Page 143 of Beneath the Burn

“Very good. Now remove that hideous shirt.”

Fuck. Shit. Shit. How was he seeing her in the dark? No way was she going to run across the well-lit pool area. She spun back toward Jay’s room, slamming her knee into a chair, slipped through the door, and locked it behind her. “How’d you get this number?”

The desire to hang up was overwhelming, but somehow hearing his voice gave her a sense of traction, as if keeping him with her prevented him from sneaking up on her.

She ran to the bedside table and hit buttons on the console until the curtains hummed, covering the windows and doors. A relieved breath slipped past her lips.

“That was a mistake, Charlee. You’ll be punished severely for it.”

The curtains shifted, reopened. She flinched and recovered by hitting the buttons. Nothing. The damn thing wasn’t working.

Vulnerability crept into her bones. She backed toward the interior door. “I hate you for everything you’ve done to me. Most of all, I hate you for taking all those lives.” Heart punching against her ribs, she bolted out of the bedroom and raced down the hall. “How many have you killed? My father, your guard, his niece…Noah.”

“I haven’t killed anyone.”

Fucking liar. He excelled at distortion, built an enterprise with his forked tongue.

She burst through the double doors and into the corridor. Where was everyone? Oh God. What if he was there? What if the Craigs—

“Ah, there you are. Take off that shirt. Now.”

She glanced down.The Burnemblazoned in red flames across her chest. Her pulse raced.

If Roy were on the property, he wouldn’t have been on the phone. She turned in a circle, followed the angles of the soaring ceiling. There. A corner-mounted camera.

“Yes, Charlee. I have eyes everywhere. Come home.”

Her knees buckled. She turned back toward Tony’s door, the nearest room, tried the handle. Locked. She pounded her fist.

“Mr. Winslow and Ms. Tony are in the control room trying to recover the faulty security system.”

The security system was down? Chills ran through her, and sweat beaded on her face. She pressed her back against the wall, cringing at the storage room door and the shadows in the bends and nooks of the suddenly too-long corridor. “If you cared about me at all, you’d let me live my life.”Keep him talking. Find Jay, Nathan, someone.

“I’m so very disappointed you’re fucking him, Charlee. You belong to me. I don’t like what I saw outside his bedroom. You will be punished for that, as will he.”

A crash barreled through the phone. Oh God. She hoped he was alone. His fury never missed its mark when there was a living punching bag nearby.

She crept along the wall toward the basement doorway which would take her to the wine cellar and the control room. She reached it just before the living room and a black hole yawned from below. Where was the light switch? She fumbled along the wall, searching, and brushed her hand over it. Nothing. She flicked it again and again. The darkness below held still.

The living room lights blinked out. The kitchen and hallway followed, plunging her into blackness. She gripped the phone and tried to slow her breathing. Goddamned fucking Nathan. Why had she let him take her gun? “Where are you?”

“Right here, beautiful girl. I can see your lovely tits heaving. I’m still waiting for that shirt to be removed. Every act of disobedience is a strike against your friends.”

Her eyes darted over the ceiling and locked on a solid red light.

“That’s right. Lucky for us, the cameras have infrared illuminators.”

Lucky for her, that confirmed he wasn’t in the house. Unless he was fucking with her. She eased into the stairway. Were there cameras there? Fuck, she should’ve paid attention. This was the price she paid for letting her guard down.

The estate was so damn automated. The lighting, communications, and surveillance controls must’ve been tied together. “How are you controlling the automation system?”

“RAT. Remote Administration Tool. A nasty, covert piece of software delivered by way of a spear phish. Someone there ignorantly clicked on an e-mail attachment and let my tool drop in. That overpaid security team can look for it, but they’ll be chasing ghosts. It would take electronic forensics to find the barest remnant of it, but I’m not holding my breath.” He chuckled. “Though it appears you are. Breathe, Charlee.”

How long had he been watching them? Her heartbeat roared in her ears and her fingers followed the wall as she tapped one foot in front of the other down the stairs.

“You asked the wrong question.” The sick purr in his voice must’ve meant they’d come to point of his game.

She reached the bend in the stairs. Halfway there. What was the question? She’d asked how he was doing it. “Whyare you doing this?”

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