Chapter 20 #2
My mention of witnesses only fazes him for a second, then he pushes himself between my legs, ending my fight. His hands close around my throat. “Scream,” he dares through clenched teeth. “You’ll suffer a broken neck from a fall down the elevator shaft. No one will question me. I’m the fucking law.”
His fingers tighten, cutting off my oxygen.
I claw his hands, gasping for air. “Then why not just do it now,” I manage.
His hold loosens, gaze narrowed. “You can’t.
The same way you couldn’t allow a trap to take your victims’ lives.
You had to be the one—you had to feel life drained from them with your own hands… ”
Grayson’s words channeled through me, but they’re true. However this sadistic game started for Nelson, he’s embraced it fully now. He’s become the monster he hunts. With Grayson locked away, the killings have to end.
And Nelson can’t accept that.
His grip around my neck strengthens, tears blur my eyes. Fire snakes through my lungs and curls around my throat. He’s shaking, muscles strained. Spittle leaks from his mouth as he squeezes the life from my body.
I’m going to die.
“You’ll always be in his shadow,” I wheeze out, but he hears me.
Apprehension glints in his crazed eyes. For the briefest second, air finds my lungs, and I grovel for more.
I push the panic down and rake my nails across his face.
He releases an enraged growl, then one of his hands wrapping my neck is gone.
I clutch the air in my lungs like a desperate animal fighting for survival.
“Guess I need to taste the muse for myself, then,” he grits out. He works his belt buckle open, and another paralyzing burst of panic seizes my body.
Hand clamped hard to my throat, he wrestles his pants open, and I come alive with fight. I flail and scream, my voice nearly lost, a searing whisper wrenched free. It’s not enough. Nelson manhandles me easily, bunching up my skirt and ripping my underwear down my thighs.
He positions himself between my legs, and I can’t make sense of this. In spite of the panic, the fear…logic finds a way in. Nelson is going off script. This doesn’t fit—the killer he’s become in Grayson’s wake.
How many perpetrators has Nelson emulated? How many personas does he have trapped in his psyche? He’s coming undone.
Just one second. That’s all I need.
I swipe my hands along the surface of the desk, anger overcoming desperation. This man will not victimize me. I grasp onto something solid and aim for his neck.
He cries out as my letter opener drives into his shoulder.
A miss, but it’s enough. His hand falls away from my throat, and I pull the silver object out and drive my hand down, making contact with his leg.
“Fuck—”
I feel the warm gush of blood cover my hand and, trembling, I roll over. I take half a second to drag an unobstructed breath into my lungs, then I bound off the desk. My legs unsteady, I stagger before finding my footing. Nelson clutches the wound on his thigh, red seeping through his fingers.
Not good enough. I need him immobile.
Every muscle and bone in my body hitched with pain, I brace a hand to the desk and kick. I nail him in the balls. He falls to his knees. Then I attack again, hitting him directly in the same spot, taking him to the ground.
He’s spewing venomous curses at me—and I use his angered voice to gauge his presence as I drop before the filing cabinet.
I get the key ring out of my pocket. The keys clang in my trembling hands, but I manage to insert the right one and yank the bottom drawer open.
I reach underneath and grasp the object taped to the underside of the drawer above.
I close my eyes, lungs struggling to hold in air, as I grip the rusted key in my palm.
I take one last look at Nelson on the floor of my office, then I half crawl, half run toward the elevator.
Everything is surreal. Detached from reality.
Somehow I calm my nerves enough to fix my hair, pulling it loose from the hair clamp to cover my neck.
I straighten my blouse and suit. Wiping any makeup smudges from my face, I ready myself to face the crowd.
The taxi is still waiting for me outside the back entrance. It seems so wrong—how much time has passed? I feel as if it’s been hours that I fought Nelson off, but when I get inside the cab and dig my phone from my purse, it’s only been minutes.
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Everything all right?”
No. Nothing is all right.
“Please take me directly to the Rockland Police Department.”
His worried gaze shifts to the road ahead, and the car bounds forward. I relax against the seat, my adrenaline tapering off, leaving me drained.
I’m still clutching the key in my hand, the teeth biting into my palm.
I close my eyes. Hear Nelson asking me what happened to the key…the murder weapon. He was right; my practice has always been my haven. My most salacious secrets kept there, safe. Hidden.
It can’t be anymore. Grayson is my haven now. My secrets reside within us.
I feel along my suit pocket, tracing the outline of a USB drive. I slipped it into my pocket in the elevator, not thinking about it in the moment, unnerved from the confrontation. The drive was taped next to the key. Only one person could’ve placed it there.
During the ride, I continue to take deep breaths, calming myself further. I gather my thoughts in preparation.
I’ve been to the jailhouse before, to visit a patient who’d been locked up for public drunkenness.
I stood on the other side of the bars, scared to get too near them, thinking how much they reminded me of the cell in my father’s cellar.
I recognized the brand name on the cell door lock—the same name that was on the door to my father’s cellar cage.
Coincidence or fate?
With shaky hands, I open the locket I brought from home and slip the key inside, then drape the chain over my head. I find a thin scarf in my purse and layer it over the chain and the purpling bruises along my neck.
Then I scrape a fingernail file beneath my nails and place the skin and blood inside my compact. I make the call.
“Young,” I say when he answers. “Get me access to Grayson.”
He talks on about procedure and regulation and strict enforcement…and I hear none of it. “Make it happen,” I demand and hang up.
I make one last call before we’re parked in front of the building where Grayson is being kept under heavy guard. I pay my fair and leave the safe confines of the cab, phone pressed to my ear.
I talk hurriedly, keeping the communication short.
Agent Nelson has become more than a complication. He’s become a barrier. He’s unpredictable. And that frightens me more than the walls between Grayson and me now.
I turn off my phone and adjust my suit, situating myself.
If it was just a matter of killing the FBI agent, then it would be less problematic.
A single, large dose of succinylcholine, and he’d be one less obstacle to hurdle.
But we placed Nelson in a position of power for a reason—and it’s too late to change the game.
I lift my chin as I steadily walk toward the jailhouse, arming myself with layers of confidence. Dr. London Noble has the status and authority to overturn any official. I believed this before; I have to believe it now.
Above reproach.
Agent Nelson isn’t the only one with the law on his side.
You’re his muse.
Wrong again.
From the moment I placed my hand in Grayson’s on that roof, everything has been my choice. I wondered when it was that the dynamic between us was established…and now I know. It was then. Right then.
Amid our Folie à deux—our madness shared by two—I am the dominant.
It has always been me.