Evil to the Max (24 page)

The walls behind Tiffany’s head were covered with blue fabric, circles the circumference of a water glass denting the surface. It looked like some sort of sound baffling. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling above her head. She sat on a plain wooden chair. Her feet and legs were bare. She wore the short, tight skirt and white tank she’d had on at the Round Up the night she’d died. Her hands were behind her, and the rag had been stuffed in her mouth.

Max gagged as the scent of gasoline slipped into her nostrils and the taste dripped down her throat.

Witt paused the picture. He didn’t look at her, staring instead at Tiffany frozen on the screen. Then he licked his lips, as if his mouth had gone dry. “It’s your vision, isn’t it?”

She didn’t miss that one.
Vision
. No problem saying the word this time. “Yes.”

He turned toward her, his blue eyes now a confused gray. “You really saw it all, didn’t you?”

She wished to God she hadn’t. “Yes.”

He hadn’t believed after all. Well, the evidence was right in front of him now.

He put his hand on her icy foot, infusing warmth back into her skin. “I’m sorry.”

It was important to make him say it out loud. “For what?”

“For not believing in you one hundred percent.”

She stared at him without saying a word. Waiting.

He gritted his teeth. “You want me on my knees, Max?”

“You’d probably put some sort of sexual connotation into it.”

He smiled. Her heart flipped over and started doing the two-step. She preferred his innuendoes to watching Tiffany. Anything but that damn video.

But he switched off the pause, forcing her attention back to the screen, her only comfort being his hand on her foot. Warm and solid. Real.

On screen, a black-gloved hand reached out to pull the rag from Tiffany’s mouth.

She was beautiful. Max wasn’t quite prepared for her impact. It was like looking in a mirror for the first time and seeing what other people saw. She’d felt Tiffany inside her, became her in the visions, had seen pictures, but she’d never
looked
at the other woman. Long golden hair spilled over Tiffany’s shoulders and across her full breasts. Her legs were crossed primly at the ankles, bound with cord, but her skirt rode high to reveal her thighs. Men would die for a taste of those thighs. And Tiffany knew it. Her lips, even devoid of lipstick, were full and red. Her skin was creamy, not a single blemish, and her eyelashes, long.

“Is this some sort of game?” Tiffany’s voice was strangely distorted.
No, Tiffany, it’s not a game
, Max whispered inside her head.

In the video, no one answered. Tiffany continued, as if
she
was the one in control. “I demand to know what the hell you people think you’re doing.” Tinny and mechanical, her voice had been altered for the tape, but the haughty, imperious tone was unmistakable. “And I demand to know now.”

A figure stepped on-screen, lurching as if someone had pushed him. He wore gray sweat pants and a matching sweatshirt, but there, normalcy ended and the nightmare began. His head and hands were covered with fur. At right angles to the camera position, his snout appeared long and narrow, his teeth huge, sharp.

A costume. The Wolfman?

Tiffany’s gaze traveled the length of the chest in front of her. “What the hell is going on?”

The Wolfman glanced off camera, then shuffled forward until he stood right before her. He fisted his furry hand in her blonde hair, then pulled down the front of his gray sweats.

Tiffany’s eyes widened.

So did Max’s. She swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable, and squirmed in her seat next to Witt. The Wolfman had the most massive ... male appendage she’d ever seen.

Max stole a glance at Witt. He looked at her. Her cheeks flamed. A sex video. Damnation, she’d gotten herself into a fine fix, watching a porno flick with Witt.

The corners of his mouth crooked, and his eyes turned back to the X-rated material in progress.

“So,” Tiffany murmured, “that’s what this is all about.” She gazed up at him with half-closed eyelids. Her eyelashes seemed fuller, more lush. Seductive. “Why didn’t you just say so? Come to Momma, big boy.”

With the come-on, he thrust himself at her. She opened her mouth, taking it all. She moaned; he groaned. Her cheeks pulled as she sucked. Her eyes never closed. She watched, almost greedy for his every reaction. His hips moved, ramming home, but she stayed with him. Amazingly. He was so ... big.

