Tremble

by Alison Foster

  I clean her up with the wet towel in short, soft motions. When I’m done, I pat her dry and pull a fresh pair of panties on her legs. She needs to know who’s in control once and for all.

  She won’t look at me now. Her face is turned to the side, her heaving chest revealing her internal turmoil. I’d better strike while she’s frustrated.

  I lean over her, my face next to hers. “You’re mine now. You let me make you come fully aware who I am, what I am and what I want. Never forget that.”

  “It’s all a dream,” she whispers, defeated.

  “Tell me again about your father,” I say as I sit up on the bed.

  “He destroyed lives, the last being his own. We both know it.”

  Rage takes over me now. I fight to control it. “Yes, but what he didn’t do is take his own life,” I say, staring at the lamp on the nightstand. “But another man did kill himself, Nora. My father. Yes, not your father. Mine.”

  Her breathing accelerates. She’s thinking. She’ll be asking questions within seconds. I get up, cutting off all communication between us.

  Leaving the bedroom, I almost forget to lock the door. I turn around and lock her inside, away from me.

  Why do I tell her these things? The last thing I want is her pity. I hurry down to the den to get myself off. I need a clear fucking head.

  In fact, I need a whole new approach

  Chapter 21

  Nora

  I don’t care what he says or does and I certainly don’t care what he expects from me. Clearly, I can’t give him what he wants. I need a shower and I need it now. I feel dirty in too many ways to count. His tongue felt good on me no matter how wrong it was for me to allow it. I am sure one day I’ll have to face the ugliness of all this. I am his captive and I could have asked him to stop and I didn’t. Instead, I almost begged him to make me come.

  He said I’m his now. Maybe I am. I don’t care.

  I needed to feel something. I needed to escape from my thoughts, my fears, my hatred. He pushed me to all these places no girl should ever have to go. This was his plan all along. But, really, I don’t care about all his sinister plans. I just want to get clean, to burn away as much of this horror as possible.

  As much as I want to disappear in the steamy shower, the scenarios race through my mind as the hot water pours over my face and shoulders. More and more I’m letting myself believe Lukas will not kill me.

  The person he wants to kill is my father. How my father’s suicide must have disappointed him. He wanted to do the deed himself. In his terrible grief, something broke inside his soul. It drove him to madness.

  If I can come up with a plausible story about my father’s whereabouts, and if I can convince Lukas that I need him, if I beg for his attention, beg for his touch, maybe he’ll buy it and let his guard down.

  He’ll kill you, you idiot. Give him what he wants and he won’t need you anymore. Stop falling into the black pit of denial.

  I shake my head as I pour shampoo onto my hair. It’s a possibility that he will try to do away with me once he thinks I’m of no use. Desperate people can do desperate things. There will come a moment of truth.

  Lukas Dupree could have had everything going for him. With his commanding presence, his good looks, his quick mind—he could become anything he wanted, his would be a world without barriers. It’s almost sad to see that he has let misery lead him down this path of self-destruction.

  Wait, I think I just passed through step one of the Stockholm syndrome. I’m developing empathy for my captor. Fuck.

  Even without a watch, I instinctively know he will show up soon with some unpalatable breakfast and an assortment of threats. Right as I’m dressing, I hear him coming up the stairs. His approaching footsteps are slower paced than usual, like he’s tired—tired of me, tired of this unfortunate arrangement and just plain tired.

  One thing has changed today and that’s his clothes. Instead of the usual T-shirt and shorts, he’s wearing soft khaki pants and an olive-green dress shirt. His hair has been styled with gel and he’s fresh-shaven which reminds me he wasn’t shaven yesterday. I have the painful pink razor rash all along my thighs to prove it.

  “Going somewhere?” I ask him, avoiding his eyes.

  “Just got back,” he says.

  I would have known it, too, if I would have checked out the food first. It’s restaurant food for a change, kept in a black, plastic container.

