Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [101]
“Oh, he’ll already be dead. He chained you up, strangled and raped Sophie and threw her over the falls, and then set fire to his house in a fit of remorse. I’ve set it up perfectly. His ropes will burn off in the fire,” he said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs, “but these will still be wrapped around your scorched corpse. You’re such a horse, my dear. I had a hard time finding handcuffs that would fit you.”
“Can’t they trace them to you?”
He shook his head. “I told you, I’m much too careful. You may as well stop arguing. I’ve thought of everything. Please move back against the wall, next to that pipe.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Don’t be tiresome. I’ll put a bullet in your mouth and drag your body over there. The fire I’ve set will burn so hotly that no one will be able to tell that you were shot before you were burned.”
She scooted back against the wall. Sophie was moving a little bit more—if she could just keep David talking it might give her enough time to come to.
He took her arm and slapped the heavy manacle round her wrist, then closed the other one around the exposed pipe. “She’s not going to wake up in time, Rachel. She may get a little more active, but not enough to actually get away. Consider it a blessing. She’ll never know what happened to her.”
“Won’t that ruin all your fun?” she said in a furious tone.
“Of course not. I’m a very considerate man. I make it quick. And I make love to them afterward, so they don’t have to deal with the shame beforehand.”
“You’re not going to touch my daughter.”
“Of course I am. No one can stop me. When I’m done I’ll throw her body over the falls and take the back way down to my father’s house, where we’ll have a nice dinner and a good bottle of pinot grigio, and when Maggie Bannister comes to tell us what happened we’ll both be distraught. It’s a shame you won’t have a chance to see it—I’m really very good.”
“I know you are, David. You fooled me completely.”
“Ah, but you aren’t much of a challenge,” he said with a condescending smile. He rose, stepping away from her. “I could make this painless for you. I’d be willing to shoot you, despite my dislike of blood, so you won’t have to deal with the pain of burning to death. After all, you did love me, and I can be generous.”
“I didn’t love you, David,” she said, her voice flat. “I married you to provide what I thought was a safe life for Sophie. You’re absolutely right, I was an idiot, but you were simply a means to an end.”
She’d gotten to him. His face crumpled for a moment, and he looked like a little boy whose dog had died. Then he shook his head. “You’re just saying that.”
“I jumped at the chance of separate bedrooms, David. I slept with your brother the first chance I got.” She glanced over at Sophie to make certain she was still unconscious. “I sucked his cock, David. He’s much bigger than you, and he doesn’t get limp. I fucked him and I liked it.”
“Stop it!” His voice rose in distress. “You know I don’t like that language.”
“I was a whore, David. I did everything with Caleb that I wouldn’t do with you.”
“I didn’t want you to do those things…”
“Yes, you did. Deep inside, you wanted me to do all those things with you, but you were afraid, because you knew you couldn’t get it up, not often enough to even begin to please me. You can only get it up with dead girls, isn’t that it?”
He hit her then, slamming the gun across her face so hard that for a moment everything turned black. When the world came back into focus again he’d managed to regain his calm.
“You’re an ugly, dirty girl,” he said. “And if I had time I’d show you how wrong you are. But I can only count on the idiocy of the police to last so long, and I don’t want to risk all this hard work for nothing.”
“David.” Caleb’s voice was hoarse, muffled. She hadn’t even realized he was coming to.
David whirled around, momentarily startled. “My brother awakens. I was afraid I’d killed you.”
“Untie me, David. You know you don’t want to do this.” Caleb’s voice was rough, pleading.
“Of course I do. I was just explaining to your whore here how much I