In Cold Blonde (24 page)

“Really,” Anne said, doing her best to seem genuinely surprised. 
“Who’s the lucky girl?”

Ryan had never publically revealed their relationship to anyone, but
since Anne was going to be around a lot now, he knew she’d figure it out sooner
or later.  “Syd,” he said.  “My partner.”

“She’s adorable,” Anne said.  “And a very lucky girl.  How
serious are you?  I mean, are you guys talking about getting married?”

“Way too early for that, I think, but I guess you could say we’re pretty
serious.”

So am I, Anne thought, and your little redhead doesn’t stand a
chance.  Time to wreak a little havoc.  “That’s wonderful,
Ryan.  I just hope your sudden wealth doesn’t ruin the relationship.”

“Why would the lottery affect the relationship?”

“Does she know about the tow truck driver?”

Ryan’s expression went from confusion to understanding.  “Yes. 
And frankly, she’s not crazy about my taking the money.”

“Wait a minute.  She actually wants you to turn down the Lotto?”

He nodded.  “She thinks it’s dishonest to take the money.”

“Even though you plan on giving most of it away?”

Ryan shrugged.  “She’s got high standards.” 

“So do I,” Anne said.  “And my standards demand we take that money
and use it help scores of people in need.” 

“No need to get defensive, Anne.  I agree with you.  I’m taking
the money.”

“Sorry, I just have so little patience with… misplaced
righteousness.” 

“She means well.”

Time to sow a few seeds of doubt, Anne thought.   “And she’s
not going to get angry every time you use some of the money for yourself? 
A new house?  New car?  A vacation for the two of you?  She’s
not going to remind you the money you’re spending isn’t really yours?”

 She may not say anything, Ryan thought.  But there would
certainly be that knowing look in her eye.  “I don’t know.  I guess
we’ll have to wait and see.”

“You know what, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Anne said.  “Syd seems like
a lovely, reasonable girl.”  Okay, Anne thought.  Time to move on the
next part of her plan.  She opened her briefcase.  “You said you
didn’t have much time, so let’s get down to business.  I just have a
couple of things for you to sign tonight.”  Her hands searched the inside
of the briefcase and then she looked up, apologetic.  “Shit, I must’ve
left them in my room.  You mind coming upstairs with me?  It’ll just
take you a second to sign the papers and then you can be on your way.”

Ryan looked at Anne with playful skepticism.  “You just happened to
leave them in your room?  You sure this isn’t a trick to get me in your
room, ply me with alcohol and seduce me?”

You bet your ass it is, Anne thought.  “No, not at all.  Look,
if you’d rather wait here, I’ll bring them down.”  She quickly got to her
feet.  “I’ll be right back.”

“No, don’t be silly,” Ryan said.  He got up, dropped twenty on the
table for the drinks.  “I’ll come with you.”

 “Great.  And no funny stuff, I promise.” 

“Deal.”

So far so good, Anne thought as she slipped her purse over her
shoulder.  Now for the fun part.  “The elevator’s this way,” she said
and led Ryan out of the lounge.

Syd watched Ryan and Anne walk toward the bank of elevators.  He’s
going up to her room, she realized.  She’d lost him.

Syd considered calling Ryan, telling him about Alice Waterman.  That
would be one way to get him out of Anne’s room.  Ryan would certainly want
to be in on the parents’ interview.

But fuck him.  He wants to sleep with
his ex-wife, let him.  Syd would handle it alone. 

Syd collected her things, and with one last look through the binoculars
at the man she loved, Syd left.

Alice stared at the TV screen stunned.  After all the years of
wondering what exactly happened to her that night, now she knew.  The
blanks were filled in, and now that she’d witnessed the horror firsthand, it
was so much worse than she’d ever imagined. 

She’d been disgusted watching the three men rape her.  But she
expected that.  What she hadn’t expected was the fourth man, the man who appeared
at the end of the video.  And that changed everything.  Because now
one more man had to die.

But first she had to deal with Blake. 

“So,” Blake said.  “Feel like talking about what you’ve just seen? 
Want to tell the world your side of the story?”

“Sure.  But I’d like some water
first.”

Alice wasn’t actually thirsty.  But to get to the kitchen Blake had
to pass in front of her.  And maybe, just maybe… 

“Water?  Sure.  Or maybe wine, it might help you relax. 
I’ve still got that bottle of Chardonnay.”   

“No thanks, lately I found white wine gives me a headache.”

