In Cold Blonde (22 page)

Actually, Alice’s
actress friend, Dawn, did some modeling in Denver and had told her all about
it.  “I did,” Alice said, turning her head from one side to the other like
she’d seen so many models do on TV.  “Mostly print ads for Khol’s Department
Store.”

 “You
should think about modeling in L.A.; you’re fabulous.”

“Thank you,”
she said, sweetly.

All right, Blake
thought.  Enough of this; she is a cold-blooded killer after all, don’t
get too cocky.  He lowered the camera.  “Time for that drink I
promised.”  He traded the Nikon for the bottle of Cakebread.  “Would
you get the glasses while I open the wine?”  He pointed to a row of wine
glasses hanging above the bar in the den.

“Sure,” she
said, turning for the bar. 

As soon as
her back was turned, Blake swung the bottle.

Alice sensed
the movement, started to turn but too late, the bottle whacked into the back of
her skull.  Her head snapped back and she went down.

Blake looked
down at the unconscious woman at his feet.  He’d done it! 

Now the fun
would begin.

Syd wrote
down a name: Blake Hunter.  

Could he be
the next victim, Syd wondered?  It was written on her yellow legal pad beneath
six other names:  Kris Adams, Jonathan Battle, Edward Bartowski, John
Crystal, Ted Dearborn, and James Eagleton.

Syd was alone
in the bullpen, comparing the names in the address books of Colin Wood and Adam
Devlin, and had found seven matches through the first five letters of the
alphabet.  And all seven names were also listed in the yearbook.  A
notation in Colin Wood’s appointment book explained it; they’d had a ten-year
high school reunion last year.  So they gotten together with all their old
friends and exchanged numbers.

Syd was sure
the names of other potential victims were on that list, but the way it was
going, there were going to be twenty or thirty names on the list before she
finished.  Far more names than she’d expected, which disappointed
her.  She was hoping the combination of the two address books and yearbook
would point her at just one or two people.  But even twenty or thirty
names did help narrow their focus and at this point, every little bit helped. 

Syd leaned
back in her chair and stretched.  She was stiff.    She
hadn’t been to the gym or dojo in almost a week.  She depended on her
workouts, not only to stay fit, but also to help throttle back her
stress.  And she could feel her anxiety level building.  Not the case
so much; Syd was confident they were close to finding the Lady in Red.  It
was Ryan.  Well, Ryan and Anne to be more precise.  Syd could live
with Ryan taking the Lotto money; she didn’t agree with it but she understood
the money’s irresistible appeal.  Hell, there was a fresh stack of
messages piled on Ryan’s desk from friends, relatives and complete strangers hitting
him up for some of that precious money.

Anne was
another story.  She was truly dangerous.

Syd’s cell
phone rang.  She answered.  “Syd Curtis.”

“It’s Alex
Cortez from Newport Beach.”

“Hey, how
you doing, Detective?”

“A little
frustrated to be honest.  I’ve come up empty on Colin Wood’s dad. 
His office says he is in seclusion due to the death of his son.  I stopped
by his house and he’s either not there or refusing to come to the door. 
Short of getting a warrant and breaking down the door, I’m not sure what else
we can do.”

Something
didn’t feel right.  “What kind of man won’t help the police find his son’s
killer?” asked Syd.

“One who
can’t deal with his feelings,” Cortez said, not convinced.  “Or has
something to hide.”

“Yeah, my
spidey sense is tingling, too.”

“I do have
some good news, though,” Cortez said.  “I showed the surveillance photo of
the Lady in Red to Zachary Stone’s assistant, and she positively ID’d her as
the woman who met him.”

“Great. 
And we’ve had some other interesting developments.”  She brought him up to
date on the interview with Emily Devlin and the yearbook discovery.  “I
should have twenty names or so by morning.  So far, half the numbers I’ve
found have OC area codes, so we could use your help contacting them.”

“You mean warning
them, don’t you?”

“And then
some.  Something happened in high school, I’m sure of it, some kind of
brutal humiliation or gang rape, something horrible enough for a woman to kill
and mutilate her attackers years later.  So if any of the guys we go see
were involved, they may lie about it.  I think we should do a lot more
than just warn these guys, we should interrogate them.”

“Good
point.”

