by Deborah Camp
“I’ll do my very best.”
“I suppose you’ve heard that I’m engaged.”
“Yes, I read about that. Congratulations. Are you shopping for a bridal trousseau?”
“Something like that. I’d like for you to select some clothes for Trudy. She likes simple, flowy things. Bright colors. I like her in leather, suede, silk, and satin. More subdued colors. Skirts, slacks, blouses, jackets, coats, shoes, the works. She needs a full wardrobe. Casual, business, and evening wear. From the skin, out.”
“Oh! I see.”
He could almost imagine dollar signs appearing in Diane’s tawny eyes. He’d bedded the elegant, long-limbed blond half a dozen times or more after he’d made his first million. Almost two years ago she’d married a former model, who was now trying his hand at being an artist with some early success.
“Here’s the thing. She hates to shop and—.”
“No problem. I’ll be pleased to bring everything to your place for her to try on.”
“Right. She also loves a bargain.”
“A bargain? You want . . . er . . .discounted clothes for her?”
“No. Hell, no. I want you to bring whatever you think will look killer on her – I trust your judgement and taste level – but, I want you to put price tags on them that are at least a third or more than their actual price to give Trudy a chance to negotiate.”
“You want her to think she’s bickering on the price?”
“Exactly. And getting you to agree to lower prices on everything will be fun for her and she’ll feel that she’s accomplished something.”
Diane’s low laugh drifted to him. “She sounds like a challenging woman.”
“She’s unique,” he agreed with a grin. “I’ll e-mail her measurements to you. Anything else you need, ask Wes.”
“Wonderful. Shall we make an appointment now?”
“We’re out of town and will be returning in a few days. Go shopping and I’ll call you when we’re back in Atlanta.
“Perfect.”
“Thanks, Diane.”
Still grinning at his inspired plan, he left the confines of the cottage and decided to take a stroll around the pool where a few women and a one man were swimming and splashing each other. He assumed that the man was married to the middle-aged woman and father to the three younger ones. One of the young females swam to him, looped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth.
“Okay, you two lovebirds!” The woman Levi had thought was the guy’s wife laughed, sending sprays of water at them. “Get a room!”
They all laughed and the “lovebirds” kissed a few more times, the man’s hands roaming freely over the young blond woman’s body, before they broke apart. Realizing he’d stopped in his tracks and was staring, Levi jerked his gaze away from the white-haired man and his young lover. But one of the others had already noticed. The curvaceous brunette waved to him, flashing bright, straight teeth.
“Hey, there, neighbor! Why don’t you swim with us? There’s plenty of room.”
He shook his head. “No, thank-you.”
“Awww.” The woman slicked back her wet hair and put a pretty pout on her full lips. “That’s not very neighborly of you. I recognize you. You’re –.” Her gaze shifted away from him.
“Excuse me, Mr. Wolfe?”
Levi turned toward the cottage butler. “Yes, Sean?”
“A messenger dropped this off for you, sir. I tipped him for you.”
“That’s kind of you.” Levi withdrew his wallet and handed Sean a twenty. “Thanks.” He took the envelope from him.
“My pleasure, sir.”
He didn’t recognize the handwriting on the outside of the envelope, sparking his curiosity. Walking back to his cottage, he unsealed the cream-colored envelope and withdrew a single sheet of unlined stationary. His gaze dropped to the signature and his heart stopped for a hot second before breaking into thundering gallop. Forté. Holy hell!
Dear, Levi;
My time as a free man is ending. I’m writing to ask if you’d like to make a citizen’s arrest. I’ll go peacefully, I swear. I’d enjoy having a chat with you before I’m “taken in,” so to speak. You must know by now that I’m an admirer of yours. We’ve never had the chance to talk privately and I regret that, so please come to my fun house – you know where it is – and allow me the pleasure of your company. It’s so rare that I am afforded the opportunity to converse with an intellectual equal. I’m sure you understand.
Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Desmond Forté
Levi read the message twice before he grabbed his cellphone to call Trudy and the detectives. His finger hovered over the 1 on his cellphone – Trudy’s number – as his mind raced with possible scenarios.
God, he wanted to talk to Forté without an audience – and Forté wanted to talk. Forté was hoping for more notoriety and would use him to do it. A book. Talk shows. Nationwide publicity. He didn’t want to end up a footnote among serial killers and he was smart enough to know that Levi was his ticket to the big time.
Although Levi didn’t like the idea of giving Forté something he wanted, the psychologist in him yearned to know more about Forté’s motives and mental aberrations. He couldn’t pass this up! Once Forté was arrested and charged, he’d ask for a lawyer. After that, he’d be counseled to keep his mouth shut until after the trial – a trial that could take years. And Forté was the type who would be vindictive. If Levi didn’t take him up on this offer, Forté would probably punish him by selecting someone else to broker a book deal. Not that Levi would give a rat’s ass about that. No. He just wanted to study Forté. Knowing more about serial killers, how they think, how they justify their actions, and so on would help him anticipate the actions and idiosyncrasies of other murderers.
He reached into his trouser pocket for his rental car key. The fun house, he mused as a clammy feeling coated his skin. The house where Forté and probably Kind had murdered their victims. Why there? Did he know that Levi dreaded that place? Could he sense that or surmise that Levi would be uncomfortable where people had been tortured and murdered? Or did he just like that place because it held fond memories for him? The dickwad.
Staring at the key in his hand, his eyes and mind focused on the key fob. That’s it! He’d meet the immoral bastard, but he’d signal with the key fob so that the police would be on their way. It would signal Trudy, too. She was with Bonifay, so that would be perfect. Bonifay would make sure that Trudy stayed safely away from Forté. Yes! He gripped the key fob and headed for the rental car.
On the drive to Slidell, Levi went over and over every possible scenario and how he’d handle each one. By the time he parked across the street from the abandoned house, now festooned with yellow police tape, he was confident, excited, and anxious. Yeah. He didn’t like the idea of going inside that room next to the garage. Just standing outside it made his stomach lurch and his skin break out in goosebumps. Actually walking inside would be a hundred times worse. But he could do it. He’d sat in a church for almost fifteen minutes during Darla’s wedding, hadn’t he? If he could endure that, when his heart had tried to break out of his chest and his mind had screamed for him to run, run, run, he could do this!
No biggie, he told himself with each step he took across the street, up the driveway, and toward the door to the left of the carport. No biggie. It was a chant from his childhood that he’d held fast to as an adult. As a boy, when the elders and leaders at the ministry schools had doled out punishment, he’d repeated no biggie to himself to bolster his courage and steel himself against openly sobbing or begging for them to relent and leave him alone. Now he whispered it one last time as his hand closed over the knob and he yanked the door open.
It felt as if someone balled up a giant fist and slammed it into his chest. He blinked, sucked in a breath, and forced his eyes to focus on the man seated in a wheelchair in the middle of a room roughly equivalent in size to a one-car garage. A drain in the cement floor was just to
the right of Desmond Forté’s wheelchair. The room was empty. The police had probably taken what furniture had been in there for evidence.
Dressed in dark gray, knife-pleated trousers, a wine-colored Polo shirt, a Burberry gray sweater draped across his lap, and Italian leather black loafers with no socks, Forté’s moon-shaped face seemed to float in the dusky interior. Meager light refracted off his large, gold Rolex watch.
Mr. Brand. Troy Nelson’s impression of Forté zipped through Levi’s mind. Forté’s pleasant smile made Levi want to projectile vomit.
“Ah. At last we meet face-to-face, just us two.” Forté motioned him closer, squinting a little through his eyeglasses to get a better look at him. “Oh. Did Ashton do that? Those nasty bruises?” He tsked. “What a pity to mar such a masterpiece.” His brows dipped. “This place must be uncomfortable for you with your . . . sensitivities.” He glanced around, his smile still in place and his tone congenial. “It holds fond memories for me.” He heaved a happy smile. “I love it here.”
