Read Keeping Online

Authors: Sarah Masters

Tags: #Erotic Romance Fiction

Keeping (8 page)

BOOK: Keeping
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Cheryl blinked, and a faint tic pulsed beneath one eye.

She didn’t like him touching her.

They never did. All they had to do was like it and he wouldn’t have to send them
home-home
. All they’d had to do was enjoy him stroking their cheeks, to tell him they hadn’t had enough of him, and he would be happy. Instead, they’d all cringed, all hated him, and it made him do what he did.

“Mmmm, this is nice,” he said. “Say it’s nice, Cheryl.”

She opened her mouth, flapped her lips, but no words came out. He hadn’t given her
that
much medicine—she ought to be able to answer.

“Tell me it’s nice, Cheryl.” He didn’t sound so melodious this time, more like his other self. He licked the sweat from above his top lip to remind himself just who he was now. Applied more pressure to his cheek strokes.

She did an outright wince this time, and a knot of anger began in his belly. He’d try one more time to get her to speak, and if she didn’t…

“Tell me it’s nice, Cheryl.”

“S’nice.”

“Tell me you want me to keep doing it.”

“Keep doin’ it.”

“No.”

He stood abruptly and stared down at her. She appeared confused, deep frown lines fucking up her brow, and that made him happy. He pranced about the small space on tiptoes, arms out by his sides, and listened to Sally’s tune playing in his head. Soon he’d pull the cord in her back and let her music fill the room for real, but for now she’d be content to just sit and take it all in. Sally was a good girl, the only one who liked him stroking her cheek, her hair.

Euphoria spread through him, making his steps lighter. He closed his eyes and let the music take him away, to that place where everything was fine and nothing mattered except what he was feeling. He was aware, deep in the back of his mind, that Cheryl would be watching him, wondering what the hell he was doing and why, but her opinion wasn’t something he cared for. He didn’t think he cared anyway.

The imaginary music came to an end, Sally’s perky, “Goodnight!” filling his head, and he smiled, slowed his steps, then stopped. He remained where he was, eyes still closed, and lowered his arms to his sides. Took a moment or two for himself, to soak in the warm feeling of being exactly where he needed to be.

He snapped his eyes open and found himself facing the door, Cheryl’s gaze hot on his back. She could stare all she liked. Maybe she was secretly admiring her bra and knickers, how they fitted him so well. Wondering why they’d never looked as good on her. That would be nice.

Mr Clever had questioned him once as to why he wore them over his own clothes, why he didn’t strip and wear them against his skin. He hadn’t been able to answer because he didn’t
know
why. He’d thought about it, though, but nothing had been forthcoming. Mr Clever then suggested he was entertaining his feminine side while at the same time retaining his persona as a man, but David didn’t know if that was right either. He
did
know that he liked wearing them, and that explanation ought to be enough. He shouldn’t have to explain.

“Why do you think I like wearing your things, Cheryl?” He gave Sally a knowing look because they all answered the same way.

“Dunnow,” Cheryl said.

Ah, she hadn’t called him a freak, a weirdo, a nutcase.

Interesting.

“Aren’t you curious?”
I am. I wouldn’t wear them as my other self. I’d call any man wearing them a fag prick.

“Your biznizz,” she said, voice slurred.

Her response threw him. His business? He quickly turned to face her, to catch any facial expression that belied her words, but her vacant stare was glued to Sally and she exhibited blankness, as though nothing mattered anymore.

The next phase could begin, then.

He sat on the mattress again, leaning down, and pushed his lips out through the mask hole so they were millimeters from her cheek. “Have you had enough yet, Cheryl?”

“Enough o’ wot?” she mumbled, eyes drifting closed.

“Of me.”

“Had nuff o’ this,” she said.

Oh. Right. She hadn’t had enough of
him?

“What about me, Cheryl?” he sing-songed. “Have you had enough of
me
yet?”

“Remember your mother, David?”
Mr Clever asked.
“I’ve had enough of you, you little bastard. Get the fuck out of my sight!”

Cheryl shook her head.

David held his breath. Frowned, unsure what to do or say. He tried a different angle. “Do you want to leave here, Cheryl?”

She sniffed. “Wan go home.”

