Page 21 of The Madman's Nightmare
I could barely see through my swollen eye as I attempted to push myself off the floor, only to collapse back into a pile as the pain from my beating began to overtake me. She stepped into the circle and squatted in front of me as she taunted, “Just wait until he sees his precious little woman.”
“Fuck you,” I managed to mutter before she stood.
A kick out of nowhere into my side caused something to snap, and I felt an excruciating pain in my side. Kendra stepped away from me and declared, “Take her to the basement and get busy on your work. We have videos to get edited.”
Her laughter filled the empty room as someone stepped into the circle. I tried to shield myself from another attack, only to be carefully lifted off the ground and guided through blurry and swollen eyes back into the kitchen.
The climb down the stairs into the basement was a test of my ability to stay on my feet. Every step caused nauseating pain to erupt across my entire body. Bradon helped me down to the bottom and guided me into the bedroom off to the side.
Placing me onto the bed, he brushed some hair stuck to my face off and whispered, “Don’t keep making her mad. She’s dangerous.”
I tried to nod, but the pain I my head was extreme as he started to walk away. “I’ll be back with some pain killers and water in a bit.”
The door closed and I could hear his footsteps going up the stairs as the tears flooded my eyes. The salt burned the cuts where I was beaten and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep the self-loathing and doubt from creeping in.
How was Devlin not coming to save me yet?
Was this house where I was going to die?
Why was she so hell-bent on destroying me?
And why did Bradon do her bidding when he was so kind to me?
I couldn’t figure anything with the pain pulling me closer to the edge of unconsciousness and as the darkness began to take over my limited vision, I began to think that I wasn’t ever going to see my sons, or my husband, if he actually was my husband, again.
Chapter 11
Devlin
We arrived back in Pierce Bluff just after the sun came up and I felt like I was going out of my mind. We were no closer to finding Elise, and as the elevator lifted us to the floor we used as a conference room, I felt ice filling my chest.
Silently, we stepped off the elevator and I went to open the door, only to look back and see James still standing in the elevator.
“Are you going to join us?” I asked.
“I need to check on something then I’ll be back,” he responded, and the doors closed, leaving Lucian and I standing outside the door to the conference room.
“He’s a weird dude,” Lucian remarked, and I cut my eyes to him, silently telling him to back off James. He held his hand up and I was getting tired of seeing that from me.
I turned the knob and opened the door to see everyone still working on trying to find Elise. I had emailed Skid on the way back what we learned from Timothy, and he stood as Lucian and I entered the room. He looked confused but guided me off to the side as Lucian sat down next to Rhys and they began to speak low.
“Where’s James,” Skid asked, and I shrugged.
“He had to check on something,” I replied, and Skid gave a single nod.
“I started running the picture you had in the box through our system, looking for any kind of a match, and I don’t knowif this is anything or not, but I found a missing person’s flyer that might be something.” I raised my eyebrows, and he grabbed his laptop and returned to show me the screen. “This is Michael Badcock and he’s been missing since a few months before you took out Marco. The computer thinks there is a seventy-three percent chance of the picture of Bradon Mills is the same person as this missing flyer.”
“That’s a good percentage, but not enough to be certain. What does the system say about this Michael guy. Who is he and where is he from?”
“He was the son of a furniture executive who disappeared after meeting some girl online. There haven’t been any updates that I could find, but they lived in Nashville, so there are some connecting points about the two of them,” he returned.
“Any luck on Kendra?” I inquired and he shook his head.
“I’ve got the system checking online yearbooks for the five years prior to her showing up in the Flats, hoping for a break, but so far, it seems she appeared out of thin air.” He paused and asked, “Do you still have any videos from Marco?”
“In the storage room downstairs,” I answered, and he placed his computer onto the table and turned back to me. “I’m going down there to see if I can find anything about this girl on the recordings. I know some have been digitized, but there are still a few dozen or more than are on tape?”
“At least,” I tacked on. “Why don’t you take someone to help you go through them and I’ll let you know what we find up here.”
