Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (26 page)

“
I take it you
didn’t?”

Jezebel shook her head.

“
I was looking in the wrong
place the entire time. I didn’t find a positive match in the
offender index, nothing even close.”

“
If not the registry, then
where?” Jezebel floated past a rack of blood tubes and reached into
a drawer.

“
Two months ago, a man was
admitted to Zamecka Hospital. He had been mauled in the streets by
a dog or a vicious animal. Several of his ribs had been snapped and
the skin had been stripped from his face. Not to mention, he lost
quite a bit of blood…”

Nikolai swallowed
hard.
It wasn’t an animal that ripped him
apart. It was a girl.

“
What did you learn about
this man?”

She returned with a folder under her
arm, brimming with answers to questions he was too afraid to
ask.

“
The man who suffered this
attack was thought to have died or gone missing months ago. No one
even knew he was still alive until he was admitted to the hospital.
His name was Viktor Rezník.” Nikolai stared numbly as Jezebel
flipped open the folder. He gazed upon the photo of a man lying in
a hospital wing, cocooned in bandages and tape. His face was
obscured by blood-soaked wraps. “Lucky for you, I pulled a few
strings at Zamecka Hospital and took a peek at Viktor’s records. It
just so happens he was diagnosed with HCL in 1996. And his DNA
profile matched the blood on the walls.”

“
But …why? Why would he
mutilate himself?” Nikolai murmured.

“
Are you familiar with
sadomasochism?”

“
Vaguely. I had a strange
experience with a homicide once. The defendant claimed he
accidentally murdered his girlfriend in a sadomasochist fantasy. I
have a hard time believing she enjoyed being stabbed twenty-seven
times.”

Suddenly, he remembered his encounter
with Tatiana, the fierce sexual energy writhing for release under
her skin. Even he felt a strange desire to submit to her voracious
appetite and surrender absolute reign over his body. Was he no
different than the deviants who traded pain for
pleasure?

He cracked a smile, dismissing his
foolish imaginings. No, he was nothing alike.

“
Sadomasochism explores the
bond between dominance and submission, sometimes withholding
gratification,” Jezebel said. “Bleeding may be a form of sexual
release for him, the way it looks and feels. He may have
entertained masochistic fantasies. We can’t confirm it without
accessing his therapist records.”

Nikolai shook his head in
disbelief.

“
I don’t know what to make
of this.”

“
No one’s asking you to
understand why. Just to end his reign of torture.”

FIFTEEN

An amber sunset burned through the
blinds, gilding the inside of Camilla’s apartment. Her workspace
was cluttered with notebooks, journals, a laptop, and, of course, a
steaming mug of hot cocoa. Vivian’s eyes roamed over various
articles tacked to the wall, a thriving journalist’s form of
wallpaper.

Salacious headlines leaped
out from across the room.
Ancient cemetery
unearthed under basilica, senator confesses to affair with student
intern…

“
Would you like some hot
cocoa, too? There’s plenty more!” Camilla called from the kitchen.
Unlike Vesely Manor, her apartment gleamed immaculately and every
surface was polished to perfection. Most of all, roaches and other
uncouth denizens were not welcome in her home. The sight of one
would send Camilla into a stomping frenzy until she wiped their
existence off the face of the earth—or at least the third floor of
the building.

“
How can I resist?” Vivian
studied the placid refuge Camilla had enshrined herself in. A lamp
glowed next to the bed frosted with cream-colored sheets. Overhead,
silly photos of the girl and her coworkers hung from a board.
Vivian chuckled at a picture of Camilla trying to lick snowflakes
off her nose.

Another sepia photo was framed by the
bed, that of a young man with wild, charcoal hair. The homely
backdrop of a university laced with snow faded behind
him.

Love interest? Hell, maybe
she just likes his lame scarf.

“
Make yourself at home,”
Camilla said. “I probably don’t have to tell you twice. I mean, you
practically hijacked my family’s manor.”

“
Careful, I might decide to
move in with you.”

Vivian settled behind the desk as the
kindling sun dipped behind the cityscape. She sifted among the
faded newspapers, searching for any reference to Syllax or its
discontinuation. Based on what little she gleaned from the killer’s
confessional video, the pharmaceutical company came under fire
shortly after Syllax was released. She was already experiencing the
haunting side effects that sealed its demise.

But who exactly was Viktor Rezník
before madness claimed him?

“
Camilla, have you heard
about a drug called Syllax?”

“
It sounds familiar. Wasn’t
it a pharmaceutical company or something?”

“
Let me rephrase that. Have
you ever
written
about Syllax?”

“
I haven’t, but maybe
someone else did. I’m the crime reporter, remember?”

“
Technically what was going
on in that company could be considered a crime—”

She choked. A headline popped out
among dozens of others, one that sent her reeling from
shock.

Red Widow weaves lust and
pain, by Camilla Vesely.
Vivian hesitantly
reached toward it, refusing to believe her eyes. It was dated
nearly two months ago. She clutched the newspaper and lifted it to
her eyes.

Sometimes in the fragile
hours of dusk, those roaming the streets may peer down the alleys
and see a pair of searing, red eyes reflecting in the
shadows.

These eyes don’t belong to
a demon, but some men say they may as well. They belong to a girl
barely past the threshold of womanhood. Christened Red Widow by
those who dare approach her, she caters to the morbid appetites of
men with padded wallets.

According to a client who
wished to remain anonymous, an hourglass-shaped birthmark adorns
her belly. If that doesn’t give her the right to claim Red Widow as
her moniker, surely her attitude toward her male clients
does.

