A Girl Undone (16 page)

The small mesh rectangle only let me see what was directly ahead and I couldn’t see my feet at all. A hot Santa Ana wind whipped the bag around my legs as I limped down the steps of the plane. I grabbed at the fabric before I found two slits for my hands.

Heat rose off the tarmac, baking me inside the layers of twill, down, and wool. The Retrievers flanked me the short distance to the helicopter and waited until Ho and I were buckled in before they secured the doors and drove off. Mission accomplished.

Ho gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Time to go home.”

We flew over the freeway and into the Santa Monica mountains. Tears trickled down my cheeks.
I can’t believe I’m going back to Hawkins, and that I went through all that hell for nothing.

The helicopter pitched in the wind as it approached Hawkins’ compound, and I gripped the seat belt across my chest with both hands. Below, the privacy fence cut across the point, severing the compound from the Pacific Coast Highway. The grounds were as welcoming as he was: harsh, rocky, and covered in brush probably riddled with rattlesnake nests.

Once I was inside that fence, chances were I wasn’t getting away. And if I did somehow manage to, Hawkins would alert every law enforcement agency and I’d be dead within hours. The feds would make sure I couldn’t testify in a trial.

The pilot went to touch down on the landing pad on Hawkins’ underground garage, but the wind surged and tossed us out over the ocean. My heart almost stopped, then the pilot maneuvered us back over the house and onto the pad. He shut down the engine, and I rubbed the tear tracks off my cheeks.

Thank God, Hawkins isn’t here to greet me. I need time to take this in.

The pilot got out first. I hesitated at the doorway, unsure how to step down without injuring my foot. He raised his wrestler-sized arms. “Let me give you a hand.”

“Thanks.”

He lifted me down as if I weighed the same as a bag of groceries.

“Deeps is your new bodyguard,” Ho said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. Deeps had shaved the sides of his head, but left his bleached-blond hair long on top. It was tied back in a half pony. He was half as old and probably twice as strong as my old bodyguard, Roik. Hawkins must have wanted to make sure I couldn’t overpower this one.

All the coaching I’d received about bodyguards from my teacher Ms. A came back. Be polite. Get him on your side. Find out what he likes to eat and keep it in the house. Cheer for his sports team, especially if your dad or domestic manager cheers for its rival.

I’d peeled down to my sweater back in the chopper. The wind whipped the ends of the sleeves that were tied around my neck.

The house was out of sight, set into the cliff below us. Ho motioned to the stairs that led down to the entry. “He’s waiting.”

Hawkins.

My chest filled with broken glass.
This is really happening
. Deeps offered me his arm. “Like some help with those steps?”

I looked into his smoky gray eyes, wishing he would read my thoughts, put me in the copter, and fly me away. “Yes, please.”

I steeled myself. Hawkins had just dropped a quarter million to get me back, and had to be furious that I’d messed up his bid for governor. That much I knew.

The house was the same. A one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the ocean the minute you walked in. The main room a severely bare art gallery with a giant blue acrylic fish struggling on a spear, and a distorted-looking oil painting of slaughtered chickens.

“He’s in his office,” Ho said.

I followed Ho down the stairs, memories jolting me with every step. Hawkins pinning me to the banister and forcing his tongue into my mouth. Hawkins locking the Love bracelet on my wrist while the camera snapped.

Ho led me down the hall and my heart thudded as we passed the alcove where Hawkins had promised to hurt Yates or even kill him, if we didn’t break off our relationship. I wondered if he could get to Yates now that he was in custody. I wouldn’t put anything past Hawkins.

The door, a sleek panel of ironwood, opened soundlessly. Hawkins sat in an artistically shaped wood and leather chair, a tablet in his hands, feet propped on a leather cube.

“Thank you, Adam,” Hawkins said, dismissing Ho. Hawkins trained his cement-colored eyes on me and said coldly, “Welcome home, Aveline.”

I stood, my chin held high, despite the percussion in my chest. “Yes, I’m back.”

Hawkins set down his tablet and unfolded from the chair. I took in the unyielding pleats on his pants, the hard charcoal of his golf shirt, and the sharp edges of his belt buckle. He came up until he was only inches away. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said, and slapped me hard.