He looked at her, surprised at her wit.  “You know, you’re very hot
when you’re funny.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s more like it.”  Blake stepped out from behind his desk and
headed for the kitchen.  As he passed Alice, she kicked her feet into the
back of his legs knocking his feet out from under him.  He hit the ground
with a thud.  Alice rolled over, dragging her feet toward his face. 

“Bitch,” he mumbled and started to get up.

She kicked him in the face.  His head bounced off her feet and into
the wall.  WHAP! 

“Cunt.”

She kicked again and again and again.  WHAP.  WHAP. 
WHAP.  His head bounced off the wall as blood erupted from his nose, his
forehead and an eyebrow.    

He was unconscious.  Alice crawled over him and flipped onto her
back. Since her hands were cuffed behind her back she had to fish blindly in
his pockets for the handcuff keys.  If he even had them in his pocket.

She came up empty in his front left pocket, but struck gold in his right
front pocket.  She twisted the fingers of her right hand trying to find
the opening for the lock on her left handcuff.  It was awkward, and
painful, but finally the key slipped into the lock.  She turned the key
and the handcuff fell away.

Oh, thank God, she thought.  She unlocked the right handcuff and
tossed them across the room.  Then she quickly untied her feet.

Blake was starting to stir.  She thought about kicking him again,
but the overwhelming desire to get her gun won out and she bolted into the
living room to get her purse.  She dug inside for the gun but couldn’t
find it.  She yanked open the mouth of her purse, her hands and eyes
desperately searching every nook and corner.  It wasn’t there. 

Fuck!  She had a terrible feeling about the missing gun but couldn’t
dwell on it now.  She pulled out the only weapon she had left, the
scalpel.

CLICK.

An unmistakable sound. 

The sound of a gun being cocked.

Behind her.

She turned.  Blake, blood pouring from the wounds on his face, stood
in the kitchen, aiming the .25 at her. 

She cocked her arm to throw the knife.

He fired.

“I’m looking for Alice Waterman.”

“Alice, why Alice is my daughter, but she doesn’t live here,” Betty
Waterman said from her doorway.

The drive down to Santa Ana had been tough on Syd.  She’d spent the
hour and fifteen minutes obsessing on Ryan and Anne, trying to convince herself
not to jump to conclusions.  Anne had practically forced him to kiss
her.  And just because he left the lounge with her, didn’t mean he was going
to jump into bed with her. 

Then Syd got pissed at herself for trying to excuse Ryan’s
behavior.  He was just another asshole with a cock attached and she
berated herself for thinking Ryan was somehow different. 

Finally, she refocused on the case and the looming possibility that she
was about to meet the Lady in Red’s parents.  And that thrilling prospect
fueled the last, suddenly-hope-filled miles of her drive.  So now, here
goes…

“Alice lives in Hollywood,” Betty said.  “I’m sorry, I’m being
rude.  Come in, please.”

Syd walked in and was hit by a wave of déjà vu.  The layout of the
house was almost identical to her Mom’s house in Overland Park.  Small
living room with lace curtains draped across a narrow picture window, tiny
dining room with red and orange paisley plastic tablecloth connected to the
undersized kitchen by a swinging door. 

“That hunk of blubber on the couch is my husband, Cliff.  Cliff,
this is a police Detective, Syd… what was your last name again?”

“Curtis.  Syd Curtis.”  Syd stepped forward, shook Cliff’s
hand.  He actually wasn’t a hunk of blubber; he had a bit of a beer belly,
but there was a lot of muscle on his body, and steel in his handshake.  He
had a friendly face, with rosy cheeks and a full head of gray hair.

Betty was thin with reading glasses perched on her slender nose, and
shoulder length chestnut brown hair.  “She wants to talk to us about
Alice.”     

A frown creased Cliff’s face as he indicated for Syd to sit in one of the
chairs.  Cliff and Betty sat across from her on the couch.  “What’d
she do now?”

“Well, to be honest I’m not sure she’s done anything.  I’d like to
show you a picture.”  Syd had brought her backpack into the house; she
fished out the surveillance picture of the Lady in Red.  She handed it to
Betty.  “Do you recognize this woman?”

Betty and Cliff looked at the photo.  “It’s not a very good picture
but that’s her, all right,” Cliff said, disapprovingly.  “The new improved
version, she calls it.  Me, I think she looks like a slut.”

“Cliff!” Betty said.

“You don’t like it either, admit it.”

“No, but I’m not going to call my daughter a slut.”

Cliff looked like he was about to say something else, then his eyes cut
to Syd, and he thought better of it and shut up.

“Have you seen the news today?” Syd asked.

“I never watch the news.  It’s all way too depressing for my
taste.  Cliff watches the news sometimes, though.”

