‘So what now?’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to take you back to New Orleans – we think the abductor has her somewhere in state – ‘
‘Based on what?’
‘The alarm was raised soon after Cosima was taken and we locked down the airports, the ports, the rail stations, bus stations.’
‘He probably took her in a car – they could be anywhere.’
Jack inclined his head. ‘Yes. But we want you back in Orleans, with Arlo, so we can keep you all together, it’s safer that way.’
Harpa closed her eyes. She tried to force her mind to get past the overwhelming terror that was flooding through her. Cosima…
‘I have a life here. I would have to talk to Stan…’
‘Already talked to him, it’s cleared. Anyone else?’
She didn’t answer him. She’d known Mikah a month – did he really need to be dragged into this crap? She liked him – a lot – there was no doubt, and the connection they had was thrilling but, Jesus, involve him, and he might end up dead or with the same look in his eyes that Arlo had now.
‘Harpa,’ Arlo spoke now, his voice gravelly with exhaustion and pain, ‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you too. I won’t permit it.’
Her eyes opened, and before she could stop herself, she snapped at him. ‘Like you did such a bang up job of protecting my sister?’
She could have bitten her tongue off, but he nodded. ‘I know. I will never forgive myself.’
Harpa sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’
‘Doesn’t make it any less true.’
There was a knock at the door. Jack looked irritated. ‘I told them to stay downstairs.’ He went to the answer the door. It was Sean.
‘Sorry, but there’s a guy downstairs insisting on seeing Harpa. Name’s Mikah Ray.’
Arlo looked up. ‘Mikah Ray?’
Harpa colored. ‘He’s my friend.’ She looked at Jack. ‘I need to talk to him if I’m going back to New Orleans with you.’
Jack didn’t look happy but nodded. ‘We’ll give you some privacy.’
‘Thank you.’
Mikah was at the door before the two men left and he shook hands with them both, smiling at Arlo. ‘Good to see you, man.’
Arlo nodded. ‘You too, buddy.’
When Harpa and Mikah were alone, he took her in his arms. ‘What’s going on, Harp?’
The way he used Cos’s nickname for her was the thing that finally made her break, and she burst into tears. He cradled her in his arms, trying to soothe her.
‘My sister’s been abducted…and she’s probably dead by now,’ she said between sobs. ‘I can’t bear it, Mikah, I can’t.’
‘Oh, sweetheart…’
Eventually, her sobs subsided and she stepped away from his embrace, smiled at him. ‘I have to go back to New Orleans while they look for her.’
Mikah nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll come, I can move some things around and – ‘
‘No.’
He rocked back. ‘No?’
Harpa touched his face. ‘I adore you, Mikah, which is why I don’t want you to come. I don’t want you to be messed up in my family’s crap.’
Mikah shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I know you don’t. Just trust me enough to know that this is for the best.’
Realization dawned. ‘You’re breaking up with me.’
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. ‘It’s for the best. Mikah, this last month with you has been the best of my life, but we have to end it. I cannot risk your life.’
‘No, wait…my life? What the hell is going on?’
Harpa wiped away her tears. ‘It’ll be in the press soon, and then you’ll understand.’ She stepped closer to him, stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. ‘I’ll never forget you, Mikah.’
Mikah took her shoulders and pushed her away. ‘No, this is insane. I want to be there for you…’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want this.’ God…she remembered Deacon saying those very words to her and now she was wretched, saying them to this glorious man.
Mikah stared at her in disbelief. ‘Don’t push me away. Please, Harpa, I care too much for you to do that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He stared at her for another long moment then turned and left, slamming the door behind him. Harpa crumbled as soon as the door closed, sobbing silently into her hands. She heard Arlo and Jack return, felt Arlo put his arms around her. For a long time no-one said anything then Jack cleared his throat.
‘Come on, guys,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s go home.’
Nine days gone…
Something was wrong. Very wrong. Cosima hunched over the toilet and threw up until there was nothing left to bring up. Her stomach cramped and clenched, and she retched again, slumping breathless to the floor. The pain in her stomach was excruciating. She crawled back to bed, drenched in sweat, her hair sticking her face, both freezing cold and boiling hot.
