He’d widened the hole before he’d left, as if finally realizing by her desperate, deeply indrawn breaths that she had been close to suffocating. And what fun would it be if he came back and found her dead? He’d get no pleasure out of that, was definitely not the type who wanted to achieve her death in any but the most personal, intimate, close-up of ways. Even a gun would be too distant, too easy. Not that he’d shown any evidence of having one. A few punches to the head had been all he’d needed to kidnap her. That and an open car trunk.
No, it wouldn’t be a gun, nor an accidental death.
He was a knife kind of guy. Or an ax, a chainsaw, a hammer. Or even just his bare hands. Something bloody and messy, brutal and satisfying. Something that would bring her incredible pain.
Sick motherfucker
. Sick motherfucker who she’d pleased, somehow.
But how? By playing along with him, pretending to listen to his stories? By acting beaten, as if she’d thoroughly learned her lesson and wouldn’t scream for help even if she heard the FBI storming into the next room?
Hell to that; if her mouth were uncovered and she heard a plane flying somewhere overhead, she’d scream her guts out.
You pleased a lot of people
.
He was talking about something else, something more than this battle of wits. She knew it.
Blinking hard, Vonnie shook her head, trying to clear her slightly blurry vision, deprived of real light for so many days. Not to mention wake herself fully and get her brain up to speed. Her hands were waking up; her mind needed to as well.
He had said he’d be out late, but she’d drifted into a fitful sleep and didn’t know how long ago he’d left. Maybe an hour. Maybe three. She needed to get busy.
But his voice kept intruding.
A lot of people.
Who else had she pleased? What was he talking about? He seemed to think she’d figure it out. She had the feeling once she did, she’d learn more about why she’d ended up in this situation. And maybe the identity of the man behind the plastic mask.
“So who?”
She’d spent a lifetime doing whatever she could to improve her chances, and sometimes that meant bending over backward to please people who had authority over her. Teachers, bosses, friends who would watch her back when times got tough—in a neighborhood like hers, everybody needed a few solid friends. Vonnie even managed to please her abusive mother twice a month when she handed over most of her paycheck to cover the rent.
She sensed, though, that the monster wasn’t talking about any of them. There had been something so malevolent, so darkly amused in his voice. Knowing the memory he wanted her to recall was an especially ugly, painful one, he’d enjoyed tormenting her with his cryptic clues.
You pleased a lot of people.
A lot of . . .
Oh, Lord.
Vonnie gasped, at least as much as she could through the small opening in the tape. Because she suddenly thought of a possible explanation for his words. A place where she’d
pleased
a lot of people.
“No,” she groaned, shaking her head back and forth as tears spilled out of her eyes. Images washed over her and she became overwhelmed with the ugliest memory of her life—before now. “No, no, no.”
Yes
.
It had to be. What other explanation was there? What would “please” a cruel monster like him, as well as a bunch of other deviant bastards whose motives might be a little less deadly but whose pleasures were every bit as corrupt?
She’d pleased those men, all right. Over and over. Not out of the goodness of her heart, oh no. But because she’d been sold by her own mother.
Chapter 7
Friday, 9:15 p.m.
“Here I go. Wish me luck,” Lex said, leaping to her feet as the marching band took the field for the halftime program. The teams had gone to their locker rooms after their moment of silence, and Dunston had immediately been surrounded by a mob of curious, worried residents.
“I’ll stay put and observe. No point tipping anybody off that we’re working together.”
“Good plan. Plus you have an eagle-eye view from up here.”
“And maybe a nosebleed,” he said, his tone dry. “Fortunately I have pretty good vision.”
“Yeah, I heard that.” A slight wag of her eyebrows said she was joking. Her mood was considerably lighter, with good reason. The restraints were off. She knew it, everybody knew it.
“Be sure to make a note of anybody who acts suspiciously,” she added.
