“I’ll get in there with you.”
As the warm water cascaded over their bodies, Bryce picked up a bottle of honey-scented body wash, squirting some in his hand and washing Lily’s back with it. He then slipped his soapy fingers between her legs, gently stroking her while he whispered in her ear, “I’ve never loved a woman the way I love you. I want every inch of your body to be touched by my lips at some point tonight.”
Bryce was a gentle and considerate lover. He thought Lily was merely shy when it came to sex. Women who had never been sexually assaulted assumed that everything related to sex would be repugnant. This wasn’t true, at least not for Lily. Only the specific actions and body positioning exhibited by the rapist disturbed her. The man could never be on top, or in any way restrict her movements, nor could he use foul or demeaning language. The reason Bryce didn’t want to make love to her late at night was it usually took a long time for Lily to become aroused. Bryce, like the majority of men, was visually stimulated, but Lily needed the room to be completely dark. She could panic at the glimpse of something as innocuous as a chair with a pair of pants draped over it.
She surprised him when she turned and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him passionately on the lips. She could feel his erection pressing against her body. Pulling back, she said, “I’ve been so distant lately. Forgive me, Bryce. The job—”
Bryce put a finger over her lips. “Don’t talk. Let me help you forget reality for a while,” he said as he dropped to his knees.
When they got out of the shower, he dried himself, then grabbed another towel and dropped back to his knees on the fluffy white bath mat to continue what he’d started. First he dried her, then he let the towel go and burrowed his head between her legs. She tried to squirm away, at least to turn the light off, but he wouldn’t let her. “Let’s go to the bedroom,” she said, her voice strained.
Bryce looked up for a moment. “Not tonight.”
Lily could see their reflection in the mirror and moved her head to one side. Her body suddenly sprang to life, barring her mind from interfering. The events of the day drifted away as a warm, delightful sensation grew stronger inside of her. She slumped against the wall, her mouth open and panting. “Don’t stop,” she begged him. “Please don’t stop. God, it feels so good. I forgot how good it feels.”
He didn’t until she was writhing with pleasure. Then he stood and took her hand, leading her to the bedroom. He stretched out on his back and Lily started at his feet, sucking his toes, then licking his thighs, and then taking him into her mouth.
Bryce finally pulled her on top. She rode him hard, the way he liked it, leaning down to kiss him and then bending backward until the ends of her hair grazed his thighs. She had another orgasm almost at the same time he did, this one more powerful than the first.
They lay stretched out on their backs, breathless and satiated. “That was wonderful,” Lily said, curling up against his side. “I was so tense. Thanks for reminding me that I have a body.”
“Oh, you have a body, all right.” Bryce placed his arm around her neck, pulling her head into the curve of his own. “And I love to get my hands on it. But Christ, woman, you make me work for it. I thought you were going to bite my head off at the restaurant. What’s the use of being married if you never have sex with your wife? When I was single, I could get laid seven nights a week if I wanted. A nice meal, a few cocktails, tell the chick how pretty she was, and I was in. I didn’t have to listen to her problems, no one nagged me. I didn’t have to put up with mangy cats or snippy dogs. What can I say? Being single wasn’t bad.”
“Stop it,” Lily said, rolling over onto her stomach. “I hate it when you talk like that. If you liked being single so much, why did you marry me?”
“I’m just playing with you, babe,” Bryce said, smacking her on the bottom. “Just because you’re a judge now doesn’t mean you can’t take a joke. I love to get a rise out of you. You’re always so damn serious.”
“Why did you marry me?”
“I fell in love with you, Lily. I bet men fall in love with you every day. You’ve got something. Hell, I don’t know exactly what, but you’ve got it. You’re a lousy cook, you don’t clean for shit, and you can be a royal pain in the ass.”
She chewed on a cuticle. He had made her feel good, only to diminish it with a barrage of nonsensical chatter. But that was just Bryce. He talked for a living. “Things will be different once I settle into the new job. I spent two months refinishing furniture, remember? Now I’ve got all this responsibility.” She sucked in a breath. “Roger Hennessey, the presiding judge, came back today.”
He yawned. “Didn’t he croak?”
“Nope,” Lily told him, anxiously scratching her wrist. “He told me he didn’t approve of my appointment.”
Bryce got out of bed, pulling on his jockey shorts. “So that’s why you were so bent out of shape tonight. If you get canned, I’ve got three storage bins of Dad’s stuff I still haven’t unloaded. He should have started liquidating his estate years ago. Instead, he dumped everything on me.”
“Your father left you a great deal of money,” Lily said, thinking he was being disrespectful. “You should be grateful. He could have spent it all on himself.”
“Dad was ninety-four, Lily. You can’t take it with you, no matter how much you like it.” He bent over and pecked her on the cheek. “I’m going downstairs. Want me to get you something?”
Lily braced herself on her elbows. “Make sure Gabby goes out.” Gabby was her Italian greyhound. Before they married, she’d slept in her bed. Like Shana, the little dog hadn’t taken a shine to her master’s new housemate. After she took a bite out of Bryce while they were having sex one night, he insisted the dog sleep downstairs.
