When the air was quiet again, twenty-six men showing Northsider colors were dead or wounded on the street. Six of Signal Bend’s population were wounded, including Bart, with his shoulder wound, and Vic, shot in the chest and in bad shape. And the town had lost five, including Diane Lindel. She was a widow, with a teenage son, Evan.
And Dan, who got caught early, in the first barrage of bullets as the tractor cavalry had arrived. He’d never made it out of the ice cream shop.
There was no such thing as being remote enough to keep what had happened off law’s radar, and there was no way to cover it up, either. Too much bloodshed and destruction. But there were five civilian witnesses to Signal Bend’s self-defense, so Isaac wasn’t unduly worried. He had no control over that fallout, and he had more important things to worry about. He wanted Dan’s body out of its pool of blood. And he needed to talk to Lilli. He sat down in the ice cream shop next to his brother’s body and pulled out his phone to call his old lady. He noticed that he had a voice mail and a text—they must have come through while he was on the line with Dan.
He checked the text first. From Dom. No answer from Badger.
He checked the voice mail, also from Dom. “Isaac, call coming in over the police band. Shooting in the Walmart parking lot, young male injured. They’re describing your truck, boss.”
His heartbeat shrieking in his ears, he called Lilli. The line picked up on the second ring.
A smooth male voice answered Lilli’s phone. “Isaac Lunden?”
Isaac knew who’d spoken, and his blood turned to painful ice. He’d never heard the voice before, and there were times he’d felt nearly sure that there was no actual man behind it, times he’d wondered if his nemesis was nothing more than a legend. But he was real. Isaac was going to rip this son of a bitch into tiny pieces with his bare hands. He swallowed and forced his voice to be steady. “Ellis.”
“Indeed. Well deduced.”
“If you hurt her, you will die hard and bloody.”
“Yes, well. I think you ought to be careful about the kind of threats you make, considering what I have of yours.”
Isaac closed his eyes. Bile rose in his throat, and his hand shook, but he kept his voice even. “What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing from you. I’m done with you. What I want, I want from her.”
The line went dead.
Isaac redialed, but it went straight to voice mail. Ellis had turned Lilli’s phone off.
Ellis had Lilli. Ellis had Lilli.
Ellis had Lilli.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When consciousness found Lilli, before she’d made sense of what had happened or where she was, she rolled to her knees and vomited. When she was done she sat back, feeling shaky, sore and confused, and made her brain work.
She ran her hand through her hair and learned that she had apparently puked before; it was caked in her hair. Leaning against a wall, she looked around, taking stock of her surroundings and herself.
The room was bright and bare. Concrete floor covered in peeling green paint. Grey cinderblock walls. High ceiling—fifteen, maybe twenty feet—with three long, fluorescent light fixtures suspended from it. A steel, windowless door in one corner, the same green as the floor.
The room was completely empty except for a plain metal desk against one wall.
Her own physical state was less than top-notch. A jackhammering pain filled her head, and her right shoulder felt about three sizes too big. The pain had all but immobilized her right side—her dominant side. And she was violently nauseated. Bringing that point forcefully home, her gorge rose again and she rolled back to her knees. This time, though, she only dry heaved.
She was dressed but barefoot. Her jacket was missing as well as her boots. Her bag, too—no, she hadn’t had that; she’d left it in the truck. The truck—with that thought, the rest of the memory clarified. This was Ellis. She’d been tranq’d. Badger had been shot—tranq’d, too? Was he here, too? She didn’t know. She had no idea how long she’d been out, or where she was, or who was with her.
Her head was clearing despite the intense pain, and she was beginning to think well again. She examined her surroundings more closely, looking for vulnerabilities. There was a camera high in one corner, a red light glowing. Somebody was watching her. In another corner, an old grey speaker, like the intercom speakers she remembered in her grade school classrooms.
