Chasing Bristol (The Finding Trilogy Book 2) (23 page)

Vincent came back to the bed. “I’ve
wanted you for so long,” he said, sounding eager and desperate for affection.

“And you can have me,” I assured him.
“But please untie me so I can touch you.” I spoke in a desirous way to persuade
him more. “Please, Vincent. Let me touch you.”

He brightened up, convinced. “All
right.” He began untying my ankles first.

I settled my thoughts to come up with
what to do once he freed me, then remembered something I’d heard in a movie:
The
first strike should be big enough to either knock out the enemy or buy you time
.

Vincent removed the rope from around my
ankles. When he reached up to untie my right hand, I prepared for the attack.

He lingered over me with my other hand still
tied. It looked like he was going to kiss me again. I couldn’t stand having his
lips on me another second, much less feel his tongue in my mouth.

I had to strike now.

With all the strength I could muster, I
socked him hard.

“Ow!” he wailed. The hit sent him
falling over my legs. I lifted my right and kicked him off the bed.

“Uh—Bristol—you!” Vincent groaned in
pain on the floor and struggled to compose himself.

I hurried to untie my hand. Finally
freeing myself, I sprang from the bed and bolted across the room to the rustic
wooden door. I turned the latch and ran out of the dark room.

“Bristol!” Vincent called after me.

There were dark stairs outside. My heart
boomed in my ears as I raced to the top. There was another wooden door. I could
hear Vincent scrambling around downstairs.

No time to lose. I quickly opened the
door and ran inside the room, almost fainting when I saw what was plastered
across the white walls.

Open mouthed, I peered around
at the hundreds of pictures pasted all over the walls. I could make out every
single one in the radiant sunlight coming through the window. Vincent had
pictures of me walking along the bay, hanging out with my friends, going to
work, at the café, with my parents, and even shots of me…naked in the shower.

I struggled to breathe, feeling like a
fish out of water. The layout of the room looked similar too. It reminded me of
the bedroom in my apartment.

“Bristol! You lied!” His voice echoed
from the bottom of the stairs.

Getting over the frightening scene, I
swiveled and locked the door I’d just come through, buying myself some time.
Then I sprinted to the other door, unlocking it to hurry outside.

I froze as I stumbled into the living
room, glimpsing pictures of Mr. Farris and his wife on the aged table by the
tan sofa.

Christ! This was my landlord’s apartment
on the first floor. Vincent
lived
with Mr. Farris. How were they
connected? How did he get away with having pictures of me covering his bedroom
walls, much less a love nest in the basement without Mr. Farris knowing?

I jumped at the sound of a door bashing
in. “Liar!” Vincent’s voice bellowed from the bedroom. “You’re just like
Savannah!” I dashed for the front door just as he ran out of the room.

“No!” I screamed, trying to unfasten the
chain in time. Vincent caught me and tossed me away from the door. I ran into
the kitchen and yanked out a knife from the cutlery block, pointing it at him.

Vincent came up to the island, laughing
at my unsteady hands. “You naughty girl. You really had me fooled there for a
second.”

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” He smirked. Sliding
his hand behind his back, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. “Put that
down.”

Nervously, I set the knife down on the counter
and held up my hands.

“You lied to me, Bristol.” He huffed and
shook his head, seriously hurt by my deceit. “You were playing with my heart.
You won’t ever love me. You will
never
love me. You can’t even stand
me.”

“That’s not true. Just give me some time
and I—”

“Enough with your lies!” he barked. “I’m
going to punish you for making a fool of me.”

I pleaded with him, “Please don’t do
this.”

“Come over here,” he instructed,
gesturing with the gun.

Slowly, I started to move toward him. I
wasn’t fast enough so Vincent reached out and tugged me into his arms. He
placed the gun at the side of my head and whispered, “We’re going back to the
basement, and we’ll finish what
you
started.”

Tears started to trickle down my cheeks.
I begged, “Vincent, please. Don’t do this to me. Please—ah,” I gasped at the
sound of the door unlocking.

“Be quiet,” Vincent threatened. “Breathe
one word and I’ll kill you.”

Mr. Farris cursed when he realized that
the chain was fastened, preventing him from entering the apartment. “Son, open
the door.”

“Son?” I murmured.

Vincent jerked me. “I said be quiet.”
Then he called out to Mr. Farris, “Just a sec, Dad.”

Dad!
Of course
.
Vincent’s
eyes
…that’s why they’d stirred me so much at the fundraiser.

I felt like such an idiot. It should
have clicked when Mr. Farris mentioned that his son came around sometimes to
take out his wife.

Why hadn’t I figured it out then?

“Move,” Vincent grunted. He shoved me to
the other side of the door. Keeping the gun on me, he unfastened the chain with
his free hand.

“What took you so long?” Mr. Farris
snapped as he entered. His mouth froze wide open in shock when Vincent shut the
door and he saw me.

Passing a nervous gaze between us, Mr.
Farris asked, “What the hell is—” He stopped when he caught sight of the gun in
his son’s hand. “Roman, what are you doing to Bristol?”

“I told you not to call me that.”
Vincent placed the gun back at the side of my head, then directed Mr. Farris,
“Go over there and sit.”

Terrified, Mr. Farris obeyed, moving to
the sofa to sit down.

“Well,” Vincent jeered. “This is a
problem. You weren’t supposed to be back yet, Dad. What am I going to do with
you now? You’ve seen me with a girl that the cops are probably looking for.”

“Son, where did you get that gun?” Mr.
Farris regarded Vincent with a pained expression. “Where’s your mother?”

