by Barker, Kira
“That explains why you came here. Not why you stayed.” I didn’t give an answer, and after a few seconds he shrugged, making it plain that he didn’t care either way. His gaze drifted from me down to the bar below, finding his fiancée immediately. “So this is who you think can make her abandon me? Please. My pull on the ladies is stronger than that.”
I didn’t even feel disappointed that he’d seen right through my plan. But the how was a different thing.
“It could just be anyone attending the party who’s chatting with her, you know?” I said.
Darren shook his head. “I’ve been fucking whores for years, remember? Gender notwithstanding, you all have a few tells in common that make it very easy to pick you out of a crowd. Particularly when you’re on the prowl.”
“Please, do tell. I hate being that easy to read,” I griped, actually a little offended. And there I’d thought I’d always done a good job blending in.
It came as a surprise that Darren looked actually a hint chagrined at annoying me.
“It’s not what you do, but how you do it. Just watch them. See how his full attention is always on her? That you never get with anyone you’re not paying for their company.” Leaning in, his lips pressed against the soft skin right below my ear, making me shiver. When he continued, his voice was so low that I could barely make out the words. “It’s why I love fucking whores. I love that attention. No, scratch that. I need it. I crave it. And whenever I’m around you now, you look at me with that same single-minded focus. Like I’m the center of your world. Like I’m your everything. And I can’t tell you how fucking hard that makes me.”
His hands, formerly at my waist, now slid lower, down my legs. At the lower side of my dress his fingers found the slit in the skirt, drifting warm across my thigh. Within seconds he was well aware of the fact that I was going commando, but before he could turn it into something more, I grabbed his wrist, stilling it. I more felt than heard him give an annoyed chuff, and when I turned to fully face him—thus dislodging the hand completely—he had a look of true exasperation on his face.
Every fiber in me was screaming to wrap myself around him, but somehow I managed to make my stand instead.
“I may be your wife, Darren, but unless you stop screwing that little nun of yours, you’re not going to get to screw me.”
It shouldn’t have taken so much energy for me to press those words out, but somehow I made them sound convincing. Not that Darren looked pleased at them, but the way he narrowed his eyes at me was less displeased and more calculating.
“Did you really think that sending an escort after Daliah would make me forsake her?”
“You don’t love her,” I pointed out. “I don’t get why you even bother with her.”
Now that damn disappointment was back, and the heat from before drained from his eyes.
“We already went over this—“
“Yes, yes, I get it. She gets under my skin, so you keep her around,” I said, using a belligerent tone better suited for his side of our conversation. “That’s not what I meant. How do you justify fucking her? According to you, we’re married. You are cheating on your wife. The wife you profess to still love. How does that work? Are you gunning for a suicide? You know, seeing as you mortally disappointed yourself, there’s only one option left to you for what to do about the problem.”
And, just like that, the intensity returned, and I was back in the game.
“I can see where you would come to this conclusion,” he mused. “But that would mean that I’d have to regard you as my equal to start with.”
“And you don’t?”
Why, oh why, did that wry twist coming to his mouth do ungodly things to me? It should have scared the living shit out of me. Kind of did, but unlike last time, now it was the lust for him that won over terror.
“Why should I?” he asked. “You ran from me. You hid from me. You shared a man’s bed every night who wasn’t me. And while you try to appear smart about your venture of getting back into my good graces, you are utterly amateurish about it. I’m really starting to get disappointed with you. You were showing so much promise with that great entrance of yours your first night back in the city.”
That rankled, and I didn’t want to analyze why.
“Do you really think impressing you is my goal in life?” I shot back, not having to feign annoyance now.
Darren’s smile, already on the dip toward predatory, turned a few shades darker.
“If you just set the right actions, you wouldn’t have to work so hard and flail around so much. Do you really think that your little ploy to make her fall for someone else will work?” He leaned closer still, almost close enough to kiss me, but the look in his eyes spoke of very different things than amorous passion. “I give you one guess what will happen to her if she actually does fall for it. Can you imagine what I will do to her? Just because I don’t love her doesn’t mean I’ll let her run off with some paid whore. Oh, no. That would be way too easy. She is digging her grave right now, and you lent her the shovel. How exactly does that make you feel?”
Like I was going to hurl any minute now, but I forced myself not to show my emotional turmoil, or the horror clawing up my spine.
“But you don’t love her,” I protested.
His smile widened. “Which only means that she doesn’t deserve a chance to make things up to me. And she doesn’t deserve a place on the pedestal I put all the women I have loved over the years on. It does in no way mean that she deserves to live.”
I knew that I should have looked away then, but I didn’t want to. Instead, I held his gaze, defiance now rearing its ugly head.
“And what, dear husband, would it take for you to let her go? Will anything short of me trading myself in for her do?”
He didn’t even mull that over.
