THE FIRST SIN (37 page)

Sick bastard.

In one hand he held a syringe full of the green liquid.

“Never thought I’d get to get in on some girl-on-girl action. Tonight will be a treat for me and my guests.” He stopped just outside the reach of her chain.

“You’re going to get a taste of pussy while you’re being screwed.” Kristin’s stomach heaved. No. Can’t throw up. She gripped the can of oven cleaner and put her finger on the spray button.

Michaels looked at the open fridge. “Close the door before all of the canapes get warm.”

Stall him. Make him come closer.

“Please don’t make me do that.” She tried to keep her hand steady on the oven cleaner. “Please don’t make me be with another girl—or those other men. I promise I’ll do anything for you.”

Michaels’s scowl twisted his heavy features. “I said shut the goddamned door.”

Her hand shook so badly she didn’t know if she’d be able to hold it steady enough.

She would. This was going to end.

“Please,” she said, putting all the begging she could into her voice.

“I don’t want to mark you before tonight” he said as he strode toward her, and raised the hand that wasn’t holding the syringe when he was a few inches away. “But if you refuse to listen to me, so help me I’m going to slap the—“ Kristin jerked the can of oven cleaner out of the fridge and squeezed the button, aiming for his face. White foam shot from the canister, directly into those eyes she hated so much.

Michaels screamed and dropped the syringe.

The doorbell chimed.

Kristin didn’t stop spraying, and his face was nearly covered with the foam.

Fumes from the spray attacked her as she said, “You lousy, slimy, scum—“

“Bitch!” He lunged for her.

Kristin tried to back up but her foot slipped in the foam that had plopped onto the tile.

Michaels grabbed her throat, knocking her against the counter.

The can slipped from her hand and rattled as it rolled over the tile floor.

“You are mine to kill.” The foam blinded him, but he had found her throat when he lunged for her. “I paid for you!” His fingers were above her leather collar, and she gasped when he squeezed, his fingers so tight he was digging them into her throat.

Kristin grabbed his wrists with her hands, but his grip was too tight.

Her vision started to blur. She couldn’t breathe. Her mind started to shut down as he squeezed harder. She wasn’t sure the chimes she heard in the distance were in her mind or real.

The opener.

She released one of his wrists and started slapping the counter with her palm, even as she felt the world fading.

The opener.

Got to ... got to.. .

Even as her sight dimmed, her fingers found the cloth covering the punch opener.

Down. He was going down.

She yanked the cloth aside and grasped the opener.

Through her blurry vision, and even as weak as she was, she found the strength to do what she’d planned. Kristin rammed the triangular point of the punch opener into one of his eyeballs and yanked as hard as she could.

She ripped his eyeball from its socket.

Michaels screamed and released her as his hands went to his eye, where blood poured from the socket. He screamed as he held one hand to his empty socket and went for her with his other hand. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!

Fucking bitch, I’ll kill you!”

Breath rasped,through her sore throat to her lungs, giving her just enough strength to switch hands with the opener. She jabbed the opener into his other eyeball and ripped it out.

“You’ll never look at another woman’s body again,” she shouted as he held his hands to his empty eye sockets and thrashed around. “Never!” she shouted.

“Fucking bitch!” He moved like he had no control over i his body and yelled between coherent words. “Dear God. Oh, God.” He reached for her, his hands waving in nothing but air as he tried to reach for her. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! You can’t get away and I’ll kill you!”

Kristin was having a hard time focusing after nearly being strangled to death, and from all the oven cleaner fumes. But she had the presence of mind to grab the now red-hot empty frying pan, and with a two-handed grip slammed it into his face.

He screamed as the pan burned his flesh and knocked it out of her hand.

“You bitch! Ill kill you!” he kept shouting over and over as he floundered and went for her again. Her strength was nearly gone, but she managed to bring i her knee to her breast, plant her foot on his chest, and shove with everything she had.

Michaels fell back and slid across the bloody, foamy floor.

“Kristin!”

Nick, was that Nick?

