“Perjury’s as great an offence as obstruction. You could go to prison.”
“Get. Out.”
After they were gone, she stormed angrily into the bedroom and reviewed her phone messages. If Jarvis wanted to play hardball, she’d oblige him. She found the message she was looking for, and dialed the number.
When the woman answered, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This is Larissa Santos. You left several messages stating that you wanted to interview me. Is tomorrow convenient?”
CHAPTER 33
As Larissa fled through a thick gray mist, terror, grief, and loss were malevolent manifestations that loomed just beyond the edge of sight, pursuing her relentlessly through the night.
She awoke in tears minutes before the alarm clock was set to go off.
With the thought of Cheyenne uppermost in her mind, she took extra time styling her hair and applying her makeup, then slipped into a red sheath dress that always earned lots of compliments.
Jarvis claimed Chase had access to cable television in jail. Since she wanted him to see for himself that she was keeping her word, she’d chosen to meet with a cable-channel reporter, rather than one from one of the local stations. She’d arranged to meet in front of the salon, knowing Brendon would appreciate the free advertising.
When she arrived, the news satellite van was already there. She pulled her Corolla into a slot at the outer perimeter of the lot alongside the other employee cars and, with a hand that trembled only slightly, touched up her lipstick in the vanity mirror.
A throng of curious spectators had already gathered to watch technicians adjust lights. As she headed across the parking lot, there was a sudden clamor of voices as people spotted her. Stepping carefully to avoid tripping on the heavy cables that snaked across the blacktop, she made her way through the well-wishing crowd.
Her coworkers and several clients — including one who looked like a B-movie alien with dozens of folded squares of aluminum foil covering her entire head — had gathered in front of the salon. While a soundman attached a microphone to the neckline of Larissa’s bodice, Brendon caught her eye and gave her an eloquent what-the-hell-are-you-doing? look. She shrugged in silent reply.
Larissa stood in the bright glare of the television lights with the salon in the background. Eyes sparking with excitement, the pretty but serious-faced blonde reporter thanked her for consenting to the interview, then began by saying, “You survived a serial killer not once, but twice. How does that make you feel?”
“Extremely lucky to be alive, but deeply regretful that I didn’t kill him two years ago. If I had, those three women in California would still be alive.”
“Could you describe for us your five-day ordeal?”
“There’s really not much to tell. I was physically restrained in the van’s cargo compartment as we traveled cross country.”
“Are you acquainted with the suspect the FBI has in custody?”
“I viewed him in a line-up, at which time I made it clear that he is not the man who kidnapped me. I don’t know why the FBI is intent upon prosecuting the man for a crime he didn’t commit but, while an innocent man sits in jail, the real kidnapper is still running around free.”
A slight change came over the reporter’s demeanor. Although her face remained pleasantly earnest, a tone of skepticism entered her voice. “So you refute the FBI’s allegation that you’re lying to protect him.”
Larissa stifled a surge of annoyance. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. The man broke into my house, drugged me, and kept me tied up and gagged for days” — she raised her arms to the camera to show the faded bruises that still ringed both wrists — “before delivering me to a man who intended to torture me to death. Why would I protect such a man?”
“You and your abductor spent four nights in motels. Could you describe the sleeping arrangements?”
Larissa deliberately chose to misunderstand the question. “I slept handcuffed and fully dressed.”
“In bed?”
Crap. Even a blind person could see where this was leading. “Yes.”
“Where did your abductor sleep?”
Suppressing her anger, Larissa sidestepped the question. “I realize this interview would garner much higher ratings if I were to relate all the prurient details of how my kidnapper subjected me to endless perversions but — sorry — nothing like that ever happened.”
“How do you respond to speculations that a romantic relationship developed between the two of you.”
“I respond like this.” Larissa yanked the microphone from her bodice, pitched it to a crewman, and stormed toward the salon.
“Ms. Santos, please! Let’s finish the interview.”
