Sugar & Spice (4 page)

“What the hell is this going on?” Kirkwood asked in a voice that quivered uncontrollably as he spoke.

“Welcome to the party, Charles,” Sam said, and zapped him with the baton.

Alex grabbed Heather and stopped her from running out the door. They used the plastic straps to tie up Kirkwood and the guard. Then they strapped Heather's ankles again.

Alex opened Kirkwood's briefcase and found a jewelry case, which contained a 10-karat choker littered with diamonds, and matching stud earrings. According to the enclosed MasterCard receipt signed by Jasper Hunter, the ensemble was worth $100,000.

The twins filled the champagne bucket with ice water, then hoisted their new captives on their shoulders, and carried them out to the bluffs.

Ice cold water splashed in the faces of Charles Kirkwood and the uniformed guard, waking them out of a forced hibernation. They opened their eyes and realized that they were at the cutting edge of an eight hundred-foot escarpment. Above them, a starry firmament and a full glowing moon.

“How shall we do it, boys?” Alex asked. “One at a time? Or all together?”

Charles Kirkwood was asking why when Sam pushed them both over the side, which caused his words to linger in the air as he plummeted downward and crashed into the waiting rocks.

The twins returned to the mansion and found Heather trying to escape again. Like a snake, she had slithered to the French doors in the foyer, somehow got on her feet, and was attempting to open the door.

Sam grabbed her arm. “Someone has been very naughty. And for that offense, you will be scourged until I grow weary of purging your transgressions against me. But first, I'm going to give you a small taste of what we had to endure to be here on this momentous occasion.”

After returning to the master bedroom, the twins closed the vertical blinds. Someone with a telescope could be watching them, and they needed privacy so that they could enjoy the moment they had waited for.

“You wanna hear some music, girls?” Alex asked, walking over to the wall-enclosed Kenwood stereo system to the left of the fireplace. “Let's see. What are our choices? Ah! Here's one I know you're going to enjoy.”

Alex put in the disc, hit a few buttons on the CD player, and turned the stereo volume up to almost full blast. A few seconds later, Janet Jackson's “Son of a Gun” began playing.

“Ha! Ha! Hoo! Hoo!…thought you'd get the money too… greedy muihafuekas try to have their cake and eat, too, “

Sam retrieved a pair of seamstress shears from the backpack and cut off Heather's designer clothing. Completely nude, she lay on the bed without moving, neither crying nor attempting to speak. She knew what was about to happen but believed that if she were a willing participant, she could barter for her life after the deed was done.

Sandra Rhodes and Paula Stevens had regained consciousness. Consumed with fear, warm tears mixed with mascara ran down their painted faces. The two women were trying to say something, but their words couldn't be distinguished from their muffled lamentations. They wanted to live, but when they saw the surgical gloves, they realized that they would not survive the night.

The twins peeled off their clothing and folded them neatly. It was an acquired habit formed in prison. They stood before their captives, proud of their manufactured physiques.

With every stitch of clothing discarded, the women could see that their pubic hair had been shaved, which confirmed their impending doom. They knew no DNA evidence would be left. There would be nothing to lead the police to their killers.

Stretching out on the floor, the twins pumped out their customary five-hundred pushups. Beads of sweat began to form on their muscular backs. Their chins touched the floor and they blew out a loud, “One!” Less than two minutes later, they were at fifty. Fifteen minutes after that they said, “Five hundred.”

The twins stood up. Their bodies glistened with perspiration, and their massive organs protruded outward. Their breathing had increased, but they were far from sucking wind. Having warmed themselves up, the twins grabbed the seamstress shears and cut away Heather's plastic strapping, but kept her mouth taped shut.

Sam put the diamond choker around Heather's neck, and then forced
the matching diamond studs into her ears. “Hope you like the gifts, Heather,” Sam said. “You can thank Jasper Hunter when you see him, which won't be too long from now.”

Heather was trying to say something. Alex removed the tape. “Any last words?”

