“I—nothing, I just—” She wrinkled her nose and then admitted, “I know you probably thought we had, but we never contacted your family to let them know you’re okay, Valerie. They’re probably worried sick.”
“Oh.” Valerie turned back to her pancakes and sighed. “It’s okay. There’s no one to contact or worry.”
“No one?” Leigh asked and she could hear the frown in her voice.
Valerie shook her head. “I was an only child. My grandparents died one after another of heart attacks and cancer as I was growing up and my parents died three years ago in a car accident. There’s just myself and an aunt who moved to Texas thirty years ago. I’ve only seen her twice since then. At her parents’ funerals.” She shrugged. “Other than Christmas cards, we don’t stay in touch.”
“Oh,” Leigh said softly and fell silent.
“What about friends?” Anders asked, and Valerie nearly jumped out of her skin. Both at his sudden joining of the conversation and because of his chest brushing her back as he reached around her to set a small Petsmart bag on the counter.
“Waste pick-up bags,” he murmured by her ear, his fingers drifting lightly over her bare upper arm as his hand withdrew. “Since Lucian was here to keep you safe, I popped out and picked them up for you.”
Valerie stared blankly at the bag, aware that shivers were running down her spine and goose bumps were popping up on her skin where his breath and fingers had passed. She had to wonder how she could be staring at something so unsexy and be so turned on at the same time.
A muffled laugh drew Valerie’s confused gaze to Leigh and the other woman grinned at her as she said, “That was sweet of you, Anders.”
“Yes, it was,” Valerie said and then paused to clear her throat when it came out froggy. “Thank you.”
“Mind you,” Leigh added. “Red roses might have been sweeter than red doggie pooh bags.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Anders responded.
Valerie flushed and turned back to the pancakes. What Leigh was suggesting would have been appropriate if they were dating or something, but they weren’t, and she did appreciate his running out to get her the bags. She didn’t want to repay Leigh for allowing her into her home by leaving little Roxy gifts all over their yard . . . And what did his response mean exactly?
“So, you have no family, but what about friends?” Anders asked, reminding her of his earlier question.
“I have friends, of course. But they’re back in Winnipeg. They won’t even know I went missing.” She flipped the pancakes and added, “I only moved to Cambridge the week before I was kidnapped and I spent most of that week rushing around getting things I needed for the house and for classes. I hadn’t made any friends here yet.” She lifted the pancakes out of the frying pan and slid them onto a plate in the oven to keep warm, then poured two more onto the griddle before admitting, “Mrs. Ribble is the only person I’d even talked to besides store clerks and school officials and that was because she came out to say that Roxy better not be a barker or she’d call the police.”
“And then the old bat goes and tries to steal her,” Leigh muttered.
Valerie shook her head at the comment and glanced around with amusement. “I don’t know why you guys have it in for the woman. She did look after Roxy.”
“For purely selfish reasons,” Leigh said grimly. “Trust me, that woman is the most selfish, bitter old biddy I’ve ever met.”
Valerie turned to stare at her. “You didn’t even talk to her. Have you met Mrs. Ribble before or something?”
Leigh opened her mouth, and then paused briefly before saying, “I know someone who knows her.”
“Hmm.” Valerie turned back to the pancakes. She wasn’t terribly surprised to hear Mrs. Ribble was a mean-spirited old woman. She’d already developed that opinion herself even before the last encounter. In the week that she’d been living next door to the woman, she’d heard or seen her giving hell to three neighbors for things that were none of her concern, and harass the local kids for infractions as small as accidentally stepping off the sidewalk onto her grass. The woman seemed to delight in making other people miserable. And she was good at it. Lots of practice, Valerie suspected.
“So, it could have been quite a while before anyone noticed you’d gone missing,” Anders said thoughtfully, and Valerie glanced around to see that he was getting himself a cup of coffee.
“Yes, quite a while,” she acknowledged, turning back to her pan. “None of the other women had family or friends in the area either. We figured that out pretty quick while talking. Not one of us had anyone to worry or raise a fuss over our going missing. We thought that was probably the reason he chose us.”
