“Wallace?” Mark asked.
“Yeah. Ask him what he wants.”
“He wants Olivia, man,” Sully said.
“But what does he want from her?” Dallas said. “If he was looking to rape her or hurt her or kill her, he had a thousand chances at her house. He could have had her a dozen times, then killed her and left. Nobody would have known anything. Why is he making his move here – in an office full of professionals with weapons? Why?”
“Maybe it’s about you,” Griff said.
Dallas shook his head. “No, I don’t see how. This all started long before I came in to the picture. Whatever his endgame is, I need to figure it out… that’s the only way to stop him, and to get Olivia out alive.”
“You sure you want to make the call, man?” Mark said. “Maybe you’re too… close to all of this. Too close to Liv.”
Dallas’ jaw tightened. “I won’t trust anyone else to make the call, Mark. Sorry. This is between me and Wallace now.”
**
Greg smirked when he saw the number that came up on his cell. He turned to Olivia.
“It’s your boyfriend. Fucking took him long enough to figure it out, huh?”
Olivia shut her eyes in relief. She knew it didn’t technically change anything for Dallas to be on the other end of Greg’s phone – she was still trapped in the conference room with a fucking whack-job wielding a knife in her face – but she felt like Dallas was closer, somehow. Like she wasn’t alone in this.
“Foreman!” Greg broke in to a huge smile. “You were almost late to the party.”
“Greg.” Dallas’ voice was calm and quiet. “What are you doing, man?”
“What am I doing?” He looked at Olivia. “I’m just spending some quality time with Liv, of course.”
“Yeah, I can get why you’d want to do that, OK? But you must be scaring her. Do you want to scare her?”
“Yes. I do.”
Dallas paused. That wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for. “Why?”
“Because,” Greg said. “She’s a fucking skank who lounges around half-naked, flashing her ass and tits to the whole fucking world… and then she turns around and acts holier-than-thou when a man shows her some attention.”
Olivia was stunned at the venom in his voice. He was looking at her now, his blue eyes blazing with hatred, and she was suddenly so afraid that she felt sick.
“Did you show her some attention, man?” Dallas said. “And she acted like it was nothing much?”
“Yes.” Greg sucked in a deep breath. “I took care of her, you know, when that fucking bitch started stalking her. I watched her and protected her and cared about her. And she treated me like some fucking nobody.”
Dallas’ head was spinning. “Wait, Greg. You’re talking about the texts in the very beginning? The ones that got Blue Star involved in the first place?”
“Yeah.”
“Who were they from?”
Greg snorted. “Some fucking little nobody intern in the Hope Perfume local office. She got a hold of Liv’s cell number off her boss’ Rolodex and sent her some bullshit texts. Liv’s faggot assistant changed her number, the moron intern got the new one. That’s when Liv’s manager called Blue Star in.”
“You found out about the intern?”
“Hell, yeah. Took all of twenty minutes. I waited for her outside her apartment and beat her until her ears bled, told her to leave Liv alone.” Greg shrugged and Olivia felt horror wash over her at the casual gesture. “She did. She also quit at Hope Perfume. Good riddance, really.”
“So, then – what?” Dallas asked. “Even though the job was over, you wanted to stay close to Olivia for a while longer?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Greg smirked again. “Don’t you?”
Dallas ignored that. “So why not just ask her out?”
“You think I didn’t?” Greg shouted, and she jumped in fear. “I asked her for coffee and I asked her for dinner.”
“She said no?”
“She said yes!” Greg glared at her. “But she acted like it was all just part of the service… like it was part of my fucking job to take her for dinner. Like I was some fucking chump who wasn’t anywhere near good enough to take seriously. And there I was, watching her every move, following her hour after hour to her fucking boring meetings and fittings, and she was just asking for my invoice every month.”
