by Stacy Green
Resisting the urge to call Ronson and badger her for information, Emilie shuffled through the dark house. She had zero chance of sleeping, but she might as well lie down while she waited for the agent to call.
She closed the door to the guest room. A breeze drifted in from the open window, feeling good on her chilled skin. Laying down on the bed, Emilie breathed in the scents of the night. She loved nights in Nevada. The air cooled, the skies cleared, and the stars often looked close enough to touch. Someday, she’d take Nathan out to the desert to stargaze.
The wind gusted. Her scalp prickled, heat flaring at the back of her neck.
“I didn’t leave the window open.”
“No, you didn’t,” came the sultry voice from the darkness. “You didn’t lock it, either.”
Adrenaline surged through her. Fresh sweat dampened her cold skin, tinted with the metallic scent of fear. Before she could move, a tall man in dark clothes and a facemask stepped out of the shadows. She couldn’t see his eyes this time, but Emilie knew the sonofabitch was smiling.
“Hello, my love.”
A stinging pain in her throat, and then, blackness.
38
SHE WAS FINALLY his. In body, at least. Her spirit would soon follow. Julian had faith in her.
His Emilie slept in the backseat with a blanket over her. The Lexus’s windows were tinted, but anyone who happened to glance inside would assume she rested peacefully.
His body crackled with excitement. The smell of her skin—something sweet, yet musky, not unlike jasmine—overrode his senses. His gloved fingers drummed on the steering wheel, his lips dry. He licked them. His chest swelled with triumph. Just the two of them now. No weak, pathetic friend trying to protect her, no meddling cop tainting what belonged to Julian.
Had she allowed Madigan access to her body? That particular filth would have to be eradicated. She needed to be cleansed, made innocent again. But first, she needed to understand. Her fate belonged to Julian—she’d been made to salvage him from a life of guilt.
Their new life together had finally begun.
39
WHY WASN’T EMILIE answering her phone? The second text had been sent fifty-seven minutes ago. No way had she gone back to sleep. She wasn’t at the bank. Ronson had already woken the assistant manager to demand security tapes.
“I’m sure you’re overreacting.” Chris insisted on coming with Nathan.
“She’s not answering her phone.”
“Maybe it’s dead,” Chris said.
“She would have charged it. She’s waiting on the call from Ronson about the vault.”
“Patrol entering the house?”
“Right now.” He dodged through traffic on I-215 disregarding the speed limit. Patrol officers traipsed out of the Vances’ house when Nathan skidded to a halt in the driveway.
“She in there?”
“No,” the patrol officer said. “Her vehicle is here, along with Vance’s SUV. Her bedroom window is open.”
Nathan’s insides clenched. Creepy had her. “How could you let this happen?”
“Knock it off.” Chris jerked at his arm. “That’s not helping anything.”
“He’s got her, Chris.”
His friend didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both knew Nathan was right.
* * * *
THE THICK, PUTRID odor of mildew caked her tongue. Emilie gagged on the bulky material shoved into her mouth. Darkness was her next realization. Her eyes were open and staring at a veil of black. She was blindfolded.
She lay on a thin blanket, her nose mashed against the cotton. Beneath the material was a rough surface.
Fear slammed into her chest. Her rapid heartbeat stole her breath. Adrenaline raced through her veins and prompted her to move. The plastic bonds around her wrists and ankles were so tight they cut into her skin.
She listened for the sound of something other than her own panic. The slow, even breathing of someone mere feet away was the terrifying result.
She was in the tunnels.
“Relax.” The voice was familiar, the southern drawl no longer obscured. “I have no desire to hurt you, Miss Emilie.”
Slender hands brushed her face and caressed her cheek. The gag was removed.
“You’ve got a fucked up way of showing it,” Emilie spat.
“Language, please. Ladies shouldn’t be so vulgar.”
She couldn’t tell him to go to hell. Emilie remembered what Ronson had said that day in the tunnels. She had to play his game, be what he wanted. That was her only chance of survival.
“Sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
His voice came from the left, near her ear. He was close. She turned her head in his direction and blinked. Her eyes had adjusted but were little help. Her prison was still black with only the faint outline of a shape a foot away.
“Can you please turn on a light?”
“In due time.”
Emilie tried to wiggle her wrists, but they were bound too tightly. Terror rendered her mute. She wasn’t getting away this time.
* * * *
RONSON ARRIVED AT the station wearing a polo shirt and tennis shoes, her dark hair pulled back. “I’m putting together a search team for the tunnels.”
“You really think he’d take her there?” Nathan asked. “I know we’ve always assumed it, but he’s got to know we’ve been in the drains. His plan isn’t exactly secret anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ronson said. “We can’t search everywhere. He’s had time to find the perfect spot. No reason to worry about being caught. His ego will be his undoing. He’ll screw up.”
Nathan didn’t agree. Emilie had to find a way to stay alive until she could be found. And if Vance’s computer didn’t give them anything, she could be permanently lost.
Avery emerged from his office. His normally impeccable suit had been replaced by jeans and a T-shirt, an LVPD cap over his thinning hair.
“Damn,” Chris said. “Never seen you look normal.”
