by Karen Rose
‘He’s awake, sir,’ Decker called down.
‘Perfect timing. I was just taking a break here. Can you come down, Decker?’ He watched the man’s reaction as he came down the stairs and saw Burton tied up in the chair.
Decker took in the blood, the noose, and the reconstructed ear on the cart, all without a flinch or a flicker in his steely eyes. ‘Do you want me to bandage him up for you?’ he asked.
‘Sure, why not. Wouldn’t want that cut to get infected.’
A brief twitch of Decker’s lips was the only hint of an emotional response. ‘No, sir.’
Ken closed the toolbox. ‘Is Demetrius restrained?’
‘Just like you asked, sir.’
‘Good.’
‘Why?’ Burton growled. ‘If Demetrius is a fuckup, just kill him. Quick and clean. What’s with the Dr Mengele act?’
‘It’s not an act. Didn’t Reuben ever tell you about my . . . hobbies? Finance and corporate management are only part of my skill set.’ Ken smiled. ‘Demetrius is an intimidator. Fists like concrete. Reuben is all tactical, planning, keeping people in line. Me? I’m the monster that hides in your closet, the one your mother always told you didn’t exist. I’ll get out of you what I want to know. One way or the other. Everyone talks eventually.’
With that he left Burton to Decker and climbed the stairs to Demetrius. He found him in one of the extra upstairs bedrooms, the one he kept just for times like this. His oldest friend was awake and completely immobilized. Decker had shackled Demetrius’s feet and the wrist of his uninjured arm to the bed frame, while his injured arm and his body were restrained with three leather belts that wrapped under the bed and over his torso, groin and thighs.
Alice had been in here too. Demetrius wore a noose around his neck identical to Burton’s. So Ken wouldn’t have to worry about him thrashing too much.
Demetrius’s nostrils flared when Ken entered the room, his eyes widening at the sight of the toolbox. ‘What. The. Fuck?’
Ken sighed. ‘I’d say this is going to hurt me more than you, but I’d be lying, obviously. But it will hurt me a lot. Just so you know.’
‘You are crazy, man.’
Ken put the toolbox on the nightstand. ‘And you’re a cokehead who’s put my entire company in jeopardy. You could make this easier on all of us by telling me where you’ve put that iPad you’re always using. Decker and I couldn’t find it in your car and Sean says you don’t appear to have an account on the cloud. Whatever the hell that means. Where are your records?’
Demetrius’s body sagged on the bed, the picture of exhaustion. ‘Go to hell, buddy.’
One benefit of being old friends was knowing your buddy’s secret moves. This was Demetrius’s. He’d pretend to be too tired to fight and would then lash out with an attack that more often than not took his prey by surprise. Ken wondered what kind of attack he was planning, trussed up like he was.
He wasn’t curious enough to let Demetrius try anything. His friend could break his neck while he was choking himself to death and then he wouldn’t get anything out of him. Ken chose a pair of pliers and walked around the bed, then – staying well out of Demetrius’s reach – latched the pliers onto his pinky finger and twisted.
Demetrius’s body jerked, then froze when the noose tightened. ‘What are you doing, Kenny?’ he whispered.
‘Finding out what I need to know so that this company can continue to be profitable after we’re both gone. I need your records. Your suppliers. Contacts. Contracts.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to retire. After I get what I need from you, I’m done. Taking my booty and leaving the daily grind to the next generation. Think of this as ensuring that DJ has job security.’
‘And if I give you what you need?’ His lips twisted bitterly. ‘You’ll let me go, right?’
‘Right.’ Ken rolled his eyes. ‘Absolutely.’
‘I’m not a cokehead. Don’t know who told you that.’
‘Alice. She says you’ve been snorting some of the merchandise.’
‘Lie.’
‘Inventory is missing. And money. Did you and Reuben really think you could embezzle funds that easily?’
Demetrius’s brows lowered. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Ken drew a pair of collapsible bolt cutters from the bottom of his toolbox and snapped the arms out to their full length. He eyed Demetrius’s body objectively. ‘Let’s start simply. Where is your iPad?’
