Page 152 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)
“Bad reaction to whatever you injected me with.” I rub at my neck and wince. It’s sore to the touch. “Why are you doing this?”
He laughs. He actually laughs as he steps farther into the room.
Whitney doesn’t so much as put up a fight as he unlocks her ankle cuff and hauls her upright. She’s barely able to stand on her own.
For the first time since I woke up, fear pools in my belly.
We might die here.
“I’ll tell you a story.” He glances over his shoulder, to the windows I can barely see. The sun must be setting, because it’s getting darker by the second. “Catch.”
He tosses me the key to unlock my cuff. I stand, using the wall to support me. He guides Whitney out and leaves me to stumble after them. We go down a narrow hallway, and I follow him up a set of metal stairs into an office, where it’s blessedly warm.
“Sit,” he orders, pointing to a chair by a little space heater.
There’s a lamp on the floor next to the door. It doesn’t have a shade on it, and casts the room in harsh shadows.
“Please let us go,” Whitney pleads.
He shoves her toward me, and I barely manage to grab her. I give her the chair and crouch in front of the heater, rubbing my hands together. I can’t feel my fingers.
“Once upon a time, someone stole little Skylar Buckley,” the detective says. “She was only gone a day before the ransom note was emailed to her parents.”
One day. Shock radiates through me.
I’ve been trying to make sense of this, to figure out the puzzle Detective Masters is building. Has he been insane all along, or is this a recent development?
He’s been running loose in Rose Hill for years. Hell, he investigated my disappearance six years ago, but before that he was involved with Caleb Asher’s family. He has a history with the Alistairs—Theo’s mom, I think.
What made him do this?
“Your poor parents.” Pity fills his face. “They were heartbroken, terrified. And my superior told them to let us handle it. We asked them to wait and not pay, because we were so sure we could catch your abductor.”
“You didn’t, obviously,” I snap. It’s his fault that I was gone for so long?
And he’s right: my poor parents. How long did they keep their faith in the police before taking matters into their own hands? How long to arrange the money transfer and get me back?
“No. Because the email was a fucking dead end, and once that initial trail went cold… Poof. You were as good as gone.”
I shake my head. “So you weren’t the one to take me the first time.”
He frowns and comes closer. “No, Skylar. I only wanted to help you back then.”
“And now?” I’m proud that my voice doesn’t tremble.
He straightens and moves away. There’s a desk in the corner with an ancient computer monitor on it. The whole place is covered in dust except the fabric case on the edge. He unzips it carefully and opens it.
There’s a row of different-sized hunting knives laid out. They gleam in the dull yellow overhead light. Whitney doesn’t react. Her eyes are closed again, and every once in a while her whole body lurches with a coughing fit.
Me, though… I can’t take my attention off the blades.
“Your family went broke to save you,” he says. “But you turned eighteen, and suddenly there was… more money. A trust fund that your parents refused to touch, even if it cost them their marriage.”
“How do you know that?”
He lifts one shoulder, then pulls a knife out. The handle is white, polished smooth. “A bone knife,” he says softly. “There aren’t many hunters in Boston. Not in Rose Hill, either. No, to find the true grit you’ve got to go into the wilderness. West and north.
“Whitney,” he says suddenly. “Your parents didn’t pay.”