The room was utterly bare, not even a bucket to piss—or puke—in. But there was the metal desk. Lilli struggled to her feet, leaning against the cool cinderblock wall until the world stopped swinging, and walked to the desk.
There was a document placed neatly, squarely in the center, a cheap plastic ballpoint pen lying on the paper. Lilli moved the pen and picked up the document. A sales contract, for the Keller place. The purchase price was listed as $520,000. Ellis had actually listed himself—not a dummy or proxy, but himself—as buyer. There was his signature, big and bold, signed with a fountain pen.
Lilli palmed the flimsy plastic pen, sliding it into the sleeve of her sweater, then turned to the camera and ripped the contract into pieces.
~oOo~
She’d been sitting against the wall again for at least an hour, and no one had come in to deal with the neat stack of paper shreds she’d left on the desk, or to torment her, interrogate her, offer her water—which she could really use—nothing. She sat and waited and thought.
Ellis wanted the Keller property. Well, that was hardly news. But why didn’t he just kill her, then? All he’d have had to do was shoot her dead in the Walmart parking lot, and within a matter of a few weeks, the property could be his, probably with no more fight from anyone. She had no heirs, no family. She and Isaac were not married. She had no will. Once she was dead, there would be nothing to stop Ellis from buying the property, for a good deal less money than he was offering on that contract she’d torn up.
He was a smart man, so he had to know. So why was she still alive?
Because it was personal now. That had to be it. Ellis was pissed off that Signal Bend, the Horde, she herself had caused him so much trouble over the past few months. Success was no longer enough. He’d fallen into the trap of the powerful man. He could not tolerate the idea that anyone, particularly someone whom he thought worthy of nothing more than neglectful contempt, might get in his way. He no longer simply wanted to win. Now he wanted to beat his foes. Break them. He wanted to force her to sign, make her give up.
That was a vulnerability. Maybe she could use it.
The door burst open, and three armed men came into the room, dressed in black paramilitary gear and carrying M16s—an awful lot of firepower for one unarmed woman. The one in the lead, tall and broad, with a blond ponytail, charged toward her and leveled his weapon at her head. “Stand up!,” he barked.
She did. Behind him, one of the other men cleared the torn paper off the desk and put a new contract down.
Blond ponytail waved his 16 at her. “Strip. Now.”
Fuck. Fuck. It came as no surprise, but it still sucked. This was how it worked. Humiliation and sexual abuse were Chapter One of the handbook on torturing female subjects. She didn’t humiliate easily, however. The worst part was that it would take the pen from her. Her only weapon. She’d hoped they wouldn’t notice; clearly the effects of the tranquilizer had been muddying her thinking.
The question now was whether to do as he said or make them strip her. Doing as he said might suggest that her will was weaker than it was. Refusing would show fight, which would probably get her hurt more. She took off her clothes.
When she was clad in only her bra and underwear, she stopped and made a show of folding her jeans, sweater, and camisole, testing to see how far they’d take it. The pen was still in the sleeve of her sweater. She felt a pang to lose it.
Ponytail waved the 16 at her again. “Not done, sweetcheeks. All the way.”
When she was naked, without taking his eyes or weapon off her, Ponytail kicked the pile of he
r clothes toward one of the other guys, who was shorter and shaved, with copper skin and matching eyes. “Check for the pen,” said Ponytail. Yep. Hadn’t pulled anything over on these assholes.
Copper found the pen and walked over to set it on top of the new contract. Then the three men backed out and left her alone in the room.
She stood where she was, waiting to see if they were really done with her for now. After a few minutes, she went over to the desk. The new contract offered $400,000. Ellis’s elegant signature still had a touch of the shiny sharpness of fresh ink.
He was here, in the building with her.
She set the pen aside—nowhere to try to hide it now—and picked up the contract. Facing the camera, she tore it to shreds.
Immediately, she heard a heavy, metallic chunk. A breeze kicked up from the ceiling, and the temperature in the room began to drop.
