Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Within thirty minutes, Rowan was sitting across from Delilah, arms crossed and glaring while Delilah watched her with smug satisfaction. It wasn’t even lunch time on Monday. All this had happened because Rowan had taken the weekend off—as she always did.
They were currently separated by a shitty foldable table while they waited for the lawyer who was supposed to have shown up five minutes ago.
Rowan sat with her back to the door, blocking any hope of escape if Delilah had even debated entertaining the notion.
The room had been haphazardly thrown together in the midst of the day’s chaos as soon as Delilah’s lawyer informed Adele that she’d be paying her client a visit.
Interrogation rooms didn’t exist in psychiatric hospitals, even one like Raven Wood, which frequently accepts criminals.
And the visitation area was just one large room with couches, tables, chairs, and multiple exits.
Therefore, the only solution aside from keeping Delilah in her own room—god only knows why they didn’t—was to adjust one of the already empty rooms on Delilah’s hallway into a makeshift visitor room.
Hence the plastic folding chair currently digging into Rowan’s spine and adding to her mounting irritation. She’d known there would be something. There always was. But she hadn’t taken Delilah for the jealous type. And Rowan knew Delilah had done it—killed Mariana. It was a punishment.
Delilah had seen her talking to Mariana, had seen the smile on her face, and she’d been furious.
None of that fury was present now that Delilah had gotten what she wanted though. No, now Delilah had Rowan right where she wanted her, and the devious look in her eyes told Rowan she wasn’t finished.
“I really enjoyed your search this morning,” Delilah purred, biting her lip and breaking their silent stare down.
Her voice rang through the stillness of the room, caressing Rowan’s body, crawling up her back and down her stomach.
“I could’ve gotten there. If you’d just given me a little…
More.” One corner of her mouth tilted up and she ran her gaze over Rowan’s closed off body, lingering on her crossed arms. “More time. More pressure.”
Rowan took a slow, deep breath. She wasn’t going to play into Delilah’s game this time. Not until she found out what it was. Not until she knew what exactly Delilah wanted from her.
“I know you didn’t want to stop,” Delilah continued as if Rowan’s silence was an invitation, her voice dropping to a scandalized whisper. “I bet you were soaked. Dying for me to touch you too.”
Delilah pushed herself up, her pale hands splayed on the white table, metal handcuffs hitting against the plastic in a dull thud.
She leaned over as Rowan watched her warily, letting her scrub top fall to give the barest tease of what was hiding underneath.
“I bet you’re wet now, aren’t you? Thinking about it.
It’s just us in here. You can do whatever you want to me. ”
“Sit down,” Rowan snapped, keeping her gaze locked on Delilah. Her entire body was boiling, her core pulsing with need, her imagination running rampant at the idea of pinning Delilah where she was, bent over the table, and seeing how sturdy the plastic really was.
The sound of the door creaking behind her was her saving grace. Relief mixed with frustration flooding through her. Delilah narrowed her eyes at the interruption, taking her focus off Rowan for the first time.
Rowan started to stand up, ready to excuse herself and give Delilah and her lawyer privacy to discuss Delilah’s newest murder.
“You’re late,” Delilah said at the exact same time manicured hands found Rowan’s shoulders and gently pushed her back into the chair.
“They really don’t like turning off their cameras around here.
” A painfully familiar, deep, sultry voice came from behind her.
Rowan froze, her eyes widening in realization as Riley’s fingers dug into Rowan’s shoulders.
“Don’t tell me you were going to leave so soon.
After you didn’t even give me a text back?
” she pouted, her voice low and close to Rowan’s ear.
That was why she’d looked familiar.
“The cameras?” Delilah insisted, watching them with narrowed eyes and clenched fists.
“I can be very persuasive.”
“They don’t even have sound,” Rowan snapped, as if that was the reason they wanted them off.
Her heart pounded in her chest, her argument weak and easily ignored by the two other people in the room.
Delilah’s expression shifted, a slow, dangerous smile pulling at her lips as her attention focused back on Rowan.
She looked thrilled, victorious, at having pulled one over on Rowan. The predator finally catching her prey. Ideas and questions whirled through Rowan’s mind a mile a minute, but one was more prominent than the rest. For now, at least.
“Eliza?” she asked, hesitantly, the question more for Riley than Delilah, but Rowan refused to take her eyes off the hunter.
“Innocent,” Riley sighed in her ear. “Suggestible and entirely unaware until this morning.”
“Tell me,” Delilah said to Rowan, ignoring her conversation with Riley. “How it felt.”
Rowan frowned, not sure what it was Delilah wanted now.
