More footsteps passed the door and continued up another set of stairs somewhere in the distance. She was dying to search the house, find a real name, but couldn’t with these guys here. A plan began to form in her head. Something a lot more subtle than breaking and entering. Definitely more dangerous, probably even stupid, but she wasn’t sure she cared. The reasons for finding and stopping Big K had expanded, and become about more than just her and Brian.
She made her way silently back down the stairs and over to the unlocked window, then stood with her hands on her hips, glaring up at it overhead. Closed, the window had no ledge, and there was nothing down here to stand on or prop the window open with. Shit. She’d have to go upstairs, after all.
There was no sound on the other side of the door, no movement or talking. She waited, straining to hear, but still nothing. The door eased open on well-oiled hinges, and she peered through the half-inch crack into the kitchen. Though the room was dark, light shone from another room to her left. She inched the door open some more. Still silent, still no sign of anyone. She heard a thud overhead, then a screeching noise, like they’d moved something across the floor.
She closed her eyes, trying to visualize her orientation with regard to the window she’d entered in the back. She should be looking at the front of the house, but if they were bringing things in the front door, she didn’t want to head that way. The back was too far from the front gate, so she’d try to go out a side window.
“Déjà vu,” she whispered, tiptoeing through the kitchen and into a windowless dining room.
“Hey!”
The shout hit her like a shot and she ran through the dining room and into the next room, a den, before she realized the shout hadn’t come from behind her, but from the front door that had banged open at the same time.
“What the hell, Dob?” someone called from upstairs.
“It’s Ripper! I couldn’t find him, so I went looking around. He was locked in the guardhouse at the front gate!”
This wasn’t good. Luckily, her panic hadn’t propelled her into their sight. They didn’t know anyone was in here. Yet. She thought fast. Try to get out or go back to the basement? Either way, she could be screwed.
Out, she decided. Outside, she had a chance to get away. She was safe hiding in the empty basement when they didn’t know anything was wrong, but now that they’d found D—Ripper? Yikes—they could trap her down there. She was outnumbered and they probably had guns. From what she overheard, they might not be above killing her. Even if they didn’t, all they had to do was call the police and it was all over for her.
She dashed to the dark drapes along the den’s outside wall and peered around one. It was too dark outside to tell if anyone was out there. But the others were coming downstairs, and she couldn’t stay here. She unlocked and lifted the window, then the screen, and stuck her leg out, swiveling around and dropping to the ground without pausing to hang.
That spared her bruised fingers, but her newly healed knee sang in protest and she fell, landing on her butt. She sat, waiting for a reaction, but the still night air was filled only with crickets and katydids and the faint sound of an engine on the road out front.
She climbed to her feet with the intent to sneak into the neighbor’s yard, but then voices came from the back of the house. They were circling it, maybe looking for evidence of break-in or trespass. Desperation and her half-formed plan spurred her into the front yard and up the steps, where she hastened to brush grass off her backside. She ripped the ponytail holder out and yanked off the headband, then unzipped her sweatshirt. A moment later the three guys came around, one bent over, patting D—Ripper—on his side.
“I swear, someone put him in there!”
“He probably went in himself and the wind blew the door shut.”
“What about the branches? They were stuck through the windows!”
“Wind, I tell ya. It blows fierce up here sometimes.”
“But I—”
They all stopped when they saw her.
“Who are you?” the one she thought was Dob asked.
“I’m the new girl.” Her voice rasped with nervousness but she didn’t clear it, hoping it sounded sexy. This was a huge gamble. She might not be “tall and stacked” enough to pass herself off as tomorrow’s chick, and she didn’t know how they recruited. She prayed “the new chick confirmed she’ll be here” meant she’d chosen to come here, not dragged against her will.
The guy in the back stepped forward. He looked her up and down. Reese held her breath, hoping that if this was Skav, he hadn’t met the new girl himself. “You don’t look like your picture.”
She shrugged. “It was an old picture.”
“You musta been working out.” He shoved the other two ahead of him and followed them up the steps. D panted at her, but apparently with the guys around, he wasn’t in guard mode. She hoped he didn’t act too friendly and make them suspicious.
“You’re early,” Skav said. “We don’t start filming until tomorrow.”
Reese followed him inside, aware of the leers and high fives of the two behind her. She heard one of them whisper that she was much hotter than her picture. She had to stop herself from folding her arms across her chest.
“I thought maybe I could see the setup,” she explained, “so I’d be more comfortable. For the filming.”
“Whatever. Dob, take her up and show her around. Bark, check the basement. I gotta call Big K. Check on the, uh, other talent.”
“Yep.”
“You got it.”
Dob motioned her up to the second floor. Reese half expected her ass to burst into flames, she could feel how intensely he stared at it. When he motioned toward the end of the long hallway she stepped aside, making him go ahead of her. She glanced into some of the rooms they passed. Two were empty. One’s door was shut. She quietly tested the handle on the way by—locked. Two more rooms held beds surrounded by film equipment like lights and cameras and a boom microphone. The last one on the right looked like a dressing room. She saw a mirror and a rack of clothes before Dob hauled her into the last room on the left.
