Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(4)

One night, he didn’t come at all, not with food, not to demand she change her clothes. She had three outfits to rotate. He didn’t come to sit and smile that terrifying smile and ask for a song or a story.

She’d die here, slowly starving to death, alone, chained, trapped, because he’d forgotten her, or gotten hit by a car.

But no, no, someone had to be looking for her. She had friends and family. Someone was looking for her.

Her name was Mary Kate Covino. She was twenty-five.

As she went through her daily litany, she heard shouting—him. His voice high-pitched, like the bratty child he became when upset or angry. Then another voice … No, she realized, still his, but his man’s voice. A coldly angry man’s voice.

And the weeping, the begging. That was female.

She couldn’t make out the words, just the sounds of anger and desperation.

She dragged herself over to the wall, pressed against it, hoping to hear. Or be heard.

“Please help me. Help me. Help me. I’m here. I’m Mary Kate, and I’m here.”

Someone screamed. Something crashed. Then everything went quiet.

She beat her fists bloody on the wall, shouted for someone to help.

The door to her prison burst open. He stood there, eyes wild and mad, his face and clothes splattered with blood. And blood still dripping from the knife in his hand.

“Shut up!” He took a step toward her. “You shut the fuck up!” And another.

She didn’t know where it came from, but she shouted out: “Baby darling!” And he stopped. “I heard terrible sounds, and I thought someone was hurting you. I couldn’t get to you, baby darling. I couldn’t protect you. Someone hurt my baby darling.”

“She lied!”

“Who lied, baby darling?”

“She pretended to be Mommy, but she wasn’t. She called me names and tried to hurt me. She slapped my face! But I hurt her. You go to hell when you lie, so she’s gone to hell.”

He’d killed someone, someone like her. Killed someone with the knife, and would kill her next.

Through the wild fear came a cold, hard will. One to survive.

“Oh, my poor baby darling. Can you take these … bracelets off so I can take care of you?”

Some of the mad fury seemed to die out of his eyes. But a kind of shrewdness replaced it. “She lied, and she’s in hell. Remember what happens when you lie. Now you have to be quiet. Number one’s in hell, so number two can clean up the mess. Mommy cleans up messes. Maybe you’ll be lucky number three. But if you’re not quiet, if you make my head hurt, you’ll be unlucky.”

“I could clean up for you.”

“It’s not your turn!”

He stomped out, and for the first time didn’t shut and lock the door. Mary Kate shuffled over as close as she could. She couldn’t reach the door, but at last she could see out of it.

A kind of corridor—stone walls, concrete floor—harshly lit. And another door almost directly across from hers. Bolted from the outside.

Number two? Another woman, another prisoner. She started to call out, but heard him coming back.

Survive, she reminded herself, and went back to the cot, sat.

He didn’t have the knife now, but a tall cup. Some sort of protein shake, she thought. He’d pushed one on her before. Drugged. More drugs.

“Baby darling—”

“I don’t have time now. She ruined everything. You drink this because it has nutrition.”

“Why don’t I make you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

He looked at her, and she thought he seemed almost sane again. And when he spoke, his voice sounded calm and easy. “You’re not ready.” When he stroked a hand over her hair, she fought not to shudder. “Not nearly. But I think you will be. I hope so.”

She felt the quick pinch of the pressure syringe.

“I don’t have time. You can drink this when you wake up. You have to be healthy. Lie down and go to sleep. I’m going to be very busy.”

She started to fade when he walked to the door. And heard the bolt snap home when she melted down on the cot.



* * *



He had a plan. He always had a plan. And he had the tools.

With meticulous stitches—he was a meticulous man—he sewed the neck wound on the fraud. Over the wound he fastened a wide black velvet ribbon.

It looked, to his eye, rather fetching.

He’d already cut her hair before bringing her—with so much hope!—to this stage. Now he brushed it, used some of the product to style it properly.

He’d washed her, very carefully, so not a drop of blood remained, before he’d chosen the outfit.

While he worked, he had one of Mommy’s songs playing.

“I’m coming up,” he sang along with Pink, “so you better get this party started.”

Once he had her dressed, he started on her makeup. He’d always loved watching her apply it. All the paints and powders and brushes.

He painted her nails—fingers and toes—a bright, happy blue. Her favorite color. He added the big hoop earrings, and he’d already added the other piercings, so fit studs into the second hole and the cartilage of her left ear.

And the little silver bar in her navel.

She’d liked shoes with high, high heels and pointy toes, even though she mostly wore tennis shoes. But he remembered how she’d looked at the high ones in store windows, and sometimes they went in so she could try them on.