Let Me Go (30 page)

He thought he saw a flash of fear behind her eyes, but then it was gone. She settled back in the chair and looked at him with a smile. Then she opened her knees. “Are we playing again so soon?” she said.

Archie put his foot on the chair between her legs, his toe at her crotch, and leaned close to her, so she could see his eyes and know how serious he was. “I'm not playing,” he said.

She was afraid now. She tried to hide it, but the color vanished from her cheeks, and she pressed her back against the chair, pulling away from him. “How do you know what I like?” he asked her.

Rachel met his gaze. Her nostrils flared as she breathed. “You have a lot of responsibility in your job,” she said. “A lot of power. Sometimes it feels good to give up that power for a little while. To be bound.” She tilted her head at him, and her eyebrows lifted. “But you like it the other way, too, don't you? You like seeing me tied up.” Archie's body went rigid. Rachel was appraising him now. She leaned forward slightly. “Did Gretchen Lowell use to let you tie her up?” she asked.

Archie backed away a few steps from the chair.

Any trace of fear he'd read in Rachel's face was gone. She regarded him without emotion. She didn't look much like Gretchen at all, he realized. The coloring was similar; the build was close. They had a similar genetic makeup. They both had large blue eyes and symmetrical features, wide cheekbones and plump lips. But really, Gretchen was much prettier.

Archie lowered his eyes and concentrated on buttoning his shirt. His wrists didn't hurt anymore. He felt numb. “Are you my birthday present, Rachel?” he asked.

“Don't give me that sad look,” Rachel said. “You knew what I was. The tattoo. All the questions I wouldn't answer. The way I came on to you. You suspected from the beginning.”

“I just thought you were really into scar tissue,” Archie said with a mirthless laugh. She was right, though. He had known she was hiding something. It was one of the things that allowed him to be with her. She didn't ask his secrets and he didn't ask hers. It had seemed sort of ideal at the time.

“You never gave me Henry's number,” Rachel said.

Archie glanced up from his shirt.

“Earlier today,” she said, “when I told you about last night. I said that I didn't have Henry's number, so I couldn't call to make sure you were okay. You could have given it to me then, but you didn't.”

She'd noticed that.

“I was really worried for you,” Rachel said, voice catching. “I thought she'd killed you.”

Archie studied her face, trying to find any truth in it. She smiled.

He didn't know what was real anymore. It didn't matter anyway. He looked out the window at the dark sky. Gretchen would be here soon. He finished buttoning his shirt and tucked it in. “How much did she pay you?” Archie asked.

Rachel grinned. “A
lot
.”

“Thanks,” Archie said dryly.

“I'm expensive,” she said.

“And worth every penny.”

Rachel's expression softened. “It was fun,” she said.

“I'm glad,” Archie said. “How was it arranged?”

“She contacted me via e-mail. She paid through an offshore account. Our contact has been limited to that.”

She said it so casually. Like it was any other business arrangement. Like she'd been hired as a nanny. Archie didn't know if she was naïve or just deluded. “You know that she's a serial killer, right?” Archie asked. “You caught that part?”

“She used a different name,” Rachel said defensively. “I didn't know who she was when I agreed to the booking, I swear. She was still at the state hospital at the time. She must have used an intermediary.”

“When did you figure it out?” Archie asked.

Rachel hesitated. “It didn't take long once I'd gotten here. Once I'd met you. You say her name in your sleep. You told me yourself how much I look like her. But I didn't see anything wrong with it. She was paying me to give you pleasure. And it seemed like you could do with some.”

“How charitable of you,” Archie said. He picked his beer off the counter and took a long pull, trying to settle his nerves. It was warm and flat.

“She means something to you,” Rachel observed.

Archie let that idea sink in. “I chase her,” he said. “She chases me. We've been doing it since you were in middle school.” He considered his beer. Then took another sip. “We have our ups and downs, like any other couple.”

“You've slept with her,” Rachel said.

