Rick saw the denial in Ryan’s face. “Let me ask you a question,” Rick said. “How did Anne first reconnect with you?”
Great question, Ryan thought. And the answer should convince Rick that Anne’s motives aren’t as diabolical as the lawyer imagines. “At my office, at the Hollywood Station. She was there on business for another client and dropped by to say hello.”
Rick shook his head with an expression that said you dumb son of a bitch. “Anne is a corporate litigator, Ryan. She does her business in boardrooms and courtrooms. She has never represented a criminal case. I doubt she’d ever been in a police station until she accidently bumped into you. Accidently bumped into you the same day as the lead story on every newscast is about lucky cop, Ryan Magee, winning forty-seven million dollars.”
“Thirty-four after taxes,” Ryan mumbled, shell-shocked.
“Look, I’m sorry to be telling you all this. I could have kept my mouth shut, I know. But she played you for a sucker once, played us both for suckers. Just don’t let her do it again.” Rick Rogers stood up, and started to walk away.
“Wait,” Ryan said, still desperately trying to hold onto Anne’s version of the truth. “I met Anne for drinks last night and she told me your law firm has represented a number of Lotto winners. Is that true?”
Rick looked sympathetically at Ryan. “Sorry, Detective. Rogers, Middleton and Roberts has never represented a Lotto winner.” And with that, Rick left.
Ryan sat there, the implications of Anne’s manipulations and lies flooding his brain. She’d pursued him, no doubt about it. From her appearance in the bullpen to her phone call later that day suggesting drinks at Musso and Frank. And tonight, picking Trader Vic’s instead of any of the hotel’s other restaurants or bars. Trader Vic’s where they had their alcohol-fueled love fest. Then she discovered she accidently left the papers in her room.
Premeditated. All of it.
And Ryan fell for it
A roar filled Ryan’s ears. Ryan was embarrassed, humiliated. He suddenly stood up, walked toward the elevators. He was going to go back up to the room and confront her. He wanted to say something to her, to hurt her as much as her betrayal had hurt him. He pressed the Up button and the elevator door opened.
But instead of walking in, Ryan just stood there, imagining himself standing in her open doorway, saying what exactly? You lying bitch? You hurt my feelings? Fuck the foundation and fuck you?
Just what the hell was he supposed to say at a time like this?
And didn’t he risk making a bigger fool of himself than he had already?
The elevator door closed.
Ryan knew that sometimes the best thing to do was nothing, and this was clearly one of those times. Let it go, for now. Go home and think about it.
Ryan turned around and headed for the parking lot.
Meanwhile, happy as she ever remembered being, Anne ran a bath. The suite had a Jacuzzi tub and Anne loved luxuriating as jets of hot water pummeled her body. The hotel provided a bathing salt, which she liberally sprinkled into foaming water. And then Anne remembered the phone call she’d ignored when Ryan first arrived at Trader Vic’s.
The tub had a little more time to fill up so she pulled out her cell phone and checked her messages. She had one from Travis Taylor. His message asked her to call him. She did. He answered on the first ring. “Travis Taylor.”
“It’s Anne Rogers, Travis, I hope it’s not too late.”
“Sleep is for sissies.”
Anne laughed. “You’ve got some news on Syd Curtis?”
“I do. Syd Curtis is quite a remarkable young woman. She’s from Kansas City, not Riverside. She ran away from home when she was seventeen, came straight to Hollywood. She’s been connected to a pimp named Ernesto Sian so I suspect she was a hooker at one time. But here’s where it gets interesting, I tracked down Syd’s mother and spoke to her. I pretended to be one of Syd’s classmates and wondered whatever happened it her. Get this, her mother hasn’t heard from Syd since the day she left almost ten years ago.”
“She doesn’t know she’s a cop?”
“She doesn’t even know if Syd’s alive or dead.”
The more Anne heard, the happier she got. Anne wondered if Ryan knew all this? Somehow she doubted it. “Did you tell the mother Syd was alive?”
