by Nina Pierce
“His murder was nothing but a terrible tragedy between scorned lovers. Doc McCarty, I…”
“Shut up. Just shut up. I have no desire to rehash my life with you, Meghan.” He turned back to the road. “Take this next left.”
Sarah was having a hard time controlling the car. The farther they drove into the middle of nowhere, the more snow accumulated on the road. How the hell had her life gotten to this place?
She’d come to Maine this week for her second round of interviews at the Bangor Hospital. She’d just accepted the residency position they offered this morning, and tonight she’d be dead at the hands of a madman before reaping the rewards of her hard work in medical school. Mistress Crystal’s persona would be retiring before the holiday, and Sarah Maddock had planned to emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Now she’d never have a chance to prove herself worthy of her brother’s love.
Everything she’d done over the past few months since discovering Peter’s real identity, she’d done to be closer to her brother—to build a relationship the fates had stolen from them. Now it was all slipping through her fingers. She’d never have the opportunity to tell Peter he had a baby sister.
“Where are you taking us?” Sarah’s voice trembled.
“It doesn’t matter,” the doctor spat. “Where you die should be of no concern.”
“Why don’t you let Sarah go? She has nothing to do with all this,” Meghan suggested.
“Nothing to do with this?” His raspy laugh clawed its way down Sarah’s spine. “Why don’t you brag about what you did, Sarah?”
She would have had no idea what he was talking about if he hadn’t ranted about how she’d fucked up his life on the way to the floral shop. Discovering the source of a patient’s illness was a cause for celebration, not vituperation. “Someone would have figured it out eventually,” Sarah said quietly. “The signs of selenium poisoning were all there, I just happened to be the first to put the pieces together and solve the puzzle.”
“You figured out what was wrong with my father?” Meghan asked.
Sarah dared catch her eye in the mirror. “I’m new to the staff at the hospital.” She lifted a shoulder. “I told you I knew Peter. I had no idea John Tilling was your father until I saw Peter in his room this morning and went to check the patient he was visiting.” That was a lie, but Meghan didn’t need to know she’d actually run from Peter, too afraid to talk to him. She knew her Internet research wasn’t wrong. She and Peter Maddock had the same mother. But by the time Sarah was born, Peter had started kindergarten, and the courts had placed him in foster care. She suspected Peter must also know he had a sibling. Why else would he have sought her out? She’d known at the hotel that he hadn’t wanted a sexual tryst with her, but fate had intervened once again, and they’d never had a chance to meet in person. Now, she wondered if this lunatic with the gun would keep her from ever meeting her brother.
Sarah looked in the mirror at the confusion wrinkling Meghan’s face. “When your father spoke to me in the hospital, I smelled the garlic on his breath, saw the deterioration of his fingernails. Only one poison does that.” She sounded like she was apologizing, and maybe she was.
She’d come to Delmont not caring about his fiancée, wanting only to have a relationship with Peter. Sarah had found out about Meghan and the engagement through her Internet search as well. She resented that her brother had found a family and had had every intention of separating him from the Tillings. Like a jealous girlfriend, she’d thrown her flogger into Meghan’s car the night she’d watched them through the window, hoping to begin a rift that would break them apart. Why she’d wanted him all to herself was beyond her at the moment. Peter came with a family—didn’t she want them in her life also?
“One more turn.” Doc waved the gun, and Sarah slowed the car down, trying not to skid into the ditch. Then she thought better of it. Perhaps that was their only chance. The doctor wasn’t wearing a seat belt. If Meghan could free herself, maybe she could grab his gun. It would be two against one old man—an angry old man with a gun—hell-bent on revenge. Sarah wondered if Meghan was even trying to work on the ropes that bound her hands.
Dr. McCarty waved the gun menacingly at Sarah. “All that damn work and no one discovered what I’d been doing. But a smart-ass medical student comes in and finds the selenium poisoning.”
“You were poisoning my father?” The words fell out of Meghan’s mouth.
