Letting my head drop back, I looked up at where my wrists were tied with rope to a chain hanging from the ceiling. They’d made it long enough so that we were able to sit on the ground, but not long enough my arms weren’t straining. I hated to think about what Sadie’s shorter ones were going through. The chain itself had been looped over one of the rafters in the rotting building, and that gave me hope that it’d be in the same condition as the rest of the place. Maybe when the lady moved away again, we could put our weight on the ropes and pull it down? It’d work in the movies!
A small gun appeared from the woman’s waist, which she then pressed under Sadie’s chin. “Let me tell you something about my parents, little girl. When I was fifteen, I had to run away from home to get away from them.” Her eyes flashed, making my stomach tighten. “Go to church, God will save you,” she sneered. “Speak to Pastor Archibald, he’ll cleanse your soul. Bear your sins, communion, pray, listen to hymns not music, read the bible not books, God loves you,” she finished, screaming the words into our faces. “God didn’t love me, he doesn’t exist! I was locked in my room until I could recite each passage they gave me from the Bible every night.”
Glancing at me quickly, Sadie rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a nightmare.”
“A nightmare? It was against my human rights.”
Frowning slightly, Sadie asked me, “Do human rights include television, music, and books?”
I didn’t know what the correct answer to that was, or even what the best thing to say here right now was. I was bruised all over my right side where the vehicle had hit us, and I swear my ass was as flat as a pancake. Great, I was going to be black and blue on one side, have a pancake ass, and have Inspector Gadget arms.
The random things you think at the worst moments—this was one of them.
“I ran away from them,” the woman said, not hearing Sadie’s question. “I set fire to the Bibles I could find in my bedroom and just ran.”
Wondering if Sadie’s question—whatever it was going to be—would antagonize her, I jumped in quickly. “Did a friend take you in and keep you safe?”
“A friend?” she snorted. “I didn’t have any friends. I was called a freak, a ‘Jesus fucker’—”
“I don’t think that’s politically correct,” Sadie mumbled.
Fortunately, she’d said it quietly enough for the woman not to hear her.
“They threw stuff at me, no one wanted to eat lunch with me. I was treated like a freak.”
Shooting Sadie a warning look before she could say anything, I moved my arm to get her attention. “But people like you now, right? I mean, you’re beautiful, and I’m sure you have a lot of friends…” I trailed off, and if I could’ve hit myself, I would have done it hard.
Really, Ariana, that was the best you could come out with?
She wasn’t impressed with it either, because her hand whipped out, and the butt of the gun in it landed hard on my cheekbone. “Don’t try and soothe me, you condescending bitch. What happened then and what’s happening now are because of other people. I’ve been a victim my whole life because of all of you.”
“Uh, I just moved here. I’m not sure I’ve—” This time, the woman hit hard enough with the gun to knock Sadie out.
“I’d like you to meet a friend of mine,” the woman said with an evil smile. “This is Doctor Steve Moodie. Steve, come out and greet my friends, will you.”
A slightly rotund man with about five clumps of hair brushed from one ear over to the other appeared behind her. He was sweating and looked like a bad guy’s assistant in a horror movie. I don’t know exactly what it was about him that made me think that, but I swear to God I could see him sharpening knives and handing them out to a psycho.
“Hello, Ariana. It’s nice to meet you.”
I had no idea what to say back to that. We’d been run over by them, kidnapped, strung up in a rotting house, pistol whipped, and now he was being polite? Totally a psycho’s creepy sidekick.
“Ariana knows our Parker,” the woman purred as she straightened up and stalked over to where he was standing.
Welp, guess that solved the question on who she was interested in when she visited the bar. This was Chantal, Parker’s stepmom, and pedophile bitch from hell. If I hadn’t been tied up, I’d have kicked her in the vagina and punched her in the face.
It took everything I had not to look surprised, but I managed just to give the man a tight smile.
That was until he revealed how he knew Parker.
“I don’t get what women see in him. He was only supposed to be a bargaining tool when you got married. Then you became obsessed with him, and now she’s the same.”
This was the man she’d been involved with that Parker had found out about. That also meant he was the therapist who’d lied. The impulse to hit or throw something at them was insane, but my hands were tied and, even if they weren’t, the only thing available to throw was Sadie. This meant that the only thing I could do was use ugly words, but losing my shit wasn’t going to help us, and it might end up with us getting badly hurt.
I had to bite down so hard on my lip not to scream out at them both that I tasted blood. In front of me were two of the most disgusting human beings I’d ever had the misfortune of hearing about, and now meeting, obviously.
“Darling, don’t get so upset. I’m with you, aren’t I?” she purred, and it took everything I had not to gag when she stroked his chest like she was petting a freaking dog.
“Only because of what he did. If he hadn’t stopped you and then moved away, you’d still be trying.”
I so wanted not to say it, but it just poured out. “She’s been following him since he left for college. She even waited outside the hospital in Piersville for him and then kept coming into the bar I work in to see him and ask questions.”
Chantal spun in a move that I swear I’ve only seen in horror movies and glared at me. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
Using her focus on me to his benefit, the man pulled a gun out of the back of his waistband that was about three times the size of the small one she was holding. “Hmm, I’m finding this all very convenient for you, darling. Remind me what my role was meant to be tonight?”
