Expose

by Danielle Girard

  “So the company name means dragonfly.”

  “Well, it relates to the dragonfly, yes,” she agreed, pointing back to the screen. “See that ring?”

  Hal saw it now, the dark shape in the gold. The bulbous head, the long narrow body, the thin, veil-like wings, more hinted at than actually shown. The tail had caught the light, almost hiding it, but as he studied the image, the end became apparent.

  “So this guy works for ANS Optera,” Hal said.

  “Yes,” she agreed, reaching for the computer again. “And I’ve spent an hour on their website. Look at the company logo I found.” She navigated to the company’s URL. “It’s changed a little now,” she said, clicking through the main page where the logo popped up—two interlocking cogs with arrows on either side. “But on the page announcing their IPO, they’ve got the original.” She clicked and then clicked again. “There.” The original logo had the same two interlocking cogs at the center, but rather than arrows on either side, a single dragonfly perched on the side of one of the cogs.

  The dragonflies. Aleena Laughlin. Whoever had killed her had to be related to this company. Hal rubbed his eyes, waking himself up.

  “That’s not all of it,” Schwartzman said. “Roger sent this, too. It’s the original seal of the Century Hotel.” She double clicked on another image, and Hal recognized the blurred image from the schematic map of the camera locations in the security room. The strange, rounded X’s in the center of the emblem were actually two dragonflies, their tales crossed.

  Hal jumped to his feet. “The penthouse.”

  “What?”

  “The security director told me that there are cameras everywhere in the hotel except the penthouse. The manager said he’d had it checked. He was lying . . . or protecting someone. He had to be.”

  “Hal,” Schwartzman said.

  “Hang on,” Hal grabbed his phone and read the text on his phone. No sign of Gordon. He found the hotel manager’s phone number and hit the button to dial. It rang once . . . twice. “Come on,” he whispered. “Pick up the phone.”

  He ended the call as it went to voicemail and dialed again. Finally, on the last ring, the manager answered. “Hello.”

  “It’s Inspector Hal Harris. Who normally stays in the hotel penthouse?”

  “I’m sorry? As I said—”

  “I know what you said. I’m asking who normally stays there.”

  “There’s no permanent resident,” the manager said through a yawn. “It’s maintained by the company who owns the hotel.”

  “Who owns it?”

  “The company is a Chinese conglomerate.”

  “ANS Optera?” Hal pressed.

  “Yes. They are the majority stakeholder.”

  “And who stays in the penthouse?”

  “Normally, the company’s CEO, but others as well—”

  “Who was there most recently?”

  “Mr. Bao was there, but, as I said, he’s left.”

  “Deming Bao,” Hal repeated. Of course. “When did he leave?”

  “I believe he left Thursday afternoon.”

  Hal clenched his teeth. “The day before I asked who was in the penthouse?”

  “Uh . . .”

  The owner of the hotel would have access to the penthouse elevators, the only ones without cameras. And he would have the ability to shut down the cameras on certain floors—so there would be no footage of him kidnapping a woman.

  Malcolm Wei had been held for almost a week after the stabbing. “Did you check that room? After we talked in the security room?”

  A pause, and the manager cleared his throat. “Mr. Bao assured me that it was empty.”

  “Mr. Bao assured you,” Hal repeated. Damn it. This was his own fault. Why the hell hadn’t he checked the penthouse himself? He’d been so wrapped up in getting through all the footage, and he had assumed the hotel manager would be telling the truth. What reason would he have to lie when there was a killer on the loose? “You told me the penthouse wasn’t occupied. But you never checked.” Hal fought to control himself. “A man was held in that room for a week.”

  “I’m sorry, Inspector. Mr. Bao is an owner of the hotel, and—”

  “He could have died,” Hal interrupted.

  The manager’s voice dwindled into a near-whisper. “My job is to safeguard the privacy of my clients and—”

  “My job is to catch a killer,” Hal said, a growl in his voice. “And if someone else gets hurt, you’re looking at three-to-five for obstruction of justice.”

  A small throat sound emerged from the manager, but Hal interjected before he could say anything else. “Where did he go? Bao? Where would he be heading?”

  “Back to China, I assume,” the manager said. “But he may still be in town. He left a list of maintenance issues with our front desk to address after the holidays.”

  “What maintenance issues?”

  “I didn’t read the list, but I believe there was a stretch of carpet that needed to be replaced and some stains on the marble—”

  “I’m hanging up,” Hal interrupted. “Don’t make a call. Don’t do anything until I call you back. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Hal dialed Dispatch and told them to get all available cars to the penthouse at Century Hotel. He would wait to find out if Deming Bao was there, but he had a bad feeling. He went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

  A few minutes later, Schwartzman walked in, tucking a shirt into her jeans.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Aren’t we going to the hotel?”

  “I’m waiting to hear if he’s still there. Plus,” he added, “you don’t need to come. You should—”

  “I’m coming,” she said. “And there’s something else. I was researching—”

  Hal’s phone rang. “Dispatch,” he said, and she nodded for him to take it. “Harris.”

  “Penthouse is empty,” the officer said.

