Princess, Without Cover (20 page)

“Why do you feel as though you deserve an explanation?” Harrison asked, as he leaned casually against the marble counter.  “Although it should be obvious.  Last year, when my dear step-father found out that he has cancer, he changed his will.  And I’m not in it.”

“You have cancer?”  Randall turned to Paul in astonishment, who appeared resigned as he nodded tiredly.

“I didn’t want to upset anyone yet.  There was no sense in it, since there isn’t anything that anyone can do.  It’s untreatable. The doctor gave me a year at the most.”

“Yes, a year.  And a year isn’t very long to stage this whole thing.  But we managed to pull it off, didn’t we, Jillian?” 

She nodded at Harrison in satisfaction, not taking her gun off of the group as she beamed at her accomplice.

“But I still don’t understand why.” Randall persisted.  “Why did you want to stage all of this?  He already took you out of the will. What will you accomplish by killing him? Revenge?”

“How can a US senator be so stupid?  I’m embarrassed by our elected officials, truly.” Harrison shook his head. 

“I needed to stage this in order to make my mother feel sorry for me—that her poor son was so traumatized by having his dear step-father molest him for years and then turn on him that she will leave everything to me with a little bit of gentle persuasion. It won’t take much. She’ll be overcome with guilt for allowing such abuse to happen under her nose. And then, of course, I’ll kill her, as well.”

“I can’t believe that any one person can possibly be so heinous.” Randall glared at him. 

“You don’t know the half of it, daddy.” Sydney interjected.  “He’s an evil person.  He kept Deidre locked up for God knows how long, raping her every day, not feeding her.  Mother, you really know how to pick them.  How did you two find each other, anyway?”  

For some strange reason, she felt a sense of calm as she faced her mother.  It wasn’t like they could do much more to her.  Her death warrant was already signed. 

Sydney was surprised to see that for the first time, Jillian looked slightly unsure of herself.  She ignored Sydney’s question and glanced at Harrison.

“Is that true?  Did you really have sex with that girl? You didn’t mention that.”

“
That’s
the part that bothers you, mother… that he
raped
her while he held her against her will and starved her? You don’t care that he is plotting to murder your family and then his own mother?  All you care about is that he had sex with someone other than you?” 

Sydney didn’t know if she could feel any more astounded than she already did.  Her mother truly was a monster.  Harrison interrupted them in annoyance.

“Does it really matter, Jillian?  Fate threw us together and we spit in its face by creating our own destiny out of the shit that we were dealt.  Everything is going off without a hitch. And in a couple of weeks, we’ll leave here together, and never look back.” 

Harrison’s cobalt eyes glittered coldly as he spoke, as he turned to face his accomplice. He reached out to grasp her arm, but she jerked away and took a step back.

“But you didn’t tell me.  About the girl.  That matters to me.” Jillian stared at him.  

“For God’s sake, Jillian.  I can’t see why that would matter.  She was just a whore that I dated a few times.”

“Yes, a whore that you apparently couldn’t live without.  You kept her under lock and key for God only knows how long.  Maybe you knew that if you didn’t lock her up, eventually she would leave you when she figured out that you’re a
monster
.” Sydney couldn’t help but to interrupt again, but Jillian wasn’t paying attention.

“It matters because I can’t trust you.” Her voice hardened.

Before anyone could react, she aimed her gun squarely at his chest and pulled the trigger at point-blank range without hesitation.

Harrison’s expression was astounded as he staggered backward against the granite counter.  “You bitch!” 

He pressed his hands to his chest, as if to compress the bleeding, but it couldn’t possibly help.  The blood spurted over and around his hands like a fountain, quickly soaking through his pale gray shirt.

He started to say something else, but blood gurgled from his mouth before he could form the words.  He crumpled to the floor into a crimson pool, which quickly saturated the rest of his expensive clothing.

Sydney couldn’t breathe as she stared at the bloody body in front of her. Harrison’s eyes stared lifelessly straight ahead, seemingly right at her, so she closed her own to shut the image out.

