Inevitable Sentences (24 page)

What if help did get there? Chad would be returned to prison. Then what? Would he plot another escape and chase her down again?

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. If she kept Chad engaged in a conversation, would it distract him from hurting her or even—she stifled a gasp—from killing her? Her eyes flickered to the gun then back to his face. Her throat was so dry it prickled. It felt as though she had swallowed a thistle.

“Ha!” Chad swaggered toward Celeste. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Here was the face in the photograph she’d found in Pilar’s apartment four years ago, the features at the same time strange and familiar. The face that had sent her to Hawk Haven, where the sight of Chad had confirmed her suspicions. She was nothing if not an expert in denial, after decades of putting a public shine on a privately disastrous marriage. She’d refused to even consider the truth of her discovery.

Chad had been filled with cocky bravado that day at the prison, the same brash confidence showing now.

“You know, don’t you, Celeste?” Chad snickered. “You’ve known since the day we met, and yet you did nothing.” Gone was the relaxed grin. He bared his perfect teeth like a growling dog. He was ready to get down to business.

Did she dare answer? She had to keep him talking. What should she say? Nothing could change who he was or what had happened to him. Would he have become a serial killer if his life had been different? No one would ever know the answer.

She might have helped Pilar, however, if she had simply faced the truth years and years before, when she had first suspected Chad’s existence. Years, in fact, before Pilar worked at Hawk Haven.

Celeste had to say something. Something clever, to engage his attention. She would appeal to his ego. She couldn’t come up with anything except that she was terrified, and she would never let him know that. Her voice froze as solid as the ice on the lake and her tongue felt like a boulder lodged deep in her throat.

Chad stood mere inches from Celeste. She could feel his breath on her face like harsh blasts of air. Her legs began shaking. They wouldn’t be able to hold her up much longer. Although she desperately wanted to sit down, she couldn’t afford to reveal any weakness. She had to show him that she was strong, that she couldn’t be easily taken down, even though it might not be the case.

“Sit down, Celeste.” Chad pointed the gun at a wingback chair. His words didn’t sound kind.

Celeste didn’t sit. Instead she looked in the direction of the stairs to the second floor. She hoped the gesture would lead Chad to believe someone else was in the house.

“Don’t try to be a con. It doesn’t suit you.” Chad leaned so close, their faces nearly touched. “Besides, I’m not stupid. I know there’s no one else in the house.”

Celeste remained motionless. If she moved she feared she’d completely break down. In truth, Chad frightened her beyond all comprehension. She’d had the same sensation even when she had been protected by the prison Plexiglas. Now she believed he planned on her making some dumb move. It would be easier to disable her. He probably loved a good hunt. It would make him feel more powerful as the victor if the victim put up a fight. It didn’t matter how he felt. Celeste knew she couldn’t give up. She had to fight.

What was she thinking? If Chad killed her, what would happen to the others? Again she asked herself if she had made a huge mistake by staying to confront him.

“Cat got your tongue?” Chad backed away and looked at the staircase. “You weren’t this quiet when we met the first time.” He smiled with only half his mouth. “No one will help you. I waited to come inside until all those bitches and their kids ran like scared rabbits.” He laughed with a wickedness that sent ice through Celeste’s veins.

“I counted everyone to make sure they had all left. What a sight they were. All of them hunched over, sprinting into the woods.” Chad shook his head. “Did you actually think no one would know about their escape route?”

“Counted?” Celeste finally dared to speak. She was stunned that he knew how many women and children lived in the house or that there even was a house.

“You shouldn’t have been so trusting.” Chad grabbed Celeste’s shoulder and shoved her away from the rocker and toward the wingback chair.

Celeste stumbled and fell to her knees. She remained on her hands and knees stalling for time so she could think of a plan. Her mind whirled out of control. She felt she was riding on a merry-go-round that circled faster and faster and she had nothing to hang on to, no clear plan to stop the carousel. Finally, the reeling stopped and she stared at the multicolored braided carpet beneath her. Was this her punishment for failing Pilar? Celeste found it difficult to argue that she didn’t deserve the penalty.

“Your friend Priscilla showed her true colors,” Chad continued.

