Текст книги "Grace Street"

Автор книги: Ella Dominguez

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Moving around the living room and kitchen, she found nothing out of the ordinary and nothing noteworthy or revealing of the real man behind the mask of Mr. Black.

When she entered his bedroom, she touched the bed and brought a pillow to her nose. Inhaling deeply, her knees weakened. Victor. She laid the pillow back down and felt a rush of blood heat her cheeks. She had reprimanded Victor for his creepy stalking habits and she was no better by breaking into his house and smelling his belongings like some kind of fatal attraction.

Feeling ashamed of herself, she turned to walk out when she noticed a photo of herself on his nightstand next to a radio. She picked up the Polaroid picture, unfamiliar with it. When had it been taken? She probably should’ve been freaked out by finding this, but she wasn’t. He was keeping her near to him while he slept and though she hated to admit it, she found it oddly romantic.

She turned on the radio but only silence could be heard. She pushed several buttons and the same dead air came crackling through the speakers. It was a curious thing, but not one she could figure out.

She laid the photo back down exactly as she had found it and walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to his office. She flicked on the light and knew immediately this was the place his secrets would be found. Unlike the rest of the house, it looked lived in. There were papers scattered on the desk with hand-written notes, half-open files, and the fragrance … it was there just like everywhere else, but more prevalent. This is where Victor Laurenzo, aka Mr. Black, spent his time.

She seated herself at his desk and leaned back into the large, leather chair, wondering what it felt like to be Master of His Domain and Ruler of His Universe. What she wouldn’t give to live in his skin for just one day… to know what went on in that dark mind of his… to feel the intoxication of dominating another human being completely…

She spun the chair around and around until her stomach did a flip-flop and her vision became blurry. She planted her feet and steadied herself, ready to delve into Mr. Black’s world. She opened the first drawer to her left and was taken aback when a handgun came into view. Hesitantly, she touched the smooth, cold, black metal but didn’t dare pick it up. She swiftly closed the drawer and moved on to the next. Four drawers later, she was faced with a large, typed manuscript tied off with twill.

The cover page read: A Case Study in Behavior Modification and Character Development by Laurenzo Black.

Elsa’s nerves prickled. This was it. His journal typed out. A loud ringing in her ears drowned everything out as she reached for the pages. This was the key to all Victor’s secrets. Did she really want to know the man she was falling for? Could she handle everything she was about to come face-to-face with? Probably not, but she couldn’t leave without knowing everything even though she knew the rules of the game would change forever once she did.

Whether they would change for better or worse, she wouldn’t know until everything had played out.

14: Details

Victor threw himself onto the hotel bed, mentally worn out. He had helped follow up on several dead-end leads that day and his nerves were raw. There were still several to dig into and he hated that he wouldn’t be able to spend time with Eight over the weekend. If he was lucky, he might be able to steal away for a visit on Sunday… maybe. He closed his eyes and drifted in and out of sleep with the sound of traffic drifting in through the open balcony door.

He could really use a cigarette. He sat upright and reached for his briefcase and retrieved a piece of nicotine gum. It was a lame replacement, but his smoking was strictly a weekend/stalking kind of thing.

He kicked his shoes off and decided to call Virginia State Penitentiary. He needed to speak with Anthony and he was tired of waiting. After several minutes of being put on hold, Ant’s raspy voice rang out on the other end of the line.

“Get your guy, yet?” he asked.

“We’re getting close,” Victor lied but got right to the point. “Do you have anything to add or any insight?”

“Sure do, but first I want to talk about Chapter Eight. How’s that piece ass panning out for you?”

Victor sighed irritably. Fucking Anthony Bruce. “It’s going fine. Answer my question.”

“You first. And I want the truth this time.”

He gritted his teeth. It took a liar to know one. “She’s a handful.”

“Nice. Does she like it rough?”

“Don’t they all?” Victor blurted, already tired of Ant’s games.

Anthony chuckled and Victor could hear the condescension in his tone. “Seven didn’t. Neither did Three and Four. Or have you forgotten, already? Hell, come to think of it, I think only two of them Chapters of yours liked to play hard.”

‘Come to think of it,’ his ass. Victor knew damned well that Ant had committed to memory every single fucking detail of each and every one of his Chapters.

“I want details, Agent Laurenzo and since I know you’re out of town and can’t drop off your notes, tell ‘em to me. Since I already know how Eight smells, tell me how she tastes,” he laughed a little too heartily.

