The Love Laws (25 page)

“Oh. We’re
taking this to an ugly place, are we? Miss Former Pole Grinder?” He arched an
eyebrow at Jamie.

Before she
could respond Jessica held up her hands and placed herself bodily between her
sister and Clay. “Okay. Enough of that, you two.” She pushed at Clay’s shoulder
and pointed towards the front door. “I would love a cup of herbal tea. Why
don’t you go down the road and grab us some goodies, okay?”

“Fine,” Clay
said, mustering his dignity as he needlessly straightened his immaculate silk
vest and tie. “But I am NOT overprotective,” he muttered over his shoulder as
he turned away from them with an indignant sniff. “If I was I certainly
wouldn’t be encouraging my sister to participate in your crazy publicity
stunt.” He gave Jamie one last glare and exited with a dramatic flourish.

Jamie threw up
her arms and turned to her sister. “My publicity stunt? This was their idea.
They came to me. How did I get to be the bad guy here?” She asked the empty
room.

Jessica raised
a doubtful eyebrow. “Oh. I don’t know,” she said dryly. “Maybe when you started
using people? That’s usually when things have a tendency to go wrong.”

Jamie felt hot
tears spiking behind her lids. Was her sister right?

No. She wasn’t
doing anything wrong. She was just trying to save her store. Clay and Jessica
were both being completely critical and unsupportive. And not for the first
time. She was tired of being judged by them. What had she done wrong exactly?
Manipulated Kevin a little, tiny bit? He was a big boy. He could handle it. And
as for Cathy, what harm had bringing Kevin into flirt with her really done? At
worst Cathy had felt a bit uncomfortable. Considering the situations the girl
had put herself in for the article, including a vibrator familiarization
lecture, Jamie didn’t see the big deal. She’d hardly forced Cathy to commit a
crime against nature. And yet Jamie was being treated like some kind of Lex
Luthor-type Master Villain because she’d orchestrated one little awkward
meeting.

She longed to
shout at her sister and claim her innocence but knew it wouldn’t do any good.
She was destined to be cast in the role of selfish sister even if it was
completely unjustified. Jessica was the saint and would always be right. No
matter how unfair it was.

So instead of
screeching like a banshee Jamie sighed, put on her best bored expression and
glanced at her watch. “Seriously?  That’s a laugh. Who do you think I’m using
here exactly?”

Jessica’s
expression softened. “You really don’t know?”

Jamie rolled
her eyes. “No, I really don’t. How would I?”

Jessica bit her
lip and hesitated. “Well, Duncan will probably spank me for sharing this but
Kevin is having some kind of meltdown.”

“Getting drunk
at a bar hardly qualifies as a major crisis. For most single guys that’s pretty
much a typical day. Especially for a Player like him.” Jamie said dismissively.
“No big deal.”

Jessica shook
her head. “But it is a big deal. One of his brothers has a major problem with
pain meds, so Kevin usually keeps things pretty moderate. He wants to set a
good example. Or at least he did until a few months ago.”

Jamie felt her
entire body tensing up. Was there something really wrong with Kevin? She had
hinted at it the other night but had assumed he was suffering from just a
typical case of early mid-life crisis. Not something serious.

“What happened
a few months ago?” Jamie asked softly. As much as she wanted to appear
unconcerned, she could hear the worry in her voice.

“Well, Kevin
took on a new book deal. A big one. And according to Duncan, he’s having some
serious issues with it.”

“What kind of
issues?”

“It’s on
Rawlings, Jamie.”

Jamie went
cold. H. R. Rawlings was well-known for his horrible crimes against women. By
the time the authorities caught up with him at his farm outside the city
several years ago he had murdered and disposed of more than a dozen
prostitutes. His name alone inspired fear and disgust in the Vancouver
community.

Rawling’s history
was common enough. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by an abusive single
mother who had tormented him incessantly every day of his young life. He had
exhibited all the classic signs of the stereotypical psychopath including
bed-wetting, cruelty to animals and escalating criminal behavior from a young
age, including a disturbing case of sexual assault on a classmate when he was
only fourteen. His two-year stint in in a juvenile detention centre seemed to
cure him of his violent tendencies, but it was really just the beginning.

