The Dying Game

by Beverly Barton

  She stared at him. Memorize his face. For later. The more you remember, the more help you’ll be to the police when they—

  He had no qualms about her seeing his face.

  That was a bad sign, wasn’t it?

  “Hello, Sonya. You’re such a lovely blond flower. And worth fifteen points to me.”

  What was he talking about? How could she be worth fifteen points?

  Dear God—was raping her part of a sick game he played with his victims? Did he keep some kind of score of his conquests?

  He removed the covers, shoving them to the foot of the bed. She shivered from head to toe. He reached out, loosened the belt on her robe, and spread it apart, revealing her naked body.

  Why hadn’t she put on her pajamas or at the very least a gown? Why had she simply toppled into bed wearing only the robe?

  “You’re as lovely as you were when you were crowned Miss Magnolia, oh so long ago.”

  Had he known her back then, when she was Miss Magnolia? Had he been infatuated with her? Had she spurned his advances?

  She inspected him as best she could in her awkward position, half sitting and half lying. He was about five-nine and hefty. His belly hung over his belt and his face was round and full. He was indeed clean-shaven, his cheeks smooth and soft-looking. His brown hair was short and neat. And, at the moment, slightly damp.

  He studied her with a set of large hazel brown eyes. “You stay put, my sweet pink rose. I’ll be right back and then the fun will begin.”

  Where was he going?

  She tugged on her bound wrists until she groaned with pain.

  Gone only a few minutes, he returned hurriedly, plodding into the room with heavy feet. She turned to look at him and gasped, the sound trapped by the gag. He carried a sinister-looking axe.

  Dear God in heaven, he’s going to kill me!

  “Which shall I remove first?” he asked as he gazed at her, an expression of absolute glee on his fat face. “Your right arm or your left?”

  She shook her head. The sound of her silent screams echoed in her mind.

  “It takes both hands and arms to play the violin, doesn’t it, so I have no choice but to remove both arms.” He lifted his weapon. “Hmm…I think the right arm first. Is that okay with you?”

  Help me! Help me! The prayer repeated over and over in her heart as her attacker came closer and closer, the axe lifted and ready to strike.

  When he swung the axe, she closed her eyes.

  Unbearable pain. Blood everywhere. Terrifying realization.

  Then Sonya passed out before he struck the second blow.

  He stood under the warm shower, washing away Sonya Todd’s lovely red blood. As the crimson water swirled down inside the floor drain, he sighed with a delectable sense of pleasure. Taking a human life gave one a feeling of God-like power. There was nothing else like it, no experience equal to it, no drug capable of creating the astounding sensation of absolute control. He chose who died, when she died, and how she died.

  With each kill, the thrill increased, leaving him only temporarily satisfied and longing for a new conquest.

  After drying off, he donned his silk pajamas and robe, then entered the run-of-the-mill motel room on the outskirts of Tupelo. He hated staying in these working-class places, with no room service and no down comforters.

  He lay on the king-size bed, atop the horrid floral spread and stared up at the popcorn ceiling. The lonesome wail of a train whistle pierced the silence of early morning, and within minutes a speeding locomotive rumbled along the nearby train tracks.

  Like so many of his other victims, Sonya had been an easy kill. By leaving a door key hidden under a fake rock in her front yard, she had all but invited him into her home, into her bedroom.

  He loved surprising his victims, and usually settled for simply seeing the shocked expression on a woman’s face when she realized he wasn’t who she thought he was. But with Sonya, the experience had been even better because she had awakened to find him in bed with her, on top of her. He shivered with the memory of the way she had felt lying beneath him, her slender body trembling with fear. Closing his eyes, he allowed his thoughts to take him back to the very moment Sonya had seen the axe in his hand and had realized he was going to kill her. Involuntarily, his hand rose from his side, his fingers curled as if clutching the axe handle and once again he swung the deadly blow that severed her right arm.

  His penis hardened.