Why the hell had he contacted Anthony? His disgusting laugh turned Victor’s stomach. Pissed at himself for having called the manipulative fuck, he blared into the phone. “Listen here, you self-righteous, asshole, people are dying over here. I’m sick of your bullshit games so get this through that sociopathic head of yours: I’m not telling you anything more about any of my Chapters until you give me what I want. End. Of. Story.”

Victor was seething and the silence on the other end only made matters worse. Fuck this shit. He reached for the hotel’s phone receiver to end the call when he heard Ant grumble.

“Fine. You win. This round,” he spat out contemptuously.

It was always something with this guy, but Victor didn’t care. He was happy to have won a round period. “Talk,” he ordered.

“I’ve been watching news and this guy is playing with you. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of those leads were planted by the killer himself. In hindsight, I should’ve done the same damned thing. Maybe I could’ve stayed out there a longer if I had. Anyway… his mistake was that he knew those girls. At least I had the common fuckin’ sense to pick my victims randomly. Go with your gut and not with what everyone is leading you to believe.”

Victor’s interest was piqued. As usual, Anthony knew more than he was letting on and the sick fucker had an uncanny way of reading him. He shook his head. God, he hated Anthony Bruce and everything about him, but he was right. Victor had sensed all along that the murders were somehow connected. The detectives involved had nixed the idea from the beginning, but Victor’s gut instinct was telling him otherwise.

“How do you know all that?” he asked Ant.

“Killer’s intuition,” he laughed perversely. “As for Eight… now it’s your turn to talk.”

Victor shuffled the phone between his hands before finally responding. “She doesn’t know when to shut her mouth and…” he paused, but he could hear Ant’s breathing quicken. “She’s too curious for my taste.”

“You gotta watch out for those interferin’ bitches, they’ll get you into trouble every fuckin’ time. You gotta put her in her place before things get out of hand.”

Victor rolled his eyes. He seriously wasn’t going to take relationship advice from a known serial killer. “Well I can’t kill her, Ant, if that’s what you’re suggesting. My game has rules, unlike yours,” he sniped.

“Nobody said anything about murderin’. Christ in heaven, didn’t anyone teach you anything? You don’t gotta slay a cunt to shut her up. You just gotta kill her spirit; break her down, mentally and physically. If that doesn’t work, then beat the shit out of her. And if that doesn’t work…”

Victor had heard enough. “I get it. I’ll stick with my own methods. Anyway, I like her spirit.”

As soon as he let the statement slip from his mouth, he regretted it. What the hell was he thinking? He was tired and… God damn it.

“Jesus, Agent Cock Sucker, you’re losing your touch. Is the merciless Mr. Black getting soft in his old age?”

Victor cringed. He truly hated that Ant knew his secrets. “No one is getting soft and this conversation is over.”

***

Elsa held the manuscript in her hands and touched the binding. She suddenly felt as if she was being watched and panic inundated her. She just wanted to get the hell out of there and fast. She looked around the room for printer paper and then carefully untied the twine. Removing the cover page from the document, she placed it on top of the stack of blank sheets of paper and retied the string. No one would ever know it was a fake at first glance. She put the faux case study back in its place and tucked the real pages under her arm. She closed all the drawers and put everything else back in its place, and gave the room a once over to make sure that she had left no evidence of her visit.

The drive back to her apartment was excruciating. She found her eyes on the manuscript more often than they were on the road and her foot kept unintentionally pressing too hard on the gas. Twice she caught herself doing well over the speed limit. If she were to get pulled over and given a ticket, Victor would undoubtedly find out and it wouldn’t take him long to figure out why she was on this side of town.

She turned on her satellite radio for the distraction, tuning into an alternative rock station. An unfamiliar song came on and the strong bass and instrumental intro slowly began to erase from her mind the thoughts of the law she had just broken, and the shitty intrusion of privacy she was perpetrating on Victor.

When the words of the song finally broke through her trance-like state, it was as if Mr. Black had cued the song himself. She tapped the button to see the artist and title and I Will Possess Your Heart by Death Cab for Cutie flashed on the small screen. What the hell kind of creepy kismet was going on? She promptly turned the channel, not wanting to hear any version of a stalkers anthem.

Back in her apartment, she was too eager to get down to business to even take her jacket off. She sank into her couch and flipped over the first page.

Chapter 7 – Emily, Age 26. Profession: Graphic Designer.

Elsa had already read a small portion of his journal about this particular Chapter and found it odd the document read in reverse and started with the most recent subject as opposed to starting from the beginning. She was also frustrated that none of the notes written on her were present.

