Authors: Jeannie Holmes
“He is a deceiver,” Peter hissed. “He tried to steal you from me. The sooner you forget about him the better.”
Alex toyed with the coffee cup. “And if I don’t want to forget about him?”
He grabbed her jaw, fingers digging into an already-tender bruise, and forced her to look at him. “You
will
forget about him. I’ll see to that.”
“I’d like to see you try,” she spat and flung the scalding coffee into his face.
He shrieked and released her, trying to wipe the burning liquid from his eyes.
Alex jumped to her feet, grabbed the back of her wooden chair, and with a roar, smashed it across his back. The chair shattered, and Peter collapsed onto the table, groaning. The zip-tie looped around the chair’s back slipped loose, and she dashed for the attic exit. She neared the top of the stairs when Peter’s hand grabbed her hair and pulled her back.
His leg swiped hers and threw her to the floor. He covered her with his body, pinning her like a moth stuck to a specimen board. “That’s the last time you’re going to do that, tricky chickie,” he snarled, inches from her face.
“Go to Hell,” she growled.
He gently stroked her face and then entwined his fingers in her hair. A savage grin split his face. “You first.”
Alex felt the floor drop away beneath them, and she screamed as he forced his way into her mind.
Hurtling down Interstate 55 at speeds nearing one hundred miles an hour, Tasha reconsidered the wisdom of agreeing to ride with Damian and his Enforcers as they raced to catch up with Varik. However, time had been a factor and she hadn’t been afforded the luxury of rational thought. Damian had simply held open the rear door of the black Ford Expedition and told her to get in or get left the fuck behind. She’d gotten in. Now she was sandwiched between two Enforcers decked out in body armor and carrying more firepower than she’d seen short of the last open house day at the National Guard Armory.
“Talk to me, Reyes,” Damian barked into the handheld radio from the front seat. “What can you tell me about Strahan?”
“Not much, unfortunately,” Reyes Cott answered amid the static. “His record’s surprisingly clean.”
“I find it hard to believe one of the most prolific serial killers in history never had a run-in with the law somewhere.”
“That’s my point. I’m not finding
any
records for Peter Strahan before 2003.”
“How is that possible?” Damian asked. “There has to be
something—
driver’s license, tax records …”
“Nada,”
Reyes said. “No credit cards, bank accounts, parking tickets—nothing. I can’t even find a birth certificate. The guy’s a fucking ghost, sir.”
“How was he able to buy a house without even so much as a driver’s license?” Damian asked.
Reyes issued a low whistle. “He didn’t buy it. He inherited it.”
“Inherited from whom?”
“Benjamin Corman.”
“Wait a second.” Tasha sat forward and grabbed the radio from Damian. “Is this the Cottonwood property?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Reyes said. “Court documents refer to it by that name and they’re all I’ve been able to dig up on Strahan.”
“I was out there yesterday,” Tasha said to Damian. “No one answered the door when I knocked. The place looked deserted.”
Damian’s fist slammed down onto the dash. “Goddamn it!” He took the radio back from Tasha. “Reyes, Strahan’s a fucking vulture. He’s been tailing Sabian for years, that much we know. Expand your search to include Louisville and surrounding areas. Look for properties like this plantation. Those will be his targeted marks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you mean he’s a vulture?” Tasha asked.
“The fucker lives off carrion,” Damian explained. “He waits for someone to die and then uses a fabricated identification to swoop in and pick the estate clean. He’ll hop from one to the other, changing identities each time. Peter Strahan is just a shell name. That’s why we can’t find information on him.”
“How do you determine his real ID?”
“The only way is to keep him alive and question him.”
“But he’s killed hundreds of humans,” Tasha exclaimed. “That gives him an automatic death sentence.”
“We have a body for one, and we can’t conclusively tie it to him yet.”
“He has Alex. Surely kidnapping a federal agent is something you can pin on him.”
“That we can make stick, but depending on what we find when we get there, he could be sentenced to prison instead of death.”
“Which gives you plenty of time to question him.”
