No way I was going to finishthatthought. That would lead to despair. If I despaired, I wouldn't try as hard to get the hell out of here.
No, they were out there looking for me. They had to be.
"Perhaps Miss St. James can cast some light on the issue," our captor said. "The information came from her restaurant."
I screwed my eyes shut. Cass would have done all he could to cover his tracks. Evidently it wasn't enough.
"You see," Hypnos went on, "we've been keeping an eye on you and your establishment."
"Oh yeah?" I asked. My voice sounded stronger. Good. I didn't want him to think I was beaten, because I wasn't. "My restaurant isn't for sale, if that's what you want to know."
He chuckled. How did he make a chuckle sound evil? I didn't know but he did. It could have been the circumstances under which the chuckle took place, since we were tied up and somewhat incapacitated. That lent itself to a certain level of evil.
Also, from what I could tell, this looked a lot like a lair. Maybe I'd watched too many movies. Whatever, it resulted in the same thing: this man was not on my side.
"I’m not interested in buying it," he said. "If I wanted a restaurant, I would have bought Solomon's after his untimely death."
"Friend of yours?" I asked.
"You might say that," he agreed.
Getzoff looked over at me, confused. "What the hell is going on here?"
I exhaled softly. "This man is a predator. I've been hunting him for years. He and six others raped and murdered my sister." After a beat, I added, “Five of those six are dead."
Getzoff shook his head and struggled against his bindings. "If you're trying to say…"
"That's exactly what she's trying to say," Hypnos said easily, like he was talking about what color marshmallow he preferred. "She murdered them. In cold blood."
I snorted softly. "There was nothing cold about it. I prefer to think of it as retribution for what they did to her. They had it coming."
"And you believe I have it coming," Hypnos said. "So you used this man to flush me out?"
"It worked, didn't it?" I asked. "Here you are, flushed like a piece of shit."
I cried out when he kicked me in the ribs.
"Bitch," he snarled. "You know nothing."
"I don't understand," Getzoff said.
"Allow me to illuminate you." The click of a switch sounded. The room was lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Getzoff and I both stared.
"You." Getzoff looked confused.
"Me," Hypnos agreed. He was the man who sat beside Getzoff at dinner. The man he'd had a cordial conversation with. He'd walked right into my restaurant, sat down and ate, then drugged us.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Hypnos lowered himself back into the chair. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harrison Frankel. Solomon was my cousin."
I should have seen that. The resemblance between them was clear, now I knew to look.
"My cousin and I didn't always get along, but I object to people killing him," Hypnos said.
"I don't know anything about that," I lied.