  The food smells good. Better than anything I’ve tasted in, what? Is it six days now since I became his prisoner? Five? Not sure. Reality and dream and intermittent sleep mix together in my own personal hell.

  There’s a good chance I’ll start salivating in front of him if I don’t open the container soon. That would be awkward and embarrassing, but nothing could embarrass me more than what happened in this room yesterday.

  It turns out I don’t have to worry about that. He opens the container, offering me a plastic fork and a juice box. My nostrils flare as I take in the sweet smells of a Florentine crepe with a Hollandaise sauce, and a side of roasted veggie omelet and French toast. That’s what I’m talking about.

  I eat slowly, savoring every bite of yumminess as the food melts in my mouth. I couldn’t care less that he’s watching me, raising an eyebrow. It’s about time he saw my devouring side. I’m not a delicate flower who feeds on morning dewdrops.

  When I’m done eating, I finally raise my eyes. He’s been so quiet, it makes me wonder if he’s about to drop some new bombshell on me, possibly involving his trip this morning.

  I’ll go on the offensive, trying to catch him off guard. “Why do all your methods of mind control involve sex since day one?” I ask him, licking sauce off my index finger. “Seems convenient.”

  He moves closer to stroke my face ever so gently. “Because it’s working. Your resolution weakens every day. And the alternative would be to hurt you. Which method would you prefer?”

  Ha! Too late for that.

  The words come out before I can stop them. “I think you enjoy both roads.” Damn. The last thing I want is to challenge him.

  He grabs my wrist, roughly. “Once and for all, I don’t hurt women. I’m just being persuasive in your case because… extenuating circumstances. All I need is a word from you and I’ll free you back to the wild.”

  “No, you won’t,” I say, glancing outside the barred window.

  “Why won’t I?”

  “Because you know I’d go straight to the police.”

  He laughs. He looks like a madman, laughing at the prospect of going to jail. “I’m counting on it, Mac. I’d love to tell the police all about your father’s fake death and your fake inheritance. But you know what? It won’t come to that. You’re not the first person to want to see me behind bars. Far more capable people than you have tried. I can disappear in plain sight. I’m not even here, really. I am a ghost among shadows.”

  “Nice trick. Of course, you’re good at hiding. All cockroaches are.”

  I can’t make him mad. The freak usually gets turned on by my insults. It always ends with his madman grin. “Why don’t you tell me where the fuck that leech is hiding and you can exterminate my presence from your life.”

  “I would,” I say, straightening my shoulders and neck. “If he’s alive like you claim, I might want you to find him nearly as much as you do.”

  “Now that’s a lie,” he says, more observational than emotional.

  “Yeah, a little bit,” I agree.

  “Just don’t try to play me, Nora,” he says. “That’s done. Real talk now.”

  “Lukas,” I say with tenderness for the first time. “If he is alive, he never kept me in the loop. He might have thought it would put me at jeopardy, very much like the jeopardy I’m in.”

  “You skipped his funeral,” he says.

  “I was in a car at a distance,” I explain.

  “Oh, I can believe that,” he responds quickly. “You and your father sitting there behind tinted windows enjoying t
he trick you’ve played on the world.”

  “You know me well enough to know I’d never cheat people out of their money. Come on, Lukas. You’re letting all these delusions defeat you.”

  He laughs a little. “Delusions are based in instinct.”

  “And we’re not animals, Lukas. We’re rational beings.”

  “You have knowledge,” he says, “but you have no experience and you have zero instinct. Don’t worry. Most people don’t. They are all too pampered and cut off from their animal. That’s why predators like your father can so easily deceive people, they’re already deceiving themselves every day.”

  Surprisingly, that made a little sense. Even madmen can trip over a profound thought from time to time. And one monkey out of a billion could accidentally write Hamlet by banging on a keyboard.

  He takes the fucking handcuffs out of his back pocket.