Damian fixed his golden eyes on her. “Only if we catch Baudelaire in time, otherwise there may not be anything left of Strahan to question.”
VARIK KILLED HIS CORVETTE’S ENGINE AND COASTED TO
a stop outside the sprawling Caspian Drive farmhouse. The original house had been added onto in a haphazard fashion over the years with each addition featuring the dominant style of the period. Tying the disparate architectural elements to one another was the commonality of dingy and peeling white paint. The overall effect gave the house an appearance of a bloated toad lying in wait for its next meal.
He grabbed his Glock and badge and stepped from the car, leaving his cell phone behind. Gravel crunched beneath his boots as he cautiously approached the house. Experience tempered the instinct to rush inside and shout Alex’s name. This was the Dollmaker’s domain and as such it gave an advantage to his opponent. Varik would have to proceed carefully and hope he found Alex before—
He shook his head to clear it of negative thoughts. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by the what-ifs.
Ancient cement steps crumbled in protest of his weight and porch boards creaked underfoot as he glided up the front stoop to the door. A screen door hung to the side but the weather-beaten main door swung open easily when he turned the knob.
Crouching to make for a smaller target, he entered the dark foyer and toed the door shut, pausing to allow his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. Blocky shadows
slowly identified themselves as display cases and shelves clung to the walls, each holding an inventory of dolls whose eyes seemed to follow his movements.
He slipped through an archway and into what he assumed would’ve been a dining room if it held a table and chairs instead of floor-to-ceiling shelves. Hundreds of dolls watched him as he checked corners for hidden dangers. The room was thick with the stench of leather and old blood, and he was forced to sip the air to prevent himself from gagging.
Methodically, he checked each of the main rooms on the first floor and found nothing save more dolls. He eased into the foyer, passed a small fireplace, and headed for the stairs. Moving to their base, he glanced up quickly, holding his Glock at the ready, and saw only more darkness. The entire house was silent and void of any apparent signs of life.
As he mounted the first step, worry gnawed at him. What if he was too late? What if Alex had already been moved to another location, or worse, killed?
He thrust the thoughts aside. He would
not
succumb to his fears.
Hugging the wall, he slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Peter crashed through the flimsy mental shields Alexandra tried to erect. Every barrier she placed before him, he knocked aside. He would not be denied. He would strip away all her memories of Varik Baudelaire and give her new memories—
his
memories.
He plunged into her mind, pressing against the last of her shields until it collapsed. He sensed her fleeing before him, trying to hide from him. He pursued and cornered her, enveloping her consciousness with his.
Get out of my head!
Anger colored her thoughts a bright red.
Love me
.
No!
It wasn’t a request, my tricky chickie
.
She screamed and lashed out, and he backed away. She lunged at him in an attempt to drive him out.
He deflected her assault, using the momentary opening to dive into her core. He burned a path through her subconscious. Thousands of memories flashed before him, but he was only interested in a select few. Images of Varik appeared and he delighted in reducing them to cinders. Some he replaced with those of his choosing and others he left to smolder, consigned to the realm of the forgotten.
A memory of her first kiss with Varik played before him. They were covered in mud and hiking up a steep riverbank. She stumbled and fell into his arms. They laughed and suddenly Varik kissed her.
Hatred fueled Peter’s attack. The memory exploded before him and he felt her shudder as he ripped another hole in her mind. A new memory stitched itself into the fabric of her subconscious, one in which
he
caught her as she fell and
he
kissed her.
A flash of yellow passed through her mind and he paused. Something tickled the back of his brain. Following the sensation, he withdrew from her mind and returned to his own.
He groaned, weak from the effort of changing her past, and fell to the attic floor beside her unmoving form. His head pounded with a chorus of voices, shouting and screaming for help. The dolls were crying out, calling to—
Peter bolted to his feet, staring at the attic floor as if he could see through it.
He
was here, in the house.
Peter growled and rushed to the attic stairs. Now was the time for him to take what he started in her memory and finish it in his reality.
Varik stopped his search of the second floor when he heard a faint
thump
. He waited, hoping to hear the sound again to determine its direction, but the house refused to give up its secrets.
