LUCY: The Complete Lucy Kendall Series with Bonus Content (The Lucy Kendall Series Book 5)

by Stacy Green

  “She’s dead,” he spoke flatly.

  “I’m sorry. She’s an unidentified in a morgue in Chicago.”

  “Thank you.” Lennox’s tight voice gave me my first breath of peace in days. “I knew she was gone, but to have closure…”

  “I know.”

  He cleared his throat. “Lucy. Watch yourself.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” I ended the call and stepped into the elevator.

  31

  I stared at Chris’s door, a bitter mix of fear and adrenaline tainting my mouth. The gold number seemed to tease me. My shattered ego threatened to ruin everything before I even got started, but I found a way to shut down the voices. None of it mattered now. The playing field had finally been evened.

  I knocked once. He answered the door with a wary smile. Did he know Agent Lennox had arrived and that I’d been with him? Or had he bought the story that I needed to vent about Mac and my mother?

  “Hey.” He stepped aside so I could walk into his apartment. What once appeared pristine and rich now looked stark and terrifying. “I’m sorry about Mac.”

  “Thanks.” How long did I keep up the charade?

  I walked to the large window that overlooked the neighborhood. Several stories up, I doubted any of the undercover agents saw me. But I still felt a tiny bit of comfort. “My mother and I finally had it out.”

  He stood a few feet away, leaning casually against the table. His mouth dropped open. “Really?”

  “It was cathartic,” I said. “Telling her what a miserable bitch she was opened my eyes to so many things.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I know it’s hard, but it’ll get better from here. She was never a parent anyway. You won’t miss her. Mac, on the other hand. That sucks.”

  “It does.” I wouldn’t tell him how I felt about Mac. No way in hell.

  “What about Kelly?” The concern is his voice sparked a feral rage. “I assume Beckett’s working on it?”

  “He sent a crime scene crew to her apartment,” I said. “He’s got forensic people reviewing the video, and everyone in the building’s being questioned. He thinks the super might have some information.”

  “Really?” Not a shred of worry in Chris’s voice. “Hopefully he’s right. The problem’s going to be narrowing down suspects.”

  “No. The list has been narrowed significantly.”

  “How?” Finally, a teensy falter, a little hiccup in his smooth voice.

  “I gave him the names of all the men I’ve murdered. Including Preacher.”

  Perverse excitement washed through me at the astonishment on his face. “Are you serious? Why would you do that? You’ll go to jail.”

  “I don’t care. Kelly’s all that matters.”

  Chris’s hands went to his hair, dragging through it until it stood on end. “There had to be another way. Beckett’s been waiting for this. You just handed over your life.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘our’ life?” I hadn’t planned on exactly how I’d get to the real heart of things. But there it was, hanging out there like a giant elephant we couldn’t ignore.

  “What?” Chris’s voice turned sharp. “Did you tell him I helped with Preacher?”

  “Of course not. You’re safe. Just as you intended.”

  He cocked his head, those penetrating blue eyes searching mine. Now I understood why they’d always unsettled me. It wasn’t attraction. It was the beast hiding behind them.

  “It’s time to stop playing games,” I said. “I’m here. That’s what you want.”

  A smile played on the corner of his pretty lips. “I don’t follow.”

  “Do you want me to explain it? Is that what you’d prefer?”

  “I would.”

  He wanted to be praised. To hear how he’d fooled me from the very beginning. His arrogance would be his undoing.

  Admitting my mistake to him stung worse than accidentally stepping onto a hornet’s nest. But it had to be done. “I should have listened to you that night at Chetters. You told me exactly who you were, and I was too cocky to believe it. Surely I had no equal. And yet there you were. The sociopath in shining armor.”

  Now the smile broke wide. “Go on.”

  “You wanted us to be partners. That was the truth. Did you expect me to say yes right away, or did you anticipate my thinking you were just a poor boy whose parents had done terrible things?” Part of me really wanted to know the answer. His mind was like nothing I’d ever encountered. I couldn’t blame Lennox for wanting to bring Chris in alive.

