by Zoe Blake
She didn’t even open her mouth to speak, cradling the bottle against her bare chest as she stared numbly at him. He waited, as if she were supposed to have some line in this little play they were acting out, but then he shook his head and left.
The door shut, locked again, and she stared at the scattered folders for a few minutes before she slowly moved towards them, gathered them, and then found her way back to the mattress. With another drink, ignoring the wetness lingering between her thighs, she opened the first folder.
Chapter Seven
Police reports. Affidavits. Case files. Private investigators.
Different women, all with similar stories, all of them talking about her father.
Daniel William Sinclair.
With a flinch, she tried to focus on the fourth file, squinting to read the slanted hand-writing through the messy copy that had been made. The bottle was empty beside her, and she was a bit beyond drunk, moving towards the nauseated, uncomfortable state that warned of a wicked hangover. Regardless, she was still trying to read carefully, to dissect the information. She’d already questioned how the man had any of this, how he could have possibly obtained it, but it all seemed to be real. Different departments, different cities from around the area, but every document looked authentic. It was just the words that made no sense.
Threats. Confinement. Forced ‘procedures’.
What the fuck is all of this?
It read like some twisted, futuristic sci-fi nightmare. The case files tucked into each folder seemed to allude to drugs, accusations of fertility treatments, but the officers casually questioned the women’s sanity in their notes, and each file ended the same.
Complaint withdrawn. No charges filed.
That was where the private investigator notes took over in a couple of the files. Odd, grainy photos of women walking on sidewalks, stepping out of doorways, sitting in cars. Messy dates scrawled in the corners, some from almost thirty years before. All of the details were sketchy, but it painted a very strange picture of who her father might have been in the years before she was born. If someone were to read these, and not know the generous kind of man he actually was—they might even believe some of these dark insinuations.
Is this what had driven the man to do this? Did he know one of these women? Was one of these women his mother?
Raising her eyes to the cameras, she realized they were still off. No red lights peering down at her, measuring her every breath. Nothing but the strange silence that felt like a texture against her skin. Out of habit, she reached for the bottle and tilted it up, a few sweet drops touching her tongue before she sighed and pushed the bottle away from her. It rolled, across the sea of papers scattered in front of the thin mattress, and then onto the concrete. With a soft clink, it stopped against one of the rings embedded in the floor.
Grumbling, she tossed the folder in her hands into the mess of other papers and grabbed the last one. It was thinner than the others, a paperclip showing on the front, and with a sigh Rebecca leaned back against the wall as she opened it. Her eyes took a moment to focus, but then her stomach twisted.
Photos.
Close-ups of wrists rubbed raw and bloody. Ankles the same. Bruises around an arm that matched a handprint so closely she couldn’t imagine the force it had taken to form it. The bottom half of a woman’s face, golden haired, with a split lip long scabbed over. Flipping through the photos, she tried not to look, but then there was a single page. A handwritten emergency room report from 1990, Eastland General Hospital.
PATIENT: Jane Doe
ARRIVAL: 4/2/1990 at 0248.
CHIEF COMPLAINT: Patient arrived unaccompanied, on foot. Alert but verbally non-responsive. Appears able to hear and respond to verbal commands.
HISTORY: unavailable
CURRENT MEDICATIONS: unknown
ALLERGIES: unknown
PHYSICAL EXAMINATION:
General: Contusions to face. Bruising on left arm. Wrists, ankles scabbed and bloody. Refusing to remove clothing for exam.
Vital Signs: Blood pressure 125/84, pulse 81, respirations 18, temperature 98.5 and O2 saturation 99% on room air.
Physical examination halted by patient.
IMPRESSION: S/s possible sexual assault. Possible dehydration.
PLAN: Admit for observation. Sexual assault exam. Start IV for hydration.
0330 - Left AMA.
Rebecca flipped the paper up, but there was nothing on the back. No more information, but the words that she understood on that sheet sent a chill down her spine. How was this related to her father?
For a moment she contemplated shouting, banging on the door until the man returned, but he hadn’t seemed up to talking, and she was either going to throw up or sleep the rum off soon—and she was very much hoping it was the second. There was an ocean of accusations around her, words that seemed so impossible to connect to the smiling, dimpled CEO of Monarch Systems. The man who had installed an elaborate playhouse in their living room when she was a child. The computer nerd who had built a small software developer job into a company that was a goliath in the industry. There wasn’t a computer across the country that didn’t have a piece of Monarch’s software on it, and it was that legacy she was trying to be worthy of. That man who she had killed herself in business classes to follow.
This? This mess was insanity.
Closing the file with the photos, she set it beside the mattress, on top of the scattered piles of inconclusive, poorly documented police reports, and she turned away. Turned away from all of it to face the wall, resting her cheek against her arm. Her bloodstream was alight with the fire of the rum, brimming with the buzzing after-effects of adrenaline, and a portion of her was wondering if the man would return if she called. If he was listening, just outside the door, even without the cameras to aid him. Waiting to see what she made of his strange offering.
