Page 55 of Into The Rabbit Hole
“You think it’s that simple. Talk to me and try to reason and I’ll drop it?” Aaron snarled. His voice took on a pitch that made Regina shiver fromwithin.
“I don’t think it’s simple. They are innocent in this matter. By all means, expose Ben. He deserves that, but they don’t deservethis.”
“Brian.” He said his name in a sing-song voice. It reminded her of the way the killer or demon would toy with their prey in a horror film. “Look at Regina, imagine if I was to tie you to a chair and make you watch helplessly as I cut off her fingers one by one. Imagine the screaming. Then imagine if I were to then pull out a gun and shoot her in her chest and then her head. Killing her. How would youfeel?”
Brian’s face turned to stone and the all the blood rushed into it, turning him red. Regina started shaking as her mind conjured up images of thathappening.
“Answer me,” Aaronbalked.
Brian still didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Regina already knew how he would feel. She would know even if she wasn’t looking at him standing there beforeher.
“Hypocrite,” Aaron hissed in that horrifying way again. “You would kill me, but because you love her so much you’d make me suffer first. You’d find the thing I love the most and take it. You’d find every way to make me suffer and feel the way you would, and even then it would never be enough. Wouldn’tyou?”
Brian pressed his lips together and his eyes clouded over. “Yes,” he replied and a look of defeat washed overhim.
“Good. Now of course your fucking little plot irritated the shit out of me. My hacking devices don’t work. But I should have seen that coming. And you may think you have one over me by getting Wade out of prison. But you haven’t. We’re in the height of the game, my friends. You haven’t seen anythingyet.”
His voice echoed throughout theroom.
“What are you going to do?” Regina found her voice from the cave in her chest it had escapedto.
“Kill you,” he hissed. “All of you. Every last one, and like I said before. It won’t matter who you tell or what you do, you won’t be able to stopme.”
Hot tears ran down her cheeks as his words seeped into her soul andstung.
Aaron started laughing. “Go to her, Brian, she looks like she’s going to faint. She may hit her head on the counter if shedoes.”
God!
He could seethem.
How could he still see them? He wasn’t supposed to be ableto.
“How can you see us?” shecried.
“Oh, I’m justoutside.”
In a flash, Brian dropped the phone and ran to the kitchen window and stared, looking about outside. Then he opened the back door and went through it, looking about them to see if he could seeanyone.
“There’s no one there,” he toldher.
She walked over to pick the phone up but Aaron had already hung up. She glanced through the window and held her hand at her chest, trying to keep her heart from leapingout.
One of the houses, maybe he was in one of the neighboring houses. From where she stood she could see three possibilities. The roads curved in on itself to form a sort of circle. It allowed her to see the back gardens of thehouses.
He had to be in one of those. She looked over to Brian and he came to her, taking her into his arms before the tears started tofall.
They called Detective Fray, who came immediately with a squad of police to investigate the houses. It turned out she was right. Aaron had gone into the house that mirrored them from the back, pretending to be a gas contractor. Their neighbor, Mrs. Donaldson, was in her nineties. She walked with a cane and was partially blind. She told the police that Aaron had said he told her there was a report of a leak on the main road and he was sent from the gas company to check all the houses. Mrs. Donaldson said she didn’t suspect anything because he checked everything out and went to one of her rooms to call thecompany.
The police narrowed it down to him when they called the gas company and was told that no contractors were sent to the area today, and the dead giveaway was that the room Mrs. Donaldson told them he went to happened to be the perfect, perfect spot to get a full view of Regina and Brian in theirkitchen.
The whole investigation took the whole day and after she was left feeling like a rag doll that had been wrung dry of itsessence.
She sat in the sitting room by the long glass window, looking through to the hanging roses in the side garden that held the coy carp pond. The sun was just going down and the soft colors of sunset cast a warm glow over the wholearea.
What was she going to do? What was any of them going to do? She was happy Wade managed to get away with Chloe. They needed the break. He deserved to have a break from this madness and it was a pity that they couldn’t just stay in Hawaii, or go somewhere far away. It might not stop Aaron, but it would give them more time. They’ be safe just for a littlelonger.
She supposed neither Wade nor Chloe would agree to that, though. Taylor, too. She wouldn’t leave. Taylor told her yesterday that she and Wes were seeing each other. The news was refreshing andwelcomed.