Something was wrong with her eyes. Terribly wrong. What had this person done to her? Fear kept her from asking aloud, because once she acknowledged she wasn’t alone, her situation would be real.
She yanked at her wrists. The binding—duct tape if she could go by the sticky flexibility—didn’t loosen but only pulled at her skin. The air by her face moved. She froze. Breathing. Close by. The person was watching her. She stopped herself from biting her lip, but the urge to cry out from fear threatened to rush past her lips.
An object fell to the floor to her left. Skye flinched. She didn’t know if she’d caused it from her telekinesis or someone else had.
Jaw clenched, she grasped for a way to calm down. Counting. She started counting but after ten, the suspense and terror of not knowing about her son’s welfare wrenched the words from her lips. “Ty? Are you there?”
“He’s in the room with you.”
At her captor’s deep, male voice, Skye jerked back against her seat. Glass shattered. Possibly a plate or drinking glass. This time she knew she’d been the cause.
“What the...” A man’s voice tinged with disbelief carried across the room. A footstep crunched against the floor.
If only she could use her telekinesis to aim a weapon at Tyler’s kidnapper. She yanked hard on her bindings. The tape only tightened around her skin. At the lengthening silence, she cocked her head to the side and listened.
There. More breathing. In front and to the right. Quick and agitated.
Tyler. So close, but with so many insurmountable obstacles keeping him from her.
“What have you done with my son? Why hasn’t he said anything?”
“It’s called tape. I don’t want to hear a bunch of screaming. Not yet anyway.”
Rage and impotence banded around her throat. “If you’ve hurt Tyler, I swear to God I’ll—”
“What? Hurt me?” Humor laced his words but didn’t ease the dark, edgy tone of his voice. “Relax. He’s okay...for now.”
She opened her eyes and looked toward where she suspected Tyler’s kidnapper stood. Blinding light cut into her vision. It kept her from seeing anything but a brief shadow. The glare from a lamp or overhead light forced her lids closed again. The condition of her eyes hadn’t changed. They seemed even worse.
Skye swallowed her panic, but it rushed back up. He’d blinded her. Oh, God. How could she possibly use her telekinesis to save Tyler when she couldn’t even see?
“My eyes,” she managed, unable to keep the fear from her voice.
“I dilated them. Nothing permanent, but it’s far more effective. You can’t dislodge drops like a blindfold.” The man’s voice drew closer. “I wish you could see me.” He stroked her face from her brow to her jaw.
Skye jerked to the side, sending her hair across one cheek. For a wild second, she thought he’d touched her with a metal weapon—possibly a gun or knife. But no. He’d used his finger, warm and encased in some type of material that smelled of rubber.
“Why are you doing this? I have no money. And my son. He’s just a child. Completely innocent.” She turned her face toward the left where she believed her attacker had moved. By keeping her blinded, she hoped it was a sign that he didn’t intend to kill her. But then she sadly realized, she’d hunted him down in his own home. He wasn’t about to let her go with a slap to her wrist. “We’ve done nothing to deserve this.”
“Deserve?” The man’s voice shifted into a tone where rage scratched at the surface. “That’s where you’re wrong. You deserve far more than this.”
Skye’s spine stiffened. She remembered the letters on the mirror back in Las Vegas. Dread burrowed into her stomach. For a while, she’d forgotten about those hate-filled words and assumed these last twenty-four hours Ferguson wanted Tyler’s powers. Now she started to wonder if she’d been completely wrong. The oddness of the situation hit her.
“Don’t you think you deserve more?” he whispered by her ear, his hot breath shifting through the strands of her hair to crawl across her skin.
She bit down on her inner lip to cut off her cry of surprise. Her heart crashed against her ribs. “You tell me.”
“Oh, no. That would make it too easy for you.” He touched her. A quick, caress along the vulnerable slope of her neck.
She flinched. She couldn’t help it. He was playing some type of mind game. He had to be. If he’d just wanted her son, he would have killed her off immediately. He also didn’t appear to want money or a trade. Did he have another plan then? Torture?
