Red Tide

by Tymber Dalton

  Jenna’s head spun. The world was quickly turning into a blur. “I’ll get the ID and go to the police.”

  “Listen, let me give you my other numbers.” Mitch rattled off her cell phone and other numbers for her.

  “I need to go,” Jenna said. “Can I call you later tonight?”

  “Of course. Just make sure you go to the police immediately.”

  “I will. Thank you.” Jenna hung up and stared at her phone, dazed. It had to be a coincidence. He probably just picked the girl up hitchhiking and dropped her somewhere. There had to be a rational explanation.

  She remembered little of the drive home. It was almost noon when she walked in the door. She turned the TV on from force of habit. Dropping her briefcase and computer on the couch, she went into the den and found the ID.

  Melody Matthews.

  Jenna wanted to cry, to shout, to scream. It apparently was the biggest mistake of her life to trust John Tyne, despite the wonderful impression he made on her when they met. She remembered her promise to Mitch to go to the police and started for the door, getting as far as opening it when she realized she left the TV on. Walking back into the living room, she picked up the remote when a familiar face appeared on the screen.

  “…Early this morning, a Forestry worker found the body of twenty-three-year-old Pamela Winston. Winston, a junior at the University of Central Florida, appeared to be strangled according to sources in the Sheriff’s department. With the discovery of this body, speculation is flying that a serial killer is on the loose in central Florida…”

  Jenna felt her entire body tremble. She grabbed the back of the couch to steady herself. The picture was probably several months old, but there was no doubt the redhead on the screen was the girl she saw getting into the car with John.

  Forgetting about the open door, she raced into the den to call Mitch back. By the time the Mitch answered, Jenna was practically in tears.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Jenna found herself whispering, barely able to speak. “John… the news…I just got home and the noon news is on!”

  “Home? Get out of there right now! Get to the police!”

  “No, you don’t understand!” Jenna pleaded with her to listen. “I didn’t get to finish my story earlier. Last night, I followed him. A girl got into his car at a bar. I followed him to a road going into the woods and back home, but he was alone when he got home. I didn’t see what happened to the girl. Mitch, they found her dead this morning!”

  Jenna attributed the creeping feeling on the back of her neck to nerves and walked over to the window while talking to Mitch.

  * * * *

  John didn’t hear the most of the conversation, couldn’t tell who Jenna was talking to. He did hear her mention getting to the police before she hung up. She said good-bye, and he heard her put something down. When she walked out into the living room, she screamed when she saw him, terror filling her eyes.

  “Hello, Jenna.”

  A deer caught in a semi’s headlights couldn’t have done a better job of freezing. She gulped. “John. You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Apparently.” He smiled, advancing on her. She stiffly stood in the center of the living room, apparently afraid to move. “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

  Her eyes widened even more, if that was possible. “Nobody. Just a friend.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  She rapidly shook her head. “No.”

  John’s instincts told him she knew something. Was it the drugs? Or did she somehow find something out about Mitch? He walked into the kitchen and opened a can of soda while she stood there.

  “Why are you acting so jumpy, Jenna?” He frowned.

  “Nothing. No reason. You just scared me, that’s all.” She tried to smile, but it looked like a grimace of pain.

  He walked around the breakfast bar until he stood in front of her. “I stopped by your office. I was going to take you out to lunch, but your secretary said you left early, looked like you weren’t feeling too good. What’s going on?” He didn’t know why he decided to stop by after picking up his car from the dealer, but apparently it was lucky he did.

  “Nothing, really. Nothing’s wrong. Just didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Did your headache go away?”

  The puzzled look on her face confirmed his suspicions.

  “You know, the headache you had yesterday. Did that give you a hard time last night?”

  “Oh, no. It went away last night, thank you.”

  He circled her, stalking her, examining her until he was face-to-face with her again. “Jenna, I don’t like it when people lie to me. Why do I get the feeling you’re lying to me?”

  She rapidly shook her head again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He looked down and saw the object in her hand. “What’s this?” he reached for it and she drew a step away.

  “Nothing, nothing. Just my ATM card.” She slipped it into her pants pocket.

  He sighed. “Jenna, I don’t understand.” He turned to set his soda can on the counter and out of the corner of his eye saw her bolt. Reacting quickly, he stuck his leg out, tripping her. She fell to the floor and he was on her in a flash.

  He pinned her to the carpet, facedown, feeling the familiar surging in his loins. He knew he would have to kill her, despite the fact that it was very risky. The need had returned again.

  Leaning down, he placed his mouth against her ear and whispered, “I want that card, Jenna.” She squirmed ineffectively against his superior weight and strength as he slipped a hand around and over her hip into her pocket. He found the card and sat up to examine it, planting a knee squarely in the center of her back while he read.

  “This is interesting. Where did you find it, Jenna?”

  When she didn’t answer immediately, he shifted more weight to the knee in her back and she cried. “In the loaner Porsche. Under the seat.”

