“I…” I what? I was not going to tell someone who’d just hit me that I loved him. “I didn’t know.”
He stood straighter. The crazy eyes bulged a little less. “You didn’t know what?”
“I didn’t know how you felt.” I swallowed and tasted my own blood. That was not a good thing. I forced myself to say whatever it took to keep the rest of that blood in my veins where it belonged. “I didn’t know you loved me.”
“I brought you gifts. I wrote poems for you. I got rid of the people you didn’t like. You put the butterfly with your cookies to let me know you love me too.”
He was calmer. No less crazy, but calmer.
“I just couldn’t believe you really—” I swallowed again. My tongue touched a molar on the left side. It wiggled. I hate going to the dentist. I wanted to punch him and loosen a bunch of his teeth. Brandon’s teeth, not the dentist’s. But I wasn’t big enough or strong enough. I had to force myself to continue sucking up to him.
“I couldn’t believe you really loved me. But now that I know you do—” Now that I know you do…what? I’ll run when I see you instead of going to an empty house with you? I’ll put the closed sign on Death by Chocolate when I see you coming? I’ll bring a chain saw to our next meeting? Probably not what he wanted to hear. “I’ll be a better woman.”
The smile returned to his face and he sat down beside me again. “I’ve looked for you all my life. You’ve made me a better man. I was nobody until I found you.”
Terrific. He found me and changed from nobody to a crazed murderer. What a wonderful influence to have on a person. My mother would be so proud.
“You mentioned a homeless man.” I didn’t want to wake the beast again, but I needed to know just how much mayhem had been committed in my name. “Did you punish the homeless man in the alley behind Death by Chocolate?”
“He tried to force himself on you. I saw him put his arms around you.”
Actually, I’d hugged Bob, but this was not the time to correct Brandon’s misconception.
“Uh, yeah, thank you for protecting me.” If you’re listening, Bob, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I’m lying to survive!
“I let you down with your ex-husband. He’s stronger than he looks. He fought back and blacked my eye.”
Rick had blacked Brandon’s eye? How dumb could I have been? Rick told me he fought with his attacker, hurt the man, but I hadn’t believed him. The black eye must have been a lucky punch. Rick was not strong, but he was lucky.
I forced myself to touch the fading bruise around Brandon’s eye. “Rick is a very bad man.” I wasn’t lying that time.
Brandon grabbed my wrist and brought my palm to his lips. I tried not to shudder.
“I’ll take care of him when he gets out of the hospital,” he said.
I bared my teeth in an attempt at a smile. “Great. Thank you.”
“As soon as I get rid of your ex-husband and that sleazy cop who called you and was pawing all over you on your front porch, we can get married and be happy.”
A slow, dark anger rose from my clenched stomach and spread through my chest replacing the fear. Brandon had just signed his own death warrant. How dare he talk that way about the man I lo—cared about! If Trent didn’t kill him, I would.
“You know what would make me very happy right now?” I asked.
He laid a hand on my cheek. I tried not to flinch from revulsion and pain. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it for you, sweetheart.”
“I’d really like a Coke, a nice cold Coke. You know how I love Coke.”
He grinned. “I sure do know how much you love Coke. I know everything about my girl.”
Not quite everything. Not what happened when somebody insulted my cat, my friends, my chocolate chip cookies, or my boyfriend. “Let’s go get a Coke.”
“We don’t have to go anywhere. I’ve got a fresh case of Cokes in the refrigerator.”
Oh, yay.
“Would you get me one, please?” I bared my teeth again.
If I could get him in the kitchen, I could escape through the garage. Never mind that I’d have to step over Grady’s body again. I would do whatever it took to get away.
He stood and I tensed, ready to run as soon as he got to the kitchen and stuck his head in the refrigerator.
But he held his hand out to me. “Come with me. I want you by my side every minute for at least the next fifty years.”
I stretched the teeth-baring gesture to show my molars, including the one that wiggled suspiciously. “Me too.”
