by Joyce Lamb
Please, God. Whatever you want, you’ve got it.
Logan didn’t bother pulling into Charlie’s driveway. He slammed on the brakes in front of her house, sending the car into a sideways skid that wasn’t completely finished before Noah scrambled out and raced for her front door. He heard Logan right behind him, heard him shout something. His heart pounded, jackhammered, in his ears, nothing but white noise in his head and a desperate, desperate chant: Please, please, please. Whatever it takes.
The front door was locked. Good sign, but she didn’t come running at his frantic pounding.
Logan started toward the side of the house and the back door that led into the kitchen, and Noah tore after him, nearly losing his balance in the slippery grass.
Logan had his gun out when he stopped and pressed his back to the peach stucco next to the screen door. He signaled Noah to chill, and it took all of his restraint to obey. You’re a cop, act like one. Jesus. But he didn’t have his gun. In shorts and a T-shirt, he’d had no way to conceal it, so he’d left it locked in its box in his hotel room. Big, stupid mistake.
His nerves jumped like sparking electrical wires as the other cop eased the screen door open and gave the inner door a push. Hinges gave an ominous creak, raising the hairs on the back of Noah’s neck.
Logan went in first, gun braced. “Police!” he called.
Noah followed. “Charlie?”
No one in the kitchen. No one, it seemed, in the house, judging by the silence.
Logan moved on quiet feet toward the door that led to the rest of the house and angled his head down the hall, letting Noah know he would check the bedrooms.
Noah was looking around the living room, feeling helpless, when Logan called to him.
“Noah.”
He jogged down the hall and found Logan in Charlie’s office, standing stock-still and staring at something on the carpet, his complexion white.
Noah looked down, and his world contracted down to a narrow tunnel.
Blood.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Charlie opened her eyes to noise all around her and blinked several times, trying to orient herself. She was on her side, in a large room or warehouse . . . factory? As her head cleared, her brain started registering details.
The roar of machinery, almost deafening in its metallic clanging and chugging.
Darkness except for an eerie, yellow glow in the distance.
Concrete floor cold and gritty against her skin.
Hot, unmoving air choked with dust.
Hulking shadows of the noisy machines on either side of her.
Where the hell was she?
She rolled to her back and pushed up on one elbow, clenching her jaw against the swirling in her head. As she waited for the dizziness to fade, she took a physical inventory. The taste of blood in her mouth. Grit like sand between her teeth. A steady throb in her jaw.
The bastard had coldcocked her.
He’d kept smiling that pleasant, I’m-not-here-to-hurt-you smile and punched her right out.
Son of a bitch.
She’d been so stupid. Standing there like an idiot. Can I help you? Can I help you? F-ing moron. He’d just looked so damn harmless.
She started to lift a hand to explore her jaw. Resistance.
She jerked her arm, heard the clang of metal, felt the tug at her wrist. Panic turned the inside of her head white as she scrambled up onto her knees and groped around in the dark, her eyes adjusting now to the lack of decent light.
Her right wrist was handcuffed to a heavy pipe that ran vertically up the wall.
She jerked again, unable to stop herself, and cried out at the bite of pain. Cried out as it finally sank in how much trouble she was in. Serious, serious trouble.
She spent several sweaty minutes trying to squeeze her hand through the cuff to free herself. Pushing and pulling and grunting. Come on, come on. She gave up when the slickness of blood washing her hand did nothing to help.
She shifted, pressed her back against the wall and tried to breathe, to think. The roar of the machines—air conditioners? water heaters? heavy-duty washers and dryers?—seemed to press in on her, thickening the air in her lungs. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
Who was she kidding?
She started to scream for help.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Noah looked out on Charlie’s backyard, everything inside him still. His brain had stalled when he’d seen the blood on the carpet. Not a lot of blood. Just a spot, really. But it was Charlie’s. He was going to lose her. He could feel it in his bones.
If not to a madman, then perhaps to Mac Hunter. He and Logan had listened to the phone messages on Charlie’s machine, knowing it was a stretch but desperate for a clue about what happened to her. Noah had heard the desperation in Hunter’s voice. Hell, if he were Charlie and a former lover wanted him back that bad, he’d give the guy a second chance. Especially if the alternative was someone as fucked-up as Noah was.
Behind him, Logan snapped his phone closed. “Shit.”
Noah turned toward the other cop. “What is it?” he asked, his lips barely moving.
“No DNA hits on the hair inside the balaclava. All we know is it’s not Keene’s.”
“But, clearly, she was working with someone.”
“Or she was set up.”
“Someone at the hotel,” Noah said.
Logan nodded. “Gotta be.”
Noah headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
“And do what?”
“Search Donna Keene’s suite. Maybe we’ll find something that IDs her partner.”
Logan hesitated, and Noah’s patience stretched to the breaking point. “Do you have another idea?”
Logan shook his head. “No. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Charlie let her chin rest on her chest and focused on leveling out the hitches in her breath. She had enough problems at the moment without hyperventilating.
Her throat hurt from screaming for help, but the guy who’d chained her up here had planned well. No one could hear her over the thrum of the machines. When he came back, no one would hear her screaming then, either.