  “Is that really necessary?” I reach out and take his hand. “Tell me what’s eating at you, Lukas. Why are you so furious at my father? Maybe I can help. If he’s wronged your family, I’d like to make up for it, but I can’t bring him back from the dead.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” he says in a low, guttural voice, yanking his hand out of my grip. “I’ve been patient, Nora. I’ve given you plenty of time to do the right thing but if you try to entice me with all that psychoanalysis mumbo-jumbo ever again, you’ll arrive quickly at my true dark side.”

  A chill grows inside me. I believe him. He would hurt me. Manipulating him could prove a deadly risk. I don’t respond. He’s close to some trigger I should try never to stumble upon.

  Lukas gathers up the empty container, the fork and the juice box, not waiting for a response. “I will be back in the afternoon,” he says. “One way or another, you’re going to give me what I want, Nora. Play time is over.”

  He picks up the used towel from the floor. I’m sure he’ll reproach me now for showering without permission but he says nothing. He takes out his keychain as he heads for the door.

  An impulse suddenly overtakes me. “Lukas?”

  He pauses with the key in the keyhole. He doesn’t look back.

  “Did you ever care for me?” I ask. “Ever, even a little?”

  He lingers a moment longer before leaving. He slams the door behind him. A sadness descends on the room. He’s broken. Nothing will ever fix him. I cared for Lukas, even if he never cared for me. I may be getting to him, but it all makes me so sad. Lukas is a ghost, just like he said. He walks among the shadows, just like he said. It’s all so terribly sad.

  If possible, I’m beginning to hate my father even more.

  Chapter 22

  Lukas

  I’m getting nowhere and I’m running out of time. If I don’t find James McRae soon, someone else will. I know there are at least two organizations he screwed over that have gotten the memo about McRae staging his own death and planting a body in the car that exploded, thus making said body completely unrecognizable after it blew to pieces.

  And I can’t get this girl to give me shit. I’ve gone soft on her and she’s playing her hand any way she can. I’ve even let her call the shots more than once. It ends right here, right now. Fuck sentimentality.

  The sound of a car engine slowing down pulls the plug on my frustrated stream of thoughts. I wait until I’m sure the car stopped in front of the house.

  What the fuck? Who would randomly show up at a house in the middle of the desert? No one knows we’re here.

  I find my handgun in the front closet. It feels good in my hand. If this is one of the organizations hunting for McRae out looking for his daughter, they’re about to catch a whole mess of bad luck.

  Peeking out the window is never a good idea. That’s the best way to catch a quick death. Pros wait for that flutter of curtain. The bullet will already be cranium deep before you can focus on your assassin.

  I wait for the loud knock on the door. I wonder about Nora. She no doubt heard that knock if not the car itself. Goddammit, I should have gagged her.

  In an instant I unlock the door, slam it wide open with my gun extended, finger firm on the trigger. Tanner Hayes backs away, a mocking grin on his face.

  “Easy, soldier,” he says, lifting his hands high in surrender.

  Confused, I step back and lower the gun, but only slightly. “How the fuck did you find me out here?”

  Tanner steps in, glancing at my gun I have yet to withdraw completely.

  “Good that you’ve stayed frosty, war dog,” he says as he’s headed for the kitchen. “But it’s fucking me. If you can’t trust the soldier who walked next to you into the streets of Kabul, then you’re losing it, son.”

  He acts like he has a map of the house in his head. Even in battlefields, he could figure out positions and distances like he had a sensor in his brain.

  I follow him. “What’s this, Sarge? Whad’ya doing here?”

  He stops by the kitchen window to peek out at the backyard. There’s not much to see. A few flower beds gone dead and some gardening tools that some fool thought would be of use in the desert.

  “Sarge?”

  He nods to himself. “You brought up the McRae connection when we spoke last year,” Tanner says as he keeps staring outside. “You were hyped about James McRae getting caught, wanting him to face justice. But after McRae was killed, you told Shane you didn’t believe it. You went looking for him but failed to even prove he was alive. And then McRae’s daughter shows up at your apartment, looking like she belonged there.”

  “And this is your business how?”