She slowly slid down the cabinets, her legs starting to give out as well as her sight. But she had just enough left to see her brother’s face. The steel-hard look in his gaze as he pointed a gun at Michaels’s groin.

In her haze Kristin almost tipped sideways as she watched, fascinated. She heard a shot, and Michaels screamed even louder and seemed to froth at the mouth.

Then Nick coolly raised the gun and shot the hysterical man between his already sightless eyes.

“I knew you’d find me.” Kristin smiled at Nick before everything went dark.

April 27

Saturday afternoon

Donovan gripped my hand as tight as I was holding onto his when Dr.

Shastri came into the room. The doors made shushing sounds as they opened, then closed behind her. Donovan and I had been in the waiting room at the medical center ever since last night, when we found Kristin.

I glanced up at Donovan. I’d seen him intense, focused, angry, and in a killing rage.

I’d never seen him scared.

My cast was hard against my belly, which seemed to twist as I pressed the cast to it.

We got to our feet as the doctor walked closer. Donovan held onto me as if I was his lifeline.

Dr. Shastri was lovely, with dark skin and dark eyes, her hair pulled back tight. She sat on one of the mauve and seafoam green chairs, the cushion barely giving under her slight weight. The medical center didn’t have a hospital’s antiseptic smell. At least not in the waiting room—it smelled like paint, dust, and mothballs.

As the doctor waited for us to sit back down, Donovan seemed frozen. I tugged a little on his hand and we sat together. Donovan’s words came out gruff. Hoarse. “How is—“ His throat worked. “Is my sister all right?”

“She will be.” The doctor gave a gentle smile. I placed her accent as close to Kashmir, in northern India, where I had once worked an op. “But it will take time. You need to understand that.”

“How—what—“ Donovan sucked in his breath and he looked like the Donovan I knew, not the frightened boy I’d seen while we waited for news.

“Please explain everything,” he said with a more solid tone to his voice. “The near strangulation is the worst of Kristin’s physical injuries.” Dr. Shastri folded her hands in her lap. “The fumes she breathed in from the oven cleaner fortunately did not damage her lungs. However, she does have a few bruises and some mild abrasions from what was probably a whip.” The killing rage was back on Donovan’s face, his skin drawn tight over his cheekbones.

At the same time, fear for his sister never left his eyes.

“She’s been tested for illnesses and diseases, and everything has come back normal so far,” Dr. Shastri said. Those words brought home the fact that Kristin had been sexually abused, and my stomach lurched. It was possible I would end up with two casts if Donovan squeezed my hand any tighter than he was now.

“What now?” Donovan sounded like he had to force the words.

“From what I understand of your background, Mr. Donovan,” Dr. Shastri said in her light accent, “I am certain you are aware of what will be the more difficult part of Kristin’s healing. The psychological trauma.”

Donovan didn’t move, didn’t respond.

“The extent of this trauma we will not know until she has had a complete mental health assessment,” Dr. Shastri said. “At the very least she will be seen by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a social worker. She will be prescribed what she most needs based on that assessment. “Her recovery will involve therapy,” she continued. “Not only with a social worker, but the psychiatrist may prescribe medications. As I said, it will depend on her assessment.” Donovan pulled my hand into his lap, and I don’t think he even realized it. “When can she come home?”

Dr. Shastri’s brown eyes moved from Donovan’s to mine, before she looked at Donovan again. “She will most likely need some in-patient time. How long that will be, it is too soon to tell.”

“I don’t want her to wake up alone.” Donovan looked toward the doors the doctor had come through. “I need to be there for her.”

“You may stay with Kristin when you are able to.” The doctor had a focused expression, while maintaining an air of soothing calm with her gentle accent.

“So that you know, she will never be alone. She will always have a sitter in the room, and we have been assured a guard will always be stationed outside the door. She will be extremely well cared for.” Dr. Shastri stood. “She’s resting and may not wake, but you are welcome to spend time with her.”

Donovan held onto me as we followed the doctor. I honestly don’t think he even realized he hadn’t released his grip on me since the doctor came into the waiting room. For a long time we stood by Kristin’s bed. Her bruised, swollen throat, her tortured expression, even in sleep, all those tubes and monitors . .