How she got sick, she didn’t know, unless it were food poisoning from something he’d brought her. He’d visited last night, bringing her a tray of hot food – well, lukewarm by the time he’d gotten here – but it had given her hope that civilization wasn’t too far away and if she could just find a way out…
But now, running was the last thing on her mind. She curled up on the bed, in full view of the camera, hoping he would see, that he would take pity…what was she thinking? He was an animal, he didn’t care…again she wondered why the hell he didn’t just kill her and have it over with. Because he is a psycho, you dumb woman, she thought to herself. She closed her eyes and prayed for sleep, oblivion, anything. With her physical and mental defenses down, she was laid wide open for anything he wanted to do to her…and at this particular moment, she didn’t care.
She didn’t know how long she had slept for, but it wasn’t until she felt him touching her that she opened her eyes.
‘Jesus, you’re burning up…’
Hovering between awake and unconsciousness, she heard him go into the bathroom and run a bath. When she felt him start to undress her, she moaned in protest.
‘I gotta get your temperature down, stop fighting me.’
She did, having no energy. Goaty undressed her then carried her into the bathroom, lowering her into a very cool bath. She cried out in protest and shivered violently, but he washed her, soaking a cloth in the water and putting it against her burning forehead to quiet her down. Soon, she was sinking into unconsciousness again and didn’t feel him lift her out of the tub.
When she awoke, he was gone but on the nightstand were two aspirin and some vitamin tablets. She took the aspirin and one of the vitamins, seeing a basket of fresh fruit on the chair next to the bed. She swallowed some water carefully, found her stomach could take it but decided not to try to eat anything yet. She had no idea of how much time had passed, but a couple of hours later, she heard his car.
He came in, saw her sitting up, reading and nodded. ‘Feeling better? Good.’
He put two more aspirin on the nightstand. ‘Why don’t you just leave the box,’ she said, ‘save you keep coming out here?’
He chuckled. ‘And have you take a bunch of them and deny me the pleasure of killing you? I don’t think so, beautiful.’
She studied him. The balaclava, the mask, she really couldn’t see anything of him. ‘Why haven’t you killed me yet?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Seriously, why all of this?’
Another silence then. ‘Because I want to savor the moment.’
His answer made her feel like throwing up. Sadist fucker. ‘How are you going to do it?’
‘I’ll put a bullet in your belly and watch you bleed slowly to death. Is that enough detail for you?’
She wanted to scream. ‘Then do it.’
He laughed. ‘Not yet.’ He bent down and splayed his hand across her stomach. ‘Haven’t, you heard of an
ticipation, Cosima?’ He pushed his forefinger into her navel, hard. ‘Next time it won’t be my finger but the muzzle of my gun and then…bang. I imagine the pain will be…unimaginable.’
She stared up at the eyes of the mask, trying to see anything human in him. ‘You’re a sick fuck.’
He laughed. ‘Yes. Now, I’m going to go, is there anything else you need?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I need you to go fuck yourself.’
He laughed again. ‘See? This is why you’re still alive, you make me laugh, Cosima. And next time I see you, you’ll give me something else too.’
He leaned in and nuzzled her neck; Cosima shrunk away from him. ‘I can’t wait to taste your sweet little cunt, Cosima. I’m already hard for you, can you tell?’
He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his erection briefly then laughed and left the room, the door clicking shut behind him.
Cosima was trembling violently, but she sucked in a few deep breaths calming herself. So now she knew his plan, knew he planned to rape and murder and so Cosima, for the first time, had an advantage. Because she wasn’t going to go along with his plan.
She was getting out of here even if it killed her to try.
