Highland Secrets (English Edition) (16 page)

My
panties were inside the box. It was the red silk panties that I had worn on the day I slept with Adam. The panties that he had torn off my hips on the desk in the picture gallery. I took them out and held on to them tightly for a moment in disbelief. Images flowed through me: Adam’s naked chest and my tongue that played with his piercing and licked his tattoo. His fingers that aroused the hard nipples of my breasts. His eager mouth that made me climax on the top of the desk. I shuddered.

There was something else in the package.
A DVD and my broken cell phone. I took the DVD out and looked at the case, but there was no writing on it. Yet, I still had an uneasy feeling. I opened the case with my hands shaking, went over to the DVD player and put the CD in. I breathed and trembled with panic and there was a buzzing sound in my ears. I took two deep breaths before I switched on the television and my heart made a painful leap against my ribs. I couldn’t control myself.

Warm tears ran down my cheeks, the remote control fell on the ground with a bang and everything around me seemed to rush by.
My cupboards, my walls, the doors to the kitchen and the bedroom. Only the small CRT television raced towards me. Only my own groaning that made a gasping sound out of the speakers brought me back to reality. The DVD was of me and Adam. My fingers clawed his dark hair and his head was positioned between my legs.

I looked stunned at the screen. I was unable to move or to think. Then the picture disappeared, flickered,
went black for a brief moment and the next scene shocked me even more. I felt more ashamed of myself than I had ever been before in my entire life. I was stood in the corridor of the estate. It was the night after the ball and I was watching Adam with the two blond girls. The picture flickered again and the next sequence showed me in my bed in the room adjacent to Adam’s. Both my hands had disappeared under the blanket, my face was red and I looked glazed over. I let out a quiet cry when I came. The video then ended with my orgasm and the television stayed black.

I
rummaged through the box in complete apathy, but it was empty. There was no indication of who had sent me these things. There was just a small Post-it stuck to the bottom of the CD case – an Internet address. I raced into my bedroom with my heart beating heavily, grabbed my laptop from the desk and, while I went back into the living room with it, the device that had seen better days started up. The almost three minutes it needed to switch on felt like hours. I held the small piece of paper in my hand, my legs were wobbling nervously and I almost bit off my lower lip. I didn’t really need to access this website. The address said everything I needed to know about what I would find there.
www.highland-secrets.net
didn’t leave much to the imagination.

But when the website appeared on the screen, it not only made me speechless, but it also took my breath away. I was overcome by a wave of nausea and all the hairs on
my chest stood on end. The website was kept very simple. I knew a little bit about web design and this was a finished blog from a provider for which no additional experience was required. A new article, a new video, was made available to all visitors to the site in seconds. And the latest video on Highland Secrets showed Adam and I having sex.

I sobbed in panic and blinked the tears from my eyes that had
impaired my vision of the screen. I worked my way through the blog entries from the last few days in astonishment. Adam with me, Adam with the Italian girl, Adam with the blonde girls, Adam with a woman who I had never seen … I couldn’t take anymore. Panic stricken, I almost suffered a nervous breakdown on the sofa and I sobbed continuously. I couldn’t believe it, it felt so surreal, but there was a sex video of me on the Internet. I would never be able to go outside again. Sheer dispair had caught hold of me and held me in its gruesome claws.

It took me a while
to pull myself together and clear my head. I didn’t have to ask who could have done this. I knew who it was. But why was he doing it to these women? No, thinking about why it happened wouldn’t help me. I had to go to the police. But that would mean giving complete strangers an insight into the intimate details of my life. Trembling, I drew breath. This would be the worst thing that I had ever had to do. No, watching this sex video of me on the Internet was definitely the worst thing.

I shook off the numbness I was feeling and scrolled to the end of the page. I noticed that there was no imprint. That would have been too easy. However, I would have thought Adam would be significantly more intelligent
than this. He had to know that these videos and this website would convict him as the culprit. Don’t think about it, I reminded myself again. It was vital that I went to the police right now. Maybe I could prevent another murder like this from happening. My own feeling of shame had to take a back seat for now.

I stood up as if in a trance, closed my laptop, packed the DVD, the Post-it, my cell phone and my slip back into the parcel. I hesitated for a second with my slip and deliberated whether they would really need it. But what difference
did it make now. I was on the Internet, naked and for everyone to see.

