Where was Daniella? She was supposed to be here. Could the blonde be her with a wig? Jerrilyn couldn’t even remember her abductor’s face now. Where was Clarice? Naomi? Please let them come home from their jobs . . .
please!
She was dragged down the hall and into the prayer room and laid beside another body. To her shock, she could clearly see it was Clarice, but her eyes were open and staring, her tongue lolling out. There was something smudgy on Clarice’s face, and an ugly chain mark circled her neck, breaking through the skin.
Through whirling vision, she saw a gold ankh swinging in front of her eyes.
Words burbled around her . . . nearly indistinct . . . the blonde was talking.
“Teresa . . . to get away . . . smacked her head against . . . killed her. But she wore . . . ankh . . . one Andre gave her . . . gave me . . . idea . . .”
She felt the ankh pulled over her head and draped around her own neck. Then the pressure of the chain against her flesh, tightening . . .
tightening!
The blonde was twisting and twisting. Choking her. Jerrilyn tried to reach up with her hands but couldn’t. She wanted to scream, but only gurgled in her throat.
No air . . .
no air!
Through a shimmer of fading vision, she realized there was no escape and she would die. The final image imprinted on her retinae was Clarice’s bulging eyes and long, limp tongue, and her last regretful thought was,
That’s what I’ll look like, too.
Daniella sat outside Ray’s, her thoughts dark. Lumpkin was here. Again. Just sitting around waiting for his hottie to return. And Andre was gone. She knew it in the deep, black depths of her core. They all thought she was plain and uninteresting, and maybe she was, on the outside. Inside she pulsed with heat, gleamed with brilliant light, and she could do anything.
She got out of the car and walked into the bar. She’d always been glad Andre had found her, lifted her up, kept her from wallowing in the wasted life that she’d once lived with her boyfriend, Ty. Well, “boyfriend” was a euphemism because he was a lying, cheating, fucking weasel, but then weren’t they all?
Andre had shown her a life within the bosom of his family, such as it was: she’d initially thought she could live with the other handmaidens, had embraced communal living in the beginning. Why not? It was better than being treated like a stick of furniture.
But was it? She’d really just traded one kind of life for another and now with Andre gone, what did she have?
Lumpkin was seated on his same stool at the bar. For a moment she almost turned on her heel and walked out. Why should she do as Andre had bidden, when it just didn’t feel like it was going to matter? Why should she care?
Because she desperately wanted to be the one he turned to in the end, and completing a big task like this one would go a long way toward getting her there.
At that precise moment Lumpkin looked over and saw her. The faint disgust on his face led her to decide once and for all. Fuck him and the other handmaidens. She was going to get rid of him for her own sake, and the world as a whole. He deserved to die. She sashayed up to him, throwing her hips in an exaggerated walk. “Wanna come home with me?”
Lumpkin’s eyes narrowed. “Like the way you played me last time?”
“I couldn’t go to that apartment. You were right. We should have gone to my place.”
“What about your
fiancé?
”
“You think he’s faithful to me?” she asked, her voice catching a little of its own accord. It really did hurt that Andre cared so little about her.
Lumpkin thought it over a moment, then said harshly, “No.”
She really didn’t like the man.
Really
didn’t like him. “Meet me at the house. You know the way,” she said, turning around and sashaying back, making sure he got a perfect view of her swinging ass, the one he thought he was going to be able to grab and squeeze. Stupid, little cockroach.
Callie re-dressed in the dark and tiptoed out of West’s room, glancing back at him as she softly closed his door behind her. She walked quickly past Talia’s room. She really didn’t want to have to explain what she was doing up in the middle of the night. Thinking she would check in on Tucker, she moved past hers and gently opened the door to his. His room was nearest to the stairway that opened above the entire great room. After peeking in on him and assuring herself that he was asleep, she turned back. Glancing to the floor below, she had a view across the entire great room and through the massive windows that looked onto the backyard and rolling fields beyond.
The moon came out from behind a cloud at that moment and sent a strip of white light onto the yard, silhouetting a man’s figure, pressed against the back window.
The scream that rose in Callie’s throat nearly choked her as she held it in, hands over her mouth as she stumbled backward, away from the rail, heart jumping madly in her chest.
It took a minute before she dared to look again, cautiously easing forward to the edge of the rail. The clouds had obscured the moon again, but she was pretty sure there was no figure there.
She thought about waking up West, or Talia, but hesitated. Maybe it just was someone checking on the house, like Cal. Making certain everything was secure with Victoria at the hospital.
