Several more security guards joined them at the entrance. One handed Vance a card with Moniteau’s contact information. “Mr. Moniteau will contact you later this evening to make sure Ms. Price is safe and well, but should she need anything, he asks that you contact him immediately.”
“Thank you,” Vance said as he stuffed the card in his breast pocket. He may have thought the man was obnoxious, but there were obviously reasons he did so well in business.
His car was waiting by the curb of the sweeping valet loop when they arrived and a uniformed valet stood ready to open the passenger door. The bright overhead lights of the awning left the interior of the car dark until the valet opened the door and lit up the passenger’s seat. The tension of not knowing what was going on had Vance on edge. His sole concern was protecting Natalie, not getting answers right that minute, so he quickly helped her into the car and shut the door. He had just turned around to thank the security guards for their help when his car lurched away from the curb and blasted into traffic.
For half a second, nobody moved. It took that long for panic to set in and everyone to start moving. Vance and Donald both started to run after the car, but it was already impossible to distinguish on the dark city streets. Feet pounded on the pavement behind them and Vance spun around in a panic and started babbling. “OnStar. My car has OnStar. We have to find her. I can’t let anything happen to her.
His panic made him clumsy as he tried to get his phone out of his pocket to call OnStar. The guard next to him grabbed his arm and forced him to focus. “Who took Ms. Price?”
“I didn’t see.” His hand pressed against his mouth as he berated himself for his stupidity. “I didn’t even look. I thought the valet on the sidewalk had the keys.”
He gave Vance a rough shake and demanded, “Who do you think took Ms. Price? You were worried about someone other than the man we have detained, right?”
“Her father,” Vance said. “Walter Townsend. He’s been harassing her, threatening to find her and make her pay for something that happened when she was a teenager. What happened was his fault anyway, but he blames her for some reason.”
The guard released his arm and started speaking to his fellow guards, demanding someone get police on scene and figure out who and where Walter Townsend was. Vance shouted for him to call for Peter Morrow as he dialed OnStar and barely let the woman who answered give her introductory greeting before speaking over the top of her.
“My car’s been stolen. My girlfriend is in the car still. Kidnapped. She’s been kidnapped. You have to find the car right now.”
Startled by his brusqueness, she still sprang into action as soon as she processed all the information. It took a few precious seconds to give her the information she needed to access his car’s location remotely, but she was back on the line quickly. “Mr. Sullivan, I have a location for your car, but…it’s stationary.”
“What?”
“It’s not moving. It’s only about three blocks away from where you are at the hotel.”
He didn’t wait for security or police. Donald and one of the guards ran after him as soon as they realized he had taken off, shouting at him to wait, but he refused to listen. His heart felt like it was going to explode by the time he reached the road the woman told him to turn on, and then his knees buckled when he saw his car sitting there with the doors wide open and no sign of Natalie anywhere. A crippling sense of failure swept over him. He’d promised to protect her, and he hadn’t. It was like losing Stephanie all over again.
Cop cars screeched to a halt on the road beside him and chaos reigned as they searched the car for any clues as to where Natalie had been taken. Donald helped pull him up from the ground when an officer approached Vance with questions after telling him that Peter was on his way. He asked the same questions the security guards had, and Vance gave the same answers, wishing he had something more to offer.
He didn’t even know where Natalie was from. He was able to tell them her name used to be Clara Townsend and it was a small town, but that was it. It could have been local or clear across the country. He had no idea. All he knew was that her father was dangerous and hell bent on making her pay for his mistakes.
“Howard!” he said, grabbing the cop’s arm when he tried to walk away. “Howard has something to do with this. Always hanging around, knowing stuff he shouldn’t, even delivering the letter from her father. He gets her mail somehow. He must have seen the invitation to the gala and knew she would be here tonight.”
“He’s refusing to talk without a lawyer present,” the officer said.
Shaking his head, Vance spun around and stalked away from the cops and his car. The security guard followed him, no doubt knowing exactly what Vance intended. The man was a good six inches taller than him and considerably more built, so Vance could only hope he wouldn’t try to stop him from getting at Howard. He couldn’t let Natalie be hurt again.
Storming into the hotel, the security guard immediately took the lead and directed him toward a back room. Security and police littered the hallway, but no one said a word when the security guard with Vance opened a door and nodded. Vance stalked in and grabbed the front of Howard’s shirt. “Where is she?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “Where did he take her?”
“I don’t know!” Howard insisted.
“Why were you here tonight? How did you even know? Did you go through her mail again?”
“I don’t know anything!”
Vance’s fist slammed into his jaw, yet no one stepped in to stop him. Blood dripped down his face as Howard blubbered. “I was trying to warn her,” he whined.
“What?” Vance yanked him forward, free hand still locked in a fist. “Why have you been stalking her?”
“I wasn’t stalking her. I’m a P.I.,” he said as he wiped away tears and blood. “Her father hired me.”
It took everything Vance had not to punch him again. Howard seemed to recognize that and cowered back against the chair. “Why on earth would you help that bastard find her?”
