In a frenzy now, his heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, aching with need, Frye got up, stood beside the bed, stripped off his clothes, threw them on top of the dresser, out of the way.
He looked down at his erection. The sight of it thrilled him. The steeliness of it. The size of it. The angry color.
He climbed onto the bed again.
She was docile now. Her eyes had a vacant look.
He ripped off her pale yellow panties and positioned himself between her slim legs. Saliva drooled out of his mouth. Dripped on her breasts.
He thrust into her. He thrust his demon staff all the way into her. Growling like an animal. Stabbed her with his demonic penis. He stabbed and stabbed her, until his semen flowered within her.
He pictured the milky fluid. Pictured it flowering from him, deep inside of her.
He thought of blood blossoming from a wound. Red petals spreading from a deep knife wound.
Both thoughts wildly excited him: semen and blood.
He didn't go soft.
Sweating, grunting, slobbering, he made thrust after thrust after thrust. Into her. Into. In.
Later, he would use the knife.
***
Joshua Rhinehart flipped a switch on his desk phone, putting the call from Dr. Nicholas Rudge on the conference speaker, so that Tony and Hilary could hear the conversation.
'I tried your home number first,' Rudge said. 'I didn't expect you to be at the office at this hour.'
'I'm a workaholic, doctor.'
'You should try to do something about it,' Rudge said with what sounded like genuine concern. 'That's no way to live. I've treated more than a few overly-ambitious men for whom work had become the only interest in their lives. An obsessive attitude toward work can destroy you.'
'Dr. Rudge, what is your medical specialty?'
'Psychiatry.'
'I suspected as much.'
'You're the executor?'
'That's right. I presume you heard all about his death.'
'Just what the newspaper had to say.'
'While handling some estate matters, I discovered that Mr. Frye had been seeing you regularly during the year and a half prior to his death.'
'He came in once a month,' Rudge said.
'Were you aware that he was homicidal?'
'Of course not,' Rudge said.
'You treated him all that time and weren't aware that he was capable of violence?'
'I knew he was deeply disturbed,' Rudge said. 'But I didn't think he was a danger to anyone. However, you must understand that he didn't really give me a chance to spot the violent side of him. I mean, as I said, he only came in once a month, I wanted to see him at least once every week, and preferably twice, but he refused. On the one hand, he wanted me to help him. But at the same time, he was afraid of what he might learn about himself. After a while, I decided not to press him too hard about making weekly visits because I was afraid that he might back off altogether and even cancel his monthly appointment. I figured a little therapy was better than none, you see.'
'What brought him to you?'
'Are you asking what was wrong with him, what he was complaining of?'
'That's what I'm asking, all right.'
'As an attorney, Mr. Rhinehart, you ought to be aware that I can't give out that sort of information indiscriminately. I have a doctor-patient privilege to protect.'
'The patient is dead, Dr. Rudge.'
'That doesn't make any difference.'
'It sure as hell makes a difference to the patient.'
'He placed his trust in me.'
'When the patient is dead, the concept of doctor-patient privilege has little or no legal validity.'
'Perhaps it has no legal validity,' Rudge said. 'But the oral validity remains. I still have certain responsibilities. I wouldn't do anything to damage the reputation of a patient, regardless of whether he's dead or alive.'
'Commendable,' Joshua said. 'But in this case, nothing you could tell me would damage his reputation one whit more than he damaged it himself.'
'That, too, makes no difference.'
'Doctor, this is an extraordinary situation. This very day, I have come into possession of information which indicates that Bruno Frye murdered a number of women over the past five years, a large number of women, and got away with it.'