After his
mother died under questionable circumstances when he was nineteen Rawlings took
over the family farm and began living his life under his own terms. For him
that meant torturing and killing women.

What made Rawlings
different from other serial killers was that his exercise in terror didn’t end
when he was incarcerated. He should have been powerless behind bars but instead
his legacy of destruction seemed to grow more powerful. But now he destroyed
minds instead of bodies.

From the very
first day of his trial anyone who had any extended contact with him, including
his lawyers and guards, all became his victims in one way or another. After the
suicide of his lawyer, mandatory counselling sessions were assigned to anyone
who was forced to encounter the toxic Rawlings for any significant length of
time. But people still continued to get pulled into his abyss.

It was rumored
that the evil man had a supernatural talent for discovering a person’s
weaknesses and torturing them with his insight into their personal demons.
Others insisted he was just a poor man’s Hannibal who got off on playing mind games.
Either way the threat he presented was frightening and real. And if Kevin had
been interviewing Rawlings for the past six months then his sanity was in real
danger. It was really no wonder he had immersed himself in booze and women to
escape the darkness Rawlings was so proficient in sowing.

Jamie gulped
and stared at her sister in shock. “You’re kidding me. He’s interviewed that
monster? Kevin? Are you sure?” The thought of the Kevin she knew conversing
with a subhuman like Rawlings didn’t compute. The men were polar opposites.
Kevin was a golden god of a man, so tall, charming and likeable it was
difficult not to smile when you looked at him. Rawlings, on the other hand, resembled
a pale, hairless goblin. His ugly visage had graced many newspapers during his
trial and Jamie remembered having at least a few nightmares about his dead eyes
and self-sharpened, rat-like teeth. Yuck.

Jessica nodded.
“He was actually pretty excited about it. At first. It was a real feather in
his cap. Especially considering Rawlings rejected several writers before
agreeing to allow Kevin access.” She shrugged. “Apparently he wanted a Canadian
writer.”

Jamie looked
down at the floor. Suddenly her treatment of Kevin seemed genuinely cruel. She
had assumed he was just a horny lush but maybe there actually was more going on
here than a guy in pursuit of casual sex for pleasure’s sake alone. Perhaps he
was a guy trying to escape something instead. That certainly put his behavior
in a new light.

But the
question was: Did his troubled state of mind make him even more attractive or was
it just another reason to avoid him at all costs?

Chapter Thirteen

Kevin woke with a start, his large
body bowing upward into a sitting position. His cell phone was growling ‘Wild
Thing’ by Tone Loc at top volume. He knew it was Dylan by the ring tone but let
it go to voicemail. He really didn’t want to talk to any of his brothers right
now, especially him. Dylan was two years younger and a major pain in the ass.
He’d see him later today anyway and that was soon enough to deal with his
attitude.

Kevin reached
out with one shaking hand and clumsily reached across the bedside table in an
effort to turn down the deafening volume on his cell. When he finally managed
to get his fingers around the offensive object he threw it across the room
where it landed on the leather seat of one of the recliners in his suite’s
sitting area with a soft thump. Leaning back against the oversized upholstered
headboard of his California king-size bed he closed his eyes and tried to gain
control of himself.

“Fuck,” he
muttered, running both hands through his wild hair. Looking down he noted that
sweat covered every inch of his naked body and his heart was beating so hard he
could hear it loud and clear in the still room.

He really
couldn’t take much more of this. The dream was slowly killing him. When he’d
been drinking, the images were blurry and difficult to recollect but bad enough
to scare the shit out of him. Now that he was three days sober he could recall
every awful detail and he felt like he was slowly losing his mind.

The dream, of
course, was about Rawlings. In it he was an observer in one of the serial
killer’s hunting expeditions. At least that’s how it always started off. But
then sometime between the trolling for fresh prey and the torture of some
nameless, faceless woman the perspective shifted and it wasn’t Rawlings hurting
the dark-haired women who inhabited his personal nightmare. It was him. And in
the dream he was enjoying the terrible things he was doing. That was the part
that scared him. Not Rawlings. But him. His own potential for pain and
destruction.