I stumbled back, stifling a cry as pain shot through my ankle.
Screw you.
I lifted a hand to my burning cheek, ready for his next blow.

Hawkins glared at me. “Here is what will transpire. We will attempt to get the government to drop its case against you. If that fails, I, as a concerned and law-abiding citizen, will reluctantly turn you in. Understood?”

I nodded. I knew exactly what would happen if I fell into federal hands.

“However, if the government does drop its case, we will marry in a large, well-publicized ceremony after which you will accompany me as I campaign for governor. Again, is that clear?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good. Now get out of my sight.”

I limped out of the room. It could have been worse, I thought. All Hawkins had done was slap me. And then it hit me: it would get worse. It was only a matter of time.

Deeps waited a discreet distance down the hall. I angled my face so he’d see the handprint on my cheek. Deeps didn’t react, and his eyes didn’t betray what he thought. “Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you up to your room.”

The message was clear: Deeps was there to protect Hawkins’ interests, not to keep me safe. Getting Deeps on my side wouldn’t be easy.

He led me to an elevator and pointed out the buttons. “The gym, pool, theater, and safe room are below us on one. Main rooms on two. Bedrooms on three.”

The elevator released us onto the walkway that overlooked the main room. “Mr. Hawkins’ room is down the hall,” Deeps said, pointing to the right. “Yours is at the opposite end.”

Just a few steps away was a smooth wood door that opened at Deeps’ touch. I entered a short hall which opened into a room that was glass on three sides. At first, the unlimited view of sky and water made it feel like the room was floating, but then I spied a twin glass box at the far end of the house. Hawkins’ bedroom was over a hundred feet away, but he could see right into my room like I was an exhibit in his private zoo.

“No curtains?” I asked Deeps.

“They’re recessed. I’ll show you how to work them in a minute.”

The room was as rigid and spare as the rest of the house. I couldn’t have moved the low bed if I’d wanted to, because it was attached to the wall between two narrow shelves that worked as end tables. Two thin pillows lay on bedding the color of fog.

“The bathroom and closet are here.” Deeps walked around the bed and pressed the sleek, wood-paneled wall. A hidden door swung open. Then he handed me a remote. “This controls your lights, curtains, and audio.”

“Audio?”

“The house system is programmed according to Mr. Hawkins’ musical preferences.”

Not surprised I could choose what I wanted to listen to as long as it was what Hawkins liked. “Is the room monitored?”

“Yes, both audio and visual.”

I sighed, and tossed the remote on the bed. “Your safety is important to us,” he added.

That was bull. “Are you going to watch me undress?”

“The bathroom and closet are audio only.”

“What about my clothes? Do they have mikes in them?”

Deeps shot me a look of respect. “No mikes, but some have a tracking device that’s heat-activated. Execs whose families are vulnerable to kidnapping sometimes use this option over a chip.”

I reached for my wrist without thinking, feeling a tiny burst of relief that Hawkins wasn’t having me chipped. “Thanks.” I didn’t have much time to work on Deeps’ sympathy before Ho and Hawkins made that impossible. “Did Jessop tell you that there are people who want to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“So is the rest of the house safe? Is it monitored?”

“The safest locations are indoors. The terrace has visual, but the audio’s not great what with the noise from the waves and the wind.”

“All right. Thanks for telling me.” Great. The only place I could talk openly was where everyone could see me. Not that I’d ever get the chance to be around anyone I wanted to talk honestly with.

“Anytime. I’ll let you get some rest.”

Deeps let the door close behind him. I went to lock it, but there was just a sleek chrome pull. I checked the front of the door, expecting to see a lock on the outside, but no. Hawkins, who was obsessed with control, had put me in a room I could walk right out of?

One glance at the door frame above my head answered that question. A remote-controlled, magnetic lock. Not hard to guess who had that remote.

A movement outside drew me over to the far window. Hawkins walked through the brush toward a grove of eucalyptus at the edge of the property. I touched my still-smarting cheek as he disappeared into the circle of trees. The silver-green branches tossed in the wind, allowing me glimpses of him pacing, and sunlight flashing off something metal?

“Observe your captor.” I heard Ajax, my kidnapping-survival trainer, in my head, barking out a drill. “Habits, movements, preferences. Knowing these can inform your attempt to get away.”

