Blindfold: The Complete Series Box Set (21 page)

“Son of a bitch!”
I shouted, my voice echoing through the empty house. My headache pounded harder and harder and I bent over, thinking I might get sick. I deserved it.

Swallowing the bile in my throat, I straightened. I had to brace a hand on the wall to do it, but I was upright. I took one shambling step, then another. Out into the foyer. I squinted at the door.

Somebody had knocked.

That was what woke me up.

Somebody had knocked.

Swearing, I opened the door.

Nobody.

Absently, I glanced down. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen it.

But there it was.

A large padded manilla envelope, crumpled and battered, like it had been mailed to hell and back.

Mouth dry, I bent down and picked it up.

Blood started to roar in my ears and it wasn't from the alcohol. I knew what it was without needing to see my name scrawled in black marker on the front of it.

I half fell against the door to shut it as I opened the envelope with shaking hands.

“Sir—”

I vaguely recognized Doug’s voice. I’d been wrong. He hadn’t left.

Several things fell out.

“Sir, you shouldn’t touch—”

“Shut up,” I said dully as I sank to my knees.

The thick, gleaming locks were tied together messily with a piece of what looked like twine. I had no trouble recognizing the heavy curls.

“Iz,” I whispered, broken.

“I’ll call the police.” Doug’s voice was quiet, oddly gentle.

My hand shook as I picked up the folded paper that had also fallen out and read it.

Printed on plain paper, block letters, it listed demands, simple and stark. Money in exchange for Isadora.

I read it through once, twice, three times.

I’d be contacted.

I’d better be ready.

The letter fell from my numb hands as I sat down. It was only then that I noticed the other envelope that had also dropped to the floor. It was smaller, bound closed with rubber bands. I picked it up.

Doug's voice came from above me. “If I tell you again, you shouldn’t touch, will you listen?”

“No.” I was careful though, only touching the rubber bands as much as I had to, handling only the edges of the envelope. Once I had it opened, though, the weight of its contents did the rest.

Photographs spilled out. Dozens of them. My eyes tracked over them, trying to make sense of what I was looking at.

It was Doug who started to reach out this time. I caught his wrist just before he would have touched the one lying nearest to us. The very sight of it chilled me right to the bone. It was Isadora and me, her hand tucked inside mine. I couldn’t see either of our faces, but it was no puzzle as to who it was. It was us.

So was the next one, and the next one…

More than a dozen.

“Some of these are old,” Doug said softly.

I nodded, staring at the photo of the younger images of my sister and me. Standing together, dressed in our finest, as we went to visit our parents' graves. It had been raining that year. I didn't remember anybody photographing us. But then again, I wouldn’t have. Not on the anniversary of their death.

Whoever had taken this had wanted to make sure they weren’t seen. There was something stealthy, secretive, about the pictures.

That feel was echoed in every last one of them, reading right up to the most recent one. It, like the others, had been taken on the anniversary of our parents' death, which had been three months ago.

It didn't matter if that one had been taken before or after Isadora and I met Toni. Even if she'd been some mastermind criminal and had been stalking us for months, there was no way she could've taken those old photographs. She would've only been twelve or thirteen when the first one had been taken. Her brother wouldn't have been much older. Their involvement didn't make any sense.

I closed my eyes, but I could still see the hurt on Toni's face. “What in the hell have I done?”

Marcum's voice answered my rhetorical question.
Congratulations. You helped ruin that girl's life.

Blindfold Vol. III

By Cassie Wild and M.S. Parker

Chapter 1

Toni

The burn from my injured knuckles was keeping me from falling asleep at the moment. Admittedly, I didn't think it would work for long because I was exhausted. Adrenaline had long since drained out of me, taking with it all of the numbness that'd been protecting me. All I could feel now was defeat, disgust, and more than a little despair.

To be honest, I kept hoping I'd wake up and discover this had all been a bad dream. But I couldn’t wake up without falling asleep, right?

But a holding cell at the one-nine New York City Police Department wasn’t exactly the kind of place I’d ever want to close my eyes.

My temper had always been a nasty one, but I’d usually been able to keep it under control. I’d always been the cool-headed one in the family – on the surface at least. This was the sort of thing I'd expect from one of my brothers. Vic, maybe. Or Franky. Even though Vic was the ex-con, Franky had always been the one our older brothers had to pull out of fights. My temper paled in comparison to his...but I was the one who’d hit a cop.

It wasn't entirely my fault, though. It wasn’t like I’d expected to ever face a situation quite like the one I'd found myself in a couple hours ago.

The one I knew I should regret.

Part of me did.

I regretted hitting the cop. It hadn't been her fault Ashford Lang was an asshole. I regretted going over there and making it easy for him to set me up.

And it had been a set up.

I regretted humiliating myself like that.

Most of all, I regretted having taken that job in the first place. I wished I’d never heard of the Winter Corporation, or Isadora Lang…or her older asshole brother Ashford. Even as the guilt flooded me, I didn't stop wishing it.

My eyes started to burn, but I held the tears back through sheer stubbornness alone. Crying in here was the last thing I wanted to do. I'd grown up with four older brothers, and I knew how dumb it was to show weakness.

I rubbed at my gritty eyes and tried analyzing the situation even though I'd already gone through it a couple times already. I was still in holding. I hadn’t gone through booking and processing yet. Thanks to Vic, I had a good idea of what happened once the cuffs went on. I sighed. I would've been more than happy to keep my knowledge all second-hand.

