ALL PHIL WANTED TO DO WAS LEAVE THE HOUSE with that precious wine, because something was wrong and it had nothing to do with him. He moved swiftly down the dark halls, mentally urging Serena to hurry, wishing for the sunlight and ocean views of his own home, which cast enough light for him to see what his enemies were up to. He had to go, and he had to go now, because if he waited even three more seconds he knew that Roman would announce that everything was a joke, including their freedom to leave with their lives.
His boss dallied with Serena, drooling over her. They sauntered. Strolled out of Roman’s cave.
Silently—because speaking hurt his head—Phil cursed his need to wait for her at the front door. He cursed the ancient old doctor who worked for Roman, who didn’t speak English and probably wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in the United States. Probably had tried to kill him. He cursed the medications that muddied his thinking. He cursed the hallucinations that had put him in this position, requiring him to come here to Roman’s home before he had the upper hand in the situation. He was unprepared. He’d been forced to present his partnership proposal too early. The plan was only hours old.
Phil stopped in his mental tracks. That’s what was wrong: the fact that Roman was so ready to sign up. Why?
It was too big a question for the moment.
At the front door there was fresh air. Phil breathed deeply and fabricated an expression of contentment. It was so foreign to him.
Roman’s secretary appeared outside on the porch. She wore the plunging neckline and short slit skirt that Roman preferred. It wasn’t a bad look, really, though Phil found it predictable and therefore uninteresting. The blouse would be nicer if it were sheer. He stared, imagining, and refused to step aside for her. She hesitated. Oh, pity your dilemma, Phil thought. Which is worse—that I’ll manhandle you as you squeeze by, or that Roman will be mad you lingered outside?
Serena appeared at his side, worsening the logjam.
And then Roman was there, and what happened next caused Phil to realize that he was no longer in the game at all, that at some point in the last few miserable hours all his strategies had been trounced, and he was the last to know.
At first the encounter seemed awkwardly innocent: three people wanting to pass through the same space at the same time without wanting to be the first. Emboldened by the fact that she was leaving the house alive and feeling the success of her role-playing like a warm glow, Serena made the first move.
“Excuse me,” she said to Phil. The man was distracted, still mentally fogged by his breakdown at the house. He stood as if alone, holding the wine bottle like a football in the V of his elbow. Serena continued to play her part, putting a firm hand on his arm to indicate he should move or at least wake up. When he didn’t, she squeezed past him. Out on the porch, the attractive woman who had dropped Serena’s food tray stepped aside to let her pass, eyes averted.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Serena murmured to her, judging the remark to be both sincere and sly. The moment she uttered the words, the woman glanced up at her briefly and all embarrassment fell hard on Serena’s own shoulders. No—what hit her was worse than embarrassment; it was shame. Because the eyes that looked at her held only reproach and anger.
The woman blinked and looked away, and Serena realized that someone would be punished for her opportunistic escape from the wine cellar.
“Your girl’s a klutz,” Serena had so carelessly claimed, and she wished for the chance to take it back.
There was nothing she could do about it. Even now, under the hard eyes of John Roman, any behavior that might alter his beliefs about her could jeopardize everything. Including her intentions to find a way back to the women in the locked room.
This truth did nothing to unknot the dread in her stomach for what this woman was about to face.
“Denise,” Roman said from inside the house. The sound of his voice stirred the players in the scene like vegetables in a soup pot. Phil came to himself and stepped through the doorway. Serena made room for him. Roman filled his vacancy. Denise crossed the threshold and passed like a ghost into the house, so slim and wispy that she easily avoided touching Roman’s broad and blockish shoulders.
Roman reached out and grabbed her hand, toppling her graceful entry. She fell into his side before righting herself again. Reluctantly, she turned herself around to face Serena and Phil, her arm twisting behind her back.
Her eyes locked on Serena’s, fearful instead of judgmental now.
“Your tire’s been repaired,” Roman said to Phil, giving a nod to the Porsche that had been outfitted with new tires and returned to the driveway. “Until next time.” Then he closed his front door on Serena’s dread.
Phil released a heavy, resigned sigh and plodded on down the porch. He fished for keys in his left pocket and seemed surprised to discover them in his right. They clinked against the glass bottle as he fingered the ring to find his car key.
