Chapter 21 Silas
SILAS
“We’ll be filing charges,” Nigella throws over her shoulder as we walk out of the police station as dusk falls. “You had no right to hold him for three days without a single charge.”
“Ma’am, we were conducting—”
“Bullshit.” She stops and turns. “Start packing up your desk, detective. I’ll have your job for this.”
I walk quickly out of the station and into the parking lot where Nigella’s car is double parked at the front doors.
“I can’t believe what they were able to get away with,” Nigella seethes. She’s been trying to see me for three days, trying to understand what the hell was going on.
“Welcome to Sinistral. That’s the kind of influence Fox wields.” I’d become complacent over the years. I’d forgotten what he is capable of. That was my fault. But never again. “I need to get her,” I say, holding out my hand. “Give me the keys.”
“No.”
I look down at her, surprised. “Give me the keys, Nigella.”
“You’re in no state to drive.”
“I need to fucking get to her.”
She shakes her head and stomps off to the driver’s side, unlocking the car and getting in. Irritated, I get into the passenger seat.
“Fine. Let’s go. I’ll give you directions to the Fox house.”
But she doesn’t even start the car. Instead, she turns to face me. “She’s gone, Silas.”
It takes me a minute. “What do you mean, gone?”
“Gone. Ethan left Sinistral with Ophelia the night of the gala. They’ve vanished. Sly is in Boston as of yesterday. Only Mira Fox is at the house. Hamish is in Boston, and we’re tracking Sly. I have another man stationed near the Fox house in Sinistral.”
“What the hell do you mean she’s gone?”
“Just what I said. I’m sure they’ll turn up. Either way, you can’t go near her.”
“Like hell I can’t.”
“Thought you’d say that,” she says and starts the car.
“Where the fuck are we going?”
“I’ll explain at the hotel. You need a shower, and we need to talk.”
“Talk now,” I tell her.
She starts to drive, turning onto the main road and heading toward the hotel. “There’s a restraining order against you. They’re also insinuating you forced yourself on Ophelia.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I witnessed that night, but I’ve never seen anything like it. This town,” she shakes her head. “I don’t know. But I will tell you one thing, I have a feeling they’ll use that to force your hand. A charge of rape is not something you can walk away from so easily.”
“Rape? I didn’t… Fuck, I wouldn’t, and Ophelia would never say I did.” I look ahead at the road, thinking about Ophelia now. Where is she? Where did they take her? What did they do to her after I was gone?
Nigella navigates the narrow, icy lanes. A new storm is brewing. I feel it in my bones. Hear it in the whistling wind.
I’ve been held at the local jail without a phone call or any contact with anyone apart from the junior officer delivering my meals. No charges were filed, and no one said a single fucking word to me, so I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what went on after I was dragged out in handcuffs.
When we get to The Sinistral, Nigella drives around back. “What are you doing?”
“You feel like chatting with reporters?”
“Are you serious?”
She nods.
Christ. Once Nigella parks the car, we climb out and walk toward the doors.
“Did she say that? That I forced her?”
Nigella’s brow is furrowed, and I know she’s choosing her words carefully. She’s careful not to look at me as we enter the hotel. “I don’t think she was in a state to say or do much, Silas.”
I stop, look at her. I’m still holding the door open, icy wind blowing in. I fucking hate this town.
“What does that mean?” I ask, my voice somehow controlled even as my heart races.
She doesn’t answer but calls the service elevator. Using a key she must have gotten from the front desk, she inserts it and pushes the button for the Penthouse.
“Nigella. What does that mean?” I ask again once we’re inside.
“I’m going to make coffee. You’re going to have a shower. Then we’ll talk about it all. There’s… a lot, Silas.”
“I need to get to her.”
“She’s not here. Go. Shower. Put on clean clothes.”
“Nigella—”
“Look, even if I knew where she was, which I don’t, you go near her, and you’ll be back in that jail cell before you can blink. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t fucking care what happens to me.”
“You won’t be able to help her if you’re behind bars, will you? They were capable of holding you for three days without filing any charges and without allowing me to see you, Silas. Three days. That’s illegal. Sullivan Fox is not playing games. Go get a shower and change and then we’ll talk.”
She’s right. I know that. “Did they hurt her?” I ask, knowing the answer before I even see it on her face. Before she lowers her gaze and turns to walk into the kitchen.
I don’t know what to think, what to feel.
My throat is tight, my stomach tense. It’s not anger, not yet.
