Chapter 23 #2
She was trapped in the cage. Carmichael was closing in. If he’d wanted, he could have killed her while she was unconscious. But Charlotte knew that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her pain. He wanted her fear. He wanted to have control over her. She’d read every profile created on this jerk.
He wasn’t going to kill her quickly, and he would get intimately close when he delivered his torture. She was counting on him getting close. Because when he was close…
I’ll attack.
Maybe she didn’t have a gun. Or a knife. But she had been trained to kill with her hands. She’d had countless hours of self-defense lessons in her life. She could take him down.
All she needed was a moment of weakness.
She also needed for Carmichael to get his ass into the cage. Luckily, she had just the right bait to get him inside.
Me.
“Are you surprised?” Carmichael asked. He stepped closer. Moved to less than a foot away from the cage. Not touching the fencing, but getting into the light. Smirking up at her.
She edged toward him, too. And, like Carmichael, she made sure not to touch the fencing. “Not overly. You were one of my suspects.”
“I knew who you were from the first moment,” he revealed.
Give yourself a cookie.
“Jacqueline told me all about you—about you. And about her powerful aunt, Jezebel. When people are confronted with pain—enormous, brutal pain—they will do anything to stop that agony. They will sell out loved ones. They will spill every secret that they’ve ever possessed.
They will offer anything, if the torture just ends. ”
Her hands fisted at her sides.
“Jacquline lasted three days before she broke.” He dropped that detail with far too much remembered satisfaction. “I wonder, how long will you last?”
She was not going to be there for three days. Help would come for her long before then.
Logan would come. She knew it in her bones. If Logan was not already inside that cavernous place, then he was damn close. First, he would have sent help to Jamar. Probably a fast text to Jezebel in order to get operatives swarming on Jamar’s room. Then Logan would have run after her.
Though she knew he would have needed to get the camera in that bedroom turned off so his actions wouldn’t be shown to the killer.
“Will you start offering me secrets when I cut off your pretty fingers?” Carmichael questioned her, all breezy, like he was asking her about the weather and not talking about slicing off her digits.
Harper sobbed.
Charlotte just stared him down.
Carmichael smirked at her. “Or will you confess all when I put a knife to your face and tell you that I can make you so hideous that no one will ever want to look at you again?”
“Let us go! Please!” Harper begged. “Please, please…just let us go!”
His head turned toward Harper. “You’re not comparable to the others. I feel like I could snap my fingers.” He did. “And you’d break. Not at all like your brother, are you?”
“You stay away from my brother!”
“Not going to do that. Your brother is the one I intend to destroy next. I’m sure he’ll be gutted when he finds pieces of you.”
“No!” A hard yell from Charlotte. She wanted his attention back on her. All of his focus. Because she thought…
Had she just seen a faint flash of light behind him, in the deep darkness? One brief moment?
A light in the dark.
A sign…
A signal?
Logan, are you here? If he was there and looking for his moment to attack, then she had to keep Carmichael distracted.
Raising her voice—the better to muffle any sounds that an approaching Logan might make—she shouted, “You said that you’d let Harper go!
That I could trade myself for her. I kept my part of the deal. I’m here. Now it’s your turn.”
His head angled back to her. A wide smile curved Carmichael’s lips. “I lied. I do that.” He inched a little closer to the cage. “I lie and I kill. It’s who I am. Sue me.”
“You’ve abducted and murdered multiple women—”
“Nine women. Four men.” A pause. “Did you know about the men? Probably not. See, I did that in another life, back when I was just an enforcer. But I learned that my skills could serve me so well. I learned that I could use them to get incredible intel that I could then use to sell to the highest bidder.”
Charlotte sucked in a shuddering breath. Wait, hold on. It made sense. Sick sense. “That’s why you targeted—”
“A US marshal? A CIA operative? A Fed?” A bored roll of one shoulder.
