“Oh, God,” he said now, gripping the back of Syd’s head.
Back in college, as Kelly Clarkson sang a song on Idol, and Anne’s lips and tongue worked him to a climax, he said, Oh, Anne, yes, baby, yes.
And now, as Syd expertly brought him to an orgasm he blurted, “Oh, Anne, yes baby, yes.”
Syd’s eyes popped open.
Ryan’s eyes popped open.
And they both thought the same thing.
“Oh, shit.”
TWENTY-THREE
Alice’s fingerprints were everywhere. Wearing her surgical gloves, Alice wiped down the entire hotel room: the bathroom, the champagne bottle, glasses, plates, silverware, end table, doorknob, light switches. She knew she’d probably left DNA in the bed but she didn’t care. Her DNA wasn’t on file anywhere, so it couldn’t be used to catch her, just convict her. And right now, she was only concerned with avoiding capture and, since her fingerprints were on file, she had to be sure to get rid of every single one.
She glanced down at Adam’s body, but that’s all it was now. A slab of meat. Adam was gone, he was obliterated a few milliseconds after the bullet pulped his brain. So it didn’t bother her to cut off his penis and stick it in his mouth. She did it more for her legacy than out of rage at this point. If the brutality of her revenge made another potential rapist stop and think, mission accomplished. If it made another woman fight back, mission accomplished.
Alice didn’t believe in God anymore, but she did believe in Satan. She couldn’t understand the people who thought you couldn’t have one without the other. One look at all the evil in the world should be all it takes for everyone to realize we were living in Satan’s playground. You always read about schools or churches collapsing during earthquakes killing scores of innocents. When was the last time you read about a whorehouse going down in a natural catastrophe? Wake up people!
Three down and one to go. But Alice needed time. Once Adam’s body was found, it wouldn’t be long until the police connected him to Colin Wood and Zachary Stone. From there, with a little research, they’d be able to predict her next victim. So the Lady in Red needed to buy as much time as possible before Adam’s body was found.
She rolled the room service cart into the hall and then called down and told room service the food was fantastic and they’d find the cart in the corridor.
Then she called the hotel operator and told her she and her husband had just flown in from Shanghai and needed to sleep. Please hold all their calls until further notice.
She wiped off the telephone, took a final look around the room to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, and then saw Colin’s Platinum card lying a few inches from Adam’s outstretched hand. Damn, so much to remember.
She picked it up, shoved the credit card in her purse and then fished Adam’s wallet out of his discarded pants pocket. She knew he had a Black American Express card, she’d seen him use it to pay for the drinks. She would have preferred a Platinum one so they would all match, but the black one would do.
She also took the wad of hundreds out of his other pants pocket; the extra money might come in handy.
And now just one final touch remained. She bent down to his right hand. She took the thumb and folded it into his palm and then folded his pinkie on top of his thumb. Then she laid his hand, palm down on the floor. She looked at the result and smiled. Perfect.
She triple checked the room; satisfied, she grabbed the Do Not Disturb sign. The sign hanging on the doorknob should keep the housekeepers at bay in the morning and perhaps throughout the afternoon. With luck, the body wouldn’t be found for at least twenty-four hours.
Alice pulled opened the heavy door with the pneumatic hinge and stepped into the hall. An elderly woman was walking with her dog, a yappy little Maltese, who was clearly unhappy and tugging at its leash.
Alice smiled at the guest, dropped the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob and pulled on the door to hasten its closing.
And then the shit hit the fan.
The dog barked and jerked the leash out of its owner’s hand and bolted down the hall. “Maggie, no!” screamed the woman, running after the dog. She looked at Alice, called, “Stop her!”
Alice instinctively used her arms and legs to block the corridor, so the dog skittered left toward the only avenue of escape left open, the slowly closing door of Alice’s room.
The dog shot inside just as the door hissed closed. There was silence for a moment, and then they heard the muffled barks of the dog.
“I’m so sorry,” the elderly woman said. “If you’ll just open up, I’ll get Maggie and we’ll be on our way.”
“I don’t have the key,” Alice said, realizing how the captain of the Titanic must have felt seconds after striking the iceberg. “I left it inside the room.” Which was true, it was on the end table right next to Adam’s dead body.
“Tell you what,” Alice said. “I’ll go down to the desk, get another key and then come right back up.”
“Thank you so much,” the old woman said. “And again, I’m so sorry.”
Tell me about it, Alice thought as she hurried to the elevator. She used her knuckle to hit the call button so as not to leave a fingerprint, and then realized she still had her surgical gloves on. She stripped them off.
She had no intention of stopping by the desk. She was going to walk straight out the door. It would probably be fifteen or twenty minutes until the old lady made her way downstairs wondering what happened to her; plenty of time for Alice to get far from the Bel Air Regent. The elevator arrived. She got in and hit the Lobby button with her knuckle. So much for a twenty-four hour grace period, Alice thought, as the elevator door slid shut.
