All Fall Down (23 page)

“That's a good thing.” He glanced over his shoulder, then pulled into traffic. “Of course, I would have preferred ‘Oh, Connor, you make me so hot,' but this laugh thing will do.”

Groaning, she brought a hand to her eyes. “Are you ever serious?”

“I'm always serious.”

“Connor?”

“Hmm?”

“About that kiss—”

“Mistake, right?”

“Right.”

“Thought so. But it did rock your world?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Big time.”

“Thank God. Now my male ego's intact.” He exited onto I-85, heading west. “What do you say we go run some names through the computer?”

T
he motel room stank of cigarettes—the smell had permeated everything, even the walls. It stank of something else as well, something subtle but sour, an odor that defied contemplation.

Boyd lay on the stinking mattress, naked, wrists and ankles bound by rope to the bed's four corners. He attempted to move his limbs, but they were bound too tightly, so tightly his fingers and toes tingled from lack of circulation.

He nearly ejaculated just thinking of the restraints. Of his helplessness.

“Naughty boy,” she murmured, dragging her long, pointed fingernails up the shaft of his erect penis. “You may not come. Do you understand? If you do, you will be punished.” To mark her words, she brought her hand to his testicles and squeezed.

He groaned and arched his back. He didn't know which excited him more, her threat of punishment or the painful pressure she exerted on his testes.

Pain. Submission. Being dominated and punished. That's what drove him.

His lady in leather knew that. She held the key to his personal universe just as surely as she had held his testicles the moment before.

She checked his bonds, then blindfolded him. “I have surprises for you tonight,” she said softly. “Good ones. Ones that will make you weak. And dizzy. And totally mine.”

He groaned again, a shudder of ecstasy rippling over him. He knew the rules. He was not allowed to speak during their time together. He could not express his likes, dislikes or expectations. He was never to attempt to lead. To disobey meant swift, severe punishment. The worst being the immediate cessation to their game.

He couldn't bear that. Not tonight.

Because tonight, he had promised himself, would be the last time with his lady. Because of Mia's threat. Because he knew that if he continued on his present course, he would be discovered. And, as had happened in Charleston, he would be quietly dismissed.

If he was as lucky as last time. Charleston General hadn't wanted to be at the center of a nasty sex scandal. The hospital hadn't wanted any of his patients to learn the kind of man who'd been entrusted to operate on them.

They had decided that discretion was the better part of valor, had provided him a glowing letter of recommendation and sent him on his way.

It had been he who had come up with the story about a wife, her sudden death, his needing a fresh start in a new city.

How many fresh starts were available to a man racing toward fifty?

“Now, for your first surprise.”

He heard a sound he recognized from years of sur
gery—latex surgical gloves being fitted on. He turned his head in the direction of the sound. He wanted to ask her about the gloves, her plans. He suppressed the questions, a flicker of fear igniting in the pit of his gut.

The fear excited him. Made him go hot, then cold—it made him sweat.

His arousal became nearly unbearable.

Boyd didn't recognize the next sound he heard, not until he felt the length of heavy tape being placed over his mouth. Duct tape, he thought, judging by its weight and the way it felt against his skin.

He wanted to protest, but could not. He wanted to warn her that the tape might leave a mark. A mark he could not afford.

But speaking was now impossible.

His fear took on a clammy, desperate edge. The reality of his predicament, his total helplessness, grabbed him by both the throat and balls.

He quivered with anticipation. With excitement.

“Do you remember,” she whispered, bending her face close to his ear, “the night we first met? Do you remember how I told you it would be so good you would wish you were dead? Tonight you get your chance, love.”

For a moment Boyd lay still, her words ricocheting through his brain. They mixed weirdly with his arousal, his growing panic, his certainty that something was about to go terribly awry with his life.

It was part of the game, he told himself, even as his heart rate accelerated. A part of his fantasy. A way to heighten their pleasure.

It wasn't real.

“I've studied the dying process,” she murmured. “For you. Because you're a doctor and I thought I should know. After all, I wouldn't want to disappoint. I wanted this time…this last time, to be the best you ever had.”

He drank in her words, half terrified, half exhilarated. Confused. He couldn't remember—had he told her this would be their last night together? He must have, otherwise, how could she have known?

“Do you believe in heaven, Boyd? In hell? In divine retribution for earthly sins?” She climbed onto the bed beside him. Though she didn't touch him in any way, he felt her presence, hovering over him like a bird of prey. “Or do you believe that when death comes, nothing follows. Just a rotting corpse and an ungodly smell.”

