Twisted (Burbank and Parker 1)

“At the beginning, he struck me. He called it discipline. I caught on quickly, and stopped resisting. From that moment on, the discipline ended. If it’s rape you’re worried about, don’t. He’s never touched me in a way that’s even remotely sexual. To the contrary, he’s as respectful as a well-bred young man on his first date. In his mind, we’re goddesses, not prisoners.”

“You called him Delphi—why?”

“Because that’s how he introduced himself. I remember some of my Greek mythology. But my only recollection of Delphi is as a shrine, not a person. It was an ancient site of the high Greek oracle.” Eve shrugged, gesturing toward Cynthia’s mattress. “I see you have your Athena chapter. I have mine on Hera. I’ve read it a hundred times. Nothing in it explains why he’s Delphi. So your guess is as good as mine.”

“Does he ever let you out of your room other than to bathe?”

“Occasionally, I’m allowed out of my room. Today was my first walk outside. Till now, it’s been to join him for a cup of tea in an empty room down the hall that he’s set up like a parlor. He brings me in there on the days when he needs a conversation partner—or listener—when he wants to discuss philosophy or the degradation of society as it exists today. Most of all, when he needs someone to turn to for maternal advice and support. He needs that, desperately.”

“Why?”

“He never reveals anything personal about himself, and he becomes enraged if I try to steer the conversation in that direction. So I don’t. But if I were to speculate, I’d say that he’s not just insane, he’s still part child himself. He has three sides to him—the child, the gentleman, and the lunatic.”

“It’s the lunatic that terrifies me.”

“I know.” Eve’s expression was grim. “When that side of him comes out, I cringe. He vacillates between raving bouts of insanity and vacant-eyed introspection. When the raving starts, I pray for the moment he leaves the house—which he usually does, after yelling, cursing, and smashing things. There’s always the fear that he’ll burst through my door and vent his rage at me. But, believe it or not, it’s the vacant-eyed introspection that creeps me out the most. That’s when he’s impossible to read. He’s vibrating with repressed violence. He delivers my meals, escorts me to the bathroom, and never speaks. He just looks right through me. It frightens me even more than his uncontrolled rage.”

“So what do you do?”

“Stay silent. Walk on eggshells so I don’t provoke him. And wait for the ‘gentleman’ to return. When he does, he’s eerily normal—polite, hospitable, friendly. Like a gentleman caller in the eighteen hundreds, visiting to converse and exchange pleasantries.”

“Oh God.” Cynthia covered her face with her hands. “How do you survive without losing your mind?”

“Two ways. By using those occasions when he wants to have a scholarly discussion to divert myself. He’s insane, but he’s also highly intelligent. So I use that intelligence to keep my own madness at bay. The rest of the time, I stay sane by planning my escape. Now I have an ally—you. Please, Cynthia, cooperate with him. Stop fighting. We needed him calm, trusting, and—hopefully—off guard. Thank him profusely for bringing me to you. Be grateful, humble. Then, when you ask to see me again, he’ll permit it. We’ll use those visits to combine our resources, and come up with an escape plan.” Eve rubbed her forehead. “My instincts tell me we don’t have much time.”

Richard Stockton College

Pomona, New Jersey

9:20 A.M.

Sloane had arrived a little after nine. She parked her Outback in the first parking lot off College Drive, which was the location Deanna had said the taxi dropped her and Penny off. Sloane followed the road with her eyes. As one of Stockton’s main streets, College Drive curled around the entire campus.

Getting out of her car, Sloane stretched. Richard Stockton College sprawled before her, sixteen hundred rural acres, most of them wooded. Even if law enforcement covered every inch of the grounds, it was unlikely they’d find any physical evidence—not after a year. They’d have to find witnesses, people who saw something, even if they didn’t realize they had. Lake Fred was large and centrally located. And on a spring day, that meant students hanging out, jogging, even just walking to class. Someone had to have seen something.

A light wind blew by, and Sloane tucked a strand of chestnut-brown hair off her face. It was a sunny morning, with temperatures hovering around fifty. Spring was finally showing signs of arriving. Good for her hand. Good for her investigation. Less pain, more outdoor activity.

She was itching to get going. But, true to her word, she’d waited, leaning against her car and reading through her notes, forcibly resisting the urge to head directly over to Lake Fred and start questioning people.

Her patience was short-lived. She glanced at her watch: 9:23. She was antsy as hell. And it wasn’t just investigating Penny’s disappearance that was propelling her. It was a surge of nervous energy.

She’d received three more hang-ups on her cell phone this morning. One during her run with the hounds, one when she was loading her briefcase into the car, and one about ten minutes before she arrived at Stockton. Same MO each time—a restricted call, thirty seconds of slow, raspy breathing, then a hang-up. The whole thing was really starting to piss her off. One more day of this, and she was going to pull a few strings and initiate a trace.

The sound of crunching tires reached her ears, and she turned to see Derek’s midnight-blue Buick LaCrosse pull into the lot. He parked alongside her Outback and jumped out of his car, tossing his overcoat into the backseat and grabbing his briefcase.

That was Derek. High energy. Like an explosive about to detonate. Never needed a coat, not even in Cleveland in the dead of winter. He just generated his own heat. Anywhere and everywhere.

Sloane quickly dismissed that thought. Bad enough that seeing him still made her whole body react. She wasn’t about to compound it by remembering.

“Good morning.” He strode over to greet her, every bit the crisp professional. “You contained yourself. I’m impressed.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You waited for me to get here. Wise decision.”

“And you wore the Gucci. Equally wise decision.”

A corner of Derek’s mouth lifted. “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a lot to choose from. These days, I’m a T-shirt-and-jeans guy. One of the perks of working the streets of Chinatown.”