Seared into what had just recently been nothing more than a smooth canvas of pale skin, the outline was a violent shade of red. In various places, the thickness of the line varied greatly, the outline slightly wobbly, as if traced by the hand of a child.
Or like her leg had bucked as it was applied, muscles flexing at the intrusion, even as she was unconscious in the moment.
Measuring at least a few millimeters thick all the way around, the skin was crusted almost black, brittle to the touch in many spots already.
There would be no avoiding a scar. The only question at this point was how bad it ended up.
Surrounding the brand almost all the way around was a host of bruising and blisters, the severity of each one depending on the depth of the burn. Covered in ointment, it glistened beneath the overhead light, the entire thing looking like some sort of Hollywood prosthetic that had been applied.
Like it couldn’t actually be her skin, something that would mark her for the rest of her days.
Not one fiber of Serena’s being had wanted to use the ointment, just as she had not wanted to eat the food. She hadn’t wanted him to think she needed him for anything, didn’t want to reinforce the sense of self-importance that was already so deep-seated.
But the fact was, at the moment, she did. Her body was battered, weakening by the day under his repeated tortures. Her access to outside food or first aid was non-existent.
She hadn’t tried screaming yet, knowing it would do no good, the room created to be a prison, the effort only serving to strip away her voice as well.
Which, she could now see, was all by design. Everything in her current environment was placed with painstaking care, meant to convey just how hopeless the situation was. To beat down any fight she might have, making her completely pliable.
She was forced to smell her own burnt flesh in the air. To eventually have to sit on the toilet and pee knowing he was watching.
She couldn’t even turn on the damn lights when she wanted to.
Sitting and staring down at her leg, Serena was starting to put together how things would go. She didn’t know how many others had been where she was – if there were even others at all – but she could see the progression. From waking up in a sealed room to being beaten every time she opened her mouth to being forced to watch the man imprint his mark on her, it was all like the pages from some medieval text on how to assert dominance over another.
The swollen skin around Serena’s eyes tightened as her gaze narrowed. As she took in the damage done to her, smelled the scent of it still lingering in her nostrils.
Felt the first bit of resolve seep into her system.
No matter how many times he had done this, no matter how perfect the man thought his plans, mistakes had been made.
And like he seemed so fond of saying, mistakes had consequences.
Since the incident with the brand, she hadn’t seen the man. Hadn’t heard the telltale click of the locks outside her door. Nothing but the lights coming on earlier, alerting her that it was morning.
There was no way to know how many hours had passed in total, though it had to have been at least several. Enough for her to get past the debilitating fear of being beaten and the frustrated anger of seeing what had been done to her leg.
She would not be a statistic. She refused to be someone who was alluded to in future news stories or a person her sisters would one day tell their spouses about losing when they were about to start high school.
People needed her. She would get past this man. She would do what she must to survive him, and she would return to them.
Even if there was now a chain pinning her to the wall. Even if the man had cameras hidden around the room, watching her every move.
That just meant she needed to be smart about it.
Not that she wasn’t still going to try.
Chapter Forty-Three
A vein stood out along the left side of Carver Ecklund’s forehead. With each beat of his heart, it could almost be seen throbbing, threatening to come bursting out from beneath the surface.
His entire face was stained bright red with a heavy flush of blood, his lips curled back in a sneer.
Sitting on the opposite side of his desk, he had the appearance of a principal about to explode on a pair of students who had just been caught in a prank. With his fingers laced in front of him, it seemed he was aching to fire himself forward, ranting for all to hear.
An eventuality Reed almost hoped would happen.
After his dealings with police brass the last couple of weeks, he’d had his fill not only of the extreme self-importance but also of their refusal to see what truly mattered. Why their job existed in the first place.
Back in Columbus, that had meant ignoring the fact that Della Snow had been found alive, the focus solely on the bad press that had emerged once the underlying motivations for the crime were uncovered.
Here, it was Ecklund’s continuing disavowal that anything nefarious had befallen Serena Gipson and his preference for all to believe that the girl had simply decided to slip away for a while.
The call from Ecklund had arrived a moment after Reed and Wyatt pushed themselves away from the side of the car. Armed with marching orders for the afternoon, they were about to be on their way back to Warner when Wyatt’s phone had erupted.
Thirty minutes later, here they now sat, enduring an unnecessary tongue lashing and wasting time they didn’t have.
“Imagine this,” Ecklund said, each word punctuated by his chin and shoulders all jutting forward an inch. “I’m just sitting here, enjoying my lunch, when a call comes into the switchboard.
“They ask for Officer Wyatt. Corey tells them you’re not here until this evening, and do you know what they said?”
There was no need for the question, the sole purpose of it to force one of them to respond. A classic power move, one Reed had seen many times from people just like Ecklund. There was no way in hell he would ever stoop to giving the man the satisfaction.
But he wasn’t in the unfortunate position of having to work for him, either.