Larissa fired back over her shoulder, “It is finished.” Brendon opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter, then blocked the reporter and cameraman from following.
She stalked through the empty salon and dropped into the chair at her station, heart thumping in her chest. Oh, crap. She’d made a huge mistake in arranging the interview. Not only had it not transpired as she’d hoped, Jarvis was going to be so pissed. But since she’d not appreciated the new, aggressive stance he’d taken with her, he could go screw himself.
* * * * *
Chase sat at the rear of the dayroom, his chair tilted back against the wall. Ignoring the incessant sound of the television and the clamor of overlapping voices, he tried to concentrate on the spy novel he was reading.
As he’d expected, Kavanaugh had been furious with him for meeting with the agents and had lambasted him for nearly ten minutes straight. But on the upside, the attorney had made some phone calls to Charleston and had subsequently assured him that Jarvis had not had Larissa arrested.
If Jarvis’ lie was any indication of the kind of gambits he was willing to employ, then it spoke to the strength of Larissa’s character that she’d not yet identified him. He felt a slow burn of anger at the thought of what she must be going through.
The physical discomforts of incarceration were nothing compared to the mental torments that plagued him. The absolute worst moment of his entire life had been when he’d returned to the estate to hear her terror-filled scream.
Consumed with an incessant rage against Sparrow, he deeply regretted that he’d not made the man suffer a prodigious amount of pain before killing him, not only for what he’d done to Larissa, but for what he’d done to his other victims as well. His only solace lay in knowing that Sparrow’s days of hurting women were over.
His rage wasn’t only directed toward Sparrow, though. He retained an equal amount for himself. Guilt stalked him like a predator, ready to pounce the instant he lowered his guard for, despite Larissa’s continual insistence that his client was going to kill her, he’d still delivered her to Sparrow. The image of her bruised and battered face was burned into his brain, every horrid detail etched into his mind’s eye with merciless clarity.
What if he hadn’t gone back?
He dreaded going to bed at night. What little sleep he managed was plagued by a kaleidoscoping cornucopia of nightmares — grisly, terrifying, gut-wrenching scenes that featured Larissa hanging limp and bloody from a wooden cross. Every night he bolted awake on his narrow cot, drenched in sweat and battling the blanket that covered him.
Apparently sensing his barely suppressed rage, the other inmates tended to give him a wide berth, for which he was grateful, since something as simple as a cross look or an ill-chosen word might upset some delicate balance and compel him to commit an act of supreme stupidity.
The cruel things he’d said to her that last night at the motel played through his head on an endless loop. And as if the bitter self-recrimination wasn’t enough, he kept flashing back to that evening when the agents had put them together in the interrogation room, and she’d hissed at him, “You bastard. I wish I’d shot you.” In retrospect, he concurred that she should have done exactly that, but it didn’t lessen the pain any.
“Yo, O’Malley! Check it out. Yo’ woma
n’s on TV again!”
Ah, Jesus. He lowered the book and raised his gaze to the television suspended high on the wall. Cheyenne’s face filled the screen.
“Goddamn!” one of his fellow inmates exclaimed, twisting in his seat to gaze back at Chase. “That really yo’ woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck me.”
Apparently unconcerned that he might spend the rest of his life in prison, Cheyenne was making the most of the situation, clearly relishing the attention his misfortune had brought her. “This whole thing is just so crazy,” she was saying in that nasal Brooklyn accent of hers. “He’d never do anything like that. I mean, why would he kidnap that woman when he’s got me?”
If, despite all his warnings, she slipped and said his name, he’d put his fist through a fucking wall.
The first time she’d come to the jail to visit him, local news crews had already been here, awaiting her arrival. Since she’d been dressed to the nines, with her makeup clearly professionally done, he’d assumed she’d placed an anonymous call to inform them of her impending visit. Naturally, she’d graciously granted them all interviews.
