by Cynthia Eden
And he still didn’t let her go.
Never. This time, it was a whisper deep in his mind. A whisper that seemed to come from his very soul.
Too bad he’d lost his soul long ago.
Ana had gone to sleep in his arms.
Cash lay in bed with her, his arm curled around her shoulders, her hand on his chest. They hadn’t talked after the sex. After the best sex he’d had since . . .
The last time I was with her.
He should be sleeping, too. Should have fallen into an exhausted, satisfied slumber with Ana only . . .
Guilt wouldn’t let him sleep.
Carefully, he eased from the bed. He listened carefully, trying to hear if Ana’s breathing changed. He didn’t want to wake her but . . .
Her breathing stayed nice and steady.
Cash crept toward the bathroom. He shut the door, then turned on the light. His hands gripped the chipped sink. He sucked in a long, deep gulp of air, then his head tilted back and he stared into the mirror.
Cash Knox, you are one serious bastard.
Soon enough, Ana was going to hate him. And then what in the hell did he think he would do?
Chapter Eight
Ana’s eyes opened. Her heart was racing, and her brother’s broken scream was still echoing in her ears.
“Let my sister go! Stop it! Stop, please! Don’t hurt her!”
Had she cried out with the dream? Had Cash heard her? Frantic, she looked to the side.
The bed was empty.
Her fingers reached out and touched the other pillow, then smoothed down over the sheets. Still warm. Cash had been with her, until recently.
Her head turned and she saw the light creeping from beneath the closed bathroom door. She slipped from the bed, but stopped to grab his shirt. She pulled the soft cotton over her—his shirt was huge on her, falling to easily cover her thighs so she didn’t have to worry that he might see her scars.
The marks were all on her torso, except for the thin line that sliced over her upper lip. Her abductors had intended to slice her whole face, but they hadn’t been given the chance.
She stilled, standing near the bed, her head cocked as she listened for sounds in that bathroom. Now that she was fully awake, she heard the roar of the water. Part of her was so tempted to go inside, to join him under the spray and get a repeat performance of that awesome pleasure.
Cash Knox knew exactly how to satisfy a woman.
As far as lovers went, he was definitely at the top of her list, even though he’d pushed about the lights.
That’s one rule I don’t break. No lights.
And no lights also meant . . . no shower. She wished that she could be carefree with her lovers—with him—but that just wasn’t in the cards for her.
She’d actually tried, once, when she’d been twenty-one. Twenty-one and convinced that she was falling in love. When you were in love, you were supposed to share everything with your partner, weren’t you?
So she’d nervously slipped her clothes off in front of Brian. And then she’d watched the horror fill his eyes.
Horror, then, even worse, pity.
That had been the last time she’d made that particular mistake with a lover. Besides, most men had been totally fine with sex in the dark. Dirty, hot sex . . . why complain?
The shower turned off.
It felt like more than just sex with Cash. The way he’d kissed her, every single scar. The tenderness . . . tenderness that had given way to such fierce desire. Was it any wonder she’d gone back on her vow of no sex with him?
The man was addictive.
And she was still just standing there. What was wrong with her? Shaking her head, she whirled away just as the bathroom door opened behind her. She glanced back and saw faint tendrils of steam spilling out of the doorway.
Cash stood there, seemingly frozen, his gaze on her. A white towel was wrapped around his hips, and beads of water slipped over his bare chest.
The man was built. It looked as if he were sporting twelve-pack abs. So rock hard. Absolutely delectable. Tanned flesh. Strong muscles. And if that towel would just fall a little bit . . .
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
His gaze dipped over her. A faint smile curved his lips. “That shirt looks good on you.”
Not as good as you look when you’re on me. But she held that retort back, for the moment.
“Ana . . .” Her name came out as a sigh. “We need to talk.”
That didn’t sound good. Her gaze darted around the room and she saw the clock on the nightstand. One a.m. She’d slept longer than she realized. “I didn’t mean to stay.” She scooped up her clothes. “I’ll just change and—”
His hand caught hers. “Is that another of your rules? That you don’t stay the night with a lover?”
She looked down at his hand. She could feel the press of calluses on his fingertips. She’d felt that slightly rough touch of his all over her body, and she’d loved every moment of being with him.
“Never mind,” he growled. “I really don’t want to hear about other lovers.” He let her go. “How about I give a rule? Let’s not ever talk about you and other men. I find that shit pisses me off.”
He whirled away from her, stalked toward his bag, and grabbed a pair of jeans. He dropped the towel, giving her one fine view of his ass—a great ass—and she took a moment to just admire him.
Cash wasn’t the shy sort.
She headed toward the bathroom. She’d change fast and then slip to the room next door. Whatever he wanted to talk about, well, it could wait until the morning. She felt too vulnerable there with him, in the middle of the night. Vulnerable because—deep inside—Ana swore that she could still feel him. Her inner muscles ached. Her breasts were heavy. And she still . . .
I want more.
She had to get her control back, ASAP. Going in, though, she’d known being with him was risky.
