by Lisa Jackson
He drove intently, forcing himself to stay under control, feeling anxiety buzzing beneath his skin. By his reckoning he was at least forty minutes out. Maybe more. Probably more. But he was going to get there.
Savvy worked herself around, fighting for the driver’s door handle. Tightening her fingers around the handle, she pressed it down and tried to shove the door upward. Were she her old limber self, she would pull out a leg and push it open, but in her current state she had to push with her hand. The door opened easily enough, but she couldn’t get enough power to push it straight up. It snapped back down twice before she gave up.
And the wind was shrieking and shoving snow inside so fast, she was damp by just opening the door a crack. But at least the door would open; the SUV wasn’t torqued too badly. Thank God for small favors.
She was still sprawled across the two front bucket seats. She wondered if she should try to resecure herself with the seat belt. Would that be better or worse? Worse probably. If...
The next contraction hit harder, pain ripping through her abdomen. Savannah closed her eyes and panted, counting, waiting it out. It didn’t seem to be longer, but it sure as hell seemed stronger.
When it was over, she thought about the baby and about Hale and her sister. Kristina. But again she pushed thoughts of her aside, almost furiously. Couldn’t think about Kristina. Not now. Later. After the EMTs got to her. The ones Hale had called through 9-1-1. He said he was going to call. He would. And they would get here.
The Escape’s engine was still on, charging the headlights, two dim yellow lines that illuminated the snow-laden fir boughs beyond. Savvy switched it off but left the lights on. She would turn the engine over after a bit. Didn’t want to lose the battery. She lay still, and then another contraction took her over, squeezing her, leaving her breathless and shaking. Too close after the last one. Too close.
Sucking air between her teeth, Savvy lay still, listening to her own galloping heart.
There was no denying it. This baby was coming.
Soon.
Outside the window, the snow was coming down as hard as Charlie had ever seen it. He watched pensively, his thoughts running along twisting pathways. He’d made mistakes, several that needed immediate attention. The loose ends were unraveling faster and faster, and inside he was starting to feel that same old anxious feeling that meant it was time to take care of business and move on.
He’d seen that woman, that detective, today. Something had to be done about her. A pleasurable something, no doubt, but if he did something soon, his cover would be blown and they would start searching for him. He wasn’t ready for that yet. There was too much to do. Those women at Siren Song . . .
And what the fuck had he been thinking, talking to that ass DeWitt? Dimwit! Damn! Fuck! He wanted to kick something, he was so angry at himself. He’d been bragging to the dense moron, that’s what. Letting the bastard know that he, Charlie, could score with anyone he chose. Anyone! Women wanted him . . . practically spun themselves into a sexual frenzy if he so much as looked at them. Could Dimwit even conceive of that? No. He just sat night after night at one bar or another and drank himself stupid.
Now Charlie tamped down his growing anxiety and rage with an effort. This was not the time to drop his mask and let anyone see what was underneath. Too dangerous.
But Dimwit . . . God . . .
Charlie ground his teeth together in remembrance. He’d made some serious mistakes, which had to be corrected once and for all. He’d foolishly told Dimwit all those things because the fucker had seen him banging Kristina up against a wall at the Donatellas’ Spanish Colonial. Charlie had caught a glimpse of the man’s vehicle as he was tearing away from Bankruptcy Bluff, and he’d known he would have to do something.
A couple of nights later he’d followed him to a bar just down the road from Deception Bay, a local dive called Davy Jones’s Locker. He should have killed him right then and there. But did he do that? Did he? Hell, no. Instead he’d crowed to the stupid ass about all his sexual conquests. Not just about Kristina! About all of them, including Chandra Donatella, who was the reason he’d chosen the Bankruptcy Bluff venue in the first place.
He’d even told the miserable little shit about his alter ego: Good Time Charlie.
Fuck.
Well, now he was going to have to do something about Dimwit tout de suite. And there were more developing problems: that fucker had been way too eager to talk to the sweet female detective. And then, of course, that sweet detective herself.
All three of them had to die.
He realized how close he was to being discovered, and a part of him was both angry and appalled that he’d been so careless. But another part looked forward to the killing that was to come.... He could get a hard-on just thinking about it.
“Hey,” the woman called from the bed, miffed that he wasn’t paying attention to her. His date. The one he’d been so eager to be with just hours earlier. The one he wanted to escape from now.
He’d been standing by the window, naked, lost in thought, watching the snow. Now, as he turned toward her, she patted the sheets, inviting him back in.
But he didn’t want to have sex with her again. He damn well never wanted to see her again. After he had a woman, he didn’t want to go back for seconds unless there was a way to up the ante. Before his first kill, he’d tried anything that was a little more dangerous. Sex in a public place. Sex somewhere precarious, like that time at the construction site. All those Bancroft Development employees around . . . and he’d just silently laughed at them while he was screwing Kristina behind their backs. He knew them all and what they were about. Kristina had helped him know them, and though she didn’t understand his obsessive interest in any and all things Bancroft, whenever she’d asked too many questions, he’d distracted her with sex. She was so easy to control. He just waggled his finger and she was practically writhing on the ground for him. Some of the women were more of a challenge even with his sexual power, but not Kristina. She was always hot and wet and throbbing like a goddamn pulse, although afterward she cried about not being herself, not wanting him, acting like he’d put her under some kind of spell. Jesus. She was just weak, that was all.