Prologue:

And so C7 begins. You found me at a local gathering and made your presence known. You have a reputation that I’m well aware of and though I’m not usually one to jump on the pussy bandwagon, something about you piqued my interest. If any Chapter has needed my assistance, it’s you. Your immature behavior to get my attention was only slightly amusing if not pathetic. Nonetheless, you’re my next project. We shall see if your ways can be changed.

The first lesson I shall attempt to teach you is self-restraint, though I suspect this may be a subject that will be a work in progress. First and foremost, your promiscuity must end. I will not tolerate being one in a long line of lovers. It is to be me and only me during our time together. Your sexual cleanliness must be proven before we can continue.

Pre-activity:

I was disappointed and more than a little annoyed to find out that you have an STD, though it doesn’t completely surprise me. Now it’s necessary that you be started on a regimen of antibiotics before we can begin our liaisons, only delaying our sexual activity. I will use this time to my advantage to watch you in your surroundings and learn your habits. Also it will help me to figure out exactly what I can do to make this endeavor successful. I hope you like to play rough, C7, because that’s precisely what I think you need.

Surveillance Notes:

Never have I seen such immaturity in a 26-year-old woman. In the span of a week, I’ve witnessed you drinking and driving twice, seen you get into a verbal altercation that nearly led to a fist fight with a cashier over the wrong change given, and observed you leaving from a coffee shop with a stranger to engage in oral sex in his car.

I’m shocked that you’ve gotten this far without having caused yourself or others physical harm or gotten your ass kicked for acting absurd.

What Elsa would’ve given to see a picture of Emily. Was she beautiful? What color were her eyes? Were they sad and expressive? Was she truly a reckless individual who needed help or was she just a normal, uninhibited woman? Elsa would never know. All she had to go on was Mr. Black’s notes and they were, to say the least, biased and twisted.

I must delve into your past to see what is causing you to act so recklessly. Have you been abused? For your and my sake, I hope not. I don’t need the hassle of trying to heal your mental wounds as that’s next to impossible. I know. If it comes to light that you have been abused in some way be it sexual or physical, I must conclude our brief interlude. Even though I can identify with your pain, I cannot condone your carelessness, regardless of your past. No matter what has happened, there is no excuse for unreasonable behavior. We all have to move on at some point and make the best of it.

Elsa stood and removed her coat, letting the words sink in as she glanced out the window nervously. She was only two pages in and already she knew Victor had been abused, but by whom? She remembered the detail of his mother having died of liver disease and the implications sent a shockwave through her. His mother was most likely an alcoholic. Her stomach churned. If she was going to continue reading, she needed wine, and lots of it.

***

Victor didn’t fall asleep until well after two. It was one of those restless, nearly sleepless nights where his brain wouldn’t fucking shut off. When he did sleep, his dreams were filled with disorganized, grisly images from the Cambridge case files – a 22-year-old stunning blonde in a state of rigor, duct-tape with skin cells gruesomely clinging to the adhesive, a discarded knife with dried blood, scalp and dark hair encrusted onto the metal, clouded hazel eyes, blue lips…

He woke early that Sunday from a nightmare, breathless and with his heart nearly pounding out of his chest. He rubbed his eyes and tried to recall the particulars, but they were already fading. In his dream, he was a serial-killer and his victims were his Chapters. One by one he had broken their hearts and then murdered each of them in a different way so as not to get caught. He couldn’t remember all the details, but he had bludgeoned the sad and irredeemable Seven, poisoned the gorgeous but temperamental Three, and sexually asphyxiated the strong husband and father of two, Four. His heart was still beating rapidly when a wave of nausea washed over him.

He wasn’t afraid of death or the dead. Hell, he dealt with it day in and day out; it was the living that scared the hell out of him, the not knowing who was walking behind him or plotting their next kill. The not knowing what was going to happen next, the helplessness to do anything about is what was devouring him from the inside out. It was simultaneously the most potent and sexy thing in the world to him.

He knew better than to talk to Ant before he went to bed. Every, single, fucking time he went to bed thinking about Anthony Bruce, his dreams were tortured and bloody. Eight flashed before his eyes. In his dream he had cut her heart out while she was still breathing. He held it up in front of her horrified face as it pumped its last dying beat, thick clots dripping from his hand and the arteries and mangled veins hanging like webs from his fingers. In his dream, her beautiful, brown eyes were pleading with him, her stunning red hair was all around her tranquil face and her hands were clawing at his chest. When he tasted blood in his mouth from biting his own lip, he bolted upright and ran to the bathroom, bile rising in his throat. He barely made it to the toilet when his dinner spilled out of him.