“What do you want?” Skye asked. She hated the tremble in her voice.
The light suddenly dimmed. She opened her eyes and found a spotlight pointed away from her body. But from above, the kitchen’s fluorescent light made any images impossible to identify. A man’s face appeared a foot in front of her. Skye snapped back against her chair. Shaggy brown hair, lean face, sunken cheeks and violent blue eyes inflicted their gaze at her with unmasked hatred.
She pressed deeper into her chair, too stunned to think to react as the light returned to her face. She blinked, tears welled, then she squeezed shut her lids.
“That’s it?” he asked. “You have nothing to say?”
The casual tone of his voice didn’t hide the suppressed rage shimmering near the surface. Skye shifted in her chair in growing alarm. She didn’t understand. This man couldn’t be Ferguson. He was too young to have been experimenting on children decades before. He looked to be only a couple years older than herself.
Biting down on her lower lip, she searched for a plausible answer, one where the words might diminish his rage. She feared if she said anything wrong, it might push him down an irreversible and deadly path. She couldn’t allow that. She needed time. Time to think. To formulate. To plan. To pray. This wasn’t just her life in jeopardy. There was Ty. And David.
Oh, God. What of David? Was he dead? Murdered by this lunatic? David’s body could be in this very room, and she wouldn’t know it. She couldn’t ask. Because if she asked—
Skye mentally shook off her rising panic and realized their kidnapper might see through any platitudes. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
Dread squeezed and twisted her stomach. What had she done to this man? His rage skimmed the surface, but she knew a second later with the wrong reply, that same fury might erupt and he would act on it.
“You don’t even remember me, do you?”
“I—”
“Don’t lie.” He grabbed her face and dug his thumb and finger on either side of her mouth. His breath fanned across her nose and lips. “What about Weaver? Peter Weaver. Now do you get it?”
She sensed him bare inches from her face. Oh, God. He’d just revealed his identity. He had no intention of keeping them alive. A deep, shiver wracked her body. The chill of terror clung to her pores.
Tyler’s whimper and quick intake of breath pierced across the distance of the room and compounded her fear.
Think. She needed to think. But panic scattered her thoughts, blew them into tiny particles that she couldn’t collect into anything meaningful.
Weaver. Weaver. That name. Peter. Yes, Peter Weaver. Memories from another year, one she’d tried so hard to forget crushed any hope of absolution. Peter, a co-worker of Jay’s. Her ex-husband and Peter had worked in the same precinct. Dealing coke and dirty money.
After her ex sued for custody, pushed her into a corner, she’d searched for a way out and stumbled on Jay’s sideline of dealing drugs behind the shield of his badge. She’d turned him in and started a chain reaction that touched more than their lives. Internal Affairs had implicated three police officers, including Peter. None had been arrested, but because of her actions, they’d lost their jobs and their credibility.
“I remember you,” Skye whispered.
“And what? Don’t you have anything to say?”
He dug his fingers deeper into her cheeks until the pressure bit into her gums, bruisi
ng the flesh and ripping a cry from her lips. She knew if she didn’t answer, he would inflict more pain. “You want revenge.”
“Ah, revenge. Why shouldn’t I ask for it?” His voice thickened with disgust as he released her face with a quick jerk. “Can you give me one reason why I shouldn’t retaliate?”
“It won’t get your job back. You’ll be worse off, wanted by the police, on the run. Your life won’t get any better.”
“Ah, we have a damn philosopher. Well, you know what?” he asked, an odd, dangerous note thickening his voice as he wrapped his hand gently around her neck. His thumb caressed the pulse point beneath her left ear. “I don’t care.”
Skye didn’t move, didn’t swallow. Why give him that satisfaction? But she couldn’t hide the wild thump of her pulse or the tension snapping into the major muscles of her body. She waited for the pressure to increase around her throat as he continued to caress the skin below her ear. How could she hope to save herself and Ty? She bit back the urge to retaliate with words. Flinging insults would only guarantee their death.
