by Angel Payne
Dasha narrowed her eyes. “Nice to know nearly killing my bodyguard could help you out.”
“Dasha,” Crystal returned, “grow up. Do you know how many downloads your new song got after the incident at Lenox Square? Sentiment for you grew exponentially. And we had to bump the campaign announcement up by three weeks!”
The delight in the woman’s voice, like she was merely announcing the latest American Idol standings, made Dasha squirm. She shoved against her bonds, knowing what claustrophobics felt like for the first time in her life. It wasn’t just the ropes around her body. It was the place Crystal’s explanation led her to now, the question she had to ask, and the answer she did not want to hear.
“Okay, so all of this—” She rolled her head, indicating their surroundings and her ropes. “It’s another episode for the saga, right? Another gripping drama to somehow respark the campaign?”
Crystal went still and studied her closely. Too closely. And way too still. “Darling, thanks to you, there isn’t a campaign right now.” She tilted her head, looking troubled, as if delivering a hard life lesson to a small child. “And you see…that’s not acceptable. Not one single bit. I won’t let it be. I’ve worked entirely too hard to get this far.” She turned then, smooth as the cashmere encasing her body, to check her stew again. “So that really leaves me with no choice about our next actions, does it?”
Another breath. Another breath. Dasha had to command it at herself, though she found it easier to obey if she summoned David’s and Kress’s voices, layering them over the words. Breathe, they echoed, the strength of their voices fusing with her lungs, her will. Breathe.
“Okay,” she found the strength to say. “I’m going to ask again: What the hell do you mean?”
Crystal didn’t answer her this time. Instead, the woman’s head cocked the other way, sharp and birdlike. It was, Dasha realized, because she’d heard something. A car had just reached the cabin, rolling to a gravelly stop. A long stillness followed.
“Ah!” Crystal’s happy chime rang in the air like a gunshot. “Perfect. Just in time.”
“For what?”
Her voice was shrill with fear now, but she couldn’t hold it back anymore. Crystal’s mounting, manic joy conveyed the horrid truth, that this wasn’t a typical episode of The Perils of Dasha. This was a well-orchestrated plan, formed in the mind of a woman not used to getting “no” handed to her in the middle of a live CNN interview. A woman not used to no, period.
The front door of the cabin swung open, letting in blinding sunlight, warm late summer air, and the answer to Dasha’s question. First through the door was Zack, Crystal’s assistant, whom she recognized from the events of yesterday. The guy’s plaid mountain-man shirt and jeans were a far cry from the Brooks Brothers suit in which she’d first met him, though his haughty frown hadn’t changed an inch. Zack dragged in a second man, who also wore jeans. This guy’s outfit was topped with a T-shirt from Dasha’s first concert tour. At the moment, however, the prisoner’s biggest fashion pieces were shaking shoulders and unsteady steps, both worsened by the black cloth bag covering his head.
As soon as Zack shut the door, he yanked the bag off.
“What the fuck?” The oath was a contrast to the boy-band features that had been revealed. “What’re we doing here? This is my family’s stupid cabin, man!”
Zack backhanded the guy, a blow right across the face. Dasha winced. The poor kid couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty.
“Watch your language,” Zack ordered. “There are ladies present.”
“What’s this all about, asshole? You show up at my dorm, tell me I’ve won a contest to meet Dasha Moore, but then you make me wear this goddamn hoodlum thing, and now—”
The kid’s jaw fell open as his gaze fell on her. Dasha tried to give him a reassuring smile because she had a feeling what he’d go through next. Sure enough, Zack jerked the boy’s hands forward, cranked his wrists into a pair of handcuffs, then kneed him in the back, making him crumple to the floor between her and Crystal. The kid cried out, still half-furious, though terror rapidly took over and doused his voice to a whimper. She didn’t blame him one bit.
“Darling, I’m pleased to introduce Mr. Austin Taylor,” said Crystal. “He’s the one who’s already left a confession note in his dorm room about sending all those nasty texts to your show crew. And he’s about to send another round of texts too…this time with pictures, showing them all how he’s succeeded in killing you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“This has got to be a damn mistake.”
