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“What do you want?” There was no point trying to understand someone like Frederick Walker. He operated at a level of self-interest that was beyond her understanding, that would always be beyond her understanding.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said briskly. “I simply wanted to meet you, to face the woman who came so close to destroying what I’ve built, who has somehow survived.”
She wasn’t pacified by the backhanded compliment. The finality in his words sent fear racing through her body. “What do you mean it’s too late?”
“My dear, we’ve tried everything. We warned you off. We’ve threatened the people closest to you, although we steered clear of your parents. Russelland Jean?” Panic clutched at her throat. “I admit that as a parent who’s suffered quite a lot at the hands of my own offspring, I’m loathe to punish them for your stubbornness. Still, we even tried eliminating you once, although in a much more… visible way. I think it’s safe to say we’re at the end of the line.”
They were going to kill her. They were really going to kill her this time.
She clung to her last remaining hope. “Then why are you keeping me here?”
His gray eyes studied her. “We became concerned after your trip abroad that you might disappear. We had to make a move while you were still visible.”
She silently cursed herself. She should have listened, should have gone into hiding like Nick asked, like he’d begged.
“And then there is the problem if our recent… altercations,” Frederick continued. "I’m afraid there’s already been too much attention from the police. A mugging won’t do. Neither will a fire so close on the heels of the last one. We’re working on a subtler solution.”
They were going to bury her in the woods, drop her out past the harbor with a cement block around her leg, make her disappear so completely herparents and Nick would never know what had happened to her.
“Killing me will only make things worse for you. Nick will spend the rest of his life destroying you, destroying your family.” Knowing it was true didn’t ease the panic flowing like water through her veins, the sorrow that hit her like a gut punch when she imagined never seeing Nick again, never having the future she’d only dared to dream about after she’d been taken from him.
Frederick looked surprised. “We’re well aware of the loose ends that will remain.” He hesitated, a pained expression crossing his features. “Whatever you may think, I don’t enjoy this. I spoke earlier of my love for my son, the love every parent has for their child. What I haven’t spoken of is how that love can go hand in hand with the most breathtaking disappointment. My son has been… broken since he was a child. We knew this very early on, although we couldn’t have imagined it manifesting as devastatingly, as persistently, as it has. It might surprise you to know I have a great deal of respect for you.”
Now it was her turn to be surprised. “I’m not getting respect out of this situation.”
“Internships and jobs at the Attorney General’s office are coveted and in short supply,” he said. “Didyou never wonder how you got both? Not that you weren’t a stellar student, but I think we both know those positions typically go to graduates of the Ivys, graduates with connections.”
Shock rocked her body, rendered her speechless. It couldn’t be…
He nodded. “I see you’re putting the pieces together now. The truth is, I followed your recovery with interest, was impressed with your fortitude, the kind of fortitude my own son — and my daughter for that matter — have never shown a day in their lives. There was a special interest story in the Herald about your recovery when you got into law school. Leland was in rehab again. Elizabeth, Leland’s sister, was gallivanting in Paris with yet another go-nowhere young man. This may be hard to believe, but I felt… regret about what had happened to you and your friend at the hands of my son. I tried to help you where I could, put in a word here and there, greased the wheels on your behalf so to speak.”
She almost gagged on the horror that swept through her body. Leland Walker — the man who had made Samantha’s death disappear — had given Alexa a leg up that had paved the way for her career at the AG’s office.
“It worked for a while,” he said softly. “It didn’t undo Leland’s crime. It didn’t bring back Samantha Hancock.” She flinched, surprised that Frederick knew Samantha’s name, that he remembered it after all these years. “But you seemed to have gained strength through the experience, strength that shaped you into the person you were meant to be. I thought you would go on to have a successful career, a family. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out that way, Alexa.”
He turned to go, and she could have sworn he really was sorry, that the expression on his face was sorrow.
“You’re sorry but you’re going to have me killed anyway,” she said bitterly.
He turned around, raised his palms to the sky. “I think we both know there’s no return from this, no scenario in which you and your friends agree to drop the matter of my son, no scenario in which I can trust that will remain true for the rest of his life.” He shook his head. “Things have gone too far.”
She watched him step across the threshold, the door closing behind him.
His words rang through her ears. It was all a lie. All the accomplishments she’d thought had been her own had been given to her by Frederick Walker as surely as all the things he'd taken from her.
His regret had seemed genuine, and she had no doubt he fancied himself a god — one by turns wrathful and benevolent. Rage simmered inside her and she dropped to her knees and crawled back to the vanity.
She opened the cupboard and returned to working one of the screws that held one of the doors in place, small enough to be hidden in her hand, invisible to the eye unless you opened the cupboard door and looked for it. She ignored the fresh blood that sprang from her fingertips as she worked to turn the screw with what was left of her torn and ragged nails.
Frederick’s words echoed through her mind.
You seemed to have gained strength through the experience… strength that shaped you into the person you were meant to be.
You like strength, asshole? I’ll show you strength.
Even gods could be destroyed.
22
