by Kate Aeon
Gray on gray on gray — the detective who had been so kind, and who was now kindly sending her on her way; Jess who felt ancient and all used up at twenty-two; the air she breathed; everything. Gray sinking into the inescapable depths of sea-deep black, and her sinking with it. Dead but still moving. A zombie. All of this was her fault. Ginny would not have gone anywhere had Jess been here. Jess had always been the sensible one, the planner, the shaper who turned Ginny’s wild flights of fancy into workable realities.
“There has to be something someone can do.”
The detective sighed. “A friend of mine left the force a few years ago. Went private. If you’d like, I’ll give you his number, and tell him you’re going to call.”
Jess took the scrap of paper he proffered. Snowy white in a sea of gray, crisp black scrawling out a name. A number.
“I’ll call,” she said.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re the guy who’s thrown up twice in here,” the floor manager said.
Hank stood inside the foyer, faced off against the floor manager he’d seen earlier that day, the greeter, and an extra floor manager who’d sauntered over when he saw the first glorified bouncer moving fast to head Hank off.
“I have to apologize for that,” Hank said. “It wasn’t Goldcastle food after all.”
Eyebrows raised.
“My girlfriend found out I was coming here. She’s... jealous. She knows I always add a little bump to my beer.” He pulled out a flask in his hip pocket, waved it under their noses. “My preferred single-malt whiskey, which you don’t stock. The bitch loaded a beautiful bottle of Talisker with Antabuse she bought off the Internet, and since lately I’ve only been drinking it here — because at home I get Talisker with nagging, and here I can have Talisker and beautiful women — I come in, I drink my drink. And then, thanks to that bitch, I throw up.”
Now the floor managers and the greeter were looking at him with odd sympathy.
“Girlfriend?” one said.
Hank shrugged. “Ex, now. Who needs that?”
“Truly,” the other said.
Hank said, “Next few days, while that crap clears out of my system, I’ll be in here buying drinks and not drinking them.” He sighed and shrugged. “Is Lenny still here, by any chance?”
The late-coming floor manager had walked away. The one who helped Hank make a speedy exit earlier in the day said, “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to him about becoming a member. A friend of mine is a friend of his. He goes to some of Lenny’s Weekenders, and he told me I have to join.”
“The Weekenders are by Lenny’s invitation only.”
“I know,” Hank said. He was wearing a rich man’s casual clothes. Docksiders, elegant tan slacks, an open-at-the-throat cotton knit pullover with a carefully discreet logo. He was wearing the diver’s watch, the fine leather belt. The outfit had set him back more than he would have spent on any ten other changes of clothes. But it showed off his build and his scars in equal measure. Suggested not merely money, but old money. He’d decided he was old money new in town, setting up a branch of his stock brokerage. He knew enough about stocks to sound coherent discussing them. He’d never considered them an interest, but a man trying to turn a veteran’s disability pension into a business nest egg learned how to invest.
“You know how much a membership costs?” the manager said.
And Hank smiled. “I wasn’t worried about it.”
“Let me see if Mr. Northwhite is still in his office,” the floor manager said. He picked up the house phone, turned his back on Hank, and after a moment said, “I have a prospective new member... friend recommended him... Weekenders. Right.” He turned back to Hank. “Who’s your mutual friend?”
Pointed in his direction by Jess, Hank had talked for a few moments to Wayne Alton, a new-money bastard with old-money friends. Hank, well-enough dressed even then to pass as someone Wayne might associate with, had waxed rhapsodic about the club, and Wayne had said the public entertainment was nothing compared to the private member perks. He had, in fact, told Hank that for real fun, he needed to get himself invited to Lenny’s Weekenders.
“Wayne Alton,” Hank said.
The floor manager passed this on, and turned to Hank a moment later with a friendly smile. “Mr.... ?”
“Vines,” Hank said.
“Mr. Vines. Please come upstairs. Mr. Northwhite will be happy to talk with you.”
Lenny sat in his office, a pampered king in a fine throne room. Hank noticed the appointments — oil paintings, leather chairs, a teak desk polished to a high gloss and empty at the moment of anything that resembled work. Hank followed the floor manager through the door and promised that, no matter what he touched, or what he discovered, he would not allow his body to betray him so completely a third time.
He knew he was going to have to shake hands with the bastard. He was going to have to brace himself. Because he had to get as close to this guy as he could. He had to get the images — where the bodies were buried, where Lenny and his friends committed their crimes, who did what. He didn’t know how much he would be able to get from a touch. He didn’t know how much he could take. The poison pouring out of Leonard Northwhite from when he’d touched Jess had been worse than anything Hank had ever felt.
But he had to do this. Every connection he could make would move Jess a little farther out of this bastard’s reach.
Lenny stood. He was a big guy, one who clearly still worked out. He carried a little fat around his middle, but Hank, studying him, didn’t see Lenny as either slow or weak. In a fight, Lenny would be a challenge to take out.
“Lenny, this is Mr. Vines. Mr. Vines, Mr. Northwhite.”
