by Gregg Olsen
Daniel Hector was one of those. A thirty-five-year-old who became a corrections officer because he liked the control, the gatekeeper’s power, and the kind of personal proclamation that came with the duty. He was a short man with dark dead eyes, hairy knuckles, and a Fu Manchu mustache. The difference between his ID badge and the inmates’ badges was solely based on the better lighting afforded staff members. Indeed, if a photo ID was set before anyone with an array of inmate and corrections officers and someone was asked to pick out who was who, Hector would be the first pick for the criminal.
And, considering what he did, they’d be right.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” he told Tori a few days after her incarceration. She had come out of the shower room, her flip-flops and robe on.
“You’re pretty gross,” she said.
“You have pretty titties. I’d like to see them.”
“You would? What’s in it for me?”
“I don’t know,” he said, stepping closer. “Maybe you’d like a cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Candy bar? Magazine? I can get you whatever you want.”
“Not interested,” she said.
“You’re not a chick with a dick, are you, Tori?”
“Funny. Like you haven’t checked me out already, you freak.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I’ve checked you out. Like to get another look at you.”
She had no idea what it would get her, but she agreed. She opened her robe.
He put his hand against his crotch and stepped away, out of the sightline of the video cameras and their unblinking eyes.
“Nice,” he said.
“Want me to do anything?” she said, aware that she hadn’t set a price.
“Yeah,” Hector said, “I want you to move around a little. Dance a little for me.”
Tori almost said she was a good dancer, but she didn’t bother. She didn’t know why it was that she was performing for him the way she was, but she could see the twisted pleasure that he was getting from what she was doing.
“Slower,” she said to him.
He complied.
She was the captive one, of course. Yet she held some kind of odd power over him. He was a piece of garbage, but he was a man nevertheless.
She was in control. She liked it that way. That was better than a candy bar any day of the week.
The visits between Tori, Lainie, and Dex O’Neal in juvenile detention were always fraught with emotion. Tori cried. Lainie cried. Dex wanted to cry, too, but he felt that someone had to be strong in the situation that had heaped on more heartache than their little family ought to bear. Vonnie was dead. Tori was in jail.
CORRECTION CENTER flashed on the caller ID. Lainie was getting ready to go out with some friends from school and she almost decided to pretend that she didn’t hear the phone. Her father was painting a chair in the garage. He wouldn’t hear it ring.
She picked up and waited for the message that warned her where the call was coming from and how she should immediately hang up if she didn’t know who might be calling.
“Hang up immediately!” A robotic-sounding woman’s voice intoned.
Lainie answered.
“Hi, Tori,” she said.
Silence.
“Tori?”
Then she heard some sobbing.
“Tori, is that you? Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. I need to see you. I can’t take it anymore.”
“You only have a few months to go. I know you are getting out soon.”
“You don’t understand. I’m going crazy in here.”
Lainie thought she heard someone else talking.
“Who is that?”
“Just some bitch that wants to use the phone. I’ll get rid of her.” She set down the phone. A moment later she picked it up and spoke.
“I need you to come on Saturday.”
“Dad is working. We can’t come until the Sunday visit.”
“You can come. I need you, Lainie.”
“I can’t get in without Dad.”
“You can. I arranged it. I have special privileges here now. Good behavior.”
Lainie noticed that Tori was no longer crying.
“Okay. I’ll be there at eleven.”
“Come at ten. We can have a special visit.”
Special visit was code for something Tori had planned for her sister. Something, she was sure, she’d never forget.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tacoma
The previous summer
Naked and tangled in the damp white sheets under the canopy bed, Tori Connelly pressed her breasts against her stepson’s back and whispered in his ear. She did so with a gentle puff of each breath so he would not only hear her words, but feel the desire that came with each one.
“You want to play again, Parker?”
It was late in the evening and, save for the creaking that comes with an old house, it was quiet, so very still. It was as if at that very moment there were no others in the world. No husband to control her. No mother to tell him what to do. No one.
Just the two of them.
The teenager grinned and rolled over to face his lover. The light from the bedside lamp was low and golden. She was beyond beautiful. A dream. A very sexy dream. Even in the dimly lit room her hair glowed. Her lips shined with gloss and the moisture from their lovemaking.
“I like it when you call me that,” he said.
She smiled. “It’s your name.”
“I know. I guess it’s the way you say it.”
She brushed her fingers down his hairless chest, stopping at his stomach for a teasing moment before moving lower.
“You’ve gotten bigger, haven’t you?” she said playfully.
Parker tried to suppress a proud smile, but it was impossible.
