The Delilah Complex (28 page)

N
icky didn’t have to leave Daphne’s side after all.

The police—including Jordain and Perez—had found the house and were already inside and on their way down the stairs when they heard the scream.

Ambulances had followed them to the house, expecting to find the other men there—hoping to find them.

Within ten minutes, all four men plus Daphne, who was unconscious but still alive, had been taken to the local hospital in the waiting vehicles. Nicky pulled himself together, zipped up his pants and went with his wife. Holding her hand. Holding back tears. Glued to her side. Two local policemen had accompanied him.

One of the medics examined my shoulder. He didn’t think it was broken—I had too much movement and not enough pain—but he suggested I get it X-rayed by the end of the day.

Jordain, Perez, Butler and two local detectives remained behind to lock down the crime scene. But first, Jordain was taking care of me.

We sat on the steps of the house amid a spattering of dried yellow and scarlet leaves, and I tried to remember how to breathe normally.

His hand on my back moved back and forth. “Square breathing, okay? In, one, two, three, four. Hold, one, two, three, four. Let the breath out, one, two, three, four. Hold, one, two, three, four,” Jordain intoned. It was an exercise that most therapists use. Focus. Breathe. Relax. I’d taught it to him. Now he was using it to help me.

I did not know how I had gotten outside, how long I’d been sitting on the ground, how long Jordain had been sitting next to me, or when he had taken me in his arms. Nor did I know when my cheeks got so wet.

Finally, I stopped crying and my breathing had slowed down.

“I need to go back in there. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

I nodded.

“I won’t be long,” he said.

I panicked as soon as he left me, though. Turning, I watched his back retreating into the house, repeating his last few words over and over.
I won’t be long. I won’t be long
.

Once he was back inside, I took a deep breath. I had to calm down. Everything was all right now. Five men were alive. Even Daphne’s wound was not life threatening.

Reaching into my bag—how did I still have my bag? I couldn’t remember, maybe Tana or Perez had given it to me—I pulled out my cell phone and called Dulcie. I didn’t think about why I needed to do that or what time it was or interrupting either her classes or rehearsals.

She answered on the third ring.

“Mom?” She’d looked at the caller ID.

I put my knuckle into my mouth and bit down to force myself from sobbing.

“Hi, sweetie.” I was surprised how shaky my voice
sounded and was suddenly sorry I’d called. The last thing I wanted to do was worry her.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, realized she couldn’t see me. Using all my effort and what few acting skills I had, I forced a matter-of-fact voice. “No. Nothing. I just was thinking about you. Wanting to make sure you were fine. You are fine, aren’t you?”

“That’s soooo weird.”

“Why?”

“For absolutely no reason my shoulder hurts. Not bad. But enough for me to have to take some Tylenol.”

“When did it start?”

“About a half hour ago.”

“You sure? You don’t need to go to the doctor?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m sure,” she said in that thirteen-year-old you-worry-too-much-Mom voice.

“Nothing happened? It just started hurting out of the blue?”

“I guess. Maybe I bumped into something. I don’t know. But it’s okay now.”

I felt the pain throbbing in my own shoulder. I
did
have to go to the doctor. I didn’t believe in coincidences, so how was it possible that we’d both hurt ourselves in the same place on the same day?

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

“I have to go. They’re waiting for me.”

After we said goodbye, I held the phone in my hand for a few seconds, just staring at it. It was so difficult to focus. There was another call I needed to make. There were other people who needed to know what I’d found out. Not the wives and girlfriends and families of the men who had
been found, the police would tell them. But the other women, the secret sisters who cared in their own way. They deserved to find out, too, now, from me, not from some television report or newspaper article tomorrow.

Shelby Rush answered right away, and without going into too much detail—because I didn’t think the police would want me to do that—I told her what had happened.

Once in group, Shelby had said she could not yet feel grief for the men who had died—worry, despair, confusion, anger, yes—but she couldn’t cry for them.

Now, finding out that they were alive, she burst into tears. And I sat and listened to her sobs.

“How did she manage to keep them there?” Shelby finally asked.

