Val made an involuntary sound of panic.
“Watery graves are so romantic, aren't they?” Only if you're a psychopath.
“I originally planned to fuck you, you know. Not now,” he said, when she recoiled, “now that he's had you. But in the beginning. I liked the idea, of me having you before GM did. Wouldn't that be ironic?”
“You're disgusting.” “Too bad, Val. After what you did, I want you to hear every single word. Besides, I'd have thought that you'd be used to it by now what with all the rumors about you. That was why you left town, wasn't it? Because people were speculating that you liked bad boys maybe a little too much, right?”
He thumbed the mark on her neck.
“I guess it was true.”
“Stop it,” said Val. “That's enough.”
“Even the children were in on it. I heard the cutest little nursery rhyme in your hometown, where
a bunch of little brats were playing skip-rope. Wanna hear how it goes?”
“No.”
“I'll tell you anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Valerian Kimble means bad luck—”
“Please.”
“—how many psychos did she fuck? One, two, three, four…”
He stepped back. In spite of his words from earlier, Val was afraid that it was to remove his pants. She squeezed her eyes shut and her thighs together, bracing herself. He didn't touch her, though there was a bright flash.
He was taking pictures. “I really don't think he'll be able to resist coming after me when I send him the rest of my little scrapbook.”
The rest? Good Lord. He was just as sick as Gavin. “He'll kill you,” she said. “Just like your sister.”
Bringing up Charlie was a mistake. “I'm counting on that,” he said nastily. “Him thinking he can, anyway. I can make this look like a murder-suicide. I've been watching him. I like to think I've picked up a little of his style.” Vance gestured at the candles and flowers, then recited, “'From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.' The press will eat that shit up.”
“You're just as sick as he is.”
“Considering your relationship, I'll have to take that as a compliment.” Val turned away from the flash so he couldn't see her face. Why did this keep happening? Why her? Perhaps there was some pheromone certain people emitted, perceivable only on a wavelength unique to those individuals who preyed on them.
“You won't get away with this.” “Ooh, that's a good pose. Are you going to cry, too? Tell me you are. That might even get the bastard off.” Vance stepped around the rock to get a picture from her other side.
Fear and terror exploded, creating a raging holocaust of cathartic release. She lashed out with her foot and kicked as hard as she could. The angle, and the timing, were, for once, perfect. Her foot connected with something soft with a muffled thwack.
Vance stumbled, and his shoe caught on some of the loose rocks. He fell with a loud splash, followed by several smaller splashes. “Oh, you little bitch.” He was gasping. “You bitch. You ruined my fucking camera.”
He lurched back to his feet unsteadily with a violence that wiped all traces of savagery from her face. She flinched but all he did was extinguish one of the candles near her body with his wet fingers. The flame died out with an angry hiss and more shadows appeared out of the gloom to engulf the cave walls in darkness. He flicked his damp hand at her face.
“I hope, for your sake, that the cops find you before the worms do. Otherwise, no open casket for you.”
His heavy footfalls receded. When she was certain he had gone, and that she was completely alone, Val bowed her head and began to cry.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hemlock Vance leaned back against the rocks, shivering a little with cold, though the adrenaline coursing through his veins mitigated the effect, rendering it a mild annoyance rather than an actual discomfort.
Above the molten shades of violet and indigo, the sky's zenith was spangled with stars. Vance was too wet and keyed-up to appreciate the view. He cursed as he wrung water out of his jeans, his shirt, his socks. No way could he drive home like this.
If Val hadn't kicked him, he would literally be high and dry by now. But it was beginning to look as if he might be stuck in this festering cesspool of yokels for another day or two.
Things weren't entirely hopeless, at least. He could sleep in his car after letting the heaters run for a bit. There was a half-full can of beer in the cup holder, a couple high-protein energy bars in back. At least he'd had the foresight to wear swim trunks.
She'll be dead soon , he thought. Little bitch. He wondered if she'd started screaming.
He almost missed the quiet crunch of gravel. Even as he registered it, he was in the process of writing it off as the movement of some small scuttling creature.
He started when he realized that he was being watched, and that his observer was neither small nor scuttling, but the larger prey of which he sought.
Frightening, that such a large man could make almost no sound on such rough terrain. His clothing was so dark, he blended right into the shadows. His coat fluttered soundlessly in the ocean breeze; it was the only perceptible movement.
The man said nothing. That was the fucking creepiest part. Just stared at him while the wind ruffled his hair. His posture reminded Vance of a leopard about to pounce, and for the first time he began to wonder if those rumors about GM thinking he was more animal than human were true.
I wish I could see his face, he thought, but it was unreadable beneath the stars.
“Tell me where she is.” His voice was deep, harsh. Vance almost flinched and hated him all the more for it. “I could tell you.” He weighed his words carefully, “Or, I could let you drown yourself looking for her.”
GM lunged. Vance was bracing himself for such a charge. He had been counting on it, in fact, because he knew that he was the more muscular of the two of them, and in a grappling match he rarely lost. So when GM came to an abrupt standstill mere feet away and delivered a kick to Vance's already sore stomach, he was completely taken off guard.
