White Collared Part Four: Passion (9 page)

Her phone rang from inside her purse, and she sent up a silent prayer that it was Jaxon letting her know he was on his way. That he hadn’t left for Aruba.

Maybe Nick wasn’t too far gone. If she could get him talking, she could figure out how to reason with him. The man she’d known couldn’t have been a total lie, could he?

She squeezed her purse to her chest a little tighter and gestured to the photograph with a jab of her chin. “How long had you been Alyssa’s Master when you fixed her up with Jaxon?”

He crossed his arms in front of him. “I didn’t earn the title until much later, but our relationship began when we were thirteen.”

Thirteen.

“You met at camp.”

His lips curled with disgust. “Yes. A camp designed to purge the wickedness from our souls. Most kids got a summer filled with swimming, hiking, and praying, but the reverend always chose one or two special girls whom he felt needed more of his attention.”

“What did he do to them?”

“Whatever he wanted.” He played with the knife, unfolding it and then folding it, over and over, the clicking sound of it making her jump. “Then he’d blame the demon temptress inside her for enticing him to sin.”

She tried to ignore the subtle threat of the knife and trained her eyes on his face. “He molested Alyssa and beat her?”

He dropped his hands to his sides and clenched his fists. “After he raped her, he’d chain her to the floor and make her kneel as he eulogized for hours. He brainwashed her into believing it was her fault.”

“How did you get involved?” she asked gently, hoping to soothe him with her voice.

“I found her crying hysterically on the docks one day, and nothing I said got through to her until I slapped her across her face. She calmed and thanked me for it. I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong, but she refused.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “After that day, she sought me out almost daily and asked me to hit her. At first I was horrified. I was a thirteen-year-old kid. I’d been taught to never lay a hand on a girl. But she needed it so badly from me. It was a heady feeling to be her hero. We decided spankings would work best since she could hide the bruises. By the end of the summer, I was using a switch I’d carved from a branch.”

She eyed the room, looking for another way out. She couldn’t remember. Was there a window in the bathroom? “When did she tell you she’d been raped?”

He took a few steps toward her, still blocking the exit. “Not until a couple years later when we ran into each other at a party. As soon as she got home from camp, she told her parents about the rape, and instead of supporting her, they took the reverend’s side. When I ran into her at the party, she was high on cocaine and dancing half-naked on the couch to a room full of teenage boys. I grabbed her and took her to one of the bedrooms where I punished her for her behavior. That’s when I became her Master and got her off the drugs. When she needed it, I’d beat her.”

“Were you lovers?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Never?”

He smiled, a stark contrast to the rigidness of his body and the knife in his hand. “Not once. It was never about sex for us. I was the only person in the world she could rely on.”

It didn’t make sense. If he’d truly cared about her, why hadn’t he gotten her to report the rapes to the police or explained to her parents that she’d been telling the truth about Reverend Pierce? It was as if he’d enjoyed her dependency on him.

She swallowed, her throat so dry it felt as though she’d walked through a desert. “Why Jaxon? Why did you have them meet?”

He shrugged, still playing with that damned knife, almost as if he were doing it unconsciously. “I loved her. She deserved a man who’d take care of all of her needs, sexual and otherwise. When I met Jaxon, I recognized the dominance in him. I liked him. He became my best friend, and I wanted good things for him. Alyssa was wealthy, beautiful, and submissive. She was perfect for him. Once he took over as her Dom, I removed my collar.”

Which was why Alyssa still wore it in the picture. She’d hid her submissive nature from Jaxon until he’d broken up with her. Only then had she come to him with the paddle, asking him to hit her. Nick had manipulated Jaxon’s life. What kind of a friend did that?

She trembled, her fingers digging into the leather of her purse. “If you loved her, why did you kill her?”

He stalked to her, and she instinctively backed up, only stopping when her legs hit the bed. “It was a mercy killing. She wanted to die.”

She sucked in a breath, aware of the knife, which was now only inches away from her. “And you just decided to set up Joseph for it?”

Nick’s eyes bulged, and his skin turned red from rage. “Joseph deserved to be punished for killing Stephanie.”

