Evil Without a Face (25 page)

She took the first step and kissed him, taking a chance he’d feel the same. At first the touch of his lips sent a tingle through her body, the subtle thrill of a first-time lover. But after his tenderness swelled to urgent need, she felt an uncontrollable heat raging under her skin.

With every man before, all she wanted was the physical gratification. With lights out, she took what she wanted and never gave anything more. Hot and heavy, quick and done, she knew how to get what she needed. Yet with Payton, she wanted…more.

But he stopped and pulled away from her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. A sharp stab of fear seethed through her belly. Maybe he’d changed
his
mind.

“Not like this,” he panted. He touched his forehead to hers and stroked her cheek. “I want to remember…everything. Take our time.”

His expectation sent a rush of dread through her. She was no storybook princess leading a charmed life—far from it. She couldn’t understand why he thought she was so special. Panic took hold, and old hang-ups were hard to deny.

“Please…can we turn out the lights?” she asked. Nearly forgetting to breathe, she waited for his answer.

“You don’t have to hide anything from me, Jessie.” He led her to the bed, his hand in hers. But before anything else happened, he turned to ask, “Are you okay with this? I don’t want to…force you.”

“It’s not that. I want you, believe me. But every time I get to this point—” She stopped, fighting the lump in her throat, unable to look him in the eye again.

“What?” he asked. “Tell me.”

No man had ever wanted to know before, especially at a time like this. With other men, once she gave the green light, talking wasn’t necessary. All thrust and afterburners, no subtlety required. If she wondered about Payton being like them, those thoughts melted away like drizzled honey on her tongue, only the sweetness lingered.

“No one’s ever asked before,” she said. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me. And we’re not punching a clock here. Take your time.”

She stared at him now, wondering how much to say. Telling him everything meant taking a chance. If she let him into that part of her life, would he only see the damage and run? She took a deep breath and started, unsure where she’d end up.

“I can’t control it…this fear in the pit of my stomach. It’s an impulse that I’ve learned to live with, but it never really goes away. Right or wrong, it’s part of me now.” She searched for the words that would make him understand. “Something happened…when I was a kid. I know now that it had nothing to do with sex. It was an act of violence, but understanding that doesn’t make it any easier. And even though it all happened a long time ago, I guess a piece of the fear stayed behind. It burrowed under my skin, beneath the scars.”

She touched the jagged mark that puckered her skin near her eyebrow, an old habit. “Guess you could say X marks the spot.”

Over the years, her smart-ass humor had grown into a suit of armor, but tonight it fell flat. Now she only wanted the awkwardness to go away, but she couldn’t force a smile. Her old wounds would soon speak for themselves. He’d see her scars…or feel them on her skin in the dark. She clenched her jaw, remembering the reactions of other men. Their repulsed flinches, no matter how subtle, had stuck in her mind.

She wasn’t sure she could take that from Payton.

Without saying a word, he turned out the lights in the room. When he got near the window, he shoved open the curtains and let the city lights shine through the streaks of rain that bled down the glass. Myriad colors shone into the room, like a kaleidoscope reflecting the shimmer.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You wanted the lights out.” In the pale glow, his deep voice resonated under her skin like a soothing quiver. “But I’ve always been a real sucker for rain. And we’ve got a front row seat.”

Payton caressed her face with his hands and kissed the scar on her eyebrow. She closed her eyes, feeling every subtle nuance of his lips on her skin. Her heart pounded heavy in her chest, adding fuel to her growing fire for him.

She expected him to pull the T-shirt over her head and help her undress, but instead Payton surprised her. He held the comforter and invited her to his bed, clothes and all.

“You won’t get any pressure from me, Jessie. Nothing has to happen tonight. We’re not punching a clock, remember?” And with a smile she always wanted to remember, he added, “We can watch the rain.”

If any other man had made this move, she would never have trusted him. But something in Payton’s eyes made her feel safe. She slipped off her shoes and cleaned out her pockets, setting her cell phone, ID, and car keys on the hotel dresser. Then she crawled into bed with him and found a spot to rest her head, in the crook of his shoulder. It took a while for her skin and hands to warm up, but as he stroked her hair, she listened to the sound of his heart and counted his breaths.

And together in the dark, they watched the rain paint the canvas of his window.

At first she tried to stifle the onset of tears, a mix of emotion instigated for very different reasons. Eventually she let
them flow free, knowing he’d understand and she wouldn’t have to explain. She found comfort in their silence…and the rain.

