“Does it hurt?” His concern seemed genuine. “Your back?”
“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Take your time, then. After you’ve unlocked yourself, I’ll let you stand up. You can stretch, get the blood flowing. It’s about time we did this, anyway.”
She managed to get her ankles free, sweating from the exertion. He offered her his hand, and she moved her bare legs carefully over the edge of the bed so her feet dangled.
Taking a deep breath, she stood. A million burning needles flooded through her body. In desperation, she gripped Ethan’s arm for support.
“Take your time,” he said again.
After what seemed like a lifetime, relief set in. She put her arms over her head and stretched. The bones in her back cracked and the sound was like microwave popcorn.
“Better?”
“A little.” She had never before despised another human being this way in her life.
“Walk over there.” He pointed to the far wall she’d spent almost every waking hour staring at. A doorway was to the left, but no door. “Remember, you move funny and I’ll have no choice but to blow your head off.”
The gun looked too small to blow anyone’s head off, but she wasn’t going to argue semantics with a murderer. She didn’t doubt the little gun could punch a nice, neat hole in her skull, the bullet bouncing around, shredding the very essence of who she was into pulp.
She shuffled toward the wall, feeling the blood rush through her legs and feet. The pain was finally subsiding and it felt good to move. They passed through the doorway, and she wasn’t entirely surprised to find a long corridor behind it.
She couldn’t believe how large this place was. She’d come to assume she was in a basement, but now that she was getting a better idea of the size, it seemed too big for that. The house above them would have to be huge. Maybe a warehouse of some sort?
Two doors were at the end of the corridor, one with a keypad bolted beside it, and one without. Sheila wondered if the door without the keypad was the bathroom.
“Stop,” Ethan commanded. With the gun trained on her head, he reached past her and punched a code into the keypad. His arm was in the way and she couldn’t tell what he’d entered. After a short beep, the door popped open.
“Go on,” he said, nudging her lower back. “Go see. Everything you wanted to know is inside.”
Sheila shuffled forward.
The room was dark and Ethan reached past her again. The lights came on suddenly, glaringly. It took her a moment to focus on what she was looking at. Even then, she didn’t know what to make of it.
It was a room wrapped entirely in plastic.
She blinked, trying to take it all in. The space was large, approximately twenty by twenty feet, about the same size as the area where her bed was. In the middle sat a folding table resembling something a traveling massage therapist would tote, only it was wrapped snugly in some kind of cellophane. The walls were also covered in plastic and, through the transparency, she could see stained concrete cinder blocks underneath.
Against the wall to the right, a six-foot-tall stainless steel cabinet showcased a bevy of weaponry. It was mostly guns and knives, but she could also see a small ax, an ice pick, and a sledgehammer. A large freezer sat beside it. Leaning against that was a chain saw, and a few feet away was something that looked like a mini- forklift.
Her bare feet felt cold, and she looked down. Unlike the wall, the cement floor was exposed and pristine. He followed her gaze.
“You’re right, I have to remember to lay down fresh plastic.” He sounded pleasant and matter-of-fact. “You can’t get blood out of concrete.”
Though she hadn’t entirely processed what she was seeing, she felt faint. Her knees buckled and Ethan placed an arm around her waist to keep her steady.
“Welcome to my workroom.” His lips were at her ear. “This is where I get rid of the mess.”
Sheila tried to speak, but no words came.
“That’s Marie.” Ethan looked directly at the concrete wall. “Say hello, Marie.”
Only two of them were in the room.
“Who’s Marie?” Sheila whispered, dazed.
He took a few steps forward, gesturing with the gun for Sheila to follow. He stared at the wall, eye level. “If you look close enough, you can see part of her hand.”
Sheila followed his gaze to the plastic covering the concrete. What the hell was he talking about?
Then, suddenly, like one of those 3-D stereogram pictures you had to stare at cross-eyed for the image to appear, she saw it.
A hand. Small, with long fingernails, clearly belonging to a woman. The fingertips jutted out about an inch from the concrete, brushing up against the plastic covering. The skin had a bluish tint.
With her eyes now knowing what to look for, the scene in front of her unfolded all at once.
She saw a foot. Several feet actually, spread out over the wall. Pink toenail polish. Gold toenail polish. Blue toenail polish.
A hand with short red fingernails. An elbow. A knee.
A swatch of brown hair.
It was a wall full of dead bodies.
“Guess the evil spirits thing doesn’t work after all.” Ethan’s voice was detached.
She hadn’t noticed that he was behind her once again.
“It didn’t work for Marie, and you’re wearing her amulet. Do you see them, Sheila?”
She managed to nod.
“You asked me if I was jealous. That, my darling, that isn’t jealousy.” She felt his hot breath on her cheek. “That’s rage. That’s what I’ve been filled with every day, since the day you ended it with me.” He pointed to the wall. “And that, my love, is what you have to look forward to.”
His fingers touched her throat, and the last thing Sheila heard before she passed out was the sound of her own screaming.
CHAPTER 20
S heila was really gone.
She wasn’t returning his calls. She wasn’t at home. She wasn’t at work. Morris had staked out every place he could think of and there was no sign of her. She had meant every word in that awful message she’d left.
He’d never gotten the chance to tell her what he’d decided. Or to wish her well. Or to say good-bye. Now she was out there somewhere, trying to get better, with no idea that he still loved her and wanted to make it work. She was all alone, probably terrified, and whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve that.
It was all his fault. If he hadn’t been so goddamned judgmental…
He sat in his office, staring at a dark computer screen, his door shut tight. He was finally back at Bindle after taking a day off, but he couldn’t seem to remember his user name or password to log on to his computer. All he could think about was the locked drawer in his desk where a brand-new bottle of Johnnie Walker Red was hiding. He’d sneaked it in that morning, which hadn’t been too difficult-everybody was avoiding him thanks to Darcy’s strict instructions to the staff not to mention the canceled wedding.
He could only imagine the rumors swirling around the office like a flu virus. After all, it wasn’t every day that a senior partner got dumped a week before his own wedding. Hell, if this hadn’t been his life, he’d be titillated by it, too.
His gaze shifted to the framed photograph sitting beside his computer. The picture had been taken the night he proposed, at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Sheila in a low-cut black dress, red velvet lips, gorgeous and glowing; he in his favorite pin-striped suit and the tie Sheila had picked out.
He touched the glass. She looked beautiful and he looked happy.