I rose and followed him into the kitchen. Now I knew how Tina and Paula had felt—the helplessness and fear, the attempts to placate someone they despised to avoid further pain. I was proud that I’d helped put Paula’s ex behind bars. It was too late for Tina, but when I got away from Brandon, I would see that Ken paid for the torture he’d inflicted on her.
While my captor ripped into the carton of Cokes in the refrigerator, I looked around the room more closely than I had on the initial tour. The harvest gold countertop held a set of plastic canisters, a can opener, a couple of trivets, a coffee maker and other objects that indicated someone lived there. Unfortunately, I did not see a knife block. I’d been hoping to find a nice sharp filet knife.
I started to open a drawer then hesitated. “Okay if I look in here?” I cannot find the words to describe how badly it galled me to ask for permission.
“Of course, sweetheart. This is your home too.”
I slid open a drawer. Silverware but no knives. I opened another one. Spatulas, mixing spoons, potato masher, and a metal meat tenderizer. I wrapped my hand around the cold handle of the tenderizer and lifted it out. Drawing my arm back, I spun around toward Brandon and brought the tenderizer in an arc aimed for his head.
He grabbed my wrist. “You bitch!”
Damnation! I’d awakened the fiend again. He twisted my arm until I dropped the tenderizer and continued twisting until he forced me to the floor.
“See what you made me do? Clean that up!”
He released my arm and I realized I was sitting in a puddle of something cold and wet. A red can lay on its side, spilling brown liquid on the floor. The Coke Brandon had opened for me.
Strictly speaking, I had made him drop the Coke when I tried to kill him. But if he hadn’t forced me to stay in this place, I wouldn’t have tried to kill him. Ultimately it was his fault the Coke was spilled. And now I had another reason to hate him. Wasted Coke.
“All I ever did was love you!” He strode back and forth across the floor, tearing at his hair. “Why do you treat me like this? I got rid of Mother for you and you didn’t appreciate it!”
I got rid of Mother? My heart froze and dropped to the floor. He’d killed my mother? She drives me crazy and I complain about her, but she’s my mother! “Why would you hurt my mother?”
He stopped, blinked a couple of times, then frowned. “Your mother? I don’t know your mother.”
I drew in a deep breath, marginally relieved, though this guy was so out of it, I still wasn’t certain. “You said you got rid of Mother.”
He blinked again then smiled. “Not your mother, sweetheart. My mother. She didn’t take care of me. You’re going to be a great mother. You’ll never let anybody hurt our children.”
Our children? I grabbed his leg and brought him tumbling down beside me. He scrambled around and pinned me to the floor, looming over me. “You worthless tramp! You’re a pig who wallows in the mud with the other pigs! You kissed that man on your porch in front of me! He called you in our home!” He turned loose of my arms, grabbed my head and pounded it against the floor. “I’m going to kill you!”
I believed him.
Rage brighter and hotter than an oil well fire in west Texas burst over me at the thought that this man could end my life, make Henry an orphan with nobody to feed him or give him catnip, keep me from Zach’s high school graduation, take me away from Trent before I got up the courage to tell him how I felt about him.
I would do whatever it took to get away from this monster. I would survive, give Henry some extra catnip, make more moldy cookies for Zach, and tell Trent I loved him.
My hands shot to his arms, but I forced myself to be calm, to think rather than react. Instead of trying to pull them away, I stroked his arms. He stopped banging my head. When this was over, I was going to have to spend a week with my chiropractor.
If I lived through this.
I looked into Brandon’s crazy eyes and said the first words that came to my mind. “I thought you were cheating on me like Rick used to. I was trying to get revenge.”
He opened his mouth then closed it and frowned. Slowly Psycho Brandon receded. “I’d never cheat on you. I love you.”
“I know that now. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you. It’ll never happen again.”
He smiled but made no move to get off me.
“I’d really like a cold Coke and a hot pizza to, you know, celebrate our—” Puke. “Love.”