“They were drugged. Enough, it looked like, to keep them in a zombie-like state. But probably not so much that they couldn’t eat or drink.”

“She tied them down, didn’t she? She left them there. Under her control.”

“Yes.”

“It’s like a game we played in the society.” Shelby’s voice quavered. “But we never hurt anyone. We never did anything to hurt anyone. You said they are all alive. You said that, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It looks like she took care of them. In her own strange way,” I added.

“It’s so awful. Five men. Trapped. Like animals. For weeks.”

“Shelby, I need to go. But I wanted to call. And to ask you to let everyone know.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“One more thing—can you do me a favor and call Liz first?”

“Yes, but why?”

I couldn’t tell her—that would be breaking a confidence. It was going to be up to Liz to explain it all to Shelby, and I was certain she would. Liz was a talented woman who had work to do on her self-esteem but she’d get there.

I couldn’t have known then that Jordain had already asked Tana Butler to call Liz, or Betsy, as the police knew her, and give her the promised exclusive and that she was driving up to Greenwich even now.

The final story in the series would be hers. The one story she could write without the police censoring her. That she would, in fact, write with their help.

My last call was to Nina.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked after I’d explained what had happened. There was no sign of anger in her tone anymore, only concern. Nina was the closest thing I had to a mother and this is how mothers react. They forget and forgive everything you’ve put them through when your safety and well-being is at risk. Something I knew better from being a mother than a daughter.

“Well, I’m in one piece. My shoulder’s a little banged up, but it’s nothing. I can wait till tomorrow to deal with it.”

“You’re not alone there, are you?”

“No, Noah is with me.” I looked over. He was a few feet away, talking to Butler, glancing back at me every few minutes.

“I want to talk to him. You need to go to a hospital now and be checked out. I’ll go to the theater for you and get Dulcie later. Did you call her?”

I told Nina about the coincidence. “How can that be?” I asked.

“Love does that. It connects us in ways that sometimes defy logic. Now,” she said, “I want to talk to Noah about taking you to the hospital.”

“Nina, please. I’ve been through hell and I know I’ve been banged up a little, but I don’t need the hospital. A doctor tomorrow. I’ll do that. I really am fine.”

And I was.

Wasn’t I?

“Yes, sweetie, you are. You’re smart and brave. And I’m proud of you.”

What had she heard in my voice? How nervous I was? How distraught? All the emotions I’d been hiding from Dulcie, from her?

Jordain returned just as I was getting off the phone.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded and he helped me up. Keeping hold of my arm, we began walking down the steps, away from the house.

The stench of the dungeon had not dissipated. I gulped at the air, taking in huge breaths, struggling to clear the scent; still the odor persisted. I inhaled again, more deeply, more desperately.

“What are you doing, Morgan?”

As I told him about the smell, the tears flowed again. He reached out and wiped them away but his gentleness only made me cry harder.

He opened my bag and found my roll of peppermints and put one in my mouth.

I was like a rag doll. He could move me and sit me and stand me up and feed me. It didn’t matter. Who had I been fooling? I couldn’t do it all without any help. When would I learn that sometimes I had to let the people close to me in a little bit closer.

Dulcie. Nina. Maybe…even Noah.

To learn that I might have to accept that one day I could wind up needing more than what I got back or wanting more than anyone could give. I might wind up being disappointed and let down. I might.

But if my thirteen-year-old daughter could learn that lesson, certainly I could make an effort to learn it too.

I just wasn’t as optimistic about how good a student I was going to be.

We were on the path now, walking through the elaborate English garden I’d admired the first time I’d come to Greenwich three weeks earlier. Most of the flowers had long since stopped blooming, except for some daisies and one of the rosebushes. I leaned over the last of the season’s full, old-fashioned, pink roses. I breathed in. The perfume was almost too heavy. Too sweet.

Taking a step back I crushed some of the daisies. The white and yellow flowers were bright and too cheerful. It made me sad that I had crushed them and the tears came again. From where?

How could there be so many?

