A Dangerous Dance

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “You told me I had twenty-four hours.” It was easy to keep her voice flat now. She didn't have the energy for inflection.

  “You do, but you can choose not to wait.” He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks, studying her in that impersonal way that would have unnerved her had she been less hammered.

  “If I had a real choice, I'd go home,” she said.

  “None of us have real choices. We just think we do.” He turned and walked toward the bed, stopped and looked at her. “This is the bed where your mother and I made love. If you get in it right now, if you choose to submit, you can eat after, drink all the water you're craving, shower and then sleep undisturbed for as long as you want.”

  “Or?” she knew there was an “or.”

  “Or you can spend the night in less comfortable accommodations. Trust me when I say, you won't like them.”

  She did.

  “It's the expedient thing to do. If Mistral were still alive, he'd understand. He'd probably even forgive. It's not as if your romance wasn't expedient for both of you. Or did you think he really loved you?”

  Dorothy looked at him. “No, I never thought he really loved me. But he would never do this. He would never, ever be what you are.”

  “And what is that?” He looked mildly amused.

  “A dirty old man, who wants something he hasn't earned the right to have.”

  That stung, she could tell.

  “My mother came to you willingly, for whatever insane reason she may have had, that I'm sure she regrets now. What really sticks in your craw is that she left and never came back. So I'm guessing it wasn't that good for her. Not incentive for me to crawl in that bed and give it a whirl, now is it?”

  For just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. She'd hit home with something she said and it gave her a surge of strength and resolution that she desperately needed.

  “I'll take that as a no, then,” he said, his voice still even, but not as perfectly as before. “You have more stairs to climb.”

  He directed her out the door, down the hall and up another flight of stairs, and then another. She went passively, because she didn't want him touching her.

  “We're here,” he said, stopping at a door at the end of a narrow, somewhat shabby hall. “This is the attic.” He unlocked the door and a wave of heat poured out onto them. “I'm afraid the air conditioning doesn't extend to up here.”

  It was late afternoon. Outside, as they passed windows, she'd noticed the shadows lengthening and the light turning gold. It meant the heat had had all day to build up under the rafters. But that wasn't the worst he had in mind.

  He steered her toward a long, narrow box, held closed with a padlock. He took out a key and undid the lock, letting the side down to reveal an oddly lumpy floor surface.

  “This is where you'll be spending your time until you make your decision. There is an air supply, but as I mentioned, no cooling. You can communicate with me, if at any time you wish to come to a new agreement. There is also surveillance inside, in case you had any thoughts of trying to get out.”

  He stood there looking at her with his dead gaze. Already she could feel the sweat starting again, minimally fueled by the bottle of water. As she stared into the narrow opening, it seemed to grow smaller and tighter and hotter.

  He's trying to break you, she told herself. He knows if you sleep with him, he knows if you give in, that you can never go back to who you were. He knows you'll have lost your soul. He's clever, but you're strong. You can do this. You can take anything he can throw at you. Even death.

  She stepped toward the dark square, and started to stoop down, when he stopped her with a touch. She froze. What now?

  “Two things.” He studied her for a moment. “I believe you have recently come into some information about your father's death?”

  Dorothy didn't have to pretend to be surprised. “What?”

  His gaze narrowed. “You're an excellent actress, but you see, I know the truth.”

  “And what truth would that be?”

  “There were three conspirators. Bubba Joe Henry, myself, and...you.”

  Dorothy didn't have time to process anything but the part about her. She'd suspected it anyway. “Me? Why would I have wanted Magus dead?”

  “He abandoned you as a child, then used you for his politics purposes. No one had a better reason than you, my dear. I need to know where the evidence is. Does your mother have it?”

  Dorothy shook her head. “You can believe what you want. You will, no matter what I say.”

  She bent to climb in the box.

  “I said there were two matters.”

  “Right. I was never that good with math.”

  His lips thinned. “Your dress.”

  “What about it?” Dorothy drew away from him, her cuffed hands drawn up to her chest. The movement chafed the already reddened skin and her sweat burned into the sore areas.

  “Take it off.”

  Her throat dried out. “Why?”

  “Because I told you to. I won't make you take anything else off...yet. But if you don't take it off now, I'll cut your clothes off. It's your choice.”

  “Your choices suck.”

  His expression didn't change. He did reach behind and pull a knife out of the back of his slacks.

  She reached up and unbuttoned the front of her dress. “I can't get it off with my hands tied.”

  He studied the problem, then slid the blade of the knife up the sleeve, the steel wonderfully, awfully cold against her skin, and sliced the dress. He repeated it on the other sleeve and the dress fell into a soggy pile at her feet. All she had on now was a bra and panties. She covered her breasts with her hands, but kept her chin up. He could only demean her as much as she let him.

  “Seen enough?” she asked him. When he nodded, she bent and crawled inside the box.

  That's when she realized what a complete and utter psychopath he was. The floor was hard and lumpy, making it impossible for her to be comfortable in any position. The box was too low for her to sit up, forcing her down to the floor. The material he'd used was also abrasive to her exposed skin. And her sweating aggravated the abrasion and the pain as salt went into her scrapes.

