Just as he’d “loved” every victim, she was certain. “No,” Nikki said weakly, her heart pounding. “I want you to stay. I’ve never betrayed you.”
Thomas please,
she thought desperately.
Please hurry
. . . .
“You’re a liar,” Michael hissed, his jugular bulging. He came toward her slowly with the knife in his hand poised in such a way as to strike. His eyes flicked over her naked, splayed-out body. “You left me for
him
. For that . . . that
cop,
” he spat, the word distasteful on his lips.
Nikki furtively shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I swear!”
She’d swear to anything to keep him calm, she hysterically thought. He was getting worked up, and history had taught her that when he was angry he liked to inflict pain. And death.
“Liar!”
“He made me go away with him,” she lied, knowing Thomas wouldn’t mind her saying what she had to. “Because he knew you’d get angry with me if he took me.”
Thomas
—
hurry up and find me!
“I swear,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “He made me go.”
“Liar!”
“No!” She felt desperate as he stalked closer, the blood-stained knife gleaming. “Please calm down,” she begged, her heart slamming in her chest.
“Liar!”
Nikki couldn’t believe this was happening. Just couldn’t believe it. Her teeth began chattering. She stared at him unblinking, her mind slowly beginning to disassociate from her body.
Michael stood before her. She was tied down, helpless. His teeth were gritting, his nostrils flaring. He held the knife in one hand and unzipped his trousers with the other one. “Master must punish you,” he rasped out. “If you want me to love you again, then you must suffer in my name.”
Her teeth were chattering, her mind was splintering. She heard his words, but they didn’t register, made no sense, sounded far away. Nikki’s mind was almost completely disassociated from her body now. She stared up at him, but didn’t see him.
The knife sliced open a tiny cut above her heart. Not too deep, not too superficial. A second-rate surgeon’s skill. She saw the cut, but didn’t feel it. A hand roughly grabbed one of her breasts. She saw it, felt the pressure, but felt no pain.
This isn’t happening,
her disassociated mind continually reassured her.
It’s just a dream
. . . .
“Suffer for me.”
The voice was thick, aroused, and very far away. Nikki stared up at the mouth that uttered them, not comprehending what the words meant. She saw his penis. Erect. Ready. No comprehension of what that equated to. His hand wrapped around the base, guiding it toward her.
“Bastard!”
A big man slammed into Michael. Thomas? No—no, James. James! Nikki blinked, her mind trying to come back, but not totally cooperating. Everything felt fuzzy, like it was happening in a dream that made little sense.
Oh God, his hands were still chained. Her mind picked up on that.
The knife. It slashed down, tearing into James’s already wounded shoulder. She heard a scream, saw the two men fall to the floor, then saw nothing else. She was tied down and they were out of her line of vision. She could hear them wrestling, could hear something that sounded like a bone cracking followed by another bellow of pain.
Help me!
Nikki mentally screamed, her mind slowly snapping back. Sounds and smells were finally registering.
Thomas
—
help me!
A naked woman burst out from what looked like the
ground from his vantage point. Guttural sounds were coming from her throat as she climbed up onto solid ground and dragged herself up to her feet. She began to run again, stumbling in his direction. She fell once, but quickly pulled herself back up and continued to blindly stumble toward him.
It was the missing senator, Thomas realized, his heart racing as he ran toward her. She’d gotten away. Her torso was covered in blood, she needed help, but she was very much alive.
“Down there!” the senator moaned, her voice still raw and guttural. The closer he got the worse she looked. Luckily, he knew what she was talking about. Her words would have made little sense to the average passerby. “She doesn’t have much time. Help her!”
His breathing was ragged, his adrenaline pumping. Thinking quickly, he pulled his T-shirt off, over his head, and, reaching her, covered her up in it. She was a tall woman, but rather slight, so she swam in it.
“Listen to me,” Thomas said gently but forcefully. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a bit, hoping he wasn’t touching any wounds. Her eyes were wild and distant, a mixture of mental disassociation so common in victims, probably combined with the lightheadedness inherent with blood loss. “Do you hear me?”