She laughed lightly and trailed her latex-encased fingernails up the shaft of his penis. “All this talk of death excites you, doesn't it? Or is it the knowledge that you are completely at my mercy that excites you? The knowledge that your life is mine to do with as I please?”

She curled her fingers around his erection and stroked with increasing pressure, bringing him to the brink before she clamped her hand tightly around his testicles.

The tape silenced his gasp of pain.

She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “I must get back to the issue at hand. Your imminent demise.”

She eased the pillow from under his head. “As I
understand it, my love, there's a sequence of events that leads to what's called the terminal state. This sequence can take from five to thirty minutes, depending on the cause. The sequence can vary, again depending on the cause. But it always involves loss of consciousness, cessation of the heart and lungs. And finally, brain death.

“Now, what did the book say about that?” She paused, as if to recall the words exactly. “At this phase, the brain is terminally silenced. The legal description of death. But you know that.”

She leaned closer, her breath stirring against his cheek. “I'm not boring you, am I? I know this must be old hat to you, but for me it's all rather fascinating. Grisly…morbid, but fascinating nonetheless.”

Fear exploded inside him. He began to tremble, to struggle against his ropes. He didn't like this fantasy anymore. He wanted her to release him. He wanted her to reassure him.

Instead, she laid the pillow over his face, holding it firmly in place, counting aloud. To ten. Twenty. Thirty.

Pinpoints of light danced behind his eyes and his lungs screamed for oxygen.

She removed the pillow and he sucked in air greedily through his nose, nearly sobbing with relief.

“The sequence I'm most interested in is yours, darling. You see, in suffocation, the heart continues beating for several minutes after the person loses consciousness due to brain anoxia—the total absence of oxygen.”

She laid the pillow over his face again, held it there
for a count of fifteen, then drew it away. “No wonder you became a doctor, the human machine is so incredible. I found that fact, about the heart continuing to beat, amazing. I really did.”

She sighed. “But enough about me and my studies. We're here for you tonight. This is your special night.”

He felt her move, as if to lay the pillow over his face again and he sucked in a deep breath. Instead, she merely readjusted herself, as if to get more comfortable. Boyd let the breath out, quivering at the reprieve.

“What will it be like, I wonder?” she mused. “Will you feel each of your organ centers shutting down? Will you see your own death, like watching the lit numbers on an elevator panel, going down and down until there are no more floors to visit?”

His terror knew no bounds. Boyd struggled to keep his panic at bay, knowing that hyperventilating wouldn't do him any good at all. This was a game, he told himself. A staged scenario to heighten his pleasure. It would be over soon. And then, he promised, never again.

“If you could speak, what would your last words be? Ones of apology? Pleas for forgiveness?” Her voice hardened. “Or selfish ones begging for another chance?”

She moved then, quickly. She angled herself over his body, her leather garments cool against his fevered skin. Using her forearm, she pressed a pillow over his face, bearing down hard, with her free hand she grabbed hold of his erection and began pumping.

The sensation was incredible, dizzying. Within sec
onds his lungs began to burn, the pressure in his brain matched that of his loins, building, welling, readying to explode.

She would lift the pillow. Any moment…any moment.
His brain screamed for oxygen, his hips bucked up off the bed and he orgasmed violently.

Remove the pillow! Now…now, before it's too—

And then Boyd realized the reason for the tape. It was to muffle his screams for help.

He screamed anyway. The sound reverberated nowhere but inside his own head.

C
onnor's call had come in just as Melanie arrived at headquarters for the day. There had been another murder, he had told her. She needed to get to the scene, ASAP.

He had refused to say more, simply giving her the address and hanging up.

Now she knew why.

Melanie stood in the motel room's doorway, gaze fixed on the bed, on the corpse stretched out in a death bow. Her sense of déjà vu was so strong it disoriented her—she had done this exact thing, stood in a spot similar to this one a handful of months ago.

Only then she had been staring at the corpse of a woman. A victim who had been a stranger to her.

Dear God… Dear God…
The words, the prayer, ran repeatedly, endlessly through her head, along with a kind of silent, unspeakable denial. These things didn't happen to people she knew. Crimes like these only touched other, less fortunate families.

Connor touched her arm. “You okay?”

She looked at him and shook her head, emotion choking her. “He was my…brother-in-law.”

“I know. I recognized him from a couple of family photographs I saw at your place.”

Melanie turned her back to the scene, struggling to regain her composure. She breathed deeply and slowly through her nose, concentrating on the oxygen moving in and out, until she felt her equilibrium returning.

