Preying Game (Decorah Security Series, Book #15): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel Read online

  With a sigh, he pushed away from the computer and called Grant Bradley.

  “Jonah,” the other Decorah agent answered. “Frank said you might want to talk to me.”

  “Is this a good time?”

  “Yes, I’m about to go to lunch. We could discuss the case while we eat. How about that Mexican place on Route 1?”

  “Sure.”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “That works.”

  The two men arrived at the same time and asked for a quiet booth in the back. After ordering, Grant gave him a speculative look.

  “What’s up?”

  “Frank didn’t tell you anything about the situation?”

  “No. I guess he wanted me to hear it all from you.”

  Jonah nodded, then filled Grant in on what had happened with Alice Davenport. He finished with, “But I can’t find any record of a woman by that name disappearing.”

  Their food came, and both men turned to their meal.

  Jonah swallowed a bite of fish taco before asking, “Do you think she contacted me to yank my chain?”

  “Did she sound like she was in trouble?”

  “Yes. But why doesn’t anyone besides me know what happened to her?”

  Grant used the side of his fork to cut off a piece of burrito. “Suppose she’s like Jen? I mean afraid to give you her real name because that will lead to consequences she doesn’t want.”

  “I guess that could be true,” Jonah admitted.

  “The abduction could even have happened in another state, and she pulled Western Maryland out of the air.”

  “Why?”

  Grant shrugged. “I guess it would turn out to be complicated. Do you think she’s had telepathic experiences before?”

  “She sounded like she was doing it as a shot in the dark, and she couldn’t believe she’d reached me.”

  Grant hit him with another leading question. “Do you think she was faking her abduction?”

  He shook his head, struggling with new doubts. “It’s hard to know. I mean, I don’t have any experience with someone in trouble coming to me—rather than my getting the case as an assignment. That means I’m the one reaching out to the victims. And we don’t always make contact. Sometimes I just had a clue about where they were—like maybe from seeing their surroundings.”

  “Yeah.”

  The two men finished their meals. Jonah signaled for the check.

  “Frank said he was assigning you to the medical facility,” Grant said.

  “Right.”

  “So we’ll be able to talk more. And you can ask me questions if you need to.”

  Jonah nodded.

  “What’s your next step?”

  “I guess I’ll try to make contact over the radio again.”

  “You think it will work during the day?”

  Jonah shrugged. “I’m supposed to be working with you during the day.

  “Frank already told me you might not be there until tomorrow.”

  “That won’t leave you shorthanded?”

  “We’ll keep up the current schedule.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Chapter 4

  Time for some fun, Arthur Hayward thought, as he leaned back in the comfortable chair in his book-lined library. Things had been going very well, but they had fallen into too much of a pattern.

  He thought about his current guest in the underground portion of his estate. She was the best he’d ever worked with. Fit and able to improve. But soon she must reach even her limit.

  He got out the pictures he’d taken of her when she’d first arrived. She had been in good shape then. Now she was beyond even his expectations.

  She’d been groggy when he’d driven onto the estate and pulled into the three-car garage. He’d put her back to sleep with another dose of happy juice and taken her down to the examination room in the private jail he’d constructed.

  First he’d taken off her clothes. Then he’d snapped some photos. He’d touched her body, stroking his hand over the silky skin of her thigh, the curve of her breasts, hoping the touch would stir him. He felt some kind of sensual awareness, but nothing like what he had felt in the old days.

  As he pulled a modest nightgown over her head and slipped her arms through the sleeves, his mind flashed back to his marriage. He grimaced, preferring to think of the present and not the past.

  He knew Renee hadn’t liked his hunting trips to game ranches in the West and safaris to Africa, but he’d set her up like a queen in this mansion.

  When he’d found out the ungrateful bitch was stepping out on him, he’d started planning his first murder.

  He’d done a superb job of pretending that everything was okay and that he wanted to share his African adventures with her. It had been easy to make her death look like a bad-luck lion attack—especially in a country where the rich white American was king. That was fifteen years ago, when the thrill of murder had not been his only sexual outlet.

  For a ten years, he’d sampled the charms of many women, until high blood pressure had deprived him of the ability to function.

  He gritted his teeth, trying to cut off the next thought, but it leaped into his head like a cat pouncing on a mouse. He had been about to say—“like a normal man.”

  But if you looked at it in the right way, he had never been a normal man. He had always been a cut above the guys who were content to live by the rules.

  Too bad his moron of a doctor hadn’t been able to do a thing about his blood pressure, besides putting him on pills that kept his dick limp, along with a goddamn boring “healthy diet.” A diet he was sharing with his current guest, the lovely Alice Davenport.

  He’d been able to observe her for weeks before he’d scooped her up. And he’d chosen her for her looks as much as her athletic ability. Why not destroy beauty as part of your pleasure?

