by Jane Blythe
Sofia made a distressed noise at that, no doubt thinking about her own illness.
“But thankfully, he’s doing okay now,” he assured her. “That’s about it. We’re just your typical family. Sometimes we fight, argue, bicker, but we all know that we love each other and are lucky to have one another.” She was virtually asleep now, head nestled against his neck, her warm breath whooshing across his collarbone.
“How is she?” Paige suddenly materialized beside him.
“Wiped out,” he replied. “How’s Isabella?”
“Wiped out,” Paige answered. “She see anything?”
“No, what about Isabella? She see anything?”
“Nope,” Paige shook her head. “Said he came up behind her and grabbed her; she never heard him and she never got a look at him. She staying here tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You staying with her?”
“Yes.” Raising a challenging eyebrow, daring his partner to disagree.
Paige merely smiled. “Good. I’ll call you in the morning. Try to get some rest because we have to talk with her about her dreams tomorrow...uh I mean today.” With a backwards wave, Paige disappeared down the corridor.
Ryan knew that was not going to be an easy conversation, and he was worried Sofia wasn’t physically or emotionally up to delving into a past she had convinced herself was nothing but dreams. Unfortunately, he knew it had to be done.
Gathering Sofia up into his arms. “Okay, sweetheart, let’s go find you a bed.”
“You’re not going anywhere, are you?” she raised her head to ask, uncertainty in her silver eyes and Ryan hated that he had put it there by breaking his promise last time.
“No, Sofia, I'm not going to be going anywhere, I promise,” he assured her, hoping she could believe it, as he headed for the nurses’ station to ask for a room for Sofia, and a doctor to come and check her out.
She must have believed him because she nodded once, closed her eyes, and let herself sink deeper down into his arms.
“You have absolutely nothing to worry about. I’ll be right by your bed while you sleep, and Officers Parks and Sand will be right outside your room. All you have to do is get some sleep and build your strength back up. I'm going to take care of you. I'm always going to be here to take care of you.”
* * * * *
6:40 A.M.
Hazy.
Everything was hazy.
His eyesight, his hearing, his mind.
He wasn’t sure where he was. Or how he had gotten here.
He wasn’t sure of anything.
He tried to focus on the last thing he remembered.
But he couldn’t.
This was a nightmare.
Logan IV drew in a deep breath and focused his mind. He would just take things one step at a time. First things first, he needed to open his eyes. Once they were open he’d be able to see where he was and perhaps that would jumpstart his memory.
Concentrating all his energy on his eyes, he tried to pry them open but couldn’t manage it. He wondered why it was that he couldn’t even open his eyes. Maybe he was sick. Had conjunctivitis or something and that was why he was having trouble with this usual trivial task. Attempting to lift a hand to wipe his eyes, he was alarmed when it didn’t move. And there was something rough and scratchy around his wrist.
Panic shot through him, enough to pop his eyes wide open. And Logan found himself in a small room. Maybe ten feet by ten feet, illuminated by a single globe dangling from the ceiling, the only furniture in the room was a wooden table, and a bed that he appeared to be tied to. His wrists and ankles were secured to the bed with ropes.
He was also naked.
Horror mingled with terror mingled with unspeakable fear ran through his veins and he began to scream. Logan screamed and screamed and screamed until his throat was so hoarse that even breathing hurt. Then he struggled wildly against the ropes that bound him. He twisted his fingers to try and claw at the ropes, yanking on his arms and legs to try and pull them free. He lurched his middle off the bed as though that would loosen the ropes.
At last he fell back against the mattress, drained. Wrists and ankles rubbed bare, throat aching. The fear inside him seemed to be a living being, weighing him down as though it were a physical weight on his chest, smothering him.
Then the tears came.
He sobbed huge, gut wrenching sobs. Tears streamed down his face, and his nose was stuffed up. Logan felt like he was choking but couldn’t seem to stop crying. He bawled for what seemed like hours, unable to stop, until his exhausted body gave out and all that was left were a few sniffles.
“What a crybaby,” a voice announced.
He could hardly see through his blurry, tear-filled eyes, but still Logan’s head turned in the direction of the voice. A shadowy figure loomed above him. Blinking to try and clear his eyes, the figure slowly morphed into something recognizable.
“You,” he muttered, voice croaky from all his yelling.
“Yep, me,” Isabella agreed sociably.
Gradually, his memory began to return.
He and Simone had been returning from a charity event. He’d parked the car in the garage when someone had pointed a gun at him. Isabella. She’d made him tie up Simone and then wound tape around and around him until he was trapped in his seat. Then she’d left the car engine running until both he and Simone passed out.
Logan had thought he was going to die.
But someone had found him.
He vaguely remembered a strong man dragging him from the car. The relief of fresh air blowing on his face. Drinking in breath after breath. Realizing just what a precious thing it was to be able to breathe.
He remembered the whirl of sirens and the swirl of blue and red lights that had left him feeling dizzy. Paramedics had given him oxygen and driven him to the hospital. That was the last thing he could recall.
Somehow Isabella had managed to get him out of the hospital and to . . . here. Wherever here was.