  A kind of swagger took over his movements as he crossed his feet in front of him and leaned back against the table, his broad smile reminding me of a jack-o-lantern. Nothing on the inside. “In a perfect world, you would have accepted my offer right away. But I didn’t expect you to. So I had a plan B. And C. That’s the key to success, you know. Anticipate every possible outcome and plan accordingly.”

  “But you didn’t anticipate my moving to Alexandria.”

  A shadow rose in his eyes. “No. That’s when I had to change course.”

  “Shannon.”

  “A nice girl,” he said. “She hadn’t been on my radar. But when she showed up at the paramedic class and I realized who she was, how could I resist? It was all too perfect.”

  “That’s how I figured it out,” I said. “I saw a poster in the hospital. You were on it. Everything clicked.”

  “Finally.” He threw up his hands. “I’ve given you so many hints. I really thought you were smarter.”

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you.” I kept my voice even, trying to squash the hatred. “So since Kelly’s down to less than eight hours, let’s get down to it.”

  He crossed his arms, his grin on the verge of maniacal. “Go ahead.”

  “You want me as a partner. I’m here. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let Kelly go.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You want to be a killing team, I’ll follow. I’ll give up everything.”

  “And Kelly goes free,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then she tells the police.”

  “Not if I ask her to let us go. I’ll make her understand.”

  Chris’s boisterous laugh made me want to attack him. “Sure you will. The second you get the chance, you’ll call your cop boyfriend and turn me in.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t.”

  “Why should I believe you? I know you, Lucy. It’s not in your nature to just roll over.”

  I had to make him believe he’d already beaten me. He needed to see the defeat on my face. I thought about Mac, watching his last breaths–of the realization my own ego had done this to Kelly and to Shannon. “There’s nothing left for me,” I said. “Mac’s gone. Kelly’s hurting. I don’t have the willpower to keep fighting. And she means more to me than my own happiness.”

  His amusement turned to disgust. “Of course. I’m always last. Yet I’m the only person who understands you.”

  His earlier words in the car took on new meaning. He wasn’t talking about love. He meant the destiny he imagined for us. “I can’t argue that. You do understand me. You made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my head. I owe you for that.”

  He jammed his hands into his pockets and started to pace. “You owe me for everything. I’ve done so much for you, and you see nothing.”

  “I’m sorry. But I’m trying to make it right.”

  “You’re trying to save your precious Kelly.” Spittle bubbled on the corner of his mouth. “That’s it. You don’t see why we are so good for each other. Why we should be together.”

  He couldn’t hide the longing in his voice. Sociopaths weren’t supposed to love, and I wasn’t deluded enough to think Chris felt that way. But he’d attached himself to me in a way that was more than just partnership. I represented something to him. I just needed to figure out what.

  “I promise I’ll stay with you,” I said. “Just let Kelly go.”

  “This isn’t how it was suppose
d to be.” He moved like a cat, languid and fast at the same time. Every muscle in my tired body tensed, anticipating the strike. But he was still too fast. I raised my hands to block him, but the needle sank into my bicep with enough force my knees buckled.

  “The thing is,” Chris’s lips moved against my ear, “you almost found her. You just didn’t look closely enough.”

  32

  He’d injected me with something. The drug invaded my blood stream, its effects immediate. The beating of my heart accelerated to the point I thought I could reach out and grab it. I stumbled backward, the entire room spinning as though I’d taken multiple shots of alcohol all at once.

  My fingers numbed. Coordination abandoned me, and I hit the floor hard. Something snapped, and on some level I realized it must have been my arm. But I didn’t really feel pain. Just an uncomfortable tingling sensation.

  Giant blue orbs appeared in front of me and then blinked.

  “Feel good?”

  “What did you give me?” The words felt stuck to my tongue.