No. She didn’t believe that for a moment.
Andre . . .
Something about his shape and the way he seemed to hunger to be inside convinced her it was the man claiming to be West’s cousin. And it made sense that he was the one outside looking in. The question was: Should she do something about it? The house was locked. Andre had been gone when Talia told her the code. And what would he be doing anyway?
She hurried back down the hall to West’s room, eased open the door. He was sound asleep and she hated to wake him. But should she? Was Andre a threat tonight? A threat to
Tucker?
She hurried on her tiptoes back to Tucker’s room. She needed to get him away from Laughlin Ranch. It wasn’t safe. She felt it in her bones, and though she knew she would sound a little crazy when she told West and Talia what she believed, she didn’t care.
And as for tonight . . . In her clothes, she climbed into bed with Tucker. She knew she wasn’t going to sleep anyway, so she wanted to be right next to him if anything should happen.
The house was completely dark when Daniella pulled into the drive.
Didn’t I leave a light on in the prayer room?
she thought, yanking on the emergency brake. Couldn’t have the damn Malibu sliding down the drive to the street and then rolling down the hill. She needed to think of everything if she was really going through with this.
But the house . . . shouldn’t she see some illumination filtering out? Unless Naomi or Clarice had switched off everything . . . ?
Lumpkin pulled up to the curb in front of the house and turned off the ignition. Daniella looked over at him and thought what a toad he was. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to kill him yet, but she was damn well going to do it. There were knives in the kitchen. Better yet, maybe she could knock him out and suffocate him. The thought of being close to him, having him touch her suddenly, sent the heebie-jeebies running through her. It was a sad, sad truth that she still just wanted Andre.
Ah, well . . .
She positioned herself against her car, leaning on her elbows and pushing her breasts forward, watching him approach. “I don’t really want you to come in,” she said.
He stopped short and inhaled a sharp breath. “That’s not what you said at Ray’s.”
“I said you could come home with me. We can do it in the car.”
“Hell, no. I’m coming in,” he said furiously. “It’s
my
house.”
“Well . . . not technically,” she reminded, deliberately provoking him. She knew she shouldn’t really, not if she was going to get him to do what she wanted, but it just felt so good she couldn’t stop herself.
“Listen, bitch. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you got no game, girl. You don’t deserve to live here, and when the lease is up, you’re on your ass.”
“The ass you can’t take your eyes off.”
He actually grabbed her by her hair, but then released her immediately. “Oho, I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to set me up for a lawsuit. Well, it ain’t gonna work.” He stepped back from her as if she smelled bad.
“You want to come in the house? Fine. Come on in.” She walked up the steps to the front door and inserted her key. She was infuriated with the bastard, but even as she was pushing inside and fumbling for the light switch, she realized there was no way she could actually kill him here. Not when it was
her name
on the lease.
Her name
on every car registration.
Her name
on the utility bills. No, it would have to be somewhere else, but what could she use to—
Her hand encountered a wall of human flesh and she shrieked in surprise. Whoever grabbed her arm yanked her inside, pushing her to the floor, smacking her head on the floor. She flailed and tried to get up, but the prick of a needle sent cold shivers rushing through her. “What—what?” she gasped.
Distantly, she heard Lumpkin say cautiously from outside, “Daniella?”
Fighting back a swirling dizziness, she saw him stick his head inside the door, his body outlined by the lighter outdoors. Her attacker was on him in an instant, putting something around his neck that made him choke, stagger, and gasp. In the near blackness Daniella could only make out images: his fingers clawing at his neck, his feet stamping and shifting, the hood covering his attacker’s face, the smell of urine as Lumpkin’s bladder gave up the ghost and emptied onto the floor.
Time passed. She must have blacked out because she awakened to find herself dressed in her prayer robe, naked underneath. She felt foggy and strange, and the woman standing over her could have been a mirage. It was a woman, wasn’t it? She was in one of their hooded prayer robes, too, but her face was obscured.
The woman was dangling the chain of one of their ankhs in one hand and there were bits of flesh attached to it.
Lumpkin.
Oh, God. She’d killed him with the ankh!
Is it mine?
She sensed she wasn’t alone and turned her head as much as she could muster to see two other robed figures on the floor, glassy eyes staring, mouths open and tongues flopping.
Clarice and Jerrilyn.
And Lumpkin . . . on the far side, his eyes bulging out of his head in a death mask of horror.
She shivered, glanced back at the woman. “Naomi?” she tried to squeak out.
