“I can do that. Same time?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and then reached to turn off her camera and then the window they’d been chatting in disappeared from his screen.
He laughed and closed down his own Tor program. It was just past 7:30 p.m.
* * *
Two hours later, the Manipulator was standing in Cindy McKay’s backyard. He could see the shadows of her and the girl as they walked occasionally past windows.
He knew her name. He knew the daughter’s name. He already knew more about Cindy and Avril than they could possibly imagine. All without Cindy ever giving a clue to her name.
Thank you, DarkNet!
He walked toward the house, knowing he’d be practically invisible against the bushes that lined the sides of the property.
A cat was sitting outside the back door. There were no lights outside and it was hard to see, but the cat saw the Manipulator quite well. It walked over to him and rubbed his leg.
He picked the cat up and patted it. In the moonlight, he could see dark brown stripes mixed through the otherwise black fur. The cat was purring and he smiled as he played with it.
“Nice kitty,” he whispered.
From inside the house, he heard a tiny voice whining. “Aww, Mom, do I have to?”
He couldn’t hear Cindy’s reply and neither did he hear any further protests from Avril. A light went on in her room and then disappeared shortly thereafter. He knew Cindy would soon find her way to her own bed.
The cat licked one of his fingers. He smiled and held its head with one hand and then snapped its neck. The cat didn’t have time to meow, dying instantly. It went limp in his hands.
He patted it one last time and then walked to the front of the house, which was also quite dark. The house was set back from the street to keep strangers from knocking on their door.
The cat was like a wet rag. He placed it on a rattan chair on the front porch as if it were sleeping. He wondered how long it would take anybody to find it.
Chapter 9
July 14
It’d been a week since Tony McKay had been to Guitars First. Now he walked back in, at the same time of day as that first time. As he’d expected, the same girl was there, staffing the empty store.
“Hi, Deb.”
She looked up with wide eyes. He wanted to laugh, knowing she was terrified of customers and wondering again what the fuck she was doing in this job in the first place.
He just smiled at her, letting her know it was okay and hoping she’d remember the time they’d talked earlier.
After a few seconds, her eyes lit up. He liked that. Her full lips curled up into a relaxed smile. It was a closed-mouth smile, not the open and wild smile he’d left her with, but he knew she’d get that back.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re the singer.”
“You got it. Just wanted to come back and see how you’re doing.”
Deb Stewart was 21 and had few friends. He’d checked her out using Google and Facebook, and he already knew she was exactly who he was looking for.
Unconsciously, his hand slipped into his pocket and touched his wallet. Deb was the only person who knew about the winning lottery ticket hidden there. He wondered if that had been a smart move, but he quickly tossed that thought away. Tony McKay was never wrong. It was all the idiots who surrounded him that made mistakes.
“Really?”
He smiled wider when he saw her face turn a shade of pink.
“I like you,” he said.
She looked down at the counter. He’d scared her again.
That’s okay. Easier to control.
“What time do you get off work?”
Deb hesitated and then walked over to where Tony was standing.
“I don’t know if I should—”
He interrupted her. “Of course you should. You know that.”
Then he shocked her by leaning over and slowly moving his mouth to hers. He was ready to pull back if she got too scared but she didn’t move. His lips touched hers and gently pressed. He liked how she felt and how she smelled. He put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her to him, kissing her harder and pushing his tongue inside her mouth.
Deb kissed him back and tentatively put her arm around his back.
Gotcha.
He broke the kiss and then moved to her neck, kissing her there. She made a soft sigh, and he reached behind her with both hands, pulling her ass toward him. He knew she could feel his erection as he grinded into her.
“I don’t know anything about you,” she whispered.
“That’s exciting, isn’t it?”
He kissed her neck some more, moving his mouth up to her ear. He then whispered, “You want to fuck me. We both know that. Nothing else matters.”
He felt her shudder in his arms and felt her body pressing against his. He’d known from the moment he first laid eyes on her and knew exactly how to harvest her.
“Close the store now.” Although he whispered it, it was clearly an order. She nodded and he let her free to go turn off the lights and flip the “Please Come In!” sign around so that it said, “Sorry We Missed You!”
* * *
Deb could feel her heart beating as she followed Tony into the hotel room. She knew his name only because she’d Googled Summer Drive after he sang it in the store that other time he came in. She knew he was almost twice her age, he didn’t wear a wedding ring, and . . . well, pretty much nothing else. It wasn’t like she expected to ever see him again. She’d just been a little curious about the stranger who had come into her life and then left just as suddenly.
But now he was back. And they were going into a strange hotel room. She’d never done anything like that in her life.
They’d driven in Tony’s car and barely said a word on the way. It was a good thing the hotel was close to the store, because she knew she’d lose her nerve if she had too much time to think about things.
Deb wasn’t a virgin, but she was close. She’d only had one other lover, several years ago.