Levi stared at him, careful to keep a bland expression on his face, although revulsion and hatred squirmed inside him. The lives that had been taken in the room weighed on him, the echoes of their moans circling through his head, and the smell of their blood and fear coating his olfactory senses.
“You haven’t been here all the time you’ve been AWOL,” Levi noted.
“No, I haven’t.” That smile. So pleasant and so vacant. “I was – somewhere else. I have my resources.” He clasped his hands together gleefully. “Here we are!” He lowered his chin a little in an attempt at flirtation. “I have a crush on you. What a perfectly gorgeous specimen you are.” His gaze lowered. “How I would have loved to have sucked that cock of yours. And, naturally, for you to gobble mine.” The smile took on a nasty edge.
Levi brought up every shield he had inside him – feeling them slide into place, one by one – to prevent himself from reacting, from surging across the space, grabbing Forté by the neck and throttling him. The sick bastard was trying to rattle him, gross him out, and he was doing a damn good job.
“I’m bi-sexual,” Forté said. “I don’t discriminate when it comes to getting off. But you probably already know that. If I were successful – which I believe I was – in sending a mental message to your girlfriend about how I felt about you, then you most certainly know.”
Levi arched a brow and stated the lie in a cool, unpunctuated tone. “I don’t know what you’re yammering about.”
Forté shook his finger at him and said in a sing-song tone, “You’re lying.”
“You’re giving yourself up?” Levi said, moving to a topic that wouldn’t make his skin crawl. “That’s smart of you because Ashton Kind is at the police station talking up a storm. Hell, they can’t make him shut up. He’s confessed everything and given all kinds of incriminating evidence against you. His Sensei.”
Irritation stiffened Forté’s lips. “A.J. has watched too many bad Steven Seagal movies.”
“Are there any other type?”
Delight and surprise deepened Forté’s smile and he barked out a laugh. “Exactly! You see? In other circumstances, we would have been fast friends.”
Levi shook his head. “No, we wouldn’t have.”
“I suspect we are very nearly intellectual equals. It’s wonderful to speak to someone on the same IQ level, isn’t it? We would have found each other fascinating.” He surveyed Levi again, taking his time, his smile becoming wistful. “You really are gorgeous. Standing there, looking like a model right off a New York runway with your rockin’ body, tousled hair, and brooding, slightly bruised visage.”
“Why did you choose Kind to partner with?” Levi asked, trying to control the conversation.
Forté snickered at Levi’s swift change of subject matter. “Oh, I thought I saw something special in him, but what I didn’t take into consideration is A.J.’s affliction. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He has it and has no interest in controlling it. He loves being impulsive and swerving from one idea to the next. I tried to make him focus, and I thought I had made some progress, but . . .” He sighed wearily. “I was wrong. He kept branching off on his own. He’s killed more than what he buried in that salvage yard. As have I.” He tipped his head to one side, his expression turning sly.
“You met Kind when he started working at your sister’s home? Building ramps?”
“That’s right. He would eat his lunch every day sitting on the ledge of the big bird bath in the back yard. I would watch him feed bread crumbs to a couple of pigeons. He did this for a week or more. Then one day, he did the most interesting thing! The pigeons had become quite trusting of him, and he grabbed one and ducked it into the birdbath.” His eyes brightened. “Drowned it, just like that. But then. Then!” A feverish light flared in his brown eyes. “He removed a knife from his pocket and dissected the bird. Carefully. Meticulously. And then!” Still brighter. A mad man’s glint shining in his eyes. “He popped the heart, lungs, and some other organ into his mouth! Swallowed it. Well!” He sat back, his shoulders slumping as if he were almost swooning. “That got my attention. I felt that I’d found a kindred spirit, so to speak.”
“A protégé.”
“Yes, for lack of a better description. A student, not of liberal arts or some such nonsense, but a student of justified eradication.”
Levi squinted at him. “Is that a course you made up?”
