Love by Association

But he didn’t like being trapped in one room. Didn’t like Chantel and Julie out among the masses—masses that included the Smyth family—without him. He wasn’t comfortable sitting in the dark doing nothing.

And he most definitely wanted the evening done.

* * *

THE LIGHTS WENT OUT. Chantel lay in the dark. On full alert.

She couldn’t stop Junior from anything he might do until the lights came on and the camera caught him in the act, couldn’t render her second scream until everyone could see well enough to rush up and find out what was going on.

Until she heard enough people milling around outside her door to know there would be enough of a crowd finding him in the act to raise enough of a stink that more of them would come to see for themselves what scandal was taking place.

She wasn’t particularly a friend of the dark. She liked sitcoms to share the dark with her.

She waited.

No one came to her room.

No one was there.

And the lights turned back on.

Shit.

Where in the hell was he?

The scumbag had to act true to character. Just one more time.

She was not going to let him get away.

The lights went out again.

And Chantel willed the monster to come find her.

* * *

THE SECOND TIME the lights went out Colin went for the door. Six people were in the hallway, five were in his room.

Most were chatting. About who done it. And about their kids, too.

He was overreacting, thinking only he could save the day.

Julie’s words from earlier that evening came back to him.

I’ve been at the other end of your unblinking eyes for ten years. Let me go, just a little. It’s not only okay, it’s healthy. That’s all I’m saying...

He’d been holding his sister captive with his need to protect her. He’d let her go to a party, and she’d been raped. But he had to let her do this. And Chantel, too.

So he tried, but he wondered if maybe, just maybe, she had it all wrong.

* * *

SHE HEARD THE door shut before she realized she wasn’t alone. He was one-up on her. She couldn’t afford a second.

Her gun between her thighs was small comfort. Shooting Smyth would get her nothing but charged with attempted murder. Or, more likely, murder. Because if she shot she wasn’t going to miss.

She had no way of knowing for sure that it was Smyth who’d joined her. In the dark, the small peephole she had in the crook of her arm gave her nothing.

And then she smelled it. The same musky cinnamon smell he’d reeked of when she’d first met him that evening. She was never going to like cologne again. Or maybe she’d love it, because it gave her the impetus she needed.

She was going to get this man. Put him down. For life.

For all of the lives he’d taken...

“Finally, I’ve got you all to myself,” he murmured. If she hadn’t already recognized his scent, she’d have known his voice.

While her skin crawled, or maybe Johnson’s skin did, Chantel welcomed the adrenaline that surged through her.

“You know I’m not really dead,” she said, losing the high-pitched ditzy voice she’d used earlier in the evening.

“Of course. You want a drink? I brought one for me, too.”

He handed her the glass in the dark. Sitting up, Chantel took it. “What is it?” she asked. Because a reasonable woman would.

“Drink it, you’ll like it,” he told her.

She pretended to sip, then tipped the glass under her arm, letting enough of the liquid drip to the floor.

Thanks to Max, she knew what was in her glass. The mixture that Smyth could find in any bar and that, with a simple aspirin added, would render her incapable of fighting him but keep her conscious enough to remember every single thing he did to her.

Just as Julie remembered. And every one of his other victims did.

Because David Smyth Jr. was not only a rapist, he was one who needed to know that his women remembered him and knew that they couldn’t beat him.

He wasn’t going to touch her until he thought she’d had enough of the drink to serve his purpose.

Julie would be turning on the lights again any second.

“Drink,” he said. He was close now. Too close. He’d see her if she didn’t sip.

Desperate, she pulled down the top of her dress. Bending forward, she emptied the glass. And lifted herself up, exposing herself to the fiend’s gluttonous gaze.

“All done,” she said, slurring her words just enough to give him pause. She dropped her glass. It didn’t spill a drop.

“Come to Papa...” Junior’s voice sounded victorious, and Chantel braced herself for his touch.

Come on, Julie. Turn on the lights.

His hand planted itself on her exposed breast. Chantel moved lethargically. Fell down to the floor and rolled over onto her stomach. She couldn’t let him that close again. No one touched her breasts without her permission.