“That’s probably true,” Leigh said solemnly. “And it was smart of him.”
“It explains why we didn’t get on to him sooner,” Anders said, and then pointed out, “If he continues with that pattern it will be harder to track him down.”
Valerie frowned at the thought of this monster out there somewhere preying on other women even as they spoke.
“It will take him a while to set up somewhere else,” Leigh said, her thoughts apparently moving along the same line as Valerie’s. “He needs to find a new home base, gather cages and whatnot . . .” She paused, and then asked, “Valerie, was there anything else you had in common with the other women?”
“Like what?” Valerie asked uncertainly, turning sideways so she could keep one eye on her cooking and one on Leigh.
“Well, there has to be a way that he set his sights on each of you. It can’t be a coincidence that none of you had family and friends. Likely he chose each of you because of that, but how did he find it out?” she asked. “Is there some welcoming organization or something? Did you all use the same realtor?”
“I don’t know,” Valerie admitted with a frown. They hadn’t followed that line of questioning. After discovering each of them had that in common, they’d mostly talked about each other, their memories of better times, their lives, their regrets over things they hadn’t yet done, their dreams for the future when they were free, and what foods they’d most like to eat. They’d even talked about books they’d read and movies they’d seen, anything to take them temporarily from their grim reality. Now she wished she’d thought of this and asked these questions of the others. It could be a way to find the man.
“Not to worry,” Leigh said brightly, using her tongs to turn the sausages she was cooking. “We’ll just have to do that now. We can get you all together and let you talk until we sort out what place or person you all have in common.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
Valerie glanced beyond Leigh to see Lucian standing just inside the room. His hair was sleep ruffled, and he wore jeans, but was shirtless. However, a T-shirt dangled from his fingers and even as she looked his way he started to pull it on.
“Why isn’t it possible, Lucian?” Leigh asked. “All we have to do is take Valerie to the Enforcer house to chat with them.”
“Which would be nice except that the women have been returned to their lives,” he said, moving forward to kiss his wife on the forehead.
“Oh,” Leigh said with disappointment.
“Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t get them all together,” Valerie said reasonably.
Leigh bit her lip as Lucian and Anders exchanged glances, and then Lucian said, “Of course, we can contact them and ask if they’d be willing, but I suspect they all just want to forget what happened and get on with their lives.”
“Well, yes, I imagine they do. But surely they’ll want the man who kidnapped us captured and off the streets,” she pointed out with a frown.
Lucian made a noncommittal sound and moved around the island to fetch himself a cup of coffee. He fixed it sweet and white, took a gulp, and then turned to eye her. “Before they were returned to their lives, the other women were asked what this Igor of yours and his boss looked like. None of them seemed to be able to answer that.”
Valerie grimaced and shook her head as she switched out the latest pancakes for fresh batter. “I’m not surprised. We were in the dark most of the time. Igor was just a large silhouette who delivered food and water and dragged one of us away every day. And whatever was in that oatmeal was some nasty stuff. The first time he took me upstairs I was under the influence and it was like a bad acid trip, faces coming out of the wall, their faces and bodies distorted as if looking through the bottom of a pop bottle, and the whole house spinning dizzily around me.” She shook her head at the unpleasant memory.
“But the last time you weren’t under the influence,” Lucian said.
Valerie nodded, but concentrated on cooking for several moments, before saying, “I didn’t see Igor’s boss at all, and I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to Igor himself. I was busy looking for a weapon or an escape route.”
“Just do your best to describe him,” Anders said quietly before Lucian could speak again.
Valerie sighed. She stared at the pancakes as she said, “He was big. Bigger than you two, even. And crazy strong. When he hit me it was like being hit by a train. He sent me flying right out of the bathroom.”
“Okay,” Anders said when she fell silent. “What color was his hair?”
“Dark brown,” she answered as an image of him bent over the tub came to mind. “Short and dark brown.”
“And his face? Was there anything notable about his features?”