“Oh,” Bryce said, pausing in the doorway, “I’ve got to hit the ground running tomorrow. Big deal on the table. I’m flying out in the morning and I won’t be back until Thursday. You can work yourself silly while I’m gone. I’ll leave my itinerary on the kitchen table.”
When he returned to bed, Lily snuggled up to his back. She remained that way until his chest began rising and falling in the quiet rhythm of sleep.
As a child, she had learned to compartmentalize her life. Here, with Bryce, within the confines of their bedroom, she was safe. Only when she felt safe could she sleep. But she couldn’t sleep yet. Down the hall were stacks of files and documents, representing the atrocities human beings committed against each other. In an eerie sense, they called to her, just like they did every night. Not the murderers, rapists, robbers, or child abusers, but the victims, particularly those who no longer had a voice to speak.
Hidden between the lines of a police report, or an unnoticed spot on an autopsy photo, there might be something they wanted her to see. Sometimes when the night disappeared and the sun filtered through the stained-glass windows in the library, Lily imagined them gathered around her desk, pleading with her to turn one more page, read one more paragraph, stare at one more gruesome picture.
She quietly got up, slipped on her bathrobe, and padded barefoot down the hall. Later she would sleep.
TEN
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
As soon as Mary Stevens arrived at work the following morning, she pulled out the duplicate tape the crime lab had made for her, then leaned back in her chair to listen to it again.
The odd voice began speaking. “I was primed for the life I now lead at the age of six. I walked in on my father while he was having sex with a woman who lived down the street. My mother was at work at the time. Although I was too young to realize it, my father was an alcoholic who lived off my mother’s income. He drove me across the state line, shoved me out of the car in the freezing temperatures, and told me to hold on to a metal fence until he came back to get me.”
Mary was both horrified and spellbound. Even with the constantly changing voices and the stops and starts, she was convinced she was listening to the truth. She s
aw a group of agents walking toward her and spun her chair toward the wall rather than be distracted.
“By the time the police found me, I was near death from hypothermia. I spent the next eleven months in a coma. The police were certain my parents would read the newspaper articles and come for me. They never did. When I finally came out of the coma, a police officer drove me around until I found the town and the house I had lived in, but my mother and father had moved away and left no forwarding address. I’ll never know what lies he told my mother to convince her to leave without me. Maybe he told her I’d been kidnapped and murdered. Years later, I learned that my mother died of ovarian cancer, so she took the truth to her grave.
“I eventually found out where my father was living. I spent days watching him. I hid in the bushes outside his apartment, following him to work each day at the hardware store. I went without food and slept in a cardboard box, saving what money I could scrounge up so I could buy a gun or a knife, anything that I could use to kill him. A nice lady finally gave me money for food. I knew I could never save enough for a gun, so I went inside the hardware store and purchased a large knife from one of the salesclerks. I told him I needed it to skin fish. My father saw me as I stood in front of the register, purchasing the weapon I later used to slit his throat. He didn’t recognize his own daughter.
“As much as I hated him, my father and I may be somewhat alike, even though the thought repulses me. There’s a coldness inside of me. It had to be inside him, too. How else could he leave his child to freeze to death, alone and terrified?
“The faces of people I’ve killed over the years are buried somewhere deep in my subconscious. Once the killer emerges, it becomes a separate entity. It looks like me, talks like me, yet it is not me. I lead a normal social life, pay my bills, and even go to church on occasion.”
Sure, Mary thought facetiously. Everything was just peachy.
The voice continued, “My criteria is the following: male, as men are deceitful, perverted, and violent; and specifically men who commit adultery. I execute them with unemotional precision.
“Do not think that by sending you this message I have an underlying desire to be captured. You will never catch me. Why? Because while you have been studying people like me, I have been studying you. I know you consider me a predator. Don’t forget that predators serve a useful purpose in nature. My goal is to kill as many men as I can before I die. The world will be a better place without them.”
Instead of removing the tape, Mary picked up the recorder and headed down the hall to John Adams’s office. He was on the phone, so she remained outside his door, walking around in circles until he hung up and gestured for her to come in. “That was Detective Berger with the NYPD. I gave them a profile last month on an UNSUB who was targeting elderly women. They caught the guy two days ago, and Berger called to thank me. I don’t know why. I was only on target on three points.” He took a sip of coffee from a mug with the FBI logo on it, then gave her his full attention. “What’s going on, Stevens?”
Mary had been unable to sleep the night before, debating whether she should take the tape to Adams or first run it by one of the other agents. There was no way to know if the Bureau had jurisdiction, let alone that a crime had been committed. Adams had told her Friday morning that she would soon be ready to take on the full responsibilities of her new position. This might be the test of whether or not he’d been serious. “A cassette tape came in yesterday’s mail,” she said, dropping down in the chair in front of his desk. “I think it’s something you should hear. Would you like me to play it for you?”
Adams put his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair. “Run it by me first.”
