She's Kill Crazy

by Tina Laningham

  She's Kill Crazy

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  She’s Kill Crazy

  Tina Laningham

  CHAPTER 1

  VANESSA

  I LOVE HUNTER. But not right now. I’m standing backstage behind this blue curtain watching him deliver his latest theory on Roman mythology. Not feeling the love.

  It’s not him. He’s every woman’s dream. Tall chiseled body and deeply intellectual. No, he’s not the problem. It’s this damn blue curtain.

  The urge is rising.

  The urge to kill.

  It’s a reasonable urge, it’s just not practical. After my fourth kill, I nearly got caught. And since four is my lucky number, it’s time to stop.

  Now that urge is rising inside me. It begins in my stomach. If it reaches my heart, I’ll kill. Focus on Hunter. Not the blue curtain.

  Finally, the applause comes. Without touching the curtain, I peek around. The noise pushes the urge down to the place where it belongs, back into a mere subconscious memory.

  Christ, Hunter’s moving toward me. I tilt my head and muster a smile.

  “Will you marry me?” he asks.

  I feign a giggle. “I already did.”

  He presses his body against mine. Public speaking excites him. The swine. I comb my fingers through his curly dark hair.

  “Let’s drive home in the morning,” he says. Hunter slips his hand in mine and pulls me toward an exit door.

  “Dr. Flynn, wait.” A heavyset woman rushes over. “You’re staying for the reception, aren’t you?”

  Hunter politely apologizes and lies that we have another engagement to attend this evening. The woman appears as stunned as the gray-haired professors in the audience after being told by an overpaid thirty-six-year-old speaker that Romulus and Remus were real.

  Hunter pushes the heavy exit door and I shiver. It’s chilly outside and the smell of wet dirt after fresh rain lingers in the air. Hunter opens the passenger door of his little black Fiat, and after a short drive through Sacramento, he zips to the front of the Capital Hotel.

  While Hunter checks in, I wait by the elevator. It’s show time. I pull out a little mirror and put on more lipstick. Blood red.

  On the ride up to our room, one of those California senators recognizes Hunter and asks for an autographed copy of his new book. I don’t want Hunter getting a big head over this. “I’ll get one to you,” Hunter promises her.

  The hotel room is stately, but too old fashioned for my taste. Hunter yanks off his tie with a snap and unbuttons his white starched shirt. I bury my nose in his armpit and inhale, then let out a slow moan. His body odor turns me on, just not in the way he thinks. And all that sweating he did on stage tonight certainly helps.

  I pull off the little black dress I bought for the reception we’re not attending. Asshole. I was looking forward to flaunting our newly elevated social status.

  Hunter grabs the comforter and rips it off the bed. He scoops me up and lays me on the ivory sheets. His eyes survey my body and he says, “My Venus.” I hate that. My name is Vanessa.

  He thinks I’m a mirror image of Venus in Botticelli’s painting. I need a normal life, so I just go with it. I haven’t cut my long red hair since our wedding day a little over a year ago and now it’s down below my butt, exactly like Botticelli’s Venus.

  “I want every inch of you,” Hunter says and kisses my perfectly sculpted red brows.

  He doesn’t want me. He wants Venus, goddess of beauty, desire, sex, love, and blah, blah, blah. I freeze while he kisses his way down my neck. I think about the time he made me stand naked in front of a mirror and he held a large framed print of The Birth of Venus next to the mirror so I could see the similarities. I do resemble that woman in the painting. My narrow shoulders and small breasts. My wide hips and full thighs. I’m no model, but Hunter’s obsession with Venus benefits me and that’s all I care about.

  God, not that. His body is hovering now, his stiff arms holding him up. I bundle my long red hair and pull it around to cover the area he wants most. The only reason it turns him on more is because that’s what Venus is doing in the painting. He knows I’m serious. Do not enter.

  Hunter moves down to my thighs. He makes his way to my toes, lingers there a while, and kisses each one. It’s disgusting. The second toe, the one that protrudes farthest, that’s his favorite.

  I stifle a gag.

  Now he’s working his way back up and the urge is rising. The urge to kill. My heart races. I flip him over and seize control. Hunter always lies back willingly.

  After I give him a workover, he smooths my long red hair and whispers, “My Venus.”

  This is our routine.

  A knock at the door startles me. Hunter grins and pulls on his pants. He tips the guy and comes back to bed with a bottle of Pinot Noir and two wine glasses.

  A love of red wine is the only thing we have in common. If Hunter wasn’t such a greedy pig, we could have enjoyed the wine before sex and maybe I could have endured it. But men are weak. No self control.

  The next morning, we’re driving home to Napa and I’m feeling pleased with how normal my life has become. I rub the red leather seat and say, “I want to stop working. I don’t want to be a pediatric nurse anymore.”

  Hunter’s eyes widen. “I’m shocked.”

  “You don’t mind, do you?” I struggle to raise my brows in concern, but they slam down and bristle. How dare he not let me. With his skyrocketing book royalties and those outrageous speaker fees. My voice escalates. “You have a problem with me quitting my job?”

