Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Briar
I stand in a rush, pressing a fist against my mouth until the urge to puke dissipates some. All this time, I was convinced I was a rapist.
The worst part is, I was kinda okay with that. Thinking about it brought the occasional fit of guilt and rage, but at the same time I felt numb to everything. Like it was all happening to someone else.
Because it did .
Because I never raped anyone. I never told Marcus to get rid of Jessica. He did it by himself. To protect himself, in case Jessica’s memory came back.
And the idiot kept proof. Fine, he didn’t exactly keep it laying around the house, but it didn’t take that long for me to find it. Did he honest to God think this video would never be discovered? And the drawing? He sure loves his trophies.
Fucking psycho.
I glance to the side, and avert my eyes when they touch on that perverted drawing. But then I do a double take. At the angle I’m sitting, the person depicted in the picture looks even more like Indi than before.
Thought she was lying about the murder. About the fire. Just like she thought I was lying, I guess. Meanwhile, I was bumping fists and buying drinks and playing X-Box with the person who raped and tortured her fucking mother.
I bow my head and rub my fingers over my lids.
Is that what he’s doing right now? Does he have Indi at his mercy, while I sit here with my fucking thumb up my ass? I alerted the police, but what the fuck else can I do?
I thump the desk hard. Then again. Again. Welcoming the pain, drawing it deep inside to douse the guilt and shame drowning me.
I can show the cops everything—the video, the drawing, the hoody—but what would that help? It might as well just be Indi in that drawing, because I know deep down that’s exactly what he’d do with her if he got the chance.
Bound.
Gagged.
Nak—
Marcus’s bedroom door bursts open. I jerk and twist around in the chair.
Brandon Baker is standing in the doorway.
“The fuck you doing in my house?” the man belts out in a hoarse voice.
Christ, he’s drunk. I move to the window, but slowly like I’m backing away from a wild animal.
I guess Marcus got his build from his mother, not his father. Brandon Baker is wide and tall as an ox with a thick neck and a broad nose. Marcus’s features are more delicate, almost fox-like in comparison.
This is only the second time I’ve met Brandon. The first was more than five years ago, when Marcus and I were still teens. He’d been in better shape back then, but still a hulk of a man. Alcohol abuse has webbed red veins over his nose and cheeks, and turned his eyes a shade too yellow for a healthy person’s.
“Thought Marcus was home,” I say, trying to inject casualness into my tone. “But I see he’s not, so I’ll leave.”
Brandon’s bloodshot eyes fix on the laptop before coming back to me. “You looking at his stuff?”
“No, course not.” It’s probably an idiotic thing for me to do, but there’s still a bit of space between us—and Marcus’s bed—so I do it anyway. “You maybe know where he is?”
Brandon’s laugh turns into a phlegmy cough before he’s done. “Prolly sticking it in some cunt or other.” His eyes narrow. “Or an asshole, all I know.” He gives me another long look, as if trying to determine if that might have been my asshole before.
I lift my hands. “Fair enough. I’ll just be on my way.” Those stilted words are barely out of my mouth before Brandon takes a few lumbering steps closer to me.
From what I remember Marcus telling me, he started out working as a bouncer at a night club. That was before he started his own security company, of course. Which is how he met my dad. A security company that obviously does well for itself, if this house and its location in Lavish is anything to go by.
But Marcus also said his father was into some dodgy shit. That would better explain their finances than a security company in a town where there isn’t an electric fence in sight. Not unless installing a safe at some rich guy’s house made him enough…
Client lists.
Addresses.
I tilt my head, and advance a step before I can stop myself. “You made him do it, didn’t you?”
Brandon ignores the question. “Pissed tha’ m’boy isn’t actually your fucking bestie, you queer prick?”
I scowl at him. “The hell you on about?”
Fuck knows I can’t take him down, but I’d love to try. Even if it meant being bludgeoned into a coma, I’d love nothing more right now than to crack my knuckles into this ogre’s jaw.
My mind feels like scrambled eggs. I shake my head, frowning hard. “What are you?—?”
Brandon’s face hikes up in a grimace, then he turns and spits into the corner of Marcus’s room. “Beat the fag out of him one of these day.” He laughs, rough and loud, and makes to grab me.
I sidle away, and reach behind me. My fingers touch the windowsill, and the relief that escape is so near almost drives me to manic laughter. That’s why Marcus’s father kept beating him? Did he honestly think his son was gay?
Brandon’s obviously close to a psychotic break or something. Perhaps he’s schizo. Would explain the alcohol abuse, the domestic violence, the paranoid delusions.
“You’re crazy,” I say, moving back until my thighs brush the window sill.
In an instant, Brandon is in my face. His fist is a blur as it heads for my jaw. I half-fall, half-push myself out the window. I barely manage to grab the oak tree’s branch as I hurtle past, and I tear off the edge of a nail as I fight to cling to the rough bark.
