Twisted Hunger (35 page)

“Why would you think that? This is the first thing that has come up that leads me to believe that Jones may actually have had something to do with my mother’s death. As long as you swear that you’re going to continue to watch over me, I’m hanging in there… for a while longer anyway. Which reminds me, I may have found a way to get invited to their Sausalito home next weekend.”

“Good for you. If you do manage it, I’d like to put a wire on you.”

She made a face, but she didn’t refuse. “I’ll let you know in a day or two.”

“Fine. What are you planning to do about Madigan?”

“Damned if I know,” Ellery said honestly. “On one hand, I feel like I should let him know about the other matches. On the other hand, I’ve been thinking of the pleasure it would give me to tie him down and give him a bikini wax.”

“Ouch. Just one final word of warning…”

“I know, trust no one.”

He grinned. “Okay, make that two warnings. It’s going to be hard, but you must make an effort not to change your behavior around Jones. If he’s smart enough to have gotten where he is despite a serious psychological defect, he’s got to be smart enough to pick up on a person’s fear. In fact, he’s probably very, very good at it. And that goes for his brother also, just in case Madigan had it right to begin with.”

“Believe me, I’ll be lucky if I can think of anything else.”

* * *

Vivian Jones was having a very frustrating dream. She kept trying to run, but her arms and legs were weighted down. Suddenly something was pressed against her mouth and she realized it wasn’t a dream.

Her eyes flew open, and what she saw was much worse than the dream. Moonlight coming through the open bedroom window glinted off the largest knife she had ever seen, and it was being held by a large, dark figure straddling her body.

She tried to scream and buck him off, but the tape over her mouth muffled the sound, and the figure instantly touched the tip of the knife to her throat… clear warning that she was to be still and silent… or die.

She now realized why her arms and legs felt so heavy. Her wrists were tied to the headboard and her legs had been spread wide apart, with each ankle tied and secured to the frame of the bed. Obviously, that second Xanax had really knocked her out. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the figure was wearing a ski mask, but the upper body appeared to be that of a man.

He tapped her chin with the knife—another warning—then repositioned himself between her legs and bunched up the skirt of her nightgown in his fist. With his knees pressed against her inner thighs, she could do nothing to stop him from looking at her nakedness or doing anything else he intended to do.

With one quick slash, he slit her nightgown up the center then ran the edge of the knife down her chest and stomach, as though her body would be the next thing he would cut in half.

She barely inhaled as he used the tip of the deadly blade to trace her nipples and navel. But she couldn’t hold back the terrified moan as he sheared off a fistful of her pubic hair and tucked it into his pocket like a souvenir.

She didn’t want to think about how he intended to use the knife next, but just as she expected the worst, he buried his face between her legs and assaulted her with his tongue and teeth. In seconds, she realized that it was actually worse than what she was expecting, because rather than pain, the monster was arousing her!

She tried to think of anything but what he was doing to her.
Abraham.
Her considerate but unimaginative husband. Where was he?
Her parents.
Too old and weak to help her even if they knew.
The White House.
Even thoughts of the beautiful future were not enough to distract her from what was happening to her body.

His fingers plunged inside her, adding pressure to the sucking demands of his mouth, and her hips lifted of their own accord.

He laughed at her then, a cruel sound that increased her humiliation a thousand fold.

Abruptly, he rose to his knees and pushed down his pants. Her sharp intake of breath was testimony to the renewed fear she felt at the sight of the new weapon he now wielded. It was huge, much too large to fit inside her. She would be ripped apart while he was having his way with her!

She closed her eyes, as though that might spare her, but it only earned her more cruelty as he pinched her nipple to regain her attention. She didn’t dare take her eyes off him again.

And then it happened. With one powerful shove, he rammed that monstrous weapon deep inside her, and for a moment, she thought he truly had pushed past her capacity. But the pain only lasted a heartbeat, and then the pleasure began again.

She didn’t want to enjoy it. It was wrong, so wrong. But it was also so good. Better than anything Abraham could ever do for her. Better than anything she could ever do for herself. Minutes later, it was also one of the best climaxes she had ever had.

She thought it was finally over, and he would either leave or kill her, but she was wrong again. He was still hard, smoothly sliding in and out of her well-lubricated body, just waiting for her chest to stop heaving so he could humiliate her again. How could he be so cruel?

He held out until she peaked a third time, then he let out a roar of triumph and collapsed on top of her. The next moment he lifted his head and pulled off the ski mask. As gently as possible, he removed the tape from her mouth and kissed her firmly.

When he finally gave her freedom to speak, she laughingly exclaimed, “Theodore Roosevelt Jones! That was very, very naughty. Whatever made you think of such a wicked adventure?”

He grinned down at her. “Who knows where inspiration comes from, my love? I’m just glad you enjoyed it.”

“I must admit to enjoying it myself,” Abraham said, as he came out from behind the dressing screen. He was completely nude and fully aroused.

Vivian was stunned. “
Abraham
? What a lovely surprise! I thought you said our games bored you.”

“That was the old Abraham,” he said, motioning Teddy to get off his wife. “The new, improved Abraham is considerably more open-minded, particularly in the area of sexuality.”

To prove his point, he enthusiastically filled the vacancy left by his brother.