“Here’s where we’ll be doin’ you.”
She winced at the choice of words. He started describing the equipment and filming process. So was this porn or prostitution? Or both? Or…God help her…snuff films?
“Um, who’s, like, directing?” she asked, trying to appear naïve and trusting.
“The tr— other talent dictates what you do. It’s for a series of videos,” he added when she frowned. “Something like ‘Your Favorite Fantasy,’ I don’t know. But the guy chooses what you wear, what you say, and usually tells you what to do during the shoot.”
So porn, but that still didn’t fit with everything she heard. “Like a reality show?” she asked, just to keep him talking.
“Ha!” He shouted the laugh. “Yeah, sure, something like that.”
“Come back tomorrow night,” Skav said from behind her. She hadn’t heard him come up the stairs and cursed her inattention. “Nine o’clock. We’ll have everything ready. Then we want you every night after that. Contract states a week, but we might want you for a bonus.” He waggled his eyebrows, and her stomach turned at the implication that he meant himself. Or all three of them. She told herself she wouldn’t be here long enough for the “bonus,” but that didn’t help any of the other girls they no doubt used for whatever this really was. It had to be stopped, but she had to figure out a way to do so without incriminating herself.
None of the guys walked her downstairs, and it felt weird to have gone to all that trouble to get inside, then try to escape, and now be able to walk out unchallenged. She hesitated on the front walk, seeing no cars or a side gate or anything leading to a different way in. She’d better not push her luck—she headed straight out the front and hoped they didn’t spot her and question it.
Her adrenaline had been rushing since she’d first heard tires on gravel, and as soon as she got outside the gate to sa
fety, she crashed. Weak knees, blurred vision, cold sweat. She staggered to the street lamp and grabbed on to hold herself upright. Fear faded, replaced by excitement. She’d done it! She’d infiltrated the enemy stronghold. In less than twenty-four hours, if things went right, she’d know who he was and where to find him. If she could also collect some evidence of what they were doing with the women they filmed, maybe she wouldn’t have to go after him herself.
She wasn’t sure that would be enough, though. Confronting him, getting answers to what he and Brian had been doing, why he’d tried to kill them, drove her as much as getting out from under his cloud. She wanted him to see her, watch her as his world fell apart—or his life drained out of him—and know she was responsible and why.
What was going on in that house would be his downfall, for sure.
But she would be his demise.
…
Reese was seriously dragging by the time she got back to her house. Her eyelids didn’t want to go above half-mast, and her brain was barely conscious of her movements. So while part of her was aware that the porch light was no longer on and that, as tired as she was, she should have been humming with electricity and wasn’t, she didn’t have the wherewithal to interpret it. When she aimed her key at the front door lock and the door opened, she didn’t react in time to avoid the hand grabbing her arm. It yanked her inside, slamming the door behind her.
She stumbled in the dark but adrenaline came surging back. Fight or flight?
Fight, she decided. She could vaguely see a darker shape against the far wall, moving to her right, so she moved to her left. When she reached out, seeking electricity to use as a weapon, she realized there was no current moving through the house. The intruder had shut off the power, probably at the breaker box in the kitchen. That frightened her even more.
Who’d learned her secret?
Her body was still obeying her command to seek power, and she detected a hint of it. Not household current, something weaker, but still electricity she could use. On her intruder, a flashing green light. His cell phone. Instantly she focused on it, sucking the power away.
“Hey! Reese, stop!”
Too late. She recognized Griffin’s voice at the same instant she focused the electricity as tightly as she could and forced it at him. He dodged but not fast enough, and it struck him in the chest, near his right shoulder. She heard a crash and things falling off the table he knocked over, then a thud as he hit the floor.
She rushed to the kitchen, cursing all the way, and yanked open the circuit panel door to reset the main breaker. Lights flashed on, the refrigerator hummed to life, and the familiar noise of a modern house surrounded her, momentarily reassuring.
But only momentarily. She rushed back to Griff, praying the energy had been small enough and his fall not as hard as it sounded. She heaved a sigh of relief when she found him conscious, though still sprawled on the floor.
“God, Griff, I’m so sorry.” She crouched next to him. “How badly did I hurt you?” This time.
He groaned and tried to sit up. “I’m okay. It was like being hit with a bat.” He probed the hollow of his right shoulder with his left hand and winced.
“Can you feel your arm?” She helped him ease upright and lean against the wall.
“It’s tingling.” He tilted his head back against the wall and didn’t talk for a moment, then his fingers flexed. He made a fist then spread the fingers. “The feeling’s coming back.” He slowly raised the arm and stretched it, then bent it in and shook it. Finally, he looked at her, a hint of awe in his eyes.
“You did that on purpose.”
She cringed. “I didn’t hurt you on purpose.”
“You know what I mean. You’ve come a long way in a few months.”
He hadn’t seen her use the electricity deliberately since her initial attempts to gain control. The other day didn’t count. “I guess.” She plopped down next to him and mimicked his pose. “What the hell were you doing, anyway? Why did you turn the electricity off?”
