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“Or what if he just left again?” Jake asked, glancing at me and immediately looking away.
Even Jake knew it was likely, just like Lorelei. Theyallknew it was possible. Probable. Almost a statistical certainty. Bennett Reeve was unpredictable. Capricious. Fickle. He lived for adventure. Being stuck someplace like Easton must have been killing him.
The pressure got to be too much for Bennett.Igot to be too much. He’d had enough playing house and he wanted his freedom back, so he stole away in the dark rather than try to have an honest conversation with me. Because you can’t reason with crazy people. I was, after all, a psychopath. The double-board certified Dr. Clayton decreed as much.
You’re sick. You know that right? You needserious, long-term help.
Fuck!
Giving myself a mental slap, I snatched my keys off the table in the foyer and stormed out.
“We’ll stay here!” Elijah called after me, right before Cole slammed the door.
“You want me to drive?” Cole asked, holding his hand out for the keys.
“Does it look like I want you to drive?” I yanked open the driver’s side door of my car and slid in, turning the key before I even closed the door.
The second Cole’s door shut, I stomped on the gas. Each second that passed, each block we got closer, the knots in my stomach tightened until I could barely breathe.
Flying up the mansion’s driveway, Cole was the first to exhale.
“There’s his car.”
“But where is he?” I parked behind the silver Maserati and climbed out slowly, staring up at the massive house. All of the windows were dark. Considering the house still had electricity, there was no reason for him to shuffle around without the lights on.
Other than the sounds of the river rushing down below the bluff, the entire area was quiet. Silence never bothered me before. Normally, I cherished it. But now? It portended everything I’d come to fear. Bennett wasn’t loud, per se, but he wasn’t quiet either. He had too much energy to be quiet. Always chattering, laughing, moving around. So why couldn’t I hear him now?
Shoving the feeling of dread aside, I took a step toward the house. Something crunched underfoot.
I held my breath before forcing myself to look down.
It was a cell phone.
Snatching it off the ground, my heart stopped as the shattered screen came to life with all of my missed texts and calls. It was Bennett’s phone.
“Shit…” Cole cleared his throat and waved me over. “Come take a look at this.”
Clutching the phone, I walked over to where Cole was crouched. He shined his phone’s light at a spot on the brick driveway and pointed with his other hand.
It was a sizable streak of blood.
“What do you think happened?” he asked, rising to his feet.
Shoving the broken phone into Cole’s chest, I bolted up the backstairs and frantically unlocked the back door. I didn’t bother turning on the lights as I tore through the hallways until I got to the closet on the first floor that housed all the technology required to monitor the various security systems. Turning on the computer screen, I scrolled backward through the camera footage until I had a shot of the silver Maserati cruising up the driveway.
Bennett arrived, parked, and was almost to the house when someone grabbed him from behind. He disentangled himself with ease, but he was powerless to fend off the second man wielding a taser. As soon as Bennett was incapacitated, the two grabbed him and tossed him into a van like a bag of trash and drove away.
“Holy shit…” Cole stood next to me, staring at the screen in horror. “Who was that?”
I played the footage back, again, and again, and again. Stopping the replay right as the van exited the driveway, I blew up the image as much as I could and pointed at the grainy license plate. “Call Elijah. Find me that owner. Now!”
Cole nodded and pulled his phone out, dialing quickly.
Stalking out of the small room, I yanked at the knot in my tie and loosened it, trying to draw a deeper breath. Any sense of relief I might have had knowing Bennett didn’t leave me was crushed beneath the guilt of his capture. If I’d gone with him, if I’d insisted on driving together, this would have never happened. Or if I’d been firmer, telling him to forget the damn laptop, this would have never happened. If I’d done anything at all, except allowing him to leave the house on his own, this would have never happened.
I didn’t even realize I’d walked into the conservatory until the smell of flowers and damp earth hit me. The moonlight illuminated the whole room, save for one corner.
Drawn to that darkness like a magnet, I walked straight to the wrought-iron table holding only one plant, a brilliant purple orchid. I cradled the beautiful bloom while it rested, away from the light, just as Bennett instructed all those years ago.
