The Reunited

NINE





THE adjustment period sucked. Usually, though, by the end of the first twenty-four hours, he could cope. Thirty-six max.

Joss was moving on seventy-two hours now, and he still felt like he was in a tailspin.

Somewhere near late dawn the third day, though, he finally reached the point he’d been shooting for—that point of control, where he could walk around and not feel like the voices were going to crush him. Where the ghosts weren’t going to drive him mad.

Of course, he’d gone nearly twenty hours without sleep. It was weird how sometimes that genius hit right when one was about ready to die or drop. Then, right when he was certain he couldn’t fumble and shift those two brain-frying gifts around inside his skull anymore, he found a way to make them fit.

It wasn’t comfortable, damn it, but they fit.

Finally able to sleep without hearing the wailing of the dead or the whispers of the living, he collapsed on his bed in the hotel room and slept.

As though they’d been waiting for him to collapse, the dreams attacked. Sucking him under and grabbing on tight, they pulled him down and he was trapped. Locked in a maze of horror where the screams were an endless melody in his mind and the blood colored the air and hung in the back of his mouth, choking him.

He heard their cries. He smelled the blood. He tasted their horror. They were trapped, someplace dark and stinking with their own waste. Hopelessness, helplessness flooded their very souls, and Joss had to fight to keep himself separated from it.

If he didn’t, it would overwhelm him and he needed answers.

Dark. Windowless. He ticked off the measurements as best as he could, thinking he was in a room about twenty by twenty. A basement, maybe? He didn’t know if houses typically had them around here—something for Jones to check out—

Focus, he told himself as the dream tried to splinter, shattering his train of thought and making him nothing but a creature of fear and pain, drawing him back into that web of terror.

No. He wasn’t getting trapped in there.

Mildew. Mold. The place smelled old, and the stink of human excrement was everywhere. Dark, a black void that made him search for windows, doors . . . he saw nothing.

Saw nothing. But he felt them, heard them. They surrounded him. As a girl sobbed, he knelt down, tried to touch her, but his hand passed right through. The same basic response when he tried to speak to her . . . she didn’t hear a word. Okay, so Jillian’s gifts weren’t that mind-numbingly powerful, although damn, it sure as hell would have made this easier.

He’d have to rely on good old investigative shit for now. He searched for details, clues, committing everything he could find to memory. There wasn’t much, though. As he swam through the morass of Jillian’s memories and visions, he searched for the one thing he really needed.

The man Jillian had seen. He needed to see him again—without Jillian’s fear to color what he saw.

He searched, he waited, he trolled through all the images and thoughts and dreams she’d pushed into his mind . . . but never did he catch another glimpse of that man.

Her thoughts grew vague, indistinct, and he knew he wouldn’t find the answers he needed there. So he gave up. Stopped trying to control the dreams, and even as he let them slide away, the dream shifted, re-formed.

And he was elsewhere.

The stink of body waste and filth melted away, replaced by the soft, delicate scent of woman. He saw her back, narrow and slim. Standing at a balcony, rigid, her shoulders a taut line while her hands rested on the railing. He scowled as he looked around, trying to process what he was seeing.

A hotel. Okay. The woman . . . okay. His gaze lowered and he found himself eyeing her ass for a moment before he forced himself back to the matter at hand—although he couldn’t help noticing it was a very, very nice ass. Fancy room. Lights off. Plenty of sun shining in.

And the woman was standing outside, hands on the railing as she stared toward . . . what the hell . . . was that . . . Focus, Joss.

“Hello?”

But just as before, she didn’t hear him.

Great. Unsure just what he’d dreamed himself into, Joss moved forward, looking around and trying to connect this place to the nightmares he’d picked up from Jillian. Trying to understand who the woman was. Why he was here.

Rich. That’s what this was. The place practically bled money. Even the smells were pricey.

The woman lifted a hand—her left hand—tucked her hair back behind her ear, and then paused, lowered it to stare at the ring sparkling there.

Something about her called to him . . . He wanted her to turn around. Look at him. Talk to him.

But she remained blissfully unaware of him, even when he said, “Nice rock.”

Of course, he hadn’t really expected her to hear him . . . nobody else had.

He scowled when she abruptly started to claw at her hand, tearing the ring off with something too close to desperation. Once she had it off, she whirled around and hurled it. He flinched, but it passed right through him.

And then he staggered, went to his knees.

Her face . . .

Her eyes . . . so grim, so sad.

And her face . . .