She reached for the bathroom door.
“Don’t run away,” he said. “Not again.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I’m just going to get dressed.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “There’s only one exit in this place, Cash.” Ana tried to make her voice light. “It’s hardly like I’m going to escape.”
A furrow appeared between his brows. He glanced toward the motel room’s door, and when he looked away, Ana hurried inside the bathroom. She shut the door behind her, locked it, and then, when she knew that she was safe, Ana slowly lifted Cash’s shirt. She stared into the mirror, and she saw every single scar. Curving, white lines from the slices—long and twisting. Short, barely one-inch wounds from the stabs. And she’d been stabbed fourteen times. She’d actually lost count after the tenth stab, but a helpful nurse at the hospital had told her about the others.
“Honey, you’re lucky. Stabbed fourteen times and you survived.”
She turned away from the mirror. Sometimes, she hated her memories. She showered as fast as she could, scrubbing her skin a little too hard. Her hands never lingered on her scars. They weren’t as bad now. Not angry and red, as they’d been when she first left the hospital. They’d faded, turned white with time, but the skin was still raised.
She was still marked.
She yanked on the faucet, turning off the water. Ana grabbed for a towel.
A sharp rap sounded on the door. “Ana!”
Jeez. She had been fast. “Give me a minute!” She looped the towel around her, making sure she was covered from her breasts to her thighs.
Cash pounded again. “He didn’t escape.”
Her brow furrowed and she hurried toward the door. The way he was pounding, she expected him to break down the door and burst inside the bathroom at any time.
She flipped the lock. Her fingers curled around the knob and she pulled the door open. “What?”
His gaze dipped over her. Heated.
She snapped her fingers in front of him. “What we
re you saying?” Though it was definitely flattering the way his mouth had dropped open and his gaze had lingered on her legs. She had good legs, even if she was on the short side.
Unscarred legs.
Cash shook his head. “It was what you said—about not being able to escape because there was only one door.”
He’d lost her.
“You said it wasn’t like you could escape the motel room.”
Okay. Ana waited.
“And the caller said that Forrest didn’t escape anything. The guy wasn’t bullshitting us. I think he meant those words, literally.”
Her toes curled against the old carpet.
“Forrest didn’t get out of the psychiatric hospital. He never escaped those walls.” Cash’s voice was grim. “He’s still inside that place. Somewhere . . . deep inside.”
The psychiatric hospital was spooky at night. Ana pulled her battered coat a bit closer and kept her expression blank as she followed Cash past the guards at the entrance to the facility.
Shadows had been thick and heavy on the outside of the building, but inside, the shadows seemed even worse. And there was a terrible stillness about the place, as if it were just waiting for something to happen.
Something bad.
“Didn’t expect you back tonight, Agent Knox,” the guard said as he checked the clipboard. It was the same guard who’d been on duty when they left. Tall, wide in the middle, with thick, blond hair and light brown eyes. Keegan Johnson. “Thought you were getting some rest.”
“We need to search again.”
The guard glanced over at Ana. “Ain’t the FBI doing manhunts in the area?”
Cash retorted, “The manhunts are no good if Forrest Hutchins never left the hospital.”
“What? Course he’s gone! We searched every room here—you searched earlier today!” Now Keegan seemed insulted as he straightened his spine. “Don’t mean to tell you how to do your job . . .”
But he’s about to. Ana knew exactly how that sentence would end. She looked over her shoulder. Another guard was to the left, watching silently.
“We missed something,” Cash said, voice flat. “You missed something, I missed something. And before I spend too much damn federal money on a massive manhunt, I will be taking another look inside this facility.”
Keegan pointed to the bank of screens—and video feeds near his desk. “You can look right here. Not like Hutchins is just going to appear, though. He’s gone.”
Ana stepped forward. “We want to look in the areas that don’t have video surveillance. We’re not here to search any rooms that belong to patients. We’re looking at the isolated spots.”
Keegan rubbed his chin. “There’s a laundry area downstairs. No video cameras there. It’s only accessed by staff, so there was never a need.” He shook his head. “But there’s also no way out from down there. It’s one big room that leads nowhere. No windows. Only one door. No escape there.”
No escape. The guard’s words made unease slither through Ana.
“And what about the top floor?” Cash demanded. “I was there earlier, looked like storage rooms up there, but I saw no surveillance equipment.”
“No, none are up there ’cause we don’t use that area too often.” Keegan was still rubbing his chin. “But, Agent Knox, like you said, you were there. Hutchins wasn’t just strolling through the place.”
Ana’s foot tapped on the floor. “And the offices of the doctors on staff? They don’t have video surveillance, either, right?”
Now Keegan laughed. “No, ma’am, but it’s not like he’s holed up in one of their offices. I think they would have noticed a killer sitting in their chair.” He gave a little disgusted shake of his head, as if she should have known that.
Keegan was about to get on her last nerve.
“The patients are all locked in for the night,” Keegan added, giving Ana a fast, frowning glance. She frowned right back. “You’re not going to stir them all up, are you? ’Cause I don’t think Dr. Summers will like that.”
