by Kay Hooper
“Good,” she murmured, relaxed at least for the moment. “That was . . . good.”
Drained himself, Alan nevertheless consciously tried to control the moment, his hand stroking her back in a soothing motion, enjoying the sensation of her warm breath against his neck. “More than good.” He knew better than to comment on her passion, knowing from experience that it would only cause her to draw away, to start making excuses for leaving.
He had never figured out if it was the intimacy of the act that bothered Mallory when she allowed herself to think about it, or was reminded of it, or if it was her own lack of control that disturbed her. Either way, he was careful not to push that particular button.
He had learned.
“Long day,” he murmured finally, intentionally keeping his voice as easy and soothing as his hands.
“Very long.” She sounded a little sleepy. She moved just a bit against him, but closer, and sighed. “And a longer one tomorrow. God, I'm tired.”
He didn't say anything, but continued to stroke her back gently even after he knew she had fallen asleep. He held her close and caressed her warm, silky skin, and felt her heart beat against his. And it was enough. For now.
A storm woke him before dawn, and Mallory was gone.
She hadn't even left a note on the fucking pillow.
7
Saturday, June 14, 6:30 AM
HE WOKE UP with blood on his hands.
Wet blood.
Fresh blood.
The pungent, coppery smell of it was thick and heavy in the room, and he gagged as he stumbled from the bed and into the bathroom. He didn't bother to turn on the light even though the room was dim, just turned on the taps and fumbled for soap, washing his hands in the hottest water he could stand, soaping again and again.
The water, first bright red and then rusty-colored, swirled around the drain and slowly, so slowly, grew fainter and fainter. Like the smell.
When the water ran clear and he couldn't smell the blood anymore, he turned off the taps. For a long moment he stood there, hands braced on the sink, staring at his shadowy reflection in the mirror. Finally, he went back into the bedroom and sat on the side of the tumbled bed, staring at nothing.
Again.
It had happened again.
He could still smell the blood, though there was no sign of any on the sheets. There hadn't been before either. There never was, on anything he touched.
Just his hands.
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and stared at his hands. Strong hands. Clean hands. Now.
No blood. Now.
“What have I done?” he whispered. “Oh, Christ, what have I done?”
Travis Keech yawned widely as he sat up in bed and vigorously rubbed his head with both hands. “Jesus. It's after eight.”
“It's dawn,” Alyssa Taylor said sleepily. “And it's Saturday, so who cares?”
“I care. I have to. I'm supposed to work. The chief said we could come in later if we've worked late—which I did last night—but we're all working overtime.”
“I suppose it's taking all of you to investigate these murders.”
“You can say that again.”
“And I suppose you've got leads to follow.”
Her voice still sounded sleepy, but Travis looked down at her with a tolerant smile. “You know, just because you're convinced I'm a yokel with straw in my hair doesn't mean you're right.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” Sounding less sleepy now, she stretched like an elegant cat. The position showed him a nice expanse of bare skin already wearing a light summer tan, which really set off her gleaming dark hair and pale eyes.
“Oh, come on, Ally. I don't normally end up in bed with gorgeous women just hours after meeting them in our one little excuse for a bar. Unless, of course, they happen to be TV reporters from the big city and I happen to be involved in a serial-killer investigation.”
“Don't underrate yourself,” Alyssa told him. “And don't measure my morals with your yardstick, if you don't mind. I didn't set out to sleep with a cop, and I don't go after stories on my back.”
“A lot of reporters do, I hear.”
“I'm not one of them.”
The sheet had slipped to show him most of one generous breast, and Travis decided he didn't want to offend her. “I never said you were,” he protested, lying back down beside her and reaching underneath the covers. “But you could have had any guy in that bar and you came home with me. What else was I supposed to think?”
“That I thought you were sexy?” She didn't exactly pout, but her body was just the slightest bit stiff when he pulled her into his arms. “That I was bored and didn't want to go back to my hotel room alone? That I like guys in uniform?”
“Which was it?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
“All of the above.” She sighed and relaxed in his embrace, her arms slipping around his middle and her hands sliding downward. “And you've got a cute ass too.”
He made an urgent sound, his body responding instantly to her caress, and she thought with faint, fleeting amusement that there was a lot to be said for catching a guy in his early twenties and at the peak of his sexuality.
A lot to be said.
She murmured, “I thought you had to go in to work.”
“Later,” Travis said.
It was nearly half an hour later when he finally, reluctantly pulled himself out of the bed. “I've gotta get to work. Want to join me in the shower?”
Alyssa stretched languidly. “Are you kidding? That tiny stall isn't even big enough for you. I'll wait my turn, thanks. I can shower while you're shaving.”
“Okay, suit yourself.”
Alyssa waited until she heard the water running, then slipped from the bed and gathered her scattered clothing from the floor. She had to follow a trail halfway to the front door to get it all, which amused her yet again. Her purse had been left carelessly on a chair near the front door, something that made her shake her head.
Not smart. Not at all smart.