“Because I was in your house and didn’t want to frighten you into blasting me.”
“I’m really, really sorry,” she said miserably. “I can’t believe you barely recovered from my last strike and I hit you again.” She twisted to look at him more closely. The burned skin on his lips must have sloughed off because they were a healthy pink and super soft looking. His color was good, and his eyes clear and alert. And amused.
She smirked back. “So you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. No ill effects.”
“So what are you doing here?”
He sighed and dragged a hand down his face, suddenly appearing much more tired and resigned than he had a moment ago. “I wasn’t going to come back. You have the surgery thing and I made a mistake the other day, put too much pressure on you.”
She made a noise of protest, but he shook his head and put up his hand. “We’re not talking about that. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid ‘Alpine house’ and that you were going to do something stupid.”
Uh-oh. “And you came to try to stop me?”
He raised his eyebrows.
She cleared her throat. “It might be too late.”
He groaned and dropped his head against the wall. “Tell me what you did.”
She summarized her activities for him. When she got to the part about the window, Griff lifted her hand from where it rested on the floor between them. His fingers brushed lightly over the torn flesh where the top layer of skin was scraped away between her knuckles. They were starting to bruise. “Reese.”
“Little boo-boos. I’m fine.”
He looked at them more closely, apparently decided they could wait, and went back to the original topic. “What did you find?”
“It’s horrible.” She told him about the filming and the unsuspecting young woman coming tomorrow, and outlined her plan to put a stop to everything.
“Hell, no!” He was on his feet before she finished speaking. “The fact that you want to go film a porn flick is bad enough, but if you’re right about what they do afterward—”
“I don’t want to go film a porn flick,” she scoffed, rising to face him. “I want to go pretend to want to film a porn flick so I can figure out what’s happening up there, and who and where Big K is. It’s more important than ever that I do this.”
He glowered at her, and she could practically see his thought processes. Other people were being hurt, and he’d hate that, but he didn’t want her risking herself, physically or legally.
“I’ll be okay,” she assured him, stepping closer to him and taking his hand. The muscle in his jaw pulsed, but he wove his fingers between hers and held on. Warmth seeped into her. “I won’t let it get too far. I need Big K, Griff.”
“And what are you going to do when you find him?” he asked in a much calmer, but more intense, voice. “The police aren’t going to do anything. They have no evidence, and you won’t either. You can’t kill him.”
He said it with such conviction that Reese didn’t contradict him. No sense shredding his illusions. “I’ll deal with that when the time comes. But now, there’s this. For the first time, I’m glad for this electricity thing.”
It took an hour, but she convinced him.
Chapter Five
By the time Reese went to bed, she was too tired to think of Griff sleeping across the hallway or about the way they’d glossed over the kiss and everything that came after it. She left early for the bakery the next morning, avoiding awkwardness for a couple more hours. The familiar routine of stocking the baked-goods case and making coffee helped settle her for what would come next.
“Who had the half-caff nonfat latte?” she called to the jostling customers in front of the bakery case. A lock of hair fell over her eyes and she blew it back.
Kimmie pushed up to the counter, beaming. “Me! How could you forget?”
Reese smiled and handed it over. “Sorry.” She took a box of muffins Sarah slid over and passed th
em to a patiently waiting customer. “What are you so excited about?” she asked Kimmie while she rang up the next coffee order.
“I have an acting job! It starts tonight!” The young woman bounced, clutching her cup.
“That’s great! Good luck!” Reese passed out empty cups to a group of businesspeople. They trudged over for self-service on the other side of the room, and the line thinned out.
“You seem distracted, dear.” Mimsie Wallace leaned on her cane and set her usual bag of day-olds on the counter. Her faded blue eyes twinkled. “Might we hazard a guess as to the reason?”
“What?” Reese frowned, not following her until she gave a combination head-toss and eye-roll toward the line behind her. Reese looked where she’d indicated and spotted Andrew halfway back, typing something on his phone. Alarmed, she dropped her gaze before he caught her looking and zeroed in on the conversation.
Then she played dumb with Mimsie. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, dear, if I had a hunk like that trying to curry my favor, I’d probably ring up the wrong price, too.”
Reese stared at her.
“It’s only three-ninety-five, dear, not four.” Mimsie pointed to the total displayed on the screen.
Reese followed her finger, which brought Griff into her line of sight. Oh, that hunk. He’d somehow gotten his hands on a damp rag and was wiping down a table by the window, a pile of trash in his other hand. How long had he been here? He leaned over to pick up a crumpled napkin, and her mouth went dry. He had a really fantastic ass.
Mimsie cleared her throat. Reese snapped her attention back to the day-olds. “There are three more bagels in that bag than usual, Mim. So it’s four-ninety-five today. Sorry.”
The woman sighed and handed over a five-dollar bill. “It never ends, inflation.”
Reese laughed. “I’ll make sure to have a smaller bag for you tomorrow. You have a good day.”
A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) Page 8