Dr. McCarty’s lips curved in a sinister smile. “It was a foolproof plan, actually. I put it in his heart medication. All these months of work, poisoning your father slowly. A few more weeks and he would have been dead, and your mother would have turned to her best friend—me! I finally would have had the life I deserved.” He poked the gun in Sarah’s ribs, and she winced. “But this bitch showed up and ruined it all. Well, she can die for her offenses.”
Dr. McCarty’s grief over his son’s death must have sent him over the edge of reason. Even knowing that, it still didn’t make sense. Doctors didn’t use their medical expertise against their patients, especially friends.
Sarah felt the snow pull at her tires, dragging her into the middle of the road. She cut the wheel back the other way, working to manage the resulting skid. Dr. McCarty flailed momentarily in the sway of the vehicle, trying to maintain his balance.
But even the seconds of tension didn’t slow Meghan’s censure. “My mother wouldn’t have turned to you,” Meghan said defiantly. “She has the three of us. We’re her family.”
Sarah righted the car, praying they wouldn’t go off the road. Even the dangerous conditions didn’t quiet their loud voices. Her passengers seemed oblivious to everything but their own argument.
“But she won’t have you now, will she, Meghan?” He turned and rubbed the end of the gun up Meghan’s cheek. “You’re as stubborn as your old man. Refusing to die. You’re like that silly bunny, you keep going and going.”
“What?” The question burst from Meghan’s lips.
“You think the floral cooler was an accident? I locked you in there. And if my damn car hadn’t mired in the snow, Deirdre never would have come in to save you.”
“No, it…”
“Oh, grow up, Meghan. I’ve been doing all sorts of little things. You don’t really believe cats just keel over and freeze to death, now do you? A little shot of morphine and Mr. Jingles went quietly into the next world.”
“You bastard,” Meghan screamed and fought against the ties.
The man was more crazed than Sarah had first believed. First the father, then the daughter. Would he stop with their deaths, or would it be only the beginning of what he saw as mercy killings? She couldn’t let him get away with this.
“Easy or you’ll hurt yourself, my dear, Meghan. I’d like you to save that privilege for me.” The doctor settled back in his seat, the green glow of the dashboard giving his face an eerie, surreal quality.
Meghan stopped struggling and looked at this man intent on killing. “Did you have something to do with the incident in the garage?”
Sarah looked over at him as a sickly smile slid across his lips. What else had he done to torture this woman and her family?
“Of course, I did. It wasn’t what I intended, but it worked. Peter mentioned the problem with the garage door opener at dinner. It was a foolproof plan. No one would suspect your death was foul play.”
He shot Meghan a satisfied grin. “You see, Meghan, I’d already cut the emergency cord on the opener. I intended to knock you out and let the car do the work, but when you stepped out of the car, I simply locked the doors with the spare keys I found on the breezeway. Then I locked the kitchen door and went over to your mother’s for tea.”
“You were in my house?”
The man was working to bait Meghan, and from the high pitch of her last question, it sounded like it was working. Sarah silently begged Meghan to untie the ropes. Glancing at her in the mirror, Sarah tried to communicate to Meghan that she had a plan. Not a good o
ne, but a plan nonetheless.
The old man turned back to the road, giving Sarah more driving instructions. With a curt nod, Meghan lifted her hand ever so briefly to show Sarah that she had indeed freed herself. They both understood that they were in this together, however it might end.
“Just a little farther, Sarah, my dear. Drive slowly through here, the curves can be treacherous. You wouldn’t want to hurt your passengers.”
She sure as hell did.
Sarah slammed on the brakes, sending the car into an uncontrolled skid. Dr. McCarty lurched forward, smashing his head on the dashboard. Meghan let out a muffled scream as the car careened from one side of the road to the other, bumping into the snowbank, sending it spinning down the road.
Sarah pulled hard on the steering wheel as the car tipped up on two wheels. It balanced there for a moment before eventually slamming back down on its tires, jarring its occupants. Sliding sideways in the road, the car took on a mind of its own. Sarah pumped the brakes, working to slow the vehicle without sending it into the ditch.