“Shut up,” he said, not meaning it. “That’s embarrassing. But I’m glad you noticed.” He kissed her again, his tongue exploring the warmth of her mouth. “I’ve grown up a lot since last summer.”
“You have,” she said, proffering a condom from the bed stand. She rolled the wrapper in her fingertips. “Want me to put it on?” she asked, pulling away from his embrace.
Parker shook his head. “I don’t want to wear one. I want to feel you.”
“You can feel me just fine. I don’t want to get pregnant.”
“Would it be so lame if you did?”
“Let’s ask your father that question, Parker, when he gets home from New York.” She put away the condom for a moment and concentrated on pleasing him with her hands.
Parker stretched out on the bed and looked up at the gauzy canopy. “You could lie to him. You know, tell him that it’s his baby. That would be kind of funny.”
“That wouldn’t fly at all. He’s had a vasectomy. I thought you knew that.”
Parker shook his head. “Figures. The asshole didn’t want to have any more kids. Never wanted the one he had.”
Tori put the condom on Parker and they kissed, first slowly, then a little faster. She pushed his shoulder back and crawled on top of him.
“I’m going to make you scream,” she said. “And you can’t stop me.”
“No,” he said, bracing himself as she moved onto him. “No, no. Don’t ever stop.”
“I want this forever,” she said. “I want you forever. We are soul mates.”
Parker’s body started to shudder, his legs tightened, and his eyes nearly rolled backward. She felt so good. She was so beautiful. And she loved him so much. There could never be a better woman for him. Nowhere on earth.
“We are soul mates,” he said.
“Yes, baby, we are.”
“I want us to be together, too. For real.”
“I know. I know. But, you know, that can’t happen.”
Parker indicated for her to stop. “Because I’m younger?”
“Age is a number. Don’t even go there. You are more of a man now than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“More than my father?”
“Parker,” she said, leaning over him.
“More than my dad?” he asked again.
“Yes, baby, you are. You’re nothing like him,” she said, grabbing his hard penis again. “You’re so much more.”
Parker closed his eyes, allowing her to play with him.
“I wish we could be together like this forever,” she said once more.
“I wish he was gone,” Parker said, his eyes open a slit.
“You might not understand,” she said. “But there’s more to the world than our love.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Trust me. There is.”
“What are you getting at, Tori?”
“I signed a prenup. If I leave your dad, I’ll have nothing.”
“Do you care about money or do you care about me?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I care about both.”
Parker pushed back, turned away, and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Tori.
“Look,” he said. “I will do whatever it takes to have you.”
Tori moved across the bed and put her arms around Parker’s shoulders.
“I’ll think of something,” she said. “I promise.”
Tori poured red wine into two glasses and handed one to Parker as they sat in the living room and snuggled on the couch. They had made love for the last time before Alex would return from his business trip. All evidence of what they’d been doing that long weekend had been erased. They’d showered. The sheets in the guest room had been laundered and the used condoms had been wrapped into paper towels, tucked inside a plastic bag, and shoved into an empty pickle jar before being deposited into the trash.
“A pickle jar, nice,” Parker had said.
Tori smiled. “I thought so. It works on so many levels.”
As the clock ticked toward Alex’s arrival time, the joy of their tryst faded. Reality was a car ride away. A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked away toward the TV, the news flickering on mute.
“Tori,” he said. “What is it?”
She faced him. “Parker, I’ve been thinking about us. I just don’t think we’re ready. This thing is going out of bounds.”
“You mean that I’m not ready, don’t you?” His face was contorted in anger, not scarily so, but his eyes popped and the veins on his neck filled with blood. “That I’m not mature enough.”
Tori shook her head slowly, deliberately. “No, I didn’t mean that. I mean that the world won’t understand our kind of love. It doesn’t fit into the way things should be.”
“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean a thing. I’ve looked it up. We could go to France or some other country where we could live in peace, where people understand that love has no limits, no boundaries. Mexico maybe.”
“You are so young, Parker. I don’t want to hurt you. But there’s no way we can live on love alone.” She took a sip of her wine, swirling the red liquid in her glass. Her hands trembling just a little.
Just enough.
“I think you judge me more than the rest of the world would judge us. Sometimes, Tori, you can be a real bitch, you know.”
She wiped her tears and forced a smile. “I like it when you get a little mad. It shows me that you care.”
“I’m more than mad. I’m pissed off. I want you and me to be together.”
“Look,” she said, “this is very complicated. I know we are not related by blood, but people would judge us harshly. I don’t need a Woody Allen/Soon-Yi drama here.”
He didn’t get the reference. He’d never heard of Woody Allen or Soon-Yi.
“We have that little problem beyond all of that. It is legal and it is real.”
