Evidence of Marriage (14 page)

This couldn't be happening.

Diana stared at Kane, her heart tumbling in her chest. The nylon binders that had secured his hands lay on the floor. Cut. Red as blood. She couldn't make sense of it. She couldn't make sense of any of it.

He reached a hand toward her and grabbed a fistful of hair. Pulling her face toward his, he smiled. The strong scent of mint carried on his breath. “I have some things to do, then we'll talk like a father and daughter should.”

Diana looked to the camera. Where was Officer Seides? Wasn't he watching? Didn't he see?

“No one's coming for you. That guard who brought you in here? He's on a paid vacation.”

Seides? Paid to turn his back? Her mind stuttered. Heat burned at the edges of her self-control. She was on her own with Kane. She really was on her own.

He released her hair. He brought the knife toward her throat.

She focused on the ice-blue gleam of his eyes, waiting for the blade's sting. Waiting for death.

He grabbed the front of her T-shirt.

A tearing sound rasped in her ears as he brought the knife down, slicing the length of the shirt in one swipe. Stepping behind her, he sliced down the back. He wrenched her arms behind her, tying one piece of fabric tight around her wrists. He secured her ankles with the other.

Pressure built in her head. Memories of being tied, being left in the dark, the hopelessness of knowing she was about to die.

No.

She wouldn't give in to it this time. She couldn't. Even if he did have a knife, death would be better than what she was sure he had planned.

Kane shoved her hard with a knee. She hit the floor on her side. Breath exploded from her lungs. She gasped, trying to breathe, desperate to breathe.

Turning away from her, he grabbed the movable chairs. He jammed one under the handle of each door. He moved to the camera with the third, raising it over his head. He brought one of the chair legs hard against the device. The lens shattered. The camera ripped from the bracket holding it and swung limp from its electrical cord.

Kane set the chair on the table. Using the immovable chair that he'd been shackled to as a stepping stool, he climbed to the tabletop and reached up to an air grate in the old ceiling.

Diana watched him, lungs aching, convulsing. Even if she could breathe, she was tied. Even if she could breathe, she couldn't get away.

Kane pried the grate free of the air vent. Climbing down from the table, he twined his fingers in Diana's hair. He lifted her to her feet.

She scrambled for balance. Her scalp seared like fire.

“I told them I wanted to be transferred to a more modern facility. They should have listened. They should have done what I asked. But this place definitely has its advantages. Let me show you some of them.” He lowered a lid, giving her a wink before stepping up on the table and pulling her with him.

He positioned the chair on the tabletop directly under the open vent. He climbed onto the seat.

She wasn't going to let him take her out of here. She wasn't going to let him haul her who-knew-where. She twisted in his arms. She lowered a shoulder and plowed into him, trying to knock him off the chair, trying to get away.

His arms encircled her, as strong as wire. “You can't fight me. I'm your father. I'm your god.”

She pushed a scream from her lungs and thrashed against him.

A snarl twisted his thin lips. He drew back an arm and plowed his fist into her face. Her head snapped back. Her ears rang. Blood filled her mouth. She could feel him lifting her, stuffing her through the vent. She fought through the sensations writhing in her mind. She had to clear her head. Open her eyes. Focus.

The crack and pop of metal echoed around her. She fought to regain consciousness, tugging herself to the surface of darkness only to slip back under. He was pushing her. Dropping her.

She slammed against a hard floor. Dust filled her mouth, her lungs. She sputtered and coughed, struggling for breath.

“Not very nice, but we're alone.” His voice taunted in her ear. “Just daddy and little girl. Quality time. That's the important thing.”

She wanted to spit in his face, to tell him to go to hell. All she could manage was a groan.

His hand smacked against her cheek. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.”

She opened her eyes, lids at half-mast.

His face hovered inches from hers. His ice-blue gaze drilled into her, through her.

Her body shook uncontrollably, trembling from
the inside out. She ground her teeth together. She couldn't give in. Not to Kane. Not to panic.

Not this time.

She forced her eyes wider and tried to see where he'd taken her.