TWENTY-FOUR
A crossroad. Syd knew that Ryan’s slip of the tongue had put their relationship at a critical crossroad, and what Syd said and did in the next few seconds would affect the rest of her life. Throw a fit? Storm out of the apartment? Pretend she didn’t hear it? Accept his inevitable apology?
Well, first things first; she swallowed.
Ryan dropped to his knees, took Syd’s face in his hands and said, “Jesus, sweetheart, I am so sorry.”
Syd could see the pain in his face, the embarrassment, the humiliation. And he couldn’t have sounded more sincere. Syd loved Ryan, and, Erich Segal be damned, but sometimes love means letting someone say they’re sorry.
“Well,” she said, “So much for me not being jealous of Anne.”
Ryan laughed. Now it was his turn to say just the right thing. But it couldn’t be the truth, could it? He was thinking about his ex-wife while having sex with his girlfriend. Syd would freak out. But what other explanation could he give her? Syd was not stupid and expected the truth, deserved the truth. And Ryan knew if he said the wrong thing, he might lose her forever.
“I don’t know what to say. I guess seeing Anne today stirred up some old memories. While you were giving me head, I flashed back to the first time Anne gave me head. And before I could refocus on you, I came. I don’t fantasize about Anne; I’m crazy about you, I love you, and I am so sorry.”
Syd could hear the truth in every word. And she wasn’t into playing games. So she let Ryan off the hook.
“To tell you the truth,” she said. “I was fantasizing about Lieutenant Hanrahan.”
Ryan laughed, relieved, and hugged her.
“Now,” Syd said, playfully shoving Ryan back onto the floor, “where were we?”
Anne sat on the balcony of her soon-to-be-foreclosed Santa Monica condo staring out at the black glob of the Pacific Ocean. There wasn’t much to see at night unless the moon was cycling through its more incandescent phases. Tonight a feeble crescent hung tentatively in the sky turning the sea into a murky mess. But the view was glorious during the day, and the sunsets were breathtaking.
Unfortunately, the only nice thing about the condo was the view. It was a boxy three- bedroom two-bath unit on the fourth floor of a twelve story building. And it wasn’t even a full- on view
; you had to sit on the far edge of the balcony and look around the edge of the building.
It had been tough for Anne to move out of the Malibu house. Trading three thousand square feet of beachfront for eleven hundred feet of poured concrete was humiliating. And now, having to trade this rat hole for what, a studio in the Valley? Dear God, what a mess.
Rick came onto the patio, beer in hand. “I’ve found some office space we can look at tomorrow, decent building, just off Washington in Culver City.”
Oh yeah, she wasn’t only losing her home, she was getting kicked out of her office, too. Trading a corner office on the fiftieth floor of L.A.’s most prestigious high-rise to what, Culver fucking City? Well, Anne always had a plan and now was no exception. She turned to her husband. “I’m not going to start a law firm with you, Rick,” she said. “And I’m not going to move into a hotel with you. We’re done.”
“You mean, now that you’ve sucked me dry, you need to go find another sugar daddy?”
“How dare you.”
“Don’t get self-righteous with me, Anne. You’re the one with a Gucci closet, you’re the one who has to fly in private jets, rent villas on the Riviera, drive a Bentley, and flash a fistful of diamonds.”
“Don’t you dare make this about me. You lost all our money in the market.”
“And you’re the one who came up with the idea of forging dad’s signature.”
Anne shook her head. It was the same argument they’d been having for months. She was sick of it. “Look, Rick, let’s make this simple. I want a divorce. Let’s just split what few things we’ve got left down the middle and call it a day.”
“Where will you live?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will you do?”
“I have no idea.” But she did have an idea. First thing in the morning she was going to call the California Lottery and make an appointment for Thursday morning. There should be plenty of press there so what better place to announce that honest, hardworking homicide detective, Ryan Magee, was going to set up a foundation and give millions of dollars to charity. And she’d be sure to mention that she’d be heading up the foundation. It would be a great way to launch her new law firm and get plenty of priceless publicity.
Of course, with thirty-four million dollars to play with, you could give away ten million and still have twenty-four million. Hell you could give away twenty-four million and still have ten million. Point being, Ryan was now rich. Gold-plated rich. If she could win Ryan back, they could afford to buy a house on the beach. Her new offices would be in Beverly Hills, not Culver City, and she could continue to live the life of luxury she always dreamed about.
With a man she actually loves.
That’s right, because something happened to Anne while she was having that drink with Ryan. She realized she still loved him.
They didn’t get divorced because they fought or he was cruel, or inattentive or boring. They got divorced because Ryan was poor and she met someone who was rich. But that didn’t mean Ryan and his adorable dimples weren’t handsome, smart and charming.
But he had something else, something she rarely encountered in her law practice, integrity. Oh sure, there were honest lawyers out there, but a lawyer, by definition, was somebody who was always looking for a way to parse the truth. Ryan didn’t parse. He stood on a razor blade with two sides, right and wrong. He was going to give up a Lotto ticket worth tens of millions because technically it wasn’t his. Who would do that?!
Ryan.
And sitting with him tonight she realized how much she admired him. Here was a guy who loved his job, believed in right and wrong, and was honorable. There was absolutely no bullshit in Ryan Magee.
