by Norah Wilson
~*~
Suzannah reclined on the couch with a cold compress across her eyes and Bandy by her side.
She’d sworn she wouldn’t shed another tear over him, but there’d been no stemming the tide after he’d closed the door so quietly. Now she felt hollow, cried out, brittle.
And every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, saw the way each cruel word she’d spoken sliced into him like hot lead into unprotected flesh. Which, dammit, wasn’t fair! The point of the exercise was to hurt him like he’d hurt her. She should be taking a grim satisfaction from her success. She should be grateful that she never confessed her love to him. Glad that he’d never know how much his betrayal hurt her.
But all she felt was miserable.
Beside her, Bandy growled. She lifted the compress off her face and listened. Over the dog’s low throated, sustained growl, she heard a light tapping on her front door.
“Hush, Bandy. It’s probably Vince.” The dog stayed there on the couch as she got up to answer the door. A quick look through the security viewer told her it wasn’t her partner. It was Renee LeRoy! Suzannah pulled back, then pressed her eye to the viewer again. Definitely her most un-favorite reporter, and she was looking distressed.
Another rapping on the door.
Sighing, Suzannah turned the knob and opened the door as far as the security chain allowed. “Renee? What are you doing here?”
Self-consciously hunched in the way of a woman who wanted to disappear, Renee cast anxious glances around. “I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t give interviews at home. No exceptions.”
“It’s not about an interview.”
Of course. The hunched, anxious posture said it all. A domestic case.
“I don’t see clients at home, either,” she said. Which was perfectly true, and she wasn’t about to make an exception now, when she looked and felt such a wreck. Especially not for a woman who’d made no secret of her disdain for Suzannah and her ilk. “Tell you what—if you’ll call me tomorrow at my office, I promise I’ll make time –”
“No! It has to be now. Please. It’s important.”
More anxious glances around the street, which as far as Suzannah could tell was deserted. Did this Amazon fear some man? Someone who dogged her footsteps as Mann had dogged Suzannah’s?
Suzannah weakened. “Okay.”
She removed the chain and opened the door again, allowing Renee to step inside. By the time she closed the door and turned back to her visitor, Suzannah found herself looking into the muzzle of a small handgun. Her heart leapt into overdrive. Great. A crazy woman. What else could possibly happen today?
“Take it easy, Renee.” She held out a conciliatory hand. “Whatever your trouble is, I’m sure we can work it out.”
“Lock the door.”
Renee’s voice sounded a few octaves deeper as she issued the command. Suzannah’s face must have betrayed her shock, because Renee pulled off her wig of curly auburn hair to reveal short dark hair. “That’s right, honey. Not a woman after all.”
Not a crazy woman. A crazy man. Her pulse rate kicked higher. This was much worse. Then she noticed the bandage on the right hand. Flesh-toned and subtle, but unmistakable.
Not a crazy man. The crazy man. Her stalker.
“You’re making a big mistake,” she said. “My boyfriend will be right back.”
“Oh, please, darling. I saw him leave here, this time for real. Although you did a pretty credible job last time. I actually bought it. You might have netted me if that imbecile hadn’t blundered into your trap first.”
“No, you’re wrong. He’s coming back!”
“I’ll take my chances. Now, lock the door.”
What were her chances of actually opening the door and getting away? Nil, probably. On the other hand, they weren’t very rosy if she didn’t make a break for it. A bullet in the back would no doubt be preferable to what she—no, not she—he had planned for her.
She’d do it, she decided. At least she could scream. Maybe that would alert the neighbors.
“Okay.” She held up both hands. “I’ll lock it.” Fingers trembling, she turned to the door, pretending to deal with the lock. Now or never. She wrenched the door open and screamed, only to have her captor yank her back and slam the door.
Triggered by Suzannah’s choked off scream, Bandy launched himself at her attacker. All jagged teeth, bristling hair and slitted eyes, he looked like the fury of hell. Then the report of a gun shocked her eardrums, dropping the dog mid-leap. His growl turned to a yelp, and he hit the floor heavily. Horrified, Suzannah watched blood pool on the tiles from beneath Bandy’s motionless body.