“Shut it.” Avery turned to Ronson. “They can’t find anything in the vault.”
“Tell them to keep looking.” Ronson asked.
Nathan walked to the eastern windows. The rising sun shot bright rays of pink across the sky. Las Vegas stretched before him, a vast area with thousands of places to hide, and below ground, hundreds more.
He didn’t believe Creepy would take Emilie into the tunnels. The police had snooped around down there. Emilie had already seen the misery that lived in the drains. The shock factor was gone.
“He’s not stashing her in the tunnels.”
“It’s our best lead,” Ronson said.
“I need to help search.”
“No. You’re too close to Emilie. I want you here.” Ronson came to stand beside him. “She’s smart. She’ll figure out a way to get him to bring her outside. She’ll make him feel safe. He wants her to care for him, to share his life with her. Once he feels that she does, he’ll take her to his home. And when he does, we’ll be waiting for him. We just need his name.”
Nathan searched the agent’s face. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s her only hope.”
* * * *
“ARE YOU THIRSTY?”
Cotton lined Emilie’s mouth. “Yes, please.”
A hand cupped the back of her head and caressed her hair. Emilie didn’t allow herself to react. She had to make him trust her.
A plastic straw tapped against her mouth. She parted her lips and eagerly drank. Water halfway down her throat, a terrifying thought struck: what if he’d drugged the water? Or poisoned it?
She choked.
“Ma chère.” He stroked her hair. “Easy. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Should she drink? She needed the water for strength. He had any number of other options if he wanted to harm her. She had to take the risk.
“Sorry. Can I please try again?”
“Of course.”
This tim
e, she drank until Creepy removed the straw. “We must make it last.”
Water dripped from her chin. She licked her lips, not wanting to spare a drop. “Thank you.”
“Parkwa.” The word rolled off his tongue.
“I don’t speak Creole, but I assume that meant, ‘you’re welcome.’”
“Oui—yes. You recognize my language?”
“It’s quite beautiful. Much different than French.”
“Parlez vous francais?”
“Oui.”
“Your Mémé taught you?”
“You know she did.”
“So you remember me.” He sounded pleased. “She was an exceptional woman, even if she did steal from me.”
Emilie swallowed her anger and pressed on.
“What’s your real name? I only remember you as Jay.”
“Julian.”
A beautiful name for a blackened soul, Emilie thought. “I like it. What’s your last name?”
“I’ll keep that to myself, chère.”
Bastard. “Of course. So you and my grandparents had a business together.” Emilie chose her words carefully. “And now you think I have something owed to you.”
A moment of silence. “Once, I did. The necklace you wear, and others I’ve no doubt are in your possession, are ones I procured from one of the oldest families in Louisiana. When your mother decided to end our business, I felt the least she could do was give them back. When she didn’t, I sought you out.”
“You didn’t find me.” Emilie stretched her legs. How big was her prison? Did she have room to fight? Her feet touched nothing. She didn’t dare try to move her bound hands from her lap.
“Claire hid you well,” Julian said. “And after a while, I became distracted.”
“By what?”
The silence hung between them as Emilie waited.
“A woman I thought would solve my loneliness,” Julian finally drawled. “But she disappointed me.”
Emilie didn’t ask if the woman was Marie Adrieux. She had a feeling Marie wasn’t his first replacement. “If you stopped looking for me, why did you leave New Orleans? Did Katrina run you out?”
A quiet shuffling rippled through the darkness. He’d shifted closer. His leg now touched her upper arm. He sat cross-legged. If she moved fast enough, she could slam her fists into his crotch. And then what? Her ankles were still tied—running was pointless.
“Fortunately, no. An opportunity arose I couldn’t resist.”
She knew he was lying. He’d fled because he’d murdered Marie Adrieux.
“Must have been hard to leave the place you grew up.”
“Life is a series of hard choices. Something you understand, I’m sure.”
Her defense mechanism flared. She bit her lip against it. This was not the time to say something stupid. “I do.”
“Why did you leave home, Miss Emilie?”
He was baiting her, trying to get her to talk about her mother. He wanted her to thank him.
“Don’t you know?”
“I gathered your mother did something terrible. Although I’m not sure what could be worse than lying to you about your paternity.”
Emilie ground her teeth and then caught herself. “Claire lied to me my entire life about my father—at least the man I thought was my father.” Her bitterness was real. Emilie didn’t know if she would ever be able to completely forgive her mother.
“How did you discover the truth?”
“When I was eighteen, my mother told me everything during a fight. I left home.”
Julian sighed heavily in the darkness. “Such a shame your Mémé passed when she did. You truly were the light of her life. She took you everywhere.” His soft laugh was deceptively benign. “You had all that red hair, and the personality to match. But she never minded. I’m sure you miss her greatly.”
Emilie’s blindfold soaked up her tears. As much as she missed Mémé, she had no desire to join her anytime soon. She wanted to live, to have a life with Nathan.
She gritted her teeth and resolved to stop crying. If she stuck with the plan, she’d have a chance.
40
“COFFEE.” CHRIS HANDED Nathan a steaming cup of black goo. “Loaded with cream and sugar to cover the taste.”
