Prey of Desire (11 page)

“Mrs.
McGuire,” she said, when a woman answered on the other end. It was Ross’
mother. “This is Kimberly. Have you seen Ross?”

“Not in
the last few hours.”
The woman’s voice chuckled, as if she
was joking. Kim knew though that if she read between the lines, she’d find his
mother was deadly serious.

“So is he
there?” Kim asked impatiently. “Did he go home?”

“He’s not
here. I haven’t seen either of you since Christmas, you know. You’d think a boy
would visit or at least call his Mama once in a while.”

“When did
you last talk to him?”

“I told
you
---
last Christmas. And even then
it was just a phone call. No card or visit, just a quick phone call
,” she
rambled. A twinge of anger rose in her voice,
then
she
broke off midsentence. Her tone changed. “
Is something the matter?”

“He quit
his job.”

“Well
he’s always quitting something. Am I right?”

“But did
he tell you that we broke up?”

The
mother laughed. “
Again, he’s always quitting something. He gets that from
his father’s side, you know.”

Kim
thanked her, hung up the phone then plopped down onto the old recliner. She
picked up the scrapbook and flipped through the pages. Not really looking at
any specific picture, she just retreated into the memories. Finally, she read
Ross' poem again.

“Oh, Love
rips the heart in pieces,

When
distance fills the empty creases

Of time

And days
become long stretches

Of pain
and wretches

Of
torment

When our love ceases.”

That
little pang deep in her temple returned, and instinctively she knew something
was wrong.

Something
was terribly wrong, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

A clang
at the front door startled her, as the door swung open and Mallory bound into
the living room, dressed in fatigues and carrying the large box of plastic
guns. The exhibition
ticket were
in her pocket.

“
Taaaaa
-
daaa
!” she exclaimed,
posing in the doorway. Setting down the box, she held up the pink rifle. “Come
on, make my day!”

“You look
like you've been drafted,” Kim laughed. The green-black-brown fatigues drooped
on her like an ill-fitting sweat suit and the combat boots made her feet look
three times larger. It was certainly a fashion statement. “What's going on?”

“It's for
our paintball weekend.” She put down the pink gun and opened the box. “There’s
a
Tippmann
X7
Phenum
Electropneumatic
paintball marker. That's yours.”

Kim moved
toward her. “What are these?”

“Paint
ball guns,” she explained. “They shoot paint balls, or pellets really. They’re
for our warrior weekend on Saturday.”

“I’m not
going,” Kim said flatly and turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll be busy.”

“Doing
what?” Mallory followed her with interest. Pausing, she glanced at the
scrapbook in Kim's hands. Setting down the box of plastic guns, she walked over
to Kim and took the black scrapbook from her hands. “I thought you got rid of
everything that belonged to him.”

“Not
everything,” Kim said quietly. She watched Mallory flip through the pages, her
eyes widening.

“These
are love letters...” Mallory turned another page and found the poem Kim most
treasured. She read it out loud. “Oh, love rips the heart in pieces and
distance fills the empty creases. Ross wrote this?”

“Yes, for
me.” Kim walked over to the table and picked up the Pablo Neruda poetry book.
She handed it to Mallory. It was time she told her everything. “And he
gave me this.”

Mallory
took the poetry book and opened the cover. She read the inscription out loud.

“For my Darling Bonnie.
You will always be my angel. Love, Daddy.” Mallory flipped through the pages,
glancing at the poems. “Who's Bonnie?”

“I don't
know.”

“And Ross
gave this to you?”

“Yes,
earlier this week...” Kim said.

Mallory
shut the book. “He gave you this book, this week?”

“Yes...
along with a note to meet him on Friday night,” she said quietly. Zeus
whimpered at her feet. She glanced at him, then back at Mallory. “I was going
to tell you.”

“Oh, sweetie.
Something isn't right here,” Mallory's tone was chiding as she studied the
invitation. A look of alarm flushed over her face, but Kim ignored it.

“It’s
romantic,” she insisted.

“Yeah, real romantic.”
Mallory flipped the invitation over to see if anything was written on the back.
“Why’s he being so elusive? Why not just call you and say,
hey, we need to
talk
?”

“It’s his
way. He’s poetic and passionate and quiet,” she said, then thought back to what
Michael had said in class earlier. “Still waters run deep.”

“
Deadly
still waters,” Mallory added. “I just don’t like this.”

Tossing
the invitation aside, she showed Kim the tickets to the charity baseball game.
She was deliberately changing the subject from Ross, which Kim didn't
particularly like.

“I don't
know.” Kim took the two tickets from Mallory's hand and studied them.
“A baseball game in the winter?”