‘In my car.’
He ran the bolt cutters over one of Demetrius’s toes. ‘Wrong. We searched the car.’
‘It’s there.’
He snipped off the top of Demetrius’s big toe, waited for the resulting scream to quiet. ‘I forgot how high you can scream,’ he said. ‘Damn, D.’ He rubbed his finger in his ear. ‘You could break glass with that. Let’s try again. Where is the iPad?’
‘In the car. Look in the trunk,’ Demetrius added, crushing his words together in his haste to get them out. ‘Under the carpet.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ He’d had Burton tow Demetrius’s car here so that the bloody seats could be destroyed before they had the vehicle smashed down to scrap. Sean and Alice had been waiting for Burton when he arrived, so the car was still in the garage.
He called Alice, told her to get the iPad and take it to Sean, who’d set up a cot in his office downtown. It would have been easier for Sean to come to the house, but his son was a bit of an eccentric introvert and rarely left his office. Ken had once tried to push him out of his comfort zone, but Sean had a mini-breakdown, and since nobody understood the computer networks he’d set up, Ken now let him stay where he was happiest.
Sean and Alice would have the bulk of Demetrius’s knowledge in the iPad, but Ken knew his old friend still kept a lot of information stored in his brain.
He ran the tip of the bolt cutter up the inside of Demetrius’s thigh, stopping a fraction of an inch from the family jewels he knew his friend was so proud of.
He smiled down at Demetrius, who was quivering, his nostrils flaring like a bull ready to charge. ‘Let’s talk passwords.’
Twenty-seven
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 6.00 A.M.
Scarlett smacked the alarm clock on her nightstand, but it kept ringing. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered, then realized it was her phone. She blinked hard, remembering in an instant.
Marcus. Grabbing the phone, she rolled over to find herself alone in her bed. A frisson of dread raced down her back. She remembered how upset he’d been just before she fell asleep. I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard to tell me about that damn gun.
Getting out of bed, she threw on shorts and a T-shirt as she answered the phone without looking at the caller ID. This early it could only be Isenberg or Deacon. Or her mother if somebody had died. ‘Hello?’
‘Scarlett, it’s Uncle Trace.’
She stopped short. ‘Good morning. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the search last night. I got called to a crime scene.’
‘Your lieutenant told me. She said you accompanied the victim to the hospital.’
‘We had two, actually. Both are still in ICU. But I don’t think you’re calling about the two victims, are you?’
‘No. I found your missing women.’
She sucked in a startled breath. ‘What? Where? When? My boss said the dogs lost the trail, that she thought they’d gotten a ride. She said you’d gone home.’
‘That’s all true. But then I thought that if they were frightened of deportation – and Catholic – they might ask whoever picked them up to drop them off at a church.’
‘For sanctuary,’ she murmured. She tossed the shorts aside and went to her closet for trousers, blouse and a jacket. Clearly it was time to start her day. ‘Where did you find them?’
‘Saint Barbara’s. It’s just outside of Georgetown, Kentucky.’
‘Good grief, that’s an hour south of here. Somebody took
them all the way down there?’
‘A trucker. He dropped them off at his old parish.’
‘That was nice of him. I wish his parish had been closer.’ She’d found clean underwear and one shoe. She wasn’t sure where the other had landed when she’d kicked it off last night. ‘Are you there now, or did you call them?’
‘I’m here. I called first, told the priest to keep them there, then I drove down. I didn’t want to call you until I’d confirmed I had the right people, but they are Mila and Erica Bautista.’
She got down on her knees to look under the bed for her errant shoe. No Zat, she thought. Her dog must have overcome his fear of the boisterous sex she and Marcus had had. Unfortunately no shoe either.
‘Did you call the local cops?’
‘No. They said they’ll only talk to Marcus.’
Scarlett pushed herself to her feet. ‘How do they know his name?’
‘Tabby Anders showed them the newspaper article. She told them that he was the man that Tala had met in the park, who’d offered to help. They said that if I called the police they would run. So don’t dress like a cop, okay?’