He entered a bedroom and the familiar scent of jasmine and vanilla rocked him. His pulse tripled and his breath came in sharp, shallow gulps.
Alex had been in there, recently.
Circling the bed, he noted the signs of a struggle and knelt before a window. A few drops of blood stained the hardwood floor. He dipped his finger in one of the congealed puddles and rubbed together his finger and thumb. The warmth of his skin released a faint smell of leather and decay.
He stood, wiping the blood on the leg of his jeans. It was the Dollmaker’s blood, not Alex’s, and he suppressed a smile. If she was fighting hard enough to draw blood, his chances of locating her greatly increased.
Another
thump
sounded nearby and this time he was able to determine it came from the hallway. Sliding to the door, he peeked around the corner and saw only an empty corridor. He waited a moment in case someone appeared from one of the other rooms. The hall remained empty.
Varik left the bedroom to resume his search, passing an oversized print of Duchamp’s
Nude Descending a Staircase
. A small draft ruffled his hair as he passed, and the scent of jasmine and vanilla combined with leather and old blood hit him once more. He turned back to the framed print as it swung outward and a
body slammed into him, knocking him to the floor and sending his Glock tumbling down the stairs.
He used the momentum of his attacker and kicked upward with both feet, launching the assailant over his head. Varik completed the backward somersault motion to land in a kneeling position.
A tall blond vamp charged him, the flash of metal in his hands.
Varik blocked one blow but the other found its target. He grunted as a scalpel sliced open a gash along his left biceps. The blond vamp continued to slash at him. Varik gathered his legs beneath him and, with a roar, launched himself into the other’s midsection.
They crashed into the wall beside the stairs, cracking plaster and sending plumes of dust into the air. Varik used his knee to dislodge one of the scalpels while he kept a grip on the Dollmaker’s other arm.
Peter used his scalpel-free hand to punch Varik in the side of the throat. Varik gagged and stumbled back. He tried to clumsily dodge another swipe with the remaining scalpel but the thin blade connected with his chest, opening a wound diagonally from his right shoulder to his breastbone.
“She’s mine,” Peter snarled, dropping into a crouch. “She came to me!”
“You
took
her,” Varik snapped as they circled.
“I
saved
her! I showed her the truth about you, about her father, and now she loves
me
, not you.” He smiled. “She’s already forgotten all about you.”
The blood-bond opened and Varik cried out as pain seared his mind. He sank to his knees, helpless as Peter manipulated the bond to show him the hell in Alex’s mind.
Memories—
their
memories—were nearly all gone, burned away and new ones erected in their place. Tears
of agony tracked down his cheeks as he writhed on the floor at the Dollmaker’s feet.
“You see now,” Peter said calmly, kneeling beside Varik. “I’ve already touched her more deeply than you could ever dream of doing.”
Varik groaned as another wave of fire burned his brain.
“I made her forget about you. Only a few memories to go and then she’ll be completely mine.” He grabbed the front of Varik’s bloody shirt, pulled him to his feet, and walked him to the stairs. “And after I kill you, I’ll finish what I started. I’ll mindfuck her and when she no longer even remembers your name, I’ll fuck her body until she cries out
my
name.”
Teetering on the edge of the first step, Varik growled, “I’ll kill you first.”
“You can try.”
Varik frantically grabbed for Peter and then the stair railing as he was shoved backward. He hung suspended in mid-air for a moment before crashing into the hard edges of the staircase. He felt something snap in his lower left leg as he tumbled head over heels to land in a battered heap at the bottom.
Laughter rang from above. “And he sticks the landing!”
Using the banisters and handrail, Varik maneuvered into sitting position. Footsteps banged on the stairs overhead. Groaning with the effort, he pushed to his feet and gritted his teeth, ignoring the sharp pain in his left leg as he hobbled to the fireplace. He found a set of rusted iron tools and grabbed the longest poker.
Peter skipped the last two steps, laughing as Varik haltingly turned to face him and hefted the poker like a bat. “You’re going to beat me to death with a poker?” He snorted with laughter. “Oh, now
that’s
original.”