Could be she was slipping.
“Nah,” she murmured in response to that idea.
Returning to the bedroom, she laid the clothing out on the bed and then got her cell phone from the purse. She turned it on and punched in a number, keeping her gaze fixed on the half-open bathroom door.
“Hey, it's Ally.” She kept her voice low. “I've found that source we talked about. A pretty good one. He's already told me more than he realizes. He must have had half a dozen strong drinks last night, and no hangover this morning. Oh, to be twenty-four again.”
She listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, my head hurts. Well, I had to at least seem to keep up with him, didn't I? Never mind. He's going in to work, and the plan is to get him to meet me for lunch.”
A question made her laugh under her breath. “No, I don't think there'll be any problem persuading him to meet me. And I have a . . . hunch . . . that he'll be perfectly happy to have me sticking close for the duration. So I should have a fair idea of what's going on inside the department. Yeah. Yeah, I'll check in at least twice a day, as arranged.”
10:05 AM
The third property they checked turned out to be an old commercial building off what had once been a busy two-lane highway until the bypass opened years before. Several companies had lost most of their customers, and more than one derelict office building or small store now stood abandoned and slowly falling into ruin. But a few, like the one Jamie Brower had owned, had been converted to have some kind of a useful life not dependent on passing customers.
“She was ostensibly using it for storage,” Rafe noted as they stood just inside the front door. The early sunlight slanted through the dusty front windows so that the interior of the front part of the building was easily visible to them.
“Just barely ostensibly,” Isabel agreed, looking around at a half dozen or so large pieces of old furniture in obvious need of restoration or repair, and a few crates labeled
STORAGE. “Only enough stuff so that anybody looking in the front window would assume that was what she was using it for.”
“The real story is in the back,” Mallory called from a doorway about thirty feet from the front door and roughly halfway down the length of the building, where a wall divided the space. “The tools the locksmith gave us worked on this door and the rear entrance—which is conveniently hidden from the road. Great place to park your car if you don't want anybody to know you're here. And there are signs quite a few cars have been parked back there in recent months.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Hollis wondered aloud.
“It's about time we got lucky,” Rafe said as he, Isabel, and Hollis joined Mallory, all of them stepping into the half of the building that was quite obviously the reason Jamie had bought this place.
It was the room in the photographs.
“The submissive did know she was being photographed,” Rafe said, gesturing toward the camera set up on a tripod several yards from the bed platform. “There's no place in here to hide that thing. The distance and angle look just right.”
Hollis, wearing latex gloves, as they all were, went to examine the camera. “Yeah, it's set up to work on a timer. No cartridge or disk,” she said. “Whatever last photos she took weren't left in the camera.”
“No, I'd expect her to be more cautious than that,” Isabel said, looking slowly around. “The really interesting thing is the question of whether the camera was part of the ritual. If she really does have a box full of photos, as Emily said, then it's likely most if not all of her partners were photographed.”
Rafe kept watching her instead of studying the room, bothered by something he couldn't quite put a finger on. He thought Isabel was somehow uncomfortable or uneasy here. Her posture seemed a bit stiffer than usual, and something about the very calm of her features was almost masklike.
So when he spoke, it was absently. “It's all about control. And submission. Being photographed probably was part of the ritual, one of Jamie's rules. Her partners had to submit completely to her and her rules, even to the extent of having their secret needs and desires, their humiliation, recorded on film—and left in the hands of the dominant.”
Mallory had located a large built-in closet or storage area on the right-hand wall and was working on the padlocked double doors with the ring of all-purpose tools provided by the locksmith. “Just for the record,” she said, “I don't ever want to want anything that much.”
“I'll second that,” Rafe said. He was still watching Isabel, and directed his question to her. “Picking up anything?”
“Lots,” she answered. “I don't know yet how much of it will be important, though. Or even relevant.”
Her voice had been completely serene, but Rafe found himself frowning nevertheless. He glanced at Hollis and saw that she was also watching her partner intently, a crease between her brows indicating worry or unease.
Isabel walked over to the bed platform and bent slightly to place her gloved hand on the bare, stained mattress. Her face remained expressionless, though her mouth seemed to firm.
“I guess the latex doesn't interfere with psychic contact,” Rafe said.
It was Hollis who replied, “No, it doesn't seem to. Although some of the SCU psychics say it has a slight muffling quality. Like everything else, it varies from person to person.”
“Got it,” Mallory announced suddenly. She unfastened the padlock and opened the two doors. “Christ.”
“The toy box,” Hollis murmured.
Dana Earley would have been the first to admit that being in Hastings at this particular time was making her extremely nervous. It had always been easy in the past for her to blend in, become a part of the background until she was ready to step in front of the camera and report the news.
This time, she was afraid of becoming the news.
“You shouldn't be out here,” one male citizen of the small town scolded her in front of the coffee shop when she attempted to interview him about his feelings.
“I'm not alone,” Dana said, gesturing toward Joey.