It was about the twenty-fifth time the senator muttered it. And about the twentieth time Kress followed it by exchanging a glance with David. His friend’s face conveyed exactly what it had the previous nineteen times. You wanna deck him, or can I?
Kress longed to be tapped for that honor, but the circumstances, especially now, were the worst setting for it. They were surrounded by the finest ops guys on Kress’s team, at least twenty square miles of forest, and air that was maxed-out with anxiety. As a matter of fact, the only one who didn’t share their collective mindset of holy crap was the senator, AKA King Head-in-the-Sand. The idiot still believed a string of theories that read like a bad soap opera. Maybe Dasha was grabbed by a mansion employee gone rogue—which could be possible at five in the fucking morning. Or an exceptionally resourceful, wing-nut fan had done the deed—a lunatic they’d somehow missed during a sweeping, two-week investigation. After all the scenarios the man kept grasping, Kress wondered when Moore would throw an alien abduction into the mix.
The truth was more tragic than any of it. The senator, poor bastard, was doing everything to avoid the truth. That the woman he trusted the most had pulled the strings behind his daughter’s stalker nightmare—and now her disappearance too.
Kress just prayed, as he had countless times today, that they were in time to stop Corso from making Dasha vanish forever.
“Senator,” David responded then, locking Moore’s stare directly in his own, “you’re all for keeping an open mind, right? That’s all Agent Moridian and I are asking of you now.”
The senator gave Pennington a head-to-toe assessment. David didn’t surrender his stance. Kress had no idea if this was the first or the five hundredth time his friend had undergone the Papa-Bear-Protective thing from Moore, but David climbed a few more rungs of esteem in his book for the way he handled it now.
“Fine, David,” Moore finally muttered. “Fine. You’ve got the open mind. Now let’s get on with all this, shall—”
A harsh zziippp raked the air, almost sounding like a hummingbird on steroids. Kress stepped between the two men and slashed his hand in front of his throat, giving the command for silence. He recognized the zip as their greeting from Whitehurst, his number-one recon agent, signaling they now approached the location of Zack’s traced cell signal. Since they were at a blind spot about Crystal’s phone, they’d taken a stab and guessed their ninja from the mansion’s security tapes was in fact Zack, invited in on a cut of Crystal’s glory once Dasha was out of the way.
With a tap to the comm-pod at his ear, he opened the radio line. “Hey there, Tighty-Whitey,” he murmured to his friend.
“Glad you all could join us, Kress-Man,” said the recon agent. “We still have the ride-alongs, right?” He referred to David and the senator.
“Copy that,” Kress replied.
“No prob. Just advise how we alter the plan, then?”
“Not by a damn thing.” Kress cast a cautious glance around. “You just make sure we got the bogey first. But after that, you have my authorization to move in.”
They moved another fifty feet, and that was when a sizable vacation cabin appeared through the trees. The place looked like a magazine ad: wind chimes jingling in the breeze, the sunlight skittering across the roof, designer porch furniture, a gleaming black Escalade parked in front.
“License plate on the car checks out,” came Whitehurst’s voice over the line.
“It’s the rental signed off to Zack Crean, two days ago.”
“Got it,” Kress confirmed. “Let’s all move in quietly. Get a visual first if you can.”
“You’re really dragging the senator with you?”
“I have no choice about that, Whitey. Some hardheads need a burning bush to believe.”
Any comeback Moore might have had for that got eliminated by a scream, full of pain and fear, bursting from the cabin. Though the outcry carried a distinct male timbre, their “slow and careful” plan got instantly scuttled.
Kress whipped out his GLOCK and darted to a deep shadow beneath one of the cabin’s side windows. He motioned for David and Moore to follow. After a few seconds to assure they hadn’t been heard, he prepared to dare a look inside, but Corso rendered that risk unnecessary.
“Damn it, be careful, Zachary!”
“How else do you expect me to make him cooperate?”
