New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

“Oh, excuse me,” she muttered to the empty room, “his simple fact.”

God, she hated when he ordered her around like she was an idiot infant at nap time.

She just needed coffee. Just some coffee to break through the fog. So she was tired, she admitted, dropping her clothes where she stripped. Cops worked tired. That was a simple fact.

One of his minions in his fancy, high-priced (no doubt) hotel had unpacked and put away the things Summerset had packed. She didn’t even have control over her own damn clothes.

She yanked open drawers. Damned if she’d sleep naked and give that bossy bastard any ideas. She sniffed at the soft, pretty nightclothes, shoved through them until she found a practical, definitely unsexy nightshirt and dragged it on.

But she wasn’t going to bed. Not to sleep, that is. She’d stretch out for ten minutes, and consider her part of the bargain met.

Then he could shove it.

She snatched the gold-foiled chocolates off the pillows, tossed them on the night table. She’d have that with her coffee after her ten down. It ought to be enough caffeine to keep her revved for another few hours.

She dropped down flat on her face on the neatly turned-down sheets, thought fleetingly that she missed the cat.

She thought of Darlie Morgansten. The pang as her belly twisted was the last thing she felt before going under. She never heard Roarke come in twenty minutes later.

The chill of the room kept her awake. She wanted to sleep, wanted to go away, but the cold and the gnawing hunger in her belly wouldn’t let her.

She wasn’t supposed to get food. She ate when he told her to eat, and ate what he gave her or there would be hell to pay.

She knew hell to pay meant a beating—or worse. She knew what hell was because she lived there.

She was eight.

She shivered in the cold, squeezed her eyes shut because he’d left the lights on when he went out. She couldn’t make them go off. Bright, bright and cold with the dirty red flash from the sign coming through the window.

LIVE SEX. LIVE SEX. LIVE SEX.

He’d forgotten to feed her before he went out. Business. Places to go, people to see.

She never had places to go, and never saw anyone but him.

Maybe he’d forget to come back. Sometimes he did, and she was a long time alone. It was better alone, mostly better alone. She could look out the window at the people, the cars, the buildings.

She had to stay in the room. Little girls who tried to go out or talk to anybody got taken by the police and tossed in a dark pit or sometimes a cage with snakes and spiders that ate through their skin to their bones.

She didn’t want to get thrown in the pit. Didn’t want to have to pay hell. But she was so hungry.

She knew there was cheese. If she got just a little cheese—like a mouse—he wouldn’t know. Eyes darting around the room, she scuttled over in the flash of red light, got the little knife.

She meant to cut off just a tiny bit, but it was so good.

If he didn’t come back, she could eat all the cheese. And when he did come back, he’d be drunk, probably. Maybe he’d be drunk enough not to notice her, not to hurt her. Not to care that she ate the cheese.

The door opened, a crash of sound that startled her into dropping the knife.

She saw, with a terror that ate the bones like spiders, he wasn’t drunk enough.

She tried to lie, to pretend—and for a moment, just one moment, thought he’d leave her alone.

He hit her so hard. As she fell, the blood she swallowed into her yawning belly roiled there.

Please don’t. Please. I’ll be good.

But he hit, and hit and hit no matter how she cried or begged. Then he was on her, the brutal weight of him. On her, smelling of whiskey and candy—the terrible smell of father.