Max should have looked away. She should have told Witt to turn it off. Instead, she stared, fascinated, as some horrible, prurient being came to life inside her. She blamed it all on Tiffany. The woman was a star now, and she loved every second of it.

The scene seemed to go on and on, but it could only have been a matter of minutes. The Wolfman grabbed the back of Tiffany’s head with both hands, pumped inside her mouth, then he came. Muffled cries exploded from beneath his mask. He came forever, his body jerking, his thigh muscles beneath the sweats contracting and rippling with the effort. Semen dribbled from Tiffany’s lips.

Max wanted to die. Or, at least cover up her bright red cheeks so Witt couldn’t see.

Finally, Tiffany let him fall from her mouth, then stared up and slightly to her left, somewhere off camera. She licked her lips. Her tongue reached down her chin to catch the part she’d missed. Then she smiled. She was in control and had the power. Tiffany was not afraid. “Now, if you’d like to undo these handcuffs, I’ll show you how it’s really done.”

“No.” A strident cry, the word was recognizable despite the altered sound track.

The camera blipped. Scene change. Tiffany was alone on screen. Her expression remained triumphant. “Now what?” she asked.

A black-robed shape entered the frame. Dracula this time. Raising an arm, the vampire back-handed Tiffany. Her head jerked sideways, the blow almost toppling the chair.

Her victorious smile vanished, but Tiffany came back fighting. Her teeth bared, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, she said, “You’ll pay big time for that.”

Laughter sounded off-camera. There was something inhuman about it, something beyond the sterility of digitized sound. “And who’s going to make us pay, Tiffany?”

Dracula grabbed hanks of her blonde hair and whipped the locks across Tiffany’s face. For the first time, Tiffany faltered.

The robed figure, hand twisted in Tiffany’s hair, dragged her head back. The camera moved in for a close-up. Tears of pain, outrage, and fear gathered at the corners of her eyes, then trickled back into the hair at her temples. But it wasn’t in Tiffany’s mindset to just give up. “Fuck you,” she choked out.

“Shut up, bitch.” The creature shoved the rag back into Tiffany’s mouth.

Max tasted it, felt a trickle of mucus down her gagged throat with its lingering tang of semen, and dug her fingers into the arm of the sofa.

Genderless, and all the more frightening for its monotonous tone, the voice went on, “You don’t order anyone around here. You’d do better to plead, beg, and grovel.” With a cruel yank, the monster released Tiffany’s golden tresses.

Her face drained of color, her lips bloodless around the rag, her pupils dilated, Tiffany sagged in the chair. Her gaze riveted on something off-screen, her eyes grew wider. A sound rose, indistinguishable, yet terrifying.

Max
knew
it was the sound of wood slapping an open, gloved hand.

Another figure, full head mask over its face and hair, stepped onto the camera’s stage.

Frankenstein, a baseball bat gripped firmly in his hand.

Tiffany cowered.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Witt hissed. “It’s a goddamn snuff film.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Witt grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned off the DVD.

“No, let it play.” Max’s voice was out too loud, too sharp. Too emotional.

“You don’t need to watch any more of it. You know how it ends.”

“I’ve already seen it in my dreams. Once more won’t hurt me.” Maybe, maybe not. As awful as she knew it would be, she had to see it through to the end.

Witt looked at her for a moment, then said, “You told me you didn’t remember the whole vision.”

“I do now.”

“Then you don’t need to see it again.”

She looked at him. “It’s her swan song. I owe it to her.”

His eyes were puppy-dog eyes, all sad, protective, and loving. “I’ll watch it for you. You don’t have to see it.”

She took the remote gently from his fingers. “I watched Cameron die from a bullet in the middle of his forehead, Witt. Nothing could be worse than that.” She felt her husband’s tears flutter against her eyelashes.

Witt laced his fingers with those of her unoccupied hand. She held onto him as she pointed and pushed the button.

Max steeled herself against the empathic sensations, gathering strength from Witt’s grip. She would watch the whole thing, but she would not live it, would not accept the feelings into her own body.

The video flicked on. Tiffany couldn’t scream. With the first blow to her chest, she fell sideways, taking the chair with her. She landed hard on an arm, her hands still cuffed behind her.