He hit the ground with a heavy, meaty thud. Stones gouged into his skin. Sprays of sand and surf shot up into the air. Tide's coming in, he thought, with something akin to hysteria. Val, you bitch. This is all your fault.
“Fucking bitch.” He groped for his knife but it wasn't in his pocket. It must have fallen out when the bitch kicked him. “Goddamn it—”
GM crouched down beside him, one arm hanging off his knee. “Tell me where he is,” he repeated, in the same tone as before. This close, though, Vance could see that the other man's eyes gleamed with dark impulse.
Vance took a swing. GM leaned back, evading the brunt of the attack, but the gemstone in his class ring opened up a small circular gash on the grandmaster's cheek. It didn't look like it hurt particularly—certainly not the way he was hurting—but it prompted GM to kick Vance again, harder. His groan filled the night sky. A few more of those love-taps and I'll be pissing cherry Kool-Aid, he thought.
“You're too late, you fuck. By now, she's dead.”
“I don't believe you.” GM's voice was still calm; it belied the steel in his hand. He had a knife. The knife that killed Charlie?
“If you kill me, you'll never find her.”
“I'm not going to kill you.”
GM yanked Vance's swim trunks down. Vance stared at the other man's grim face in disbelief as his hand closed around his shriveled penis. Was he some kind of queer? Then he felt the first cut and understood, he understood all too well. GM was only on the second pass when he started screaming.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ Until last year, Val had never thought too long or too hard about death. It seemed so far away, almost a fantasy land. One decade, after all, was more than half her life, and death was, by those measurements, at least five spans away. If not more.
But now…she wondered. Now she knew living was just a brief hiatus, a blip really, in the infini
te line of nothingness that composed that shadowy realm of the unknown. It could stop at any time.
Her skin was starting to go numb from the cold. Weren't one's memories supposed to flash before one's eyes at a moment like this? The water was up to her breasts now and climbing steadily. Time for reflection was running out. Post-mortem, she thought. That's what the analysis of a chess game is called after its close. Post-mortem. After death.
Most of the candles had fizzled out, leaving the cave darker than before. The brackish smell of the rising tide made her eyes water and her nose sting. She tried struggling but the salt water had made her rope bonds even firmer than before.
Maybe my life has been leading up to this moment. Something splashed further down. Falling rocks? A shark? Her whole body was prickling now, as if she were being stabbed all over by thousands of tiny needles. The Pacific was ice-cold, winter-chilled.
Val began to feel sleepy, dreamy. I am dying . The thought should have alarmed her, but now, as she was cradled into Eternal Sleep, she found she did not really care.
She thought she was dreaming when she felt the warm body brush against hers. Hallucinating. The brain did that, sometimes, as brain cells died.
“Hold your breath.”
The water was nearly level with her chin now. She inhaled—and the waves rushed up against her face.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Val opened her eyes. It was dark, still, which meant only a couple hours must have passed. The sky was navy velvet studded with diamond stars. The smell of the salt seasoned the air with its telltale pungency, paired with the musk of naked skin.
She was leaning against a man's bare chest; it was covered by damp, curling hair. A brown nipple loomed in her periphery, leering out like a blind eye.
Alarmed, she glanced upwards only to see him, Gavin, in repose just now. His thick brows were drawn together, giving him a concerned expression she had never glimpsed on him when awake.
His full lips were parted, and his short eyelashes were like streaks of charcoal against his parchmentpale skin. An odd pang reverberated inside her body as she regarded his sleeping face. It scared her how normal he looked. How vulnerable.
But he isn't, she reminded herself. Not even close.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ When she opened her eyes again the darkness outside the window had been tempered by small rays of light on the horizon.
A hand stroked her cheek, possessively, before slipping under her chin to take her pulse. The hand was cold, and she felt gooseflesh ripple down her arms and tighten the skin around her breasts.
He was watching her, she realized suddenly, studying her with directness that would have made her feel naked if she hadn't already been so.
“You've fallen in love with me—haven't you?” This was so far from what she was expecting, it was as if he'd hit her. She didn't have time to construct a defense; her face felt raw and exposed.
“I saw the way you were looking at me, when you thought I was sleeping. I felt you touch me.” “No,” she said, “That's not true. I would never—” He kissed her. Easily, passionlessly, he kissed her
and she was lost. He kissed her, and it left her gasping. His breathing, on the other hand, didn't change at all. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You were saying?”
He leaned in again, and Val pushed him away. A thought had just occurred to her.
“This is Vance's hummer,” she said haltingly. “What did you do to Vance?”
“How little you think of me.” This was too far from truth for her own peace of mind. She shook her head. “Did you kill him? No,” she answered her own question. “You wouldn't kill him. You're not that merciful.”
She expected him to laugh; not that it was particularly funny, but usually that seemed like the whole point. He didn't, though.
“What did you do? Dismember him?” That brought a phantom smile to his pale lips but it was far from affable. “Dismember,” he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth like a pearl. “An appropriate choice of words, that. Especially when one takes into account the etiology…”
It took her a moment to make the leap.
“Oh no,” she said, shaken. “You didn't—” “Oh yes,” he said. “I did.”
