“We’ll put the matter to rest with this and start fresh,” he said at last—without the cruelty or the chilling edge. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet.
“Yes, sir. And thank you, sir.” Her gratitude was plain to see, and it tugged his heart. But there was something more about her. What had been left unsaid still hung in the air waiting for its turn to speak, and even now, after all the punishment, she seemed wary and vulnerable when on any other occasion like this she would have been relishing the erotic aftermath.
Minutes later, they slipped into the starry night and drank in the cold, clear air, walking silently back to the house.
Once inside again, Daniel sent Lisle upstairs to take a bath, while he took a moment to speak with Albert in his study. The smell of cigar smoke drew him in and he looked forward to a belt of Scotch. Abigail was sitting at her husband’s side with her knitting.
Albert looked up when Daniel appeared in the doorway. “Matter settled?”
“Not entirely, but at least we cleared the air from the last bout of bad behavior.”
Daniel had spoken with Albert about the girl on several occasions over the previous months. He provided a perfect sounding board for his concerns. He knew about her puzzling past, about the strange adaptations she made while in Daniel’s house, and how she’d become—at least to some degree, as yet unknown—the possible center of a baffling internet mystery. While Daniel was mired in his dilemma over what to do with the girl, Albert had seen clearly what the situation required—although no more clearly than his own wife.
“And Lisle? Where’s she now,” Abigail asked as she continued with her knitting.
Daniel sat down opposite the two. “Taking a bath I hope.”
“She’s such a gentle soul,” Abigail added.
“Sometimes I’m not so sure of that. She can be quite the actress. She’s a lot tougher than you think and she’s got a stubborn streak miles wide.”
“Of course she’s tough—and stubborn. That’s what she needed to survive, my dear. Imagine, being raised by deceitful men with foully tainted motives, including one who just happened to share the essence of her darkest secrets and found a way to use it for his self-serving ends. She would have to be tough to survive the Baron for so many years under those conditions. I’ll bet she was once so smitten with him that she couldn’t see the truth for all the pretty lies he fed her. That’s a bad place for a submissive female. I met him once. He had the perfect blend of charisma and authority to seduce any sub-leaning female. But beyond that, there was nothing. The man had no soul.” Never had Daniel heard Abigail Pennock sound so cold. Coming from a woman known for being non-judgmental and compassionate this was the most damming indictment of the Baron’s character that he’d heard so far. It was clear she was quite passionate about the subject of Lisle and the Baron. “Poor thing has become a whirling dervish of desire and need and fantasy—with nothing to ground her, nothing substantial to cling to. The fact that she doesn’t think straight or know her own mind isn’t surprising.”
“Those are strong words, Abby,” Daniel remarked when she finished.
“Meant to be,” she didn’t change her tone. “I hope you’ve heard me clearly.” She sounded almost patronizing now—something he would tolerate from few people—Abigail being one of the few.
“You’ve said enough, wife,” her husband shot off a crisp rebuke, “leave the man be.” He handed Daniel a drink and a cigar.
The cigar Daniel pocketed, the Scotch he downed in a single gulp. “We’ll have a smoke later,” he said.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Albert replied.
“You know Lisle and I do talk about these things,” Daniel directed the remark at Abigail. “More than you likely think.”
“Well, she needs more,” the woman pressed her point, “maybe a whole lot more. You’ve got to keep nudging it out of her—hopefully before she explodes on you again. No telling what’s still bottled up inside her. You ease the pressure on that, she won’t be lashing out or lying or hurting herself.”
Although he knew all this, hearing Abigail say it so forcefully only confirmed what he knew he needed to do.
“You probably beat her pretty soundly, Daniel. Go to her now,” she urged, her tone turning conciliatory, “she’ll need you.”
Daniel didn’t like people needing him—especially to walk through the dangerous territory of emotions and grief and human passion that were still uncomfortable for him. “Yes, she will,” he acknowledged. He was resigned to that. Though he didn’t welcome needing to pander to the girl’s fragile state of mind, he would do it as he had before. Being ‘the rock’ in her life was something that he didn’t even question anymore.