Like a knife, the sight of her ripped something open inside him and he felt himself falling. Desperately, trying to get himself back on balance, he reached for the strands of the dream and tried to weave them back together.

But it was too late.

The dream was gone.

He jackknifed upright in bed, staring around in the dim room.

Scrubbing his hand over his face, he groaned.

“What the f*ck . . .” he muttered. “What the f*ck . . .”

* * *

FOR three days, Patrick ignored her.

If he thought that would bother her, then he didn’t know her very well. Well, actually, he didn’t know her, and that was a good thing.

A tray of food had been sent to her three times a day, and Dru was okay with that. The food was decent, and as long as Patrick wasn’t there, she could actually manage to eat. She’d kind of been dreading Friday. Fridays and Saturdays usually entailed elaborate, fancy dinner dates where she had to dress up and pretend to be his little Barbie doll. This Friday, though, there was a tray delivered at dinnertime.

Along with a note:

Ella

You should stay in and eat, rest for a few more days. Relax.

Patrick

Simple. To the point. Anybody who didn’t know him would think he was just concerned for her welfare.

After all, there was nothing overly threatening about the note. Or even obliquely threatening about it.

When she touched it, though, her belly cramped with fear.

She could all but taste the need to hurt on him—it was imprinted on the note. It carried his cool fury and his disgust. He might as well have marked her with it. I’m a sadist and I love to hurt things. Cross me and you’ll be next.

Except he wouldn’t go after her . . . not directly at first.

He’d find other ways to undermine her. Ways that would involve seeing those around her suffer. Like the wedding designer . . . Dru had initially wanted to work with a new girl who’d been practically just out of school. It was the one thing she’d tried to do. Not that it mattered so much about the stupid dress—she wasn’t looking at this as a damned wedding, but if the dickwad was going to shell out the money, it might as well go to somebody who’d need it more than a some bloke who already had clients coming out of his ears, she figured.

But that one thing that she’d wanted to do, he’d smashed it. Right in front of her, the day after she’d refused to have sex with him for the first time.

He’d fired the girl right in front of Dru, told her the work was inept, barely suited to the travesty of a Vegas wedding, much less his standards. And as he was paying the bill, he figured he should be pleased with the work, naturally.

That hadn’t been the only thing he’d done, though.

Dru shuddered as a memory flash rolled through her mind. When he’d come to her the following night, she’d seen something else in his mind—the events of the night. He’d left her . . . and gone to his little slave shop. He’d been in the mood to hurt somebody. He was still taking care with her, though. Hurting her would have to wait. Couldn’t leave bruises or anything until after the wedding. So he’d taken his anger out on somebody else.

He hurt her, without even knowing it, by taking his rage out on another.

Sick monster.

Twisted, sick monster, and she was trapped. For now. But damned if she wouldn’t try to find a way to get out.

Staring at the note, she read it one more time . . .

Stay in and eat, she thought. Rest.

Absently, she reached up and touched her cheek. It hadn’t even bruised—she’d watched it for the first two days, wondering if a mark would show, but it hadn’t happened. Patrick had a lot of practice in striking women. It sickened her to the very core, knowing that.

“Stay in.” She stared off at nothing. “I quite think I’ve had enough of staying in, actually.”

She ignored the food. She wasn’t in the mood to eat any damned thing he’d sent to her. Three days were enough of acting like a kicked puppy. Outside on the balcony, she stared toward the park, her gut in knots, her head pounding. And all the while, rage burned inside her.

Stay in.

She was letting her fear cow her. The one thing she’d told herself she couldn’t do and what was she doing?

The rage burned inside, and to her disgust, she realized she was just a step away from crying. She was furious, she was scared, she was angry . . . and trapped. But damned if she’d cry about it.

The headache behind her eyes raged and she went to rub her brow but the ring flashed, caught her attention. Unaware that she was snarling, she stared at the ring for a long, long moment and then, desperately, she grabbed the ring, tore it off her hand. For a second, she was tempted to hurl it off the balcony, but at the last moment, self-preservation stopped her and she whirled around.

As she hurled it across the room, something hazy danced in front of her eyes.

She froze, staring at the spot just a few feet in front of her door.

A man—

But she blinked and when she looked again, whatever she’d seen was gone.

“I’m going crazy,” she whispered. And it was entirely possible.

Across the room, her ring lay by the door, glinting. Mocking her. She ignored it. Unable to stay inside another moment, she grabbed her purse. She’d be damned if she remained locked away in this sodding prison. He thought he had her cowed, damn him. And when he realized she’d left, he damn well might make her suffer for it.

