An alley was right beside where he had parked the limousine. That would have provided her with plenty of places to squirrel herself away.
It didn’t take him long to spot a shoe sticking out from underneath a pile of flattened out cardboard boxes.
He didn’t pause for even a millisecond, just continued toward the boxes, tossed them aside, glared down at Georgia's wide terrified brown eyes peering up at him, and swung his fist at her face.
“Running is unacceptable,” he said tightly.
Georgia cried and cupped her bleeding lip.
“Youwilllearn.”
He grabbed her roughly around the wrist and hauled her to her feet. She didn’t fight back, but whether because she was in shock, in pain, or because she was heeding his warning, he wasn't sure. Nor did he care. Fear was an acceptable motivator. At least at first. Over time, she would learn that she had nothing to fear with him. He wasn't interested in a relationship based on fear of physical punishment. He wanted a relationship based on mutual understanding. He was reprimanding heronlyso that she would learn her place.
At the limousine, he tossed her inside then got out more sleeping pills and handed them to her along with a bottle of water.
“This time you swallow them,” he warned.
Georgia took the pills, popped them in her mouth, and drank half the bottle of water.
“Open,” he ordered.
She just looked at him.
He wasn't in the habit of repeating himself, so he took hold of her chin and dug his thumb into her cheek. She squawked and her mouth opened reflexively. Wedging his thumb tighter against her cheek he pressed it inside her mouth. “Don’t bite, understand?”
Huge eyes welled with tears, but she nodded.
Releasing his grip on her, she obediently kept her mouth open, and he stuck a finger inside and swept it around, checking under her tongue and around her teeth to make sure no pills were hiding in there.
Convinced she had taken the pills as instructed, he released her and nodded, pleased. It looked like he had been correct about Georgia’s potential to be trained.
“When you wake up, you’ll be in your new home,” he informed her. Then softened, a rush of tenderness washing over him as he looked at his new princess. “Sleep well,” he told her, grasping her face in his hands, and drawing it closer so he could kiss her forehead.
He closed and locked the doors, just to be safe, then got back behind the wheel. He couldn’t wait to deliver his princess to her new castle and begin teaching her.
He had a good feeling about Georgia.
She really could be the one.
July24th
9:08 A.M.
“I was hoping we still had time to find her alive.” Detective Rylla Franklin gazed sadly at the body that lay at her feet.
“He kept the first one for almost two months, but he only kept Tillie for a little over a month. Escalating perhaps?” her partner Detective Matthew Greer suggested.
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Or Tillie didn't perform as well as Jeannie did.”
“What do you think he wants from them?”
“A princess if the dresses are anything to go by,” she replied.
“So far we don’t know for sure that the two cases are related,” Matthew said.
Rylla just arched an eyebrow at him. Of course they knew. Okay, forensics hadn’t proved it, mostly because they didn't have any, but there werewaytoo many similarities for the two cases not to be related. Her partner just didn't want to believe it.
Her gaze returned to Tillie Schueman. What had she had to endure? Alone, scared, trapped, Tillie hadn’t had anyone there with her as she suffered in her final days on Earth.