Looking from his face to the gun, totally unphased by it, she smiled sweetly at him. How she could flip emotions and facial expressions from one extreme to the other so quickly was unnerving. Then again, so were two people waving guns around after you’d just been hit by their vehicle, kidnapped, and strung up in a fucking building.
“We’ve discussed this. He’s the reason we don’t have the money we wanted. If he’d just played along from the beginning, we’d have everything we needed. He’s also the one who could give evidence to send us to jail, so you’re here to help stop him.”
Then he did something that made every bone in my body tense—he rubbed his fucking chin with the muzzle of his handgun, then turned it slightly and used the front sight to make a rasping noise that was loud in the empty space. It might have been a bad moment to make a note to search online if I got out of here alive, but would it be that loud in a normal environment? Like a room filled with furniture, or one in a location where there were noises from traffic?
Anything he was going to say was stopped by Sadie moaning and shifting beside me, signaling to us all that she was awake again.
With a grin that didn’t seem as confident as it had only minutes before, Chantal watched my friend wake up. “Well, well, look who’s back.”
Sadie wisely didn’t say a word, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see her glaring at the bitch. The silence was almost eerie as they stared at each other. I came from a big family, and even when we all moved into our own homes I didn’t get silence like this. Then again, it was probably why I heard the click of the safety on one of their guns. What I didn’t know was if it was being put on or being taken off. Judging by the way she stiffened beside me, Sadie had heard it, too.
“Chantal,” the man called, moving into h
er and rubbing her back. “I think we should make the call now to get him here. That’s what the plan was, so let’s get it out the way.”
“No,” she growled, looking back over at me. “I want to have some fun with her.”
“You can do it after he gets here. Where’s the phone?”
Shrugging his hand off almost violently, she spun back round to him and hissed, “I said no.”
Using their argument to her advantage, Sadie nudged my knee with her foot and then looked up at her hands, showing they weren’t tied anymore. Somehow, she’d undone the knot and left a loose loop of the rope around her wrists so they wouldn’t notice.
I’d apparently been kidnapped with MacGyver.
“How’d you do that?” I mouthed, glancing over at the couple who were now yelling at each other.
A scuffle beside us almost made me crap my pants. I mean, I seriously thought about it and had to clench to stop it. Listening to all the stories from my family and what various members had gone through during their problems, not once did any of them talk about what I would call Sphincter Fear Reaction Purge Syndrome. It was a real thing because I swear even Sadie looked like she was clamping down when it happened. I wasn’t going to be the first person to do it, though. Oh, hell, no. There’d be no hiding it either if I got out of here, so I’d have to live with the stories for the rest of my life.
As it turns out, the scuffle was the man grabbing Chantal by the throat and shaking her hard enough that her head bobbled around. It looked painful as hell—thankfully. Then, taking a handful of her hair with his other hand, he pulled her out the door, kicking it shut behind him.
Sadie moved quickly, reaching out and undoing the first knot on my rope. “I’ve got brothers, honey, if you don’t learn to undo knots, you don’t get to go and meet the guy you fancy for a snog in the park.”
“They used to tie you up to stop you meeting guys?” And I thought my brothers were beasts.
With a gentle snort, she whispered, “They tried to. They’re as shit as these two at doing them, though. My brother also. had to learn knots when he first joined the Navy, so when he came home, I made him show me how to do them, too. Gran had a washing line in the garden that kept falling down when she put laundry on it, and he taught me a knot that’d be easy to undo but would keep that bugger in place.”
With one last tug, my hands were free, and I was rolling my shoulders and shaking them out to get the feeling back in them. “Why are we talking about your washing and you kissing guys?”
“You asked,” she shrugged. “Okay, coming from a country that doesn’t have guns, which one of those should we be most afraid of?”
The answer to that question was simple. “Both. They both have bullets in them, so they’re both a problem.”
“Bugger,” she muttered. “I was hoping it was like the size of a lion. The bigger the lion, the more afraid you should be.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that analogy.
Hearing footsteps coming back, I lifted my hands back up to the rope. “Quick!”
By the time they’d opened the door, both of us were back in position, looking innocently at them.
“I think it’s time we made the call,” the man said, smirking as he held the phone out. “I’ll dial because you can’t, but I think your boyfriend will probably want to say hello, don’t you?”
Chantal growled when he said the word boyfriend, getting a dirty look from the man as he hit the green icon on the screen, followed by the speakerphone icon.
It only rang once, and then a pissed of sounding Parker answered. “They better be okay, you fucking bitch.”
“Bloody hell,” Sadie mumbled. “He really needs to work on his phone etiquette.”
“Remember when I told you the dumb shit my family had done when they got kidnapped or were in shit?” She didn’t answer verbally, but the wince said it all. “I’m going to remind you of this when we get out of here.”
Glaring at me, she nodded over to where Chantal was watching us with a crazy look on her face.
“She’s been like that since Parker answered, but you’re too busy giving me crap for trying to lighten the mood.”