“What you do does in no way influence what I’m going to do to her. Unless, of course, you manage to persuade her to come with you to your little band of miscreants so they can put her in protective custody and thus out of my reach. So if you want to save her, you need to make sure that she will never stray, and never slip up. Is that the life you want for yourself? Always in the shadows, your spot in the light forever taken by a woman you loath? Who you despise for every imaginable reason, but most of all because she has what you really crave—my undivided attention? Think about it, Penelope. But think fast, because I have it on good authority that Daliah’s time is about to run out.”
A last smile that should not have been so filled with glee, and he was gone, leaving me standing there, my fingers clenching the fabric of my gown.
That had not turned out the way it was supposed to.
The longer I thought about it, the more obvious it got: I only had one chance to get Daliah out of this, and that was for her to do exactly as he’d just told me—to go to Agent Smith, and let herself be uprooted and carried away. In many ways, I had lived exactly that kind of life after I’d fled the basement—and I could already tell that Daliah would never accept that option.
But at the very least, I had to try to convince her, and if it was the last thing I could do for her.
Unless, of course, I didn’t want to save her.
Chapter 14
I tried to follow Darren through the press of people, but he made it to the bar long before I could get there. My paranoia told me that the crowds parted before him because they instinctively picked up on the fact that he was a predator—and I wasn’t. That was nonsense, of course, but still frustrating. In passing I got a glimpse of Alison and her party, my girls and the professor missing still. The nasty voice at the back of my head told me that I should be way more concerned about their well-being than Daliah’s, but it was hard to focus on that right now.
Maybe there was something to that predator sensing, because Ricardo beat it before Darren could tear into him, leaving Daliah looking both perplexed and a little annoyed. Darren bent down and whispered something into her ear that made her frown slightly, but as he continue
d to talk, her face lit up.
That couldn’t be good.
Taking her arm, he pulled her away from the bar, but rather than leave, they continued to mingle. Daliah put on a pleasant smile that bordered on insipid, not a single word tripping over her lips from what I could see where I tried to follow their progress through the crowds. The purest form of eye candy. As if I needed another reason to detest her. That should have been me by his side—supporting, agreeing, furthering whatever cause he was after.
I briefly considered tracking down one of Agent Smith’s team—or calling the woman herself—to let her know about my miscalculations, but I dropped that thought before it could come to fruition. It wasn’t like I could be stubborn beyond belief; just because Darren had told me he was about to kill her didn’t mean that he would. He’d strung me along more than once, and not just before my untimely stay in his basement. And unless I knew what he had planned, it was stupid to go charging off blindly.
After breaking away from another cluster of people, Daliah excused herself and I decided that this was my signal. Now or never.
There were several other women using the facilities, and I half-expected to have to wait for her to be done, but instead I found her waiting for me, an uppity smirk on her features. Gloating really didn’t become her.
“I thought I would meet you here,” she greeted me with. “Where people go to take a dump seems about your level.”
I didn’t dwell on that—or tried to decipher what that was supposed to mean—but instead forced the steel out of my voice, going for a demure, if not nice, mien.
“Daliah, please, you have to listen to me—“
“Like I care what venom you have to spew, whore!” she bit out, then rolled her eyes at the horrified look she got from the woman washing her hands at the sink. “It’s not just a figure of speech with her, you know? She is a prostitute. And right now doing everything her pea-sized brain can come up with to steal away my fiancé.”
As expected, the outrage was seamlessly transferred to me, but I simply ignored it. I had no need to inform anyone that I hadn’t earned my degrees by opening my legs, and I had more right to Darren than anyone else—alive—in the world. Instead, I went right for the kill, because it was obvious that anything short of scaring her witless wouldn’t get through to her.
“Listen, you stupid bitch. I’m trying to help you. To save your life, actually. Jealousy is the furthest thing from my mind.” Which was a lie, but if an escort couldn’t pull that off, no one would.
Daliah eyed me shrewdly.
“You got a bit of a flare for the dramatic, I have to hand you that,” she said. “But you’re still a liar.”
“What reason would I have to lie to you?” I asked, trying to ignore the gathering audience we were generating. That made me realize that I had to better watch what I was saying, unless I wanted to make Darren change his mind about not harming me. If the choice was between me and her, there was a good chance that I would still choose myself.
“Uhm, you’re a whore?” she proposed.
“Former escort,” I clarified, then sighed. “Look, I get it. You think you landed the catch of the century with him. But he’s a lot more complicated than you can fathom. You’re young. You still have your entire life in front of you. Why tie yourself down like this now?”
“You’re just saying that so you can sink your claws back into him,” she accused.
“He’s not the kind of guy who would let any woman do that,” I shot back. The fact that my words didn’t even seem to ring true to her told me just how delusional she really was.
“You’re just getting anxious because you know that you’ve lost,” Daliah said with all the conviction in the world. “Darren just told me that he’s going to whisk me away for a romantic weekend. Considering that we’ve been engaged for three months now, that can only mean one thing—we are going to elope to get married. And there’s not a fucking thing that you can do to prevent it.”
So that was the thing that had made her smile like that. For a moment, fear so strong it was paralyzing gripped me, but I managed to shake it off.
“Where?” I croaked, trying not to sound as desperate as she made me out to be.