“That fool.  As if I could have let him live anyway.” Jillian actually smiled as she stared at Harrison’s twitching body.  “Can’t you just see the headlines now?  ‘Senator’s wife is the sole survivor in a twisted love triangle gone bad. Hero detective dies in an effort to save her.’” 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stephen’s hand twitched, then twitched again.  He was slowly waking up, which he found curious because he hadn’t realized that he had gone to sleep.  He was lying flat on his back on the floor, which was also strange, because he had no idea how he got there.  The thick carpet against his back wasn’t unpleasant however, so he remained still for a moment, trying to grasp what had happened.  His memory was blank.

His eyelids were heavy and when he finally managed to get them open, the room surrounding him was blurry.  He squeezed his eyes shut and re-opened them, with only slightly better results. There seemed to be two of everything.  The deep yellow color on the walls seemed to create a golden haze around him as everything blurred together.  

He had been drugged. That much was obvious.  A memory came rushing back to him. 

A fancy china teacup. 

He thought harder, focusing on that teacup.  Jillian had brought both he and Tom hot tea earlier. He didn’t remember anything after that.  So, it was the tea.  Thankfully, he had only taken a few sips of it.  Judging by how woozy he felt right now, whatever was in it had been very strong.  If he had finished the cup, it might have killed him.

Across the room, in a plush wing-backed chair next to the fireplace, Tom sat with his head tilted straight back and his mouth hanging open.  He was snoring loudly, with a tea cup spilled in his lap. His wrinkled, calloused hand had dropped to the floor. 

Stephen scanned the room with blurry vision.  He and Tom were the only two people in the room.  He heaved his body up into a crouched position, holding his head in his hands for a scant minute while he regained his balance. 

He sat still, listening for noises coming from the rest of the house.  There was nothing.  He had no idea how long he had been out, but sunshine poured in through the windows so it was still afternoon.  He didn’t allow himself to be comforted by that.  Quite a lot could have happened in an hour or even a few minutes.  The quiet surrounding him was eerie and it completely unnerved him.  It made the large house seem like a mausoleum.

As quickly as he could, he pushed himself off of the floor into a standing position, leaning heavily onto the senator’s massive desk for balance.  His eyes focused in on the senator’s desk phone.  He picked it up.  Thankfully, there was a dial tone.  He realized that he hadn’t been expecting one.  He pushed the redial button with a shaking finger.  The effects of the drug were wreaking havoc on him.  He could barely even think straight.  

“This is Briggs,” a male voice answered.

“Is this the FBI?” Stephen whispered, as softly as he could while still being audible.

“Yes. This is Agent Briggs. Who is this?”

“This is Stephen James.  I’m calling from Senator Randall Ross’ desk phone.  He said that he called you earlier?”

“Yes, he did.  We’re en route to his property.  We should arrive within fifteen minutes.”

“That might be too late.  I don’t know what is going on, but Jillian Ross drugged me and it looks like everyone else, too.  I don’t know the whereabouts of the senator, his wife or his daughter.  But I do know that everyone here is in danger.  It looks like Mrs. Ross is involved in whatever is going on.  Just hurry.”

Without waiting for a response, Stephen replaced the receiver into the cradle of the phone.  His only purpose was to make the FBI was aware of the situation.  Now that they were, he could focus on the most important thing.  

Finding Sydney.

He crept as silently as he could across the room, checking Tom’s pulse.  It was steady and strong.  He shook the older man gently in an effort to wake him, but Tom wouldn’t rouse.  Stephen gave up and continued on to the doorway.  He glanced down the long hallway, but saw nothing unusual. Until he stepped out and almost tripped on Deidre.  She was lying directly parallel with the wall right outside of the office doorway.

Kneeling beside her, he rolled her over. But even before he could check for a pulse, he knew that she was dead. Her skin was still warm, but her green eyes were unfocused and fixated lifelessly on the wall. He drew in a ragged breath before tucking her hair behind her ear and closing her eyes softly.  There were no marks or blood visible on her, so he had to assume that her degenerated system had absorbed all of the drug that Jillian had fed her and it had killed her. 

As he stared at her battered face, a wave of compassion flooded through him at the end that this poor girl had met.  She had fought for God only knows how long as Harrison’s captive, enduring emotional and physical abuse, only to be killed by drinking a cup of tea.  Adrenaline and fury began pumping through him and he lunged to his feet, charging down the stairway.  His vision was still fuzzy but he disregarded it.  He’d have to make it work- he was intent on finding Sydney before Deidre’s fate became her own.  