“You shot him.” Her voice rang with disbelief. So much blood. She tried to rush to Bandy’s aid, only to have her intruder restrain her.
“Forget him.”
Susannah tried to pull her arm from his grip, but he neatly twisted her arm behind her back and marched her to the door.
“And don’t imagine anyone heard that shot and is racing to the rescue. In case it escaped your notice, your neighbors haven’t returned from their state-sponsored vacations.” He twisted her arm a little higher. “Now, the lock, Ms. Phelps.”
With her hand somewhere between her shoulder blades, she obliged.
“Well done.” He looked around as though considering his options. “The kitchen, I think. It has all the tools.” He gestured with his handgun, as though she had any choice with the grip he had on her arm.
Tools. Terror made her feet clumsy, but he half hauled, half frog-marched her to the kitchen, where he produced a set of handcuffs and cuffed her to a chair. Out of sheer reflex, she tested the bonds. Cold steel and solid oak. She’d never break free. Dear Lord, she was going to die. No one would ride to the rescue this time. She’d sent John away. Regret, sharp as the fear, pierced her.
If she died now, he’d think she really had used him and discarded him. His transgression seemed so insignificant now, her hurt so overblown, her need to save face so petty. Less than an hour ago, she’d been thanking God she’d never told him she loved him. Now, she’d do anything to have the chance.
Then do it. The thought cut through the numbing terror. Stay alive so you can tell him. You’re your only advocate here. Be smart. Think.
She lifted her gaze and studied her captor as he closed the room’s window blinds. Who was he?
Not a reporter, that’s for sure. God, how had she missed it? As abrasive as ‘Renee’ had been in their contacts, Suzannah had never read any invective in the press. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that the reporter never reported?
Because you were too cool to read your own press, came the answer.
She forced her focus back to his face, which was hairless enough to be a woman’s, if somewhat square featured.
He returned to the table. “So, have you figured it out, Ms. Phelps? Do you remember me?”
“I will.”
“Yes, you will.” He opened her utensil drawer and picked up a black-handled knife. “Else what’s the point?”
Her heart battered her ribs as he fingered the point of the blade. Every muscle stiffened as he passed behind her, but he merely pulled out another chair and sat.
Keep your wits about you, she counseled herself, willing her panic down. Keep him talking. You must survive.
“Do you think I make an attractive woman, Ms. Phelps?”
Oh, dear Lord, how to answer that one! She swallowed. “Better with the wig on.”
He laughed. “Yes, better with the wig,” he agreed. “Since the surgery, my skin has gotten smoother, but I just can’t seem to do anything with this hair.”
Surgery? Had he had a sex change? He turned to rifle through her utensil drawer again, and she took the opportunity to examine his face in profile. Dammit, who was he?
“Ah, these should do.”
To her horror, she saw that he’d selected six bone-handled steak knives. A spurt of relief when he walked right past her with them,
followed by a surge of sickness when he turned on one of her gas burners. Carefully, meticulously, he arranged the knives in a fan shape, steel blades resting in the blue flame, cool handles lying on the enamel range top.
Dear God, he was going to burn her.
She almost lost it then. It took every last shred of willpower she could muster not to panic. Her stomach wanted to revolt, her bowels to loosen, and her mind ... oh, God, her mind just wanted to take itself elsewhere. But if she succumbed to panic, she was as good as dead. She knew it.
Keep him talking. “Surgery.” She caught at the subject like a drowning woman might grasp at a piece of flotsam. “You wanted to become a woman?”
He smiled, and she got a tantalizing flash of the same features, but more masculine. Think, Suzannah. Frantically, she tried to picture his lean, dark face stubbled by five-o’clock shadow.
“Become a woman? No, I can’t say that was my aim.”
“I don’t understand. What kind of surgery do you mean?”
