Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella) (34 page)

Leigh frowned, opening his mouth to speak. He closed it again, annoyance sliding over his face. Glaring defensively at Jase, he muttered, “She left a note explaining where she was.”

“Now why don’t I believe you?” Jase asked mockingly.

Leigh angrily slammed his palms onto the table in front of him. “I don’t have to take this shit. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you tell me I’m lying.” He began to rise, swallowing when Jase growled, “Sit back down, Mr. Walker. You’re not going anywhere until you start telling us the truth.”

Leigh sat back down, slumping in his chair. He sulkily looked from Jase Devlin back to Frank Delucci. He swallowed his angry retort when he noticed Jase’s face was a mask of anger, his eyes glacial. Jase leant forward, speaking with icy fury, “Now I’m going to ask you again and you’re going to answer me truthfully. How did you know where Stephanie worked out?”

Leigh tore his eyes from Jase’s, dropping it to the floor and shifting uneasily in his chair. “She’s been going there for years. Like I said, I knew as soon as she was in L.A, she’d start going there again,” he mumbled.

“How did you know she was in L.A? Don’t even bother to tell us she told you in the note she left. She’s already advised us otherwise,” Jase bit out, resisting the urge to reach over and knock the smug smirk off Leigh Walker’s face.

“I always know where my wife is,” Leigh said with a smirk. “I like to keep tabs on her.”

“Just how long have you been keeping tabs on her?” Delucci asked, raising his own eyebrows speculatively.

Leigh shrugged, not willing to answer the question. “Why don’t you ask her? It seems to me, no matter what I say, you’re going to already have an answer,” he snarled.

“We’d prefer to hear it from you,” Delucci said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

Smiling at Jase and Devlin, Leigh held out his hands in appeal. “Look guys, what’s the big deal? She’s my wife. I have the right to know where she is at all times.”

Jase inclined his head. “We’re not saying you don’t have the right to know where your wife is. However, if say for some reason you were keeping tabs on her before she was your wife, now then you’d have a real problem,” Jase said in disgust.

“Take, for example, if you were to follow her to another country just to integrate yourself into her life,” Delucci added, not missing the way Leigh blanched white.

Flashing Leigh a predatory smile, he went in for the kill. “These are the kinds of accusations your wife is making against you, amongst the assault charges. They’re accusations we don’t take lightly.”

Leigh straightened up in his chair, his relaxed demeanor disappearing. “I don’t think I want to answer any more questions without my lawyer. You’ve both labeled me guilty of God knows what without a trial. I don’t have to take this. I came here willingly to discuss the assault charges, and you’ve discussed everything but the charges Stephanie has laid against me. All I did was follow my wife. There’s no crime in this, especially since all I wanted to do was apologize and move towards a reconciliation. There’s absolutely no crime in this at all. I think I’d like to talk to my lawyer right now.”

Jase leaned closer to Leigh, his eyes blazing brightly. “You do that, Walker, and while you’re discussing things with your lawyer, we’re going to do a little digging into your past. You better pray we don’t find anything tying you back to Stephanie or the spate of murders hitting L.A recently. Murders, you better have a god damn alibi for.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Gena paced Jesse’s living room, stopping to glare at her phone, before she picked up her pace again. She ignored the two men sitting on the couch, impatiently waiting for news on Jase and Delucci’s interview with Leigh Walker.

“Pacing isn’t going to solve anything,” Jake said from where he sat on the couch, watching her bemusedly.

She shot him a withering glare, turning to shoot daggers at Ben when he snorted. “Don’t you two have anything better to do than annoy me?” she snapped, glaring at her phone again.

“No. Stephanie is safely ensconced in this house, so we’ve got nothing but time on our hands,” Jake said, his lips curving into a smile.

“Where’s your marine buddy, what’s his name?” she asked, trying to ignore her rapidly beating heart at Jake’s heated smile.

“Rafe?” Jake asked, fully aware of the woman in front of him. Even in her usual gear of a pair of jeans, singlet top, black bomber jacket and boots, Gena still looked beautiful to him.

Shrugging, he drawled, “He’s doing a radius check. You know, making sure your pesky serial killer isn’t lurking.”

