Valentine Shepherd: Retribution Part 22

Salier. Take your own advice and let it go, Val thought. With Lucien wanted by the police and likely out of the country by now, the Blue Serpent cult and all its rape parties probably left with him. Her new life with Max beckoned. There was no reason to look back. No sensible reason.

Glancing at the TV again, Val felt her lips twisting into a snarl when Delilah appeared behind a podium, flanked by a couple of police officers. "Seattle Mayor Vows to Bring Killer to Justice," the chyron below her read.

I'll get you, you evil b.i.t.c.h- "Poor guy," the barista said as she put a lid on Val's coffee cup. "He's probably innocent, too. Can you believe it-another hot guy accused of a crime he didn't commit?"

Val s.n.a.t.c.hed her coffee and scone off the counter and stomped out before she could say something she'd regret.

When Val returned home, Jo's car was gone. She entered with her shopping bags and found Max sitting alone at the dining room table, tapping his mug.

"You need help?" he asked.

"No, this is all I got, actually. I hope you're not expecting gourmet, because I don't really cook." She put the groceries on the counter. "How did it go?"

"It was...good, I guess. She wanted to know how Dean died, and I told her as much as I could. Then she wanted to know about my mother, and I couldn't..." He rubbed his forehead. "What's having a sister supposed to be like?"

Val sat beside him. "I haven't had one in a long time, but I remember it's equal parts frustrating and amazing."

He smiled. "Yeah, it was something like that."

"When will you see her again?"

"I don't know. We didn't work out a time."

"Do you want to postpone our trip to Fiji?" It pained Val to ask; she really wanted to go. But she knew how important family could be. She'd give anything to have her own sister back.

"No." He stood. "Getting married in Fiji is first, before anything else. I booked the tickets while you were out. Our flight leaves this evening."

Val jumped into his arms. They laughed and kissed like they were already newlyweds. They were really doing this. She couldn't believe it.

He pulled away before things could get too hot between them. "I need to get my pa.s.sport first."

Val held out her keys. "You can take my car."

"Why don't you drive me there? That way I can drive my own car home and not have to rely on you for rides anymore."

"You don't want to be seen driving my middle-cla.s.s car, do you?"

"There's that, too. I also want people to guess what I'm overcompensating for."

Val drove Max to his home in Queen Anne, the first time he'd been out of her house since he'd arrived three days ago. He hadn't been to his condo in a week. With his hand on the car door's handle, he looked at the building and frowned.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" Val asked. She remembered the panic attack he had in his father's study, the place where he'd killed Lester. She couldn't imagine what it'd be like for him to wade back into a place where he tried to kill himself.

"No, I'll be fine. I just...I really liked this place. The design, I mean. And the neighbors were quiet."

"Then learn to like it again. Make some happy memories here."

Max grinned at her. "Yeah. I like that plan." He kissed her, opened the door, and got out.

"Should I wait for you?" Val called after him.

"You don't need to. I'm going to pack a few things for the trip, then head back to your house."

"Okay. I'll see you there." She waved good-bye, watched him punch in the code to the front gate, and disappear inside.

For a minute she wrestled with herself to go home. A wiser, less vengeful person would.

She entered the Yarrow Point address into her phone's GPS and started the car.

Chapter Twenty-six.

The door to his condo creaked open in a way Max didn't recall it doing before. Could be he'd just never noticed, or actively ignored it. Now he thought he should fix it. That, and everything else in the place.

Debris was still strewn about the floor from his rampage. Abby hadn't made an effort to clean it up. And he didn't blame her; it was his mess, after all. Why should she be bothered with it? He noticed some major items missing-end tables, chairs, bookcases displaying knickknacks. Max couldn't remember if any of the things she'd taken had originally been his or not, though he didn't care enough to question her on anything. Abby could have it all if she wanted.

He walked to the bedroom and found it mostly cleared out, as he'd expected. The bedroom had been her favorite s.p.a.ce. She'd left the bed sheets, even though she had picked them out. He sat on the bed and ran his hand over the fine blanket fabric. They'd had some good times, he and Abby. He should have loved her. It was illogical that he didn't. Maybe that's why it took him so long to realize it was never going to happen. That a single person could claim your heart and never let go was a foreign concept to him, before Val. Even after Val, his mind couldn't process what his heart told him, so he felt what he thought he should feel.

When he returned from Fiji, he would talk to Abby and tell her the truth-everything he could tell her without putting her or anyone else in danger anyway. Maybe then she'd understand that it really was him and not her, that she'd done nothing wrong. Or maybe she already understood, and hated his lying guts. In any case, he had to try to make things right with her.

