by Nora Roberts
Everything slowed down. Then everything stopped.
* * *
Though it was close to midnight before she drove into the Village, Jessica found herself revved. Everything had gone perfectly, and now she could leave the cleanup portion to Chelsea’s—and Rory’s, as he’d shown up—supervision.
While she expected Chase would be asleep—ranch life started early—she thought she’d text him so he’d hear from her the minute he woke in the morning.
Text him, she thought, after she’d shed her work clothes and poured a glass of wine.
With a smile on her face—it still amazed her anyone could be so ridiculously happy—she parked her car, got out. She’d taken two steps to her building when she noticed the Kia parked at the curb rather than in a slot. And in front of Chelsea’s section.
Wondering why in the world Bodine would still be there more than an hour after she’d left, she wandered down, glanced in the car. Bodine’s briefcase sat on the passenger seat.
Unsure, uneasy, she went to Chelsea’s door, knocked. “Bo?”
Maybe she got caught up in the samples, she thought, but she couldn’t see a single light reflecting in a window.
She lifted a corner of the mat, saw the key.
Shoving aside innate courtesy, Jessica picked it up, unlocked the door. “Bodine?”
She reached for the light switch, flipped it, but the dark remained. When she took another step, her foot hit something. Bending down, she picked up Bodine’s hat.
* * *
The fact she made him wait didn’t trouble Callen. She wouldn’t be the woman he loved if she’d been biddable. Added to it, he liked knowing he’d knocked her off her stride some. The woman had damn good balance.
So he’d wait. A man could do worse than sit out on a pretty spring night, under that big red moon, waiting for his woman. He considered wandering back inside, getting a beer, maybe a book to while the time away.
Chase flew out of the house, and Callen surged to his feet. His heart had bounded straight into his throat before Chase said a word.
“Somebody’s got Bo.”
* * *
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Everything blurred, everything muffled. Her vision, her mind, her hearing. She wanted to call out, but couldn’t form any words.
She felt no pain, felt no fear. Felt nothing.
Gradually she became aware of light, like a lamp with a dirty shade. And sound, an indistinct clicking. No color, no color, but shapes behind the dirty light. She couldn’t think of names to go with the shapes. As she struggled to find them, the pain awoke with a vicious pounding in her head.
She felt the moan move in her throat as much as heard it. One of the shapes moved closer.
Man. Man. The shape was a man.
“You’re not the one! That’s not your house! It’s your own fault. It’s not my fault.”
He moved away again, and through the ugly pounding in her head, the too-rapid beat of her heart, she began to make out other shapes, the names for them.
Walls, sink, hot plate, floor, door. Locks. God, God.
She tried to move, to push up, and the world rocked.
“… for horses,” she heard him say. “I didn’t use too much. Just to keep you quiet, to get you here. But not you, wasn’t supposed to be you.”
Chelsea’s apartment. Key under the mat. Dark inside.
She concentrated on moving her fingers, then her hands, then her feet. Something weighed on her left foot—left foot—and when she heard the rattle of a chain, she knew.
The trembling started deep inside, shuddered its way out.
Alice. Like Alice.
“Gotta make the best of it.” He came back, sat on the cot beside her. “That’s what we gotta do. You’re young, and you’re pretty.”
She turned her head away when he rubbed her cheek.
“You got plenty of years of childbearing in you. We’ll make lots of sons. I know how to make you feel good while we’re making them.”
She pushed at him, still weak, when he trailed a hand over her breast.
“You don’t want to be that way. You’re my wife now, and you gotta please me.”
“No, can’t be your wife.”
“A man chooses, and makes it so. Once I get you planted, you’ll see. You’ll see how it is.”
“Can’t.” She pushed at his hands as he unbuttoned her jeans. “Sick. Water. Please. Can I have water?”
His hand stilled. On a heavy sigh he rose, went to the sink. “It’s the horse sedative, I expect, but it’ll pass. Either way, we’re getting this started tonight. I’ve been waiting long enough.”
She bore down, forced herself to think, think clearly through the fear and the pounding that made her sick, roiled in her belly, but she understood.
He had to lift her up so she could drink, and his touch revolted. But she drank, slowly.
“I can’t be your wife.”
He slapped her. “That’s back talk, and I won’t have it.”