“For
little sick kids,” Mallory explained. “It's a good cause.”

“But baseball, in January?”
Kim asked again, trying to get her head wrapped around the
idea. “Only in Florida…”

“Come on.
Besides,
Gunz
Gonzales is playing in it,” Mallory
gushed.

Upstairs
in Kim's bedroom loft, Mallory slipped out of the fatigues and found the white
chiffon cocktail dress still hanging in the small, organized closet. It looked
more like a slip really, and Mallory smiled when she saw it. Kim shook her
head.

“You
can’t wear that to a baseball game.”

“I’m not
wearing it for the game; I’m wearing it for
Gunz
.”
Mallory slipped into the skimpy white dress. Practically see-through, it clung
provocatively to her body and left nothing to the imagination. “I want him to
see me in this dress.”

“Everyone’s
going to see you in that dress,” Kim said with a not-so-subtle hint of disapproval.
“There’s going to be families and sick kids there.”

“It’s
Chanel.”

“It’s a
charity afternoon baseball game.” Kim took a pair of jeans from a middle drawer
in her dresser and handed them toward her.

Mallory
scoffed at this, but relented. She flipped the straps off her shoulders and let
the dress fall to her ankles. She then lovingly picked it back up and returned
it to the hanger in the closet. She sighed. Stepping into tight jeans and white
tennis shoes, Mallory finally wrapped a checkered scarf over her red hair.

“You know
we’re not going to watch baseball, don’t you?” Mallory asked.

“I hate
it when you do this to me. I don’t want to be set-up.”

“A set-up?”
Mallory
asked with a slight smile of smug delight. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Am I
going to run into the old head shrink at this charity exhibition game?”

“He’s a
psychiatrist
and
he’s a rich doctor.” Mallory’s eyes sharpened as she
quite openly appraised Kim, perhaps wondering if all the energy and effort was
actually worth it. “Who do you think gave me the tickets?”

“I’m
going, but just so you know, this doesn't change anything,” Kim said. “Absolutely
nothing will happen between the old shrink and me. I'm still meeting Ross on
Friday night.”

“I know,”
Mallory said. “Even if it kills you...”

Shaking
her head and resigning to her fate, Kimberly followed Mallory into the parking
lot and into her freshly waxed Miata. A moment later, they pulled out and sped
down the street.

Behind them, the headlights of a red
BMW flipped on. The driver revved the engine,
then
tore down the street after them.

10

Field
of Prey

Driving
south on Interstate 75, the girls headed toward Tampa. It was a good hour on
the road, and Mallory punched up KYGL, got Ricky Martin playing “
Livin
' la Vida
Loca
.” She
adjusted the bass to just where she could see the dashboard vibrate, and
drummed on the steering wheel.

“I’m so
excited that you’re finally going to meet the rich doctor,” she said.

“The old
shrink?” Kim asked, sitting beside her. Reaching out, she turned the radio
knob, lowering the volume. “And you know this isn’t going to go anywhere.”

“The
doctor’s a catch,” Mallory insisted. “And I hope after meeting him, you’ll see
that and blow off meeting Ross tomorrow night.”

“Not
going to happen,” Kim didn't care if Mallory approved or not, and made that
very clear in her voice. “I just think this is the first step in the right
direction.”

“Maybe.
Maybe not.
I don't know what to think,” Mallory said slowly,
as if taken back by Kim's sudden forcefulness. Pausing, she glanced at Kim then
added
,
 
“
But I
do know that Ross shouldn't have been at the New Year's Eve party that night
and now, in light of everything that's happened, you need to put as much
distance between you and him as possible.”

“Mal,
you're one to talk.”

Coming to
an exit ramp, Mallory turned her Miata off the Interstate. She pulled into the
Flying J Truck Stop and up to a gas pump. Both girls climbed out of the car,
and Mallory continued the conversation outside.

“Are you
even certain it's Ross who set this up?” she asked. She swiped her credit card
at the pump, selected a grade of gas and then removed the hose and nozzle.

“Of
course it was. Who else would it be?” Kim glanced at the convenience store, and
the small phone booth just beyond the parking lot. There was yellow police tape
barricading it from the public. Behind it, along the dirt road running behind
the store through the miles of woodlands and cow pastures, two police cars were
parked with their lights flashing. Kim wondered what was going on.

Mallory
shook her head.
“If it's Ross, then why all the theatrics?
Why is he sending you a book of morbid poetry? Why pass you cryptic notes?”