I found it difficult to put my shoes on, ring for a taxi and to leave the apartment.
My legs needed my complete attention to even be able to manage one step after the other. Each time I thought about what I should say to the police officers and when I imagined them watching the videos, I just wanted to turn back. Only the thought that people’s lives were at stake made me swallow the nausea and fight my way down the stairs step by step.

I put my hand on the front door knob when a bright flash went through my brain and I thought my skull would explode.
A cloth was pressed against my mouth and nose and a pungent odor clouded my mind.

Everything around me was dark, impenetrable darkness. I felt a slight jolt and I was sure that I was lying in the trunk of a car. I groaned and tried to kick out at something, but my hands and feet were tied up like a package. How ironic, I thought. First off, Adam sent me a package and now I was his package. I tried to cry out, but the gag, which was pressed firmly against the corners of my mouth and was inside my mouth, absorbed any noise that I could have made.

Adam
must have gone completely mad. Admittedly, a man who murdered and mutilated women was crazy anyway. But why did he let me go home and then send me incriminating evidence in order to kidnap me soon after? It didn’t make any sense. I twisted and turned again and tried to do something to attract somebody’s attention when the car came to a stop. My skull was pounding painfully from the struggle and I also felt dizzy. Unfortunately, I could only go on my feeling because I wasn’t able to see if everything was whirling around me.

I must have dosed off, because the next time I woke up I was no longer lying in the trunk of a car. The sound of groaning and moaning had woken me up.
I blinked to get rid of the veil in front of my eyes and tried to move. My hands were still tied up, but I could move my legs. Something             uneven and hard pressed against my back. I blinked again and tried to find my bearings.

I
was tied to a wall. Computer monitors were standing in front of me. One of the monitors showed Adam and I. This time the video couldn’t shock me anymore because I knew that it existed. Think up something new, I thought angrily. The other monitor was divided into numerous images and it showed all the rooms in the MacLeod estate. One of the sections became larger and stood out from the rest when Adam entered the gallery. Alfred followed him.

“Molly has brought you a bottle of gin. I thought I would bring you a glass”, said Alfred. Maybe the cameras were set up
to react as soon as somebody entered a room. That was clever again, I granted Adam. This allowed him to film everything no matter where he undressed a woman.

The bright light of the monitor meant that I was able to observe nothing but
shadows around me. It was cool and smelt of damp. I assumed that I was in the basement at Glenoak Hall. It should actually be possible for somebody to hear me from here, but the gag between my lips still prevented me from making anything more than a barely audible moaning sound.

I had a terrible headache and
I felt sick and cold. The fetters were cutting into my wrists and my shoulders felt as if they were dislocated because they had been carrying my weight for who knows how long. And the gag soaked with my saliva looked like it was going to tear off the corners of my mouth. I was also feeling terribly cold and the permanent shivering was causing even more pain to my body parts that weren’t tied up.

The sex video on the monitor changed
and a new female protagonist replaced me. It was the Italian girl. The woman who was being searched for by her upset sister. The sister to whom Adam had said that he didn’t know where she was. I laughed bitterly. Maybe she was long since dead. She had been disposed of in the forests or thrown from the cliffs into the sea.

The woman let out a quiet sigh as Adam pushed her naked back against the wall and pressed his mouth against her nipples. His hand played between her legs and she rubbed herself against him. I looked away disgusted, but I couldn’t block out the gasping of the Italian girl. I may have been able to shut my eyes, but I was powerless
against listening to it. Even though I was tied up here to the wall and even if Adam had done these unbelievable things, I still felt a tinge of jealousy deep inside me. I wanted to cry out in frustration, but because that wasn’t possible, I fidgeted manically.

I only had to watch four more women who were having sex with Adam in different rooms. The constant heavy breathing was excruciating to
listen to. If this was the torture that Molly had talked about, then I hoped that the DVD would soon come to an end. If it went on even longer, it would drive me insane. If I ever got the chance to kick Adam, I would make sure that it was in the balls. Why was he doing this? Did his ex-wife hurt him so much that she broke his psyche?