The heat on her shoulders from Riley’s firm hands was distracting until the pressure receded and a fuzzy recording clicked on behind her.
It gave her something to focus on before a cold bucket of ice in the form of realization sloshed over her body as tinny tones started speaking.
“911 what’s your emergency?” a voice asked, staticky and scratchy through the playback.
Rowan’s eyes locked on Delilah’s as the sound of her own voice came back, calm and unbothered. “Hi, um, I’m at the abandoned Dogwood factory on Ninth, and I just heard a gun go off inside. I saw two people going in there. I think someone’s been hurt.”
Delilah’s eyes narrowed as Rowan swallowed the lump in her throat.
Delilah knew it had been Rowan who’d gotten her caught.
This whole time Rowan thought she was the one in charge, thought she was one step ahead.
But she had been leagues behind. They didn’t need to keep the recording going, but Riley did nothing to stop it.
“What’s your name?” the dispatcher asked. The clacking of their keyboard couldn’t be heard, but Rowan knew it was there. She remembered it like it was yesterday. The culmination of her efforts coming to an anticlimactic head leading to the arrest of one notorious serial killer.
Her heart had lodged in her throat the first time she’d seen Delilah Watson.
The police sketch on the news hadn’t done her justice.
It could never live up to the thrill of seeing her in real life, seeing her moments away from a kill.
Then she’d disappointed Rowan. She’d gone without a fight.
She just… let them take her. Rowan had watched, of course, hidden from view as Delilah was brought out in handcuffs.
The lights from the cop cars reflected a sheen of sweat on Delilah’s smooth face, anger hidden behind her almost blank expression.
“Rowan Aberdeen.” She heard herself say after a pregnant pause. “Can you send someone quickly?”
“Units have already been dispatched. I need you to stay on the line with me, okay? Are you safe?”
Riley clicked the recording off. Delilah’s cold gaze bore into Rowan from across the table. Demanding an answer. Demanding a reason for why Rowan lied that night. Delilah never used a gun—not one that had been discovered. The wounds she left were always from knives or scalpels.
“How long have you known?” Rowan asked instead, her mouth dry.
She had even more questions now than she’d started with.
Like, for one, how long had Delilah had that recording?
But that wasn’t the right question. What she needed to know was how long Delilah had been plotting her vengeance. And how far was she willing to take it?
Delilah abruptly stood, her chair shoving back and almost toppling over with the movement.
A smirk played on Delilah’s lips as she sauntered over.
Rowan reflexively reached for her stun gun but Riley’s strong fingers wrapped around both wrists, pulling them behind her before she could get it.
Delilah wasted no time coming around the table and settling on Rowan’s lap.
Her cuffed hands drifted slowly up Rowan’s body until delicate fingers curled around her neck.
A wicked smile played on Delilah’s lips as her thumbs stroked along the front of Rowan’s throat. There was no pressure. She didn’t need to threaten Rowan to keep her frozen in place. Delilah wouldn’t hurt her. Not yet.
“Long enough,” Delilah said, watching the slow and languid motion of her thumbs.
“Why now?” Rowan whispered, her voice rougher than she wanted it to be. Lust fueled her thoughts as the rational part of her brain fought for control.
“You can’t rush these things, darling,” Delilah purred, fingers dancing along Rowan’s skin and pressing into her collar bone.
“It’s not easy hunting while locked in a cell.
But”—Delilah’s gaze darted behind her, and Riley’s hands tightened around Rowan’s wrists—“Riley was quite helpful. Did you know she’s skilled at acquiring information in… creative ways?”
Rowan’s thoughts immediately shot to Friday night, mentally assessing every single detail of what she remembered telling Riley. It was impossible to ignore the lawyer's presence now that the memories swirled through Rowan’s mind. The pressure on her wrists increased almost to the point of bruising.
“What information did she get from me?” Rowan asked, needing to know the answer despite knowing she shouldn’t feed into this.
“Nothing I can’t get myself,” Delilah said, her hands tightening momentarily around Rowan’s throat before she released her. Delilah smiled, tilted Rowan’s chin up, and ran her thumb over Rowan’s lip. “I don’t need help breaking you.”
Psychological warfare was not new to Rowan. That was Delilah’s game. It had been from the start, she’d just been too wrapped up in her own desires to see it. Riley’s sole purpose was to get into Rowan’s head. To make her question everything, everyone.
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Rowan asked, not that she thought Delilah would answer.
Delilah’s response was a smirk. A vicious, deadly, dangerous smirk. “Get out. I need to discuss things with my lawyer.”