Why hadn’t she just died?
“Hey,” she called again from the bed, her voice more strident.
Charlie put a smile on his face. It wouldn’t do to let her see his real self. But he’d made a mistake in choosing her. He’d thought she might satisfy him in all the ways he loved, but she’d been a cheap distraction at best. Tonight she hadn’t even shrieked, and the way she looked at him sometimes made him wonder if her earlier enthusiasm had all been a fake. Yes, he could get her to respond, but it wasn’t with the same energy as Kristina.
Kristina. It was a fucking shame she’d chosen a coma instead of death: hanging on, thwarting him, laughing at him, making certain he couldn’t watch her die.
“Hey!” his date called again, truly irked.
Charlie boiled up with sudden rage. He wanted to slit her throat and watch her gurgle and flail while the light died out of her eyes, but he couldn’t yet. Too dangerous. Too many people might remember seeing them together. She didn’t have as much to lose as Kristina, so she’d met him at public places. For now he had to play it safe. He would take care of her later, when she was way, way back in his rearview mirror.
He rejoined her in bed, though he didn’t want to. All part of the act. But when she kittenishly reached over and grabbed his dick, he felt a wave of revulsion. Too much of this kittenish shit. He wanted a woman who’d go the distance.
Closing his eyes, he strolled back through his memory, searching for a kill that could get him humming, settling on those last moments with his mother, his real mother. He recalled the sensual feel of the knife sinking into her flesh. She’d fought him good, but he’d won easily, overpowering her with his physical strength. His dick stirred at the memory, and his date giggled and thought it was her doing.
Giggling. God, h
e wanted to squeeze the life from her. Maybe . . . maybe . . .
No.
Just need to get through this. Make it fun.
With an effort, he went back to his memories. The hot, liquid warmth of Kristina St. Cloud surrounded him, and he could hear her in his mind, moaning and screaming and begging. He climbed atop the bitch in his bed and screwed her hard.
Unfortunately, afterward, he felt more anxious than he had before he started, and as she stretched and regarded him languidly, as if she thought she’d been amazing in the sack, Charlie turned away and picked up the remote, clicking on the late news.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer, just channel surfed around. There should be something on Kristina’s condition by now, he figured.
Catching sight of the shingled siding of the Rib-I, Charlie stopped his surfing. Good. At least there was more on his first kills of the week. A male reporter was describing the scene from outside the restaurant two nights earlier. Two people murdered. Garth and Tammie. Charlie watched with a distant fascination as the reporter stood in the driving snow and urged anyone who’d seen anything to come forward. For a heart-stopping moment he thought of DeWitt, sitting in the Rib-I like a spider in his web, a drunken spider, but nonetheless ready to spin a web of words as he talk, talk, talked....
“Damn you,” she suddenly snarled, throwing back the covers and stomping naked to the bathroom.
Charlie barely noticed. His mind was now traveling back to Tammie and Garth, reliving those moments when he’d looked in their eyes, watching the light disappear into nothingness. He felt himself stir to life again, and even with the sex he’d just had, he suddenly wanted to masturbate. Now he wanted her, and of course, the bitch was locked in the bathroom.
But he could be so persuasive.
Rapping on the door panels, he said lightly, “Come outta there. Mr. Happy wants to see you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ah, c’mon, baby.” He was suddenly hot all over. This was what it was supposed to feel like. This was what Kristina had done for him, what Chandra had almost managed, though she’d been a bit of a cold fish.
Chandra Donatella . . .
He’d called her first that night, told her to meet him at their house. He liked the idea that it was edging toward the rim of the bluff. The vision of it being sucked into the sea got him going sexually. But Chandra had taken her sweet time in getting there. Growing impatient, he’d then sent a hot, seductive message to Kristina, who could pick up his radar like she was standing next to him. He sent her the image of a gun. Her handgun, the one she’d told him she’d bought for protection. Protection, ha. He’d understood, even if she hadn’t, that she’d bought it because of him, because of the fear he churned inside her, which she was powerless to fight. He’d thought the gun might be an interesting sex toy.
Kristina had shown up with it in her purse, and he’d pulled it out and waggled it in front of her eyes. They were role-playing, and things were just getting interesting, with Kristina precariously balanced on a couple of kitchen chairs and him on top of her, when there was the scrape of a key in the front lock and Chandra suddenly burst in, practically panting with desire. Charlie had the gun in his hand, and for a split second he thought maybe he could talk them both into a threesome, when Chandra’s husband, Marcus, came in behind her like a charging bull.
He stopped at the sight of the gun leveled at his chest.
Naked, Charlie had calmly told Marcus to take the chairs and set them in the living room. Then he had Chandra and Marcus sit on them. Marcus tried to argue with him, but Charlie had the weapon. A gun wasn’t as intimate as a knife, but it sure as hell commanded respect, and no amount of double-talk from the goddamned high-and-mighty Marcus Donatella was going to convince Charlie to stop. In fact . . .
