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CHAPTER NINE

CHARLOTTE

I watch him serve me dinner. I keep my hands in my lap. I pray he hasn’t changed his mind about not being allowed to kill me.

“Crawfish étouffée,” he says as he spoons the stew into the porcelain bowl at my place setting. “They probably don’t have this in California.”

I look up at him, squeezing my napkin in my fist. He’s so close to me that his arm brushes against my shoulder as he serves my food. I’ve seen how fast he can move, and I can only imagine how quickly he’ll hurt me if I say the wrong thing.

And yet, that compulsion to talk back to him rears up anyway. “How the hell do you know I’m from California?”

He smiles lightly at me. “You told me. At Bandit’s.”

Embarrassment flushes up through my cheeks. Oh. Right.

“Although I did look at your driver’s license.” He lays out a biscuit, scoops up some salad, and pours the wine glass half full. Then he moves to his own place setting, his movements careful and measured, like he doesn’t want to mess up.

If this were literally any other circumstance, if he didn’t have two mummified corpses in the next room and hadn’t chained me to a bed for the last twenty-four hours, I’d be charmed.

I’m almost charmed anyway.

“Eat,” he says, sliding down into his chair. “It’s not poisoned or anything.”

“Right,” I say, not moving my hands out of my lap. “You can’t kill me.”

He just stares at me, eyes dark. The truth is I’m absolutely ravenous. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, having rejected his admittedly delicious-looking oatmeal. He didn’t bring me lunch, which shouldn’t be a surprise. Making sure I’m good and hungry.

He sighs, irritation flickering across his face. “If you eat,” he says, “we can talk about Edie Hensner.”

“Astor,” I say without thinking.

Jaxon smiles strangely. “What?” He picks up his spoon and stirs his étouffée around, which wafts the spicy, salty scent into the air. I can’t fucking stand it. My stomach feels like a bottomless cavern, and I fucking love Cajun food. Contrary to what the psychotic redneck sitting across from me thinks, you can, in fact, get étouffée in California.

“Her name is Edie Astor,” I say as I pick up my own spoon and drop it into my étouffée. I can feel Jaxon watching me as I lift it to take a bite.

Fuck, it’s better than the étouffée I get at that little hole-in-the-wall place whenever I’m in Los Angeles. Creamy and rich and layered, the spices blended together perfectly.

“The papers say her name is Edie Hensner,” Jaxon says. “How do you like it?”

I swallow the étouffée and lie. “It’s fine.”

His eyes turn black and flinty. But he’s going to know I’m lying when he sees me shoveling it into my mouth, which I’m rapidly failing at not doing.

“Try the biscuits,” he says.

“Stop fishing for compliments.”

He scowls at me, but he also looks embarrassed, in his way. Busted. However, I do try a bit of biscuit, and I’m not particularly surprised when it’s flaky and buttery and absolutely perfect.

How the hell did I get kidnapped by a psycho who’s so good at cooking?

“Let’s talk about Edie,” I tell him firmly, reaching for my wine. That’s good, too. I don’t know much about wine, but even I can tell it’s not the cheap vinegary shit I always pick up at Aldi. “I’m eating. You promised.”

“Yes, but you have to ask the right questions.” He eats slowly, watching me the entire time, like he’s afraid I’m going to spring away and try to escape. Which is fair. The thought has occurred to me. But I need my energy if I’m going to escape, and besides…

I do want to find out about Edie. That’s why I came to Louisiana.

“Fine.” I have no idea what he means by the “right questions,” but I figure I’ll just throw things at him until I find something. “So you didn’t kill her.”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

Jaxon tilts his head at that, and the loose lock of his hair brushes across the top of his shoulder. “Not the right question.”

I stab a forkful of salad because I know I can’t stab him without getting tackled to the dusty wooden floor. I try again. “Who killed Edie?”

“Not the right question.”

“This isn’t fair.” I glare across the table. He just keeps eating. “You said you’d talk about her.”

“I also said you need to ask the right questions about her.” He lifts his gaze to meet mine. His eyes seem impossibly blue in the dim, hazy light of the chandelier.

I take another few bites of étouffée to hide my irritation. Drink some more wine, enough to drain the glass. Jaxon pushes the bottle toward me and I don’t even think twice about it, I’m so focused on my food and on trying to get him to talk. I pour another glass. A much heavier glass than what he poured me.

“Fine.” I take a deep breath. “What does that symbol I showed you have to do with anything?”

That one’s definitely the wrong question. I can see it even before he answers, because storm clouds crowd across his expression, and he squeezes his spoon tight in his fist like it’s a knife. “That’s?—”

“Not the right question. Yeah, I figured as much.” I stir my étouffée around. What little of it is left. Think, Charlotte. Think this through .

Jaxon says he didn’t kill Edie. Actually, he said he didn’t do anything to her. I scrape my spoon against my bowl, the porcelain singing out. I look up at him, watching me, eyes guarded, and something catches in my throat. A possibility I haven’t let myself even consider because I want it so badly to be true.

I take a deep breath. The words barely come out a whisper.

“Is Edie still alive?”

Jaxon’s face cracks into a wide, devious smile. His teeth glean. “Now that,” he says, “is the right question.”

My body thrums. “Is she?”

“She is.”

Suddenly I’m not hungry anymore. I don’t care about food. I don’t even care that Jaxon’s keeping me a prisoner in his creepy old house. Everything tunnels in until it’s just me and Jaxon and my pounding hope.

