King for a Day (20 page)

“How’s the dinner party?” I asked, trying to buy time.

“Very well. Right now the guests are enjoying their dessert: five women I acquired from the Philippines. Today is each of the women’s eighteenth birthdays.

I resisted letting the rage cloud my mind.
He is sick, Mia. And he will pay.

“Wow. Well, don’t let me keep you from your fun.”

“My fun is right here.” He lifted his brows.

“Ummm… Well, I’d rather die than allow you to touch me. So if you want the big moment to happen now, so be it. I think your ticket holders will be pissed off.”

“You think I cannot subdue you? King is passed out on the floor, is he not?”

“King is gone,” I lied, hoping he’d leave or change his focus to something else. Anything. “He took off hours ago.”

Vaughn shook his head and slipped a creepy pair of yellow glasses from his pants. He gazed down at the spot where King lay and then snickered. “Nice try, Miss Turner.”

Okay. Vaughn has scary ghost glasses. I’m officially impressed by his preparedness.

Vaughn’s gaze focused on my breasts. “Ummm…I think I would like to start right there. They look juicy.” He licked his crusty pale lips.

Oh my God, King. Wake up. Wake up.

“I’ll tear off your balls if you touch me, Vaughn. And subduing me won’t be any fun since I know you don’t get off unless they scream.”

“Right you are.” He laughed, and his decrepit gaze moved down to my groin. “Perhaps I can persuade you to have a different kind of fun with me. I’m willing to barter. What would you like? Perhaps a good-bye video for your family?”

Oh no. Think, Mia. Think. Get him to leave.
The only thing that popped in my head was to distract him with something more important. Maybe the Artifact?

“I have a question for you, Vaughn. Why in the world did you waste your time going after King when you had the Artifact?”

“Please, call me Milton. After all, you and I are going to become quite intimate. Might I say, the most intimate you’ve ever been with a man.”

On the outside, I held my expression of indifference. I didn’t want to give Vaughn the satisfaction he was looking for. On the inside, however, I felt my intestines twist into painful knots.

I smiled casually. “All right,
Milton
.”
Psycho.
“Why did you give up the Artifact? I hear you’re a collector of sorts.” I didn’t know if he’d given it up, but I wanted to find out.

“Who says I don’t have it?”

“Because, if you did, you wouldn’t be wasting your time with something as mundane as us.”

“Nice try, Miss Turner. But the Artifact is a worthless rock.”

“Who told you that?” I said as if he were the stupidest man on the planet.

“Your brother.”

Justin lied to Vaughn? Why? Because Justin knew it wasn’t worthless. He’d told me himself. In any case, I didn’t want Vaughn finding out that Justin had deceived him.

I made a quick shift in my strategy. “How would Justin know what he had? He’s an archaeologist. He knows bones and artifacts. Not magic.”

“And you do?”

I hesitated. What would be the repercussions of telling him I was a Seer? But I needed to sell the story. I needed Vaughn to go chase another shiny squirrel and leave me the hell alone.

I rolled the dice. “I am a Seer of Light.”

Vaughn’s eyes widened, and he laughed hysterically. “You. A Seer? Those are mystical creatures from the days of the Minoans.” His smile faded away into a cold stare. “They’re fucking unicorns. They don’t exist.”

Minoans
. I didn’t know anything about that culture, but why did everyone always bring up unicorns? “If you don’t believe me, give me a test.”

He jostled his head from side to side, thinking. “Yes! An excellent idea. You can provide the after-dinner entertainment.”

“Sorry?” I said.

He scratched at a little scab or dry piece of skin stuck behind his ear. “My guests can play a game with you. Of course, you cannot go dressed like that. That would be preposterous. You may wear the outfit we procured for your special night tomorrow.”

Oh Lord.
I’d meant a test down there in the basement. But now he wanted me to go and meet his sick friends?
Maybe someone will help you. Or you’ll find a way to escape.

“Come, Miss Turner.” He waved at me to follow. “We will get you showered and changed.”

I glanced down at King’s immobile body.

“He’ll be fine. Not like the man is going to die.” Vaughn snorted. “Although, I would not care if he did.”

“Then why did you want him?” I couldn’t resist asking.

Vaughn shook his finger, and sheer insanity sparkled in his eyes. “A promise is a promise. And I promised King he would get to watch your special event tomorrow.”

Vaughn was absolutely insane.

“Come, come now, my little
Seer
.” He laughed.

I followed Vaughn down the corridor, where he unlocked the gate. I noticed he placed the key in his coat pocket. Maybe I’d be able to get a hold of it and escape.

He made his way up the flight of stairs as I followed along, taking mental note of everything around me.

“Now, if you have any notions of running, Miss Turner, I will advise you that we are on an island. So unless you’re a good swimmer, I would scratch that idea.”

“An island where?” We made it to a small landing that had another iron gate.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but question time is over.” He chuckled once again as he opened the gate.

He didn’t want to tell me where we were. And given how long we’d flown, we could be almost anywhere.

Vaughn opened the door at the top of the last flight of stairs. Bright light poured into the dark stairwell, and a wave of warm tropical air rushed at my face.

“Hurry now, Miss Turner. This way. We must get you bathed and dressed quickly. Wouldn’t want our guests to wait.”

My stomach felt like a meat grinder turning on itself. I hoped he wasn’t going to watch me shower or dress.
As long as he doesn’t touch you, that’s all that matters.
“Lead the way, Milton.”

We stepped into his large, modern kitchen that looked more like a bustling restaurant. Several chefs in tall white hats, tuxedo-clad servers rushing in and out with trays, and enough delicious-looking food to feed an army. Again, my stomach churned. I was starving, and the smell of warm, fresh bread only made it worse.

