Her brain was working overtime.
This explained everything.
She rapidly reconfigured her theory about Quentin Worth. He wasn’t helping Finn at all. Catherine thought that Lola Gem resembled Quentin not because Lola had been Quentin in drag, but because Lola had been Quentin’s sister Destiny.
All of the sites had been owned by the Worth family because Destiny was involved. Obviously.
The sisterhood group that Destiny had formed in college had morphed into a larger organization which recruited using the MadCad fandom. Destiny had started the self-help stuff and recruited Annie Gibbons and others like her. It was some kind of New Age cult and it touted sacrifice.
Destiny herself was some kind of crazed psychopath who had probably killed her father. Maybe her mother too. Annalise Worth had apparently been dead for decades, so Dawson hadn’t looked into her demise, but she wouldn’t put it past this woman.
Quentin Worth had felt uncomfortable when she’d spoken to him about his sister, because he was well aware that she was still alive and probably terrified of her. Destiny had probably threatened Quentin’s life. He was probably her only living family member.
As soon as Slater left the room, Dawson sat up in bed and started trying to talk through her gag.
Liam turned to her. He wriggled over towards the bed where she was lying.
She moved closer, moving her face closer to his.
“My hands are tied, Haysle,” he said.
“Use your teeth,” she said, but it was muffled, and she didn’t know if he understood her.
His eyebrows shot up.
“Get this off me,” she said through her gag.
“Look, I’ll try it,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She lay her face down, turning to give him access to where the tape lay on her cheek.
He wriggled around, getting closer.
She shut her eyes. She didn’t mean to, but he was close. She could feel his breath on her face, and then the smooth scrape of his teeth against the tape.
At first, it didn’t seem to be working, but then he brought his bottom teeth up.
She fought not to flinch when he nipped her. She didn’t want him to stop.
He got the edge of the tape between his teeth and pulled it free.
She let out a gasping sound. That had hurt.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she managed.
“I told you I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“It was just the tape coming off,” she said.
“Right,” he said.
She sat up again, looking across the room at where Destiny was still unconscious on the bed. “So, here’s what we do. We hope that they come and check this property. Until then, we stall. Stall however you can. Just keep stringing Slater along, and—”
“Ha! I told you we needed to check the Bethany Beach house. I was right.”
“Yes, you were,” she said. “So, now, we just sit tight—”
“What if it’s not that house, though?” Liam was suddenly dejected. “What if it’s not even a house on the list? Honestly, we could be anywhere.”
“Let’s hope they’re going to find us.”
“Listen, I don’t think we should talk about plans too much. When I was in that dog crate, Slater had cameras up everywhere, you know? He might have this place rigged too.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Dawson. “Back then, he had Destiny bankrolling him. Now, he’s on his own. He doesn’t have cameras.”
“You heard him? How much did you hear?”
“All of it,” said Dawson. “He slipped up and didn’t inject me properly.”
“But you can’t believe him,” said Liam. “That story he told, it’s insane.”
“Maybe,” said Dawson. “But it does answer a lot of questions I’ve had all along about everything.”
Liam glanced at Destiny. “I can’t believe she’s alive.”
“You didn’t kill her,” said Dawson, grinning. “That makes me feel a lot better about covering that up. That murder of yours, never happened.”
“Yeah,” whispered Liam, blinking several times. “I don’t think that’s sunk in yet.”
“Well, if we can’t expect a rescue, we need to get out of here on our own.”
“I’m telling you, don’t make plans,” said Liam. “If he’s got cameras, he can hear and see everything we’re saying and doing.”
“He doesn’t have cameras,” came a ravaged voice.
They both turned to look at Destiny, who was struggling to push herself up on the bed. “Believe me, I know, because I watched him break into this place.”
“And because he doesn’t have money from you anymore?” said Liam.
Destiny turned to look at him. “Liam. It’s you. It’s really you. After all this time.”
“How can you have been alive all this time and not told me?” said Liam.
“Well…” Destiny shrugged. “I guess I was afraid.”
“Did you fake your death on purpose?” said Liam.
“What did Finn tell you?” said Destiny. “He can be really creative. Did you know he’s been writing fanfiction all this time?”
Liam looked her over. Then he looked back at Dawson.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dawson. “We can get to the bottom of whatever’s been going on with Destiny later.” She gave the other woman a smile. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to clear that up for us, won’t you?”
Destiny didn’t smile back. “Who are you?”
“I’m a homicide detective,” said Dawson. “And we need to work together to get free of this so that I can arrest Slater and put him back behind bars where he belongs. That’s the most important thing now.”
“Cameras,” said Liam.
“There are no cameras,” said Destiny.
“He had them before.”
“Well, he was also not on the run before, squatting in random houses,” said Dawson. “He would have had a lot of time to outfit that bunker.” On Destiny Worth’s land. Where they’d found a box of tampons.