Jordain’s arm led me farther down the path. Crimson and scarlet, lemon and russet and rich brown leaves from the oak, maple, and birch trees sprinkled this part of the walkway. We passed wide hosta beds, the leaves still full but yellowed and withering.

Growing among these plants, towering over them, were butterfly bushes. The one plant that I knew the most about. The purple, lavender, and white flowers were mostly gone, except for three or four that had bloomed late. When the first frost came, they would freeze.

That was when I saw her. Fragile, strong, and so beautiful.

How long had she been there feeding? Was she even
real? I stopped moving and beside me, so did Jordain. The brilliant monarch couldn’t be a hallucination because he was staring at her, too, watching her fold her orange, red, and black wings up behind her black body and continue feeding.

We stood side by side without saying anything.

The butterfly took her fill of the last of the season’s nectar, spread her wings, lifted up and hovered in the air for ten or twenty seconds.

I held my breath.

She was hesitant at first, trembling on the wind, waiting for some mysterious clue from the breeze to tell her what direction would speed her onward to her destination. Still tentative, she circled the bush once more and then suddenly, somehow instinctively sure of where she was going, she took flight and soared.

And then Jordain took me home.

* * * * *

To the whole team at MIRA from Donna Hayes, Dianne Moggy, Margaret O’Neill Marbury to everyone in the sales force, art department, editorial department, marketing department, publicity department and mail room. What a wonderful home, I have. Thank you all for your hard work, creativity, and warmth.

To all my friends and associates but with special thanks to Lisa Tucker and Doug Clegg, two amazing authors, and the indefatigable Carol Fitzgerald—the trio who talk me through my books and hold my hand the whole time.

To Mara Nathan who is my key to Morgan Snow’s world and my Nina. To Randi Kraft for her eye and her friendship.

To Chuck Clayman who tried to keep me from mistakes with legal issues. (My failures are not his.)

To Gigi, Jay, Jordan, Daddy, Ellie, Doug and Winka too, for all the love, with love.

M.J. Rose (
www.mjrose.com
) is the international best selling author of several novels and two non-fiction books on marketing.

Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in many magazines and reviews including Oprah Magazine. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio.

Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the ’80s in advertising, has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing company for authors - Authorbuzz.com

The television series PAST LIFE, was based on Rose's novels in the Renincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and runs the blogs- Buzz, Balls & Hype.

Rose lives in CT with her husband the musician and composer, Doug Scofield, and their very spoiled and often photographed dog, Winka.

Please turn the page for a preview of
THE VENUS FIX,
the next title by M. J. Rose featuring Dr. Morgan Snow and the Butterfield Institute
.

In
THE VENUS FIX,
women who get paid performing on Webcams viewed by hundreds of thousands of men are dying online as those men watch on. Morgan gets involved in solving the crime by working with a group of high school teenagers—boys who are obsessed with Internet porn—and girls who are competing for their attention…
.

Don’t miss this riveting story, on sale in July 2006!

D
amn, it was freezing. He’d opened the window to chase away the smell of the beer and pot and sex, but then he’d fallen asleep, and now it was so cold he didn’t even want to stick his head out from under the covers to see if she was still there. But Timothy wanted to come again more than he wanted anything else, so he did it, he pushed the blanket down just enough to peek out.

In his darkened bedroom she was the only thing that he could see. Still there. Still naked. Her lovely breasts with the pink-tipped nipples pointing up.

His erection stirred.

Timothy was awake now, the dreams replaced with a fresh fantasy of what the next minutes would bring. She was golden. That was the best way to describe her: the tawny color of her skin, the long blond curls, and the feeling inside of him that burned like a sun when he was in her glow. And all he had to do was lie back and let her magic work on him.

None of the girls at school were this experienced.

Or this gorgeous.

Or this willing.

Penny was sitting in the big red armchair where he’d left her—her legs spread, playing with a dildo, smiling at him. But it was one weird smile. He leaned forward. Nope, she didn’t look right. She was shaking a little and her mouth was sort of contorted into a sick clown’s grimace. Then her head fell forward, her back heaved, and she vomited.

