Staying alert, staying aware was vital.
Darlie needed her.
He’d had the woman bring Darlie in the night—she thought it had been night—before. He preferred having the women he used deal with the chores. He’d think of the water, the blankets, snapping those restraints on trembling wrists and ankles as chores.
She’d done what she could for the girl—held her, rocked her, cocooned her in blankets while Darlie cried for her mother.
“Will he come back? Will he?”
Melinda couldn’t count the times Darlie had asked, so she answered the same way.
“I’m going to do everything I can to keep him from hurting you again. My sister’s looking for us. Remember, I told you about my sister, Bree?” She kept her voice soothing, like the stroke of her hand. “She’s a police detective. And there’s another. The other I told you about, remember? The one who saved me? Eve Dallas. They’ll find us, Darlie. We just have to hold on until they do.”
“He said I was a bad girl. He said I liked what he did, but I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“He lies, sweetie. He lies because he wants you to feel ashamed. But you didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault.”
“I tried to stop him.” Darlie burrowed into her. “I tried to fight, but he hurt me so bad. I screamed and screamed, but nobody heard me.”
“I know.” Melinda had to close her eyes, close them tight to block off the memory of her own wild struggles, her own screams. “I’m here. Help’s coming.”
“He put the number on me, and now my mom’s going to be mad. She said—she and Dad said I couldn’t get a tattoo until I was eighteen. She’s going to be so mad.”
“No, she won’t.” Melinda held Darlie tighter when she started to weep again. “I promise she won’t be mad at you because it’s not your fault.”
“I said mean things about her. I was mad and said mean things. It’s bad. I’m bad.”
“No.” Firmer now to cut through the rise of grief and guilt. “No, it’s normal. It’s what every girl does sometimes. You’re not bad. You listen to me now. Don’t let him get in your head. Whatever happens, remember who you are, that it’s not your fault.”
“I’m not allowed to have sex.” Darlie wept.
“You didn’t. He raped you. That’s not sex. That’s attack, assault, abuse. It’s not sex.”
“Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.” But she did. Of course she did. “Remember they’re looking for us. Everyone’s looking for us. Darlie, I’m going to do everything I can, but if I can’t stop him—”
“Please.” The shackles rattled as Darlie shot up in panic. “Oh please, don’t let him hurt me again.”
“I’ll do everything I can, but . . .” Melinda turned, cupped Darlie’s pale, wet face in her hands. “If . . . you have to, remember it’s not your fault. If you can, go somewhere else inside your head. Don’t let him get inside your head.”
“I want to go home.”
“Then go there in your head. Go—” She heard the locks give, felt Darlie cringe and shudder.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t.”
“Shh, shh. Don’t cry,” she whispered. “He likes it better when you cry.”
The monster opened the door.
“There’s my bad girls.”
His smile beamed indulgence, affection, but Melinda saw the hot glint in his eyes.
“Time for your next lesson, Darlie.”
“She needs a little more time. Please? She’ll do better if she has a little more time to absorb the first lesson.”
“Oh, I think she absorbed just fine. Didn’t you, Darlie?”
“Take me. I need to learn a lesson.”
He spared Melinda a glance. “It’s too late for you. Past your prime. Now this one—”
“I’ll be anything you want,” Melinda said as he stepped forward. “Anything. Let you do whatever you want. You can hurt me. I’ve been bad. I deserve it.”
“You’re not what I want.” He struck out, a brutally casual backhand that rapped her head against the wall. “Keep it up,” he warned Melinda, “and she’ll pay.”
“How about conversation? The woman you’re with? She doesn’t seem like she has a lot to say. It’s obvious she doesn’t have your intellect. We’re not going anywhere,” Melinda added, gripping Darlie’s hand hard under the blankets. “Wouldn’t you like to talk for a while? The day I came to see you, you wanted to talk and I didn’t let you. I’m sorry. I’d like to make up for that now.”
He angled his head. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“I can’t give you what she does, but I can offer something else. Something you must have missed, something you can’t get from her—or the woman.”
“And just what would we talk about.”
