Dark obsessions, p.32
Dark Obsessions, page 32
Her chin dropped a fraction of an inch. “Delford wasn’t so malleable, was he? If not for him, no one might have ever discovered your dirty little secrets.”
“Delford was incompetent.”
“He left enough evidence to expose your pathetic band of rapists and murders.”
Turning off the flashlight, he took a step closer. “None of our members were responsible for the deaths of those you have recovered. You must understand. If any of us were to kill every time the impulse struck, there would be no excitement to it. Really, Detective. In your line of work, I’d think you’d know all about the dangers of desensitization.”
“Then who killed them?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “The first you found fancied herself an escape artist. An ill-conceived attempt that was poorly executed. It became a teachable moment for the rest of the girls.”
“Doesn’t answer my question.”
“As trite as it may sound, we have someone for that. He was there in the forest behind Delford’s house the night after the vigil. He was supposed to get rid of Delford for us, but luckily the sheriff’s department saved him the trouble.”
Kate recalled the scurrying sounds she had heard after Wheaton’s gun had gone off. Her thoughts shifted to the next piece of the puzzle. “And the two skulls?”
“An unfortunate case of dual suicide. The girls were entertaining one of our newer members who came into town a while back to sample our new acquisitions. He made the mistake of allowing them to fall asleep with him afterward. When he awoke, he discovered they had gotten into drain cleaner. We were forced to replenish our inventory sooner than expected.”
Kate’s stomach roiled, her imagination supplying all manner of sensory terrors one might experience from consuming the corrosive chemical. Allowing the thoughts to pass out of her brain as soon as they had entered, she cast another quick gaze around the room. “What about the others?”
He drew his jaw back. “There were no others from the Malaysian shipment.”
She stared at him for a long moment thinking about the three bones whose DNA did not match the others in Celia’s bracelet. Kate didn’t need to repeat the question. Her brain was linking the facts as she voiced them. “You said I don’t fit this year’s theme, which is obviously Malaysia. Which Scandinavian country was it last year?”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Norway.”
Kate’s hands balled into fists. With the three bones, Delford had provided a mere sample of the girls who had been killed last year. She spat out the next words between clenched teeth. “Why here? Why not do it at Aaru?”
A dark shadow crossed his face, but Cruthers brushed it aside with another smile. “To celebrate another year of success! You must understand, every member wields a tremendous amount of power in their daily lives. In this setting, we can indulge in the ultimate expression of that power.
“Here, we are the arbiters of life and death. The givers of pleasure and pain. And here, as nature intended, we bathe in our own glory. The girls are kept in rotation for visiting members throughout the year. But once per annum, we up the ante.”
“Power is demonstrated by overcoming a superior foe, not one who is weaker. Like I said before, men with little dicks …” Kate looked pointedly at his crotch.
He crossed to the cage in a split second. Before Kate could respond, he reached out. Dropping the flashlight, he seized the cage bars and jerked downward. The edge of the surface beneath her feet tipped precipitously toward the floor.
Kate dropped onto her buttocks with a bone-jarring thud. Between gravity and the smooth surface, there was no way to stop herself from sliding against the bars.
Cruthers reached between the bars with his free hand and snatched her chin. His fingers bit into her flesh, the tips curled around her jawbone, threatening to dislodge her molars.
Ignoring the feral glimmer in his eyes, she stared back at him. Without a word, she eased her right hand onto her left wrist. Locking out her elbow she used all her might to shove her left forearm upward. The unexpected force dislodged the CEO’s grip. His arm flipped back with breakneck speed into the unyielding force of a nearby bar. Kate came to her knees, pinning his arm with her full weight.
His high-pitched scream surprised even Kate.
“Mr. Cruthers!” The exclamation came from the passageway entrance.
Without relaxing her grip, Kate glanced toward sound of the voice.
Hyland Fairbourne stood with a look of abject horror on his face. In the next moment, the resort manager sprinted across to the cage. Standing to the right of the CEO, he retrieved a gun from inside his jacket. Rather than pointing it at the compromised captor, he turned it on the aggressive captive.
“Release Mr. Cruthers.”
Kate looked at the gun. “So, the man who donated his kidney for free has no problem selling his soul.”
Smugness dripped from his features. “We are all more than the sum of our parts, Ms. Barnes. Oceana Week VIPs are our clients and investors. Aaru was designed to be their refuge from an increasingly demanding world. Here we attend to serving their every need. Now, let … him … go.”
Nodding, she began to lean back. A split second before breaking contact with Cruthers, she lunged forward again, eliciting another cry from the CEO.
“Release him!” He made a show of disengaging the safety on the gun.
Kate met Hyland’s gaze. Tilting her head to the side, she studied him for a long moment. Finally, she did as she was bidden.
Cruthers retracted his arm.
“Are you okay, sir?” Pocketing the gun, Hyland regarded Cruthers with the eyes of a supplicant.
The CEO waved him away. “I’m fine, Fairbourne.”
“But sir, if you require …”
“What I require, is for you to get rid of this bitch once and for all!”
“Yes, sir. I have taken all the necessary steps.” He reached into another pocket and passed a taser gun to Cruthers.