“I don’t care how you make it happen; just don’t get him all bruised up. It needs to look like this was all his idea, right?”
“All his—what?” The interjection came from someone young, male, and terrified. Likely the source of the scream, Kress deduced. “You people are fucked up! What the hell?”
There was a sigh, also male. “Can’t I just get him a little high, maybe? I’ve been dealing with his disgusting mouth since we left the city, Crys.”
Kress snuck in a sideways look at the senator. An instinct told him that Zack’s use of the nickname wouldn’t sit well with Moore. He was right, judging from the tension at the man’s mouth and temples.
“No,” came Corso’s retort. “You’re not going to jeopardize this now. We’ve got this last piece to slide into place, and then the wheels will start to turn again.”
Kress heard her take a couple of determined steps.
“Nothing is going to stop me from getting to the White House. Nothing.”
“You?”
This time, it was Dasha. Relief flooded Kress so completely at hearing her alive, he indulged a peek through the window. David joined him, though the guy’s harsh breath nearly echoed his when they beheld the state Dasha was in. Corso had her bound up damn well, trussed at multiple points into a chair next to a table that looked like something out of a “World’s Creepiest Murders” documentary. Dozens of candles. Thousands of photos.
And one gun.
But as if the weapon wasn’t lying there in front of her, she spat, “The last time I checked, it wasn’t you they wanted for the job, Crystal.”
“And who says I want it?” The ice queen laughed. “First Lady will be just fine for now, darling. And when I’m the one to help your daddy pick up the pieces of himself after you’re found as the first half of this murder-suicide, that wedding ring is all but locked on my finger.”
Kress and David got to the senator in time to clamp him down by his shoulders. If they hadn’t, Kress was sure the man would’ve dived through the window. Kress tried to give Moore an assuring glance. It sucked that the guy had to learn Corso’s true colors like this, but, yeah, sometimes it really did take a burning bush to create a believer.
“God.” Dasha’s rasp seemed deafening against the onerous pause inside. “Austin’s right. You are fucked up, Crystal. And if you really think you’re going to pull this off without anyone investigating, then you’re fucked up and stupid.”
Kress’s chest swelled with fierce warmth. That’s my girl.
Corso answered D with lethal calm. “Shut up.”
“No. If you think that David and Agent Moridian will accept all of this at face value—”
“Shut up.”
“If you think they won’t tear the facts apart, if they won’t tear this place apart—”
“I said shut up!”
The woman’s voice busted into a shriek, making it possible for Kress to scuttle undetected around to the cabin’s corner. “I’ve got the southeast corner now,” he gritted into his headset. “Whitey, let me know the second you’ve got the perimeter secured.” Concentrating on ops made it easier to ignore how it sounded like Corso drove home her point by backhanding Dasha.
“God! You really are an idiot, Dasha,” the woman snapped.
Kress lifted his head, able to spot Corso directly now. Her head was dipped low, her stare slicing down at the woman who’d forever altered his heart. “As long as you stayed in your place, I was fine with that. The gap between your father and you was a perfect fit for me—until you decided to go and close it up. Now all you’ve created is a mess. Happy with yourself?”
He should’ve expected Dasha’s reaction, but even now, even knowing her and caring for her as he did, the woman could stun him.
“If this is between you and me, then let’s make it between you and me.” She nodded at the young man on his knees next to them, now grimacing and looking like he was about to crap his pants. “But don’t drag Austin into this. He has nothing to do with this. Don’t let his blood be on your hands too.”
Goddamn it, Dasha. You pick the strangest times to put everyone else ahead of yourself.
That was when the realization hit him.
Forget caring about her. He loved the woman. Undeniably. Uncontrollably.
Fuck. And he derided her for crappy timing?
Focus. There’d be time to think about that mess when Crystal Corso wasn’t laughing like a giddy sitcom track. “Blood?” she echoed. “Oh no, darling. The only thing on my hands will be this stew I whipped up for your dad. He loves my stew, you know. He’s always so grateful when I find a way to make him some, even when we’re on the road together. As soon as it’s done, we can get on with having our friend Austin put a bullet in your brain.”
