My Pretties

by Jeff Strand

  By the third day, the ringing in her ears was gone. Reporters had stopped contacting her well before that. The twenty-four hour news cycle had moved on and she was no longer of any interest. Gertie had been interviewed on local and cable news in the aftermath, but it didn't lead to anything but a few minutes of airtime. She was still a restaurant server. Customers didn't recognize her anymore. Though the police had said they might need to follow up, it was a week later and they hadn't tried to get in touch, and Charlene assumed that they wouldn't require any more of her insight.

  She and Gertie were cordial to each other, and not in a phony, overly formal way. They even joked around a bit, though never about the actual incident. But they didn't hang out after work, and if Gertie did make that offer, Charlene would decline. She wasn't sure yet if she'd fabricate an obviously fake excuse or just tell Gertie point-blank that she wasn't interested.

  She got together with Megan once more, and then they mutually stopped contacting each other. Charlene was okay with a completely superficial, "only about the sex" encounter every once in a very long while, but for the most part it wasn't her thing. She liked Megan well enough, but she'd never date her, and she knew Megan felt the same way, so they settled for a couple of orgasm-packed nights and then cheerfully went their separate ways again.

  Tonight her plans were to stay home and read. She ordered a pizza and checked her e-mail. Only one message stood out amongst the spam:

  Hi, Charlene! Warren Taywood here. I wanted to wait for things to calm down for you before I got in touch. I'm starting a new web series called "Deep Dive Into Heroism," where we do an hour-long look at people like you who risked their own lives to save others. Very uplifting and inspiring stuff, but not sappy. We're a small startup venture, but there would be some pay involved, and you'd get to tell your story in more than a sound bite. I'd love to meet for dinner (my treat!) and I can give you an overview of my vision for the project. If you're interested, let me know your availability and we'll set something up. Thanks! – Warren.

  She considered just ignoring it, but decided to write back.

  Thanks for thinking of me. I'm not really interested in talking about my experience, so I'll have to pass. Sorry.

  Before the pizza arrived, he'd responded.

  I understand. However, I think you'll like the approach I'm going to take with the material. It won't be exploitative or sensationalized. It'll be a very respectful project, focusing on you as a person and not dwelling on any of the gory details. I'd also let you see the episode before it went live, and if you REALLY weren't comfortable with it I simply wouldn't upload it. (I can make that promise because I'm sure you'd be happy with it.) If nothing else, you can get a free meal out of giving me the opportunity to describe the project in person. You pick the restaurant. Appetizers and dessert included. Please consider it. – Warren.

  Charlene wrote back immediately.

  No.

  She closed the lid of her laptop. The pizza arrived a few minutes later, and she settled in for a night of pepperoni, extra cheese, and erotica.

  * * *

  Thanks, Warren, typed Gertie. I'd be interested in discussing this further. I work until 10:00 PM for the next three nights, so a lunch meeting would work better. As long as I'm done by around 1:30 PM I can get together anytime this week.

  * * *

  Ken frowned at the computer screen. What the hell was Charlene Fox's problem? Uptight bitch. He could solve that problem with money. If he told her that his investors had authorized a payment of, say, five thousand dollars, she'd at least meet with him. He had to wait, though. Didn't want to seem too desperate and make her think he had an ulterior motive. He sent back a polite e-mail thanking her and asking her to let him know if she changed her mind. He'd follow up later. He was in no hurry.

  The other girl was also a problem. He didn't want to meet her for lunch. He wanted their conversation to end after dark. In a perfect world, he wouldn't meet her at a restaurant at all, but he couldn't imagine that she'd show up at a private location to speak with him. If she was that dumb, he probably wouldn't even kill her, knowing that her own day-to-day existence was enough of a struggle.

  Actually, he wrote back, I've got a lot going on this week and it might be better to wait until Thursday anyway. Can you do 6:00?

  He glanced at what he'd written. That didn't sound desperate, did it? Would she question his motive? If she pushed back, he'd go with a lunch meeting, which he'd use to put her at ease so he could set up another meeting for a future and more dangerous time.

  He sent the e-mail.

  Stared at his screen until she replied.

  That works!

  You pick the place, he typed. I'll be there at 6:00.

  Red Lobster?

  See you there!

  * * *

  For the next three days, Ken paid only quick visits to the basement after work. It helped keep Vivian off his ass and made his home life a little more bearable. He even wished he could do it on an extended lunch break, but Darrell had daytime dibs on the house Monday through Friday unless Ken specifically made plans ahead of time. Ken had shown up once, only a couple of weeks after they started renting the house, and Darrell had coerced him into videotaping the encounter, using an actual VHS recorder to ensure that nothing could accidentally get uploaded to the internet. It had not been a pretty sight. It wasn't anything Ken wanted to see in the first place, but they'd mostly stuck with missionary, which meant that his primary visual was Darrell's enormous gyrating ass. After that, he made it a point to respect their schedules.

  So he went after work, staying only long enough to water Olivia and watch her for a few minutes.