His voice had the fuzziness of a nightmare. How long had he been here? Celeste couldn’t remember. Priscilla? Had he said Priscilla?

“She told Lizzie everything about this alleged safe house.” Chad kicked the rocker onto its side. “That’s how I knew where to find you.”

Not Priscilla. She wouldn’t betray her.

Celeste was drowning. She could sense the weight of the cold water pulling her deeper into the darkness of a black lagoon. She had suffered this same reaction when Pilar died. But then the threat hadn’t been the same.

She had to swim free of this nightmare if she was to survive. Survive? How? She lightly touched the pouch that held the knife.

Chad placed his foot on Celeste’s back and pushed her to the floor. Her body flattened with a thud and she struggled for air as her face pressed into the carpet. She could smell the years of shoes that had crossed its threads.

Chad rammed his foot deeper into Celeste’s back. The pressure increased as he pressed his boot harder and harder. The pain ignited Celeste’s body like a wildfire.

Chad lifted his foot and slammed it on the floor beside her head. “Get up,” he screamed.

Celeste coiled into a ball and wrapped her arms around her head. She stayed in that position for a few moments, waiting for yet another blow. Nothing came. He apparently wasn’t ready to end her life. Finally she gave in to his command and slowly pulled herself upright. She would have to endure this ordeal until help arrived.

Certainly help would arrive in time, wouldn’t it?

“Sit in that chair like I told you.” Chad again used the gun to point.

Celeste stared at the chair as though it were a wild beast. She could no longer perceive the comfort it had once held, the solace of reading a good book while snug in the chair’s comfy cushions. She carefully lowered herself onto the edge of the seat without leaning into it. Her back burned.

Chad grabbed her shoulders—the gun still in one hand. He pushed her against the back of the chair.

She winced with pain. What did he want—to torture her or kill her? Did he want her to confess before he did away with her? He’d never get the truth he wanted—that she wished she had been there for him or that she was to blame for his plight. What difference would it make? Or should she lie to him to save her own life?

Chad backed away from Celeste and walked around the room. “Nice place,” he said in an unexpectedly gentle tone.

She regarded him warily. Hadn’t he trapped all his victims with his deceit?

Without warning Chad leaped at Celeste. His demeanor changed so rapidly she had little time to process what had happened.

“You’re not very polite, are you?” His scowling face seemed suspended in midair too near to her. “Don’t you think you should say thank you when I give you a compliment?”

Celeste leaned as far into the chair as she could, but that face, lined with hatred, deadly pale, grotesquely aged, pursued. He smelled of Hawk Haven—old and dank. He was a creature of the lethal prison. Celeste opened her mouth to answer, but the words only twisted around her tongue.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in a six-by-ten-foot cage for years on end, for your whole life?” Chad held the gun closer to her head.

Celeste eyed the gun and shook her head. “No,” she whispered, feeling no sympathy for him. Her head was filled with the memory of Pilar’s killer coldly and nonchalantly narrating every detail of how he had murdered her.

“Of course you don’t. You’ve had everything you’ve ever wanted. And I had nothing.” Chad pressed the barrel to Celeste’s temple. “You could have changed that.”

“How…how…?” Celeste stuttered. “How?”

“By facing the truth about me. You knew Marcus had a son,” Chad screamed.

Do anything to keep him talking,
Celeste thought. She swallowed and said, “No. Not right away.” Why had she told him that?

Chad slammed the gun across her cheek. “Liar!”

The blow snapped Celeste’s neck backward. The pain ripped through her head, and she lifted her fingers to the wound.

Chad slapped her hand away. “Leave it,” he commanded as though she were a dog.

Blood trickled down her cheek into the corner of her mouth. The taste of the warm, salty liquid startled her.

Celeste tried to get a clear vision of Chad in the dim light. He looked exactly like Marcus. But she had never been this afraid of Marcus. Now she truly understood the fear the safe house women had felt.

“Marcus Brookstone is my father. You knew that and you let him walk out on me.”

“You must believe me.” Celeste sniffled. “I didn’t know until years after you were born.” Surely what Marcus did had nothing to do with Chad’s mental state, his sickness. She had to believe that Chad had been born evil.

