“You gotta be kidding me,” he muttered.
Maybe Duke’s powers of persuasion had improved with age. And that was going to prove to be very unfortunate for Cait Douglass.
Moments later, his cocksucking brother got into that big-ass truck of his and took off.
Goddamn it, G.B. hadn’t wanted it to go down like this. But if there was even a chance Cait was going to take that f**ker back? Well, he was going to have to once again create a situation where Duke had to live with a reality he couldn’t bear.
G.B. had been thrown out with the trash, forced to go and get roughed up at that juvenile detention center for f**king years. Meanwhile, golden boy had gotten to go to high school, and get a scholarship to college, and have that girl of his. Guess the first payback hadn’t been hard-core enough, though—otherwise, the guy would have stayed clear of anyone G.B. had been seeing.
He was happy to raise the stakes.
With a resigned shrug, he reached into the black bag he’d brought with him on a just-in-case. Taking out another pair of black industrial gloves—because they’d worked so well with Jennifer—he pulled them up his forearms and got out of his car. He had a knife with him, holstered at the small of his back, invisible under his loose coat. With a black baseball cap on, and the black trousers he’d worn to the funeral, he was a walking shadow as he crossed the pavement, being careful to stay out of the pools of light cast by the streetlamps.
He sidled around to the back of her house, keeping flush with the clapboards, grateful that she wasn’t much of a gardener and hadn’t put bushes everywhere around the foundation. In the back, there was a glass-enclosed porch with no doors … but he found a rear entry on her porch.
Locked.
Cupping his hands, he leaned into the nearest window. The kitchen was simple and neat … and he could see through to the living room. She was leaning back in a chair, head resting on the cushions, a bottle of water in one hand.
Was she asleep? That would certainly make things easier.
A little farther on, he found a storm door, but that, too, was secured. So was the door into the garage.
Damn it. If he had to break in, this was probably going to get messy before he wanted it to.
Heading around the rest of the house, he was all the way to the front again when he frowned and ducked over to the main entrance. There was no possible way—
The handle turned beautifully. Which meant there was probably a dead bolt—
The door opened in total silence.
And there she was. Eyes closed, breathing evenly, looking for all intents and purposes like she’d passed out.
He shut the door before some change in scent or temperature or draft alerted her.
Unlike Cait, he was careful to turn the bolt.
Moving slowly, soundlessly, he walked close to the walls, assuming that the floorboards were less likely to creak that way. He went past her and kept going, making a fat circle so that he could come up directly from behind her.
He didn’t kneel or anything. He needed to be free to jump when it came to that—
Cait lifted a hand and rubbed her nose; then sighed as she resettled her arm on the chair. “Damn it,” she whispered.
Reaching forward with his gloved hand, G.B. touched her blond hair, stroking the ends. Great hair. It had been what he’d first noticed about her back at the café.
Wasn’t it weird that that chance meeting had brought them to this?
“Wake up, Cait,” he said loud and clearly. “Time to play.”
With that, he turned off the lamp next to her.
Chapter Fifty-six
The sound of a man’s voice directly in her ear jerked Cait to attention, a surge of terror throwing her upright as the room went dark—
Rough hands locked on her hair, digging in, latching on, yanking her so violently to the side that her body flipped off her feet and she slammed face-first into the hard wooden planks of the floor.
Momentarily stunned, she watched in the dimness as a pair of nice black shoes came into her wonky vision.
G.B.’s voice was even. Almost bored. “I can’t believe you fell for his sob story, I mean, really—I thought you were smarter than that.”
He grabbed her head with both hands and dragged her back up, holding her with such vicious strength, she was convinced he was going to snap her neck.
As she struggled, he kissed the exposed column of her throat, running his tongue up to her ear. “But I guess you’re a typical dumb blond. Kind of a shame, I actually liked you.”
With that, he threw her into the wall headfirst, the impact enough to knock her framed diploma off its mounting. The glass shattered, and she stepped in it, pieces cutting through the socks she was wearing.
“I even killed for you.” He banged her again into the Sheetrock. “I mean, I wouldn’t have wasted time on that Jennifer thing—but she almost got you hurt. She ditched that ticket and you were terrorized in that garage. Remember?”
He grabbed on again and cranked her head back to meet her in the eye—and that was when she knew true terror: He was totally placid, his face almost pleasant.
“Remember?” he repeated, retightening his grip on her hair. “Sort of ironic, isn’t it—given how this is going to play out.”
She braced herself for another vertical impact, but he had other ideas. He ripped her back to the floor and pinned her facedown. As he mounted her from behind, his weight settling on her lower body, she cried out—
The knife was about six inches long, and had a blade that was cared for so well, it gleamed white in the distant light of her office.
“No more of that yelling. Don’t want to wake the neighbors.”
“You’re not going …” She couldn’t breathe.
“To get away with this? Of course I am. You’d be surprised what I’ve gotten away with in the past.”
“You’re…”
“Just stop, I know what I’m doing, okay?” At that, one hand locked on the back of her neck to keep her in place, and the other started working on her clothes.
Tears speared into her eyes, terror making her tremble all over. Not like this, oh, dear God … but she couldn’t move, and wasn’t going to try screaming again in fear of—
A thunderous noise broke through the pounding horror in her blood, and she wasn’t the only one who heard it; she could feel G.B. freeze above her. A moment later, it was repeated … and a third time, and a—
The explosion that came next was something she knew, if she lived through this, that she would never, ever forget. It was unholy, a roar that was loud and deadly as a wild animal’s attack call.