by Pamela Cowan
She was still trying to figure it out when she let herself in through the back gate, stopping at the back steps to stretch her calves and tendons before going inside.
When she reached the kitchen, she found everyone up and having breakfast.
“Hi, babe,” said Tom. “Kids just wanted cereal this morning.”
“Funny how much they like cereal when you’re the only one around to serve them breakfast.”
“You’d think they don’t like my cooking.”
“Does anyone?”
“Hey,” argued Lindsey. “Dad cooks real good—most times.”
“I know, Linds, I was just kidding. Your dad doesn’t much like cooking.”
“He makes spaghetti, and macaroni and cheese, and cinnamon toast sometimes,” Lindsey continued, steadfast in her defense.
Storm marveled at the daughter-and-dad relationship. There were times she could have become jealous, if she allowed herself.
“There, you see, said Tom. “My customers have vindicated me.”
“I like cinnamon toast,” said Joel, around a mouthful of raisin bran.
“What’s vindicated mean?” asked Lindsey.
“It means I’m right. Now, do you want some cereal?” he asked Storm.
“Of course,” she said, “Cereal is wonderful. I love cereal.” She got a bowl from the cupboard and joined her family.
The weekend passed too quickly. It was unusually warm for so early in the year, and after weeks of gray skies and rain, everyone was eager to be outdoors.
On the Sunday, Storm managed to spend time in the yard, tying rose runners to the fence and scattering fertilizer around the flower beds. Runners and dog walkers moved past the Mackenzies’ house all day, most with friendly smiles, some even stopping to chat. Everyone seemed to be happy.
Each time Storm began to analyze how much better it felt not to be spending every spare moment planning a justice killing, researching someone’s movements, and basically stalking them, she stopped herself. Overanalyzing every thought and emotion was unhealthy. She needed to live in the moment, enjoy what was going on around her.
She even tried hard not to dwell too much on finding her mother. Perhaps she should have called and talked to her on the phone. When she’d found out her father had been arrested in Brookings, she knew immediately he had either been heading to Crescent City or was on the way back. Logically, this meant he must have known where her mother was staying.
Her first impulse had been to call and warn her mother. But what if her mother had invited him?
She had to think this through very carefully. If her father had been released from jail in Brookings on the 16th, it would have taken him about forty minutes to get to Crescent City. She knew because she’d looked it up. That meant if he meant to kill her, she’d be dead.
If she had invited him and they were together, well, she was in no hurry to know. Both of those outcomes were too painful to consider.
A phone call from her couldn’t fix anything, but it could have sent her mother into another guilt-filled panic. She might have run again and ended up homeless. Her mother was older now, much older, and maybe not even healthy.
Storm realized she was consumed by thoughts of her mother, but there was little she could do to stop it. When she had a moment of tremendous honesty with herself, she knew she didn’t want to stop. There was something close to joy in this much hope. It was as addictive as a roll of dice to a gambling addict.
Hope was a bitch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IN HER DREAM, they danced—no—glided across the floor. The fabric of Storm’s dress was blue, the kind of blue she imagined a blue rose would be, if there could be such a thing.
It was the dress she’d tried on in a shop that specialized in prom and cruise wear on some crazy whim when she was twenty-three. Well past the age for proms and too poor and young yet for cruises.
They had let her take the dress into the dressing room to try on. It fit as if it had been custom-made for her. The princess neckline showed off her long neck, the hollow of her throat, the creamy perfection of her skin. The color made her eyes sparkle, the luxurious fabric hugged her torso, following each curve, and fell, a vivid-blue waterfall, to her bare feet.
Taking the clips from her hair, she brushed out the dark curls and watched herself in the mirror. Utterly charmed by herself, she had, for the first time in her life, thought she was . . . dare she say it? Beautiful. The word had crossed her thoughts like something forbidden but tantalizing. “Beautiful.” she had said, watching her own eyes widen in surprise. She was enchanted by the pink color rising to her cheeks. She was, she realized, just a little bit in love with herself, and in loving herself, she felt love for the entire world.