The news of Cosima’s abduction broke nationally then internationally ten days after Cosima had gone missing. The Malhotra family history was dredged up and analyzed over and over; several groups known to be enemies of Cosima’s father and grandfather were quick to disassociate themselves from the kidnapping. ‘Although we have historical ties to the family, and in the past have actively sought the deaths of anyone related to the traitorous Malhotra family, in these more enlightened time, we do not seek retribution from innocent children. We wish and hope that Ms. Malhotra is found alive and well.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Harpa, fiercely. ‘They’re probably having street parties. Wait until they find Cos’s body, they’ll have posters made.’
‘She is not dead,’ Arlo growled, getting up from the couch.
Harpa felt bad. ‘I’m sorry, Arlo, I didn’t mean to say she’s dead. There is hope.’
She had been staying at the penthouse of the hotel, sleeping the guest room, which had been a blessing and a curse. She felt close to Cosima here, seeing her sister’s things; her books, her jewelry. Arlo had come home one day to find Harpa in her sister’s closet, holding onto the sari she had been saving for a special occasion, sobbing. He had gently lifted her up and sat her on the couch, listening as she rambled on about Cosima, random memories. It had brought her closer to Arlo. She had apologized for blaming him; she knew it was killing Arlo that he hadn’t protected Cosima enough.
‘No-one could have seen this coming,’ she told him over and over but to no avail. Jack had been updating them daily on progress, but she knew Arlo was frustrated. He was using every means open to him as a civilian to try and find her; hundreds of detectives countrywide were searching every ‘Outhouse, doghouse, farmhouse…’ He had intoned and half-smiled.
They spent all day trying to figure out what to do next. Worst of all, when the news broke, Monica Lascelles had gone public too, playing the brokenhearted mother of the victim to a tee.
Harpa and Arlo watched her press conference on the t.v. and, afterward, Harpa turned to Arlo, a strange smile on her face. ‘Arlo, you’ve just seen our birth mother at her finest. Did you notice she didn’t say Cosima’s name once? It was all ‘my daughter’, ‘my loved one’.She made Cosima’s abduction all about her.’
Arlo was grim-faced. ‘Harpa, I can see exactly why you and Cos don’t have anything to do with her. What a piece of work.’
‘Yep.’
But then Monica had decided she was coming to New Orleans and bringing her whole entourage. ‘It’s going to be a circus.’ Harpa groaned, then grabbed Arlo’s hand. ‘Whatever you do, don’t offer her anything – no hotel rooms, no special favors. She will leech onto you and never let go.’
‘How on earth do you and Cos share DNA with her?’
‘Lord knows. I have a fantasy that one day we’ll find out she used a surrogate.’ Harpa clasped her hands together. ‘I send up a prayer about that nightly.’
She smiled, and Arlo was glad she still retained some of her sense of humor; it reminded him so much of Cosima.
God, he missed her so much, it was like his heart was being torn to pieces thinking she might be dead. Every day he would sit, his eyes closed, trying to remember the soft velvety feel of her skin, the flush of her skin when she came, her kiss, so sweet and tender. Her smiling eyes haunted him.
He felt so helpless; Jack had warned him not to get in the way of the official investigation and so he was tied on how much he could do. He had his contacts come up with lists of abandoned buildings in the New Orleans area and wider Louisiana, but she could be anywhere. Anywhere. Just be alive, please, he prayed constantly. If she was still alive, then there was hope, and he desperately needed to cling to that.
The hotel’s grand opening had been postponed, and now it echoed with silence, the workman having cleared out four days previously, and Arlo and Harpa had been left alone. They’d talked, of course, endlessly about what to do, what they could do to find Cos but also about plans for the future as if saying the words would strengthen the possibility of Cos’s safe return.
Their little self-contained unit was broken when Monica Lascelles arrived. She summoned them to her hotel room and subjected them to hours of self-pitying grief before finally asking Harpa about her own life. Harpa gave her the bare bones of her life in Seattle.
They were sitting at dinner in one of Seattle’s finest restaurant – a private table, Monica had announced loudly, making sure everyone in the room heard. Arlo couldn’t believe this brash, vain woman was Cosima’s mother.
Monica kept dabbing at her eyes as she talked about her loss. ‘Cos isn’t dead,’ Harpa said between gritted teeth, but Monica wasn’t listening.