  “One of your favorites.” His white teeth were dazzling. “Ketamine.”

  A voice in a far corner of my mind shouted a warning. I couldn’t understand it.

  The blue orbs continued to stare at me. I felt serene on the surface, but fear crawled beneath my skin, trying to escape.

  “Who knows you’re here?” Chris’s voice sounded like silk: a black, silk scarf stretching out as far as I could see.

  I wasn’t supposed to tell him. But the drug stripped away all the confusion. Why not tell him? Keeping secrets took so much effort and caused me pain.

  “Agent Lennox and Todd.”

  “Good girl. And are they going to follow us?”

  My head felt like an inflated balloon escaping into the wind. I couldn’t figure out how to answer him.

  His hand floated in front of my face. “I didn’t give you as much as Preacher. Too dangerous for the first time. Unless you want to go through the K-Hole?”

  What was that again? Out of body? Slipping away from the conscious?

  “No.”

  “I don’t blame you. Not the first time.” The silk scarf changed. A deformed head with red slits for eyes appeared at the end, its jaws open and coming straight at me. “But I think we could give you a little more, just to make things easier on me.”

  I saw the needle, and I heard myself say no.

  But he injected me anyway.

  My body became liquid. I danced across Chris’s apartment, as graceful as a ballerina. He danced with me, all smoke and silk. I felt weightless. No more worries, no more guilt. Finally free of every fear that had dragged me down. I jumped high, arms outstretched. Chris caught me around the waist, and we waltzed through his bright apartment.

  So bright. Like a floating room in the clouds.

  Words on the tip of my tongue, but my mouth couldn’t work. I felt the muscles straining, but nothing.

  The room in the clouds disappeared. Everything became very dark, with lights streaking in the distance. I wanted to reach out and capture the lights. I looked down; where was my body? Chris had taken it away and left me with only my floating head.

  Suddenly the lights buckled into a green corridor, the walls flashing like static.

  And then I saw the shadow. Two arms and legs. A definite head.

  Someone was there!

  I cried out but only in my head. My mouth didn’t work. I’d been thrust into a well of tormented souls, millions of tangled rubber bands all forming one giant mass. I couldn’t see the creatures, but I felt them. They stroked my hair, touched my face. Whispered into my ear.

  One of them started screaming.

  “Murderer! Murderer!”

  The shadow started to move away. I couldn’t let that happen. He had to tell me how to get out of this place.

  Please. Please help me. This isn’t what I want.

  The shadow turned. I strained to see its face.

  “Why should anyone help you?”

  Blank space. I couldn’t muster a single reason why I deserved to be pulled out of this strange dimension.

  “You’re a killer.” The shadow was talking again.

  I know. I’m sorry.

  “You don’t get to be forgiven. Murder is murder.” The shadow moved closer. I saw almond shaped eyes and a circular mouth.

  You’re right. I have no excuse. I deserve to be trapped here forever.

  The static turned luminous, until the tunnel became so bright I had to close my eyes.

  “Why did you kill us?”

  Who was the shadow? His face still consisted of only eyes and mouth.

  Because I thought I could make up for not saving my sister. I thought it was my fault. But my mother knew Lily was being molested. She knew the whole time.

  “That doesn’t make your actions right.” His voice–if that’s what it really was–appeared to soften.

  I know. But I have to get out of here. I have a reason.

  But what was it? I couldn’t think of anything but the freakishly bright white and the static and the weird shadow man. My body or whatever existed on this plane curled up in a pugilistic stance.

  I’m done.

  33

  I became aware of my surroundings gradually. The heady scent of urine and feces struck first, so pungent I started to gag. Darkness flashed several times before I realized my eyes were trying to open. The lids felt glued to my skin. A wretched tingling pierced my feet, as though I’d been sitting on them too long, and they were finally coming back to life. Something soft and firm surrounded me, its distressed material warm against my fingers. An armchair.

