“He is not. He has a girlfriend. Tess somebody.”
Gabe slid him a disbelieving look. “You ever meet Tess? You ever see her around anywhere?”
“No. But—”
“But nothing. I’ve been back for two damn years and
I’ve
never met the woman. I don’t think she even exists.”
“Anna knows her.”
“When was the last time Anna saw them together? He might have been out with this Tess a few times, but not for a long time. She’s a front, somebody he made up or went out with just to appease Anna because he doesn’t want her to know he’s sniffing around her like a lovesick puppy.”
“Son of a bitch. I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t want you to know.”
Dante still didn’t want to believe it. Not Roman. He’d always thought Roman the most innocent out of all the brothers. The straightest one, the one least likely to do anything bad. Maybe that had been his biggest mistake.
He grabbed his phone, punched Anna’s number. It went right to voice mail.
“She’s not answering. She’d answer. She’d want to know what was happening.”
“Was Roman with you and Anna at any of the times the murders were committed?” Gabe asked.
“No, but neither were you.”
“True enough. But I didn’t bust in on you and Anna tonight accusing Roman of taking a shot at me in order to get you out of the house.”
“Fuck. And I fell for it.”
Gabe grabbed the rest of his clothes and his gun. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game Roman is playing, but we need to get to Anna.”
“In a hurry.”
They dashed out the door and into Dante’s car.
“You don’t have one of those siren-and-light thingies?”
“No.”
“Should have taken Anna’s car.”
“No shit.”
“Just speed, then. You know how to do that.”
Dante hoped he could drive fast enough to get there, because Roman had wanted him out of the house and away from Anna for a reason. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
Anna paced back and forth, watching the phone on the table next to Roman and waiting for that call from Dante. She’d already made both of them coffee, but that had only made her more jittery.
Roman sat on the sofa watching her.
“You’re making me dizzy,” he said. “Come sit down.”
She looked down at him and smiled. “Sorry. I’m nervous. And worried.” She slid onto the sofa next to him.
He patted her hand. “Quit worrying. Dante’s capable and you know he’ll call as soon as he knows something.”
“You’re right.”
“In the meantime, we should check to be sure everything’s secure around here.”
“I’m certain it’s all shut tight. But I should take Rusty out, then lock up.”
Roman stood. “Okay. I’ll do a window-and-door check in all the rooms while you run him outside.”
“Thanks.” Gun in hand, she let Rusty out and stood guard over him. Once he finished his business, she brought the dog in and closed and locked the door, then came back to the sofa, laying her gun on the table next to her.
“Everything secure?” she asked Roman.
“Yup,” he said, getting up from the sofa. “I’m going to get a soda. You want one?”
“Sure. The coffee didn’t help anyway. Any call from Dante yet?”
“No, not yet.”
She picked up her phone to check it, then frowned. “Hey, it’s turned off. What the—”
Something sharp poked into her arm and she tried to jerk away, but hands held her down. She tried to jump off the sofa, but he held her firmly down as she kicked and flailed against his grip, propelling herself forward even as the drug started to take effect. She rolled onto the floor, him on top of her.
Rusty was barking. She heard the dog barking. She saw a blur of activity, then a whimper. Then silence.
Through her hazy, drug-addled vision, she saw Roman rolling her over, smoothing her hair away from her face.
Her entire body felt like a giant weight had been piled on top of it. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak as her vision became warped. Roman’s face looked like some kind of monster swimming in front of her.
She fought to stay awake, to move her limbs, her fingers, anything. But it was no use.
She couldn’t even think straight anymore.
Why was she panicked? She couldn’t remember. She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep.
She blacked out.
Twenty-Three
D
ante had pushed the accelerator to one-twenty, and it still felt as if he wasn’t going fast enough. When he screeched to a halt in front of the house, he already knew it was too late.
“Front door’s ajar,” Gabe said as they threw the car doors open and ran inside, guns drawn.
“Anna!” Dante yelled for her as he pushed the front door open, but he knew with a sinking depth in the pit of his stomach that Roman had taken her.