  He groaned deep in his throat.

  Sonya had passed out, so he had waited until she regained consciousness before he took off her left arm. Knowing it would be only a matter of time before she bled to death, she had stared at him, and he had triumphantly watched the expression of pain and helplessness in her eyes.

  Recalling her agonizing moans as she died and savoring the moment, knowing he could relive it again and again once he printed the photos he’d taken with his digital camera, he reached inside his pajama bottoms and touched himself. With the image of a dying Sonya in his mind, he climaxed.

  Shuddering.

  Quivering.

  Alive in a way he was only after a fresh kill.

  Chapter 12

  As she walked down the hall toward the kitchen, Lindsay wasn’t sure if she dreaded or was looking forward to seeing Judd this morning. Perhaps both. Being near him was sweet torture. There was no better way to describe her feelings. She both loved and hated Judd. Loved him because she couldn’t stop loving him. And hated him for the same reason. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t love her, that he couldn’t love anyone. But it was his fault for treating her badly. She might forgive him for his cruelty, but she would never be able to forget.

  Stop thinking about that night!

  For six months, she had fought the memories. She had undergone therapy with Dr. Meng and had come through stronger and more determined than ever to give up her hopeless dreams about Judd Walker. It would be easier if she didn’t have to spend time with Judd. But if she gave up on him entirely, what would happen to him?

  Preparing herself to face him with a friendly greeting, she entered the kitchen. She halted abruptly when she saw the crowd congregated in the room. Inez stood at the stove, flipping pancakes. She smiled and nodded when she saw Lindsay. The two had become fast friends, almost since the first day they met. Inez was sixty, fat, blond, and motherly. With a coffeepot in hand, Sanders moved around the table filling one empty cup after another. He didn’t seem to notice her, but that was just Sanders, a man who focused on one thing at a time.

  Lindsay didn’t miss the way Barbara Jean offered Sanders a fragile smile and whispered “thank you” when he poured her coffee. Sanders’s gaze lingered on Barbara Jean, as if the sight of her pleased him.

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if those two fell in love?

  Mercy, Lindsay Leigh McAllister, you’re a romantic fool.

  When Lindsay approached the table, where a place had been set for her, Yvette Meng spoke to her first, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

  “Fair,” Lindsay replied. “You?”

  “Quite well, thank you, but I always sleep well when I visit Griffin’s Rest.”

  Although Lindsay was curious about Dr. Meng’s relationship with Griffin and Sanders—she appeared to have known them both for quite some time—Lindsay never asked. She suspected that Yvette Meng had somehow been a part of their lives during the missing ten years of Griff’s life.

  “How many pancakes do you want?” Inez called. “I’ve put a sausage-and-egg casserole on the table, along with some banana nut muffins, and I’m working on the pancakes.”

  “None for me, thanks,” Lindsay said. “The casserole and muffins will be more than enough.” Before she had a chance to request coffee, Sanders made his way around the table quickly to fill her cup.

  He leaned down and said quietly, “Griffin is in the den, taking a phone call, and Mr. Walker hasn’t come down yet.”

  Lindsay said, “Okay.”

  No one else see
med to have paid any attention to Sanders’s private comment to her. Everyone was too busy either eating or talking.

  Three other Powell agents were here this morning, two of them other female agents, Angie Sterling and Maleah Perdue, who would take alternating twelve-hour shifts guarding Barbara Jean around the clock. Rick Carson was pulling two-week duty here at Griffin’s Rest, in charge of security for the estate. Griff rotated Powell agents for this duty, changing them out every couple of weeks. It gave each agent a chance to take a break from outside assignments and at the same time familiarize himself—or herself—with the workings of Griffin’s Rest. At any given time, Griff had between fifteen and twenty agents on the roster. They worked out of a downtown Knoxville office building that Griffin owned. Occasionally, an agent moved on to another type of job, and two had even opened up their own small detective agencies in other states. But the turnover at the Powell Agency was minimal and the death rate among agents very low. In the seven-year history of the agency, only one had died in the line of duty and one in an off-duty car accident. The risks depended upon the individual assignment. The pay was excellent and the fringe benefits superior to those found anywhere else. Griff even had a retirement program in place for those who stayed with the agency twenty years or more. A third of his agents were married and another third were in committed relationships. Lindsay, Maleah, and Rick were part of that final third—single and alone. Angie was engaged to another Powell agent, Jason Blaine, and their wedding set for this June.

