The Altruism Effect: Book One (Mastermind Murderers Series 1) Read online

Raine froze as she held her breath, wide-eyed, staring down the barrel of the gun, on her knees. The sounds of the screams and banging on cages diminished as a cold, echoing silence fell.

  Her lip quivered as she watched the guard pick up Arie under his arm with one hand, and move him into the cage. His cage. He locked the door and turned his attention back to Raine, keeping the gun pointed at her the entire time.

  “Up against the wall.” His commands were calm, quiet, and chilling, in spite of of the fact he was just attacked and clearly out of breath. His full attention was on her, and nowhere else in the room. It was as if none of the other cages in the row even existed. “I said—”

  He didn’t have to say it again. Raine turned away from him and put her arms above her head in surrender. If Arie couldn’t take him, she couldn’t. And with a gun pointed at her head, it wasn’t even worth trying.

  She hated his breath on her neck as he grabbed her wrists and secured them down at the small of her back. She heard the clink of metal as he cuffed her. He grabbed the handcuffs from the middle and pulled her back.

  “I’m not going back in there?” she asked in a whimper.

  He didn’t answer.

  She already knew the answer.

  The guard guided her down the row towards the door. And the haste at which he guided her told her that he hadn’t been coming for Arie to begin with. He’d been coming for her.

  There were two sets of double doors in the warehouse. The ones she entered through when she was first brought here, and another set on the other side. The latter doors were the ones that Arie and the blonde haired girl came through when they were brought back.

  Raine was taken through the second set of doors. She hadn’t seen this part of the prison yet. This hallway was identical to the other, low and lit with Edison bulbs. There were doors at odd distances, creating a pattern that didn’t make sense. Her eyes were focused on the end of the hallway, where she tried to catch a glimpse of the set of stairs Megan reported.

  She wouldn’t get the chance to see if they were there or not, because the guard turned her, unlocked a door, and pushed her through.

  She fell into a room. Familiar concrete floors and walls. This room was almost empty, her eyes fell upon the single bed in the corner. It had a black wrought iron frame, and tan sheets. Across the room were a table and two chairs.

  She looked into the guard’s face before she was forced away from him. He wasn’t the one that did her intake, though his face was familiar. He was the other guard, the one that was standing in the door, taking the commands of the leader. She remembered him distinctly because she’d made a point to memorize their faces. This was the man that refused to make eye contact with her, and refused to even look at her while she undressed. He was respectful, if it could be called that. She deemed him as “the nice one,” if that was possible either.

  He turned her to face the wall and his fingers fumbled with the cuffs. Oddly enough, she felt the metal on her wrists slacken, and the handcuffs fell to the floor. He bent down and picked them up. She looked over her shoulder to see him attaching them back to his belt. When he saw her looking at him, his eyes flicked around before he spoke. “On the bed.”

  Every muscle in her body tensed. From deep within, the anxiety rose up and out of its hiding place. Her biggest fear was before her. Loss of control. Loss of… options. She could fight. She could thrash about and make it hell for him.

  Instead, she just put one foot in front of the other, and walked towards the corner of the room. She took her time swiveling around and sat down on the creaky bed, avoiding his gaze.

  “I’m sorry I have to do this,” he whispered as he walked to the table.

  Her ears pricked as she heard him drag the chair from the table to the door. She looked up to see him stepping up onto the chair, and adjusting a button on a black box above the door. It was a camera.

  He turned it off.

  SEVEN

  Two Weeks Ago

  She misted the cleaner down on the wood grain floors of her studio, and followed behind it with a paper towel. Yoga was done barefoot, and she was always on top of keeping things clean before the next session. The lights were still dim, and she had just unplugged the diffuser that let out scents of lavender and chamomile. A few women from the all women’s pi-yo—Pilates mixed with yoga—session were still trickling out of the room.

  “Should I put my mat over there on the shelf?”

  Raine looked up at the door to see a timid young girl with curly red hair standing in the doorway holding her purple mat. She smiled at the girl and finished sweeping up the corner. “You can go ahead and take that with you, Lila. Thank you for coming to class today. It was a pleasure having you.”

  “It was so much more fun than my last experience with yoga.” She laughed. “I’ll definitely come again.”

  “That’s great to hear. Remember, we do women’s groups on Tuesday and Thursday nights, but you’re welcome to come anytime.” She walked up to her and held the door open. “Have a great night.”

  Lila nodded, and left through the door of the waiting room to catch up with her friends, who waited for her in the small, makeshift, parking lot.

  Raine smiled to herself again before she turned and headed back into the studio. She walked up to the shelf and straightened the blankets so all the fringe was facing towards the wall.

  The door shut behind her. “Marcus, I thought you decided to take off—” She spun around and stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Disappointed it’s me?” Troy asked with sly grin pasted across his lips.

  She shrugged, and turned back to the blankets. “What do you want?”

  Troy stepped closer to her. “Now that’s not a very professional way to speak to your colleague, is it?” His voice was just above a whisper.

