On the other hand, Glen might know he was in there, in which case Glen was going to come rescue him and then they’d both get shot in the process.
He might not come for you, you know. It would serve you right.
Yeah—that voice. He knew that voice. That voice had driven him out of Glen Echo’s bed the first time and onto the back of a flea-bitten horse who’d probably died of a heart attack by now, because it certainly hadn’t been up to doing anything else.
That voice had driven him away from Glen Echo’s hospital bed the second time, when he’d been pretty sure he’d left most of his heart there, lying in pieces at Glen’s feet.
He will too come for me! But I sort of wish he wouldn’t!
Because Glen coming for him could only mean that, once again, Glen Echo was putting himself in danger for Cash Harper, who didn’t deserve it—not one more goddamned time.
Of all the punishments he’d earned in school, being sentenced to the corner had always been the worst. Boredom was poison and poison was boredom, and Cash, restless and moving from the cradle, could endure almost any torture other than being bored.
His body ached from restraints, and even after the drug cycled out of his bloodstream, he was left with a low-level dehydration headache that got more and more intense with each moment of silence.
In the end, all he could do was sit there and hum to himself, everything from the two songs he’d just written to the Backstreet Boys, with some Elliot Smith in between because he liked the melancholy old songs. He was right in the middle of “Between the Bars,” the song just loud enough to register in his ears and save him from the silence, when he heard footsteps on the stairs—deliberate ones, with the crisp tread of a really nicely soled shoe.
He kept humming. Tranquilizer Piss hated music—any other self-respecting cult leader would at least have his followers sing hymns.
When the man’s dress oxfords entered his vision, it occurred to Cash that he’d been lucky the cellar had gentle track lighting because sitting in the dark would have sucked—but the soft lighting didn’t make John Barron any easier to look at.
He liked nice suits—which should have pinged Cash’s radar from the very beginning because most of the douchiest guys in the clubs liked the nice suits, liked kids like Cash to call them Daddy. Not that this guy was gay, but he had that vibe. Flash his junk around and sex would swoon in a puddle at his feet.
Cash used to do that for a quick bang, and then Glen Echo had dismantled his world one kiss at a time.
No more swooning, no more fear. When he’d been part of Tranquilo Paz/John Barron’s household before, he’d been subservient in order to help Brielle. But this guy didn’t help anybody but himself.
“The prodigal returns,” John Barron said. In appearance, he could model for a calendar featuring clean-cut military guys, and he had a decent build under his suit too. Lantern jaw, sparkling blue eyes, plump mouth, and short-cut blond hair.
Good-looking, but Cash had never been attracted to him, not once.
He preferred sleepy eyes, a little scruff, and a sardonic twist at the corners of a kissable mouth. It had taken long enough, but he’d finally developed a type.
“Well, in my defense, it wasn’t my idea,” Cash said.
The hand came out so casually, so quickly, Cash’s head had snapped sideways before he realized he’d been hit.
“You never did learn that when you were in our care,” Barron said, voice still pleasant. “The treatment doesn’t work if all we hear is excuses.”
“You’re an ex-mercenary who got busted selling Bibles,” Cash retorted. “Excuse th—”
And again with the hand to the jaw.
“Do you know why I didn’t have you killed?” Barron asked, wiping at the blood on the back of his knuckles with a white embroidered handkerchief.
“Because seeing my body might cause the natives to revolt?” Cash hazarded. He flinched—he could admit it—but Barron’s expected backhand didn’t crack over his swollen, bleeding mouth, nose, and cheek.
“Smart boy,” Barron murmured. “Don’t hire local talent—idiots, all of them.”
“Did you send your regular boys out to capture my friend?” Cash asked, thinking his boys weren’t going to be happy to come up against the Baja authorities and Glen’s buddies.
“She’s been captured and taken from the flock,” Barron said with a shrug. “She wasn’t going to last long anyway. I mean, most of them figure out there’s go-juice in the morning OJ, but she looked forward to it way too much, you know what I mean?”
“Feel good about that?” Cash asked, stomach churning. “Feel good about hooking her all over again? We came to you to get her cleaned out—”
“She could have stayed plenty fucking clean if you’d just left us alone!” Barron snarled, and it was the first actual emotion Cash had seen cross his plastic-handsome face.
“What’s your scam here?” Cash asked, breathing hard and playing for time. It occurred to him, hard, that once the beating began, Barron might succeed in pounding Cash stupid—or dead—before Glen got down there. “I mean, you destroyed some pretty pristine wilderness to make this ugly fucking house. What’s your scam?”
“I fucking hate Mexico,” Barron said, disgust lacing his voice, his posture. “It’s hot and nobody speaks English! We could be somewhere decent, like Chicago, if the fucking FBI didn’t have it in for us. We have plenty of money, no place to spend it. So we built our own.”
“But why the drugs? The coercion? I mean, starting a cult is some work, dude. You gotta keep everybody in line, feed them a line of bullshit—”
“These young kids?” Barron asked, wiping sweat from his temple with the kerchief he’d used on the blood. “Their parents’ll pay anything to get ’em clean. Except attention.”
“But why imprison them?” Cash didn’t care about his responses anymore—Barron’s answers were crazy sauce on a bucket of insanity-fried chicken. “Man, I’m just looking for one girl here!” Or he had been. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Glen and his buddies had plans to get everyone out who wanted out.
“Can’t have them telling tales,” Barron told him, and his mouth twisted—not with sarcasm, but pleasure. The first couple of blows had taken it out of him. Cash could see that now—he had some upper body strength, but he wasn’t used to hitting real live flesh. He’d cleaned himself up, wiped himself off, and if it wasn’t for the blood the kerchief had left on his temple, he’d look ready for church.
“Well, you know,” Cash said, whole body aching. “If you love something, set it free….”
This time he saw Barron cranking up, and the thought crossed his mind that this guy probably was going to kill him. One hard blow, Cash’s nose shoved into his brain tissue, bye-bye Cash….
And Barron’s body whirled around, his momentum checked so abruptly his legs twisted at his hips and he fell to the floor.
A silent combat boot caught him under the chin, and his head cracked backward. His body flew with it, and they both hit the ground with a thud at Cash’s feet.
Cash pulled in a shaky breath as Glen crouched at his side. “You came,” he said, hating the tears that stung his eyes and the way his nose was clogging. “You came.”