Timothy had fooled around with a lot of different crap, but this was weird. What kind of pervert would think this was hot?

Usually Penny was coy and sweet and sexy. Sure, she was a little kinky sometimes with the crazy-shaped dildos she used, but she wasn’t moving any of those magic wands in and out of her now.

“Penny,” he whispered. “What are you doing?”

Her answer was an agonized groan. Low and feeble. Like the sound a wounded animal might make. Nothing like the exciting sounds she’d made when she was riding the lubricated pink plastic dildo and coming right along with him.

Maybe she wasn’t acting. Maybe she really was sick. Food poisoning made you sick like that. He’d had food poisoning once. She looked sick, didn’t she? Her skin was slicked with sweat, her hair was flattened to the sides of her face, and her eyes looked glassy and feverish.

She looked like she needed help. Now. Fast. But what could he do?

Grabbing the blanket off the bed, he wrapped it around his naked waist and started for his bedroom door. Then he stopped—there was no one home. His parents were out. Geez, what was he thinking? Thank God they were out because Penny, sick or not, was way off limits.

He looked back at her. Yes, she was still moving in that slow motion, sick way, her moan now a low constant sound
that made him want to put his hands up to his ears and block it out.

He grabbed the phone.

He’d call for help. But who? The police? An ambulance? Amanda? Would she know what to do? No, she might tell her mother. He couldn’t risk that. Besides, what if he was wrong? What if this was a game? What if Penny was acting out some perversion by request? He knew she did that sometimes.

He glanced back at her, at her small hands gripping the arms of the chair, at her feet, so fragile and inconsequential, at the worn carpet he’d never noticed before. Everything looked sort of pathetic now—the meager furniture, the really small television—except for the view out the window. He’d never noticed any of this before. He’d always been too busy, under her spell. But not now. Not anymore.

Pick your head up, Penny. Look at me. Tell me what’s going on. What I should do?

She threw up again.

He dialed 911.

“State your emergency, please.”

At the same time he heard the voice, the screen went black. He ran to the monitor and stared at it, seeing only his own ghostly image staring back.

Penny was gone.

What the hell?

He hit the back button to see if the problem was his computer or hers. The site he’d been to before hers popped up. He hit the forward key.

Her site was gone.

“Hello?” shouted the voice on the other end of the phone. “Hello?”

A dozen thoughts hit him all at once. They were going to ask him who he was, and he was going to have to tell them, and then his parents would find out he’d broken the rules again, and God only knew what they would do to him this time. He had been going to all those stupid therapy sessions at school and his parents were finally easing up on him, but if they found out about this…what would happen then? Besides, maybe he was wrong. Maybe Penny had only been acting out some sick game.

“Hello?”

“Hello.” Timothy finally answered.

“Can you tell me what the emergency is?”

“It’s not… I don’t think. What if it’s not an emergency?”

“We have a car on the way to your house. Are you hurt?”

“No. It was a mistake, it’s not an emergency.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. It’s not me. I thought someone…I thought someone was breaking in…but it wasn’t…I was asleep.”

“The police are on their way. They should be there in less than thirty seconds.” The operator’s voice eased and softened.

Timothy heard the intercom buzz in the kitchen, hung up, ran out of his room and down the hall, the panic rising like bile in his stomach.

He pressed the button.

“Yes?”

“Timothy, the police are here,” the doorman announced. “They said it was an emergency. I’m sending them up.”

“No!” he shouted at the doorman. “No. Let me talk to them.”

There was a pause. Then: “Timothy Marcus? This is Officer Keally. Is there something wrong up there?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? You called 911.”

“Yeah, but by mistake. I was asleep, dreaming, thought I saw…heard something, but it wasn’t real.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come up and check things out?”

Timothy actually hesitated. Should he tell them and face the consequences? Deal with whatever his parents would do to him? He had seen something weird on the computer, hadn’t he? She was sick, wasn’t she?

Or did some sick fuck convince Penny to act out his perverted scenario?

“I’m sure,” he said into the intercom.