Max couldn’t catch a breath for seconds. The digitized sounds were indistinguishable now. Grunting, groaning, a muffled screech of rage, from whom, Max couldn’t be sure.

Together, Frankenstein and Dracula pulled Tiffany upright on the wooden chair.

“Do it again.”

“Again?” Frankenstein murmured, the bat held at its side. The masked eyes shifted from Dracula to Tiffany’s bloodied cheek where she’d whacked the floor, and back once more.

“Again.”

“But ...”

A moment of silence. A look passed between the two creatures. Tiffany’s gaze went wild, flashing from one to the other. She shook her head, first slowly, then violently as the bat rose in the air.

She shut her eyes as it connected with her belly and knocked the chair backwards, but not hard enough to tip it.

“More,” Dracula ordered.

At the prompting, the beating started in earnest. Savage. Frenzied. Frankenstein screamed with each strike against Tiffany’s body. The rag in her mouth dislodged with the impact, and Tiffany gave voice to her agony.

Blows rained down on her. Faster. Harder.

Max closed her eyes, but the sound went on and on. She’d hear it for the rest of her life—the whack of the wooden bat, the crack of bones breaking, flesh tearing, all of it underlain with utter terror, grief, and rage.

The sounds of a dying animal.

In the end, Witt took the remote from her limp fingers and turned off the machine.

They sat in silence. Tiffany’s screams reverberated in the quiet room. The tick of the clock on the wall, the slow in and out of Witt’s breath, the distant bark of a dog; these were the only things that grounded Max in reality.

“Do you see stuff like that in your job every day?” she whispered.

A long silence, then his quiet voice, “I see the aftermath.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“I close my front door.”

She thought she understood. She’d sold her furniture, her condo, and given away her cat to keep
her
aftermath at bay. Sometimes it didn’t work. Sometimes it was only a quick fix.

Sometimes it lead to obsession.

“He did it.” He. Traynor. God. That’s how the bastard saw himself. A power and a sanctioner of death. Invincible.

Witt stared at the TV screen, blue now that the video had ended. She did not have to explain the
he
to him. “Did you wonder why it was so easy to get into his house?”

“I was careful. I broke the window, then I waited outside just in case he had an alarm.”

Witt closed his eyes, let his head fall back on the sofa, and sighed. “He has an alarm.”

She sucked in a breath. “How do you know?”

“I interviewed him after his daughter died. He kept me standing in the hallway. The alarm pad was on the inside wall next to the door.”

She hadn’t seen it. “All right.” She bit her lip, then let it slide from between her teeth. “So he has an alarm. He forgot to set it before he went out tonight.”

“Does he seem like the kind of man that would simply forget?”

She sat. Numbness worked its way slowly up her arms.

“Maybe he was waiting for you to do exactly what you did,” Witt suggested. “To take that DVD.”

She swallowed, moved infinitesimally away from him, then pulled her legs closer to her body and wrapped her arms around them. “He came home earlier than I’d expected. But how could he have known?”

Because he was evil, the devil, and he knew
everything
. In the dark, he could have seen the flashing lights on the DVD player. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn’t cared. Maybe that had been his intention. Or maybe he saw an opportunity to best her, and he took it. A coldness settled into her bones.

“But why would he want me to have the disk? I found it in his house. It’s incriminating.”

Witt laughed. Low. Mirthless. Angry. “It isn’t worth a damn against him.”

“But—”

He raised his head and stared her down with those fathomless blue eyes. “It’s inadmissible. You stole it from his house. The only person who can link it to him now is you.”

“So I’ll testify—”

“Your testimony is tainted. You hate the man. There’s more than one person to testify how much. You’re such a fool.”

“But—”

“We needed a goddamn search warrant.” He sat up, rested his elbows on his knees, and half-turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?”

“I ... ” She thought about telling him the truth, that she’d almost called him. “I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

He snorted. “You didn’t trust me. Not as a cop, and sure as hell not as a man.”

She felt like slime. “It’s nothing personal.”

“No, I suppose not. You don’t really trust anyone. Except maybe your husband.”

No. Not even him.

“So, what brilliant insights do you have now that you’ve royally screwed up this whole fricking case?”