From the time she was about six years old, Deb knew she was different from other kids. She wasn’t just shy; she was terrified of meeting other people. If somebody came to visit her home, she’d hide in her bedroom or behind a chair or in a closet. In school she couldn’t speak a word. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to talk . . . she was just too afraid of people. When she was alone with her parents or her older sister, she’d talk non-stop, as if making up for lost time, but when she was with anybody else, she froze and didn’t know what to do.
The first time she spoke in class at school was when she was eleven years old. It was a monumental day in her life, one she still remembered vividly, somehow managing to overcome the intense fear.
Her parents chided her for being stupid. Sometimes they called her retarded or an idiot. That only made it harder, but they never understood that.
When she was fifteen, she searched the Internet and found out her problem. She had something called selective mutism. It was a phobia that caused sheer terror when talking to strangers, and sometimes even with people she knew.
Selective mutism causes intense anxiety and fear. One of the articles she read compared it to somebody with an intense fear of heights who decided to try skydiving. The fear sucked the life right out of you. When Deb read this, she started to cry. Somebody understood.
The only difference was that people could choose to skydive or to not. She didn’t have that same luxury with her fear because she lived in a world where people socialized, and she hated not being able to be a part of that society.
When she was 18, her older sister, Mary, thought she could help Deb by taking her to a sorority party with her. Deb was a freshman and Mary was a senior. The party was at a private home just outside the campus of the University of Washington. There were dozens of students there, celebrating the last day of class before Christmas.
Mary got Deb a beer, her first ever, and it tasted like shit, but she
drank it. And another.
“If you just loosen up, it’ll be a lot easier to talk to people,” Mary said.
Deb wanted to believe her and she kept guzzling the beer. She never felt brave enough to talk to anybody, though, and she ended up hiding in a bedroom. She’d lost track of the number of beers she’d had. All she knew was that her head was spinning and she needed to lie down. She’d also lost Mary.
Deb had no idea how long she’d been passed out when she woke up groggily, some guy fondling her breasts. Her clothes were off. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she was too afraid.
She wanted to fight but then stopped. Why not? It’s supposed to be fun. Who knows when I’ll have another chance?
She tried to let it happen and enjoy it. She wanted to lean up to kiss the stranger, but she didn’t have the nerve. He had his own agenda and timing.
It wasn’t fun. It just hurt.
After the guy left, Deb put her clothes back on and snuck out the door, ashamed and afraid of running into her anonymous lover.
The next day she quit the university. She eventually enrolled in a correspondence course to finish her degree.
* * *
Now she was scared again, but not for the same reason as before. She could talk to Tony. There was something about him that eased the corners of her mind and allowed her to talk. It wasn’t easy, but it was possible. She figured it was his smile. He wore the gentlest smile she’d ever seen, and she knew he’d treat her well. With selective mutism, trust was everything.
“Beer? Wine?” He walked to the hotel mini-bar and glanced back at her.
“Whatever you’re having,” she said.
He pulled out two cans of Coors Light and popped the tabs on them, handing her one.
“I’m celebrating,” he said.
“Yeah? Why?”
“I finished a new song today. My best since that one I sang for you.”
“Summer Drive. I liked that.”
“Everyone likes it.”
“Can you sing me your new one?”
He gave her a smile and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
He’d brought his guitar into the hotel room, and now she knew why. He picked a few strings to tune them and said, “This is kind of a follow-up. It’s called Summer Swim.”
She nodded, tried to smile, and took another drink of her beer.
The song was supposed to be fun and light and summery and full of joy. She could tell that, but as Tony sang, she had trouble not cringing. The words were silly, and he seemed to have trouble singing the song in key. Or maybe he’d just written the wrong notes. She wasn’t an expert but it just sounded off.
Part of her wondered if this was a test, to see if she’d be honest with him.
What do I tell him?
When he finished, he looked expectantly at her, and she knew he was hoping for praise. She could read it in his eyes.
“Well?”
“I loved it!” She tried to sound convincing.
His smile drooped a bit, and he put the guitar aside. “Maybe it needs a bit of work.”
“No, it’s perfect.”
He went to her and grabbed her chin with two fingers, squeezing hard.
“You don’t ever want to lie to me, girl.”
He forced her to look into his eyes, the eyes that weren’t smiling anymore. She felt a shudder run through her and for the first time she wondered if she’d made a mistake.
Then Tony smiled again, and the mood fell away. He let her chin go and leaned down to kiss her. He forced his tongue into her mouth and she tried to respond, but it was so sudden . . .
He stopped and grabbed her Seattle Mariners T-Shirt at the waist and pulled it up over her head, tossing it on the floor. She wore a pair of high-end jogging pants, and he lowered them from her body, helping her to lift each leg as he undressed her.
She couldn’t seem to decide what to do, and the easiest thing was to go along with him.
Within another minute, he’d taken off her bra and panties. She was naked.
“Lie on the bed.” It wasn’t a request.
She did as he asked, and he undressed himself.