The man gave her cameraman the same scornful look Alan had offered the previous day. “Yeah, well, he might drop his camera on the killer's toe before he cuts and runs, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you.”
“I resent that,” Joey said sullenly.
They both ignored him.
“You should at least protect yourself,” the man told Dana earnestly. “The police department is offering pepper spray to any woman who asks. I got some for my wife. You need to go get some for yourself.”
“What about you?” Dana asked, making a mental note about the pepper spray. “Aren't you worried the killer might start going after men?”
He glanced from side to side warily, then opened his lightweight windbreaker to show her a pistol tucked into his belt. “I hope the bastard does come after me. I'm ready. A lot of us are ready.”
“Looks like,” she offered brightly, trying not to show him how much it frightened her to see guns in the hands of people other than the police. Especially angry and very nervous people. “Thank you very much, sir.”
“No problem. And you watch it, you hear? Stay off the streets as much as you can.”
“Yes. I will.” She watched him walk away, then stood gazing around at Main Street, where there was less than normal activity for a lovely Saturday morning in June. And where there were far too many men just like the one she'd interviewed, walking around with windbreakers half-zipped and wary, watchful expressions on their faces.
“Can we go now?” Joey whined.
“I wish we could,” Dana said, half-consciously reaching up to touch her hair. “I really wish we could. Hey—have you seen Cheryl?”
“Nah. Saw their van parked near the town hall this morning. Why?”
Dana bit her lip, hesitated, then said, “Let's head back toward the town hall.”
“Ah, jeez.”
“You're getting paid,” she reminded her cameraman.
“Not enough,” he muttered, following behind her.
“It could be a lot worse,” she told him irritably. “You could be a blond woman. The way I hear it, the surgeon wouldn't have to cut off much to make that happen.”
“Bitch,” he grunted under his breath.
“I heard that.”
He gave her the finger silently, reasonably sure she didn't have eyes in the back of her head.
“And I saw that,” she said.
“Shit.”
Inside the large storage closet of Jamie's playroom was, neatly arranged on shelves and hanging on hooks, all the paraphernalia necessary for sadomasochistic games. Whips, masks, padded and unpadded handcuffs, an extremely varied selection of dildos and vibrators, ropes, chains, and a number of unidentifiable objects, some quite elaborate.
Also a tasteful selection of leather bustiers, garters, and stockings, including, seemingly, the outfits Jamie and her partner had worn in the photographs.
“I'm no expert,” Hollis said, “but I'm thinking at least a few of those gadgets are meant to be used on a man.”
Rafe could see the ones she meant. “I'd say so. And given that, it's beginning to look more and more like Jamie was . . . an equal-opportunity mistress. She may not have enjoyed sex with men, but it looks like she enjoyed dominating them.”
“Men and women,” Hollis said. “She really did want to be boss, didn't she? I wonder what would happen if she ran into somebody who wanted to be boss even more than she did?”
“A trigger, maybe,” Isabel said in an absentminded tone.
“His trigger?” Rafe asked. “He wanted to be the one on top—so to speak—and it wasn't a position Jamie was willing to allow him to assume?”
“Maybe.” Isabel's tone was still abstracted. “Especially if we find out the other two primary victims from the earlier murders were unusually strong women. Dominant women. That could be his trigger, his hot button. Finding himself interested in women literal
ly too strong for him.”
“Some men just prefer their women to be sweet and submissive, I guess,” Hollis said dryly.
“Jerks,” Mallory said, then lifted a brow at Rafe. “Forensics?”
“Yeah, get them out here,” Rafe said. “But only T.J. and Dustin with their kits, not the van. I'd still like to keep this quiet as long as we've got a hope in hell of it.”
“Right.” She pulled out her cell phone.
Rafe walked over to Isabel, still uneasily sensing that something wasn't right with her. She was no longer touching the mattress but was gazing off into space with that distant expression he was beginning to recognize in her eyes. But this time she seemed to be looking so far away that it sent a chill through him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“There is,” she said slowly, “a lot of pain in this room.”
“You don't feel it, do you?”
“No. No, I'm not an empath. I feel during the visions, but not this. I just . . . I just know there's a lot of pain in this room. Physical. Emotional. Psychological.” She reached both hands up and rubbed the nape of her neck. Her hair was in its accustomed neat, high ponytail, and Rafe could see how hard she was kneading the tense muscles of her neck. But before he could ask about that, she went on in the same level tone.
“Jamie was strong. Very strong. But she'd spent her life being the good girl. Pretending to be what everybody wanted her to be. Hiding inside that shell. But this part of her life . . . this is where she could be in control. Really in control. Where she could be herself and be respected—demand respect—for who she really was.”
Hollis stepped closer, her frown deepening. “Isabel—”
“This is where she called the shots. Her partners, male or female, were never her lovers, never close to her emotionally; they were . . . validation. That she was strong and certain. That she was the one in control. They did anything she told them to do. Everything. No matter what, no matter how wild she got. No matter how much she hurt them.”
