“For someone bound on a boat with a killer, you sure seem certain of what I can and can't do.”
Astrid knew she was pushing too far, not a smart move with someone who was clearly comfortable with murder.
She wondered if it was really because she was an innocent that he'd spared her. It seemed more likely that it was because he found her attractive. She knew he did because she knew that look in a man's eyes. Since he'd taken the blindfold off she'd been trying to decide if she could somehow bring herself to seduce him. It wasn't as though sleeping with him would be repulsive. If she could forget what he was capable of...what she'd seen him do.
Whatever he believed, she'd been telling the truth about Joey. Joey was a piece of shit. He'd hurt her in ways she couldn't ever talk about. Aside from the terror of finding a killer in her house, the immediate feeling she'd had when she'd seen Joey's corpse had been relief.
It was the tiniest moment of freedom before becoming another man's prisoner. Maybe Angel would be a nicer jailer. Except for the bloody knife in his hand, he'd seemed in control of himself. Maybe a little sociopathic, but if that coldness didn't extend to her... if he hadn't been able to bring himself to hurt her... No. These thoughts were all crazy. She had to force herself to stop thinking them.
“What did you do with the dogs?” It suddenly occurred to her that Milo and Frankie hadn't been barking when she'd walked in on him.
“Sedated them. They're probably awake by now.”
So he wouldn't even kill the dogs. That had to be a good sign, right?
“All right. This is far enough out.” He seemed to be saying it more to himself than to her. Angel shut the boat off and turned on a light so he could see what he was doing. He lugged the wrapped body over to the edge. It looked like a macabre gift for the sea. Or a sacrifice.
He looked back at her, as if trying to gauge her reaction to seeing her husband's dead body about to be dumped in the ocean.
“Wait. Did you send that guy the picture?”
Angel looked at her like she was crazy. The last thing she needed was for him to skip a step because he got thrown off and not get all his money then be mad at her. Joey had been bad about that. If he lost money and could find a way to blame her, he did. She had more than one scar to show for it. She didn't want a repeat of that with Angel.
“I did it back at the car before I finished wrapping him up.”
“I really did hate him. I would have done anything to get away. I thought about just never coming back from the convention but I knew he could find me and... it would just be worse. I-I was trapped.”
Angel dumped the body into the ocean and dropped the phone in behind it. Then he stared at Astrid for a long time. “I want to believe you, but the price of being wrong just isn't worth it.”
Was it that or did he just not want to let her go for his own reasons? Maybe he didn't need to kill, but he no doubt had other needs. Maybe someone like her warming his bed was one of them.
He started the boat back up and turned it around to return them to the docks.
***
Angel didn't know what to make of her. Maybe she was telling the truth about her feelings about her husband. Maybe it wasn't just some con to get him to set her free.
They were back in the car, headed finally to his house which was still another half hour away.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. She must be. He was starving. All he could think about was the pizza in the fridge. The adrenalin dump after a kill always left him ravenous.
“Yes.”
He really should believe her. It wasn't as though it was hard to picture Callazaro hurting his wife. He hurt plenty of other women. Why should she be any different? She was probably just his cover to make him seem more respectable, to give him someone to take out in public so he could hide his guilt behind her innocence.
And she acted abused. The way she seemed to always be calculating how Angel would react to things. The way she didn't push. Sure, she'd tried to negotiate, but she hadn't thrashed around or screamed or fought him or had any of the normal reactions that unbroken women had to things like this. This was a woman who'd learned not to do those things the hard way already.
Callazaro had killed plenty of people in his time, but it was doubtful Astrid knew about any of that. In her eyes Angel might be the bigger danger to her safety, even if she knew he'd done her a favor.
So yeah. Maybe he did believe her. And if he believed her, there was no reason in the world she would turn in the man who'd freed her from that life. So why was he taking her back to his house instead of her own?
Did he need to play this game with himself? It wasn't as if he lived according to the rules set forth by society. However he justified it, he killed people for money without a ripple of guilt. So if he justwantedher, what stopped him from doing what he was doing? It would have been simpler to kill her even though she didn't deserve to die. Yet here he was, keeping her like a pet or something.
And how was this all going to play out? How could it work? She'd always be afraid of or resent him. And could he blame her?
“Where are you taking me?”
“My house.”