Twisted Hunger

by Marilyn Campbell

  Remember your tricks.

  Her tricks? The flashlight in her purse! She had the purse in her hand when she was shoved inside, but she didn’t know where it was now. With the door at her back, she slid down to the tiled floor and began creeping forward. Inch by inch, her hands moved over the floor around her. When that proved to be futile, she expanded her search to a larger semicircle.

  You can do this, Ellie.

  To the left she found her compact and keys at the bottom of a row of cabinets. A bit farther, she came across a tube of lipstick. Finally, to the right, she encountered a leather sofa and her purse. Thankfully, the heavy steel flashlight had not flown out with the other loose items. With a relieved sigh, she flicked it on.

  The beam of light wasn’t going to save her from whoever was outside, but it helped to quiet her panic enough to allow her to use her brain. On the other hand, it also made her excruciatingly aware of how badly her head hurt.

  Relief flooded through her when she found her cell phone, only to have it rush out again when she could not get a signal. She was underground and surrounded by thick walls.

  She and the caterer had walked through the whole house, including the wine cellar, without seeing anyone. Since she had watched Connie drive down the street seconds before descending the stairs, she eliminated her as a suspect. Obviously, she was only bait. Whoever set her up must have been hiding in this room all the time.

  Though Jones was the likeliest candidate, Ellery didn’t think he could have skipped out on all his meetings and arrived here before her or sneaked in while she was with the caterer.

  What if, after all her analysis, Teddy was The Eye Doctor after all? She had no idea whether he had been in the office that morning. It was certainly possible that he was here, but he had always seemed so shy and gentle that she wasn’t convinced he was capable of murder. And although Mrs. Jones had exhibited some peculiar qualities, Ellery couldn’t imagine that woman having enough strength to shove her as hard as someone just did.

  The only other person who had roused her suspicions lately was Brevowski, and she didn’t think he was the one either. If he thought she was in the way or knew too much, it would seem more his style to kill her outright, not frighten her.

  Unable to come up with an absolute answer, she figured that whoever it was had a reason for capturing, rather than killing her, and thus, it seemed logical that he would reveal himself eventually.

  Now that her breathing and heartbeat were fairly normal again, she was ready to survey her surroundings. Uncertain of how long she would be held there in the dark, she determined to make it a quick look, however, then turn the flashlight off for a while.

  As she had first thought, it was a small but complete efficiency apartment. There were even some groceries in the compact refrigerator and cupboards. The bathroom medicine cabinet contained aspirin and antacid. With the throbbing in her head getting worse by the moment, she was grateful for the small find and quickly swallowed several aspirin.

  Just when she was coming to the conclusion that, despite its hideaway appearance, this place held no secrets, she noticed that the full-length mirror on the wall was actually a sliding door.

  She eased it back then shined the flashlight inside. She had expected to see clothes hanging in a closet, and there was quite a bit—a few pieces of men’s and women’s apparel, plus costumes and uniforms of all sorts, plus a number of wigs. But finding evidence that Jones was in fact a cross-dresser was nothing compared to the rest.

  Beyond the clothes was an alcove, set up as a shrine or some other kind of sacred place, with an altar and partially burned candles. Primitive drawings and symbols adorned the walls.

  Her gaze zoomed back to the altar and she stepped closer to verify what she thought she saw. Placed within a triangle of candles was a long curved knife with an arc cut out at the top so that the blade came to a very sharp point. The handle was decorated with what looked like onyx, pearl and gold. She automatically jumped back, as though the deadly weapon had the power to rise from the altar and cut out her eyes on its own. She would have run far from there if she could have, but the best she could do get out of that space.

  As soon as she turned around, however, she was confronted with something far more grotesque. The partial wall behind her was shelved, and on those shelves were small glass Mason jars.

  And in each of the jars was a set of eyeballs in a clear liquid.

