Hate blazed through the man’s drug-bleary eyes. This wasn’t an innocent victim, Nick reminded himself. As much as that horrible injury made him want to feel pity, Stokes almost certainly deserved it. From what Vanessa had said, he’d made a very good partner for Malcolm. Equally vicious and ruthless.
“I’m—” Nick began to introduce himself, but Stokes cut him short with a guttural growl.
Stokes jabbed his chin at the desk and, with his hands bound, managed to mimic writing. Nick got a paper and pen.
“You’re right-handed, I take it?” Vanessa said.
He nodded. She undid the cuff and tied his left hand to the desk leg. He didn’t like that—clearly he expected to sit up and write his message—but after some glowers failed to move Vanessa he snatched the page and started to scribble a message. He wrote it in a combination of text and haphazard shorthand that Nick deciphered as: Want my help? Find my wife. He hurts her? I’ll hunt you down and do worse than cut out your goddamned tongues.
“Charming,” Vanessa said. “Your bravado is admirable, Stokes, but you’re an idiot if you think you should threaten someone with a gun at your head.”
He scrawled, Find my wife or no Malcolm. I’ll hunt him down, and you’ll never find him.
“All right,” Vanessa said. “So Malcolm took your wife—”
He cut her short with a wave and wrote, He said someone would come for him, and if I didn’t kill whoever came …
He stopped there. Nick didn’t care to imagine what Malcolm said he’d do to Sharon Stokes. The look in Stokes’s eyes was enough. As soon as he read the words, though, Nick stopped and looked up, toward the second floor, and that sick feeling in his gut returned.
Shit. Oh, shit. He wouldn’t …
Hell, yes. He absolutely would.
“Did you see Malcolm leave with your wife?” Nick asked.
The haunted pain in Stokes’s eyes vanished in a snap, his lip curling as if to say, “What a fucking pointless question.”
Nick repeated it and waved at the pad. Stokes wrote, pen strokes hard now, anger and frustration mounting.
If you’re asking if I stood at the fucking window and saw which way they went—
“No, I’m …” Nick struggled for a way to word the question that wouldn’t reveal his suspicion. “Malcolm did that to you. And then what? Was your wife with him? Was she conscious? Did he drag her out? I’m a werewolf, and I need some idea of what kind of trail I’m looking for. Walk me through it—quickly—so I can go after them.”
Stokes still simmered, and it was obvious he considered Nick a flaming idiot, but that idiot was the guy he was counting on to bring his wife back alive. He wrote quickly, the words nearly illegible in his haste.
Broke in. Knocked her out. Knew I’d been talking to the Nasts. Said I set him up. Told me what he’d do if I didn’t kill whoever came here after him. Then he cut out my tongue and cauterized it. I passed out. When I woke, they were gone.
Taking Stokes’s wife was too much trouble. That was the problem. One Nick wasn’t about to explain to this mutilated killer, seething with rage, frantic for his wife’s safety.
“I need to go upstairs,” Nick said to Vanessa.
Now Stokes didn’t bother with the paper. He didn’t need to. Nick could decipher his garbled words just fine.
“What the fuck? No. Fucking no,” Stokes said as he jabbed his free hand at the door, telling them to go, get on his wife’s trail, bring her back.
“I really need to go upstairs,” Nick said. “To check her scent.”
Fresh dismay in Vanessa’s eyes told him she knew what he was really checking.
As Nick headed up the stairs, the smell of blood grew stronger. He could tell himself it was from cutting off Stokes’s tongue. It wasn’t. The smell was much too strong for that.
The stairs led to a wide hall with four doors plus a double set that presumably led to a linen closet. Nick went through the open door first. The master bedroom, stinking of fear and sweat and blood and burned flesh. This was where Malcolm had done it, surprising the couple as they slept.
The sheets were soaked in blood. On the floor lay the remains of Stokes’s tongue, tossed aside. Nick walked to the bed. While it was a lot of blood, it wasn’t enough for what he’d smelled.
Nick backed out and checked the double doors. As he expected, it was a linen closet—a walk-in one, but still small enough to search with a visual sweep. The next door led to a spare bedroom that smelled as if it’d never been used. A bathroom was next. Also empty. Then the third bedroom, which seemed to be a second office, smelling of Sharon Stokes. No blood, though.
Nick returned to the hall and looked around. He could mentally map out the upper level and tell that all space was accounted for. The blood, however, was not.
He walked to the middle of the hall, trying to pinpoint the location of the scent, but it seemed to come from all directions. He crouched again, to follow Malcolm’s trail. As soon as he bent, the smell grew fainter. He rose. Stronger.
Nick looked up. There, in the ceiling, was an attic door. Nick went to the linen closet and found a hook hanging on the wall. He used it to snag the strap on the attic door. It opened, steps sliding down.
15. NICK
As Nick climbed those steps, there was no doubt the blood scent came from up there. The attic was nearly pitch-dark, though, and he had to pause for his eyes to adjust to the light coming from the hall below.
The attic was empty. Completely empty. Nick didn’t have to move from the top of the steps to scan the entirety of the massive open space. And to assure himself there was nothing up here except the smell of blood.
As soon as he walked into the attic, he spotted the blood pool, glistening on the dust-covered floor. When his footsteps subsided, he picked up a sound. A very soft plink. Then silence.
He circled the blood pool. It was perfectly formed, with no sign that whoever bled here had crawled or been taken away. Yet there was clearly not a body.
Plink.
This time he saw the drop hit the pool. He looked up and saw only the black roofline above. When he blinked, his night vision adjusted and—
Sharon Stokes. Spread-eagled on the ceiling, her throat and wrists bloodied.
Nick took out his phone and shone the light up at Sharon’s body. Only then could he see how she’d been fastened there, and when he did, his stomach lurched. He lowered the light and noticed the tools hidden in the shadow by the wall. A nail gun and a ladder.
Malcolm nailed her to the ceiling, cut her throat, and let her bleed out, hanging there.
Had she regained consciousness? God, Nick hoped not.
He stared up at that body, and there was part of him that couldn’t quite believe it. Yes, the Malcolm he’d known was a sadistic son of a bitch, but this? And cutting out Stokes’s tongue? What had the Nasts done to him? Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Nick found Vanessa and Stokes where he’d left them. Stokes lay on his back, both hands fastened again. Vanessa stood over him with her gun.
“Your wife’s gone,” Nick said.
Stokes screwed up his face, and Nick knew what he’d say if he could. Of course she’s gone, you fucking moron. That’s what I told you.
“I mean she’s dead. Malcolm killed her before he left.”