  Damn it. “Get in touch with the Crime Scene Unit and have them send a team out there ASAP.”

  The phone to his ear, Hal leaned his head against the kitchen cabinet, the wood cool on his skin. Why hadn’t he thought of the penthouse earlier? The security tech had said that it was the one place in the hotel with no cameras. He smacked his hand against the counter. “Damn.” He shook out the hand, speaking into the phone again. “And get a message to the airlines and the private jet centers. Deming Bao does not get on any plane,” he said.

  “I’ll get in touch with air transportation,” the officer told him.

  Hal ended the call, still shaking out his hand.

  “You okay?” Schwartzman asked.

  “I jammed my finger,” he said, studying it for signs that it was broken. “What were you going to tell me?”

  “When I looked up dragonflies, I found a famous poem. Guess who wrote it.”

  But Hal barely heard her. His gaze was fixed on his own pinkie. Then he remembered.

  The pinkie ring on the professor. It was identical to the one on Tabitha Wilson’s abductor.

  How had he missed it?

  48

  The surface beneath Bitty was hard and sharp, the tiny blades cutting into her skin. She’d been dreaming of home, of her bed, but this wasn’t her home. She knew this room. This room smelled of something dank, like rotting lettuce and rust and the pungent smell of the ink. It burned in her nose, and she shuddered involuntarily.

  The ink.

  His ink.

  Her head pounded as her dreams melted away and reality resurfaced, hard and cruel. How many days had she woken on this surface? What was she lying on? She was raised several feet off the floor. Not a bed. Not the trunk of a car. More like a table. But what was under her? Pieces of something that cut and burned. Shifting against them only made it worse.

  Why was he holding her here? And what did he plan to do with her? Her mouth parched, she glanced around for the stale sandwiches and bottles of water he’d been leaving. But there was nothi
ng now.

  She shifted her elbows and tried to sit up. Her arms were bound together in front of her, attached to a chain around her waist. The heavy metal links dug into the skin on her hip bones, and the thick cuffs chaffed her wrists.

  She was so cold. Was this the same room? Or had he recreated his dungeon somewhere new? Just for her? She opened her eyes and saw him. Naked, he held a paintbrush in one hand. Smiling.

  Across his skin were the lashes, the burns. All those years ago, he had painted them, filled in the wounds with black and red, connecting their lines like a map of torture across his body.

  But the scars were bare now. He hadn’t painted them. The marks from the whip were red divots on his trunk, their ends meaty lumps where the flesh had been torn by the metal tip. The burns had turned a yellow-brown color, the layering of so many scars over one another. Even knowing what they were, she didn’t feel dread.

  The drugs made everything slow and soft, as though she watched some distant action through fog. Through the layers, she remembered his words from that night. How he had warned her not to scream, how he’d told her it would be easier if she lay still, unmoving.

  How she had bucked and fought against him that night, struggled to free herself, only to be back here. She had come to avenge their pain. Years of planning, and it was as if no time had passed at all. She was, once again, his captive.

  At the party all those years ago, he had confided in her. Poured her a drink and sat with her in the quiet study, telling her about those scars—about the whip, about the abuses of the other boys. He had drawn her in, and she’d sworn that she saw fear in his eyes. She’d believed that he was still there, feeling that whip.

  Until she’d woken in that basement.

  Now, he looked away from her, refocusing his attention on his paint and brush.

  She lifted her hands as far as the chain would allow and caught sight of the dark web across the white flesh of her breasts—shapes like Asian characters inked on her skin, the half scrawl of a signature, with its rounded curves and lines running down her side. She made out Germanic letters from the mass of symbols, but many made no sense to her.

  The same markings from that night.

  “We’re almost ready.” He leaned forward, and the smell of him washed over her. His sweat had the pungency of ammonia, his breath like onions and a spice she couldn’t name—some part nutmeg, some part cinnamon. She bucked out of the fog.

  She was suddenly alert and clear. She knew what was coming, and she had to stop it.

  “Wh—”

  Something filled her mouth, and she couldn’t speak. She tried to move her head and couldn’t more than a few inches.

  “Don’t you remember? There is no speaking unless you are spoken to,” he said. His voice reminded her of a snake. How had she forgotten that?

  His sayings. The things they’d said to him, he’d told her. The warnings of his youth.

  The words uttered in the moments before the punishment. Guttural and phlegmy, the language was foreign, but the sounds were all too familiar. They came right before the burns.

  She swung her arms across her body, trying to propel herself off the table. His brush swept across her elbow, then her shoulder. The drawing smeared on her skin.

  “Oh, Tabitha, you shouldn’t have done that.”

  He set down the paint can and his brush and lifted an implement off the table. From its shape, it might have looked like the top of an ornate fence. But she knew this style of weapon—its center point was a long dagger with two smaller daggers on either side, like a trident.

  Another of his weapons.

  A hissing came from beneath the table. When his other hand emerged into view, he held a small propane lighter. The blue flame wrapped around the silver tip of the metal, turning it a brilliant shade of red.

  He pulled the flame away, setting the propane lighter aside. His lips formed a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

  She screamed into the gag.

