Blind Rage (36 page)

Raising her hands to her mouth, she hooked her teeth over the tape and tried to create a tear in the wrap. There were too many layers, and her teeth weren’t sharp enough. She dropped her hands and ran her eyes around the cell, searching for something she could use to slice the tape. He’d been careful, her jailer. There was nothing sitting on the floor itself, not even a wastebasket or toilet plunger. Even if she could get on her feet to reach for something, there was no medicine chest in the room, only a mirror hung over the sink. The top of the toilet tank was loaded with colognes and aftershaves; the creepy fucker had more perfume than a woman. If she knocked down a bottle, she could use the broken glass to cut her bindings, like in the movies.
Forget it.
He’d probably hear the clatter and come running.

The shower door was closed, but she knew there was nothing useful in the stall. While the water pummeled her during her first trip to his bathroom, she’d had plenty of time to study the cubicle and its contents. One bar of Ivory in the wall-mounted soap dish. Two washrags hanging from the neck of the showerhead. A small window made of glass block positioned high up on the wall, near the ceiling.

Perhaps the metal edge of the glass shower door would work. She rolled onto her side, grimacing when the wad of tape pulled at her hair. Rather than traveling with her, it stayed stuck to the floor. She braced her feet against the base of the tub and used it for leverage to propel her body toward the shower. She curled her legs under her and rolled onto her knees. Slowly, she raised her torso so that she was in a kneeling position in front of the shower.

Sweat streamed down between her breasts, collected under her armpits, and beaded her upper lip. What would he do if he found her like this? Would he kill her right then and there?

After a couple of minutes, she mustered enough courage to slide her taped hands up the glass and over to the door handle. She’d have to open it carefully, or she’d end up falling backward onto the floor. The handle was the size and shape of a toilet paper tube, sliced in half lengthwise. She inserted her taped fingers into the curve of metal and slowly pulled toward her. The pop of the door unlatching echoed in the tiled chamber, and she froze. No devil materialized, and she mouthed a silent
Thank you, God
.

She opened the door a little wider and slipped her fingers out of the handle. She pressed the outside edge of her taped hands against the edge of the shower door as if she were pleading for mercy—in a real sense, she was—and started to move her hands up and down in short, quick strokes. She concentrated on the edge of the binds. If she pulled her hands apart as hard as she could, she found she could create a small gap between her wrists. The tape that stretched between the gap was a good place to rub, a weak spot, and she could see the very beginnings of a tear.

As she worked, she kept an ear tuned to the bathroom door. If she heard him thumping around in the bedroom, she’d lower herself onto her belly to keep him from seeing her hands or her mouth. He’d assume she was still out and perhaps leave her alone, giving her time to finish the job. Once free, she’d kill him. She didn’t know how. Maybe she’d come up behind him and strangle him with his own belt. If she could find the crap he’d been shooting into her body, she’d use it to knock him on his ass. She’d fill the tub and dump him in, do him the way he planned to do her. He’d be the one the cops would find floating.

Chapter 34

STEPPING OFF THE ELEVATOR, BERNADETTE WAS STARTLED
to see Garcia standing in front of her condo talking to her caretaker. The shaggy-haired Harold Winston was in his usual workday outfit of bib overalls while crew-cut Garcia was in his dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie. A study in contrasts. She wondered what in the world the two men had to talk about, and then it occurred to her: Harry was gossiping with Garcia about the bums in the basement. Her boss didn’t need to be reminded of that mess, and she quickened her pace. She got to her door as Harry was piling on the excuses for the busted front door.

“So then I told the association folks that all the hardware around here is shit, the doors are shit, the windows are shit, and they’d better start looking at replacing—” Harry halted his diatribe as she came up to the pair.

She looked at Harry and smiled a tight smile. “What about my dishwasher, Harry? Is that shit, too? When you gonna fix that?”

He tugged on his beard. “Just waiting on the parts, Miss Saint Clare.”

“Sure you are.”

Harry pointed to Garcia. “This gentleman showed me his badge and asked me to let him inside. Hope that’s okay, Miss Saint Clare. Since he works for the feds same as you, I figured—”

“That’s fine,” she interrupted.

Harry said, “I escorted him up, to make sure he knew where to go.”

“He’s been here before,” she said.

Harry looked at Garcia and winked. “Is that right?”

Bernadette looked at Garcia and asked flatly, “Shall we take this inside…sir?”

“Sounds good.” Garcia smacked Harry on the back. “Don’t let them work you too hard, old-timer.”

Rolling her eyes, Bernadette closed the door hard behind them. “Old-timer. Give me a break. That lazy, overpaid turd.”

“He seems like a decent enough fella.”