Just as quickly as it started, the car crashed into the snowbank and stopped on the opposite side of the road, pointing in the direction they had come. An explosion resounded through the car, the smell of gun powder filling the vehicle.
Disoriented, Sarah feared the doctor had shot someone, or worse—that the car was on fire. Had they managed to save themselves from a madman, only to burn to death?
“Meghan, are you all right? Do you smell that? Are we on fire?” Sarah asked in a shaky voice as she scrambled to release the seat belt. She had no idea where the gun was, but getting control of the weapon took precedence over the throb of pain in her head and ribs.
“The side airbags went off.” Meghan’s voice was muffled, but the desperation was apparent. “Find the gun. Where’s the gun?”
Sarah leaned over Doc’s still body, searching for the weapon, her fingers grazing the metal before being hauled back.
“No, you don’t.” The words were garbled, obviously spoken through broken teeth and blood as Doc pushed to a sitting position and grabbed a fistful of her hair.
“Let go of me, you asshole!” Sarah screamed, her fist slamming into the side of his face. The doctor fell heavily against the seat, and Sarah dove for the weapon.
Meghan lunged over the passenger seat, the rope stretched taut between her hands and came down around Doc’s torso, pulling with all her strength and pinning him to the seat.
“I should shoot you right here.” Sarah held the gun in trembling hands. “If not for me, for everything you’ve put the Tillings through.”
“Sarah, he’s not worth it.” Meghan’s voice shook with relief and adrenaline.
* * * *
Peter couldn’t stand another minute of waiting. Ayden was working the phones, gathering some of his men, but without a clue, how would they know where to look? Crystal had been suspiciously quiet on the Internet. He prayed she would call before she did anything to Meghan.
All he’d wanted was a family. Not in-laws, but real, honest-to-goodness relatives of his own. Months of searching his mother’s genealogy had turned up another birth—a daughter. Sarah Maddock had been born the year after he’d been put in foster care. He should have known nothing good would come of trying to make her part of his family.
A medical student who moonlighted as a Dominatrix couldn’t be up to any good. She’d stalked his fiancée, attempted to harm her, and now had resorted to kidnapping. Fingers raked through his sandy hair, and he growled in frustration. How could he have been so stupid?
Peter’s cell phone rang, and he grabbed it off the kitchen table without looking at the number.
“Meghan?”
“No, it’s Crystal.”
Lead filled his belly. “Damn you, if you hurt Meghan, I will hunt you down…”
“Meghan’s fine, Peter.” She cut him off. “But we have had a rather intriguing bonding experience.” Amusement floated on her words.
The woman had fallen into the deep end of the crazy pool. Nothing about this situation was funny. “I know who you are, Sarah Maddock. You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Spoken like a true older brother.”
Her words stopped him short. How had she found out? He’d never given anything away when he chatted with her on the Internet. They’d had yet to talk face-to-face.
“That shut you up?” She laughed. “I do have a lot to learn about you.”
He heard muffled words in the background.
“Seems your fiancée may have a career ahead of her in bondage, Peter.” She laughed again. “Now that she’s done tying up our assailant, I’ll let you talk with her.”
“Peter.” Meghan sounded breathless.
Tears of relief burned his eyes. “Meghan, my God, are you all right?”
“I am now, thanks to your sister. Seems we’ve got lots of things to talk about when I get home.”
Chapter 13
Valentine’s Day
Meghan knelt naked over the hassock in the honeymoon suite of the plush Bangor hotel. Somewhere within the two oversized rooms, her wedding dress lay piled in a heap along with Peter’s tux. Silk stockings, boxers, and lacy underthings littered the two rooms as they’d stripped their way to the bedroom. Waiting here, in anticipation of a wedding night of pleasure, was a wonderful ending to a perfect day.
Their wedding had been a celebration of love—and family.