He couldn’t help chuckling. In Aidan’s somewhat jaded experience, everyone acted suspiciously on occasion. “Will do. Be careful,” he admonished, though as soon as the words left his mouth, he wondered if she’d question his right to say them. Again hit with that sensation that things were spiraling too fast, he forced himself to remember he barely knew the woman. They weren’t involved, and the connection they were feeling was a result of being thrown together in an ugly situation and, on his part, anyway, immediate, raw physical attraction.
That didn’t help, though. He still worried about her.
“Go get ’em, girl,” said a Hoover parent. “Don’t let ’em shut you down again!”
Lexie turned back and smiled over her shoulder. “Not a chance.”
Aidan watched her progress all the way down the bleachers and around the long curve of the track. Though he still had no use for any other reporter, he couldn’t help admiring this one’s tenacity as she strode on, her steps determined, her shoulders squared. People melted out of her way when she approached; she was a force of nature and nobody was going to shut her up again.
The man she’d identified earlier as the mayor saw her coming and did a one-eighty. A few of the puffed-up-looking businessmen, including Underwood, the newspaper owner who was, technically, her boss, departed as well. There seemed to be a small exodus heading through the gates. Their zeal for the home team appeared to have faded once the burly players proved they had brains and hearts to go along with the muscles and testosterone.
Lex did manage to corner both high school principals. The two men stepped to a quiet corner with her, talking for several long minutes, each nodding and even, occasionally, smiling. Aidan didn’t have to wonder why. Despite the lapse of protocol, as an educator, it had to be nice to see the usually thoughtless, self-absorbed teenage students become so passionate about a cause. If he’d been the parent of one of the kids on the field, his chest would be bursting with pride over a hell of a lot more than their prowess with a ball or a pom-pom.
He suspected a lot of people felt the same way. Despite the quick exit of some, the majority had stayed put. The excited chatter in the visitor’s section firmly illustrated that the bubble of anger and tension enveloping the first part of the evening had popped with the students’ brave display. He listened to bits of conversation, trying to thin out the gossip and wait for any nugget or kernel of useful information. But it proved fruitless. He just didn’t know enough about the area to winnow out the good information from the bad.
Finally, when the game came to a close and Lex had just about run out of police chiefs and officials to face-off with in front of an appreciative audience, he slowly followed the rest of the fans down the metal steps and across the playing field. The home team had won, but nobody really cared anymore. Both teams were being celebrated.
Stopping beside the refreshment building, he watched as a long stream of humanity moved through the exit gates. Lex stood at the base of the bleachers with a tall, middle-aged man wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and rumpled pants. He might as well have the words
disgruntled high school teacher
tattooed on his forehead. They’d been speaking intently, standing close together in order to be heard over the last remaining voices of the crowd.
When Lex looked down at her notebook, furiously jotting some notes, Aidan watched the man shift even closer, well within her personal space. He also noted the look on the guy’s face.
Noted it. Interpreted it. Was infuriated by it.
Mr. Wannabe College Professor might as well have licked his lips, he was so visibly awash with sexual interest. Alexa wore perfectly respectable khaki pants and a light sweater, but there was no disguising the sensual fullness of her lips, the feminine shape of her face, or the shape of her nicely curved body beneath the clothes. The guy standing beside her was mentally filling in any mysteries her concealing clothes contained, trying to figure out how to get at them.
Without giving it another thought, he strode the few yards to the two, stepping to Lexie’s side and casting an assessing stare at the man she’d been talking to. “Lexie, are you ready to go?” he asked her, knowing his intimate tone hinted that they were here together, as a couple.
She jerked her attention toward him, lifting a quizzical brow, apparently not noticing that the guy she’d been with had been studying her ass and trying to get close enough to cop a feel.
Something else he didn’t have to be a mind reader to know. Sleazy men all thought about the same thing: how to be sleazier.
“Hey, you called me Lexie,” she said, wagging an accusing index finger at him.
He shrugged. “What can I say? You’re growing on me.”
“I have that effect,” she said.
The sleazy teacher frowned. “Please, take my number in case there’s anything else you need. I hope you can keep me updated and would be happy to meet with you again.”
