Ann Peterson - Accessory To Marriage

He shuffled past head shots of several blondes, women obviously attracted to the danger and notoriety of Kane. Women he would never understand. Finally his fingers grasped the last photo.

It was a snapshot of Dixie and Rees in the foyer of Rees’s home. The two of them were posed on the antique bench, surrounded with teddy bears, silly smiles on their faces.

But the photo was marred. A precise slit was cut from the locket around Dixie’s neck to her thighs. Drops of something thick and dried and brown obscured her sweet smile.

Drops of blood.

Rees gasped for air and swayed into him.

Trent dropped the stack of photos on the storage unit and grasped her upper arms. Damn. Damn. Damn. This was just what he’d feared would happen. Kane would never pass up the chance to leave a blatant threat for whoever searched his cell.

And Trent had allowed that person to be Rees.

She trembled violently under his hands and drew in breath after breath as if she was in danger of drowning.

He grasped her tighter, pulling her close, talking into her ear. “Rees. Remember, this is Kane’s game. Manipulate, control, dominate. He guessed you’d come to the prison with me. That you’d search through his things. He put that photo there for you to find. To hurt you. To scare you. Don’t let him win. Hold on to me. Breathe.” He drew in deep breaths and slowly exhaled.

She followed his lead, her gasps becoming slower, more controlled until she was breathing almost normally.

He pulled back to look at her, to make sure she was all right.

Her heart-shaped face was pale as death, her dark eyes wide and glistening, but at least she wasn’t going to pass out on the floor of the cell.

No thanks to him.

Anger rumbled through him. Anger with Kane. Anger with Dixie. And, most of all, anger with himself.

Rees was strong, but she wasn’t strong enough to stand up to Kane’s twisted manipulations. How could she be? How could any normal person face such an overt threat to the life of someone she loved? How could a normal person face such evil? “I’m getting you out of here.”

She shook her head emphatically, her long dark hair lashing her cheeks. “No. I’ll be all right. I—”

“Like hell you will. I shouldn’t have let you come. I’m taking you back to the entrance. Now.”

Ushering Rees out to the walkway, he cursed himself again for good measure. They had been through nearly everything in the cell, and she hadn’t remembered one thing that would lead to Kane’s whereabouts. She hadn’t magically come up with the answers he was looking for. He’d risked her peace of mind for nothing.

Risa leaned against one of the government-beige walls in the entrance of the prison—walls that closed in around her, crowding her, smothering her. Like all the other times she’d ventured inside the razor wire, the lack of light and air and freedom made her lungs constrict and her heart pound. But it was what she’d seen in Kane’s cell that made her head throb with fear.

The sight of that photo of Dixie cut and bloody had left her shaking. She’d known Kane intended to kill Dixie since the day of their wedding, but seeing such a graphic reenactment of his earlier crimes with Dixie as his subject was almost more than she could take.

And the worst part was that he’d gotten to her. His booby trap had worked. She’d blown it. She’d insisted she didn’t need protection, that she could handle whatever Kane had planned, and the truth was, she couldn’t.

Trent was right. All the research she’d done into the criminal mind, all the horror stories she’d heard while compiling that research, none of it had prepared her to face the blood on that photograph. The slit down the middle of Dixie’s body. The clear threat to her sister’s life.

Trent hadn’t thrown her over his shoulder, thankfully. But he had whisked her out of the cell block, deposited her here and instructed Duane to baby-sit until he and Wiley could gather up Kane’s belongings and make sure they hadn’t missed anything.

She gritted her teeth and cursed her own weakness. Thank God, she hadn’t fainted. If she had, Trent probably would have shipped her off in an ambulance and ordered the doctors to sequester her in the hospital until Dixie was rescued. Or until it was too late. At least here, she could talk to the guards and do some general fact gathering on her own. She might still be able to help in some way.

She sighed and looked up at Duane. Even before he’d phoned to inform her of Dixie’s secret wedding, the guard had taken her under his wing. And judging by the way he hovered over her, he was nearly as protective as Trent.

Noticing her gaze on him, Duane laid his hand on her arm, his big mitt making it look as fragile as a toothpick. “I’m real sorry about what happened, Professor.”

She looked into his weary eyes. “Thanks, Duane. That means a lot to me.”

The guard’s coarse features clouded with obvious anger. “Damn Kane. Why did he have to drag your sister into this?”

“I don’t know.” She resisted the urge to pace the floor. She didn’t want to be reduced to bemoaning her sister’s status as a fugitive. She wanted to find Dixie. She wanted to do something to get her little sister away from Kane.

She glanced around the entrance to the prison, at the barred doors leading to inner corridors guarded by more barred doors. Despite the warden’s moans about funding for extra guards and security measures, the prison seemed awfully secure to her. Impenetrable. She couldn’t imagine how a prisoner could break out. Not without inside help. “How well did you know Kane, Duane?”

Duane’s mouth curled in distaste. “Know him?”

“Did you ever talk to him? Have any personal contact with him?”

Duane shook his big head. “I don’t talk to the scum that lives here.”

“Never?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Are any of the guards friendly with prisoners? Or more specifically, were any friendly with Kane?”

Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he thought for a moment. “No one comes to mind.”

“Can you think of anyone who would have reason to help Kane?”

Surprise registered on Duane’s face. “Help him?”

“Yes. Help him escape. Someone who might have helped him get through security and over the fence, so Dixie could pick him up.”

Duane’s bushy brows turned down, and he shook his head. “I think you got it wrong. He must have gotten out on his own.”

“How? It seems like it would be impossible for any prisoner to get out of this place on his own.”

Duane’s big shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I can’t imagine anyone lifting a finger to help a monster like that. But then I’m probably wrong. I can’t imagine anyone marr—” His cheeks and neck colored with embarrassment.

“You can’t imagine anyone marrying him, either,” she finished for him, heaviness settling on her shoulders. “It’s okay, Duane. Neither can I.”

“The best thing that could happen would be if someone took Kane out while he’s on the loose.” His voice dropped and shadows darkened his eyes. “He didn’t give those girls he killed a chance—hunting them down and gutting them like deer. Scum like that doesn’t deserve to live. Not one more day. Not even if it’s in a hellhole like this.”

Risa barely kept herself from nodding in agreement. She wasn’t a proponent of the death penalty. At least not in theory. But in this case, with a man like Dryden Kane, she could almost justify strapping him to a table and sticking a needle in his arm.

She pulled her mind from those morbid thoughts. Wisconsin wasn’t a death-penalty state. And wishing for Kane’s death wasn’t going to find him. And it wasn’t going to save Dixie. “Well, deciding whether Kane lives or dies isn’t up to us. All we can do is help find him. Can you think of anyone at all that seemed friendly with Kane?”