  She turned towards him and crossed her arms.

  He reached forward and grabbed a mat from the shelf.

  “I just organized those!” she protested.

  He turned away from her and made his way to the center of the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want a session.”

  “I’m done for the day.”

  He looked up at her, all traces of his grin gone. His mouth was thin and straight. “One of the perks of working in an office, that I own, is that I get to observe and experience the services that my colleagues are offering to clients.”

  “Sounds like a load of bullshit. Blackmail.”

  He stifled a laugh. “You think this is blackmail? I can show you blackmail, if that’s what you want. Now just get up there and lead the damn yoga.”

  She hesitated. He technically could kick her out of the office. She wasn’t paying rent. She wished she’d pushed the matter of a written agreement that said she had the right to stay there rent-free. Without the legal documentation, she couldn’t protest. All he wants is a lesson right? How hard can that be?

  Being alone with him in the room was constricting. Her radar was going off, and she already had an uneasy feeling. Regardless, she reached forward and grabbed her mat. “Take off your shoes, Troy. Nobody walks on my floor with shoes on.” Her clean floor. Her eyes glazed over. She walked over to the diffuser and plugged it back in, the scent of lavender and chamomile puffing back into the air. She inhaled deeply into the mist and her muscles relaxed to her core. She thought about turning on some binaural beats or ocean waves, but he didn’t deserve it. She preferred the silence. The silence made time feel slow, and his short attention span wouldn’t last long.

  “I can take off more than my shoes if you’d like.” His words flicked off his tongue.

  She ignored the comment and turned away from him. One side of the wall was completely mirrors, like a dance studio. Raine designed the room this way, because she liked having a reflection while exercising. Her students were able to see mistakes
and adjust their poses.

  She went through a series of heart opening poses, starting in the standing position. Working her way through stretching towards her toes, she moved into plank position, then up dog, and into down dog. Down dog was a resting pose, which gave opportunity to check in with the body. She rested both hands on the floor with her butt pointing at the ceiling. She felt the stretch deep in her hamstrings as she pedaled her feet back and forth. She loosened her neck and shoulder muscles, and took this opportunity to look up at the mirror to view her pose. In her peripheral vision, she looked back at Troy, who was in plank position, essentially a pushup held in place.

  He stared directly back at her, smirk on his face. “Nice ass.”

  She fell out of down dog, spun around, and crossed her hands over her chest. “Enough,” she said. Anger rose up in flames, licking her insides.

  He laughed sheepishly. “What?”

  “You’re sexually harassing me, Troy. I’m sick of it. Enough.”

  “Oh get over it, you know you like it.”

  “I don’t.”

  He got up and walked towards her.

  She put her hands up to block him. “You don’t want a yoga session. You want to harass me. You already crossed the line before we even started this, and I won’t let it go any further.” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. She was mostly an introvert, and it was hard for her to stick up for herself. But she wanted it to stop, and nobody was going to do it for her, she needed to take control herself.

  She’d lived in the Bay area alone for a while. With her family back in Ohio, she learned to make it on her own. And when she stayed in San Francisco after college, she chose to make it on her own without help. She needed to stick up for herself.

  “So you’ll give it to Marcus, but not me? C’mon Raine.”

  She exhaled, infuriated. “What I do in my personal time is none of your business.”

  He laughed. “It’s my business when there’s a conflict of interest.” His eyes were amused and his lips parted, revealing the gap in between his front teeth.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me being in a relationship—or seeing, whatever you want to call it, another colleague. Where does it say that in this hypothetical rule book you’ve invented?”

  “I just don’t like it happening around the office, okay?”

  “I thought we were good at hiding it.” Her cheeks burned.

  “Clearly not.”

  “So, what then? If I don’t have sex with you, you want me to leave the practice?”

  Troy didn’t answer. “You don’t… No, that’s not it.”

  “Are we done here? Why didn’t you just come out and say something in the beginning? Why go through this charade?” Her voice trembled and she steadied it again.

  “Because I wanted to look at your ass in those tight pants.”

  “Get the hell out,” she spat.

  He turned and leaned down to grab his shoes, and headed for the door.

  She stood in front of the mirror with her arms crossed, watching his reflection.

  He made it to the door, opened it, and left without looking back.

  When the door slammed shut, Raine slipped down to the floor and allowed her eyes to well up and over. Her shoulders shook as she cried silently to herself, curled up in a ball.

  What am I supposed to do? she asked herself, as she listened to the soft hiss of the lavender from the diffuser.

  Raine looked down at her phone in her lap before she slipped it back in her purse, slung over the back of the chair. It’d taken her twenty minutes to get from her office to the coffee shop. She sat at a two-person table with her cup of sweet ginger green tea steaming on the table.

  As she pulled her hair up and weaved strands into a French braid, she relaxed to the ambient sounds of the shop around her. She closed the braid at the bottom with a hair tie from her wrist. Clattering dishes were being washed in the back of the cafe. The barista behind the counter made small talk with a customer as they whirled the milk under a screaming steam wand. The smell of cinnamon hung in the air. The door behind her jingled as it opened and shut behind her.

