Trace of Fever - Lori Foster [129]
Dead.
While crimson blood blossomed over Murray’s expensive dress shirt and spread out in a puddle beneath his corpulent body, the smile faded from Alice’s face.
Priss stared in shock at the carnage. It was over, and she’d had nothing at all to do with it.
That would have been devastating beyond measure, except that Alice slipped down to her knees and her sudden, wrenching sobs would shred the coldest heart.
Trace’s hand on Priss’s arm tensed with emotion. “Alice…”
“No. No, no, no!” Alice pounded her fist on her thigh. “It doesn’t—doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” And with that, she started to turn the gun on herself. Priss gasped, and Trace started toward her, but he wouldn’t be in time.
Priss caught his hand, at the same time, saying, “Thank you, Alice. Everything will be okay now.”
Alice kept the gun to her temple. She gulped hard, hiccuped on her tears. “What are you talking about? Nothing will ever be okay again.”
“It will.” Priss did her best to sound confident. “Trace will help you. Whatever happened—”
“He stole me.” Alice looked at her with empty eyes. “He took me from my home, from my family….” She choked on the words, her eyes liquid with tears that spilled over and left trails down her cheeks. “He told me if I tried to leave he’d steal my little sister, too, and then he’d rape me. He said he didn’t want to. Even when he made me be naked around him, he said that I repulsed him, but that he’d rape me anyway if I gave him trouble.”
Bastard! Priss didn’t look at Murray’s body. His death had been too easy, but he was dead, and that’s what mattered most. “He was a monster, Alice, but not anymore. Thanks to you, he’ll never hurt anyone ever again.” Priss inched toward her. Trace didn’t want to let her go. He was worried, and she understood, but she had to do this. “Your family must be frantic. I know they would love to see you again.”
“It’s been over a year. A year of them not knowing. A year of me locked away, forced to do his business. Forced to silence, living in fear and—” she swallowed audibly “—nothing is the same anymore. I’m not the same.”
“That’s okay, Alice.” Priss kept moving toward her, step by step. “You still love them, and they still love you. They’ll be so relieved to have you back.”
Alice squeezed her eyes shut. “Not after what I’ve done, what I’ve let happen to all those poor women….”
“What you were forced to do.”
She nodded slowly. “I never had another chance, not once. I couldn’t stop things. If it had only been my life…”
What? She would have willingly died? Maybe.
“But rape? Being sold?” Alice shivered. “What he threatened, what he did to others, would be worse than death.”
Trace reached her in two long strides to gently, and cautiously, wrested the gun from Alice’s hand.
She didn’t fight him.
He turned to Priss. “We need to get out of here.”
Nodding, Priss knelt down beside Alice, their shoulders bumping. “He raped my mother, and then shared her with his friends. She escaped him, but she never really recovered. I used to think he’d ruined my life, too.”
Face downcast, Alice swallowed hard and nodded in understanding.
“But he didn’t.” She took Alice’s hand. “He can’t hurt me, and he can’t hurt you, unless we let him. He made you a victim, Alice, but you didn’t stay a victim. And thanks to you, no other woman will have to fear him.”
Voice faint with fear, Alice whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”
Trace said, “You come with me. Now.”
His control, his certainty, seemed to revive Alice. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “I’ve always trusted you, Trace. I knew you were different.”
Though emotion weighed heavy on Priss, she smiled. “Me, too.” She stood by Trace’s side, put a hand on his shoulder. “Murray was the only one dumb enough to believe that Trace was like him.”
Trace reached out his hand to Alice.
After a deep breath, she dried her face, gave one last look at Murray’s unseeing corpse and accepted his help.
WELL AWAY FROM THE SCENE, Trace put Alice in a cab. He leaned in the back door, speaking close to her ear. “You’re going