Hadn’t she already told the guy she wasn’t interested in patient rooms?
“Don’t worry,” Cash snapped. “I don’t plan to see them at all. And as for Dr. Summers, I’ll deal with her. Any other fucking thing you want to say?”
Keegan seemed to finally get that he was about to push Cash too far. Keegan shook his head and stepped back, opening the way for them to go inside and start their search. But before they passed, Keegan handed Cash a keycard. “It’s a master,” he said, “same as the one you got earlier, Agent Knox. It will open the doors to the laundry area, the storage area, and the administrative offices. It won’t get you inside any patient wards.”
Cash took the card with a brisk nod.
Ana followed him as they left both guards behind. The shadows in the facility stretched like ghostly figures before them.
“What’s wrong?” Cash asked her as he came to a stop near a stairwell.
“Nothing.”
He stared. “You’re nervous.”
Yes, so what? “I’m in a psych ward in the middle of the night. Sorry, but this has scary movie written all over it.”
His head cocked. “Ana, you were recently in a maximum security prison with some of the absolute worst scum in the United States. They were threatening you, taunting you, making me want to kick all of their asses, but you never even broke a sweat.”
She rolled one shoulder in a faint shrug. “Everyone has their triggers, okay? Mine is places like this. Psych wards.” She couldn’t even watch horror movies that took place in insane asylums without having her stomach twist into knots that seemed to last for a week.
And she even knew the reason why, of course.
Not that she’d admit it. But . . .
After my attack, my mind . . . it didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. I was worried I might end up in a place like this.
Her own hell.
“Don’t worry,” Ana assured him, trying to sound brisk and in control. “I’ve got this. I won’t break down.”
“You never do.” He swiped the keycard over the panel to the right of the door. “Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.”
Sounded like a plan to her. Ana followed him into the stairwell and it was like walking right into a dark, yawning cave. Wonderful. She braced her shoulders, reached for the bannister, and started the trek downstairs.
It wasn’t completely dark, after all. A light flickered from the wall, giving a low hum as they passed it. “You really believe he’s inside this place?” Ana asked.
Cash was right in front of her. “I do.” A pause. “What about you, though? You’re the one who said she could figure out how monsters think.”
Yes, she had said that, but Ana was hesitant to say what she was really thinking right then.
The first time he contacted me, the caller kept talking about payback.
The Butcher had been butchered, just like his victims. That definitely counted as payback.
And Forrest Hutchins? He’d kept his victims prisoner, starved them.
Would that be his payback, too? She murmured, “I believe if he’s inside this place, he’s dead.”
They’d reached the bottom floor. Cash opened another door, and when they walked into the laundry area, the scent of bleach and detergent burned Ana’s nose. One light was on overhead, but Cash hit the switch on the wall and a whole series of lights flashed on, one at a time, lighting up the long hallway. Clothes were tossed into heavy laundry carts on either side of the room. Big, industrial-sized washers waited to the left, while massive dryers were stacked to the right.
No windows. No other doors. The guard had been right about this room. Once you were in, there was only one way back out.
Cash headed toward the dryers. He started opening them, searching inside. So she went for the washers and gave them the same scrutiny.
“A person can go for three weeks without food,” Ana said as her hand curved around the side of a washing machine.
“Not pretty, not easily, but it can be done.”
Cash had finished searching in the dryers. Not like either of us really expected to see a body curled up in one of them, though. Ana figured the facility’s cleaning staff would have noticed a dead body curled up with the laundry.
“Three weeks for food,” she said again, turning to look at the laundry carts. Her gaze narrowed on them. “But not nearly as long without water.”
“Three days,” Cash said. He’d headed toward the carts. He shoved his hand inside one and pushed around the clothes. “At least, that’s the standard. One of Forrest’s victims managed to survive ten days. The ME was shocked when he told me that shit. Ten long days . . . his body was attacking itself.”
And what had the guy’s mind been doing?
Because that had been the true purpose of Forrest’s sick experiments—to see what starvation and dehydration did to a person’s mind.
Cash’s fingers curled around the top of the cart. He pushed against it, then stilled. “Pretty perfect way to transport a body, don’t you think?”
She crept closer to him.
“Cover the body with towels or patient clothing, shove him down deep,” Cash mused, “and you could just wheel him all through this place without attracting any attention.”
Yes, that would be one easy way to take care of a body. “Once you got him down here, though, where would you go?” There wasn’t any place to go, not that she could see.
Cash headed toward the stone walls. He put his hands on them, pushing, and began to slowly circle the space.
“Um, are you seriously Scooby-Dooing for a secret passage?” Ana asked him.
He stilled. “This room isn’t big enough.”
“Big enough for what?”
“The space upstairs is massive, but down here, we just have the one room. There’s more space. It just must have been closed off a long time ago. Walled up.”
A shiver slid over her. “‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” She hurried toward the wall and started pressing her fingers to the surface, too. “That was always Asher’s favorite Poe story.”
