Untied

by Katherine Rhodes

  “She’ll give me a child.”

  “Give us a child.”

  The image of something in the form of a threesome popped into Cece’s head—like The Handmaid’s Tale or Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.

  She wanted to puke again. “So you’re raping her.”

  Chas walked to where Diane was slumped in the chair. He grabbed her chin. “Diane. Am I raping you?”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Nnnno.”

  Chas tossed her face away, and Cece saw the wince. “See? She’s happy to be a part of our little family. Getting her with child will just insure that the Robbe family continues on. Hannah is useless. That girl will never have children. And you? Well. We won’t have to worry about you shortly.”

  Cece stared at Donny. He was starting to look even worse. “Why Angus? Why did you kill Angus McInnis?”

  “Because Reba asked me to.” Chas’ answer was incredibly casual. “She knew he was cheating. She wasn’t going to give up her family fortune because he was playing hide the pickle. Same thing for Everett. And Saundra. And Roger. You don’t desert family.”

  “No, apparently you fuck it instead.”

  Marjorie twitched, but caught herself. Chas just shook his head and pointed to the stairs. “Come, Mother. It’s dinner. Let’s let these two watch Donny die. We’ll be back to have Cece have a pleasant death with her ropes later.”

  Marjorie looked at Cece, assessing her. “I want you to have sex with me while we watch her die. She can die miserable and alone and disgusted by me, as I’ve been disgusted by her.”

  Cece didn’t say a thing. She merely stared at her mother, who turned and beckoned Chas over. Chas went to her and kissed her hard, thorough. He smirked at Cece.

  “You only dream of having a love like this.”

  “No. No, I don’t. That right there is the stuff of nightmares.”

  “Charles, upstairs. It’s dinner. And I’m in the mood for some meat.”

  “Fucking gag me.”

  This time, her mother and brother ignored her and marched up the stairs, groping and grabbing at each other. They were absolutely reveling in the taboo and disgusting nature of their relationship.

  The door slammed and Cece counted five. In the next moment she was over to Diane, still slumped in the chair. “Diane. Diane, it’s Cece. Come on, find your hate for me and wake up.”

  Her head was slow to rise. “Don’t hate you. Jealous that you won Killian.”

  “You didn’t have a chance against me. He’s too kinky for you to handle. Tell me what happened here.”

  “He beats me, until I’m nearly unconscious and then has his way with me. I don’t even have a chance to say no. I think that most of my face is broken, and…” Her eyes welled with tears. “He’s had me here for almost three weeks. A week ago, he made me call my parents. He made me lie to them, tell them that I was safe. I was on a vacation with him.”

  “Three weeks?” Cece understood perfectly. “You haven’t gotten your period.”

  Diane shook her head. “It’s almost a week late.”

  Cece swallowed. “We have to get you out. He’ll kill you once you have a baby. He’ll torture you until you do.”

  The tears fell. “I know.”

  Damn. Cece looked around the room, with a little more intent. She had to get Diane out and she had to save Donny. But how?

  Her eyes landed on a door in the far back and she made a beeline for it. It took a nearly Herculean effort to get it open and a miracle to keep it quiet.

  But a smile spread over her face when she finally saw what was inside.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dunham was waiting at the entrance of the hospital garage, with an SUV and tracking equipment.

  Garabaldi shook his head, yanking the door open. “You shouldn’t get involved.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Dunham chided him. “You know damn well that Albright and I are responsible for the safety and security of club employees. Franz wants his Prima Domme back. So, I’m going.”

  “Fine.” Garabaldi pulled the door closed as Killian did the same in the back. “Any idea where we’re going?”

  “They went northeast, not quite sure of the route, but we can follow the towers.” The laptop tablet was mounted to the dash, and the tracking software was already running and mapping the towers the signal had bounced to and from. Killian raised an eyebrow. “This is what you do at the club?”

  “We’re private investigators,” Dunham explained. “We work for various people, and we are always doing tracking. Our clients buy us nice things to make sure they get what they want. Franz Dorn and Club Imperial is one of our biggest clients.”