Lenny held out a hand and smiled, and Hank smiled and reached out to shake that hand, bracing himself inside and hoping he didn’t look like that was what he was doing.
And... nothing.
They shook hands.
Lenny and a couple of other guys, all on the same girl at the same time a few hours earlier. Lenny banging a dancer on top of his desk only moments before the floor manager showed Hank in. The dancer was still hiding in the office, Hank realized. Under Lenny’s desk.
Hank let the connection slip deeper, and in an instant was flooded with foulness. He got Lenny breaking a window and climbing on some girl in the dark, raping her at knifepoint. Lenny raping his sister — that was big in his mind, a lot of times, a lot of ways. Lenny skimming, extorting, stealing, bribing. Lenny with lawyers. Lenny providing important people with their darkest desires: bondage, leather, branding, whips and chains, slavery, virgin sacrifices that included real rape, though not murder afterwards. And hidden cameras everywhere recording every little bit of sin and wickedness, because first and foremost in Lenny’s mind was that if he went down, everybody went with him. Lenny was, therefore, jail-proof.
But no matter how deep Hank forced himself to dig, he couldn’t find Lenny with a six-by-six-grave grid of dead girls. That wasn’t there. Nor Lenny draining the life out of a screaming, pleading girl. Hank found faint whispers of death and guilt and bewilderment a long time in Lenny’s past, but that was overlaid by... Jess. Hunger, desire, weirdness and heat and perversity all wound around a massively twisted image of love. But Lenny didn’t want Jess the way the killer wanted Jess. He didn’t want her dead.
“Call me Lenny,” Lenny said, squeezing too hard before he let go of Hank’s hand.
“Hank.”
Lenny sat, and Hank followed suit. Hank felt like someone had blindfolded him and spun him in circles a dozen times. He didn’t know where he was, he couldn’t understand what he was feeling, nothing connected, nothing worked.
Lenny ran a hand over the corner of the desk where he had so recently nailed one of the dancers. The spot, Hank thought, was probably still warm. Lenny said, “So you’re a friend of Wayne’s?”
“He told me about your Weekenders,” Hank said. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of Lenny, because it was
n’t there. But now that he was sitting in the office, he couldn’t say, “You know what, I’ve changed my mind,” and leave. He wanted to leave. “And he told me I hadn’t lived until I’d gone to one.”
“Only our Gold Reserve members are invited to Weekenders; did he mention that?”
“He didn’t mention requirements; I didn’t ask. Requirements aren’t usually a problem for me.”
“If he even mentioned our Weekenders to you, they probably won’t be.” Lenny said, “But so we both know you know, an annual Gold Reserve membership is twenty-five thousand dollars. The Weekenders are only one of the special privileges. If you actually make use of all we offer, the membership can be... well, quite a bargain.”
Hank said, “Are invitations to Weekenders automatic at that membership level?”
“Oh, of course.”
Hank gave Lenny a shifty smile. “All right, then. Do you accept... ah... cash payment?”
Lenny said, “Of course. You could pay in cash?”
Hank smiled. “Of course. It will take me a day or two to do it neatly.”
Lenny looked interested. “What’s your business?”
“Investing.”
Lenny said, “Not too many investors end up with scars like yours, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I was in the military before I became an investor. My family believed in the discipline and... connections... that military service offered.”
“The Citadel, West Point, a commission, getting to know future senators and congressmen and guys like that?” Lenny asked.
And Hank lied easily. “Almost exactly like that. With a few surprises thrown in.” He dismissed the experience with a shrug.
“Surprises. Yeah. Shit happens nonstop, far as I can tell,” Lenny said. “Looks like you landed in more than your share.”
Hank rose. “It was a long time ago, and isn’t much of a factor in my current life.” He nodded politely. “I’ll give you a call in a few days, if that’s all right.”
Lenny stayed seated, his hand intermittently reaching out to touch the corner of the desk again. “I look forward to hearing from you.”
Hank Vines, millionaire stock manipulator, walked out of Lenny’s office and trailed his hand down the rail. He could feel death’s touch there. It was old, vile, horrible... but overlaid by a steady stream of other touches.
But Lenny... Lenny had touched Jess earlier in the day, and he’d been a horrifying serial murderer whose next victim would be Jess. Tonight, though, he was a monster of a different kind. But not a killer. Not the killer.
Hank could think of three explanations. Lenny had an identical twin. Or Lenny had a split personality, and the part of him that killed women was submerged at the moment.
Hank didn’t either of those explanations.
The third was that Lenny had a buddy who stayed close. Close enough that he and Lenny had shaken hands not too long before Lenny touched Jess.
That one, he thought, was probably gold.
When Jess picked up the phone and found Jim on the other line, she said, “Do you know what time it is?”
“When has that ever mattered to you or me?” Jim said, and chuckled, sounding positively gleeful. “Two in the morning and this is worth it. Our boys and girls hit the fucking mother lode at Jason Hemly’s house.”
“Define mother lode.”