Her teeth were chattering. “Yes,” she finally whispered, her eyes unblinking.
“I have to go down there. Run to that building over there.” He pointed out the closest one. “Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Police are there. They will help you.” Thomas had to get moving. He had to get to Nikki. “Go!” he ordered. “Run.
Now.
And tell them where I’ve gone!”
The senator blinked. “She saved my life,” she murmured, making chills go up and down Thomas’s spine.
There could be no mistaking which
she
Priscilla Harrington-Barnsworth was referring to. He could only pray Nikki hadn’t given up her own life in the process.
“Go,” Thomas said hoarsely as he ran toward the hole in the ground from which the senator had emerged. His heart was slamming in his chest. “Run!”
Nikki’s mind wasn’t registering anything clearly—an in
nate biological protection that kept suffering at a minimum. But she was aware of her surroundings enough to know that she needed to get loose from the knots that held her immobile and helpless.
She could hear wrestling on the floor, could hear James and Michael repeatedly slamming into each other, but she had no idea which man would emerge the victor. She had to help James, she realized. She had to get free.
The positive aspect of mental freeze was that she was no longer shaking, no longer terrified. Nikki could methodically work at the knots that held her bound without trembling. And as luck would have it, without fumbling.
She tried to concentrate as she worked them, her mind slowly coming back as every knot fell loose. By the time her hands were free and she could work at the knots on her legs, her mind had snapped totally back. Unfortunately, so had her shaking hands and thumping heartbeat. Blood dripped from the one puncture wound Michael had dealt her, so she was careful to avoid the area so as not to slick her hands with wet blood.
James,
she thought in horror as the first knot at her leg came undone, he was about to get stabbed. Oh, dear God—Michael was going to win.
Thomas followed the sound of two enraged men fight
ing. He was thankful for the loud bursts of noise because it helped him zero in on the exact location much more quickly. Water splashed around him, a few inches high at best, as he ran down the long underground corridor leading to a joint in the sewers, gun in hand and ready to fire.
When he rounded the corner he was stunned to find James and another man he didn’t know wrestling, knocking each other back and forth into the concrete walls. Nikki—sweet lord, she was alive. Alive and freeing herself from Lucifer’s bondage knots.
But which man is Lucifer?
Thomas’s gaze flicked back and forth between the two men as he ran at top speed down the corridor. His heart was slamming in his chest. He didn’t know which man to go after. If he made the wrong choice, the real Lucifer would be able to bring Thomas down while his attention was fixated on the innocent man.
James
—
Please God, he thought, don’t let Lucifer be James. He ran faster—faster than he’d thought possible.
Nikki was free a moment later. Thomas’s muscles tensed and his eyes widened when it occurred to him that she was about to assault the real Lucifer. Oh no, he thought, horrified. He didn’t want her that close. “Nikki!” he bellowed, running closer, almost reaching the corridor.
But he was too late. He heard a keening sound erupt from her throat as she flew into the air and jumped on the back of . . .
Not James. Thank you, God—
not James
.
Lucifer yelled, flinging Nikki off his back. She hit the concrete floor, her eyes wide with horror as she watched him raise the knife he held up into the air.
The rest happened as if in slow motion. Realizing he wouldn’t reach them in time, and knowing he had only one chance to save her, Thomas came to an immediate halt, aimed the revolver’s sights for the side of Lucifer’s head, and fired. The shot whizzed out, the familiar scent and sound of gunpowder filling the corridor.
Lucifer’s body lurched forward upon impact, the bullet through the head clean and precise. He fell to the ground a moment later, dead only seconds after he hit it.
It took Nikki a long moment to realize she was okay. By the time Thomas reached her side, his heart pounding in his ears, he could tell she was aware that it was over. In true Nikki form, she didn’t cry, didn’t lose her cool. She was trembling, her eyes were a bit wild, but she was okay.
He held his arms open. She gratefully, and shakily, went into them.
“Oh, thank God,” Nikki whispered as he rocked her back and forth in his embrace. “Next time,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “don’t wait for a dramatic ending.”