  “And therefore, so is Walsh-Tyndale.” Killian didn’t have a problem figuring out that connection. Dunham nodded once and pulled into traffic.

  Leaning forward, Killian looked between the two men. “I want to kill the fucker. You know that.”

  “Never doubted for a moment,” Garabaldi said.

  “Recommend you don’t.” Dunham tossed a look at him. “Cece’s issues are enough. You don’t want to end up in jail.”

  “He killed my father.”

  “Don’t do it, Killian. Don’t.” Garabaldi glanced at him. “Self-defense is one thing. But don’t provoke that situation. If you love that woman, don’t do that to her.”

  “Killian. You know—”

  “Don’ you fucking say it. Don’t even let those goddamn words out of your mouth.” Killian stared hard at Dunham.

  “Just know the possibility exists.”

  “I am well fucking aware of it.”

  He leaned back and stared straight ahead. If Chas had killed Cece, he would kill Chas. There was no reason for him to continue his life a free man if Cece was gone. He could avenge her, and his father and his mistress. He could avenge Everett and Dina. Casey. Hannah. Imogene. All of them. He would happily sit in jail for all of them.

  Dunham made a hard right suddenly, sliding them onto a side road. “Her phone lost the last tower on this road. What the hell is down this way?”

  “Nothing really. Typical Pennsy back country,” Killian answered. “Couple of towns, a metric shit tonne of trees. Shuttered coal mines. Abandoned houses.” He stopped himself. “Abandoned houses.”

  There was a quiet in the car and they didn’t even have to pass a look around. They were all thinking the same thing. And just as he was about to make a suggestion, Dunham’s phone rang. He answered on speaker.

  “What the hell are you doing? Going after my fiancée without me?! I told you that was my fucking job!” Paul was pissed.

  “I had no idea where you were.” Dunham looked at the other two in the car. “This wasn’t a wait for you thing, Paul. We’re trying to keep her out of your office.”

  “There’s nothing much we can’t handle,” Garabaldi interjected. “I wasn’t even happy about Dunham here coming along. So cool your jets, Doctor. Speed is our concern.”

  There was a pause. “Killian?”

  “Here.”

  “All right, fine. Who are we looking for, by the way?”

  “Chas. Charles Robbe.”

  Killian expected a shock shriek out of the phone, but there was only a collected silence, followed by a quiet, “Well, fuck me. I did not see that one coming.”

  “None of us did.” Dunham gunned the truck up the road as it led them farther away from the city. “We’re going to lose cell service. That’s how we’re tracking her. We know where the cell went out and have a theory about where she is.”

  “You guys should know…Diane’s parents are looking for her. She called about a week ago and said she was on a vacation with our friendly neighborhood murderer. They didn’t like the tone of her voice, said she sounded stressed. Like the last thing she was doing was relaxing on a beach. But since she checked in, they can’t call her missing.”

  “Oh, shit.” Killian shook his head. “She was all over him as soon as she thought he was a meal ticket.” He paused. “Why’d they ca
ll you?”

  “They didn’t. I overheard them at the station when they were trying to report her missing. Garabaldi, you should check the attitudes of those guys at the desk. I was appalled at the don’t-give-a-damn they were displaying.”

  “I wish I could fix that. I'm only a sergeant detective. I have a while to go before I make commander or chief.” He looked at Dunham and Killian. “If I solve this and clear Frances Robbe, I will make lieutenant and be able to do a hell of a lot more. And I want to solve and clear this more than I have ever wanted anything before.”

  “Get her. Get her back.” Paul hung up the phone.

  “We're off the trace.” Dunham pointed to the computer. “Suggestions?”

  Garabaldi pulled out his phone and tapped some information into it. “We all agree that it's probably an abandoned house out here. Where? What kind of house? Abandoned? Hidden?”