“What?” Wyatt asked, his gaze never lifting from the desk.
“They said to ask you if the meeting about Serena Gipson could be pushed back until later this afternoon,” Ecklund said. Leaning forward at the waist, he gripped either armrest of his chair, pretending they were the sole things holding him in place.
As if fear and common sense didn’t tell him that both men across from him had twenty years and thirty pounds on him.
Or that Billie would have him torn apart before he made it even halfway there.
“I said to Corey, ‘Now that can’t be right, because Officer Wyatt wouldn’t be foolish enough to go trying to create a case where there wasn’t one,’” Ecklund said, leveling a stare on Wyatt.
At no point did he bother elaborating that Corey was likely his son, the story’s context and the fact that the kid had come running in to tell his father about the call the moment it happened being more than enough to fill in the gaps.
Rotating his head slowly, Ecklund switched his focus to Reed. Giving his best scowl, he waited almost a full minute, pulling in loud breaths through his nose, before saying, “And you, Detective Mattox. Or should I say, Detective-on-Leave Mattox?”
Pausing there, he let the scowl fade, hints of defiance and smugness creeping in to replace it.
Since the moment Reed had been called into his office the day before, he’d known it was only a matter of time before the news came out. Whether he had put in a call to Chief Brandt in Columbus or had merely spent a bit more time online digging into him didn’t really matter at this point, the end result being exactly the same.
The only thing that changed was the position the man now seemed to believe he was in, the expression on his face causing Reed’s stomach to draw tight. He again pressed the tips of his fingers into his thighs, rolling them forward at the first joint, feeling his nails digging into his jeans.
“I e
xtended you the courtesy yesterday of merely asking you not to make this something,” Ecklund said, “but apparently I wasn’t being clear. If I hear of you going anywhere near the Gipson family, if I see you in a place I think she might have frequented, if I so much as hear you say her name, I’ll throw your ass in jail. And you can sit there until it’s time for you to get back on a plane.”
Every muscle Reed had clenched tight. His rear molars clamped down hard, his lips drawn in until they were nothing more than a thin line.
Reading his every physiological response, Billie did the same beside him, her back end rising a few inches from the floor. The faintest of growls passed from her diaphragm, the tips of her teeth exposed, ready to be employed at the first sign of aggression.
Hundreds of responses ran through Reed’s mind as he sat and stared at the man. Everything from the words he’d love to fling across the desk, telling him exactly what he thought of him and his self-appointed kingship, to merely reaching out and grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, mashing his head down into the top of the desk in a contest to see which one caved in first.
All the venom, the acrimony, he’d felt for the previous few weeks rose to the surface, threatening to spill out.
Meaning that his only response - for his sake, for Billie’s, even for his parents who had just arrived - was to sit in silence.
Even if it meant letting the man think he had won for right now.
Remaining fixed in place, almost daring Reed to respond, Ecklund slowly shifted back to Wyatt. His eyes widened, seemingly emboldened as he stared at the officer.
“And you,” he began, “congratulations. You’ve now been assigned to desk duty. Double shifts for the next week straight.”
Lifting his wrist, he pretended to check a watch that wasn’t there. “Starting in one hour.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Reed was still steaming as he pulled into his parents’ driveway. Clenching the steering wheel in both hands, every vein and tendon was visible, pulled taut just beneath the surface. His neck and shoulders both felt like they were knotted into chain links, lactic acid starting to burn from sitting with everything squeezed tight.
So badly he had wanted to fly across that desk. To grab Ecklund and pummel out the frustration he felt, both for the extraneous bullshit that was seeming to become a hallmark of his career and for the man’s complete disavowal of the case at hand.
Somewhere in the greater Warner area, Serena Gipson was being held. If Darcy Thornton was any indicator, she was likely being abused, snatched up because of her looks, held for the sadistic sport of some twisted fiend.
That possibility alone should have been enough. It should have warranted Ecklund springing into gear, proving how much he cared about his precious dominion by doing everything he could to protect it.
Instead, he was doing all he could to delude himself into believing it wasn’t occurring, even going so far as to hobble one of his officers and exclude the pro bono aid of the most seasoned detective in the area.
Sitting with all of that simmering just beneath the surface, Reed pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. He slid the keys free without making any effort to climb out, anger rolling from him in undulating waves.
Not that Wyatt seemed to be faring much better in the seat beside him, his own internal turmoil tinged with guilt and shame, both emotions splayed plainly across his features.
“I apologize for dragging you into this,” Wyatt eventually said, breaking the quiet inside the car. In the back, Billie shifted at the sound of his voice, her weight causing the SUV to rock just slightly. “I never would have imagined he would react this way.”
There were no less than a dozen things Reed wanted to say in reply, though none of them would have made a difference. Nobody could have foreseen the way Ecklund was acting, that his chief concern would be on controlling the public perception.