He rose, opened the refrigerator door and took out another Coke, popped the top and handed the can to me. “Straight up, no ice, just the way you like it.”
“Thank you.” I took a drink, letting the cold bubbles flow over my tongue and down my throat. It cooled my tongue and soothed my throat but did nothing to dampen the anger boiling inside me.
My feet were sticky from the spilled Coke, but I didn’t want to bring that up. If he could ignore it, so could I. “This house, somebody lives here. You didn’t rent it, did you?”
“Oh, no, we own it.” He lifted the receiver from the wall phone. “What’s the number for pizza delivery?”
I told him the number and he punched it in.
“We own this house? Is this where you and your father live? Lived?”
“I’d like a large double pepperoni pizza.” He gave the address then hung up and turned to me with a proud smile on his face. “The house is ours now. He killed Mother and now he’s dead too so we own it.”
His father killed his mother? Hadn’t he just said he’d killed her? No, he said he got rid of her. So his father killed her and he got rid of the body? Two generations of murderers. What a terrific heritage for those children Brandon was planning.
I sat down at the kitchen table. The chairs were wooden. I felt much better about sitting on them than on the soft sofa that oozed up around me. “Did you just say your father killed your mother?”
He opened a can of Coke for himself and joined me at the table. His expression was grim but not crazy grim. How many personalities did this guy have?
“He cheated on her, hit her, bullied her, hurt her and made her cry.”
“And then he killed her? Was it an accident?”
He sat rigidly still for a long moment. I tensed, wondering if my questions had set him off again, if I’d survive the next attack. I squared my jaw. I would survive the next attack. And the next and the next. I would get out of this alive though I might have to get dentures afterward.
He looked over my head, staring at the wall. Or maybe he was just gazing into his own sick mind. “She didn’t stop him from hitting me. She didn’t love me. Daddy said it was all her fault because she got pregnant with me. He said he never wanted to be married. So I gave her lots of her pills. She died but he kept hitting me anyway.” His gaze returned to mine. “It was his fault she had to die. And now he’s dead. He’s never going to hurt you or our children.”
Those children again! Before this was over, I’d make sure he’d never be able to have children. Or I’d die and at least he and I wouldn’t have children together. “I think you’re probably right about your father never hurting anybody again.” I took another drink of Coke, a long one.
He laid his hand over mine on the table and gazed at me with those puppy dog eyes. I might never be able to have a dog after making that association.
I shot to my feet, yanking my hand away. The front door and garage were out as escape routes. But there had to be other possibilities. “I need to go to the bathroom. That Coke, it just goes right through me.”
“Does my baby have a tiny bladder?”
“About the size of a walnut. Gotta go.”
He led me down the hall past the bedrooms to a bathroom at the end. “I cleared a space under the sink for you to put your shampoo and all that stuff women have.”
“You’re so thoughtful.” I walked into the tiny room. No window to crawl out. Damn. I closed the door behind me, relieved he didn’t follow me in, but there was no lock on the door to keep him out.
A tub with a shower. Small sink with a soap dish holding a new bar of soap and a glass with an old toothbrush and a new one. I assumed the new one was for me. I wiggled the loose tooth again. If he hit me a few more times, I wouldn’t need that new toothbrush.
I looked under the sink. Men’s cologne. Shampoo. Plastic hair dryer. Nothing even remotely resembling a weapon.
“Lindsay? Are you okay?”
“Nervous bladder. First time in a new place. Just need a few minutes.”
He chuckled. “But not the last time!”
I opened the medicine cabinet. Pay dirt! Drugs. If it had worked for Brandon, it could work for me.
I reached over and flushed the toilet to cover the noise of the pills rattling when I took out the brown bottles to look at the labels. I had no idea what they were but found one that said, Do not drive or operate machinery while taking this drug. May cause drowsiness.
The prescription was five years old. Did drugs lose their potency with age?
There were fifteen or twenty small white capsules in that bottle. I didn’t take time to count. I put them all in my pocket, opened the door and smiled at Brandon. That time my smile was genuine. I planned to give a whole new meaning to Death by Chocolate.