“That’s how you got your internship back. How you became a senior partner so quickly. You blackmailed him with that videotape the police found in Miles Joseph’s storage locker.”

He tsked. “Kate, come on. You should know better. That was my storage locker.” He laughed, the sound of it frightening her almost more than the knife. “You can always count on the police to take everything at face value. Thanks to your search of Joseph’s office, they found everything they needed to wrap up two murder cases, and with today’s election looming like a dark storm cloud over District Attorney Savage’s head, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d do anything to jeopardize his perceived success. But to answer your question, yes, that videotape forced Joseph to reinstate my internship.” He clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed. “I. Deserved. It.”

“I don’t understand. How did you get that videotape?” She caught the sudden scent of copper in the air and looked down at Nick’s hands.

He’d sliced his palm with his knife. Blood ran down his wrist, staining the sleeves of his white shirt and dripping off his thumb onto the carpet.

Her pulse skyrocketed, the familiar first sign of an impending anxiety attack. But as much as the situation warranted it, she couldn’t give in this time. She needed to stay in control.

Especially since Nick had lost his.

Oblivious to the blood, he pounded his injured hand on his chest. “Stephanie was my first love. She understood what it took to succeed. I’d heard rumors of Joseph’s predilection for young girls, but he was careful. They had to be at least sixteen. Stephanie was eighteen, but she appeared younger. He’d propositioned her several times, and she’d always said ‘no’ until she finally said ‘yes.’
For me.
She arranged to meet him at a sleazy motel in Detroit that rented by the hour.” His bloody hand dropped to his side. “We planted a video camera.”

She didn’t want to hear the rest, and yet she had to know the truth. “What was the plan? Videotape him having sex? His wife wouldn’t have cared.”

“No, not his wife, but the senior partners wouldn’t have understood. It’s one thing to have an affair, but it’s another to have it with your eighteen-year-old secretary. And if they had discovered that he’d had sex with girls as young as sixteen, his career would have been over. No one at the firm would have wanted to risk a scandal.” He yanked on his hair, almost as if he were trying to pull it from his scalp. “I hadn’t planned on him killing Stephanie. I never would’ve sent her to him if I’d thought she’d be in danger. When she didn’t call that night, I knew something went wrong. I rented the same hotel room and found the video camera still there, hidden. I watched it. He’d bound her with blue rope, leaving her completely helpless, and then suffocated her as he fucked her. Held her by her head and smashed her face into the pillow without knowing it. He panicked when he discovered her dead. But not enough to call the police.”

“Neither did you.” The challenging statement slipped out before she could stop it.

“It was too late!” he shouted, spit flying out of his mouth and his already tiny pupils shrinking. “There was nothing I could do to bring her back!” He paced the length of the room, back and forth, his knife held out in front of him.

She took the opportunity to dig her hand into her purse and pull out her gun. But she didn’t want to force him into a position where she’d have to use it. She dropped her purse to the floor and slipped the weapon into the back of her pants.

Nick continued pacing, lost in his diatribe and unaware of her actions. “She would’ve wanted me to use it to my advantage. If I hadn’t used that video, I never would’ve gotten where I am today. I’m able to pick and choose my case load. Do pro bono work that other attorneys wouldn’t touch. I’ve done great things for people.”

His narcissism disgusted her. “Are you trying to convince me that all the good you’ve done outweighs the fact that a mother still has no idea why her daughter died? That Miles Joseph walked free for years while Stephanie’s murder went unsolved?”

He looked distraught, his face crumpling as he stopped moving. His Jekyll and Hyde routine was giving her whiplash. “I thought you’d understand.” A smile broke out on his face and his voice softened. “We’re alike, you and I. We know sometimes you have to work outside the law for the greater good. We’ve both killed people we love.”

He compared the murder of Alyssa to the accidental shooting of her father. How did he not see the difference? Then again, how could
she
have ignored the difference all these years? She’d punished herself for an accident while Nick had benefitted from a young woman’s death.

“What changed? Why did you decide to frame Joseph now?”