The sting only helped clear the rest of the muddle from her brain. “I can’t be your wife because we’re cousins.” She used all she had to stay sitting up, to inch away from him. “Your mother and my mother are sisters. That makes us cousins, Easy.”
“I don’t want to hit you again, but I will if you keep lying and back talking.”
“I’m not lying. Your mother is Alice Bodine, my aunt.”
“My ma died giving me life. It’s Eve’s curse.”
“Is that what your father told you? You heard about Alice Bodine, how she came home after all those years. Years she spent right in this room.”
“It’s a house!”
“Right here, locked in, chained up just like you’ve got me. But you couldn’t have done it. You’re too young.”
But not too young to have killed two women, she thought. Not too young to kill her if she set him off the wrong way.
“She named you Rory, and she talks about you a lot. How she sang to you and rocked you to sleep. How she loved you.”
His eyes—hazel, she noted, just a hint of Bodine green in them—bore into hers.
“My ma’s dead, been dead since my first breath.”
“Your ma lived here for years after you were born. She told me all about this place. I know that foam on the walls is new. I know behind it, the walls are drywall, spackled, but not finished. And on the other side of that sheet hanging there is a toilet, a little shower. How would I know that if your ma hadn’t told me?”
He scratched his head. “You’re trying to confuse me.”
“You met her. I think something in her recognized you. She started crying when she rode off with me after she met you. Crying and talking about you, and her other children. Babies your father took away from her. You must have seen her sometimes, around here. Working the garden. She said he chained her outside to work the garden. Did you ever see her?”
“That wasn’t my ma. That wasn’t that woman at the BAC neither.”
“It was both. You weren’t allowed to go out when she was out, were you? You weren’t allowed to talk to her.”
“Shut up.”
“We’re blood kin, Easy.”
He slapped her again, harder, hard enough she tasted blood. But tears stood in his eyes. “He told you her name was Esther, but it’s Alice. You know I’m not lying. He lied. He lied to you, and took you away from her.”
“You just shut up!”
He shoved off the bed, began to pace.
“There was a dog, a mean dog, and a horse—swaybacked. A milk cow and some chickens. There’s a cabin. He kept her there first, in the cellar. You were born in that cellar, lived there with her for about a year until he took you from her.”
“He said she’s dead, like the others.”
Though her gut twisted at the others, Bodine fought her voice steady. “He lied, you know he lied. He made your life so hard, didn’t he?”
“I took off when I was fifteen.”
&nbs
p; Sympathy now, she thought. Understanding now. “No wonder.”
“Everything’s rules, his rules, and he’d whip the skin off my bones if I broke one.”
“I don’t blame you for leaving.” More sympathy, she told herself. Give him sympathy, understanding. Family feelings. “Your ma would’ve protected you, but he had her locked up.”
“I came back. It’s my land as much as his. I’ve got a right to it. I’m going to make a family. I’ll have sons, and wives and a family.”
“You’ve got family. I’m your cousin. You’ve got to let me go, Easy. I can take you to the ranch, to your ma.”
“It’s not gonna work that way. I’m not stupid. Maybe you’re the liar. I gotta think.” He went to the door, unlocked it. “If you’re lying, I’m going to have to hurt you. Have to punish you for it.”
“I’m not lying.”
He went out, and she heard the locks clunk. For a moment she let herself fall apart, just crumble and shake and weep. Then she pushed off the bed, stood rocky, but stood.
She reached in her back pocket, but wasn’t surprised he’d taken her phone. But from her front pocket, she pulled the little penknife she always carried, and sitting on the floor, tore back the foam. She began to dig around the bolt of the shackles.
CHAPTER THIRTY
He wouldn’t allow panic; he wouldn’t allow rage. Both lived inside him, but Callen kept them locked in as he stood in the Longbow kitchen.
The sheriff had come and gone. He knew Tate had every deputy out looking, had contacted the FBI, intended to push hard on the sources he’d been cultivating.
It didn’t mean a damn to him.
He’d listened to Chelsea weep. She’d forgotten samples, and Bodine had gone by her place to get them. Nobody doubted whoever had Bodine had intended to take Chelsea.
But even when Chelsea had stopped weeping, she had no idea who had planned to abduct her.
Tate claimed they had an advantage, that with the timeline it couldn’t have been much more than an hour between the time Bodine had been taken and when Jessica had found the car, the hat.
That didn’t mean a damn to him, either.