He rose to leave, and giving his hosts a nod, he walked to the door. As he passed by Abigail, she took his hand. “You know, Daniel, you two look right together, like you belong with each other.” She lifted her brows and smiled warmly. This was something Val or Alice might have said. A female thing, he supposed. And yet there was a rightness about the whole blasted arrangement with Lisle that everyone saw. Any more, he didn’t want to deny it; it felt right to him, too.
Chapter Thirteen
New Confessions
Daniel found Lisle in their room, sitting on the floor, drawing in her sketchbook. Her attention was so riveted on the drawing that she hadn’t noticed he was standing by the bed.
“You going to let me see what you’re drawing?” he asked.
She looked up dazed. “Sorry, sir.”
“The drawing? You going to let me see it?”
She stared at him blankly, pushing the tablet deeper into her lap. “Well, yeah, I guess. If you insist,” she said with some reluctance. She may have agreed but as she spoke she only pushed the tablet deeper into her lap. Still intensely protective of her miniature art, she clung to it so tightly that Daniel had to smile.
He waved her off. “Don’t worry about,” he chucked, “I don’t want to insist,” and he dropped the matter. Moving to the desk he turned on the computer and waited for the machine to boot. He watched Lisle from the corner of his eye, and noted that the longer he ignored her, the more anxious she became. Just as he was about to sit down and work his way through the computer security, he saw her arrange the sketchbook and pencils in a neat stack then push them under a decorative table. Moving to her feet she began strolling about the room looking absently at the paintings and the simple items that decorated the room. She remained silent, but tentative, like the girl who slipped sight unseen through his house at night. Though he could sense that her attention was aimed at him, she was secretive about it, observing and waiting, saying nothing, as if she hoped he would speak first. He almost sniped at her for the restless vacillation. As he suspected when the woodshed punishment ended, she was still troubled about something, and that troubling something was bothering her now, so much so that any relief she might have felt after the woodshed scene had vanished. And now, her fidgety behavior was having an effect on him as the tension in the room fired up again.
Finally she sat on the bed and stared in his direction, not stopping until he finally looked her way.
“Something you need to say, Lisle?” he blurted out.
“Uh, yes sir, there is…” very long pause, “I think I may have done something very bad.” Her face was ashen, her voice thin, her entire body trembling.
He turned in the chair and stared right at her. “What did you do, Lisle?”
“I—I put the site up, Brauer’s website.”
“Brauer’s website? I didn’t know he had one.”
“He did. He used it to acquire, sell and trade slaves,” she spoke very quietly, forcing out words that were hard for her to say. “I didn’t know that at the start. I thought it was just a porn site for the very rich. I learned the truth much later. The Baron had me take it down about two weeks before he died—said something about leaving unfinished business. He told me to destroy it.”
“And you didn’t?”<
br />
“Yes, I did. But there were copies, although what I put back online was only a small fraction of the entire thing.”
He was befuddled now and alarmed. “Lisle, why on earth do a thing like that?”
“I was afraid, sir.”
“Of what?”
She twisted a bit uncomfortably. “I-I ah…I know a lot more than you think I do about your investigation, and the computer and the Baron’s slave trade and a lot of other things…”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I thought I might be able to destroy the on-line network.”
“Destroy what online network? You mean the Baron’s slave trade?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What prompted this?”
“I had a feeling there was someone coming after me—I can’t explain it. And I honestly had no proof. It’s just what I felt. Maybe,” she cocked her head, shrugging, “maybe because you suddenly seemed to be so involved in what you found in the computer. I knew where it could lead.” She looked at the box of whirring computer chips with more disdain than she did affection—in fact, she flashed the thing a contemptuous glare as if it weren’t a thing at all, but human.
