Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 2)

by Ciara Christie

  “So what do you call kidnapping an innocent woman? Killing two other people and almost killing Michael?”

  “I call it vengeance,” he said.

  “Against who? Michael? For what?”

  “For killing the girl I loved.”

  My jaw fell slack.

  “Yes,” he said and his voice cracked at the edges. “The next time you see Michael, ask him about Catherine X and how she died. He drowned her, Alice. With his bare hands. Snuffed out her life and her talent because she spurned him for me.”

  Bile rose up into my throat. I swallowed hard. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?”

  “I know Michael, he wouldn’t do that.”

  Barret smiled. “But I see in your eyes, Alice, the revulsion of a truly unforgivable crime,” Jonathan said. “You may love Michael, but you will never trust him. And that will be my revenge on Michael Maddox.”

  Sinclair cleared her throat.

  Barret nodded. “Bring me Michael Maddox in person or Emily dies in exactly twenty four hours from now.” He disconnected the call.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “The caves of Padirac,” Barret said. “Buy two tickets and take the elevator to the underground lake. From there board a gondola. You’ll be contacted once you set sail. Understand?”

  “What do I tell Michael?”

  “Tell him Catherine sends her love. He’ll understand.”

  I nodded. Barret, Sinclair and Sui Lee left me alone in the church.

  I fell to my knees at the altar. I’d never had use for prayer in my life since Emily and I were orphaned so many years ago. But now, I prayed like I’d never prayed before.

  THIRTY

  Alice’s Journal

  I drove the SUV under the archway of trees towards the farmhouse. I was filled with confusion on how exactly I would get Michael to agree to an exchange with Emily. Surely after Barret got what he needed, he wouldn’t allow Michael to live. A knot in my stomach tightened.

  I parked inside the barn. There was no sign of Michael.

  I went into the house and called out, “Michael?”

  No answer.

  I went up to my room and found a beautiful yellow silk sundress laid out neatly on the bed. At first I thought of it as some kind of peace offering by Michael. Then my mind cast back to the art gallery. To one of the paintings by Catherine X. Of the girl in the yellow dress.

  What does it mean?

  One thing was for sure, it was too hot even for jeans and a t-shirt. I stripped off and showered. The hot pummeling jets of water reawakened memories of the exquisite thrusting of Michael’s hard cock inside me. My nipples responded and stiffened with a blissful ache.

  It was too much to bear.

  I changed the shower settings to cold and muffled my screams with my hands as the icy water stung my hot skin. When I couldn’t stand the icy needles anymore I turned off the shower and reached for a towel. I dried myself and walked back into the bedroom where I found on a chair a selection of lacy and silk underwear in my size.

  I was sure they hadn’t been there when I first returned from the village.

  I chose a pair in white and then slipped on the dress. It zipped up at the back and was awkward at first until I found a wire coat-hangar to zip me up successfully.

  From the bedroom window I spotted someone in the lavender fields as the sun began to set below the burnt orange and pink clouds.

  Bare foot I ventured outside and headed towards the rows of lavender. I found a man’s cotton shirt discarded over a lavender bush. A little further on as the field swept around a bend I found him. There he was, standing bare chested with his back to me, facing the sunset. As I approached I watched the sun force beads of fresh perspiration down the center of his strong V-shaped back.

  He wore a pair of jeans tight around his ass that sent an unwelcome flicker of lust through me.

  I concentrated on what I needed from Michael. He must have heard my bare feet on the warm sun bleached gravel as he turned to face me. He allowed a faint smile to etch across his face. My heart skipped and the knot in my stomach tightened further.

  I tried to push away the torrent of thoughts questioning the man I thought I knew. On the tip of my tongue was the question: did you kill Catherine?

  It was too much to hold back. “Michael, I need to know something.”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “Please, Alice, allow me to say something first.”

  I sighed and nodded.

  “I thought long and hard about what you said earlier,” he said. “You were right.”

