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.
TWENTY-TWO
John heard someone stomp into the conference room as he was pulling down a projector screen. “How’s Brooke?”
“How’d you know it was me?”
He turned to find Sergeant Jennings raising an eyebrow and slapping a thick file against her palm. “Your paces. You walk like a fire’s chasing you.” He tapped in a command on the laptop and pulled up autopsy photographs ME Ward emailed. The images splattered close-ups of blood and pallid flesh onto the white screen.
“Being hurried seems like a fucking appropriate reaction to this shit.” She tossed the file on the table and crossed her arms over the LAPD logo on her chest. “Brooke needs a break. I figured I’d let her try to sleep for a couple hours.”
He tabbed over to a photo of a violently violet ribbon of bruising clutching Beth Grant’s throat. Not strangled with hands. A scarf, perhaps a shirt or pillowcase. Something made of fabric. Stranglers liked to feel a struggle under their hands, the close-up view of choking the life from their victims, feeling them fall slack as they slipped into unconsciousness and then death. Beth’s killer didn’t want that. Perhaps a first-timer—more often than not, a beginner simply wanted to get the kill over with. They were almost as scared as their victims.
He clicked over to a different set of pictures. “Good. She needs the rest.”
“She told me something that supports your ring of pervs theory.”
John tilted his head,
“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.
TWENTY-TWO
John heard someone stomp into the conference room as he was pulling down a projector screen. “How’s Brooke?”
“How’d you know it was me?”
He turned to find Sergeant Jennings raising an eyebrow and slapping a thick file against her palm. “Your paces. You walk like a fire’s chasing you.” He tapped in a command on the laptop and pulled up autopsy photographs ME Ward emailed. The images splattered close-ups of blood and pallid flesh onto the white screen.
“Being hurried seems like a fucking appropriate reaction to this shit.” She tossed the file on the table and crossed her arms over the LAPD logo on her chest. “Brooke needs a break. I figured I’d let her try to sleep for a couple hours.”
He tabbed over to a photo of a violently violet ribbon of bruising clutching Beth Grant’s throat. Not strangled with hands. A scarf, perhaps a shirt or pillowcase. Something made of fabric. Stranglers liked to feel a struggle under their hands, the close-up view of choking the life from their victims, feeling them fall slack as they slipped into unconsciousness and then death. Beth’s killer didn’t want that. Perhaps a first-timer—more often than not, a beginner simply wanted to get the kill over with. They were almost as scared as their victims.
He clicked over to a different set of pictures. “Good. She needs the rest.”
“She told me something that supports your ring of pervs theory.”
John tilted his head,
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