“I’ll finish
some time tonight and email you a list of the OC names.  But here are two
to get you started tonight.”  Syd grabbed her list.  “Blake Hunter,
oh, wait, no, he lives in Malibu.  Here, Jonathan Battle and John
Crystal.”  She told him the phone numbers.

“Thanks,
Detective.  I’ll let you know what I find.  And hey, I hope we can
all actually meet face to face one of these days.”

“Oh, we’ll
meet,” Syd said.  “At the Lady in Red’s trial.”

Cortez
laughed.  “I like the way you think.  Have a good night.”

“Yeah, you,
too,” Syd said and hung up.

At the Lady
in Red’s trial, Syd thought.  They were going to catch her, Syd was more certain
of that than ever before.  But she wondered if they should be in such a
hurry.  As she just told Cortez, something dreadful went down eleven years
ago.  These guys must have done terrible things to the Lady in Red. 
Syd didn’t know why she waited so long to seek her revenge, but she understood,
firsthand, the Lady in Red’s
desire
for revenge.  Syd, herself, had
killed twice. 

Syd felt her
murders were justified.  In court she would probably be acquitted of
Ernesto’s murder; a self-defense plea would certainly fly.  But her
stepfather was another story.  She planned that one.  She intentionally
closed that garage door knowing the fumes would kill him, clearly pre-meditated
murder.      

And the
thing was, Syd had no regrets.  Given the chance, she would kill them both
again.   

Syd was sure
that the Lady in Red felt the same way.  Her murders are totally justified
in her mind.  The Lady in Red must know she’s going to get caught and has
decided that revenge is worth any incarceration or execution.

And here was
the irony; these boys broke the law when they attacked her in high school, but
didn’t get punished.  And now, because of
their
crime, the innocent
victim has become a serial killer.  Yeah, yeah, Syd knew that two wrongs
don’t make a right; but she also knew that sometimes revenge sure makes you
feel better.

  She
glanced at the clock, seven-fifteen; almost time for Ryan’s dinner meeting with
Anne at the Beverly Hilton.  And that meant it was time for Syd to take a break. 
Syd would get back to the appointment books later, but first, a little
surveillance.

On Ryan and
Anne.

Ryan would
freak if he found out, Syd knew.  But hey, a girl’s got to protect herself,
doesn’t she? 

Alice woke up with a start.  And then she panicked.  She was
blind.  Something was stuffed in her mouth, her hands were tied behind her
and her feet were bound.  She tried to scream, kicked her feet, fought to
free her hands.

“Take it easy, Alice, you’re going to hurt yourself,” a voice said. 
Blake’s voice.  And he called her Alice.  Shit, she thought, he knows
who I am.

He did indeed.  Blake had dragged Alice into his office after
knocking her out, and then grabbed a pair of handcuffs from his bedroom. 
Fur-lined, of course, and usually used for Blake’s kinkier call girls, but the
handcuffs were real so he pulled Alice’s arms behind her back, snapped the
cuffs snuggly around her wrists and slipped the key into his pocket.  He
used rope from his bedroom to bind her ankles.  The rope had been used to
bind feet before, but usually to his bedpost. 

And to Blake’s surprise, the whole thing was turning him on. 
“Freak,” he mumbled to himself, laughing at his own perversions.

He finished off by gagging her with a washcloth held in place with a
bandana then slipped her head inside a cloth, eco-friendly grocery bag from
Whole Foods.

She was out for a long time.  At first Blake was grateful as he used
the time to find the infamous video in one of the storage boxes stacked in his
office closet and set up his video camera.  After fifteen minutes, she was
still unconscious and he began to worry that he’d hit her too hard.  He
actually put his hand on her chest to check her breathing, and once he
determined it was slow but steady, he copped a quick feel of her tits. 
Very nice.

She finally woke up a few minutes later kicking and screaming into her
gag.  After he calmed her down, he pulled the sack off her head.  He
expected her eyes to be wild with fear, but instead they burned with a fierce
hatred as she continued to curse at him through the gag.   

“Whoa, throttle back the venom, dude,” Blake said.  “I’ll take the
gag off if you promise not to scream.  No one can hear you anyway, so
chill, Alice.  And if you’re nice, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

But Alice wasn’t done venting yet.  In an incomprehensible rant into
her gag, she bitched him out then called herself a fucking idiot for letting
him get the drop on her.  Finally, she leaned back against the wall, her
vitriol spent.  