  All his life, he’d taken what he wanted. If he could no longer do it sexually, there were other ways he could attain the feeling of satisfaction. Once he had loved fucking women. Now he loved seeing them dead at his feet—after a long foreplay, longer than anyone could enjoy in a sexual encounter.

  And soon the pas de deux would begin.

  oOo

  Alice had made contact with the man named Jonah at night. Was there any use trying to reach out to him during the day?

  Maybe it could have worked, if she’d been able to concentrate. Unfortunately, most of her waking hours were taken up with tasks that required her attention. It might seem strange to think that physical training needed so much focus. But she had to stay sharp not to screw up. The facility where she was being held was large. Part of the complex housed a big gym. Weirdly, one of her jobs was bouncing a basketball on the wooden floor, then running toward the hoop and making a shot. Although she tried her best, she had never been good at basketball. And she was relieved when a whistle blew and she was allowed to return the ball to the rack at the side of the room and rest for twenty minutes.

  Her next activity was different but no less taxing. A stout rope with knots dangled at one side of the gym, and she had to climb to the top and then down again. This time she had some leeway. She climbed more slowly than was strictly necessary, stretching out the task. But by the time she was finished with that, her arms and legs ached.

  “Lunchtime,” Hayward’s voice rang out.

  She sighed with relief, leaning against the wall.

  “Shower first.”

  When he said the words, a shiver went through her. He only asked her to shower during the day when he wanted to meet with her in person. Was he going to declare that her training had come to an end? And then he would hunt and kill her—like he bragged he’d done with five other women.

  She looked wildly around, wishing there was something she could use as a weapon. But she knew she was hardly going to assault him with a basketball.

  On stiff legs, she headed for the corridor that led to her cell. There was no point in resisting. He would just hurt her if she refu
sed to do his bidding. It flashed through her head that if he hurt her badly, maybe she wouldn’t have to star in his diabolical hunt. But then what? He would probably be angry that he’d put in all this time training her—and gotten nothing out of it. She shuddered. What if he thought of some substitute amusement? Like killing her slowly?

  Feeling as though she was caught between driving her car over a cliff and driving it into a bridge abutment, she stopped at the water cooler and drank several paper cups full. She’d been hungry when she’d finished the exercise session, but her appetite had disappeared.

  Teeth clenched, she headed for her cell. As soon as she stepped through the door, her gaze swung to the bed. Confirming her suspicion, she saw that while she’d been in the gym, Hayward had laid out clothes. She saw a modest yellow blouse. A flowered skirt. Slip-on shoes. Surely he couldn’t be intending to hunt her wearing those. Bringing the outfit into the bathroom, she got undressed, discarded her gym clothes, and stepped into the shower.

  She clung to her analysis of the situation while she stood under the bracing spray. Again she dried her hair as best she could with the towel, then put on the outfit. The blouse and skirt fit perfectly. And she was sure they were a little smaller than the clothing she’d been wearing when he’d captured her. She’d lost weight on the diet he was providing and the exercise regime. The irony made her want to laugh. Like most women she knew, she was always trying to lose a few pounds. He’d forced her to do it—with no conscious plan on her part.

  The door clicked open, and she walked back into the corridor.

  “Take the route to the dining room,” his voice boomed out over a speaker.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then made a turn to the right. Instead of heading for the gym or the exercise room, the route led her upstairs, and for the first time in weeks, she stepped into an area of the house that must be above ground. She glanced toward a window, but huge shutters covered the outside of the glass.

  Another corridor beckoned, and she ended up in a room furnished with what looked like English antiques. She saw satin drapes, polished wood, velvet upholstery, and a table set for a meal. Well, two tables. Both were about the size of a card table, and they were separated by a metal grid that walled off her section of the room from the main part.

  She looked around at the opulent surroundings and the food arranged on the tables. Did Hayward run this place himself? Were servants on duty, taking care of the dishes and the upkeep of the house?

  If he had servants, what did they think about his holding a woman captive in the basement? Or did he pay them enough to keep his secret?

  She looked toward the door at the far end of the room, feeling a mixture of fear and anger.

  The door opened, and a man stepped through. Hayward, looking the way he had on the three previous occasions when they’d shared a meal. He was probably in his fifties, with salt and pepper hair, a pasty complexion, and dark eyebrows. His lips were a slash in the lower part of his face, and his chin was small for a man. He was wearing a tweed suit and a white dress shirt which was open at the collar. No tie. If she had passed him on the street, she would have thought he was pretty ordinary—and nonthreatening, but that was hardly what she would call him now. This man might look harmless, but she knew he was a monster whose greatest joy was wielding power over others.

  She struggled not to let her emotions show or to glance away as she confronted him.

  He tipped his head to the side as he studied her, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

  “You’re looking fit,” he said, a throwaway observation under the circumstances. She was in the best shape of her life because he had taken the choice away—for his own purposes.

  “Have a seat, my dear.”

  The endearment made her want to snap out a biting retort, but she fought to control the impulse.