  And when he lifted the door back in place, the darkness inside was absolute. She couldn't even see her hands in front of her face. Sensory deprivation. Sleep deprivation. Dehydration. And the camera-peeping-Tom aspect.

  He'd brought out the big guns.

  All she had in her arsenal was a healthy dose of stubborn from both her parents. And the knowledge she had to make until noon tomorrow. Then she'd be dead. Because there was no way in hell she was ever giving in to that horror of a man.

  Unless...what if he didn't intend to kill her?

  She managed to not whimper out loud, but she did curl into as much of a fetal position as the box would allow. Almost against her will, she found herself drifting into the blessed peace of sleep. But before sleep could completely claim her, bright lights flashed on, stabbing deep into her eyes.

  “I'm afraid I can't let you sleep yet, Dorothy. Let's talk some more about clarity and expediency. Because I think you've realized I can't let you choose death. I let your mother go, but I won't let you go. You'll never be able to leave. You can fight me for a while, but some day you're going to crawl out of the box and into that bed. You're going to share it with me when I want. How I want. Until I don't want you any more. And then, only then, will you die.”

  He paused, as if to give her a chance to comment. When she couldn't, he went on, “Your only chance is to submit by choice. You need to embrace what's expedient and make me need you. Keep me wanting you. It's your only hope.”

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  The light shut off again. Darkness closed in around her, outside and in. Even though she couldn't afford to lose the moisture, silent tears joined the stream of sweat pouring down her face.

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  * * *

&nbs
p; EIGHTEEN

  * * * *

  Titus got there so fast, Remy knew he hadn't left like he was supposed to, but it didn't matter right now. Nothing mattered but finding Dorothy. Whoever had written that note had been cruel and malignant, and he hadn't kept his word. He had tried to kill Remy anyway. There was something going on, some hidden agenda he couldn't see, but could sense.

  When he'd filled Titus in on what had happened, he went to work. He needed to get a hold of Kate, he realized. She needed to know. Titus had her cell phone number, thank goodness.

  He filled her in, heard her inhale sharply. “You don't know who it might be, do you?” Remy asked, when she didn't say anything.

  “No, of course not,” she said.

  So why don't I believe her, Remy wondered. “If you know something, Kate...”

  “If I did, what could the police do without any evidence? What I know is just what I feel. Let me check something out.”

  “Let me come with you!”

  “If you did, I wouldn't find anything. I need to do this alone. If I'm wrong...” she choked back a sob.

  “I'll pray you're not,” Remy said. “Please let me be your back up at least. Whoever did this is dangerous!”

  But she'd already hung up. He considered telling Titus, but the bodyguard was shutting him out, too. He needed to get his head clear and think. Think. He knew the players. If it was one of them, he could figure out who was likely to do something like this. He could.

  * * * *

  Darius kept up his campaign of dark, then light, then dark again for what seemed like an eternity. But the worst part was the campaign of words. The more exhausted she got, the more reasonable he sounded.

  The heat eased some, so she figured it must be dark or close to it. Maybe long past it. She had no way to tell the passage of time. There were times, in the dark, when she couldn't tell up from down. There was only light, dark, his voice, and pain, so much pain.

  After a while, she realized she needed to empty her bladder again. It seemed amazing that there was any fluid in her to discharge. The rough covering on the bottom of the box was slippery with her sweat and blood. Once, during a period of darkness, she tried to scrape her wrists against the surface, hoping to bleed to death, but she only managed to mangle them to a new level of pain.

  As the time passed, the pain in her bladder built and built. Was he going to make her wet herself? When she couldn't stand it any longer, she broke the silence for the first time since she'd told him where to go.

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  There was silence. She didn't know why the thought of adding her urine to the mess she was lying in was somehow worse than anything else she'd experienced, but it was. It just was. And if he knew it, he'd just leave her.

  Just when she thought she was going to have to let go, she heard him fumbling with the lock. The end lowered, letting in the softer light from the overhead. So it was night.

  “You can come out, Dorothy, but I should warn you, I'm now armed.”

  She pushed up, and backed her way out, humiliatingly aware now of her scanty attire. Her panties were transparent with sweat, except where stained by blood. She managed to turn around where she could see him, because she needed to rest before trying to stand up.

  He was standing a short distance away, a pistol pointed at her.

  “Go ahead and shoot,” she said, pushing her wet hair off her face.

  “There's a bathroom one floor down.”

  She wasn't sure she would make it, but she still refused the hand he held out to her. She managed to get upright, down the stairs and into the bathroom before it was too late. He wouldn't let her close the door this time.

  When she'd finished, he handed her half a bottle of water. Just enough to keep her alive. She wanted to throw it at him, but she couldn't. That shamed her, too.

  He propped a shoulder against the door jamb. His gaze seemed to hammer into her, leaving her no place to hide, even inside her own head.

  He's not in there, she reminded herself. He just wants you to feel that way. You can change how you feel. And amazingly, he was pushed back. Even that small victory heartened her.

  “Your mother is coming to see me,” he looked at his watch, “soon. I really can't let her live, you know. She's the only person who might figure out what I'm doing. Shall I bring her up to say good-bye? Or would you rather she doesn't see you like this?”