Gotcha, thought Dawson. It was all she could do not to smile at Destiny. Every aspect of Slater’s story might not be true, but there was some truth to it, and Destiny Worth was definitely involved.
“There aren’t any cameras,” said Destiny. “I promise you. Now, what did you have in mind, detective? How do we get out of here?”
“Well,” said Dawson, “we need to get free of these zip ties. I think the easiest way for that to happen is for Liam to play along with Slater’s scenario. Tell him you’ll do it, that you’ll help him kill Destiny, but that she needs to be free, and that together, you and him can both subdue her if need be. Then, when both you and Destiny are free, you overpower him. It seems to be a sexual fantasy for him. So much the better. The more vulnerable he is, the easier of a time you’ll both have.”
“Oh, that’s easy for you to say,” said Destiny. “You want me to submit to that man? To give myself over to him? I don’t think I can do that.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to go on too long,” said Dawson. “Believe me, I know this isn’t an easy thing I’m asking of either of you.”
Destiny scooted down to the edge of the bed. “We’re going to look around this place until we find something sharp. Then we’ll cut our bonds and go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Liam watched as Destiny crawled on her belly out of the bathroom.
“Nothing in there either?” he said. They’d managed to open every drawer in the room—the ones in the bedside table and the ones in the dresser. All of them were empty.
“Nothing,” said Destiny. She was panting. She lay her cheek down on the floor and closed her eyes. “You don’t believe what he said about me, do you, Liam?”
“No,” said Liam, and it was true that he didn’t think Finn was telling the whole truth. But that didn’t mean he trusted Destiny either. She had pretended to be dead, for Christ’s sake
. All of those years, all of the agony he’d gone through, and she could have stopped it if she’d only let him know the truth.
Destiny opened her eyes. “I was afraid of both of you, but I still cared about you. I could have gone to the police, but I didn’t want you arrested. I only wanted to be free of you both, to leave all of that behind me. That night… everything got so out of hand.”
He decided not to engage her on this subject. He had a thousand questions, but he didn’t think she’d tell him the truth anyway, and Dawson was right. They needed to get free. Everything else could wait. “We need to play along with Finn.”
“Well, that’s easy for you to say,” she said, closing her eyes again. “Because my part in that plan is to get killed and then let him fuck my dead body.”
“Which apparently you already did,” he said, anger rising in him. “At least once.”
Her eyes opened again. “What are you talking about? That night? I didn’t let him do anything. You made me pass out when you wrapped your hands around my neck—”
“That doesn’t last very long,” he said.
“I woke up and that was happening, and I was afraid, so I pretended—”
“Let’s not do this,” he said.
“He means,” spoke up Dawson from the bed, “let’s do this later. When we’re free. We’ll have all the time in the world for explanations then. The most important thing is to get free, however. And Liam won’t let Slater hurt you. You’ll be a necessary element to our case against Slater. We want to protect you.”
“Liam, you don’t trust me.” Destiny was sulky about this. “After everything he’s done to you, you’re taking Finn’s word over mine.”
“What do you know about what he’s done to me?” said Liam. “Do you know because you were orchestrating it?”
“Later,” said Dawson forcefully.
He turned back to look at her, and she was glaring at him. She clearly didn’t want him to antagonize Destiny, who she thought was guilty. He sighed. “Right. Later. I’m sure you have a good explanation for everything, Destiny. And I’ll listen to everything you have to say.”
“After we get free,” said Dawson.
Destiny grunted. Then she writhed and twisted, managing to get herself into a sitting position. She leaned against the door and surveyed Liam. “Do you trust me, Liam?”
“I want to,” Liam said. “I remember that I cared about you a long time ago. I thought you cared about me too.” Well, that wasn’t really true. He had never had any real illusions that he and Destiny were in love or something. It had never been like that with them. It had always been about sex and maybe companionship and maybe… maybe adventurousness, but…
No, Liam had loved since and been loved in return, and Destiny wasn’t that sort of a person. He had always known that about her, but her being dead had softened his opinion of her, because she’d been tragic and he’d been guilty, and now, looking back at all of it—
“I can’t make him think I’m submitting to it,” said Destiny. “There’s no way he’ll cut my bonds.”
“I’ll tell him I want to fight with you,” said Liam in a low, low voice.
She turned her gaze on him, and he had forgotten how dark her eyes were. Looking into them was like falling into the depths of the dark side of the moon.
His heart went out of rhythm. “I can sell it to him,” he said, his voice dipping even lower. “He’ll let you free.”
Destiny’s breath hitched, the way it sometimes did when she was excited. He’d forgotten about that. She smiled a little. “Oh, Liam. It’s been too long.”
He smiled back. “Thought you were scared of me.”
“Terrified,” she breathed, but her voice was threaded full of excitement instead.
From the bed, Dawson cleared her throat. “Sitting right here,” she said. “Right exactly here.”
Liam glanced at her.
She shrugged.
He turned back to Destiny.