Brandon sticks his head out Marcus’s window, laughing so hard that his spittle dots my face like drizzle. “Might as well let go, boy. We got what we wanted.” He laughs again, and disappears inside the house.
I consider letting go, but it’s two stories down with a stony-looking patch of ground to land on. Instead, I monkey climb down the branch and hop onto the grass, too flustered to bother making myself less visible.
Soon as I’m back in my car, I slam closed the door and lock it. I doubt Brandon will come after me, but I’m not taking any chances. The apple certainly didn’t fall far from the fruit tree, did it? I’m starting to understand why Marcus is the way he is.
I slam my hands into the steering wheel, a well of red-hot fury burning its way through me. I have all of the answers, except the most important one.
Where in the fuck is Marcus Baker?
Indi
“Ready for your play date, Addy?” Marcus says.
I shift on my hard seat, turning to the sound of his voice. Addy lets out a muffled sound of protest before shuffling closer to me. Things crunch and crack under her feet as Marcus brings her closer, and then the heat of her body warms my legs.
“Sit up. There we go. Now put your head in her lap.”
A heavy weight rests on my thighs. Addy’s body trembles against me, and it’s mere seconds before there’s a damp spot on my jeans where her tears have wet the fabric.
She moans and shifts as Marcus does something behind her. I sit up straight, straining to see something through the sack over my head.
No, not a sack—it’s a pillowcase. If I look down, I can make out the seams. I turn, and glimpse the vaguest suggestion of a big shape to one side.
A wall. Possibly one of those that fell over when the church burned down. It looks monstrous from my seat on the pew, as if it’s about to tumble onto my head.
When I look forward, I can almost make out a shape in front of me too, but the light’s all wrong, the fabric too dense, my head too sore.
“Shh,” Marcus murmurs when Addy starts sobbing. Something drops to the floor nearby, and I flinch at the sound. Then another.
Shoes.
He’s taking off her shoes.
I shift a little and lean forward, resting my head on Addy’s—cheek to cheek. I don’t know what comfort it will bring her, but at least she’s not alone.
At least I won’t be alone either…except if he kills her first.
A sob wracks through me at the thought, and then there’s nothing I can do to stop the tears.
“Bunch of babies,” Marcus says with a laugh in his voice. “Don’t be sad. It’ll all be over real soon, okay?”
But that only makes me sob harder. Above all else, I know Marcus is a fucking liar.
Briar
As I turn the last corner toward my house, my foot slips off the gas. My Mustang grumbles sulkily at the loss of power, and threatens to cut out. I guide her onto the side of the road and shut off the ignition.
Five cop cars with flashing lights line the road outside my house.
Shit!
Even if my father doesn’t accuse me outright of stealing his shit, the cops will want to talk to me. And they’re not gonna figure out where Indi is any sooner than I can, that’s for sure. We’ll all just be wasting more time.
More time for Marcus to toy with Indi.
More time for him to kill her…if he hasn’t already.
And why are they even here? Just so my father can prove what a delinquent Marcus was? Shouldn’t they rather be calling all those clients of his, and letting them know there was a breach? That they should consider moving house.
Because if Marcus knows where they live, Brandon Baker knows where they live.
Christ, of course.
Another piece falls into place. That painting in my father’s study, the one with that creepy little goblin. Only now can I finally make sense of the name scrawled in the bottom corner.
Davis. Indi’s family home, her mother’s maiden surname.
Fuck knows what the initial was, but that scrawl couldn’t form any other word, now that the thought’s latched in place.
Marcus must have been accessing files on the regular for his dad. Getting me drunk so he could slip into my father’s study and get the new client’s information, knowing full well of the treasures they were keeping in their homes. That’s why Indi’s necklace matched that bracelet so perfectly. It was part of the same set her father commissioned mine to make. The one he tried to pay off with his wife’s painting.
I almost drop my phone how my hands are shaking. I stab on my father’s name and pray to God that just this once he’ll answer.
“Please,” I murmur, my thumb in my mouth as I tear off a strip of nail.
“Where are you?” Edward answers, voice dangerously low.
“Doesn’t matter. Dad, please, just listen.”
And through some strange miracle or strange twist of fate, he does.
“I need the address for the client you made that blue bracelet for.”
“What?”
“The bracelet and the matching necklace. The one the client paid for with a painting. The one in front of your safe. I need that address!”
Edward lets out a mirthless laugh. “Why the fuck are you asking me? You already?—”
“I wasn’t involved, okay? It was all Marcus, Dad. I need that address, okay?”
“Sure son,” Dad says casually. “I’ll give you the address.”
My skin prickles in warning. “Okay,” I say through numb lips. “Thanks.”
“Soon as the police department’s IT guys are done trying to bring my computer back to life.”
My heart beats in my throat.
“What?”
“Bit difficult getting anything off the hard drive you two crashed, isn’t it?”