Her triumphant smile told me plainly that I needn’t have bothered. “Up near Elkhart lake. Not that they will let you anywhere near that venue. They have standards.”
The remark that, dressed as she was, they were more likely to open their doors for me than her lay on my tongue, but I swallowed it. She’d given me enough information to work with—hopefully.
Before I could find an eloquent reply, Daliah turned to leave. That seemed to be the theme of the evening.
“Anyway, thank you so much for your concern.” She didn’t use air quotes, but the scorn dripping from her words told me plainly what she thought of my attempt to save her. “Next time we meet, I will be Mrs. Darren Hunter, while you remain a pathetic, old hag. If you had a shred of decency, you’d find it in you to be happy for me, but I can see where you’re the wrong kind of person for that.”
I continued to stare at her as she left me standing there, then marched into one of the stalls, letting the door close between me and the sea of inquisitive eyes.
It was so tempting to let her run head-on into his knife—or syringe, more likely, if he kept to his usual MO. Rationally thinking, no woman deserved to have her life taken from her like that, but I couldn’t help but feel like she had it coming. She didn’t want my help—didn’t even understand that she might be in a situation to require anyone’s help—and all I needed to do was do nothing, and the problem would take care of itself.
But as much as I couldn’t stand her, I just didn’t have it in me to stop caring.
An hour later I was back home, scouring the internet for clues where he might take her. The region wasn’t exactly devoid of properties for rent, but it had to be something that was available on short notice. Then again, I knew very well how easy it was to throw around the right names, and doors opened that would otherwise remain closed forever. And even if that didn’t help, he had the net worth to bribe his way into anything he wanted.
I gave up around midnight and called up my trusty hacker team, telling them to scour logs for a possible reservation under Darren’s name. Then I spent an hour staring at my phone, waiting for confirmation—or for one of my girls to check back in with me. When I couldn’t take the silence anymore, I caved and called Adam. That he was still awake wasn’t a surprise; the fact that he sounded less than pleased to hear from me was, but probably shouldn’t have been.
“Penelope. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
This was a bad idea—but I couldn’t very well back down now.
“I need some help.”
He laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “Of course you do. That’s why you called, isn’t it?”
I was hard pressed not to bite at him that I’d pretty much said so myself, but I probably deserved his ire after our last conversation—and the utter radio silence that had followed.
“It’s about the girl—“
“Of course it is,” he said, cutting me off. This was getting increasingly annoying.
“Well, last time I looked, your boss was adamant about saving her, so why shouldn’t I call if I need help with that?” I asked.
“Ah,” he said. “So your plan didn’t quite work out the way you expected. Didn’t Eva predict that from the start?”
Gnashing my teeth didn’t help, but it couldn’t be prevented.
“I’m not sure. It certainly wasn’t a catastrophic failure.”
A pause, then, “I put you on speaker. I think the rest of the team should hear that, too.”
I wondered why they were back already, but maybe it was just the key personnel that hadn’t been at the event. Either way, I was less than happy about our conversation suddenly becoming public, but there was nothing I could do about that.
“You were saying?” Adam prompted, sounding dow
nright nasty.
“Hunter saw through my scheme, but at least we know where they’ll spend the next two days. That’s why I’m calling. I need you to track down the exact address.”
The microphone picked up cursing that could only have come from Agent Smith. Adam was a bit more suave about the entire thing.
“What address?”
“A cabin in the woods. Near or at Elkhart lake. Romantic weekend kind of venue.”
That caused an audible pause that I didn’t quite understand.
“Have you devolved to simple stalkerdom now?” Adam wanted to know, his voice full of scorn.
My mouth was already open to tell him not to be stupid—the girl’s life was at stake, after all—but something held me back. I couldn’t say what, but the fact that they hadn’t jumped to the same conclusions as I had gave me a flicker of hope. It was entirely possible that Darren was simply screwing with me—again.
“Just find the reservation and email me the details,” I said and hung up before I could divulge more than I wanted to.
More waiting followed. Still no calls, and no answers.
At around four, Pam sent me a text, letting me know that she was back home. Nothing more, nothing less, but then I could see where she didn’t feel like sharing. The other girls followed within the next twenty minutes, their messages barely longer. Been there, done that, didn’t even get a T-shirt. I couldn’t fault them for being short with me, but at least I could call the doc and tell her that she wouldn’t get any patients this morning.
Just as I was considering going for my laps, the hacker team called in—nothing. Adam confirmed that a little while later, leaving me frustrated and ready to crawl up the walls.
I just knew that it wasn’t a false lead. And I knew that Daliah wouldn’t return from this trip.
Chances were next to nonexistent that I would find something when the others hadn’t, but that didn’t keep me from bringing up the website of the local tourism office and scanning their most promising listings once more. I was about to give up when I clicked at the bottom-most picture on page fifteen—and there it was. I just knew that it was this exact cabin. Or rather, cabins, the site explained. Set back in the woods, with a central lodge that housed a small restaurant and reception. Very secluded. Perfect for the romantic getaway of the century. Or to kill someone and leave everyone else none the wiser.
