Bait: A dark erotic thriller (Hunter & Prey Book 2) (32 page)

Looking at Darren’s face, I fought hard to force a smile onto mine.

“Do you hear? It’s not that bad. Just hold on. For me, okay? Hold on for me.”

He smiled back at me, a truly gruesome grimace thanks to his teeth being completely stained red.

“You know that I will. For you, I’d do anything.”

I nodded, tears running down my cheek. When had I started to cry?

“You saved me. You fucking saved me.”

His smile widened. “Have I ever told you how insulting you can be when you’re surprised that I can be the good guy, too?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, even if it was a strangled, terrible sound.

“No. But you can do that each and every day from now on. You just have to be alive for that.”

“I’m too stubborn to die,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “You should know that. You, of all people, should know that.”

Guess I did.

Darren was barely conscious by the time the EMTs loaded him onto a stretcher, but he was still holding my hand. I tried to come with him into the elevator, but was decisively—if gently—pushed away. So I remained behind—in the apartment where my only friend had killed the woman who had been more like a mother to me than the woman who had given birth to me. And all that in the name of love.

I was so over this shit.

Even before the crime scene guys could swarm the scene, Ray was there, immediately dissuading anyone from taking a statement from me—or even coming anywhere close. Detectives Donahue and Wessex arrived presently, giving Ray another target, which gave me the chance to quietly step outside.

On the way to the hospital, Ray filled me in on the gaps. No, the 911 call hadn’t been active anymore, but the second the address had been logged in the system, Agent Smith had been alerted. Apparently, she had had that pre-arranged, expecting that after my flight, Brigitte might have become a target. It didn’t come as much of a surprise that Darren had found out about that, too. He must have been on the way to the precinct already, so it hadn’t been much of a detour to race to Brigitte’s instead. Judging from how quick he had been, Agent’s Smith assumption hadn’t been based on paranoia only. It made sense that he’d had the place staked out, including the quickest, stealthiest route in and out of the building. There were cameras in the lobby downstairs as well as in the elevators—but the alley at the back where the fire escape ended was void of further security measures. A lucky oversight for me—but one that had cost Brigitte her life.

That Adam and Darren must have thought so very alike wasn’t anything I ever wanted to dwell on.

I took all that in with barely enough brain capacity to make sense of it, filing it away for later. As soon as Ray swung into the hospital parking lot, I was out of the car and running inside. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail of nurses and doctors, but before I could get a last glimpse at Darren, they’d already wheeled him into the OR.

It was hours later that Alison found me there, right outside the doors to the corridor beyond which the man I loved was fighting for his life—and all that just because I’d been a stupid, ignorant little bitch. Ray had dropped by a few times, bringing me blankets, food, and drink, but all that rested in a heap beside me, untouched.
 

I looked up when I heard the telltale sound of heels clicking across the floor. It immediately reminded me of Brigitte, sending new tears into my eyes. She had taught me how to walk in high-heeled shoes. Had even been the one to gift me my first pair of designer heels, not those cheep knock-offs that they were selling on every street corner. Her conviction had always been that the right pair of shoes made the lady—even if she was just a prostitute.
 

Now, I’d never again hear her snark about one socialite or another wearing ballerina flats in public.

The very idea was so frivolous that I had to smile, but it immediately drowned in tears again. Brigitte might not have been a decent woman—but she’d always been there for me. A world without her in it was as close to blasphemy as an honest whore.

“Any news yet?” Alison asked. When I shook my head, she walked right on through those doors, never mind the signs. Two minutes later, she was back, a harassed-looking nurse bitching her out until a doctor in rumpled scrubs came to talk to us.

“His condition is still critical, but it’s looking good,” he assured us. That was all my mind really took in. Everything after “possible full recovery” was only so much white noise.

I had lost so much today. But not him.

I felt like the next breath I took was the first in forever.

Alison continued to interrogate the doctor a little longer before he finally managed to escape. That left me alone with her. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to make of that. Of course I’d seen her a couple of times since that talk in her office—but this was the first time it was just her and me and all the secrets that we—now—shared.