Now admittedly, she tricked Ryan into taking the Lotto money with the foundation idea, but Anne had no pretense about who or what she was.
So, part one of her plan was to get her hands on Ryan’s Lotto money. But part two of her plan was even more important; getting her hands on Ryan.
TWENTY-FIVE
Edna Kaye paced anxiously in front of room 1224. She could hear her dear sweet Maggie whining inside. It had been almost fifteen minutes since that pretty blonde woman had gone down to the desk and still no one had come to let Maggie out of the room. She was about to get on the elevator herself when it dinged and a room service waiter stepped into the corridor.
Edna recognized him; he’d been the same waiter who delivered her Oolong tea and sherry a couple of hours ago. “Oh, thank God you’ve come,” she said. “Maggie is trapped in that room there, 1224. The woman who’s staying there went to get security but it’s taking forever and Maggie is simply miserable.”
The room service waiter, Jorge, was actually there to pick up the room service cart for 1224, which he saw in the hallway across from the room. He also saw the Do Not Disturb sign on 1224’s door. A good way to get fired from the Bel Air Regent was to knock on the door, or walk into a room that had a Do Not Disturb sign.
“Please, won’t you please open the door so I can get my Maggie?”
Jorge remembered Edna and remembered her dog. Edna had tipped him ten dollars cash, which he liked. The dog had nipped his ankle, which he didn’t. But he could hear the dog clawing at the door.
“How long ago did she leave?” Jorge asked. Though born in Mexico, he was raised in Fresno and spoke with no accent. He was a senior at UCLA, on scholarship, and desperately needed this job to make ends meet.
“At least fifteen minutes. Does it usually take that long for security to respond? What if someone was in real trouble? Please, can’t you help me?”
Actually, security usually responded very quickly but they must have their hands full tonight, he thought. He had an electronic pass card, of course; he was always going into guest rooms to retrieve trays and carts. And who could he possibly disturb by opening the door now? That dog was making so much noise, that if there was a guest inside, he’d have to be awake.
Still, you never knew. He looked at Edna, saw the desperation on her face and made a decision. He took out his pass card, slid it in the door and slowly pushed.
The door was only open six or seven inches when Maggie shot out of there like a cannon ball and leapt into Edna’s outstretched arms. “Oh, my poor baby, it’s okay, momma’s here.”
The door to 1224 was barely open and Jorge couldn’t see inside. He thought about walking in and checking it out, but the Do Not Disturb sign haunted him and since the dog was freed, he saw no reason. Jorge let go of the door and it hissed shut.
Alice’s bloody secret was safe, for now.
Alice didn’t know that, of course. She was back in her apartment about five miles from the Bel Air Regent. She liked to think in the shower. And that’s what she was doing now; Alice was thinking about the rape. Or more precisely, what happened after the rape.
As she lay in bed that night eleven years ago, hurting inside and out, she tried to figure out exactly what had happened. She must have been drugged, she hadn’t drunk that much. And it hit her so fast. It had to be a Roofie. She’d heard about the date rape drug on TV and in Human Sexuality class. Mrs. Brillstein warned about never taking a drink at a party unless you made it yourself. But who expects your own classmates to drug you?
She knew she should go to the police. Make those bastards pay for what they’d done to her. She just wished she’d known what exactly they had done to her. She had no semen in her vagina, but she had been raped, she knew that. So they must’ve worn condoms. And though she’d never had anal sex before, she could tell that she had now.
Mrs. Brillstein had been very clear what a woman should do if she was ever raped. Get to a hospital emergency room. Don’t bathe or change your clothes. Once there, call the police. Then they’d check you for injuries, put together a rape kit and collect evidence they could use in court.
But Alice had already showered. It’s the first thing she did when she got home. Stood under the shower and wept. She felt so guilty about what had happened. She actual
ly thought it was her fault.
The truth is, if Adam had said he wanted to have sex with her, she would have said yes. And if Adam said he also wanted her to have sex with his friends, the answer, pathetically, would probably have been yes. She’d have done whatever Adam asked her.
And she’d actually had sex with more than one boy at a time once before, with Tommy Chapman and his friend David. She’d slept with Tommy a few times and did the twosome on a dare. It was kind of fun at the time in a porn-star-wannabe, slightly perverted, sort of way. But she’d felt cheap and used the next day and hadn’t done it again.
Lying in bed that night eleven years ago, Alice was ashamed of herself. She knew deep down that she’d been using sex to be more popular. And she hated that about herself. She wished she could just be satisfied at being a brainiac and not care what others thought about her. But she couldn’t.
And deep down, in that moral, guilt-ridden consciousness that we’re either born with or our parents poison us with, she felt that being drugged and raped was God’s way of punishing her for being a slut.
So as she lay in bed, she decided not to go to the hospital. Not to go to the cops. Just to go to school and act as if nothing had happened. And in that twisted, adolescent way of thinking, she actually decided that if she said nothing, showed up at school as if nothing had happened, Adam might be so impressed he would begin to respect her. Maybe even like her.
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