“That’s my girl!” Caleb had known that she wouldn’t go anywhere without being able to be found. “Do you have a way to log on to the app and call Project Lifesaver? Do you have your cell phone?”
“No. It was destroyed in the accident. But I can get hold of Project Lifesaver and page the nurse. I’m sure one of them has a smartphone I can use.”
“All right, at least it’s a starting point. Call me as soon as you know something.” Caleb hung up and waited.
Kara woke with a start when a bucket of ice cold water hit her in the face. It took her more than a few minutes to clear her head. Her body ached from being shoved against the wall, but her shoulders were on fire. It didn’t take her long to figure out why. The bastards had stripped her down to nothing and had strung her hands up and over a hook hanging from the ceiling of what appeared to be an old worn-down warehouse.
After they had doused her with the ice-cold water to wake her up, she found herself shivering uncontrollably. Logically, she knew she was precariously close to losing her life, yet she wasn’t as scared as the last time. Perhaps her body was on the verge of going into shock, but Kara knew the symptoms of shock, and she didn’t think that was what was going on. Just when she thought he, or they, couldn’t get more inhumane, she was proven wrong. Her mind was almost numb as if it was going into protection mode so that it wouldn’t witness the atrocities that they had planned for her. Knowing that her initial reaction wasn’t normal, she decided that if she could keep her wits and get out of there alive, she would make an appointment with a therapist immediately.
“Well, well, looks like the bitch finally woke up. How you feeling?” the one with the burns asked.
“W-who are you?” she managed to say through her shivers.
“Seriously, Kara; how does your brother put it? For such a smart girl, you really are quite dumb? I believe you have met us both a time or two in your life. We couldn’t help but bump into you, just to prove we could be part of your lives without you knowing. I lost count of how many times we ‘ran’ into you. In case you’re wondering, I am Marshall Abfall. It was such fun selling you your new home. And this strapping young man over there is Devon. Of course, when it suits us, we like to pretend we are one in the same. Thanks to modern cosmetics, it is still manageable even with Devon’s scars to pull it off.”
“W-who are you really? How are you alive? Ethan told me you burned in the car crash, trying to get away.”
“I did burn; my whole torso is covered in burns because of you!” Devon snarled. “But if you’re nice, I could forgive you.” Suddenly, he was sweet, like night and day.
“H-how was there a body in the car?”
“We had some help with that. Homeless people are surprisingly easy to come by and useful scapegoats. And we were fortunate, they were such eager beavers to tie up loose ends that they didn’t even check to make sure it wasn’t Devon in that car. I have a feeling that your parents’ money may have helped pave the way on that.”
“Not that they could have identified me from dental work or fingerprints since the wrong name would come up. Definitely not Devon Bristol.”
“What are your real names?”
“Our current names are all that matters, as our birth names really aren’t important. But don’t worry, we have some time, so we’ll fill you in on all the sordid details,” Marshall said.
“You had Suzanne help lure me? Your own wife?”
“It was Marshall’s idea to marry that bitch. I couldn’t really switch with him and share her; she would have noticed the burns, really was a pity. But he had a point; I mean, she really hated you, you know, so she was useful to help us reach our goals. But I suppose you don’t know why do you? It really is a funny story. Do you want to hear it? Of course, you do. After all, we have time until our little benefactor gets here. You see, Suzanne Pascoe had an older sister that she idolized. Ever wonder how you were #2 on our list? How about I let you in on a little secret? Suzanne’s dear sister was our first victim.” Devon laughed and clapped his hands.
“We never left a note on her, though, not that anyone has found her yet. Maybe we should come up with a clever little rhyme right now? How about, #1 and done, has it just begun?” Devon laughed hysterically at the rhyme that Marshall had come up with on the fly. Kara felt a cold, damp sweat break out on her skin and her breathing came in short gasps.
“Why would she blame me for her sister? I had nothing to do with her sister being your victim.”
“You kind of did. But let’s not skip ahead. Anyway, Suzanne hated you for two reasons,” Devon said.
“You survived, and you got all the attention. No one paid attention to poor Lucy when she went missing. That whole from-the-right-side-of-the-tracks thing really helped you get attention. But not Lucy; she was barely a blip in the evening news. It only took a little bit of cultivating to get her to really hate you, and later, she was more than willing to help us. Or rather me, her loving husband. Though she just married me because I told her I broke your heart. She thought she was getting the guy who got away. I sure will miss poor, gullible Suzanne; after all, she served her purpose, so she had to be disposed of.”
Marshall made a grand gesture to the ground behind him. Until that moment, Kara hadn’t taken more than a perfunctory look at the room; her whole attention had been riveted to the two men standing in front of her. Her eyes automatically went to the spot that he pointed to and lying on the ground in a puddle of dark red blood was Suzanne Abfall, her head nearly decapitated from the slice to her throat.