“In a very nicely hidden storage space cut into the back of the closet in Jason Hemly’s master bedroom, we found Polaroid pictures of eleven different girls, some of them still alive and handcuffed to a stripper’s pole, some dead and lying in shallow graves. None of them have shown up on missing-persons reports anywhere. Each is tagged with a neatly typed label giving the girl’s name and date of death. The killings cover the past twelve years. Along with photos, we also uncovered a stash of necklaces, rings — including class rings with names or initials — earrings, lockets with photos, little clippings of hair, and intimate apparel.”
“I’d call that a mother lode, too.” She shook her head. “That’s terrifying. He’s made a career of being a likable guy.”
“It worked for him for a lot of years.”
“You say... eleven? Not including the four we’ve found, or including them?”
“Not including them. These are all new. We have to figure that the other two killers might have some souvenirs, too, or maybe that Hemly has another storage space that holds more evidence.”
“How about bodies?”
“Aside from those dumped in parks, nothing. And Hemly’s not admitting anything. We say, ‘We found your photo collection,’ he says, ‘What collection?’ We say, ‘We found your souvenirs.’ He says, ‘What souvenirs?’ We say, ‘We have you, we know you killed them, we have hair and semen samples on you, we have four bodies, we have pictures and you’re still going to say you’re innocent? That you don’t know anything about this?’ And guess what he says?”
“ ‘Talk to my lawyer’ would be my first guess,” Jess said.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But we went down and told him what we’d found in his place, and Hemly — get this — said he wanted to talk with us. I’ve just now stepped out of interrogation. He insists he’s innocent, has never hurt anyone. His swimmers floating around in four dead girls in the city’s freezers, and he’s claiming innocence.”
Jess said, “That’s almost good enough to make me buy an insanity plea.”
“Hemly dragged his lawyer in. The lawyer is pulling his hair out. Saying, ‘You don’t have to answer that question, I recommend you don’t answer that question, you should stop talking now,’ and Hemly is ignoring the bastard. He’s going on and on about all the girls he dated at Goldcastle, and how they were all crazy about him, and always wanted to date him because he was such a great guy.” Jim said, “Come to think of it, he might be building an insanity defense, with his own lawyer as star witness.”
“So Hemly is still lacking an alibi?”
“In the case for which we have eyewitnesses, he remains without alibi. We are still trying to track down his whereabouts during the other three murders for which we have bodies.”
Jess could hear the smile in Jim’s voice. “Good news, then. One down. Two to go.” She grinned a little. “Thanks for the call. You were right — I wanted to know.”
She was almost asleep again when someone bumped against the door to the hall, and she heard the doorknob rattle. She stared at her travel alarm clock. It was almost three A.M.
Soundlessly, she grabbed her gun and crept to the door and looked out the peephole. It might be Hank, she thought. With grocery bags or something.
It wasn’t, though.
Lenny had been bent over, putting something in front of her door. He stood, looked both ways to make sure he hadn’t been observed, and walked back down the hall toward the elevator.
Jess held her breath. Should she call a bomb squad over to the house? Lab techs?
Staring out the peephole, she saw Lenny step into the elevator. Watched the doors close. The second they did, Hank erupted from the stairwell and ran toward her door, grabbed whatever Lenny had placed there, and ran like hell back toward the stairs.
Did he see a bomb? What the hell?
Jess kicked into running shoes, grabbed her cell phone and handgun, and, still dressed in a tee and flannel pajama bottoms, took off down the hall after Hank.
“Hank! Wait!”
She raced down the stairway, spotting what looked like flower petals as she ran.
At the bottom of the stairwell, she hesitated for an instant, seeing Hank heading for the far, deserted corner of the community parking lot. She ran the other way, planning on stopping Lenny — but he was already getting into his car when she made it around the corner of the building.
She would break cover if she threw herself in front of the car and pulled her weapon on him to stop him.
But she didn’t need to. An unmarked car pulled out of the parking lot just an instant behind him, and the cop ridin
g shotgun gave her a nod as they drove away, tailing him.
Jess swore softly, thumbed the safety on, and jogged around to the far parking lot to join Hank. She caught up with him as he crouched a reasonable distance away from the objects he’d taken from in front of her door.
“You think he left a bomb?”
Hank was staring at the shadowy items lying on the pavement. “No. But I didn’t see any point in taking chances.”
“You were following Lenny?”
Hank looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, yeah. Stupid question.”
Jess called Jim. “Hey,” she said when he picked up. “We have a problem. Lenny Northwhite just stopped by my place and left goodies of an unknown nature at my door. His tails are on him, but we have the evidence right here. You want to get some techs over here?”
“What did he leave?”
Jess moved closer and squinted. “It looks like a heart-shaped box of candy and a bouquet of flowers. But considering who dropped it off in front of my door at three in the morning...” She let the sentence hang.
“Hank’s with you?”
“He wasn’t. But he is now. He was apparently following Lenny around.”
“Oh, Christ.” A pause, then a heavy sigh. “I’ll be there.”
Jim hung up, and Jess clipped her cell phone to the neck of her T-shirt, then studied Hank. “You have any theories on what Lenny was doing here?”