Chapter Twenty-Four
Was she dead yet?
She kinda wanted to be, with that gut-wrenching drumbeat in her head.
Maeve turned her head to one side, some kind of hard surface digging into her skull.
Didn’t help the explosion of pain radiating from the back of her head either.
Cracking her eyes, she flinched against the bare light bulb slightly swinging above her head, blocking out the rest of what smelled like a basement torture chamber.
Okay. She might not be dead yet, but based on the scarred wood table supporting her and the serial killer vibes, she wasn’t sure she should’ve woken up.
She tried to drag one hand up. Zip-tied to one of the table legs.
Same with the other hand and both ankles.
Her abductor had done his job well in making sure she couldn’t star in one of those cheesy horror films by running upstairs and into a dead end as the killer gave pursuit. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A defeated laugh kicked at her ribs. Because there was only one person she could think of who would want to restrain her, murder-style, and she didn’t have the time or the patience to play this game.
Not with Iliana still missing, with Callen having to inform his parents of what she’d done and her head screaming.
Warmth soaked through her shirt, an all-too-familiar feeling she wished she could stop experiencing.
Then there was her gunshot wound. Bleeding out the first time hadn’t been a picnic, and she was willing to bet this time wouldn’t be a roll in the hay either.
Tipping her chin to her chest, Maeve tried to gauge the damage, but without being able to move her shirt out of the way, there was no telling how much blood she’d lost or whether the wound was still leaking.
“Just my luck. I’m going to bleed out on a torture table before my captor even has the chance to reveal himself and answer all my questions. ”
Rude.
“I tried to stop the bleeding.” Movement sounded from off to her right, but she couldn’t distinguish shadow from where the ring of light from the bulb overhead ended. “But to be honest, I’m probably the last person who should be poking around a gunshot wound.”
Setting her head back against the table, Maeve stared up at the bulb covered in thin wisps of cobwebs. Not only did she have to worry about dying, but spiders too. Great. “Considering you put it there, seems only fair you be the one to fix it.”
“You’ve always been funny, Maeve. That’s one of the things I love about you.
” Love seemed like a strong word coming from a man who’d tried to kill her and Callen—who possibly killed Lauren and contributed to Iliana’s disappearance—but who was she to judge?
“Even after your dad died, you went out of your way to make sure everyone else could still paste a smile on their face with funny stories of him at that reception. No one ever noticed you weren’t smiling, though. No one but me, that is.”
That…wasn’t possible. She’d known every single person who’d come to the house after the funeral, even her father’s work friends, his extended family and the neighbors.
Whoever had killed Lauren wasn’t one of them.
Maeve shook her head, splinters from the table digging into the sensitive skin of her scalp.
She remembered those stories, the ones that’d always gotten a good laugh out of Callen and the Russells when she’d told them.
There was no way this man had heard them. “You weren’t there.”
“Of course I was. I was invited.” He stepped just outside the weak circle of light caressing the limits of the table, gloved hands leveraged against the edge as he bent over her. Stains marred the black leather, hints of something metallic coating the back of her throat and tongue. Blood.
It’d taken her a few moments to process what he’d said.
He’d tried to stop the bleeding. Other details of the room came into focus then.
The discarded paper wrappers just past his legs, the bloodied squares of gauze strewn near what looked to be a wooden wall of some kind.
No windows to determine where she’d been dragged, but under the thick odor of blood—her blood—was something dry and fresh.
Cold. The room itself was cold. “Where am I?”
“Right where you belong, sweetheart.” Her abductor rounded the table near her feet, and her defenses kicked into high gear.
It’d been bad enough he’d put those hands on her to try to staunch the bleeding, but she couldn’t protect herself from his position now.
A strategy she was sure he’d thought of exactly for that reason. “With me.”
But for how long? How long did she have until her body gave up?
Tugging on the zip ties, she tried to keep her expression neutral as the plastic bit into the skin around her wrists.
As it had while Callen struggled to escape the truck.
It’d been a matter of not having the right angle for him, but Maeve had the distinct impression it would be the same for her now.
There was little slack between the zip ties at her wrists and whatever they’d been secured to on the table.
A leg, maybe? If she couldn’t summon the force to break through the binding.
“Oh, come on now, Maeve. You know I wasn’t going to make it that easy for you.
I’ve been waiting a long time to have you all to myself.
” He was on the move again, glimpses of dark hair peeking out from beneath the black ski mask hiding his features.
His voice—it was right there on the tip of her memory.
She knew it, didn’t she? The slow, drawling way he spoke, the dry humor tagged with the occasional spike in tone.
“You’re a federal agent after all. Well, a former federal agent, I should say.
Just as deadly, but without all the red tape. ”
Maeve might not know him, but he sure as hell seemed to think he knew her, and that was a little terrifying.