“A bit messy, I know. Couldn’t help myself. She had been such a nag the last few days since you came home. Kara this, Kara that. ‘How dare that cunt think she can come back and ruin everything I worked for.’ On and on until I wanted to strangle her just to get her to shut the fuck up. But I still needed her. In the end, she was just concerned that I wanted you back, which I did, but not in the way she thought. Like I said, we cultivated her hate for you, so nude pictures of you helped make her hate you even more. She was too stupid to realize that you weren’t posing in any of the pictures, and the fact that I left them in such an easy spot to find. What a dipshit. Still, she went ballistic!” He roared with laughter.
“It was quite visual when he sliced her neck—the fountain of blood. A bit much. But, I couldn’t be happier that she’s gone,” Devon said, pouting. Clearly, he didn’t like sharing his brother with her.
“Anyway, as I was saying, my brother and I had to change identities about twelve years ago because of some past indiscretions. Lucky for us that we are good at disappearing, not so lucky for you, I suppose. Anyway, who really cares about you, right? We had some help disappearing and were told to come here. When we got here, our great benefactor wasn’t all that pleased, even if we had been told to come here, but in the end, was willing to help us lie low awhile until we got our ducks in a row,” Marshall said.
“The plan was to lie low for a while, but as it goes, we needed money, so we joined your daddy’s staff. Between the two of us, it didn’t take us long to figure out that your daddy liked to wander through the gray areas of life. So, a new plan was formed. We decided to let your father catch us doing something dishonest. That way he would think he had us under his belt. Our benefactor was very helpful in the planning,” Devon added.
“Of course, he had no idea there were two of us; being an identical twin has its benefits. At least it did until the night he ‘caught us’ trying to skim money from the campaign. Getting your father to fall for it was like taking candy from a child. We turned into his go-to guys. It was perfect. I could do his dirty work, and Devon would be standing by his side, the perfect alibi.”
“And then there was the ultimate goal. Taking your daddy for all he was worth. It was perfect. We told him how the polls kept coming back with him losing because of family values. We made everything look very official. It was hilarious because he was actually winning in the polls, he was just behind in the family value portion. He didn’t
take the time to read the rest of the report. Weirdly trusting, wasn’t he? Anyway, your father was obsessed with power, and we knew it. We knew he would do whatever it took to become governor,” Devon continued. “Your mother,” acid dripped from the word, “wanted it, as well.”
“The seed was planted. Along with a couple of nicely placed, but quite fake, newspaper articles left on his desk, talking about a not-so-local politician and the fight to find his missing daughter, it was all we needed to get the ball rolling. The good press the guy was getting was more than your father could handle. He wanted that good press,” Marshall said.
From that point, the story was his to tell. Devon took a back burner to Marshall and began getting their devices of torture ready for action. Kara tried not to focus on the table with all the scalpels and other odds and ends. She knew they wouldn’t mess up this time, and her only way of surviving was to stall until hopefully, the police could figure out where they took her. She knew that Caleb and Ethan would be doing everything they could think of to get her back.
“H-how did you know about the girl that was m-missing?” she asked between shivers, even though she thought she knew the answer.
“Well, it was little Lucy, of course. We did have to doctor the article; her father wasn’t even in the picture, much less a politician. We almost got caught with her. She was a little indiscretion of ours that got out of hand, and the cops were closing in on us, so it was make tracks or go to prison. And, well, we just couldn’t have that, could we?”
“I s-suppose not.”
“Don’t patronize me. I’m pretty smart myself, you know.”
“You might be smart, but it doesn’t make you any less of a sociopath,” she whispered.
“That too. We ended up having to change our identities after that. Which turned out fine, since she was our trial run. Then there was you, beautiful Kara, so perfect in every way. You were really the one that led us to the realization that we have a certain taste for young women, a taste that has to be satisfied.” Trial run? Why would he need a trial run? Her blood ran cold when she saw the smirk on his face.
“Can I taste her, Marshall; let me just have a taste of her. None of the others have tasted as good as her,” Devon said, his voice sounding more unstable by the second.
In the blink of an eye, gone was the sane sounding Devon from earlier, and in entered the one who was clearly fighting mental illness; the one she had spent time with those four days. Here was the man who didn’t quite have all his lights on, the one who claimed to have loved her.
“It was so much fun with you ten years ago. Poor Devon hasn’t had as much fun since. Of course, he spent a lot of time recovering from the car accident. Tell me, all those years ago, could you tell the difference between the two of us?”
“Yes.” It all made sense now. The two personalities. Devon, the man who came professing his love, nuzzling and cuddling with her after he raped her. And then there was Marshall, the man who tortured her mercilessly for four days.
“Be honest, who was better?” Devon asked, sounding like he was a jealous lover.
When she didn’t answer, Marshall struck out at her with a crop that had materialized in his hands.
“Answer him, you filthy bitch.”
She had to think fast and come up with something, anything that would give her time to be found.
“I c-can’t choose. Devon was loving and fulfilled all of my wants and needs. While Marshall, you were so creative and attentive, constantly trying to teach me new things.”