Max grabbed a duffel bag from the closet and threw some of his clothes in it. He walked into the bathroom and stopped at the blood splotches on the floor-his own blood, from the cuts on his hands. He should have died, but fate wanted him to live. Now he wanted to live. What a difference seven days made.

He tiptoed around the broken gla.s.s and crystal, picked up his shower gel and toothpaste, and retrieved some extra razors from the medicine cabinet. Max spotted his empty OxyContin bottle wedged behind the toilet. He picked it up and threw it in the trash-a first step to cleaning up his mess. He'd finish the rest when he returned from Fiji.

Max dumped the toiletries and a few other items in the bag, zipped it up, and trotted back down the stairs. He stopped by the study's bookcase-the only one Abby would let him have on display. She didn't like the look of an entire room of books, even though it was the study, so the bulk of his ma.s.sive literary collection sat in boxes in the garage. He wedged a half dozen of his favorite books into the duffel's side pockets. In the office desk he rarely used, Max found his pa.s.sport. Then he heard a footstep on broken gla.s.s.

He walked back into the living room. "Abby?"

She wasn't supposed to be back for another hour, but that didn't mean she hadn't returned anyway. Max scanned the entirety of the first floor, including the guest room and patio-nothing.

He called up the stairs. "Abby?"

Nothing. He must have imagined it. Maybe a leftover hallucination from his overdose.

The pain came out of nowhere. It seized his whole body and locked his muscles. His legs gave way and he collapsed to the floor, his lungs frozen so he couldn't scream or breathe.

On the ground, Max opened his eyes and saw Lucien above him, a Taser in the Frenchman's hand. Despite the pain and shock, he was lucid enough to notice Lucien's smooth, healthy face, unblemished by the beating Max delivered only a few days prior. How was that possible?

"Where is Valentine?" Lucien asked in the same manner one might inquire about a good place to get Chinese food.

"f.u.c.k...you..." Max choked out.

He forced air into his lungs, building up to a good scream. If the neighbor heard Toby's barking, she was bound to hear his yelling.

Sensing Max's intention, Lucien shocked him again. The scream caught in his throat as every muscle in his body clenched at once.

"No matter," Lucien said, "You'll do, for now." He pulled a syringe of clear liquid from his coat pocket, took the cap off, and tapped the barrel.

Max begged his legs and arms to move, but blinding pain still gripped him everywhere. All he could do was watch Lucien stick the needle in his neck and push the plunger down. He tried once more to scream as blackness crept over him.

"No plan is perfect, but it helps if your quarry has a critical weakness." He smiled and watched Max lose consciousness. "If I have you, she will come."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

Eliot Salier lived in a gray house with charming white trim around the windows and an immaculate lawn dotted with purple rhododendrons in full bloom. Though smaller than Stevenson's McMansion, an un.o.bstructed view of the Cozy Cove waters earned the house its multimillion-dollar price tag. A Porsche and a Lexus were parked in the driveway; behind those, police cars.

Leaving her sedan a couple of blocks away, Val walked up to the house and waded through a small crowd of people held at bay by a beat cop-shocked neighbors, gathered to watch the show. Despite the tawdriness of the spectacle, they couldn't stay away. Eliot Salier's public shaming would provide dinner conversation fodder for years.

In front of Val, two women in cashmere sweaters leaned their heads together. "Unbelievable," one woman said to the other. "I had no idea Eliot was capable of such awful things."

"Disgusting. It's just disgusting," the other replied. "I can't believe he was living right next to us and we never knew."

"Mm-hmm. Do you think he...you know...did it here?"

"Probably. In the bedroom."

"Oh my G.o.d. Do you think his wife knew?"

The woman scoffed. "They never do. Sad, really."

"Should we un-invite Linda from the country club social next Sat.u.r.day?"

"Of course. It would be terribly awkward if she was there. Don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable."

The front door flew open, and the crowd snapped to attention. A lone cop came out first, then a handcuffed man flanked by two officers. Each held an arm and dragged Eliot Salier down the front walkway. Salier shuffled forward, face pale and body stiff as he struggled to hold his head up.

"I didn't do it, you vultures," he spat at the crowd.

"Pervert," the woman in front of Val mumbled under her breath.

"They'll get him in prison," the other woman said. "I hear people convicted of child p.o.r.nography get it the worst."

