Dani helped Katie to the couch and sat her down. Katie had gone from hysterics to small sobs that seemed to wrack her body. She hiccupped between half-coherent words. At least the endless diarrhea of words had trickled out and seemed to be stopping.
“I’m sorry.” Katie clung to Dani’s hand so hard she was losing circulation. “I don’t mean to babble all over you, I’ve just... I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”
“Where are your parents?” Dani asked, wondering how to shake her loose without seeming callous.
“Yesterday, they got a call from Markland.” She stopped and wiped a tear with the back of her hand. Dani got up and fetched a box of tissue. “Thank you.” Katie gave her a weak smile. “The company needed them to fly to Paris for two weeks on business. All expenses paid.”
“What kind of business?”
“I don’t know. I think they didn’t know, either, but a free trip to Paris? They couldn’t pack fast enough.”
Dani nodded. Benny was going over the top for all this. Okay, so her father had taken a lot of money, but to kidnap people, pull Katie into this, pay for her parents to play in Paris... that was over the top for simple revenge. There had to be more going on. Something she wasn’t seeing.
“Why am I here?” Katie wailed suddenly, causing her to jump.
Dani pulled the girl in close for an awkward hug and stroked her cheek, brushing at the tears with her thumb. “I believe it’s to keep an eye on me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Benny’s arranging a marriage between me and Luke.”
She stared at Dani with huge eyes. “The cop?”
Dani’s hand clamped over the girl’s mouth fast and tight. Katie’s eyes bugged in her head. “Never say that!” Dani hissed at the girl. “Never. Benny will kill us if he finds that out. Understand?” She held her hand there until Katie nodded. Slowly, she released the girl.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Dani considered filling her in, but something still felt off. Maybe she was getting paranoid. But maybe a little caution might serve her better right now.
The question was, had Katie told anyone else that Luke was a cop?
“I think you’re here to make sure that Luke and I are never alone. But that’s only good if he comes to my room. If I can maneuver the guards to get to his room, there’s no one there to be a chaperone.”
“What about Luke’s best man?”
Dani sat back as if slapped. “Who?”
Katie blinked up at her, obviously confused. “David. I saw them escort him down the hall as I was coming in.”
“Oh, shit.”
ANOTHER DAY PASSED, and somehow they were all right back where they started. Or almost. Benny didn’t even bother to show up at breakfast. And Luke’s place was glaringly empty. Benny had left a single rose at his place, so dark it almost seemed black, which wasn’t funny in the least. Dani nearly picked it up, vase and all, to fling it across the room, but thought better of it at the last minute, and had to content herself with very pointedly picking up the vase and moving it to Benny’s empty place instead. David’s lips twitched at that, the first sign of humor that she’d seen in days, but he fell back to sullen silence when one of the guards at the door cleared his throat. Warning them, Dani realized. It was the grey-haired man who had brought her down yesterday. Stevens? She thought his name was Stevens.
She watched him surreptitiously as she poured syrup over her French toast, and wondered if perhaps some of the other men here were finding things a little too...heavy-handed.
Stevens used to read her stories when she was a child, keeping her busy while her daddy and Benny talked. He’d even done the voices. Stern as he appeared, was it possible they had an ally?
It was an interesting thought.
Even without Benny, breakfast was a subdued affair. Was Luke having his own breakfast delivered to his room? Dani wished she knew. Starving him was inhumane. She wanted to ask, but didn’t quite dare. Would David know?
She darted a glance over to David and Katie. David was unusually subdued, but then he had been since Benny had moved in. Katie, though, seemed to rally overnight, and had been quite cheerful as they’d dressed, chattering away about weddings as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Now, though, she was quiet and shied away even from David. Either the sight of the armed guards had left her rattled, or there was something more going on that Dani wasn’t quite seeing.
As the meal progressed, David seemed to shrink in on himself. He was sullen and closed off, and yawned throughout the entire meal.
“Didn’t you sleep well?” Dani asked him in concern.
“No,” he said petulantly, spearing a sausage as though it were an enemy. “Didn’t you hear the alarm going off this morning?”
Dani had. She and Katie remarked on it, wondering if there was a raid, some SWAT team heading into the mansion to rescue Luke, and maybe them, too.
“That was Luke’s fault.” He stared defiantly at Dani.
Dani blinked. “Luke tripped the alarm?”
“No, I did. But it was his fault.”
“How did you trip the alarm and why is it his fault?” Dani was confused now.
“I’m sleeping in the sitting room,” David explained. His voice took on a tone that accused her of being particularly stupid. “Once they dropped me off your idiot fiancé slammed the bedroom door on my face, so I had to stay in that sitting room all night. He didn’t even give me a blanket, and the damn air conditioning was on all night.” He looked at the two girls expectantly. When neither of them expressed sympathy, he sighed and explained as though it should be obvious. “The room without the bathroom!”
Dani was the first to understand and simply said, “Oh.” She and Katie exchanged glances. “So why did you set off the alarm?”
“What was I supposed to do? I pounded on the door, but he yelled at me to go to hell. So I pounded on the other door and the guard fucking said the same thing. There was nothing I could do, nowhere to go, and I didn’t even have jar or anything...”
Dani looked at Katie. She still wouldn’t make eye contact with David, but seemed to be moving closer and closer to her as David grew more agitated. Another minute and she’d be in her lap.
“Okay.” Dani nodded to her brother. “I get the problem, but what about the alarm?”
“It goes off when you try to open a window!” David snapped. “Every guard on the property came running when the window opened.” He looked down at his plate, his face began to color. More from rage than embarrassment, it seemed like. “I was standing there, pissing off the third floor, with every flashlight in Atlanta trained on my dick.”
Dani choked on her sausage.
“Did they find it?” Katie asked, and David threw down his napkin.
“You bitch!”