Must be a joke, she decided. Or maybe the rest of the message had been cut off.
She almost deleted the e-mail, but hesitated. The message disturbed her for some reason. She thought of the white van. Now this.
There couldn’t be any connection. Of course not.
Even so, she saved the message on her hard drive, though she wasn’t sure why.
She logged off and shut down her computer. Suddenly she was restless. Returning to her bedroom, she threw on some clothes, then dragged her collapsible home gym out from under the bed.
She set to work doing butterfly curls. Generally she did a minimum of fifty, with the resistance set at a moderate level. She had learned not to train too hard. A pulled muscle could hamper her activities in the field for days, even weeks. It was better to do more reps at a lower setting. Besides, she was mainly interested in toning her physique.
Finished with the curls, she readjusted her position and did leg lifts. It was more efficient to alternate upper and lower body exercises, allowing one set of muscles to recover while the other set was being worked.
She had never been a fitness maven until she enrolled in the Academy. Then she set to work on improving her physical conditioning even before the first day of class. Her greatest fear had been humiliation-she hadn’t wanted to be a washout, hadn’t wanted to find that she couldn’t complete a set of push-ups or a jog around the track, while all the other recruits handled it easily. As it turned out, she proved to be one of the fittest members of the class-a mixed blessing, since it meant that her instructors often singled her out to lead the class in an exercise routine.
Some cops gradually lost their conditioning once they were in the field. She was determined not to follow their example. In the Academy, slow reflexes or poor coordination could have cost her a few points with the instructors. On the street, the same failings could get her killed.
Suppose she had been a fraction slower when she grabbed Ramon Sanchez’s revolver…
“Don’t think about it,” she gasped, flexing her thigh muscles in another lift.
She was alive, she was healthy, she was safe. No need to think about might-haves and what-ifs.
No need to worry about anything at all.
16
Treat enjoyed working out with Caitlin.
He lay on his bedroom floor, his laptop computer resting a few feet away on the smooth carpet, the video feed clearly visible. She exercised her abs and shoulders and back, and he practiced bending.
Bending-that was what he’d called it ever since childhood, when he discovered the remarkable suppleness of his limbs. In medical argot he was hypermobile; in common parlance, double-jointed-the word double being used in its less familiar sense of fold or bend. Some of his flexibility had diminished with age, but through daily exercise he remained limber enough to hyperextend each elbow by more than fifteen degrees, to bend his knees forward to the same extent, to touch his forearm with his thumb, and to perform other such carnival tricks.
He ran deftly through his series of stretches, working first the ankles, then knees, then hip joints, and so on, bending into pretzel shapes, tucking his legs behind his ears, enfolding himself in his thin, malleable limbs. He had to be careful not to dislocate a shoulder. As was typical of those who had inherited Marfan syndrome, his joints could easily pop out of their sockets when subjected to unusual strain.
On the computer Caitlin continued her equally rigorous program of self-improvement. Of all the things she did, her exercise regimen was the one that pleased him most. And if he could judge by the comments dropped in certain chat rooms and newsgroups that he frequented, there were others who shared his tastes.
It was funny. The two previous women had been highly promiscuous, even oversexed. Miss November, especially. She had switched bed partners on a weekly, sometimes semiweekly, basis. She invited all sorts of casual paramours into the sheets with her-overweight middle-aged men all too obviously picked up at singles bars, young studs with the hard, sculpted bodies of would-be actors who spent their lives at the gym, willowy artistic types who seemed, at times, more feminine that Miss November herself. In her bed, before the unseen camera’s eye, she performed magnificently with her various partners, executing every imaginable variation on the theme of heterosexual coupling.
Caitlin was not like that. In the month that Treat had watched her, she had slept with no one in her home, and she had never been out all night, except when she was working. Treat owned a police scanner and recognized her unit’s call sign; he knew when she was on the street.
She had been celibate for this month-perhaps for much longer. And yet, to Treat, she was the most alluring one of all. And he was not the only one who felt that way. Miss January had garnered more votes than any other contestant.
He supposed it was the appeal of the unknown.
Miss November had left nothing to the imagination. She had depersonalized herself until she was merely a hunk of flesh, not only in the eyes of those who watched her, but in her own eyes as well. Treat was sure of that. He had looked long and hard into those eyes before he killed her, and he’d seen nothing there beyond dumb fear and an animal’s helpless confusion.
Caitlin could not be objectified that way. She had maintained her dignity. Thus, paradoxically, she made a better victim. Killing animals was stupid, ugly work. Killing a genuine person, a person of self-respect and integrity, a person with an uncorrupted soul-well, that was ever so much more satisfying.
With a secret smile at this thought, Treat rose from the floor and began to pack, transferring tonight’s necessities from his bureau to the tote bag on his bed, ticking off each item on his inventory.
Set of tattoo needles in different sizes.
Two bottles of ink-one maroon, the other black for line work.
Homemade stencil in an hourglass pattern.
Flashlight.
Knife-for self-defense only.
Bottle of chloroform and a rag.
Syringe filled with succinylcholine, a paralytic drug-in case the chloroform failed to subdue her.
Roll of tape to pinion her wrists and ankles.
Eyeless hood to cover her head during transit.
And gloves, of course-black leather gloves for his strangling hands.
Finished, he zipped up the tote bag. He checked the computer screen again. Caitlin was stowing the exercise rig under her bed. He watched as she took off her workout clothes and tossed them into a laundry basket, then toweled herself dry in the bathroom. She spent a few moments selecting an outfit to wear, and during that time she was naked on the screen of his computer-and, no doubt, on other screens as well. There were others who liked to watch.
But only one who was not content with mere watching.
She chose a yellow blouse and beige cargo shorts. Treat studied her as she dressed. He did not turn away even when she sat on the edge of her bed and laced up her sneakers. It gave him a peculiar feeling of intimacy with her to know that he was preparing for his evening just as she made preparations for hers. Almost like a real couple.
Soon they would share an intimacy purer and more intense than any lovers’ tryst. They would know the closeness of predator and prey, of torturer and victim. They would share the wordless language of suffering, and together they would experience the final delicious frisson of death.
Treat shook his head, dispelling the vision his imagination had conjured. He looked around him. No more daylight filtered through his shuttered windows. Darkness had come.
He entered his walk-in closet and began to select his attire for the evening’s entertainment. A formal affair, so he would wear black.
For Miss Osborn, on the other hand, the event was strictly come-as-you-are.
