by Jeff Strand
"I was at a bar! I drink too much, okay? You married an alcoholic. I got drunk and I was irresponsible and inconsiderate. What do I have to do to convince you I wasn't out on a hunt? Just tell me and I'll do it!"
"Take me to the bar and let me verify your story with the bartender."
"The bar's closed. That's why I left. But we'll go tomorrow as soon as it opens, okay?" Ken knew that after a good night's sleep, Vivian wouldn't bother with this crap. But he'd have to start spending less time in the basement, at least until she had a week or so to chill out.
Vivian stepped away from him. "Are you hungry?"
"Yeah. I'll make something."
"Did this bar you were at have a television?"
"Three of them. Why?"
"Were any of those three televisions playing the news?"
"Just tell me what you're trying to say, Viv."
"I'm saying that the news was very interesting tonight."
Ken suddenly felt more than a little queasy. "Interesting how?"
"Don't crap your pants. The police aren't going to break down our door. Go make yourself some nachos or something, and I'll show you."
"Show me now."
He followed her to the dining room, where Vivian's laptop rested on the table. She sat down, clicked a few times, then turned the laptop so he could see.
"Tonight a Hornbeam Ridge man, Lee Montgomery, is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, following the abduction of his six-year-old son," said the newscaster, who wore too much makeup. "Montgomery set the boy free after a tense standoff, but took his own life before the authorities could arrest him. Two women saw Montgomery walking with his son and called 911 about his suspicious behavior. The women followed him until Montgomery ran from the vehicle and threatened to kill both his son and himself. One of the women, Charlene Fox, made efforts to talk Montgomery out of harming his son, going so far as to offer herself as a hostage instead."
The scene cut to a girl speaking to the camera. She wore a bad wig with straight brown hair. Ken leaned forward. The name "Gertie Richardson" appeared on the bottom of the screen.
"Yeah, we were terrified that he was going to kill his son," she said. "But my friend talked him down. She doesn't think she's a hero but I sure do. We were out there trying to save my cousin but she ended up saving somebody else instead. A completely crazy night."
The scene switched back to the newscaster and her male co-host. "Police say the young ladies were trying to serve as bait for whomever is responsible for as many as eight missing women over the past few months."
The other newscaster chuckled. "Sounds like he should be worried."
"The boy is back with his mother, who suffered moderate injuries at the hands of her husband. And now over to Stan with our Doppler weather radar report."
The news clip ended.
"Play it again," said Ken.
Vivian played the clip again.
"What does serving as bait even mean?" he asked.
"I guess it means that they were going to kick your ass."
"What do they think, that I'm careless? That I'm stupid? So, what, that bitch was just wandering around in a cheap wig waiting for me to leap out at her?"
"Wigs like that aren't cheap."
Ken wanted to tell his wife to shut up, but thought better of it. "I don't like that newscaster laughing at me. Who the hell does he think he is? Does he think I'm a joke? How hard would he be laughing if I killed his daughter?"
"If you go after the family of the news guy, you'll get caught for sure."
"I'm not really gonna do it. I'd love to, though. Make him do a live news report while he watches me choke her. Maybe I'll go after those two bitches. They want to be bait? I'll turn them into bait. Play it again."
Vivian shook her head and closed the laptop lid. "I didn't show you that so you could get all pissed off and vow revenge. I did it so you'd know to be careful. Maybe they're not the only ones trying to fool you. You swear that you're being careful when you choose your victims, but from now on you have to be even more careful. Maybe you should just stop for a while. Not forever, just for a while. A year or so."
"Maybe," said Ken.
He had no intention of stopping. He wasn't going to be stupid about it, but he wasn't going to let those girls think they were oh-so-brave and heroic. She thought she could end his reign of terror by walking around town in a wig? Seriously?
Ken wouldn't lose his cool. Wouldn't take any unnecessary risks. Wouldn't let the intense rage he was feeling work against him.
He wasn't going to promise himself that those bitches would end up in cages. But he would certainly investigate the possibility of making that happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Charlene groaned, rolled over, and looked at her alarm clock. 1:24. Her shift started in just over half an hour. She slapped her hand around on the nightstand until she located her cell phone, and called Travis.
"Hey," he said.
"I'm sorry, I can't come in today," she told him.
"I never thought you would. Take as long as you need. Until I hear differently, I'll assume that you're not coming in."
"Thanks." Charlene hung up. Her display showed that she had new voice mail messages from eleven different people. She'd give her mother a call so she could pass on a reassuring update. Everybody else could go to hell.
She was tempted to go back to sleep, but she'd had enough nightmares for a while, so she got out of bed. She took a really long, really hot shower. None of Lee's blood had gotten on her, and if any had it would've been washed off by last night's really long, really hot shower, but she vigorously scrubbed at her body anyway. She was tempted to just sit down in the corner and let the water cascade over her while she cried, but, no, that was too pathetic.
She got out of the shower, got dressed, and sat on the couch.
Spending the day watching television probably wouldn't improve her mental state.