“Anything you like.” Her heart beat like a drum in her throat, and the beat was hope. “A man like you enjoys the stimulation of conversation, debate, discussion. I know you’ve traveled a great deal. You could tell me about the places you’ve been. Or we could talk about art, music, literature.”
“Interesting,” he said again, and she could see she’d intrigued him, amused him.
“You have a captive audience.”
He gave a bark of a laugh. “Aren’t you the sassy one?”
When he walked out, Melinda let out a breath. “Hold on,” she murmured to Darlie. “And be very quiet.”
He came back in with a chair, set it down, dropped into it. “So,” he said with a grin, “read any good books lately?”
15
S
he thought of herself as Sylvia. It was the name she used when she and Isaac were alone, the name she’d like to use when the game was done and they were living the high life. Sylvia was classy, elegant, and Isaac liked class.
The cop bitch called her Stella, but Stella was long ago. Another game, but that one had left her more dry than high. Richard Troy. Now that was a name from the past. How had that bitch of a cop known about Stella and Rich?
Rich’s flapping mouth, that’s how. It was the only way she could angle it. He must be doing time somewhere, the fucking asshole, and worked some sort of deal for flipping on her.
But how had he known to flip?
Didn’t matter. Not as long as Rich was jerking off in a cage somewhere.
She’d given the son of a bitch her best, too. More than her best. For Christ’s sake, she’d carried that sniveling brat of a kid in her belly for nine months. For Rich.
Train it, he’d said. Train it and sell it. Plenty of men like young meat, and plenty of them paid top dollar.
But he hadn’t been the one carting that weight around. He hadn’t been the one strung out for months, because drugs were off the menu.
He hadn’t wanted the kid coming out fucked up—damaged goods didn’t rate top dollar—so who’d paid that price?
Maybe it had been useful for a while, even though it cried half the goddamn day and night. Still, marks went even softer when you added a baby to the mix.
They’d made a good living running baby scams the first couple years. But then what had she gotten out of it? A whiny brat, that’s what.
Then a bloody lip when she’d found out Rich had been skimming the take and called him on it. But she’d played it right, hadn’t she? Going along, playing the game with the bastard and the brat until she’d pocketed a cool fifty large and walked.
Run maybe, because Rich would’ve beat the shit out of her if he’d caught her. Instead, he’d been stuck with the kid, and she had the take. Lived pretty damn well off it until it had run out.
She’d loved the cocksucker once.
Not like Isaac. Everything was different with Isaac. He treated her good—like Rich had in the beginning, and a couple others along the way. He
appreciated
her. He’d even sent her flowers. Imagine thinking of that when he was in prison.
And he told her she was beautiful, and sexy, and smart. He made
plans
with her.
Maybe they didn’t tear up the sheets as often as she wanted, but he had a lot on his mind right now. And what did she care if he banged the kid she’d found for him? The kid deserved it for being stupid.
And it put him in a really good mood. After he’d finished with the brat, they’d drink his fancy wine, she’d take a couple pops, and they’d talk and talk.
Big plans, big money, and they’d pay the cop back for screwing with him in the first place. Bitch would never have gotten the drop on her if she hadn’t been lucky.
Her luck was about to run out.
It burned her ass the way the cop had talked about Isaac, how that cunt had tried to turn her against him. They had a future, and they were going to build it using the cop’s blood for glue.
Isaac would make that bitch pay double now.
She slit her eyes open. The watchdog cop sat at the door, a big, burly lump of shit, in her eyes.
Whatever they’d done with her ribs helped her head. And so did the little dose of juice they’d finally given her. Better yet, when they’d taken her down to work on her, they’d had to loosen the restraints.
She hadn’t lost her touch, she thought, running her thumb over the laser scalpel she’d palmed while faking a seizure. Smooth as the Samaritan gambit she’d worked as a kid—and the scalpel was worth a hell of a lot more than some do-gooder’s wallet.
Time to make the move, she told herself. She didn’t believe that crap the Dallas bitch had spewed about closing in on Isaac. But she had to warn him, had to get to him. And he’d take care of her.