Artificial light slanted in from a transom window high overhead. Dust stirred thick in the air, making the light look dense, solid. Through the swirl, murky shapes hulked in the darkness. Unused furniture? Construction equipment? She couldn't tell. Wherever Kane had taken her, the space hadn't been used in a long time.

“After all the stories I read to you, I think you should tell me a story this time. Wouldn't that be nice?”

“A story?”

“You keep asking me questions about this copycat, but you knew him better than anyone did, didn't you, Diana?”

Louis. Nausea swirled in her stomach and pushed at the back of her throat. She had known him best. Or she thought she had. Now just the idea of him made her want to vomit.

“The papers wrote about him, but they left out a lot. I'll bet you can tell me more.”

“I can't tell you anything.”

“I don't believe that. Didn't McCaskey let you
see the crime-scene photos? Didn't he give you a peek of the autopsy reports?”

“No.”

“I know you saw the last one. You found her spread across your bed.”

She didn't have to dig very deeply into her memories to recall the shock of discovering Nadine's mutilated body. The revulsion. The fear. “You told him to do that.”

“Of course. It was for your own good. Sometimes a father has to discipline his daughter. No matter how much it hurts.”

“And you wanted me to tell you about it.”

His teeth glinted white through the dust. “I hoped.”

She shuddered.

“How did he kill her, Diana? Tell me. Was she naked? Did he cut off her clothes with a knife? Did he bare her breasts?”

She forced herself to meet those eyes, no matter how much she wanted to look away. If not for her lacy slip of a bra, her breasts would be bare right now. She would be half-naked in front of him. Those dead eyes looking at her.

Her own father.

Humiliation clogged her throat, mixing with the dust and blood.

“Did he bare her breasts, Diana?” He looked
down at her bra, as if he'd sensed her thoughts. Her fears. A smile snaked over his lips.

The gleam in his eyes made her want to retch. She held on, forcing herself to breathe. In and out. In and out.

If she encouraged him to talk, how far would he go? Would he tell her where Louis had taken his victims? Would he tell her where to find Cerise Copeland?

She swallowed a mouthful of dust. She probably wouldn't get out of the prison alive. But if she did, she could find Cerise. She could return the woman to her baby.

At least she had to try. “Yes. He bared her breasts. He cut off her bra with a knife.”

 

T
HE MOMENT
R
EED OPENED
the door and stepped into that empty office, he'd known where Diana had gone. But the sting of knowing she'd lied to him again was overwhelmed by his fear.

He'd raced to the prison, lights flashing, siren blaring. He'd called on the way, finally getting hold of Corrections Officer Seides. But although Seides had assured him everything was okay, he couldn't buy it. He had to see Diana himself.

He dashed into the prison and checked through security. This time he didn't even have a gun to lock into one of the gun safes provided for police
officers. He'd already had to surrender it to ballistics until the i's could be dotted and t's crossed in the investigation of Ingersoll's death. Not that it made any difference. Either way, the risk of an inmate taking it away from him was too great. Either way, he'd have to face whatever situation he found unarmed.

When he and two guards reached the interview room, Seides stood in the doorway. He looked to Reed, desperation in his eyes. “Detective, I didn't know. I—”

Reed breezed past him. The room was empty.

Acid slammed into his gut with the force of a hard fist. He scanned the smashed camera, the chair on the tabletop. The open air vent. His throat constricted. “Where does that vent lead?”

Seides stood in the doorway, staring at Reed as if he suddenly didn't speak English.

Another guard pushed past him. “It runs through the whole wing. But half of this wing is being remodeled. It's sealed off from the rest of the building. We'll have to go through the construction entrance to access it.”

Reed crossed the floor to the table. “Then go. I'll go this way. And remember, he has a hostage.”

He bounded onto the table, trying not to think of what Kane might be doing to her, how frightened she must be. Using the chair as a step stool,
he hoisted himself into the vent. The space was cramped and dark. The metal creaked under his weight. He slid along his belly, his pulse thumping so hard in his ears, he was sure Kane could hear it echoing through the ductwork.

He crawled until the air duct split into a T. Holding his breath, he listened for something, anything that would tell him which direction Kane had gone.