She shrugged off her coat and tossed it over a kitchen chair. “He’s getting paid a lot and is doing absolutely nothing while the place is falling apart.”

“It’s not his fault that Murrick did a cut-rate renovation job.”

“August spent a ton of time and money fixing this place.”

Garcia followed her into the kitchen. “Awfully touchy about him, aren’t you?”

“It isn’t nice to speak ill of the dead.”

He took off his coat and dropped it over the back of a kitchen chair. “What did you get from the nursing home?”

She leaned her back against the kitchen island. “Ruth was only a few years older than we are when she died. She’d been in the home since she was a teen. Her parents put her there after she became brain damaged. She was injured in a ‘household accident.’ That’s the official line, at least. But I think…” She paused, unsure of whether she should unveil her theory.

“You think what?”

“I think her father tried to drown her, causing the brain damage. I think the brothers witnessed it. I think one of them went wiggy as a result and is drowning young women.”

“Why now? If the girl was injured years ago—”

“Remember. She died in April, the same month the first victim was found floating in the river.”

Garcia walked back and forth between the table and the island. “If you’re correct—”

“I am.”

“How did you get all this?”

“I talked to one of her former roommates at the home.”

“Why are all the victims college women, especially ones with emotional problems?”

“I don’t know. Could be the first victim happened to be a screwed-up coed and he decided to stick with a known quantity. That’s the sort of girl he would have grown accustomed to through the practice. Skinny, emotionally vulnerable women. Easy pickings. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Ruth was injured in the years before she would have started college.”

He stopped pacing and faced her, propping his butt against the edge of the kitchen table. “Which one, though? Which brother?”

“I came home to try to figure that out.”

“You’re going to use your sight.”

“That’s the plan. I’ve still got the scarf. All I need is the venue.”

He loosened his tie. “The urinal downstairs again, or should we find a church?”

“The basement’s good. I want to do this quick.”

Garcia took off his blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Let’s get to it.”

“One more thing: I got a call at the office.”

“Yeah?”

“Professor said he’s got a student missing.”

“Is he up to something?”

“I think I believe him. He said her name is Regina Ordstruman. Gone since Friday. Maybe since Thursday.”

“He volunteered that information?”

“That’s about all I could get out of him before his lawyer friend made him hang up the phone.”

Garcia yanked off his tie. “Fucking lawyer.”

“Forget about him. We might have a missing girl, and my sight could find her.”

He threw his tie on the table. “Right. That’s right.”

“I’ve got to run upstairs and get the scarf.” She headed for the steps spiraling up to her sleeping loft. “Mind if I quickly throw on some jeans while I’m at it?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Wish you had a pair that fit me.”

While she changed, she heard him opening her refrigerator. Bernadette liked that he felt at home in her condo. It took her only a couple of minutes to change, but he was finished with his sandwich by the time she came down. “Superb salami.”

She held up the bagged scarf. “Ready?”

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “Let’s rock.”

Chapter 35

THE DUCT TAPE WAS A BITCH.

While the stretch of tape at her wrists developed a small tear, she’d made little additional progress in her bid to free herself. The stuff kept sticking to the shower door’s edging, forcing her to stop and start again. Her knees ached, and at the same time her taped ankles were losing sensation, making it difficult to keep her balance. She’d gone from perspiring to shivering as the sweat coated and cooled her body. The lack of food was making her light-headed. As her concentration wavered, so did her determination to escape.

She repeatedly rested her forehead against the edge of the shower door. Was she in the middle of a bad dream? Of all the rotten men in her life, why had she picked this bastard to star in her nightmare?

THE BASTARD
was in the kitchen making a sandwich to settle his nervous stomach. There was something comforting in the mechanical assembly of layers. Bread. Mayo. Cheese. Meat. Tomato. Lettuce. Bread. On the counter, between the jar of mayo and the bag of sliced whole wheat, was a handgun. He’d brought it out of storage for reassurance.

He’d been startled by the information on the six o’clock news. While the suspect sketch was vague, the very fact that there was a description told him there was a witness to worry about. Switching from station to station, he’d waited for a name, but the police were holding that card close. Thankfully, no one had connected the most recent incidents to the earlier ones—not publicly at least. The diminutive FBI agent was the only one near to getting it right.

As always, he’d selected his prey carefully. With her frail form and fragile psyche, she’d been easy to manipulate and overpower. No one in her life cared enough about her to register her absence immediately. Those who did notice would dismiss her disappearance as a continuation of her pattern of unstable behavior. He had plenty of time to play with her before releasing her into the water.

Admittedly, with each woman he was feeling less and less satisfied. Rather than increasing his pleasure, pacing them closer together had frustrated him. He’d have to see if keeping one around before finishing her intensified his satisfaction.