Like the female black
widow spider, she preys on her mate with total disregard for the
pain she inflicts. Dominance and submission are the tools of her
craft, which she wields with an expert hand.

Some say the
disappearances of women from their apartments are linked to Red
Widow.

A blurry photo of Vivian adorned the
pages. No matter how much she tirelessly tried to escape her past
as the Red Widow, it somehow found a way to surface from the abyss
and slap her in the face. She wanted to rip the newspaper apart,
douse it in lighter fluid and set it ablaze, as if those charring
flames would cleanse the stigma from her life.

“
I found her!” Camilla
chimed, walking into the room. “Agate Rezník.” She gleefully
brandished a piece of paper with the address. The expression on
Vivian’s face gave her pause.

“
What is
this?
” Vivian stabbed the article with her
finger. Camilla’s silence spoke volumes, the cruelest sound of all.
Betrayal erupted inside Vivian’s chest.

“
Is this your idea of
entertainment? A girl’s tragic downfall from aspiring nurse to
street whore?!”

Furious tears pooled in her eyes like
blood against her rosy contacts.

“
That’s not it at all!”
Camilla exclaimed. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how! I
wrote this before I even met you!”

“
That doesn’t excuse what
you’ve done! Whether you knew me or not, it’s disgusting! It’s
wrong!” She threw up her hands in unbridled fury. “Tell me,
Camilla, are you just accompanying me so you can write another
tell-all about the Red Widow?”

“
No! Vivian, I want to
help!”

“
Bullshit! Did you even
stop to consider why someone would lower themselves to this? Did
you honestly think I enjoyed it?!”

In truth, Camilla entertained only one
desire when she hammered out the story. She had been so eager to
prove her worth to the editor in chief and unearth something no one
else had. Vivian suddenly seized the recorder on the desk and
clubbed it against the surface.

“
Hey!
”

“
I’m destroying the
recordings you surely have of me—”

“
Stop it!” Camilla tried to
wrestle the recorder out of her hands, but Vivian shoved her back.
The recorder sailed across the room, recoiling off the wall with a
sizzling crack.

For a moment, Vivian looked down at
Camilla sprawled on the floor, and the latter wondered if the Red
Widow’s cruelty extended to women.

Instead, Vivian was fighting back
tears.

“
I thought you were my
friend.”

“
I still am, damn
it!”

“
How can you expect me to
believe you? After
this?
” She crumpled up the newspaper and bounced it off the floor.
Vivian snatched the note with Miss Rezník’s address and stormed
out.

Camilla climbed to her feet, paralyzed
in the blanket of dusk. She finally stooped down and retrieved the
wad of newsprint. She flattened it against the desk as her tears
pecked away at the ink.

Vivian’s words echoed in her head,
ringing of betrayal.

“
I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Tears streamed down her face as the apartment door slammed shut.
“I’m so sorry, Vivian.”

* * *

The TV screen flickered like spasms of
lightning in the evening tint of Nikolai’s office.

Another long day at the office had
passed, and Nikolai couldn’t remember the last time he felt so
triumphant and weary. He leaned back in his chair, still trying to
process the twists and turns that now defined his
investigation.

At last, he could put a name to the
man he was hunting.

Viktor Rezník.

What a foul name, two words that when
paired together virtually oozed with vice. One needn’t stretch the
imagination to picture the disgusting creature this name was
attached to. It was all too fitting that “Rezník” translated into
“butcher.”

He chuckled and shook his
head.

What remained to be solved was the
motive in Viktor Rezník’s untouchable heart.

“
Frustration has reached a
boiling point with the local police department,” the news anchor
resounded from the TV. “Chief of Police Josef Láska has refused to
hold a press conference in regards to the string of local
disappearances. However, we have found someone who claims to know
the reason behind the series of
abductions
.”

Nikolai immediately seized the remote
and pumped up the volume.

“
After the commercial
break, former police officer Martin Slavik will join us to reveal
the answer to the local vanishings.”

“
No! You’ve got to be
shitting me!” Nikolai snapped, nearly kicking the chair out from
under him. He scrambled toward the television.

“
Months have gone by since
the outbreak of vanishings began, and the police’s unresponsive
behavior has only raised more questions about the eerie incidents.
As more communities have begun assembling neighborhood watches, the
public has turned to the police without receiving any support.
Tonight, the mystery of the disappearing women will finally be laid
to rest.”

“
No, it won’t,” he snarled.
The phone began ringing, portending the first of dozens of
reporters seeking comment from the local homicide detective. After
all, abduction inevitably culminated in murder. He slammed the door
shut behind him as the phone screamed unanswered.

Nikolai marched down the sidewalk past
a giggling, drunken couple. He once had the misfortune of
collaborating with Martin Slavik on a botched rescue
operation.

“
Former police officer,” he
scoffed. That was a fancy way of saying “terminated for reckless
manslaughter.” The blundering fool had snapped off a warning shot
in the air to intimidate a burglar holding a woman hostage.
Instead, the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and struck the
hostage, severing her carotid artery and cutting her life
tragically short. The death was downplayed to negligent
manslaughter, but Martin didn’t escape a dishonorable discharge. As
far as Nikolai was concerned, he deserved to rot in prison for his
cavalier recklessness.

He glanced over his shoulder at the
police station fading into twilight. Láska was likely tearing his
office apart right now, searching for Nikolai.

“
Hey, buddy! Got any
smokes?” Nikolai jerked to a stop before the scrawny teenager. His
hands were outstretched in search of entitlements. Nikolai ignored
him and continued on his way.