It was one of the most insanely happy moments of her life and one she still thought of with awe and wonder. Of course, the moment passed. The dress, which she could not afford in any case, had gone back in the window. Life and the reality of her scars, both physical and emotional, remained.
Oh, but that dress. To dance in that dress. So she did, in her dreams now and then. Usually it was Tom who held her, which made sense, since he was her most familiar partner. Sometimes it was a stranger—never a movie star or musician. She often wondered why she didn’t dream of celebrities. Her friends certainly did.
The music became strange. A piano and violins joined in a melody that rose and fell in a lovely pattern of sound and emotion. But now it was loud, chaotic, even rude.
The sound, which was not music at all, woke her from the dream. The blue dress faded away. She let it go begrudgingly. It had been such a wonderful dance.
Storm opened her eyes. Tom rolled to his side, turning his back to her as he unconsciously tried to escape the noise. She scrabbled for her cell phone, sitting on the charging station on the table beside her bed. It was the phone’s harsh ring which had torn her from the dream. “Hello?” she said.
“Hello, partner,” said Howard.
It had been over a week since Storm’s ultimatum. The last time she’d given much thought to Howard was when she’d reviewed his file three days earlier and made sure it was in order. He was getting to the end of his probation period, and she wanted to make sure there were no problems and nothing to keep Howard from becoming a bad memory.
“What do you want?” Storm asked. A glance at the clock told her it was one in the morning. Tom was breathing deeply and evenly. She kept her voice down and her tone conversational so as not to wake him.
“What do you think I want?” Howard asked, his tone matching hers.
“Do you know what time it is? Can I speak to you later?”
“You mean when you want?”
“Yes,” replied Storm, struggling to keep her temper.
“No.”
Storm tightened her grip on the phone. All she wanted was to slip down under the sheets where it was warm, comfortable. But her heart beat like it belonged to a scared bunny. “What do you want?” she finally asked.
“I want you to get it. To actually understand what I am willing to put up with—and what I’m not. I have tried to explain it to you, slowly and clearly. It’s as if you refuse to learn. But you know, that’s my fault, not yours. It takes a good teacher to make a good student. A good teacher knows that, if you really want to make a lesson stick, you need both a carrot and a stick, a reward and a punishment. You know how I like to punish, huh? But you don’t know how I like to reward.”
Storm’s stomach clenched. Her extremities were suddenly cold. There was something in Howard’s voice that was both seductive and darkly sinister.
“Let me tell you your reward. I am going to let you save the little red head from your office. If you want to, that is. Do you want to save the little red head?”
Storm nodded and then realized he couldn’t see her. She swallowed and whispered, “Yes, I want to save her.”
Imagining Carrie strung from the ceiling of the kill room, poor love-struck Carrie with her freckle
s and red hair slowly tortured to death for no reason other than working in the same office as Storm, nearly made her sick. Her stomach lurched, the coffee she’d been drinking all day a sea of roiling acid. She got up slowly and carefully. Tom made a low groaning noise but didn’t awaken.
Storm closed the bedroom door behind her and took the phone into the living room where she began pacing back and forth.
“What do you want?”
“Oh my, that really is a very good carrot, huh? What I want is for things to go back the way they were. I want us to be equal partners, working together, counting on each other, and doing some good in this fucked-up shit hole of a world.” He took a shuddering breath as if he were trying to steady himself, perhaps aware of his escalating anger and afraid of his subsequent loss of control.
“I don’t think—” began Storm.
“No one asked you what you think. I was saying that was a good carrot, but there’s still the stick to consider. You’ve been a very bad girl, Stormy. You’ve been rude and sarcastic and just, well, unkind. That’s not the kind of behavior one wants in a partner. But, since you’ve been a good partner up until this little rebellion of yours, I’m willing to let it go—once you’ve had your punishment.”