“Mr. Knight, it’s good to talk to you again,” the man said with a smirk on his face. “It’s been so long.”
“Moodie,” Parker growled. “What the fuck do you want?”
“I don’t think it’s what I want, but what you want that I have.” And with that, he placed the phone on the ground in front of me, pressed the muzzle of the gun against Sadie’s forehead, and yanked a fistful of my hair hard enough that I screamed.
There was a long pause, but judging by the lack of noise coming through the phone, Parker had muted his end of the call for a moment. Then he was back.
“I’m confused, Moodie. See, I knew you as Doctor Derrickson when you treated me, but after some investigation, I found out your real name. You bought your qualifications online using an American Express card—”
“Probably for the Airmiles,” a voice I didn’t recognize said in the background.
“—a year before I became a patient of yours. You’ve treated hundreds of patients over the last eighteen years, Moodie, fifty-nine of which committed suicide. I could go on listing facts, but I think you already know most of it. You’ve got the blood of a lot of people on your hands, don’t you? That’s got to be tough to live with.”
The muscle under Moodie’s eye twitched as Parker reeled off the information, but other than that, he showed no emotions.
That was until Parker revealed the next chunk of information. “I’ve also got some photos in front of me of Chantal with your dad and brother. Naked with them, in fact. Oh, here’s another one with her naked with both of them at the same time.”
Moodie turned slowly, the gun in his hand pointed straight at Chantal now as a slight tremor worked its way through his body.
“She’s been a busy woman, Moodie. The photos my brother’s PI could get only go back four months, but his investigations go back six years. So far, I’m counting seventy-two men she’s been fucking behind your back.”
A loud growl came out of Moodie, and the gun started to shake, making Chantal’s eyes widen even more.
“He’s lying,” she screeched with her arms up in front of her. “When would I have the time?”
Before Moodie could say anything back, though, Parker turned into Santa as the phone vibrated on the floor. “I’ve just sent you through twenty of the photos, Moodie. Man-to-man, I think you’ve been played enough.”
Not turning away from her, he picked the phone up and looked at the screen. The second he did, Chantal had her gun back out and was pointing it back at him. “You do anything, and I’ll shoot the shit out of you.”
Sadie shuddered at something and leaned into my side. “I don’t want to get hit by that,” she whispered, and I realized she thought Chantal meant literally.
Not even giving her the satisfaction of looking up at her, Moodie kept swiping his thumb across the screen, looking at all of the photos until he got to one that made him tense up.
“I think he found the family portrait,” I said under my breath to Sadie, then wished I could hit myself for falling into the Townsend Hostage Insanity trap.
“Maybe they’re putting it on the Christmas cards this year?”
Raising his head, he glared at Chantal. “I trusted you. I did everything you asked me to.” Then leaning forward, he bellowed, “I fucking loved you!”
I don’t know what the expression on his face said or if he even twitched, but they both raised their arms, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see who was going to shoot first or where. Sure enough, there was a bang that echoed around the property, and then Sadie started gagging beside me.
“Oh, shitting shit. Shitting, shitting, shit,” she rasped, still gagging.
Opening one eye, I squinted over at where they’d been standing and saw Chantal lying half propped up by the wall and quickly closed it again. I didn�
�t need to see the details!
“Now, Mr. Knight, I’ve dealt with one of your problems, but I’ve also proven that I don’t give the first fuck about taking someone’s life. I’ve got two women here,” he kicked me in the ribs and slapped Sadie in the face, making us scream again, “and I reckon you’d like them back alive and breathing, am I right?”
I never understood what it meant when someone said that the silence was deafening, it just didn’t make sense, but at that moment, the silence from Parker’s end of the call was deafening.
“Mr. Knight?” Moodie called. “I’d advise you not to fuck around. When I speak, you answer. Remember when you came into my office, crying about what your wicked stepmother did to you? How she touched you in the dark, how dirty you felt, how you scrubbed your skin raw.”
Sadie’s growl echoed my own as I listened to him taunt the man I loved about something that’d dictated his life for the last seventeen years. Anyone doing something like that was a piece of shit, but witnessing it firsthand? I really wished I didn’t have to pretend I was still tied up so I could kick him in the nuts. Repeatedly. With both feet.
“What kind of sick fuck says that?” Sadie said quietly as we watched Moodie pace in front of us with a malicious smile on his face.
“Someone who takes great enjoyment out of other people’s misery.”
“I’m not going to ask you to say yes, but I’m taking it that happened to Parker, and that bitch in the corner was the one responsible.” When I shot her a look, she nodded slowly. “In that case, I’m not so upset her brain is on the wall behind her. Fucking cow!”
“Hmm, it seems you don’t understand the warning. Oh well,” Moodie sang, and this time when he looked over at us, I had the presence of mind to clench before I looked in his eyes, which was just as well because they were glazed and looked wild as he walked over to us. “Ip, dip, hot, shot,” he hummed as he swung the gun between the two of us with each word. “Which, one, gets, the—”
He never said the last word, he just fired the gun, and a bullet went through Sadie’s shin. I know that I screamed, but I’m relatively confident that hers would’ve been heard back in the UK.
Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Page 25