  “Well, damn.” He slipped it into his pocket and grabbed a healthy handful of her hair, jerking her to her feet. “I suppose you saw the news then?”

  “No,” she answered, “I didn’t.”

  “Then why are you acting like you’re afraid of me?” He shook her by her hair. “Why?”

  * * * *

  She didn’t know what scared her more, his calm tone of voice or the brutal force he used against her. “John,” she sobbed, “stop it! You’re hurting me!”

  “Stop it, you’re hurting me,” he mocked, shaking her to emphasize each syllable. “Jenna, what will I do with you?”

  He dragged her, kicking and fighting, into the bedroom and threw her on the bed. She came up off it, determined to fight to the very end. She didn’t see his fist come around, but the sudden explosion against her right ear made her cry and fall to the floor, nearly blacking out.

  When she regained the majority of her senses, she found herself tied to the bed, naked, a gag in her mouth and her clothes and pillows on the floor. John stood over her, still fully dressed, sipping the rest of his soda. Not a single hair on his head looked out of place.

  “Well, welcome back, sweetheart.”

  She knew she was going to die.

  * * * *

  The hunter in him told him this was an improper kill, the circumstances weren’t right. Too much of a risk. But he was far past being able to resist this now. Somehow, he had let himself slip from the role of hunter into that of prey, now under suspicion for the bombing, scrutinized over the incident of the Emmerand, and now tied to the death of Melody Matthews.

  “I want to do a little investigating to see exactly who you’ve been talking to, to see what I need to do to correct your interference.” He patted her on the leg. “Don’t go away,” he darkly chided.

  Her cell phone lay on her desk in the office. Scrolling through the numbers in its memory, he found what he expected.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Damn you, Mitch. You just can’t keep out o
f this, can you?”

  He went back to the bedroom, where Jenna struggled against her bonds. She stopped when she saw him.

  “It won’t do you any good to fight. It’ll only make it worse.” Her eyes widened as he started working on his belt, slipping off his slacks and carefully folding them, laying them on the chair on the far side of the room.

  “You really should have ignored all of this, Jenna.” He shook his head sadly while removing his shirt. “I honestly liked you. You interested me. I would never have hurt you.” He stripped down to bare skin and his erection, freed from the confines of his briefs, waved stiffly in front of him. “You just got in the way. I can’t have you ruining what I’ve got.”

  She started struggling again, crying out against the gag. John quickly covered the distance to the bed in two long strides and backhanded her across the temple, dazing her. When she came to again, he stood over her with one of the steak knives from her set in the kitchen.

  Fear took control of her and she tried screaming. He pressed the knife against her throat and whispered, “If you don’t stop, I’ll cut your vocal cords out so you can’t scream.” She tried to make the mattress swallow her, pressing herself down into it, cringing away from him. “I’ll do it, too, like an emergency tracheotomy. Only without painkillers.”

  Jenna froze, her body shaking in an attempt to stifle her sobs.

  “You called Mitch, didn’t you?”

  Jenna slowly nodded, cringing even further away from him.

  “You talked to her?”

  She nodded again.

  “That was her on the phone when I came in?”

  She nodded.

  “You told her about Melody?”

  She nodded.

  He smiled. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  He put down the knife and grabbed a condom. When he approached the bed again, he picked up the knife, an evil grin on his face. As he settled into position between her bound legs and held the knife up for her to see, she started screaming around the gag.

  * * * *

  Not the kill he was proudest of, but it would do. Carefully sitting back on his heels on the bed, he examined himself for her blood and determined he would be able to make the two or three steps to the bathroom in relative safety. Painstakingly slow and with the knife in hand, he rose from the bed and stepped into the bathroom, immediately flushing the condom he’d used down the toilet. He turned the shower hot as he could stand it and climbed into the tub, standing under the shower, raising his arms up and turning, not touching the walls, watching her blood run down the drain and paying close attention to rinsing the knife well. He did this for several minutes before laying the knife down and taking the soap and lathering himself with it, rinsing squeaky clean after. Repeating this procedure three times, he finally stepped out and toweled off, turning the water to full hot behind him and letting it run, thoroughly rinsing the drain.

  He flushed the toilet twice more in quick succession to help ensure the condom made it all the way out of the trap and into the sewer line. Dropping the used towel on the floor, he padded, naked and barefoot, into the kitchen. Jenna kept the cleaning supplies under the sink. He found the bathroom cleaner and an extra sponge. Back in the bathroom, he turned off the water and emptied most of the bottle into the tub, carefully scrubbing the walls and tub to remove as much residue as he could. He knew the police forensics team would still be able to find trace amounts, but the less there for them to find the better for him.

  Leaving the water running again, he dropped the sponge on top of the towel on the floor and returned the bottle of bathroom cleaner to the cabinet, placing it in the back. For good measure, he randomly touched other bottles of cleaner there, from dish detergent to dusting wax. It would be plausible to police that since he was her boyfriend and spent a great deal of time with her, his fingerprints would be widely found all over the house. It would not be plausible, however, if they were only on the bottle of bathroom cleaner.