He turned left at the end of the hall and cautiously opened the first door that he came to.  And the question of the whereabouts of the Ross’ staff was answered.  The bodies of Stella and Ben were draped over the edge of a bathtub.  Blood ran down Stella’s arm, forming a pool on the floor by the marble tub.  His heart accelerated into a sprint.  The body count was up to three.  Apparently, Jillian was planning on leaving no witnesses.

He tried to plot a course of action in his head, but the drug in his system was making his thought process sluggish.  It was frustratingly hard to think and he shook his head to clear it.  As he concentrated, he suddenly remembered seeing a shot gun in the bed of Tom’s truck.  Since he was only steps from the front door, he quietly slipped outdoors and made his way to the truck, trying to keep out of sight of any of the house windows.  He had no way of knowing who might be watching.

Rounding the bed of the truck, he spotted a battered old shotgun with relief.  He lifted it out, flipped it open and found that it was loaded. 

Unfortunately, Tom hadn’t brought any replacement ammunition. Stephen would have to make do with two rounds, which was better than nothing.  He grasped the cool metal tightly as he climbed the stone stairs of the front porch. It didn’t even occur to him to run and save himself.  His only thought was of finding Sydney.

As he stepped quietly into the foyer, he caught the faint sound of voices coming from the back end of the house.  He silently cursed the fact that he had never been in the house before.  He was completely unfamiliar with it.  Lifting the gun up onto his shoulder, he crept slowly into the direction of the muffled voices, his nerves standing up on end.  He would just have to follow the noise.

As he continued stealthily through the library, the voices got infinitely sharper and more defined.  Jillian’s hateful voice drifted through the room to him.

“Honestly, Sydney.  You act as though you’ve never seen a dead person before!  Well, I guess you haven’t.  You can cross that off your bucket-list!” 

Jillian laughed bitterly and Stephen felt relief flood through him in warm waves.  Sydney was alive.  That was all that mattered.

He crossed the remainder of the large room in four strides and chanced a glance into the kitchen. He found Jillian with her back facing him standing over the bloody, inert body of Harrison Daniels.  He wasn’t sorry to see Harrison in the position that he was in, but his comfort was short-lived.  Jillian was armed. 

His gaze flew to Sydney’s face.  She was slumped into her father’s side, as pale as he had ever seen her. But she was alive. He couldn’t see any visible injuries, making him want to sing and shout, but his relief died quickly.

“Okay.  Who wants to go next?” 

Jillian swung the gleaming black gun around, pointing it at each of them in turn.  Sydney, Randall and Paul stared at her motionlessly, each face expressionless. The kitchen lights reflected off of a slight sheen of perspiration glazing Senator Hayes’ forehead, which was the only give-away of his distress.  By all other appearances, they were utterly calm.  No one in the group noticed Stephen’s head poking into the doorway.  He felt his heart pound as he tried to decide what to do. 

He had two rounds of ammunition and Jillian was only one person.  But she was standing directly in front of the group. The spray from the shot gun could hit any of them.

“Oh, come on.  I’ve had my practice round out of the way.  It’ll be quick, I promise.”    Jillian laughed again as she grabbed Sydney by the hair. 

“Why don’t you go,
Princess?
Ladies first.  And
after you’re gone, dear daddy won’t have anything to live for anyway.”

“You’re a sick bitch, you know that?” Paul muttered.

“Oh, I’m the sick one?  You’re the one who had an affair with a married man!  For
years.
  All while living a lie to the public…you had a perfect wife, perfect kids, perfect family.  Perfect
lies.
  Oh- and let’s not forget-
you’re
the one who molested poor Harrison his whole life.”

“Those are lies and you know it!” Paul protested, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. 

“Yes,” Jillian answered smoothly, “I do know.  But the rest of America won’t.” 

She paused to grin at him like a sick Cheshire cat.

“The best lies are those that are combined with truths.  It makes them much more believable.  Isn’t it crazy that your
lies
about your sexuality are going to make it seem plausible that you’re a monster? Because once the public learns that you tried to hide who you are… they’ll believe that anything is possible.  Because you lied about everything else.”