Everything inside me tensed up when I thought about the fact that I had slept with a man who may have gone down to the basement immediately afterwards to torture or kill a woman. He must have been doing it when I heard the moaning sound
penetrating through the open door shortly before Molly caught me. Did she know what was going on here? Maybe I would also lose my mind? Perhaps that would be the only thing that would make it bearable here.

Suddenly the second monitor started up again. Alfred was in the kitchen. “He didn’t want the gin”, he said quietly, almost
reserved.

“You drink it then”, Molly snapped at him without turning round to loo
k at him. “Maybe that will stop you from undressing that wench he constantly drags along with him with your eyes.”

Alfred
lowered his head, but didn’t reply. He just stood there and watched Molly as she washed the vegetables.

“Take a hike. Don’t you have anything
better to do? There are cupboards all over the house that need tidying. Look at the damn mess that they have left behind here”, she cursed. She threw the knife down on the worktop and now turned towards Alfred who was about to leave the kitchen. “Take a look at the water in the pot. I have to go down to the basement for a second. I need more potatoes.”

She is coming down into the basement, I thought and breathed a sigh of relief. I had to draw attention to myself
. But how? I tugged at my fetters, kicked against the stone wall behind me and only succeeded in hurting myself because Adam had taken my shoes. I tried to kick the table on which the monitors were standing, but it was too far away. I then took as deep a breath as I could and pushed the air out with a cry. A cry that was swallowed up by saliva in my mouth. Tears ran down my face and the back of my head started to hurt again.

I heard the sound of something scraping along the floor
from outside, then it became bright and Molly was stood in the doorway. Now tears were streaming down my face in relief. She must have heard me. Molly entered with a frown on her face and light from outside briefly came into the room, then she closed the door behind her and I started to tremble nervously. Why did she close the door? Why didn’t she shout out to Alfred? Why didn’t she release me?

A lamp right above the table with the monitors lit up and I looked at the fierce and pensive expression on Molly’s face. Then I gasped in
disbelief, Another prisoner was hanging on the wall opposite me. Her head was sunk downwards and she was naked. Dirt and encrusted blood was stuck to her skin and her dark black hair was hanging limp and raggedly right over her shoulders. There was a gaping hole in the poor woman’s lower abdomen. I retched. The fact that I hadn’t eaten anything in the last few days was the only reason why I hadn’t vomited against my gag. That’s the Italian girl, I thought. I was overcome with sheer panic and out of desperation I pressed myself against the fetters.

“She’s dead”, said Molly snidely and she grinned in exactly the way I would have expected from a psychotic murderer. “I haven’t been able to dispose of her yet. I had to chase after you”,
she said and looked at me with a hate-filled stare. She paced back and forth in the basement and then looked at me again. “I really thought that you wouldn’t let him near your dirty pussy. But it’s not just the fact that you’re as weak as all his other whores. No, you also let my husband chase after you.” Molly said scornfully. “I couldn’t let you get away with it.” She walked up and down the room again, took a quick glance at the cameras and then came towards me standing just a few centimeters in front of me. I tried to kick out at her, but she sidestepped it.

“I
have seen my husband watching these dirty movies on the Internet for years. He thought that I wouldn’t find out. But I did and it hurt me. The Internet wasn’t as good an invention as many people think. It took my husband away from me. I couldn’t allow him to touch me again. I was too disgusted with him.”

She laughed bitterly to herself and glanced at the monitor again. “Eventually, I had ha
d enough and I threw cold water over the whole thing. That was it with the Internet. But then the son of MacLeod had to turn up here a few years ago. And because he hadn’t found a woman to marry who actually had something to offer”, she said angrily and got louder with every word, “it was therapeutic for him to get with whores and they drove my Alfred completely out of his mind.”

She bent down and picked up a rope that she twisted around her fists while she continued to talk.
I still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t come to help me, but that she was actually the ripper. I groaned against my gag and twisted and turned which only succeeded in making the coarse rope cut even deeper into my wrists. My skin was burning, but through all the adrenaline that was pumping through my body, I only felt it subconsciously.