She’d asked him if he’d committed the crime for which he was being held and, of course, he’d had no choice but to deny it. She’d seemed to accept his answer, but he wasn’t sure if he should attribute this to her however misguided faith in him, or to the fact that she was too self-centered to care one way or the other.
Now, here she was on the national news, inappropriately garbed in a designer dress that probably cost more than most people made in a year. Leaving no aspect of her skinny frame to the imagination, the neckline plunged nearly to her pubic bone and revealed an inordinate amount of surgically enhanced breasts.
Larissa would never wear such a risqué outfit in public.
Besides the obvious, what the fuck had he ever seen in Cheyenne? Well, actually, he knew the answer to that. Ever since Michelle had hurt him so deeply, he’d been careful to pursue only women he knew he’d never fall in love with. The solitary life had seemed to suit him and so his strategy had served him well. At least until he’d met Larissa.
While Cheyenne was still speaking, he tilted his chair back on two legs against the wall and attempted to return his attention to the book. The sound of the television gradually receded as he replayed his mental tape of their last night together. Jesus, he’d never felt anything to equal what he’d experienced as he’d made love to her. And “made love” was the only way it could be described, even though, afterwards, she’d claimed she’d faked everything.
Looking back on the situation, he knew she probably had. But … he’d felt the rhythmic tightening of her body around his cock when she’d cried out in apparent orgasm. Of course, she could have deliberately tightened her muscles in order to fool him. Could anyone fake passion that well? Well, yes, they could. After all, self-preservation was a powerful motivator.
Had the attraction really been completely one-sided?
His reminiscings were so vivid that, when her voice with its sultry southern accent obtruded into his consciousness, he at first thought he was imagining it. Then he realized it was originating across the dayroom.
Sweet Jesus, Larissa was on television.
Eyes glued to the screen, he crossed the room in a daze. He couldn’t see her eyes due to the sunglasses she wore but — oh, Jesus — she was even more beautiful than he remembered. And sexy as hell, with succulent red lips in the same shade of red as the dress that skimmed her curves.
Off to his side, someone asked, “That the woman you kidnapped?”
“I didn’t kidnap anyone,” he absently responded.
“Damn, she’s fine, too.”
“Shut up,” he barked. “I’m trying to hear what she’s saying.”
The reporter was asking, “Are you acquainted with the man the FBI has in custody?”
Chase wondered what had happened to make her suddenly decide to speak to the press but, as she began lambasting the FBI’s handling of the case, he realized it probably had something to do with Agent Jarvis.
When the reporter suggested she was lying to protect her kidnapper, Larissa’s eyes narrowed and her chin rose defiantly, a gesture with which he was achingly familiar. When she denied the allegation, pointing out that her kidnapper had delivered her to a man who intended to torture her to death, he involuntarily winced.
The reporter began asking increasingly leading questions, which Larissa responded to without actually answering. However, when the reporter suggested the possibility of a romantic relationship with her abductor, she angrily ended the interview.
A moment later, the scene switched abruptly to another location, and Jarvis’ dark face filled the screen. A different reporter asked him why the Bureau was keeping the unnamed suspect in jail, when several of his friends had alibied him and the victim herself was adamant that they had the wrong man in custody.
“We have three witnesses that put Ms. Santos tied up and gagged in the back of the suspect’s vehicle, and all three picked the suspect out of a line-up.” Since Jarvis did not refer to him by name, the FBI apparently knew that without Larissa’s testimony, their case against him was weak.
When the news moved on into sports, his fellow inmates occupied themselves by arguing over which of the two women was the hottest. More or less equally divided, half were going for flashy, tall, blond, and huge-breasted, while the other half argued vociferously for classy, curvy, brunette, and sultry-voiced.
There was absolutely no doubt in Chase’s mind as to which one he preferred.
* * * * *
From the front of the salon, Brendon called, “Larissa, hurry! You’re on next!”