Maybe he’d buy her flowers again. Then they’d deal with Eve Dallas.
She moaned, tossed from side to side.
“Help.” She made her voice weak, putting herself into the part.
“Settle down,” the cop suggested.
“Something’s wrong. Please, can you get the nurse? Please, I think I’m going to be sick.”
He took his time, but he stepped over, pushed the call button. A few seconds later, the nurse’s face came on screen.
“Problem?”
“She says she needs a nurse. Says she feels sick.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Thank you.” Sylvia closed her eyes, just left the slit under her lashes. “It’s hot. I’m so hot. I think I’m dying.”
“If you are, it’ll be hotter where you end up, end of the day.”
He turned as the nurse bustled in.
“Says she’s sick, says she’s hot, says she’s dying.”
“Nausea’s not unusual after the procedure she had, and the meds.” Laying the back of her hand on Sylvia’s brow, the nurse raised the bed.
On a moan, Sylvia tried to turn, straining against the cuff on her right hand. “Pain. There’s a pain.” When she began to gag, the nurse grabbed a bedpan.
“Can’t. Can’t. Cramp. Need to—I can’t.”
“Just breathe. I need to take off the right restraint, ease her over. She’ll boot all over both of us otherwise.”
Muttering, the cop unlocked the restraint. In one vicious swipe, Sylvia slashed the laser across his throat. Even as he stumbled back, spurting blood, she pressed it to the nurse’s cheek.
“One peep, one sound, and I carve your face off.”
“Let me help him.”
“You’d better help yourself and unlock the other cuff. This thing will slice you open at five feet. You’d know that, being a nurse. Get the cuff off. Hurry.”
To get her moving, Sylvia gave her a shallow nick. Freed, she flexed her fingers. “Got some blood on you,” she commented. “But that happens in hospitals. Strip.”
She thought about killing the nurse, but it might involve more blood. Too much on the scrubs might cause too much attention. Instead she used the restraints, gagged her with medical tape.
“You got big feet,” she commented when she put on the nurse’s shoes. She pulled her hair back, fixed on the ID card, then grabbed a tray, tossed some supplies into it.
“Give Dallas a message for me. Tell her Isaac and me, we’ll be coming for her.”
She walked out, walked briskly with her tray—and remembered belatedly she should’ve taken the nurse’s ’link. But by the time she walked out the exit, she was smiling.
Cars had ’links. It’d been a while since she’d boosted a car.
Just like old times.
Melinda kept him engaged,
considered every moment he focused on her rather than Darlie a gift. The nights she’d spent studying him as she might a disease that had infected her had paid off. She knew his profile, his pathology, all of his background that had been discovered and published.
She knew he was well-read, considered himself an erudite man with exceptional taste. She discussed classic literature, segued into music—classical, contemporary, trends, artists.
Her head throbbed like a rotted tooth, but Darlie stopped shivering and eventually went limp in sleep.
When she disagreed with him she walked a tightrope, carefully navigating the shaky line between opinion and argument, conceding, flattering, even forcing out a laugh now and then as if he’d scored a point.
“But I like a good, silly comedy now and then,” she insisted. And thought she’d have sold her soul for one cool sip of water. “Complete with pratfalls. Especially after a long, hard day.”
“Without wit it’s mindless.” He shrugged. “If it doesn’t make you think, it’s not art.”
“Of course you’re right, but sometimes mindless is just what I want.”
“After a long, hard day. Counseling all the bad girls.”
Her heart tripped, but she nodded slowly. “It’s good to tune out and laugh. But as I said, you’re right about—”
“And do you spend all day telling them it’s not their fault, like you told our little Darlie here?”
She deliberately looked up at the camera above the door. “We both understand I knew you were watching, listening. I wanted to keep her calm. To help her adjust.”
“So you lie and lie and lie some more. Because we both know, too, that they want what I give them. You did.”
“It’s difficult to understand at such a young age, the—”
“Women are born understanding.” Something dark passed over his face and had her stumbling heart slamming against her ribs. “They’re born liars and whores. Born weak, and devious.”