She and Peter had been the final holdouts to marital bliss. Damon and Julie had had a quiet civil ceremony in their father’s hospital room as soon as he’d been transferred from Bangor to Delmont Hospital. Deirdre and Ayden had tied the knot on New Year’s Eve, with a rowdy reception at the local tavern.
But Meghan had wanted the traditional wedding with all the trimmings. Sarah had stood up for her as her maid of honor, Julie and Deirdre happily stepping aside for the newest addition to the Tilling clan. When her father had walked her down the aisle of the church, the tired limp of last fall had been replaced by the surefooted step of a healthy man. No one knew the long-term side effects of selenium poisoning, but for now, he was a retired man happily anticipating the arrival of his first grandchild.
It would be months before Dr. McCarty would be tried for attempted murder, but Meghan didn’t want to think about any of that now.
Now, all she wanted was her husband to return and fulfill the promise he’d whispered in her ear at the front desk. He’d carried two suitcases in from the car, each one filled with clothes and the implements of sexual pleasure they’d accumulated over the past several months. The toys would accompany them on their two-week honeymoon in Aruba.
Meghan wanted to call out for Peter, beg him to ease her aching need, but the gag and the blindfold he’d tied around her head kept her from being able to communicate. With her wrists bound to the front legs of the hassock and her knees spread wide, bound to the back legs, there wasn’t any way to convey her frustration. Her sex was open wide, begging for attention.
Only the pulse of the vibrator tucked between the chair cushions Peter had positioned behind her, helped satisfy her growing desire. Her husband had bound her here, promising a wedding night of blissful naughtiness and promptly left her with instructions not to satisfy herself. But the blunt knob pulsing against her clit made that a damn near impossible promise to keep. Her steepled nipples were held tight in clamps. Any movement of her torso against the cotton of the towel beneath her belly and the divine pain shot straight to her pussy and clenched her internal muscles. How much longer she could float on this blissful cloud of contentment without coming, she didn’t know. Every taut fiber of her being ached for release.
She’d heard Peter whistling in the shower awhile ago, but only soft jazz music and the hum of the sex toy filled the bedroom now. Was he watching her?
A soft knock at the door had her turning her head to the sound. “Housekeeping,” came the muffled call from the hallway. She heard the deep baritone of Peter’s voice as he
thanked the staff for the extra towels. Could she be seen from the door? She couldn’t remember. But the idea of being caught in this compromising position tantalized, and her heart rate ratcheted up a notch at the thought. She arched her back and ran the vibrator the length of her slit, feeling the tremor of the vibrator against her throbbing clit.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Peter pulled the chair and the pleasure away. His hand came down hard on her ass, and she arched into the pain. The thrill sent jolts of desire racing along her nerves. “You’ve been very bad here without me.”
She nodded her head as he spanked her again. Her pussy twitched, and she wanted nothing more than to have him fill her.
“I told you to wait. From the swell of your lips, and the smell of your juices, I don’t think you’ve been very patient.” His fingers slid through her creamy wetness, settling on the pearled nub of her clit, and she gasped at the unexpected contact which earned her two more hard spankings.
“No noise, Meghan. Any noise and I will have to punish you.” His hand met flesh again. “Oh, your beautiful ass is turning pink from my punishment. You are a naughty one.” The pain became her pleasure, sending her soaring to a higher plain of bliss. “You’re so wet for me.” His thick fingers dipped into her channel, as the other hand continued the spankings.
She wanted to beg him to claim her, but she suspected he already knew how much she wanted him.
Peter dragged her moisture up her ass, rimming the rosebud opening. She pushed against his hand, the nipple clamps tightening, and she couldn’t hold back the moan of rapture the resulting sensations forced out of her. Peter’s hand came down several times in a row, but his fingers didn’t slow their assault on her hot holes. They dipped in, gathering her cream and dragging it to slick and tease her anus, then back to her pussy to fill her again.
He bent and bit her butt, and she nearly climaxed as the pleasure mounted. Her muscles quivered and she strained to hold on.
Peter undid the gag and blindfold and let them fall to the floor. “Tell me what you need, Mrs. Maddock.”
