Page 47 of Brazilian Surrender
“Are you up, Sleeping Beauty?” Mark asked, an edge in his voice.
He wore gloves, and she found him holding a bottle of bleach and a rag. She blinked. A part of her still wished she could sleep, the tiredness making her head bob and eyelids heavy. I can’t sleep.
She moaned, the sound muffled.
Mark put the cleaning products on the table and approached her. A dark glow flickered in his eyes, the look so cold and merciless. Mark. He’d been behind it all along—why? She moved her head from side to side, even if the simple movement took a lot out of her. As if she wore a heavy helmet that slowed her movements.
“Princess wants to talk?”
She gave him a slow nod.
He stood in front of her, tapping his finger on his chin like he entertained the idea. Then, he leaned down to her eye level, and said, “None of this was supposed to happen, Camila. If you had only left as you were supposed to. Out of our lives.”
Out of our lives.Her eyes reached her hairline. Why did he want her out of his life? She tried, again, to utter a word, but it turned into an incomprehensible sound.
Her palms were clammy, sweat chilling her flesh. She rubbed them together behind her back, fully aware that an escape would be nearly impossible, but shit, she had to try. Maybe, if she rubbed her hands together, the tape would loosen and in a moment of distraction, she could set herself free. God. She stared at him, keeping the stroke of her hands to a minimum. Mark was a real estate giant, for Christ’s sake. Hopefully, he wasn’t an expert in some fancy bonding technique.
For a moment, he regarded her with concern. He stroked his fingers down her jaw, and she shivered. “I know you didn’t mean to do any of this, but you wouldn’t listen. And now it’s too late. Every time I look at you I remember I lost my man because you didn’t hear me. I need to finish this.”
A trace of energy moved through her, and she wriggled in the chair. Her ankles and wrists bit into the tape, and a strand of hair fell on her face. Great.
She groaned and scanned the area, looking for any objects she could use. Damn it. She’d left her nail clipper in the bathroom, and they weren’t in the kitchen. She eyed the bowl where she usually dropped her keys and sunglasses. It sat on a console table, not too far from her. If only I could move.
He kept on looking her. “I’ll give you some last words, but if you scream, if you try anything, I’ll kill you faster than I was going to.”
She nodded violently.
He ripped the tape off her mouth, leaving a painful throb on her lips.
Ouch.Her breath burst in and out of her. “Why did you want me out of here? What have I ever done to you?” she asked in a surprisingly calm voice. If she freaked out, if she cried or screamed, she’d get nowhere. The thick walls would muffle her sounds, and he’d clock her or, worse, kill her out of spite. The thought of dying encouraged her to rub her palms faster against each other, the rough contact aching her flesh.
Mark lifted his eyebrow. “You don’t know, do you? Lee always had a thing for you. He loved you.”
“As a friend,” she said, raising her voice just in case he had supersonic hearing and caught on her plan. Besides, what was Mark talking about? Sure, Lee may have thought they could be more while they had been roommates, but that had been forever ago. Lee had moved on…hadn’t he? “He found you.”
“Yes, he did. And, somehow, he was never able to disconnect from you,” Mark said. “When he moved in with me, he didn’t say he had feelings for you before. I learned from the way he talked about you when we were alone. With that affectionate tone that was far from friendly.”
She swallowed, sweat dripping from her face. “I’m sorry. Why didn’t you just tell him to not see me again?”
Mark barked a laugh. “Don’t you think I tried? I didn’t become one of the most accomplished realtors in this city to be the next-best-thing in my boyfriend’s heart. Besides, if I insisted on more than I had, he would have left me. I would have been pegged for an insecure, jealous narcissist.”
“Why kill him?” She’d read about cases of patients killing for reasons that may seem petty for others, but not to them. Mark had a pristine reputation, wealth, and he wasn’t accustomed to receiving no for an answer. Lee once had mentioned he’d been a spoiled only child of a mentally unstable, overbearing mother. Of course, none of those things meant a person would grow up to be a sociopath. In Mark’s case, though, he had.
Mark picked up the bottle of bleach and squirted some into the rag. “It was an accident. That night he found a couple of letters I wrote but didn’t send yet, and he questioned me. We had a fight, and in the heat of the moment I hit him with a vase,” he said, and, for the first time, his voice wavered, as he squirted obsessively into the rag.
“I’m…sorry. You didn’t mean to do this. I understand,” she said, ignoring the anger throbbing in her temples. If she wanted a shot at getting out alive, she needed to sound steady and in control. She discreetly scanned the surroundings, wondering if she could scoot to the console table. Grab the bowl. And then what? She lifted her hand to her mouth like she feared spilling out her only chance of survival. He upped an eyebrow at her, and she shifted her expression, dropping her shoulders a notch. “You know, I’ve seen cases like this. You have access to wonderful lawyers, Mark. You don’t have to kill me.”
“It won’t be a murder. It’ll be a suicide. After all these horrible losses, you started to steal dangerous doses of diazepam from work.”
“But I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have.” He grinned. “I hired a couple of clowns I use to solve petty things. It’s amazing how eager to help the working class is when you throw in some money.”
“They’ll steal it. And Hatch will think I’ve done it,” she said. Shit.
“Yeah.”
“I can help you. You don’t need to do this, Mark. You’re a super-accomplished guy, like you said. I understand you had to kill Lee… I don’t blame you. I won’t tell anyone. The keyword is discretion,” she said, and something clicked inside her. The keys! She had placed her set of keys inside the bowl, and one of them had a particular jagged edge. If she erased the distance between her and the table, she could reach for the keys with her fingertips and use it to set herself free.