A male voice rumbled through the vent.

Reed turned in the direction of the sound.

The voice grew louder, one moment threatening, the next hushed.

A faint light glowed ahead. A spot where the vent opened into another room.

Reed slid slower. He couldn't let Kane hear him. He couldn't let the killer know he'd found them. Reaching the vent, he peered down through the open hole and into a murky room.

Diana lay on the floor below in her bra and jeans, her exposed skin white against dark gray concrete. Fabric the same light blue of her T-shirt bound her ankles and wrists.

Kane stretched her tied arms over her head, looping the fabric imprisoning her arms through the slats of a wood palette piled with floor tile.

Reed gripped the sharp edge of the vent. The metal bit into his fingers, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything but getting his hands on
Kane and pounding the bastard's head into the ground until he was dead.

As Kane focused on tying the fabric, Diana looked up. Her eyes met Reed's.

Love swept through him, hot and powerful. He nodded to her, trying to reassure her, trying to let her know everything would be okay.

That he would make it okay.

Her gaze sharpened. She stared at him, not with relief, but with anger. As if she was warning him away. As if she
wanted
Kane with her,
wanted
what he was doing to her. As if
Reed
was the problem.

What in the hell?

Kane stepped back to Diana's side. He crouched over her, shoving his face close to hers. “That's better now, isn't it?”

Reed's head pounded. What was going on? Why had Diana looked at him like that? She couldn't hate him for trying to save her. That would be stupid. More than stupid. If he didn't save her from Kane, she'd die.

“Tell me more, sweetheart. I want to know more.”

“I don't know anything else.”

“Yes, you do.” Kane's voice exploded, sharp and angry.

Reed tensed. Kane wasn't yet under him. If he jumped, he'd land to the side of the killer. Kane
could still use that knife on Diana. He could kill her before Reed had time to take him out.

He had to wait until Kane moved under the vent.

“Did he let her loose in a forest, Diana? Somewhere she could scream and scream and never be heard by anyone but him?” His eyes focused past Diana, as if reliving his own sick hunts, hearing the panicked screams, soaking in his victim's fear. His eyes sparkled with excitement, visible even through the murky dust.

Reed's ears pounded. He had to jump. He couldn't take the chance that Kane's frustration with Diana would grow. He couldn't risk the son of a bitch cutting her just because she couldn't answer his damn questions.

Kane's gaze snapped back to Diana's face. He traced the knife blade along the line of her collarbone. “Did he hunt her naked in the forest?”

“I don't know. How can I tell you where he hunted her if I don't know?”

Kane trailed the knife down over the curve of each breast, the side of the blade rasping over lace. “I know where.”

“Then you tell me.”

Reed's gut seized. He knew what she was doing. He knew why she'd looked at him the way she had, why she'd warned him off.

Damn.

She wanted to save the governor's daughter-in-law.

He gripped the vent's edge harder, letting the steel cut him, feeling the blood hot and sticky on his skin. All he'd ever wanted was to keep Diana safe. All he'd ever wanted was for her to be happy, for both of them to be happy.

He stared down at her, running his gaze over her golden hair, her high cheekbones, her soft, soft face. He loved her with all his heart, all his soul, all himself.

The question was did he have the guts to trust her?

Diana held her breath, waiting for Kane's knife to slice into her flesh, waiting for Reed to jump down from above, waiting for all hell to break loose.

Nothing happened.

She scooped in a breath, dust tickling deep in her throat. “
You
tell
me
what it was like. Unless you didn't decide that part. Unless you really don't know.”

“In time.” He moved the blade up to the hollow between her collarbones. “You remind me of old times. All the things I wrote to the copycat. All the things I told him to do. I need you to tell me if he did them the way he was supposed to. If he did everything right.”

“I'll try.”

“Good.” He licked his lips. “After he hunted her, after he wounded her with the rifle, did he drag her by the hair? Did he tie her down?”

Just the things Kane had done to her.

She shuddered involuntarily. “Yes.”

“Did he run a blade between her breasts?” He traced the path down Diana's body with the flat side of his blade. “Did he cut down the middle of her belly? Did he slice her all the way down?”

