by Maggie Thom
She stopped, taking in a long, shaky breath. “My mother was calling my father some really ugly things. That’s when it came out that Geoff was his son, not hers. Image was everything to my mother. It seems a maid had tempted my father. I don’t know whatever happened to the girl, but my parents kept the baby and she simply vanished. That night tainted everything. Geoffrey changed. He was angry all the time. He wouldn’t let me near him. It broke my heart. I felt like I had been his mother. And he didn’t want me. I always treated him like he was family.”
Guy leaned down and hugged her as sobs wracked her body, emphasizing the frail bones that felt like they would snap under his hands.
“When Geoffrey turned eighteen, he was going to leave home which I think my parents were quite happy about. They were tired of paying off and trying to cover up all his illegal stunts and immoral behavior. He went out of his way to humiliate them, not unlike what mother had done to him. I’d left home but came back to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. He got very drunk. He’d taken down one of Dad’s many swords that once adorned the walls. Some dated back to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. They were massive, beautiful. I don’t know whatever became of them. They disappeared after that night.”
Guy felt his hands curl into fists. He wanted to punch something but knew Dorothea didn’t need to see any more violence. She’d seen and experienced more than her share.
“I was the golden child. I could do no wrong in Mom’s eyes. To Geoffrey it must have been another slight against him. Anyway the night he came of age, he had a huge party. There were lots of lowlife scum, the type he surrounded himself with. They filled the pool with booze and broken bottles. Drugs were everywhere. Sex. There were people doing ‘it’ wherever they pleased. There was this young woman who was on something. She was wild. I told her she’d have to leave. We got into a bit of a tussle. Next thing I know, Geoffrey had a sword. He was swinging it around like he was dueling and he stabbed me in the leg.”
Her thin chest heaved with emotion. “He always told me he was sorry and that he’d been trying to get the woman off me. But I knew... I knew in my heart, he’d done it on purpose. That young woman was one of his whores.”
“Why didn’t you turn him in?”
“I couldn’t. He was like my child. I felt I could fix him.” She laughed harshly. “I’ve been trying to do that my whole life. And I’m still making excuses for him. No more. He’s evil. If he hurts that beautiful child, I will kill him.” Pushing herself to her feet with the energy of a twenty- year-old, she strode to the door. “There’s an old house a century old on the back part of the property. Geoffrey wanted it. Said it was his sanctuary. It’s all boarded up and unsafe. I’d bet anything that’s where he is.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m coming with you.”
Guy took her arm and steered her, with difficulty, back to her chair. “No. You’ll wait here. Don’t worry, I’ll bring Bailey back. I promise.” He gave her a quick kiss and sailed out of the room. As he was nearing the ground floor, he heard the sound of Graham’s vehicle. He raced out to meet him, jumping in the Hummer before it had fully stopped.
“The old house.” He’d told Graham about it and the beating Geoffrey had given him, one night they’d been melancholy over their beer.
“How do we get there?”
He pointed to the cobbled path. “Take that.”
Graham’s eyes widened but he gunned the Hummer and shot down the ornate, colorfully-flowered path.
“You do realize your grandmother will string you up by your nether regions.”
Guy grimaced. “Yeah but I think she’ll forgive me. If I’m right about Geoff—”
No more words were spoken as tires turned beautiful flowers into scented mulch.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“You’ll never get away with this.” Bailey tested the plastic wrist cuffs. They didn’t budge. Every time she moved they sliced into her skin like shark’s teeth. He placed his hand firmly against her back and pushed her forward. She tripped and was barely able to remain on her feet. They rounded a dense growth of trees and entered a small clearing. He directed her to walk toward the thick foliage. A vision of a remote cave loomed in her mind, a dark, dank hole he could throw her into where she would never be found. She wasn’t going to stick around to find out as she sought an opportunity to run. His knife blade rarely left her skin and her t-shirt was glued to her back in several places by blood oozing from the cuts he’d already had great pleasure in giving her.
He pushed her to walk around the side of the massive overgrown area where the stench of mold, mildew and rotting lumber assaulted her. There was an underlying pungent reek that was so strong, she coughed and tried to bury her nose in her shoulder.
He laughed. “Don’t like the gourmet scents I’ve made? You disappoint me.” Shoving her hard, she tripped over the vines and thick undergrowth, twisting as she fell to land on her shoulder. Rolling over, she glared at the man with the sick, demented smile and the most malevolent eyes she’d ever seen. She was beginning to believe she really had seen an evil presence in them earlier.
“Stay there.”
He moved aside the cascading vines. Behind them was a solid structure, from which he removed a few boards. She rolled over but a quick stab of his knife into her arm kept her immobile. She could do no more than lay there and watch. He flipped open a small door before jerking her to her feet and shoving her toward the hole.
“Climb in.”
The door was three feet off the ground, three feet high and three feet wide, not an easy place to climb into. As she hesitated, he planted his hands on her butt and heaved her through with the force of a missile launcher. Unable to brace herself she landed head first. Black and white spots danced before her.