“She needs you,” I whispered to Donovan, and he released my hand.

Donovan was wholly focused on Kristin when he took her hand in his, and he held it for hours. His voice was husky as he told her how much he loved her.

Then he started talking about how he was waiting for her to come home; about how that old lady had willed him a snotty calico named Dixie; how it was around Boston; memories of things they’d done as kids. Just stuff you would think inane coming from a man like Donovan. But there was love in every word he spoke, and in the single tear that made its way down his cheek.

May 10

Friday night

“That feels sooooo good.” I fell into Donovan’s massage like my friend Tara would fall into a vat of dark chocolate if you gave her the chance.

It was two weeks after the end of Kristin’s captivity. Killing Professor Michaels hadn’t been enough to satisfy his need for revenge, and he was looking for Cabot harder than ever.

And I was searching just as hard for that sonofabitch whose initials were still carved into my flesh beneath the bandage I wouldn’t take off.

The night Donovan rescued her, the Big Men had put a bullet in every professor there. They hadn’t killed the men, even though it would have been pretty damned satisfying if he had.

RED covered everything, of course. The agency even found ways to get Harvard to terminate the professors’ employment. They’d never work at another major university again.

The carpet in Kristin’s living room was soft beneath me as I sat with my back against the couch, between Donovan’s knees, while he sat on the couch and massaged my neck and shoulders. The news was just white noise as my head lulled back. I was in ecstasy. His massages were almost as good as the sex.

Well, not quite.

He stopped massaging and his fingers pressed into my shoulders.

“Ow. That hurts.” I tipped my head further to look up at him and saw his gaze fixed straight ahead on the TV, his jaw set.

What had been white noise came into focus as the reporter’s words sank into my consciousness.

“ . . . vanished from this local nightclub.” The reporter had just the right amount of concern in her voice. “Eyewitnesses believe the young woman was taken by the same man seen abducting other women. What you will see next is an artist’s rendering of the suspect.”

A white page now filled the screen with a drawing that closely resembled a familiar face. “Danny,” I said, and Donovan’s hands tightened on me more. It hurt enough that I shrugged out of his hold. “He’s one of the men who helped kidnap me, and helped Cabot to escape.”

Donovan growled, “He’s a dead man.”

The reporter continued. “The suspects appear to abduct women from different nightclubs throughout the area, and Boston has hundreds of nightclubs.”

Then the reporter gave a particularly solemn look. “The Boston Police Department is asking your help in finding the individuals responsible for abducting these young women. If you have any information that might provide any leads, please call...” The TV clicked off, and I saw Donovan set the remote on the end table.

“So much for RED’s control over the media and the BPD on this one,” I said with a groan. “Senator Shelton’s going to be ticked, big-time.”

Donovan grunted and started massaging my shoulders again. Rubbing his thumbs at just the right pressure points. Screw the news.

I sighed in bliss. “Want to talk about when you went back into Navy Special Ops?”

Donovan didn’t say anything, but didn’t stop the orgasmic massage, for which I was very much pleased.

“It’s a long story, Steele.” His massage became a little rougher as he added,

“And it’s not a good one.” “Ease up a bit, Donovan.” I tilted my head back so I could see his face, and he stopped the massage and rested his hands on my shoulders. I met his blue eyes. “You can tell me. After all, I totally spilled my guts to you.” “Not totally.” He kissed me on the forehead, and his wonderful male scent had an instant effect on me, sending a tingling sensation throughout my body. “One of these days I’ll tell you,” he said, and I heard the truth in his voice. “Just not now.”

Donovan drew me up into his lap, turning me enough so that we were looking at each other. He gave a quirky smile. “I’m going to miss having you every night when I go home tomorrow,” I said softly.

His smile faded and he brushed my hair from my face.

“Stay awhile longer.”

I touched his stubbled jaw. “It’s time, Donovan.” He said nothing, then kissed me before he took me to the floor and slid off my jeans. He kept his clothes on, just pausing long enough to unfasten his jeans and sheathe his erection.