‘Okay. I’ll find Marcus and we’ll get down there as fast as we can. Tell them he’s on his way. Did they say anything?’
‘Just that they wanted to see Malaya and Tabby. I assured them that Malaya was safe and being cared for. I called the hospital for an update on Miss Anders. No change.’
‘I figured. Nobody’s contacted me. Thank you, Uncle Trace. I owe you.’
‘Don’t say that, Scarlett,’ he warned. ‘You might not like the marker I call in.’
She sighed. He’d ask her to come back to the Church. She knew it. Right now, she was so grateful to him for finding the women that she felt it was the least she could do. ‘I’ll get to Saint Barbara’s as soon as I can.’
She threw the cop clothes on her bed and picked out a pretty sundress and flats. She got dressed, brushed her teeth, grabbed her hairbrush and went in search of Marcus.
‘Marcus?’ she called, going down the stairs, but there was no answer. She checked her garage, but her car was there. She’d seen from her bedroom window that the Tank was in the driveway, so unless he’d taken a cab or called someone to get him, he was still here somewhere.
‘Zat? Here, boy. Wanna go outside?’ But there was no staccato sound of her three-legged dog running to go for a walk. When she got to the kitchen, she saw the remnants of a sandwich, so at least Marcus wasn’t hungry, wherever he’d gone.
The only place she hadn’t looked was the basement, and sure enough, the hook-and-eye latch was open. She’d installed it the day she’d gotten Zat, worried that she’d accidentally leave the door open and he’d tumble down the steep steps. The house was so old that none of the staircases were built to code, and the staircase to the basement was the worst.
She started down the stairs, relieved to see Zat curled up on the rug at the bottom. She’d started to call Marcus’s name, when she heard a sound that silenced her. Hard thuds, interspersed with the vilest curses she’d ever heard, uttered by the most beautiful voice she’d ever known. She got to the bottom of the stairs and watched him, not sure how to approach him.
Marcus was shirtless and shoeless, wearing only a pair of gym shorts that were soaked with sweat and her brother Phin’s boxing gloves. Sweat poured off his body as he pounded the ever-living hell out of Phin’s old punching bag. He must have found the hook that had come with it, and screwed it into the ceiling beam.
She winced at the sight of his broad back. A big bruise covered a quarter of his skin, the result of the bullet that had been stopped by his Kevlar vest the morning before. He didn’t seem to be letting that hold him back, though. She had to admire the athleticism it took to keep the punching bag at a constant angle, but worried that he’d hurt his hands, even while wearing the gloves.
Abruptly he stopped, leaning against the bag, hugging it awkwardly as his shoulders sagged. ‘I can smell honeysuckle,’ he said quietly, his breaths coming hard and fast.
‘I woke up and you were gone.’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I walked your dog. Fixed the leaking sink in the kitchen. The dripping was driving me fucking nuts.’
‘Thank you.’ She took a step closer, but he lifted one gloved hand.
‘Don’t. Don’t touch me. Please.’ The ‘please’ sounded shaky, almost like a sob.
‘Marcus?’ she said gently, respecting his wish for the moment. ‘Is it Phillip? Or Edgar?’
‘No. They’re both still unconscious.’
‘Then what are you doing?’
‘Had to work it out.’
‘Work what out, baby?’ she asked, although she thought she knew. I shouldn’t have pushed about that damn gun. He told me he was putting it away. That should have been enough.
But even as she said the words in her mind, she knew they weren’t true. Marcus needed to confront whatever was haunting him.
He lifted his head, looked around the room without looking at her. ‘What is all this stuff? You’ve got gym-quality equipment here.’
She walked around him, giving him a wide berth, and sat down on the weight bench he’d found in the back room. He’d found the weight set as well. She tallied the sum of the plates at a glance and bit back a frown. He’d been lifting far more weight than a man without a spotter should have been.
‘It was all Phin’s.’
He still wasn’t looking at her. ‘Your brother. The one with PTSD that left home.’