He scrambled over the top of her before she had time to recover. Then he grabbed her by the shoulder and the crotch and tossed her the rest of the way in, his lower hand digging in much more than was necessary. She shuddered. A look of lust contorted his face. He stood over her, pressing his fingers to his nostrils as he drew in deep breaths.
A violent revulsion shook her body. Fear and panic fought for control, moving over her in waves like a pipeline tide rolling over itself.
Hang on. Hang on. Don’t give in. Guy will come. DO NOT GIVE IN! A tiny voice of sanity repeated over and over in her head. Guy would get there in time. She couldn’t give up hope.
“Get up.”
Not wanting his hands on her again, she scrambled to her feet. Swaying slightly, she stared at the man she’d somehow make sure would pay for this. He gestured for her to go up the stairs. After taking in her surroundings, she noted that although the exterior looked like nothing more than vines and trees, the interior appeared as solid as a vault as if he’d built a house within a house. Then it hit her like a sledgehammer. That’s exactly what he’d done. He’d left the shell of an old place and built a new one inside. Sturdy two by fours framed several unfinished support walls. The plywood floor was covered in dust but all of it was new.
“Couldn’t find an interior decorator? You know, if you’d asked I’m sure we could agree upon a price.”
He growled at her.
No sense of humor.
She moved up the sturdy wood stairs. At the top, he shoved her to the left. The upstairs appeared much the same except here the walls were finished. He opened the only door, hustling her through it.
The room might have looked completely appropriate in the mansion. A king sized bed with a multi-colored silk spread in autumn colors filled one end of the room. Two large mahogany dressers stood against one wall. Two oak closet doors completed the room. It was very masculine but insanely classy in such a setting.
The dread that had been clawing at her veins earlier threatened to do so again.
The last memory I have on this earth will not be this man raping me.
“I see you did a better job of getting a good decorator in here. May I suggest you stick
with the one you found. Not good practice to change when in the middle of renovations. No two designers ever see a place quite the same. And since you seem happy with—”
He punched her with the force of a bat cracking against her jaw, and her head whipped back. Unable to catch herself, she stumbled, falling against the wall. He shoved his face into hers.
“Shut your mouth, bitch. I thought I’d dealt with you a long time ago. You will not ruin my life!”
She scanned her memory but she had no doubt she had never met him before. Someone like him she’d never forget.
“I’m sorry about that. I know I sometimes do things without thinking—”
“You have no idea what you’ve done.” Stepping back, he grabbed her upper arm in a vise grip and forced her toward the twin oak doors just off to her right.
“I need—”
He jerked her hard, snapping her body around like a pretzel as pain radiated through her body. The plastic cuffs continued slicing into her skin, a constant reminder that her hands were secured behind her back. He dragged her through a clothes closet that was easily twice the size of her bedroom.
In an instant, all that had happened over the last seven days charged at her. Weakness threatened the stability of her knees. The emotional clutch, sitting at the back of her throat, caused her nostrils to flare and tears threatened to fill the corners of her eyes. Bowing her head slightly, she struggled to pull herself back under control. It wasn’t until he unlocked another door, flipped on a dim light and pushed her through that her disturbed state became one of sheer horror. Her mouth went dry. Her breathing became choppy, labored. Any thought of escape or help vanished. This was to be her grave.
The state-of-the-art electronic equipment caught her immediate attention, the shiny metal standing out starkly against the black color of literally everything else in the room—a thin carpet, the walls, the ceiling and even one tiny window. Her eyes widened as it registered what she was seeing. Sticks of dynamite adorned the walls at intervals around the room. She couldn’t blink as her gaze followed the path of the connectors, going from one stick to another. Wires, hanging as though hastily strung, dropped behind a small, innocuous square box in the corner that looked as innocent as a clock radio. The number twenty blinked at her. The detonator was set and waiting for its final command.
Time stood still as the import of what she was seeing hit her. “Why?” she gasped.
He straightened to his full six-foot-two height as though it improved his status. “Because you will ruin everything. You never should have been. I did everything to prevent you. Everything. Yet you came. The joy for everyone.” His fist came so fast she didn’t have time to brace for it. It landed full in her stomach with the driving impact of a boxer’s punch. With the wind knocked completely out of her, she doubled over, crumpling to the floor. Bile rose in her throat. Pain radiated, spiraling outward.
He strolled across the room and casually flipped a switch. The wall became a larger than life screen. It wasn’t until he’d pressed the third button and she saw Guy’s grandma staring out her bedroom window that Bailey understood. He continued to flip through live video feed from the main house.
Her instincts kicked in. “So I’m the basis of all your problems. I don’t remember meeting you before. Can you refresh my memory?”
She’d seen a lot in her life. Not much shocked her—not the ugliness of people, the selfishness, or the malice. But she’d never seen anything like him. The muscles in his face contorted, displaying ridges and dips that looked more like a mask than something that was humanly possible. His eyes went black. Lifeless. It was the most vicious, hideous thing she’d ever seen.
“Oh, we met my dear. You were only a few hours old, so I’ll forgive you for not remembering. You never should have been. I was giving Gina a concoction that should have prevented a baby. But you. You had to be born. Damn you.” He pointed his finger. “I had everything planned. Then you came along and ruined it. Threatened all I had built up.”