Archie could lie. But why? To protect his reputation? His family? Rachel had been hired to fuck him. She didn't have a lot of leverage in the morality department. “Yes,” he said. He could have left it at that. But he couldn't say it, without trying to explain. “Before I knew who she was. She had infiltrated the investigation as a psychologist. We thought the Beauty Killer was a man back then. There was a consensus that a woman couldn't be capable of that kind of sadism”—he shook his head and laughed—“which I find fucking hysterical in retrospect.” He shrugged. “I'm not making excuses. Because I slept with her after I knew who she was, too, right before she gave me this.” Archie traced his fingers over the scar on his neck. “But I would put that in the category of breakup sex. Are you really from San Diego?”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

Archie walked over to his jacket, which was slung over the back of one of the living room chairs, and Rachel twisted around to look at him. “I mean, originally,” she continued. “I travel the world now. My job takes me a lot of places. Dubai. London. New York. Vegas. I specialize in the girlfriend experience.”

He got the bottle of Oxycodone out of his jacket pocket, snapped it open, and tapped three pills into his palm. His back was to Rachel. “She told you what I'd like,” he said. The pills were tiny. Vicodin were chalky white oblongs the size of bullets, but these were delicate round dots, as small as an
O
on a keyboard. They had no weight. He couldn't even feel them in his hand.

“No,” Rachel said. “Not until tonight. I'm a professional. I like to think I don't need that much instruction. If it makes you feel better, she knew you'd figure it out. She told me that once you did I could tell you everything you wanted to know.”

Archie tossed the three tiny pills down the back of his throat and washed them down with the last swig of his beer. If he was going to pull this off, he was going to need to care less, and he could always count on the pills for that. “Well, I'm glad she doesn't think I'm a
total
fucking idiot,” he said.

He set the empty beer bottle on the coffee table and pulled on his jacket and thought about what else he might need. He walked over to his desk, opened a drawer, and got an extra round of ammo from the box and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he returned to the kitchen bar and leaned back against it and looked at Rachel.

She had stopped trying to work the cuffs loose and sat stiffly in the chair. Her knees were pressed modestly together, and one leg was bouncing restlessly. Her toes pressed against the floor.

“What are we doing?” Rachel asked.

“We're waiting,” Archie said.

Rachel's eyes went very slowly to the door. Archie could see her shoulders begin to move again as she went back to work trying to squirm out of the cuffs.

“Are you afraid?” he asked. “You took the job. You should meet your employer.”

Rachel snapped her eyes back at him. “You think she's coming here?” she asked. Her voice was strained with fear. This time Archie was convinced it was authentic.

“She went through a lot of trouble to make sure everyone else would go to that island,” Archie said.

Rachel looked at him blankly and Archie realized that she had no idea what he was talking about. He didn't talk about his work with her. She didn't know anything about the island. It was possible that she didn't even know that Gretchen was back in the area. “Never mind,” he said. “This little show tonight, that was her idea?”

“I got an e-mail,” Rachel said. “And a ten-grand bonus.” Rachel glanced at the laptop at Archie's elbow and her mouth tightened. “You know, she's watching us,” Rachel said. “Probably right now.”

Archie turned and put his face in front of the laptop and waved for a moment and then turned back to Rachel, who was looking at him like he had gone crazy. “She can see us,” Archie explained. “She can't hear us.”

Rachel looked at the door again, her face frantic. “What's your plan?” she asked.

“Oh, I have no fucking idea,” Archie said brightly. “I'm feeling a little exposed here, pretty epically mind-fucked, so you'll have to excuse me if I just play this by ear.”

“Maybe you should call for backup?” Rachel suggested.

“Then she won't come,” Archie said. He leaned back against the counter on his elbows. “I want her to come. I want to see what she does.” He glanced out the window again. The sky was black, like someone had rubbed out the stars with their thumb. “I don't think she's very far away.”

“Uncuff me,” Rachel pleaded.

“I don't want you to leave,” Archie said.

Rachel lifted her chin. “Am I in trouble?” she asked.

“For what?” Archie asked. “The prostitution? Or the aiding and abetting an escaped killer?”