  “He's a spoiled brat.” Killian watched over Garabaldi's shoulder as he flew through the Internet. “He won't want to give up the trappings of good life. So we need power and possibly cable.”

  “What if he got a satellite?” Dunham asked.

  “Not if he's hiding. He'll tap into something. You can triangulate from a satellite dish.” Garabaldi scrolled. “Also trees. There's no way to get around the trees with a satellite.”

  “And he'd pick something overgrown.” Dunham agreed with a nod.

  “So something that's hidden, but probably with wires going to it.” Garabaldi kept looking. “There are old coal mines all over the place. He might have picked an old caretaker's house.”

  “Caretakers?” Dunham asked.

  “Didn't grow up in coal country, eh?” Killian teased him.

  “Detroit, actually.”

  Killian leaned forward. “Some coal mines, better run ones, had actual caretakers that maintained the shafts and properties. Most of the houses are long gone, but there are always a few, usually the ones that were shut down in the ‘80s, that still have houses. Shells of houses. Access roads that are overgrown but might still have a gate post or a rotten gate.”

  “Like that,” Durham said as they drove by a side road.

  “No. No signs of new tire tracks. No wires,” Killian said.

  “We need tired tracks, broken foliage. And it has to be near an old mine.” Garabaldi looked up. “Right here. There's an old mine up in Logansport, according to this. It's the most likely direction with the way the line of towers was going.” He traced a line along the computer screen, cutting right through Logansport.

  Killian's phone pinged, and he pulled it out to see an email from Cece. “Holy shit.”

  MistressC: Love you. Find me if you can. Bury me alone.

  “The house has Wi-Fi,” Garabaldi said, with no other comment. “We're definitely looking for something that wasn't abandoned long.” He started scrolling again, quickly. “Take the next right. That's the logical direction.”

  “How am I even getting a signal if we've run out of towers?”

  Dunham tapped a little black box on the dash. “Aircard. Picks up when the towers go away. I have it set to open, so everything connects. Don't text her back.”

  “I'm not going to. I'm not an idiot.”

  Garabaldi snorted. “No, you're not. You're in love and that can make you stupid.”

  “Apparently Chas doesn't know she has the phone, and I wouldn't want to give that away.” Killian gasped and looked up. “She emailed me. We have the IP.”

  “Holy shit.” Garabaldi grabbed the phone out of his hand and took over the computer there. “The department has a tracker if I can get into it from here. We can get a general location and that will tell if us if we're in the right area. Does anyone believe that Charles Robbe is smart enough to use a proxy or a bounce server?”

  “He's tanked a dozen or more mutual funds that were totally stable,” Dunham said.

  “He also currently seems stupid enough to tie into the cable system and have a grounded IP,” Killian said.

  “And murdered a half dozen more under our noses,” Garabaldi reminded them.

  Killian looked at his phone. “Maybe more.”

  “But he still fucked up and we're after him,” Dunham said. “He's reactive. He doesn't think through.”

  Garabaldi was typing furiously. “You have a nice secure network here, Dun. I like it. I'm already in and on the software.” He handed the phone to Killian and motioned for him to hold it where he could see it, and typed in the IP. A few seconds later, Garabaldi whooped and slammed a hand on the dash. “We have an address. He's that bad at this shit. We're heading the right way, and we have to look for…49590 Main Street.” He copied and pasted the address into a new search bar. “We are heading the right way! The house is back a quarter mile, so there's no way we're going to see it from the road.” Turning the computer back to Dunham, he tapped on the screen. “There. Get us there. Once we confirm this is the place, I'll call in the state.” Garabaldi tossed a look over his shoulder at Killian. “We're going to find her.”

  “But in how many pieces?”

  * * *

  Cece took a deep breath.

  There was one chance to do this. Just one. She'd rigged everything up roughly, against her better instincts. She wanted to be thorough, but she didn't have time and she didn't have man power to handle Chas and Marjorie.

  Once the two of them had gone upstairs and Cece had the room, she has to move fast. Ropes, chains, repair equipment she couldn't name. Most useful was the pick axe and rusty hacksaw.