“I was only a baby.”
“BUT A LEGITIMATE ONE!” His face was almost purple with rage. He stormed toward her, driving his fist into the wall over her head and missing only by inches, thanks to her quick slump sideways. He backed away, his eyes glazed.
She couldn’t help but cringe as she waited for an impact which thankfully never came. “But what about—uh—Dorothea’s daughter? M-my mother?”
“Was not interested in the business, which broke Dorothea’s heart. Of course it was really easy to screw up that relationship. Gina hated her mother for a long time.” He laughed. “But with you, she was already making plans to groom you, to bring you into the fold. To teach you to be president of this company, my company. Which means she’d have started looking a little more closely at what I was doing. Even back then, the company was paying me well for things that never existed.” He chuckled at his own joke. “That was not going to happen. You were not going to mess up everything I worked for. She was talking about you being her little golden princess. Her opportunity to make things right. She was always trying to make things right. To make up for our parents’ shortfalls. To make up for how our parents treated me. This company was mine. Should have been mine. I deserved it. Not her. She already had the one thing that meant anything to me and she planned on giving it to you as soon as you were educated. You. So I took away what had meaning for her. I am not the acting CEO. I own this company. She just doesn’t know it yet. You were not going to take what was mine.”
He straightened his tie. “How did you survive? I’d gotten rid of you. The woman who took you died. Why didn’t you? That would have solved everything. Everything.”
The time to get away from him was now. She scooted on her butt along the wall. Something tore into her hand, causing her to wince in pain. Her first thought had been to shift away but then it dawned on her that whatever had ripped her skin just might cut through the plastic cuffs. Quietly and slowly she lifted her arms methodically up and down over the sharp object. Things could not end this way. Guy flashed in her mind. She hadn’t ever really given him a chance—them a chance. She did what she knew, which was how to protect herself. Could they have had anything? Would she get another chance to find out?
The ties hadn’t been cut through yet but she felt they were close to snapping. She just had to keep Geoff from figuring out what she was doing. When he glanced her way, she squirmed as if protesting the hard floor.
“Do you know how much I paid to make you disappear?” he bellowed. Then he smiled at her with the smugness of a victor.
“Well obviously not enough because I’m still here.”
He growled as fury radiated off him like a furnace. He stormed to the window, grabbed the black covering as though about to pull it back. It was then she heard the loud hum of a vehicle. Praying it was someone looking for her and not one of his accomplices, she kicked out with her foot. The metal stool sitting in front of his electronic equipment clanged loudly as it crashed into the table. He whipped around. Rage contorted his face. He stormed to the detonator and punched in a code. The flashing stopped. The countdown began.
19:59
19:58
19:57
19:56
She stared at the numbers that were steadily dropping one at a time, slowly, methodically.
“You’re finished. And all because of me.” He laughed. “Oh, the people that will cry over your death. It will be music to my ears.”
“You really think you’re smart enough to get away with this?”
In two steps, he was above her. He clipped her jaw and her lip immediately bloomed into a fat puff ball as buzzing filled her eardrums like an angry beehive. At that moment, the wrist ties gave way. She leapt to her feet, driving the top of her head into his nose. The bone cracked, the sound reverberating, followed by an animalistic howl as he stumbled backward. Blood gushed between his fingers as he tried vainly to stop the flow. She spun on her heel and rushed for the door but barely made it three step
s before his hand lashed out, grabbing her shirt. Fighting for all she was worth, she twisted, raised her arms and ducked at the same time. The top slipped over her head. She was free. She ran for the door.
A loud thwack pivoted her head around to the right. She didn’t know if he was a bad aim or if she was just damn lucky but his knife was now embedded in the wall three inches from her chin. Panicking, she raced through the closet, out of the bedroom, grabbing and slamming the doors behind her. Using the railing, she jumped down the stairs three at a time. On the main floor, she raced for the entrance. She was about to shove out the makeshift door and dive through when a bullet whizzed past her ear.
“You’re mine.”
Raising her hands in surrender, she turned slowly. Her gut clenched as the thundering of her heart drowned out all else.
He shot again. The impact crumpled her leg, dropping her to the floor like a sack of potatoes. She landed heavily on her side. The pain took a moment to register but when it hit, she clenched her jaw, refusing to give in to the searing agony burning through her calf. As she clamped her hand over the wound, blood flowed like a gentle fountain between her fingers. She collapsed in front of the opening.
“You will suffer as I have suffered.”
With the last vestiges of strength she had, she lifted her head and faced her captor. “Go ahead and kill me, you bastard. But be prepared because I will haunt you for the rest of your life. I will see you in hell.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Where is this goddamn place?” Graham spun the wheel as they hit another hole, jerking them sideways.
Guy looked around at the unfamiliar area. He hadn’t been back since he was a boy, and now it didn’t resemble his memories at all. Everything was massive, wild and overgrown. They suddenly burst out of the trees into an open field.
“Stop!”
As he closed his eyes, he went back in time to the day he’d gone exploring. He struggled to shut out the memory of Geoff, the beating and how much of a monster he’d been that day.