Stylists and customers jostled one another as they hurried toward the front counter. When Larissa calmly continued cutting Ms. LaRue’s hair, the middle-aged woman caught her eyes in the mirror. “Don’t you want to see yourself on TV?”
“Not especially.”
“Well I do, honey.” Heaving her bulk from the chair, she took Larissa firmly by the arm and steered her across the salon.
Brendon pulled her to the front of the crowd jockeying for position before a portable television and whispered, “The phone’s ringing off the hook with people clamoring for appointments. Have I told you lately how much I love you?”
“At least something good has come of all this publicity.” Larissa stiffened when Cheyenne’s face unexpectedly filled the small screen. Why was she on the news? She wasn’t involved in any of this.
“He’d never do anything like that,” Cheyenne was saying. “I mean, why would he kidnap some woman when he’s got me?”
Beside Larissa, Damon muttered, “What a conceited bee-otch,” to a murmur of agreement.
Brendon gave her a quick glance, then slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re much prettier than her.”
She gave him a tired smile. “It’s not even about that.”
He gave her a squeeze. “I know. But she looks like a whore in that dress she’s almost wearing.”
Cheyenne was dressed inappropriately, but every single straight man watching, including Chase, was sure to be drooling.
“And,” Brendon added, “she sounds just like Fran Dresher.”
“But with a face and breasts like that, what man’s going to notice?”
When Larissa finally came on the screen, Damon elbowed her in the side. “Damn, girlfriend, you are très telegenic.”
Although the camera actually was somewhat flattering, it also added back on the ten pounds she’d recently lost. She knew she was too thin but, compared to Cheyenne, she looked downright pudgy. Oh, god, life sucked.
* * * * *
When Larissa pulled up in front of her house that evening, a black SUV was idling at the curb. Jarvis slid from the driver’s seat and, dispensing with the usual pleasantries, opened the vehicle’s rear door and barked, “Get in.” The temptation to advise him to go screw himself was nearly overwhelming but, if she refused to co
mply, he might arrest her. Not meeting his eyes, she slid into the back seat, and he slammed the door behind her.
As they headed across town, neither Jarvis nor Harris had anything to say, and she obstinately refused to ask where they were going. If they thought she was going to apologize for talking to the reporter, they were sadly mistaken, and she was not taking any freaking lie detector test.
Then another possibility wormed its way into her consciousness. What if they were arresting her? Jarvis had threatened to charge her with obstruction of justice. The insidious fear that they were taking her to jail began to grow inside her like a tumor. Before long, her heart was triphammering as it became glaringly apparent that the jail was exactly where they were heading.
How much would the bail be for a charge like obstruction of justice? What if she couldn’t cover the percentage that a bail bondsman would charge? Would she cave in and identify Chase, in order to free herself? She wanted to believe the answer was no, but there was no way she could sit in jail for the next who-knew-how-many months. She’d lose everything, including her house. As they approached the jail, she struggled to fight back tears.
Damn you, Jarvis.
And damn you too, Chase, for getting me into this mess.
Was she the moron the agents clearly believed her to be? Despite her self-denial, was she really suffering from Stockholm syndrome? Chase had drugged and kidnapped her. Should she break her promise to him and just go ahead and tell the truth?
The SUV rolled past the jail and stopped at a red light at the next intersection. The light changed and Jarvis headed straight through the intersection. At the next intersection, he again continued on straight, and when they were a half dozen blocks past the jail, she glanced up to find his eyes in the rearview mirror, watching her.
Bastard.
As they headed into North Charleston, the worst of her fear faded, although a sense of uneasiness remained as a small tense knot in the pit of her stomach.
Jarvis eventually pulled into the parking lot of an indoor shooting range. Larissa had actually spent many hours at this very range, first with the little Smith & Wesson, then with the Browning, familiarizing herself with both weapons and improving her accuracy.
The Heart Has Reasons Page 33