“No. Not sure there’s an angle in it yet. I’ve got some more work to do, but here’s the bottom line. We can prove she lied on her LAPD application so we’ve already got enough evidence to get her fired. And I’ve got a feeling I’m going to find another surprise or two. I’ll call you tomorrow with another update.”
“Great work, Travis, thank you.” Anne hung up. She was hoping Travis would get enough dirt to drive a wedge between Ryan and Syd. Well, he’d found a whole lot more. She was a teenage runaway and a hooker? Fabulous. And lying on her LAPD application was the icing on the cake. All Anne would have to do is leak Travis’ report to the press and Syd would be kicked off the force and out of their lives forever.
But then another thought struck Anne. A much better one. She’d confront Syd with Travis’s report and make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Ask for a transfer out of Homicide and out of the Hollywood division. Something in the Valley maybe, or South Central. Something far away from Ryan. Ask for a transfer or Anne would leak the report to the press. And if Syd told Ryan about Anne’s blackmail, Anne would leak it to the press. Syd would have no choice.
Now the only question became when to spring the surprise on Syd.
Anne stepped into the tub and settled beneath the churning water. She sighed happily as the hot water swallowed her. And then the answer came — she’d talk to Syd tomorrow, at the lottery presentation. Syd was sure to be there, and what better way was there for Anne to cap off what was certain to be one of the best days of her life than by checkmating that perky redhead.
FORTY-SEVEN
It was only forty degrees outside but Ryan had the top down. The heater was on and kept his feet warm, but the crisp air whisked the heat away from Ryan’s upper body and face, so he was cold. Freezing actually, but that was fine. He wanted to be uncomfortable. He wanted to suffer.
A familiar ache filled his heart. The perfect world Anne had helped construct in Ryan’s imagination — living happily ever after with the girl of his dreams, millions of dollars in the bank and running a foundation for the needy — was suddenly gone. What was he supposed to do now about the lottery money, about the foundation, about Syd?
Syd.
Jesus, before Ryan was waylaid by Rick Rogers he was checking his Voicemail. Ryan took out his cell phone, brought up Syd’s message.
“Hey Ryan, it’s me,” Syd’s recorded voice said. “Three boys raped Alice that night: Colin, Adam and a guy named Blake Hunter. He lives in Malibu, 22756 Pacific Coast Highway. It’s nine forty-five now, I should be there in less than an hour. Call me.”
Nine forty-five, Ryan thought. Ryan remembered glancing at the clock as he was going to the bathroom. It read nine forty-five. So when his cell phone rang, Anne must have heard it; she checked to see who the caller was, saw Syd’s name and turned off the phone.
That bitch.
Okay, this was good, he thought. I’m starting to get mad. Fuck Anne. Fuck that manipulative, lying bitch. I let her ruin my life seven years ago but I’m not going to let her ruin my life again. I was a happy, satisfied man before she popped into the bullpen, so just forget about the last forty-eight hours, man up, act like they never happened and focus on something constructive, like catching the Lady in Red.
Ryan aimed the Mustang toward Malibu and hit the speed dial for Syd.
Syd’s cell phone rang. She took it out of her purse and stared at it. It rang again. Syd saw the Caller ID, Ryan. She just stared at it. It rang again.
“You going to get that?” the Lady in Red asked.
“No,” she said. “He can leave a message.” Syd turned off her phone.
A lot had happened since Syd met the Lady in R
ed at the door with a gun in her hand…
When Syd pulled up to Blake’s Malibu home, she saw a white Prius parked in the driveway. Alice’s parents bought her a used white Prius so Syd knew she’d found her. She pulled her automatic as she approached the door. She was about to try the doorknob when the door swung open and she was face to face with the Lady in Red.
“Hello, Alice,” Syd said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Oh, shit, Alice thought. Not now, not yet. I have one more man to kill.
“Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head or I will shoot you.”
Alice looked at the redheaded cop. She looked young, but there was steel in her tone and a don’t fuck with me glint in her green eyes.
Alice wondered if all handcuff keys were the same. She’d pocketed the keys to Blake’s handcuffs after she’d freed herself. Here’s hoping, she thought as she dropped to her knees.
With practiced precision Syd cuffed Alice. “Where’s your gun?” Syd asked as she slipped on a pair of surgical gloves.