“A most unconventional surgery, and without benefit of anesthesia. More of a mutilation, I guess you’d say.” He picked up one of the knives, tested it on the pad of his thumb without flinching, and put it back into the flame. “Castration.”
Her mind was still reeling from the sight of him burning himself, her nostrils filled with the stench of singed flesh, but somehow the meaning of his words penetrated. Sex crime, her mind screamed. He must have committed a sex crime and the victim’s husband or father availed himself of rough justice. “Someone castrated you?”
“Ah, I see where that clever mind of yours is going. Vigilante justice. But you’re wrong.” Another smile. “Or maybe not so far off the mark after all.”
He turned away to adjust the flame on the burner. Suzannah trembled. “I don’t understand.”
“I did it to myself, Ms. Phelps. With a butcher knife.”
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. She took shallow breaths to steady herself. “But why?”
“Because I’d become a monster, Ms. Phelps. The creature that inhabits parents’ nightmares. And you helped me become that monster.”
Oh, God, of course! She’d only defended a handful of men on sex crime charges, and only one on anything remotely pedophilic. “Remy Rosneau.”
“Congratulations, Ms. Phelps. Move to the top of the class.”
She searched her memory banks frantically. It hadn’t been anything too horrific. Touching for a sexual purpose, the complainant being his twelve-year-old cousin. Suzannah had never believed her client was guilty. The circumstances were too convenient. The family feud between Remy’s father and the victim’s father, the fact that the victim admitted her testimony had been embroidered and heavily coached by her father, the fact that the victim’s father hoped to gain financially by discrediting his brother’s family to the extent that their ailing father might cut the disgraced branch of the family out of his will.
The provincial court judge had convicted Rosneau, but Suzannah had managed to persuade the Court of Appeal to overturn what she thought was a bad decision.
She swallowed. “Did you touch that girl, Remy?”
“Yes, I touched her.”
“But you told me you hadn’t, that it was just your uncle trying to smear your father through you.”
“Of course I denied it.” He looked genuinely insulted. “Everyone denies it.”
Suzannah blinked. How could this be happening? “I don’t understand. I successfully defended you against a charge you vowed was false, yet here you are blaming me for—wait a minute, what are you blaming me for?”
“I should have gone to jail. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d just gone to jail.”
Her mind reeled. “You wouldn’t have ... mutilated yourself?”
“I wouldn’t have molested my niece. She visited that summer, from Montreal. If I’d been locked up, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Again, she fought down nausea. She had to keep a clear head. “The summer your conviction was overturned? That was over two years ago. I take it she didn’t report your crime?”
“No.”
“So you decided to punish yourself?”
“I had to stop the monster before it gained full control. Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see.” She felt a reluctant respect stir in her numbed mind. It was extremely uncommon for a pedophile to seek treatment, let alone entertain a ‘cure’ as drastic as the one he’d opted for. Their pathology usually led them to cultivate victims in such a way as to allow them to continue to indulge their deviant compulsions.
“You see? Do you really, Ms. Phelps? Do you see that in getting rid of the monster, I created a freak? How am I supposed to live in this world? Where do I fit?”
“All you need is some help, Remy. You can have a good life, a rewarding life. But not if you harm me. It will only land you in prison, for real this time.”
“Maybe that’s where I deserve to be.”
No, he deserved to be confined indefinitely to a mental institution, but she wasn’t about to say that. “Do you really believe that, Remy?” she asked softly.
He lifted a knife, examined it. “Yes. Prison or worse.”
“Then let me call the police. You can surrender –”
“Oh, I’ll surrender, Ms. Phelps, but only after I’ve dealt with you.”
He moved closer, close enough that she felt the heat emanating from the knife blade. “No, please –”
“I have to. Otherwise, another monster will just move in to take my place, and you’ll help him do it.”
“I won’t. I promise. You don’t need those knives.”
“I’m afraid I do. You see, we have to drive the devil out. We have to fight fire with fire.”
She couldn’t restrain her fear any more. She screamed.