“Exactly where could it lead, Lisle?” he probed, while trying to suppress the urgency he felt. The feverish emotions he’d been dwelling on all day seemed to take a backseat, replaced by the curiosity and concern he felt now.
She had a tough time answering, so tough that when she didn’t answer at all, he filled in the blank with a worrisome thought that had been troubling him for some days.
“How many people knew about your computer abilities other than the Baron?”
The question took her by surprise. “Oh no one! I swear!”
“You’re sure of that?”
She paused, wanting to answer with the same certainty as before, but she sat back and thought a moment. “He said this was our secret. Our secret,” she pled his case with some ferocity. “He wouldn’t have lied to me about that.”
“Maybe not. But what makes you think you could trust him?”
She considered this for a moment, her eyes darting nervously about the room as if the answer might suddenly materialize out of the bed, or the hand-hooked rug, or the pretty yellow drapes. She finally settled back on him and said with little emotion, “Of course, you’re right. I had no reason to trust him, other than my own need to. He could have told a lot of people.” She looked dejected—but hardly devastated.
“You suspected you were going to be sold—that’s what the Baron would have in mind for an unmarked, unblemished slave. You already had that figured out. But it’s not a sex slave your pursuers are after, is it? It’s a little computer geek who’s got a gift for making her way around the internet, passing through security walls, sight unseen—and whatever other talents you’ve been imbued with. All of which makes you one valuable, and very hot commodity in a black market world that needs smart minds like yours to do the dirty work. Whether it’s true or not, I suspect that there are a lot of thugs out there who would like to use your expertise to continue their crimes. And if it’s not possible, to rein you in? You’d have to be neutralized for what you know that could end their scheme and put them in prison.”
A look of alarm registered on her face. “Oh, god no!”
“Yes, Lisle. That’s what men like that do.”
“You think they’re close to finding me?”
“I have no idea. But one thing is sure, uploading that website signaled to anyone looking for you that you are real, you’re still on-line and you’re still out there somewhere needing to be found.”
“But they have no proof that I put the site up.”
“They don’t need proof. The site says enough just being there. No matter who put the thing on-line, the fingers are going to point to someone close to the Baron—especially if the Baron let it leak out that he had a slave running his online domain.” He shook his head. “Why? Why did you put yourself at risk?”
“I didn’t think I was at risk,” she rushed to her defense, acting more agitated than she had since the discussion began. “I thought it would be easier to draw them out than let them hide in wait until we’re both unaware. If I drew them out, you might see them, too, and know where to find them.” She was grasping at straws to explain. “I don’t think they’re all that smart.”
“That’s one crazy supposition, girl.” His anger was rising again. “And how silly of you to do something as dangerous as this and say nothing to me.”
She sank back chagrinned. “I guess I should have. I tried. I wanted to. But the master always told me to guard my secrets well. Tell no one, no one.”
So smart, but so gullible and so naïve! he silently fumed. He moved to the bed, sat down and took her by the shoulders, feeling her slender body quake beneath his hands. He wanted to be gentle but it wasn’t in him and his message came out like a harsh rebuke. “The Baron is dead, Lisle! You and I are alive, and that’s what we need to care about. Tell me the truth about what you’re doing with that site, all of it, and don’t you dare leave anything out, no matter how sacred it would be to your lofty Baron.” He could have shaken her but instead he dropped his hands and backed off.
She gulped, snuffing back her rising tears. “There’s really no magic about it. I hopped the site around from place to place, creating a new identity every time it went back up. I was very careful not to stay too long in one place before I took it down and moved on.”
“And this was supposed to lure the bad guys out of hiding, and I’m supposed to find them how?”
She squirmed for several seconds like a sparrow in a hawk’s mouth. Her face contorted, painfully grimacing as she struggled with something that was still not right inside her mind. Daniel could feel her turmoil, the confusion, the upheaval, as if her life were finally twisting from the grasp of the man who still held sway over her even as that man was rotting in his grave.
“What are you not telling me, Lisle?” Though he spoke more softly now, his words lost none of the intensity he felt.