“You don't get to judge me,” Rachel said, eyes hardening. “You're the one who fucked her. What happened, Archie? Did you like it when she was cutting into you in that basement? When she'd drag that scalpel across your chest, did it make you hard? Did you beg her to push it in deeper?”

“Something like that,” Archie said. He walked to the window and gazed out. He didn't see any sign of the patrol unit that Sanchez had mentioned. “She didn't even have to seduce me,” Archie said. “I went to her house one night. I knocked on her door, knowing what I wanted to happen.” He could see Gretchen even now, opening her door in a white satin robe, her smile when she'd seen it was him, and his relief when she'd asked him inside. Gretchen had a beautiful smile. It lit up a room.

“You're a fool,” Rachel said gently.

Archie glanced back at her. “News flash,” he said dryly.

“No,” Rachel said. She shook her head and sighed. “She let you think you seduced her. Women know how to do that. Believe me, she was in control the entire time. You didn't make a move that she didn't manipulate. Men are simple that way. No offense.”

“Bullshit,” Archie said. “I'm an adult. I was married with a family and I made the choice to betray them.” The thought of it still made him feel an almost physical pain. “I went there of my own free will. And I went back over and over again. Even when things got weird.” He shook his head bitterly. Who was he kidding? “Especially then,” he said. “I liked it. All of it.” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “I liked it a lot. It must have been there, in me, all along, right? But it turns out I'm capable of a lot of things that I didn't know I was capable of a few years ago.”

Someone opened the front door. Archie heard the knob turn and the faint creak as the hinges rotated. The door was just out of his line of sight, blocked by the refrigerator. But he saw Rachel's eyes widen in terror and she began to squirm wildly on the chair. Everything slowed. He lifted his weapon and aimed it at the empty place where Gretchen would move through when she came through the door.

He heard a shuffling as Ginger worked her way out from under the coffee table, trotted to the center of the room, her nails clicking on the wood floor. But she didn't go all the way to the door. The sound of her steps stopped suddenly somewhere in the center of the room. She didn't bark. She just stood there.

Rachel gulped back sobs.

Archie took a step toward the door, with his weapon raised. He could feel the Oxycodone warming his blood.

He waited for Gretchen to step inside where he could see her, but she didn't appear.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Archie called.

No one answered.

Sweat thickened on Archie's upper lip.

Rachel was still squirming on the chair, making tiny gulping sounds. “Rachel?” Archie hissed. “What can you see?” Her eyes remained fixed on the doorway. He couldn't tell if she didn't hear him or was just too frightened to respond.

Archie couldn't stand this anymore. He slid along the kitchen bar, the gun raised in front of him.

He saw her foot first, a white pump planted on his threshold. Then each step revealed more of her, like a curtain pulling back on a stage.

Gretchen Lowell, in his doorway.

Archie felt a rush of feeling—seeing her in person—that made his throat go dry. Or maybe it was just the pills kicking in.

She was wearing an old-fashioned white nurse's uniform, white stockings, and low white pumps. Her blond hair was pulled back neatly and a nurse's cap sat on top of her head. Over the dress she was wearing a dark blue thigh-length cape with four brass buttons that fastened at the neck. She tossed one side of the cape back over her shoulder, revealing its red lining and also the fact that her white dress was splattered with blood.

Archie aimed his weapon at the center of her face. “There you are,” he said.

She gave him a ravishing smile and sauntered forward toward him, hips swinging. Archie fought to keep his weapon trained at her head, even as he darted his eyes from the sights to take in what was coming at him. She was covered in blood. Arcs of arterial spray decorated the dress from the hem to the collar. As she got closer, he saw a fine spray of red on her neck, chest, and cheek. Archie's mind went to his protection detail outside and his stomach clenched. He had been a fool to tell Henry that she only killed when she had to. She had killed again. And she had done it with relish.

“Don't worry,” Gretchen said, waving a French-manicured hand at the blood. Her eyes were bright. “It's fake.”