Why in the hell had I hit her?

I should have hit Ash.

He'd been the one who deserved it.

The woman sitting next to me shifted, her short skirt hiking up high enough that if she turned towards me, I'd have a good idea of her grooming habits. She’d been escorted in not long after I’d been unceremoniously shoved inside and I didn't have to ask to know what she was in for. After all, I could see her nipples through her barely-there halter-top.

I jerked my gaze away, but not quick enough because she saw me looking at her.

She shot me a look and smirked. “I do girls if you got the money. Could be a good way to pass the time.”

My face went red and I cursed my fair skin. I wasn't usually so easily embarrassed, but I also wasn't used to being propositioned by women. In jail.

The other women in the cell laughed and I just sat there, not knowing what to say or do. Fortunately, once they'd finished, they went back to whatever it was they'd been doing before I came in.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed, only that I'd gotten lost in my thoughts when I felt a pair of eyes on me. I jerked my head up and saw the cop I hit looking at me.

“Have you been making friends?” Her voice sounded funny and I wondered if I'd broken her nose.

“I’m sorry for hitting you,” I said, sincerely. “My temper got the better of me, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“You think that’s going to help?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“No.” I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug and looked away. “I did something stupid, and now I’ll have to deal with the consequences.” After a pause, I muttered, “If you were Lang, I sure as hell wouldn’t be apologizing.”

She lifted a brow. “Maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped his sister.”

I gave her a withering look. Now I was regretting the apology.

The prostitute next to me started to laugh. “You, a kidnapper? Bitch, you ain’t never broke a law in your life. You can’t even look at me without blushing.”

I glared at her this time, but she held my gaze without wavering. It was the officer who walked away without a word.

“Who did you kidnap?”

The question came from a belligerent, heavy-set woman sitting on the bench across from me.

“Nobody.” I sighed and dropped my face in my hands.

“Not what the cop thinks. Who does she think you kidnapped?”

“Does it matter?” I didn’t want to talk about the Langs.

She asked again and I pretended not to hear.

Probably not the best action.

She came up off that bench. She was massive, easily six and a half feet tall. She’d break me in two. I was just about to tell her the answer – hell, I'd tell her anything she wanted – when the girl at my side stood up and got in front of me. “Leave her alone, Rita. She ain’t causin’ you no problem just sittin’ there anyway.”

The woman about to kick my butt – Rita, apparently – took a menacing step toward the prostitute. I hadn't realized how tall the woman next to me was and I suddenly felt smaller than I ever had before. If these two started a fight, there was no way I’d walk away without a scratch.

“What’s it matter to you?” Rita took a step toward my unexpected savior, her eyes narrowing. “Maybe you should just sit down and shut up, Passion.”

The prostitute responded by folding her arms and jutting out her chin.

I didn't want to know what might have happened if an officer hadn’t appeared at the cell at that moment. “Gallagher, Toni.”

I practically jumped up, thinking something was finally going right. Except it wasn't an answer to my prayers. I was simply going to booking. It was...humiliating.

I got my phone call first, though. Fun fact: it’s not true that you’re entitled to one phone call when you get arrested. The cops don’t have to let you call anybody. But if you’re polite, you can make a call, or even two or three. I went out of my way to be as polite as possible, and I made two phone calls. Neither call was to Ash because I planned on never speaking to him again.

Instead, I called my oldest brother, Deacon, who spent nearly five full minutes saying how he couldn't believe that I'd do something so stupid before he promised to explain to our parents what had happened and that I was okay. Then I called Vic. He was a thorn in my side at times, but he'd always understood me better than my older brothers. He didn't sound surprised when I told him, but his voice sounded a bit odd. After a moment, he told me to make sure I kept my mouth shut, and not to do anything or say anything.

“Anything,” he practically snarled the word. “You understand, Toni?”

I wondered if the apology counted. Probably, but it was too late now. I agreed without telling him what I'd done, and we disconnected.

As I sat down next to a desk, Passion walked by with a hip-swinging gait. She winked when she saw me and flopped down in a chair as though she was ready to get her toes painted. She had an expression on her face that said she’d done all this before and she wasn’t impressed.

Me, neither. I was fucking terrified.

“Allergies?”

I jerked my head around and stared at the officer. “Excuse me?”

He gave me a bored look. “Do you have any food allergies? Environmental? Things like latex–”

“I know what allergies are,” I said, interrupting him. “I'm not an idiot.”

He paused briefly, then jerked his shoulder and went back to typing. “Yeah, well, hitting a cop seems like a pretty idiotic thing to do.”

He was right. I’d hit a cop. Best case scenario, I'd escape prison. Worst case, my entire life was ruined. I'd never be allowed to become a psychologist. Everything my parents had sacrificed, all of the work I'd done. All of it would be for nothing.

My head started to spin and black dots danced in front of my eyes.

Abruptly, a hand caught the back of my head and pressed down, reminding me of what I'd already known I should be doing.

“Breathe, Ms. Gallagher. The room looks a lot more normal if you breathe.”

I sucked in one breath, then another.

“That’s it...” It was a familiar voice, but not one I could place immediately. “Hey, why don’t you go get her a soda...yeah, yeah, I know. Look, I know the kid. I’ll watch her.”

The pressure on the back of my neck eased and, a moment later, I found myself looking at a graying, grizzled cop. He wore a rumpled suit and his face was equally rumpled. Lived-in, I supposed. But I knew him anyway.