After Mary summarized what she’d heard on the tape, her supervisor sat upright and placed his palms on top of the desk. “Why haven’t we heard about a series of men being murdered? If these men were having affairs, they would more than likely be in their late thirties or forties, don’t you think? A pattern like that would have caught someone’s attention. The tape is nothing, Mary. We get stuff like this all the time. It was probably sent from a mental institution. Did it have a return address?”
“No, please,” she said, practically begging. “Let me explain why I think we should take this seriously. Whoever made this tape went to extremes to make certain we wouldn’t be able to get a voice print. My guess is he recorded words from TV, or from another audio source, and then used them to construct his message. Once you listen to the tape, you’ll see what I mean.”
Adams remained stone-faced. “You didn’t answer me. Was there a return address? Do we know where this tape came from?”
“No return address. The postmark was from Los Angeles.”
“L.A. is a smorgasbord of nutcases. Every other person is mentally ill.” His face twisted into a scowl. “Most of us are running on empty right now, Stevens. We can’t afford to gear up for something that may amount to nothing. I’m well aware that you’re bored with your present assignment. Are you certain you’re not overreacting?”
Mary bristled. “Just because I’ve known you all my life doesn’t mean you have to treat me like an overzealous rookie. I worked homicide in Ventura for six years. I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t think this was real. Jesus, you’re the one who called me on the carpet for wearing heels. If that wasn’t a waste of time, I don’t know what is.” She stopped speaking and massaged her forehead. “I apologize. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I believe we’ve been contacted by a serial killer, a serial killer who’s pissed off that we haven’t noticed him. That’s what led to the capture of BTK.” Dennis Rader had murdered ten people around Wichita, Kansas, and had even suggested the police and media refer to him as BTK, which stands for “Bind, Torture, and Kill.” Mary added, “In one of his letters, didn’t he say, ‘How many people do I have to kill before you people notice me?’”
Adams pointed his finger at her. “Point well taken, Stevens. I’ll get as many members of the team assembled as I can. Get a better tape player. That thing looks like it’s on its last leg. You touched the cassette, I presume.”
“I wear gloves when I open the mail,” Mary said, wondering when he would start treating her with the respect she deserved. If she kept arguing with him, though, she would end up back in Washington, or even worse, Ventura. Living in D. C. might have worked out well for her mother and Lowell, but Mary wanted to make a difference, and ISU was the place to do it. “Conference room?” she asked on her way out the door.
“Yeah,” Adams said, reaching for the phone and then stopping. “Oh, and Mary . . .” He waited for her to turn around. “I’m sorry if I’ve been riding you. Your father saved my life when we were in ’Nam. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s hard for me to accept that you’re an adult, let alone one of my agents. And . . . well, maybe in some areas, I’m overprotective.”
Mary shrugged. “You recruited me, sir.”
“Even if you can’t get your hands on a better recorder,” Adams said, shifting back to the matter at hand, “make a duplicate of that tape and have it in the conference room in two hours.”
Six special agents, including Mary Stevens and John Adams, assembled around the long table in the conference room. Central supply had provided Mary with a high-quality cassette player, made several dupes of the original tape, and the group had now listened to the recording twice.
George “Bulldog” McIntyre, whose forehead was wider than Mary’s entire head, spoke up in his husky voice. “The tape is chilling, that’s for sure.”
“I agree,” Genna Weir said, the only other female in the unit. At five-seven, Weir was in peak condition, but her face looked older than her forty-one years. A steely-eyed brunette with superb reasoning abilities, Weir was highly respected within the unit and the Bureau. “And I’m not saying that just because it took time and patience to orchestrate the tape. We might not be able to hear the voice inflections, but the content certainly fits that of a murderer. Is the person a serial killer? I�
�m not certain. The UNSUB might be your garden-variety killer who hasn’t been apprehended and craves attention.”
Adams’s deep voice rang out, “That’s not going to happen. Even an iota of info gets leaked to the press, and every person in this room will be held responsible.” He was seated at the head of the table. The room wasn’t that large, and due to his six-foot-five frame, he generally sat sideways to give himself more leg room. “Male or female?”
“I’d say male,” Mark Conrad offered, doodling on a yellow pad. “He kills men, but his reason has nothing to do with sex. The men he’s killing are obviously a stereotype of his father.”
Pete Cook, the unit’s psychologist, didn’t agree. “It has everything to do with sex, Mark. He saw his father with another woman. The tape talks about perverts and adulterers. I walked in on my parents having sex one time and it freaked me out. Think of how deep a wound the father left on his poor kid. He associates sex with abandonment, terror, maybe even death.”
“I wasn’t referring to the actual sex act,” Mark replied, tugging on his earlobe. “If the UNSUB is what he says he is, which is up in the air right now, he or she is claiming the targets are specifically men who commit adultery. Those are the only men he admits to killing, so hypothetically, this could be a man or a woman. Since female serial criminals are rare, I think we should go with the premise that it’s a man.”
The Cheater Page 10