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Ryder’s rough voice urged her to be honest. “Tell them, Tiff.”
Glancing away, she clarified. “When I ran, he’d find me and bring me back. I remember him saying that if I wanted to wander off like a stray dog, he’d treat me like one.” Reaching up to touch her throat, she could almost feel his collar around it. “He’d put a pink leather, gemstone-encrusted collar around my neck and use a metal chain to tie me up on his back porch. I usually had to stay out there a day or two as punishment. He took great pleasure in bringing my food and water in little jewel-encrusted dog bowls.”
He mother’s hands few to her face, and a strangled cry broke from her lips. Hickory jumped up to kneel beside her.
Tiffany quickly explained. “They weren’t dishes dogs ate out of or anything like that. They were bought specifically for me and had my name inscribed in gilded lettering along the side. He always made sure my food was delicious, high quality, and fresh. He got off on watching me chained up like a pretty little naked pet, eating the food he’d prepared from beautiful dishes. That particular game was all about lording control over me. He’d groom me like a prized poodle and decorate my body with jewels fit for a queen. He’d even swat me with a rolled-up newspaper if I was bad.”
Her mother’s voice croaked out indignantly, “Your father would roll over in his grave if he knew all that.”
Tiffany wrapped her arms around her stomach. “He knew. Dad found me chained up the last time I ran. I was thoroughly humiliated, but he was just furious. That’s when he came up with all my rules for the road.”
Tiffany explained the lengths her father went through to enable her to jump from one location to another. The three men and her mother gaped at the complex system that had ruled her life for so many years. Picking up a piece of toast, she nibbled on it just to have something to do.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, Ven asked curiously, “Did he ever beat you?”
“He did everything a person could imagine,” she told him. “He had a million games, and some were quite violent. If I didn’t play them just right, I got punished.”
Ryder finally spoke. “I’m gonna go with Rose’s plan of holding him down and cramming gingerbread cookies down his throat.”
His father’s head snapped up. “What?”
Tiffany explained quietly, “The first time I left, it was during Christmas, and he taunted me with the gingerbread boy story, telling me to run as fast as I can. Like I said, he loved his sick games. Sometimes, he’d send me gifts of a gingerbread girl, hoping to spook me.”
Her mother frowned. “I guess that explains why you sent him cut-out gingerbread men with all the heads chopped off.”
Nodding, Tiffany gestured with one hand. “I tried to turn all his own games around on him.”
Staring at her, the older woman asked, “Why do you think we need to see his basement?”
“He has these rooms with metal doors. I was only ever allowed in the front part. He’d go down there for hours off and on. I don’t know what he did, but I’m betting it was something awful.”
Ryder’s head tilted slightly. “What do mean by awful?”
Shrugging, she took a quick drink of tea before answering. “Maybe it’s an evil lab where he pulls the wings off flies, builds crazy robots, or makes zombies. I don’t know. It could be where he keeps a stash of illegal guns and exotic porn. Even knowing him the way I do, I don’t have the ability to imagine what kind sick things he’s doing down there. All I know for sure is that he has the place locked down like Fort Knox.”
Hickory threw in his two cents’ worth. “For all we know, it could be a personal gym and man cave.”
“I’m in a mood to begin taking some things on faith,” Ryder said. “We got nothing so far. To me, this looks like a promising lead.”
Tiffany’s heart squeezed at Ryder’s open acceptance of her suggestion. “I’ve racked my brain, and this is the only thing that I can think of that might yield the results we’re looking for.”
Ven shoved his empty plate back. “We can’t go breaking and entering, ‘cause whatever we find will be considered poisoned fruit.”
Tiffany knew what the man meant. Evidence found illegally was considered fruit from a poisoned tree and wasn’t admissible in court. Stuart would get off scot-free.
Her mother leaned over and stated in a low voice, “Stuart has been calling. He told me to let you know you are welcome to come back to him when you’re finished slumming with the white-trash bikers.”
Letting the crazy man’s insult slide for the moment, Tiffany felt hope surge through her chest. “If he invited me, then it wouldn’t be breaking and entering. We could record him telling me that, and then I could sneak over and—”
“Not a chance, sweetness. No recording shit and sneaking around. You meet him in public and let him invite you home in front of a bunch of witnesses. Tell him you miss him, and you’ll think it over,” he said, a plan taking shape. “While he’s at work, you show up at his place unannounced, with us, and we have a little look around. There’s nothing illegal about you inviting friends over.”
Swallowing thickly, Tiffany nodded. “If he sees you with me, he’ll be suspicious.”
Sarah placed her napkin neatly on her plate and looked around at her guests. “We’ll go shopping and stop by that fancy restaurant he always has lunch at. Everyone within earshot will be eavesdropping.”
Tiffany agreed. “Stuart is considered high society around these parts, so people are always fascinated by him.”
Ryder grabbed her hand, looking all kinds of serious. “You just have to remember to be the cloyingly innocent, demure young lady he remembers, instead of the badass, sexy bitch you’ve become under my watch.”