Kara didn’t know how she had managed to come up with those words; she knew she wasn’t close to sounding believable. Another strike, this time from Devon, who was holding what looked like a flogger. He was staring at her with lust in his green eyes. Devon had never struck her with anything but his hands before; Marshall was the one who enjoyed the different apparatus, but Devon seemed to be enjoying himself now.
“I see you haven’t gotten very good at lying in the last ten years.” Marshall spat the words out.
“Devon, why are you doing this? You were always so gentle with me.”
“Why? Why? I did everything to protect you, to keep Marshall from killing you. But if I couldn’t keep you, the only way it could end was with your death. No one else could be with you, only us. Even that college boy we paid wasn’t able to finish the job.”
“Wait, what? You paid Max to sleep with me?”
The world was spinning out of control again. Everything she had been, and everything she had done, they had a role in. For one split second, Caleb’s face floated in front of her eyes. Blinking slowly, she shook her head. No. They didn’t have anything to do with Caleb; Caleb was honest, pure, loving, and kind. Nothing that they were. As if reading her thoughts, Devon struck out at her. She had to bite her lip from crying out in pain, and the taste of copper filled her mouth.
“You’re thinking about him!” he shrieked, striking her again and again, until he finally was exhausted from the effort and she was hanging limp from the beating. She needed to find a way to stall and keep him from beating her again. They needed time to find her.
“Why did you need a trial run? Who was the trial run for?” Her voice was weak, and she hated it.
“You,” a third voice offered from the shadows. Kara had to swallow the acid that was pushing its way up her throat, as her mother walked out of the shadows and into the light.
“Ah, lovely, our benefactor has finally graced us with her presence,” Devon said, happy once again.
31
Ethan had been able to track Kara quickly, thanks to the ankle bracelet and Project Lifesaver. It had taken longer to get the SWAT team ready to converge on the abandoned warehouse than it had taken to locate her. It had also taken longer to convince his captain that he could be part of the operation without being a hindrance. In the end, he knew that Bob only let him be part of the takedown because he knew Caleb wouldn’t listen if he told him to stand down. Not when the woman he loved was in harm's way.
Now that they knew where she was, they were in the process of trying to get “eyes” on the room she was being held in. Caleb felt like he was about to lose his mind. Kara was in the hands of a monster, and he was standing within distance of the building she was being held, but he was being told to stand down. It went against every instinct in his body to stand there and do nothing, when he wanted to charge into the building and be her knight in shining armor—or at the very least, rip the throat out of the person who took her.
Ethan had been given a radio so he could be updated on the situation. As much as he tried to convince the hospital that he was fit enough to leave, it was a no go. In fact, Dr. Chiglo was so concerned that Ethan would try to sneak out, that he had a security guard stationed at his door. Caleb had to smile at the thought of Ethan locked down, but then the smile disappeared, because if the roles were reversed and it were Taylor, well, it was safe to say that Caleb wouldn’t find being sequestered in his hospital room as a very funny situation.
Shaking his head to focus himself, Caleb moved like liquid night toward the hulking dilapidated building. At some point in its existence, the building had been a shoe factory but had long ago closed up shop, apparently in a hurry, because there were still decaying shoes all over the grounds, and he had to be careful not to trip over the rubbish.
He came to rest at the predetermined spot that had been agreed upon. At this point, they didn’t want to get too close until they knew what they were walking into. Once the recon was in, they would assess and decide on how to proceed. But they wanted to be close to the entry points in case danger to her life was imminent and extraction needed to be done quickly. For now, they felt Kara was still alive. She had to be alive. There was no other option available to him. In such a short time, she had become an integral part of his world, and he didn’t know what he would do if she was taken from him. He had to do everything in his power to get her out of that building and into his arms.
For one brief, but unde
niable second, Kara had thought her mother was there to save her. Instead, her mother stood staring at her with evil in her eyes. One look at the expression of malevolence on her mother’s face right now and that little spark of hope disappeared. As she looked at her mother, something she said replayed in her mind. You got one thing right; I would have preferred you died. If he would have done his job right, you would have…
“If he would have done his job right…” she whispered.
“You were so angry, you didn’t even pick up on my slip up.”
If ever Kara thought her mother loved her, she knew now, more than ever, that it was all a lie. There was never any maternal love. Her mother had always treated her as competition. As if Kara was vying against her mother for her father’s attention until eventually, her father started to ignore her to make his life easier. When her mother should have been teaching her important things while she was growing up, she had treated her coldly.
However, in a tiny corner of her heart, the little girl left in Kara had hoped she had been wrong, that there was some way to reach her mother. She had hoped that someday her mother would reach out and hug her and tell her that she loved her. She knew now that would never happen. Her mother was exactly what she had already known her to be, a coldhearted snake. Even so, she had to try to reach her.
“Mother, if you ever loved me, please help me.” Even though the weakness was mostly pretend, she hated the sound of it in her own voice. Kara found herself holding her breath, waiting for her mother to do or say something. She didn’t expect her to laugh cruelly, but it was exactly what she did, and the sound sapped the hope that was left out of Kara.
In the Night (Darkness Falls Book 1) Page 26