dog was not in the home at the time we were. I checked the closets and under the beds to be sure. I didn’t want barking to call attention to the house if someone walked by. I checked Mrs Anders’s calendar. The next three weekends were blocked out for dog shows – all in the Midwest, within a day’s driving distance. I don’t know if the handler keeps the dog for the next three weeks or brings it home in between shows.’
It was possible that this handler was the ‘she’ Chip had mentioned, but only if the woman was coming back soon. Or if she called in to give updates on the dog and became suspicious about Marlene’s absence. Maybe what she was going to tell – to the police, presumably – was that the Anderses were missing.
‘Okay,’ he said to Decker. ‘When you’re done stitching up the wounded guard, go back to Anders’s house and make sure there is still no one there. Then go to the office and continue listening to the audio files recorded from the trackers. Start with the murdered one, then listen to the two escapees.’
Decker raised a brow. ‘You don’t want me to come downstairs and help with the heavy lifting?’
‘I think I can handle it.’
Ken wandered back to the basement, only to find that Marlene had recovered from her treatment and was glaring at him again. He grabbed the twine still noosed around her neck and pulled it taut until it rubbed raw against the wound he’d made with the knife. ‘I have a feeling that you are going to be the key to me getting the answers I want, Mrs Anders. I have absolutely no compunction about putting marks on you, but we can play with the electricity for a little longer.’
He let her go, then turned to Stephanie. ‘Let’s begin again, shall we?’
Thirteen
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 10.45 A.M.
Scarlett blinked hard. The chair in Marcus’s office felt far too soft and comfortable. It had old-fashioned wings that were slightly padded, perfect for a person to lean their head against for a nap. But right now you aren’t that person. She gave her head a hard shake. Stay awake, Scar.
Fighting a yawn, she abruptly pushed to her feet. Walk, girl. And look. Her lieutenant had instructed her to find out if the man was hiding anything, after all. The opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Marcus through his things might not come again.
‘I’m almost done,’ Marcus said from behind the wall created by his two huge computer monitors. ‘Another few minutes.’
‘That’s fine,’ Scarlett said. ‘I just need to stretch my legs.’ She crossed the large wood-paneled office, stopping at the far wall.
Covered floor to ceiling with framed newspaper headlines, the wall had caught her attention the moment she’d walked into the room. Some were just the headlines themselves, others the entire front page. Haphazardly arranged, all but one of the frames displayed copies of the Ledger. The only other paper represented was the Malaya, the Filipin
o paper Marcus had mentioned that morning. He’d said that his grandfather had been in the Philippines during World War II, but the headline framed on the wall was much more recent, showing the deposition of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Scarlett wondered why it had been included. She also knew she was allowing her mind to wander, procrastinating the unpleasant task of telling Marcus about about Tala’s baby. The news would undoubtedly upset him, but he needed to know.
But she could hear him still typing on his keyboard. She’d let him finish the list first. Then she’d tell him.
She returned her attention to the Ledger headlines – the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the ending of World War II in both Europe and Asia. Sputnik and the moon landing. The assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. The explosion of Challenger. The fall of the Berlin Wall. 9/11. All events that had changed the world.
The local news was mostly sports and weather related. Headlines celebrated back-to-back World Series wins by the Cincinnati Big Red Machine in the seventies, and Pete Rose’s breaking of Ty Cobbs’s record. Side-by-side headlines recalled the historic Ohio River floods of 1937 and 1997.
‘I remember that one,’ Scarlett murmured, pointing at the photo under the 1997 headline. ‘My uncle lost almost everything he owned. It was the first time in my life a headline affected me personally.’
‘I remember it too,’ Marcus said from his desk. ‘I was with the photographer in the helicopter when he snapped that photo. Seeing what happened from the air . . . it was overwhelming.’
‘I can imagine.’ Her eyes swept across the wall again as she tried to ignore the tingle that tickled everything feminine inside her body every time the man spoke. ‘It’s like a history lesson. Right here in black and white.’
‘I know.’
With a start she realized he was standing about a foot behind her, having somehow moved away from his desk without a sound. Keeping her gaze locked forward, she drew a quiet breath to slow the sudden tripping of her heart, but couldn’t control the shiver that licked across her skin when his scent filled her head.
There should have been nothing extraordinary about his scent. Just soap and a hint of aftershave. She’d smelled the combination on men hundreds, thousands of times. She worked with men, had six brothers, for God’s sake. But this . . . This was different. This was Marcus. She’d dreamed of him for months and now she was here with him. Close enough to touch.
Her hands itched to reach out to him, so she shoved them in her pockets. This was not the time or the place. She was on duty and late meeting Deacon at the park. Time to go, Scarlett. Before you do something you’ll regret later. She’d opened her mouth to tell him she had to leave, with or without the list, when he spoke again, oblivious of her reaction to him.
‘I spent some of the best hours of my childhood in this room,’ he said quietly. Almost reverently. ‘I’d ask my grandfather about each one of these headlines and he’d tell me the story.’
She glanced back over her shoulder, expecting him to be looking at the wall. But his eyes were focused on her face with an intensity that had her swallowing hard. He’d been staring at her, she realized, waiting for her to look at him.
With an effort she returned her attention to the wall, knowing her cheeks had to be bright red. ‘Did, um, did all of these belong to your grandfather?’
He moved to her side, so close that she could feel the heat of his body. She wanted to lean, just a little, but she kept herself upright.