He released his hand from her throat and a shudder of relief rolled through her entire being. A reprieve. But for how long?
She needed to keep him talking. That’s what they did in the movies. But this was real. This person had an agenda. He wasn’t some actor who conveniently spewed his guts to give the victim time to save themselves.
Skye searched for sounds from Tyler. There. Still breathing. Nothing more. But it was enough. Enough to keep hope from turning to bitter ash as she frantically searched for a way out of this crazy situation. “What of Ferguson? I don’t understand the tie between you and him.”
“You don’t need to understand. You’re not here to understand. You’re here because I want you here.” He moved back and forth in front of her, the whisper of air creeping across the distance between them as his shoes scraped against the tile. “Ferguson wanted you dead. He wanted your son for his ability to manipulate computers and hired me to get him and take care of any loose ends. He didn’t want you alive. He hated you as much as me, always digging into things that didn’t concern you. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“And the doctor?”
“A loose end. Ferguson knew you’d been talking to her, spewing your guts on stuff he didn’t want out there. He paid me well.” A footfall sounded directly in front of her, and his voice turned nasty. “Tell me? How’s it feel to have some nutcase impregnate you? Did you like being his little white, lab rat? The egomaniac wanted to see if his sperm and your powers could get himself a wonder kid. Maybe after a little bit of dissecting and experimenting with your brat, he hoped to raise a little army and sell them to the highest bidder. Who knows. The guy was a whack job.”
Skye cringed, hating Tyler being a witness to Weaver’s hateful words. “How could you know that when—”
“It’s amazing how he started blubbering after dislocating a couple of his fingers.” He laughed. “God, it feels good knowing how much of your life must have been a lie. Jay. What an idiot. He was clueless for the longest time.”
Envisioning Peter’s gloating smile, she turned her cheek to the side, avoiding the heat of his breath and the stench of hatred to hit her head on.
“I see you don’t like hearing that. Well, that’s too bad. It won’t matter anyway, because in a little bit you’re going to be dead. You—” Peter crushed a palm across her mouth. She wrenched backward and struggled in her chair, her cry smothered by his latex-covered hand. Once again, he squeezed his fingers into her cheeks. This time though, he dug the tips of his fingers from his other hand into the tender spot of her inner arm inches below her armpit. A wave of pain shot up into her shoulder and down into her fingers. She gasped against his palm, unable to get air, fearing she might faint.
With pain inundating Skye’s every pore and thought, he finally relaxed the pressure to her arm. She slumped against the chair and hated her weakness, her inability to fight back.
A moment later, she understood why Peter wanted her quiet.
Chapter 28
Blood dripped into David’s eye from a wound to his brow. Blinking rapidly against the sting of blood, he tried to peer up the stairwell to the kitchen from the basement. He listened for sounds above. Nothing other than his own breathing and the drumming of his heart filled the nearly black room. He’d heard Skye’s muffled cry. Had she been attacked by his assailant? But if he called out, he’d give away his position and possibly Skye’s.
He rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes to clear his vision. He couldn’t focus. At the oddness of the light, he frowned and crept up the stairs, mindful of the sound of his shoes on each riser.
He squinted toward the kitchen. The light’s intensity forced him to look to the side. Damn it. What the hell was wrong with his eyes? Had the blow to his head impaired his vision? If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t use his telekinesis.
David paused near the top of the stairwell, remaining hidden in the basement’s shadows. With his back and shoulders pressed against the wall, he listened. Silence. But that didn’t mean a damn thing. Beyond the blinding light, someone might be waiting, ready to attack or kill him. Still, David had to act. He had no other option. Skye was out there, ferocious when it came to protecting her own, but all too vulnerable.
Her muffled cry had haunted him and launched a collage of horrifying images of her fate in his head—dead, her throat slit. Or her body, broken, abused and sprawled across the floor upstairs.
Dread crawled across his flesh. He glanced back up at the light. The chill of sweat clung to the back of his neck. His heart thundered inside his chest. Still silence. Then a shadow appeared in the doorway into the kitchen and launched itself in his direction. David lurched to the other side of the stairs. He deflected a blow to his midsection, which instead glanced off his temple as he ducked and sprang up the last few stairs and into the kitchen.
