Resuscitation (40 page)

“You fucking pig!” More pointless struggling.

Now, he grasped the top of her capri pants with both hands and yanked them over her butt and down her legs. He tried to pull them over her ankles and feet, but her violent thrashing made it impossible.

With his mouth only inches from her ear, scissors pressed firmly against her neck, he spoke softly. “If you don’t lie still, I promise you, you’ll regret it.”

She must have concluded that his was not an idle threat. She stopped resisting and lay as motionless as a corpse as she let him remove the capri pants.

Julian removed his clothes and knelt on the bed, his knees straddling McKenzie’s thighs. Now the tears began. She cried uncontrollably.

“Please don’t do this,” she begged, her voice no longer spirited.

So focused on his own needs, Julian could not evoke an ounce of empathy or compassion for her. Her plea fell on deaf ears. He closed his eyes and drifted back to his childhood. As he lost control and savagely took her, he spoke through gritted teeth.

“This is for you, Marianne.

“This is for you, Rebecca.”

By the time Al arrived at the main precinct, Sami and the captain had already gone over details of the investigation and discussed the likelihood that the missing girl, McKenzie O’Neill, had, in fact, been abducted by the Resuscitator.

Al knocked on the captain’s door, pushed it open, and peeked inside.

“Don’t be bashful, Detective,” Captain Davidson said. “Get in here and join the party.” The captain stood and extended his hand. “Welcome back to the shit-storm. Glad to hear your sister is doing well.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Al glanced at Sami, who was studying her fingernails. “Hi, Sami.”

Sami nodded, gave Al a quick look, and he could feel the icicles.

This isn’t going to be easy.

The captain brought Al up to speed on the investigation and gave him some details about the missing girl. Through it all, Sami sat silently.

Captain Davidson lit a cigarette and filled his lungs with the soothing smoke. “Do either of you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Al and Sami briefly made eye contact, then they looked at the captain.

“I’m not following you, Captain,” Al said.

“Well, follow this,” the captain answered. “First off, Sami hasn’t uttered a sound since you walked in the door. And considering that she’s rarely at a loss for words, I’d call that curious, wouldn’t you? Second, I’m getting a really weird vibe from both of you. You can cut the tension in here with a knife.”

“There’s nothing going on, Captain,” Sami said. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.” Now Al could feel her cold stare.

“You two better not bullshit me,” the captain warned. “You need to be totally focused on one thing only. Your personal lives take a back seat until we catch this guy. If there’s even the slightest friction between you two, and it’s going to interfere with the investigation, I need you to tell me right now.” The captain took another hit on his cigarette. “Are we on the same page?”

“We’re on it, Captain,” Sami said.

“Well, then, go catch that douche bag.”

Quite to McKenzie’s surprise, she was able to suppress her pain and hadn’t so much as let out a moan while Julian tore into her. She’d been with only a few men in her life—she had preserved her virginity until she turned nineteen—some quite aggressive in bed. But never in her life had she imagined that a man could be so vicious. In spite of his violent thrusts, she refused to give the son of a bitch the satisfaction, so she squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to focus on her breathing exercises to relax her muscles. Now finished with her, Julian sat on a chair adjacent to the bed, looking so satisfied and content she wanted to claw his eyes out. It felt as if her lower torso was on fire. He had taken her every way a man can take a woman. Through it all, she endured.

Now, McKenzie faced the bitter reality of what he’d do next. Would he rape her again, perhaps even more violently? How many more times could she handle it? What other vile acts was he capable of?

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice that he approached the bed and sat next to her. Without saying a word, he cut the nylon straps binding her wrists to the headboard. She let out a heavy sigh and massaged her bruised wrists.

“If you promise to behave yourself,” Julian said, “I’ll leave the straps off. For now.”

She had no delusions about his gesture. She guessed that he’d cut her loose for his own perverse reasons, not to make her feel more comfortable.

“Lie on your back,” he ordered.

So that’s it, she thought. He must be bored with screwing me from behind. For just a moment, she thought about rolling over and kicking him in the side of his neck, right where she’d wounded him. But he still held what looked like a scalpel in his right hand.

“Are you in pain?” Julian asked.

“What do you think?”

“Would you like to take a nice warm bath?”

“You rape me and now you’re concerned about my
comfort
?”

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to…” He paused for a minute, as if he couldn’t think of the right word.

“Fuck me like a dog?”

“
No
! It’s hard to explain.”

“Who are Marianne and Rebecca? A couple girls who rejected you?”

“
What
?”

“You called their names when—”

“You’re full of
shit
!”

“Then how would I know their names?”

He thought about that.

“Is this going to happen again?”

Silence.

“Answer me.”

“I…don’t know.”

She wondered if his offer to let her soak in a warm tub was a sincere gesture, or if he had a sick agenda. The thought of soaking in a tub seemed quite inviting. But she suddenly realized that she lay there completely naked, and she could almost
feel
his eyes touching her. She shuddered to her core. As insane as it seemed, maybe a bath might be a good idea. Would he give her some privacy, or gawk at her as if she were someone in a freak show?

“You’re going to let me take a bath
alone
?”