She closed her eyes tight, swallowed against the surge of sickness. Don’t be sick. Don’t freak out. Don’t hyperventilate. Think. Think.
The scrape of footsteps less than a yard away snapped her eyes open, and she jerked her head up to see the outline of a man coming toward her, the yellow glow at his back. She flinched, her lungs seizing, as he reached above his head and pulled a chain. Light from a bare bulb cast the hot, humid space into harsh relief.
He squatted before her, and she pressed back, turning her head against the wall as the glaring light seared her eyes. She couldn’t see him, didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to accept that this was where she was, this was how she was going to die. Screaming where no one could hear her.
“How’s it going?” he asked, his voice barely audible over the machinery. Concerned, affable. Amused, even.
She closed her eyes, prayed. Get me out of here. Please, get me out. Noah . . .
“Look at me.”
She turned her head to look at him. Don’t piss him off. She knew what he could do when he was smiling. Knock her cold with one punch. What could he do while angry?
His lips curved. Nice lips, really. And teeth. So white and perfect. Not the mouth of a psycho. Not the hair. Not the eyes. A dark-eyed, dark-haired kid who could have been the lean, wiry college quarterback as much as the reserved but jovial genius on Jeopardy! But he wasn’t either of those men. He’d kidnapped her and chained her to a pipe. He had plans for her.
She started to shudder and hated that she was so f-ing weak. Do something. Don’t just sit here and shake. Don’t be pathetic.
“What do you want?” she asked, voice hoarse from screaming.
“You’re going to heal me,” he said, and his teeth gleamed.
Heal him? What the hell did that mean?
He move
d fast, and in the next instant, he had his hands clamped around her throat.
The bastard’s on his knees in front of the sink, staring intently at the bottle of booze in his hands. I raise the heavy pipe wrench. Better drink fast. I swing at his head, absorbing the jarring impact that sings up my arms with a satisfied smile. Yes.
Charlie crashed back into herself, choking against the strong, steel fingers compressing her windpipe. Air. She had no air.
She tore at his wrists, sinking her nails in, gouging and tearing at his skin. Let go, let go, let go. Breathe, she had to breathe.
He released her as quickly as he’d grabbed her, and she fell against the pipe, coughing and gasping. As sweet, life-giving air rushed into her lungs, the import of the flash hit her.
Mac . . . oh, God, oh, Jesus, he’d hit Mac with a . . . a wrench.
How long ago? Was Mac dead? She relived the impact of the weapon, felt an answering, sympathetic burst of pain in her own skull. The son of a bitch had hit him so hard.
And then she noticed that that son of a bitch, resting on his knees in front of her like a religious man before an altar, had his head back and an expression of pure bliss on his face. What the hell?
Everything snapped into shocking, clear focus. His hand, oh, God, his hand . . . it was pressed to the front of his navy work pants, rubbing, massaging the bulge at his crotch.
Her shoes scraped the floor as she frantically tried to back away from him. But the wall stopped her, forced her to stay right where she was, chained and helpless, with a front-row seat as this guy jacked off. And when he was done? What then?
He drew in a breath through his nose, then released it on a trembling sigh. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been hard like this?”
She didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare blink. This isn’t happening. It’s not happening.
He opened his eyes, pierced her with an oddly nonthreatening glare, as though angry but not at her. “She totally fucked up my head. She made me do things in return for . . . her attention.” He paused and swallowed loudly, his breathing getting rougher, uneven. He stilled his hand, forming a fist that he pressed to his thigh, and seemed to concentrate until his breathing settled. “Not yet,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t want to come like this. I want it to be perfect.”
Charlie’s aching brain stalled. She refused to imagine what would make it perfect for him. Didn’t want to imagine. Couldn’t. I’m not here. I’m not here.
He tilted his head, and his gaze fixed on her face: You are here, better deal with it.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and sweat gathered at his temples. “Before I killed her, I tried to fuck her, for old times’ sake. I couldn’t get it up. That bitch emasculated me.” He paused, smiled in a way that indicated his sanity had slipped, was still slipping by slow degrees. “She was surprised that I knew that word. She called me stupid more times than I can remember. But I’m not stupid. I’m smart. A lot smarter than her, obviously, because she’s the one who’s dead.”
He shifted toward her, all teeth again, but his friendly smile had turned psychotic. “I’m going to fuck you until I’m all better. As many times as it takes.”
The threat narrowed her vision to a long tunnel, black crowding in from the edges. Helpless. Handcuffed to a pipe. No way to protect herself. No way to fight back. A part of her wanted to pass out, escape, but when he shifted toward her, she clawed back from the slippery edge of unconsciousness and pressed back, trying like hell to make herself a part of the wall, trying like hell to ignore the ballooning pain in her temples. Not a migraine now. Please.
She needed out. Now. Before it was too late. Before she was incapacitated.
“Please don’t do this,” she said. “We can work something out. Just . . . just . . .”
He grinned at her, seeming amused. “Why would I negotiate when what I want is right here, free for the taking?”
