Her smile has a camaraderie that sours my stomach. “I know you understand that, Piper. They underestimate us. And the smart girl uses it to her advantage.”
“So you found him.”
“After a long year of searching, yes, I did.” Pride shines in her eyes. “With all the women he burned through in Kansas City—they were quite helpful in locating him—I wasn’t at all surprised to find he was carrying on with his employer’s adolescent daughter. But to find he actually cared about the poor chit, and to see that she actually cared about him . . .” Her eyes glint, and her sorrow for what happened to Lydia seems to have evaporated. “I couldn’t pass up the chance to make him feel even a fraction of what I felt when he took Alan from me.”
Alana’s sigh is heavy. “I regret it now, of course. By dallying with him, I missed my chance. I planned to return Lydia to her family the next day, only . . .” Again, she sighs. “She was dead that night when I came in to get her. After Lydia died, it was impossible to get close to him. There were reporters everywhere. I tried poisoning—figured better to get him from afar than not at all—but apparently, all I got was his cat. If only Lydia hadn’t died, everything would’ve gone to plan.”
“She had seizures.” The words are watery, and I cough and shudder all at once. “She choked on her own vomit, thanks to you.”
Alana regards me with a steady gaze. “I wish it hadn’t happened.” Her words are quiet, and yet somehow they seem to bounce all around the room. “Maybe my regret means nothing to you, but I hope you’re at least smart enough to see that Jacob is at the root of all this. That telling me where he went is the best thing you can do.”
“But I don’t”—I cough and shiver—“know where he is.”
Alana runs her fingers through her hair. Her hands tremble, or perhaps it only seems that way because my teeth chatter. “Come on, Piper, think. You rode in a car with the man for over a year. Where would he go?”
I would go to California or Arizona. Someplace warm. “Maybe he left the country.”
“I don’t need maybes.” Her words are a dark snarl, and she grasps the sides of the tub, leans down over me. “I can come up with maybes on my own. I’ve searched all over for leads. I even went back to his mother’s place in Arkansas. I need to know real places. I need to know where he called you from.”
The words chatter out of me. “H-he didn’t c-call me.”
Her face morphs before my eyes, that inhuman look again. Her hands are around my throat as she presses me down into the water. The water which had once felt like a balm now burns. My arms and legs seem to forget they’re bound; they press against the ropes, fighting for freedom. The world is splattered in black, and then I’m yanked back up. Air screams down my throat as water hacks its way out in an ugly cough.
“I am not going back without him.” Alana’s words come through gritted teeth, and yet somehow are being screamed in my ears. “I’m not going back to having nothing. Not when I had everything—everything—and that man ripped it away.”
Breathe in, breathe out. That’s all my body can manage to do right now. Breathe in, breathe out. There’s a pounding in my head, an ache over my whole body. I could be with Lydia and Mother. I could just let myself slip away.
The pounding in my head is so loud, it seems audible. Like a knock on a door.
And maybe it is, because Alana suddenly straightens. She looks back to me, her expression calculated rather than demonic, and she shoves the gag back into my mouth.
“Our conversations seem to always get interrupted.”
I sink against the edge of the tub and struggle to pull oxygen through my nose. In and out, in and out. Such an unconscious act until you find your airways blocked. In and out.
“Don’t make a peep.” Her face is so close to mine, it blurs. “Or I swear by my Alan that you’ll regret it. We’ll just let them go away.”
In and out. In and out. The world around me is speckled with stars, but I have to keep breathing. In and out.
Another knock. “Police! Open up!”
Mariano. My heart seems to sing the name.
Alana’s panicked face, her darting eyes, are framed in ever-growing black. She grabs her gun and slinks out the bathroom door, leaving me alone. I try to swing my legs over the edge of the tub. At least try to get out, to do something besides breathe. But breathing is just so darn hard. In and out. In and . . . out. In . . . and . . .
“Alana Kirkwood, we know you’re in here!”
“Mariano!” I scream, but the word is tangled in the rag. I splash my feet, bang them against the edge of the tub. “Mariano!” I try again.
And then, as if by magic, he’s there. Standing in the doorway with a gun leveled at me.
He lowers it immediately. “Piper! Thank God.”
Tears heat my eyes as Mariano rushes to the edge of the tub.
He eases the rag from my mouth, and gives me a once-over. “What’d she do to you?” The horror on his face tells me that I look as terrible as I feel.