She was a trained federal agent, as he’d pointed out, but had she missed a killer staring back at her?
A rush of warmth spread down her side. Not warmth.
Liquid. Blood pooled beneath her right side, seeping into the grains of the table.
Stomach wounds were funny like that. They trickled one minute, then gushed the next.
Problem was, there was no way to predict which.
Or how much you would lose. She was living on borrowed time. “Where’s Iliana?”
“Who?” Her abductor arched his back, hands clasped in front of him.
“Oh, is that her name? The forensic lady, right? She helped you with a case that one time. I remember you talking about her, how she single-handedly gave the prosecution a win for your case. You got so excited, I could tell, because your eyes lit up for the first time in a long time. I didn’t even know her, and I wanted to thank her for putting that light back in your eyes. ”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Maeve tried to shake her head again, but the rough surface of the table only dug deeper. Or maybe her future murderer had hit her too hard. “I’ve only told that story to…”
He pressed closer to the table, angling himself over her with his hands secured behind his back.
He didn’t see her as a threat, and that pissed her off more than the possibility that she knew this man.
It was impossible to tell his age or height with the mask and dark clothing, but there had to be something—anything—she could use to get ahead of whatever game he’d set into motion.
Because she couldn’t afford the distraction.
“To answer your question, your friend isn’t here.
She served her purpose. Bringing you to me. ”
Served. Past tense. Tears burned in her eyes.
“Ah, now, don’t be sad.” He reached for her, skimming one gloved hand down her shin and leaving a wake of disgust in its place. “I gave her the best death I knew how. I give you my word. She didn’t even see it coming.”
“When?” She could barely form the word, her mouth was so dry, pained.
Coated in failure and remorse and guilt.
She hadn’t known Iliana Meyer long, but Maeve could attribute the jump in success of her career to the forensic analyst who’d only wanted justice for those who didn’t have their voices anymore. “How long ago?”
The mask shifted as though the bastard was smiling down at her. “The same day her vehicle was recovered at the river. Though her bones aren’t quite ready for their debut. I’ll need a couple more days to get the stains out.”
No. Denial surged, choking and hot and suffocating. No. “Why?”
“I told you. She served a purpose.” Lean shoulders rose and deflated on a shrug.
He wasn’t as muscular as Callen, maybe as tall, but from this angle, it was hard for Maeve to tell.
Scanning her from head to toe, he moved as though they had all the time in the world.
But if he kept dragging this out, she’d never get her answers before the wound in her gut claimed her. “Just as Lauren served her purpose.”
Maeve looked up. “What?”
“I warned her to keep her mouth shut, but that woman didn’t know when to stop.
” Rounding the head of the table, her abductor—Lauren’s and Iliana’s killer—positioned himself above her head, and she liked that even less than having him by her feet.
“You know, she had this way of getting everything that she wanted without even trying, even at the very end. She didn’t like that I wanted you.
Tried to talk me out of removing Callen from the equation.
Said it was wrong, that I needed help.” His laugh felt thick and wrong and sickening.
“She was still spewing that crap. Right up until I dragged my blade across her neck.”
A whimper left her without permission. For over a year, she’d wanted to know what’d happened to her best friend—the woman who’d helped her learn to accept a new family—but this…
She wasn’t prepared for this. Dozens of serial cases, upward of forty victims, but Lauren was gone.
Maeve dragged her heels up the table to curl in on herself, but the zip ties held her in place.
One gloved hand caressed the side of her neck, the supple leather almost comforting if it didn’t belong to the hand of the man responsible for murdering the people she cared about.
“He never deserved you. You know that, right? All it took was me taking that notebook from your hotel room to show you that.”
She sucked in a shallow, pain-filled—
Wait. What? Her insides coiled tighter, constricting around the bullet wound, and another gush of blood escaped.
Maeve blinked as her vision wavered. The edges around her eyes were darker somehow.
Was the bulb overhead giving out? Or was her brain playing tricks on her?
Because she couldn’t have heard him right. “You took… You?”
The notebook. Lauren’s notebook. The one piece of evidence that may have helped her find Callen’s sister sooner. He’d taken it from her hotel room? He’d ended her career? He’d ended her relationship with Callen? For what? To have her bleed out on this torture table? “How?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well leave it behind, considering she’d written so many good things in there about me.
” He dropped his elbows onto the table, getting that much closer to her.
“You know, conversations where I told her how much I was in love with you and that I was going to kill Callen, and how she tried to talk me out of it. Turns out, she was building a little case to have me committed in that annoying secret language you two made up as teens. Only I didn’t realize what was in that notebook of hers until you talked yourself into the investigation.
I knew it was only a matter of time before you realized what my sister had written, and I couldn’t have that. ”
Her mouth dried. “Sister.”
She couldn’t think.
Couldn’t breathe.
As Cieron Russell removed the ski mask. “Surprise.”