Payton’s unconditional acceptance of her had opened a floodgate of emotion that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in a very long time. Like an epiphany, she sensed that she hovered over a threshold between her tormented childhood and the woman she always hoped to be. If she wanted to break the negative pattern of relationships in her life, she’d have to open old wounds. So much of who she was had been defined by the violence of her past. She knew how to keep people out of her life, but could she let someone like Payton in without boundaries? Not even her friend Sam had that privilege.

Any time she’d been happy, the feeling didn’t last. It was always tainted by the enduring ache that she didn’t deserve it. Taking emotion out of the equation, she knew that if she allowed this vile cycle to continue, the bastard who had violated her childhood with his perversions would remain in control. How long would she stand for that?

Whether or not she had a man in her heart wouldn’t change things. She had to take back her life and do it for herself. Payton had only instigated the line she now wanted to draw in the sand, but he couldn’t be the reason for it.

Eventually her thoughts turned to him as she drifted off to sleep. Payton Archer and his love for rain had found a home in her heart. And strange as it felt, nothing could have been more perfect.

A sustained thunder intensified in her mind until Nikki could no longer keep her eyes shut. She awoke with a start from a fitful sleep and knocked her head against something metal.

“Ow…shit.”

The jolt nearly stopped her heart, but even after she got oriented to where she was, the shock lingered. The helicopter must have hit rough air, buffeting the fuselage. And with that realization, despair hit her square in the face.

It was still nighttime—nothing had changed—and her nightmare persisted.

She had no idea where she was, and it had been days since her captors let her see daylight. As a consequence, she’d lost track of time. The Russian had kept them on the move, taking her and two other girls deeper into his bent rendition of hell. The fact that he chose to stay with her small group—letting the other hostages go with his men—struck her with an unrelenting fear.

He was with them because of her.

She saw his silhouette in the cockpit of the helicopter. An eerie blue haze outlined his hulking form in profile, making
him appear ghostly and more like the monster she pictured when she shut her eyes. To take her mind off him, Nikki peered out a side window, a subtle move so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself. She searched for anything that might give a hint where they were. Murky black and obscure shapes drifted underneath for as far as she could see. In the glimmer of moonlight, she thought she saw choppy water below and imagined a vast ocean with no land in sight. She had serious doubts they were still in the United States, and that frightened her too.

Where the hell was he taking them? As bad as it was to be constantly on the move, she dreaded another stop even more. She had a bad feeling the next one might be her last.

Nikki’s belly growled and she felt its rumble as they hit another air pocket, a reminder she hadn’t eaten in a while. Despite her situation, she’d scarfed down food when they gave it to her, ignoring her stomach nearly retching. She had to keep up her strength. Staying strong might make the difference between living and dying. But she suspected the Russian had kept them dosed with tranquilizers. Nikki fought the drowsiness and tried to stay awake, but knew she’d never win the battle, not if she wanted to eat or drink.

Britney Webber and the other kid were slumped against her now, dead asleep. Their body heat kept the chilly night air at bay but also reminded her she wasn’t alone, an unfortunate circumstance for them all. Nikki stared down at the heart-shaped birthmark on Britney’s chin, one of the reasons she’d remembered her name. She hadn’t bothered to learn the other girl’s name and tried not to think about why that was. Normally, the close quarters would have made her self-conscious—yet here nothing was
normal
. Her body smelled, covered in a layer of sweat and grit, but she couldn’t do a thing about it. Without access to water, she couldn’t clean herself—and she had no privacy.

She felt the aircraft lurch then descend, and the choppy terrain below dissolved into darkness. On the horizon, she
saw faint lights, but nothing to indicate a significant town. Fear gripped her more strongly and she felt another wave of nausea.

This is it, she thought. They were going to land again.

When she turned her head, she caught a motion from the cockpit. The Russian had been staring at her in the dark, his face contorted into a sneer. The control panel cast a macabre aura that made him look more sinister, something she didn’t think possible.

“Your last stop.” He spoke loud enough for her to hear him over the rotor engine. By the way he said it, she knew he was sending her a message, one she didn’t want explained.

From below, a sudden show of floodlights signaled the helicopter where to land. Paint on the tarmac marked the spot. In the beams, she caught a glimpse of old chain-link fencing and got the impression of an array of buildings in the distance. A bigger facility, yet it looked deathly still. No other lights. No movement. No visible activity below except for the few men she saw standing near the edge of darkness. They were nothing more than faceless shapes. And the place reminded her of the old factory they had left behind in Chicago, a terrifying image she wanted to forget. A nasty déjà vu gripped her.