“Greg,” Olivia whispered. “Greg, I didn’t know that –”
“Shut up, you fucking whore!” he shouted at her. Dallas froze, hoping that he didn’t hurt her. “Not one word out of your goddamned slut mouth, you hear me?”
She nodded, beyond terrified now.
“Anyway,” Greg said more calmly. “I kept giving her chances. You know? I sent her texts and pictures and I was sorry to scare her so bad, but all I wanted was for her to let me hold her. Comfort her. Take her to bed. But she never let me touch her, fucking not once. No matter how scared she was, no matter how hard I tried to get her to see me as someone to turn to, she just didn’t.” He shrugged again. “You can only give a skank so many chances, right?”
Olivia thought back to the texts at the very beginning of this whole nightmare. Yes, they had been offensive, but not sexual or even very aggressive. More… bitchy, almost. There had been a short reprieve, and then suddenly, they’d just started up again. She recalled that this was when the name-calling began, when the sender started attaching pictures of ejaculating penises and sliced-up breasts.
That was when Greg got involved. He just took over the stalking, pretended to be the same person, took it up a notch. Several notches. Oh, my God.
“But you, Foreman.” Greg’s voice changed now; it was slower and quieter and Olivia shivered. “The very first time she called you, she fucking threw herself at you, didn’t she? There you two were on her bed, her crying in your arms, and you calling her baby. After everything I’d done for her, you get to call her baby?” He was running the knife up and down his leg now, seemingly unaware that he was cutting himself. Olivia watched in horror as the blood seeped through his dress pants. “And you took her to your house? What – did you two fuck that night, or did the slut wait until the next morning to open her legs, huh?”
“Why didn’t you answer her call that night?” Dallas asked. “Olivia called you first, man. She only called me because you didn’t pick up your phone.”
“I wanted her to wait a few more minutes before I called her back… I wanted her good and freaked out when I pretended to arrive so I could score for sure.” Greg narrowed his eyes at Olivia. “I never imagined she’d actually call you. I didn’t think she’d give up on me so easy, you know. Stupid fucking mistake, right? This skank just rolled right on over me and moved on to the next man. And the next day, you show up in my office and tell me I’m fired? The bitch doesn’t have the courtesy to let me know herself, after everything I did for her? Fuck that.”
“So are you mad at me, Greg?” Dallas asked softly. “Or at Olivia? Because if the problem here is me, I can come in there and we can talk…”
“Oh, fuck off, man. You really think I’m going to let you come in here with us? Jesus.” He rolled his eyes at Olivia as though expecting her to commiserate with him over Dallas’ stupidity.
Outside, the SWAT team vans had just pulled up and Dallas nodded at Mark to go over and deal with filling them in.
“So what about Abe Castell?” he said, trying to keep Greg talking. “He was a great fall guy, man. Except that even if SWAT had shot him up this morning, what you’re doing now would make the whole set-up pointless. You had the perfect plan, Greg. Why are you blowing it now, taking Olivia hostage in my conference room?”
“Because it only makes sense if everyone thinks Castell is the guy and he’s dead and she fucking goes home, thinking it’s all over!” Greg shouted. “Your security guys back off because th
e job is over, and the bitch goes about her life unprotected. Then I wait for my chance to grab her, take her somewhere private for a few days, make sure the body is never found afterwards.”
Dallas bit his lip as the final pieces clicked in to place.
“But you fucked that all up for me, didn’t you?” Greg said. “When you figured out Castell wasn’t the guy… I left you the most perfect trail of breadcrumbs and you just didn’t trust it, did you?”
“No,” Dallas said. “I didn’t. It was too perfect.” And I was just a bit too slow to know that. Goddammit.
“Oh, by the way?” Greg said. “Tell that little faggot PA that his boyfriend Castell is a cheating son-of-a-whore, would you?”
“That’s how you got him to go with you?” Dallas said. “You hit on him, offered to take him home?”