“Perfect.” He turned back to Kate. “Had you not stumbled into the investigation, this would have all blown over in a week. But instead, you had to keep pushing. You brought in the FBI and fueled public sentiment with that damn vigil. You went after Delford and Belovol. You even had the balls to confront me. It is long past time for you to leave this world, Detective.”
“People will look for me.”
“You still have no idea how omnipresent our power is. Despite your recent experiences, we do know how to cover up our mistakes. Look at your new friend, Lyra. Although she is relatively young, she will not outlive her mother.”
Kate blanched. “Don’t you dare!”
“You really are not in a position to be demanding anything. But you should be grateful. Tonight, you’ll have the honor of providing a pregame show of sorts for our members. In your final dying moments, I hope you think of me.”
Before she could respond, he pressed the trigger. The barbs shot forward through the bars. The moment they made contact with her abdomen a crackling sound filled the air. Kate’s body seized as thousands of volts of electricity attacked her nervous system.
*
The speedometer edged up near ninety as the sheriff’s SUV sped along the highway under dark skies. His roof lights scrolled across the passing trees. They looked on in silence, like rows of jaded nightclub goers for whom the bright dancing colors no longer held any meaning.
Behind the steering wheel, Tony grimaced. He was well aware he was breaking the very safety laws he was meant to enforce. The worst part was he had no good reason for doing so—at least not one he could prove. What he had were a series of coincidences, and none of them were good.
After his visit to Beans of Mine, Tony had returned to the office with a sinking feeling. Given the early hour, he had been forced to wait for two hours before he could reach out to the Cultural Center.
The call confirmed Kate had visited the prior afternoon. According to the woman with whom he had spoken, Kate had learned Delford had been a recent visitor. She had also obtained directions to three different locations where Delford might have recorded the video.
Unfortunately, the docent who had provided the directions was off for the day and could not be reached. Tony had responded by calling his counterpart with the Makah Tribal Police. It took the better part of the day to track down the older staff member who had gone on a fishing trip with his son.
In the meantime, he’d called the rental car company in Port Angeles where Kate had rented the sedan. They confirmed Kate was supposed to have dropped off her rental at their location at SeaTac but had never done so. A second call to the airlines confirmed Kate had checked in for her flight online, but she had never boarded it.
Within an hour, Tony had received a follow-up call from the car rental agency. They stated Kate had called to extend her rental by three more days. She had also changed the drop-off location from SeaTac to one of their facilities in San Francisco.
Part of him had wanted to believe Kate had simply decided to forgo the plane trip for a scenic drive. Yet, while Kate had not bemoaned her recent roundtrips to Seattle, he had seen the toll they had taken on her. He could not imagine she would trade a two-hour flight for a fourteen-hour road trip.
Taken on its own, Tony might have disregarded the unlikely change in itinerary. Yet, Mildred was still battling for her life in the hospital and Kate had been shot at and had almost drowned. Not long afterward, someone had gone out of their way to get her kicked off the case. That same someone had been monitoring their every move.
As soon as the docent’s boat had pulled into the Makah Tribal Marina, Tony had been there to meet him. Luckily the older man’s memory had sharpened since the day before. He was now able to identify the exact location out of the three possible ones he had given Kate.
“According to the GPS we’re still about thirty minutes out,” Tony announced to his passenger.
James nodded and glanced out the window. Not willing to take any more chances, Tony had persuaded the docent to serve as his guide through the forest.
The sheriff checked the clock again. Every minute that ticked by would prove to be one of two things—either a waste of his department’s resources or a precious moment lost.
Chapter 31
ICY AIR BARGED IN through the open door. Hyland shoved Kate out into the biting cold. She managed a couple of unsteady steps before promptly collapsing to the ground. Her bra and panties were as useless against the frigid nighttime temperatures as they were against the rocks and branches littering the forest floor.
Hyland frowned. “You’d better get going!”
Kate looked down at her left wrist. A set of zip ties had been fastened to her so tightly the skin had welled up on either side of them. Between them, was a small black device.
Following her gaze, Hyland offered, “You won’t be able to get those off without scissors.” He looked pointedly into the forest. “And you’re not likely to find those out here.”
“Tra … tracking device?” Kate managed through the echoing sting to her nervous system.
He rolled his eyes. “No. Can’t you see the damn lens? It’s a high-resolution, night-vision-enabled camera—courtesy of our security department. It will catalog the entire hunt from start to finish. It was my idea, you know. As Mr. Cruthers said, you’re going to be the pregame show for this evening’s festivities. I decided to make it a literal show, camera and all.”
Kate’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to hunt me?”
He recoiled. “Of course, not. You will be pursued by the most revered member of our security detail. A rematch of sorts—he is more than eager to redeem himself for his failure at the lake.”
Hyland pulled out his phone as Kate struggled to get to her feet. Holding it in front of his face he activated the camera and smiled. He spoke into the device with all the fake exuberance of a reality TV show host.
“Welcome Honored Guests! The hunt will commence now. The prey will have a five-minute head start. From here on, you will be watching live feeds from both the hunter and the prey. Enjoy!”
