AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"My name is Mr. Bevington," he said, leaning forward like a kindly old uncle or something equally impossibly unlikely. There wasn't even in imagination a world in which he bought girls only to free them and try to figure out how to bring down the enterprise that supplied them. Despite wrongfooting me, the kindly old whomever persona wasn't quite doing it for me.
And it wasn't quite not. A hard lump in my stomach relaxed. Just a little.
"Mr. Bevington, why am I here? You're – you'll – please, let me go. Please don't hurt me and just let me go! I won't tell anyone." Tiny shake in my voice.
"There, there, my dear."
Good grief.
"We'll talk about that later, won't we?"
How the hell would I know?
"For now, do tell me about yourself."
And so I did. The story wasn't too cliché and had just enough clichés on the other hand to be real. I'd gone undercover with an awful lot of Erins and I understood why they did the sometimes stupid, sometimes self destructive things they did.
I told him my parents were still together in the Midwest, that they had an okay marriage but my father's heart trouble made it impossible for my mom to even consider leaving him. That I had three sisters, all of whom I wanted to see again.
It's good to embroider cover stories with truth but not an overabundance of it.
He listened. He nodded. He made sympathetic sounds about my father who really did have heart problems and complications but who had a much better relationship with my real mother than my cover parents.
I told him how I got to Vegas, what I was studying, that I'd stolen a car but I didn't mean to steal a car.
Chad let out a snore that stopped all conversation. Mr. Bevington looked disapproving at him. Theo looked pissed.
"I'm afraid it's been a long day for you all. Perhaps your friends should take their leave." He stood to do whatever needed doing with the delivery service duo and left me sitting there wondering at the layout of the house, where the backdoor was, how many locks, what alarms, how far outside he'd go with them, whether there were other people in the house. If I could hide.
If I could run.
If I could find a weapon.
Random useless speculation.
Mr. B came back inside. I heard the SUV crunching over gravel. My host locked the front door with a key that he slid into his pants pocket. That question was effectively answered. He crossed the room and sat down across from me, picking up his tea cup.
I didn't know what to do so I sat and watched him.
He took a long sip, draining the cup, then set it down on the tray, dabbed at his mouth, which was a little prissy and a little suffused with a hopeful and not all together bright smile. "So, I'd like to tell you a little about myself if you don't mind." His eyes suddenly sharpened behind the glasses. "Not that you've asked, even though I was polite and listened to you."
Mistake number one. But there was no way to see it coming. There'd probably be no way to see most of them coming.
"Yes, sir. I'd like that."
"Don't call me sir." That came out sharp and hard and much too fast for the kindly old gentleman persona. Despite that, I still wasn't sure what I was dealing with. Psychopathy, probably, in the sense of being crazy, not in the sense of being a psychopath.
Not that I ruled that one out.
"I'm a collector, my dear. I find the beautiful things in the world, and I bring them here to keep them safe." He waved a hand at the teapot, which I realized was probably an antique, and then, oh, so flatteringly, at me. I was one of the beautiful things he had brought here at his expense to keep safe.
Why everwasn't I relieved?
"What do you collect?" I'd dropped the sir and had no idea what to call him. With every moment Erin had a little more of me. Until I figured out how to get out of here, or Cole jumped the gun again and came to get me, I'd have to let Erin have more of the waking self than me.
There was a flash of anger in his eyes, though I'd thought it a good question. "I told you. Beautiful things. Fragile things. Priceless things."
Oh, yippee. Sounding saner by the minute. "And you keep them safe?" I was trying to sound encouraging and to keep him talking. And to keep me talking before fear shut me up.