‘It’s different for a mother,’ she said, ‘it’s a physical pain to know your child might be in danger. It’s that blood link.’
‘Cos and I share the same DNA,’ Harpa said archly, ‘We share a deeper bond than you have ever had.’
Monica rolled her eyes and turned to Arlo. ‘She always gets like this, forgive her, so competitive.’
‘I’ve never found her to be so,’ Arlo said calmly, and Harpa flashed him a grateful smile. Monica ignored his words.
‘When I saw that video…my god, my baby, attacked with a knife, I felt a…chasm open up inside me. Raw, raw pain, agony, really.
‘Mom.’ Harpa toyed with her cutlery, ‘Do you realize that since you came to New Orleans, you haven’t said Cosima’s name once?’
Monica rocked back. ‘Don’t be silly, of course, I have. This is what I mean,’ she said to Arlo, who gazed back at her coolly. Harpa could barely control her temper.
‘No, you haven’t. Not once. You don’t know the Cosima we do: funny, brilliant, artistic, warm, kind, erudite. You don’t know that she loves, loves, Harry Potter; the books and the movies. You don’t know that her favorite musicians are Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash, or that she hates wearing nail polish on her fingers but always wears it on her toes.’
‘That she sings when she’s cooking’ Arlo joined in, ‘Or that she winds her hair around her finger when she’s concentrating on something. That she loves with her whole heart.’
‘That she’s the best person I’ve ever known,’ Harpa’s voice was shaking now, ‘that she is my sister, my mother, my father, my best friend. That when she met Arlo, she found her soulmate. You don’t know any of this.’
Monica was stunned into silence, looking away from her daughter. The waiter came with the wine then, and she made a great show of flirting with him and discussing the different vintages with him. Harpa looked at Arlo who winked at her and mouthed ‘Way to go.’
After dinner – which, of course, Arlo paid for - Monica wanted them to go back to her hotel for drinks but seeing
Harpa’s stricken face, Arlo made their excuses and they left, both sighing with relief.
‘She’s a goddamned parasite,’ Harpa raged in the cab back to the LaBelle. ‘Did you notice her flirting with you? Gross.’
Arlo laughed. ‘Thanks.’
Harpa chuckled. ‘You know what I mean. God, you know what, I feel like doing a DNA test to try and prove she’s not our mother.’
He looked over at her. ‘You think that would tell you anything new?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘We look too much like her for it to be in doubt. Well, I do. Cos has always taken after Dad; her features are softer than mine.’
‘You’re both beautiful, and on the inside too, which is what matters.’
Harpa grinned. ‘You been reading Cosmo? Are you seriously telling me you would have noticed Cos if she didn’t look like she does?’
Arlo nodded. ‘I am saying that – maybe it would have taken me longer than a millisecond – but there’s something that shines out from your sister and it’s not about physical beauty.’
Harpa’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You’re right.’
Arlo squeezed her hand. ‘We’re going to get her back, Harpa, I know it in my bones.’
It was another bad day. The sickness she thought had left her was hanging on, and she felt wiped out. She had read all of the books Goaty had left for her, and now she was curled up on the bed, staring at the tiny red light blinking on the camera. She’d been doing that for hours, but she didn’t know why. Eventually, she grabbed a bottle of water and some saltines then went to bed.
Waking in the middle of the night, she stumbled to the bathroom to pee, then climbed back into bed. Maybe I’ll die of this virus, she thought and remembered his words about killing herself and robbing him of the pleasure. She lay back down and turned on her side – and stopped. The red light wasn’t blinking. There was no red light at all. She sat up and stared at the darkened corner of the room. Did that mean he wasn’t watching? The moon was full outside, and its light streamed in on the huge windows.
Suddenly Cosima felt the adrenaline coursing through her. Maybe he was asleep; maybe he watched until she fell asleep, then turned in himself – after all, he was human, wasn’t he?
The Alpha's Assistant & The Dom Next Door Page 92
