“You were at the art auction. Someone had to notice you there.”
He nodded as if thinking about her words. “There were many people there, true.” His lips hitched up on one side. “I wore a half mask, one that covered my bad side. It could have been a peculiarity of someone working the event. Or maybe I was a customer?” He chuckled, “It made things so much easier for me. Ms. Lydia Esposito never saw me coming.”
“Why didn’t you kill her?”
Elijah opened his mouth, but the sound of a crash had the both of them glancing upwards.
Nico.
He was here.
She looked over Elijah’s head at Reagan.
Did she hear the noise?
Her black and blue eyes squinted upwards, then she looked back at Autumn with a subtle nod of her head.
She didn’t have time to think about it as something made a pinging noise on Elijah.
He took his phone out, his lips pursed. His gaze narrowed on Autumn, “Where’s your phone?”
“My phone?” She blinked at him several times, trying to bide her time. With a shake of her head, she added, “I don’t have it. Why?”
He shook his phone, “Then why does my little device tell me you do?” Before she could think, he was on her again. He shook her, “Lover boy is here, isn’t he? I explicitly told you not to bring anyone with you.”
“There’s no reason he would look at my phone, Elijah. I forgot it, plain and simple.” She tried to smile through the tremor that ran up and down her spine. “Besides, what reason would he have to look at it? And why would he be here? For all he knows, I’m at the police station.”
Elijah studied her as if looking for a tell that she was lying. He took some sort of device from his pocket and pointed it at her. A red dot blinked back.
“This is a beacon. It’s linked to your cell number. When I sent you that video, it contained a virus when you hit play. It allowed me to attach a GPS signal that told me where you were.” His brow furrowed, and he tilted his head to the side. “Now that I think about it, your phone didn’t show until now. I should have asked for it upon your arrival.”
Autumn shook her head. “This wasn’t planned, Elijah. It’s the truth.”
He stood slowly and walked over to Reagan. He stroked his hand down the side of her face. Reagan barely flinched from his touch. A smile slid up one side of his mouth as he examined his handiwork on her face.
Looking over her head, Elijah met Autumn’s eyes. “Plans changed with your little trick, Autumn. Now I get two for the price of one.”
Over my dead body.
Autumn didn’t move until he cleared the room and heard his footsteps echo on the cement outside the room. She crawled on her hands and knees, wincing as the hard floor impacted her kneecaps. Peering outside the door, she saw Elijah going up the stairs, a knife held in a tight grip in one of his hands.
Autumn stood and moved to Reagan. Elijah tied her with a gnarled rope like one would make for a noose. The knots were tight, something you needed a knife or blade to cut through. If she tried pulling it with her fingers, her nails would break and there was a possibility the knots would tighten. Least of all, she wouldn’t have enough time to untie the rope by the time Elijah came back. She stood again to examine the rope tying Reagan’s neck back. It was similar, but not as strong as those holding her legs down.
“Friend of yours?”
Reagan flinched when she swallowed and closed her eyes, then opened them to look at Autumn.
“Let’s just say we were in forced proximity when we were young.”
Autumn cringed as she examined the damage Elijah inflicted on Reagan. The deep blue eye color bled into the bruising on her face.
“Wow, you meet such interesting people.”
Autumn felt a sense of responsibility for what happened to Reagan, but Autumn beat it back. She was not the cause of this incident, and neither was Reagan. Her friend was the bait Elijah set to get Autumn to go where he wanted her to.
“Don’t talk until I can get this off of you. I don’t want it to cut into your vocal cords.”
“Too late for that,” Reagan rasped. She took a breath and gave a minuscule nod to the right. “He has a bag of toys against the wall.”