“What kind of punishment?” Storm asked.
“I’m going to give the bad girl a little whipping. Nothing extreme,” he was quick to explain. “Not the special whip, don’t worry. I was thinking maybe just a nice, thick, leather belt, and let’s see, how about a count of a hundred? You’re a big girl, after all. I bet you can take it, huh? I’ll even let you keep count. It’ll be like love taps from Daddy.
“After that, your friend goes free, you say you’re sorry you were so bad, and we go back to the way we were. Except you’ll be a little more respectful. What do you think?”
“I think I don’t know if you’ll really let her go. How do I know for sure?”
“You don’t. But so far she hasn’t seen me. No reason for me to get rid of her. Of course, if you don’t show up soon, I’ll probably start getting impatient, might have to take that pillowcase off. Once that comes off, once she sees me, well I can’t be held responsible for my impulses.”
There were so many things Storm wanted to say, to shout. She took a calming breath and said softly, “I’ll take the punishment, but you have to promise me you’ll let her go. If you do that, I’ll agree to become your partner again, and we can get back to doing justice killings. But only justice killings, and the targets have to deserve what they get.”
She hoped she sounded convincing but was sure her lies sounded as improvised and desperate as they were.
Tom knew Storm had restless nights. He wouldn’t question the note she planned to leave telling him she was going out for a run. She crept back to the room and quickly gathered clothes, shoes, and her gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY
STORM PULLED INTO the parking lot of Traynor Chemical for what she was sure was the last time.
She would take her punishment, as Howard saw fit, and if she survived, she would do her best to kill him as soon as she could find a way. In any case, despite Howard’s delusions, the partnership was finished.
It was early morning. The street lamps hummed their constant and erratic tune. Shadows slept in every corner. There was a scent of rain and a fog of marine clouds that would probably burn off as soon as the sun rose.
She ran the mag key across the lock. The light changed from red to green. There was a low click, and she pushed the door open. The metal was cold and wet with condensation.
As she moved down the long hallway toward the kill room, scenes of horror flashed through her mind. What sadistic scene had Howard constructed for her? She didn’t want to know, but couldn’t stop wondering. Had Howard badly hurt Carrie? God only knew what he might have already done to her.
Breaking into a trot, Storm soon reached the entrance to the shower. She skidded into the room and saw the naked bleeding woman tied to the overhead pipes.
“Oh, hell, no. You son of a bitch.”
There was a choke collar around her neck and a knotted rope led from it to the overhead pipes. Her wrists were tied to the rope, allowing her to grasp it and hold herself up to keep from strangling. Storm understood immediately. Howard had perfected his technique.
Storm could barely believe what she saw. Nicky’s pink hair was dark with sweat and matted to her head. Black tracks of mascara stained her cheeks. Her eyes were focused on something Storm couldn’t see. Her face hadn’t been touched. Every other inch of her skin was mottled with blood, both dried and fresh. Blood spatter decorated the concrete around her feet and the nearest walls.
As she drew closer, Storm saw there were hundreds, if not thousands, of small cuts, barely more than scratches, crisscrossing Nicky’s skin. What had he done to her? “Nicky!” The scream tore Storm's throat. Slipping in a thin puddle of blood, she almost fell against Nicky, but caught herself. Carefully, she reached up, and her fingers tugged awkwardly at the tight knots.
Paying no heed to the blood soaking into her clothing as she pressed against Nicky’s torn body, she struggled to find the end of the rope which, when tugged, would undo the slip knot.
The room stank of cleaner. An empty bottle at her feet nearly tripped her. She fumbled for the correct rope and tugged with trembling hands. The knot was too tight. She got a better grip and took a step back. Howard’s forearm slammed into her chest, and she fell backward, feet flying out from under her. She came down hard, the breath knocked out of her.
Howard stood above her and next to Nicky. Idly, he ran his hand down Nicky’s side.
