Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

words were lost in the music.

Think, Daisy, think! Get control!

“Raped,” said Lynch.

“Yes.”

“It’s only rape if you didn’t want it. But you told me you did. And you would have had a good time.”

“I told you no, Mr. Lynch. I screamed it at you.”

“I… This conversation isn’t going well. Let’s start over.”

Hathaway cast her gaze around. Where was Daniel? Where was anyone who cared? Should she scream?

Lynch shoved his hands into his pockets. The muscles in his forearms bunched like he was squeezing something.

“Do you like the dress?” said Lynch.

“It’s lovely, but—”

“I bought it for you. Over a week ago, before our date, because I knew. I knew.”

“You shouldn’t have.” She pinched her eyes closed. Demanded the room settle. Demanded her stomach settle. “Because I don’t want it.”

“I’m taking you on a walk, Daisy.”

The little hallway next to the kitchen and bathroom was occluded with outrage. Two phones were recording Gibbs now and he couldn’t move his prisoner an inch.

Jennings’ attention was snagged by a sight beyond the hallway in the great room. The flash of a red dress under the chandelier.

Daisy!

She and Lynch standing toe to toe, talking in the middle of the room. Beauty and a beast. Lynch’s hands in his pockets.

Alarms screaming in Jennings’ mind. He had to reach them now.

Gibbs followed his gaze. Peered through the angry mob demanding Jennings’ release. He saw the same thing Jennings did. The crimson, the girl, Lynch with hands in his pockets. He knew Lynch held a diamond ring in one hand. In the other? Knowing his son, it was a hook.

“He kidnapped her, Chief. And now he’s going to kill her.”

“Oh Christ,” said Gibbs.

Murray’s drink caught fire caught and he didn’t notice.

The rum had spread in a thick rivulet to the base of the fireplace and the roaring blaze ignited its vapor. Blue swirls of fire licked the membrane of the Cruzan, the puddle and all its tendrils lighting at once. Flames from the alcohol caught the lowest cotton stocking, Ann’s stocking, hung beside the fire instead of above. Within seconds, Ann ignited Benji, the flames from his stocking reaching up and over the mantle shelf, near a wooden Christmas tree decoration.

Murray was frozen in the crowd. Lynch had reached Hathaway first. Now what did he do? They were talking in the center of the room, surrounded by a crowd pretending not to watch. Looked like Hathaway was in no mortal danger.

Damn this whole thing. He needed another drink.

He turned back to the fireplace and shock shone orange in his eyes.

Two stockings were ablaze and the original Greg Osterhaus painting above the mantel shelf was smoking and brown at the bottom corner.

“Well,” he said, “shit.”

“I grew up a few miles from here, in the mountains. We had nothing, Daisy. My father, he didn’t…he didn’t know about our intelligence yet. We set traps to catch our meals. We ate squirrel and wild rabbit. We fished because our father wouldn’t give us a gun to hunt with. Sometimes just a hook and a line, and we’d string up the fish to clean them. And now look at my house. Look at me,” said Lynch. “I want to show you.”

“Mr. Lynch—”

“This house, this farm, came from nothing. Nothing but me. Because I beat the hell out of everyone I had to. I had none of the resources of a respected family so I had to work and fight and here I am, here we are. I did it right and I want to show you. Let’s walk and we’ll come back to the party in a few minutes.”

“I’m staying here, Mr. Lynch,” said Hathaway.

“Tonight, you mean. Yes.”

“No.” She opened her eyes. Relieved to see the house steady and firm. “No, right now. I’m not going on a walk, I’m staying here.”

Lynch fidgeting. He was sweating too, his eyes twitching with energy.

“I’m going to ask you a question, Daisy.”

She knew. Knowledge borne from some subterranean level, a flicker of intuition and survival. Knew he was about to propose.

The attention of the room was pinning them in.

“Wait, Mr. Lynch.”

Tugging at something in his pocket. “No I’ll ask you now—”

She placed her hand on his shirt, on his chest. “Wait.”

Lynch was electrified by the touch. “Wait for?”

“My answer is no.”

“No?” he said.

Louder. “Mr. Lynch. Peter. You are unwell. You need the help of mental health professionals. Maybe it’s sickness, maybe it’s trauma, maybe it’s evil, I don’t know, but I cannot be with a man who hurts women. Especially not one who brags about it after. You drugged me. You abducted me. My answer is no.” For the rest of her life, Hathaway would be proud of the words and the unyielding resolve in her voice.

The muscles in Lynch’s jaw worked. Otherwise his face had gone wooden.

Whispers spreading outward like ripples in a pond.

He separated his gnashing teeth and swallowed. “Your answer is no.”

“Correct.”

“No to marriage. You answered before I asked.”

“And I’m calling the police too,” she said. “I need to be taken to a hospital to see what you drugged me with. To see if you violated me.”

“The police.”

“Yes.”

“You think I should be in prison. You’re like the rest, you think I’m broken. This is because of Daniel,” he said.

“No.”

Connections sparking in his mind. “You broke off your engagement for him.”

“You know I broke off my engagement? How?”

“Daniel is the big handsome man preoccupied with life. Not ME.” His left fist came empty out of his pocket, the ring abandoned. “And you’re a stupid slut, a bitch who thinks she’s brave. But that always changes. I don’t lose.”

“You need an ambulance. Right now, Mr. Lynch. You’re not in control.” Hathaway was speaking louder, confidence and anger growing. She wanted their congregation to hear.

“Strap evil into a stretcher,” he said. “No I don’t think so, Daisy. I won’t be restrained. It’s not me who needs…who needs to be strung up.”

Lynch’s other hand came out of his pants pocket. He held a large tuna hook.

At that moment, Coach Murray’s voice reached