Page 221 of Deep Cover

It felt like I was never going to be warm again. It felt like I would never escape the house.

While Cole demanded information from the remaining security team, and learned more than I wanted to overhear about the whips, the belts, the crops and the screaming, about the knife play and the backless dress and the games Vincent played that were unwinnable, I heard the sounds from elsewhere in the house as Kie's body was taken away.

Vincent's was taken first. His body wouldn't be taken anywhere it could be found and the reports would make him into a fugitive. The cover story that he killed Kie and ran was likely enough because he had a penchant for blades. A plastic surgeon, after all. Someone who liked to cut. Who liked to alter appearances.

Like Kie's cheeks.

I didn't think the idea of letting Kie's suicide stand as such was untenable. She had killed herself. She'd been a miserable bitch and I didn't want to cover up anything for her, or spare her family if she had any, or be part of any other posthumous kindness.

But putting Vincent to blame for it and letting other women he had hurt over the years come forward to file charges against him, that meant that his estate could be sued and maybe some women would get back some measure of wholeness. He'd hurt them as hookers, as patients, as partners before Kie. If his estate couldn't be sued without a body, I was sure his body would then show up. An anonymous tip. Or just Vincent's body, appearing somewhere. Hopefully degraded.

There was much for his estate to answer to. I was in total agreement with trying to find a way to offer recompense to those he'd harmed. Though not in my case. I wanted nothing from him, and probably there were others who’d feel the same way; that anything touched by Vincent Geddes including his money would be more of a stain.

As for me, I'd gotten my own back. I wasn't bothered being in the house because I'd killed him. I was fine with having killed him, even if it was pretty much simultaneous with Cole killing him.

It was more that I felt that the longer I stayed there, the more, somehow, maybe, by way of magical thinking, he’d won. The longer I had to remain under Vincent's temporary roof, the longer he still had control over me, even if he was dead.

And that was how I knew I was going to need help to get through this.

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