  Before she could fight, he pressed the weapon to her right foot. She struggled to pull away. Vomit rose in her throat, and she shuddered against the heat. Tears welled in her eyes and streamed down her face as he moved up her body. “That was nothing,” he whispered, the hiss of the propane lighter starting up again.

  He moved between her legs and put his hand on her thigh. His soft hand. “This is the lesson, Tabitha. Remember this one?” That’s what she had remembered when she’d introduced herself that night. How soft his hands were. How they would feel on her skin. On her face. On her thighs. She had wanted him.

  “To learn the lesson properly, you must be open.” The hand slid down toward her knee.

  She bucked and kicked against the restraints, tearing at the skin at her wrist and waist as she tried to loosen the chain. She locked her knees together, twisting to her side, struggling to fold herself far from the fire. Blood ran in rivulets across her hip as she fought the heavy metal chain. His face impassive, he worked with efficiency, as though about to brand a horse. He reached down and shifted a lever on the side of the table. Her right leg was pulled straight on the table. She fought but could not bend it.

  His hand gripped her thigh as she quivered under his cool touch. She cried out as the heat grew close. And then the hiss of the metal tip on her skin.

  The searing heat consumed her body, as though every bit of flesh were on fire. She tasted copper and tears, and a rush of electricity seared down her spine, locking her body into a rod.

  And then it ended.

  In her memories, this was when she’d heard the scream. A muffled, terrified scream.

  Tears made him disappear from her vision. She searched the silence for that scream.

  The voice she knew.

  Aleena.

  But Aleena was not here.

  She was alone. She saw her roommate, dead on the grass. Facedown, the niqab strewn beside her. “You killed her.”

  “You were coming after me,” he hissed. “Both of you.”

  He had been following Aleena? All these years? Why kill her now? Why on that night, when Bitty had come to meet her at the park?

  “I get an alert when you travel,” he said as though reading her mind. “Anytime you get on a plane, Tabitha Wilson.”

  She shuddered.

  “But you never did. Not once in all these years.” His lips curled back from his teeth in a predatory smile. “Until I’m due to speak at a conference. Months before my company is going public. I’m supposed to believe that was a coincidence?”

  The hiss started. It was coming again. She stiffened as his hand gripped her leg. The smell of burning hair, the searing pain across her feet. The hiss of steam as her flesh burned. The guttural release of his joy. The pressure intensified, and the burning spread until every inch of her caught on fire.

  And then everything was black.

  When she woke, the room was quiet. A corner had shifted enough to allow her to see the room. In the dim light, the wall beside her came into view, its concrete surface pocked with holes. Spiderwebs stretched in the corner above. On the floor beside her was a blue heap—a blanket like those used to pad furniture during a move.

  The police had come, all those years before. The owner of the home had let them in willingly. And they had found no evidence of crimes. Bengal had somehow erased everything, gotten away with it. For fourteen years, he had lived as a free man in the world. And he would continue to live free unless she stopped him.

  She felt wide awake. More awake than she’d been in fourteen years. The smells—heat and metal and rust and mothballs.

  She pulled against the restraints. The same heavy chain held her, restricting her movements. Across her back, the barbs tore at the skin as she shifted. She closed her eyes and moved slowly, focusing on the sensations on her back. She was not a drunk eighteen-year-old. She was a woman, a mother.

  She wasn’t invisible. For years, she had tried to be invisible, to hide from the horror of her experience, of being seen as he had see
n her. But it hadn’t worked.

  She felt a shift, a sense of coming full circle. Flat on her back, she held her hands in prayer position on her belly so that the metal cuffs fell loose on her arms. She let her legs splay open, the air a relief on the fresh burns. She ignored her own nakedness, let go of the voice that urged her to cover up, to hide.

  The chains no longer pulled, their metal cool against her skin. She drew in her breath, let the air into her lungs. As she breathed, the old panic dissipated like the smoke from a dying flame. Her mind cleared, as though the air around her was made of crystal, all of it honing and sharpening the light into a single point.

  It was meant to be this way.

  Finding Bengal on the internet, recruiting Aleena, and flying out. And then the deaths—Aleena, the man in the theater, the imposter in the hotel, the old woman in the basement . . .

  Those things had happened so that she could be back here.

  She stopped fighting, taking slow breaths until her pulse slowed.

  The roots of her hair tingled; the muscles in her shoulders went taut like the ropes that battened down a sail. The strength of her blood rushed in her veins, her pulsing heart drumming with oxygen as every breath fed her body, her mind. Her thoughts floated above her, and she let the words loose as she focused on the sensations.

  Not with fear, not to fight them, but to understand them.

  All the levels of pain in her body were no longer the enemy. They were a misinterpreted part of herself.

  The pulsing in the burns on her feet slowed to a dull throb and then became almost a second heartbeat, flowing through her toes, one by one. The searing pain cooled as though by a breeze.

  The barbs that lay beneath her shifted from long strands of barbed wire into dulled branches. The sharp things that had fastened her down all those years ago, that had made a hundred random cuts in her legs, were no longer metal hooks. Instead, the metal scent came from somewhere else. Rust on a pipe, the soft plop of water onto concrete, audible from the corner.