“Please don't do this,” Heather said in a voice full of horror and dread. “I'll do anything you ask! Anything! I'll be your woman again, Alex. Please…please…please…let us live.”

“Sorry, baby. You're ten years too late,” Alex said, feeling a little sorry for her. “You gotta go.”

“Alex, did you really expect me not to have anyone for ten years—not even Sandra and Paula?”

“YOU DUMB HO!' Alex shouted. “DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THIS IS ABOUT YOU FUCKING JASPER HUNTER? YOU INSULT US!” With that, Alex re-taped her mouth.

“Do you believe her, Sam?” Alex asked.

“She's got a lot of fucking nerve, Alex,” Sam said.

Heather, Sandra, and Paula looked at each other strangely, as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing. Then Heather mumbled something that got the twins' attention. Alex pulled the tape off again.

“When's the last time you took your meds, Alex?” Heather asked desperately.

Alex laughed. “Haven't taken them in over a month. I don't need them anymore.”

“Alex,” Heather said as calmly as she could. “You need to take your meds. You're…” Alex re-taped her mouth before she had a chance to finish.

“I'M NOT CRAZY!” Alex shouted.

The sexual excitement that Heather derived from performing cunnilingus on Sandra had stimulated her tremendously and her love canal had been soaked with its own natural lubricants. But her desire for sex had completely evaporated. Now, she was drier than a Death Valley bone. Her vagina had reverted to its natural collapsed balloon state.

Years ago, the idea of having Alex inside her would have been an aphrodisiac that could not be ignored. After all, it was Alex who had deflowered the young California beauty. Now, sex with Alex would be a burden she would bear, but she would take no pleasure in it.

Heather closed her eyes when Alex climbed on top of her. Resignation registered on her face. She just wanted it over and done with. Then she would be in a position to negotiate their freedom. She clenched her teeth hard and tightened her closed eyes when Alex entered her roughly and pounded her recklessly for about ten minutes. Then Sam took her for a ride.

The twins took turns ravaging and sodomizing all the women until they were satisfied that Heather Connelly, Sandra Rhodes, and Paula Stevens had suffered a shadow of what they had suffered over the course of ten years. Now they were ready for phase two: Punishment.

They forced Heather to snort ten lines of cocaine. A line for each nostril would have been enough to give her a buzz, but the twins wanted her
higher than a kite. Plus the drug would dull the pain and they could torture her longer. Not only did they want to kill her; they also wanted to humiliate her. They wanted the police and the media to report that the anointed beauty queen had relapsed.

Heather's eyes were half-closed from the cocaine when the twins forced her into a pair of anti-gravity boots that were connected to an apparatus used for doing sit-ups while hanging upside down. Heather had to be first. After all, she had betrayed the plan they concocted when they were just sixteen years old.

Sandra and Paula were mutual beneficiaries of Heather's double-cross. Heather had married into the Connelly family and acquired a fortune, which she shared with Sandra and Paula. All of the women had come from well-to-do families, but the Connelly fortune made it possible for Sandra and Paula to live well enough to attract and marry rich men who assumed they were wealthy also. Sandra and Paula made sure they were impregnated early in their marriages so that if the men wanted out, they could take half of their wealth and get child support, too. In the meantime, the three women continued the sexual liaison that they had begun at Malibu High.

With Heather still naked and securely in the anti-gravity apparatus, the twins spun the equipment so that she hung upside down and locked it into place. Sam pulled a handcrafted Si Davey Tornado bullwhip from the backpack. It was made of red kangaroo hide, which is ten times the strength of cowhide. Mixed with bark dye, the Tornado bullwhip looked like a thin ten-foot red and black snake.

Suddenly, Sam unleashed a flogging that only a seventeenth-century overseer could appreciate. The bullwhip cracked loudly. It sounded like a small caliber gun being fired. Heather's flesh was ripped to the bone with each lash. Blood splattered everywhere. Her muffled groans only served as an incentive to continue the savagery.