“I’ve thought of it,” he said. Resolve had replaced anger on his face. “I know what we can do.”
“What’s that, Parker? I’m not seventeen. I just can’t throw my things into a backpack and leave for Europe or Mexico or wherever. I can’t live that way.”
Parker grabbed her by the shoulders. “Let’s get rid of him,” he said.
“How do you mean?” Her eyes were wide, but not overly so.
She knew the answer, of course.
“Kill him.”
Tori leaned closer and planted a kiss on his lips. Parker could taste the salt on her skin and he set down his glass. Next, she put her hand on his crotch and loosened the buckle on his belt.
“I love you,” she said. “You would do that for me?”
“I would do it for us,” he said.
“Do you know what you’re saying, Parker?”
Parker leaned back while she brought him to climax.
“Yeah,” he said, barely able to get out the word. “I do.”
“Good,” she said. “I have some news and I needed to know the depth of your commitment to me.”
“What?” he asked.
She touched her abdomen. “I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father, Parker.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Tacoma
No one who was not a twin would ever comprehend the connection shared between the two halves of a whole. It is Hells Canyon deep and Mount Rainier high. It is both unbendable and unbreakable. From the womb to the sandbox to college graduation, events were more complicated when they came in twos. Lainie and Tori were always competitors and supporters, both jealous of and comforting to each other. They came home from the hospital as a cherub-faced pair in matching lavender infant sleepers. The only thing to differentiate them was the color of ribbon looped around their pink wrists. When one cried, the other chimed in. It took Dex and Vonnie a week or two to tell them apart, but even though they could do so, the girls were considered a unit. Close, combined, and with a bond that could never be denied by those outside their private little world. And yet, as close as two people can be, there was always a flip side.
A dark, disturbing flip side, indeed.
When Tori indicated she was going to visit her lawyer in downtown Tacoma, Lainie said she didn’t mind being left alone.
“Unless, of course, you need me,” she said, although other plans she’d made kept her from being persistent.
“Oh, it might be fun to have you along. But I can manage. I always have,” Tori said, calling from the top of the stairs as she made her way to the landing where Lainie waited.
Her sister, as always, was a sight.
Tori was dressed to the nines in a charcoal suit and black boots that bent at the knees. She had a black handbag that Lainie figured would take two months to pay for with her web content work. Her makeup, once more, was a little more evening than daytime. Lainie was unsure if it was a Tacoma society thing or the remnants of her sister’s short-lived career as a singer. In general, Pacific Northwest women favored a less glamorous, less fussy appearance.
“I’ll be fine,” Lainie said. “I’ll catch up on e-mail. Maybe watch some TV.” She paused for a beat, resisting the expected compliment that Tori always courted from onlookers as she made her grand entrance. “What are you talking to the lawyer about?”
“The estate, the investigation, whatever,” Tori said, hearing the town car pull up. “You know, I don’t really have a head for legal matters despite my unfortunate background.”
Her tone was cool and the remark was meant as a little dig.
Lainie pretended not to notice. Giving her sister any ammunition for an argument or challenge was to be on the losing end of a proposition. Tori always won. Though neither twin would concede the matter, Tori had won even the one time when she’d lost her freedom.
Lainie locked the front door and dialed Kendall on her crappy replacement phone and huddled by the doorway, making sure that her sister was really gone.
“She just left,” she said.
“Finally,” Kendall said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find out what I can. Anything that points to her being the liar that we both know she is.”
“You are not doin
g this as an agent of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office,” Kendall said. “You understand that?”
“I get that, Kendall. I’m doing this because I’m scared. I don’t trust her. She’s planning something and she has to be stopped.”
“Be careful,” Kendall said.
“You can bet on that. Later.”
Lainie had already gone through the medicine cabinet the first night there—the kind of thing that many overly curious houseguests probably engage in, but never admit to. Other than of a few prescriptions for antidepressants for Alex and a script for codeine for Tori—apparently for the residual pain for her gunshot wound—there was little to pique Lainie’s interest. A few things merely confirmed what she already knew—everything Lainie had was the best that money could buy. Her makeup was Chanel, her perfume was French.
If you can’t pronounce it, you can’t afford it, she could hear her sister say.
She moved quickly to the first-floor study and the immense mahogany desk, library bookshelves running the length of the room, floor to ceiling. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to find out. She told herself as she neatly put back each envelope and folder that she was only curious.
Tori is a mystery to me and she shouldn’t be. Her affect about her dead husband is off. She is too cool. Tori cool.
Most of the paperwork in a folder on top of the desk was related to Alex’s business affairs. As she flipped through the mix of originals and photocopies, she found that her dead brother-in-law had a sizable, though dwindling, stock portfolio.
