Cellar Door

“I didn’t save him, either,” she says.

Murder in its own right.

She won’t look at me, and she doesn’t have to. Off to her right, I spot Hudson’s opened file. Maybe if she hadn’t read it, seen the vile images and read the sadistic descriptions within, she could’ve slid the blade across his neck. Given him a mercy killing.

But she couldn’t. To do that, she would have to forgive him. Instead, she’s watching him suffer as he dies a slow, slow, painful death.

“Give me the knife, Makenna.” For her, I’ll end this. It’s gone on long enough.

She drags her feet up and links her arms around her knees. “I want to watch.”

After a few minutes of listening to her partner struggle for air, a bang draws her attention, awakening her from her trance. She finally turns her gaze my way. “You brought her here.”

There’s an accusation in her statement, a question as to why Jennifer is alive.

I’m not entirely sure how to answer that charge.

“Is it because she’s a woman?” Makenna asks. “Because you failed to kill me?”

“Yes,” I say, letting that be my answer. Though I’m not sure it’s true. “Or maybe I fear what happens when this ends.”

Holding me captive in her gaze, the way she did just the night before, when I lost control of my whole damn purpose, Makenna climbs to her feet. She looks at the bleeding wound in my thigh. “You’re hurt.”

“Flesh wound,” I say, but it’s no flesh wound. I’m losing a lot of blood.

She gathers the files under her arm and approaches me with determined steps. “Give me the coin.”

I hesitate only a second before I slip the quarter into her open hand.

“What do you want?” I ask her.

She walks around me. “To let her decide.”

She doesn’t look back. She leaves the room without a backward glance at Hudson. He’s dead to her.

I close the door, sealing him inside.

Before she reaches Jennifer, Makenna studies the woman who hired her. Jennifer’s gaze rakes over Makenna. Even now, even dethroned and powerless, she can’t disguise the loathing she feels for her own sex.

“How did I not see that you two were involved in this together,” Jennifer says. “Of course you are. Dead girls and dead lovers. The perfect matchmaking recipe.”

After she lays the files at the base of the staircase, Makenna turns toward Jennifer. “How many?” she demands.

Jennifer raises an accusatory eyebrow. “How many what, Ms. Davies?”

Makenna steps closer, and Jennifer shuffles to stand, forgetting the chain linked to her cuffed ankle. She stumbles and reaches a hand out to right herself. “Shit. How many fucking what, Ms. Davies?”

“How many girls have you sold into slavery?”

She crosses her arms. “You won’t like the answer.” At Makenna’s disturbing silence, Jennifer sighs. “Too many to count. It’s not about quality. It’s quantity.”

I park my shoulder against the wall, needing the support to hold me upright.

I thought I’d seen the bottom of the abyss—that I’d stared into the eyes of devils. But this woman is evil in its purest form.

Jennifer watches me. “Shocked, Mr. Easton? It took how many years of you killing off my employees before you found me? Why do you think it took so long?” She lifts her chin in defiance. “Because you couldn’t fathom a woman running Phiser, that’s why. It’s the perfect set up. My late husband agreed, too, the idiot bastard, before his dick got in the way.”

Makenna is the one to respond. “And Detective Royce Hudson worked for you.”