He heard Rusty barking and ran to the bedroom, opened the door. The dog bounded out, barking, searching the house for Anna, just the way they were.
They searched the entire house, but found nothing. No Anna.
“Roman won’t be at his place. He’ll know that’s the first place we’ll look.”
“So where is he?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Dante found Anna’s cell under the sofa, along with the cap from a syringe.
“He drugged her. Fuck.”
Gabe held up her cell. “Can’t track her this way, and I imagine Roman’s already ditched his.”
Pushing his fear aside, Dante reminded himself to think like he was on a mission, not like a man in love and scared to death he was going to lose his woman. “He’s knocked her out. Where is he going to take her? He has no other family, no other property that we know of. And it’s not like he can just throw an unconscious woman over his shoulder and walk her into a hotel, so his choices are going to be limited.”
Dante had to try to think like Roman, which was going to be hard. They used to be close as…brothers. He knew his every move. Now? Hell, the only person he’d really connected deeply with since he’d been back was Anna. “He has no close friends that I know of, but I’ve been gone.”
Gabe shrugged. “He works. And he goes home. That’s all I know about him. Anna would know more.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Sorry, man. But we’ll find him.”
“Wait. His car has a GPS unit. All the detectives’ cars do.”
“We couldn’t be that lucky. He wouldn’t be that sloppy or forgetful.”
“Wouldn’t he?” Dante grabbed Anna’s laptop and logged onto the local system, waited for it to come up. “He’s desperate right now. All his plans have gone to shit. He’s not thinking clearly. If he’s got Anna, he probably hasn’t had time to change vehicles.”
He entered Roman’s unit number and waited for it to come up. When it did, he smiled. “Bingo. Who lives on the Hill?”
“No one I know,” Gabe said. “Oh, wait. Anna told me once that Tess has a house there. Maybe she does exist.”
“Do you think she’s in on it with him?”
Gabe shot him a look of distaste. “God, I hope not.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Shit. I don’t know. Let me think. Jameson, maybe? No. Jackson. That’s it. She inherited the house from her parents.”
“You know more about her than you thought.”
Gabe shrugged. “Bits and pieces. Only because it was unusual for Roman to stick to any one woman for a long period of time.”
Dante looked up the address. “Got it.”
He didn’t want to think about Roman being obsessed with Anna. Why hadn’t she told him? Was she even aware of it?
“Let’s go. We’ll call Pohanski on the way and let him know where she is.”
Anna batted away the cobwebs, trying hard to open her eyes. She was so tired, felt as if she’d had four or five tequila shots followed by several beers.
Had she partied last night? What time was it, anyway?
She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t. Something restrained her.
She blinked to open her eyes. Seeing was a problem, and the room spun. She tried to get a grip, to focus on something, but it was all so blurry.
Whoa. Nausea rose up and she squeezed her eyes shut again, wishing she could roll over and bring her knees to her chest.
She did not feel good. At. All.
“The nausea will go away soon. Here, drink some water.”
Her eyes shot open at the whisper in her ear.
Roman.
Instant clarity brought it all back to her, the haze disappearing like a sudden gust of wind blowing away the last of the fog.
Roman had come over, said Gabe had shot at him. Dante had gone after Gabe. Then Roman had—
She tried to speak, but her mouth was full of dry cotton.
“Drink.”
She didn’t want to drink anything he gave her.
He took a sip. “It’s not drugged, honey. I promise. Now, drink.” He put the glass to her lips.
She was so thirsty. She sipped, water spilling onto the sheets. She didn’t care.
“Not too much or you’ll get sick.”
Now that her vision had cleared, she looked around. Her arms were over her head and she was tied to the iron bars of a bed. She glared at Roman.
“You drugged me.”
He looked sad. Regretful. “I know. I’m sorry. I hadn’t planned to do it this way, but things got out of control.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I can’t feel my hands. This hurts.”
He looked pained. “They do? Let me untie you. Don’t run.”