“I see.” His hot breath bounced off her cheek. “Home to where you live, or home-home, the place where we all go in the end?”

“Where I live.” She’d sounded like a slowing gramophone record.

“Oh. That’s a shame. It isn’t possible, good girl. Mr Clever wants you to go home-home.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. A tear spilled.

He withdrew sharply and stood. Went to the chest of drawers and picked up a new syringe full of medicine. He’d have to visit The Stick again soon. His supply was almost gone. He looked at Sally and smiled, letting her know she must play her part now. He’d swear she wiggled her toes in excitement. He scooped her up and went to stand beside the mattress.

“Now, Cheryl,” he breathed. “You can go home.”

He handed her the syringe. She held it in a loose-fingered grip, staring at it as more tears fell. She appeared uncomprehending, as though not knowing what the syringe was doing there,
how
it had gotten there. Perhaps she was going through a strange spell, the drug doing weird things to her. Maybe she’d be back to normal in a minute—well, as normal as she could be in the circumstances—and she’d understand exactly what she had to do next.

A couple of the others had refused to administer it to themselves at first, but he’d persevered and won. He wasn’t a killer and wouldn’t be blamed for their deaths. They had to kill themselves. No way was he going to be labeled a murderer. No, he just provided them with what they needed then put them in a place where nature could finish them off.

“If you don’t take your medicine, it will get worse,” he said. “Mr Clever might tell me to do other things to you, and then you’ll use the syringe gladly. He might tell me to hurt you. I don’t want to do it, haven’t had to do it before, but I will if he says so. I could ask Mr Clever what I’d have to do, if you like. You might need to know in order to make your mind up. Do you want to know what would happen?”

She shook her head and lifted the syringe. Sat upright and leaned forward, her head seemingly too heavy for her neck. He stared at the cords standing out in her throat and wondered how much effort she had to put in to keep her head from dropping to her chest. She jabbed the needle between her toes like a true heroin addict who knew where to hide those telling needle holes from the suspecting eyes of family members and friends. Squeezed the syringe until all the medicine disappeared.

“There,” he said, voice quiet and even. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

He pulled Sally’s cord and smiled as the music began. Cheryl leaned back and closed her eyes, the syringe falling from her grasp. He stared until the song was almost complete then ran with Sally to the door, going out into the hallway and closing it a little, positioning Sally so she peeked into the room.

“Goodnight!” Sally said.

Chapter Six

Langham sat at his desk, mulling over what the team had found out so far today. Evening had arrived at one hell of a pace, darkness falling without notice—one minute the late afternoon sun had been thinking about going to bed, the next it had disappeared and the moon was wide awake.

Oliver dozed in the chair opposite, feet on the desk, hands clasped over his stomach. Langham watched the rise and fall of his chest—nice and steady—and resisted the urge to go over and kneel beside his chair, stroke his hair, run the backs of two fingers down his face. He couldn’t risk waking him. The visit to the newspaper had further upset him. Oliver had said he felt responsible, as though his being there when the man—not blond or green-eyed, damn it—had visited might have made some difference. As though he’d have been able to pick up more than the editor had. And that editor—Langham now understood why Oliver hated the job. No sooner had Langham and Oliver walked into the office, than the bolshy bastard had ordered Oliver to make a round of teas then let him in on the gossip, give him something for tomorrow’s edition.

“No gossip at this time,” Langham had said.

The editor had opened his mouth to protest, and Langham had leveled one of his stares at him. No further orders. No further prods for a scoop.

Cheryl hadn’t been due in to work the past couple of days, so her absence hadn’t been a concern. This morning, however, the editor admitted he’d been pissed off she hadn’t shown because they’d had a shitload of makeup and feminine hygiene articles that had needed going over and Cheryl had been chosen to do it. Her not coming in had meant Colin—“some dopey little shyster”—had had to take over, and what the hell did Colin know about makeup? Langham had suspected quite a bit, going by Colin’s blush, the remnants of eyeliner, and the quick glance that had told Langham all he’d needed to know. Yep, his gaydar had been right on target there.