  She wanted to lunge at him, but he could brush her off like a fly. She was out of the box for the moment. He'd be taking her back as soon as he finished tormenting her. She had to out think him. She could do this.

  “Why should I care what you do to her? She abandoned me and now I'm stuck here because she couldn't keep her legs together.”

  His thin lips curved into a slight, pleased smile. “That's expedient thinking. We're making progress. I'm very pleased. Perhaps when I've killed your mother, I'll give you a break from the box.”

  He curved his hand under her jaw and lifted her face up for scrutiny. She didn't have to work too hard to keep her expression dead and dispirited. She was far too close to collapse. This might be her only chance to stave off the inevitable.

  His hand trailed down the side of her jaw to the strap of her bra. He pushed it down her arm as far as it could fall, exposing the top curve of her breast, all while his gaze bored into hers.

  She just stared at him.

  He reached across and pushed the other strap down.

  Still she stared. Right at this moment, she could do what she had to. She hoped. In a deep, hidden place, she hoped and held on.

  His gaze narrowed. Now he hooked one finger on the inside of her panties and ran his finger around one side, then back around to the other.

  She was such a mass of pain, she barely felt it.

  He stepped back. “Very good. You've come a lot closer to clarity in such a short time. Do you know you've only been in there for eight hours? I'll confess, I thought you'd last longer than this. But I think you'll be ready by the time I'm through with your mother.”

  He indicated she should precede him on the stairs. She'd hoped he would. Her shoulders rounded in defeat and she did the slow, step thing toward the top. As she reached the top landing, he asked her, “Do you suppose she'll sleep with me one last time, for old time's sake? Do you think she'd like to go out as she lived?”

  Dorothy turned, her face as dead as she could make it. He was standing on the step below her, putting them at eye level for the first time.

  “When you're choking her to death, tell her thanks for nothing.” Dorothy licked her lips. His gaze locked on her mouth like some sick homing beacon. She lifted her cuffed hands and brushed them against his chin. She stepped closer, as if she were going to kiss him. He shuddered at her touch, his eyes glazing in anticipation, his mouth parting for her. It was his first moment of inattention to clarity.

  Time to get really expedient. She gathered up the sides of his shirt, while still tracing the outline of her lips with her tongue. When she had a good grip, she jerked her knee up into his groin. She had a feeling it would hurt a lot worse when aroused. She hoped it would.

  First indications were that she was right. It looked like it hurt. A lot. Air woofed out of his lungs. He wasn't down yet, though. Which made him still dangerous.

  She did the next expedient thing, jerking her cuffed hands up. They connected with his chin, throwing him backwards.

  He might still have recovered, if he hadn't been standing on the stairs. He was, so he didn't. Being a tall man, he had a long way to fall. He also had enough momentum to do one tail overtop to the landing.

  She hoped each contact with stairs and walls were as painful as they looked.

  “How's that for expedience?” She was panting from the effort it had cost her fragile, remaining resources. She sagged against the wall, studying him. He didn't move. She eased down the stairs, pausing on each one for signs of movement. He'd dropped the gun, so she picked it up.

 
; She prodded him with a toe, then reached down and touched his throat. He still had a pulse. A pity. She patted his pockets until she found the key to the cuffs and got them off. Feeling more in control, she eased passed him, and tried a couple of doors before she found a bedroom. There was a throw at the foot of the bed. She put the gun down, grabbed it and wrapped it around her like a sarong. She picked the gun back up and turned around.

  Darius was standing in the doorway. He was using the door jamb to steady himself, but he was upright again.

  She pointed the gun at him. She needed both hands to keep it up and steady.

  He smiled. “Killing is easy, Dorothy. But it changes you. Once you've tried it, it's hard to stop. You should pull the trigger, though. It's the expedient thing to do. So even if I kill you, I win.”

  “I don't have to listen to you anymore. I have the gun now.”

  “The gun is only the instrument. What you have now is the power, Dorothy. The power of life and death. I told you I could get you to kill for me. Didn't I?”

  She drew breath, but it broke on a sob. “If you touch me, I'll kill you.”

  “You'll have to kill me then, because I am going to touch you. You started it on the stairs and now we'll finish it. For today.”

  He started toward her. She stepped back. “I will shoot you.”

  “I don't think you will.”

  “She might not, but I will,” Emma said from the doorway. The gun she held didn't shake or wobble. Her eyes were fierce and determined. “He's lying to you, Dorothy. Yes, killing does change you, but not into him.”

  Darius half turned to assess this new threat. “And how would you know, Emma? Who have you killed lately?”

  “Bubba Joe Henry. For pretty much the same reason I'm going to kill you now.”

  For the first time, Darius's calm showed a crack.

  He didn't think I'd do it, Dorothy realized. He felt safe, but now he doesn't. She could tell he was considering how to neutralize Emma. If he got his hands on her, he might succeed, she thought, remembering their strength.

  He didn't consider her a real threat. She padded forward, raising the gun as she went. Saw his muscles bunch to pounce and brought the gun down on the base of his skull with all the strength she had left in her body.