But screw it. She couldn’t let her fear of him control her. The day she started letting him stop her in any way, she was done. She was so utterly filled with fury, she was tempted to flash her middle finger in the direction of the nearest camera.

But she wasn’t that far gone. Yet.

She’d come here with a purpose, and she’d see it through. It couldn’t happen if she lost her nerve, though, and she had to remember that.

* * *

IT was hot and humid, typical for Orlando, even though it was close to nine.

She didn’t care. Just getting out of the hotel alone felt wonderful. She’d swung by one of the gift shops, buying a slouchy little cap and stuffing it in her purse. In a bit, she’d don the cap, a pair of sunglasses. She also had a different shirt tucked inside her bag and she’d put that on as well.

It wasn’t a real disguise, but it would be enough, she thought, to help her evade being seen by Patrick’s men. They were used to seeing her in all the lovely “Ella” clothes, not just regular old T-shirts, jeans, and shit.

It would be enough to do the job.

She didn’t dare use the charge cards Patrick had given her—she had to give him credit, he didn’t slouch on the expenses once they’d gotten engaged. He didn’t want a wife, she knew. He just wanted a high-class whore, but he was willing to pay well.

But if he was suspicious enough to check—and he likely was—all it would take was a text from an account watch and plenty of credit cards were equipped with those. Fortunately for her, Dru had resources Patrick couldn’t even begin to guess at, and she used cash to pay her way into the park.

Once inside, she hit the restroom, braiding her long hair, pulling on that slouchy cap, and trading her elegant blouse for a close-fitting T-shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves. It clung like a second skin and was thin enough that she could see the outline of her bra. After slipping on the sunglasses, she studied her reflection and decided it would work. It was enough of a one-eighty from her normal appearance that unless somebody was actually looking for her, they likely wouldn’t notice her.

It wasn’t like she actually spent any time in here with her fiancé anyway. Curling her lip, she shoved her belongings into her bag and headed back out into the park, breathing in the scents of sunscreen, food . . . life. It smelled like summer. It smelled like . . . happiness, she decided.

Something about it tugged at memories deep inside.

It was a sad thing, actually, coming in here. She remembered this place, vaguely, from fleeting memories of her childhood, before everything with her parents had gone to hell—first, Mum had died, then her father.

Before that, she’d traveled to the States with them several times as a child and she’d been to Disney World a few times . . . it held happy memories. It shouldn’t make her sad.

Maybe it was because back then she’d still had hope. Still believed in magic, and lately, she was trapped in a hell where there was no hope. And he hid himself here . . .

It made her ill.

It made her hurt.

Longing to lose herself for just a while, she watched the children, the little girls dressed in their princess finery, listened to the music drifting from carefully hidden speakers.

But she couldn’t find the elusive happiness, the escape she’d come here seeking.

Her mind was too focused on him.

Rest. He’d told her to rest.

Why? What was he about? she wondered. There had to be something. He’d been careful to keep her under close watch, almost like he was guarding her. It was obsessive how often he seemed to spend the evenings with her. If he wasn’t with her, he was out doing things that made her long to kill him.

The days she didn’t see him at all were the bad ones, even when she relished not having to deal with him. Because when she faced him again, she knew there would be more evil in his head. He used those evenings away from her to see to his . . . business. That was how he thought of those girls.

His business.

Bastard. Soulless, evil bastard.

Making his money by selling flesh—death was just too good for him.

That was why she had to see this through . . . end it. Make sure he couldn’t ever do it again . . . couldn’t ever take anybody’s daughter. Anybody’s sister. Anybody’s girlfriend or wife. She had to find out where they were. She’d gotten into this job for one reason—a missing runaway. A pretty teenaged girl, her name had been Sarah Hale . . . and she’d disappeared more than two years ago.

Swaying out of the way of a family posing in front of the castle, she veered off to the left, unsure exactly where she was going as she thought back. She really had given more than two years of her life to this.

The girl’s father had come to her. His name was David Hale. Sarah had run away after an argument, determined to go live with her mother in New Jersey.

The body had been found in Pennsylvania eight months after Dru had agreed to take the case. She’d returned the retainer he paid her. Wrapped up the odds and ends of all other jobs she’d been working on. And started following the threads of this one.

It hadn’t been anything directly connected to Sarah that had led her to Florida. It had been a tangled web, and one of those threads had led to Orlando. A source had hinted at something rather twisted that took place among some of the jet set, and she’d made her way through a short list of those people until she’d found the right thread to pull on. All it took was the right memory, the right connection . . . and one of those men had a memory, a connection to Patrick.