“Yeah. The two queers had a fight, apparently, about where Castell was the night of the cancer bitch’s party, and Castell was drowning his sorrows in some fucking fag bar. I listened to his bullshit sob story and bought his drinks and we left together. When he tried to stick his filthy tongue down my throat, I knocked him out. Wasn’t hard.”
“Then you drugged him and put him in the house. Waited for the cops to take care of him for you.”
“Yep. Ingenious, huh?”
“Not bad, man. One more thing.”
“The floor plans, right? How’d I know about the room?”
“Yeah.”
“Dumb luck. Liv couldn’t find her floor plans that she had received from the former owners when I asked for them, and so I contacted the local property office. Turns out, Liv hadn’t received the right plans when she bought the house… there were two sets, one with the hidden space marked, one without. Seems the former owners had reasons to keep the extra room secret. I suspect drugs.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. So as soon as I saw the full plans, it was like a sign, you know? Like, the room was a way to really keep an eye on her, to truly be close to her. All the time and even if she had no idea what I was doing for her. I mean, that’s how much I cared about the whore, if you can fucking believe it… I took care of her even when she had no idea that I was doing it!”
“You really cared about her, Greg.” Dallas almost choked on the words. “I can see that.”
“Yeah. And how does she thank me? By not fucking me. By firing me. And by fucking you.” He grinned. “So that’s why we’re here, Foreman, in your offices.”
Dallas felt fear move in his chest now; he knew what Greg meant.
“I’m going to hurt her here. I’m going to fuck her here. Then I’m going to kill her here. And then when I’m done, I’ll kill myself.” He smiled at Olivia and said, “Don’t look so scared, baby. Nothing’s even happened yet… plenty of time to look scared later, when the fun really begins.”
“Greg,” Dallas said, almost pleading now. “Greg, hurt me instead. Let Olivia go.”
Greg laughed. “You still don’t get it, do you? The best way to hurt you? Is to hurt her. Then you get to live with the fact that you couldn’t save her even though she’s just fifty feet away.”
“Greg…”
“It’s been pleasant, Foreman. But we have to get on with it now. Goodbye.”
Dallas heard silence at the other end of the line. He disconnected, and looked around at his people.
“I want to talk to SWAT, right now.”
“What do you need, Dallas?” Sully asked.
“I need to know who’s going to shoot this sick fuck in the head.” Dallas took a deep breath. “Talking is over. It’s time to call in the guns.”
Chapter Ten
Olivia had been able to hold it together while Greg was talking to Dallas. Knowing that Dallas was on the phone gave her a sense of comfort, for some reason, but now that he was gone, she started to panic.
“Greg,” she said. “Greg, please…”
He approached her, the knife red and shiny with his blood. “Yeah, that’s good, Liv. Beg me.”
She got to her feet and then he was on her, twisting her arms behind her back. She cried out as he lowered his mouth to hers. Olivia didn’t even think: she bit down on his mouth until she tasted blood, trying to rip his lips right off her face. He yelled, pulled back, backhanded her smartly. She hit the floor hard enough to knock out her breath and he straddled her now, using his knees to pin her arms in place.
“Oh, baby,” he said softly. “That was a big, big mistake.”
He lowered the knife to her shirt and flicked the tip under the top button. It rolled away silently on the carpeted floor and Olivia arched, trying to throw him off.
“I like that,” he breathed. “Push up against me again, Liv.”
She felt his hard-on now and bile rose in her throat. She stopped moving, went totally limp under him.
“No?” he said. “Well, well. One thing at a time, right?”
He cut off another button, then another, working his way slowly to her stomach. When she lay totally exposed to his gaze, he used one hand to open her shirt. He ran his fingers over her bra, then twisted the nipples, grinning when she cried out in pain.
“Why so shy, Liv?” he asked. “You’ve made a living showing way more than this, right?” He traced the curve of her hip. “So perfect, baby. So gorgeous.” His fingers stilled. “Tell me. Did you like fucking Dallas?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks now as she remembered different hands touching her, different lips under hers. A different body on hers, in hers.