Thomas gently squeezed her, not wanting to let go. “There won’t be a next time.” He tried to sound calm, together, but he realized his voice was shaking a bit. “Hell, woman, that’s the last time I leave you alone without a babysitter.”
She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “I love you,” she whispered, gazing up into his dark, worried eyes. “Thank you.”
He pulled her close, but not too tight, knowing she had sustained a wound above the heart. “I love you, too. And you’re very, very welcome.”
“I told you,” an exhausted James said as he pulled himself up from the ground, “that I wasn’t Lucifer.”
Thomas put Nikki behind him, shielding her nudity from his partner. James looked pretty beat up. A sliced-up shoulder, a puffy black eye already turning purple. But he was alive.
“Be a gentleman,” Thomas winked as he watched his best friend stumble toward him, “and give Nikki your shirt.”
“Hell, I can’t get it off,” James muttered. He held up the cuffs. “Remember?”
“I remember,” he whispered.
James sighed as he came to a standstill before him. “Her clothes should be over there.” He jerked his head toward a black bag. “Bastard likes to keep them as souvenirs.”
Thomas studied his face. “I’ve got a lot of questions, you know.”
“I know.” James nodded. He sighed again. “To make a long story short, I started to suspect the sewers during the days I was researching Lucifer when I was on the run. I didn’t know if you’d believe me or not, so I took matters into my own hands.”
“I’m glad you did, bro,” Thomas murmured. “I was pretty tore up. Didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground. I don’t know if I’d have believed you or not.”
Nikki must have heard James’s comment about where her clothes were, because a second later Thomas saw a shirt going over her head out of his peripheral vision. He turned his neck to gaze at her, watching as she made a wide path around Lucifer’s body.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Nikki mumbled as she rejoined Thomas and James. “I want to go home.”
“Hospital first.”
She took Thomas’s hand, then looked up to James. “Thank you. Priscilla and I would both be dead if you hadn’t intervened when you did. Both times.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome,” James said quietly.
Thomas stared across the corridor at Lucifer’s felled body. James and Nikki turned their heads, following his line of vision.
“Please, Thomas,” Nikki whispered, taking in his rigid profile. As if she could read his thoughts and the fact that he wanted to obliterate that corpse, even dead, she said, “It’s over. You killed him. I want to go. Please. I can’t stand being down here another second.”
Thomas blinked. It
was
over. After all of these years, Amy’s murderer was dead.
And Nikki, the woman he loved, was alive. It was time to let go.
Thomas nodded. “Let’s get out of here,” he said softly, his callused hand threading through Nikki’s. James took to his other side, dragging himself along beside them. “Buddy, I’d like to give you a hug.” Thomas’s eyebrows rose. “But I’ll take you out for a beer instead.”
Chapter 30
Friday, August 22 10:59 P·M·
Between her demanding career and his, Nikki wasn’t
seeing as much of Thomas as she would have liked, but the time they did get to spend together, mostly at night and on the weekends, was always special. There were a lot of loose ends Thomas had to tie up from the Lucifer case, including the methodical search of Michael’s home, which had turned out to be a regular house of horrors.
Dr. Michael Sorenson had tortured, raped, and murdered more women than the police had suspected. The combined estimate of Lucifer’s assumed kills had been around ten. Nobody, not in their worst nightmare, was prepared to find evidence that the surgeon had raped, tortured, and murdered close to thirty women. But then, the CPD hadn’t connected Michael’s earlier, “unsophisticated” murders to the murders committed at the hands of Lucifer until the diary was unearthed. For the past several years, the victims had mostly been lured via the Internet. Before the Internet had been widely used, personal ads had been his modus operandi.
Finding Michael’s painfully detailed journal enabled several Ohioan police departments to solve a multitude of their backlogged murder and/or missing-persons cases. Lisa Pinoza, it turned out, had played with Lucifer just as Priscilla had. Priscilla had pretended to be a willing submissive who wanted to meet a real offline Master. Lisa had pretended to be a single, high-powered career woman instead of a low-paid barmaid in a dead-end marriage. Lucifer had wanted to punish both of the women for their lies, symbolically leaving their hearts behind as proof they were not fit to belong to him forevermore.