  Just as Lindsay took her first sip of coffee, her telephone, which she kept in her pocket, vibrated and rang simultaneously. “Sorry,” she told the others, who had actually paid very little attention to her ringing phone.

  She set her cup down on the saucer, pulled her phone from her pocket, and noted the call was from Griffin. Odd. Why hadn’t he simply used the house’s intercom system?

  She flipped open her phone. “Yes?”

  “Come to the den. Now,” Griff said. “Simply excuse yourself without any explanations.”

  “All right.” She slipped the phone back in her pocket, scooted back her chair, and stood. “If y’all will excuse me.”

  Lindsay and Sanders exchanged pensive glances before she exited the kitchen. Sanders knew Griffin had called. She wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. Sometimes she felt as if Griff and Sanders communicated telepathically.

  Two minutes later, she reached the den door, which was closed. She knocked.

  “Come in,” Griff said. When she did as he requested and entered the den, he told her, “Close the door behind you.”

  She closed the door. “What is it?” She could tell by the stern expression on his face that the news was not good.

  “He’s struck again. In Tupelo, Mississippi. Sometime last night or early this morning.”

  Lindsay’s empty stomach soured, a feeling of nausea pulsating through her. “It’s too soon, isn’t it?”

  “I think that what we’ve feared is happening—he’s narrowing the time between kills, escalating the game plan.”

  “Who was she? How did he—?”

  “The son of a bitch chopped off both of her arms.”

  Salty bile rose up Lindsay’s esophagus. Even after knowing the details about so many gruesome murders the Beauty Queen Killer had committed, each time brought new disgust, anguish, and anger.

  “You’re okay, aren’t you?” Griff asked. “You look a little green.”

  “I’m okay. I just haven’t had my coffee yet.”

  Griff nodded. “Her name was Sonya Todd, former Miss Magnolia. She was a violinist.” Griff positioned his big arms in the stance a violinist would take when holding the musical instrument. “The method always matches the woman’s talent in the contest, and it’s just a part of the game to him. He thinks it’s clever. He thinks he’s clever.”

  “He is,” Lindsay said. “This woman is his thirtieth kill, that we know of, and he hasn’t been caught.”

  Griffin slammed his fist down on his desk. “I want that bastard. I want him dead or alive.”

  “You sound like Judd.”

  He looked directly into Lindsay’s eyes. “Do I?”

  “Yes, you do. And that bothers me.”

  “What does—the fact that I could kill the man with my bare hands or that you think my attitude borders on the unstable?”

  “I don’t know. Both. Neither. It smacks of vigilante justice. As a former police officer, that goes against everything I was taught. By my dad, at the police academy, and while on the force.”

  “Theoretically, allowing our legal system to punish criminals is the right thing to do. But sometimes, a man has no choice but to take the law into his own hands.” A far-off, detached expression on his face told her that Griffin was thinking of something other than the most recent murder.

  “Are we going to Tupelo?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’ve called Jonathan and told him to have the jet ready to leave this morning.”

  “Who’s going with us?”

  Griffin grinned. “You assume you’re going?”

  “I’ve been working on this case with you since the beginning. My going with you to Tupelo wasn’t an assumption, it was a statement of fact.”

  “Just the two of us and Judd are going.”

  “Nic Baxter will break her neck to get there before us,” Lindsay said.