  She sat down at her table, and he took a seat at the other one, facing her through the screen.

  Plates were already set out, and she saw that lunch was steamed broccoli, chicken cut into pieces so she wouldn’t have to use a knife, and half a baked potato with sour cream and chives. That was a special treat because she hadn’t had a potato in . . . weeks?

  Next to her plate was a glass with iced tea—another indulgence. There were even two sugar cubes in a little saucer beside the glass. She dropped them into the amber liquid and squeezed the wedge of lemon hooked over the top rim of the glass. Then she stirred, glad for something to focus on.

  He had given himself the same food as she, although his skinless chicken wasn’t already neatly cut.

  He’d deprived her of a knife. But she did have the fork and the iced tea spoon. She eyed the cutlery. What if she took one of those and turned it into a weapon? Sharpen the handle of the spoon somehow?

  The idea was tempting. She could slip the spoon or the fork into the folds of her skirt. But she understood on a gut-wrenching level that that would be taking too much of a chance. Surely he’d notice if either of the items was missing when she went back to her room. And then he’d be furious and retaliate.

  So far he hadn’t done anything to physically punish her besides making her work beyond endurance, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it—or decide it was time for the hunt.

  All that circled through her mind like a trapped animal turning in its cage. His voice brought her back to the present encounter.

  “A nice healthy meal,” he remarked with a touch of sarcasm in his voice as he cut off a piece of breast meat and forked it to his mouth.

  What was this meeting all about, she wondered, as she took a bite of the chicken, forcing herself to chew and swallow? Was it tasteless, or had she just lost her ability to catch any flavor from the food?

  Finally, he gave her a reason for their luncheon. “I’d love to get to know you better.”

  If she knew him better, could she use that to her advantage? “Yes,” she managed to answer.

  “I understand you were an English major,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve enjoyed poking into your background.”

  The food in her mouth had turned to ground glass now.

  Forcing herself to chew and swallow, she answered, “Well, I took as many American lit courses as English lit.”

  “Who was your favorite English author?”

  What? They were going to discuss literature? She answered, “Thomas Hardy.”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “He was so good at rendering the lives of everyday people.”

  “How do you compare him to Dickens? Isn’t he known for that?”

  “Hardy didn’t write as many books, of course. His subjects are always so dark.”

  “Dickens is dark.”

  “Not always. And often his books turned out okay for the characters you liked. He wrote A Christmas Carol. That’s a classic feel-good story.”

  “True.”

  While they ate, they continued to discuss the books from her college courses. He seemed so well read, that she felt almost like she was having lunch with a professor. But she knew this was just part of the fun for him of holding her captive.

  As the lunch progressed, he switched subjects and began filling her in on what he considered amusing historical episodes. One was called The Defenestration of Prague when a group of disgruntled assemblymen threw two imperial governors out a window where they fell thirty meters, landed on a pile of manure, and survived.

  Hayward laughed. “A very colorful episode in European diplomacy.”

  Probably the imperial governors hadn’t been amused, but she refrained from making any negative comments. As long as he was talking about long-ago events, he wasn’t thinking about what he was going to do to her.

  And even with all the undertones of danger, the conversation was a distraction from the barren life she was being forced to live. There were no books in her cell and certainly no television set.

  The only bright spot had been the man who said his name was Jona
h Ranger. And he might not even be real.

  “What?” Hayward said sharply.

  Her head jerked up. “What do you mean?”

  “An expression I wasn’t expecting crossed your face.”

  She felt suddenly cold. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how closely he was watching her.

  “What kind of expression?”

  “You looked . . . hopeful.”

  She managed to shrug.

  But it seemed, he wasn’t going to let it go. “What were you thinking about?”

  She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “I was thinking about how Hemingway felt emasculated by his wound in the Spanish Civil War, and how it came out in his writing, especially The Sun Also Rises.”

  “How did that pop into your mind?” he demanded.

  She wasn’t sure. But she was startled by the red flush that crept up Hayward’s neck and into his face.

  Scrambling for a reason, she managed to say, “I haven’t focused on literature in a long time, but you gave me the opportunity to remember some of the classes I enjoyed. Like my Hemingway-Twain seminar.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t thinking about someone coming to rescue you? Someone who could get the better of me.”

  Good God. How had he come up with that? “Who?”

  “You tell me.”

  “No one even knows where I am,” she said in a thin voice. “You made sure of that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said drawing out the word. He was silent for several seconds, then added, “But maybe we should think about moving up our timetable.” As he finished the sentence, he balled up his napkin, dropped it on the table, and stood.

  “Perhaps you should get back to work.”

  She felt the food she had eaten congeal in her stomach.

  “I enjoyed our talk.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess it did make a nice break in your routine.”

  His voice had returned to a neutral tone as he said, “Go back to your room, and get into your gym clothes. You can relax for a half hour while you digest your food. We wouldn’t want to give you cramps. Then we’ll have another session on the treadmill.”