Page 198 of Deep Cover

8

Annie

The next night, the reason for the beating became clear.

Late afternoon I received word that I was to shower and get ready to go out to an event with Vincent. He'd told me from the beginning that sometimes I'd appear on his arm. Now it looked like he meant it.

I was bothered by the idea of anyone knowing exactly when I was going to be in the shower. The bathroom in my room had a lock but I knew about how much good that would do and how long it would stand in the way of someone who wanted to get to me.

I was further bothered by the idea that if this event was public, and possibly even if it wasn't, we'd be leaving tonight or tomorrow morning. I thought that would be the pattern: Vincent would take me somewhere there was a chance we'd be photographed, that word would get out, whatever – he'd make sure Cole found out. And then before anyone could get to us, we'd be airborne and headed somewhere else.

I didn't want to head somewhere else. The routines of this house we were in had only just started to become clear after a week. I was testing myself on the comings and goings and shifts of security, on where Kie was and when, on where I thought the cameras were. To leave this place meant starting over and every delay in getting free of Vincent was potentially deadly.

It wasn't just Vincent I was afraid of – and afraid was the word. Something I'd been when undercover, but never like this.

I was also afraid of my addiction. If being kept became too intolerable, it was possible I'd take whatever I could get my hands on to get out of my head and into somewhere else. That would be a waste of all the work I'd done with Cole. It might mean negative consequences to my health.

And I was afraid of my own fraying temper. The Lily persona could take a lot of abuse from the men around her and go on holding her head up in a goofy sort of way. I wasn't Lily here. As much as the abuse rankled, the enforced nothingness of the days was worse. There were things I could be doing. Drug deals I could be stopping. I could be visiting with my father and living my real life, though more and more I thought planning my wedding – at least to Mark – was unlikely, no matter when I returned to being Annie Knox, Seattle PD or DEA or wherever I ended up.

When my temper frayed from enforced nothingness, I lost control. If I lost control with Vincent or Kie, the results could be catastrophic.

I no longer thought that killing me was the worst thing they could do.

The day before in the room on the St. Andrews Cross, Vincent had hurt me but nothing like I might have anticipated. The man who had scarred Kie's cheeks might have flayed open my back but instead he'd left red welts as big around as my fingers and long – each one maybe a foot or more. There was only one place he'd split the skin; the rest of them were welts. When the one blow had brought welts, that's when I'd heard him swear.

He was good at what he did. I had no doubt he'd selected the tool he wanted and achieved the results he was looking for.

When I got out of the shower and into the garter and stockings laid out for me, I found the dress had been hung inside the closet. What was it with these men and their passion for dressing women like we were going to The Oscars? Cole had more than one custom dress sewn for me. I wasn't a dressy kind of girl.

But this was stunning and I instantly understood what Vincent had done and what kind of event we'd be attending. Because the dress had an almost conservative front: Scoop neck and actual fabric going up and over my shoulders – not spaghetti straps, but not sleeves either. Just wide straps. The whole thing was a shimmering deep midnight blue, like looking up into a starry sky.

There was no back to the dress until it reached my waist.

He'd only worked over my upper back.

Hot tears threatened and I blinked against them, holding the dress up in front of me as if near-sightedly inspecting it. I wanted to block any cameras from seeing me tear up. It wasn't the dress. It was the planning. The cold-hearted well thought out plan so that he would have the results he wanted.

I hadn't slept the night before except fitfully toward dawn. All day I'd been feeling the marks, a burning pain when I moved.

The word freak wanted to exit my mouth and I kept it firmly back. There was no way to show no emotion to the cameras but at least I could avoid more trouble.

Moving into the dressing area, I carefully did my makeup, remembering the tips Kie had given me. Some of what she'd told me was specific to Vincent's tastes. I believed her only because I didn't think she'd want to risk further punishment from him for the time being.

Makeup. Hair. Nails and skin. Then I took off the sweats I'd been wearing over the garter and stockings and dropped the dress over my head. It clung to my boobs, like its own shelf bra, followed the line of my waist, hung from my hips straight down with no flare. I checked the back in the multiple mirrors: The dress neatly framed Vincent's handiwork.

Gingerly, I sat on the edge of the makeup table chair, waiting for his footsteps in the hall outside my prison. Only when I heard him did I slip into the shoes and stand, waiting and ready and as expressionless as I could manage.

As if he couldn't wring any expression from me he pleased.

"And how did you two meet, dear?"

The woman asking me the question looked like her last sane thought had been during the Bush administration, probably the reign of Bush the first. Her hair was tortured into an unnatural pink and set in the kind of permanent my great-grandmother favored in the last decade of her life.

She was seriously asking how the man who did what Vincent did to my back and then displayed it had gotten together with me?

Well, let's see, he bought me in an auction for $5.5 million dollars and when my Master wouldn't let him take me home with him like some sort of life size door prize, he came back with armed men and took me. How did you and your husband meet?

Then I thought again about the dress and the shoes, about the place we were. I looked up at the centerpiece on the dining table. She was young and blonde and obviously stoned, lashed to a pole that went up through the table, naked and pink and perfect. What would happen to her after dinner, I didn't want to know. The only way I'd want to know that was if someone came along and put my badge and gun in my hand. I wouldn't even care that I was out of my jurisdiction, possibly by an entire continent.

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