“Tyler?” Skye asked from somewhere nearby, her voice thick with anxiety. “David?”
He turned at Skye’s voice just as his attacker tackled him from behind. The force sent David forward. His chin hit the floor, rattling his teeth. He grunted as he twisted around and rammed an elbow into a man. The bastard caught him in the neck. He wrapped his fingers around David’s throat. The pressure against his neck intensified until his world turned black.
David came to. His head throbbed. He didn’t know how long he’d passed out for, but the light was worse. It glared into his right eye with needle-like intensity. His other eye was damaged, swollen shut he suspected.
“Well, what do we have here?” a man asked, his voice filled with delight. “Your boyfriend’s coming to.”
Beyond the amusement, David heard a darker tone, threaded with malevolence and rage. Lying on the floor, he grew conscious of his wrists bound behind him, his legs tied at the ankles. The heat of a lamp touched his face and neck. He squinted to get his bearings. Pain knotted the muscles around his injured eye while the light’s beam cut into his other. Jaw rigid, he closed his eyes. He didn’t dare let fear immobilize his thoughts.
“Why did you have to hurt him like that?” Skye this time. Her voice, strong but shaky, carried directly across the room—he guessed a distance of several yards.
She sounded okay, considering. Thank God.
“I could have killed him, but he’s more useful to me at the moment.” Footsteps moved across the floor and stopped in front of David’s face.
David waited tensely, determined to keep his expression blank of emotion.
A shoe nudged his chin.
David jerked back. A growl of impotence and frustration rumbled from his chest.
“Pretty convenient how he managed to walk right up here without me lugging his sorry ass up here, don’t you think?” David’s attacker mused aloud. “He appeared right on schedule as planned.”
At his blatant arrogance, David’s jaw tensed. Much to his shame, he’d fallen victim to the bastard’s plan. But their attacker’s arrogance
could turn out to be his weakness.
“Let him and Tyler go,” Skye pleaded. “You’ve got me. Isn’t that enough?”
David twisted his wrists behind him. The binding didn’t give. “Where’s Tyler? Is he here?”
“Of course. Blinded with eye drops, hogtied and waiting for slaughter. Like you.” Smugness thickened the man’s words.
David listened, trying to decipher if he’d heard that voice from somewhere in his past. Nothing. Not in the man’s tone or cadence. But he did hear frantic and erratic breathing to David’s left. Tyler. Had to be, because Skye was more in the center of the room and in front of him.
“Amazing how a couple of eye drops can leave all of you useless, isn’t it?” his attacker asked but didn’t appear to care for an answer. “I’ll have to thank Ferguson for that.”
David stilled. “What are you talking about?”
“Ferguson hired him to kidnap Tyler,” Skye whispered. “His name’s Peter Weaver. Like Jay, he thinks I ruined his life. But unlike my ex, he’s willing to kill to get his little piece of revenge. Just another dirty cop who thinks he’s above the law.”
Their chances of coming out of this place alive plummeted. All the money and talking wasn’t likely to change someone’s mind when it came to wanting to settle a score.
“If you’re trying to get me angry,” Weaver’s tone softened dangerously. “It’s working.”
“Let her and the boy go,” David demanded.
“I don’t think so,” Weaver replied, a razor-like edge sharpening his voice. “And who are you to make demands? Hell, you’re on the floor tied up like a fucking pig. I didn’t come all this way to walk away without spilling blood. I want someone dead.”
“Why?” David asked. Panic and frustration shredded his fragile restraint and made him lash out. “What could they have ever down to you? We’re talking about a woman and a boy for God’s sake. Only a coward would go after them.”
Footsteps scoured the tile. Then Weaver’s sharp-edged toe rammed into David’s hip. Pain pummeled David’s side, extracting a ragged groan from his lips. Lifting his neck from the floor, he looked around but the room’s blinding light forced his eyes shut.
Identity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance Page 25
