All the years of waiting and serving had been worth it. Now they would both live the lives of queens.
Madelyn peered at the sweet young thing lying next to her. What was one more fling before she began the rest of her life? Her true love didn’t care. She liked it when Madelyn made love to other women. She even liked to watch sometimes. Madelyn got wet just thinking about the adventures they were going to have in such an exotic country. All they had worked for was finally achieving the results they deserved.
Sleeping Beauty’s long-lashed lids fluttered open and dark eyes stared at her. Such big eyes. A soft wide mouth and sleek blond hair. Not naturally blond but well-done.
Madelyn smiled. “Breakfast?”
She rolled Madelyn onto her back and straddled her waist. Then she leaned down and kissed her so hard that Madelyn lost her breath.
Just as abruptly she stopped and climbed out of the bed.
Madelyn watched her lithe body as she moved toward the bathroom. So perfect. Not an ounce of fat and all that smooth, unmarred skin.
When she’d disappeared into the bathroom, Madelyn sat up. She needed coffee. The sound of the water running in the tub had her smiling. A bath would be nice first.
She padded toward the bathroom, Brutus followed. Madelyn turned to him. “Back in your bed.”
Her guest wasn’t a fan of dogs.
Brutus whined but he traipsed over to his bed and curled up. Madelyn walked into the bathroom, her toes curling against the heated marble floors.
Her guest was already in the huge soaking tub, the water pouring in from the Roman-style spout. Madelyn closed the door and walked slowly toward her.
The young girl’s eyes greedily drank in her body. Madelyn remembered clearly being that age and that hungry. She saw all the things she wanted when she looked at Madelyn. Beautiful clothes, jewelry, the freedom to be with whomever she desired without a husband to rule her life. Without children to get in the way.
Madelyn stepped into the tub and lowered her body down next to her young guest’s. Her hands immediately moved to Madelyn’s breasts and then lower to her crotch. The girl might be young but she was good with her hands.
Within a minute she had worked Madelyn’s body into a frenzy. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the sleek tub. She cried out as orgasm claimed her. Before the final waves had receded, those magic fingers were moving up her body, massaging her breasts, tracing her throat.
Madelyn’s head suddenly slammed under the water.
She fought. Tried to get loose from those steel fingers wrapped around her throat, keeping her head pressed against the bottom of the tub. The other woman’s weight was on Madelyn’s chest, her thighs holding her arms against her torso like a vise.
She couldn’t move.
Couldn’t get loose.
When she could hold her breath no more, she surrendered, gasped for relief.
Water rushed into her lungs.
33
Central State Hospital Campus
Noon
Jo stared up at the Jones Building. Vines had crept over the brick, like evil arms stretching up to draw this place into the ground, into the depths of hell where it belonged. On the dome two black crows sat staring at those who dared to pass.
Just like eighteen years ago. She remembered thinking that those black crows were surely signs that evil lurked here. Griffin’s stories had reminded her of her early days as a freshman at Georgia College. On several occasions she had tagged along with a group of other freshmen who’d heard about the old asylum and wanted to poke around. Parts of the asylum had still been in operation at the time so they’d had to be on their best behavior—or at least pretend to be until no one was watching.
Voices whispered through her. Giggles and whispers. Young girls with nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than explore the local ghost stories. They had found a room filled with old patient files in one of the buildings. The others had laughed as they read the notes but Jo hadn’t laughed. She’d read, absorbing the horrific details, the anguish generated by the words creating a sort of movie in her brain. The words, some written by doctors and others posted by nurses, spoke of fear and desperation, hopelessness and coldheartedness.
Without enough staff for a pediatric ward, the children were often placed in cages to protect them from the older patients. Their fear is palpable, but so is that of the few remaining nurses. The children are small but they are violent and cannot be trusted.
How had anyone left a child in this place? She closed her eyes and tried to block the images, like scenes from a horror movie, her mind automatically created.
“I’ll keep driving,” Tony said, his voice startling her. “You tell me when something looks familiar.”
“I came here a few times that first semester,” she said. “Exploring with some other students, but I know what you mean.” He wanted her to look for anything that looked familiar during or after the abduction.
She focused on the buildings and the landscape as he drove. He moved so slowly she wanted to jump out of the car and push to make it go faster. It all looked vaguely familiar. Something dark and foreboding pulsed in her blood, made her heart beat too fast. She had come with those girls and a couple of guys from her orientation class several times. It was part of the freshman ritual. You explored all the spooky old shit. How was she supposed to remember if any aspect of this shithole felt familiar in any way that related to the fourteen days she had spent in the pits of hell? For the past eighteen years she had worked diligently to block those memories from her brain.
Stop, Jo. Just stop. He was desperate to find his niece. She wanted to finish this as much as he did. She wanted it to end and she wanted the people involved to pay.
She also recognized the other aspect of what drove him, perhaps better than he did. He wanted to find his niece alive before she was turned into what Jo and Ellen had become. She could understand wanting to save someone he loved. He needed her help to do that and she wanted to help. The problem was she didn’t know how to help! She had told him all she could that might somehow make a difference. So many of the events that led up to what happened eighteen years ago were hardly more than theories. She was positive that Conway and Martin or whatever her name was were involved, but she couldn’t actually prove it. She couldn’t point to a place here or near the highway and say this is it—which was what he wanted. She had no idea how she and Ellen ended up where they did. They had awakened in those woods with no one and nothing around them but trees.
The car in the side mirror caught her attention. Security.
She dropped her head back against the headrest. “And it begins.”
Tony had spotted them, as well. He probably noticed them before she did. She stared at his profile and wondered how much longer he would permit her evasion and lies on the parts she didn’t want to share. Lying wasn’t right, not really. She’d told him the truth—at least everything she’d told him had been the truth. But he knew she was holding back. He’d been some big-deal profiler with the FBI. He probably knew her better just by watching her than she knew herself. She could say the same about him. Maybe she should have been a profiler.
Like her, he was desperate on a number of levels. His life had hit a place almost as low as her long-term situation. His career was in the toilet and, from what she’d seen so far, so was his personal life. The two of them were a pair for sure. How the hell were they supposed to figure this out when they couldn’t even figure out their own lives? Maybe he just didn’t want to do this alone. Maybe he needed a friend.
Was that what they were? Friends?
Her boss was a friend, sort of, maybe.