I looked at the people shuffling around the kitchen and wondered if they’d help me.

Vaughn clapped his hands, and everyone looked up from whatever they were doing. “Everyone. This is Miss Turner. If you see her wandering away on her own, be sure to shoot her. Or stab her. I will make it worth your while.”

With expressionless faces, the chefs and servers glanced at me, nodded, and went back to their work.

Vaughn grinned, rapidly blinking his beady, haze-filled, brown eyes. “You see, Miss Turner, they work for me. Nowhere to run.”

I wondered how on earth he got these people to obey him like that. My guess was that he either paid them extremely well and they had no morals or he had some sort of leverage over them—maybe holding their families hostage?

We made our way through the kitchen and up a set of blond hardwood stairs. Black-and-white photos of people in bondage hung on the white walls.

“Nice decorating,” I said.

“I took those myself. However, they are not my favorites. Would you like to see the rest?”

“No. Not really.” I knew his favorites would be something out of my worst nightmares.

“Excellent. Then I shall show you.” He laughed again and then coughed up a giant phlegm ball.

I shook my head. He was mad. Mad and sick and vile.

We made our way up the stairs and down another corridor of bedrooms. Though it was nighttime, I noted the huge skylights above and more pristine blond hardwood floors. It was funny how his home looked so bright, modern, and cheery. The exact opposite of the man.

At the end of the hall, Vaughn unlocked a door and pushed it open. “Come. I will show you my prized collection.”

Oh Lord
. I didn’t want to see anything having to do with Vaughn’s hobby of skinning people alive.

“Now, Miss Turner.” He tapped the watch on his wrist.

I took a breath and marched forward.

The bedroom was large with a sprawling king-sized bed and huge glass windows with a door that led to a patio. The faint sound of crashing waves filtered into the room.

“Now, do you see? Aren’t they beautiful?” Vaughn pointed to a dozen more black-and-white photos hanging on the wall. They were portraits of the same woman, who looked to be in her twenties. She had an exotic look to her, like she might be a mixture of Asian, black, and something else. Her hair hung in tight ringlets past her shoulders and she smiled at the camera as if she loved whoever took the photos.

“Did you take these?” I asked.

Vaughn stared appreciatively at the pictures. “Yes. Isn’t she beautiful? My lovely Simone. My jewel.”

Simone? I’d never heard that name before. And wasn’t his wife Miranda? I was about to ask, but then remembered Justin mentioning he’d met Vaughn’s “significant other” at a 10 Club party.

Did Vaughn have a wife and a special someone?

“Is Simone the one you branded?” I asked.

“Jamie could never be Simone!” Vaughn’s sickly eyes sparked with indignation. “Never!”

Jamie?
Who the hell was Jamie? And Vaughn had not one, but three women who were, or had been, in a willing relationship with him?
His wife, Miranda, I completely understood; she was just as insane and warped as he was. But the woman in the picture, Simone, looked happy.

I held out my hands. “Okay. Sorry. She’s just so…” What could I say to calm him? “Simone is so beautiful. I thought maybe you made her your special someone.”

“Simone died before I had the chance,” he said quietly.

I wondered if he killed her. “How awful. I’m sorry,” I lied. But I wasn’t really. The woman was lucky to not end up being Vaughn’s love slave.

“She died of skin cancer ten years ago.” He shook his head. “She had such lovely skin. It still makes my dick hard.”

I wanted to gasp. Instead, I closed my eyes. Was that why he was so obsessed with removing women’s skin?
Oh my dear Lord.

“That’s tragic,” I said, referring to his comment.

“Yes. One never recovers from such a loss. I keep her sister, Jamie, as my pet, but alas,” he sighed deeply, “it is not the same. She doesn’t enjoy my games.”

Jamie?
“Jamie Henshaw?”

“Ah, you met her at the party, then?”

Oh my God. Oh my God
. Jamie was the woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy—or at least had pretended to when she’d call to tell me that Justin had gone missing. She’d also been the one who told me not to come looking for him.

Crap.
Justin knew her? Because he’d clearly told me that he’d met Vaughn’s significant other. He said he’d seen the “V” tattoo on her wrist while at some party and that she’d told him all about its meaning. That’s how I found out that King’s mark on my wrist meant more than merely being his property.

More lies, Justin. What the fuck?

My mind leaped over to another thought.
Justin.
I’d been so wrapped up in all this, I’d forgotten about my brother. I wanted to ask Vaughn if Justin had come to see him, but then realized that calling any attention to my brother might just drag him into this somehow.

No. Wherever Justin was—in Mexico helping those families like he’d told my mother, or trying to make a deal with this sicko—I would only make things worse by bringing him up.

“Yeah. I met Jamie at your party,” I lied, afraid to connect Jamie to Justin.

“Then you know she is not as beautiful as Simone. Or as faithful.” He scratched his scabby head and mumbled something about Jamie leaving. “No one will ever be as beautiful as my Simone. No one. They are all so undeserving of their healthy skins. Don’t you think?”

I cringed on the inside. The man was sick. Horribly, irrevocably sick.

I nodded slowly and tried to casually sweep away the sweat building on my brow.

“But I make sure that Simone still gets to play,” he said.

Oh no.
I wondered if his obsession with flaying women wasn’t something more. Something more heinous than I could ever imagine. But I had to know as much as I could. Because his obsession was his weakness, and a person’s weakness could be exploited. 10 Club had taught me that.

“I, uhhh…know this is personal, but do you do something with the skins? Y’know, when you remove them?” I tried to project a nonjudgmental tone.

Vaughn dug his nails into his unshaven jaw and raked the skin aggressively like a dog with fleas. “How did you know?”

“I guessed.”

“Simone likes it when I dress her up.”