Karen was silent for a moment. “Gabriel, was there any record of her having given birth while in captivity?”
“None that I saw. Why are you asking?”
“I don’t know yet, but I think I need to come out there and talk to her. As to the kiss, you’re using semantics. Another personality came out for a moment—the part that feels pain, needs comfort, and if I were guessing, is attracted to you. That attraction may be real or simply the fact that she feels some sort of soul connection with you because of the pain you’ve both endured. When you shook her, she reverted to the obedient slave model she used to survive Salyer.”
“Any bright ideas on how I’m supposed to handle this? My ex-partner had six personalities, and I didn’t like any of them.”
Karen laughed. “I have a question for you. Did you want to kiss her?”
An image of her face flashed before his eyes, her lips soft and slightly parted and her eyes filled with torment that ripped through his heart. “Yeah, I wanted to kiss her.”
“Find anything?” The hot shower had helped to settle the queasy sensation in my stomach, but a feeling of dread still lingered like a dark cloud.
Max glanced up and shook his head. “Nothing more than what the police had already. Her name is Bethany Phillips. She’s eighteen, lived with a roommate, and was taken sometime between midnight and five a.m. Neighbor spotted her coming home at midnight, and her roommate came home at five, and she was gone. She’s been missing four days.”
“Would you like some coffee?” I headed to the kitchen. “Gabriel mentioned driving up to Candler tomorrow and looking around, maybe talking to neighbors, her employer, and any family we could find. The more we know, the better chance we have of finding her.”
Max followed me to the kitchen and sat in the doorway with his arms crossed. “You want to tell me about tonight?”
“What do you mean? You were there.”
“What happened upstairs with you and Browne?”
I finished loading the coffee maker and pressed the on button. “I’d just found the phone when he showed up. He took it and placed it in an evidence bag, and we came back downstairs.” A pain started over my right eye, and I rubbed my temple.
“No, Browne came back downstairs with a zombie. You totally shut down, Dakota. So what happened?”
My hands began to tremble as the pain increased. “I remembered the roses Christian gave me the day he said he shot you. He’d placed a vase on Amanda’s nightstand. It was upsetting, Max. Any memories of my captivity are upsetting. Surely you can understand that.” I poured two cups of coffee and turned to face him. “We know he’s alive now. We’re going to find him.”
“We should go home.” Max turned and wheeled himself back to the dining room table. “That’s the second time you’ve blacked out since we’ve been here.”
“Blacked out?” I placed his cup on the table and pulled out a chair. “I haven’t drunk enough to black out since we’ve been here.”
“Browne told me what happened. You touched the roses, told him the story, then went all weepy and asked him if he wanted to kiss you.”
“I would never ask a man that. Especially Gabriel Browne.”
“What about the mirror?” Max asked.
“What mirror?” I threw my hands up in the air. “We took all the mirrors down the first day.”
“We forgot to remove one in the hallway. The first night we were here, we were coming in from the patio, and you stopped, stared at it, ripped it from the wall, and stomped it.”
I wrinkled my face in concentration. If Max was telling the truth, I had no memory of it, which meant I was getting worse. “Then what did I do?”
“You walked to the kitchen, as cool as a cucumber, came back, cleaned up the mess, and acted like nothing had happened.”
The reality of what he was saying was seeping in past the pain and absolutely terrifying. “Have I done this before?”
“A few times after your father’s funeral. With everything you went through, I figured it was stress.”
The pain increased, becoming intolerable as Christian’s voice echoed inside my head. “Emma died last night. I buried her out back.”
10
“What happened?” I squinted against the bright light.
“You fainted.” Gabriel moved the washcloth from my brow. “Max called me.”
“Help me up.” I struggled to a sitting position and groaned. “I feel like someone used my head for a baseball. Where is Max?”
“Going through Amanda’s phone. You were right. Salyer sent her a video of Day killing Angelina.”
I lowered my gaze. “Max told me about what happened upstairs. I guess you think I’m crazy?”
“Not crazy.” Gabriel laughed. “Maybe a little nuts. Let’s go into the dining room, and I’ll fix you a cup of coffee, and we’ll talk about it.” He helped me to my feet.
“You should have been a therapist. I hate talking. You seem to love it.”
“If you want to stop Salyer, you’ll talk.”
I followed him from the living room. “Wrong words. I don’t want to stop Salyer. I want to kill him. We need to get that straight before we go any further, because I’ll kill you, too, if you get in my way.”
Gabriel continued through the dining room to the kitchen. “As long as we both know where we stand.”
Max was seated at the head of the table. He glanced up, smiled, and went back to work. I took a seat, debating whether I should sit on my hands so I had something to do with them. It was actually a relief when Gabriel came back with a cup of coffee and I could wrap them both around the cup. “What did you want to talk about? I’m not leaving, if that’s what the two of you have planned.”
“I talked to a friend. She thinks you’re suffering from DID. Dissociative—”
“I know what DID is, Browne.” I took a sip of coffee. “What does your friend suggest you do about it?”
“Keep an eye on you. Get you to face your memories of what happened to you and talk about it.”
“You mean run back to Rivers and bare my soul?”
“Hell no. That quack was a jerk.” Gabriel leaned forward on the table. “If something comes up during the case, you talk to me or Max. If it gets too tough, I’ll have Karen fly out here.”
“Does Karen think I’m dangerous?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Not to anyone but yourself.” He smiled. “And Christian Salyer.”
“And mirrors,” Max added. “We owe you for the one in the hallway.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Gabriel was still watching me. “You know more than you think, Dakota. You may know where you were being kept. Bethany Phillips has been missing for four days. If Salyer has her, what’s she going through?”
My knuckles turned white around the cup. “The first day, he welcomes you to your new home. She’ll be stripped of all her clothing and placed in a cage. Mine was ten by twelve. I counted those steps a thousand times the first few days.” I stopped long enough to gulp half the coffee. “The first three days, there’s no food and only one bottle of water a day. After that, he gives you dog food in a dirty bowl and tells you what he’s having for dinner. Sometimes, he brings his plate and eats in front of the bars.” I looked away from him.
“Can you describe the room the cage was in?” Gabriel’s voice was soft, the way people used with children to coax the truth from them.