His date suddenly threw open the bathroom door, knocking into him. “Shit!” he snapped, good and pissed.
“Get out,” she ordered.
“Ah . . . no . . . let’s make up.” Suddenly Charlie was feeling really horny. The more they fought his power, the better it was. He reached for her arm, and when she yanked it back, he laughed, grabbed her around the waist, and tossed her back on the bed.
She quickly scrambled up to a sitting position, folding her arms over her bare breasts. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
“You don’t mean that. . . .”
“You can just watch your goddamn TV and leave me the fuck alone.”
He chuckled. “Now you’re gonna get it,” he singsonged, and she glared at him.
“I’m really mad,” she said.
“Are you?”
“Yes!”
A challenge. Charlie quickly worked his magic, sending out his sexual pheromones. She tried to resist; she really did. But it didn’t take long for her to crumble, and he sent his mind back to the Donatellas again to increase his enjoyment as he mounted her. The terror on Chandra’s face . . . Marcus begging for his wife’s life . . . Kristina in the background, crying and wringing her hands and saying he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t, it was all a game, and then blast, blast, shooting them both in the back of the head and Kristina screaming and screaming and screaming until he grabbed her by the hair and screwed her hard against the wall again while she clawed at him like a wild woman. She lost it a little after that, went into this weird state of denial where she would not admit to herself that she’d watched him execute her friends. She simply would not believe it, and though every time they had sex, he would press his lips to her ear and croon to her that she was his, that she was part of it now, that she had helped kill them, too, she would say it was sorcery. Nothing had happened.
Her denial worked like an aphrodisiac on Charlie. When he thought about her burning, liquid warmth . . . and that cool refusal to accept the truth . . . he felt like he could burst!
He came back to the present with a bang. Realized he was jamming hard and fast into his date, and she was in the throes of a mega-climax and was screaming like she was going to die of pleasure. Well, all right! Finally. A real response. He gave a couple of last, good thrusts and then came himself, filled with expanding pleasure, distantly thinking that it was good, but maybe not quite good enough....
Another reason to wait to kill her. Had to make sure his semen wasn’t anywhere near her when she met her maker.
He propped himself above her on his elbows and stared down at her. “Good?”
“I hate you,” she said peevishly, her chest still heaving, her eyes glistening.
He smiled and sent her his swirling sexual thoughts. Then he put his hands lightly around her neck. “I’m gonna kill you,” he whispered in her ear, “with love. . . .”
He was still inside her, and he hardened again, moving more tenderly. She tried to resist, she really did, but she couldn’t, of course. Soon enough her hands were clawing his arms and she was moaning.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, watching the conflicting messages on her face as she futilely fought his magic love potion. She came again, and with both regret and relief he pulled away from her, staring at the ceiling, wondering how soon he could leave.
He wished he could have had sex with his mother before he killed her. And he wished he’d actually killed that other mother, the one who’d been so sorry she’d adopted him, but she’d beat him to it.
He felt anger lick through him again, just thinking about that bitch. He’d seen the look on her face. How sorry she’d been that she’d ever let him in her house. And he’d heard her on the phone to her friends, talking about him, about how he wasn’t right. Saying she should have known better. “After all, he’s from that strange cult,” she’d said softly into the receiver, but he’d been able to read lips from an early age. He could read her. He’d pulled her in with his power and screwed her sideways, and she’d looked up at him through glazed, horror-struck eyes, and then . . . and then she’d run off and killed herself! Bitch! Damn, but it pissed him off.
Afterward, her husb
and hadn’t known what to do with him, the adopted son he didn’t want. He kinda thought maybe he should put him in foster care, but Charlie wasn’t having any of that. He left three days after her suicide. He’d always known he had a special power, but now he knew what to do with it. There were other women, lots and lots of other women, just aching for what he could give ’em. And he gave it to them—the best they’d ever had in their miserable lives—and for a few years he moved back and forth across the country, doing just enough work to get by, stealing from the parade of women he serviced whenever he needed to, sensing there was some purpose out there that he hadn’t yet discovered.
And then he’d felt the irresistible pull—deep in his organs—from Mother Mary. She’d called to him from Echo Island, and he’d had one helluva time negotiating his way to her, all the while hearing her laughing in his head, but also her begging: Come to me. Save me. I’m here. Waiting for you.
He’d gone to the island—he damn well could hardly do anything else—and she’d started spinning her spell, wrapping him in it. She wanted off the island. There was work to be done. She needed him to help her. But Charlie wasn’t really interested in helping her. All he wanted to do was screw her and maybe learn something about where he came from, but she wouldn’t touch him, and she wouldn’t give him much beyond his father’s name. Good old Pops, the bastard. He would take care of him in time, too.
Charlie had boldly told his mother that he was the only one who counted, and she’d cackled her amusement and said he was an ignorant ass, just like his father. “There are more,” she’d then warned him with a thin, cold smile. “More?” he’d asked. “More of us that are stronger than you,” she’d assured him. “The ones we need to conquer.”