Alice’s eyes dropped to her purse. Syd opened it, saw the Colt and scalpel. She took them out of the purse, slipped them into her jacket pocket. Then, just to be sure, she searched Alice. And found just one thing, a handcuff key.
What the hell, thought Syd.
Shit, thought Alice.
Syd was about to ask about the handcuff key when she noticed a crimson stain soaking through the shoulder of the Lady in Red’s shirt. “You’re bleeding.”
“You should see the other guy,” Alice said.
My thoughts exactly, thought Syd. Where the hell was Blake Hunter? She grabbed Alice by the handcuffs and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” she said.
It was only a few feet from the entry hall to the living room and Blake’s bloody corpse. Syd clocked the cock sticking out of his mouth. There was blood everywhere, his face a bloody pulp. “Jesus Christ,” Syd muttered. “Not up to your usual surgical standards.”
“Yeah, well, shit happens.”
Syd checked the body for a pulse, found none. She noticed the playing card on Blake’s chest, four of hearts. Then her eyes took in the rest of the crime scene. There was a trail of blood from the body to the middle of the room, where a small pool of blood stained the wood floor. Then she noticed something shining in the doorway to another room — a pair of handcuffs. That explains the key, Syd thought. Syd bent down picked them up. They were fur-lined. “Curiouser and curiouser,” Syd said.
She needed to search the rest of the house, make sure they were alone. “Don’t move,” she said to Alice and then quickly made her way down the bloodstained hall to the guest room and master bedroom, both clear. Then she stepped into the master bath. “Holy shit,” she muttered as she saw the bloodstained sink and towels.
She hurried back to the living room; Alice was where she left her. “You want to tell me what happened here?”
Alice stared at Syd in stony silence.
“Look, Alice,” Syd said. “I know what Adam, Colin and Blake did to you. I just came from your parents. I know what they did to you. I understand what you’ve been through. Why you’ve done what you’ve done. And I’d like to help you. But I can’t help you unless you help me help you. So please, tell me what happened tonight.”
Alice could hear the honesty in Syd’s words. She sensed she could trust her. “I could tell you, or you could watch it yourself.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Blake Hunter wanted to make a documentary. He knocked me out, handcuffed me and was videotaping me when I tried to escape. It’s all on a tape, in my purse.”
Syd grabbed Alice’s purse, pulled out the tape. Then her eyes settled on the DVD case. She took it out, turned it over and saw the handwritten title, High School Pool Party. “Is this what I think it is?”
Alice nodded.
“He was videotaping you watching yourself get raped?” Syd ask, astounded.
“That’s right.”
“Motherfucker.”
“You should watch the rape, too. But start with the other one.”
Alice showed Syd where the camera was in the office. Syd loaded the digital tape.
“You’ll have to watch it on the camera’s monitor,” Alice said.
Syd flipped open the monitor, it was a small screen, maybe six inches wide, certainly big enough to watch the video.
“It’s cued up,” Alice said. “Just hit Play.”
Syd did.
The angle is over Blake’s shoulder to a handcuffed and bound Alice. She says, “Fuck you.”
“That’s more like it,” Blake says then walks towards her on his way to the door. Alice suddenly kicks Blake in the back of the knee, he falls down.
“Bitch,” he says as he tries to get to his feet. But the Lady in Red has dragged her feet toward his head and she kicks him in the head. His head hits the wall with a crack.
“Cunt,” he says as she kicks him again and again. Finally his body has gone limp and she stops kicking.
The Lady in Red crawls over him, flips onto her back and fishes the handcuff keys out of his pocket. She unlocks the handcuffs and tosses them away, then quickly unties her feet and hustles out of the room.
“I ran into the living room to get my gun out of my purse.”
Blake stirs, leaps up and dashes into the kitchen.
“But Blake had obviously found it earlier and hid it so I took the only weapon I had, the scalpel.”
The kitchen is visible through the office doorway. Blake re-enters frame, pulls open a drawer, takes out a gun, aims and fires.
“He hit me in the shoulder, but I went down like he’d killed me and played dead,” Alice said.
