‘Go,’ he said to Decker. ‘Leave us alone. We’ll be fine.’
Ken waited until the door at the top of the stairs closed, then clapped his hands briskly.
‘All right, Anders,’ he said. ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It’s your call.’
He removed their blindfolds, first Chip’s, then Marlene’s, then finally the one on the little wildcat who’d raked Burton’s face. ‘Oh my dear, you are very pretty,’ he said quietly, stroking a finger lightly down her cheek, gratified when the girl’s eyes widened in terror. A glance to her right – to the noose around Mommy’s neck – had her mewling, her terror jacked higher.
He walked over to Chip. ‘I want to know what the hell happened in your household. First things first. Tell me why you allowed one of your servants out of the house last night.’
Chip shook his head hard, his grunts sounding like denial.
Ken ripped the duct tape from the man’s mouth, causing Chip to cry out in pain. Ken laughed. ‘You think that hurt? We haven’t even begun.’ He pushed the cart covered with tools close enough so that the three Anderses could see its contents – knives of various lengths and sharpness, a selection of scalpels, tweezers, a length of wire with electrodes on one end.
Three pairs of eyes grew large as saucers.
Ken took tweezers from the cart and pulled out the cotton balled up in Chip’s mouth. Shaking it out, he saw it was a handkerchief, monogrammed with Chip’s initials.
Chip coughed hoarsely. ‘Water.’
Ken fed him a small cup from the pitcher that was also on the table. ‘Answer my questions. And don’t say you don’t know. I don’t want to hear that.’
Temper flashed in Chip’s eyes. ‘Too damn bad, because that’s the truth. I didn’t know she was gone until the alarm went off this morning. We don’t know how she got out or what she was doing wherever she was when she got herself shot. Probably turning tricks.’ His weak chin lifted defiantly. ‘You have no right to drag us here. Let us go now and we won’t report you.’
Ken laughed when Marlene’s eyes narrowed. ‘Somehow I don’t think your lovely wife agrees.’ He leaned one hip against the cart, sobering. ‘You’re trying to tell me that you haven’t listened to the tapes yet? Because I have.’ Well not all, not yet anyway. But enough to know that his property was in the damn morgue in the hands of CPD.
Chip’s eyes blazed. ‘How did you . . . how did you . . .’ he sputtered furiously. ‘You can listen, too? You can listen, too? That means you’ve been listening to my family for three years? To my private—’
Ken slapped Chip’s face. Hard. So hard the chair teetered for a moment. He waited until the chair had decided to stay upright before answering. ‘Yes, Chip.’ He popped the ‘p’, rolling his eyes. What a ridiculous name for a grown man. ‘I can listen to any private moment that you have in the range of one of the tracking devices I’ve supplied. However, I don’t. I don’t care what you do with the property I sell you as long as you follow the rules. You did not follow the rules. When you break my rules, I reserve the right to listen to anything still in my recorded library.’ He raised a brow at the look of sheer terror that passed over the face of Anders’s pretty daughter.
Bingo, Ken thought. Someone has been very naughty. This might have been fun except for the fact that three of his assets had escaped. One was dead, her tracker now in the custody of the cops. The other two . . . Who knew? Ken had a feeling Chip did. A car had been waiting outside when the remaining two females escaped, after all. Either Chip was grossly incompetent or he was a double-crosser. Ken suspected a little of both.
Chip touched his tongue to his now-bleeding lower lip. ‘What rule have I broken?’ he asked with a sneer, somehow maintaining his fine veneer of contempt.
Ken might have been impressed if Chip hadn’t been trembling. ‘You didn’t inform me the moment she disappeared.’
‘Because I didn’t know until later,’ Chip snapped.
‘Later,’ Ken said with a nod. ‘The alarm went off when?’
Chip exhaled. ‘At 5.45 this morning. But you knew that already because you get the tracker alarms too. You can locate any of my property any time you want to.’
‘Yes, I can. But, I repeat, I don’t. Not unless you break the rules. Which you did. Now, tell me how the girl got out early this morning and how the hell she got into the city. And why you killed her.’
Chip’s head reared back. ‘I did not kill her. I didn’t even know she was gone. She slipped out. Probably to meet a man.’
‘You got that last part right at least. She met a man.’ Abruptly Ken got into Chip’s face and let his full fury show. ‘She met a goddamn reporter, you careless sonofabitch!’
That shocked all of them, he saw. The daughter in particular.
Ken strolled over to her. Stroked his fingers down her cheek again. Chuckled when she jerked her head away. He grabbed a handful of her hair, wrapped it around his wrist and yanked, bringing stunned tears to the daughter’s eyes. Smiling, he leaned into her upturned face.
‘You did it, didn’t you?’ he asked silkily. He ripped the duct tape from her mouth and shoved the tweezers in her mouth to retrieve the handkerchief used to gag her. Ignoring her choking cough, he yanked her head back again. ‘You let her out. Why?’
‘I didn’t,’ the girl stammered. ‘I swear.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
Ken released her and stepped back. ‘The hard way then,’ he said, then chuckled when she clenched her eyes shut, obviously bracing for a blow. ‘I’m not going to hit you, my dear,’ he promised. ‘I don’t want to mark your face. That would seriously reduce your asking price.’
‘Price?’ Chip shouted. ‘What do you mean, price? My daughter is not for sale!’
‘Your daughter is my . . . guest,’ Ken said. ‘For now. And you, Chip, have nothing to say on the matter, one way or the other.’
The daughter’s eyes had grown wide, her skin pale. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about a beautiful blonde with long legs, a tight ass and creamy skin, when it isn’t fright-white, that is. You go to Brown. Good school. Your major?’
‘English,’ she whispered.
He shrugged. ‘You weren’t going to do a lot with that anyway. Your name is Stephanie, isn’t it? Do you speak any languages?’
Another whisper. ‘French.’
Ken nodded. ‘Nice. We will add that to your catalog description. Sex talk always sounds better in French. How do you feel about deserts?’
‘Deserts?’
‘You know – sand. Camels. Guys with towels on their heads. Because we have buyers who love pretty white girls like you.’
She whipped her head around to stare at her father. ‘Buyers?’
Her mother had done the same, and now both of them stared at Chip.
‘You didn’t tell them, did you?’ Ken asked, then threw back his head and laughed. ‘Oh my. You didn’t tell them what kind of man I am? And what kind of man I made you, simply by association?’ He turned to the women. ‘Ladies, I sell people. Your husband has bought quite a few from me. But you knew that, didn’t you, Marlene? Even if your husband never told you, you still knew. If you tell me that you didn’t, I’ll know you’re a liar. The fact that you’ve never paid your staff and they were forced to wear ankle bracelets to keep them from running away had to have been big clues.’
Marlene stared up at him balefully, but her gag kept her silent.
‘So I’ll assume you did realize that your husband had procured your staff through illicit channels. Did he tell you that he procured over two dozen more for work in your factories? Ah, I can see that he did. Did he tell you that I also sell to more . . . sensually oriented buyers?’