But when push came to shove, he knew he would not. He’d had hundreds of opportunities over the years. Maybe thousands. Every time she lay sated in her bed.
He considered it every time she did so, but he’d never raised a hand to her.
Mind games. He’d cleared the stairs when his cell phone buzzed yet again. Dreading what he’d see, he forced himself to peek at his screen. But it wasn’t a text.
It was a Google Alert for J Street. He’d set it up that afternoon after searching for the incident on the news and finding nothing. But there it was now. He sat on the edge of his bed and clicked on the browser link to Action News and some reporter named Elliott Scott.
Scott stood at the entrance to the alley where he’d dragged the blonde last night. He held his breath, waiting to hear the latest on the case.
Her name was Eleanor Dawson. Eleanor. That was a nice name. Old-fashioned. Except the woman from the night before had been anything but old-fashioned. She’d fought like a tiger. His balls had hurt for hours.
And there she was. The blonde. Wearing a black wool coat, her hair pulled over one shoulder. Her hair had smelled good. Like almonds.
She was standing on the front porch of a house. Using two fingers he tried to zoom in to see the address, but there was no house number visible. And then she started to talk in a husky, raspy voice he felt like he’d heard before. He hadn’t heard her all that well last night. She’d only said a few words, and those had sounded strangled.
Because he’d been strangling her.
“The man is about six feet tall, bald, has dark eyes, and wore a blue nylon ski jacket and jeans with wingtip shoes. Oh, and a Giants cap,” she said clearly into the camera, showing not one iota of nerves, like she talked into a camera every day.
She’d noticed a lot about him, he thought, mildly alarmed. Right down to my shoes. He stared down at the wingtips on his feet. Shit.
But she didn’t have a description of his face, so the stocking had achieved its purpose. So far, so good.
And then she was talking about practicing her self-defense until she’d developed muscle memory. No fucking shit. He rolled his eyes. He had not been expecting that.
When the reporter finished the segment, he opened a new browser window and typed in “Eleanor Dawson.” Wow. There were a lot of Eleanor Dawsons out there. He didn’t have time to check out all of these results. He had to get to Sydney.
He showered and shaved and put on nice clothes, every action bringing him closer to the moment he’d dreaded every single time he’d been forced to do her bidding.
For sixteen years.
By the time he gave Mutt’s head a pat, his gut was a trembling mess. Someday, he promised himself. Someday he’d kill her and let Mutt clean her bones.
“Watch the house, boy,” he murmured. “I’ll be back.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 6:50 P.M.
Zandra stared up at the ceiling, willing the panic back. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I have been so phenomenally stupid?
She never drank. Not enough to get drunk anyway. The one time . . .
And that was the story of her life. The one time she exceeded the speed limit, she got a ticket. The one time she’d risked her money in stocks, they’d tanked. The one time she’d risked her heart? She forced the sob back. Not now. Later. When she got free.
But the mental image of James and Monica . . . She could still see them writhing in the bed. My bed. Hers and James’s. Her fiancé and her best friend. It’s the opening scene of a romcom, she thought bitterly.
And now I’m in a horror movie. The panic began to rise in her throat and she swallowed hard. You will not panic. You will get away. And then you’ll see that the psycho bastard’s put away for the rest of his life.
After six years of trying cases with the prosecutor’s office, she certainly knew how to maximize his chances for a lengthy sentence.
Say you’re sorry. “Like hell I will,” she muttered. Those had been the words that had fallen from her lips as she’d stood frozen in the doorway to the chalet’s bedroom. When James had had the nerve to yell at her for walking in on him.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry? Really? Fuck that. It was my room!
She tugged on the ropes that bound her to the bed. The knots were expertly tied and she was feeling tired again as her adrenaline crashed. Everything got woozy and muddy and she blinked back tears.
There had to be a way to get out of this . . . place. Wherever she was. Whatever she did, she wasn’t going to tell him she was sorry. She had the feeling that would be the man’s trigger. That once she said that, he’d have no use for her anymore. Then he’d kill her. Because he’d done it before. No one has heard any of my guests.
Reality barreled through her brave facade, breaking it into bits, and terror filled her heart. God. I’m going to die. Please don’t let me die.
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 7:00 P.M.
The restaurant was packed by the time Gideon opened the door for Daisy, getting them both out of what had become a steady rain. Storing her glitter-covered umbrella in a stand by the door, he turned to give the hostess their reservation.
“Gideon! Daisy!”
They turned at the same time to see Rafe and Sasha waving at them from a booth against the wall. With their blond hair, dark eyes, and identical devious grins, that they were siblings was indisputable.
And now they’ve seen us together, my hand on her back. Unwilling to let Daisy go, Gideon braced himself to be teased unmercifully. It was one of the lesser perks of being adopted by the Sokolov family.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when they’d reached the table.
Sasha looked pointedly at her plate. “It’s this new thing called eating, Gideon.” She patted the seat next to her. “Sit down, DD.”
Gideon hid his disappointment in having to share Daisy with the Sokolovs and sat next to Rafe, who slid his phone over so that Gideon could see.
It was the interview with Elliott Scott.
“Wow, he got that online fast.” Gideon met Daisy’s eyes across the table. “You are officially a minor Internet sensation.”
“I figured it wouldn’t take him long,” she said philosophically. “He seemed to have his act together. He was slick.” She appeared unaffected but the menu shook in her hands as she opened it. “I want the Drunken Noodles. If I can’t get drunk, at least my noodles can.”
“You sounded good,” Sasha said, patting her arm. “Hopefully this will keep the rest of the vultures away.”
Gideon shared a glance with Rafe, seeing that his friend didn’t believe that any more than he did.
“Did you take care of that case you got called away on?” Daisy asked Rafe, clearly wanting to change the subject away from her interview.
Rafe shook his head. “I just took a break for dinner. I have to go back out.”
“It’s a homicide?” Sasha asked sympathetically.
“Missing person,” Rafe said tersely. “Turns out this single mom was turning tricks to supplement her income from her day job at a bakery. Her family had no idea. She’d told them she’d taken the night shift at a grocery store. When she didn’t show to pick up her little girl, the victim’s grandparents started calling around to her friends, the hospitals, even the morgue. They finally talked to the one friend who knew what the victim had been doing. She searched the area where the missing woman was working and found her backpack with her purse and phone still in it. She called it in.”
“Poor family,” Sasha murmured. “To be hit twice in one day—her disappearance and her prostitution. Poor little girl.”
Rafe nodded grimly. “The kid’s tears tore me up. She’s sick, too. Cystic fibrosis. She needs a lung transplant.”
Sasha made a pained noise. “Dammit. Was that why the mom was hooking?”
“Probably. Thing is, without the kid this wouldn’t have hit our radar. That she didn’t come for the kid was the only thing that kept this from being deemed a simple runaway situation or a hooker strung out on meth somewhere.” Rafe pushed his food around on his plate. He hadn’t eaten much of it. “I got surveillance videos from the businesses in the area of her disappearance, but I’m not hopeful. Most of the cameras were at the wrong angle and the one that picked anything up is so old that the footage is shit. The lab is cleaning it up for me right now. It’s always so hard on the families. They want answers, but I don’t know if I’ll have any to give them.”
“They’ll sit and wait and hope,” Sasha said sadly. “It doesn’t look good for her.”
“No.” Rafe’s voice scraped on the single word. “And most of the time when I do get news, it’s what the family’s been dreading.”
Gideon had worked his share of those cases. They rarely ended well. He gave Rafe’s shoulder a squeeze, then noticed that Daisy had grown very quiet, her mouth pressed tight. “What’s wrong?”