“I’m not going to run, Roman. I just want to talk.”
He took out a knife and she suppressed a shudder as he slit through the ropes at her wrists, releasing her from the bed. She rubbed her wrists, wincing as the circulation flowed back.
“You’re going to be dizzy and weak for a while until the drug wears off. Don’t try to get up.”
She shifted to sit and scooted back against the pillows. “I just want to sit.”
He backed away and crouched on the floor, rolling the knife around in his hands. He wielded the knife in and out through his fingers like an expert. She expected him to cut himself—the blade was sharp—but he obviously knew what he was doing as he watched her and played with the knife.
She focused on her surroundings. The bedroom was dark, so she couldn’t make out much. She was in someone’s house, but whose? This wasn’t Roman’s place.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“A house.”
“Whose house?”
“That’s not important. When you’re feeling up to moving around, I’ll show you. I want you to like it.”
Why was it important to him that she like the house? “I need to know whose house this is, Roman.”
The look he gave her was earnest, his expression that of a little boy eager to please. “It’s our house.”
Oh, shit. “Ours?”
“Or it will be as soon as you give your approval.”
She wanted to object, to tell him it would never be their house, but she sensed how fragile his grasp on reality was, so she played along. “I’m sure it’s going to be great if you picked it out for us.”
“I’ve been planning this a long time.”
“Have you? Tell me about it.” She inched her feet to the side of the bed, letting her legs slide over the edge.
He watched her and frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I need to swing my legs back and forth so I can get some circulation going in them. Is that okay with you?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
She moved her legs to show him what she was doing. “Tell me about the rest of the house.”
“It’s a two-bedroom. Not very big, but a nice place to start out. It’s an older house—it’s on the Hill—nice neighbors and a real friendly place. I’m sure you’re going to like it a lot.”
“I’m sure I will. I like the Hill a lot. Tess has a cute little house on the Hill, as I remember.”
He frowned. “Yeah, she did.”
Did?
What did that mean? “What happened between you and Tess, Roman? You told me things were going well.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “She wasn’t you. She was in the way.”
Goose bumps broke out on her skin at the look he gave her. She shivered at the intensity of his gaze, at the way it bored into her, as if she was everything to him—everything he’d ever wanted.
He was insane. Totally and completely gone.
How had she not seen his obsession before? Had he really been that good at hiding it, or had she just not wanted to see it?
He functioned normally. He was a good detective. But she knew a lot of psychopaths functioned as normal productive members of society.
Until they killed.
“Roman, where’s Tess?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze, just kept rolling the knife between his fingers.
“Roman,” she said, her voice sharp in command. “Tell me where Tess is.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “She’s…gone.”
The man looking at her now wasn’t the Roman she thought she knew. His easygoing smile was gone, replaced instead by a heated passion she’d never seen before. And it was directed at her.
And now she knew. He’d killed George, Jeff and her father. She didn’t understand why. And where was Tess? Poor Tess, who’d done nothing wrong except for not being Anna.
Hatred for Roman filled her. He’d beaten them all to death. Jeff. Her father, who had patiently worked with Roman and gotten him into the police academy. He’d killed a fellow police officer, too. And likely a sweet, innocent woman. He’d slaughtered them all, killed them all with his bare hands.
Just like she wanted to leap off the bed and kill Roman right now.
She tried not to think about any of that because she needed to get out of this alive.
Because if she got out of this alive, Roman would pay for what he’d done.
“When can we go see the rest of the house, Roman?”
He looked around. “You don’t like this room?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of dark in here, so I can’t see much.”
He grinned like a little boy. “Oh. Sorry. Let me turn on a light.”
He stood and came toward her, the knife held out in front of him. It was the same one she’d seen held by her attacker in her backyard.
Her attacker had been Roman. The person who’d left her the flowers and the notes had been Roman.
It had all been Roman. Roman, who had played along with them, shocked and tearful when George and Jeff had died. Compassionate when her father had been killed. And all this time it had been him.