In real life
he’d never physically hurt a woman. Even when he was provoked during domestic
disturbances while working with the VPD he’d never considered using physical
force on the fairer sex. Inflicting pain wasn’t in his nature. Or at least
that’s what he’d thought until he’d discovered a growing fascination with
Rawlings’ tales of domination and control over his victims. Kevin despised
himself for it but he found himself listening to his interviews with Rawlings
over and over again, reliving the parts that both enthralled and repulsed him.

There was no
denying it. A very small and twisted part of him identified with Rawlings on
some level. In his own way he’d preyed on women just as Rawlings did. They both
used and abandoned them without a thought. In Kevin’s case, his objective was
always pleasure rather than pain, but he could still see similarities between
himself and the subject of his book. They were cut from the same dark cloth.

As much as
Kevin wanted to purge himself of these disturbing thoughts they were
inescapable and he had no idea how to exorcise his demons without the use of
alcohol and women. And as effective as those two coping mechanisms were there
was no doubt that they were also destroying what was left of his life. Bottom
line was that he couldn’t use either of them as a crutch anymore.

Alcohol was
turning him into an asshole with astronomically bad judgment and women didn’t
appeal anymore. Only one woman did and she wasn’t interested in this damaged
version of him. So what was left? How did he heal himself?

He’d thought
about therapy but couldn’t see himself sitting in a stranger’s office and
revealing the horrible truth: that he dreamed of death and destruction. And was
drawn to those repulsive activities. How could talking about it improve his
situation anyway? Acknowledgment would just make it more real, wouldn’t it?

The worst part
was that he didn’t know why Rawlings brought this out in him. He’d interviewed
human monsters before and only felt mild revulsion. But there was something
different about Rawlings. He spoke about his terrible deeds like they were a
game, without shame or guilt. He didn’t defend himself or deflect blame to his
mother or anyone else. He liked what he was: a perfect killing machine
fulfilling its purpose in life. And that purpose was causing pain and death.

A pounding on
his hotel door startled an embarrassingly girlish gasp from Kevin. He hurriedly
grabbed his jeans off the bench at the foot of the bed and scrambled into them,
not bothering with underwear. He had no idea who would be knocking on his door
at whatever time of the day this was, but he owed whoever it was a good kick in
the balls. He hated when people just showed up here. Especially certain
dark-haired ex-lovers who couldn’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer.

But it wasn’t
Kerry this time. Yanking the door open Kevin was shocked to see his younger brother,
Dylan, standing in the doorway, looking more than a bit enraged. He was
carrying his ginormous Toronto Maple Leafs duffle bag in one hand and his
iPhone in the other. He pointed the phone at Kevin menacingly and dropped the
bag on the expensive carpet with a loud thump, narrowly missing his brother’s
oversized bare feet.

“What the
hell?” Dylan growled. “I thought you were picking me up at the airport. What
happened? Did the orgy run late?”

“Shit. What
time is it?” Kevin groaned, looking over his shoulder at the bedside alarm
clock.

“It’s
ten-fucking-thirty in the morning. You were supposed to pick me up at nine.”
Dylan said through gritted teeth. With the death glare he usually reserved for
members of the opposing team directed at his brother he stepped into the room.
Punching Kevin viciously in the upper arm in typical Hall greeting he collapsed
on the nearby leather couch and watched his older brother through slitted eyes.
“I can’t believe you left me hanging like that. What is with you? You’re
turning into a total flake.”

“Man, I
overslept. Clearly, I suck.” Kevin said, closing the door and leaning against
it. He rubbed his eyes and then ambled over, sinking down on the recliner
adjacent to Dylan, narrowly missing sitting on his own cell phone. “How was
your flight?” He asked politely, trying hard to change the subject.
Unfortunately, his brother wasn’t buying it.

Dylan raised
one pierced eyebrow. “My flight was awesome. Nearly joined the mile-high club
with two porno-hot flight attendants. Thanks for asking. What wasn’t awesome
was waiting around the airport for an hour and a half.”