“That…” Vincent sighed. “She said
Bristol would never love me. She kept talking about the pictures she’d seen in
my room and told me that I was sick again. She said I needed to go back to the
hospital. What kind of a mother would say such horrible things to her son?”

Mr. Farris clamped his mouth shut. Tears
glossed his eyes. He looked at me and then back at Vincent, who was still
holding the gun firmly at my head. I wondered what his plan was.

“What did you do to your mother?” Mr.
Farris asked after a moment. His voice shook with each word. It was obvious
what his psycho son had done.

He’d killed her.

I was next.

“What do you think?” Vincent chuckled. “I
brought her to our special place and sent her somewhere she can walk again.”

Mr. Farris burst out crying. “No…” I
felt his pain. His love for his wife was beyond evident.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Vincent mocked
him. “She’s in a better place now. You won’t have to take care of her anymore.”

After wiping his face with the palm of
his hand, Mr. Farris tried talking to his son again. “Please, Vincent. Let me
help you.”

“This
again,
” he whined. “I
don’t
need help.” He gripped me tighter in his arms. “What I need is for Bristol to
love me. Why is it so hard for someone to love me?”

“I love you, son.” Mr. Farris rose from
the couch with his hands up. “Your mother loved you. Please put the gun away. I
can get you help.”

“No. Sit,” he demanded. “And stop
talking to me like I’m a child. I’m sick of it.”

“Vincent, please…put the gun down,” Mr.
Farris implored. He slowly approached.

Vincent grew agitated. He moved the gun
from my head and pointed it at his father. I took a risk and elbowed him in the
stomach, knocking the gun out of his hand. I leapt for it. Vincent managed to
recover quickly and shoved me away before I could reach the gun.

“Uh!” I fell to the floor hard. Mr.
Farris dashed for the gun. Vincent grabbed it before his father could and he
fired it once without hesitating.

“No!” I cried out. The earsplitting
sound shook my whole body. I glanced at Mr. Farris. Blood soaked through his
shirt. He gripped his chest where he’d been shot and staggered backward,
knocking over a plant as he collapsed to the floor.

“Oh my god!”

Pushing off the ground, I tried to run
across to the front door but Vincent called out, “Hold it right there, Bristol.
Turn around!”

I spun with my hands up.

“Look what you made me do.” Vincent
straightened on his feet. “I guess I have to finish it now.” He readied the gun
to fire it again. “Go over there.”

I moved to where his father was lying.
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” I said, sobbing. “If we call for help maybe
we can save your father’s life.”

“I don’t want to save him.” He huffed.
“I could have given you the world, Bristol. I loved you more than life. More
than I ever loved Savannah.” He narrowed his eyes. “If I can’t be with you…then
I won’t let anyone else have the chance.”

Mason’s voice hollered from outside the
door, “Police!” My pulse gave a leap.

The door kicked in. A shot fired,
followed by another. Pain soared through me. I dropped down onto the floor, my
shoulder burning.

Mason’s voice came in and out. He pulled
me into his arms. More pain.

“Oh, no. Hold on, Bristol!” He sounded
so afraid.

I drifted across to Vincent. Blood
saturated his chest. There was a cop at his side talking to another. “He won’t
make it,” I heard one say.

Vincent took labored breaths while
steadying his gaze on me. “I’ll love you forever,” he mouthed. Then his body
stilled, and he wasn’t breathing anymore.

Eyes wide open, frozen on me.

I looked at Mason. My heart smiled. I
touched his cheek and whispered, “You found me.”

Mason stroked my head. “Don’t worry, the
ambulance is on its way. You’ll be okay.”

“Amber…” I whispered. “Did you find
Amber?”

He shook his head, regretful. I glanced
at Vincent again, wondering where he’d kept her. Aside from the room
downstairs, where else would be a safe place for him?

It hit me. “She’s…” I gasped for air. “She’s
in my apartment.”

Mason yelled out at the other officers,
“Check upstairs in Bristol’s apartment for her friend.”

He looked back at me, brows knitting
together in worry. I pressed my eyes shut and tears streamed down my face.
What
if Amber wasn’t found alive?

The paramedics came in and kneeled
beside me. They moved Mason away so they could look at my shoulder. “A clean
shot,” one of the guys said. After putting pressure on my wound, they lifted me
up and placed me on the gurney.

Mason stayed by my side as they rolled
me out of the building and into the parking lot. Residents crowded around,
alarmed and wanting to know what had happened.

“Amber?” I asked Mason again before they
put me in the back of the ambulance.

He glanced over at the entrance of the
apartment building. A smile appeared when he looked back at me.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to ease up
to see what was going on. The paramedic set me back down.

“She’s okay,” Mason said, squeezing my
hand.

My anxiety vanished when a frightened
Amber appeared beside him, choked up with tears of relief. “Bristol! You’re
alive.”

“Amber…” I smiled and reached for her
hand. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

She leaned over and pecked me on the
forehead, then looked up at the impatient medic waiting to take me to the
hospital. “Is she going to be all right?”

He nodded. “As soon as we can get her
out of here.”

“I’m going with her,” Amber said
adamantly.

They started to pull my gurney into the
ambulance. I grasped for Mason’s hand. “Don’t leave my side.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He climbed
into the ambulance with Amber.

On the drive to the hospital, I asked
Mason, “How did you know where to find me? About Vincent’s connection to Mr.
Farris?”

He grazed my cheek as he answered, “I
couldn’t find anything on Roman Orsini and nothing worked when I switched the
names up. Then I started thinking about your landlord again. I remembered you
said he’d recommended the security company, so I ran a background search on him
and discovered that he has a son: Roman Farris. Turns out Roman caused trouble
with a college professor a few years ago.”