  The jars were labeled, not with names but descriptions, such as “construction worker”, “psychiatrist”, and so on. She was certain the printing was the senator’s. Realization that The Eye Doctor’s mysterious motivation had to do with the person’s profession took several seconds to set in. With the list of victims fresh in her mind, she could see that the jars had been lined up in chronological order and there were more of them than the FBI knew about. A few seconds after that, she found the most recent addition.

  The label simply said “TV star”—and beneath the jar was a Polaroid photo of Brandon’s mutilated face.

  A bloodcurdling scream crawled up from her chest and went on and on as she ran out of the horror chamber. She couldn’t seem to stop the hellish sound coming out of her throat.

  Hysteria prevented her from registering that the lights had come on or that someone had entered the outer room.

  “Stop that fucking noise!” a man commanded and backhanded her jaw so powerfully that she was knocked off her feet.

  Chapter 22

  Ellery’s shock and confusion at seeing Teddy towering over her prevented her from acting a moment too long. He bent down, stuck a hypodermic needle in her thigh and pressed the plunger.

  She cried aloud from the burning pain of the unexpected injection and instantly earned another hard slap.

  “I told you to stop that noise,” he ordered. “I will not put up with it.”

  Ellery finally gathered her senses enough to notice that the door had not been completely closed. She tried to go for it, but her body didn’t seem to receive the message her brain was sending. By the time she got herself on her knees, her escape was blocked by a new arrival.

  Vivian Jones looked down her nose and laughed. “Why, Ellery, you’ve already learned the proper position of respect. I told Teddy you’d be a quick study.”

  Ellery was assailed by confusing questions about the two players in this nightmarish game, but she pushed them aside and tried again to reach the open door.

  Vivian pulled the door shut before she’d moved an inch. “Don’t waste your energy, Ellery. Between the pounding your head has taken and the little cocktail Teddy just gave you, you wouldn’t be able to climb the stairs safely. And we certainly wouldn’t want you falling like your mother did.”

  Ellery narrowed her eyes. She could barely bring Vivian into focus, but she comprehended that her true identity was no longer a secret. Her mouth opened and she tried to form a question, but only the first word came out. “What…”

  “What do we know about your mother? Enough to know that your working for my husband was more than a career maneuver for you. He knew who you were all along of course, but his curiosity about your intentions plus your extraordinary abilities prevented him from doing away with you. He thought he had everything under control. That no longer seems to be the case.

  “Now we would like to know exactly what is going on, so you and I are going to have a little chat. But first, get up on the couch while you can still move. In a few more minutes, you won’t be able to.”

  Ellery could feel her legs and arms growing heavier by the second. She managed to turn toward the sofa, but crawling to it seemed impossible.

  “Goddammit!” Teddy grabbed her beneath one arm, dragged her across the tile floor and draped her upper body onto the sofa. “Get up there.” When Ellery didn’t move, Teddy kicked her in the buttocks and shouted, “I said, get up!”

  Ellery realized that resistance to small requests would not be to her advantage. She needed to gather strength in order to fight. She wa
s weak and disoriented, but as long as she remained conscious, she could keep looking for a chance to escape. With supreme effort, she pulled herself up onto the couch, but it felt as though it used up the last of her energy. She felt as though she were sucking in air through a narrow straw and a heavy weight was being pressed on her chest.

  Teddy explained, “The less you struggle to breathe, the easier it will be. The drug I gave you is similar to succinyl choline in that, while it nearly paralyzes the muscular system, the nervous system remains fully alert. In fact, it’s even derived from the same Amazonian toads, but the native version differs slightly from the American pharmaceutical one.

  “If I had given you a full dose, I could perform surgery on you and you wouldn’t flinch or utter a sound, but you would feel everything I was doing. In fact, it would seem worse because of your total helplessness. But I didn’t give you a full dose because I want your heart and diaphragm to keep working without mechanical assistance. And we want you to be able to answer a few questions.”