  “I was?” I racked my mind about what he could possibly mean. He was so certain of himself earlier, but equally now as well. I stood inches from him and jutted out my jaw as I looked deep into his challenging eyes.

  “I was right about what exactly, Michael?”

  “Sometimes one person means more than the whole world,” he said. “You mean more to me than anyone alive today. So I’ll do it.”

  My heart thundered. The knot in my stomach felt so intense I was ready to double over and vomit. I closed my eyes. “You’ll do what?”

  “I’ll give myself up to Barret.”

  I felt my eyes pop open wide and my breath catch in my chest. “But why?”

  He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  My mind reeled with the revelation. Bile rose up into my throat and I swallowed hard. “You’ll agree an exchange for Emily?”

  His smile broadened. “Is it so hard to believe?”

  “Yes,” I blurted out and felt myself ensnared by those magical green eyes. Pools so deep and wondrous I could lose myself in them. And that was terrifying because with each passing moment it was something I needed more and more.

  “No,” I said, “I mean...”

  I felt his lips on mine and his hard cock through his jeans pressing deep into my stomach. I reached behind his back and dug my fingernails deep into his naked shoulders.

  I pulled my face away and gasped for breath. “Oh, Michael, you don’t know what you’re saying...”

  He silenced my protest with frantic soft and sensual circling kisses up and down my neck. My hands reached up and gripped his hair.

  “Take me,” I said with a painfully dry and throaty groan. “Make love to me.”

  As our lips locked together in mutual lust once again, his hands deftly unzipped my dress. He scooped me up into his arms and laid me down amongst the lavender bushes. I unzipped his stiff yearning cock from the prison of his jeans and pushed them down over his hard bare buttocks.

  He pushed aside my white underwear and entered me hard and fast.

  I cried out with the sensation of a man who seemed to know he was taking me with his last and greatest act of love in this world. I couldn’t get enough of his powerful thrusts. My fingernails scratched down his naked shoulders, along his spine and deep into his firm and powerful thrusting buttocks.

  All the while we made love, our eyes stayed locked together. As we made love under the dying sunset, I felt myself needing him to remain inside me forever. That way we’d remain blissfully trapped in one perfect moment and I’d never again have to step outside of this time bubble. I’d never have to face the future as it hurtled towards us like a burning meteorite.

  With his eyes locked on mine he cried out, “I love you, Alice.”

  Instinctively I turned my face away, I couldn’t bear the shame of letting him die for me. He turned my face back to his and bit my lip until I cried.

  Uncontrollably my inner muscles clamped his hard cock tight, squeezing him over and over until he shot his seed inside me. Gasping for breath I held his head against my heaving breasts. I ran my hands up and down his trebling body.

  He wasn’t going anywhere. I needed him in my life. It was then I knew I had to find a way to save Michael as well as Emily. But even then I knew it was hopeless.

  This was our last night together. He pulled up his jeans and scooped me up in his arms
. He carried me back to the farmhouse.

  His gaze no longer locked on mine. But far off with the distance horizon. He was lost to me. I knew I’d found true love, only for it to slip through my fingers.

  His look said it all. He was going to die for me. And there was nothing I could do to stop him.

  THIRTY ONE

  Alice’s Journal

  I dialed Robyn’s cell phone.

  It went to voicemail. “Robyn, it’s Alice. I need your help and I think it might be too late. Barret kidnapped my sister Emily. He wants to exchange her for Michael Maddox. He agreed. The exchange takes place at midday tomorrow at the Gouffre de Padirac.”

  What more could I say? It was probably too late for Robyn and her people to catch a flight and I knew from the incident in Paris that there was no way I was going to risk Emily’s life by trusting the police.

  That evening I cooked and we ate in silence. I went to sleep in his arms, but I felt him leave the bed in the night and not return until it was time to head out.

  We had a five and a half hour journey along the A75 ahead of us. We started before dawn.