“How did I get here?” he wheezed.
Gray eyes glowing with a manic gleam. “I brought you here. I impersonated a nurse at the hospital. It wasn’t hard,” she explained, tone frighteningly conversational. “I just faked an ID, dressed like everyone else, and pretended I was supposed to be there. Then I simply loaded you in a wheelchair and walked you right out the door. No one even blinked in my direction. Pretty lax hospital security,” she chuckled. “Or maybe I'm just awesome. Then I threw you in the back of a van and drove you here.”
“Where is here?” Logan wanted to hurl insults at Isabella and unload his anger but was refraining because she was clearly unbalanced.
“A safe little hidey-hole,” Isabella grinned.
“Which safe little hidey-hole?” he demanded. If she’d taken him back to the estate and tucked him away in one of the many secret rooms, then surely someone would find him. The house was big, but the place was always buzzing with staff. Optimism dimming slightly, that was assuming that there were still family members left to employ staff. Last he knew there was only his father and Sofia left. And Sofia didn’t even live on the estate anymore. And his father was in jail.
“One in the attic,” she smiled.
At least they were still on the estate and she hadn't spirited him away to some unknown location. Even if there was no family or staff here there had to be police and crime scene techs. “Someone will hear me, then,” he smiled back smugly.
“I don’t think so,” Isabella shook her head, sending her red hair flying around her face.
“Why?” he asked, his confidence dimming, he had been screaming for hours and no one had come.
She clapped her hands, “I soundproofed up here.”
“You got someone in to soundproof?” That seemed unlikely. His father monitored who came in and out of the estate religiously, and he would have noticed if Isabella had brought in workers to soundproof the attic.
“No, I did it myself,” she answered.
&
nbsp; The scariest thing about all of this was just how much time and effort Isabella had put into planning this. To go to the trouble of soundproofing the attic meant she had intended to hide him away up here. Which meant she had always intended to abduct him from the hospital. Which meant she had never intended to kill him with carbon monoxide in the garage. Which meant she had planned it down to the exact second so that he would be found still alive. Which meant she was far more evil than he had ever given her credit for.
Perhaps even more evil than he was.
She had been completely cold and calculating about wiping out their family.
She had never intended any of them to survive.
She was systematically wiping them out one by one.
And who would ever suspect the quiet, shy, serious teenager?
Her plan was genius.
She was an evil genius.
But why? Why kill them all?
“I don’t understand, Isabella.” He studied her face, trying to read in it the answers he sought. “I don’t understand why you’re doing all of this.”
“I think you do,” the malevolent smile left her face, replaced by a malicious snarl.
Was it possible Isabella really did know what he’d done? If she did, how had she found out? He had been careful. Covered his tracks. Isabella couldn’t know.
“You don’t know anything,” he challenged, trying to make himself look as threatening as a naked man tied to a bed could look.
“I know every horrible thing you ever did,” she contradicted, her snarl softened back into a smile.
“If you really do know, then why kill the others? If you know then you also know that father and Gloria, and Lewis and Lincoln, and Simone and Samantha, had nothing to do with it. Neither did Brooke Mariano. And you shot at Sofia, I doubt she’s ever done anything in her life to deserve being murdered.” Logan had to admit that Sofia was a bit of a freak in their family. Somehow, despite all the odds being stacked against her, she didn’t seem to have a selfish or mean or vindictive bone in her body. She always wanted to do the right thing, even when it hurt her. And for some reason Logan couldn’t fathom, she seemed to truly enjoy helping others.
“They knew, Logan. You know they did. All of them. They know what you did, or at least that you were up to something. And they didn’t do anything to stop you. Are you telling me that doesn’t warrant death?” She was watching him quizzically now, honestly seeming to want to hear his answer.
If he were a better person, he probably would have tried to bargain for his surviving family members’ lives. As best he knew both his father and Sofia were still alive. But Logan didn’t care about them. Only himself. Perhaps he could bond with Isabella over violence. It seemed like his best option of getting out of here. “You knew, Isabella,” he said quietly, as calmly as his pounding heart would allow. “And you didn’t go to the police? You knew. Why didn’t you do something?”
“I did do something. I am doing something. I'm doing this. I'm making sure this family’s evil ends here.”
Before Logan had a chance to say more, Isabella slammed something into his head and the world exploded into a fireball of pain, and then nothing.
* * * * *
9:08 A.M.
“I thought you didn’t want me to come back here,” Sofia was peering at them warily from the back seat of his car.
“You didn’t tell her?” Paige asked as he pulled the car to a stop in front of the Everette family home.
“Tell me what?” Sofia demanded.
Sighing, Ryan hadn't wanted to tell Sofia right away that they were taking her back to her family’s estate to visit the basement and get to the bottom of exactly what she knew about her family’s long buried secrets. “We need to talk to you about your dreams,” he told her, not telling her yet that they were going to be doing that in the basement.
“They’re just dreams,” she protested.
“I don’t think you really believe that,” Paige contradicted gently. “I think it’s just what you told yourself because you couldn’t deal with what you saw.”
Shaking her head adamantly. “No. That’s what he always said. That I was just dreaming. And then he’d take me back to bed.”