  “All the more reason for us to get a move on,” Griff told her. “Do you want to tell Judd or shall I—”

  “I’ll tell him. He’s still upstairs.”

  When she turned to leave, Griff reached out and grasped her arm. “Just because he’s doing his best to play nice doesn’t mean he’s changed in any way. Remember that.”

  Swallowing hard, she nodded, then hurried out of the den.

  Judd stood by the windows gazing down at the bleak winter landscape. He had gotten, at most, four hours of sleep. Four hours was a lot for him, at least in one stretch. There were nights when he didn’t sleep at all and stayed up prowling around the old lodge or taking midnight walks in the woods. Other nights, he’d fall asleep at two or three in the morning and sleep until daylight. And then there were the nights when he passed out drunk.

  Had he actually become an alcoholic during the past few years? Were his drinking binges more than sporadic self-pity parties? When the pain became too great to bear, wouldn’t anyone choose whatever method possible to alleviate some of the pain, if only temporarily? Sure they would. That’s how people became drug addicts—and how they became alcoholics.

  What did it matter? It wasn’t as if his life meant a damn thing to him or to anyone else.

  That’s not true, he reminded himself. Lindsay McAllister cares.

  His life meant something to her.

  The woman had to be crazy to waste her time on him. He’d tried to convince her to forget about him, to write him off. It’s what he wanted.

  Or was it?

  Griff’s words echoed in his mind. You’ve depended on her caring, wanted it, craved it.

  He hated admitting that his old friend was right, but God damn it, he had depended on Lindsay. He had needed her to care. For nearly four years now, he had used and abused her, and she’d always come back for more. Until six months ago. But even after what had happened then, she hadn’t completely given up on him.

  You do want her, Judd told himself. You want her so bad you can almost taste it. Taste her. You crave her the way a man dying of thirst craves water.

  That night six months ago when he had come close to raping her, he had told himself that he was doing it to scare her, to force her to see him for the sorry son of a bitch he was. But that wasn’t the only reason.

  You wanted to have sex with her.

  Un-uh, no half-truths, he told himself. Be completely honest with yourself. You wanted to make love to Lindsay. And that scared the shit out of you. The way she makes you feel scares you.

  Hell, the very fact that she made him feel anything at all was enough for him to hat
e her.

  As if on cue, Lindsay called his name as she tapped softly on his bedroom door. “Judd? Are you awake? I need to talk to you.”

  “Come on in,” he said, not giving his state of undress a thought. Not until she opened the door and stood there staring at him, her eyes wide, her full, pink lips slightly parted.

  “You’ve seen me in less,” he told her, then reached over on the floor and picked up his discarded jeans where he’d tossed them last night.

  She didn’t respond until after he had pulled his jeans on over his briefs and zipped them. “He’s killed again. A former Miss Magnolia in Tupelo, Mississippi.”

  Judd’s guts twisted into knots. “When?”

  “Last night or early this morning.” She stared at his naked chest, but when she realized what she was doing, she cleared her throat and looked right into his eyes. “Griff’s ordered the jet readied for us. We need to leave immediately.”

  He inspected her briefly, noting that she wore a jogging suit. “Do I have at least ten minutes? You don’t look like you’re ready to travel.”

  She glanced down at her baggy gray jogging suit. “I’m heading to my room to change and pack an overnight bag. We leave for the airport in thirty minutes.”

  Judd ran his hand over his face. “I’ll need to grab a quick shave. My being clean-shaven is one of Griff’s stipulations for being allowed to participate in the investigations again.”

  The corners of Lindsay’s lips lifted marginally, just a hint of amusement. “I’ll meet you downstairs in thirty minutes or less.”

  He walked toward her. She backed up, out into the hall. It was then that he realized that when she had entered his room, she had stopped just over the threshold and stayed there. By the time he reached the door, she was outside, obviously keeping several feet between them.

  “Was she a blonde, brunette, or a redhead?” Judd asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was her talent?”

  “She was a violinist.”