“Thanks.” Nathan took the Styrofoam cup but didn’t drink. He’d been relegated to the conference room while the search team gathered for a briefing. “I should be going out there instead of sitting on my ass.”
“Ugh.” Chris scrunched his nose as he drank. “We need a Starbucks. Or even someone in charge of making a fresh pot once a day. Christ.”
“I could help the search. I’ve been in the tunnels.”
“So have they.” Chris nodded toward the group of patrol officers in the squad room. “A lot more than you. Some even have contacts with knowledge of the tunnels.”
“I’ve got Snake.”
“I told them where to look for him.”
Nathan finally brought the cup to his lips. “Why am I drinking this if it tastes so bad?”
“’Cause you’ve been up at least eighteen hours. You need a pick-up.”
Nathan ignored the coffee’s stale taste. Emilie was the only thing on his mind. What had Creepy done to her? The Louisiana woman hadn’t been sexually assaulted, but criminals evolve. Creepy felt justified in killing Claire. Raping Emilie didn’t seem like much of a leap.
Emilie knew Nathan would never give up. He prayed she managed to stay alive long enough for him to find her.
“Search team’s heading out,” Chris said. “And here comes Avery. He looks like a nerd with afterglow, so he must have some information.”
Nathan met Avery at the door. “Anything?”
“We found the letter in the vault. It’s got a file name with passwords. It’s encrypted, but our techs cracked it and got into Vance’s computer.”
Carrie, one of the department’s computer geeks, had taken center-stage in Avery’s office. “Vance made several entries over the last few weeks detailing your perp’s activities.”
“How is it that a middle-aged bank manager with a gambling problem can tail a dude like Creepy?” Chris asked.
“Vance is used to sneaking around,” Avery said. “He’s lived a double life for a long time.”
“But Creepy already knew that,” Chris said.
“He may have known Vance was following him.” Ronson stood behind the tech, peering at the computer through her reading glasses. “And didn’t consider him a threat because of the information he held over Vance. Creepy probably thought Jeremy Vance was weak enough to keep under his thumb.”
“Vance never actually followed him,” Carrie pulled her long, black hair into a ponytail. “After the attempted kidnapping, he met with our perp three times. Each entry is dated. First time was two days after the job. Vance confronted him about Davis, and Creepy threatened to expose Vance to the police and pin the entire thing on him.”
“Did Vance say where they met?” Avery rubbed his temples.
“18b.”
“The downtown arts district?” Nathan asked. The area was known for an eclectic mix of galleries, shops, and antiques. ‘18b’ represented the original area consisting of eighteen city blocks. The district had grown over the years, but the name had stuck.
Carrie nodded and went back to her notes. “Every meeting took place there.”
“Specific location?” Ronson asked.
“They’d meet on Commerce and walk,” Carrie said. “Never more than ten minutes at a time.”
“Were the meetings prearranged?”
“He provided Vance with a prepaid cellphone,” Carrie said. “Vance had to return it their last meeting. He figured he was next on your guy’s list.”
“So he writes Emilie the letter with the directions to this file,” Chris said.
“What else do the notes say?” Ronson asked.
“Vance paid a lot of attention,” Carrie said. “He noticed the man knew the arts district well. He even
spent time during one meeting studying one of the store’s window displays.”
“Why?” Nathan said.
“Vance wasn’t sure, but his buddy took his time. Vance couldn’t understand everything he said because he slipped into Creole.”
“Sonofabitch even knew that.” Nathan ran his hands through his hair. “He better stay in that coma for his own good.”
“When did this happen?” Ronson tapped the corner of Avery’s desk.
“Their last meeting. Vance had planned to follow him but chickened out at the last second.”
“So how does he have any idea who Creepy is?” Nathan paced the room. Vance’s information was turning out to be a bust.
“Vance started trolling the arts district,” Carrie said. “He saw Creepy twice, both times in high-end antique shops. Vance had the balls to get close and overheard him negotiating.”
“This is all stuff we can figure out,” Chris said. “We know he’s an antiquities guy.”
“You haven’t heard the best part.”
“Get to it,” Nathan snapped.
Carrie raised an eyebrow. “The morning Vance attempted suicide, he was distraught over the bank teller’s murder. He had no idea she was an accomplice. He went to 18b, determined to confront Creepy. Spent hours looking but didn’t find him.”
“So what? Creepy was probably spying on Emilie.”
“Vance did see one thing of interest: the very same piece of art he’d witnessed your Creepy haggling over was for sale in another antique shop on Charleston Street. Front was designed to look like a plantation, and the window display was decorated with white jasmine.”
“The name?” Nathan crushed the now empty Styrofoam cup. Creepy was from Louisiana. He’d buried his first victim in an area loaded with historical Creole plantations. The antique store’s theme was no coincidence.
“Bougere’s Fine Antiques.”
* * * *
“CAN I PLEASE sit up? This floor is getting painful.” Lumps of cement dug into her back. “Of course,” Julian said. Emilie couldn’t think of him as Julian. The name was too refined for a man who’d murdered at least three people.
He took her by the shoulders, his grip firm, yet gentle. She swallowed back the nausea from his touch.