Salier pa.s.sed within ten feet of the crowd. "I'm innocent! I didn't-"

His eyes met Val's and he froze. Righteous indignation turned to horror as it dawned on him what crime he was actually being punished for. Killing Salier outright, as had been Sten's original plan, seemed too clean. And even with the video, he'd never be convicted of Val's rape. He was too rich, and Val wasn't innocent enough. But the s.e.xual exploitation of children was another matter. If he somehow beat the charge, he'd never get the stink off him. His cushy life was over-a more than fair fate for raping an unconscious woman.

The cops forced Salier forward, but Salier's eyes stayed locked on Val, unable to look away. She felt herself smile, the corners of her lips rising in delicious, primal satisfaction. Like she'd seen Sten do when Mystery Man's life ended as a smear on the asphalt.

She nearly jumped when she heard Sten's voice in her ear. "I have to hand it to you, Shepherd," he said just above a whisper. He'd snuck up next to her like a ninja, and leaned in so only she could hear him speak. "You know how to serve some seriously ice-cold revenge. Didn't know you had it in you."

She didn't, either, until recently. Val took a few steps back, putting some distance between herself and the crowd so they couldn't be overheard. "Why did you make me kill that man at the Four Seasons Hotel?"

"I just wanted you to scare him. His death was an added bonus."

"But why?"

For a moment, Sten said nothing as he watched his fellow officers shove the now-silent Salier into a police cruiser and slam the door. "Know how much a child soldier in Chechnya costs?"

What kind of answer was that? "No idea," she said, ready for one of his usual obnoxious punch lines.

"They cost nothing, other than promises to get them out of h.e.l.l. But then they're put into a different kind of h.e.l.l, so really they're free. You can just pick one up off the street, like a two-for-one coupon for frozen yogurt."

At a loss for words, she could only stare at him in response. Was he...talking about himself? He'd always been evasive about his past, even when they were dating. The only clue he'd ever given her was that he owed the people trying to control her and Max a debt he could never repay.

"The people that buy these children's lives for nothing-even though they have more money than G.o.d-they think their own lives are infinitely more precious because they equate money with worth. Like they deserve to live more, as if G.o.d's granted them divine protection. You proved them wrong."

So he thought she was G.o.d's wrath-or Satan's agent. "I've saved people, too," Val said with a frown. She'd wrestled her whole life with the possibility that her ability might be evil, that maybe she somehow caused the terrible things she saw. Over the years she'd convinced herself that wasn't the case, but Sten's insinuation opened up old wounds. "We're even now, got it?"

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "It's not about getting even. It's about helping out your partner."

Val's breath caught at the possibility. "We are not partners." She wouldn't go down that road, despite what her visions suggested.

Sten moved closer, his gaze flicking between her eyes and her lips. For a crazy second she thought he was going to kiss her. An image slinked into her mind of her and Sten tearing up the world together, setting mansions on fire, putting bullets in the heads of evil people, reveling in their enemy's blood. How good it would feel to hurt those who thought they were immune from justice, to leave behind a trail of humiliated Eliot Saliers and Mystery Men hit by buses. Together, they could do it.

After an intolerable few seconds, the corners of his mouth ticked up into a slight, cynical smile. "Tell yourself that for as long as you need to. I'll be waiting."

He walked away to join his cop friends as they vacated the premises, off to deposit Salier into his new, much s.h.i.+ttier life.

Bile rose in her throat, spoiling the taste of Max that had lingered there before. So what if she was capable of an all-consuming inferno of wrath, and Sten might be the fuel for that fire? Just because she was capable didn't mean she had to give in to the temptation. Val marched away from the scene, embarra.s.sed to be there. What the h.e.l.l was she thinking? Why had she come? What was wrong with her?

She drove home in a near panicked state, desperate to be with Max. She needed him. She loved him. He was her light in the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-eight.

As if emerging from a fog, the world appeared one piece at a time. First, Max sensed a bright light in his face. Squinting through the glare, he saw walls of plastic sheeting. Ab.u.t.ting those, tables covered in trays of what looked like medical lab equipment. Finally, his bare feet, his bare legs, a hospital gown that came to his mid-thigh, and his wrists encircled in leather straps, binding him to the metal table he lay upon.

Max turned his head and the world spun. He jerked his torso as far to the side as he could go, leaned over the edge of the table, and threw up onto the floor.

"Well, that's a stronger reaction than I expected," Lucien said from somewhere out of Max's line of sight.

Max spit bile from his mouth and flopped his head back on the table. He clenched his eyes shut to stop the spinning. "What...did you...do to me?"