“That’s the hellish part,” he says, eyes flashing with
a wild glint. “Revenge is like a drug. The more you feed that beast, the hungrier it grows. But, you’re going to help me with that. Come on.” He reaches for me.
A searing ache throbs against my palm, and I pull my hand away from the rail, away from him. “I want to know what you bury here. What’s beneath all this art. What’s inside it?” I’m still a detective—I can still link pieces together and decipher clues. And my gut is telling me this isn’t just a cellar…it’s a catacomb.
I direct the most lethal look I can his way. Not very intimidating from a woman draped in his towel, I’m sure. But there’s something down here. I can feel it. Something so depraved he might even be lying to himself.
The sounds I heard was him. He lives down here, day and night. There’s a cot in one corner, and a wall of tools. A ventilation system with exposed ducting runs across the rafters. He works here, he’s a beast sentinel that guards this cellar. It’s full of his secrets…and if Hudson’s body is here…
“I’m retaining your services,” he says, surprising me. “Under extreme circumstances, that is. That means you work for me, as my PI. You take directives from me.”
He makes a move to grab me, and I step up a stair. “I can’t help you, Luke.” I say his name, hoping to make some kind of breakthrough with him, hoping whatever rational thought that might still be there, I can reach. “Whatever you believe, it’s not the truth. You’re sick, and you’ve invented some elaborate fantasy about bad men and a revenge plot. But the man you killed? Royce Hudson? My partner? He was a good man, Luke. You took an innocent life and hurt so many people in the process.”
“I’m sick,” he repeats. “You’d rather die than risk uncovering the truth. That’s pretty sick to me.”
“You didn’t just hurt me. You killed me that night.” I shake my head, feeling helpless, disoriented. “What difference does it make whether it was then or now? My life was over the moment you stole Hudson from me.”
He forces his way closer, powerful arms barricading me against the railing. “I think your brain is more than cracked. Every time I present proof, you block it, refusing to accept what it means.” He reaches into his pocket and produces my heart necklace. “Three years ago, a teen girl went missing. She turned up a Jane Doe in the morgue a month later. Beaten, tortured, mutilated…raped so badly the medical examiner couldn’t identify her. This was her necklace.” He thrusts the charm in front of my face.
I try to look away, but his hand locks to my jaw, preventing any movement.
“More than one heart necklace exists,” I say around clenched teeth. “That’s not proof. That’s assumption. And a huge leap to peg a detective for….what? Failing to find a missing girl?”
I don’t remember the case. It wasn’t ours, but Easton could have gotten the details mixed up, confused.
His eyes flare, frenzied, otherworldly blue in the ethereal light. I can feel the rapid beat of his heart firing against my jaw where his grip tightens. “Jules Easton was my sister. Not some missing girl.”
He releases me, and I nearly stumble from the force. Hands trembling, I manage to pull my towel higher. “I’m sorry, but…”
“Don’t.” Easton turns his back to me and descends the last two steps. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
His confession makes this underground realm of torture and pain all the more frightening. Loss broke me, but it’s ravaged him. I can feel for his loss…I can even empathize. But I can’t fathom…
I shut my eyes at the thought. I can’t fathom murder.
The feel of cold rain pelting my skin rushes my senses, a sudden outside glimpse of me holding my weapon aimed on Keller.
In that moment, I wanted to end a life. I wanted revenge for everything.
I searched for him…wanting, needing to know why. Needing to know what happened to Hudson, and to prove that I didn’t imagine his death—that I wasn’t “dissociative” like my psych eval claimed before I was removed from the department. Suffering some form of PTSD. I didn’t need to prove to them or anyone else what I knew.
I had to prove it to myself.
There’s a fine line between passion and obsession. I crossed that line, and I’m standing before a man that spiraled down obsession’s pit. Literally.
As I move off the staircase, I look down the wide corridor of the chamber. Concrete meshes with earth. A never-ending obsessive project.
And I’ve delved so deeply into this case that I’m a captive to Hudson's murderer, held prisoner in his cellar where, before this ends, I will become some piece of twisted artwork myself.
Who is more traumatized? More insane?
I laugh. I can’t help it. Maybe I am dissociative. Maybe I do have a cracked brain. Who the hell is the crazy person here?
I thought my investigation was what killed Hudson. That I brought Luke to the ravine that night. I’d been getting too close, maybe. Someone was sent to stop us, stop me—and Hudson was murdered in my place.
But the more I unravel about Luke Easton, the more I question that theory.
If he believes what he says…if he’s on some crazed revenge mission…then there are no answers. Bad things happen for no reason. Mother’s shoot up heroin and die, and detectives get attacked by madmen in ravines and die. And I’ve stumbled right over the edge into my own personal hell. The other world is all around me…and I’ve become just another lost citizen to its dark nothingness.