The Housekeeper's Daughter

by Palmer, Dee

  “Agreed.” He walks over to the bottom step of the stairway and slumps down, more worn by our predicament than the fight. “If I could get back into my apartment, I could activate the tracker on her necklace.” He glances up, my face creased with confusion. “I can’t risk going there until I have this Russian situation sorted.”

  “She’s still wearing it?”

  “If I tell you, will that land me another black eye?”

  “Depends. If you add the fucking smug tone, then yes, it will.”

  “She’s still wearing it.” He answers, keeping the tone in check, since we are both supposed to be on the same page.

  “I can activate the tracker from here.” I step past him and take the stairs two at a time until I hit the top flight.

  “Really? You can do that?”

  “All stupid dumb-arse hackers can do that,” I call back, not breaking my stride and loud enough for him to hear. I race along the landing to my office, filled with the first surge of hope since finding her phone. He laughs and is soon following my footsteps to my office.

  He stops at the main bathroom only to join me a few minutes later, patting his face dry with a towel. He hands me a clean, damp cloth for my own cuts. I nod my thanks, placing it on my desk while I continue to activate switches to boot up the servers. I have to wait a few more seconds for my computers to fire up. My fingers tap out a restless beat on the leather inlay on the desktop and Atticus’s knee bounces nervously in the seat opposite. This better work.

  It takes a few seconds to identify the necessary programs and no time at all to activate the tracker, given the information I’d already saved when I first took a closer look at her ‘collar’.

  “She’s at the lodge? No wait, not quite there, she’s close by though.”

  “Can you pinpoint her exact location?” Atticus is instantly at my shoulder.

  “Since she’s not moving, yes. Look, she’s there, right there.” I point to the map and switch to the satellite image to get a better feel for where she is exactly.

  “Shit!” His worried epithet is exhaled in a whisper; the thick swallow that follows makes more noise.

  “What?”

  “That’s the East Tower, she wouldn’t be there on her own. It means someone’s taken her there.”

  “I’m not arguing. I think Lilith has her, but what makes you think she wouldn’t be there on her own? She might be hiding.”

  “She knows a hundred places to hide on the estate, and I told her the tower is unstable. It’s a fucking death-trap. There is no way she’d go in there voluntarily. I don’t suppose you have a gun?” He doesn’t draw breath between sentences, and his last question leaves me cold.

  “No, I don’t have a bloody gun.”

  “I’ll call Carter. He’s got a licensed handgun. He’ll meet us there.”

  “Do you think it’s a great idea to involve anyone else?”

  “Not just anyone, no, but he’ll also be able to hide the body.” He arches a brow. “You have a problem with that?” He walks to the door and fixes a knowing glare on me that I have no problem holding. His question is a no-fucking-brainer.

  “No.”

  “Good, lets go and get my girl.”

  I might hate that he said ‘his’ girl. Since I’m really not sure if I can call her mine, my jaw simply twitches with the effort of keeping my mouth shut.

  The car doors shut and he slams the car into first gear. The vehicle lurches forward, and we speed our way back across town and toward what’s left of Tartarus Hall. I don’t suppose his thoughts are that much different from mine…

  I hope we’re not too fucking late.

  Ow. I mean, mother-fucking OW! My head throbs like it’s hit every stone step of the Machu Picchu. I fear moving it at all will make my brain shut down from the agonising pain shooting through every synapse. My eyelids flick open, and even that small movement causes me to wince.

  The room is dim but not dark, sunlight slips through the slats in the shutters and casts enough of a hazy glow for me to instantly recognise where I am. It never was my favourite place. The round rooms of the tower had the smallest windows, very little in the way of furniture, and the most enormous spiders. It looks like nothing has changed since Atticus and I used to play up here as children, him telling me ghost stories, and me pretending not to be terrified. The irony of this situation isn’t lost on me as I stare into vacant eyes and Ghost’s eerily evil expression. Once again, I’m trying not to be terrified.

  My back creaks with a dull shooting pain when I try to move. My arms are pulled behind the high back spindle backed chair. My wrists are tied together with rope but not tightly. If I wriggle and pull I may be able to work them free.