~oOo~
Lilli tried as long as she could not to let the cold get to her. But the temperature had dropped maybe thirty degrees in the past hour, and now she was curled into a tense, shivering knot in a corner of the room. She was freezing cold, desperately thirsty, and the pain in her head was so bad, she had to force back the irrational need to run away from it. The tension and shivering from the cold was doing that pain no favors at all. Her right shoulder felt like a hot ember had been embedded in it, but that gave her no warmth. The only thing she had going for her was a lack of hunger. She was too nauseated to be hungry.
She kept her mind off all that by trying to work the problem. She didn’t know if Isaac was in trouble himself, but if he was capable of knowing, then by now he knew she was in trouble, and if he was capable of doing something about it, she knew he was trying. But that might be the point. Maybe she was bait.
Maybe, but probably not. She wasn’t bait. She was a target. If Ellis was after Isaac, too, then he was playing that on a different field.
So, okay. Rescue was unlikely. If she was getting out of this, she was doing it on her own. She had no idea where she was or what kind of building she was in. The same three men had come in twice; they were obviously in direct charge of her. Ponytail seemed to be the squad leader. Ellis was on the premises, somewhere.
Her only resource was herself. What use she could be to herself, in her current condition, was certainly a variable. A lot depended, too, on what Ellis knew about her. He’d had time, so she assumed he knew her real name. If he knew that, then he knew she had a military background—that might account for the way her guards were armed. He had the same information that Bart had been able to trace.
If he had more than that, Lilli didn’t think it was much more. Her past was very well protected, and getting through the walls around it was extremely risky. Ellis wasn’t reckless enough for that—and he’d only recently begun to take her seriously as a threat.
So the most he probably thought he knew about her was that she was a former military pilot, highly decorated, who had choked under pressure and gotten a whole squad of soldiers killed.
Not the truth, but not even the U.S. Army knew the truth about what Ray Hobson had done. And the story the Army did have about her was still buried pretty deep.
But say he had that much. Maybe Lilli could use that misperception in her favor. He thought her breakable. It very likely reinforced his standing perception of women. That’s why the nakedness. He thought—most men thought—that women were fundamentally weak and insecure. He thought stripping her would make her feel vulnerable. But she felt no more insecure naked than she had in a sweater and jeans. Colder, but no less secure. She’d feel more secure in armor, of course.
As a woman in the military, Lilli had learned to use men’s preconceptions and expectations against them. They thought of her as a piece of ass? She used that angle to get what she wanted. They thought she was weak and emotional? She used that to get their guard down. She had yet to encounter a man, civilian or military, who feared and respected her for what she could do until he’d seen it for himself.
It didn’t bother her at all. She liked the room it gave her. And she loved the stupid expressions on men’s faces when they got a load of her. She needed to find the room Ellis had given her. If indeed he had.
She had only been so vulnerable and weak one other time, and she had not been able to save herself from Hobson. She had needed Isaac to save her. But she had not broken.
She knew she wouldn’t break now, but did she have enough left to fight?
~oOo~
She had almost mastered her shivering when a voice materialized out of thin air. Or, more accurately, out of that old intercom speaker high on the wall.
Miss Accardo. I respect that your will is strong. But truly, this unpleasantness must end. I am a businessman. A philanthropist. An important member of my community. The events of the past several weeks are…well, they are sordid and sad, and not at all the civilized way to conduct a business transaction. We can put an end to this, you and I. You have no ties to that desiccated old backwater of a town. There is no need for you to give up so much in its name. Especially now. Signal Bend has fallen. Your friends with the motorcycles are dead. All of them. There is nothing left for you to fight for…except the life inside you. The last piece of its father. Sign the contract, my dear. Take what you can and move on with your life.
Lilli heard him but refused to believe. Isaac wasn’t dead. No. No.
