Snuff (6 page)

EIGHTEEN

Lisette barrels through the door when Jack’s wiping vomit off my lips.  She takes one look and orders him away.  He argues, but she won’t hear i
t and herds him out the door.  “Are you okay?”  She sits in the chair.  “You must have a stomach bug.”

Something like that.

She ties her hair in a knot at the back of her head.  “It wasn’t hard seeing him, right?” 

I’ve had more demanding tasks recently, but this one still wasn’t easy.  Lying is my only option, though. 
“No.”

Her eyes flit between mine like she
senses I’m insincere. She takes my hand in both of hers.  “Okay.  I’m sorry we keep getting interrupted.  Was this dick serious about the ‘consulting with his sponsor’ thing, or was he just being a sarcastic fuckwad?”

***

“No, don’t look at me like that, girls. He’s watching.  We don’t want to let him down, right? He specifically requested ones like you.”

Abby’s breathing accelerates.

“If you keep grabbing her hand like that you’re going to give some of us the wrong idea, Abigail.”

That he knows her name—that he even
uses
it—is simultaneously frightening and infuriating.  I can’t hold back a retort.

“You’re a sick fuck.” I ignore Abby’s knuckle-crushing hand spasm. “And you’re not going t
o get away with this.”  I don’t know why I bother with empty threats.  Obviously I can’t back them up, but I’ve always had a hot temper.  Jack says it’s the Irish blood in me, but he’s Irish too, and rarely loses his cool. “Do you get off on kidnapping girls because you can’t get one into bed without sneaking up behind and hitting them over the head? You keep us in the dark and won’t show your face because you’re
ashamed
of yourself.  With good reason too, I bet.  You’re pathetic.”

The silence that falls is thicker than oatmeal I dish out during breakfast shifts, but it’s emboldening the longer it lasts.  I must be right on in my assumptions.

“That’s a pretty speech,” he finally says in a prettier voice.  “But I’ve broken more willful than you, Brooke.”

NINETEEN

“How’s it going?” Stacy asked. “Did you make any new friends?  Are the locals giving you a hard time?
Mommy misses you.”

John rolled his neck until he felt it crack and headed bac
k toward the conference room. “It’s not been too bad.  The girls are being filmed while they’re held, which is worrying.”

“What a winner. Just the guy I’d want to bring home.  You think he’s some freaky voyeur?”

“Voyeurs get off on spying without the victims knowing.  These girls know they’re being filmed, so the voyeur thing seems null. He’s got to have some other agenda.”

“So you want me to dig into the seedy underbelly of the internet
and figure out if he’s posting videos, that’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”  He pushed through the hospital’s conference room and took a seat in a chair at the oval table.  “The abducted women range in body type, coloring, he even crosses racial lines.  I can’t imagine any one man having such vast tastes.  The cameras have to be there for more than just him.”

“Hey, some men love all types of women.  Variety is the spice of life, baby.”

“I’ve just heard that from another woman.  Not the ‘baby’ thing.  You all love to argue with me.”  He stabbed the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. “What I mean is I think he’s taking requests.  I have no idea if
he’s being paid, but from what I’ve seen from the ME reports, his fractured methods of murder don’t add up unless he’s psychotic, and the kidnappings prove that isn’t the case.”

“You really don’t think men can have varying tastes in women?”

“Have you listened to a thing I’ve said?”

“Yes, more than one man, not psychotic, kidnappings prove it.  Really though?  You don’t have varying tastes in women?  What’s your type, then, smarty pants?  Would you rather go for the blonde damsels-in-distress in James Bond movies, or
the brunettes who always pull weapons on him?”

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

“You’re no fun.  I’ll call you when I find something.”

TWENTY

Lisette cradles her chin in one hand and sweeps me with a golden gaze.  “He says exactly that? ‘
He’s watching’?”

I nod.

Her brows crash into each other.  “Watching what?  Up till then you and Abby had just been sitting in the dark, right?”

Pretty much.  “He didn’t say anything else.  But Abby’s throat was really dry.  She was thirsty.  I’m not sure how long she was there, but he didn’t give her anything.  I kept yelling until he came back, but it didn’t happen for hours.”