But that was too much to think about, and she had no energy for another confrontation. No energy to fight him or argue. So she closed her eyes tight against the dim light, and pleaded with her mind to let go of the things she’d read, the photographs of young women captured decades before.
No matter how hard she tried, they wouldn’t fade, and the single image that appeared again and again was the handprint. As if pressed into plaster on pale skin, leaving behind a dark purple shadow to be caught on camera. The kind of mark that would never be forgotten even as it healed.
Had the woman had the chance to see it healed?
Who was she?
And what on earth was Rebecca supposed to learn from all of it?
There was someone crying. A heart wrenching sound, deep and full of despair. The tile was cold under her feet as she walked towards the door, nervous energy tickling its way up her spine.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
She was supposed to be sleeping.
The doorknob was practically eye-level, and she wrapped her hand around it to twist, but it barely budged. From the other side of the wood the crying stuttered and slowed.
“Rebecca?” It was a woman’s voice, still on the verge of tears. But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond. Thin, pale fingers reached under the door, stretching until they brushed against her small toes. “Rebecca.” The voice came again, another sob, but she stepped back. Scared.
This was bad.
She was going to get in trouble.
The fingers disappeared and a soft tap on the door was almost completely muffled by the sniffled sigh inside the room. “You have to go back, darling. Go to bed.”
“I can’t open the door,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. You need to sleep. I’ll be quiet, go back to bed. Hurry. Run.” There was a pause where Rebecca was frozen to the spot, trying her hardest to think of how to make the knob turn. “Go! Now!” The urgent whisper felt like a push, and she obeyed. She turned, ran back towards her room—and woke up.
Rebecca flinched, rolling to her back as a latent nausea quickly reminded her of all of
the stupid choices she’d made.
“You’re awake,” the man’s low voice made her lift her head, and she groaned and fell back against the mattress.
Ah, yes, there was one of her stupid choices in the flesh.
“I brought you water. Toast. Something for the headache.”
Turning to the side, she saw that he had, in fact, filled her water cup and provided toast and two pills on a paper plate. A bitter laugh slipped past her lips. “You think I need pain relievers now?”
Groaning, he pushed a hand through his dark hair and clenched his fist at the root. He was half-dressed again. Dark colored jeans, but no shirt, no shoes—and he’d left the mask off. A quick glance at the ceiling verified the cameras were still off. It was just the two of them. “I brought them for the hangover. I’m sure you have one.”
“So, these pills are not supposed to help the bruises or the other marks? Just the headache?” She sat up, and realized her temples were pounding, but the broken skin and patchy bruises around her wrists were impossible to ignore.
“If you don’t want them, don’t take them.”
“I’ll take the whole bottle if you’re offering.” The dark comment seemed to come from nowhere, but it made his eyes snap up to hers.
“You don’t mean that.”
She shrugged. “I might. Are you going to kill me now?”
“No,” he growled under his breath, cradling his head with his hands like he was the one with the vicious headache.
“Then what are you going to do with me? I’ve seen your face.”
“Did you read through the files?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Answer mine first.” Leaning back against the wall near the door, he stared across the room at her, knees bent so he could rest his arms on them as they let the silence stretch between them.
Her eyes went to the scattered pages, and the stories wormed their way back up from memory. Strange and disturbing accusations—and as much as she didn’t want to give in, she did have questions. “Yes, I read them.”
“And?”
“And I don’t understand.”
“What part?” He seemed to relax slightly, the tension in his shoulders dropping.
“All of the police reports are so vague, and yes I noticed the similarities in the stories. I understand that adds some credibility to them, but then why not investigate further? Why drop the cases? That makes no sense.”
“Simple. Even back then your father was a rising star in the city. Gaining wealth and power. Do you really think he would have let anyone steal it away from him? Do you think those officers would have risked themselves? Their families?” Shaking his head, he blew out a slow breath. “Come on, Rebecca. You’re smarter than this.”
“I am smart, it’s why I refuse to just believe a bunch of half-assed police reports!” She leaned forward and ripped a handful of sheets from one of the open folders. “You think a bunch of grainy photos of random women are going to turn me against him? To convince me my father is some monster?”
“I think the truth will.”
“The truth.” She laughed, tossing the papers into the air in front of her so they fluttered down across the others. “You don’t get to pretend to be all noble now. You, of all people, don’t have a fucking leg to stand on when it comes to this. You are a monster.”
He turned away from her and despite her pounding headache, and the sour taste on her tongue, she snagged the last folder and jerked the photos free of their paperclip.
“Look at these.” Pushing herself off the mattress, Rebecca walked halfway across the room and threw the photos towards him. “You want to talk about the truth? Look at her wrists, and then look at mine. Look at her ankles. Look at all of the things you have done to me!” She laughed, her sanity frayed at the edges. “And you want to sit there and say you can tell me the truth? As if you aren’t exactly like the asshole who did this to her?”
The man picked up one of the photos that had landed beside him, and there was a flicker of a flinch. The barest reaction to the image before he was stone faced again.
