Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Not that it took much to make old Barney angry.
Wow. Who knew that he had such a temper?
Her side was aching where he’d kicked her after she’d asked him if he planned on leaving them to starve to death or if he could get them some fried chicken.
She’d thought it was a legitimate question.
“I don’t understand. I took him in when his parents died. Gave him everything and this is how he repays me.”
The older woman sounded genuinely lost and . . . hurt?
Shit.
“I never go down to the basement. He always liked his privacy. But there was a strange smell and I was worried about what it was. And then I saw it all . . . the pictures of you everywhere. And on his computer screen . . . it was a bedroom, and I just knew it was yours.”
Opal tensed. “What?”
“He must have installed a camera in there. Why would he do that? Why would he be so obsessed with you?”
There was clear derision in her voice. Which Opal thought was hugely unnecessary. And a bit rude given the circumstances.
But she’d let it slide because she was a good person like that.
“I mean, why wouldn’t he be obsessed with me?” she asked.
All right, maybe she couldn’t quite let it go.
“I’m amazing.”
“You’re . . . you’re . . . crass and loud and you don’t care about propriety, and you wear those tight clothes and all that makeup and your hair . . .”
“Jealous?” Opal snarked.
There was a beat of silence. She turned toward Mrs. G.
“You’re jealous? Of me?”
“I’m not jealous,” she spat out. “It’s just . . . sometimes I do wish I’d been born in a different time when it was normal to live on your own and you didn’t feel you had to get married. When having children or not defined you.”
Ouch.
“You couldn’t have kids?” Opal asked.
“No,” she whispered. “And my husband couldn’t handle that. Took off in the middle of the night and left me to deal with the humiliation. I didn’t live here at that time. I moved here to be close to my younger brother. He died fifteen years ago, five years after my older brother, who was Barney’s father. And now Barney is all I have left. And he’s . . . he’s . . .”
“A fucking psychopath?”
“I wouldn’t use those words,” the older woman huffed. “But, yes.”
“Can’t believe he had a camera in my bedroom. He broke into my house. Was that why the latch on that window was broken? Because of that fuckwit?”
Shut it down, Opal.
Because if she thought about it too much right now, she knew she’d be sick.
“I never knew,” Mrs. G said, her voice shaking. “I didn’t know.”
Opal nodded. “He knocked you out when he found you down there?”
“Yes, he must have. Then I woke up to find him leading you down the stairs. Then he must have drugged me because the next thing I know, we’re back here.”
“Back here?” she asked. “You know this place?”
“I do. This is where his father died. He, uh, he killed himself here.”
“Oh my God.”
Opal wasn’t always that smart. She hadn’t even finished high school. But she had the feeling that was a bad sign. Then something occurred to her.
“Does anyone else know that?”
“Well, yes. I guess some of the older residents of Haven might remember.”
Then someone would surely figure it out.
They would come.
Renard would come.
Please let him come.
Where the fuck was she?
He was going insane and nothing made sense. Jake had people scouring the neighborhood where she lived, looking for more witnesses.
Someone thought they had seen Barney’s car, but it had turned out to be a dead end.
They’d gotten access to the traffic cameras in Haven, but he hadn’t driven through the main streets.
He’d been smart. Stuck to the side streets.
Gone out in the cloak of darkness.
Now, where the fuck was she?
“Report came back from the officers who checked his apartment in Houston,” Duncan said, walking in. “There’s nothing in there. No hint of where he might be. Nothing that points to his obsession with her.”
“We need to increase our search area,” Jake said. “We have an alert out on his vehicle. But if he’s taken Opal and Mrs. Gingers somewhere, then he might have set himself up for a while. He might not come out of hiding. We need to look into any property he owns or his family. Often people like this choose somewhere familiar.” He turned to Renard. “We’ll find her.”
They better.
Because he was fast coming to the realization that he didn’t want to live without Opal.
She was his world.
And when he had her back in his arms, he wasn’t letting her go again.
31
“Here. I brought you water and food.”
Barney set down some bottles of water and granola bars in front of her.
Opal stared up at him blurrily. How long had they been here? She wasn’t sure. But she knew that she wasn’t feeling good. The side of her face was throbbing from where he’d hit her. She’d had to pee in a corner with her hands bound.