He grinned at Gena’s scowl. He enjoyed baiting her. She got sucked in every time. His grin widened as he met her gaze head on, only tearing his eyes away from her when Stephanie strode into the room. Chuckling to himself, he wondered if anyone had ever told Stephanie she walked like she was on a mission.

She never failed to leave him breathless with her energy. She was a dynamo who never stopped. In the whole time he’d known her, he had never seen her sit still for longer than five minutes. It wasn’t who she was. Dominic used to call her his pocket rocket. He’d always wondered how Dominic had survived being married to her. His smile fading, his thoughts turned to Dominic Delaney. His friend had been the best thing to happen to Stephanie. He had kept her centered.

He wondered who would keep her centered from now on. Looking to where Jesse lay on the couch reading
Great Expectations
, he knew it wouldn’t be his brother. As much as Jesse loved Stephanie, he had never been able to hold onto her.

He laughed out loud when Stephanie burst out breathlessly, “I hit the jackpot.” He could see the excitement coursing through her body.

“You hit the jackpot?” Jesse asked cautiously, lying his open book, face down, on his chest and looking at Stephanie.

Stephanie nodded excitedly, missing the way Jesse tensed up. She smiled at him in amusement. “No offense to the intelligence in this room, but some men were born morons. And, it turns out my soon to be ex-husband is their king.”

“Which part of let the L.A.P.D handle this didn’t you understand this time? You need to stay away from Leigh Walker. This means no poking into our investigation. It means doing absolutely nothing. The man is trouble, and God knows you attract more trouble than anyone I’ve ever known. Stay away from him, Stephanie. You’ve pressed assault charges against him. He’s clearly been stalking you. It gives us the right to dig into his past. So do us all a favor and let us do our job,” Gena groaned.

Smirking, Stephanie walked over to where Gena stood, dangling a piece of paper underneath her nose. “Since you’re clearly not part of this investigation, Gena, why don’t you let me tell you what I found,” she pressed.

Gena blew out a frustrated sigh. “If I say no, will you forget about Walker and let me concentrate on him?” She scowled at Stephanie, who stood tapping her foot impatiently. “I didn’t think so. I just know I’m going to regret asking this, but what have you found?” she asked resignedly, not surprised to see Stephanie practically humming with excitement.

She rolled her eyes when Stephanie darted gracefully towards the couch and sat comfortably beside Ben and Jake, tucking one slim leg underneath her. “Leigh mentioned he followed me to England, which made me believe he used to live in L.A. I don’t know why he chose to pick me or what triggered his obsession with me,” Stephanie said quietly, pausing to glance from Ben to Jake and then to Gena from beneath swept eyelashes. “It is an obsession, not love. You don’t pretend to be someone you’re not if you really love someone. You’re completely honest with them from the start. You don’t follow them to another country under the pretense you don’t know who they are.”

Lifting her hand up to her cheekbone, she fingered the bruise carefully. “You certainly don’t hit the very person you profess to love so passionately.”

Ben gently removed Stephanie’s hand away from her face, interlinking his fingers with hers and brushing his lips across her palm. “No babe, you certainly don’t,” he said huskily, ignoring Gena’s snort of disgust and Jake’s smile of understanding. Clearing his throat, he said softly, “What did you find out about Leigh?”

Stephanie smiled radiantly at Ben, before turning and giving Gena the same smile. “Leigh used to live here in L.A. My source told me he actually still owns an apartment off Wilshire Boulevard.”

Gena’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You have an address already? Just who the hell are your sources, Stephanie?”

Stephanie laughed softly. “Now Gena, you know I never reveal my sources to anyone. It’s why they are still my sources. I’m waiting to find out what else he can dig up for me about Leigh. I want to know everything I possibly can about this bastard. I still don’t think he’s a killer, but he’s not exactly a saint, either.”

“I’m not going to agree with you about his not being a killer. I don’t know him enough to make that judgment. I’ll let the investigation tell us what he is. Personally, I’m not sure you know him well enough to say so either,” Gena said. She held her hand out in front of her. “I’m going to want that address from you, though.”