“I’m sorry you basically got put on house arrest,” Reed replied. “At least when I got put on leave, they didn’t make me sit there for sixteen hours a day switching thumbs.”
Shaking his head slightly, Wyatt said, “My own damn fault. I should have been sure to tell Laub to call my cell instead of the office.”
Again, the most obvious response came to Reed, wanting to tell the man that he shouldn’t have had to. Not in trying to speak to someone with working knowledge of a potential victim and her schedule, likely one of the last people to see her before she disappeared.
But he didn’t. There would be no use. If the situation was switched, hearing Wyatt stating the obvious still wouldn’t keep him from beating himself up over what had taken place.
He’d want to hear the next steps. He’d want to be assured that things wouldn’t end.
Not here, not because of the fear of a little bad press.
“Laub?” Reed asked. “That was the woman’s name?”
Remaining silent a moment, Wyatt shifted his gaze slightly. Looking from the dashboard before him to the console, he clocked Reed in his periphery.
“Yeah. Beatrice Laub.” Moving his gaze a few more inches, he asked, “You still going over to see her?”
“I am,” Reed said, his tone betraying a bit of the anger he still felt. “Bastard can’t stop two adults from having a conversation.”
Bobbing his head just slightly, one corner of Wyatt’s mouth twitched, almost as if he found the mere thought humorous. “And then what?”
“Depends what she has to say,” Reed said.
Pausing, he thought about what had just taken place. He ran it through his mind twice, each successive play bringing back threads from a similar conversation he’d had weeks before.
A talk that had taken place standing in Grimes’s office, Chief Brandt and her media lackey sitting in front of him.
“You said you saw online where I’d been put on leave,” Reed said, “but did it say why?”
This time, Wyatt turned to look directly over at Reed. Meeting his gaze for a moment, he shook his head, each of them turning to face front again.
Drawing in a breath, Reed took a moment, considering the best place to start.
It was a story that probably should have been shared before.
“Over the last couple of years,” Reed began, “Billie and I have amassed a pretty good record. And I won’t lie, it’s been against some pretty heinous characters.
“To the point that this last one was actually someone that felt he’d been wronged by the system, so he targeted us. Did a bunch of things that he knew would land him on our radar.”
Grunting softly, Wyatt asked, “Was he? Wronged, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Reed said, his brows rising slightly in concession. “I know every collar out there claims to be innocent, but this guy actually had been set up, and he used us to prove it.”
Just over a month from standing in the man’s living room and hearing him explain it all in excruciating detail on camera, Reed could still hear the words, see the man’s expression as he did so.
“And much like Ecklund, our chief was afraid of it turning into a PR nightmare, so she put us out to pasture until things cooled down.”
There was so much more Reed could share, that he wanted to share, though he pulled up short. The gist of the story was out, continuing further only serving to release some of the animosity he felt.
A moment of catharsis perhaps, but in no way helpful to the current situation.
For a moment, there was no sound inside the car. Nothing but each man sitting, ruminating on what was shared.
“Jesus,” Wyatt eventually muttered. “What a world we live in. Public perception is more important than public safety.”
Which was exactly the conclusion Reed was hoping the man would come to. He hadn’t shared the story to prove how great he and Billie were, and damned sure wasn’t looking for sympathy.
He had shared it as a form of explanation, hoping that the man understood why they were still bound to do what they were about to.
; “Except, it isn’t.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Seated in the front seat of his truck, The Bear stared down at the screen of his phone. On it was the live feed from the holding cell, an overhead view embedded in one of the light fixtures. Tucked in right along the base, it was well back from the wire cage framing it, ensuring it was beyond reach should she ever even think to go looking for it.
Not that it appeared she would.
Intermittently throughout the day, The Bear had been checking on her, seeing things go much the way he would have figured.
Much the way they had in the past.
The morning was a slow march, beginning with the lights coming on. Lying in the bed, she had stared at the ceiling for more than an hour, awake but not really active, a computer screen with the saver up, resting in a low-energy state.
A bit later, she had risen to find the items he’d left for her, the part where she chucked the burn ointment and crumpled the note both especially entertaining. As were the parts where she slowly got over herself and her anger, taking down the water and the banana, just as she’d been instructed.
The Bear hadn’t been watching when she unwrapped her leg, missing the big reveal and the part where she reacted to it, though he’d seen that enough times at this point to be okay with missing one. It wasn’t like there wasn’t still much to learn, the strain of preparing for the last several weeks putting him behind in the real world.
Had this all happened in the dead of winter, there’d have been no problems. He would have been free to do what he needed, minimal commitments providing him with ample time to finish what he had to and still get things in order.
Coming up on the start of summer though, his second busiest time of the year, things were tight. His attention was split, a state he hated being in, no matter how necessary it might be.
“Good afternoon, welcome to Cisco’s. May I take your order?” a cheerful female voice said through the loudspeaker attached to the menu outside his window.
The Bear Page 18