Dear Jesus, how was she going to tell Mia? How was she going to make this okay for her?

Taking one last, deep breath, she returned to Connor's side. He was methodically examining the area around the bed. She kept her gaze trained on him.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“I'm not going to faint or puke, if that's what you mean by better. At least not at this moment.”

“That's a plus.”

Pete Harrison strolled over. “May, Parks tells me you can positively ID Prince Charming here.”

“That's right.” She curved her arms across her middle. “His name's Boyd Donaldson. Head of surgery at Queen's City Medical Center. He was my brother-in-law.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Shit.”

He plucked a small spiral-bound notebook from his breast pocket. “You know he was into this kinky stuff?”

“No.”

“How about your sister? She into—”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You know anything about their marriage?”

“It was in trouble. She confided that he was having an affair.”

“She give you a name?”

“No.”

“And she was upset about his infidelity?”

“He was her husband. You figure it out.”

He arched his eyebrows. “No need to get testy.”

“Actually,” she countered, “I think there is. While you're playing Twenty Questions, I'm not only grappling with the fact that my brother-in-law's been murdered, but with how I'm going to tell my sister. Cut me some slack, okay?”

He looked sheepish. “Sorry, Melanie. Just a couple more questions. Do you think she knew he was into bondage?”

“You'll have to ask her.”

“When did you last speak to your sister?”

Melanie thought a moment. “About a week, week and a half ago.”

“You normally go so long without talking?”

“No. Typically we speak every day or two.” Before he could ask, she added, “The Dark Angel investigation's been keeping me busy.”

The words sounded lame to her, even though the investigator muttered something about having been there and done that. Why hadn't they spoken more? she wondered. How had they gone from inseparable to distant in a matter of a few short weeks?

Feeling unsettled, she refocused on the investigator. “I'm sorry, Pete. What did you say?”

“We'll need to talk to her. The sooner the better.”

“Of course.” Melanie glanced at Connor. He sat on his haunches beside the bed, staring into space, his expression pensive. She frowned. She had worked with him long enough now to recognize the look—that incredible brain of his was chewing on some ob
servations, trying to make sense of something that didn't add up.

She wondered what it was.

Melanie returned her attention to the CMPD investigator. “I'd like to be the one to tell my sister. Considering the circumstances, it seems appropriate.”

“Agreed.” He indicated his partner, who was across the room working with the evidence-collection team. “Roger and I will come along.”

Hearing his name, the other man ambled over. He glanced down at Connor, smirking. “Hell of a breakthrough, wouldn't you say, Parks? We needed something to revive this case. Now we've got it. Big time.”

“This case,” Melanie knew, referred to Joli Andersen's murder, which had reached a stone-cold dead end.

Connor stood. “Looks can be deceiving. I wouldn't notify the press or Cleve Andersen just yet.”

The man flushed. “You know what, Parks, I've had it up to here—” he motioned the top of his head, “—with your hocus-pocus bullshit. None of it has moved this investigation any closer to an arrest. This scene is an exact replica of the Andersen scene, down to the bottle of champagne.”

“Exactly,” Connor murmured. “A replica.”

Melanie looked at Connor, surprised. “You're thinking copycat?”

The investigator ignored her and ticked off the similarities. “Both victims were tied spread-eagle to the bed, bound by wrists and ankles to the corners. Both were suffocated with a pillow, their mouths sealed
with duct tape. Both were subjected to artificial penetration, postmortem.”

“You assume.”

“I think it's goddamned obvious, but until the medical examiner does his thing, yes, I'm assuming.”

“You have more?” Connor asked. “Because so far, I'm underwhelmed.”

“You bet your ass I have more. Both murders occurred in cut-rate motels around the midnight hour. Then there's the matter of the duct tape and champagne, both details held from the media.”

“And the blindfold?” Connor asked. “I don't recall Joli Andersen being blindfolded.”

Roger Stemmons's face went from merely flushed to positively florid and Pete laid a hand on his arm, as if to restrain him. “His ritual is evolving,” he said. “They do. You of all people should know that.”

A uniform came up to Pete. “I spoke with the desk clerk on last night's shift,” he said. “Said he rented the room to Dr. Donaldson at 11:35 p.m. Saw a car exit the lot around 1:00 a.m. A blond woman at the wheel. Didn't get a plate number, but thinks the car was a midsize sedan, dark color.”

The man glanced down at his notes. “Not a beater but not new either. His words.”

Pete turned to Melanie. “Your sister a blonde like you?”

She bristled at the implication. “Exactly like me.”

“Let's go have a chat with her, then.”