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She’d let Mila put on flip-flops, then taken her from the apartment with the gun barrel nestled in her rib cage. Muffled sobs had come from Gramma’s room; Ben had lain motionless and bleeding on the couch. The officer in the lobby was toppled onto the floor, his chair upturned beside him. Mila couldn’t see what Lindy had done to him.
She would have known this house they’d come to was Sam’s even without being told. It felt like him. Smelled like him. A cowboy hat rested on the fireplace mantel. A pair of familiar running shoes had been kicked off between living and dining rooms. Pictures—him with family, with cop friends, with army friends—hung on the walls.
How wrong it was, seeing it for the first time tainted by her.
Lindy remained in the doorway, the gun now pointed at Mila. She couldn’t see the red dot on her forehead but guessed it was there from the way Sam’s eyes widened with fear. Producing a flashlight, Lindy grappled with it in her gloved hand and shone it on a knife on a sofa cushion. “Cut her loose, then move over by the fireplace.”
Sam hesitated before approaching Mila. His brain must be running a thousand miles a minute trying to find a plan to somehow free them both. She was no expert, but she knew a knife from a distance of twelve feet was no match for a gun her mother didn’t even have to aim. He took extra care loosening her left wrist—the splint was back at Gramma’s—then crouched to get her ankles. “I’m so sorry.” His mouth barely moved. His words barely reached her ears. The next words were even softer. “I love you, Mila.”
Such sweet words that she wanted to hear them again, but he was standing, walking toward the fireplace. Lindy made a sound and pointed with the flashlight again, and he stopped, tossing the knife onto the sofa as she indicated. “Your gun, too.”
He obeyed.
Mila stood, pulled the tape from her mouth with a wince and eyed the two weapons. She had no clue how to use a gun, and she couldn’t imagine herself plunging a knife into a living being’s body. But she could do it to save Sam. To save herself. Even if it did prove that she was her father’s daughter.
“Now you go over there.” Lindy pointed to the opposite side of the room as she stepped all the way inside and closed the door. The odd green tint vanished, along with virtually all the light, but she flipped a switch and a low-watt bulb, not much brighter than Mila’s night-light, came on overhead.
Gasoline squished in the carpet as Mila crossed the room. She scanned for some kind of weapon and found nothing. Of course. Lindy had probably started planning this from her hospital bed. She would have accounted for every possibility.
“Have a seat, Chief. We’re gonna let you wear the tape for a while.”
It made sense in a Lindy sort of way. She didn’t trust Sam to meekly let her restrain him, knowing it would mean his and Mila’s deaths. This way she could keep the gun on both of them while Mila did the restraining. After all, Mila with hands free was far less dangerous than Sam was.
The smell of the gasoline was turning Mila’s stomach in sour flips, threatening to bring up her dinner any minute now. Her head pounded with an ache, her eyes burned, but she picked up the duct tape her mother had left on the coffee table, along with the knife.
“You look pukey, brat. Bad smells don’t bother me anymore. Thanks to you, my nose was scraped right off my face. I don’t have eyelashes, either. Eyebrows. Hair. I have to wear a damn wig everywhere I go, and people still stare me like I’m a freak. Hell, they’re the freaks. They have no idea who they’re dealing with.”
How much damage had she suffered? They’d thought she wouldn’t survive, Ben said. The question in Mila’s mind was why had she wanted to. She’d known her precious Joshua was dead and Mila was gone and her mother had helped make both happen. Why hadn’t she just given up? Why had she fought so hard to live in such a damaged shell?
To kill me.
“Come on. I don’t have all freaking night.”
Mila walked behind the chair, sat on the edge of the couch and pulled Sam’s hands to the back center of the wooden seat. He squeezed her fingers tightly and, she wanted to think, hopefully. She used the knife to cut a strip of tape and used Sam’s broad chest to hide her actions as she wound the tape through the vertical slats of the chair back. She secured just the ends around his wrists, making sure they didn’t overlap.