“Talk to me! How is that any different than what you’ve done to me?”
His voice was almost too low to hear when he finally spoke, “You don’t know what happened to her.”
“I read the ER report, I have a pretty good idea.” There was heat in her voice, her rage finally finding an outlet that seemed to work. His shoulders hunched forward, and his head dropped into his hands as he took a slow breath. When he didn’t speak, she threw her hands up with a huff and turned away from him.
Bastard. Spineless, insane—
“I wanted to destroy you.” The sudden, harsh words stopped her in place, but he continued in a growling tone. “I wanted to decimate you. Tear you down off your privileged, ivory tower and break you down until you were nothing. I didn’t just want to hurt you, I wanted to ruin you forever so that even when he got you back, you would never be the same.”
Rebecca turned around slowly, watching as his eyes traced the photo in his hands before he let it drop to the floor, shrugging like nothing he said bothered him.
“I admit that, I admit all of it. I even admit that I’ve enjoyed it. I love the way you scream, the way your body tenses and arches when I hurt you. I love the way you fight, the way you refuse to break no matter how hard I push you. I am addicted to the way you respond to me.” Tawny brown eyes lifted to hers, that powerful gaze catching her off guard. “But I have never lied to you, princess. I told you right away what I was going to do to you, before I even took you out of The Tower.”
“And?”
“And what?” His expression was blank, unfettered by guilt as he stared up at her.
“And have you destroyed me? Have you decimated me like you wanted to?”
“Not yet.” His eyes stayed on hers, and she felt a tremor rush through her muscles. A quiet reminder in the back of her mind that he was allowing her to speak to him this way, that at any moment he could stop her if he chose. “But here’s the difference, princess, I don’t pretend to be a good man. I know that I’m damned. I know I’m a monster. Even right now I want to pin you to the floor, I want to feel you fight as I take you, and then I want to feel you come under me. I want to make you scream, I want to light up your skin with my belt again, I want to do so many obscene things to your body, but… right now there’s something more important.”
The pulse of need between her thighs brought on by his words made a blush burn its way up her chest and into her cheeks. There was definitely something wrong with her. With both of them. None of that should have excited her. “You’re sick.”
And so am I.
“I won’t argue that. I won’t argue any of it.” With a shrug, he gestured towards the papers scattered across the floor. “But all of that is real.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her hands formed tight fists at her sides, nails biting into the skin as she tried to stay calm, her rational mind fighting its way forward. “This is just a skewed sampling of data, put together in an attempt to prove some ridiculous hypothesis that my father was—”
“Tell me your last memory of your mother.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and turned away from him, walking back over the pages to drop onto the mattress. She was done with this insanity. Done with this damn conversation, done with trying to reason with a monster, and done with the throbbing ache behind her eyes and the hum between her thighs. With a growl, she swallowed the two pills with a sip of the water.
“You’re going to want to eat the toast if you took the medicine.”
“Since when do you give a shit how I feel?” she snarled at him, but ripped a bite of the toast off anyway and devoured it. Picking at the crisp edges as she glared down at the papers.
He sighed. “Tell me your last memory of your mother.”
“She died when I was a baby. I don’t have any memories of her.”
“Try harder, princess. What’s your last me
mory of her?” He was so calm, so monotone, while she was a ball of tangled thoughts and rage. As the fire in her belly grew, she was about to scream at him, but then there was a flash. A woman with long blonde hair smiling at her, laughing. It disappeared as quickly as it came, taking with it the vicious words she’d planned to shout. “Are you remembering?” he asked.
Rebecca shook her head, the mental cloud of the hangover was making it hard to think clearly. Making her imagine things. “There’s nothing to remember. She died shortly after I was born.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.” Rebecca nodded, swallowing the suddenly too dry bread. She chased it with more water. It was the hangover, it was messing with her head. He was messing with her head. This whole fucked up situation was doing nothing but mess with her, and he’d already admitted that was exactly what he’d wanted all along. She was just playing into his game now.
“How?” he asked quietly, and she lifted her eyes to him with a rough laugh.
“She got sick.”
“With what?”
“Why the fuck does that matter? She got sick! She died! My father loved her so much he hasn’t been with anyone since. He just opened a women’s shelter in her name for fuck’s sake!” Kicking out in frustration, she sent more of the papers spinning away, mixing all of the horrible words together. “You don’t know anything! Not about me, not about my father, not—”
“I know why your mother died.”
The words rocked her, a dizzying heat flushing up her chest that left her speechless. Her lips parted to speak but nothing came.
“I know when your mother died too.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a liar.” She shook her head as she tried to block him out.
“I’ve never lied to you, princess. She tried to leave with you. To take you out of The Tower, to free the both of you—but he caught her.” His voice was too soft, and in her head she saw the doorknob from her dream. Heard the soft cries beyond it.
I can’t open the door.
Were those dreams, or memories? She rubbed her eyes and finished the water in the glass. “You’re wrong. He didn’t, he wouldn’t—”
