He’d met Melanie for drinks and happened to mention that the poor girl who’d been abducted was a friend of his ex-girlfriend’s. He’d said he was worried about her. Melanie had volunteered to find out her condition. Hell, by the time the evening was over, she’d believed it was her idea to call him daily with updates.
Women were so fucking easy. Just compliment them, tell them how smart they were, pretend to pay attention to whatever they were saying, and you were in.
He’d had to work harder for Tory. She was smart, a little shy around men, still mourning her dead husband but ready to move on.
He’d been fiercely attracted to her, determined to have her. He had studied her likes and dislikes, spent time with her and her kid, only to discover she was a bitch like all the rest.
It burned him to admit he had fallen for Tory. Fallen hard enough to buy her an expensive engagement ring. She belonged to him now and that wasn’t going to change.
He almost smiled. The way things were shaping up, this might actually work out better. From what he’d learned, he didn’t have to worry about Lisa, at least not for a while. He could deal with her at his convenience.
And he was almost certain that sooner or later Tory would hear about Lisa’s abduction and resulting hospital stay. When she did, she wouldn’t let her shirttail hit her sweet little ass before she came running back to Phoenix.
Today he’d asked Melanie to let him know the names of Lisa’s visitors. “Just in case I want to say hello.”
Melanie had promised to look into it.
Damon thought of Tory and the punishment he intended to mete out once he had her in his basement prison, and his dick went thick and hard.
It wouldn’t be long now. She’d be under his complete control. He could do anything to her he wanted.
Damon could feel the hungry need in every cell of his body.
* * *
It was after midnight. They’d been at the hospital all day again today. Josh used the hotel room key to open the door to room 221 and walked Tory inside. Unsure where their relationship stood, he had rented two adjoining rooms. So far they hadn’t spent more than a few hours in the rooms, mostly to shower and change into fresh clothes before returning to the hospital.
Tory had called Ivy as often as possible. Though the little girl kept asking when her mother was coming home, according to Mrs. Thompson she had been well behaved so far. She was really a good kid.
Lisa’s friend, Shelly Burman, a short, slightly pudgy young woman with short blond hair, also spent a great deal of time at the hospital. Friends and coworkers had stopped by. And Lisa’s parents were there.
The Shanes, an older couple, were with Lisa now, giving Tory and Shelly a break from the routine. From what Josh could tell, if any good came out of this, it would be the renewed connection between Lisa and her parents, who had been devastated by the vicious attack on their only child.
Lisa was recovering as well as could be expected. The surgery to remove the .45 caliber slug that had damaged her right kidney had been successful. The swelling in her brain had begun to subside, saving her from emergency cranial surgery, and she had been upgraded from critical to serious condition.
The bad news was she didn’t remember anything about the abduction—not who had done it, not where she had been taken, not how she had escaped. Nothing that would help the police. Nothing that connected Damon Bridger to the attack.
For now at least, Josh was relieved.
He knew all about Bridger. After the fire, he’d gone on the Internet to find out as much as he could. Careful not to leave a trail, he had looked the guy up on social media, found he had a Twitter account and a Facebook page. He was a good-looking guy who, at least on the surface, seemed completely normal.
Which made Josh even more wary.
Normal men didn’t savagely beat up women.
Josh had asked a friend of Linc’s, a detective in Dallas named Ross Townsend, to go deeper, find out everything he could. Townsend had e-mailed him a file that included the basics: Damon Montgomery Bridger, thirty-one years old, same as Josh, graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in business, made a fat salary as a vice president of the Bridger Real Estate Company, his father’s company, but word was he mostly lived off Daddy’s generosity.
The file also included Damon’s arrest for assault against Victoria Bradford, the only smudge on his pristine record. It mentioned the mild sentence he had received and the restraining order Tory had been granted.
There was nothing in the file that was particularly helpful, but if trouble arose while they were in Phoenix, Josh wanted to be prepared.
In the meantime, the investigation was moving forward with little success. Detective Larson had spoken to them several times, asking questions or giving them information, including the news Damon Bridger had a solid alibi for the night of the abduction and the days that followed.
According to the police, he had spent that Friday night at a friend’s house, a stockbroker named Anson Burke, drinking beer and watching an ice hockey game on ESPN. Damon had worked that weekend in his office, where he’d had several meetings with employees. The alibi had been verified by the employees as well as by his father.
The night Lisa had escaped, Damon had been at another friend’s house, a part-time real estate salesman, part-time computer guy named Isaac “Izzy” Watkins. According to Izzy, he and Damon had played video games till the early hours of the morning.
Josh held on to the hope Bridger wasn’t involved in the abduction. Which made him think of Tory. He glanced over to where she perched on the edge of the mattress, her eyes closed, half asleep.
