by P. C. Cast
The phone on the desk rang. He held up his finger for a moment of silence, and lifted the receiver. He listened, frowned. “I’ll be right there.” Reaching for his gun, he stood. Checked the clip.
Levi stood, as well. “I’ll let you get to work.” He would not allow himself to return to the station. This was it. This was goodbye.
Or not.
“No,” Bright said with a shake of his head. “You’ll come with me. Your girl’s art gallery was just torn to shreds.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Horrified, Harper peered at her surroundings. She hadn’t meant to hurt the first—and now only—person to give her a break into the art world, and she hadn’t meant to destroy the building, but she’d walked in, tried to talk to him, tried to touch him, and like Peterson had predicted, she had failed. Clifford Rigsby had gone about his day, showing patrons his current pieces, then closing up for lunch.
Frustration had risen inside her, but she’d kept herself under control by repeating, “This is a dream. I’ll wake up. And if not, there’s some other answer to what’s going on.” But then Cliff had entered his office. His secret office. It wasn’t the one he used for public business dealings; obviously it was meant only for his private use.
He had a portrait of Harper hanging on the wall. In it, she was splayed on the same metal slab she’d painted, naked, cut and bleeding.
A bright light flashed in her mind but quickly faded—and as it faded, a gruesome scene took its place.
“Say cheese,” her captor said. He was blond and handsome, with a smile any dentist would be proud of, and he was holding a camera, the lens directed at her.
Cold, hurting, trembling, hating the very fabric of his evil being, she scowled at him. “You will pay for this.”
His chuckle reverberated through the room. “Such a naughty girl. But don’t worry, you’ll learn the proper way to address your new master soon enough, I promise you.”
Another flash of bright light. This time it faded and she found herself back inside Cliff’s private office. Her limbs trembled. For a moment, she had trouble catching her breath. Except, she was dead, wasn’t she, and had no need to breathe.
Dead.
Dead.
She really was dead. She’d truly been tortured by a monster, killed by his blade. Peterson had tried to tell her, but Harper had fought the realization. Had fought the truth. Maybe because accepting her death meant accepting what had happened to her—what her mind had been trying to remind her of for weeks.
The room spun…spun…and other portraits came into view. Other women, each in a similar position to Harper, lying flat on a cold slab of metal, with similar wounds decorating their bodies. One fact became excruciatingly clear: Cliff and Topper knew each other.
Perhaps they were friends, if demons hiding in human skin were even capable of friendship. If so, Cliff had served her to Topper on a silver platter.
Another flash of light. Another scene crystallized.
Suddenly Harper was in the center of the gallery, dressed in an ice-blue cocktail dress with thin straps and a Tinkerbell skirt. On her feet were clear heels with jewels encrusted on ties that wound up her calves. Her hair flowed down her back, curling at the ends, though the sides were elaborately twisted at her crown. Usually she got ready in thirty minutes or less, brushing her hair, throwing on a little mascara and lip gloss and pulling a T-shirt and jeans from a drawer. Today she’d taken two hours, wanting to look her best to properly represent her (amazing) art.
After the last customer left, Cliff took her into his office where they celebrated her success with a glass of champagne. They’d talked and laughed as she’d sipped, but the moment she’d finished, he’d yawned and practically shoved her toward the front door.
“Go on home,” he said. “You’ve outdone yourself and made me a ton of money. Now I want to count my cash.”
She chuckled, not insulted in the least. This was too wonderful a day. People had loved her paintings. They’d stared at them, felt happy things, sad things, some even moved to tears. Not one painting had been left behind.
“Well, don’t forget to count mine,” she replied.
“No worries. Your check will be cut tomorrow.”
Her chest swelled with satisfaction. “Thank you, Cliff. Thank you so much.”
He waved her away. “Go on. Get.”
The bell tinkled as she left the gallery. Smiling, she dug her keys out of her purse. Her car was parked a block away, in the closest available lot. The moon was high, luminous and so beautiful she could barely take her eyes off it as she walked. But then she tripped and nearly fell, which would have ruined her knees and her dress, so she forced her gaze to remain ahead.
And yet, she soon tripped a second time as a wave of dizziness crashed through her. Her smile fading, she stopped to lean against a building. What was wrong with her? In and out she breathed, thinking the sensation would pass. But, of course, it only grew worse.
Practically blinded because of the spinning, spinning, spinning world, she opened her purse to pat inside for her phone. The moment her fingers wrapped around the case, a sharp sting buzzed in the back of her neck, electricity flowing throughout her entire body.
Her muscles knotted, becoming unusable. Her back bowed, her bones vibrating, just as unusable. Even her jaw locked up, trapping her scream in her throat. Dying, she thought. I’m dying.