She eyed me with that kind of consideration that fit a lot better to the woman who had no qualms sending a psychotic serial killer after people she didn’t like than the brash, ambitious lawyer that she mimed to everyone else. That it was an act I no longer doubted. I wondered what she saw in me, now that the balance between us had shifted. Was I still the preferred whimsical distraction? Or did she see me as the next obstacle?

“You really love him, don’t you?” she said, answering that question in a sense.

I nodded. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“I presume that by now, he told you—“

I inclined my head again, not making her try to find a circumspect way to describe what should likely not be voiced where others could hear it. “He did.”

“And still—“

Another nod. “Trust me when I say that it’s not the detail about him that concerns me the most.”

She actually had the audacity to smile, and it wasn’t a nice or warm one, not at all. That made me wonder just how much she really knew. Had Ray told her about the transcript? Had she read it from my file? Had Darren told her?

Did it matter?

For today, I decided that no, it didn’t. What mattered was that Darren was alive, and so was I. The question remained what Agent Smith would make of all this.

“You should come with me to the precinct to give your statement,” Alison said, shoving me right out of my musing.

I couldn’t help but stare at her. “Now? They didn’t even wheel Darren out of recovery yet, and you want me to abandon him?”

“Don’t be stupid, girl,” she said. “Now is the perfect time. You’re upset and still in shock over what happened. You’re grieving for your friend. You’re sick with worry for the man you love. No one can fault you if you fudge a few details now, and maybe your statement contradicts some of the criminological evidence. That happens all the time. But aren’t you an upstanding citizen who wants to help the authorities solve this matter as quickly as possible?”

Note to self—as soon as Darren was back in the saddle, he and I needed to have a long talk about what I was ready to concede to Alison, and what not. I’d been bullied enough for a lifetime. This had to stop. But today was not that day—even I could see that.

“Of course. If you think that’s pertinent.”

“I do. Chop chop. A car is waiting outside for us.”

I absolutely loathed leaving now, but went without further protest.

As we stepped into the elevator, Alison cleared her throat. “Does the saying that two can keep a secret when one of them is dead tell you something?”

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. “Is that a threat?”

“Oh, this isn’t coming from me,” she was quick to assure me. “I was just wondering if that was part of what Mr. Sorrento was thinking when he held you at gunpoint. After all, you knew him well. He confided all manners of things to you that, looking back, might appear somewhat different than as they seemed at the time.” She let that sink in, then made an offhand gesture. “But what do I know. Which reminds me of another saying. The dead make excellent scapegoats.”

As I sat down in the interrogation room less than twenty hours since my last visit here, I still wasn’t convinced that Alison hadn’t in fact threatened me—but her message had been received loud and clear. With no record of what Adam had said after the call had been disrupted, it was up to me to fill in the blanks about what had happened. Wasn’t it convenient that it so happened that I had a certain knack for being exactly the kind of person people wanted me to be?

I didn’t lie. Not outright, at least. Wherever possible, I stuck to what had happened. My version of the events was hauntingly close to the truth, to the point where I was sure that the rich nightmare scape of my dreams had just become a little more vivid. It was easy, really. It was all right there, all the different pieces of the puzzle that had taken me so long to assemble—and it wasn’t hard to create a slightly different image in its stead, leaving out just a few details and filling the gaps with suggestions.

Of course I had no way of knowing exactly what Agent Lamar—Adam’s real last name—had been up to. I had only learned about his cover the day before. I had never had a reason not to trust the lies he’d told me. Had I suspected something? Of course not. Adam had been my friend. My only friend, it had seemed at times. Yes, I had noticed that he had started behaving differently when Darren and I had started dating, but I’d choked that up to a strong case of friendly protectiveness. No, I had absolutely no idea why he’d killed Brigitte.

Agent Smith was also present in the room, watching with a stony expression from the corner by the door as I layered lie upon lie. She never interrupted me, but I could tell that she was burning to. Why she didn’t, I had no clue. Maybe Alison and Ray kept her from it. Maybe she wanted my written statement so she could suffocate me with it later.