Chapter Seventeen
“I have a great idea,” I said. “Let’s have some hot chocolate.”
He frowned and I tensed, one hand on the bathroom door, ready to jump back inside and slam the door if the demon reappeared.
“I don’t have any hot chocolate mix,” he said.
I breathed again and waved a hand dismissively. “We don’t need that. Did you forget I’m a chocolatier? I never use a mix.” That wasn’t even close to true, but it was no bigger lie than telling him I’d be a better woman because of him.
I scooted past, dodging his attempts to touch me. The man had grown at least four extra hands since we’d entered that house.
“I need sugar, cocoa and milk,” I called over my shoulder as I raced down the hall toward the kitchen.
A brown puddle stained the floor. I’d forgotten about the spilled Coke. I grabbed some paper towels and began cleaning as fast as I could. I didn’t want the mess to remind Brandon of my attempt to smash his head. It might make him go nuts again. Worse, it might make him so cautious I wouldn’t be able to poison him.
“Let me help.” He squatted on the floor beside me.
“Not necessary.” I stood. “All done. Now for the hot chocolate.” I began yanking open cabinet doors. He came up behind me and I tried to open a door into his face, but he ducked. I continued opening and closing doors and pretended it didn’t happen.
Suddenly he wrapped his arms around me from behind. Crap. He didn’t believe the door incident was an accident and was going to punch me again.
He lowered his head to my neck and nuzzled. If I’d had a choice, I’d probably have chosen the punch. “My silly darling,” he murmured. “We have lots of time for hot chocolate this winter. I have plenty of Cokes for now.”
I touched my pocket with its reassuring small bulges and forced myself to endure the nuzzling. “No, I need hot chocolate. Now. Surely you know I’m addicted to chocolate. I could go into withdrawal if I don’t get some chocolate soon.”
He laughed, his breath hot and humid on my neck.
I shivered and, inspired, continued the involuntary movement by twitching first one arm then the other. “See? The DTs are already starting.”
He stepp
ed back and gave a fond sigh. “Whatever my baby wants. I’ve got milk.” He opened the refrigerator door to show me a carton of skim milk. I preferred regular, but it wasn’t as if I expected this hot chocolate to taste good.
“Great. I assume you have sugar in one of those canisters. Now all we need is cocoa.
He looked blank.
Damn. How could he think to buy Cokes but not cocoa when I specialized in chocolate? What kind of stalker was he anyway?
“Sometimes Mama used to make hot chocolate for me after Daddy hit me.” His voice was soft, his expression distant as if he was looking into the past. He walked slowly to the pantry and opened the door. I’d already looked in there. Canned peas, coffee, boxes of macaroni and cheese. Nothing useful.
He reached far in the back of a high shelf and emerged with a familiar and beloved maroon colored container. My spirits soared. The poisoning event was on.
He extended the box to me tentatively. “It’s old. It may be spoiled.”
I accepted the cocoa with a smile. “Cocoa doesn’t spoil.” I didn’t know that for a fact as I’d always used my cocoa long before it had a chance to reach possible spoilage date. “Why, they’ve found cocoa in Aztec tombs that made quite excellent hot chocolate.”
“Really?”
I had no idea, but it sounded plausible. “Of course! Now you just go relax in the living room and watch TV while I make us some hot cocoa.”
He sat down at the table. “I want to be with you. I can’t believe you’re finally mine.”
“Neither can I. Where are the saucepans?”
He smiled and pointed to one of the lower cabinet doors. “In there.”
I opened the door. A jumble of pots and pans, all old and light weight. No iron skillet. Damn. I’d hoped to find one in case the pills didn’t work. Or in addition to the pills.
I selected a saucepan and turned around. “Found it!”
I took a spoon from the silverware drawer, mixed cocoa and sugar with a small amount of water and set it on the stove.
“I love watching you cook,” Brandon said.
Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5) Page 18