“Feel better?”

He could clearly make out the half-hearted, but still muffled, “Fuck
you.”

Then Alice took in her surroundings.  She was on the floor of an
office placed in front of a big screen TV.  There was also a video camera
pointed at her.   What the hell?

“You’re wondering what I’ve got up my sleeve, aren’t you?  Well,
promise not to scream, I’ll take your gag off and we can talk about it.”

Alice realized yelling wasn’t going to get her anywhere so she
nodded.  Blake untied the bandana and removed the washcloth.  “My
head hurts,” she said. 

“I’m not surprised, you’ve got a lump the size of a softball on your
scalp.”

“Asshole.”  She didn’t yell, just a quiet statement of fact. 
Then she asked, “What’d you hit me with?”

“The bottle of wine.”

“Prick.”

“Wait a minute, you came here to kill me, right?  A man’s got a
right to self-defense.” 

“Cocksucker.”

“Funny you should say that,” Blake said.  “Because I’ve got a tape
here of someone sucking cock, but it’s not me, Alice, it’s you.”  Blake
hit a remote control and the video began to play.

A hand held camera sweeps across Colin Wood’s game room
and comes to rest on an unconscious Alice Waterman.  Adam and Colin kneel
next to her.  “Fuck, that shit works fast,” Colin says.  “Help me get
her on the pool table, Adam.”

They pick her off the floor and lay her on the pool
table.  Colin holds her neck but he lets go too soon and her head thuds on
the table.

“Careful,” Adam says, looking very uncomfortable. 
He looks directly into the lens.  “You sure taping this is a good idea, Blake?”

“It’s a brilliant idea, bro.  When we’re old and
gray and snorting Viagra, we’re going to cherish the chance to relive our glory
days.”

Blake froze the image and looked at Alice.  “How much of that night
do you remember?”

Alice stared at the screen.  At last.  The tape.  Answers.

“How much?” Blake repeated.

Alice knew she’d have to pretend to cooperate to see the tape, so she
said, “After I passed out, nothing.  Did you record everything that
happened to me that night?”

“Yes.”

The Lady in Red turned back to the frozen image.  “Let me see
it.  I want to know.”

Blake went over to the video camera aimed at Alice and turned it
on. 

Alice eyed the camera suspiciously.  “What’re you doing?”

“How would you like a chance to tell the whole world why you murdered
Colin Wood, Adam Devlin and Zachary Stone?  How would you like the whole
world to watch your reaction as you watch your own rape?”

“But you’re on that tape.  You’d be implicating yourself.”

“Actually, there is a ten year statute of limitations on rape in
California.  Our… party was shot
eleven
years ago.  So while
this tape confirms I was a sleazebag in high school, I won’t be putting myself
into any legal jeopardy.”

“You want to tape me watching myself get raped?  You are one sick
fuck.”

“No argument there, Alice.  But I’m also a filmmaker, and we’ve got
a chance here for a mind-blowing documentary.  Wouldn’t you like a chance
to set the record straight, tell the world in your own words why you decided to
kill those men. 
Show
the world what happened to you eleven years
ago.”

Yes, she thought.  “What happens after I watch the tape?”

“I interview you.  You walk us through each murder, the more detail
the better.”

“And then?”

Blake shrugged.  “I call the cops.”

“Kind of sucks for me.”

“I can’t let you go, Alice.  You’re a murderer.  Hell, you came
here to kill me, right?”

She nodded.

“And if I let you go, you’ll try again.”

“I see your point,” she said. 

“So, do we have a deal?”

Alice pretended to think about it.  She didn’t mind him turning her
over to the police.  Getting arrested had always been her plan, but only
after killing all
four
of the bastards.  So she needed time to
figure a way out of the handcuffs.  And, more than anything, she wanted to
see that video. 

She looked at Blake watching her expectantly.  God he looked
desperate.  She milked the suspense for a few more seconds and then said,
“Okay, you scumbag.  Deal.”

What a fucking coup!  This film was going to resurrect his movie
career.  Blake could hardly contain his glee.  He hit Play on the
remote.