From the muddled mayhem in her mind she finally plucked the words that made it plain to him. “I really wasn’t expecting you to find anyone, sir. I planned to take care of the problem on my own. Since it was me they were after, I decided to handle it my way—the only way I knew. I danced around like the flitting bird I am, hiding out on-line where I couldn’t be seen until I finally hit a mark. The old players couldn’t stop themselves from looking—they’re such hopeless voyeurs—even when there was chatter going around that there was a black widow tagging victims.” She spoke directly, without any of the timid mannerisms that often accompanied her speech.
“And when one of your ‘marks’ popped up on the site?”
“Once they logged in, I set up a link and searched their computer to get a clear picture of who they were and what they were after. I looked for any vulnerability I could find. You’d be surprised what things people leave openly exposed to even the most casual hacker. I wiped out one trader’s numbered bank account—he was really stupid leaving the doorway open for that. Another couple had tons of illegal material, images mostly. I alerted the proper authorities, sent plenty of documentation, all anonymous of course. The police did the dirty work—arrests were made, perpetrators are in jail. I’m satisfied. Others weren’t as easy to take down. Some I fed misleading information, which would foul up their plans—they didn’t know who to trust. I discredited sources, cast suspicions on others, moved funds around just to mess with their heads. Anything I could do that would compromise their black market network, I did. For the ones with the airtight security—which is never really airtight—I didn’t waste my time trying to break into their system. I just neutralized them and moved on.”
“Neutralized how?”
“I set off a virus in the mark’s computer. A particular malicious one that goes to the heart of the computer infecting every important system. It can work like a Trojan and stay dormant for months, though I tend t
o act fast and get out quick so they weren’t dormant long. I wanted the job done before scans and security systems discovered the virus. My little handmade gem destroys the computer, all the systems, all the programs, all the files. Nothing is left to retrieve. Not a scrap of data. By the time my gift has spent about 15 seconds on a computer, it might as well be taken out and thrown in a dumpster.”
The more she explained, the more impressed he was by her genius. “How many victims so far?”
“Seven—eight if I count the first one, when I was still figuring out what I wanted to do. I could have done a better job with that bastard, but he was only a minor player as far as I could tell. There’s only one I’m really worried about who hasn’t shown up yet—although I imagine there could be more. That’s why I had to get back into the computer, why I broke into the cabinet. I guess I’m not as good at picking locks as I am at hacking.”
Daniel studied her face while he took in what she just confessed. Questions flooded into his mind until he had to shout them back to make them stop. He sat back trying to understand what this meant. Worry taking hold, he got up and paced the room. He looked out the windows. He even looked back to the girl again, wondering why this hadn’t been clear to him before. “I’ve underestimated you,” he finally said.
“Yes. But probably not as much as you think right now,” she replied.
“Really? I wonder if I know you at all?” He posed the question seriously. “Or is this, the straight talking, savvy computer genius talking to me now the real Lisle? Is all that subbie posturing, all the shy, fearful and confused Lisle just an act?”
“Oh no, I swear, it’s no act. The girl I’ve been in your house is no imposter. None of that is pretend. The computer geek…she’s the anomaly.” She shook her head, adamant as she’d ever been. “The real me is a mess. When I’m living in my geek world I transport myself into an altered state where I’m highly functional and clear thinking. Once I’m out of there,” she briefly glanced at the computer,” once I lose focus, I can go down the crazy road so fast it would make your head spin. You’d think that all my computer time would contribute to my sanity. But as soon as I think I have some confidence about myself, I lose it; I break down at my core—and then you never know what’s going to happen. I never know—” she looked up sheepishly, “well, I guess you do know… coloring on walls and spreading flour over the kitchen…” As she spoke about her fractured psyche, her voice softened and the fragile Lisle emerged—which only proved the point she was trying to make. She’d begun to shake like a brittle teacup, and had to hold herself with her arms crossed in front of her, her hands clinging to her shoulders.
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