  She'd succumbed to madness by now, and it was a glorious thing to witness. He could tell there was a movie playing in her mind, and it wasn't a happy musical. When she spoke, she made no sense. Sometimes it was a string of random words, and sometimes it was pure gibberish. If he'd recorded it and played it for somebody, they'd be so creeped out they wouldn't sleep for days.

  With all of his victims, he wondered what they'd do if he let them out of the cage. Not much, obviously, but would they just lie there? Would they try to make their arms and legs work in a feeble, clearly doomed effort to drag themselves to the door?

  It would be compelling to watch. A beautiful sight. But it was a pain to get them into the cages, and having them desperately flail around on the filthy basement floor wasn't part of his overall plan. They could get hurt. If they got hurt, they could die sooner. He didn't want that.

  Researchers would probably be fascinated by what he was doing. There really weren't many opportunities to study a healthy, well-fed person as they suffered through a complete lack of any nourishment whatsoever. It would be very difficult for a scientist to observe this process without giving the person a sandwich every once in a while. Really, he should be writing down detailed notes and taking daily pictures of their failure to thrive. Make a photographic diary as their bodies devoured themselves from the inside.

  But...no. This was for him and him alone.

  * * *

  Ken made a halfhearted attempt to initiate sex that Vivian rejected. That didn't bother him. He was in the mood for a blowjob, but Vivian would want reciprocation, and he was not in the mood for that. They just sat up in bed, watching television.

  "I've got a date tomorrow," he said.

  "What?"

  "Remember those girls who tried to catch me? The ones who got that guy to shoot himself?"

  Vivian spent a few seconds trying to find the remote control. She picked it up and muted the television. "Of course I remember them. What do you mean, you have a date?"

  "One of them thinks I'm interested in doing a TV show about her. We're meeting for dinner tomorrow. So I'll be home late."

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  "Why doesn't it surprise me that you're about to overreact?"

  "Overreact?" asked Vivian. "You just told me that you're going to meet a girl for dinne
r and then strangle her and you think I'm overreacting?"

  "I never said I was going to strangle her."

  "Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. My mistake. So you've become a television producer now, huh?"

  "I told her it was a web series. I think that's more believable. I'm going to gain her trust. If things work out and I can do it safely, yeah, she gets to be Victim #9. But more likely than not I'm just setting the stage for getting her in the future. Building her trust. She won't go anywhere with me tomorrow, but if I can convince her that I'm legitimate and we set up a place for filming, maybe she'll drop her guard and show up."

  "What happened to the whole idea of random victims only?"

  "That's still my overall plan. I think this is worth making an exception, don't you?"

  Vivian just gaped at him. "No. I absolutely do not. She's exactly the kind of person where you don't make an exception. The police know she was trying to lure you into attacking her. If she disappears, they'll know who did it."

  Ken shook his head. "No, they'll know that the mystery man kidnapping women did it. They won't know it's me."

  "It adds a connection to you. She'd tell people about you. You didn't have multiple encounters with any of the others. This is getting too close."

  "Have a little faith in me, Viv. I'm not telling her my real name. I'll be wearing a disguise."

  "Do you really think witnesses couldn't identify you just because you had a fake beard?"

  "It's a gigantic fake beard. With that and the glasses, no, people who would have no reason to try to remember my face won't recognize me." He also liked to wear a conspicuous bandage. If somebody said that he had a bandage on his neck, but had no wound there if he was questioned out of disguise, it was one more detail to throw them off the track. "I'm not going to take any chances. If we meet more than once and I think the second time is too risky, I'll drop the whole idea. She gets to live."

  "So it's just one of them?"

  "Yeah. The one who wore the wig. The other one said no."

  "Where are you meeting her?"

  "Red Lobster."

  "Did she pick it?"

  "Yeah."

  "So she could be a regular there?"

  Ken hesitated. "Maybe."

  "So people could recognize her? Maybe a favorite waiter? People who could say, 'Oh, I wonder who she's with?' Those kinds of people?"

  "I wanted her to choose the place so she'd feel more comfortable. She'd have no reason to be suspicious. I wanted her to know that we'd be in a safe, public spot."

  "Well, that's good for her, but that could blow up in your face. I don't care if your fake beard covers your entire face, you don't have dinner with a victim where people might know her. That's just idiotic. How did you get in touch with her?"

  "E-mail?"

  "A secure address?"

  "Of course."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No, honey, I created a Gmail account that any teenage hacker could trace back to me. Jesus. I know how to keep my messages private."

  "I'm sure you do."

  Ken glared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Are you going to try to have sex with her after your little date?"

  "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

  "Did it make you laugh?"

  "No, I'm not going to try to have sex with her. Nor did I try to have sex with any of the others. I can't believe you'd even say that to me. Is that why you're so upset? Because you think I'm cheating on you?"

  "I'm upset because you're taking a suicidal risk. You're going to get caught. You swore to me that they'd all be random victims. You're still getting your little 'long dark hair' fetish in there—"

  "That's coincidence."

  "—but they'd all be strangers. No friends. No co-workers. No casual acquaintances."

  "She's not any of those things."