  “Isn’t he amazing?” Vivian stated proudly. “For some reason—a psychiatrist would say it was due to his dear mother’s abuse when he was a child—he has difficulty enunciating certain letters when speaking to anyone besides Abraham or me. It’s a matter of self-confidence, actually. And right now, he’s in complete control of you, so his confidence is very high. You may have noticed the variety of costumes in the closet. He also has complete control of his speech when he dresses up as someone else. In fact, he’s a genius with accents and imitations. Perhaps later he’ll do Abraham’s voice for you.”

  Ellery’s eyelids drooped, but a narrow slit of vision remained. She wondered how long it would be before she regained control of her muscles. Whenever it was, she would be prepared to act. She would grasp the first opportunity to escape. She would—

  Slowly, she became aware that her brain was functioning and she no longer felt numbed by shock. It was a small thing under the circumstances, but that, combined with the fact that she had not been killed immediately, was enough to give her hope.

  “She’s ready for you, my love,” Teddy said.

  Vivian roughly yanked out a couple hairs from Ellery’s head. “Don’t go to sleep on us, Ellery. It’s time for our chat. Say my name.” Ellery ignored her and another hair was ripped out. “I don’t believe you really want me to pluck you bald. You can speak. Just put some effort into it.”

  The tears in Ellery’s eyes blurred the limited vision she had, and she didn’t have the power to blink them away. She reminded herself that refusing to obey a simple order wasn’t worth more pain. At first she only managed to make a croaking sound, then by concentrating harder, she uttered, “iv-ian.” The initial “V” required more muscle control than she could muster.

  “Not bad,” Vivian said. “But I think you can do even better with the proper motivation. I’m sure that you’re aware there are certain parts of the human body that are more sensitive than others.”

  Ellery didn’t think she could be more horrified, until Vivian lightly stroked her cheek and neck then slid her fingers downward and traced a figure eight over her breasts.

  “More sensitive to pleasure,” Vivian said in a husky voice, then gave one of Ellery’s nipples a sharp twist. “And more sensitive to pain.”

  Ellery yelped and determined to sound out every letter of her next word. “Bitch!” She heard Teddy snicker, but couldn’t turn her head to see him.

  “Rude, but an improvement. Now, back to your mother. What did you think you could accomplish by hiding your relationship to her?”

  Ellery searched for a single word answer then whispered, “Killed.”

  Vivian snorted. “My husband did not kill her. Timidity did that. He wasn’t even the one who pushed her back down the stairs when she came up screaming. I was the one who had to stop her from telling everyone at the party what she’d accidentally found down here. Unfortunately she only had a heart attack, rather than a broken neck.

  “Teddy had intended to finish the job after she was hospitalized, but you were always hovering about, and since the prognosis was so bad, he decided it was safe enough to let her pass away naturally.”

  Ellery made a hissing sound.

  “Oh, you probably saw him. You just didn’t recognize him in his nurse’s disguise. But he had seen you well enough to think you looked familiar when you applied for the opening in Abraham’s office. Familiar enough for him to insist on Abraham checking further into your background. Which brings us to my next question. Who arranged that for you, Ellery? I don’t believe it was a convenient coincidence, nor do I think you could have done it on your own.”

  Ellery finally comprehended that both Vivian and Teddy not only knew about the senator’s atrocious acts, they had helped to cover for him on occasion. She decided the truth would at least notify them that someone important cared what happened to her. “Gover-ent.”

  Vivian frowned. “Who? Someone you met while you were in Washington?”

  “S-s-secret… group. Ruin… hi—”

  The instant she understood, she slapped Ellery’s face. “That’s a lie! No one in power wants to ruin my husband. He’s a favorite of both parties. He will be sitting in the White House next year!”

  “They… know… he… kills… takes eyes. Crazy.”

  Vivian glared at her. “He is not crazy. What he does, he must do… to feed his very special needs.”