***

“You’ve got quite the set of lungs,” he says after I’ve screamed myself hoarse. “I know a few people who appreciate a screamer.”

I bet he’s one of them.

“If you want us to do…whatever it is you want us to do, you have to feed us. Give us water.  We’ll dehydrate and die in days if you don’t.”

“Thank you for the anatomy lesson. If you want something you’ll have to earn it.”

I don’t need water that badly, but Abby’s been rasping
, and I can’t let her suffer.  Who knows how long she’s been here?  Our concept of time isn’t exactly accurate. “What do you want?”

“I’ll let you know.”  I hear him tapping in the background, the same noise Jack makes when he’s typing lab reports.  “
My friend is full of ideas.”

That sounds like it could take a while, and Abby needs water
now
. “What do you want, hmm?  You want me to take my clothes off?”  I’m not thrilled with the idea, but every actress slash waitress has had to do a few ‘tasteful’ nude modeling shots.  And it’s still black in here.  I won’t even notice I’m naked after enough time passes.

“That would be a good starting point.”

My work uniform smells like the French Onion soup I spilled all over it the night I was taken.  I stand and lift it over my head, my hair snagging on the buttons.  A hand snares around my ankle.  I know its Abby’s weak attempt at protesting, but as far as torture goes, this is hardly something to get worked up over.

There it is again.  A tin
y mechanical
whir
.  He must be zooming in on the merchandise. Nice try pleasing your
fan
, freakshow.  On a good day, in my best push-up bra, I’m a 34B.  Not prime jerking material.  

I fling my shirt to the floor. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Abby coughs.

I yank down the zipper on my khakis.  “You can get the next one.  I’m fine.” The metal clasp on my pants
pings
on the concrete when I kick them off my feet. 

The unmistakable crinkling a cigarette makes after a deep drag fills his end of the speaker.  I haven’t smoked in six months.  Jack wouldn’t let up until I quit—I’d smoked like a locomotive, but when we got serious, so did his lectures.  I couldn’t listen any longer or look at one more
picture of burned black lungs, no matter my cravings for that harsh puff of tar on the back on my tongue.

“That’s a very nice offering, Brooke. Maybe you can do a little twirl.”

I flip him off with both hands instead. 

He laughs. “Feisty and a screamer.  We’ve hit the motherload.”

Something creaks above my head.  I don’t know why I bother trying to see where it’s coming from, but I hear the object arc through air before it bounces off the ground.  Liquid sloshes.  I drop to my knees and grope until my fingers hit condensation sweating on a plastic bottle.  When I crawl back to the wall, I read Abby’s face like braille until feeling her cracking lips. 

“Drink it slowly,” I caution, twisting off the cap.  “It’s cold.”

Water splashes on my thighs as she takes a few messy gulps.  “Thank you.”

It’s hard for her to catch her breath after she swallows.  My spine melds to the shape of the tiled wall when I sag against it and screw the lid back on. I keep my legs sealed to limit what the audience of peeping toms get to see.

“Isn’t this darling,” he says with a happy sigh that speaks volumes of pleasant memories past. “Two days and you’re already bending over backward for each other.  Such fast friends.”

TWENTY-ONE

Lisette is irritated when a nurse comes to check on me.  I’m
fine with the interruption—it means I can plead my case one more time.

“Is Abby still in the morgue?”

She nods. “Her husband wants to cremate her when the medical examiner releases the body.”

A whole life reduced to ashes.  Maybe it’s what Abby would have wanted.  I’d love nothing more than to burn the canvas of my own life and start fresh. 

“Can I see her before they release her?”

She looks at me like I’m a
word in a crossword puzzle she can’t figure out.  “Nobody will allow that, Brooke.”

“Her husband got to see her.”

“Because he’s her
husband
.  He saw her face over a monitor—not inside the morgue—because he had to make official identification.  I don’t think I would have let him see her either, if it wasn’t for that.”  