“I went after targets who had the connections I needed. People who could tell me deep, dark secrets. When I put my blade in them, they talked plenty. Though I have to confess, I really enjoyed the challenge with those women. The old mob and gang idiots I handled back in the beginning? They wouldn’t put up a fight.
But you ladies…” A bob of his head. “Talk about the thrill of the hunt.”
This wasn’t just about him being a serial killer. No, it was about him selling secrets. Classified secrets. Torturing those secrets out of his well-connected victims.
She and Jezebel had feared this…
One of the many reasons they’d needed to track him. To stop him.
Logan would arrive soon. If he wasn’t already inside. And with that faint light that she thought that she’d seen, hope had flooded through her. Logan would come with backup. Jezebel. Other operatives. Maybe even Detective Meredith Reece.
“If you think help is coming, give up that dream,” Carmichael ordered. “I drove my knife into Jamar before I called you in that hotel room. Over and over. Figured, why bother getting intel from him? I knew you’d spill your guts to me.” A snort. “Literally.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Let Harper go. You have me.”
“I’m keeping you both. No, my bad. Correction, I’m killing you both.”
“Like you killed Evelyn?” She wanted to hear his confession.
“She’s dead?” A high-pitched cry from Harper.
“That was unfortunate.” Carmichael almost seemed regretful.
“Evelyn was a truly great fuck, and she gave me incredible intel about Ares. About Pierre, too. And even Sebastian. She was able to sneak close and find out all sorts of useful tidbits about the players in our game.” He gazed at her with a faint amusement on his face.
“Did you know Sebastian was working undercover? Kinda like you, right?”
“Why did you kill Evelyn? If she was so useful, why murder her?”
“Because she would have turned on me, eventually. But, since she was so great in bed, I made it quick for her. No torture.”
“I’m sure she really appreciated that,” Charlotte snapped. “Though I bet she would have appreciated living even more.”
“Hmm. Probably.” Utter unconcern. “I was watching when you came to Pierre’s hotel.
I was in his room, staring out from his window.
See, at first, I thought that I’d let him go down for my crimes.
I asked Evelyn to meet me at his place. My accommodating Evelyn came without question.
So cute. I had planned to leave her dead body inside the room, implicating him. Figured you’d find her.”
“Find her and arrest Pierre.” Charlotte kept her eyes on him. You didn’t take your eyes off a snake that might strike at any moment.
“Right. If the killer was in custody, then I’d be free to walk off into the sunset.
But I saw you arrive while I was looking out at that great Vegas view.
You and Logan, and Sebastian trailed right behind you.
I just could not resist talking to you. Taunting you.
Too much fun. I had sliced Evelyn’s throat from ear to ear—”
“You’re a monster!” Harper yelled.
“Then I called you on the phone while she was still warm on the bed.”
Nausea rose again. This time, it was because of the disgust and horror that she felt. “You got off on that,” Charlotte accused. “Because you enjoy hurting and torturing. It gives you pleasure.”
“Um. Indeed, it does. But it also pays well. Secrets are so valuable.”
“You tortured Jacqueline Foster in order to get secrets.”
“I did.” No hesitation. “Plenty of people in this world wanted inside info on Jezebel Jenkins. Not that the name she uses is real. But her niece gave me so much intel that was real. Her niece described the intricate workings at the CIA. She told me about you—described you to a T. And your partner Jamar. She told me he was always in the background, so I knew to go and take him out before pulling you in my trap.” He seemed so proud of himself.
“She told me that Jezebel controlled the missions, but didn’t get her hands dirty.
My chatty, chatty Jacqueline. She swore that you would sacrifice yourself in an instant if you thought it would save an innocent, and, look, here you are. All ready to be sacrificed.”
He really shouldn’t be so proud. His grand plan was about to go straight to hell. “I’m not planning to die.”
“Few people do. It just happens anyway.” He raised one hand and tapped his index finger to his temple. “Almost forgot, in case you’re standing up there, all bold and brave because you think Logan is coming to join the fight…I sent someone in to finish the job on him.”
Her stomach heaved. “What are you talking about?”