And here was the irony; these boys broke the law when they attacked her in high school, but didn’t get punished. And now, because of their crime, the innocent victim has become a serial killer. Yeah, yeah, Syd knew that two wrongs don’t make a right; but she also knew that sometimes revenge sure makes you feel better.
She glanced at the clock, seven-fifteen; almost time for Ryan’s dinner meeting with Anne at the Beverly Hilton. And that meant it was time for Syd to take a break. Syd would get back to the appointment books later, but first, a little surveillance.
On Ryan and Anne.
Ryan would freak if he found out, Syd knew. But hey, a girl’s got to protect herself, doesn’t she?
THIRTY-NINE
Alice woke up with a start. And then she panicked. She was blind. Something was stuffed in her mouth, her hands were tied behind her and her feet were bound. She tried to scream, kicked her feet, fought to free her hands.
“Take it easy, Alice, you’re going to hurt yourself,” a voice said. Blake’s voice. And he called her Alice. Shit, she thought, he knows who I am.
He did indeed. Blake had dragged Alice into his office after knocking her out, and then grabbed a pair of handcuffs from his bedroom. Fur-lined, of course, and usually used for Blake’s kinkier call girls, but the handcuffs were real so he pulled Alice’s arms behind her back, snapped the cuffs snuggly around her wrists and slipped the key into his pocket. He used rope from his bedroom to bind her ankles. The rope had been used to bind feet before, but usually to his bedpost.
And to Blake’s surprise, the whole thing was turning him on. “Freak,” he mumbled to himself, laughing at his own perversions.
He finished off by gagging her with a washcloth held in place with a bandana then slipped her head inside a cloth, eco-friendly grocery bag from Whole Foods.
She was out for a long time. At first Blake was grateful as he used the time to find the infamous video in one of the storage boxes stacked in his office closet and set up his video camera. After fifteen minutes, she was still unconscious and he began to worry that he’d hit her too hard. He actually put his hand on her chest to check her breathing, and once he determined it was slow but steady, he copped a quick feel of her tits. Very nice.
She finally woke up a few minutes later kicking and screaming into her gag. After he calmed her down, he pulled the sack off her head. He expected her eyes to be wild with fear, but instead they burned with a fierce hatred as she continued to curse at him through the gag.
“Whoa, throttle back the venom, dude,” Blake said. “I’ll take the gag off if you promise not to scream. No one can hear you anyway, so chill, Alice. And if you’re nice, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
But Alice wasn’t done venting yet. In an incomprehensible rant into her gag, she bitched him out then called herself a fucking idiot for letting him get the drop on her. Finally, she leaned back against the wall, her vitriol spent.
“Feel better?”
He could clearly make out the half-hearted, but still muffled, “Fuck you.”
Then Alice took in her surroundings. She was on the floor of an office placed in front of a big screen TV. There was also a video camera pointed at her. What the hell?
“You’re wondering what I’ve got up my sleeve, aren’t you? Well, promise not to scream, I’ll take your gag off and we can talk about it.”
Alice realized yelling wasn’t going to get her anywhere so she nodded. Blake untied the bandana and removed the washcloth. “My head hurts,” she said.
“I’m not surprised, you’ve got a lump the size of a softball on your scalp.”
“Asshole.” She didn’t yell, just a quiet statement of fact. Then she asked, “What’d you hit me with?”
“The bottle of wine.”
“Prick.”
“Wait a minute, you came here to kill me, right? A man’s got a right to self-defense.”
“Cocksucker.”
“Funny you should say that,” Blake said. “Because I’ve got a tape here of someone sucking cock, but it’s not me, Alice, it’s you.” Blake hit a remote control and the video began to play.
A hand held camera sweeps across Colin Wood’s game room and comes to rest on an unconscious Alice Waterman. Adam and Colin kneel next to her. “Fuck, that shit works fast,” Colin says. “Help me get her on the pool table, Adam.”
They pick her off the floor and lay her on the pool table. Colin holds her neck but he lets go too soon and her head thuds on the table.
“Careful,” Adam says, looking very uncomfortable. He looks directly into the lens. “You sure taping this is a good idea, Blake?”
“It’s a brilliant idea, bro. When we’re old and gray and snorting Viagra, we’re going to cherish the chance to relive our glory days.”
Blake froze the image and looked at Alice. “How much of that night do you remember?”
Alice stared at the screen. At last. The tape. Answers.
“How much?” Blake repeated.
Alice knew she’d have to pretend to cooperate to see the tape, so she said, “After I passed out, nothing. Did you record everything that happened to me that night?”
“Yes.”
The Lady in Red turned back to the frozen image. “Let me see it. I want to know.”
Blake went over to the video camera aimed at Alice and turned it on.
Alice eyed the camera suspiciously. “What’re you doing?”
“How would you like a chance to tell the whole world why you murdered Colin Wood, Adam Devlin and Zachary Stone? How would you like the whole world to watch your reaction as you watch your own rape?”
“But you’re on that tape. You’d be implicating yourself.”
“Actually, there is a ten year statute of limitations on rape in California. Our… party was shot eleven years ago. So while this tape confirms I was a sleazebag in high school, I won’t be putting myself into any legal jeopardy.”
“You want to tape me watching myself get raped? You are one sick fuck.”
“No argument there, Alice. But I’m also a filmmaker, and we’ve got a chance here for a mind-blowing documentary. Wouldn’t you like a chance to set the record straight, tell the world in your own words why you decided to kill those men. Show the world what happened to you eleven years ago.”
Yes, she thought. “What happens after I watch the tape?”
“I interview you. You walk us through each murder, the more detail the better.”
“And then?”
Blake shrugged. “I call the cops.”
“Kind of sucks for me.”
“I can’t let you go, Alice. You’re a murderer. Hell, you came here to kill me, right?”
She nodded.
“And if I let you go, you’ll try again.”
“I see your point,” she said.
“So, do we have a deal?”
Alice pretended to think about it. She didn’t mind him turning her over to the police. Getting arrested had always been her plan, but only after killing all four of the bastards. So she needed time to figure a way out of the handcuffs. And, more than anything, she wanted to see that video.
She looked at Blake watching her expectantly. God he looked desperate. She milked the suspense for a few more seconds and then said, “Okay, you scumbag. Deal.”
What a fucking coup! This film was going to resurrect his movie career. Blake could hardly contain his glee. He hit Play on the remote.
FORTY
Detective Syd Curtis was one interesting woman, Travis Taylor decided. The private detective sat in his Century City office surrounded by an array of computers screens linking him to mainframes and databases across the planet. But even in the wired age, good old fashion police work and instincts were needed to crack a case. And that meant personal relationships with people who had personal relationships with people who had personal relationships with people. And it was that network, the human network that had helped Travis crack open Syd Curtis.