Blake stands there a moment, trying to decide what to do. He aims off screen, seems about to pull the trigger then reconsiders and walks out of frame.
“Fuck,” Alice said. “He was about to shoot me from the kitchen.”
“Thank God he changed his mind,” Syd said, completely wrapped up in the video.
Syd’s sympathy caught Alice by surprise. Just who the hell was this cop?
There’s a scream from off camera and three quick shots, a loud THUD and the gun slid into the right side of the frame.
“When he got close to me, I slashed his ankle with my scalpel. I cut him and he went down. I jumped on him slashing his face, but he shoved me off.”
A bloody Blake pulls himself into frame and reaches for the gun. Alice suddenly appears and jabs the scalpel through the back of Blake’s hand. He screams in agony as she picks up the gun.
He looked at her, terrified. “Don’t shoot. I know people. I can help you get away, out of the country with a new identity and plenty of money. Just please, don’t shoot.”
Alice slowly lowers the gun, Blake looks surprised, pleased; then she quickly raises the gun and fires.
Blake Hunter’s head jerks once then drops to the floor.
Syd hit the stop button, looked at Alice. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I’d be luckier if you weren’t here.”
Syd turned off the video camera. Her eyes fell on the DVD. She picked it up. “You sure you don’t mind if I watch this?”
Alice was surprised by the compassion in Syd’s voice. She really didn’t want to see it herself again, but she wanted this cop, this woman, to understand exactly what happened to her. “I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, you need to see it.”
Alice pointed out the DVD player, Syd loaded the disk.
“You know,” Alice said. “Every time I watch this DVD I’m in handcuffs. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?”
Syd smiled cheerlessly. “Yeah.” Syd picked up the remote control and hit Play.
A hand held camera sweeps across Colin Wood’s game room and comes to rest on an unconscious Alice Waterman. Adam and Colin kneel next to her. “Fuck, that shit works fast,” Colin says. “Help me get her on the pool table, Adam.”
They pick her off the floor and lay
her on the pool table. Colin holds her neck but he lets go too soon and her head thuds on the table.
“Careful,” Adam says, looking very uncomfortable. He looks directly into the lens. “You sure taping this is a good idea, Blake?”
“It’s a brilliant idea, bro. When we’re old and gray and snorting Viagra, we’re going to cherish the chance to relive our glory days.”
And that’s when Syd’s phone rang. She hit Pause.
“You going to get that?” Alice asked.
“No,” Syd said after fishing out her cell phone and checking the Caller ID. “He can leave a message.” Syd turned off her phone and looked back at the screen. She hit Play.
“Get her clothes off,” Blake says from behind the camera. Colin pulls off her sandals as Adam peels off her tank top.
“How convenient,” Blake says, zooming into a close up of Alice’s bra. “It unhooks from the front. She was making things easy for you, Adam. She wanted you to suck her titties.”
Blake zooms out as Adam says, “Shut up.” He unhooks the bra then lifts her back up a bit and slips it off.
“Nice,” Colin says cradling her breasts in his hands. He sucks on her left nipple. “Hey, she put some perfume on her tits.” Colin looks at Adam. “She went all porn star for you, buddy.”
Adam leans down, sniffs her right breast. “Wow,” he says surprised. Then he looks at her face. Blake follows his look with the camera and zooms in on Alice’s face. Her eyes are at half-mast and her mouth gaps open. She looks drunk.
“She looks bad, man,” Blake says. “Maybe we should stick her head in a bag,” Blake says. He zooms out, pans to Adam.
“You are such an asshole,” Adam says, but he’s smiling as he says it.
“Bet she doused her pussy, too,” Blake says. “Colin, get her panties off.”
Blake pans to Colin as he unzips her jeans and pulls them off revealing black boyshort panties. Blake zooms in, black curly pubic hairs stick out from the sides of the panties. Colin peels off the panties revealing a thick black patch of hair trimmed into a triangle. Colin leans down and smells it. “Yep, perfumed for your dining pleasure.” He takes another sniff. “I think its ode de lick-my-clit.”
In Cold Blonde Page 25