Page 63 of A Light in the Darkness
Michael dug into Evan Ludlow for me while I was on the way here, after Dimitri texted him with the name to look into. He seemed like a random sadist, at first, until Michael discovered where he worked.
Ludlow used the cover of one of his associates in the auction. This whole time, I’ve been worried about Carrington Hardin, but the real threat was his boss. I doubt Hardin even knows his identity was stolen and used to fund sex slavery.
I don’t have the energy to explain it to any of them right now. Part of me is pissed that Dimitri didn’t notice it when he did his reconnaissance, but the larger part of me knows Ludlow was smart. His financial portfolio revealed large stakes in Boulder Tech, so I’m willing to bet every penny in all of his accounts that he was able to work around a lot of security protocols, just in case anyone ever started asking questions. He was willing to throw his employees under the bus and implicate them in violent crimes, but that’s not really a surprise given everything else I know him to be capable of.
“How did the fire start, though?” Dimitri asks, I think more to himself than either of us.
“Electrical, I think? She was chained to something like a fucking hoist system, and it was motorized. I don’t know.” He looks like he’s about to be sick again, and I can’t even blame him. The thought of her hanging in his basement like cattle for slaughter makes me want to carve out the insides of any man who so much as looks at her. “Only Claire can tell us what happened in there, but you can’t be thinking of asking her?”
“No.” I answer for him, swallowing my disgust. “Whatever happened in that basement is her business. She doesn’t tell us anything she doesn’t want to, and nobody fucking asks. Understood?”
Victor looks like he’s going to protest, but he catches my eye and nods instead.
We’re quiet again, and the anxiety is unraveling inside of me. It shouldn’t be taking this long, should it?
I’m grateful when the ringing pulls me out of my head, but for one horrible moment, I think it’s the flat drone of a machine that’s not detecting a heart rhythm.
And then Victor slides the phone against his ear. He doesn’t say anything; the voice on the other end of the line begins immediately. It’s so loud I can’t not hear her—his wife. “Where the hell are you?”
I see the senator’s eyes sweeping the hospital walls, trying to come up with an answer. “Police station.” He says finally. “I brought her here to make a statement. Evan’s dead… we need to work on her defense.”
“The police station?” His wife screams. “You fucking idiot. Get the fuck out of there. They don’t know she was even there! Bring her home, right now!”
“I will.” He says gently. His behavior is so at odds with hers, it makes everything feel even more surreal. “She’s with an officer now. As soon as she’s done, I’ll bring her back to the house. You’ll make up a room for her?”
“Yes, Rose will get everything ready. Just… don’t let her tell them anything that will come back to hurt us.”
I watch his face crumple, but he works hard to keep his voice neutral. “Why would anything come back to hurt us, Addison?”
“You found a girl chained up in someone’s basement!” She shrieks. “That’s not a good look for us, Vic. Evan worked for us for years… his wife babysits our boys. I’m sure whatever happened, this is all just a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding.” He nods, dragging a hand over his face. “Yeah, I’m sure nothing nefarious happened.” The sarcasm is obvious to me, but his wife is happy to accept his agreement.
“It was probably a little light BDSM. You know he and Kristen opened their marriage. She’s probably just a new pet.”
“A pet.” The senator echoes. “Right. I have to go.”
I hear Addison’s protests, but it doesn’t stop Victor from ending the call. His eyes find me watching him. He’s quiet a moment, and I don’t have the energy to pay him any mind. I’m already turning away from him to stare at the door when he speaks.
“She recognized her.”
I turn back to glance at him, trying to make sense of whatever he just said. “What?”
“Claire.” He swallows, placing a hand against the brick wall to steady himself. I catch his eyes lingering on his wedding band, like he’s wary it may brand him suddenly. “Claire recognized my wife.”
“Like… from pictures?” Dimitri asks, glancing between the two of us.
“No…” Victor punctuates the word with a slow shake of his head. “No, sheknewher. She called her Addie.”
I’m not sure what he’s getting at, until an old memory unlocks in my mind. The first time I took Claire out on my boat, when I’d been so convinced that she was hiding something from me, I’d demanded she tell me things. Shehadbeen hiding things, it turned out, just not the things I expected she was.
“My social worker, Addie, was there when I woke up in the hospital.”
Addie. She was the one constant in Claire’s life, she got her out of the psych hold of her attempted suicide, she told her to emancipate herself. And she got Claire moved up the admissions list at a prestigious University.
I hadn’t bothered to ask, back then, how a social worker would be capable of doing these things. But now I know, a social worker couldn’t have managed all that alone. And burying the policerecords from the night Claire was removed from the Giante’s home? A social worker couldn’t do that.
But I know damn well a senator’s wife could have done it.