He was accustomed to the nightmares and he wasn’t sure why he was feeling so sick about this particular one. Maybe it was still just too fresh in his mind, the combination of tasting his own blood and the details not fading fast enough. It could also be that the faces were just too familiar. He had never dreamt of his Chapters in such a ghastly way. It was the Cambridge case; it was getting to him in a way no other case had.

Eight… He shook his head when Elsa suddenly popped into his head again. No matter what he had convinced himself of or what the facts were, he wasn’t Anthony, or any cold-blooded killer for that matter, and his Chapters would no longer simply be referred to by their numbers. They all had names and he repeated them over and over in his mind.

Kayla. Anissa. Jordan. Peyton. Terra. Emily. Elsa. And the Chapter that started it all… the one whose name he would never speak again…the one who made him into the calculated soul-crusher he had become.

*

Dressed and ready to face the community and his fellow investigators, Victor headed to the FBI office for another day of work. Just as he entered the facility, his phone chirped with a text message.

C8: I found this quote: “The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love – almost as violent and much more mischievous” by Aldous Huxley. I’m truly sorry for my cruel words. I know nothing of your life or past to have said something so callous. Even if I did, there is no excuse for it except to say I was angry and hurt, and I wanted you to feel the same way. It will never happen again.

C8: P.S – Wherever you are – be safe and know that whether or not you show up, I’ll be waiting for you, 9:00 a.m. on Saturday at Grace Street.

Frozen with emotion, he stared at the phone. He hadn’t even had to punish Eight, Elsa, to make her understand her wrongdoing. Simply letting her come to the conclusion herself had been enough. It was a revelation. Had his methods been flawed all along? He had always used basic psychology: positive consequences for positive behavior and negative consequences for negative behavior. Of course, he had always focused on the punishment aspect, for obvious reasons – his own selfish wants and the fact that he got off on it. But was he wrong in thinking he could force someone to change their ways with harsh conditions?

Someone bumped into him, nearly knocking his phone out of his hand, reminding him of the real world waiting for him. Hope crept into his subconscious and for the first time in years, he allowed it to stay. He couldn’t change who he was or what was coursing through his veins, but still… maybe today would be different. Perhaps today there would be a real break in the case.

15: Eye-Opener

Elsa sat in her office reading all morning, not once attending to what she was getting paid to do. She was devouring Mr. Black’s case study like it was some kind of depraved, dark novel where there was no romance involved, only sex, pain, humiliation and cruel lessons. Still, she couldn’t stop reading. She had finished with Chapter Seven and was now more than half-way through Chapter Six – Terra, the prim and proper personal assistant to a CEO of a major corporation. Elsa found out quickly this was the Chapter that Mr. Black had fucked and mentally and physically tormented in a run-down hotel on weekends. This was also the Chapter that begged for more every time he would humiliate her.

Elsa just couldn’t wrap her brain around Terra. In a way, she could identify with Chapter Seven. She had once been the same way – attention seeking, rebellious and even a bit promiscuous, although she was a teenager at that time and not a grown woman.

Why would anyone want to be treated the way Chapter Six wanted to be treated? What was Mr. Black trying to accomplish with her? From everything she was reading, he wasn’t helping her at all. All he was doing was feeding into her sickness.

But who was she to judge what a person got off on? Maybe it wasn’t a sickness at all and simply a fetish. Hell, she had her own perversions, like being screwed in the butt and dominated. Elsa shook her head at herself for being hypercritical. She, of all people, had no right to look down her nose at anyone. Everyone truly was different, each with their own wants and needs and obsessions.

Her current obsession: Victor Laurenzo. She had stopped trying to deny it wasn’t. Her thoughts were consumed with him and her sanity was like a thin thread ready to break.

She checked her phone, hoping for some kind of response from Mr. Black regarding her text, but only a blank screen stared back at her. She reminded herself that he was busy doing the noble thing of trying to bring justice to the families who had lost their loved ones.

It was astounding to think that the man whose job it was to find killers and give peace to the families of murder victims was the same man who had chronicled his debauched mental games with unknowing victims. She had only joked about there being a personality split, but Elsa was starting to wonder if that was really the case.

There were only a few other references to his personal abuse and nothing else was shared up through Chapter Six, leaving Elsa to make up her own horrible ideas of what he could’ve been put through living with an alcoholic parent. Where was his father in all this and why would he have allowed Victor to live with a mother like that?

Lunch came and Elsa continued to hide in her office, reading. She was happy to be done reading about Terra and moving on to a new Chapter. She only hoped this one would be less distressing. She was wrong.