  Grabbing several lengths of rope and the saw, she ran over to where Donny was tied up and motioned Diane over. “I need your help or he's going to die.”

  Diane sat on the bed, and Cece patted the rusty saw. “Hack his ropes off. We're not going to have a clean knife or the time to get one. Just cut him loose.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Once I rig up a noose for my mother I'll come back and figure a way to staunch the bleeding.”

  “A noose?”

  Cece sighed and motioned for her to start sawing. It would also cover the repulsive sounds of sex coming from above. “I'm not going to kill her. Just knock her out. I'm a nawashi, Diane. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  Diane shook her head, trying to saw the rope quietly.

  “I am a shibari master. I can make ropes do things you can't imagine. In this country, it's always kinky. In Japan, where I learned, it's an art. I can build things with rope, hold up whole buildings with the way I can use it and twist it. I can also kill and torture with it.”

  “Jesus, Cece.”

  “I'm not going to kill anyone. This noose is meant to restrain and knock the person unconscious. That's all. I can't deal with both of them at once.”

  “I can help.”

  “You've been beaten to a pulp every day for three weeks. No offense, but you're about as dangerous as a newborn kitten.” Cece shook her head. “I need you to watch Donny. He's getting close to the point of no return. I'm going to try something when you're done cutting him loose. I just need the two of you to hang on while the cops figure out where we are.”

  “Cece, I'm sorry. I really am. I was always so mean to you.” Diane's voice was quiet. “From when we were kids on. Now we're sitting here trapped in a basement, and you're trying to save me. Us. After I did everything I could to steal Killian from you.”

  Cece glanced at her from where she was quickly rigging up ropes by the cellarway. “Diane?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.” She strung another rope. “If you're really sorry, you'll pay it forward. I don't care what you did to me in the past. I'm a strong woman who knows herself inside and out. The best apology you could make would be the one where your actions reflect your words. So shut up and keep sawing.”

  Cece didn't want her apology. Not really. She'd long gotten over the mean girl bullshit in high school. She knew that, to a great degree, Diane was a victim of her own upbringing that encouraged that kind of behav
ior.

  Plus, Killian was hers. And he knew it.

  Cece smiled.

  Donny choked out a small laugh, and Cece turned to look. Diane had freed Donny's arms and legs and was currently massaging in some arnica. Donny lolled his head to the side. “It puts the lotion on its skin…”

  Cece laughed. “That's way too accurate right now, Don. Could you not?”

  “Call it like I see it.”

  “Diane?”

  “All done.”

  “How are you with blood? Gore? Guts?”

  “I won't throw up, if that's what you mean.”

  Cece nodded once and got the last rope by the doorway in place. “We're going to do a field tourniquet on Donny. All I have is a pen knife and nothing to clean it with except a lighter.”

  “I'm dying, Cee. I don't care about germs.”

  “Well, I do. But know where you're coming from.” Cece knelt next to him on the bed. “I'm going to do everything I can, Donny. You mean the world to me and Dad, apparently. So hang on, and I'm sorry this is going to hurt so much.”

  Cece motioned Diane to the other side of the bed and carefully they rolled Donny to his side, facing Diane. And after worrying about her, it turned out that Cece nearly vomited at what her brother had done to this man.

  The small, clear, hard plastic tube had been shoved directly up his rectum, and probably pierced the large intestine to find a blood rich small intestine. Cece grabbed her phone, the pen knife, and some cotton thread and a needle. Weird things she carried in her purse.

  Cece leaned down and turned on the flashlight function of her phone, trying to see what she could along the plastic tube. It worked almost like fiber optics, and she was able to see everything she needed to. The tube had been slid in and jabbed into the wall, and Cece could see the vein he had hit on the way in. It honestly looked like luck.

  She paused. This was one of those hard limit moments. But at the same time, this was Donny.

  Diane made a face when Cece looked back up. “You're going to go in, aren't you?”