He nodded. “If you prefer.”

Is this guy fucking kidding?
“That
is
what I prefer.” She eased off the bed, her lower torso throbbing, uncomfortably aware of her nakedness. As she headed for the bathroom, he grabbed her arm. “When you come out of the bathroom, you come out naked with your hands up in the air.”

“Can I wrap a towel around me?”

“Naked, I said.”

While McKenzie prepared her bath, Julian took advantage of the situation and telephoned Nicole.

“Hi, Honey,” he said, acting as if everything was rosy between them. “Sorry about last night.”

“Why didn’t you pick up the girls?”

“I had emergency surgery at the hospital.”

“And you couldn’t call?”

“I got rushed into surgery and—”

“You are
so
full of shit!” Nicole was almost screaming. “When I didn’t fucking hear from you and couldn’t reach you by cell phone, I left the kids with Julie next door and drove to the hospital.”

He had to think fast but hadn’t a clue what to say. She had bushwhacked him good.

“And guess what? No one had seen you all day. Why are you lying to me? What the hell is going on? How could you do this to your daughters? They sat out on the front steps for over an hour waiting for you. Isabel cried her eyes out. You promised to take them to Belmont Park, remember?”

No, he didn’t remember. One day blurred into the next. “I’m really sorry, Nicole.”

“You can take your ‘sorries’ and stick them where the sun don’t shine!”

“It’s the research grant. It’s consumed me.”

“Well, then maybe it’s time for you to make a choice: your family or your precious A-Fib study.”

“Why can’t I have both?”

“Obviously, you can’t handle both.”

“I am so close, Nicole. In another two weeks I’ll have the data I need.”

“So the girls and I should just sit around waiting for you to be a husband and father again?”

“It’s a ten-million-dollar grant. I’m ninety-eight percent there.”

“Well, you’re one-hundred percent losing your family.”

The next thing Julian heard was a dial tone.

As McKenzie O’Neill soaked in the bathtub, the hot water soothing her muscles and her aching behind, it was as if a giant fog lifted from her conscious thoughts. How absurd that she would be taking a bath in the home of a madman, a madman who would likely end her life. Shouldn’t she be concentrating on a survival plan? She had already failed at her first attempt to overpower him, and now that he was on to her, how could she possibly devise a plan that might work? How could she surprise him?

She had no weapon, no way to get the advantage. Besides, even if she were to temporarily put him out of commission, without a key, there was no way she could get past the dead-bolted door. How then could she survive this ordeal?

She eased her way out of the tub, still feeling as if her internal organs were ablaze. As someone who loved TV programs like
CSI
, or any crime show where the police tried to outsmart the villain, McKenzie was fascinated with the idea of a serial killer, and had followed the Resuscitator and the four homicides closely. Not only had she read everything written about the crimes in the
San Diego Chronicle
, she also viewed national coverage on CNN and other major networks. Familiar with every detail of how he had murdered his victims, she felt chilled to the bone.

Terrified he would likely kill her in a most gruesome way, she felt overwhelmed with panic. She sat in the warm water, unable to quiet her sobs.

She heard a gentle knock on the door.

“Everything okay in there?”

“I’ll be out…in a few minutes.”

“Remember. Naked.”

If only she had a gun.

“How do you want to work this, Al?” Sami asked. After their meeting with the captain, she had the dubious task of telling Detective Osbourn that he was no longer her partner on the serial murders investigation. It took a great deal of diplomacy for her to convince him that the department’s decision had no reflection on him or his qualifications. It was merely an experience issue. To ease Osbourn’s understandable disappointment, and to make him feel more involved with the investigation, Sami asked him to follow up with the families of Robert Winters and Rachael Manning, victims three and four. They had learned that both their families lived out of state, so Osbourn was going to set up phone interviews. And if the victims’ families had video capabilities like Skype or some other Web cam system, they would conduct a video interview.

“For the sake of time,” Al suggested, “I think it might make more sense if I interviewed McKenzie O’Neill’s parents and you spoke with her girlfriend. Or the other way around. Whatever you prefer.”

She didn’t have to think about his proposal for more than a nanosecond. In fact, she imagined that she’d take advantage of every opportunity to work independent of him during the investigation. Seeing him every day at work, living under the same roof, playing a game of deception so no one would suspect they were at odds, seemed like more than she could bear. Sami wasn’t sure who would give her more grief if they uncovered their little masquerade, the captain or Sami’s mother. Of most issues whirling around in her mind right now, few were clearly defined. But on one particular issue, Sami was crystal clear: Every time she looked at Al, she wanted desperately to kick him in the balls. Not exactly the most productive attitude for a detective trying to track down a serial killer.

“I’ll take on O’Neill’s parents, and you can interview her friend,” Sami said.

Before Al could even respond, she turned her back on him and walked toward the parking ramp.

Ignoring Julian’s mandate to exit the bathroom naked, McKenzie, hoping to restore just a morsel of dignity, walked out the door with a towel wrapped around her, intentionally defying his instructions. Although the last thing she wanted was to provoke him, she just couldn’t bear the thought of exposing herself to a man who molested her with his eyes.