“That's good-they say rest is the best thing. How's she feeling?”
“Better every day.”
“Good to hear. Listen, when she wakes up, tell her Frank Twombley said hi, and he hopes she's feeling better.”
“I'll do that.”
The deputy started to leave, then turned back. “You know, as long as I'm out here I might as well take a look around back, just to be on the safe side. Any dogs?”
“No.”
“Good deal. I'll just take a quick look, make sure everything's, you know, copacetic, then I'll be out of your hair.”
“Better safe than sorry, I guess.”
Aletha watched through the crack in the door as the deputy disappeared around the corner of the house. A few seconds later she heard a tapping out back, hurried into the kitchen, peered through the curtained window of the back door. Deputy Twombley was squatting down, examining the edge of the screen door by the yellow light of the bug lamp.
“What is it?”
“There are some scratches on the corner of the screen here- looks like somebody tried to force an entry. Could you take a look for me, tell me whether they're fresh?”
Aletha opened the back door, stepped out onto the concrete walk. “Where?”
“Right down here, around the bottom hinge.” He stood up and stepped back to give her room. She stooped to take a closer look. The first blow of the riot stick caught her across the back of the neck and dropped her to her knees; the second, equally swift, equally savage, smashed into the back of her skull with enough force to cause a radiating fracture of the occipital bone, one of the strongest bones in the human body.
And in the brief instant between the blossoming of a thousand stars and the onrushing blackness, Aletha Winkle had time for one last thought: I'm sorry, Terry.
“Mama, you are a load!”
Max grunted as he dragged Aletha Winkle over the threshold into the kitchen. Though he appeared slender when clothed, he was in fact about as strong as a hundred-and-thirty-five-pound man could be without sacrificing speed and flexibility. But hauling two hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight-half dead, anyway-took every ounce of strength, sweat, and leverage he could muster; he was breathing hard by the time he was done.
No rest for the wicked, though-before moving on to the fun part of the evening, Max still had to switch cars. He found a set of keys hanging from a nail in the kitchen. A door led directly from the living room into the garage, where he had his choice of two vehicles, an old black Honda Civic or an equally old Volvo station wagon painted an unlikely shade of avocado green. He opened the garage door, backed the Volvo out, drove the Plymouth into the garage, and locked the door behind him.
Back inside the house, Max turned out the kitchen light, then tiptoed down the hall toward the bedroom. The door was open; the room was dark. He flattened himself against the wall and held his breath, listening. He heard regular breathing, a nasal snort every few inhalations. He drew the can of pepper spray from his belt and peeked around the door frame. No movement from the bandaged figure lying on its back on the near side of the canopied double bed. Terry Jervis was either asleep, or one hell of an actress.
With a firm grip to prevent them from jingling, Max took Deputy Twombley's handcuffs out of his belt as he approached the bed. This was almost too easy. Max could feel Kinch yearning for her blood. But a fresh victim, her spirit not yet broken? This was too new and shiny a toy (Hours of Indoor Fun! he thought) to let Kinch play with just yet.
Later, Max told him. You can have her at the end. As usual. He flicked on the bedside lamp and jingled the handcuffs. “Wakey, wakey.”
Her eyes fluttered open, pale blue above the ghost-white bandages. Max waited for the shock of recognition to enter them. He drank in her terror. It was delicious, exquisite, intoxicating-Kinch could never have appreciated it. Then, as her hand went under the pillow for her gun, he sprayed her.
Over the course of the long night, they all had their turns. Max was a sadist and a bugger, Christopher a sensualist and a fantasist, and Kinch… well, Kinch was a hacker.
Christopher went first-he was already in place when Terry Jervis recovered from the pepper spray. Tenderly he bathed her eyes and unbandaged her jaw. He brought in pillar candles and aromatherapy oil lamps and scented oils from the bathroom, and by their soft flickering light he made tender love to her. He dressed and half dressed and undressed her in outfits from her lingerie drawer and from the back of her closet; a whore in a Merry Widow, a farmer's daughter in overalls, a deputy sheriff wearing only her uniform shirt, somebody's wifey in a shorty nightgown, a teenage slut in a short teddy, a little girl in flannel pajamas. He positioned and repositioned her on her back, her side, her stomach, propped on pillows, kneeling by the side of the bed, lying on the carpet, leaning over a chair, bent over her pink and white vanity and pressed against the vanity mirror.
But however he posed her, at all times he handled her so gently and with such tenderness that gradually a glimmer of hope that he might let her live blossomed in her breast.
At which point Max took over. By design-terror wasn't half as tasty without hope to season it. The lighted candle and hot lamp oil were soon put to entirely different uses, the scented oils and lubricants employed for his ease of access rather than her comfort. Unlike the priapic Christopher, Max suffered from occasional erectile dysfunction as well as premature ejaculation, forcing him to make extensive use of the sex toys from Terry and Aletha's bedside drawer.
By the time Max was done with Terry she was still alive, but torn and trembling, a wide-eyed wreck of no damn use to either Max or Christopher. Aletha Winkle, however, though she had never regained consciousness, was also still alive, and save for the wound at the back of her head, unmarked. She was no damn use to Max- you can neither terrorize nor torture an unconscious victim-but Christopher wanted her, so Max let him have her.
Hauling Aletha around was a chore, so once Christopher got her up onto the bed, there she stayed. Even dressing and undressing her took a lot of energy; to save his strength, Christopher slit the outfits he wanted to dress her in up the back (or the front, depending) before putting them on her. He tried to persuade Terry to join in the fun, but it was no use-she was too far gone. Eventually he settled for undressing both women and arranging them en tableaux; the contrast between Aletha's massive, inert brown flesh and Terry's taut quivering pale skin was both aesthetically intriguing and sexually arousing.
But all good things must come to an end. By daybreak Christopher was sated and Max was bored; then came Kinch's turn.
Tuckered out and sweaty from the long, eventful night, Max helped himself to a long hot shower followed by a hearty breakfast. The phone rang while he was eating. He answered it in Terry's voice-raised pitch, clenched teeth.
“ 'Lo?”
“Oh-hi Terry. This is Mary Ann at El Sausal Middle. I have a fourth-grade teacher out. Does Aletha want to sub today?”
“She's sick. She has a cold.”
“Okay, on to the next victim.”
You said it, sister, thought Max, hanging up the phone. Suddenly he understood that this put a different light on things. With neither woman expected anywhere, the Plymouth hidden safely in the garage, and no reason for anyone to look for him here, he could think of several reasons why he might be better off hiding out for a day or so.
For one thing, it was already light out-there was a good chance one of the neighbors might see him driving away in the Volvo. For another, if the cops had thrown up roadblocks last night, they'd likely be down by tomorrow night.
Then there was the necessity for a disguise. A layover would give him time to change his appearance. And though he wasn't sleepy yet, he knew he would be soon: at twenty-eight he could no longer pull all-nighters with impunity. Plus the next part of his plan might prove tricky to execute; surely a good rest now would make for sharper wits later.
First, though, his hair. “We had ourselves a time, didn't we, girls?” he said to the two women as he passed through the bedroom on his way to the bathroom, where Terry kept her bleach, fixer, and hair coloring.