Valerie frowned and tried to remember. She hadn’t looked at him from the cage all the way up to the bathroom. Her eyes had been darting around looking for a way to escape. She pictured him turning to her in the bathroom, but all she saw was the shampoo squirting out over his face. But then she saw him coming out of the bathroom after her. There had still been shampoo on his face, but he’d wiped the worst of it away.
“I think he had a big nose,” she said slowly. “And small mean eyes under a high forehead.”
“And his mouth?” Anders asked.
“Thin lipped I think,” she said uncertainly. “And he had big ears.”
Silence fell briefly when she finished and then Lucian said, “We’ll have to get Valerie together with a sketch artist.”
“Do we know one?” Anders asked.
“We can borrow one, either from the local police or somewhere further afield,” Lucian said. “I’ll call Bastian after breakfast and see if he can arrange something.”
“Speaking of breakfast, the sausages are done,” Leigh announced. “Valerie, how are we doing on the pancakes?”
“The last two are in the pan,” she answered.
“Good. Then I’ll get plates and silverware—” Leigh began to get off her seat, but Lucian immediately put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Anders and I will get plates and silverware. You just sit and relax,” he said firmly.
“Valerie, do you have a coffee?” Anders asked as he retrieved plates from the cupboard.
“No. It only finished dripping just before you came in,” she answered, turning the last two pancakes. “I haven’t had a chance to grab one.”
He didn’t comment, but a moment later set a fresh cup of coffee down beside her.
“Thank you,” Valerie murmured and picked it up to take a tentative sip. Her eyes widened as she tasted it.
“Cream and one sugar, right?” Anders asked uncertainly when he noted her expression.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s good. I was just surprised you remembered how I ordered it yesterday.”
“I was driving. I ordered it for you,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but you had to order five different coffees. I’m just surprised you remembered how I take mine.”
“I made a mental note of it,” Anders said simply as he moved away.
Valerie stared after him as he retrieved maple syrup for the pancakes, and ketchup for the sausages under Leigh’s instruction. He’d made a mental note of how she liked her coffee. What did that mean? Why had he gone to the trouble? For her? Did that mean he liked her? Was he interested in her? Well, okay, those kisses earlier suggested he was definitely interested, but that was just . . . well, chemistry. Physical. The consideration revealed in taking note of how she took her coffee was . . .
She didn’t know what it was, but it had taken Larry years to remember how she took her coffee, and Anders had taken the trouble to remember it the first time out. It gave her something to think about.
Shaking her head, Valerie turned her attention to removing the last two pancakes from the pan. Breakfast was ready.
“F
or God’s sake, Anders, your pacing is driving me wild,” Leigh said with exasperation. “Sit down.”
Anders paused with surprise and turned to peer at the brunette curled up in the corner of the couch with a book in her hands. “I’m not pacing, I’m . . .”
She arched her eyebrows, waiting, and he sighed.
“Pacing,” he acknowledged and sank onto the nearest chair. He rested his elbows on his spread knees, allowing his hands to dangle between them, and stared out the window. After several minutes, he dropped back in the chair with a heavy sigh, then straightened and asked impatiently, “What the devil is she doing up there?”
“She’s checking with her academic advisor to ensure that missing the first two weeks of classes won’t bugger her up for the term,” Leigh reminded him patiently.
“Yeah, but that should have been a five-minute conversation. She’s been up there over an hour,” he complained. Valerie had helped clean up the kitchen after breakfast, then had taken Roxy with her and escaped upstairs on the pretext of calling the veterinary college to be sure she was still welcome after missing the first two weeks of the semester.
“Yes, well, perhaps whoever she needs to speak to wasn’t available and she’s waiting for a call back,” Leigh suggested. “Or maybe they had work for her to do to keep from falling behind and she’s up their reading her textbooks and studying.”
“Or maybe she’s hiding,” Anders said unhappily.
Leigh tsked with irritation. “Why would she be hiding?”
Anders didn’t respond, but in his mind he was remembering their kiss that morning . . . well, kisses. Or maybe one kiss. He wasn’t sure how to classify it. Did you have to come up for air to classify it as more than one kiss? Or was it counted in minutes or seconds? Because it had been a constant devouring of each other’s mouths for several minutes.