  “We didn’t let you fall in the dirt of hell’s fire,” he says. “And we won’t let you go asunder here among the gentle folk, neither.”

  This isn’t good. If Tanner Hayes knows what’s going on, there’s no way I’m going to back him off. The big fucker has a serious messiah complex.

  “Shane’s in on this, too?” I say, cool as a cucumber.

  Tanner turns to me as his open palm lands on the kitchen island. “All grunts are accounted for, yeah.”

  The shit’s begun already. He’s here to give me the talk, the friendly interrogation disguised as brotherly concern. I need to figure out how much he knows and how much is just him bullshitting me, trying to trip me up so I spill the beans.

  “Two American heroes watching my six.” I say. “Can’t beat that.

  His eyes go more severe than usual. “I’d like to have a word with the girl.”

  All subtlety lost. Sergeant Hayes skips the talk. He goes straight for the throat. How could I forget that? We’ve always had each other’s back. And this isn’t even the first time he’s offered a hand with complications in civilian life, but right this moment, I’d just as soon he’d go take a flying fuck.

  “You know I respect you, Tanner,” I tell him, “but this is a one-man mission. It has to be that way.”

  “It’ll be a one-man mission,” he says. “Hell, we’re all alone in God’s world. That’s the truth. I won’t argue it, but I’m here to keep the field of play clean of bogies. Those others, they have more than one dick swinging in the wind.”

  He steps over to the desk and opens a drawer as fast as lightning because he fucking knows everything. He sees things in my eyes I don’t even know are there. He takes out a bracelet and a cell phone—both Nora’s.

  He’s not one bit surprised. It’s as if he had put them there himself. He studies me. I stare back like there’s a prize for not blinking.

  “Upstairs? The room with the bars?” he says with a calm voice. “Is her door locked from the outside? Has her free will been compromised?”

  “Tanner, fuck, this was for my eyes only. Won’t look the same to another set of eyes.”

  “I know your heart, soldier,” he says. “And I know all the dark tributaries on which souls lose themselves. I don’t need to learn anything today. I just need to help get you home at the end of this.”

  I grind my teeth as I set the gun on a counter. “You can’t interfere with a
man seeking his own justice in his own time.”

  His eyes narrow down to a slit. “I gave you time to extract whatever you needed from her. If she had it, she would have given it to you, but she might have other morsels to chew on. Slower news, connectors. Let me take this for a walk and shake what’s in there already loose and ready to fall.”

  “What are you insinuating, Sarge? I was never going to hurt her. I don’t hurt innocent girls. I’m a fucking Marine, remember?”

  He’s not exactly convinced. “Yeah, I do. Question is, Lukas, do you?”

  I shrug and look away. Fuck my luck. I exhale hard. “I’m not sure she knows a damn thing about any of it, but I need to make certain and then I’m considering her as possible bait to smoke him out.”

  Tanner shakes his head, clearly disappointed. “You think that collection of cellular scum will come knocking on your door to get his daughter back? Yeah, right after the Martians come knocking with ginger cookies.”

  I miss the way Tanner talks, but not today. Not now.

  “This shit is happening,” I say. “It’s begun. It will play out, eventually. I’m a patient man.”

  “The end justifies the means?” he says pointedly. “This isn’t a theater of war. And that girl up there is a damn civilian.”

  I shake my head. “She benefited her whole life from his criminality. Her level of involvement is uncertain. I need—”

  “When did vigilante justice ever work outside of a movie screen?”

  We’re never going to agree here. So be it. I just need him to leave. “I appreciate your concern, Tanner. I do. But, right now, I’d appreciate it if you would go on back to your woman in LA. I heard you two moved in together. That’s great. Enjoy what you have. Let me handle this my own way.”

  “Revenge will eat you alive, soldier. It will chew on your guts and it’ll never get full. You saved my ass when the shit with Anisa went down. I will return that favor.”

  I relax. He is my brother. I need to remember that. “If there’s a fly in the works it’s probably female.”