  Studying the bathroom, he considered his options, the hunter once again in control of his mind and actions. The two options were to leave her body or remove it from the apartment. The second would delay the discovery of her body, but would be severely risky to undertake. Leaving it was the prudent option.

  How to leave her was another question to ponder altogether. Leave her as is and make it look like a robbery gone wrong? Leave her as is and have it appear to be a random killing? Or…

  The possibility flared in his mind as he stared at her body. Lifting up a corner of the sheet, he found the answer. A waterproof mattress pad protected the bedding from all sorts of nasty stains.

  Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “assisted suicide.”

  He smiled.

  Working quickly, he first pulled the shower curtain out of the way, then found an old beach towel in her linen closet and spread it out on the floor between the bed and the bathroom. After untying her, he folded her arms across her chest and pulled the sheets and mattress pad off the other three corners of the bed, carefully wrapping them around her, folding her a temporary funereal shroud.

  Her body still felt warm when he picked it up and quickly moved it to the bathroom, laying it in the tub and somehow managing to not spill a drop of her blood. Making sure to keep everything inside the tub, he pulled the sheets and pad out from under her, rolling them up in a tight ball with the clean side of the pad out. He deposited it on the towel on the floor. The next step was to set up the tableaux, her head back, legs outstretched, arms to her side.

  He turned the water back on, straddling her body while standing under the spray of the shower head to rinse off a little blood that got on him.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” He grinned down at her lifeless form. “Don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got business to take care of.”

  He stepped back out and patted himself dry with the beach towel, then added it to the growing pile before him. An inspection of the mattress showed no blood, miracle of miracles. John quickly untied her bonds from the bed frame and tossed them onto the pile. He found a spare set of sheets and made the bed, remembering at the last minute to change the pillow cases so they matched. All the bedclothes he wadded up and pitched into the bathroom after making the bed.

  He scanned the room. Her clothes were next. He picked them up and took them into the bathroom, placing them on the closed toilet lid. Something looked wrong, and he studied it until he glanced at his own pile of clothes in the bedroom and realized what it was. Her underwear was on the bottom when, naturally if she’d removed her own clothes and piled them there, they would be on the top. He rearranged the clothes to look more authentic before he returned to the kitchen.

  The spare razor blades were in the junk drawer where he remembered them. A piece of paper towel served as a useful impromptu glove and he carefully withdrew the blade from the box without adding or deleting any fingerprints from it. He carried it back into the bathroom and placed it in her right hand. Holding her thumb and index finger in place around it, he used the blade to trace the original cuts he made. He turned the water back on and aimed it at her head, thoroughly rinsing her hair and shoulders off where the blood had pooled around her on the bed.

  He left the water running and stood back, examining the scene from the bathroom doorway, trying to decide if it looked believable. Indecision flooded his mind on whether or not to leave the water on, and he finally decided that on would be best. There wasn’t enough blood to leave her in a tub full of water, most of it being soaked up in the sheets. A running shower would help dispel some questions, at least.

  Next came the knife. He took it into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. There was still a large, pink, rare slab of London broil roast wrapped in plastic film. He sank the steak knife into it, wiggled it around for a moment, and returned the steak to the fridge. He then cleaned the knife in the kitchen sink, dried it, and returned it to the drawer with the rest, mixing it in to the middle of the knives. He hoped any residual blood
on it would be masked by that of the roast.

  He stuffed the pile into a black plastic garbage bag scrounged from under the kitchen sink. Tomorrow was trash day, so it would look innocent if he was spotted carrying it downstairs. He examined himself in the bathroom mirror one last time and found no visible blood. He took a towel from the linen closet, wiped the tiled bathroom floor in the off chance there were any of his own bare footprints to be found, and laid it out like a bath mat.

  Satisfied, he left the bathroom light on and took the bag into the bedroom where he dressed.

  What else to do?

  He had the card, he cleared her cell phone and wiped his prints off with his handkerchief.

  Damn!

  He risked going back into the bathroom. Turning the water off for a minute, he pressed her fingers against the cell phone, then turned the water back on. There was only a drop or two of water on the phone. He carefully blew on it, drying it, trying not to erase any of her prints with the handkerchief.

  He clipped it back onto her purse and relaxed. Moving quickly once again, he cleared all his things out of the apartment and gathered them by the door. The process took only a minute. Using the handkerchief again, he dialed his own number from her apartment phone and waited until his answering machine picked up before hanging up. His Caller ID would record the call, and he could honestly tell investigators he didn’t have a key to Jenna’s place. By the time she was discovered, hopefully, there would be a enough of window of opportunity where it would be plausible she called him.

  He already had the story formed in his mind. The secretary had told him she acted upset during the day but didn’t say what was wrong with her. The reason, he would later explain to investigators, would be a breakup. She caught him with another woman.

  The truth, in part. The more truth in the lies, the better.

  When she confronted him, he simply broke up with her rather than swear to stay faithful.

  She was crowding me.