Alone in the Dark (34 page)

Chip said nothing, just closed his eyes. New fury bubbled up into Ken’s throat. ‘Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it . . .’ He took a short, sharp blade from his cart and moved behind Marlene, grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking her head back against him, exposing the curve of her throat. He removed the noose he’d placed around her neck and tossed it aside before positioning the tip of the blade beneath Marlene’s ear. ‘Open your eyes, Chip. Time to say bye-bye to your wife.’

Chip’s eyes flew open in alarm – just in time to see the blood spurting from his wife’s throat. The first spray hit him in the face, the second on his shoulder. Chip screamed like a woman as the third pulse simply flowed down the front of Marlene’s no-longer-expensive silk blouse.

‘
You freak!
’ Chip shouted. ‘You
motherfucker
!’ A horrified sob rattled his chest. ‘You
killed
her! You killed her.’ He quickly lost steam, whispering, ‘Goddamn you.’

Ignoring him, Ken turned Marlene’s chair so that Stephanie could see. Predictably, the girl’s eyes were clenched shut. Her face was sheet white, her whole body trembling.

‘Come on, Stephanie,’ Ken said cajolingly. ‘See Mama’s big new grin.’

Stephanie turned her head away from her mother and vomited. A tiny bit hit the floor. Most of it hit her shirt, smelling vile. Ken had never been able to stand the smell of vomit.

He left Marlene there, the blood seeping slowly now. Gripping the edges of Stephanie’s blouse front with his – thankfully – still gloved hands, he ripped it apart, sending buttons flying. He cut it from her shoulders, leaving her wearing only a tiny lacy bra that covered next to nothing. He dropped the blouse in the trashcan, tied the bag shut, then stripped his gloves off and laid them on top of the tied bag.

He went to the sink behind the bar and washed his hands, returning with a can of air freshener and a chair of his own. He sprayed the air, then turned the chair backwards and straddled it, folding his arms across the back of the chair calmly.

‘See, here’s the thing, Chi
p
. You fucked with me. You have caused me a lot of trouble today. You have exposed me to the authorities.’

‘No,’ Chip gasped. ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’

Ken casually brushed a piece of lint from the lapel of his suit. ‘I really don’t care who did it. The point remains is that it was done. As the head of your family, you should have kept better track of your wife and daughter.’

Stephanie was hyperventilating and shivering. She still hadn’t opened her eyes.

‘Now,’ Ken continued, ‘there is no way you’re leaving here alive, Chip. No way. So put the thought out of your mind. You can, however, make your daughter’s life a little easier.’

Chip’s breaths were fast and shallow, his wife’s blood dripping down his face. ‘You’ll let her go?’

Ken threw back his head and laughed. ‘Good one, Chip.’ Then he sobered. ‘Not a fucking chance. But I won’t kill her.’

‘You’ll sell her. Like one of your whores.’

‘You should know. You bought enough of ’em.’ Ken shrugged. ‘I can make this hard or I can make it easy. Frankly, my business partner wants you to defy me. It means he’ll get to test-drive your daughter before I put her on the block. If that’s the case, I’ll make sure you have a front-row seat. My partner is not a nice man.’

Chip swallowed hard. ‘You piece of shit.’

Ken tsked. ‘That is inflammatory, pejorative language, Chip. And quite trashy, too. Really, I expected something a little more elegant from you. But I suppose I can see your point of view. What’s it gonna be? You talk to me, or I let my partner have your daughter?’

Chip’s eyes burned with helpless hate. ‘You sick son—’

‘Consider your answer carefully,’ Ken interrupted. ‘I have three men that were injured bringing you in. I’m sure they’d like some kind of compensation too. So tell me what I want to know. How did the girl get out this morning?’

‘I don’t know,’ Chip said through gritted teeth, his face now florid. ‘Stephanie said she took her out.’

‘Why?’

‘
I don’t know!
’ Chip shouted. ‘
I don’t know!
’

‘Stephanie?’ Ken prompted. ‘You can help yourself here. Why would you take your father’s property out to play?’