  Michael filled the silence by playing sombre sound scape music on the car’s sound system. It seemed to match our moods with that of the mountainous countryside. Thick with swirling mist, we knew the mountains were there as their peaks occasionally broke through the suffocating blanket. It felt as if something enormous and hidden was waiting for us. Urging us to make a mistake on the road and plummet off the edge and into the dark abyss.

  We arrived before ten. The tourists had yet to arrive. The tourist officials told us we were the first. Michael bought tickets. The air became thick with the heat of the early morning sunshine.

  To call the site a cave was to fail to understand its terrifying majesty. It was in fact a giant sink hole. The ceiling had collapsed many hundreds of years ago. It had exposed an underground system of caves.

  Michael leaned over the edge and looked straight down the hundred meter sheer drop as if it was mesmerizing him.

  “Gouffre de Padirac,” Michael said. “How aptly named.”

  “Gouffre?”

  “It means abyss,” he said.

  I looked around for Robyn. There was no sight of her.

  Our only options to enter the caves involved either the elevator ride for a hundred meters or an exposed sequences of staircases.

  I opted for the elevator. We stepped in and the doors closed in on us.

  “Into the abyss we go,” Michael said with a grimace.

  When we stepped out of the elevator I was hit by a wall of cold air. Normally it would be a welcome relief after the intense heat on the surface. But it just felt like death. We followed a path that came out into a vast cave and an emerald lake that seemed to glow as if we had entered another realm.

  Moored up on a wooden jetty was a row of gondolas more befitting the Venetian canals than an underground lake system. We climbed into the first boat and sat low in the water.

  “Are we the first?” I asked the boatman.

  “Another set out earlier,” the boatman said. “Should be returning soon.”

  “Was there a blond American woman with them?” I asked.

  He shrugged and acted like his English was too poor.

  When Michael quizzed him in his own language the boatman simply shrugged again. I felt someone had paid him to know nothing.

  I asked Michael how far the lake system went on for.

  “The part open for the public goes on for less than an hour,” Michael said. “But some say it’s possible to find a route that connects to the surface of the Dordogne River. Of course there are so many tunnels and passageways to lead a man astray who knows where you’d end up. You’d run out of air and drown before that happened.”

  The boatman struck the glimmering surface with his oar and pushed off the jetty. My hands gripped the sides of the boat.

  Michael reached out and placed a warm hand over mine. I glanced over to him, but his focus was on the water.

  “You ready for this?” he asked.

  I nodded. “You?”

  “Whatever happens,” he said, “it’s the right thing to do.”

  I wished I felt the same.

  With only the sounds of the oar in the water and my intense breathing we glided across the surface of the emerald, deep into the heart of the abyss.

  There was an almost perfect reflection in the surface. Disturbed only by a fine mist on my face. Ripples appeared on the surface of the lake.

  I knew I couldn’t face myself and looked away.

  I heard my cell phone ping. It was a message from Robyn.

  It read: we’re at the Padriac jetty. Make the exchange. There is no escape for them. Robyn.

  I silently showed Michael the message. He nodded but seemed no less tense.

  A shadow glided around the corner of the cave. Our boatman steered us to one side. Another gondola appeared.

  I desperately searched the shadows of the faces in the boat. As Emily’s face came into view I felt my heart skip.

  She was sat with Sinclair and Sui Lee. Barret wasn’t with them. The boat slowed and the other boatman brought his gondola alongside.

  “Emily,” I called out, but she seemed unable to register I was speaking to her.

  Sui Lee’s boatman said something to our boatman and they both glanced at me with a look I couldn’t decipher.

  “Step into this boat, Maddox,” Sinclair said.

  “First give us Emily,” Michael said.

  Sinclair nodded to Sui Lee. I took Emily’ hand as she climbed stiffly into our gondola. I hugged her tight.

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  She seemed unable to respond. Her eyes were heavily dilated.