Inside the house, Denise screamed.
Phil stepped off the porch and kept moving toward his car.
Serena’s mind emptied of all logical thought. Her will had nothing to obey but her heart, whatever the cost. She leaped for the door and threw all her weight into opening it.
Roman was leading Denise out of the spacious entryway and into the black mouth of a hall on the other side of the room. He was leading her by her hair. The classy knot had come undone, converted by force into a leash.
The sensation of her hair in a killer’s grip rushed over Serena’s memory. So did the terror of feeling alone in an inhospitable place, where dead bodies were easy to hide.
“Hey!” Serena shouted. She crossed the room in long strides. “Hey, hey, hey!”
Roman ignored her mama-goose cries. Denise stumbled backward, both hands on the back of her head where he pulled. Serena could hear her breathing. Gasping. She reached out a hand to Denise, though too far away to help.
“Roman, let her go.”
All three flowed straight back into the bowels of the house, Serena objecting, Denise flailing, Roman ignoring. Even when Serena caught up and tried to get between Roman’s grip and Denise’s hyperextended neck, Roman didn’t acknowledge her presence until he punched through the door of a small bedroom and hurled Denise onto the bed against the far wall. Only then did he turn on Serena. He opened his mouth to tear her down, but she was, to her own surprise, already ahead of him.
“Is this what I can expect from you?” She screamed it at the top of her lungs, a declaration rather than a real question. “Is this how you treat the women who agree to work for you rather than with you?”
He frowned but didn’t speak. Straightened the cuffs of his shirt. She thought she had caught him off guard.
“Because if this is what you have in mind for me, I will tell you right now we do not have a deal. There is. No. Deal.”
Denise had curled into a tight fetal ball between her pillow and the corner of the room. Serena’s intellect began to reengage her brain at that point, and it painted a high-definition picture of just how reckless she’d been. Here she stood, deep in the guts of a house invisible even to the nearest neighbors, with a man who had no conscience.
But her emotions were hot as blazing coal and her mouth was a runaway train.
“What you do to this woman will make or break my ties with you, do you hear me? Whatever you do to her is no different from doing it to me. Because she and I are sisters.”
Roman’s eyes went from Serena’s olive complexion to Denise’s milk chocolate arms. Sisters? Where had she come up with that word?
On the bed, Denise was still, watching the events from behind the curtain of hair that had flopped over her eyes. Compared to the opulence of the house, this room was spartan: four-drawer dresser, twin bed, writing table and chair, lamp. Personal possessions feminized the space: a book of poetry on the nightstand, a doll on the pillow, a pair of sequined shoes posing under the shelter of the chair.
The idiocy of what Serena had just done settled over her like a shroud. What kind of person who dealt in the sale of human beings had the capacity to express moral outrage over the mistreatment of one woman?
Behind her, Phil started to laugh. He had followed without her noticing; whether his presence would work for or against her remained to be seen. His cackle was strained, though. Nervous.
Roman’s was not, however. It was as full-bodied and hearty as a laugh could get.
Serena sensed death around the corner.
She turned to Denise. “Come home with me tonight. Work for me. He won’t need you here anymore.”
Roman snorted.
Denise cleared her throat and then gave Serena a surprise of her own. “My place is here.” The two exchanged a look that Serena couldn’t decipher. “Thank you, Serena.”
What? Thank you, Serena, but I’ll stay here and die anyway, if you don’t mind.
Serena’s body still quaked with the still-strong surge of adrenaline. She was completely confused about Denise’s choice to stay in Roman’s prison. He’d kill her.
Wouldn’t he?
“Fine,” Serena said. She turned to Roman. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” She turned her back on him and went to the door. She wondered what a gunshot wound to her spine would feel like. She wished Christopher could have told her. And she wondered if she would be able to ensure Denise’s survival even as she died, as Christopher had hers.
Apparently not.
Hot tears rose behind her eyes.
She pushed Phil aside as she passed through. Surreptitiously she cast a final troubled glance back at Denise, whose eyes were still glued to her figurative sister. The woman sank to her bed and perched on the edge, then reached for the doll on her pillow.
A black-haired doll in a frilly pink dress worn threadbare by eighteen years of affection.