The shower had twin heads that shot two forceful sprays of water. Sarah had the temperature turned up as hot as she could stand it and the two powerful multijet sprayers felt like a deep tissue massage, blasting away the last vestiges of tension and stress from her muscles. This was all she had needed, a good night’s sleep and a hot shower to scrub the filth and sweat from her dreams off her skin. Her complexion was turning red as the scalding water scoured her pale flesh. It felt as if her soul were being cleansed and purged. Unexpectedly, she began to cry.
Her body hitched and jerked as the tears burst up from deep within her as if she had tapped some deep underground reservoir of sorrow. Everything had been so perfect. Her life had been flawless. Her biggest complaint until less than a week ago had been boredom. Now she was either being raped, probably drugged, and possibly murdered every night and somehow resurrected each morning or she was crazy or some combination of the two. Somehow, in the span of a few days, her perfect, flawless life had turned into a nightmare, literally.
The tears continued to come with increasing force and for once she made no attempt to rein them in. She allowed them to come unrestrained, emptying her soul, and letting the water from the shower wash them away. She had cried more this week than she could ever remember crying in her adult life. But this time, it felt good.
When she finally stepped from the shower, all the tears were gone. She had expected to feel exhausted after crying so hard and long but instead, she felt refreshed. She looked in the mirror at her eyes. They looked puffy and swollen. She opened up her cosmetic case and withdrew some eye shadow and cover-up. By the time she stepped out of the bathroom her face held no evidence of her crying jag even though she was certain Josh had heard her.
This time she didn’t bother to cover herself when she stepped naked into the bedroom. The quick intake of Josh’s breath made her smile and almost brought the tears back. She still took his breath away. He still found her beautiful and desirable. But the last thing she wanted, the last thing she would have been able to stand, would have been for him to touch her. She turned away from him and began getting dressed.
Someone knocked on the door and Sarah reached for her purse even as she heard the man on the other side call out, “Room service.”
Sarah looked at Josh who stood up and walked to the door. Not a single part of him was worried that it might be Dale on the other side with a knife, ready to plunge it into his chest and then rape and murder her, and that let her know loudly and clearly that he didn’t believe her at all. He had already made up his mind that it was all in her head. Sarah kept her hand on the gun in her purse and tried her best not to feel resentful.
It was the same waiter from the night before. He smiled politely and then looked down at her hand, which had slipped inside her purse and was clutching the Sig Sauer. Her finger was a fraction of an inch from the trigger. The butt of the gun had been sticking out of the purse and she slid it back in when she saw him looking. He looked up at her eyes and then managed a weak smile. Josh followed the waiter’s eyes down to her purse and then he let out a sigh, scribbling a tip and a signature on the receipt and ushering the waiter out the door. Sarah could tell that Josh wanted to say something about the gun but with it still clutched in her hand he obviously thought better of it. Sarah let go of the Sig Sauer and joined Josh by the bed. The silence was back and it coated them like a blanket all through breakfast. Sarah didn’t mind it though. The food was too good for her to even think about having a conversation unless it was about what she was putting into her mouth at that moment.
The French toast was fluffy and covered in powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, syrup, and whipped cream. Truly decadent. Sarah began shoveling the toast into her mouth like she were a fat kid at a pie-eating contest. Like it or not, she was going to have to hit the treadmill tonight after Josh left to start his shift. It was either that or get curves in places she didn’t want them.
The bagels were covered in cream cheese that had been whipped until it was as light as Cool Whip. They were piled with smoked salmon, slices of beefsteak tomatoes, red onions, and capers. Sarah showed them no more mercy than she had shown the French toast.
She looked over at Josh who was patiently cutting his steak into little cubes and dipping each individual piece in A1 sauce before putting it in his mouth. He’d eaten his eggs and hash browns first, everything in order, and had just begun on his steak. Sometimes she even had a bigger appetite than he did and she had to remind herself of the number of calories she burned doing cardio to keep from feeling like an absolute cow. Making love to her was about all the cardio Josh ever got. Still, she was going to have to start cutting back. Her metabolism was bound to slow down and when it did she’d be 300 pounds if she continued to eat like this. But that was something she would hopefully not have to worry about for a long time and in the meantime there was so much good food to eat in Vegas. She was happiest of all that Las Vegas had given up on trying to be a family destination and had begun going after the highend crowd with fancy restaurants and designer boutiques. Today, she intended to sample her fair share of both. She had already decided on Spago for lunch at Caesars and then dinner at Fleur de Lis at the Mandalay Bay where she was going to force Josh to try caviar for the first time. After that, they’d go to Joel Robuchon at the MGM Grand for dessert. It was a good thing she’d won all that money playing the slot machines. If she had it her way, she was going to need it.
Sarah finished eating, then slipped into a pair of jeans and a baby T-shirt as she waited for Josh to finish eating his steak.
“Hurry up. I want to hit every roller coaster on the strip before lunchtime.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dale was afraid that he was going to be discovered. Ever since the woman across the street had shot at him he’d been waiting for the police to come and arrest him. He had been certain that one of the neighbors must have heard the gunshot and called the police but, after he’d stabbed her and left her bleeding on the floor, he could not stand the idea of wasting the opportunity. If he was going to go to prison, he wanted this to be his last memory of the outside world. He wanted to fuck that beautiful whore one last time.
He’d pulled off her clothes and raped her there on the floor. Then he’d dragged her onto the bed and sodomized her while her body continued to exsanguinate, cumming inside her sweet little ass as she’d bled to death. The very next day, she’d knocked on his door and he’d been certain that one of the neighbors had seen him fleeing the house. As he’d opened the door he had begun going through the details of the previous evening, trying to remember if he’d done anything to give himself away, left any evidence that might lead back to him, and simultaneously composing lies to explain them away.
But Dale had been careful. He was sure of it. He was always careful. He had scrubbed the blood out of the carpet using bleach and detergent. He’d stripped the bed and changed the sheets, then washed the sheets in the laundry. He’d even dragged her body into the bathroom and washed the blood from her skin before putting her back into bed. There should have been no evidence that he’d ever been there. So why was she standing outside his door?
Her husband had been with her and the look in his eyes, embarrassed, uncertain, rather than vengeful and enraged, let him know that whatever they thought they’d found was not conclusive. Her husband was still not convinced. Her eyes, on the other hand, were full of fury. Even still, he’d been surprised when she had slapped him. It was something new, something different. None of the others had slapped him. None of the others, as far as Dale knew or cared, had the slightest clue that anything had ever happened to them, except maybe for Dorothy Madigan. He’d heard that she’d killed herself just like his mother had, burned herself alive. But this woman knew, or thought she knew something. She had slapped him. She had been ready to beat the hell out of him when her husband had dragged her away, apologizing for her behavior…and now she was gone. She had not been home all night. It was driving Dale crazy.
He’d broken into her house again last night and it had been empty. Her toothbrush and makeup case were gone along with some clothes. They had packed in a hurry and fled. That left Dale without a playmate.
He imagined that she was at the police station giving a statement and that soon the police would come and take him away or else her gigantic ape of a husband would beat him to death. Dale paced the floor nervously, wondering what to do. He needed something to calm his nerves. Usually, that meant raping and killing someone but the only person he wanted to fuck, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen let alone actually had sex with, was missing and he didn’t know where she was or what to do about it.
It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t hurting anyone. There was no way she could remember what he’d done to her and besides, he always brought her back. He’d always brought them back.
