Seides? Paid to turn his back?
Her mind stuttered. She was on her own with Dryden. She really was on her own.
Dryden released her hair. He brought the knife toward her throat.
She focused on the ice-blue gleam of his eyes, waiting for the blade’s sting. Waiting for death.
He grabbed the front of her T-shirt and brought the knife down, slicing the length of the shirt in one swipe. He spun her around and wrenched her arms behind her, then tied the fabric tight.
Diana thrashed and kicked, but it made little difference. Once her arms were immobilized, he flung her to the ground and sat on her legs. Then a few more swipes with the knife, and he turned Diana’s jeans into bindings as well, securing her ankles. Then he stood above her, looking down.
“Help me! Please! Somebody!”
“None of that.” Dryden drilled his foot into Diana’s side.
Breath exploded from her lungs. She gasped, trying to breathe, desperate to breathe.
Turning away from her, he grabbed the movable chairs. He jammed one under the handle of each door then moved to the camera with the third, raising it over his head. He brought one of the chair legs hard against the device. The lens shattered. The camera ripped from the bracket holding it and swung from its electrical cord.
Dryden set the chair on the table. Using the immovable chair that he’d been shackled to as a stepping stool, he climbed to the tabletop and reached up to an air grate in the old ceiling.
Diana watched him, lungs aching, convulsing. Even if she could breathe, she was tied. Even if she could breathe, she couldn’t get away.
Dryden pried the grate free of the air vent. Climbing down from the table, he twined his fingers in Diana’s hair. He lifted her to her feet.
She twisted and thrashed against him. Her scalp felt like fire.
“I told them I wanted to be transferred to a nicer facility. They should have listened. They should have done what I asked. But this place definitely has its advantages. At least the part that hasn’t been renovated yet. Let me show you.” He stepped up on the table, then lifted her by an arm.
“No. You don’t have to do this. We can talk here. I’ll do what you say.”
“I know you will. But I like my privacy. This is family business.” He positioned the chair on the tabletop directly under the open vent. He climbed onto the seat.
She wasn’t going to let him take her out of here. She wasn’t going to let him haul her who-knew-where. She twisted in his arms, lowered a shoulder and plowed into him, trying to knock him off the chair.
His arms encircled her. “You can’t fight me. I’m your father. I’m your god.”
She pushed a scream from her throat and thrashed against him.
A snarl twisted his thin lips. He drew back and plowed his fist into her face.
Her head snapped back. Her ears rang. Blood filled her mouth. He hit her again, and then she could feel him lifting her like she was nothing, stuffing her into the vent.
The crack and pop of the metal duct echoed around her. Her head throbbed. She fought to clear her mind, tugging herself to the surface of darkness only to slip back under. Then he was pushing her. Dropping her.
She slammed against a hard floor. Dust filled her mouth. She sputtered and coughed.
“Not very nice, but we’re alone.” His voice taunted in her ear. “Just daddy and little girl. Quality time. That’s the important thing.”
She wanted to spit in his face, to tell him to go to hell. All she could manage was a groan.
His hand smacked against her cheek. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.”
She opened her eyes, lids at half-mast.
His face hovered inches from hers. His ice-blue gaze drilled into her, through her.
Her body shook uncontrollably, trembling from the inside out. This was worse than the dark cabin, worse than running through the woods at night. But damn it…
She ground her teeth together. She couldn’t give in. Not to Dryden. Not to panic.
Not this time.
She forced her eyes wider and tried to see where he’d taken her.
Artificial light slanted in from a transom window high overhead. Dust stirred thick in the air, making the light look dense, solid. Through the swirl, murky shapes hulked in the darkness. Unused furniture? Construction equipment? She couldn’t tell. Wherever Dryden had taken her, the space hadn’t been used in a long time.
“After all the stories I read to you, I think you should tell me a story this time. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“A story?”
“You keep asking me questions about this copycat, but you knew him better than anyone did, didn’t you, Diana?”
Louis. Nausea swirled in her stomach and pushed at the back of her throat. She had known him best. Or she thought she had. Now just the idea of him made her want to vomit.
Or maybe she had a concussion.
“The papers wrote about him, but they left out a lot. I’ll bet you can tell me more.”
“I can’t tell you anything.”
“I don’t believe that. Didn’t Vaughan let you see the crime scene photos? Didn’t he give you a peek of the autopsy reports?”
Diana started to shake her head, but the pain stopped her short. “No.”
“I know you saw the last one. You found her spread across your bed.”
She didn’t have to dig very deeply into her memories to recall the shock of discovering Nadine’s mutilated body. “You told him to do that.”
“Of course. It was for your own good. Sometimes a father has to discipline his daughter. No matter how much it hurts.”
Just as she had thought. But that wasn’t all. “And you wanted me to tell you about it.”
His teeth glinted white through the dust. “I hoped.”
She shuddered.
“How did he kill her, Diana? Tell me. Was she naked? Did he cut off her clothes with a knife?” He looked down at her bra. A smile snaked over his lips.
The gleam in his eyes made her want to retch. But she held on, forcing herself to meet those eyes, no matter how much she wanted to look away.
If not for her lacy slip of a bra, she would be half naked in front of him. Those dead eyes looking at her.
Her own father.
Humiliation clogged her throat, mixing with the dust and blood.
Nikki had been right about her Eddie. Not surprising, exactly. But if she was right about his twistedness, even where his daughter was concerned, maybe she was right about the rest.
That Diana could use it against him.
She swallowed a mouthful of dust. Despite what Dryden thought, Diana hadn’t been privy to the police investigation. She didn’t know the specifics of Nadine’s murder. But she had spent hours going over accounts of the crimes Dryden had committed himself. And a narcissist like him might find those intricacies more titillating than the work of another killer.
And maybe she could convince him to share facts she wanted to know. Like the whereabouts of Cerise Copeland.
Diana probably wouldn’t get out of the prison alive. But if she did, and she could help return the woman to her baby…
She had to try. “Louis, he… her clothes were there.”
“And?”
“And he cut them off?”
“Yes. He cut them off with a knife.”
Bobby
He dashed into the prison and checked through security. This time he didn’t even have a gun to lock into one of the gun safes provided for police officers. He’d had to surrender it to ballistics until the i’s could be dotted and t’s crossed in the investigation of Ingersoll’s death.
Not that he could have taken it into the prison anyway. The risk of an inmate taking it away from him was too great.