Honestly, she couldn't think of any way to spend the day that wouldn't involve her reliving the moment where the bullet tore into Lee's face. She didn't feel any true sympathy for the guy—he had, after all, beat up his ex-wife and threatened to murder his son. The world was a better place without a piece of human garbage like him. It just wasn't easy to cope with the idea that a man had blown his brains out right in front of her and she might have been responsible for things happening that way.
If she was going to keep seeing the red mist, she might as well be earning money while she was doing it. She called Travis back.
"Changed my mind," she told him. "I'm coming in."
"You sure? We can work out something where I give you a couple of paid vacation days, if you want. Gertie is already trying to get the other servers to kick in some of their tips."
"No, I need to keep my mind off things. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
When she arrived, Travis was standing in the back room. "Don't go anywhere," he told her, as she punched in. Travis left, and then returned a minute later with all of the servers, chefs, bussers, and dishwashers following him. Travis stepped forward and addressed everybody.
"Everybody who works here is a hero. Each and every one of you. However, Charlene is a hero who rescued an abducted six-year-old, so let's show her some appreciation, okay?"
The entire restaurant staff applauded. There was also whistling. Gertie, beaming, applauded the most enthusiastically of all of them.
"Speech!" somebody said.
"No speech," Travis told him. "She's been through a serious trauma. Everybody be nice to her today. Okay, back to work."
Almost everybody left the back room. Charlene felt like she should be feeling bitchy about this display of appreciation that she'd never wanted, but it honestly made her feel pretty good.
Gertie walked over to her. "I know you need your space," she said. "Just checking to see how you're doing."
"I'm fine. They should be giving you credit, too."
"Oh, they did. They all lined up and applauded w
hen I got here."
"Well, that was nice of them."
"Yeah." Gertie nervously scratched her neck. "So are we okay?"
"You mean as friends?"
Gertie nodded.
"I don't think so," Charlene told her.
"I never asked you to come with me. You volunteered."
"I completely, one hundred percent get that. I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm being irrational. And I may get over it. I'll let you know if I do."
"Okay. Thanks." Gertie looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she turned and left the room.
* * *
Several of Charlene's customers recognized her. She got much larger tips than usual. Not one person gave her a disapproving wag of the finger and said, "Now, now, you ought to have minded your own business!"
It was entirely possible that everybody else was right. If she and Gertie had done nothing, the little boy could be halfway across the country right now trapped in a car with an emotionally disturbed woman-beater. If they'd done nothing, a police officer could be in mental anguish right now, beating himself up over accidentally shooting the boy when he was trying to take out the father. Maybe talking to Charlene instead of having a dozen cops point guns at him gave Lee the time to truly consider what he was doing, which is why he let his son go. In the alternate reality where they didn't follow him, he might have been surrounded, then panicked and immediately shot his son in the head.
Maybe.
Charlene wasn't ready to be at peace with this.
Gertie had worked an earlier shift and left without saying goodbye. After Charlene clocked out for the night, she considered sending Gertie a text just to reiterate that she was fine, but decided that she didn't feel like it.
She scrolled through her text messages. A few journalists wanting to interview her. (Three of them had come into the restaurant to speak with her, but Travis politely but firmly asked them to leave.) She'd already talked to her mother and asked her to pass along the message that she was okay, but she went through and sent quick responses to all of her relatives who'd texted. Then she did the same thing with her concerned friends. She ignored the journalists.
That left Megan.
She'd met Megan at a party a year ago. Slept with her a couple weeks after that. They'd had a few days of good times, then casually parted ways, happy to have met each other. If Megan was contacting her for a reprisal, well...that idea had a lot of appeal right now.
She texted Megan back: Hi!
The response came back immediately: Hi, sexy!
Yes, this was exactly how Charlene would get her mind off her problems.
* * *
When Charlene woke up the next day, all was right in the world. She stretched out happily in Megan's bed, pleased that several really intense orgasms had indeed been just the thing to bring joy back to her life. Perhaps Megan was simply being a star-fucker, but that was totally fine. Her immensely talented fingers earned her the right to bask in Charlene's momentary celebrity.
Megan rolled over, yawned, and smiled. "Good morning, sexy."
"It's afternoon."
"Is it?" Megan glanced over at the clock, which read 12:52. "Damn. Guess we were up late."
"Very late. It's like we were too preoccupied with something to go to sleep at a normal hour."
"We just let the time get away from us. I suppose we should get out of bed and put on clothes so we can leave the apartment and have a nice productive day."
"You're absolutely right," said Charlene. "However, I would also like to suggest an alternative course of action, one where we don't get out of bed, and we don't get dressed. I haven't figured out all of the details yet, but I honestly think we could make this plan work."
"I'm willing to give it a shot," said Megan, climbing on top of her.