  I tried to sit up, but a sharp jerk against my midsection stopped me cold. The rope burned the flesh on my arms. Carefully, I wiggled my hands until I figured out exactly how I’d been tied up: arms trapped to my sides, rope wrapped tightly around the chair. My ankles were bound with some kind of wire that cut into my skin.

  My chapped lips struggled to speak, my mouth burned.

  A burning sensation struck my right wrist and then a dull, consistent pain. I vaguely remembered falling in Chris’s apartment. I must have broken it.

  Something else lodged in my conscious: a soft, choked whimper, followed by several sharp intakes of breath. A woman crying for her life. Her rapid, retched breathing elicited a terror I’d never experienced.

  “Hello?” I sounded as though I’d been eating gravel, the effort of speaking tearing up my throat. “Kelly?”

  The woman cried out something I couldn’t understand. The language didn’t matter–her high-pitched anguish said enough. And she wasn’t Kelly.

  Where am I? How far away from the city has Chris taken me? I had no way of knowing how long I’d been unconscious, and my head still felt foggy from the drug.

  Get it together.

  After several more attempts, my eyes finally remained open. I searched for something to help get my bearings, my mind racing faster with every passing second. A house of some sort, I finally decided. Did Chris own other property? Had he used his alias? Was the place really pitch black or just blocked out like the Cooks’ house?

  My eyes adjusted to the lack of light. I made out shapes–or rather, the lack of them. No furniture. Just the chair I sat in and a metal folding chair. Was that a rickety end table next to me? I shifted, hoping to get some blood into my limbs and loosen the rope. But my efforts only made me sink deeper into the chair I’d been tied to, the cushion broken down into a perfectly shaped butt spot. The chair seemed familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why until I caught the scent of Old Spice and cigars.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Very good.” Chris’s soft voice sent spasms of fear up my back. I squirmed against the rope as light suddenly filled the sparse room. Sorrow dragged over my throat with the burn of hot coals. The pain of the day sucked away any remaining resilience.

  The place looked just as it had when Mac had taken the bullet out of my arm, less than 24 hours ago.

&n
bsp; And now he’s gone.

  The tears squeezed out of my eyes before I could will them away.

  “Mac’s little hideaway.” Chris stepped into my line of sight, looking exactly the same but still entirely different. He still wore his hair strategically messy, his clothes unremarkable–the same black shirt and jeans he’d worn before he injected me with ketamine. His face had become a caricature of the man I thought I knew.

  It was as though Chris had suddenly stepped off the pages of a blank coloring book and became three-dimensional. Rosy-cheeked and slightly out of breath, eyes shimmering like blue topaz, he reminded me of a man who’d just had a satisfying round of sex. Everything about him seemed larger, more potent, and absolutely barbarian.

  “I thought it would be the perfect place for us to take the next step.” His voice had a singsong quality, or maybe that was just the lingering effect of the drug. “After all, you’re the only one who knows about it.”

  “That’s not true. I told Todd.”

  Chris’s once charming smile was more suited for a sadistic clown. “Now, now. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Lucy. Have you forgotten how the ketamine works?”

  It’s like a truth serum.

  He laughed at my obvious panic. “You gave Preacher enough to make him tell you everything. I didn’t go quite that far because I didn’t want to hurt you. But you told me enough.”

  Chris grabbed the folding chair and placed it in front of me. He sat down, crossing his legs, his hands around his knee. “I’m confident Lennox’s plans to tail us failed. How’s the wrist? It’s broken. I set it the best I could, but I don’t have the materials for a proper cast.”

  He’d used an Ace bandage and a plastic brace, but I could feel the awkward position of the bone.

  “At least I had a splint at my apartment,” he said. “But it’s not going to heal straight unless you go to the hospital and have them re-break it. We can’t do that until things are worked out.”

  I dropped my head against the soft back of Mac’s old chair. Now that I was aware of the break, the pain doubled. I gritted my teeth and tried not to show the weakness.