  “You drugged her?” I asked.

  “She’ll be fine,” Sinclair said.

  Without acknowledging me, Michael climbed into the other boat. Sinclair nodded to their boatman and he pushed off with his long oar.

  Our boatman began to push us in the opposite direction.

  “Can you turn around the boat?” I shouted.

  “Madam impossible,” he said.

  I watched as Michael slowly disappeared around the corner.

  The tiny ripples around the boat grew larger. Suddenly a pair of hands broke the surface, followed by another and another. They reached up into the boat, grabbed Michael from behind and dragged him over the side.

  I jolted in my seat and stood. Rocking the boat from side to side.

  My boatman cried out for me to sit or send us all over the edge.

  I watched helplessly as Sui Lee and Sinclair donned diving masks and placed tiny air cannisters to their lips. They cast off their shoes and each took a pair of flippers out of their coats. They slipped them on and threw themselves backwards into the lake.

  In a few seconds the mass of bubbles dissipated and the lake’s surface was a serene emerald once again. I had lost Michael forever.

  THIRTY TWO

  Alice’s Journal

  There was no way I could lose Michael like this. I grabbed Emily’s shoulders and made her focus on me.

  “Friends will meet you back at the jetty.”

  I pulled off my jacket and rolled up the legs of my jeans.

  She shot me a curious look. “Where are you going?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Please don’t leave me.”

  If I stopped to explain I would not be able to go through with it. I kissed her cheek and told her I’d be back. I took a deep breath and moved to the end of the boat. Without looking back at Emily I leapt over the side of the boat.

  In the crystal clear water I could see Sinclair ahead of me. She was clearly the weakest swimmer of the group and fell behind. They carried red glow sticks as they swam deeper into the dark heart of the lake.

  I quickly caught up and grabbed her ankles. She jolted. Looking over her shoulder she kicked out at me, catching my jaw.

  I tugged her again and refused to let go. I reached for her mask an
d ripped it off. Her eyes widened with panic. I punched her low in the stomach and she spat out the air cylinder.

  I caught it and inserted it into my mouth. She floundered in the water as she climbed to the surface. I left her to save herself. I turned away and swam after the main group.

  The deeper we went, the darker the water became. I could no longer see the silhouettes of the group ahead of me. I relied on their glow sticks to guide me.

  Without flippers I struggled to keep up. I was breathing twice as hard as the other swimmers. At that rate, it was unlikely the air canister would last the journey.

  I followed for some ten minutes. Not once did the group look back at me. Their over confidence would be their undoing. Mine would be the realization that there was no way I could challenge four excellent swimmers.

  But they were slower than they might be. Using up extra energy in dragging Michael with them. After another ten minutes a thin watery sun appeared above me. The group headed for it.

  But I began to see black stars spinning across my eyes. I sucked harder on the air canister. But it was empty.

  My lungs felt like they were on fire. My hands began to shake uncontrollably. I felt my body begin to convulse. The air canister fell from my lips.

  Suddenly I wasn’t sure which way was up or down.

  As I turned my head in different directions, all I could see was black stars and white stars. I hoped that the white stars were the first glimmers of sunlight on the surface. With blind faith I headed for them.

  Eventually I felt a lateral movement buffeting me. It was a new current. A river current perhaps? Which meant I was heading in the right direction.

  My lungs burned. Each stroke of my arms and each kick of my legs felt like I was wading through treacle.

  As I climbed to the surface, a strong current swept me along. It was clear I was no longer in the cave lake.

  I surfaced a little further down the river from the main group. I screamed as I gasped for the first lungful of air and hoped the torrent muffled me.

  With the little strength I had remaining, I knew I couldn’t make it to the shore near the where the group landed. I summoned my last reserves of adrenalin and struck out for the shore. The current was stronger than me, but eventually I made it to the shore a few hundred meters further down the river than I wanted to be.