He climbed on top of her and pinned her arms above her head. She felt like he was just using her but . . . she didn’t want him to stop.
He leaned over her body and she felt his erection pressing down on her. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine being in love with this man, who she barely knew.
Then he licked her nipples, sucking them until they became erect. She could feel her body starting to respond to his actions. But then he bit her right nipple, hard.
Deb couldn’t help but yell. He stared at her and said, “No noise. Nothing.”
She bit her lower lip as he rolled her over on her stomach. She didn’t know what he was going to do until she felt the sharp stings of his hand slapping her ass. She wanted to cry out in pain, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to, so she sucked it up.
He slapped her again and again, and then rolled her onto her back and pushed her legs apart.
He forced two of his fingers deep inside her pussy. She was wet and at first it felt nice, but he kept pushing harder and it felt like he was going to rip her apart. She grunted but didn’t speak.
Tony grabbed her hair with his other hand and pulled it hard. She felt pain in both places now and then he forced her onto her side. He took his hand out from inside her and forced her mouth onto his cock.
“Suck me,” he whispered.
She’d never done that before but she had no choice. He was forcing her head up and down on him.
“You belong to me,” he said. “You’ll do anything I tell you to.”
She kept sucking him, hoping he’d change his mind and want something else.
He kept her mouth on him until he was ready to come. Then he pulled out and sprayed his semen on her face. Some got into her eyes and stung.
When he was done, he lay down beside her. “Next time, it’ll be your turn.”
Next time ended up being less than an hour later. He went through some of the same actions, slapping her ass hard, biting, pulling hair, but this time he entered her and started to fuck her like she had been expecting.
It felt nice.
Then, as he was fucking her, he put both his hands on her neck and squeezed.
She couldn’t breathe and started to panic. He continued to fuck her as he squeezed harder, and her body reacted to the pleasure, overcoming the urge to fight. She came and as she did, he relaxed the hold on her neck.
“Best orgasm you’ll ever have,” he said.
He continued to pound her with his cock until he came a second time. Then he rolled over and fell asleep.
After a while, she got dressed and left. When she got home, she looked in the mirror and saw red marks on her neck. Her body hurt all over and she felt a strange combination of fear and longing.
Deb fell asleep and dreamed of Tony, hoping he’d come to her store again soon.
Chapter 10
July 15
It was a beautiful Friday morning, the sun shining down in such a glorious fashion that it made Avril want to run around the neighborhood shouting how wonderful the day was. She loved hot sunny days, and today was definitely fitting the bill. Even though it was only 9:00 in the morning, it was already 83 degrees out, and looking out her bedroom window, all she saw was happiness.
She stayed quiet, knowing her mom would still be sleeping. She liked to stay in bed mornings when she could. Weekends, holidays, and especially the summer when Avril was out of school.
The house was silent. Dad never slept this late so he must have already left for work. Avril thought for a minute and remembered it was Friday. During summer holidays, every day was part of a wonderfully long weekend. It was one of the best parts of being a kid.
She found an apple-flavored Bear Paw in the pantry and munched on it as she walked to the front door.
Hesitating, she looked at the little box on the wall that contr
olled the alarm system. Would the alarm sound if she opened the door? It’d happened before.
“No,” she decided. “Dad would have turned it off.”
She unlocked the door and walked out onto the front porch. The sun blazed across the sky even more magnificently than it had looked from her bedroom. She smiled and stretched her arms out.
Avril planned on spending as much of the day outside as possible. She’d bring her cheap little plastic chess set out and practice some games while sitting on the—
She blinked when she saw the dead cat on the rattan chair.
“Rocky?”
Fear ran through her and her first thought was, Daddy did this.
But she knew that was silly. Why would he?
She inched closer. There was no doubt it was Rocky. Avril had owned the cat as long as she could remember. It was a black tabby with brown stripes.
The cat’s head was turned at an impossible angle. That alone would have been enough to tell Avril that Rocky was gone, but on top of that, there were dozens (maybe hundreds) of bugs eating at the carcass. Rocky’s belly had been bitten so many times it looked like it was raw hamburger. Blood had pooled around the body and the bugs feasted without any notice made of Avril.
The corpse smelled even from a few feet away.
Avril wanted to run. She was scared and heartbroken at the same time. Tears didn’t run down her face, though, and some back part of her mind wondered why not. The front of her mind was more concerned about touching her pet, to see what dead felt like.
She took another tentative step forward. The bugs crawling over the cat almost made her want to throw up, but she once again managed to avoid it. She wondered if she should somehow sweep away the flies and worms and whatever other things were there, but that seemed too grown-up a thing for her to be able to contemplate.
The fur on the cat’s back looked the same as it always did, and that’s where Avril reached.
“Just going to pet my kitty . . .”
When she did, the fur felt hard and cold, like each strand of hair was a miniature frozen icicle. She patted the cat harder, trying to find the warmth and softness she was used to.
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