“How could you not have suspected that something was going on?” Chad yelled. “Marcus spent so much time with me and with my mother.” He paced to the kitchen doorway and back to Celeste. He stopped, turned, and walked to the fireplace. The flames from the fire burned in his eyes.

Satan’s eyes,
Celeste thought.

Chad abruptly pivoted and hurried back to the kitchen doorway as though something or someone was waiting there for him. He was behaving like a penned animal.

Celeste pictured Chad pacing in that same way in his cell. Each step timed with each memory. Each step making him angrier.

She had to acknowledge she had always suspected an affair, maybe even many affairs. She hadn’t pressed Marcus for facts because she didn’t care. As long as he left her alone and gave Pilar and her every comfort, she never cared what Marcus did. How stupid! Celeste’s pretense that she had a normal marriage and her refusal to confront Marcus about his clandestine habits had cost Pilar her life. Or would Pilar have gone that same road despite what either Celeste or Marcus had done? Had it been Pilar’s destiny?

Celeste gazed at the fire. “You’re right. I knew something. At the time I didn’t care.”

“Didn’t care!” Chad slammed the gun against the back of Celeste’s head and she went limp. “You didn’t care that Marcus left his only son without a father, to fend for himself?”

Celeste forced herself to lift her head. Blood trickled into her collar at the back of her neck. “He told me he provided for you and your mother.” She took a deep breath, hardly able to get the words out. “That you had—”

“I wanted a father. You stopped him from being one.” Drool slithered down his chin. “Money could never replace him. My mother and I were left alone. I was a little boy. I was scared.”

Scared. What did Chad know about being afraid? What about the women he murdered? They had been terrorized. Celeste had no sympathy for him.

Celeste rolled her head back and leaned it against the chair. She had a hard time keeping her eyes open but couldn’t give in to her desire to sleep. “I never had any control over Marcus. To him women are merely possessions. Nothing more.”

“At least he taught me that before he split.” Chad cackled like a hyena.

Celeste didn’t want to provoke Chad any more than she had already; however, she had one question she needed answered. “When did you know Pilar was your half sister?”

A slow, callous smile formed on Chad’s lips. “Oh, I knew about her since she was a little girl. I didn’t care because I also had a father.” The right side of his mouth curled. “The day I heard she was going to be our doctor at Hawk Haven, I started planning right away.”

Celeste was sickened by the thought that he had carried on an affair with a woman who was his half sister to get what he wanted. She decided to make one more daring statement. There was nothing to lose. She either could sit there and let him torture her, or she could try to make him see reason.

“I’m not to blame for your situation. Marcus is the one who abandoned you. He abandoned Pilar and me, too. He made sure we both knew he never wanted a daughter. He only wanted a son. He only wanted you.”

“Shut up, bitch. If you know so much why did he leave me?” His screaming pierced her ears.

Celeste couldn’t answer because she’d have to tell Chad that Marcus was embarrassed. Chad’s mother, Maryann, was not of his class. “He’s a selfish man,” she said at last.

Chad circled the room, clearly agitated, then stopped abruptly in front of Celeste. “When I’m finished with you, Marcus will be next. He’ll also see he did the wrong thing. I’ll make him pay.”

“You’ll never get out of here.” Every word took more energy than Celeste could afford. “The police will be here shortly.” She paused to breathe. “Even if you finish me off, you’ll never get away.” Another labored breath. “Besides, you’ll need me alive as a hostage. The police will be more cautious if I’m alive.”

“You’re dreaming. The roads are too bad for anyone to get through.” Chad looked out the window as if to confirm what he said was true, then returned his attention to Celeste. “It doesn’t matter if I make it or not. I simply want to end both your life and Marcus’s. And if I die in the process so be it. If I go back to prison, I’m dead anyway. I’ve been dead for years in that hole.”

Celeste couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer. Chad’s words drifted into oblivion as she succumbed to her pain.

“C
AN’T YOU GO ANY
faster?” Max asked. He could hardly stand the painstakingly slow speed the weather forced on them. Was Celeste safe or had Chad made it to the lighthouse? Had he gotten to Celeste? Was she even alive?