“I’d always known I’d get my revenge for Stephanie’s death, but I had to wait for a sign that it was the right time.” He strode to her, and she readied herself to take aim if necessary. But he surprised her with his tender expression and a gentle caress of her cheek with his injured hand. “You, Kate. You were my sign. When you strolled into my office for your internship interview, I knew you were meant to be mine. It all came together at that moment as if Stephanie sent you to me. You were so eager to please. Almost as intelligent as me. The perfect submissive for the perfect Master.”

She winced. Jaxon had shown her strength in submission, but Nick gave her the impression that he considered her to be a mindless drone because of it and preferred her that way. “Why not just leak the tape to the police?”

A tick pulsed in his jaw. “And go down for obstruction of justice? Joseph would turn on me before they slammed shut his jail cell door. Even if they didn’t prosecute, the accusation alone would ruin my career. Besides, prison was too good for that bastard. He needed to pay.”

“So you decided to set him up for another murder? Why Alyssa? If you loved her how could you kill her?”

“I thought you understood!” He shook his head violently. “Alyssa wanted to die but she was too scared to do it on her own. She needed me to do it for her.”

“Did she ask you? When you tortured her that last time, did she know she was going to die?”

“She didn’t have to ask me. I was her Master. I knew what she needed better than she did. What you consider torture, she considered ecstasy. It was a beautiful death.”

Nick was sicker than she’d realized. He didn’t even understand right from wrong.

“So you decided to kill Joseph and use me as your weapon.”

He smiled again and dragged his bloody hand down his face. “The morning you searched his office, I called him pretending I was from security and let him know someone had broken in. Then I waited until the time was right to shoot him. You’re brilliant. I knew you’d figure out a way to trace the e-mails I’d sent from Joseph’s computer and my hacking into your Facebook page.”

Brilliant? She’d slept in the same bed as a sociopath. Trusted him with her career. With her life. How brilliant could she be?

Anger flooded her, making her skin feel itchy and hot. It nauseated her that he couldn’t see all the harm he’d caused. “You ruined Jaxon’s life. He lost his wife, his career, everything because of you.”

“I never intended for him to be a suspect. He was supposed to be out of town. I didn’t know he’d come home early. I’d always planned for you to go to Benediction with him to find the killer, but Jaxon being a suspect made it that much easier to convince you. Then when I discovered that he’d lied about his alibi, I knew it would change how you felt about him.” He cupped her cheek with his injured palm. “Don’t you see? I love you.”

She shrugged him off. “You manipulated me. I almost died because of your need for revenge. Hannah was stabbed.”

“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I’d made with Stephanie. That’s why I made sure you were never alone. I called you and warned you off the case. You needed me to protect you. To comfort you. And I did. The night you slept in my arms on your couch was one of the happiest moments of my life. It felt right, didn’t it? I didn’t want you spending any more time with Jaxon than necessary, but I wasn’t worried. Not at first. After all, you were in love with me, and the man had just lost his wife. I never thought it would go further than training and maybe some casual fucking. I should’ve realized you might fall for his dominance. I had to show you he wasn’t whom he’d pretended to be. So I called the police and tipped them off to Bethany Gold. And now he’s gone to Aruba where he’ll forget all about you. But you don’t need him anymore. You have me now.”

She wrapped her hand around her back to grip the gun. “You think I need you? You used me as bait knowing Joseph would try to kill me. I saw his car when I visited Martha Webber. He was following me, and if you were following me as well, you knew my life was in danger. Hannah almost died.”

“You didn’t obey! That wasn’t my fault!” His skin went from red to purple and the cords of his neck strained against the white collar of his shirt. He sliced the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger, over and over, as he picked up his pacing again. “You were supposed to stay at your apartment and wait for Jaxon to take you to Benediction. You’re submissive. That means you fucking obey your Master! Me! The man who loves you! Tell me you love me! That you understand why I did everything.”

Blood spilled down his fingers, the cuts shallow but numerous. She had a feeling if she didn’t talk him down from this rampage, he’d kill her. She could end this now. Take out the gun and hold him at gunpoint while she called the police. But what if he forced her hand? What if she had to shoot him? Could she do it?