Minutes later, the expression on his face had given him away. He could alter his appearance all he wanted. Different hair color. A beard. Contacts. Additional body mass. But the leering smile and the wide eyes, the way his jaw clenched from desire couldn’t be faked.
I’d tried to get away, using the crowd as cover, almost managing to escape. Then he was there, dragging me down the stairs, music hiding the struggle. No one had been the wiser. He’d knocked me out, but I’d come to while still on the drive. Trying to pay attention to any sounds.
Only one.
A thumping in the trunk.
“Are you playing some game, Steven? Just like you did before? Just a little boy trying to be a big man.” My fingertips touched the rough edge of the slats of wood I was shackled against. Given I was in the spotlight, I had to be careful, but I refused to die here. I shifted back and forth, trying my best to keep my actions undetectable.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Seconds later, the drips turned into a pelting of rain hitting the roof. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, there was a single window in the building, although all I could see was the casing. What struck me as fascinating was that he hadn’t bound my ankles. I was able to move my legs.
A slight sound indicated he was still inside the building.
“You always called me perfect. Why?” If I could only get him talking, then perhaps he wouldn’t pay any attention to what I was doing.
Finally, a deep breath. “Because you were pure innocence. You were a reminder of good things. Things I never had.”
“What do you mean you never had?”
“Did you know I was adopted? Me and my brother. Our mother never wanted us. She gave us away to horrible people. They were just… They didn’t love us.”
His voice was already cracking. I’d worked enough cases to know when a psychopath was nearing the end of his or her rope. It happened more than people realized. While most were considered cunning, highly intellectual, they had similar traits. They all craved being loved.
“I’m sorry they didn’t. They should have cared about you.” I shifted the rope across a rough area on the wall. Maybe I was hallucinating, or it was wishful thinking, but I was certain the binding was loosening. A slight flash indicated he had something in his hand.
When he shifted, I realized what he was holding.
A machete.
He was pacing, moving the weapon back and forth from hand to hand.
There was no doubt in my mind he was waiting for Maverick to arrive.
“They didn’t!” This time he snapped, which was very much unlike him.
“I know you’re tired, Steven. You don’t need to do this any longer.”
“I wanted to kill my real mother. For years I thought about it.”
“Is that why you took the girls?” The rope was loosening. Beads of sweat were slowly trickling down both sides of my face, the air thick with humidity.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
When he stopped pacing, throwing his hands back and screaming at the top of his lungs, I grabbed what might be the single opportunity to drag the rope back and forth across the board until my shoulders ached from the awkward angle. My wrists burned, pain rushing down both arms.
But the anguish couldn’t matter. If I couldn’t get away from him, I would die here. And that wasn’t going to happen.
I had so much to live for.
Including a handsome man that I adored.
“You don’t need to do this. You have a good life now,” I threw out, fighting to control my emotions even as fear swept through me. Flashes of what I’d endured years before ravaged various portions of my mind. It suddenly seemed as if the thirteen years were gone, replaced with an alternate reality.
His reality.
“You have no clue what you’re talking about. You had parents who loved you. I had monsters who beat me. They locked me and my brother in a shed just like this. Just like… this.”
