“I told you she just had too much to drink.”
Nick Wood looks directly into the lens. “Get that camera out of my face. Turn it off, Colin. Now.”
The picture swings wildly as Colin carries the camera to the bar and sets it down. The picture is suddenly rock steady. In the right foreground of the frame is the bottle of Jack Daniels, in middle of the frame are Colin, Blake, Adam. Nick Wood stands in front of the pool table. Alice is visible on the left side of the frame.
“Well, boys, the party’s over. Everyone out!” The boys hurry for the door. “And Colin,” Nick Wood says. “You are so grounded.”
The boys exit the room.
“Thank God Nick Wood showed up,” Syd said. “No telling what they would have done to you next.” Syd reached for the Stop button on the remote control.
“Wait,” Alice said. “It’s not over.”
Syd was confused. “But they all just left the room.”
“True. But I’m still not alone.”
Shock filled Syd’s face as the implication registered. No. Fucking. Way.
She turned back to the screen.
The angle hasn’t changed. The camera is on the bar pointed toward the pool table. Nick Wood closes the game room door, stands there thinking for a moment, then locks it. He walks back to the pool table, looks at Alice.
“So young,” he says.
He walks toward camera, picks up the bottle of Jack Daniels, pours himself a drink. Only half of his face is visible on the right side of frame. “So damn young,” he repeats.
He sips his drink and his eyes spot something behind the camera. His hand reaches past the camera, and then comes back into frame holding a condom. He stares at it for a long time, thinking, and then a mischievous smile tugs his lips.
He turns back to Alice. He takes a long pull on his drink as he slowly makes his way back to the pool table. He weaves a bit as he walks.
“Hello,” he says. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
“Hello,” he says, gently shaking her naked shoulder.
Nothing.
His hand is still on her shoulder. He slowly lowers it until his hand covers her breast. He begins stroking the breast, watching her face for any reaction.
He puts down his glass and now both hands are on her breasts.
He bends down and kisses the breasts. One of his hands drifts past her stomach and buries itself in her pubic hair.
He suddenly stands, shakes his head. “This is crazy,” he mumbles. He veers toward the door, looks like he’s going to leave, but no, he just double checks to make sure it’s locked. He turns back to Alice.
“What the fuck,” he says and pulls down his pants. He rips open the condom, slips it on and inserts himself into the naked, unconscious girl.
The sight of a fifty-year-old man raping an unconscious seventeen-year-old girl horrified Syd. She remembered meeting Nick Wood in the morgue. And then pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.
Zachary Stone was Nick Wood’s lawyer. Nick Wood must’ve heard Stone had been killed on Saturday night. And when his son Colin was murdered by a woman on Monday night, Nick Wood realized who the killer was. But instead of telling us he hid out. Why? Because he was afraid he might be on her hit list.
Nick Wood grunts as he comes, pulls out of Alice, rips off the used condom and tosses it into the trash.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he says, and laughs. Then he pulls up his pants, grabs the bottle of Jack Daniels and leaves the room.
“Unbelievable,” Syd said.
“Mr. Wood had no idea his son had left the camera on. Blake told me he didn’t realize either until the next day when he was fast-forwarding through the tape looking for some frames to email. Then when the shit hit the fan at school and he got worried about me going to the cops, he called Mr. Wood and told him he knew what he did to me.”
“And that’s why Nick Wood was willing to pay so much,” Syd said. “He couldn’t risk this tape going public, so he was willing to pay anything to stop your parents from going to the cops.”
“My father sold me out for a million dollars.”
The amount shocked Syd. She’d known there’d been a settlement, but not how much. A million dollars, wow. And that got her thinking… If Nick Wood hadn’t been recorded raping Alice, if he wasn’t personally in danger of going to jail, would he have coughed up a million dollars? Not likely.
So if Nick Wood hadn’t raped Alice, there would have been no payoff so Alice would have gone to the police with her parents and gotten her day in court. She might never have tried to kill herself. She might never have gone to the Institute. She might have had all her childhood dreams come true.
The real bad guy here, the ultimate bad guy, was Nick Wood.
“So now you’ve got a problem,” Syd said. “You have another man to kill.”
Alice looked at her, surprised. “That’s right. My plan was to just kill the four of them, Blake, Adam, Colin and that lawyer. After that, it didn’t matter. I actually wanted to get caught by the police so I could tell my story.” Alice laughed. “I had this crazy thought my story might inspire other women to fight back, stand up for themselves the way I didn’t. Men take advantage of women every day and we just let them! Well, I was sending a message with every bullet, with every amputated prick. And if other women started fighting back, started to make men pay for their cruelty, maybe, just maybe, scumbags like Colin, Adam and Blake would think twice before they rape somebody.”
Okay, thought Syd. That’s a little nuts, but hey, she’s spent the last eleven years in a psychiatric hospital, what do you expect.
And Syd thought she knew the answer to the next question but she asked it anyway. “Why now, Alice? Why wait eleven years?”
“I’ve got cancer. The doctors just gave me a few months to live. They told me to use the time as productively as I could. I don’t think they had my becoming a serial killer in mind, but hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
So she was living a lie, Syd thought. A psychiatric trick gone horribly awry. The question was, should Syd tell her that?
“I am a little ashamed that it took a death sentence for me to take my revenge,” Alice said. “But I was never willing to throw my life away to get back at them. You know, go to jail or get killed trying to get even. As crappy as my life was, at least it was my life. That’s what keeps most victims down isn’t it, the law’s crazy insistence on even punishing the innocent if they want a little payback?”
Syd was about to give her the standard answer about civilization being built on laws and blah blah blah, instead she blurted out, “It didn’t hold me back. I killed my stepfather.”
Alice’s eyes went wide. “You what?”
“He’d been sexually abusing me for years and one night I just… killed him. I never told anyone that before. Never even said it out loud.”
“Why’d you tell me?”
“I don’t know. Because I wanted you to know I understand how you feel, I guess. And my road from there to here hasn’t been easy. I barely made it. Yet, even knowing that, if I had it to do over again, kill him I mean, I would do it in a second.”
“Justice.”
Syd nodded. “Justice.”
Then they sat for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts, the only sound the crashing of waves on the beach.
Then Syd made a decision. She stood up, pulled a key out of her pocket, leaned down and unlocked Alice’s handcuffs. “Nick Wood is in hiding. I’m not sure where he is, but a good place to start may be his house.”
Syd helped Alice to her feet. “You’re letting me go?”
Syd shrugged. “By the time I got here you were gone.” Syd reached into her jacket pocket, handed Alice her scalpel and gun. “I don’t know how much time I can buy you, so act fast.”