  Hunter takes my hand and squeezes it gently. “Of course not.”

  “Good answer,” I say sternly. I calm my voice and raise it a pitch, “You’re traveling all over the world now, meeting new people. I want to go.” I make my voice quiver. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  Hunter grins.

  “And I’m tired of taking care of everyone else’s babies. I want my own. I want a baby.” Which means I’ll have to let you in, but that’s what red wine is for.

  I move my hand up his thigh until Hunter rests his head back. And then I slide my hand down to his knee. I snuggle up to him and walk two fingers up his tensed thigh, but stop before reaching the top and I rest my hand there.

  Hunter moans achingly.

  And for the rest of the ride home, I make sure Hunter feels like a captured animal.

  Caught. Trapped. Helpless.

  CHAPTER 2

  DETECTIVE CANDICE BLAKE calls the dispatch center of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department one last time. The dispatcher answers again.

  “Are you sure?” Candice asks.

  “No dead bodies this week. And no one’s mi
ssing.”

  Candice pulls off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose.

  The dispatcher sighs into the phone. “That’s a good thing, ya know.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” She hangs up and lassos her long dark hair into a pony tail.

  May ninth has come and gone. It’s over. The Napa Valley murders have stopped.

  For the past four years, on May ninth, a male body has been found. But the date isn’t the only coincidence. No, there are enough coincidences to reveal that Candice is dealing with a predictable, but clever sociopath.

  The four unsolved files are spread across her desk. Candice has combed through them a million times, but she’s still missing something. And that feeling gnaws at her. It gnaws during the day. It gnaws at night when she can’t sleep. And every morning, her eyes pop open with the terrifying thought that the next kill is on her. It’s what the Sheriff once said while poking his finger in her face. “The next kill is on you.” And for his parting comment, “Women, sheesh.”

  It’s not that Sheriff Lee’s doubt in her is unjustified. It is. Five and a half years ago, he hired Candice only because she was the top detective in a Philadelphia precinct with a high homicide rate. She was the closer. Not only did she solve cases, her evidence stuck in court. Anyone would have been crazy to not hire her.

  She scoots the framed photo of her family to the corner of the desk. After their two daughters, Sydney and Alex were born, Candice and Peter wanted to raise them in a small town with a low crime rate. They said goodbye to family and friends and left Philadelphia. But a few months after they arrived in Napa, California, the killings began.

  She opens each file and stacks the papers side by side. There’s talk around the Sheriff’s Department that she may not last much longer. She’ll prove them wrong. And the sooner the better because this case is changing her. At home, she’s overly protective of her children. Less intimate with her husband. And there is nothing she can do to fix it.

  Candice goes over the facts again. The victims, male. All white. Cause of death, asphyxiation. Murder weapon, a clear plastic bag with a white cotton string gathered at the neck and tied tight. Arms and legs strapped together with duct tape.

  The first three were in their thirties and had priors: sex offenders. Each one served time for rape and then moved to Napa Valley to start a new life. The fourth, no priors, age fifty-five, murdered in the same way.

  After the first murder, Sheriff Nathan Lee assigned the case to Candice, the only female detective in Napa County. Her reputation as a closer preceded her and he wanted the case closed quickly. Napa Valley was known for its practically nonexistent homicide rate and the sheriff wanted to keep it that way.

  The first case seemed easy to solve. Candice was once that good. Good at finding details and piecing together events. Good at gathering enough evidence to get a conviction.

  But now, after four years and four unsolved murders, Candice begins to doubt herself.

  As usual, the chair at the desk across from Candice is empty. Her partner, Todd Pierce, a balding man in his fifties, spends most of his time in the county gym sculpting his muscles.

  Todd pushes open the breakroom door carrying a protein shake and parades his body through the office. He leans back in the chair across from Candice and props his feet on the corner of the desk. Without acknowledging her, he tilts up the protein shake.

  Candice bounces the eraser of a pencil on one of the files and says to Todd, “What does it mean that the killer stopped? It’s not like Napa Valley ran out of incoming sex offenders.”

  Todd stirs the shake. “Maybe he got hit by a bus.”

  Something has changed. Perhaps the killer moved away. There must be a similar kill on May ninth somewhere.

  After the third kill, when it became clear they were dealing with a serial killer, the FBI had shown up. But like a dog who’d marked his territory, Sheriff Lee would not cooperate. Neither would Todd. Still, the youngest FBI agent, Greg Hansen, stays in touch with Candice.

  Agent Hansen will know if an asphyxiation kill has been reported on May ninth anywhere in the United States. Candice’s fingers sweep over the keyboard.

  She shoots an email to him and waits.

  CHAPTER 3

  HUNTER NORMALLY LISTENS to journal articles about ancient Rome, written by his colleagues, during the ride to the University of California at Berkeley. After all, he’s the youngest to have ever been named Head of the Department of Classics. It’s about more than himself now. He must understand the ideas of other professors, too. And because of this promotion, it’s the first time he’s working through summer to help the administration prepare for the fall semester.

