She waited for him to talk while she scribbled in her notepad, probably not even taking notes on him. If the notes were about him, he wasn’t the least bit curious about what they said. He was more interested in what her moans would sound like when he finally stuck himself inside her, thrusting deep and hard until she was screaming. He so enjoyed it when they screamed, especially when he was inside them. The vibration felt like shock waves, like he was causing a fucking earthquake.
It was one of many things he had in common with his old friend, his old partner. At least it was one thing he didn’t need to fake. He pushed the sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose and realized she was waiting.
“Mr. Harding,” she interrupted his thoughts. “You never answered my question.”
He couldn’t remember what the fucking question had been. He cocked his head to the side and jutted out his chin in that pathetic gesture that said, “Forgive me, I’m blind.”
“I asked if any of the exercises I suggested have helped.”
Sure enough. If he waited, people always made it easy, supplying the answer, repeating themselves or getting up and doing whatever it was they had wanted him to do. He was getting good at this. Probably a good thing, in case it became permanent.
“Mr. Harding?”
She didn’t have much patience today. He wanted to ask how long it had been since she had been fucked. That was, no doubt, the problem. Or perhaps she needed a few porn movies from his new private collection.
He knew from his personal research that she was divorced, for almost twenty-five years now. It had been a short, two-year marriage, a youthful indiscretion. Certainly there must have been several lovers since, though, of course, those details weren’t easily accessible on the Internet.
Now he could see her impatience growing in the way she crossed her arms. Finally, he said politely, “The exercises worked quite well, but that doesn’t prove or help anything.”
“Why do you say that?”
“What good does it do to get myself…well, excuse the expression…to get my little general all hot, hard and bothered when I’m alone?”
She smiled, the first she had surrendered since they had met.
“We need to start somewhere.”
“Okay, but I’m afraid I must object if you suggest I move on to blow-up dolls.”
Another smile. He was on a roll. Should he tell her he’d like her to be his blow-up doll? He wondered how good a blow job she could give with that sweet, sexy little mouth of hers. He was certain he could fill it quite nicely.
“No, I won’t make any more suggestions for the time being,” she said, detecting none of what went through his mind. “However, I would encourage you to continue with the exercises. The idea is to have a—excuse the expression—surefire method of arousal to fall back on should you find yourself wanting to perform with a woman but not able to.”
She was idly swinging her left foot as she sat on the corner of the desk. Her black leather pump teetered at the end of her toes as she played with it. He wished the shoe would fall off. He wanted to see if she had painted her toenails. He loved red painted toenails.
“Whether we want to believe it or not, many of our preconceived notions about sex,” she continued, though he paid little attention, “come from our parents. Boys especially find themselves imitating their fathers’ behaviors. What was your father like, Mr. Harding?”
“He certainly had no problems when it came to women,” he snapped, and immediately regretted letting her see that the subject was a touchy one. Now she wouldn’t leave it alone. She’d insist they poke and probe through it until she found a way to bring his mother into it as well. Unless…unless he turned it around somehow and embarrassed her away from the subject entirely.
“My father brought women home quite frequently. He even let me watch. Sometimes the women let me join in. What other thirteen-year-old boy can say he got his cock sucked by a woman while his dad fucked the shit out of her from behind?”
There it was—that look of utter shock. Soon it would be followed by the pity look. Funny how the truth possessed such remarkable power. A knock at the door made her jump. He stared off into oblivion like a good little blind fucker.
“Sorry to interrupt,” her secretary called from the door. “That phone call you’ve been waiting for is on line three.”
“I need to take this call, Mr. Harding.”
“That’s fine.” He stood and fumbled for his cane. “Perhaps we can end early today.”
“Are you sure? This really will take but a minute or two.”
“No, I’m exhausted. Besides, I think you more than earned your money today.” He rewarded her with a smile so that she wouldn’t continue to object. He found the door before she could offer to call his make-believe driver. As he waited for the elevator, the anger began to churn inside his guts. He hated thinking about his parents. She had no right bringing them into this. She had overstepped her bounds. Yes, today, Dr. Gwen Patterson had gone too far.
CHAPTER 48
Assistant Director Cunningham had commandeered a small conference room for them on the first level. Tully was so excited about having windows—two that looked into the woods at the edge of the training field—he didn’t care that he had to walk up and down stairs, clear to the other end of the building to bring stuff from his cramped office.
He spread out everything they had gathered in the last five months, while O’Dell followed behind him, insisting on putting it all in neat little stacks, lining it up on the long conference table so that it flowed from left to right in chronological order. Instead of being irritated by her anal-retentive process, he found himself amused. So they approached puzzles differently. She liked to start by finding all the corner pieces and lining them up, while he liked to scatter all the pieces in the center, picking and choosing random sections to piece together. Neither way was right or wrong. It was simply a matter of preference, although he doubted that O’Dell would agree with that assessment.
They had tacked up a map of the United States, marking the recent murders in Newburgh Heights and Kansas City with red pushpins. Blue pins marked each of the other seventeen areas where Stucky had left victims before his capture last August. At least those were the ones they knew about. The women Stucky kept for his collection were often buried in remote wooded areas. It was believed there could be as many as a dozen more, hidden and waiting to be discovered by hikers or fishermen or hunters. All this, Stucky had accomplished in less than three years. Tully hated to think what the madman may have done in the last five months.
Tully continued to examine the map and left O’Dell to her housekeeping. For the most part, Stucky had stayed on the eastern edge of the United States from as far north as Boston to as far south as Miami. The Virginia shoreline seemed to be a fertile ground for him. Kansas City appeared to be the only anomaly. If Tess McGowan was, in fact, missing, that meant Stucky really was playing with O’Dell again, bringing her in, making her a part of his crimes. And by choosing only women who she came in contact with, rather than friends or family members, he made it virtually impossible for them to know who might be next. After all, what could they do? Lock O’Dell up until they caught Stucky? Cunningham already had several agents watching her house and following her. Tully was surprised O’Dell hadn’t objected.
Saturday morning and she was already digging in as if it were any other weekday. After the week she had, anyone else would still be at home in bed. Although this morning he did notice that she hadn’t bothered to use makeup to conceal the dark, puffy lines under her eyes. She wore an old pair of Nike running shoes, a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the tails neatly tucked into the waistband of faded jeans. Though they were in a secured facility, she kept her shoulder harness on, her Smith & Wesson .38 ready at her side. Compared to O’Dell, he felt overdressed, except when Assistant Director Cunningham stopped by, looking as crisp, spotless and wrinkle-free as usual. That was when Tully noticed the coffee stains on his own white shirt and his loosened and lopsided tie.