Lexie merely gave him a friendly shrug. “That’s okay. I can reach you through the school. Thanks for talking to me, Mr. Wilhelm. I appreciate your thoughts.”
“Anything I can do,” he said pleasantly, though his smile was tight at her obvious disinterest. “Vonnie was one of my favorite students. A brilliant girl.”
“Is,” Aidan interjected.
“What?”
“
Is
one of your favorite students,” he said, wondering if the other man realized how cold he’d sounded. He had no idea whether Vonnie was alive, but the very least her own supposed “favorite” teacher could do was presume so. A small point, perhaps, but the man irritated him. Wilhelm made the hairs on the back of Aidan’s neck stand up.
“Okay,” she said, staring back and forth between them, grasping the sudden tension. “We’d better get going. Looks as if they’re trying to get things cleaned up for the night.”
She reached for his arm, thought better of it, and simply walked away. He leveled one more stare on the teacher, snapping, “Why don’t you wipe your chin,” then walked after Lex.
They were among the last to leave, along with the volunteers who’d worked the concessions stand. Kenny, the scarred man they’d run into earlier, was already piercing trash with a long, spiked pole. As they passed, the guy in the navy blazer, who Aidan recognized as Vice Principal Young, called to the janitor, “Would you hurry the hell up? I’d like to get home before midnight, and I can’t leave until your sorry ass gets out of here!”
Lexie cleared her throat. The man glanced over, realized they’d been close enough to hear the ugly tone, and put on one of those plastic smiles that all future high school administrators had perfected by the time they graduated from college. “Long night,” he said, rubbing a hand over his brow, as if fatigue was enough to explain being a shit to a maimed, scarred underling. “After a long week. Thanks again for your help with this, Ms. Nolan.”
Uh-huh. Oily. The man would be running for school board someday; Aidan had no doubt. Willing to set up search parties or no, the man seemed as fake as the rest of the bureaucrats in this town.
“No, thank
you
, Mr. Young,” she called, not breaking her stride. Once they had gotten a few yards farther, out of earshot, she said, “So, shall I prove my psychic abilities now? You didn’t like Mr. Wilhelm.”
“No,” he growled, “I did not. That vice principal is a piece of work, too.”
“But you disliked Wilhelm because he wouldn’t stop staring at my butt.”
He froze.
“I’m not stupid. My scum-dar is quite high, actually. But he’s the honors society advisor and was at the meeting Monday night; otherwise I wouldn’t have given that pig the time of day.”
Glad she’d noticed, he nodded to accede his own overreaction. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Did you have any luck?” he asked as they headed toward the parking lot.
She smirked, looking more than a little self-satisfied. “They hate my guts.”
“It’s good to be hated for the right reasons.”
“Don’t I know it. It’s also good to be liked for the right ones.”
“How so?”
“There are some people in this town who have both honor and integrity. A few of them are in positions of power, including that prosecutor, whose kid spoke earlier, and the medical examiner. Two members of the town council demanded meetings with the chief, plus the mayor just got his ass reamed out by his own sister, who wants to know why he hasn’t started a community watch program to protect our young people.”
He raised a surprised brow. “All because of some kids?”
She considered it, then slowly shook her head. “Not because the kids convinced them this was happening, but because they had the guts to actually say it out loud and take a stand. How can the adults not do the same? I never realized before tonight how many people saw right through Dunston’s actions last month. A lot of them just didn’t know they weren’t alone in thinking we’ve got a nutless loser for a police chief.”
He was about to reply when Lex stopped midstride beside him. They had reached the parking lot, heading toward the far corner where his SUV was parked. Her small sedan sat just beyond it, and had been out of sight until a moment ago. She’d spotted it first.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered.
Following her stare, he felt his muscles tense with wariness as well. Though it almost never came naturally to him, Aidan gave in to his first impulse and put a steadying hand on the small of her back. It was the first time he’d really touched her, and there were no jolts, no shocks, nothing at all unusual. Not that he’d expected them, especially not since she was wearing a sweater. But with a personality as strong as hers, and with the sparks they’d set off each other from the moment they’d met, he hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect.