Gone Black (22 page)

Claire lay on her back on the bed for a long time, very still, waiting for the camera to click off. Rico was no longer in the vent. She had recently whispered to him and he hadn't answered. Now she was scared that he was gone and wouldn't come back. He should've stayed put. Claire hoped to heaven that Jaxy didn't catch him while he was sneaking around. Where had he gone? And why? But at least, he was not in that bitch's grasp. He must have lived in constant fear inside this place, wherever the hell it was. Although he was not much more than a baby, Rico had shown a lot of guts against the Soquets's well-practiced cruelty.

God help her, Claire loathed Jaxy, that despicable, evil, devil of a woman. She was so cruel, got off so much on hurting other people. Especially innocent and defenseless people. Claire only hoped she would come and pick on her instead of tormenting Black or that poor little boy. She would love more than anything in the world to give that red-haired freak the beating she deserved. To stick the shard of mirror so deep inside her gut that she would never get it out.

Turning on her side, she watched the ornate brass grate for a while, hoping to see Rico's little face peeking out in the pale wash of moonlight. It had been a long time now that he had been gone. Claire was really worried. About him, about Black, about how she was going to get out of that room. Jaxy and her men would kill Rico without blinking an eye. She had no doubt about it. All of them would probably enjoy murdering him. And if Jaxy had gotten him back in their clutches, there wasn't a damn thing that Claire could do about it. But who was she kidding? They were going to kill them all, anyway. It just depended when Daddy Soquet got tired of his nefarious games and gave the signal to butcher them to death.

So she lay there, as the dawn gradually lightened the sky outside, thinking hard, wracking her brain for a good way to come out of this alive, some kind of trick that she could perpetrate that would give her a fighting chance. But she was coming up blank this time. This was a predicament that had no easy solutions. No good solutions, at all. All she had was knowledge. Black's dossiers had told her how to act with each of them, and more important, what not to do. She had to use their weaknesses against them. That's what she had to do. She sure as hell was glad she knew them better than they knew her.

Thoughts of Black's ordeal inside that white room, the bruises on his face, the drugs, and Jaxy kissing him made her sick and so angry that she could barely contain it anymore. They'd already abused him so much. What in God's name loomed in the future? Her heartbeat started thumping hard and fast, just thinking of his suffering. Her mind was filled with the worst kind of dread, because they were probably hurting him right now. Beating him or drugging him while she lay in that bed, helpless to do a thing to help him. All that was left to her was to wait and worry that Booker and the guys would not be in time. That Black would be dead when they finally found him. She couldn't bear thinking about it much longer. She had to get out. But how? She didn't know what to do next. She had relied on her plan to entice Jaxy to meet her alone, up close and personal.

According to Black, Jaxy should have felt the need to punish Claire by now, to come and hurt her physically, to tie her up and inflict every agony she could think of on her body. That's why Claire had slapped her, shoved her, and needled her. She needed to get that awful girl alone. Inside this room, alone with Jaxy, Claire would have a chance, unless and until Jaxy brought along her henchmen to back her up. But Black's file said she liked to exact her personal revenge alone, so she'd get the satisfaction and perverted pleasure of inflicting all the pain herself. That's what she was doing with Black, wasn't it? Why wasn't she coming to punish Claire, too?

Inside her mind, Claire went through each dossier again. It said all three of the Soquets were master torturers, in every sense of the word. They all had their specialties. Marcel was a computer genius as well and just loved blowing off his victim's limbs with his intricately designed homemade bombs and explosive grenade vests. He decided which tortures his crazy children should use on each victim. He gave them a list of tortures to be done in order, exactly as he put down on paper. Then in came Jaxy with her sap, her LSD, and her hands-on psychological cruelty. Then Max's realm, the worst by far. Intense physical torture and all that went with it, burning, cutting, whipping, and slicing. And he was the professional videographer of the family. He would have been the one to set up all the cameras and decide what the little showtimes would be. He was the one who showed prisoners what their friends or loved ones were suffering. He was the one who filmed his own little rape and abuse sessions with their so-called clients. Personal videos of his sexual assaults, filmed to enjoy later when he was alone and needed to relive his perverted gratifications.

God, these people had climbed up out of hell. One long and quivery shudder inched up Claire's spine, because they were now well into Jaxy's Act One, and when Max took over Black's ill-treatment, Black would not last long. Max was the cold-blooded one. He was the one who felt no remorse, no guilt, no nothing, except the intense sexual pleasure of inflicting pain and humiliation, followed by a horrible method of death.

After a minute or two, she sat up on the bed when she heard voices outside her door. One low voice giving orders. Then receding footsteps and quiet again. What was going on? She was pretty sure that whatever it was, it was not gonna be good for her. Maybe Jaxy had dismissed them. Maybe it was time for their final showdown at last. Well, good, that's exactly what Claire had been waiting for. Bring that idiot psycho girl on. The idea of killing that bitch with a very sharp shard of glass was what had been keeping Claire going.

Claire swung her legs off the edge of the bed. Surreptitiously, she pulled out the makeshift knife and hid it behind her back. She waited. Then a moment later, she heard a key scrape in the lock. The door was pushed open, and she heard Jaxy flip the switch for the ceiling light fixture. The deep shadows disintegrated, and Claire blinked in the sudden bright light, but then her heart fell, hard and fast. Because it wasn't Jaxy standing in that threshold coming to show her who was boss. It was Max Soquet. The great big, ruthless psychopathic sibling of the family's whacko dynamic. He was wearing a blue nylon jacket over a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and dark jeans. He had on brown desert boots and had what looked like a homicide bomber's suicide grenade vest in one hand. It had all kinds of wires on it, attached to large, unusual-looking hand grenades. Probably about ten of them. Oh, God. They were going to blow her to pieces. Probably in front of Black.

Claire tried not to think about the vest. Right now, she had to think about Max and not letting him strap that thing on her. She knew it had only been a matter of time before somebody came to teach her a lesson for her smart mouth and the trouble she caused, or just straight out to cut her throat or kill her with a bomb, which was one of their favorite pastimes, too. All of which would probably be filmed. A feature presentation for Black to watch as they murdered her in cold blood. Or maybe they were going to take her to him. Blow them both up with matching vests.

All she had to defend herself was the jagged piece of mirror, but it would slice deeply and painfully into Max's flesh and get his attention. Hell, yeah. And he wouldn't be expecting it. He would consider her unarmed and just another helpless victim. Easy pickings for a guy his size. But she had play-sparred with Black on occasion, too, and he'd taught her a few military moves in hand-to-hand combat that might come in handy when the blows began to fall. So, surprise, surprise, Max.

Claire wrapped her fingers tightly around the bottom of the shard, and she tried to prepare her mind for what was probably gonna be the ultimate fight of her life. Because that's exactly what he wanted her to do, no doubt about it. He wanted her to fight him tooth and nail so his little victory over her would be more rewarding to his depraved sensibilities. One thing she knew, for sure, she couldn't show him the fear that was streaking like wildfire through her body and mind. Black had emphasized that over and over in Max's dossier. His awareness of his victims' fear fed Max's violence, and those who showed courage survived longer than those who did not. Black's exact words. But easier said than done. And she was already starting to tremble.

Claire took some deep breaths and forcibly stilled her hands and her heart. Time for one of them to die. She somehow managed to engender a mocking tone. But she sounded breathless because she was scared to death. “Well, well, look who came to see me. Max Soquet in the flesh.” She stopped, taking another breath, trying to garner strength that she didn't have. “So what's up, Max? You comin' to tuck me in? Make sure I'm all comfy? Or do you just plan to slaughter me and be done with it?”

Sliding off the bed as she spoke, she kept most of the mattress between her and the large, lethal, but seemingly well-mannered killer. Then she waited for him to attack her. Because he would, and he would do it with a weapon, most likely that Chinese silver dagger that Black's report said he kept in a leather sheath on his belt and used to slash throats deep enough to decapitate people. She was just glad he hadn't brought Zeus the Rottweiler to rip out her throat. Then she really wouldn't have a chance.

Max remained where he stood beside the door, silent, just watching her. He held himself very still and stared a hole through her face. She tried not to shiver. His dark eyes were hard, like chips of black and shiny flint, unblinking, cruel, and calculatingly evil. He had finally shed his quiet, gentlemanly mien. His control. He had come to teach her a hard lesson in civility. She knew it.

Claire watched him take a small remote control from his pocket and point it at the security camera. The red light went out. The camera was off. Whatever he was planning to do, he didn't want anyone watching, didn't want video evidence. That's why he had turned off the camera. That's why he was alone inside the room with her and with no guards outside to witness what was about to transpire. Oh, God. But then he took out a smartphone, punched in a couple of commands, and placed it atop a bureau sitting beside the door. He was going to film what he did to her with his personal cell phone. His own personal snuff film to enjoy at his leisure?

Claire felt the panic, pure and devastating, and it started eating a corrosive path through what was left of her self-control. Okay, she was afraid of him. Terrified out of her wits, in fact. She could admit it to herself. Quiet, self-contained, methodical murderers were worse than quick-tempered, mouthy ones. A lot worse. They were thinkers. They had everything figured out in advance, in a detailed scenario before they acted, including just how they would inflict torturous agony on their victims, how long it would last, and how intense it would be.

Max Soquet had not come to mess around and exchange barbs or insult her or give her another chance. He had other things in mind, things that she didn't like to think about. She knew that Max liked to beat his female victims almost to death and then brutally rape them while they bled and moaned and retched. In her case, and after the beating and the rape, he would strap her into that grenade vest while she was still alive. She tightened her fingers on the mirror, felt the razor-sharp glass cut through the thin T-shirt material and slice into her palm. She had to make him think she was unfazed by his superior size and strength.

“What? You want a feature film to watch later so you can get your jollies a second time? You know, without all that bothersome blood spattering everywhere? That it, Max? What? You got a little library of snuff videos on your phone, right? Probably gets you all turned on every time you watch them. Gets you ready for the next innocent person you murder. Well, guess what? This time what happens here might not be something you want to watch again. This time you might come out with the short end of the stick. You know, dead. Just sayin'.”

Max didn't respond to her jibes, didn't look affected by them at all. He took his time placing the grenade vest very carefully on the floor beside the door. Then he walked to the foot of the bed, where he removed his blue nylon jacket and then slowly unbuttoned his white dress shirt and placed both garments carefully over the footboard of the bed. He was bare chested, with lots of curly red chest hair and elaborate and colorful tattoos all over his torso and great big arms that looked about the size of Claire's thighs. The largest tat said
Beloved Mother
in red and white. There were many others in fancy cursive script, but she sure as hell didn't want to spend her last few moments on earth reading them.

He reached into his jeans' pocket and pulled out his famous leather gloves and locked a very intense black-eyed gaze on her. He held the gloves in one hand while he spoke to her, and his voice was so calm, so conversational, as if he were telling her about the weather outside or giving her directions to the bus depot. “You have been screwing around with my sister, making her angry and upset, trying to cause trouble for us, trying to make her do something stupid again. Well, now, Ms. Morgan, you have found your trouble, and I am a much more formidable foe than my poor, overemotional, traumatized little sister.”

Claire's swallow went down hard. She watched Max return to the door, twist the key in the lock, and then slip the key into his pants pocket. She inhaled a couple of deep breaths, trying to brace herself for what she knew was coming. She set her muscles, settled her mind, and prepared herself to fight back. Her adrenaline had begun to pump like crazy now, going absolutely wild, but that acted to make her mind sharper, but he was coming back across the room now. Walking slowly, staring at her with unblinking gaze, still somber, still serious about making her pay with the kind of pain that only he could dish out.
Come on, Max
, she thought,
come on, get a little closer to me. Close enough for me to stab you in the gut, you big evil psycho bastard.