A light bulb seemed to go off in Cliff’s head.  He took the picture
from his wife, looked at it.    “Oh, no…  Is this that
surveillance photo from TV?  The Lady in Red, that’s what they called her,
she’s killing people, right?”

“That’s right,” Syd said

“Dear God,” Betty said.  “But I thought she was finally getting
better.  That the new therapy was working.”

Hallelujah, thought Syd.  Now for some answers.  “I know something
happened to Alice in high school, something involving Colin Wood and Adam
Devlin, both killed by the Lady in Red.  And I know there was some kind of
financial settlement handled by Zachary Stone.  He also killed by the Lady
in Red.  What I don’t know is what happened.  Could you tell me,
please?”

Cliff’s face hardened at the memory and he leaned back on the couch, his
body language shutting down.  Tears ran down Betty’s face now and she
turned away from Syd.

“I’m not here to judge,” Syd said.  “For Alice to act the way she
has after so many years is a testament to the horrible things that must have
been done to her.  I’m just trying to understand why she is doing what she
is doing.”

Betty reached across her husband for the box of tissues.  She wiped
her eyes, blew her nose.  Then her eyes met Syd’s.  “Do you have
children, Detective?”

“No.”

“There is no greater joy, or burden.”

“We got little of the former and a more than our share of the latter,”
Cliff said.

Betty ignored her husband with practiced ease.  “Alice was such a
delightful child.   We didn’t have much money when she was growing
up, but we spent a lot of family time together.  Cliff always wanted a son
so Alice was raised a tomboy; she loved sports and they would go hunting
together every fall.  And she was smart.  She got into Camden Hall on
a full scholarship. We’d talk about how one day she’d go to an Ivy League
college and make a name for herself in corporate America.  She promised us
a ride on her first corporate jet.

“But things started to change when she turned fourteen.  Boys
suddenly became very important to her and Alice became very critical of her own
looks.  To be honest, Alice took a while to get pretty.  She was a
bit heavy, a little awkward and just didn’t seem to fit in.”

“This country’s obsession with looks and sex is disgusting,” Cliff
said.  “You want to blame someone for all this, blame Britney Spears,
blame Paris Hilton, blame Lindsey Lohan.  Blame all those bubble-headed,
big-boobed, empty-headed teen queens on the cover of all the magazines and
flaunting their skinny asses on TV.  How’s a normal girl supposed to
compete with that?”

“Alice and I are about the same age,” Syd said.  “And I know the
feeling.  I grew up in suburb of Kansas City but was nuked by the culture
bomb, too.”  

“Alice used sex,” Betty said.  “That’s how she competed.  I
didn’t know at the time, but later she told me.” 

“Do we have to talk about this?” Cliff asked, clearly uncomfortable with
the conversation.

“The more I know, the better chance I have of helping her,” Syd said.

“You mean catching her, don’t you,” Cliff said.  “You want to catch
Alice and put her in jail.”

“She’s killed three men already; I’m trying to stop her before she kills
anyone else.”

“Even if they deserved to die?” Cliff asked.

I’ve been asking myself that same question, Syd thought.  But gave
the answer she was trained to give.  “That’s for a jury to decide. 
She’s also in danger.  She could be hurt or killed.  The sooner I
catch her, the safer she’ll be.”

Cliff didn’t like it but he settled back in the couch, a scowl on his
face.

Betty Waterman took that as permission to speak, and she did.  “When
Alice was fourteen, she discovered that giving boys sexual favors made her more
popular.  And if a boy paid attention to her, she flew to cloud nine, but
the slightest inattention would send her spiraling down.  In hindsight it
was so clearly manic-depressive behavior, but kids act out, right?  We now
know she was sick, bi-polar the doctors say, but who imagines their little girl
is mentally ill.”

“I did,” Cliff Waterman said.  “I used to say there had to be
something wrong with her, that she was just like your loony sister, but you
wouldn’t listen.”

“Cliff, please.”  Betty Waterman turned back to Syd.  “What
Alice didn’t realize, of course, was that her sexual behavior gave her a
certain reputation and boys started taking advantage of her.  They would
be nice to her, she would reward them with sex, but once the boys got what they
wanted, they’d dump her.”

“And she’d go into a depression.”

Betty nodded.  “Then her senior year of high school she got this
huge crush on a boy, Adam Devlin.  They’d shared a bus ride on a school
trip and he’d been very nice to her.  He was very popular and she
convinced herself that he’d ask her out and she’d suddenly become one of the
popular kids.  And then one day he asked her to a party.  It was a
dream come true for Alice.  She went there with such high expectations,
but there was no party.  Just Adam and a couple of his friends playing pool
and drinking.”

