Page 23 of Reclaiming his Honor
“What isn’t going to work?”
“Your cell phone. I already made sure of that.”
“What do you mean? You’re scaring me, Turner.”
“You should be scared. You should be scared just like Ursula was scared.”
Ellie’s senses seemed to take note of her surroundings in perfect detail, as if taking a picture of this moment. She wondered if she’d misheard him. “Excuse me?”
“It was supposed to be you. I was watchingyou. I wantedyou.”
He slammed his open hand on the top of the steering wheel. “Why weren’t you there that night?” he demanded.
In an instant, everything she thought she knew turned on its head. “Youtook Ursula?”
“Where were you?”
“Lewis was sick. I had to stay home. But Godak—”
“You never do what you’re supposed to do. He was so angry when it wasn’t you. I’d told him all about you. I’d taken pictures of you. He was excited to meet you. He wanted to go to your house and get you, then we would do you both. But first I had to go to work, and there you were, right in my office, asking questions about Ursula.”
She’d gone to the precinct when Ursula hadn’t come home. Roger was beside himself with worry, so it was Ellie who had gone to the police station to file a report. That’s where she’d met the detective in charge of the case—Mike Turner.
“I wanted to take you then,” he continued. “Just stuff you in the trunk of my car and bring you home. But there were all these cops around, and I didn’t have the opportunity. So I asked if your husband had driven you to the station and you said you were divorced, and I thought what if, what if I could have you for real, and Godak never even knew?”
Ellie felt sick to her stomach, acid burning the back of her throat. She’d gone to that police station in desperate hope of finding her cousin. Instead, she’d conversed with the monster responsible for her disappearance. When she spoke, she didn’t recognize her own voice. “Did you kill her?”
“That was all Godak.”
“Then what did you do?”
He met her eyes in the rearview mirror, and she knew exactly what he’d done.
Poor Ursula.
Poor, sweet Ursula.
Ellie bent at the waist and threw up on the floor. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Her cell phone didn’t work. She’d told no one she was leaving the hotel, no less where she was going. “What are you going to do with me?”
“You’ve left me no choice!”
He ran his hand through his hair, the tang of body odor wafting toward her on the air. “I was going to make you my wife. Make you respectable again. But no, you wouldn’t have that, would you?”
An eerie calm stole over Ellie. “What are you going to do with me?” she repeated.
“I’m going to do what we planned all those years ago. I’m going to make love to you, then I’m going to watch you die.”
She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed, then did the only other thing that came to mind.
Help me, Mac.
I’m in trouble.
I need you.
Please.
CHAPTER14