The beating went on for over an hour. Finally, mercifully, Heather passed out. Only then did the flagellation end. After they finished with Heather, they put Sandra Rhodes in the apparatus. She fought hard,
but they were far stronger. She was beaten into unconsciousness, too. So was Paula Stevens. Satisfied that they had exacted a certain measure of revenge, they went to the garage and grabbed the yellow and black Poulan Pro chain saw from the back seat of the Hummer and dismembered all three women while they were still alive.

The phone rang in the Connelly mansion at about seven a.m. the following morning, waking the twins who had slept there with the remains of their victims. They had slept so soundly that they couldn't tell if the phone had rung once or twenty times. Opening their eyes, they saw the previous night's carnage, which was brought to bear by the power of their will. A wry smile appeared when they saw body parts that had been thrown against the bloodstained walls.

Alex and Sam pulled the linen from the bed and negotiated the room as if they were walking through a minefield, avoiding the pools of blood. They were hungry and decided to have some breakfast before they wiped the place clean. Their nonstop flight to Washington, D.C. was scheduled to depart at one p.m. Los Angeles International Airport was only forty-five minutes away, giving them plenty of time.

While the linen splashed and twisted in the washer, the twins made pancakes, sausage, eggs, and hash browns. Alex turned on the nine-inch color television that hung over the refrigerator. They wanted to know what, if anything, the police had found out about the murders of Warden Louis Perkins and his wife, Kathy. They, too, had read the article in the previous day's
USA Today.
But either they had missed the story, or CNN hadn't bothered to cover it.

Sam took a sip of coffee and asked, “You think the police found the maid yet?”

Two days ago, the twins had forced their way into Philip and Linda
Houston's home on Wildwood Drive. They were a young couple who, luckily for them, had taken a cruise to Alaska.

“Who knows?” Alex asked. “Turn on the morning news. Maybe we can find out something.”

Sam pointed the remote control at the television and changed the channel. A local NBC affiliate was giving a report from the house on Wildwood Drive. A young female was standing in front of the home in the darkness with bright lights being shone on her. Evidently, the report had been given the previous night at eleven. According to the reporter, the Houston family returned and discovered the maid with a butcher knife buried in her chest. The reporter went on to say that the Houstons' yellow Hummer had been stolen.

“Guess we gotta get a new ride to the airport, Sam,” Alex said.

“Yeah. That's fine. I wanted to drive the Diablo anyway.”

Alex tossed the linen in the dryer after they finished eating and washed the dishes. The telephone on the kitchen counter rang loudly. After six rings, the answering machine played a recording. Then the voice of a child could be heard. Alex looked at the caller ID. The call was coming from Sandra Rhodes' home.

“Mrs. Connelly, this is Brett Rhodes Jr. I'm calling to remind my mother that I have a gymnastics class at ten o'clock. I called earlier but no one answered. It's eight o'clock. If she doesn't call by nine, I'll ride my bike down there and wake you guys up. Bye.”

“Too bad, kid,” Sam began. “Your mother won't be waking up ever again.”

“Sam, we gotta get outta here—now!” Alex said. “We can't let her kid find her like that; no matter how we feel about them.”

“What do you propose we do, take the kid to gymnastics for her?” Sam asked.

“No, we clean this place up, call 911 on our way out, and get to the airport before the shit hits the fan. We have more people to see. We must stay on schedule; otherwise our plans may be interrupted prematurely.”

“Agreed,” Sam said. “Let's wipe the kitchen down and go.”

The twins dialed 911 and left the phone off the hook. Then they got into the Diablo and headed for LAX.

The first-class passengers of flight 1131 were being told to board the Boeing 747. The twins walked to the tunneled entrance where the United Airlines attendant checked their tickets. As they stood in line, they thought they saw a familiar figure. Although they were anxious to know if they were right, they could wait. After all, they were all sitting in first-class.

Five minutes later, the first-class passengers were putting their personal belongings in the overhead hatches. The twins watched the figure they thought they recognized as long as they could without drawing attention to themselves. Finally, the figure turned around. It was her. The woman they had seen on television with President Davidson last month while they were still in prison. Although they couldn't remember her name, they knew she was an FBI agent.