‘Because I needed her,’ Stephanie said coldly, her face still turned away.

‘Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Say more,’ Ken directed pleasantly.

‘She bought coke for me.’

Chip’s eyes widened. ‘You said you weren’t using anymore.’

‘I lied,’ Stephanie spat. ‘So punish me,
Daddy
. Bastard,’ she added in a mutter. ‘You
had
to bring her into our house. You
had
to sleep with her. This is
your
fault.
You
caused this.’

‘I did it for you,’ Chip tossed back furiously. ‘I bought them for you and for your mother.’

‘And look where it got
Mother
.’ Stephanie’s face scrunched up as she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. ‘Fuck you,
Daddy
. Just . . . fuck you.’

‘So charming,’ Ken said lightly. ‘You’re finally communicating with each other. Now try communicating with me. I take it, Stephanie, that last night’s drug run wasn’t an isolated event.’

‘No,’ Stephanie said shortly.

‘Why take the risk?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

‘Because if I got caught again, I’d get kicked out of school and lose my allowance.’

Ken actually believed that. ‘But why take the girl? If she was caught, she’d lead the police back to your house.’

‘She never got caught. Not until last night.’

‘Who killed her, Stephanie? Did you?’

‘No.’

‘Then who?’

‘I don’t know,’ the girl said sullenly. ‘Some piece of trash that wanted the cash I gave her to buy the coke, I guess. I don’t know.’

‘Oh I think you do, Stephanie.’ Ken stood up, took off his suit coat and hung it on a nearby hook, casually inspecting it for bloodstains, finding a few. Luckily Alice was a wizard at getting blood out of fabric. He folded his shirtsleeves to the middle of his forearms, glancing over to find Stephanie watching him, her expression wildly desperate.

‘What are you going to do?’ she whispered.

‘Well I need answers and you’ve been uncooperative. I know ways to make you very uncomfortable without leaving a single mark.’

‘I’ve told you the truth.’

‘No, dear. You have not.’ He started to pull on a pair of latex gloves, but hesitated. ‘You don’t have a latex allergy, do you?’

‘No,’ she said numbly. ‘What? Why?’

‘Because I don’t want you to break out in hives. It’s really unattractive.’ He finished pulling on the gloves, then stood behind her, feeling her shaking with fear.
A good start
.

‘Don’t kill me,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Please.’

‘Get your filthy hands off her,’ Chip growled.

Ken smiled at him. ‘Sorry, Chip. But you’re welcome to watch.’ He stood behind her and covered her mouth with one hand, pinching her nose closed with the other. And then he waited until she started to thrash. He waited another twenty seconds, then released her.

Stephanie sucked in air in rasping gulps. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ she panted.

He let her get her breath back, then leaned down to murmur in her ear. ‘Who shot the girl, Stephanie?’

She said nothing, and he had to admire her spirit. When the bidders saw the video he was recording, at this moment, her price would skyrocket. ‘One more time.’ He repeated the suffocation, satisfied when she started to whimper against his hand. He released her and let her gulp in a breath before he covered her nose and mouth a third time. ‘Tell me, Stephanie. Nod if you plan to tell me. Don’t fuck with me, my dear. That will make me angry, and you won’t like me angry. Who killed the girl? Was it you?’

She shook her head wildly.

‘Are you ready to tell me who it was?’ She nodded, and he released her but kept her nose pinched. ‘Who, Stephanie?’

‘Drake.’ She was heaving in air. ‘It was Drake.’

Ken was actually surprised. He stepped back and restraddled his chair. ‘Drake who?’

‘Sonofabitch,’ Chip spat. ‘I should have known that trailer trash was behind this.’

Ken glanced at Chip, then back at Stephanie, who was shaking like she had the palsy, the after-effect of her near-suffocation. ‘Who is Drake?’ he asked, enunciating each word.

‘My boyfriend,’ Stephanie said, still gasping for air. ‘Drake Connor. He killed her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she was talking to a man.’