“He told me she had ran away, because some kid raped her in high school. He said she was just scared to come home and he wanted to help her.” Blood and saliva spilled onto his chin as he whimpered. “How was I supposed to know it wasn’t true?”
“Did you even think to look it up or do some research, you idiot?” Vance shoved him back against the chair.
“It seemed pretty straight forward at first, but then…when I found her, something didn’t seem right.”
“But you told him where she was anyway?” Vance clenched his fist until it ached, trying desperately to control his fury at the man.
“I didn’t know,” he whined.
Glowering down at him, he made sure the man knew he meant what he was about to say. “If he hurts her again, I will personally make sure you are held equally responsible, do you understand me?” The man nodded furiously. “If there is anything else you know, you had better give it up right now or you will pay for withholding information.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” a voice threatened.
Vance glanced up to see a furious Michael Moniteau standing in the doorway. The pitiful Howard cowered and caved. “All I know is where he’s from, some little town in Michigan called Spring Hills. I swear I don’t know where he’s taken her.”
Storming away from the sorry excuse for a man in the chair, Vance stalked up to Moniteau. In his head, he knew he should let the police do their jobs and stay out of the way, but there was no way he was sitting still and waiting for them to find her. “I assume you have a helicopter?”
Moniteau scoffed. “Of course I do. It’s on standby on the roof.”
Chapter 30
The Knife
The last thing Natalie remembered was something being pressed against her face. She’d been getting into the car…and then nothing. Her head throbbed as she tried and failed to lift it. Unsure of what had happened, she tried to look around, but opening her eyes was difficult and her whole body
ached. Had there been a car accident? Was Vance okay?
Imagining Vance injured gave her a shot of strength and she pushed herself up to her elbows. Opening her eyes took a second longer, but when they finally opened, she wished they hadn’t. Gasping in a lungful of dirt-laden air, she scrambled backward until hitting a stone wall and collapsing in on herself in despair.
The basement was dank and disgusting, a dirt floor littered with mouse droppings and refuse. It was one of her father’s favorite places to send her for punishment. She heaved in breath after breath of rotting air until her head spun and she was on the verge of losing consciousness. Only the fear that her father would come while she was out gave her the strength to stave it off. Even though she knew the man she had grown up with, she had no idea what he was capable of after seven years of searching and blaming her for his problems.
When she finally got her breathing under control, tears began pouring down her dirty face with abandon. She couldn’t stop them no matter how hard she tried. This was the end. There was no doubting it in her mind. Everything she had worked so hard to escape and overcome had all been for nothing. He had found her and dragged her back to the place she feared most. He had brought her home.
Maybe she should have expected it. Thomas’s interest had seemed like such a miracle as a teenager, one shining moment of happiness in a life filled with recrimination and rejection. Natalie had dared to hope it was an omen of better things to come, but that hope had been stomped on viciously by her father. Any time she’d ever had a moment of pleasure in her life he had killed it.
Why had she thought Vance would be any different? It hurt so much more to think of losing Vance than to contemplate being locked in that horrible place for eternity. Even worse than that, it broke her heart to think of what it would do to him. Fresh tears burst from her eyes as she imagined the pain he must have been going through in that moment. There was no way he could know where she was. Even though she had told him about her past, she had never once mentioned Spring Hills, Michigan.
The squeak of a mouse startled her into pulling her knees to her chest. Natalie squeezed her eyes shut praying it would stay away from her. The almost absolute darkness wouldn’t let her see anything more than faint outlines. She could only assume it was night or early morning.
How long had she been missing?
How long would she be held captive?
Only the darkness answered her silent pleas. Just like last time. Crippling depression and fear bit at her from the edges of her mind, threatening to take her under as they had once before. Only thoughts of Vance gave her the strength to hold it off. Even if she died here, she didn’t want it to be like that. Her father had nearly broken her once. Vance had helped mend so many of her broken pieces and it was so much more frightening to think of letting it fall to pieces again than to face what she knew was coming for her.
Harsh, flaring light seared through the room. It could only come from one source. Huddling against the half-rotted wood behind her, she pleaded the light was all that would assault her. Slow creaking seemed to echo through the basement like the thunderous steps of a giant. Natalie couldn’t stop the scream that erupted from her throat as the basement door swung open and crashed back against the wall. Curling into a ball, she begged for the darkness and emptiness she had tried so hard to avoid only moments before.
“Don’t you hide from me!” her father’s voice boomed as he descended the stairs one thumping step at a time.
Natalie pressed her hand against her mouth to stifle the terrified scream his presence elicited. All thoughts of bravery, every ounce of strength, it all abandoned her at the sound of his voice.
His boots kicked up a small cloud of dust with each step as he reached the bottom. “You thought you could run from me and never be found? You thought you could turn your back on your family and not pay for what you’ve done?” He stomped across the dirt floor to glare down at her in disgust. “When have you ever escaped punishment for your misbehavior? Never!” he screamed. “And you never will. You will pay for your disobedience.”