“God help me,” she whispered, her body trembling.

Once they landed, cold night air swept into a frenzy under the rotor blade of the helicopter as the Russian’s men hauled them, handcuffed together, toward an old building. Bound like that, it was hard to walk. Blowing and steady drizzle wet Nikki’s face and clothes. With the chill, she knew she’d have a bad case of the shakes to contend with. The rain normally reminded her of home, but now it only made things more miserable and foreboding.

In the dark, and surrounded by more of the Russian’s uniformed men, she couldn’t get a good look at the grounds, but sensed that the landing site lay in the shadow of a hill, its silhouette framed by the sparing moonlight. And from the
light off her captors’ flashlights, she caught glimpses of cracked asphalt and chunks of cement underfoot, with broken windows adjacent to rusting metal doors. A musty odor lingered in the air once they got inside the old cinder-block building. But the inside of the dilapidated structure wasn’t as run-down as she’d anticipated. A completely different setup, yet similar to Chicago.

The men headed down a corridor that seemed a dead end. By the looks of it, they had made a mistake, but when they didn’t appear hesitant, she kept her eyes alert to memorize the way.

Her captors stepped behind a pile of rubble, yanking her and the others with them. They squeezed by fallen cinder-block walls with old rusted rebar jutting from boulders of cement. Once they cleared the obstruction, she saw where they were heading. Farther down there was an elevator door she would have missed in the dark. And when one of the men punched the button, it lit up and the elevator came to life.

Where were they getting their power?

The elevator took them to a subterranean level designated by a series of letters and numbers, none of which made sense to her. When the elevator doors opened again, she didn’t see any other kids, as in the last place. The air chilled her skin even more, and a funny odor filled her nostrils, something she couldn’t quite identify. The interior of the facility looked more upscale and new. The change surprised her.

Where had they taken her?

She didn’t have long to ponder the question. As soon as they got off the elevator, the uniformed men circled her and the other girls. She returned their stares long enough to notice that they weren’t paying attention to her. They were waiting for the Russian to give them orders. She held her breath, steeling herself for what would come next. The Russian eyeballed her and the other two girls one by one, as if
making up his mind. Finally, his eyes settled on one of them and he spoke with a nudge of his head.

“This one goes first.”

He had indicated Britney, and one of his men freed her from the cuffs. It took a while for the girl to realize that it wasn’t a good thing. Nikki watched in horror as the drama played out. Britney’s eyes grew wide and her face blanched. Her pitiable whimpers gave way to shrieks of panic when one of the men started to yank her by the scruff of her neck toward the set of double doors at the end of the corridor. Beyond that, Nikki had no idea what lay in store for Britney, who managed to dig in her heels and drag her feet, flailing her thin arms.

“No…please…
stop!
” she screamed, reaching out and grabbing Nikki’s arm, forcing another man to pry her fingers free, but not before Britney drew blood.

“Ahh.”
Nikki pulled her arm away and clutched her scratched skin, not taking her eyes off Britney. “Sorry…I can’t—”

The girl’s body writhed in frenzy, fighting back against the man who held her. Her face had reddened and twisted into a mix of venom and sheer terror when she saw Nikki couldn’t help.

Speaking to the Russian, the girl cried, “Why me? Why not one of them?” The kid would do and say anything to save herself, and her fear spread like a contagion.

“What about you?” The Russian grinned at Nikki, then at the other girl. “Would either of you go in her place?”

His offer shocked her. Nikki sucked air into her lungs and held it in, and when she didn’t speak up, the man laughed. “I thought so.”

The Russian bent down and poked Nikki’s chin, a mean jab of his finger.

“You see how it is? Here, there are no friends.” He narrowed his eyes. “She would kill you herself if she thought it
would do her good.” He pointed at Britney. “That one is no saint.”

Two men hauled Britney away, kicking and screaming. Her cries echoed down the corridor, magnifying the horror. Seeing it happen had gripped Nikki hard, but knowing she had a chance to step in and didn’t do it ripped something from her soul. And she couldn’t live with that.

“Take me instead,” she blurted, surprising herself. “I’ll go in her place.”

She said it loud enough for everyone to hear. The words came from her mouth as if someone else had spoken them. Down the hall, the two men holding Britney stopped and turned. And for a brief moment the girl quit crying and looked over her shoulder, tears streaking her face.

