Lexa slowly approached the table, the smile on her lips stretching across her entire face. She moved slowly from corner to corner, unfastening each handcuff and setting her husband free. When they were all off, Dr Ostermann did not move. He remained on the table, his breathing laboured and his whimpers audible.
Lexa leaned over him. Kissed him gently on his neck. Reached down and squeezed his balls.
Dr Ostermann let out a frantic cry, and Lexa smiled once more.
‘You disgust me,’ she said.
Then she dropped the leather lash across his back, stripped out of her dominatrix lingerie, and dressed once more in her green silk kimono. Without so much as a glance back, she left the room.
Dr Ostermann lay in the centre of the feed, quivering but still, with only the sounds of his whimpers and cries filling the room.
Then the video stopped.
Striker looked away from the video camera display, back at Felicia, and couldn’t hide the surprise from his expression. ‘The office upstairs . . . it isn’t a torture room at all – the Ostermanns are into S&M sex.’
‘What a couple of sick fucks,’ Felicia said.
Striker thought it over, pieced it together. ‘The marks we saw on Dr Ostermann’s back and neck make sense now. They weren’t shingles, or an injury from a fall – they were friggin’ whip marks.’
Felicia nodded. ‘It would also explain his feeble movements.’
‘And why he was so embarrassed about the videos. Jesus, when I was threatening him about the murder films – he thought I was talking about his S&M videos. His home videos.’
Felicia thought it over. ‘Dr Ostermann, a masochist.’
‘And Lexa, a sadist,’ Striker finished.
The word seemed wrong as he spoke it, but he couldn’t help thinking that. Lexa was the one constant here. And the image of her coming downstairs in her kimono, her skin dappled with sweat, her eyes wide and doe-like, came back to him.
‘Lexa,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is she now?’
Felicia said nothing.
Striker placed the camera back on the dumbwaiter tray for Forensic Video to process. As he did this, thoughts of the Adder taping them returned. Striker turned from the dumbwaiter, took out his flashlight, and began going round the room, inspecting everything. There were no other cameras or microphones visible, or any other surveillance equipment, but that didn’t mean none were there.
A sweep of the room would be necessary.
He shone the light under the bed and saw nothing of importance. He then shone it under the dresser and the computer cabinet. There, he stopped. On the concrete below the cabinet there were faint but visible brownish marks.
Scuff marks, just like with the painting.
‘This cabinet’s been moved,’ he said.
He wrapped his fingers around the base of the cabinet and slowly swung it out from the wall. When he looked behind it, he saw a small hollow in the wall. About as long and high and deep as a small microwave. In it sat two rows of DVD and Blu-ray cases. Marked on all of them was the word Back-up, followed by different dates. Striker read through them.
One of them had been made just this morning.
He took it out and dropped it into the Blu-ray player across the room. When he turned on the TV and hit Play, the video started. What Striker saw made his blood turn cold; the video was of him and Felicia. Inside Sarah Rose’s apartment. Right before the fire had started.
Felicia stepped forward. ‘Jesus Christ, is that us?’
Striker said nothing. He just looked from the TV to the row of DVD and Blu-ray discs in the nook behind the cabinet. All of them would have to be watched. Reviewed for any shred of evidence.
It would take hours.
He watched the feed continue until the moment when he and Felicia had managed to break out of the front door through the burning blaze. Then the video stopped—
And started once more.
The camera angle spun about, as if the camera was being picked up. And then, for one fleeting moment, the feed caught the image of a young man with wild, jet-black hair and eyes such a light green they looked transparent.
Felicia turned to look at Striker. Her face was ashen.
‘The Adder isn’t Dr Ostermann,’ she said softly. ‘It’s—’
‘Gabriel,’ Striker said, and he could hardly believe his own word.
Gabriel Ostermann.
The boy.
The son.
And he was gone.
Seventy-Seven
The Adder walked slowly down Sasamat Trail, one of the barkmulch pathways that snaked all through the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. When he reached the end of it, he stopped on a bluff overlooking the strait. Far below, the turbulent waters were black and deep and cold.
Like the well.
Memories of the front window of the house smashing apart after he’d thrown the lamp through it returned to him. In bits and pieces. In intermittent waves. Like a TV signal fading in and out. His actions would have attracted much attention, no doubt.
Another one of the Doctor’s rules, broken.
As if sensing his thoughts, his cell phone rang and the Doctor’s name flashed across the screen. The Adder looked at it for a long moment, listening to the rings, not wanting to pick it up.
One. Two. Three . . .
He finally picked up. ‘I am here.’
‘Have you managed to calm yourself down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know what has happened since you left?’
‘No.’
‘Your father is dead, Gabriel. He committed suicide.’
The Adder said nothing.
‘Come to the lake house. We will meet you there. We need to . . . re-plan.’
The line went dead and the Adder stood there motionlessly.
Father dead. It was a strange notion. And it made him feel somehow hollow and light. He could not understand it.
He walked to the edge of the bluff and sat down on a rotting log. As he stared out over the black waters, he took out a DVD and cradled it in his hands. This was the one. The one that had started it all. And the thought of it made his heart beat faster, made his throat turn dry.
The voices would start soon; he knew their pattern well. And so he took out his headphones and plugged them into the speaker port on his iPod. Moments later, the only file loaded, and the blissful release of the white noise began.
The Adder needed it to clear his head. To calm his nerves. And to think.
Clear thought was essential right now. There was no place for error. No excuse for acting hastily. He simply could not afford to. The most crucial of all moments was almost here. For Homicide Detective Jacob Striker.
That thought made the Adder smile.
The Big Surprise was coming.
He could hardly wait.
Day Three
Seventy-Eight
It was early morning when Striker awoke from the stinging of his burned hand, and the day felt every bit a Friday. The room was dark and cold. He was in that realm, still somewhere between wake and sleep, and a sense of desperation filled him. He reached over in the darkness, felt for Felicia, and could not find her. Then he remembered she was sleeping on the couch.
That bothered him, and it woke him up fully.
He sat up in the bed, looking around the drab greyness of the room and trying to sort things out in his head. Yesterday had been a constant whirlwind, and discovering Gabriel Ostermann’s room and learning he was, in fact, the Adder had sent the investigation exploding in new directions.