  I won’t do that just yet, since I’m a little preoccupied with trying to work out what the hell must be going on in that crazy fucking head of the lunatic in front of me. She glares, unblinking and only inches from my face. I’m finding it hard to draw any conclusions. In fact, I’m finding it hard to do anything other than hold my breath and hope the knife she’s holding at my throat doesn’t press any harder.

  “Ghost.” I can feel the point of the blade rise and fall as I slowly swallow down the dryness in my throat and force myself to speak. My voice is a rough, shaky whisper. “This place isn’t safe.”

  “It looks pretty safe.” She tilts her head and her eyes never leave mine.

  “This tower isn’t safe.” I press on, and the urgency of my tone implores her to take a good look around. “The whole building was blown apart, and even though this bit is standing, Atticus said it wasn’t safe.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Why would he lie about this?” I choke back a humourless laugh when she narrows her eyes and jerks her hand and the blade presses harder into my neck. I breathe in deep and steadily exhale through my nose, trying to keep my calm. It’s difficult to see how my situation could get any worse, what with the knife at my throat and the psychopath in my face, in a building that is likely to crumble to the ground at any moment. Panicking might tip the edge in her favour. I won’t let that happen. “He is going to make it safe but as of right now, it isn’t. Right now, it’s a death trap.”

  “You’re lying, he’s not even in the country, Tia.” She rolls her eyes, dismissing my concern. I glance at the rotten floor and the very visible scorch marks that have burnt through from below. The slatted windows are too high to get a feel for which floor we are on. There are several and each of the top ones looks identical. If it collapses, I guess it won’t matter if we’re on the third floor or the seventh, the mountain of rubble will be deadly enough regardless. She hums and taps the fingertips of her free hand on her pursed lips. “What I can’t get my head around is why my Logan wants you. How is that fair, Tia? How is it fair my Logan wants a dirty broken whore? How is that fair?”

  “Lil-ah!” The point of the blade punctures my skin, a physical reminder not to use her real name. It’s not so deep, just enough to sting and cause a trickle of blood to gather at the hollow of my neck. “Ghost, please. You’re wrong. Logan doesn’t want me; he sent me away to be with you.” Since reasoning is ineffective, I opt for giving her what she wants to hear. I need time. I need to keep her talking and I need to keep alive. She thinks Atticus is out of the country. I have to hope he’s seen something out of place, maybe a door left open, or a car parked that shouldn’t be here, something, anything. I need time.

  “He does want me. You think he doesn’t?” She practically snarls.

  “I just said he did.” You crazy fucking bitch. I hope my expression and tone aren’t as revealing as my internal dialogue.

  “Princess, that’s what Atticus called you right? You’re the fucking princess in the fucking tower, waiting on your Prince Charming to come and rescue you. But no one knows you’re here, princess.”

  “You’re right, no one knows I’m here. But when Logan finds my phone, he will know, and he will blame you.” My heart is pumping, and my anger and frustration
are escalating out of control. I can feel it like a tidal wave building inside me.

  “That’s why I’m going to use our time together to learn your tricks, your wiles, and the ways you won him over. Whatever you did to blind him, you will teach me.” She pulls the knife from my throat only to wave it pointedly in my face. Her eyes are wide and wild…no, not wild…unhinged.

  “Fine, I’ll teach you, but we can’t stay here. It’s not safe.” Teach her what exactly, I have no idea, but right now, I’ll agree to anything to get out of here.

  “Why would that worry you?” She presses the blade flat against her lips, my blood glistening on the tip. Her tongue slides up the blunt edge and licks it clean. Her eyes crinkle with pleasure, and I get a rush of bile in my mouth that I manage to swallow back down. “You think you’re going to live. Interesting.” She smiles so wide and genuine, her features fix like a happy mask, and it feels like she should’ve delivered some exciting news rather than my death sentence.

  “Why the fuck would I teach you anything if you’re just going to kill me?”