Nikki exhaled and waited for the Russian’s answer. The man squared his shoulder and raised his chin, looking surprised. Eventually, he glared at her.

“Too late. You had your chance to save her.” He jutted his chin to the two men down the hall—the equivalent of an order—and they continued their trek to the double doors with Britney in tow.

“Nooo,”
the girl hollered. “She said she’d take my place.
stop!
”

“It’s not too late,” Nikki pleaded. “Please.” She made a step toward the Russian, lugging the handcuffed girl with her.

“What are you doing?” the young girl next to her protested. “Are you crazy?”

Two men held Nikki back, as if she posed a threat, but down the hall Britney wailed—a gut-wrenching and pitiable sound. Now Nikki could barely breathe. Her heart hammered inside her chest, an incessant and frantic pulse. Once they dragged Britney beyond the double doors, Nikki only heard her muffled screams until they faded to nothing. Dead silence.

And just like that, she was gone. The finality of it left Nikki drained—and sick. Slowly, she looked up into the
malicious eyes of the Russian. She knew he’d been watching her, and as expected, the bastard stared back with smug amusement.

“I said I’d take her place. Why would you offer that if you had no intention of letting it happen?” she asked. “That was beyond cruel.”

He let a moment pass before he replied.

“Frankly, I didn’t think you’d do it, but I have a whole new appreciation for your stupidity.” He stepped closer and whispered, “I have found that people only disappoint. They are not worth a sacrifice of any kind, but how would you know this? You are only a foolish girl.”

He stepped back and grimaced, an expression that became a humorless smirk. “Besides, I have plans for you.”

With his men still holding her arms, he tapped a finger to the tip of her nose, a humiliating and dismissive gesture. “You will learn a new definition for the word ‘cruel.’ I will teach you this, yes?”

Bile rose hot in Nikki’s belly as she fought for control. She clenched her teeth and blinked back tears, searching her mind for something to express the depth of her outrage, but nothing would come.

“I wouldn’t want you to feel left out,” the Russian added, measuring his hostile glare equally between the girls. “You will know exactly what happened to that girl.” He smirked and with a wink muttered, “I will see to it…personally.”

Before Nikki could say anything more, she was manhandled down another corridor with the other girl, who looked numb and in shock. Behind another set of double doors, they would wait their turn—to find out what Britney already knew.

Nikki had always heard people say that “not knowing was the worst,” but she had a feeling that in this case they’d be wrong.

Downtown Chicago
Early morning

“I don’t know where you got these extra pages, but you really scored, girl.”

On her cell phone, Alexa recognized the voice of Tanya Spencer, an analyst she’d worked with on other assignments and trusted with her personal investigation of Globe Harvest. She’d met the black woman a handful of times and was always impressed by her intelligence, but her molasses thick southern accent and familiar tone made Tanya feel more like a friend.

“So tell me, what do I win?” Alexa grinned. “A trip to the Bahamas?”

“Damn, I’d like to score me some of that. I could use a little R and R myself.” Tanya sighed into the phone. “But you and me have to settle for the big picture, honey. You added fifteen more locales to the grand scheme of things. We had a couple of bogus locations, but the rest look viable. I’d say that was good work.”

After she left the bounty hunter’s apartment, she’d sent the pages to Tanya in an encrypted file that she launched off her laptop into cyberspace. Wound too tight to catch some z’s, she found herself at a twenty-four-hour café drinking way too much coffee and reading an old newspaper. She’d been bored out of her skull until Tanya called with her rushed analysis.

“Bogus locations?” Alexa asked. “How do you know that?”

“My guess is they were input errors,” Tanya offered. “When we did further checking to verify the information, a couple of coordinates didn’t pan out. One was smack dab in the middle of an ocean, and another one was too remote for the operational needs of our target. We did some homework with satellite surveillance on that one, as I recall. But when
we pay a call, you know we like the advantage in our favor. We don’t mess with second best. It’s not worth the effort or the risk. And you know how partial we are to the word ‘discreet.’”

Even though they spoke on a high-tech encrypted phone, Tanya never used names and was always careful not to say anything that would divulge classified information.

“But cheer up,” the woman continued. “We’ve got plenty on our plate. You done good, baby girl.”

Added to the few locales she had before, Alexa had now identified a total of eighteen facilities to look at. A major hit list. Coordinating a simultaneous assault on that many locations would constitute a significant operation. She’d have to involve Garrett now, and convince him that her Globe Harvest investigation was worthy of his attention.