Kim
wasn’t listening. She was focused on the murky woods, and then the empty phone
booth. Several police officers appeared to be combing the area. Then a semi
truck pulled into the parking lot, grumbling loudly as it rolled past, blocking
her view.

Mallory
finished pumping gas and replaced the lever in the pump. She was still
talking,
apparently unaware that Kim wasn’t even listening.
“So, why meet you on Friday? Why not tonight? Or last night?” she asked,
getting back into the car.
“Or at the New Year's Eve party?”

The
questions remained unanswered as the girls left the gas station and headed back
to the Interstate.

Three
thousand people filled Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. The crowd paraded from the
parking lot to the ticket booths to the stadium entrance gates, with flags
rippling in a chilly northern wind. Among children’s sneaker feet running, the
crunch of nacho chewing, the monotonous calling of a program vendor, the
collective chuckling of people standing in hot dog lines, Mallory led Kim to
the outfield seats.

“There he
is,” she said, pointing. Dr. Alec Whitman was hanging over the outfield railing
before batting practice. Behind him on the field, the players were out
limbering up. Mallory gushed. “Doesn’t he look dreamy?”

Turning
to them, the doctor smiled. He was average height, just
under
six feet, wearing a turquoise and black bowling shirt and tan shorts. His hair
was an odd shade of orangey-brown, with a little twinge of gray.

“Kimberly
Bradford,” he said, approaching them with his hand extended.
“Pleased
to finally meet you.
I’m Dr. Alec Whitman.”

“Good to
meet you too.” Kim took his hand and lightly shook it, staring at his hair.

Mallory
was staring at it too, as if trying to figure out exactly what to say. He held
up his arms, offering a hug. She embraced him and pecked his cheek, then
stepped back.

“What's
going on here?” she asked, motioning to his head.

Dr.
Whitman smiled. He ran a hand through his full head of orangey-brown hair. “It's
called Indian
Summer
,” he said. “You like it?”

“You
colored your hair,” she said through clenched teeth. “Don't you just look
delicious.
”

As
Mallory quietly apologized to Kim, they found their seats in the bleachers. Kim
glared at Mallory then moved to the seat beside the psychiatrist. Mallory sat
to her right. After a short ceremony with a giant cardboard check for the St.
Jude’s Children’s Cancer Research Center, and a rendition of The Star Spangled
Banner sung by the local high school choir, the first pitch was thrown.

Mallory
searched for
Gunz
, and found him warming up, in the
on deck circle, rotating his shoulders, twisting his torso. She called out to
him and he looked over his shoulder at Mallory and Kim in the stands for a
moment. He tipped his cap,
then
returned to his
practice swing.

Mallory
grabbed Kim and waved.

The crowd
cheered each hitter, especially
Gunz
Gonzales, who
hammed it up in his bright white jersey. A group of fanatical middle-aged women
held up signs reading “Grease it
Gunz
!” and “
Gunz
Got Game!” A lone voice in the outfield, faraway but
still booming, cried out, “
Guunnnnzzzoooo
!”

Dr.
Whitman paid no attention to the batter, seemingly focused on the girls.
Leaning over Kim to address Mallory, he said, “I trust that you received my
gift.”

Mallory
laughed.
“The box of red and pink assault rifles?
I
love them!”

A sigh of
relief broke from his lips, and he ran a hand through his hair again. It left a
streak of orange on his palm “They shoot pink paint pellets, so our adversaries
are going to look mighty pretty all splattered up in dye.” He laughed as if he
had just made a joke,
then
noticed the orange stain on
his right hand. He quickly moved it to his lap and hid it under his left hand.
Then he turned his head to speak into Kim’s ear.  

“Me and
these college kids, we do this kind of thing all the time,” he bragged, almost
as if he was trying to prove his youth. “So feel free to pick anything out.”

Kim
glared at Mallory. “We haven’t decided whether or not we’re going.”

“I
decided for both of us,” Mallory corrected her. “We’re going.”

“I have
to check my calendar.”

Mallory
wasn’t listening. “I’ve already
RSVP’d
.”

“Mal,
this is infuriating. You know how important Friday night is to me. And if
everything goes well, I should be preoccupied for the entire weekend…”

The
doctor cleared his throat. “Am I interrupting something?”

Kim
glanced at him a moment then started to get up, saying she was getting a hot
dog. Mallory grabbed her arm and forced her back into her seat.

“You’re
going to miss the game,” she said.

On the
field, a fastball ignited like a flash toward
Gunz’s
bat. He swung. The ball cracked wood, skidding hard toward third. Mallory’s
body tensed. Kim moved toward the edge of her seat, as did the doctor next to
her. They watched
Gunz
run to first. It looked as
though the shortstop would get to the ball on third. Seconds later, the ball
slid under his glove, into the outfield.
Gunz
scored,
bringing in two runners. The crowd cheered.