What mattered was at first light he’d start where Alice had been found, start doing his own search.
He listened, and he studied the map Sam had spread out. And if he noticed Sam’s fingers trembled now and then, he said nothing. Every soul on the ranch, others from the resort, they’d all take a section of that map and search in groups.
In trucks, on horseback, on ATVs.
He had his own section, and nothing would sway him.
“They’ve searched miles around there,” Sam pointed out.
“Plenty of miles left. I’m damned if whoever took Alice isn’t who took Bodine. I just need to borrow a trailer. I’ll drive that far, and take Sundown from there. We can cover more ground.”
“There are roads, gravel.” Alice stood at the base of the back stairs, pale as the moon in her pajamas. “And fences, and places where the snow was so deep. I made a snow angel. I remember. Sir took Bodine. I heard you talking. He took Bodine.”
“You don’t need to worry now.” Cora, so exhausted she had to lever up from the table, stood.
“Yes! Yes, I have to worry. Stop it, stop it, stop it.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I can go back. If I could find it, I could go back. Will he let her go if I go back? I don’t want him to hurt Bodine. She’s mine, too. I’ll go back if I can find it.”
Maureen laid a hand on Cora’s arm, then rose and went to Alice. Enfolded her. “I know you would, but we’ll find her. We’re going to find her.”
“I love her, Reenie. I promise, I promise.”
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have left. He wouldn’t have taken her if I hadn’t left.”
“No. That’s not true, and don’t ever, ever think it.”
“Maybe Rory knows. Does he know how to get back?”
“We’re going to look,” Rory told her. “We’re going to find her.”
“Not Reenie’s Rory. My Rory. Does he know?”
“Let’s sit down now. Jessica, would you make tea? I just can’t—”
“Of course.”
“I don’t want to sit. I don’t need to sit. You sit! If Rory knows … I didn’t want him to know. His father’s evil. His father’s mean. He shouldn’t have to know. He was just a baby.”
“Alice, please.” Undone, Maureen dropped down, covered her face with her hands.
“I told Bodine. I told her I wouldn’t tell them, any of my babies. Not my babies now. I told her. She said I was brave. But if he knows, he already knows. We have to ask if he knows or Sir will hurt her. He’ll rape her and take her babies. He’ll—”
“Stop it!” Maureen shoved up again, rounded on Alice. “Stop it.”
But Callen nudged Maureen clear, laid both hands on Alice’s shoulders. “How would we find him to see if he knows?”
“You know.”
“I can’t think of it right now, Alice. I can’t get my mind clear. Help me out.”
“He’s good with the horses. He’s polite and says ma’am. He has green in his eyes and some red in his hair, just a little. He calls you boss, and Bodine’s the big boss. He’d help find Bodine if he can. He’s a good boy.”
It broke in him, broke over him. He had to lift his hands from her shoulders before they dug down to bone. “Yeah, that’s right. Easy LaFoy,” Callen said as he turned back to the table. “She’s talking about Easy LaFoy.”
* * *
The bolt went through the drywall and deep into the stud. Digging and hacking at the wood dulled the blade. Covered in sweat, fingertips bloody, she made herself stand, made herself search for something, anything she could use as a weapon or tool.
Plastic forks and spoons, plastic plates and cups. A cheap ceramic mug. She considered breaking it, hoping for a couple sharp shards, and put that aside for later, if necessary.
She studied the bathroom, the chain slapping behind her.
She turned, eyed the window, dark with night. If she could get the damn bolt out of the wall, she might find a way to pull herself up to it, break it. She’d be able to squeeze through, barely, but she’d squeeze through.
The problem remained that with a dull pocketknife it would take days, even longer to dig out the bolt.
She doubted she had days.
If Easy believed her, he couldn’t use her. He might cut his losses there. If he didn’t believe her, he’d use her.
People would look for her, and maybe they’d find her before she was dead or before she’d been beaten and raped, but she couldn’t count on it.
She looked down at the pocketknife. Aim for his eye, she thought, cold as winter. It might be enough, but she’d still be chained to the wall.
She went back, sat on the floor again, and this time played the knife into the lock of the leg irons. She’d never picked a lock in her life, but if there’d ever been a time to learn, it was now.
Could she talk him into unlocking her? Play the blood kin card? Hey, Easy, why don’t you show me around the place?
She dropped her head to her knees, just breathed in, breathed out.
