Page 95 of The Quiet Witness

“The dose rushing in your veins right now contains both a sedative, which might make your limbs a little uncooperative. The stimulant, well, that will considerably heighten your sensitivity to pain.”

Frank stumbled back, hitting the side of his bed with his legs and landed straight on his ass.

“Why?” The inmate mewled. The man looked lost already, not as lost as Kate had, though, when she walked off of that battlefield and straight into his arms.

Lucien crossed the room, leaning over to put his lips next to Frank’s ear, whispering. “Maybe this will jog your memory.” He watched as the man’s tiny neck hairs rose on edge. “That right there, is what all women here deserve.” He leaned back, seeing realization flicker up in Frank’s muddy brown eyes. “If I’m not mistaken, that sentence was finished with, I’ll give it to each and every one of you. It was your friend who said that of course, met his death in the same way you will.” He checked his watch. “In about twenty-five minutes, or so.”

Lucien’s gaze narrowed as Frank got up, stumbling on uncertain feet to the stairs. He stretched out a leg, feeling for the step before putting his foot down, left, right.

“Admirable try.”

Frank spooked at his killer’s proximity, lost control over the railing and tumbled down the stairs in a tangle of limbs. Lucien crossed over to the railing, leaning both his elbows over it as he glanced down at his victim. “What can I say, paralysis is a bitch.”

The inmate lay outstretched. Gathering his bearings, he pushed up on hands and feet, a trickle of blood spilled down his mouth and dripped down his chin. Smearing the concrete with red streaks.

“We can wait a couple minutes more so it can set in alright.” Lucien strode down the stairs, slipping past Frank. Who was dragging himself forward, shoes squeaking as they trailed behind him over the cold floor.

He bent down to grab the rope Andrew had left behind. What came next… was never pretty. Would invoke old, bruised memories.

Of wood creaking, a silhouette in the hallway throwing a shadow on the floor. Swinging front and back. Lucien shook his head clear of the memory. It was different when it wasn’t a loved one.

And there was no other way. Prison deaths were always a careful measuring. You could bypass the cameras, the guards, even the warden, who had owed him quite the favor.

But when a body was found, it needed to look real. For an autopsy would raise questions that couldn’t be answered.

A shame.

He inspected the stairs, the thick blue steel pillar supporting the steps. Yes, it would make do.

For Isabel, who had survived, barely. And had one hell of a long road with recovery hurdles in front of her.

For Emily. Who couldn’t sleep since.

For Georgia and Heather, who wouldn’t set foot outside of the sanctuary without security present.

Lucien sat down on a steel table, legs swinging up and down as if he were on a playground, clenching the rope in his hand, he narrowed one eye. Length will do… now on to the knot.

Lastly, he would do it for Kate.

The attack had happened several weeks ago. The bruises that covered her entire stomach and her chin. They had faded for the most part. The rashes from where her skin had been dragged over the concrete had healed. From when she’d fought not for her own life, but for Isabel’s. Unknowingly saving her own in the process.

He’d known when her breaths had evened out as she lay bundled up against him, drifting off to sleep in mere minutes. Because she had felt safe with him.

Ghost had stared him down, a warning clear in his intelligent eyes. Touch her, and we have a problem.

His dog, his loyal companion of a dog, had given the final push to what his trembling fingers had already been telling him. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t go through with a kill. It had made him switch out the bottles of water as if in a trance. Watched as the poison swirled into the drain, taking his old and careful life with it. Seconds before he’d grabbed her chair, to clean the blood of Kate’s bruised skin.

A long squeak tore him out of his thoughts. He lifted his head to see Frank had nearly rounded the table, reaching for the steel-barred door. Limbs jerking around unfocused.

Funny, before Kate, he had been of the firm belief that no one was off the table.

“I believe that everyone walking this Earth is guilty of some crime. So yes, in a way, we all have it coming.”

It’s what he’d told her in the beginning, what he had thought his entire life. Shattered into a thousand pieces because of the actions of one small spitfire of a woman. Kate didn’t know it yet, but she held his life in her hands, every move she’d make would reflect back on him.

Somehow, he would need to find a way to protect her, to throw Max off their scent.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The dragging had stopped. Frank lay in front of the door. His eyes glazed over. “Just make it stop.” His lips moved, a drip of saliva lingering in the corner of his mouth.