“That’s
my lover boy!” Mallory screamed, rising from her seat.

New York
scored another in the first inning, but so did Tampa. And Tampa scored again in
the third with
bloop
singles and an error by the
pitcher.

Despite
the excitement, things didn’t seem to be going the way Mallory had planned
between Kim and the Doctor. She grimaced at this. Finally stretching over Kim,
Mallory placed a hand on the Doctor’s knee. “So tell Kim about your practice,”
she said. “I bet you have some interesting stories to tell.”

“A few.”
He was
obviously trying not to sound too pretentious. “But I have been on manic
depressive overloads lately.”

Mallory
threw her head back, laughing at his joke. Then she tagged Kim’s shoulder. “Did
you hear that, Kim?”

“Yes,
manic depressive overloads. I’m sitting right next to him,” she answered. She
noticed the sweat on his forehead was causing the hair color to run, creating
an orange smudge along his hair line. Kim's eyes widened and she looked over at
Mallory, glancing toward his head, seeing if her friend saw this too. Mallory ignored
it and reached over her again, taking the Doctor’s hand.

“I just
think it would be fun to have access to all that secret, personal information,”
she said. “Come on, Doctor, tell us some of your most warped cases and let me
try to figure out who they are.”

“No.” The
Doctor shook his head. “You know, I can’t talk about my patients.”

“
There’s
some pretty sick tickets living in Stillwater.”

“I will
give you that,” he said thoughtfully.

Mallory
released his hand, and he folded it in his lap. “Since the murder of the
Congressman, the number of mental medical emergencies has increased tenfold.”

“So, so
sad,” Mallory let out a loud, audible sigh, leaned back into her seat. There
was a streak of orange on her fingers and studied it as she spoke.  “And
that’s why you missed connecting with my friend here for lunch the other day.”

“And New
Year’s Eve,” Kim added. “He stood me up twice.
Two times.
In a row.”

“I know I
owe you an apology,” the Doctor said. “But Mallory’s right, I have been working
with a particularly disturbed patient lately who has monopolized a great deal
of my time.”

“This is
the patient who was upset about the Congressman’s murder?” Kim asked.

He
smiled. “Did Addison tell you that?”

“Yes.”
Kim took a breath and thought about Addison’s story from the other day at the
diner. “That and that the Congressman’s murder is connected to another murder
that occurred back in the Seventies.”

“The
Congressman’s brother was murdered 25 years ago,” he explained. “But that’s not
where it ends. There’s a gruesome, violent connection.”

Kim
leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“The
teenage boy who was killed, the Congressman’s brother,” he started, “when they
found his body the police revealed that someone had driven some kind of spike
through his right eye.
As if it were a lobotomy gone wrong.”

Kim and
Mallory shrunk back at the same time. The doctor continued.

“The
Congressman was found in that exact condition,” he said, leaning forward. The
orange smudges along his hairline were expanding. He made a slashing motion
with his hand. “They used the ice pick method.”

“What’s
that?” Kim asked, staring at his forehead. He smiled and raised a hand,
bringing it toward Kim’s face. His fingers were orange.

“It’s
when a doctor inserts a thin, metal pipette into the orbital frontal cortex and
enters the soft tissue of the frontal lobe.” The doctor’s hand moved toward her
eye and he drew a hypothetical line along the side of her nose up toward her
eyebrow. “A few simple, smooth, up and down jerks to sever the lateral
hypothalamus,” he continued.
“All resulting in an immediate
reduction of stress for our disturbed patient.”

Kim
swiped his hand away. She could smell the hair dye. “Are you saying someone
tried to lobotomize the Congressman?”

“I’m
saying
,
if it was, it was a botched lobotomy from some
kind of mad scientist. Both brothers died the same way.”

“How
could you possibly know that?” Kim stared at him, struggle for words. “I
haven’t read anything like that in the papers.”

“I have a
friend on the police force,” he explained. “They consult me as I’m a
psychiatrist working with…” The doctor paused; he smiled at Mallory. “Some
pretty sick tickets living in Stillwater.”

Kim
looked at Mallory. Mallory looked at her,
then
back at
the Doctor.

“Kim’s
right about the paint ball weekend,” she said quickly. “We haven’t decided if
we’re going yet or not. We’ll let you know…”

The
seventh inning stretch came with a lot of hubbub from the loud speakers and
overhead monitors. On the field, there were a few hits that didn’t amount to
much, and then Guns was warming up in the on deck circle again.