  "She becomes a casual acquaintance when you have dinner together at her favorite restaurant and then make plans to meet again in the future. It's too dangerous. Do you think I want to be known as the wife of a serial killer? What do you think that will do to my life? Jared's life? Can you imagine the hell we'll go through if you get caught? Are you giving any consideration to your family?"

  "I wouldn't tell anybody that you knew."

  "Well, no, you probably wouldn't have the chance, because you'd go down in a hail of police gunfire. I'd like to think that while you lay on the sidewalk choking on your own blood your final words wouldn't be to rat me out."

  "Okay, you know what, I feel like this has stopped being a reasonable conversation."

  "I'm not worried about going to prison as your accomplice. I'm worried about having the man I married be exposed as a psychopath who strangles women."

  "You think I'm a psychopath?"

  "Are you under the impression that people won't call you a psychopath?"

  "I'm asking what you think."

  "Ken, we've been through this. Don't go getting your fragile feelings hurt. You know what point I'm trying to make. I know what it takes to bring you peace inside, and I support you, but this is outside of the bounds of our agreement."

  Ken was silent for a moment. "I understand what you're saying. I do. It makes perfect sense. But it really, truly upset me to see those girls on the news. I can't get it out of my mind. It keeps me up at night. I can't focus at work. I have to do something about it."

  Vivian put her hand on his leg. "Then be smarter about it. We'll meet in the middle. You have to take her someplace where people don't know her. If that means she gets too suspicious to meet you, then you'll just have to suck it up. But you're not asking her to come out to a cabin in the woods with you. It's a restaurant. Pick one neither of you have been to before. If she's on such high alert that she won't go to a new restaurant, then it's too dangerous for you to meet her."

  "What do I tell her?"

  "You tell her, hey, how about this other restaurant instead? Again, if it's a huge red flag for her, then it should be a huge red flag for you. You pick a place where neither of you will be recognized and you get a booth in the back. You make her feel comfortable. If she doesn't want alcohol, you buy whatever fancy non-alcoholic drinks they have, and keep ordering them for yourself and encouraging her to have them as well. At some point she'll get up to pee. Drug her drink. Get her to the car. Drive her someplace secluded and do the deed. Bury the body."

  "All right."

  "But if you can't get a booth in the back where nobody is watching you, and if she doesn't get up to go to the bathroom, or if she gives any indication that she doesn't believe you're some YouTube content provider, you ditch the whole idea. I mean it. Any indication. If she raises an eyebrow and you can't specifically identify why that eyebrow went up, you abort the mission. If you get the faintest tingling of your Spidey-sense, it's done. She goes free. Does that sound fair?"

  Ken had to admit that it did. "Yes," he said. "It sounds completely fair."

  "I still think it's a bad idea, but if you promise to stick to that plan, I won't stand in your way."

  "I won't veer from the plan at all. It's a brilliant plan." He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "I wouldn't do anything to put our family in jeopardy. I care about you and Jared too much."

  "I'm trusting you."

  "I won't betray that trust. And I wasn't going to try to have sex with her. I'm not even going to flirt with her. She'll know me as a web series producer, and then her executioner. That's it."

  "I'm glad," said Vivian.

  They kissed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Hi, Gertie! It turns out that one of my investors will be in town on Thursday, so I've got a meeting with her that'll keep me from making it to Red Lobster by six. I'm not sure where you're located, but what if we switched to the Shellfish Grotto? That's near Hornbeam Ridge, so I know you've driven out that way before. :) Not that I'm a snob, but it's much better seafood and it's not a chain. If that doesn't work for you, we can figure something else out. Sorry for the inconvenience
! –Warren

  * * *

  I hadn't heard of The Shellfish Grotto, but I just read some online reviews and it sounds fantastic. A lot more expensive than Red Lobster, though. Are you sure? We can always just push our meeting back to later in the evening. I have nowhere else to be.

  * * *

  Hi, Gertie! Thank you for thinking about my pocketbook. (Do people say "pocketbook" anymore? Do you even know what that is? LOL.) Though I'd like to pretend that I'm such a sweetheart that I'm paying for this fine expensive meal out of my own bank account, it's actually counted in the production costs of the show, so my investors are picking up the tab! I should've suggested it in the first place. –Warren

  * * *

  Sounds great, then. Looking forward to it!

  * * *

  Ken waved to Gertie as the server led her to his booth. He'd arrived at the restaurant half an hour early to increase his chances of getting a table in the back, without Gertie knowing that he'd specifically requested one. He agreed with Vivian that there could be absolutely no suspicion on Gertie's part if he was going to get away with this, so he wasn't taking any chances. And if he had to abandon the plan...well, he'd probably do it. His criteria for when it was time to let her escape might not be as stringent as Vivian's, but he wasn't going to be careless about it.

  She was wearing a fancy dress and make-up, like she was out on a date or wanted to look like she was ready for the cameras. She was actually pretty damn hot when she wasn't wearing that stupid wig.

  Ken stood up to greet her. "Hi, I'm Warren," he said, shaking her hand. "Great to meet you."

  "Great to meet you, too. I'm Gertie, obviously."

  They slid into opposite sides of the booth. Ken gestured to the drink menu that was on her side. "Order whatever you want."