“
She
was the party,” Cliff said.

“That’s right,” Betty said.  “They gave her a drink; it must’ve been
spiked with something because Alice passed out.  When she woke up hours
later, she was on the pool table, naked.  She had pain in her vagina and…
well everywhere.  And Alice realized they had drugged and had sex with
her.”

“They drugged and
raped
her,” Syd said, anger burning inside her. 
“Make no mistake Mrs. Waterman, sex without consent is rape.”        

“But as bad as that was,” Betty said, “for Alice, it wasn’t the worse
part.   A couple of days later dirty pictures of Alice were emailed
to all the kids at school.  You couldn’t see the boys’ faces, but you
could clearly see Alice, naked and having sex.”

“And that’s when the lawyer showed up,” Cliff said.  “They were
suddenly worried Alice would go to the police and file charges so the lawyer
basically threatened us.  Take his money or he would ruin Alice’s
reputation.  So we took the money.”

“Our single biggest mistake.”

“It was not a mistake,” Cliff snapped and Syd realized she had stumbled
into a well-worn argument.  “If we hadn’t taken the money, how would we
have paid for all those doctors and that damned institute?”

“If we hadn’t taken the money she may not have
needed
the doctors
and institute.”  Betty turned back to Syd.  “Three days after we agreed
to the settlement Alice tried to kill herself.”

“And you think humiliating herself in court, having the world find out what
a slut she was would have been better?”

“I didn’t then, I do now.”  Betty’s eyes found Syd.  “Alice
hates us; she thinks we sold her out.”  Betty turned back to Cliff and
added pointedly, “And we did.” 

Cliff shook his head, defensive, angry and frustrated.  “Well, we
can’t go back in time, so get used to it.”

The friendly couple act was just a veneer, there was such obvious rancor
between the two that Syd wondered how their marriage had survived.  “Tell
me about the suicide attempt.  What did she do?”

“I had some sleeping pills, I’d have trouble sometimes, and she took
them, all of them, a brand new prescription of twenty pills.”

“If she hadn’t knocked over a lamp when she passed out, we wouldn’t have
found her until morning,” Cliff said.  “But when I heard the crash I went
upstairs to check on her.”      

“We put her into therapy immediately, that’s when we found out she was
bi-polar.  They put her on drugs, lithium to stabilize her moods and an
antipsychotic, but whenever she was feeling good, she’d stop taking her meds,
then she’d get depressed and try to kill herself again.  It was more than
we could handle, frankly, so the doctors recommended putting her in a full-time
facility.  The Riverview Institute in Riverside.  You know it?”

“No.”

“A wonderful hospital.”

“Wonderfully expensive,” Cliff said.  “And, if it was so wonderful,
why’d they have to keep her for so many years?”

“She could get violent,” Betty said to Syd.  “When she got depressed
she’d act out and sometimes attack the attendants or other patients.  And
every time she’d come home the old resentments about our taking the settlement
would come up and well…” Betty trailed off, suddenly holding something back.

“Go ahead, tell her,” Cliff said.  “If Alice is killing people, a
little arson won’t matter.”

“Three years ago she came home.  Everything was fine at first, Cliff
even got Alice a job at one of the Knott’s Berry Farm gift shops.”

“I maintain all the rides,” Cliff said. 

“I even began to daydream about Alice going back to school.  She
wasn’t too old for college, so maybe some of those childhood dreams could still
come true.  Then Cliff did something really stupid.”

“Damn it, Betty, don’t say it like that.  The car broke down, what
was I supposed to do?”

“He bought a new car, a luxury car, a Lexus with all the trimmings.”

“I was smart with that settlement money,” Cliff said defensively. 
“I didn’t blow it; I invested, carefully.  Good thing, too, because
Alice’s medical expenses are ridiculously expensive.  Anyway, my old Dodge
was shot; I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, so why not buy a
nice car?”

“Because it was rubbing Alice’s face in your betrayal.”

“She went with me to pick it out,” he said practically throwing the words
at Betty.  Then, to Syd, “You have to understand that Alice’s moods swing
wildly.  When we went to buy the car, she really enjoyed it.  Hell,
she even picked out the color, Amber Pearl.”

“But at breakfast the next morning she had that look in her eyes –
like someone else was inside her head – and she said we paid for the car
with blood money.”

“I’m sure she was off meds,” Cliff said.  “Though she swore she took
them.  She caused trouble at work too, yelling at customers and she got
into an argument with her boss.”