I looked from Hawkins to the ten-foot wall surrounding the compound. The only way out was if Hawkins turned me over to the feds. A sob rose up in my throat, and I threw myself into the bathroom and grabbed a towel from the stack. I shoved it over my mouth and turned the tub on full blast.

I will not let you hear me cry.

I rocked on the hard slate lip of the tub, my chest heaving as I smashed the towel to my face.

If the feds get hold of me, I’ll never go home again. Never see Dad. Never say good-bye to Yates. Or Luke.

And they’ll never know what happened to me.

I cried into the towel, not even trying to stop. Everything I’d held in since the Retrievers took me—the flight with Ho, Hawkins’ slap—came out in a racking mess of tears.

But when they began to slow, I heard Ajax’s commando voice again. “At some point you will want to give up. Your captor wants that, because you will make his life easier. But you cannot give up. Not if you want to go home.”

I began to catch my breath and set the towel down. I had to get a grip. Hawkins was brilliant. He didn’t want to turn me over to the feds. If he did, he wouldn’t have brought me here.

The tub was full, so I turned off the water. Steam clouded the air and light filtered through the large glass-block window over the tub, illuminating the cold slate tiles that covered the floor and walls. I undressed and unwrapped my ankle, then lowered myself into the water.

Becca’s dolphin still hung around my neck. I leaned back, and ran my finger over its silver fin. “Stay free!” I whispered bitterly, remembering her final message. Years of being Hawkins’ captive flashed like clips from movie previews before my eyes. Me as Hawkins’ toy. His First Lady. Mother to his children.

I sank down until the water reached my lips. At least Luke got away.

I stared into the steam, but saw him. Kind Luke with the gentle smile, the Luke I watched twirl his sister in the barn, who’d spun me around the dance floor, and who’d kissed me hours ago so we would both know what might have been.

I don’t regret letting the Retrievers take me without a fight.

I prayed that Luke met the reporters and gave them the thumb drive. That he disappeared into the Rockies.

But what if he didn’t make it?

The wall hanging lay in a heap with my clothes. I had to protect it and the phone, too. Deeps probably wouldn’t suspect what the hanging was, so he’d leave it alone, but if he found the phone with Sparrow’s audio file of her and Vice President Jouvert, Deeps would take it. I had to hide it, but where?

The bedroom was out.

I scanned the bathroom looking for a nook or cranny, but apparently Hawkins’ designer didn’t believe in them. Taping it underneath the sink wasn’t an option, not when I didn’t have duct tape or a way to get it.

I wrapped in a towel and picked up the phone. It was completely dead after two weeks without a charge.

The closet was all smooth, dark wood panels and the same slate floor. I ran my hands over the panels and they opened silently, revealing thirty charcoal gray and white striped garment bags filled with clothes that Hawkins’ stylist, Elancio, had selected for my debut as the clone of Letitia Hawkins, Jessop’s perfect mother.

I sucked in a breath. Somewhere in this closet was a collection of matching headbands. So what, I told myself. After everything you’ve survived, wearing a headband to please Hawkins is
nothing
.

The last panel opened to a column of shallow drawers. I tapped each so it rolled open, displaying artfully arranged workout wear, scarves, body skimmers, and not surprisingly, thirty custom headbands. No place to hide a phone, not well at least.

When I got to the sixth drawer, I flinched. I’d forgotten about the expensive bras and panties Hawkins had reserved for me at Sweet Fantasies. Memories from my extract gone wrong came flooding back. Sergio, the owner, showing me what Hawkins selected. Dayla laughing as she dangled the tiny scraps of silk and ribbon. “Mr. Jes, he loves the Naughty Angel collection!” What would I do if he told me to put these on? To come to his bedroom?

I shoved the drawer, but it resisted, and I shoved again, then pounded it as it crawled back into its slot.

Maybe he wouldn’t touch me. Maybe he hated me too much to try.

Don’t be stupid. You know what he’s like.
I threw off the towel and pulled on some yoga pants. Hawkins owned me, and now he had me in his clutches.

Dead at the hands of federal agents or Hawkins’ prisoner? What kind of choice was that?