  Professors don’t get paid well, but Hunter’s just made the New York Times bestseller list. It’s not the professor’s salary he needs, it’s the intellectual stimulation. Not that these old professors are intellectually stimulating. They’re not. It’s the students who challenge him. Their banter. Their fearlessness when it comes to ancient theoretical exploration. They remind him of himself when he was a young grad student.

  But on this bright June morning, while driving through Golden Ridge on the way to Berkeley, something outside the window catches Hunter’s eye. It’s not a flashy sign. It’s a simple, hand painted sign on a stucco wall. A new business has opened and the sign reads, Spa di Venus.

  Hunter stops. He shifts the Fiat in reverse and crawls backward. After spinning the wheel and turning in, he circles a fountain in the middle of a cobblestone drive.

  The property is familiar. Originally the house was a villa on a vineyard, then a bed and breakfast. If he’d known the bed and breakfast was for sale, he would have purchased it and turned it back into a villa. But too often, properties sell an hour after they go on the market.

  Hunter steps out of the car and loosens his tie. The building’s freshly painted white stucco glares in the sun. The spa is surrounded by Roman archways and capped with a red tile roof. Streams of pink bougainvillea flow from the rooftop down both sides of a hand carved wooden door.

  He’s two hours early for a meeting with the elderly professors over whom he now presides and it’s no secret they resent him. That not only makes everyone in the department edgy, it makes Hunter’s neck feel tight.

  What would an ancient Roman scholar do? Stop for a massage, of course. How can he resist a name like Spa di Venus?

  A spa membership will be a perfect surprise for Vanessa. But for his goddess, the quality must be exquisite. He’ll check it out, and if it’s superb, he’ll buy a one year membership for Vanessa, his very own Venus.

  Hunter opens the tall wooden door and steps inside. In the middle of an open area with an ornate tile ceiling and a gleaming wood plank floor sits a young receptionist, who tilts her head and smiles.

  “Good morning,” she says.

  “Well, good morning,” Hunter replies. He leans on the long wooden table that’s her desk. “How long have you been here?”

  “About thirty-five minutes.”

  Hunter grins. “No, no. I mean when did Spa di Venus open?”

  “Oh.” Her face flushes and she flicks brown hair over her shoulder. “We opened last Friday.”

  “Well, I guess that explains it,” Hunter says. He unbuttons the cuffs of his white starched shirt and rolls up the sleeves. “My wife and I were in Sacramento on Friday.”

  “Your wife.” She rolls her eyes. “Of course.”

  Even though it happens all the time, it still takes Hunter by surprise when a woman finds him attractive. Hunter lifts the tent card that reads, By Appointment Only. “I don’t have an appointment, but would it be possible to get a massage?”

  “Um, let me check.” She picks up the phone.

  Hunter takes a business card. Her name, Rayna. Her title, Appointment Manager.

  Rayna swivels the chair and says something into the phone. After spinning back around, Rayna tells Hunter he’s in luck, that the spa’s owner, Venus, will see him. “She’s the best, but sh
e’s also the most expensive.”

  Hunter hands over a credit card. “That won’t be a problem.”

  “Do you want a membership?” Rayna asks.

  Hunter winks. “We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 4

  AFTER HUNTER UNDRESSES, he wraps himself in an ivory robe and wanders out to a steaming pool that sits under blue sky at the center of the house.

  Like an ancient Roman bathhouse, magnificent columns support the long covered porch areas that surround the pool. And statues of Venus di Milo, each one placed above a column, look down on the pool from the roof above.

  “Perfect,” Hunter whispers. Vanessa will love it.

  White mist hangs over the bath like soft clouds. Hunter disrobes and descends the steps into the pool. For a manmade mineral bath, it’s awe-inspiring. No smell of chlorine, just a hint of salt water. And no turquoise blue. The pool is made of natural stone that blends with the surroundings.

  Hunter slowly submerges himself, letting the warm bath envelope him. All tension inside vanishes and when he closes his eyes, it feels as if he’s floating. It’s exactly what he needs before dealing with those pricks at the university.

  A resonant voice interrupts his thoughts. “Dr. Flynn, I’m ready.”

  Hunter opens his eyes. He’s not sure how much time has passed, but standing there, by the edge of the pool, is Venus.

  Not Botticelli’s Venus.

  The woman gazing down upon him resembles the mature Venus statue, Venus di Milo, sculpted one hundred years before Christ. The one on permanent exhibit at the Louvre in Paris. Tall and strong with wavy hair, round cheeks and full lips, like the Venus statues keeping watch over the pool from the pillars above.

  Is this a dream?

  “Dr. Flynn,” she says again. “Come with me.”

  Hunter climbs out of the pool and into the robe. “Venus?” he asks.

  She nods.

  Hunter follows Venus through a door and down a hall. She’s tall and wearing a white linen tunic, white pants and brown leather strap sandals. At the end of the hall, Venus veers into a room and Hunter follows.