‘Yes. My twin. When he cleared out, he didn’t take anything with him. All this stuff was the contents of his apartment. It was either bring it here or have the landlord haul it to the dumpster. I keep hoping Phin will come home and reclaim it.’
Marcus leaned his forehead against the bag. ‘I hope for your sake he does. For his sake too.’
Scarlett needed him ready to roll, physically and emotionally, but she knew that right now, that wasn’t a possibility. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘This is my fault. You weren’t ready to answer my questions about that stupid gun and I forced you. I’m sorry, Marcus.’
He shook his head, his forehead a pivot point against the bag. ‘No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. You had every right to ask. I just didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘But you did. You were a terrified child and it was your talisman.’ She winced. ‘I hope it wasn’t loaded when you put it under your pillow.’
He pushed off the bag to lean against the wall, sinking to sit on the floor, elbows on his bent knees. Just as he’d done yesterday when he’d talked Stone down from whatever episode his brother had had. And just like yesterday, she joined him there, sliding down the wall to sit beside him. She tucked her knees under the full skirt of the sundress.
‘You’re pretty in that dress,’ he whispered.
‘Thank you.’ She didn’t tell him why she’d dressed this way. Not yet. ‘Talk to me, Marcus. Please. I want to help you.’
‘To fix me, like all those broken chairs upstairs, or rescue me like your mutt? He’s a nice dog, by the way. He likes salami.’
Her lips curved. ‘It gives him gas. I’ll let him sleep on your side of the bed tonight.’
He huffed a weary chuckle, then bowed his head. ‘God, I’m fucked up.’
‘Then let me help un-fuck you,’ she said, and he laughed, but it sounded forced. Feeling helpless, she stroked his arm and he pulled away.
‘I’m sweaty. Your dress is too pretty to be messed up.’
‘I have others, and I don’t mind sweat.’ Tentatively she stroked him again, shoulder all the way down his arm to his glove. She tugged at the Velcro strap and pulled it off, then repeated it with the other. ‘Let me see your hands.’ She held them to the light. ‘Oh Marcus, your knuckles are already starting to swell. Stay here and don’t hit anything else.’
She slipped into the basement’s utility room and sent a quick text to her uncle saying they’d hit a snag and would be at least an hour later th
an she’d expected, then lifted the lid of the big chest freezer that had come with the house and rearranged the microwave meals and bags of frozen veggies until she found a couple of gel packs. Her phone buzzed as she closed the freezer lid, a text from her uncle telling her not to worry, that the women had fallen asleep and that he’d watch over them.
Secure in Trace’s word, she returned to sit in front of Marcus, putting the ice packs on his knuckles and watching him wince. He said nothing for several minutes, so neither did she. Finally she took the ice packs off and kissed his knuckles, one at a time, and felt him shudder.
‘Marcus, I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.’
‘You can’t help me.’
The finality of his statement made her heart ache. ‘Then let me hurt with you.’
He lifted his head, unshed tears in his eyes. ‘I won’t do that to you.’
She got on her knees and took his face in her hands. ‘I won’t give up.’ She kissed him softly. ‘I can’t give up. I don’t know how. My mother always said I was intractable. All those cop genes. But I can wait until you’re ready to tell me.’
He pulled free of her touch, but gently, bowing his head again, his hands hanging limply between his knees. ‘The kidnapping was an inside job,’ he said, startling her.
‘That’s what the newspapers said, that one of the kidnappers was thought to be part of a handyman crew working in your apartment.’
‘My father hired them.’
Her gut did a queasy roll at the tone of his voice, remembering how bitter he’d been when he talked about his father. Which was the start of the emotional distance that led up to this. This was not going to be good. ‘Hired them how?’
‘He hired them to kidnap us. For the ransom.’
‘Your father wanted the ransom?’ She frowned, confused. ‘But it was his money.’
‘No. It was Mom’s money. One hundred percent Yarborough money. My biological father was a gold-digger who lived the high life and had a gambling problem. My mother had bailed him out too many times and they fought about his spending when it got out of hand. I was a quiet kid. A listener. I knew what was going on. I hated him.’