“Fuck you, lady!” Austin shrieked.
Kress decided he liked that kid. Keep it up, Austin. Your Wolverine act may come in handy.
Zack’s voice slid through the air in contrast to that: low and determined. “I still think we should wait until nightfall. Less chance of being ID’d as we leave the woods.”
“By who?” Corso snapped. “A handful of squirrels and that ancient excuse for a man who runs the store at the bend? He reeked of Jim Beam anyway. Any testimony he’d give will be tossed like last week’s polls.” She sighed. “Besides, much as I hate admitting it, darling Dasha is right. Moridian is a bulldog. He won’t turn over rocks to try to find her; he’ll blast through the damn things.”
“You’re right about that, bitch,” Kress muttered.
“Fine.” Zack’s comeback took them all by surprise. The guy went from cool-hand to hothead inside ten seconds. “You want to do this, then let’s do it, goddamn it.”
Kress didn’t like the sound of that. Not one fucking bit. “Whitey.” The growl clawed up his throat, rough and urgent. “We can’t wait on the perimeter anymore, man!”
“No need to,” Whitey came back. “We’re good, K. Repeat: we’re good.”
Inside, Corso issued a laugh that would’ve shriveled an elephant’s balls. “What on earth got all over you?”
“Lately?” Zack snapped. “It hasn’t been you. And I’m done with the games. So you wanna do this? Let’s just do it.”
Kress popped up to the balls of his feet at the same time bodies scuffled inside the cabin.
“No!” Austin shouted. “Fuck—you! No!”
“Crystal!” The scream was Dasha’s. “Please! You don’t have to do this! Please!”
If her outcry wasn’t enough to rip his guts out, what Kress saw next took care of that job with horrifying force.
He dived forward without another thought.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Your whole life in front of your eyes.
Dasha knew the words, of course. She even imagined she’d know what such a thing felt like, if she ever knew she was about to die. She’d envisioned what images would come to mind, maybe even a visit from Mom, taking her hand, welcoming her in peace and harmony to the other side.
She didn’t see a thing.
Everythi
ng that hit was sound. The strains of the first song she’d ever composed, at the age of eight. The music at Mom’s funeral. And then just the voices. Dad whooping in joy when she’d won her first Grammy. The happy shouts of her fans at the mall in Atlanta. And David. Oh, David. His sarcastic drawl. His biting one-liners. And then, the first time she’d ever heard his adoring murmur. You’re beyond beautiful. And the lower cadence that took her heart and soul to amazing places. Kneel. Good girl. You please me so much. And Kress. He was there too. His gruff bark of a laugh. The growl that consumed him when she aroused him. And the words he used too. Look at you… You’re gorgeous…
She used their voices to get the strength. She clung to them now as she stared into the black barrel of the gun that Zack forced into Austin’s hand, then pointed at the middle of her face. Soon enough, the chamber would ignite—and her Doms’ voices would be hauntings in her soul instead of memories in her mind.
That black depth reached and consumed her. Forget about going Zen or seeing radiant white lights. There was nothing radiant about this. There was nothing peaceful, complete, or celestial. There was only pain and sadness; the sting of tears on her cheeks and agony in her heart. I don’t want to do this. I’m not ready to do this.
Where were the voices? Where were David and Kress to at least keep her sane through this? Damn it, you guys. I need you.
“Move in! Now! Everybody move!”
“You heard the man! Let’s do it!”
There they were. But she barely had a moment for gratitude. The world exploded. Motion, sound, noise, chaos. Windows crashing, voices bellowing, feet pounding on the cabin’s timber floors. And then, the noise she dreaded the most. The gun went off. And she knew a blast of pain—
Only not in her head. The pain flared from her shoulder. She blinked, disoriented. It took a strange second to realize she’d been…pushed over. She was on the floor, still bound to the chair, now staring at an army of booted feet and black-clad legs. Black—what Zack had been wearing when he took her from the mansion—which confused her deeper. Were these more of the bad guys, or—