She flinched and lost her blind stare. Turning her head she saw Storm. “What? Why are—”
Howard slapped her face, the sudden sound echoing through the space. “You don’t talk,” Howard told her.
Nicky bit her lower lip. She stared down at Storm but said nothing more.
“You said saving your friend would be a good incentive. Have you changed your mind?” Howard asked.
Storm shook her head, still unable to speak.
Howard reached down, offering Storm his hand. “Sorry about that,” he said. “You sort of surprised me. Come on.” He wiggled his fingers, an impatient gesture.
She took his hand and let him help her up. She stood in front of him and kept her eyes on his, unwilling to look at Nicky.
“What's wrong? Wasn't this our deal? You look so unhappy, Stormy.”
“You won’t let her go. She’s seen your face.”
“Doesn’t matter. She’ll never turn me in now. Will you sweetheart?” He turned to Nicky. “You may nod or shake your head.”
Nicky shook her head, over and over, frantically.
“See. She’ll be good. Not so sure about you, Stormy.”
His use of Tom's pet name was a mistake. Fury, her old friend, ripped through her veins, tingled through every nerve. A frightened, helpless woman stood there, aware her best friend was tied up, had been tortured, and was probably dying.
A second later, an angry woman, a killer in her own right, looked at him appraisingly and allowed the smallest smile to lift the corner of her lips. “Well played. I have to appreciate the gamesmanship.”
“Like chess, huh?” said Howard, nearly purring under her praise. “I didn't know if you'd think it was cheating. Pink. Red. It's sort of, I don't know,” he shrugged, a sheepish look on his face.
Storm chanced a quick glance at Nicky, knowing it could destroy her fragile equilibrium. In response to Howard’s commands, she had gone silent and remained so. Her lower lip trembled, and fresh tears washed her cheeks. She appeared exhausted, scared, and worst of all, obedient.
“What did you do to her?” Storm asked, keeping her tone conversational as if she were simply asking about the weather. “Something special?”
“Special? I didn't use the whip on her the usual way, if that’s what you mean. That makes it go too fast. This time I sort of just dragged it over her, rolled it around some,
spanked her a little here and there. The washers made lots of little cuts . . . sort of beautiful, really. I left her face and her hair alone so you would recognize her. Worked good, huh? You were surprised.”
“I was.”
“You sometimes act like I’m stupid, too dumb to plan anything like this without you.”
“Plan something like this?” she asked, her tone still calm but her words cutting. “Like kidnapping an officer of the court? Someone engaged to one of the most powerful and connected men in the area? Yeah, that was smart, all right.”
“Fuck you,” said Howard. His chin went down, his shoulders back. Storm stepped forward so that her body was pressed lightly against his. She slid her arms around him, and she held him in a tender embrace as she kissed his tight-lipped mouth.
For a second, she could sense his astonishment and felt him stiffen as if he was about to pull away. The next instant, his fists unclenched, his arms wrapped around her, and he pulled her close. As his lips went soft against hers, he moaned. She was sure he was unaware of the sound he made.
“You didn’t even know,” she chided, her shrill voice dropping to a lower register, husky, and bantering. “See how you need me? Tell me. Tell me you need me.”
“Storm,” he said. His arms tightened around her. He kissed her again.
Though she didn’t believe in God, she prayed he wouldn’t slide his hands farther down her back and find her holstered gun.
As she allowed him to kiss her deeply, to slide his tongue between her lips, Storm was filled with repugnance. He moved his hips against her, grinding slowly. She broke away, but continued to place light, teasing kisses on the corner of his mouth, the edge of his jaw, his neck. He moaned again. She gave him a smile she hoped looked playful and twisted away.
If she could have smashed the heel of her boot into the top of his foot, then spun and hit him in the face or throat with her elbow, she might have been to disable him, if only for a moment. It was a move she’d practiced in defense courses. She needed to break his hold just long enough to get free of his reach and pull her gun.