“It’s a premise that I believe in. The people who died in this room were stains on the earth. Aimless. Pointless. They did nothing except sponge off others. In nature, organisms must serve a purpose or they become extinct. Bums and hobos are what they used to be called before the politically correct began referring to the unwashed darlings as homeless or poor, as if they wanted homes or to work for money. Believe me, nobody misses them. Not really.”
“You’re wrong. Their families miss them. Their loved ones continue to grieve for them.”
His smile was totally condescending now. “You don’t actually buy that, do you? They were albatrosses hanging around people’s lives. Now they’re gone and their loved ones don’t have to waste time and energy wondering when they’re going to show up again demanding drug money or to spend a night on their couch.”
“Playing God is a classic manifestation of the insane. But you know that, right, genius?”
He stared at the ceiling and guffawed. “Gawd? You surely don’t believe in that old saw? Oh, wait. You would, wouldn’t you? Or, at least, you must give the appearance of such a belief because you speak to the deceased, which means they must be somewhere.” He lifted one hand and gestured aimlessly. “Heaven? Hell? Waiting at Grand Central Station for the Soul Train to transport them to their next mortal encasement?”
Levi slipped his hand into his pocket and pressed the tab on the key fob. He’d heard enough. “You didn’t ask me here to discuss religious beliefs or the lack of them.”
“No.” He sobered, but a half-smile remained as if he were constantly pleased with himself. “I wanted time with you. You fascinate me. You would have been a most excellent protégé.”
Levi shook his head. “No. Eating pigeon hearts holds no appeal to me.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” he agreed with a smirk. “You might find that taking souls is much more complex and entertaining than simply talking to them.” He sighed. “I can see that you’d resist. More’s the pity. But, you must admit that you find me intriguing. Yes?”
Levi managed a frigid smirk. “No. Not in the least. You aren’t even in the top five most interesting serial killers I’ve come across.”
Anger flashed across Forté’s face and diminished that perennial smile. “Another lie. I know you’re going to pen a book about me. Nineteen victims that have been discovered? There are more. The salvage yard was my second burial place. When I first started, I was in college and I carved up their carcasses and dumped them in the swamps. I was twenty when it all began. Started off with a temper tantrum.” He snick
ered and adjusted the collar of his shirt in a way that was almost feminine to Levi’s eyes. “I’d taken this girl out a couple of times. That night she was being a real bitch. Griping about everything. Turns out, she was on the rag. I found that out after I killed her. Anyway!” He heaved a sigh. “I’d had enough of her bitching and I shut her up. Then I cut her up and fed her to the gators.” Smiling, he gave a nonchalant shrug. “I had no plans on repeating that, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It had been thrilling, you know? Made me feel macho.”
“It became your hobby,” Levi said, drolly.
“Not really. More like a mission. I decided that, instead of ignoring or enduring life’s leeches, I’d exterminate them. Like bugs.” He ground his thumb into the arm of his wheelchair and bared his teeth. “Squash them and flick them off the face of the earth.”
“Were any of them your students?”
“No!” He shook his head, vehemently. “My students were doing something with their lives.”
“So, you just picked on strangers.”
“They weren’t all strangers. Some them had approached me in the past, panhandling or I saw them hitching rides. It was my way of cleaning up the streets and making them safer for the people who matter.”
The sound of cars drifted into the room and Forté narrowed his eyes slightly.
“That’s the police,” Levi confirmed. “It’s over. Time for prison.”
“I knew you’d contact the police. You’re too smart to come here alone.” Forté chuckled and slipped his hand out from beneath the sweater in his lap. The pistol he held was a .09 mm Glock. He pointed it with a steady hand at Levi.
A dry chuckle tumbled out of Levi, shoved by a millisecond of shock. “What? You’re going to shoot me now?”
“You would be missed. I have no doubt that women and men would mourn your absence. Even that oddball father of yours you disown would probably miss having you around to despise.”
Shock twisted his gut at the mention of his father and must have registered on his face because Forté’s disturbingly serene smile expanded.