She gave herself a stern mental shake, refusing to entertain that thought. Even if he was dead, it changed nothing, except to harden Lilli’s resolve. If Isaac was dead, she would not grieve until she’d taken Ellis out. She didn’t know how he knew she was pregnant, but that changed nothing, either. She would not break. She turned to the camera in the ceiling and raised her middle finger.
Again, Ellis’s voice filled the room. I am truly sorry that you have chosen stubbornness over reason. Things are about to become extremely unpleasant for you, my dear.
~oOo~
By her estimation, about ten minutes, and another ten degrees, passed before the door crashed open again, and her three guards were back in the room. This time, Ponytail’s 16 was on his back, and the other two had their weapons trained on her. Saying not a word, Ponytail crossed the room, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her to the desk, pushing her, face down, onto it.
She’d known this was coming. She’d known. This was how it went. She’d known. Her goal was to live as long as she could and not break. No matter what they did, she would not break. Ellis would have to take that property over her dead body. She turned her mind away, to Isaac. He was alive. He had to be.
She would not break.
~oOo~
Lilli lay on the floor. It wasn’t cold in the room any longer. Or if it was, she’d stopped being able to tell. She had no idea how much time had passed. Maybe days by now.
It had seemed endless, what they’d done.
She was bruised and bleeding. Cramping. She hurt so fucking bad. She didn’t think she was pregnant now. She didn’t know how she could be.
When they’d gotten inventive, she’d fought, and they’d beaten her. One eye was swollen shut, and her nose was broken. Blood was caked on her face.
The door crashed open. Oh, God. They’d just left. They couldn’t be back for more. Please, they weren’t back for more.
She struggled to focus. Ponytail came into the room, his sidekicks right behind him. He was wearing a bandage over his left eye. He put another motherfucking contract on the desk, and they backed out and closed the door.
She lay on the floor for a few more minutes, building her resolve back up. Then she struggled to her feet. No—not to her feet. She couldn’t get there. So she crawled to the desk, every inch an agony, and pulled the contract down. Now the offer was $200,000.
She faced the camera and tore it up.
~oOo~
She’d fallen into a dazed semi-consciousness, too hurt to really sleep, when the door crashed open again. When they put their hands on her, at first she didn’t even open her e
yes. But they put her on her feet and bound her hands. They led her out of the room, still naked and bleeding, sandwiched between two guards, Ponytail at her side. She brought herself as quickly as she could to full alertness. If she was moving, then there was opportunity. They’d bound her hands in front—that was a mistake. She hoped she could exploit it. She had to keep her eyes open and her wits sharp. She ignored her pain and focused.
They led her into an elevator and pushed “4”—the highest number. When the doors opened, they walked out into a different world—the sleek architecture and décor of an executive suite.
It appeared to be empty, and the sky outside the wall of windows they passed was black. Full night. At a minimum, six hours had passed since she’d been taken. She caught a glimpse of the Arch glowing at medium distance—they were in St. Louis, just west of downtown. Only a couple of hours from Signal Bend. For the first time, Lilli really confronted the idea that Ellis had told her the truth, that Isaac might be dead.
They stopped her in front of two burled wood doors. Ponytail knocked and then opened both doors and pulled her through. A chief executive’s office, with high-end Danish furniture, gleaming modern accessories, and abstract artwork on the walls. Lilli saw a Rothko. Probably not a print.
In front of an expansive teak desk was an unassuming, armless chair, chrome and red vinyl. The kind one might find in the waiting area at the local tire store. A white painter’s tarp was spread under it. Ponytail shoved her onto the chair and then stood back. It took all the will Lilli had not to scream at the pain of sitting down.
Lilli heard a toilet flush, and then a door at the side of the room opened, and a small man, maybe five-five, trimly built and richly dressed, with a thick head of sandy hair going to light grey, stepped out of a bathroom, wiping his hands on a thick, gold towel. He turned and hung the towel neatly on its rod and then came into the room.
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