She choked back a sob.
“Such a tender heart.” He tapped her chest. The same hand that, equipped with a blade, had carved
into human skin as if it was sirloin. “Don't tell me you feel sorry for him.” Val covered her mouth and turned away. “Why do you do it?” she whispered. “Why?”
“You may as well ask me why I breathe. I simply do, and that is that.” He patted her cheek. That broke the dam that had been holding back her tears all this time. She began to cry, the way only one with a broken heart can cry.
He did not love her. He never would.
She could give, and give, and give, until there was nothing left at all—and it would make no difference. Not to him.
Epilogue
Once upon a time, there was a naïve and innocent girl who thought she could tame the beast and live happily ever after. But the beast did not want to be tamed, for he was a beast and beasts care not for such things, and the girl died along with her dreams.
From childhood's grave sprang a young woman, jaded before her years, who knew that beasts could wear the skins of men, and that evil could exist in sunlight, as well as darkness.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ Val was surprised to learn that Mary still lived. Upon waking in that cavern she had not spared much thought for anyone other than herself, but she did have a passing thought that her roommate must have come to a similar end by Vance's hand. But no.
When police located Vance Benveniste on the pebbled shores of Crescent Bay, partially conscious, weak, and disoriented from blood loss, he had been in no state to play coy with information. He told the cops everything, in between his ragged gasps and pleas for help. Mary was found locked in the closet of his apartment, dazed and dehydrated, but otherwise all right. She was being kept overnight for observation in the local hospital, just in case, but her condition was stable. Vance, on the other hand, had died on his way to the emergency room.
Val found this out from Gavin. He slipped her the information in bits and pieces. Like table scraps. She didn't ask how he knew. She assumed that he had been the anonymous tip-off that had led investigators to the scene of the crime.
Gavin would do that. Play both sides, and then watch the ensuing chaos from the sidelines. Whatever furthered his own interests or amused him was ample motivation. The lowest common denominator of human morality was always self-interest.
(You've fallen in love with me, haven't you?) Pain lanced through her chest as if a large needle were sewing her ribs together, cinching them far too tight. Emotions snarled like brightly colored threads, some standing out in sharp contrast. Aubergine guilt. Carmine lust. Scarlet anger. Pain, virgin white because nothing was purer than the original aversive stimulus. Fear in cowering, vulnerable pink. Emerald regret. Sorrow, veiled in midnight blue.
She woke late in the afternoon and was startled to feel a heavy depression in the mattress beside her. One of his denim-clad legs was bent at the knee and he had his sketchpad propped up against his thigh. His hair was mussed. Charcoal stained his hands, and his face where he had touched his lower lip in silent contemplation as he was doing now.
Val sat up, leaning over to see what he was drawing. A rose, she saw. Dead, the petals worn ragged with age and thin as parchment. His shading was exquisite, and she half-wanted to reach out and touch the edges to reassure herself it wasn't real.
He glanced at her, then let the sketchbook fall open to another page. It was her—in bed, asleep. Her first thought was that he had done it this morning, as she slumbered, but then she looked at the date at the bottom, and noticed several other details that contested this. Shorter hair, a bruise long since faded.
“I drew that on the first night yo
u came to me.” The tiger lily, tangled in her hair. Crumpled basil leaves trapped beneath the cage of her fingers on the sheets. Rose petals and star-shaped jasmine.
He had employed the use of water colors to highlight the vibrancy of the flowers. Her lips were tinted a coral pink, as well as the tips of her breasts. Everything else, he had left in black and white.
Images from freshman year, partially forgotten, flooded back in horrific detail. Naked flesh, draped in furs and silks and beads. Sexuality so overt that it seemed almost bestial. She said, “That's sick.”
“What is art, if not an excuse to be adventurous?” A lobotomy of the senses , she thought. Perceptions culled and cut and displayed in cross-sections in a futile attempt to portray the gestalt.
A cage wrought from artistic license—and lead.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ Mary had filed for a roommate transfer. Her family would soon be coming for her things. The three sisters, most likely. Angel, Cherry, and Flo.
How long ago that dinner seemed. There had still been hope then. Distant, but gleaming. But not now. Hope was dead now, buried with the other casualties of this cruel and terrible game.
Everything we touch, we destroy. “That's not art.”
“Oh no?”
“No!” She lunged for the sketchbook, then, filled with the irrepressible urge to shred the pages like a child tearing the wings from a butterfly.
She understood the reason for Mary's withdrawal, but that did nothing to ease the slight.
Understanding did not provide solace or make the pain go away; in many ways, understanding was just more salt in the emotional wound. Understanding inspired empathy, which led to guilt, as well as suffering.
She looked up at Gavin, supine, unconcerned, contented, and thought that perhaps there was something to being a sociopath. If you didn't have a heart, it couldn't be broken.
He returned her gaze, brazenly. “What is art?”
“Not that.” Jerking her head at his sketchbook. “That's filth.” “I disagree. One need only look at you,” he said, “to see that you, my dear, are my greatest work. Your body is my canvas, your mind my palette.”
“I'm not your work.”
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