Tapping the screen, Hyland dropped the device into his pocket. The veil of vivaciousness was discarded as easily as it had been adopted. His eyes met hers for a brief moment before he tore them away. “I advise you to run. As fast as you can.” He scurried into the doorway, pulling the door shut behind him.
She lunged after him, but she was a split second too late. The door slammed firmly in his wake. The echo set off a flurry of activity. Snapping branches and other sounds of frenzied commotion erupted from the underbrush surrounding the clearing. Luckily, all of the sounds seemed to be tracking away from Kate.
Eyes still trying to adjust to the darkness, Kate glanced about, simultaneously trying to process the reality of what was about to happen. Stabbing, shooting … all made sense, but hunting a human for entertainment?
An image flashed. Haryati’s corpse lying in the coroner’s lab. Her skin had been a patchwork of small bruises and lacerations, most of which had been incurred in this very forest. But it was the numerous traumas she had endured after being captured that had made her corpse a terror to behold.
Kate had caused The Stag far greater grief than Haryati had. Who knew what they had instructed the hunter to do to her?
Despite her best efforts, Kate’s breathing grew more and more shallow. With no shoes, no weapon, minimal light, and only a five-minute lead, there was virtually no chance she would ever make it to her car. Assuming her car was still where she had left it.
She had to think, but the last vestiges of the shots from the stun gun were still zinging through her brain. With the additional challenge that over twenty-four hours had passed since she had last had food or water, every thought felt as if it had been fitted with a fifty-pound anchor.
The image stuck in her head and stayed long enough to spark an idea. Ignoring the barrage of fatalistic thoughts peppering her mind, she dropped her head and started to run. Successful or not, it was the only idea she had. And she was running out of time.
*
Martin Cruthers swished the fresh pour of five-hundred-dollar brandy around in his glass. Still in his tracksuit, he reclined in solitude on a sofa in his chalet at Aaru. Like his fellow club members, he had just finished watching Hyland open the hunt.
As recommended by the resort manager, the impromptu pregame show was to be enjoyed individually. The communal elements of the festivities would start soon enough.
Completely unaware of the ridiculously expensive gold leaf frame into which the large, television had been mounted, he glared at the appliance, “Go, you stupid bitch!”
The same way professional football players would never hear the vehement castigations from Monday morning quarterbacks, Kate had no way of hearing Cruthers’ decree. The camera feed was one way, as was the audio.
As if intuiting his will, the camera angle slowly swung from left to right. “Trying to assess the landscape?” He wondered aloud.
He suddenly wished they had outfitted the detective with a heart monitor. It would have been so much more enjoyable to watch her heart rate climb. He took a sip, deciding it would be a good feature to add if they brought back the hunt next year.
The camera suddenly bounced to life. She had finally started running. Smiling, he sank back into the soft cushions.
If only the world knew the woman who had brought the world’s most feared serial killer to justice was now running for her life in the forest. He wondered idly if she could even feel the cold, or if the combination of adrenaline and fear had made her impervious to it.
Tearing his gaze from the pitching landscape, he zeroed in on the clock in the right-hand corner of the screen: four minutes and forty-five seconds.
As he watched, the seconds continued to tick down. Suddenly, the image on the screen split in two. The feed from Kate’s camera moved to the right. A new feed appeared on the left. An AR-15 rifle was in the process of being loaded. The calm, deliberate movements were diametrically opposed to the wild rush on the other side of the screen.
Hyland had told him the hunter would be outfitted with a helmet camera, as opposed to the wrist-mounted one, they had improvised for Kate.
He took another sip of brandy. Relishing the complex flavors in his mouth, as much as his own certainty, he rejoiced in the affirmation life was exactly as he had described to Kate earlier. Power was everything.
*
Bushes, branches, rocks, trees, branches, trees, rocks, branches. Kate’s eyes darted back and forth over the landscape as she ran, cataloging every potential obstacle and making split-second decisions to evade them when necessary.
Her heart pounded out of her chest. An image of it bursting took hold in her mind’s eye. For a split second, she wished it would.
A five-minute head start meant nothing against a trained hunter. Especially when the hunted was suffering the early stages of dehydration and starvation compounded with the added fear of hypothermia.
So far, she had done a decent job of keeping herself upright in the weak moonlight. But it had come at a cost. Caution was slowing her down.
In the next heartbeat, her world changed. Her right foot landed heavily in thick mud. Unable to find purchase, it went out from under her. Tucking her head, she tried to roll into the fall.
She hit the ground hard and slid to a stop. What felt like thousands of small cuts set her skin on fire. Screaming above each of those wounds was a searing pain across her right ankle.
The moonlight filtering through the thick tree canopy was too weak for a proper inspection. Her survival instinct kicked into gear. All that mattered was to keep moving.
Scrambling to her feet, Kate tested her weight on the ankle. Pain erupted along every one of her nerve endings, but the joint held. Bending over, her fingers probed the affected area. A nauseatingly thick roll of skin … beneath it a slippery mess. The contact prompted a whole new bout of pain as well as an added sense of despair.
