Page 31 of Finding Eve
He was too old. Too tired. And protecting Bryan all these years had cost him too much.
The manor’s door chimes sounded a visitor, and he steeled himself prior to giving entry to the darkness lurking on the opposite side.
“Judge Matthew.” Detective Devon Vonn nodded a sharp greeting.
“Please.” He waved the man inside.
Familiar with the route, Vonn’s stride held no hesitation, while each heavy step Roland took increased his heartbreak tenfold. His legs numb, he entered the library behind the detective.
“You were supposed to watch him,” he said, coming around his desk to sit while Vonn settled himself into the chair Bryan had vacated minutes ago.
“Iwaswatching him.” Vonn waved his hand to take in their surroundings. “Bryan never left the house. There was no way I could have stopped him from taking Eve.”
“But you knew.”
Detective Vonn shrugged a shoulder. “She came in, and she never left.”
“Well, she’s gone now.”
“I’ll find her.” Evil inhabited Vonn’s smile, a truth one might not discern from his handsome features and neat appearance.
“Is there any way—” Before Roland could finish, Vonn shook his head.
“You know I can’t let her go, Judge. She’s a liability. Her being alive puts you at risk. Therefore, she puts me at risk. Eve needs to disappear like the rest. You understand?”
He nodded, because really, he could do little else. “Where will you start looking?”
“You said the new housekeeper hasn’t been back since Saturday?”
“Correct.”
“Her name?”
“Yolande Seguin.”
“Good enough. I’ll start with her.”
Dear God. Another woman to fall victim.
Ten years.
Ten long years of rituals, violence, and death.
By helping Eve escape, the woman had placed herself in the crosshairs. Not the first of the manor’s housekeepers to discover the truth. Not the first of the housekeepers to die as a result.
“And what about Bryan?” Vonn asked.
“He understands he made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“We can’t have him taking women willy-nilly, Judge. That was our deal. I find the girls. Bryan jacks off on them. I clean up the mess. It’s the only way we keep him out of prison.”
We.
Roland wished he’d never met the man sitting opposite him. Wished he’d never needed his services. But his son, his only biological child, had needed protecting. Where he’d failed in the beginning, ignoring the danger signs and leaving Beverly to manage Bryan’s issues, he’d meant to make up for after his wife’s death.
The first abduction orchestrated by Bryan had come as a surprise. When Roland discovered the woman in the basement storage room beneath the manor’s grand staircase, he’d been sitting the bench on a high-profile murder case. As the investigating officer, Detective Vonn had planted evidence, coerced statements, assaulted hostile witnesses, and committed perjury on the stand.
A disgraced police officer, and a dead man once his fellow inmates got a hold of him, the twelve-year LAPD veteran had been on his way to federal prison. An opportunity Roland had taken quick advantage of with a closed-door meeting in his chambers. A meeting destined to change the course of both their lives.
