Page 88 of Boneyard HEA

“Karsten.” I tap the table with my knuckles. “He came here for years. They blackmailed him but he came here because he wanted to.”

“Fuck. Another one?” Juniper pulls a disgusted face. “He told you that?”

“He enabled this raid, as he phrased it. I promised to do things for him, and he pretty much told me that, yes, he came a few times. So, I won’t be sad if I have to opt out.”

Georgia has swallowed the last of that mouthful and is eyeing the fries. Aaron pushes the plate to her, and she grabs a handful.

It’s impossible not to notice the finger-shaped bruises on the girl’s neck, or the bandaged finger stump. She can’t be more than twenty-two. This sort of torture is what you do to get your enemy off guard. Or to satisfy your own fetishes. But on a girl they grabbed and planned to murder?

None of their victims has ever been traced to them.

“I think they killed some of their victims. I also think maybe Karsten helped with that. They filmed him, sometime after Riley was assaulted, and it was bad enough that he caved in. But it might be worse, if that’s possible. He sent that video to Riley to scare her off an investigation of the CNC Frat members. I think he could have organized the first assault too.”

“Holy fuck.” Aaron grimaces, halting with a fry held in mid-air.

“Ick.” Juniper says. “So he’s as bad as the other two, or worse. Can we make him really dead? Though Georgia needs to tell us if anything we do is something she doesn’t agree with.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m so grateful you came, uh…”

“Tomás.” I fold my arms and wait for her to continue.

“Tomás, I’m alive and haven’t got to worry about them anymore.” Her voice trembles. “I don’t think anything you want to do will be more awful than them.” She grimaces. “You can bury them in a fucking volcano, and I will applaud. Is that enough?”

I nod. I’m taking charge here more than Aaron, who is the man I always relied on for big decisions here. But he looks dazed. That flashbang, the trauma from this place, I expect it to affect him badly.

“Georgia, we would need you to explain your absence from family or work without ever speaking of them,” I say this as gently as I can. “Which will be difficult. If you reveal what happened, Rafael and I will be charged with murder.”

“A therapist? Can I? I think I will need one.”

Aaron raises his hand. “I can help there. If you’re willing to fly to London to see one. Expenses paid. I’m rich. You’ll have to avoid saying some details, of course.”

She nods but her hands are shaking. “Thanks. That will do it. A London therapist? I fucking never saw this house. I wish I hadn’t, for real. Go on. I’m sorted. I promise.”

“We can talk later if you want to,” Juniper whispers. “Just so I can be sure you’re okay.”

“Thank you,” she whispers back.

Juniper seems too calm. She has all the marks of abuse that Georgia has, only fewer of them. No matter how much she pretends to be superwoman, Aaron and I are going to have to make her talk through this. “That therapist in London should see you all.”

“Maybe.” Aaron drags his hands down his face. “Okay. Next?”

“Still Karsten,” I insist. “I was going to let him clean up here. He has connections, more than you, Aaron.” He nods. “I could maybe get rid of their bodies, but this property and everything they might be expected to do in the next few weeks? I don’t know where to begin there. Though I’d recommend staging a fire. There’s going to be evidence of the fight we can’t get rid of for sure.”

“Blood and DNA,” Aaron says. “Bullet casings we can pick up but the pellets in the wall.”

“Those can be dug out,” I point out.

“The torture gear won’t burn.”

“No, but that’s evidence against them, not us. Karsten planned to get some IT guy in tomorrow to remove all the data, but he did not know where he was going, so that wasn’t organized. And we can make sure the video of me shooting you on the beach and any remnants of Riley’s film are gone.”

“They took some of me here too.” Aaron’s lip curls in distaste.

I bet they did. That would’ve been a goal of theirs.

“They did.” Juniper shivers. “If we let Karsten just do what he wants to do, that means he gets away with doing whatever he did to other women. I have serious fucking reservations about that.”

“I say we copy whatever they have of him and of them assaulting victims. Not the vids of any of us. I can get it released online sometime in the future. People should know what they did.” Aaron speaks slowly, as if thinking it through. “It’ll be here in their archives.”