When the vibrations stopped, her knees collapsed. Trembling arms banded around her before she hit the ground, and suddenly she was floating. Relief cascaded through her. Someone had noticed her, was taking her to the hospital.
Something creaked.
No. Wrong, she realized. Someone was stuffing her inside a small, dark space. The air was stuffy, with old perfume caught in some of the pockets. She blinked, trying to orient herself. A blond man, his face blurred by the haze of her vision, stood above her. There was a streak of white; his teeth, maybe. Was he smiling?
“We are going to have so much fun, you and I.”
More creaking, then a loud whoosh. A click. There was only dark, no hint of light. No fresh air.
Yet another flash of light, and Harper was back inside the gallery, Cliff eating a sandwich as he plugged away at his computer. Fury rose inside her. Fury like she’d never before known. The champagne…he must have drugged her.
Fury…growing…growing…
The walls around her began to shake. One of the paintings fell to the ground with a loud crash. Frowning, Cliff set his sandwich down and glanced around.
He’d known what would happen to her, but he hadn’t cared. Had probably enjoyed every minute of her torture through the photographs Topper had taken.
Growing…
The walls shook a little more. Two more paintings fell.
Cliff pushed to his feet.
As long as Topper kept his mouth shut, Cliff would probably never be caught. And why would Topper betray his buddy when that buddy could continue hurting women, taking pictures, painting pictures and sending them his way?
Growing…growing…
The entire building rocked on its foundation. Cliff gripped the edge of his desk, a fine sheen of sweat dotting his brow. Harper longed to grab the paintings and beat him with them. But she couldn’t touch him, and she couldn’t touch the paintings, because she was dead. Dead.
Dead!
One of the paintings flew from the wall and smacked him in the back of the head. A grunt parted his lips.
He dove for the floor and crawled under his desk.
Harper’s eyes widened as another painting flew at him, crashing into the desk and cracking in two. What are you doing? Stop. You shouldn’t destroy the evidence. You have to show Levi. He’ll tell his detective friends and Cliff will get what’s coming to him. But it was too late. The shaking never stopped, and the artwork never stopped flying. Around and around each piece twirled before hurtling itself at Cliff. The door rattled, too, before ripping from its hinges and slamming into the far wall.
Harper stood in the center of the turmoil, completely unaffected. She could hear Cliff’s sobs, but that only angered her further.
A flash.
Suddenly she was the one crying, begging for Topper to stop. But her cries only spurred him on. Mercy was not something he possessed.
“Harper!”
Something hard slapped against her cheek, causing her head to twist to the side. She blinked rapidly and found herself back inside Cliff’s office, a scowling Levi in front of her. His hand was raised, as if he meant to slap her (again?) out of her hysteria.
“Levi!” Relief swept through her, and her knees buckled.
He caught her, holding her up. “You have to calm down, sweetheart. Okay? Yes? I don’t want you to destroy the entire building. You could hurt innocents and go… Just calm down, okay?”
Yes, she could calm down…would calm down.... Anger would not get the better of her.
At last the building stilled.
“Good, that’s good.” He hugged her close. “Are you okay?”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “He…he…drugged me. Set me up. Gave me to Topper.”
Levi pulled away to peer down into her eyes, but he didn’t release her. A good thing, because she needed the strength of his arms. “He was working with Topper?”
A nod as she motioned to the paintings on the floor, the tears spilling out, trickling down.
Levi bent down, taking her with him, and lifted one half of a painting, dug around—the things on Cliff’s desk had shattered and scattered across the floor, too—and found the other half.
The moment he put the halves together, his nostrils flared. “They were accomplices,” he said, emotionless.
One of her tears landed on the top of his hand. His gaze lifted. Seeing her upset, he straightened. “You remembered,” he said.
All she could manage was a nod.
“I’m sorry,” he added. “So sorry for everything you had to endure.”
Somehow, she found her voice. “And you…did you remember?”
“Yeah.”
Part of her wanted to slink away in embarrassment. He’d seen her there at the end, at her weakest, her worst. Part of her loved that he’d thought to come to her rescue, that he’d reacted on instinct. And yet… “I wish you had survived.”
His hold tightened. “I’m not one of those people who believes everything happens for a good reason. I actually think that’s stupid. No. But I do believe the bad stuff can be worked to our favor.”
“How can this be worked to our favor?”
“Sweetheart, you just unearthed a very bad man. I’d say we’re on the right track.”
He was…right, she realized. She twisted, eyeing the man in question. Cliff had crawled out from under the desk, his eyes red and watery. He rushed around the office, trying to gather the paintings. To save them or hide them, she wasn’t sure.