White noise rang in her ears, drowning out the sound of Kane's blade rasping against the denim of her jeans. “Stop. Please.”

“Did he, sweetheart?”

She tried to answer. She tried to breathe. “Yes.”

“Are you afraid I'll do that to you?”

“Yes.” Her mind roared. She had to push away the panic. She had to hold on. She had to get him to tell her where Louis had hunted. Before Reed jumped him.

Before Kane decided to make the cutting real.

He smiled, lips pulling back from straight, white teeth. “Even from prison, I did whatever I wanted. Even from prison, I called the shots.”

She had to steer Kane back to the hunt, back to the place he'd told Louis to take his victims. “Please. Don't hunt me. Just kill me now.”

“You like the hunting, huh? Of course. The professor and his lame attempt to be like me. Do you still relive those moments in your nightmares, Diana?”

“Yes.”

“The professor knew nothing. He was an
amateur. A phony. I can show you the real thing. I know the perfect place for a midnight hunt.”

She let out the whimper pressing in her throat.

His smile grew wider. “There are islands in Lake Superior where no one lives.”

The mint of his breath wafted against her face, turning her stomach. She swallowed hard. She had to hold on. She had to know.

He circled her, moving in closer over her, the knife's blade glinting in one fist. “The Apostle Islands. I'd like to take you there, Diana. Just Daddy and his favorite little girl.”

He slipped the knife between the cups of her bra and pulled the sharp edge upward. The sharp steel sliced through the lace. “It's a long drive and a boat ride to the island where even the lighthouse stands vacant, but the moon glows bright off naked skin. And when the hunt is on, no one ever hears the screams.”

Suddenly Kane lurched forward. The knife fell from his hand, skittering across the floor.

Reed straddled his back. Gripping the back of Kane's head, he slammed his face against the concrete with a hard blow.

Crashes as loud as thunder shook the room. Wood splintered and broke. Footsteps rained around her head.

Suddenly Reed was untying her, holding her,
wrapping his suit coat around her shoulders. “Diana. Thank God.”

She pressed her face into his shoulder. Tears stung her eyes, tears she'd refused to shed until now. “The Apostle Islands. Did you hear?”

“The island with the vacant lighthouse will be swarming with local sheriff's deputies within the hour. We'll find her.” He pulled her to her feet beside him. Arms still around her, he ushered her through the door the guards had rammed open and circled to the other side of a hulking piece of construction equipment. Away from Kane. Away from the voices of guards. Alone.

He gripped her shoulders. Holding her at arm's length, he searched her eyes. “He could have killed you, Diana. My God, he could have killed you.” His tone was hard, balancing on the sharp edge of anger and fear.

She didn't have to hear his words to know intimately how close she'd come to death. She was still shaking with it. But she'd done what she had to, made the choices she'd had to make.

What she couldn't figure out was why he'd made the choices he had. “You didn't jump him. You waited. Why?”

The hard line of his jaw softened. He raised a hand to her face, tracing her cheekbone with one finger. “You seemed to have things under control.”

Tears stung her eyes, turning Reed into a blur of color. “How did you know? Even I didn't know that for sure.”

“I didn't know either. Not for sure.” He brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. “But that's what having faith in someone is about, isn't it?”

Her throat ached. Warmth radiated from the center of her chest. She'd waited a long time for him to have faith in her. But she'd waited even longer to have faith in herself.

“You don't have to worry about needing me, Diana. You don't. You can deal with life just fine on your own.”

Yes, she could. For the first time in her life, she truly felt she could make it on her own. “I might not need you anymore, Reed, not like I used to. But I want you. I want to be with you. I want to share my life with you. You make me happy. And I want to be happy.”

A smile touched his lips. A smile that bubbled through her blood and made her want to dance.

“I love you, Diana. I always have.” He brought his lips to hers, his kiss full of need and want and love. And when the kiss ended, she looked into his eyes and found the core of strength she'd dreamed of. And she knew deep in her heart no one could take it away.

“I love you, too, Reed. And I always will.”