* * *
Dawson was thinking about all the therapy she was going to need after this, assuming she survived. She was frightened that—at any moment—Slater was going to flip her over onto her stomach and slide a knife into the back of her skull.
Slater was back in the room with them.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but long enough for all of them to feel the need to crawl into the bathroom and contort themselves into pretzels both to get water out of the faucet to drink and to remove their clothes enough to use the toilet. She’d made multiple trips, personally.
“Fight her?” Slater was saying.
Liam held Slater’s gaze. His voice was scratchy. “You’re not the only one I want to wrestle. You know this about us, Finn, how physical things were with Destiny and me? There’s a reason that I was able to believe I strangled her. And now, I’ve got a reason to want to hurt her.”
“I thought if I left you alone with her, she’d turn herself against you,” said Finn. “I didn’t think she’d be able to find a way to explain it to you. But I didn’t think you’d believe me so easily.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Liam. “I don’t know what I believe. But she’s been alive since 2004, and I’ve had nightmares, thinking she was dead. So, that’s enough for me. I want her to pay. It’s not going to mean anything if she’s zip-tied. Cut her free, Finn.”
“I don’t think so,” said Slater. “I’m not stupid, tiger. You think I’m stupid, but I’m not, and there’s no way you suddenly had a change of heart in a few hours.” He turned to go to the door.
Dawson spoke up. “The police know where you are.”
Slater stopped. He turned to look at her.
“You took our phones,” she said, “but I wasn’t so stupid to rely on that, not after last time. There’s a tracking device on me right now.”
Slater looked her over. He stepped towards the bed. “Where?”
“I’m not telling you that,” she said. “You think I’m stupid?”
“Well, if you’re not stupid, why are you telling me about it now? Unless you’re lying?”
Dawson swallowed. Well, this was a really smart idea, Haysle. Now, he kills you. “Just that… uh, well, they’re going to get here soon, and if they do, you won’t get a chance to, um, you and Liam won’t…” She took a shaky breath. Do better, she scolded herself. “I think about the night that you came to my apartment, Sl—Finn.”
“What?” said Slater.
“I don’t mean to,” she said. “I don’t want to, but there’s something about it. Something about the way that you gave me permission to give in and eat that food for you. Something about the way you…” She nodded at Liam. “Ever since I saw the two of you together in that interrogation room, some part of me has wanted to see you kiss him. See you touch him. See the two of you really together.”
Slater was silent, simply staring at her.
“So, if I’m going to see that, you’d better do it fast,” she said. “And then you’d better run, because they’re coming for you.”
Slater sucked in a noisy breath through his nose. “Bullshit, Haysle.”
Damn it.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing with you,” he said. “I should have killed you already.” He shook his head and stalked out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.
They all stared at the open doorway, shocked.
Why had he done that?
Then Dawson decided this was stupid, and she was going to attempt to take advantage of the situation instead of simply staring at the door. She rolled off the bed.
She hit the floor hard, pain radiating up through her elbow. She moaned.
When she looked up, Slater was standing in the doorway, holding a pair of garden shears. They were rusty, but the tip looked sharp.
She let out a little cry.
This was it.
He was going to kill her.
Liam pushed himself up to his feet. “Finn, leave her—”
Sla
ter pushed him out of the way.
Liam hit the door to the bathroom and slid to the floor.
Slater went past him, but not for Dawson. Instead, he went for Destiny. He knelt down in front of her. She was sitting up against the foot of one of the beds. She spat in his face.
He wiped it away and laughed. He put the tip of the shears against her nose. “I don’t need his help, actually. I’ll do this all by myself.”
“You’ve never had an original idea in your life, Finny,” said Destiny in a sugary, condescending voice. “You need someone to tell you what to do. You’re pretty, but you’re big and dumb and—”
“Is it a good idea to call me dumb while I have a sharp object in my hands?”
“I know you don’t want me bloody,” she said.
He slid the shears under her shirt and cut into it.
Destiny reared up, uttering a guttural cry.
Slater was startled.
She slammed her head into his face, and Dawson heard a crunch as she collided with his nose.
Slater screamed.
Destiny screamed.
Slater hunched over, clutching his face. He dropped the shears.
Destiny rolled over, putting her back to Slater, feeling around behind herself for the shears.
Slater saw what she was doing and he moved to stop her.
Liam launched himself into Slater, knocking him away.
Destiny seized the shears.
She put her wrist against them and sliced, cutting the zip ties on her hands. Now free, she rolled back to face Slater.
He lunged at her.
She stabbed with the shears, puncturing him on the side of his waist, just above his hip bone.
He shrieked like an animal.
She cut her zip ties on her feet and stood up.
Slater was curled into a ball. Blood was coming out of his nose. Blood was soaking his shirt.
“Destiny,” said Liam, rolling over onto his back and holding up his hands to her.
Destiny glanced at Liam and then at Slater. Then she shot a look at Dawson. She strode over to where Dawson was lying on the floor. “Roll over, detective.”
The Temptation of Silence Page 18