She was so overheated that her skin felt moist, but when she tried to open the window, she couldn’t get it to budge. There was a pounding behind her temples that was only growing stronger. Part of her wanted to cry in frustration. But she’d been raised by Nana to have steel in her spine and she wasn’t going to fold. Instead, she dropped to her knees beside the bed—just as she had when she was a little girl—and started to pray.
“Lord, I need your help,” she whispered. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done, and I know I should be asking you for forgiveness right now, but that will have to wait. Please don’t let that woman be harmed.” Even in her prayers, Dominique realized she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the woman’s name. “Trin Cowan. No, not Cowan. She hates that name. You know who I mean, Lord. Protect her from Gary. Protect her from whoever he’s hired to kill her. Any bad thoughts about her I’ve had, Lord, please know I didn’t mean them.”
She stood, calmer now in spite of Gary’s racket from the basement. “You’ll be sorry!” he shouted. Did he have another way out of the cellar? She had no idea. He did have an iPad, and that made her wonder what other electronic gadgets he had down there. A phone would be very, very helpful.
Picking up the gun, she held it for a moment, considering the past. She didn’t know what had happened between her parents. Deep down, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Her father had a temper, and she remembered him shouting—never at her or her mother, but at Desmond. He didn’t curse, but he’d say things like “I’ll make you sorry!” That wasn’t so different from Gary at that moment, howling in the cellar. The parallels struck her suddenly, and she set the gun down carefully, afraid it would go off, even though it was supposed to be empty.
Everything that had happened that day showed her she was trapped in the middle of other people’s games. Gary had hired some very bad people to kidnap them and to kill his wife. But there was something off about the kidnapper who’d shown her his face. His hatred for Gary was real. Golden boy, he’d called him, and there was poison flowing under the words that could only come from envy. A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. Nana, again, always with a quote from the Bible at the ready.
Dominique shut the drawer. She was going to end this game.
As she went down the stairs to the first floor, she felt light-headed, almost tipsy. She aimed to be quiet, but every movement caused a creak or a groan.
“Don’t think you can keep me locked up, because you can’t!” Gary shouted.
The implicit threat meant nothing to Dominique, except that it reminded her of the time. It was almost ten o’clock at night. She didn’t know when the kidnappers would be back, and she wasn’t looking forward to that reunion. She needed to find a phone. With that in mind, she headed for the kitchen. Gary was banging on the door.
“Cut that out,” Dominique ordered. “I’m going to open the door, and we’re going to talk. But you need to stop shouting and carrying on like a fool.”
The thudding stopped. Dominique pulled the table away from the door and reached for the lock. Deep breaths, she told herself. Three. Two. One. She slid the bolt back.
Gary pushed the door open. “I thought you were going to leave me trapped down there.”
“I thought so, too. Lucky for you, I had a change of heart.”
He stepped into the kitchen. There were streaks of blood on the front of his shirt from his nosebleed. “You’ve got a mean right hook,” he said. “Anyone ever tell you that you should’ve been a boxer? You’d be an awesome lightweight.”
“I should never have hit you. I’m sorry.” She wasn’t, not really, but she knew Nana would be ashamed on her behalf, and that was bad enough.
“I deserved it. Pulling a stunt like this, what did I expect?”
There was an awkward pause while he studied the floor. Dominique watched him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“You know this is all wrong, don’t you?” she asked.
“I’m not pretending it’s right. But I don’t have a choice.” He finally met her gaze. “I’m trapped and I’ve got no way out. It’s sink or swim for me. I don’t expect you to go along with it. All I ask is that you try to understand how desperate I am.”
“I know.”
They weren’t good at talking about serious things together. They never had been. That had always been their biggest obstacle, and Dominique couldn’t see a way around it at that moment.
“There are clean shirts in the bedroom upstairs,” she said. “There’s also a bathtub that looks clean. Why don’t you take a bath and rest?”
“Sure.” He reached forward, as if he were about to touch her face, but he lost his nerve and tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear. “What are you going to do?”
“I think I’ll open that bottle of champagne you keep talking about.”
“Pour me a glass. I’ll be down soon.”
Gary went upstairs, and she ventured into the basement. It was less scary this time, since the blackout curtains were open, but it was no less buggy. She found Gary’s phone in the inside pocket of his jacket. The power bar was below fifty percent, but that was enough for what she had to do. She felt relieved for a moment, but the pounding in her head wouldn’t let up. She hurried upstairs and to the front door. She could hear water filling the tub upstairs. The sound was booming through the house as she let herself out.
Chapter 15
It was pitch-black outside,