It was only when we’d been over every single point twice and I was starting to get antsy about possibly slipping up after all when she cleared her throat and nodded to Donahue, prompting him to take over talking from Wessex, who’d done most of it so far.

“Ms. Thompson, are you aware that Daliah Jones was the sister of Juliette Imahara?”

That name was not one I’d ever wanted to hear again, least of all in this context. In fact, the question left me so stunned that I couldn’t do anything but stare at the detective. Juliette, the one who’d come before me. The woman Darren had been grieving that day I’d happened upon him in the shower, after he’d asked me to be his wife. The last woman who had disappointed him so deeply that he couldn’t let her get away with it.

“Who?” I finally croaked out, very unconvincing, I had to admit. Ray stiffened the tiniest bit to my left, giving me a silent hint to better not play dumb. “I mean, I know that name. She was in Agent Smith’s case file. How could they even have been related?” I vaguely remembered that, while rather on the light side, Juliette’s features had definitely been Asian.

Donahue was only too happy to fill in the blanks for me. “Related on their father’s side only. Her mother came from Hong Kong initially, and gave her up for adoption. Daliah found out that she had a sister by accident, but managed to track her down two years ago. The two women became friends although they couldn’t have had much in common.” One being a whore, the other a student, still. Because, obviously, all of us were heroin addicts and high school dropouts. “I take it that your silence means you weren’t aware of that?”

I shook my head. “No.” I wondered if Darren had known. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. Then again, Agent Smith had tried to work me as an asset. Who said I’d been the only one?

“Are you done yet?” Ray asked, sounding bored rather than annoyed. “My client has been through enough today as it is. If you keep her from visiting the man who saved her life, anyone could just call that unnecessary cruelty.”

Donahue nodded after a pointed pause, but before any of them could get up, I turned to Agent Smith herself.

“Can I ask you a question, Agent?”

She hesitated, but then inclined her head. “Sure.”

“What exactly did Adam do during those times when he was supposedly on missions with you? I’ve been wondering this the entire night yesterday. Working undercover non-stop must have put an immense strain on him, particularly with his family waiting at home.”

A muscle jumped in her cheek, and I thought it was right then that she realized that I wasn’t just making idle smalltalk. She still answered, if unwillingly so.

“That is true. Those infrequent intervals were his time off from the job.”

“So he wasn’t under constant supervision then?” I asked, still trying to sound innocent.

“Of course not.” She sounded almost affronted.

“So, what were the twenty-three marks on his wrist for?”

Before I’d asked that, the room had been filled with the casual sounds of people getting ready to leave. After, you could have heard a needle drop. I forced myself to keep holding Agent Smith’s gaze evenly, exactly until Donahue cleared his throat.

“What marks?” he asked, turning to his colleague. “Do you have the crime scene photos here?” It didn’t take them long to find one where the evenly spaced lines were visible on Adam’s wrist, visible even through a couple of blood spatters—Darren’s, most likely.

When Donahue raised his brows at me, I shrugged. “He told me he inked them himself as a reminder for the missions he was on. The last one was still healing that day when Darren and I met for the first time. I remember, because I just came back from a job when Adam returned, and we joked about sometimes having to do things that needed to be done even when we were technically off the clock.” I hoped that I wasn’t laying it on too heavily with that, but since Donahue had just brought her up…

“Wasn’t that just after Juliette disappeared?” I was well aware of the fact that I was on thin ice there. I’d never actually found out how—or when—she had died, only that she had lasted months. Whether that entire time had been before Darren had been on the prowl again, or still ongoing during the first weeks of our courtship, I didn’t know. He had called her from Paris, but my guess was that she’d been pumped full of embalming fluid at that time already. Then again, that morning where I’d happened upon him grieving for her in the shower hadn’t been much later. There was a lot that I didn’t know—but that would also have been the truth if Adam had been the one to kidnap and kill all the women that had found their unlucky end at Darren’s hands.