  “Hmmph. Special needs, indeed. You make him sound like a saint.” Teddy’s voice had a hint of whine in it.

  Vivian quickly touched his chin. “There’s no need for that tone, my love. If he’s a saint, you are a god. Where would he be if you were not always right behind him, cleaning up his messes?”

  Those words brought his confidence back and he smiled at Vivian. He turned his attention back to Ellery. “I had no choice but to handle the… less spiritual details for him.”

  “And you always did so with finesse,” Vivian noted. “No one ever suspected you or Abraham all these years… until recently.”

  Ellery had read all the facts but had come to the wrong conclusion. What she was hearing was even worse than she could have imagined. Teddy and Abraham Jones had both murdered people, and Vivian— “You… approve?”

  “Of course I don’t approve, you imbecile. But a politician’s wife must support her husband, no matter what. And our Abraham is going to be the most powerful man in the world one of these days.” She smiled slyly to Teddy. “With us sitting right next to him. You see, it is our responsibility to make certain that nothing and no one prevents that from happening.

  “I usually prefer not to be told any of the specifics of what is being done to enhance Abraham’s career, but this weekend it seemed to me that the situation was getting out of control, so I had them tell me everything. There is no question in my mind that you are right in the eye of this sudden storm.”

  She paced quickly back and forth, as though she were too agitated to stand still. “It was all their parents’ fault, you know. If their father had been more of a man—”

  “I have told you before that he did the best he could,” Teddy interjected defensively.

  “Aach! If he had been a real man, that she-devil wouldn’t have had to take a lover to get pregnant.”

  “W-w-w-w-we don’t know th-th-that for certain.”

  Vivian’s eyes abruptly narrowed and she turned to Ellery. “You see what she did to him? The mere thought of her handicaps him.” To Teddy, she said, “You just concentrate on the power you have today. Now, in spite of our personal plans for her, it has occurred to me that Ellery could be a valuable asset to us, in more ways than one.” She and Teddy shared a snide smile. “So I’ve decided to fill her in on a little family history. I think she may agree with my analysis of the situation and completely understand why we’ve had to do the things we have. After all, she and I share quite a few characteristics. She’s beautiful, intelligent, logical, cold-hearted and, best of all, ambitious. Like me, she has he
r eye on that big white house on the east coast.”

  Ellery didn’t believe she and Vivian would see eye-to-eye on anything, but she was hardly in a position to argue at the moment. At least the two of them seemed momentarily distracted from interrogating her.

  “Teddy’s father wasn’t a bad person, really, he just never had the drive his wife did. She had no respect for him and, when the first son was born, she took out her frustration on the child. Is it any wonder his favorite fantasy is where his mother loves him so much, she’d—”

  “Ahem!” Teddy sounded.

  Vivian accepted the warning that she was getting off track and moved on. “Then one year later, she had another fair-haired child, nearly identical to the first—a rather miraculous accomplishment since both parents had brown hair, as did all the grandparents. For reasons of her own, however, rather than torment this child as she did the first, she put him on a pedestal right from the start. Unfortunately, like her husband, driving ambition didn’t come naturally to Abraham either, so she pushed him where she wanted him to go, constantly harping at him to be perfect in every way.

  “What the stupid woman missed entirely was that her firstborn was the one with the ambition and genius to become a world leader.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Teddy said. “But I think it’s time to get back to our prime objective here.”

  She raised her chin stubbornly. “I’m not finished with my story yet. I want to make sure Ellery has the complete picture. Once she understands, she should be more willing to answer our questions honestly.” She paused, ran her gaze over Ellery’s body and gave Teddy a meaningful look. “She might even come around to our way of thinking.”

  Ellery was willing to listen to anything and pretend to be sympathetic if it meant delaying whatever they had planned for her. It wasn’t very logical of Vivian to think she would be more cooperative after an explanation of totally unacceptable acts. On the other hand, it was now becoming quite clear that no one in the Jones family was hampered by sanity.