* * *
Charlene was still feeling good as she arrived at work. She and Megan had not discussed what happened in the alley, and Megan hadn't pushed for any details after Charlene said she didn't want to talk about it. They hadn't made any plans to meet later, and maybe they wouldn't see each other until the next time she did an impromptu hostage negotiation. Either way, she wasn't necessarily cured (and, in fact, her ears were still ringing from the gunshot, though not nearly as badly as they were Friday night) but she was infinitely better.
"You look like you had a good night," said Gertie, as Charlene put on the black apron all of the servers wore.
"What makes you say that?"
"Those are the same clothes you wore yesterday."
"Maybe I sat on the couch all night in a depressed funk and couldn't bring myself to change my clothes."
Gertie's face fell. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry. You just looked so cheerful that I—"
"I'm kidding. I got super-laid last night. The details are so hot that I honestly believe I could turn you into a raging dyke if I shared them, so I'm keeping them to myself to protect your heterosexuality."
"I'm not trying to protect it. I mean, it would open more options."
"Sorry. A lady doesn't eat pussy and tell." She froze. "Travis heard that, didn't he?"
"No, he's nowhere around."
"Okay, good. I thought I felt him staring at me. Anyway, does it go without saying that I'm never going to join you on another one of your expeditions?"
"Very much so. Also, they're over. I didn't tell any news people why we were out there, but I guess it was part of the public report, and they blabbed it on TV. Even in the unbelievably unlikely event that I happened to be walking where he was seeking his prey, my plan's been spoiled. He'd either leave me alone or he'd just shoot me. So there's nothing I can do to help find Kimberly except wait for somebody else to do it."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it. Like we've already established, it was really more of a selfish thing to make me feel like I was doing some good. It would've felt great to slam my stun gun into his balls, but it wasn't ever going to happen. I just got tired of putting up 'Missing' signs. Anyway, I'm glad you got laid. I should get back to work before Travis yells at me."
"Hold up," said Charlene. "I'm still pretty messed up in the head over what happened, but I'm not cursing your existence or anything like that."
"Thank you. That means a lot."
"Also, you looked ridiculous in that wig."
Gertie laughed. "I agree."
"Okay, now you can get back to work."
* * *
Ken's day at work was driving him absolutely batshit insane. That was par for the course, but today was even worse, because he couldn't get those women from the news out of his mind.
How dare they? It would be different if they were cops. He didn't mind that, even the female ones—they were just doing their jobs.
But he didn't care if it was her (long-dead) cousin. It infuriated him that they thought they could trap him like that. What were those tiny girls going to do to him? Overpower him? Shoot him? If they shot him, they'd never find her cousin's body—he was good at covering his tracks, which is why Darrell trusted him to rent the house for them.
He didn't even care if he got to put them in cages. A strangulation, like the kind Vivian thought he did, would be fine. Squeeze their necks until their eyeballs popped out. Maybe he'd slash their throats. Maybe he'd get into Darrell's stash of S&M gear and whip their backs until they were a mess of blood.
Damn, he was so angry that his hands were trembling. Made it difficult to work on this spreadsheet.
He hated this job. A waste of forty hours a week, not counting the commute and his unpaid lunch break. Without this job, he could be spending all day every weekday in the basement. He'd used a couple of vacation days for that purpose, but he obviously couldn't quit. Vivian would notice if he stopped getting paychecks, and though she didn't track his vacation time, she'd question if he came up short when they wanted to actually go somewhere.
So he was stuck here, staring at these numbers all day.
He wondered what those girls were
doing right now.
Laughing at him?
High-fiving each other for their amazing victory in getting the dad to shoot himself in the face?
Getting bombarded with lucrative offers for the movie and book rights to their story?
The rights to their story would be far more valuable after their bodies were discovered, though of course they wouldn't be able to enjoy the money themselves.
He wouldn't go after them right away. Unless they were complete idiots, they'd be on high alert. He'd give their lives a chance to calm down before he entered it.
But if they wanted to meet him, he was happy to oblige. On his terms.
* * *
Olivia tried to refuse water.
Her existence was hell on earth and she wanted it to end. She thought she'd read that you could live for several weeks without food, but she'd be dead much sooner if she didn't drink any of the water he offered.
She tried. She really tried.
But she was so thirsty, so, so thirsty, that when he climbed up to her cage with the bottle and the straw, she frantically drank. And for a few moments she felt better. Then she once again became aware of the unbearable hunger.
She fantasized about him getting bored with her, grabbing her dry, lifeless hair and yanking her head back until her neck snapped. Suffering over. Paradise.
He didn't. He just watched her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Charlene was surprised by how quickly things returned to normal. It wasn't all happy thoughts, all the time—it was still ridiculously easy for her to conjure up the mental image of Lee killing himself, and it didn't help that she had to serve a lot of dishes with red sauce. (She was able to keep this observation to herself. Travis might not fire her for dumping food on a customer, but he probably couldn't employ servers who compared their food to splattered brain matter.) And she had terrible dreams every night, although they faded from her memory seconds after she woke up, leaving her with the knowledge that she'd had a horrific nightmare but no details. But she was able to live her life pretty much the way she'd done it before.