Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Hope is one shady motherfucker.
—Bernice’s secret thoughts
Bernice
No one got fired that day.
Not that Odin wouldn’t have fired Chan had he come back into work.
But he’d called while everyone was gone and left a message with the clinic’s answering service saying that he was throwing up and wouldn’t be back in today.
It was chaos for the rest of the afternoon, but we jived better than we had in a week.
Later that afternoon, when we were shutting down for the day, Odin took a seat at the edge of Sage’s desk and said, “Maybe we should just take fewer patients.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Yeah?”
“We just keep working the three of us. Eventually, my assistant will graduate. He’ll come work here as soon as he’s done.
He’s already confirmed that’s what he wants to do.
In the meantime, while we wait for him, we drop down to seeing fewer patients.
Block off thirty minutes for each. See walk-ins for the hours of eight to ten.
Schedule all patients after ten. Close at four.
And just be open and honest with everyone that this is a family-run business, and sometimes we’ll close the clinic for holidays and make this work just the three of us. ”
I actually liked that idea a lot.
But…
“That’s not feasible for Sage,” I admitted. “She needs more help.”
Sage winced. “I…”
“Need more help,” I pushed. “Let’s not give up quite yet, okay?”
Odin sighed. “I hate interviewing.”
“Me, too.” Sage groaned.
“Then let me figure that out,” I said. “I’m not altogether against continuing the search. We’ll just make sure we find the right person this time.”
Odin sighed. “It’s more fun to work with dead people.”
I laughed. “You’re so full of shit.”
Odin shrugged. “Maybe.”
Sage glanced outside, her face darkening. “Is that all it ever does here?”
We all looked out to where she was glaring and saw the snow falling heavily. “According to the locals, yes.”
All three of us grimaced.
None of us were “locals.”
We were all from the South where it never snowed.
Being here was definitely a shock.
“It’s time to go,” I said. “I need to stop for gas, and I’m dying to dive into a C-Drama.”
“You and those C-Dramas,” Sage said. “You got me hooked on Pursuit of Jade, and now I’m knee deep in live-in husbands. Do you think Gentry would be willing to be a live-in husband?”
“You never know if you don’t ask!” I laughed as I grabbed Hux’s jacket from the hook and shoved it into place.
My hands touched on the skinning knife that I’d yet to take out.
I gave it a squeeze and let it go, then shoved my phone, keys, and a cookie I’d been given by a patient into the other.
Sage and I walked to the door together as Odin said his goodbyes and walked next door to the morgue.
“So, what are the odds that Chan is actually sick?” Sage asked as she got to her car.
The snow fell into her hair and stuck.
I felt the snow falling into my own hair and said, “I’ll bet he knew he was about to be fired and decided to delay it. Maybe hoping our tempers would cool over the weekend.”
“Doubtful,” she said. “Now, I’m headed to go watch Yan Zheng.”
I giggled as I got into my truck and started it up.
I shivered as I cursed the damn thing for not starting up earlier.
Something was wrong with it, I was sure.
Why else would…
Something covered my face, a hand maybe, then I was inhaling something sickly sweet.
That was the last thing I remembered.
The next thing I remembered was waking up in a barn.
“You’re a hard person to keep alive.”
I blinked and stared at the man in front of me.
It took a few seconds to blink the confusion from my eyes, then the dread started to pour through me.
Randel Conway stood in front of me, looking tired.
“Don’t go messing up all our hard work,” he ordered. “Calm down.”
Our?
Who was the other person to his “our?”
That was answered the next moment when Chan came in, looking angry and ready to commit murder.
“We should’ve just killed her and gotten it over with, Dad.”
Dad?
What the hell was going on?
“Shh,” Randel murmured. “We have to do this the right way. She has to stay with us for a night. We have to give her the full experience, don’t we?”
Oh.
My.
God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
“I’ll bet you’re starting to put two and two together,” Randel said as Chan sat heavily on the horse trough that was tipped on its side. “Do you know how I found you?”
I was staring into the eyes of a serial killer.
And I was already having trouble breathing.
I scrambled up to my butt and put my knees into the wood beneath me.
I shook my head, tears streaming down the length of my cheeks.
I couldn’t speak with the gag in my mouth, but that didn’t make Randel’s impatience any less forgiving. As evidenced by the way he ripped me forward by my shirt and got so close to my face that I could see the pores in his nose.
“I asked you a question.”
So I answered, even though my words came out garbled. “No.”
He smiled, leaning forward and licking away the tears from the left side of my cheek. “Your doctor.”
I started to cry. “My doctor?”
It came out sounding more like “myfofor?”
He understood, though.
Likely because he was used to having bound and gagged women he had to understand when he was asking them questions.