It’s fear. For her. Of what they can do to her.
What Sullivan Fox is capable of. Ethan will punish her to get to me.
I know that. He’ll do anything to hurt me.
He has her, and he may be the more dangerous of the two men because he has a personal vendetta against me.
Sly hates me, but it’s different than how Ethan feels.
The coffee machine starts to percolate. I make my way into the primary suite, strip off my clothes that smell of jail, drop them in the trash can and stand under a boiling hot shower.
I then dress in dark slacks and a sweater, not bothering to shave before returning to the main room to find Nigella pouring coffee into two mugs on the table where that box I’d found in Horatio Hart’s study sits open, a hole where the lock used to be, and what I assume to be the contents of what was inside in a stack on one side.
She takes the seat closest to the stack, and as I take the opposite seat, my gaze catches on the envelope I recognize. The one Sly had me deliver to Hart so many years ago.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
I shake my head, wrap my hands around the coffee, my eyes on that stack. “Start talking. What happened? What did they do to her?”
“I tried to go upstairs to get your jacket and keys, but a guard had been placed at the door, and I saw one upstairs too before they shut me out. They wouldn’t let me in.
The one downstairs wouldn’t even acknowledge me.
Just stood like a wall in front of that door and it didn’t matter what I said.
What I threatened. It was a good twenty, almost thirty minutes before Ethan Fox walked Ophelia out of that door. ”
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean walked her out?”
Nigella closes and opens her eyes. She’s always been a very direct, pragmatic woman. She gets to the point and doesn’t sugar coat. “I mean she was a mess, Silas. She couldn’t walk, much less stand, on her own.”
I put the mug down because I’m pretty sure I’m going to shatter it.
“What does that mean?”
“He hurt her. Ethan hurt her.” She hesitates and I wonder what I look like. “I’m sorry, I tried to get up there, but even if I had, I don’t think I could have stopped it.”
“What did he do? What the hell did he do to her?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice.
“When they got back into the ballroom, I could see…” she shakes her head. “He handed her to Sullivan, who danced with her, but I saw he was holding her up mostly. Her feet…”
“What?” I say, my eyes narrowing, jaw clenching, my breathing tight.
“Her feet were bleeding. I could see it. Her back maybe, too.”
Emotions war within me. I failed her. I left her there alone and unprotected.
Ethan hurt her. He fucking made her bleed. I will make him bleed drop for drop.
But I have to get to her first. She is still unprotected. Still at their mercy.
And Nigella isn’t finished yet.
“When the dance was over, Sly led her up to the stage along with the family to announce her engagement to his son. I think she almost passed out up there.”
“I need to get her.” The leg of my chair screeches as I push it back and stand.
“Wait, Silas. There’s more,” Nigella says.
I shake my head. “You can tell me later. I need to go get her. Where is she?” She hesitates. I slam my fist down on the table. “Where the fuck is she?”
“I don’t know, Silas. We think they took her somewhere in Boston. Hamish is on his way—”
“Get him on the phone.”
“You need to see this first, Silas.”
“Nothing else matters.” I say through clenched teeth.
“I think it does. I think it’s important. The box. Where did you get it?”
“Why?”
“Just where did you get it?”
“At her house. I remember her father had hidden something years ago. The house, is it gone?” I ask because I haven’t had access to the news.
She nods. “Burnt completely down. Arson. The video footage of you, it’s there, but there’s more that’s been conveniently destroyed. The gist of it is the house burst into flames about half an hour after you left.”
“Jesus.”
“The box you got out, it’s a good, strong box. Wouldn’t have survived a fire, but strong. Drilled the lock out to open it.”
I watch as she opens the envelope I recognize and takes out the contents.
“Two drivers’ licenses. One belonging to Horatio Hayes and one to Claire Carlisle-Bent.
” I pick them up, glance at Claire’s. That was Ophelia’s mother’s name.
She can’t be more than seventeen, eighteen here.
She’s smiling but there’s a drawn look to her, a shadow in her eyes.
Horatio, I recognize, even though he’s much younger here.
According to the licenses, they’re both from Houston, Texas.
Not New England where he’d always said he was from.
She then sets out newspaper clippings and I find myself resuming my seat as I take in the headline: Daughter of Oil Tycoon Kidnapped.
Confused, I glance at Nigella, who waits patiently.
I pick up the first article and skim the contents.
“What is this?” I ask as I read.