The CCTV footage had shown a man—late twenties, black suit, white shirt, gray tie, floppy dark hair—come bursting into reception like he’d been chased up the damn stairs. The woman behind the desk had tried to stop him from going through to the offices, but he’d pushed past her, raising his voice and saying he had to see Cheryl and make sure she was all right.

“Bloody lunatic, I thought,” the editor had said. “Almost made me shit myself, the way he stormed in here. Thought he was some nutter at first—we get a lot of those—but once he calmed down a bit and explained… Reckoned she was supposed to have met him for a date and hadn’t turned up. Couldn’t see it myself. Cheryl usually went for the more laid-back type. Casual, modern clothes and all that. You know, hoodies and jeans. This bloke? Suit and tie? Nah.”

Langham thought about that now. What if the killer
was
her usual type? What if he’d appealed to her in his Nike sweatshirt and Levi’s while she’d been out walking her dog? She’d taken a fancy to him and let him get close. Totally forgotten about a killer on the loose, taking women and murdering them. He’d gotten hold of her dog, then her…

There was a lot to think about. Officers, the new shift, would shortly be sent out to walk the banks of the stream. The victims had been dumped in close locations—well, close on a map but quite far apart on foot. Still, the killer had chosen to keep them all together, so to speak. Langham took a map of the area out of his drawer and flattened it on his desk, wincing at the way the paper crackled and made Oliver stir. He studied it and the surrounding area. Around the section of stream the killer favored was a forest. He had to be using that as cover when carrying his victims to the water. Beyond the forest and on one side of the stream was a housing estate, but farther up, where the stream broadened and headed out of the city, were farmers’ fields.

So he may well live on that housing estate. Parks up on that road there then carries them through the woods. Might be worth putting a few undercovers out there tonight.

He scribbled that down to remind him to do that in a bit, then changed his mind and went into the main office, instructing Villier, who hadn’t gone home yet, damn her, to get that sorted. She huffed, her cheeks ballooning with her expelled breath, but she must have been tired because she offered no further protest.

Back in his office, Langham thought of all the high-rises, whether there were even any on that estate. As he recalled, there weren’t, unless he included the two-story flats.

“No, Cheryl had said she was several floors up,” he muttered.

He studied the map some more, casting his gaze to the left—to a poorer estate that housed mainly council tenants. Plenty of high-rises there, cheap accommodation taking up less space, piss-stinking rat-holes you’d only live in if you were desperate. And many of them were. Drugs and prostitution were rife there, the main street through the estate riddled with women strolling up and down the pavement after dark. No nice kids out playing there—fuck no—and if kids
were
out, they wouldn’t be playing and they weren’t nice. Selling small folds of crack on the corners, more like—their main customers the prossers themselves. Anything to get the women through the night, through the customers. Then there was The Stick, a patch of ground tucked away behind the railway bridge, where drugs were sold and taken and the homeless huddled around the proverbial empty oil drums filled with pitiful excuses for fires.

“She’d mentioned medicine. A syringe.”

Langham got up and went back to the main room. Stood leaning against the wall, watching everyone working. His mind was spinning with information, him wanting to grab at snippets that were too fast for him to catch—snippets he knew were significant but, because he didn’t know what the hell they were, he couldn’t figure out what he needed to latch on to. Then one of those snippets drifted out of the crowd, zooming around, screeching that it needed someone, anyone, to take note and listen.

Jesus. Fucking hell, why didn’t I see that before?

“Anyone been to The Stick yet?” he called out.

Mumbles of, “no time”—“hadn’t thought, sorry, sir…”

“Well someone needs to. She’s being drugged. Best to strike The Stick off our list so we can think on where else this fucker’s getting his stuff from.”

The doctor surgeries and hospitals hadn’t thrown up any leads. Amazingly, no young man had the combination of blond hair, green eyes and the tendency to only work on weekends. He hadn’t ruled those places out, though. This man might well work during the week, and until Langham had proof that he didn’t, he’d have to go on the assumption that the killer held down a full-time job—or didn’t even work at all.

He moved to turn back to his office, but another thought made him pause. “Anyone out at the field opposite Morrison’s?”

More varied answers—“not sure, sir”…“didn’t see the point when he has someone abducted already, sir”…“didn’t think he’d bother going for another one while he has Witherspoon, sir”…

BOOK: Keeping
12.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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