‘Yes, but he didn’t collect them all. Some belonged to my great-grandfather – the really old ones, like the Wall Street Crash and Armistice Day in 1918. My grandfather took over the paper in the early fifties, so all the headlines up there after that were his.’
‘Except the Malaya. Why is it there?’
‘He became friends with a Filipino man while he was in the service, and they kept in touch. The man was part of the resistance effort to depose Marcos, and when they succeeded, he sent my grandfather a copy of the paper. Granddad said he was so proud of his friend that he hung the paper here. It’s the only non-Ledger headline up there.’
‘He was a loyal friend.’
‘That he was. He was also a hoarder. There are boxes of clippings in my mother’s basement. It’s a damn fire hazard but I can’t bring myself to throw any of it out.’
She heard the wistful affection in his voice. ‘You loved him.’
A sigh. ‘Yeah. He could be a hard man, but I loved him. He loved us too, in his own way.’ A long pause. ‘I think some of the things he’d seen, especially during the war, changed him so fundamentally that he couldn’t easily open himself up after that. But occasionally we’d see the real him.’
In his own way did not sound promising. ‘Was that a good thing?’ she asked, not sure she really wanted to hear the answer. ‘Seeing the real him, I mean.’
‘Sometimes. He could be fun, but more often he’d be moody. Of course, we didn’t often see that side of him. Not until we moved in with him.’
‘When was that?’
Something indefinable flickered in his eyes. ‘When I was eight.’
‘Where did you live before?’ she asked, trying not to sound like an interrogator.
He lifted a brow. ‘Don’t even try, Detective,’ he said, and her cheeks heated.
‘Sorry. I really am just curious, but old habits . . .’ She shrugged. ‘You know.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, and for a moment he sounded so . . . incredibly sad. ‘I was born in Lexington. So was Stone. So we were close enough to visit Granddad often, but we never stayed too long and I think he was able to hide the darker moods. When we moved in, well, pretty quickly we figured out the score. Sometimes he’d be the grandfather we’d known before, happy and funny, throwing a football around with us, giving us rides on his shoulders . . . But other times he’d be so angry. We were never really sure which grandfather we were going to get on any given day.’
She looked up at him with a frown. ‘Did he hit you when he was angry?’
He looked down at her, one side of his mouth quirking up. ‘Would you have protected me if he had?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yeah. I would have.’
The little quirk became a true smile, going all the way to his eyes, and Scarlett found herself momentarily awestruck. His face was a little too rugged to be classically handsome, but when he smiled . . . My God. He was beautiful.
‘You would have been only about three years old when we moved in with him,’ he said. ‘But I appreciate the sentiment.’
‘I was a damn tough three-year-old,’ she said lightly. ‘I had to be. I have six brothers.’
He tilted his head, looking intrigued. ‘Older or younger?’
‘Three of each.’
‘Sisters?’
‘No, none. I’m the only girl, though not from my parents’ lack of trying. My mother finally gave up. And don’t think I didn’t realize that you failed to answer my question.’
He shook his head. ‘I would never underestimate you like that. No. He never hit us. When he got that angry look in his eyes, he’d separate himself from the rest of us. He had a home gym in the basement. Punching bag, boxing ring, free weights. He’d go down there and work off his anger to the point that he could lock it away again.’ He paused for a moment, thinking, then shook his head again. ‘We always knew that when he came back upstairs from the gym, we wouldn’t see the real him for a long while, in any form.’
‘He wanted to protect you from himself,’ she murmured, understanding more than Marcus knew. ‘And himself from you.’
She knew she’d overstepped the moment the words came out of her mouth. Marcus pivoted so that their shoulders no longer nearly touched. It only widened the gap between them a few more inches, but it could have been a football field by the arctic look on his face.
‘Excuse me?’ Even his voice had grown coldly contemptuous. ‘You didn’t know him. You didn’t know us. We never would have hurt him. Never.’
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‘I bet I know him better than you think,’ she said quietly, clearly visualizing the tortured man beating the tar out of a punching bag rather than taking out his inescapable fury on small children. ‘But you’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it the way you took it. I’m sorry.’ Still in her pocket, her hand closed over her car keys, gripping them tightly. ‘I’ll leave now. You don’t have to show me out.’ She stepped to the side so that she could get by him without brushing against him. ‘Please be careful. And don’t hesitate to call me if you need me.’
He matched her step, blocking her path. ‘Scarlett, I . . .’ He shook his head, his expression no longer cold. No longer anything. He’d wiped the emotion from his features. ‘I apologize.’
She pulled on her most professional face. ‘No need. Now, if you’ll let me pass, I need to go. This was supposed to have been a quick stop. I’ve been keeping Agent Novak waiting.’
His feet didn’t budge, but his hand lifted to close gently over her shoulder, the movement slow and careful, as if he was afraid he’d spook her. ‘Don’t go,’ he murmured. ‘Not yet. Not like this. Tell me what you did mean.’
She could feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of her jacket, and this time she gave in to the urge to lean into his touch, just a little. Then shivered when his thumb swept up the side of her neck, just once.
His exhale was ragged, his voice rough as he ran his hand down the length of her arm, lightly but briefly brushing his fingertips against the back of her hand. ‘I know he wanted to protect us from himself. I knew that even when I was a kid. But why would he need to protect himself from us? How could we have hurt him?’
She met his eyes, understood the guarded trepidation she saw there because she felt the same way. Now that she had a second to think, she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. Marcus O’Bannion was about as far from clueless as a man could get. Her answer would very likely expose her worst vulnerability.
But maybe he needed to see that. Fair warning and all that shit.