Feeling the tension leave his body helped the tension leave hers. ‘Yes. But we can’t stay there long, and we can’t do any more of this, no matter how pleasant it’s been. I have to find Annabelle and Tala’s baby. And the bastards who shot you. Both of them.’
‘I’d feel sorry for them if they didn’t have it coming. I wouldn’t want to be on your shit list.’ He pulled away reluctantly. ‘So this has been pleasant?’ he asked, his tone saying he knew full well that it had been so much more.
Scarlett was nearly undone. Willing herself to move away from him, she returned to the driver’s seat and buckled up, staring straight ahead. Because if she looked at him, she might not be able to look away. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly when she heard his seat belt click into place. ‘Pleasant. A woman has to make sure you don’t get a big head.’
‘I think that train’s left the station, Detective. It’s already pretty big,’ he said blandly.
Scarlett whipped her head to stare at him, then snorted a shocked laugh when she saw his innocent expression. ‘I’m not sure what to do with you.’
He smiled at her. ‘Oh, no worries. I have lots of ideas.’
She put the car in gear and headed toward the highway, feeling breathless in the best of ways. ‘I’m sure you do, Mr O’Bannion. I’m sure you do.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 2.35 P.M.
Ken strolled down the stairs to his basement, a plate of steaming lasagna in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. He’d needed a little extra time to breathe through his temper after his call with Demetrius. To put his thoughts in order. And to make himself lunch.
That cocky, careless sonofabitch. Ken had pulled up the phone-tracking software on his own phone so that he could see Demetrius’s actual location while he’d reheated the lasagna from dinner the night before.
Demetrius’s phone was where Demetrius had said he’d be – on his way to O’Bannion’s newspaper office. Ken had set an alarm so that he’d know if Demetrius veered off course for any reason, then let himself enjoy the aroma of his lunch. He hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been until his stomach growled. Holding back from breaking Stephanie Anders’s pretty neck had burned a lot of fuel.
The aroma of food served another purpose as well, giving his captives another reminder that they were . . . captives. At my mercy for food, water. Life itself. Chip and Stephanie should be hungry and thirsty by now. If the smell of Marlene Anders’s blood and the sight of her gaping throat hadn’t permanently stolen their appetites.
When he returned to the basement, father and daughter looked up, both their gazes still intense. The break had allowed them to recharge. It would take a little while to wear them back down. Time Ken didn’t have. Stupid fucking Demetrius. If he’d called thirty seconds later, Ken would have already had the information.
Casually he placed his plate on the cart next to his chair and began to eat and drink, noting the way both Chip and Stephanie followed his every movement. He finished his meal and released a sigh.
‘That was really good. Hit the spot. Torture is so very draining, you know.’ He stood up, rolling his shoulders. ‘Are we ready to begin again, Stephanie?’ He removed the gag from her mouth. ‘Who took the baby?’
‘Tabby,’ she said flatly. ‘His dear Aunt Tabby. Short for Tabitha. She’s seventy-nine years old, five feet six inches tall, about ninety pounds. White hair, wrinkled skin. Mostly blind. She walks with a walker, so she can’t have gone far.’
Well, well, well. Looked like little Stephanie was ready to play ball. He’d figured she’d wise up eventually. But the answers she’d given really pissed him off.
Ken thought about the truck tire tracks his men had found out back. Dear Aunt Tabby could very well have gone far if she’d had someone to pick her up.
‘Dad also beat her half to death,’ Stephanie added. ‘So your boys shouldn’t have any problem catching her.’
That’s what you think, Ken thought dourly, a few more pieces of the puzzle falling into place. He’d bet good money that dear Aunt Tabby was the reason for the cops summoning the second rescue squad, not because O’Bannion had been injured. Demetrius hadn’t touched O’Bannion. And now the cops have Chip’s aunt, a relative Chip never disclosed as living in the household. Who knew what the old lady knew? Wonderful.
He sent a text to Sean, Decker, and Burton with the name and age of Chip’s aunt, and the instruction to take care of her. They’d taken care of people inside prison walls. A hospital wouldn’t be a cakewalk, but it was definitely doable.
‘Thank you, Stephanie. I’ve just sent my men after her.’ He crossed his legs, kept his tone mildly curious. ‘So if your father beat this aunt half to death, how could she have taken a baby?’
‘She took the baby earlier. That’s why he beat her. She gave it to someone. I don’t know who, and I really mean that I don’t know. I didn’t know she had friends. He was only keeping her so he could get her social security checks.’
Ken turned to the still-gagged Chip, whose eyes were shooting daggers at his daughter. ‘You’re kidding me,’ Ken said incredulously. ‘You’re stealing social security from your aunt? That’s like, what, five hundred a month? You are one fucked-up piece of work.’
‘He did the same to his mother,’ Stephanie stated, ‘until she threatened to tell. He took care of her so well,’ she added sardonically.
‘How so?’
‘Pillow over her face, probably. I was away at college at the time. That’s why he got Mila, you know. Tala’s mother. She was a nurse. He got her to take care of his mother.’
Ken studied Stephanie. Hatred glittered in her eyes. ‘Wasn’t his mother your grandmother?’
‘No. I’m not his.’
Chip exhaled, his nostrils flaring in anger, but his eyes revealed his shock. Either he hadn’t known, or he hadn’t known that she knew.
‘Whose are you?’ Ken asked.
Stephanie shrugged as best she could, given her bonds. ‘His best friend’s. Mother got a hoot out of all those dinner parties when Daddy dearest was shooting the breeze with the man screwing his wife. Their affair lasted a long time. Mother almost left Chip when he went broke, but he was able to pull his ass out of the poorhouse.’ Her head tilted. ‘Probably due to you.’
It was true. Ken had sold Chip his first workers when the guy’s business had hit the shitter.
The girl spoke confidently, but Ken noticed that she kept her gaze on his face, sometimes glancing at Chip, making sure she didn’t look down at her mother’s body between them. She was getting too self-assured, so Ken tossed a verbal grenade into the mix. ‘You know, you are either the best actress in the world or the coldest bitch I’ve ever met. You talk about your mother’s affair when she’s lying dead next to you?’
Stephanie’s eyes closed, a spasm of pain momentarily contorting her pretty face. ‘She would want me to get out of here alive. And if giving you what you want is the way to do that, she’d want me to.’
‘You’re not going free,’ he said. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’
She nodded, her eyes still closed. Her skin paled. ‘Yeah. I got that.’
‘Just so that we’re clear,’ he said amiably.
‘But you said you could make it easier for me.’
‘I did say that, yes. Let’s see how this goes, shall we? The more straightforward you are, the more charitable I’ll be. So, why did Tabby give the baby to “someone”?’ He quirked his fingers in the air.
‘I don’t know. Maybe she heard Tala was dead and figured there would be no one to feed the brat. Mother and I certainly weren’t going to buy it formula, and Tabby wasn’t allowed to have any money, so it would have starved because Tala was still nursing it. Or maybe she thought that Mother would get rid of the kid. I don’t know.’