She could almost smell the adrenaline pumping through the air, and felt the edges of her lips twitching into a smile. Stephanie might not be ready to admit it to herself, but this was where she belonged. In the time she’d been back, her killer instincts had kicked in and she was throwing herself back into her old life.

Gena would never understand why Stephanie chose to walk away from so much of her life, not just Dominic but also her work as a crime reporter. She’d obviously loved her job. She thrived on it. The thrill of the chase excited her, almost as much as the plowing through the evidence and the facts. At one time, Gena had even been tempted to suggest to Stephanie she should be a profiler. Knowing how deeply Stephanie immersed herself in her work, she was glad she hadn’t.

Shaking her head again, her lips quirked into a smile, some things were never going to change and Stephanie’s way of pushing herself, and everyone else to their limits, was one of them. Stephanie leaned over, holding out a folded piece of paper to her. Unfolding it, her smile widened at the almost unreadable scrawl. No, something’s didn’t change at all.

“This would read...?” she asked, grinning widely at Stephanie’s mock scowl. “1866 Wilshire Boulevard, Venice,” Stephanie replied, her own lips twitching into a smile. “My writing’s not that bad, smartass.”

“Stephanie, a two-year-old could print better than you could,” she retorted, laughter in her voice. The laughter died when her phone rang. Holding up her hand for silence, she quickly answered it, “Evans.”

***

Cynthia Mallory watched her captor enter the room, squeezing her eyes shut at the sight of the knife in his hand. He was going to kill her. She knew it. How long had she been here? How long had she been in this hell? It felt like weeks but she knew it was possibly only days.

Torture after torture he had inflicted on her bruised and battered body. Hour after hour, he raped her. He had cut her. He had taken photos of her. He had done unspeakable things to her, things she couldn’t bear to remember. Squeezing her eyes tighter, she tried to block out the dark memories flooding her mind.

He was mad; certifiably mad and extremely unpredictable. One minute he was torturing her,
hurting her
and the next he was touching her, stroking her like a lover. She opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she would see when she did. He hadn’t brought anyone else here. If there were other victims, she had not heard them. The only screams she’d heard recently were her own.

Adjusting her eyes to the darkness, she bit back a sob when she saw him standing in front of her, watching. He was always watching. Watching and waiting. She never knew when he would strike or how. She just knew it would happen.

His face was covered again in the death mask he always wore. Only once had she seen him without his mask. Once while he had been raping her, she’d managed to tear the mask off him. She gulped convulsively, not wanting to think about it. He’d been so furious, and she’d been terrified of what he’d do. He had brutally punished her and warned her to never do it again. She’d been too scared to try.

He had raped her repeatedly with a foreign object, beaten her until she was black and blue and then tended to her wounds. Sometimes she wasn’t sure he even knew what was happening. Sometimes he was so completely unhinged and dangerously unpredictable and at other times he had such a strong grip on reality.

She gulped. He was still watching her. God, she hated it when he did. When he watched her at night, she would pretend to be asleep, hoping he would leave her alone. Petrified of what would happen to her next. The torture would start at either extremes of the scale. He would be extremely violent to begin with or tender. It always ended the same. Broken and battered, she would be lying in his arms, with him whispering the same name over.
Stephanie
.

She flinched when he flicked the knife over the rope binding her wrists and legs together. “Please,” she whispered between cracked lips. Her hands remained together, clasped in the form of a prayer, as she fell to her knees. Leaning over her, he tucked two fingers underneath her chin, roughly lifting her bowed head so she could meet his stare. She inwardly shuddered. She’d learned to control her reactions in front of him. He enjoyed her pain too much. It turned him on.

Meeting his gaze, she stared into the flat eyes and wondered if the man had a conscience or a soul. After everything he had done to her, she didn’t believe he did. He was evil in its purest form.

“Please what?” he asked gravelly, his grip on her chin tightening painfully.

“Kill me now,” she said, her voice shaking with terror.

“Kill you? What on earth makes you think I’m going to kill you?” he said, laughing cruelly. “Today is your lucky day, Dr. Mallory. You get to live.”

“Thank God,” she whispered brokenly, lifting her head to the sky. She gasped when he yanked her by the hair, pulling her tightly to him.