Page 85 of Blind Luck

The cup and saucer in Selene’s hands shook as her hands trembled. “Oh. Oh no.”

“You okay?”

“I just hope there isn’t a problem with the hotel. Jace gets stressed when there are problems.”

“And then you get more bruises?”

Hoo boy. Kelsey was going for it right off the bat. Selene lost her grip on the saucer entirely, and both it and the cup smashed on the tile. She gasped and fell to her knees, trying to scrape up shards of china with her bare hands.

“Leave that; it doesn’t matter.”

“You think? Jace will be back in a minute, and he’ll…he’ll…” Selene began sobbing, and mascara smudged everywhere when she rubbed her eyes. “I gotta clean this up.”

Kelsey took her gently by the arm and led her to a stool. “You sit down and I’ll clean it up.” But first, Kelsey handed her a tissue—she’d come prepared. “How long has Jace been hurting you?”

“I can’t talk about this. He’ll kill me.”

“He won’t know.”

“He’ll find out. He always does.”

Kelsey was carrying a bug detector in her purse, an advanced model that picked up multiple cell and wireless bands. If there was a device transmitting in the apartment, we’d know about it, but so far, all the device had alerted us to was the camera and motion detector by the apartment’s entrance. It covered the elevator and stairs. There could be a static camera recording, but there was no way to detectone of those covertly, so that was a chance we’d have to take. Besides, Jace seemed the lazy type—it was unlikely he’d choose a method of spying that required manual intervention. Not in the kitchen. I could see him putting a camera in the bedroom, though.

“Okay, you sit and drink coffee while I talk.”

Kelsey stepped over the broken china and made Selene a milky drink, plus a black coffee for herself, then found a dustpan and brush under the kitchen sink and began cleaning up. There didn’t appear to be a laundry room, and the kitchen was small in proportion to the apartment, probably because the Fullers made use of the wider hotel facilities. Selene watched Kelsey suspiciously.

“I dated a man a little like Jace once,” Kelsey started, and Dusk and I exchanged glances. Kelsey hadn’t elaborated on how she was going to handle this conversation, just assured us that she would. “His name was Dan, and I met him when I was nineteen. Damn, he was handsome. And so charming, at first anyway. Fun, generous. Soon, I was spending all my time with him. He made mewantto spend all my time with him.”

Selene was nodding along. She knew the playbook. Had lived it.

“The first time he hit me, he was drunk. And so, so sorry. He promised it wouldn’t happen again, and for a while things were good. And then they weren’t. What Jace is doing to you isn’t okay, Selene.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“There are people who can help you. Do you have family close by?”

“Not close by, not anywhere. Nobody can help me.”

“Jace isn’t here. You could leave right now and go to a shelter. Just walk out the door.”

“He’s watching. He’s always watching.” She waved toward the elevator. “There’s a camera. Last time I triedleaving, he caught up with me in San Bernardino and made me come back.”

So shehadtried to leave before? That gave us hope.

“I could leave with you. Say we’re going out for coffee.”

“Security will follow me, and then they’ll call Jace.”

“So they’re complicit in keeping you a prisoner?”

Selene shrugged. “They think I’m a danger to myself.”

“And are you?”

She held up the knife, and I noticed it had a rounded end and a bumpy edge. A kid’s safety knife. Haven had used one of those when Nana first taught her to cook.

“I mean, not anymore. And he took all my pills too.”

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