“Without you,” Levi said, “he would have squeaked by without anyone knowing the part he played.”
“How do we let the police know?”
“Detective Bright, the one I have looking for Lana, is almost here.”
Pounding footsteps sounded.
“Scratch that. He’s here.”
Two firemen rushed inside the room.
“Or not,” Levi said with a sigh.
The two firemen spotted Cliff, paying no attention to Harper or Levi—and even misting through them to get to Cliff. She felt the heat of their bodies and gasped.
“Are you all right, sir?” one of them asked.
“Yes, yes,” Cliff said with a tremor.
“Anyone else in the building with you?”
“No, I’m alone. What about the rest of the gallery? Show me.” He spread his arms, blocking the firemen from stepping deeper into the office. “What happened? An earthquake?”
“No!” Harper screamed, reaching out to stop him.
Levi stopped her. “It’s okay. Let them go.”
The firemen once again walked through them, and she once again experienced that strange wave of heat. The pair explained that Cliff’s building was the only one that had been affected by…whatever had happened, and they’d be looking into it.
“But…but…” she sputtered.
“My guy will be here,” Levi reminded her. “Let’s wait at the front door and show him what you found. The man who betrayed you will be arrested before the day is over, you have my word.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Levi had lied. Clifford Rigsby wasn’t arrested by the end of the day. He was arrested by the end of the hour.
Later that day, Harper sat in on her first interrogation, though no one but Levi and the detective asking the questions knew she was there. Her nerves were frayed as she listened to Cliff claim the portraits had been mailed to him anonymously. As if! Topper wasn’t a painter—Levi told her there had been no art supplies in his home—but Cliff was, which was why he’d first opened the gallery.
If he got away with escorting women to their slaughter…
The walls of the interrogation room began to shake, and Levi squeezed her hand. She forced her mind to blank. He’d tried to talk her out of coming, but she had insisted and so he had insisted on coming with her in an effort to keep her calm.
“If they were gifts, why didn’t you turn them in?” Bright asked, casting Harper a dark frown. He was a handsome black man, and he’d stood at the gallery’s entrance, pretending to look the building over as Levi told him what she’d learned before going in to check things out.
He’d left with Cliff, who’d been cuffed and crying.
She and Levi hadn’t needed to enter the police car with the men. They’d thought about the station and simply appeared there. The swiftness of the location switch had startled her, but the need to see Cliff behind bars had overwhelmed everything else.
Now she released Levi to pace as Cliff answered. “I didn’t know they were real,” he said. “I didn’t!”
Bright arched a brow, looking curious rather than suspicious. “You don’t watch the news?”
“No.”
“But you do know the paintings are real now, when we haven’t told you anything of the sort? When we’ve only asked you how they came to be in your possession?”
She stopped, standing behind Cliff, unsure what she wanted to do. Levi came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I know this is hard,” he whispered, “but you have to maintain control of yourself. Otherwise, you’ll have to leave. Bright has to do his job.”
“All right.” With tears of frustration burning her eyes, she rested her head against him. The mint of his scent enveloped her. His heat comforted her.
Cliff stuttered for a bit, but managed to collect himself with a few deep breaths. “I heard about Cory Topper on the news. Heard what he’d done to those women. I guessed they were real.”
“You said you didn’t watch the
news.”
“I misunderstood the question.”
“So why didn’t you come forward the moment you realized what you had?” the detective asked, as calm as ever.
More stuttering. “Well, I, uh, well.”
“Bright’s got him now,” Levi whispered.
Bright glanced up at them and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head—a gesture for silence.
Levi lowered his voice and said, “Come on. We’re distracting him. He’s got this. You know that. Let’s go home.”
So badly she wanted to witness Cliff’s end, but if she stayed, she would eventually speak up. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. She would distract Bright far more than she’d already done and possibly cause him to screw up the interrogation. And if Cliff got away because of her…
“Okay,” she said on a wispy catch of breath.
“I want a lawyer,” Cliff growled. “I know my rights. I’m not saying another thing until—”
He did say another thing, but she didn’t hear it. One moment she was in the mirrored room with him, the next she was standing in her living room—just because she wanted to be there. It was as easy as that. There was no dizziness, no recovery period.
“That’s a nice little perk,” she said, pretending she wasn’t freaked out.
Levi, who was still behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her around. There was a grave cast to his face, a seriousness, a somberness she’d never seen before. Made sense, though. He’d just learned that he was dead, but she hadn’t been there for him. Had focused only on herself. Guilt filled her.
“I know you’re upset,” he said.
She cupped his cheeks, scraped her thumb against his stubble. “I’m not the only one.”
“What happened to us was terrible.”
“Yes.”
“But we’re here, and we’re together.”