Chapter 19

By Sunday morning, Ellery had changed her mind a dozen times about whether or not to call Luke.

Diane had awakened her with a very early call to see if she wanted to go shopping, but she put her off with an excuse about work she’d brought home. She wished she could talk it out with her new friend, but there was no way she could tell her enough of the story for her to offer any advice.

When the phone rang again, she thought it might be Luke calling her, and she picked it up to put an end to her indecision.

“Is this Ellery Winters?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

“Who’s calling please?”

“I work for Nate Davison, Brandon Ross’ agent. We’re calling all of Brandon’s close friends to see if anyone knows where he might be.”

“Excuse me? I don’t understand.”

“Brandon has an extremely important appointment at the studio this morning. Something he would
not
intentionally miss.”

“Yes, he mentioned something about that to me when he called the other day… Friday afternoon. He was very excited about it. But I haven’t heard from him since. Maybe he’s just sleeping in.”

“He hasn’t been home since yesterday. His housekeeper said he left the house yesterday afternoon saying he had a big meeting but he’d be back for dinner. She was fairly sure a call he’d gotten was connected to the meeting because he sent his guests home immediately afterward, even though he had originally said the girls would be spending the night.”

Ellery took the woman’s number and promised to have Brandon call her immediately if he happened to call her first. Normally, hearing that Brandon was missing in action for less than a day would have had no effect on her whatsoever. Under the current circumstances, however, her antennae were tuned in to anything even slightly out of the ordinary.

She was about to make the dreaded call to Luke when she got another call. This one alerted her that Brevowski needed to see her outside.

The instant he slipped into the passenger seat of her car he said, “I have bad news. I tried to get in touch with Detective Harris this morning. I thought it was time for us to start comparing notes again. Unfortunately, it looks like The Eye Doctor may have gotten to him before I did.”

Ellery’s eyes widened.
“What?”

“He’s alive. Did you hear about the big fire in Glendale yesterday?”

She shook her head. “Yesterday was a nightmare from start to finish. I never turned on the radio or television. What happened?”

“They’re calling it an accidental electrical fire. There was an explosion, and Harris’ house was burned to the ground. Somehow he ended up outside, but he’s in critical condition. An elderly woman who lived next door was trapped inside and died before the fire department could get her out.”

“Dear God. I wonder if Luke knows.”

“The more serious question is whether or not The Eye Doctor knows that Harris survived. If he was behind the fire, he’ll undoubtedly try again.”

“How could he—” She cut herself off. “Of course. They all went down to Santa Monica to visit Vivian’s parents Friday night. If he’s cold-blooded enough to cut out someone’s eyes, surely he could set a fire to eliminate someone who might have been getting too close to the truth.” Suddenly she put the various assumptions together. “
If
Abraham Jones is The Eye Doctor, and
if
he knew Harris was looking at him as a suspect, then it’s possible that he might be suspicious of Luke by now. I have to warn him. Maybe if we went to the police with what we have so far…” She turned on the car engine. “Was that all?”

“No. Before you decide to
do the right thing
, you should know something
I
found out this morning. After I talked to you last night I listened again to those telephone conversations I mentioned, where Senator Jones and Sheriff Patterson talked about the Neuman murder. Although they didn’t sound at all strange the first time around, listening to what Jones said from a different perspective gave me the impression that he had a personal interest in the case.”

“So, basically, he’s had a direct line to the homicide investigation every step of the way. Any chance Patterson knows more than it appears?”

“Highly doubtful. He has a very clean record.”

“So does the senator.” She let out a soft whistle. “Couldn’t all that be used as additional evidence?”

He shook his head. “Illegal wiretap. Inadmissible. The reason I mention it at all is because it was during one of those conversations that I had heard the name Henry Levitt—the man whose phone number was in Jones’ wallet, which, as you know, we also obtained in a less than straightforward manner.

“It turns out that Levitt was the witness who described the cross-dresser to the police artist. Jones would have no need to know the man’s name, but he asked for it and also learned enough to track down where Levitt was going to lay low. With a little help from an old associate, I was able to do the same thing.”

When he paused, Ellery guessed Levitt’s fate by the expression on Brevowski’s face. “He’s dead now too, isn’t he?”

He nodded slowly. “Not like you think, though. He committed suicide sometime before dawn Friday morning. He was dying of AIDS anyway, but the post-mortem exam turned up cyanide in his system. The family is cremating the body tomorrow. He left a completely believable note.”

“Then his death wasn’t caused by The Eye Doctor, it was just convenient.”

“Maybe, maybe not. He had been very willing to testify if it became necessary, but he’s not the first person who took the easy way out of a terminal disease when an opportunity arrived. I doubt if we’ll ever find out where he got the cyanide but the bottom line is, he’s no longer around to personally identify someone in a courtroom.”

“So you’re suggesting that if I go to the police with what I think I know, Jones might hear about it even before I leave the station. Then he’d kill me too. That goes along with what Luke said about his friend being killed. He believed someone in the Sheriff’s Department told The Eye Doctor that there was a witness. The senator once told me that he and Sheriff Patterson have been friends for over twenty years. Only what they didn’t know back then was that the kid was lying. Luke was the real witness. Geez, this is a terrible mess.”