“Yeah, the one that you started to see. They’re not very good about HIPAA violations.
He had all kinds of things to say about you.
He had no problem sharing the information with a fellow asthma doctor at our latest asthma convention.
Do you know you’re one of like fifteen cases worldwide that takes the same stack of medication? ”
I flinched.
I hadn’t thought about that.
But of course he would have thought to look for my doctors.
It wasn’t like I had the choice but to use a doctor.
I had to have the medication to stay alive.
And that same medication that was supposed to save my life was about to kill me.
I knew I was about to be killed, too.
No one would think to look at these two men. Hux would look, sure. Creed would tear the county apart. But there were over twelve hundred square miles of land in the Jesper County district—something I knew because my brother was a game warden for that same square mileage.
Even worse, Sage and I had done a deep dive into Randel’s life after he’d left. We’d confirmed that he’d moved to Georgia and accepted a position there.
His profiles were all very public, and we’d thought we were in the clear for seeing him around town. Odin had come in while we were talking about it, and even he knew where Randel had gone to work next.
And who would suspect the sweet and cute Chan?
He was the size of a child. Plus, he did not give off a serial killer vibe at all.
Not to mention, when comparing him to the UNSUB that the FBI had been looking for…neither one of them fit the target. Nor was there ever mention of two men.
Neither man looked anything like the man I’d seen in the bathroom at that hospital. Randel had changed, somehow. A beard, darker hair. Bushier eyebrows.
Even worse, based on the light still outside, no one even knew that I was gone yet.
“No comment?” Randel asked, sitting back with a small smile.
I shook my head as my breaths came faster and faster.
He clicked his tongue as he reached into his pocket and produced my inhaler.
When Hux did it, it was cute. When Randel did it, it was terrifying.
He yanked down my gag and left it lying around my neck, the part that’d been in my mouth soaking my long-sleeved t-shirt that was not cutting it with this cold.
Randel put the inhaler to my mouth, and I had no choice but to inhale when he depressed the button.
I had to stay alive.
That was the only way that Hux and Creed were going to find me.
“Now,” Chan said as he walked closer. “About that torture?”
I closed my eyes.
“You know, you look a lot like your mother,” Randel mused as Chan stopped so close that I could feel his body heat.
My breathing, miraculously, slowed. But my heart rate did not.
It skyrocketed as my mind started to run in every direction, wondering what was in store for me.
Did my mom fight?
Was she scared?
Why did I even care?
She was not a good mother. She was actually the worst part of my life, at least until this very instant. She’d ruined my childhood. Sent my big brother to prison. Laughed in my face when I confronted her, and told me “good riddance.”
I shouldn’t care about her fate.
Yet, I did.
“Y’all have the same eyes.” Chan ran his soft fingers over my face.
“The same hair. The same build. But she screamed, a lot. She had a mouth on her.” A burning pain encircled my neck.
Quick and fast, like lightning. The gasp that left my throat had me inhaling my own hair.
“I slit her neck exactly like that. Only deeper. She bled out in a minute and thirty-seven seconds.”
I felt the blood start to drip down my throat, long rivulets leaving the cut he’d just sliced on my throat and stopping at the collar of my shirt.
“Chan,” Randel warned. “Calm yourself.”
“Calm myself?” Chan asked. “You taught me that revenge is necessary, sir. And this has been coming for a long time.”
“It has, yes,” Randel agreed. “But if you finish this early, I’m going to be angry with you.”
Chan actually looked sheepish, as if he’d let his anger get the best of him.
“I allowed you to take your anger out on those other women,” Randel continued his reprimand. “However, you’ve almost gotten us caught. You need to control yourself, or this isn’t going to go our way. We have a procedure for a reason. It’s what keeps us in business.”
My stomach sank.
Randel was very logical.
Chan was not.
But watching as Chan took a step back, a scalpel in his hand, I realized that Randel controlled everything. Chan wouldn’t make a move to do a thing unless Randel okayed it.
Randel read the confusion on my face and grinned. “I let Chan do the killing. I’m more of an ‘in death’ person.”
My stomach soured.
Chan did the killing, and Randel did the defiling after the person was dead.
Bile rose into my throat, and I tasted the hot acid at the back of my tongue.
He took Chan’s previous seat and asked, “Who helped you disappear?”
I didn’t comment.
“And was that your brother I saw the other day?” Randel’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll bet the world would love to know that your brother is actually alive. But who am I to judge a fellow criminal? I’ll let it slide. He’ll need the support after you pass.”
I glared.
He smiled.
“Chan,” he said. “What kind of tools do we have in this shed?”
I started to panic again.
My erratic breathing started up again, and before I knew it, I had passed out.