The robed woman flung the cross aside and suddenly jumped on her, reaching inside Daniella’s robe to grasp the ankh that was still around her neck. And then she started twisting and twisting. Daniella managed to fling one hand up and claw at her, but her hand was weak and only hit the woman’s robe.
“You call yourself the handmaidens,” the woman said calmly as Daniella felt her throat squeeze shut, her lungs scream for air. “You’re a harem of whores.”
And the world went black.
West awoke, blinked a couple of times, realized where he was and that Callie wasn’t next to him, and threw back the covers. It was early, the gray light of morning barely creeping in. Quickly he got up and took a shower in the en-suite bathroom. Then he shaved and ran a comb through his wet hair. He had to re-dress in yesterday’s clothes as he’d left his bag in the car. Then he headed downstairs and walked to the back door, disarming the alarm as he emerged into a cool morning that smelled fresh with no hint of the manure scent that sometimes blew in from the northeast, where the bulk of the massive herd and barns were located.
He grabbed his bag from the Explorer then retraced his steps. When he entered the house he was surprised to see Callie, fully dressed. “Good morning,” he said.
“You got your bag,” she observed.
“Yeah, I figured I’d better get ready for the day.”
“Did you see anyone out there?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re going to think I’m nuts, but I saw a man standing outside the great room windows last night, the back side of the house. It was around midnight, or maybe one? It worried me so I spent the rest of the night in Tucker’s room.”
He frowned. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“Okay, I’ll check for footprints,” he told her.
“Good . . . but when you come back, I want to talk to you about Andre.”
West let that sink in a moment. “You think it was him?”
“I do.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back,” he assured her.
“I’m going to take a shower and change, and I’ll meet you back here in the kitchen. I . . . West, I don’t want to stay here. Without Victoria, I want to leave with Tucker and go back to LA. Call it paranoia if you want, but I don’t think it’s safe here.”
He nodded slowly, thinking. He didn’t want her here, either, and with Victoria in the hospital there was no one likely to stop him from taking Tucker away, at least temporarily. “We need to tell Talia.”
He saw her relax with relief. “Thank you.”
She hurried for the stairs, and West walked back outside, looking around himself carefully. He circled around the back of the house and examined the area in front of the windows, which was hard soil surrounded by grass in need of mowing. There were footprints in the grass, nothing noticeable in the soil. It did appear that someone had been walking around the house.
Back inside, he reset the alarm then waited for Callie. Forty-five minutes later he heard Tucker’s high-pitched voice babbling in French and then his clambering footsteps down the stairs. He zipped into the kitchen and stopped short upon seeing him. “
Déjeuner!
” he declared.
Callie showed up right behind him, showered, and changed. “Breakfast,” she translated, but he knew the word.
“How about I take you both to Laughlin BBQ? They have great breakfasts,” West said.
“They do?” Callie asked, then immediately said, “Sounds like a plan. Talia told me to go there, too, but I was thinking dinner.” She turned to Tucker. “What do you like to eat in the morning?”
“Croissants!” Tucker declared.
“I should have known.” She smiled.
“Think it’ll be more like flapjacks,” West pointed out.
“Flapjacks?” Tucker perked up at a new word.
“Pancakes . . . like crepes, sort of,” Callie explained.
“I know pancakes,” Tucker told her haughtily. “Flapjacks,” he told West as if ordering from a waiter.
“All right, pardner. Flapjacks it is.” West resisted the urge to ruffle the boy’s hair, knowing Tucker wouldn’t appreciate it. Right now the boy wanted Callie and nobody else, but given enough time, they might become a kind of family.
The three of them walked out to his Explorer together, Tucker skipping ahead and scaring several rabbits that were munching on the front lawn.
The killer flexed her gloved hands as she looked at the four bodies lying on the prayer room floor and felt a certain amount of satisfaction. This
array
. . . was a long time coming. She hadn’t anticipated the guy. He was nothing more than collateral damage, but she’d seen how he’d acted on the driveway and he was a complete asshole.
She’d put him in Andre’s robe. He hadn’t taken it with him and why would he? Sick man that he was, he didn’t know up from sideways anymore. He was focused on killing the boy, but that wasn’t going to do him any good. She knew how families like the Laughlins worked. They would close ranks and keep him on the outside. He couldn’t see that, of course, because he’d never been psychologically astute and now, with whatever was happening to him
—
brain tumor, maybe?
—
tearing him apart, making him believe in his own delusions, and megalomania, well . . . he wasn’t the man he used to be. She was afraid something had popped inside his head, making him believe all the shit he spewed.