Trace of Fever
Page 103

“This is bullshit!” Murray railed.
Trace cursed—and started backing toward Priss. “Alice, you don’t want to do this.”
“I’m not her, Trace. You can’t talk your way around me. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. I’ve been waiting for someone like you, someone who wasn’t totally corrupt. This is the first chance I’ve had, and no one is going to stop me.”
Mesmerized, Priss watched as Alice smiled, a genuine smile of anticipation.
Trace backed up until Priss had to go on tiptoe to see over his shoulder. “Hear those sirens, Alice? The police are on their way. It’s over for Murray. Why don’t you give me the gun, and then we can all get out of here?”
“No.”
“Fucking police, Trace?” Murray mocked. “Really?”
He probably realized that they wouldn’t be able to hold him. Not with his connections, not with his far-reaching influence. Somehow he’d worm out of the charges; there would be a technicality, others would take the blame for him, or someone would get paid off by scumbag lawyers.
Priss held the gun tighter. She wouldn’t let that happen. This ended with Murray today—here, right now.
“You won’t be seeing the police, Murray.” Trace crowded her back, away from Murray and Alice. “You’ll be dead before they get here.”
“You’ll let me shoot him?” Priss asked.
“No.” His shoulders went rigid. “I’ll take care of it.”
Murray’s gaze darted around the room, from Priss to Trace and finally, maybe because she was so silent now, he settled on Alice. “How about we agree that no one should kill me?”
Several things happened at once.
Trace turned fast and snatched the gun out of Priss’s hand.
Before she could protest that, Murray vaulted to his feet.
And Alice, without hesitation, shot him in the middle of his chest. Once, twice, a third time. Each strike sent him back a step.
With the blast still echoing around the cold, dark room, Murray went utterly still. Eyes unseeing and mouth gaping, he wavered on his feet, and then buckled backward in an awkward heap.
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.”