“I then got annoyed a few weeks ago when I caught Alfred
trying to hassle one of the girls that Adam had cast off. I was beside myself with rage and shouted at him. I even hit him. But instead of talking to me or showing any sort of remorse, he fled into the basement and didn’t come back up again. I followed him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. And then I heard this woman moaning.” She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and relaxed face just as if we were sitting having a coffee and chatting like friends. I squinted my eyes and glared at her. Molly didn’t even notice.

“I looked in each of the basement rooms, but I couldn’t find Alfred. I grew more and more angry, frantic and jealous. My husband was hiding somewhere downstairs with this whore and was fucking her. Then I listened more closely.

The sound was coming from behind the shelf where he kept all his odds and ends like the light bulbs. I tried to push it to one side and in doing so I must have come across the mechanism that made it open. It scrapes the floor a little when you pull it completely open, but you have to imagine my surprise when I came across this room. Nobody knew about it, except Alfred. I never asked him how he found it. I was too angry and upset when I found him inside with his hand on his dick. There was a sex video on the monitor. At first, I thought he had secretely set up a computer with Internet access down here. But it wasn’t, it was Adam and one of his slappers. And then I see the cameras that must have been hidden in every corner of the house. Alfred looked at me wide-eyed in shock. But I wasn’t able to speak. I was paralyzed, you know. And then I see his fist around his penis and for the first time in a long while I felt aroused. I was so hot, girl. We had sex here while we watched Adam doing it at the same time in his bedroom. I felt young and desirable again. After all this time!”

My stomach was churning and I swallowed desperately against it because I didn’t want to vomit against my gag. I could well imagine that it wouldn’t bother Molly and she would let me choke on my own vomit.

I shuddered and tried with all my might to get the imposing images of Alfred and Molly out of my head. And I didn’t understand how an old, motherly woman could be a murderer. But then I reasoned that jealously was a huge motive. However, you had to be crazy to cross that line and commit a murder. Molly hadn’t seemed in any way psychotic to me up to now. But I had also thought that Adam was a murderer. Was it ironic that I felt relieved to found out in this way that Adam hadn’t slit a woman’s throat?

“And then the idiot made a mistake. He was meant to drive one of Adam’s wenches back to her hotel in
Dunvegan, but instead he drove her into the woods and raped her. And out of pure fear that she might blow the whistle on him, he strangled her. And when he came back, he was so rattled that I knew immediately that something was up. He showed me where she was. I tried to get rid of any traces, but his sperm was all over the place between her legs. I just cut out her uterus and threw her in the pond.” She giggled wildly.

“I somehow considered it a way of making amends
. There was something healing about punishing the skank who had aroused my Alfred. Since then I have been trying to catch them all. But you almost slipped through my fingers. You drove Alfred out of his mind just as you did that idiot upstairs. He has been yearning for you since you left and has suddenly changed his ways.”

I frowned and looked at the monitor with the camera
frames, but there was nothing to be seen. Each room seemed to be empty and the cameras were waiting for a movement to trigger them. Each frame showed a still life of a room. Was Molly right and did Adam have feelings for me?

“He has fled to the
distillery to take his mind off things. Girl, this boy met his match with you and doesn’t even know it. It’s a shame that you won’t get anything out of it, but the old man MacLeod was dead right about you. He obviously did know his son better than Adam thinks.”

She drew breath and bent down, grabbed my legs in an unexpected swift movement and wrapped the rope around my feet. I wriggled, but it was almost impossible to offer any resistance with my feet in the air and my hands tied to the wall. And Molly was really strong for an elderly woman. Maybe being crazy gave her this power?

When she was finished, she got up again and glared at me. “Where was I? Oh yes. I had to follow you and Alfred. I told Adam that I really needed to go to Edinburgh because my daughter was ill, I got in my Fiat and started to follow you. What did you think of the parcel? I like watching crime thrillers. I rang Alfred on his cell phone, got him to give me your address and told him to wait there for me. Ever since I kept quiet about his murder, the man has done everything I have asked of him. He no longer dares to turn me down. I call the shots. I found the idea of driving you a little crazy first too good to refuse. That’s why I sent the parcel. I picked up your underwear from the floor in the gallery and I put together the CD quickly before I left. Everything had to be done quickly, which is why it wasn’t done very professionally. I am still learning. We followed you through London over the next few days and waited for our opportunity.”