  She drops her chin and pouts playfully, tutting whimsically and shaking her head. “Because I’m going to torture you if you don’t, silly.” Her eyes darken to large inky pools of nothingness, and I swear the summer air in the room drops several degrees when she speaks. “You’re going to die. Logan loves me, but he’s confused. When you are dead, he will see more clearly, and he’ll be able to follow his heart.” She might as well add the ‘duh!’ part, because her tone is patronising enough for me to wonder if I’m the one who’s missing something here.

  “You crazy fucking bitch. Ah!” The knife cuts my words and a line across my collarbone, deeper and fucking painful. I pant through the pain, and my eyes pinch shut as waves of nausea mix with shooting agony from the slice in my flesh. Blood gushes from the wound, soaking into my T-shirt and dying the pale pink crimson.

  “You think that hurt? Also interesting.”

  “Jesus Christ!” I yell through gritted teeth, pain pumps around my body faster than the blood from the cut. It fucking hurts.

  “Yes, perhaps it is time to pray.” She steps back and stretches her neck to the side. Her gaze void and chilling, she fixes on me. Dragging a chair from one end of the room, she places it directly in front of me and sits down. Her palms rest flat on her knees, which are touching mine, and the knife is now laid across her lap. She looks like it’s fucking story time. Expectant, wide eyes and a creepy smile distort her face into some sort of twisted Stepford Wife’s expression of joy. “So what did you do first?”

  Her contact lenses shift ever so slightly when she blinks rapidly, the dark brown edges of her own colour rim the luminous brightness of the artificial green. It’s distracting. This close I can see the cheap hair extensions glued against her scalp, giving her normal cropped hair my length, colour and volume of thick locks. I have to admit, its creepy how much she does look like me.

  “Are you wearing my actual clothes…ow! Stop fucking cutting me!”

  “Focus Tia. I’m the one asking the questions.” She pulls the knife back from lashing out and taking a swipe at my arm, just below the shoulder joint. More blood and pain.

  “Fine, well, the first thing I did was sneak into his house, steal his food and not bathe for three months…Ow! For fuck sake, Ghost, this is nuts!” She slices another cut below the first, my sarcastic tone and irritation not doing me any favours but fuck, this is insane.

  “What. Did. You. Do. To. Make. Him. Want. You?”

  I pant and suck back the painful cries as she punctuates each word with more slices down the length of my arm. I nod my head, and before I answer, tears burst on to my cheek and run freely down my face. She needs to stop or needing more time will no longer be an issue, I’m going to bleed to death. I’m ready to answer her questions.

  “I…I talked to him. I sketched a lot, and he seemed to like watching me do that, and we ate together. He liked cooking for someone else, I think.”

  “Good, see how easy that is. Maybe you could teach me to draw?”

  “What? Yes…yes of course. I have some paper and pencils at home. We could go there and—”

  “We’re staying here, princess.” She raises a knowing brow, and my heart sinks at the flash of missed opportunity.

  “For how long? I mean if you want me to teach you, we’ll need better light than this.” The room is very dim, and I indicate the fading light from the tiny window with an awkward tilt of my head.

  “Tell me what else and I’ll think about it.”

  “He would hold me all night when I woke up screaming, and he never left me alone when I was sad. He would read to me while I painted, and we both liked to watch old westerns. He said his dad—”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She howls at me, pulling one side of her hair and wrenching a fistful of hair extensions from her scalp. She shakes her head violently, and despite wanting to scream myself, I keep my voice level, almost soothing.

  “Lilith, I don’t know what you want from me. You tell me to tell you. It wasn’t anything extraordinary; it was simply two people living together, getting to know one another, caring and falling love. It’s not a choice thing …it just happens.”

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s not a choice it—” Oh shit.

  “Not that, what did you say about falling in love?”

  “Nothing…I didn’t mean it like that, I meant like friends, you know?” I lean back in the chair as she looms forward. I’m limited where I can actually go but my neck is arched as far away from the tip of the blade as the chair will allow.

  “He said he loved you like a friend?”

  “No…yes!”

  “But you told him you loved him?”

  “I…I…look, you know how I felt about him. I told him. You told me I should fuck him, for crissake!” I lose the tentative hold I had on my composure, and my pitch and pace of speaking is verging on hysterical.