Old habits of complacence and submission crept up on her and the words that would turn her into a groveling, pitiful creature formed on her lips. They stuck there, caught on something planted deeper than her wounds. Vance’s words echoed in her mind that none of what had happened to her was her fault. The compassion in his eyes when she told him the truth welled up in her thoughts and heart. Natalie had never deserved her father’s punishments before and she didn’t deserve them now. “I didn’t do anything,” Natalie whispered.
His laugh was sickening and twisted. “You didn’t do anything? You didn’t do anything?” He rushed her, grabbing her chin before she could react and yanking it up next to his. “Say that to my face, you deceitful little whore.”
“I. Didn’t. Do. Anything,” she said with more force, though it was still barely more than a whisper. Strength built in her with every word. Fierce desire to see Vance again, to make him proud, wrapped around her like a cocoon. Words she had always wanted to say to him but had never had the courage to think let alone utter formed on her tongue. “You’re the one who should have been tied to a porch and left there to rot. I had sex. That’s it. Whether it was immoral or not, I didn’t deserve what you did to me. You’re the one who deserves to be punished. Not me.”
Tossing her back against the wall so hard lights flashed in front of her eyes when her head hit the stones, he scowled at her. “You think this is all about your slutty teenage ways?”
The scorn in his voice was all too familiar, but Natalie didn’t understand what he meant. If he hadn’t come after her for that, then why had he spent so much time tracking her down?
“I spent five years in prison because of you!” he screamed.
Too shocked to respond, she just stared at him. She couldn’t imagine how that had happened since she’d run away and certainly hadn’t come back to file charges or testify in any trial. He was furious and dangerous and she was terrified out of her mind, but a smug smile spread across Natalie’s lips. “Good,” she snapped.
She thought he was going to backhand her, but he screamed instead and yanked her up from the floor. “That boy’s family never would have had the nerve to press charges against me for giving him the punishment he deserved if you had been here. When you left, they knew there was no way I could convince anyone he raped you and they got bold. They told the police who hurt their son because you ran away and abandoned your family!”
Tearing herself out of his grip in a sudden burst of shock and strength, she stared at him. Prison? It explained why he hadn’t found her earlier, but the thought of him locked up and powerless made her unexpectedly brave. He wasn’t untouchable after all. He wasn’t the king of this town and he couldn’t control her anymore. “I never would have told people Thomas raped me even if I had stayed.”
“You would have if I made you!”
She shook her head so hard it made the throbbing intensify, but she didn’t back down. Thomas had hurt her by not standing up for her, but she knew better than anyone how terrifying her father was and couldn’t blame a scared young boy for buckling in the face of his rage. Thomas made a mistake that she was sure he regretted. Her father had no such excuse. “I’m glad they told the police. I should have done the same, told everyone all the horrible things you did to me, but I was too scared.”
Lunging forward, he grabbed a chunk of her hair and twisted. She crumpled under the pain. “And you aren’t scared now?” he seethed.
“No,” she sobbed.
“Then why are you crying? Why are you cowering in your slutty dress? Do you think your boyfriend is going to come save you? Because you’re wrong if you do.”
“He doesn’t even know where we are,” Natalie said through her tears, “but I’m still not scared of you.”
He didn’t believe her, and would never understand how Vance’s love and understanding had given her so much strength. She wasn’t going to waste her breath try
ing to explain it. If he was going to kill her, she would face it as Natalie Price—the woman she had chosen to be and the woman Vance loved—not the cowering and frightened Clara Townsend he still expected her to be.
Wrenching her hair again, her father forced her to stand. She flinched in fear when she saw the knife in his hand, but she didn’t cry out. She was done letting this man rule her life. Even if she never escaped him again, she had known something different, something better, and he couldn’t take that away from her.
“You will never see that man again,” her father spat, “never wear these disgusting clothes and shame yourself by sharing your bed.”
He wedged the knife between her skin and the fabric of the dress and sliced downward. Removing the dress proved more difficult than he expected, but Natalie refused to give him any sort of reaction. When he finally tore the fabric away, he shoved her back down into the dirt.
“Are you just going to leave me here to die?” she asked, her voice stronger than either of them expected.
“What, like your mother?”
Pulling back in confusion, Natalie became even more wary. “What?” Had he really killed her? She hadn’t thought him capable despite his obvious instability.
“It’s your fault, what she did. Couldn’t handle the shame of her only child running away and her husband hauled off to prison,” he said as he played with the knife in his hands. “It’s your fault she killed herself.”
Stunned, but not fully able to process what he was saying, Natalie didn’t know how to respond. “She’s dead?”
“Her blood is on your hands,” her father growled. “All the hurt you’ve caused this family is on your head and now it’s time to pay for what you’ve done.”
The knife twisted in his hands. The harsh contrast between light and darkness in the basement made it difficult to see much of anything clearly, but as he stalked toward her, there was no mistaking the murderous glint in his eyes. Whoever he had once been and whatever limits he had once put on himself, they were gone. In their place was a man intent on repaying what he believed he had suffered, and there was nothing that was going to stop him from exacting the punishments he believed were due. He had never struck her as a child, but she knew in that moment that he was going to kill her.
The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) Page 26