“Who’s he?” Ryan asked, twisting in his seat to see her properly.
“My father,” she answered quietly, pushing open her door to climb out.
Hurrying to help her, Ryan took her elbow and began to guide her toward the house. Her feet slowed the closer to the front door they got, and she leaned heavily on him, her breath was catching in little gasps. “Are you okay?” he tipped her face up and examined it carefully.
“I don’t want to go back in there,” she whimpered.
“And I don’t want you to. I hate that I have to bring you back here. But I think we both know that they aren’t dreams. They’re memories, and if those memories can save your life, then we have to find out what you know. I'm going to be right beside you the whole time.” Taking her face in his hands, Ryan pressed a kiss to her forehead. Then, ignoring the fact that it was completely inappropriate given that she was a witness, and that his partner was standing right behind them, he brushed his lips against hers. He intended it to be quick and light and nonthreatening, but Sofia deepened the kiss, raising her hands to his face to keep him there when he would have pulled away.
“Thank you,” she whispered when she eventually broke contact. “I needed that. All right, let’s get this over with.”
Determinedly, she started for the door. Ryan cast a glance at Paige, who rolled her eyes, before they both followed her. “We’ll avoid the kitchen,” he murmured in Sofia’s ear as he caught up to her.
She uttered a small sigh of relief. “Thank you.” Looking up at him, “Thank you for knowing what I need without me having to say it.”
Her smile dimmed as she walked through the front door, and he grasped her arm as she went toward the front sitting room. “Sofia, wait, we have to do this in the basement.”
All color drained from her face. Concerned she was going to pass out, Ryan grabbed for her, but she backed away. “I'm not going down there,” she looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Cupcake, you have to . . .”
“No,” she pressed her hands to her ears, blocking out his voice. “No, no, no, no, no. I am not going back down there. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't,” she babbled hysterically.
Taking her by the shoulders, Ryan shook her. “Sofia, snap out of it. You can do it. You can.”
“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t make me do this. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what I dream, just please don’t make me go down there.”
“If there was another way . . .” he began, wishing for an excuse, any excuse, not to have to inflict this on her. This was hell, even if it was for her own good.
Her eyes filled with panicked desperation as they implored him to save her. “Please, Ryan. Please. Don’t make me.”
Sobbing, she threw herself into his arms. Clinging to him, her small hands curled into fists as they clutched at his shirt, burying her face against his chest. Ryan had only felt this helpless once before. The night his fiancée had died. He hadn't known what to do that night, and he didn’t know what to do now. All he did know was that he couldn’t force the hysterical woman in his arms to go down to the basement that terrified her. Looking helplessly to his partner, he silently asked her to help.
“I hate playing the bad guy,” Paige muttered, but nonetheless she came to his rescue. Taking hold of Sofia’s chin, she forcibly lifted her face, leaning in so they were eye to eye. “Sofia, I need you to snap out of it. You need to focus. Ryan isn’t going to push you on this because he’s fallen for you. And as much as I think you're a really sweet person, I have not fallen for you. So we are going to do this. It could save your life. Your sister’s, too. You don’t want anything else to happen to Isabella, do you?”
Slowly, Sofia shook her head.
“Okay then, well unless you com
e with us to the basement and tell us what you saw happen down there, then the killer could come back and finish what he started. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Guilt flashed across Sofia’s face, and for a moment Ryan hated his partner for putting it there, and yet at the same time he was eternally grateful that Paige was able to do what he couldn’t.
“Good girl. Let’s get going then, get this over with,” Paige took Sofia’s arms and gently, but firmly, extracted her from his grip.
Sofia allowed Paige to tug her from his arms and toward the stairs to the basement, but the look Sofia shot him was stricken. He took her hand, “I'm coming with you, squeeze as hard as you need to.”
She did, digging her nails into his hand so tightly she drew blood. “Sorry,” she murmured when he winced, but didn’t loosen her grip.
“You're fine,” he assured her, even though she looked about as far away from fine as it was possible to look.
At the top of the basement stairs she froze, her terrified eyes darting up to his. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You can do this,” Paige said firmly before he had a chance to answer.
But as Paige opened the door exposing the staircase and the dark basement below, Sofia turned green. “I'm going to be sick.” Yanking herself free from their holds, she bolted, as fast as her wobbly legs would allow her, for the nearest bathroom. A moment later they could hear her throwing up. Then the toilet flushed and water ran for several minutes.
Ryan was about to go into the bathroom to check on her when the door opened. Sofia stood there, face dismal, trembling, looking like she was about to face the executioner. Ryan’s heart broke. “Are you okay?” He blotted at her sweat-streaked face with his handkerchief.
“No, I'm not okay. But Paige isn’t going to let me go until I go to the basement, so let’s just get it over with.” With a steely determination that left his heart beating wildly with pride, she stomped back to the basement stairs, faltering a little as she reached them. She held out her hand, and he grasped it firmly. “I hate the stairs. In my dreams, or whatever they are, I'm always already down them. I never know how I get there, because any time I tried to go down when I was awake I always froze at the top.”