My God. Was I really in Dallas’ bed just two hours ago, making love with him?
“Did you?” he said again. “I guess he’d be pretty good at fucking, seeing how much practice the man’s had with his revolving door of redheads from the bar. You do know that you’re just the most recent of many, right?”
She stayed quiet.
“Nothing to say? So silent. Maybe I can get you to make some noise, huh?”
He ran the tip of the knife through her hair and she jerked her head away. His eyes flashed with anger and he brought the knife to her stomach. In one swift movement, he cut her; not deep, not long, but the burst of hot pain scared her and she screamed.
Greg smiled. “That’s more like it, baby.” He moved the knife between her breasts, pressed down until dark red seeped around it and she screamed again. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
**
Sam Phillips shook his head. “No way. Nobody can make that shot.”
“You or Finn have to, man,” Pete Anderson told him. “It’s the only choice we’ve got.”
“No, I know. I get that. But I’ve never curved a bullet that dramatically in this kind of wind and cold. If the air was still and a few degrees warmer, sure. But we only get one chance to take this shot, and if I fuck it up, the woman is dead.”
Everyone sighed.
“Well, what if you went inside the office?” Sully said. “There’s a window there too… much narrower, but no elements to contend with.”
Finn Callahan grimaced. “I already checked it out… they’re too far in the room, on the other side of the table. No way to hit him from that side.” He gestured down at the window of the conference room. “This is the best shot, I promise you. Sam’s right.”
“Dallas?” Griff said. “What do you think?”
Dallas’ blue eyes were staring at the flag that Sam and Finn had used to gauge the wind, he looked through Finn’s binoculars, reading the specs on the shot, calculating the angles. He stared at the video feed from the hidden conference room camera, figuring out exactly where Olivia and Greg were in relation to the place he’d want Finn or Sam to set up.
He sighed. “It’s one hell of a shot. The curve is crazy.”
“Can you make it?” Mark asked quietly.
Dallas froze. “I haven’t taken a kill shot in three years, man. You know
that.”
“I didn’t ask when you last looked down a rifle scope, Dallas.” Mark stared at him. “I asked if you can make the shot.”
Dallas looked at the flag again, ran through the numbers one more time. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
They heard Olivia scream then, and everyone turned back to the video in time to see Greg cutting her chest. Dallas shook with rage, then took control of himself again.
“Dallas.” Selena’s eyes were steady. “Your ‘maybe’ is better than everyone else’s ‘no way’. You’ve got to try, boss.”
“Fuck,” he said softly.
“I know,” she said. “I know. But if you don’t try, Olivia’s got no chance whatsoever. With you? She has a prayer.”
Dallas stared down at the window one last time then reached for his cell. He dialled and they all waited.
“Dean? Yeah. I need you to get something for me from my office safe. Get some paper to write down the combination, man.” He took a deep breath. “And you need to haul ass, Jessop. No fucking lie.”
He hung up and his eyes met Pete’s. “You need to buy me some time, Pete. Please.”
**
Greg rolled his eyes and sighed heavily as his cell rang again.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Olivia as she lay half-conscious on the floor under him. “I should have turned it off.”
He answered with a note of impatience in his voice. “What?”
“Greg? This is Captain Peter Anderson of the Denver PD. Can I ask how things are going in there?”
Greg glanced down at Olivia. The cuts on her upper body were glorious, he thought: all different lengths and depths, which made them interesting. He had just decided that his hands were steady enough to attempt a very long one, and she was so far in to shock now that she was much more still. The most recent cut started at her breastbone, ran between her breasts, and stopped just above her navel. It was perfect.
“Things are going well, Captain, thank you for asking.”
“We heard screaming.”
“Yeah. She’s quieter now.”
Enemy Outside (Unseen Enemy Book 2) Page 13