  “Girl, you know I’m always up for a coffee date!”

  Raine flipped around to see her friend bouncing towards her. Melita was a ray of sunshine coming towards her as she opened her arms to embrace her.

  “I got you your almond milk latte.” Raine pointed to the mug across the table from her tea, the one with the rosetta latte art swirled on the top of the milk.

  “You didn’t have to do that—you’re so sweet!” She smiled with her pearly white teeth, her cheekbones high and cheerful as the outside edges of her eyes crinkled with her smile.

  “Of course!” Raine sat back down at the table and lifted her own mug up to her lips, sipping the hot liquid.

  “So what’s going on?” Melita asked as she slipped her jacket off her arms and draped it on the chair behind her. She re-situated the tan beanie on top of her wild, wavy hair. “That boy treating you right?” she teased.

  Raine’s smile slipped and she stared into her tea.

  “Raine.” Melita leaned across the table and placed a hand on top of hers.

  “I got into a pretty bad situation with Troy at work today.”

  “That prick? What’d he do now?”

  She heaved a sigh. “He really crossed the line this time. He’s basically harassing me on a regular basis now.” She told her friend about the yoga session situation she’d just experienced.

  “That’s horrible. Can’t you do something?”

  “Who am I supposed to report it to? He owns the building. He could kick me out at any time.”

  “Raine. You are a damn good psychologist with a freakin’ doctorate and enough credentials for any office to take you.”

  Raine smiled. “Thank you. I really love having the freedom to run the practice the way I like it, without having to answer to somebody. I agree. I don’t want to have to put up with this. But I can handle it.”

  “You shouldn’t have to though, girl. That’s awful. It’s your workplace. You have a right to feel safe there. You help empower people and help them find clarity in their lives. You need to take care of yourself as well. You practice yoga there. How are you supposed to honor your practice if you have a coworker constantly trying to get in your pants?”

  The phrase made her laugh. She reached into her mug and pulled out the tea ball, then dropped it on the saucer underneath the cup. Some of the liquid seeped out, puddling the saucer.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know. Thank you, Melita. You always know what to say.”

  “What about Marcus? Have you told him what’s been going on?”

  Raine was silent again. “I have.”

  “And he hasn’t jumped the guy?”

  “Honestly? I think he thinks I’m imagining it.”

  “How the hell could you be imagining something like this? Uh-uh. Nope. You tell that guy to beat it too.”

  She laughed. “Well I didn’t tell him what happened tonight, but I will. Marcus and I have just been good friends for such a long time, it’s hard for me to get into the mindset that we’re in a relationship now. I mean… I don’t even know if I want that. Marcus and I have built such a strong foundation as friends. He’s like home to me. What if something happens and we break up and I lose him?” She sipped her tea. “I know I should have thought about that before we hooked up, because that just leads men to wanting more, but, I don’t know. I just want to keep it casual, you know?”

  “So, you don’t want to be with him because you don’t want to lose him?” Melita asked.

  They laughed together.

  Raine brought her hand up to her forehead. “I’ve confused myself now.”

  “I get you, though. Don’t let him pressure you into anything you don’t
want. Tell him to back off. Tell him you like hanging out as friends, but don’t make it more confusing either. None of that friends with benefits shit, you know? Guys never understand the rules of that.”

  “You’ve got a point.” They laughed again.

  She fumbled with the tea ball on the side of her mug. “In all seriousness though, I have to have the conversation with him about all of this.”

  “I think he’ll understand, girl. But hey, we should plan to do something soon. My family is having a big party next weekend. You should come. You know how huge and crazy my family is, and when we have quinceañeras and backyard parties, it’s always a blast. You need to relax a little.”

  “I don’t know… I love your family, Melita, you know that, but I’m not feeling very social as of late.” She side smiled across the table.

  “I understand. We could do something else to get you out. We could go hiking in Muir Woods across the bay?”

  “Actually, I’d really love that. Thank you.”

  “Good. It’s a date! Do you want a cookie or something from the pastry case? I could use a snack. I’ll buy this time.”

  Raine sighed and moved her mug over. “I would love a snack right now.” She smiled at her friend, the small cure to her terrible day.

  EIGHT

  Raine watched the guard turn off the camera. If she was her friend Melita, she would kick him in the balls right now. She smirked at the thought, but quickly wiped it away before he could see the emotion playing on her face.

  He stepped down from the chair and walked back over to the table, unbuckling his belt and dropping it there. He turned to her.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “I’ll listen to what you have to say. Please don’t hurt me.” She wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but if it was something he didn’t want recorded, it couldn’t be good.

  He walked up to the bed and sat down next to her. “Listen. I’m not going to hurt you. I turned the camera off because he’s watching and I don’t want him to see or hear what I’m about to tell you. He’s always watching.” The guard’s demeanor had completely changed. His hands trembled in his lap.