‘A man, huh? Sounds like Drake came prepared.’ Ken glanced at Chip again. ‘He shot the girl with a Ruger loaded with BTs.’

Chip’s face grew even redder.

‘He stole your gun?’ Ken guessed.

‘I’ll kill him,’ Chip said quietly, not answering the question. But then he didn’t have to. His expression said it all.

‘No you won’t, but don’t worry. I’ll kill him for you. Where is he, Stephanie dear?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since this morning. Not since we came back from downtown.’

‘What does he drive?’ Ken asked.

‘He doesn’t have a car. We always used mine.’

‘We’ll track him down,’ Ken said, hoping that was true. Because he knew that if Drake was smart, he had already hightailed it out of town and had a three-hour head start by now, at least. ‘What was Drake’s role in all this?’

Stephanie shot a baleful glance at her father, paling when she looked down and saw her mother’s body. ‘Oh God,’ she whimpered. ‘Mama.’

‘Your mama’s worm food,’ Ken said flatly. ‘If you don’t want the same thing to happen to you, you’ll talk to me, Stephanie. Why was Drake with you this morning? Why did he bring your father’s gun in the first place?’

‘It was a bad part of town,’ she blurted out. ‘We were buying drugs. We did them together. When Tala didn’t come right back, he got upset.’

Upset
. That was an interesting word choice. ‘You said he shot her because she was talking to a man. Who was the man? A cop?’

‘He didn’t think so. He thought the guy was someone trying to . . . buy Tala. Her services.’

‘Your boyfriend thought this mysterious guy was a john?’ That was rich. ‘But why not just tell the guy to fuck off? Why shoot them both? That doesn’t make sense, Stephanie.’

She bit her lip, and Ken could see the wheels turning as she tried to think of an answer to his question.

‘You might try the truth,’ he suggested mildly. ‘Just a thought.’

‘He was . . .’ Stephanie closed her eyes. ‘He was jealous.’

‘Really? Still not making sense, Stephanie.’

She blew out a helpless breath. ‘He thought she’d been sneaking off to meet the man. He thought they were . . . lovers. Drake got jealous because Tala was . . . his.’

‘She was fucking not his,’ Chip ground out.

‘Tala,’ Ken said. ‘That was the girl’s name? How was she Drake’s?’

Stephanie’s chin had come up at her father’s declaration. ‘He’d been fucking her for a while. She was his toy.’

Chip’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. ‘You ungrateful, spiteful little bitch.’

Ken cocked a brow.
Interesting
. ‘Didn’t it bother you that he was fucking the servant? He was
your
boyfriend.’

Eyes narrowing, Stephanie gave her father a satisfied sneer. ‘I was fucking her too. We did her together.’

‘I see,’ Ken murmured. And he really was starting to. Chip was breathing hard, fury evident in every charged line of his body. That Stephanie and Drake had fucked his servant was not welcome news. No, not at all. ‘Why did you look at your father like that?’

‘Like what?’ Stephanie asked harshly.

‘Like you’re thumbing it in his face.’

‘Because he wanted to keep her for himself,’ Stephanie spat. ‘He
loved
her.’

This was getting more interesting by the moment. ‘By loved, you mean exactly what?’

‘He had a baby with her,’ Stephanie said bitterly. ‘My daughter this and my daughter that. You’d think it was some kind of rocket scientist instead of a half-breed. Little brat cried all the damn time. I think Tala pinched it to make it cry, just so Mama would hear it.’ She kept her chin high, her gaze resolutely away from her mother’s body. ‘Flaunting the little bastard in Mama’s face.’

Ken rose, his heart grown grimly cold. ‘We didn’t find a baby.’

‘Because
she
took it,’ Stephanie said.

‘You mean Tala?’ Ken asked, and Stephanie shook her head with a cold smile. ‘The other two escaped women?’ he pressed.

Stephanie’s smile curled at the edges of her mouth, becoming predatory. ‘You wish.’

Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 12.45
P.M.