“Where is she?”

“Not for me to say.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

Jaxon shrugs a little. Sips his wine. “It means what it means. I can’t tell you.”

“Well, why the fuck not?” I shout the question, and Jaxon’s shoulders hitch a little. But his eyes gleam like he’s enjoying himself, and I’m so irritated by that fact that I spit out, “Is it the same reason why you can’t kill me?”

He sets the wine down and fiddles with his napkin. “Partially.”

I want to strangle him. I know it’s dumb. I know if I push away from this table he would be on me in seconds—I’ve seen how fast he moves. Uncomfortably fast. Unnaturally fast . I still want to strangle him, my fingers flexing against the table.

And pain flares in my temple. Fucking migraines. I haven’t had them in years, and now I keep getting miniature versions of them, like they’re trying to claw back into my life.

It must be the stress.

“Ask the right questions,” Jaxon says calmly.

I take a deep breath and the pain retreats. I look down at my half-eaten bowl of étouffée. Then I stuff one of Jaxon’s hatefully delicious biscuits in my mouth and wash it down with a big swig of wine.

Jaxon waits, watching me over his plate.

“Fine.” I wipe my lips with my napkin and then look across the table at him. “Is Edie safe?”

Jaxon tilts his head like he’s considering the question. “More or less.”

My breath catches. “Could you explain that a little more, please?”

He grins. It almost feels like he’s mocking me, but at the same time, it also feels like we’re in on some kind of joke together—not that I can see what it is. “She isn’t going to die anytime soon. She’s not hurt. But the situation she’s in—” He shrugs. “I’m not sure you would call it safe.”

My skin prickles as I wait for him to continue, but he just takes a bite of salad. What he said actually makes me feel a little better, assuming he’s telling the truth. She’s not hurt. She’s not in danger of dying. Even if she isn’t safe , that gives me time to find her.

Assuming I can get away from Jaxon.

“This situation Edie’s in,” I say carefully. “Could she leave?”

Jaxon lifts his gaze to me and raises an eyebrow. I tense, waiting for him to say, That’s not the right question in that smug way of his, but instead, he says, “Yes.”

My breath gets all tight in my lungs. I stare at him, blood pounding in my ears. This doesn’t make any sense. “You’re lying,” I tell him, anger surging up in my chest. “If she could leave, she would have called me.”

Something flickers across Jaxon’s face, so fast I can’t name it. But I think it’s pity.

“That’s not a question,” he says softly.

I screech and drain the rest of my wine. Pour some more. Is it stupid, to be drinking this wine? Almost certainly. Am I going to do it anyway?

Absolutely.

“Fine. You want a question?” I empty the bottle into my glass. “Why are you lying to me about Edie?”

He narrows his eyes. “I’m not.”

“She would have called me. If she’s safe—or mostly safe, whatever the hell that means—she would have called me.” The words spill out, angry and desperate. I want Jaxon to laugh or snicker. I want the cruelty to flash in his eyes. I want something that tells me this whole time he’s been fucking with me. Because otherwise it means Edie didn’t bother to tell me where she is, and that hurts.

At least if she were dead, she’d have an excuse.

The thought flowers to life and then immediately withers on the vine. How could I think something so fucked up? Of course it’s better for her to be alive. Of course I want her to be alive and mostly safe.

But fuck does the idea that she wouldn’t even send me some kind of bullshit letter in code or something, anything—my heart gets all hard and black and shriveled at the thought.

I turn back to my étouffée and take a few bites, hardly tasting them.

“Are you okay?” Jaxon says.

I glare at him as I swallow my food “You just told me my best friend, whom I thought you killed , is not only alive but safe and didn’t see fit to tell me that. How do you think I feel?”

His eyes get a little stricken. “Not the right question,” he mutters.

“Shut the hell up.” I scrape out the last of my étouffée, spear the last few bites of my salad. Eating is the only thing that makes sense to me right now. Well, eating and drinking the rest of my extremely-full glass of expensive red wine.

Jaxon watches me in silence. I can feel his eyes on me, hot and burning. I don’t care. I finish my meal and then drink the wine, a little too fast. It’s already starting to go to my head. The chandelier’s pale glowing glass seems a little brighter. The dead animals on the wall seem to breathe.

And Jaxon is looking a little too handsome for a psychotic killer.

It’s a good feeling, warm and dreamy. Better than anything I’ve felt in the last twenty-four hours. And especially the last five minutes.

Jaxon clears his throat. I snap my gaze over to him, daring him to say something annoying.

Instead, he says, “I’m sorry your friend didn’t contact you.”

It’s weird, how sincere the words are. He stands up, his strong body unfolding from the heavy wooden chair.

“Why wouldn’t she?” I say. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

He considers this for a long time. God, his eyes are so blue. As blue as the Pacific Ocean.

Then he says, “She’s probably trying to keep you safe.”

He sounds like he means it. And I wonder where she is. What she’s doing.

I’m trapped in this nightmare house, and I’m not any closer to finding out what happened to my best friend.

I stand up, bringing my wine with me. Jaxon doesn’t launch himself at me or tackle me to the floor, though. Instead, he clears the space between us with two easy steps, his arm circling around my waist. “Come on,” he says softly. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

I laugh, my voice shrill. “Thought you can’t kill me.”

He doesn’t say anything as he leads me out of the dining room.