He reached for her but paused when she recoiled. He cocked his head and studied her, concerned again. “You know, this is going to be very uncomfortable for you if you don’t relax.”
She shuddered so hard her teeth clicked together. This can’t happen. It can’t. Somehow, some way, she wouldn’t let it. She had to stall, keep him talking, distract him until . . . until someone, Noah, came for her. He had to be coming. He had to be. “I . . . I don’t even know your . . . name.”
Surprise raised his eyebrows. “You don’t care about that.”
“Of course, I do. We . . . we have a connection, don’t we? Isn’t—isn’t that why we’re . . . here?”
“Skip,” he said. “It’s Skip.”
She almost sighed. A good sign he’d talk, a good sign she could stall. “Is that a nickname?”
His eyes narrowed, as though he doubted her interest. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” she said quickly. “Like you said, I—I need to relax. Can’t we talk for a while? Please?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I was named by a nurse after my mother abandoned me in the ER.”
She tried to give him a sympathetic smile, but the muscles in her face felt like stiff plastic. “I’m so sorry. That must have been hard for you growing up.”
He shrugged again, sullen now. “Doesn’t matter. I turned out okay.”
Uh, yeah, you turned out great. Ignoring the growing ache in her temples, she tried to think. This was an interview, she told herself. She needed to know the what, why, where, when and how. Whatever it took to keep him talking. “Will you tell me why you’re doing this?”
“You don’t care.”
“Yes, I do. I’m a reporter. I need to know the truth. It’s what I do.”
“There’s no point. You won’t be able to tell anyone.”
“Please, I’m trying here. Don’t you want me to know you?” Reasoning with a madman. It made no sense, but what choice did she have?
His shoulders sagged. “I loved her.”
Finally. “Who?”
“Donna.”
“Donna Keene? The manager of the Royal Palm.” Dead now. Suicide. Or was it? Didn’t he say something earlier about killing a woman?
“The first time she flirted with me, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “A woman like her. Beautiful. Classy. When she invited me into her suite for a drink, I didn’t dare to hope . . .”
A deep sigh rose up out of him, and he closed his eyes, dropped his head back.
Charlie kept quiet, let him talk. Talk all night, buddy.
“It was good,” he breathed. “We were perfect. She was perfect. She made me feel things I’d never felt before . . . I fell in love with her. For a while, it was amazing.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “And then she told me about her idea. She knew I needed money for school, said she planned to do it on her own, but I could help her and she’d give me a cut. All I had to do was set it up and take the pictures.”
Charlie felt a genuine nudge of sympathy for him. The woman had played him, manipulated him into helping her screw over her own wealthy customers. But the sympathy didn’t last long. The woman was dead because she’d tried to control a psychopath. A psychopath who was now focused on her.
“It worked fine for several months,” he went on. “Until Louisa found the closet where I kept the equipment. Donna accused me of leaving it unlocked. I know I didn’t.” He squinted his eyes tightly closed, shook his head. “I’m sure I didn’t.”
Charlie knew what happened from there. Louisa contacted her, said she knew of a local blackmail scheme but wanted cash before she’d reveal her real name or provide the details.
He opened his eyes, his gaze intense on her face. “Donna wanted me to kill Louisa, to keep her quiet. I didn’t want to. I’m no killer. I wasn’t a killer. But I had no choice. Donna said I had no choice. And I knew she was right. If I wanted to keep what we had, if I wanted to keep the woman I loved, keep her safe, I had to . . . to do whatever it took to protect her. So I cornered Louisa, but before I could kill her, she
said she’d already told you everything.”
Ah, now it made sense, why he’d kept coming after her. He’d been told so many lies. “Louisa never told me details.”
He narrowed his eyes, his lips pressing into a thin line. “She said you were going to write a story in the newspaper about what we’d done.”
“She lied.”
“No, she didn’t. You were going to ruin everything. She told me.”
“Look, I’m not a lawyer, but I think I can help you.” She paused to wet her lips. The headache was growing, pain rolling toward her like a huge spiky steel ball down a steep hill. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to focus, maybe not even speak. She had to hurry. “It’s understandable what happened. Donna Keene made you fall in love with her, and then she used you, manipulated you. People will understand. You loved her, and she played you. I’ll tell your story, help you with the police. I know them, you know. I work with them.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “It’s common knowledge that you no longer work at the newspaper.”
“But that’s going to change. I might go back. I . . . you just have to trust me to help you.”
“I don’t trust anyone anymore. Only myself.” A muscle in his jaw flexed. “I’m done talking now. It’s time.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Noah slammed the desk drawer shut harder than necessary. “Just a bunch of fucking bills. You?”
Logan shook his head, his flushed face showing deepening lines of stress as he surveyed the mess they’d made going through Donna Keene’s office. “There has to be something.”
But there wasn’t. They’d already ripped apart her Royal Palm suite on the top floor then moved on to her office here, behind the check-in desk. Noah dragged a hand through his hair. “What about the maids? Louisa Alvarez was a maid. Maybe she told one of the others what she knew.”
“We questioned them after Keene’s body was found. None of them knew anything.”