He hadn’t answered her question about the Sokolovs loving him, which was an answer nonetheless. An answer that broke Daisy’s heart in two. She wished she had words of comfort, but she had none that wouldn’t sound wrong or condescending. “You said she ended up in New Orleans. What happened to her between the time you found her in foster care and today?”
“She stayed in foster care until she was eighteen, but she only agreed to see me a few times. Once she’d aged out of the system, she went to Houston.”
“Where your mother had come from.”
He nodded. “I think she wanted answers. I know she met our grandparents, but I don’t know what she said to them, if anything. I had no interest in seeing them again. But between Houston and New Orleans was a string of towns. I’d get a postcard every so often from a different place saying she was alive. No calls, texts, or e-mails. Only the postcard. I never even knew her cell phone number. I’d try to track her down to wherever the card had been postmarked, but I’d always miss her. When I got the card from New Orleans, I tracked her down immediately. Lurked outside the address I’d found until she came home. She wasn’t happy to see me. She agreed to meet me for dinner and finally gave me her cell number if I promised to only use it in an emergency. Otherwise, we’ve had no contact.”
“Why does Mercy resent you so much?”
“I think it was because our mother suffered after getting me out. And Mercy suffered, too. She was treated terribly by whoever she’d been married to.”
“You don’t know?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. To this day. She won’t talk about it.”
“What happened to Mercy’s locket?”
“She said she put it in her bank’s safe-deposit box. Along with our mother’s. I’m not sure how she got Mama’s locket. She’s never told me. I’ve never seen either locket.”
Because Mercy resented him. Oh, Gideon. Daisy slid off the bed to the floor beside him, then straddled him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry.”
He held on to her with a ferocity that stole her breath, burying his face into the curve of her shoulder. “I wish I could go back and change it. I wish I could go back and not stab Ephraim Burton in the eye.”
Her heart hurt for him. “He would’ve killed you, Gideon.”
He went very still. “There have been times that I wish that he had.”
No. No, no, no. She held him tighter. “Recently?”
He nuzzled her gently. “No.”
She let out a breath. She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that he’d only been a child, fighting for his own life. Fighting not to be raped. Just like I fought Thursday night.
She wanted to tell him that if anyone was to “blame,” it was his mother for allowing them to be taken to a cult to begin with. But his mother had been little more than a child herself.
Daisy wanted to rail at his grandparents for kicking his mother out to begin with, starting the spiral into homelessness, prostitution, and despair.
But she said none of those things, because she didn’t think he needed to hear any of that tonight. She loosened her hold on his neck enough to kiss his cheek. “Come to bed with me, Gideon. Let me hold you there.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 11:40 P.M.
Zandra Jones stifled a sob. Don’t cry. Do not cry. Her nose would get stuffed up and she’d suffocate.
He’d left her tied and gagged, and as hard as she pulled, she couldn’t get free. Each tug merely tightened her bonds. Her wrists were bleeding now and they burned like fire.
She wasn’t thinking about the cuts. The way he’d carved letters into her body. They hurt, but it was more a dull throb. The cuts weren’t going to kill her. She knew that now.
He’d tended her wounds. Even stitched up a few that had gone deeper than he’d intended. The suture supplies had been in one of his drawers, his hands steady and horrifyingly practiced as he’d closed the worst of the wounds made by his fine-tipped detail knife.
He’d done this before. Many times. One of his victims was still here. In the freezer behind her. He’d taken a photo of the woman’s body and had shown it to her to frighten her. And it had. The body, all wrapped in bedsheets. The woman’s face wasn’t visible in the picture, but Zandra had seen her hair. Dark and long. He’d strangled her, the dead woman in the freezer.
He’ll strangle me, too. He’d already done it several times, but he’d let up right before she passed out, allowing her to suck in air that felt like knives scraping her lungs and throat. One day soon, he wouldn’t let up.
And I’ll be dead.
I’m not supposed to be here. She’d lost track of time, but he’d said it was Saturday. I’m supposed to be getting married today. To James. In Vail. But she’d run away so abruptly that no one knew where she’d gone. If James traced her to the airport, all he’d know was that she’d gone to a nearby bar and left too intoxicated to drive. She’d told both James and Monica to go to hell after finding them in bed together, that she was leaving and never coming back. To not come looking for her, that she didn’t want to hear anything they’d have to say.
All this as they had lain there, watching her wide-eyed. And coitus-interuptussed.
Stupid James. Stupid Monica. Stupider me. She’d trusted the bastard, only to have him sleep with her “best friend”? Yeah, right.
They can both go to fucking hell. At this point, she’d be seeing them there soon enough. Because no one is looking for me. Everyone at work thought she was on her honeymoon. Everyone at her wedding figured she’d flounced off to lick her wounds.
No one would miss her. Tears pricked at her eyes again and she ruthlessly held them back. Not gonna cry.
Instead she focused her attention on the interior of the cabinet he’d left open. Trying to freak her out. It was working.
After studying its contents for hours on end, she now knew that there were all kinds of trinkets and jewelry mounted on hooks—a number of necklaces, a few bracelets, an old rabbit’s foot, a few coins, and what looked like dog tags. All were small enough to fit into a pocket. Each was mounted beneath a driver’s license. There had to be thirty of them. Maybe more. Each was a woman. A person.
A dead person.
Not me. I’m not going to die.
But she wasn’t sure how to make that happen. She was an attorney, not an escape artist or a magician. Her only superpower was the ability to talk her way out of anything.
Except this. Unless something radically changed, she wasn’t going to talk her way out of this one. She’d seen his face. He was never letting her go.
There has to be something I can do. There has to be. I’m not ready to die.
SEVENTEEN
REDDING, CALIFORNIA
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 12:05 A.M.
Come to bed with me, Gideon. Let me hold you there. He’d obeyed and she’d been as good as her word, holding him much as she had the night before, his head between her breasts, her fingers gently sifting through his hair, one arm curved protectively around his shoulders. Giving him comfort when she was the one who’d suffered the loss.
She had a generous heart and he wanted it. He wanted her generosity and gentleness for himself. You have it, he told himself. For tonight at least. But he knew without a shadow of a doubt that one night wouldn’t be enough.
She stilled him somehow. Calmed his mind. Filled the spaces he hadn’t known were empty. She understood him in a way that no one had ever understood before.
To be fair, you didn’t give anyone else a chance. He’d shared things with her that he’d never shared with Rafe. Never shared with Karl and Irina and they were as close to family as he had.
But he’d spilled his story to Daisy in just days and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was how she made him feel . . . normal when he was with her. They’d both grown up prisoners, in a way. Maybe that was it. Whatever it was, he knew that he wanted more.
He knew that he wanted her. So much so that he’d angled his body away from her so that she wouldn’t know how hard he was. She didn’t need demands tonight. She needed comfort.
Pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, he lifted his head, propping himself up on his elbow, their faces only inches apart. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m being selfish.”
He could see her eyes widen in the semidarkness. “What?”
“You’ve lost your friend, but I made it about me.”
One side of her pretty mouth lifted slightly. “But it is about you. That’s why you’re here, Gideon. Whoever killed my friend connects to your friend.” She cupped his cheek, brushing the lines of his beard with her thumbs. “Don’t apologize. Besides, I like comforting you.” She shrugged. “It makes me feel useful.”
“Like you’re doing something,” he said softly. “Because being helpless sucks. I get it.”
Her small smile faded as she held his gaze. “I figured you would.”
“What can I do for you?” he whispered.
Her gaze flickered away and she bit her lip. “Nothing. I’m . . . I’m good.”