I’m starting to get annoyed.  I’ve cooperated, haven’t I?  Helped as much as I possibly can while Velcroed down like a head case.  “She was my friend.”  Our goodbyes were pathetic, full of snot and tears and practically incoherent.
  “I just want to say goodbye.”

“I understand.  I really do.”

She’s lying.  It’s obvious.  What right does she have lying to me when I’ve been nothing but truthful?  “I really doubt that.” 

She’s not taken aback by the venom dripping from my words.  She looks at her hands, stretching skinny fingers against her other palm until the knuckles pop. “Six years ago my fiancé was out for a run.  I was in vice at the time, the worst pretend hooker in the world.  He dropped dead of a brain aneurism while I was in a motel room wearing a fucking tube top and spiked heels.  I didn’t get to say goodbye either.”   

The nurse flips through charts on a clipboard with her back turned.  “Brooke needs to rest now.”

“Give us a minute.”

Nurses must study that glare in school.  They all wear the same one when someone dares to disagree with them.  “I don’t think you heard me, Lisette.  Clearly she hasn’t had uninterrupted sleep for days.  Weeks, even.”

That must mean I look like death warmed over.  Dark circles, sallow skin, the whole enchilada.

“
Clearly
you don’t realize what’s at stake.  She’s all I have to find this douche, and I need a few more minutes.  I’ll arrest you for obstruction if you give me any trouble.  There’s a goddamn Sergeant in front of that Lisette.”

The nurse gives her a nasty look and swishes out the door.  Lisette turns to me once she’s left.  “How long were you naked?”

“I don’t know.  A few hours, I guess.  I put my clothes back on when he didn’t say anything for a while.”

“What happened when he came back?”

***

“Did you miss me, ladies?”

Like I miss geometry homework.

“If you keep glaring like that I might get angry, Brooke.  Maybe you need a little inspiration to find some proper respect.”

I’m not frightened by that sentiment, but Abby is.  Her lips find my ear.  “Don’t make him mad.  You don’t know what he’ll do.”

Taking stock of what’s happened so far, I decide he’s not as scary as Abby seems to think. Having to strip for water doesn’t even place on the scale of one to ten for torture. 

“Tell me why you feel you deserve respect when you’re a pervert voyeur?  How tough do you have to be to kidnap two girls?  How much strength does it take to whack us over the head when we’re not looking?  You’re up there acting like some nerdy God in front of a computer screen, but you don’t scare me. You’re nothing but a goddamn coward.  You need my pity more than my respect.”

Static pounds through his end of the speaker up there in his ivory tower.  It sounds like tapping on a microphone, a mindless bodily response while he dreams up something to say that might jolt me into submission.

“I can tell you’re an actress by these on-the-fly soliloquys. On the one hand, I think it’s cute. Endearing, almost.  My mother had a cat that was declawed.  She thought she was something to fear, hissing at anyone, everyone—but what could she do without a card to play or any weapons in her arsenal? If she’d been an outside cat, a coyote would have ripped her to shreds in a heartbeat. Which do you think you are? 

“What I mean to say is, your speeches are getting tiring, and I’m not in the mood.  Maybe it
’s time
you
started listening.”

I’m about to tell him I’d rather extinguish a chemical fire with my face than listen to him, when a surge of air blows through a crack
in the door that’s materialized at the top of the staircase.  I scramble to my feet as it swings shut. 

I can tell he’s smiling as he stands there.  It’s tangible, a bull in a China shop, shattering the nervous tension we’ve been marinating in for days.  Abby hauls herself to her feet, breathing like she’s nearing the finish line of a marathon. 

When methodical footsteps come closer, I fling my arm in front of her.  I don’t know why.  Jack does that when he’s got to slam on the brakes unexpectedly.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction. 

A buzz rockets around the place before my limbs turn numb and rigid.  A gasp of pain catches in the back of my throat but it doesn’t manage to escape my esophagus. Abby’s scream is audible.  She slams into the wall at the same time I crumple to my knees.  

“So he tased you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been tased before.  I must have hit my head.  I think I was knocked out for a little while.”

“And when you came to?”

When I came to Abby was screaming like her skin was on fire.