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“Lies!” Her voice was shrill. She jabbed a finger at me. “I’ve seen the two of you together. I’ve been watching while he was down here with you. I saw the two of you... doing it.”
I swallowed my revulsion and fear. Loretta had watched Hayden and me together? How? Wouldn’t we have noticed her if she’d been standing in the room? But then it dawned on me that she must have seen us through the cameras. My head swam with dizziness at the idea of her watching all of that, filled with hatred and disgust. It was bad enough that she’d witnessed such an intimate moment, but that she’d watched while nurturing this vitriol toward me somehow made it even worse.
I didn’t even know what to say. It wasn’t as though I could deny what had happened, and if I tried to tell her it didn’t mean anything, she’d probably think I was an even worse person than she already did.
“Hayden won’t be happy when he finds out that you did this,” I blurted.
“I don’t care what Hayden thinks. I’m doing him a favor, even if he doesn’t realize it. He’ll thank me later, after he’s come to understand what you really are.”
I flicked my gaze between Loretta and the elevator doors. She had the same keycard I’d stolen from Hayden to make my escape. If I could just get hold of it and run, I’d be able to get out of the room. Crazily, my first instinct was to run to Hayden for help, and I realized how tenuously I was holding onto my image of him as the enemy.
“Don’t even think about it.” Loretta pulled out the thing she’d been hiding, and my stomach knotted.
It was the Taser, and I wasn’t even surprised to see it. I guessed I’d hoped Hayden might have taken it off her after the last time, but he’d never made any mention that she’d done anything wrong by shocking me. In fact, he was probably the one who’d armed her with the weapon in the first place. The memory of the excruciating pain the Taser had delivered remained fresh in my mind, and my heartrate skyrocketed at the possibility of having to go through the same thing again. It wasn’t only the fear of the pain that caused my terror, but also how helpless I had been while I’d been shocked. I hadn’t been able to move, and while I’d thought I’d been speaking, no words had actually come out of my mouth. The idea of being that helpless while Loretta was in this frame of mind was terrifying.
I lifted both hands in defense. “No, please. There’s no need for that. I’m not the one doing anything wrong here.”
She gave a cold laugh. “Do you really believe that? Because if you do, you’re even worse than I first thought.”
I clamped my mouth shut. Nothing I could say would change anything, but even in the most hopeless of situations, a person will beg for their life, or make deals with a god they previously may not have believed in. Had my father’s victims felt that way before they’d died? Had they begged and pleaded for their lives, and he’d shown them no mercy?
Glancing up at the corner of the room, where I hoped one of the cameras might have been located, I widened my eyes, making a silent plea, in the hope Hayden was watching and would see something was wrong with this scenario.
“He’s asleep. He can’t help you.” She raised the Taser, and I shied away. She lovingly stroked the barrel. “Did you know that these things reload? I can Taser you more than once, you know. How do you think it will feel to be electrocuted over and over again? I imagine you’d lose control of your bladder and maybe even your bowels, too. You’d probably bite your tongue off, and your eyes would go bloodshot. Of course, that might be the least of your worries, because there’s also a chance your heart would simply stop, and that would be the end of you. No more Jolie Dorman alive on this planet for me or anyone else to worry about.”
That was when it really dawned on me. She wanted to kill me.
“Hayden will be furious if you hurt me,” I said. I wanted to sound brave, but my voice was barely a squeak. “He needs me to get to my father.”
She waved a hand. “Hayden is already angry with me for watching the camera footage. He doesn’t want me involved anymore. He’s made that perfectly clear. But if you think for one moment that I’m going to allow you to swan off into the sunset with him, then you’re very much mistaken.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what’s happening here. He’s using me. He wants to kill my father, remember? It was what you wanted, too. Revenge for your daughter. He can’t do it without me.”
“Yes, he can. He could have done it a long time ago. He could easily have paid someone in the prison to kill Patrick Dorman, but instead he insisted on doing it himself, and that he needed you to make Dorman suffer.”
I nodded. “And that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
“No. It was all an excuse. It was you he wanted all along, and if you can’t see that, you’re even stupider than I gave you credit for. That man has been obsessed with you since you were a teenager. The daughter of his mother’s killer. Perhaps it did all start because he wanted to make your father pay, but over the years his obsession with you almost became as bad as your father’s obsession with killing innocent women.”
My blood ran cold. “Over the years? Since I was a teenager?” I tried to piece together what it all meant. Just how long had Hayden been watching me? I’d assumed it would have been a few months at the most, but from what Loretta was saying, he’d been stalking me since I was a child. He’d been seventeen when his mother died. Had it started right away? Had he been a teenager watching a twelve-year-old girl? Then growing older—an eighteen-year-old stalking a thirteen-year-old. A twenty-year-old following a fifteen-year-old? For some reason, that idea felt even worse to me than the fact Hayden had kidnapped me and brought me here in the first place.
Had he been watching me, obsessing over me, all those years, and I’d been utterly, blissfully unaware of his existence? And now I’d allowed him access to my body in ways I’d never let another man, and I’d enjoyed it. The thought made me feel sick. I was sick. I was fucked up in the head. After the life I’d had, it was hardly surprising. But now it seemed that this woman—the mother of a woman my father had killed—was going to bring it all to an end.
“You don’t have to do this, Loretta. If you hurt me, you’ll only make yourself as bad as my father.”
“No, those women were innocent. You’re not.”
“Is that what you keep telling yourself? You’re just using it as an excuse to make yourself feel better for what you’re doing. I understand that you’re angry, and you want someone to blame, but if you let Hayden continue with his plan, he’ll make sure the right person pays for what happened to your daughter.” As I spoke, I edged backward. I flicked my gaze between the Taser and Loretta’s face, trying to judge her next move.
I was terrified of her discharging the Taser, but I couldn’t just sit here. I had to do something. I wished there was a door on the bathroom, so I could at least shut it between us, and try to keep it shut until Hayden realized something was wrong. Suddenly, I remembered the shower. It had a glass screen. I could make a run for it and try to get the screen between me and Loretta, so I’d be safe from the Taser, but I wasn’t sure I’d even reach the bathroom without her shocking me.
A book I’d barely been reading sat on the nightstand beside me. It was the only object close enough for me to use, and it was a hardback, too. I knew I wasn’t going to do her much damage with a book, but I needed a distraction more than anything, just a moment to put some distance between us. I had no idea how far a Taser could fire—I suspected it would be a dangerous distance—but I had to try something. As I’d been edging back, I’d brought my right hand closer to the nightstand. Now the book was within reach, and I crept out my fingers. I was ready to lunge for the bathroom the moment I got hold of it.
“You being dead won’t stop him from going after Patrick Dorman,” Loretta continued. “Maybe it’ll even spur him on. He’s been different since you’ve been around—softer, less determined. I don’t want him to think he doesn’t need to kill Dorman now that he has you, and I can see that’s the way his mind is going.”
My fingers touched the sharp corner of the hardback.
“You’re wrong,” I argued. “Hayden is more determined than ever.”