Like everything else, it had come to her in a flash, a solid chunk of memory—he’d bought a young woman, a pretty woman in her twenties who’d come to America from Cuba, thinking she’d get citizenship and a new life. She’d ended up some man’s slave, courtesy of Patrick and his . . . associates.

Ever since then, Dru had been in a state of hyperawareness as she tugged at those strands, pulling those threads. Her mind made connections that didn’t seem possible, but sure enough, all the pieces fell into place.

Except the past few months she’d just been . . . stuck.

Waiting. Digging, slowly, patiently. Patient as a bloody saint, in her opinion, but it was taking too long.

There was darkness here. All tied in to money and lust and greed, and it went deep, very deep. Still following her leads, working the case on her own, she’d placed herself in Patrick’s way.

He had a thing for long, leggy brunettes, and that’s one thing she had working for her. The other thing—she could get a glimmer of what he wanted with just a touch. It wasn’t anything she’d consider true mind reading. She knew she had psychic skill, but her strongest ability lay in picking up things already past, those memory flashes that haunted her so.

But that weaker gift was still enough for her to pick up on his needs, his wants, his likes . . . his perversions . . . and she used it. Manipulated herself until she was the very image of the type of woman he was looking for. And she got deeper, and deeper, into this mess until there was no way she could get out, not unless she saw it through.

Seeing it through . . . that would require one simple thing.

Hard evidence.

It wasn’t like she could go to the police and say, Pardon me, sir, but the man who wants to marry me is a slaver. Yes, yes, I know slavery is illegal, but it still happens and I think you should investigate him.

That would go over rather well, she was sure.

Proof. Had to have proof. And she had to be careful, too. He already had plans in place for what he’d do if he suspected he was being watched. Those girls would die, and they’d die horribly, in a way that was unlikely their bodies would ever be found.

She needed proof. She needed to protect the women, the girls he still had tucked away somewhere on a compound. And she had to do it all without him realizing what she was up to. No big deal, right? If she had to take more of his abuse, if she had to tolerate his touch . . . her skin crawled just thinking about it, but she could handle it.

Whatever it took to see this through, to make sure there were no more screams once she walked away from here.

Exhaustion pulled at her. Weary, she sank down on a bench and covered her face with her hands. Out here, under the fading summer sun, it was easier to pretend she wasn’t afraid. But she was. She could pretend she wasn’t running on the very edge of her wits, even though she knew she lied.

“You can do this.” She rubbed her temples. “Just see it through. A little bit longer.”

Exhaustion pushed closer and she welcomed it. A few minutes, maybe. Just a few minutes to relax . . . But even as some of the tension started to drain away, one of those fragmented nightmares snaked in, tried to pull her under. The blackness tried to surround her, grabbing at her—gasping for air, she threw it off and stumbled upright.

“Not now,” she whispered.

Water . . . closing over her head . . .

You have to get away from him—

That memory flash, the one that made no sense, danced through her head, the man’s voice getting louder, louder with each refrain until it was a shriek inside her head. Groaning, she squeezed her eyes closed, tried to block it out.

Couldn’t breathe . . .

Get away—

“I’m going mad,” she said. “Stark, raving mad.”

Here she was, dealing with a psychotic son of a bitch, and instead of thinking that through, she was dealing with dreams and flashes of drowning, while her mind played back warnings of that voice. You have to get away from him—

Him? Him, who? Patrick? Oh, she knew that.

Yes. The logical thing was to get the hell away from him—she was more and more afraid that he was going to kill her. She knew he would if he found out what she was up to. Is that what the nightmares were? Some new manifestation of her ability or something? A warning?

Bugger all. She didn’t need a warning.

“What am I supposed to do? Just walk away?”

Not an option.

She owed those girls. Their screams.

They haunted her. Every time he touched her, she heard those screams. And it got worse. He’d hurt so many people, ruined so many lives.

If she walked, they’d haunt her, every moment for the rest of her life. It wasn’t going to happen.

So if the nightmares were some nebulous warning, they could just shut their nebulous ass up.

Looking up at the sky, she mentally squared her shoulders. And damn if she’d sit here, feeling sorry for herself. She’d come here to get away from him, to try and breathe away from the stifling presence of his ever-watchful eyes, those bloody cameras. She’d damn well try to enjoy herself while she was at it.

She’d have herself a slice or two of pizza.

She’d ride some rides.

It was Disney World, for pity’s sake.

She could find a way to have a bit of fun.