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “No, of course not. He wouldn’t.” She shakes her head, laughing at her own ludicrous suggestion. “You’re damaged. Did you tell him you loved him to mess with his head?”

  “What? No!”

  “You can’t love two people, Tia, and you love Atticus. You always have and you always will. I don’t understand what trick you pulled on my Logan to fool him. You played him and he just can’t see it.”

  “I think you can love two people. Your heart doesn’t divide; it simply doubles.” My heart feels like it swells as I voice the notion out loud.

  “Oh I think if push comes to shove, you’d choose one over the other. I’d bet your life on it.” She sits up and tilts her head to the side as if weighing up my very limited options. There is a muffled sound of tyres screeching on the gravel in the distance and my heart leaps and strangles the air in my lungs. Atticus?

  She stands and paces to the window and back. The wooden floor groans ominously with each step. Her face flashes with panic and I have to wonder what she’s seen to make her lose the last of her colour. She spins when she hears the door from deep below us crash open. Rushing to me, she yanks me to standing, the back of the chair catching on the ties. She nearly dislocates my damn shoulder kicking it free. I stumble, and she throws me hard against the back wall. She steps close enough to press the knife in the centre of my stomach, under my ribcage. I can feel the point prick my skin through the thin material with every stuttered breath I take.

  Every muscle in my body freezes with the sound of multiple footsteps on the stone spiral staircase. I hope he’s brought the police. I freeze when she calmly stretches her free hand from behind her back and points a small handgun at the door. Where the fuck did that come from? The door smashes wide open, ricocheting off the wall, and I cry out.

  “No!” I can feel the tip slice into my skin, yet I’m numb with utter panic. She holds both the knife and the gun extremely steady. My nerves are fried as my worst nightmare just cras
hed into the room: Atticus and Logan.

  “Logan, you came for me.” Her instant wide smile fails to reach the perfect curve when his icy tone kills any warm fuzzies she might be having at this reunion.

  “Lilith, put the fucking knife down.”

  Her thin lips twitch, and she bites out her response, volatile fury quickly eclipsing any hurt that flashed in her eyes. “Not the gun? The knife, hmm, because we wouldn’t want your precious princess injured would we?”

  “Please, Lilith, we can sort this out. No one needs to get hurt.” He takes one step forward then freezes. I pinch my lips tight trying to hold the cry of agony inside. The knife is easing its way deeper into my flesh, and he’s the reason. His eyes widen with fear, and I shake my head. I don’t know what I want him not to do, but he’s got a fucking gun pointed at him. I can take a bit of pain. I can’t take him getting shot. I can’t take either of them getting shot.

  “Someone is already hurt, my love, I’m hurt and you’re hurt.” Her eyes water and there’s a sudden vulnerability about her that would make me question my own sanity if she wasn’t waiving a gun at the only people I’ve ever loved. “She doesn’t want you, Logan, she wants him.” She switches her aim, and I can’t breathe.

  “Ghost, please,” I beg. Paralysed by fear, my breath catches in my throat.

  “Shut up, you filthy whore.”

  I gasp when the knife sinks a little more, both men lurch forward but back off when she clicks the safety off the gun. “This isn’t your gun, Logan but I found it under the table in your hallway. I’m so glad I decided to take it. It’s so very pretty.” She admires the weapon with a dreamy sigh, then flips like the psycho she is and snarls at me. “Did you fuck my Logan after you fucked him or before? You don’t deserve to breathe. You tricked him, seduced him when he was saving himself for me!” Spittle flies from the crazy rant spewing from her mouth. I clench my jaw at the surge of shooting pain in my gut and fire back my question.

  “Saving himself?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sick, Lilith. You need help.” Logan’s softly coaxing voice, booms loud over her frantic breaths. She twists her head when she speaks. Honestly, I’m surprised it doesn’t spin right round; she’s fucking possessed. His tone is deadly serious when he clarifies his sex life. “I haven’t saved myself period. I’ve been fucking prostitutes for years. I only stopped when I—”