Snuff (27 page)

EIGHTY-SIX

That I refuse to surrender peacefully doesn’t go over well, to my complete lack of surprise.

I wonder what she’s doing up there, after she rails me how weak I am and storms out.  Polishing her fangs and blowtorch, checking the clip of an aggressive-looking pistol, painting her lips with a fresh layer of magenta.  Lip gloss fades so rapidly.  They can put a man on the moon, but nobody can invent lip gloss that stays past an hour.

My wondering pumps the brakes as an eardrum-clawing chorus of a hundred invisible
, screaming children pulses through the room.  She sets the lights to an odd setting—disco on LSD is my guess—so I sit there, hoping I won’t develop an eye twitch or start seizing.

It seems as though she’s put a lot of time into her version of elevator m
usic.  The wails of children melt into what sounds suspiciously like a screaming Brooke and Abby amidst a background of truly horrific euro techo-pop. 

If I had fillings,
they’d be chattering. I slide my head between my kneecaps.  The track loops around to my own scream again, and I can’t imagine how I was able to do it so loudly.  So long, like I didn’t need to breathe. 

My whole body jolts when the tang of rust fills my mouth.  I run my tongue over my gums, but it only makes more blood swish around.

A slow thought chugs through the screams and tinny electronic beats as it pulls into Brooke’s Brain Station.  I know what she’s doing.  I may not be a genius, but I’m not an idiot.  For whatever reasons, she doesn’t want to hurt me physically.  All that’s left is psychological torture. 

I know how you love foreplay, but there isn’t time
.

Monday
at 9:00 p.m.

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EIGHTY-SEVEN

“You should have called me the moment Mr. Ivashkov was placed under arrest,” Sal Morgan blustered importantly as he shook a fat finger between John and Lisette.  “I’d expect this sort of thing from the LAPD, but not the FBI.”

John hadn’t realized he’d been held in such high esteem.  “You were called the moment your client asked for you.”  He nodded at Jacob, still seated at the metal table wearing a nervy mixture of stress and contrition.  “I’m not sure what else you expected us to do.”

Lisette crossed one Timberland over the other and leaned against the interrogation room wall, hair falling in gold waves, framing her cheekbones.  Jacob’s eyes kept straying to her, but she didn’t lift her gaze from her boots.

“Are you interrogating anyone with the smallest connection to Ms. Cartwright, or is my client just special?” Morgan asked, voice positively dripping with disdain. “I’m assuming Ms. Cartwright used Microsoft programs to make her little videos.  Are you going to drag Bill Gates down here for questioning as well?”

John wrapped his fingers around the empty chair in front of him.  “Yes, if I ever find out Bill Gates is
complicit in the production of her torture porn.”

Lisette cleared her throat from her lonely corner
, and crossed her arms over her ribcage tightly enough to make her chest swell against the black fabric of her wife beater.  “This doesn’t need to turn into an argument.  We’ve detained him for possession of an unregistered firearm, but I can forget to file those charges if Jacob works with us.  I need his help to locate Bianca Cartwright.  I can’t do it without him.”

“Well, you’re going to have to.” Morgan clamped a hand around the purple satin at Jacob’s elbow and pulled him to his feet.  “He’s not going to
say a word.  Your uncle wants to speak to you immediately, Jacob.  He’s on the jet right now.”

Jacob yanked free of his attorney’s grip.  “It
’s okay, Sal.  I want to help.  I haven’t done anything wrong.  I’ll talk to him when he lands.”

“You don’t owe her anything.”  Morgan bent to retrieve his briefcase.  “She’s capable of closing cases without having her hand held.
”

Could Uncle Ivashkov really be that invested in Jacob’s life stumbles?
John wondered. “Where
is
his uncle, if you don’t mind my asking?  You’re throwing his name around so much, I can’t help being curious.”

Morgan
leveled a glare that held the venom of a thousand cobras.  “I fail to see what business that is of yours, Agent…?”

“Maxwell.  I’m not saying it’s my business,
I’m just wondering.”

“Every three weeks he visits Czech Republic,” Jacob
explained, and quite helpfully, John thought, watching him sneak another not-so-covert glance at the blonde apple of his eye.  “He’s got employees to check in on, and businesses to oversee.”

Three week rotations, hmm?  How long does he leave for?

John’s bet was three days. “How long do these trips overseas last?”

“Again, that isn’t your concern.  We’re going, Jacob.” Morgan crooked a finger.  “Now.”

Lisette shrugged.  “I’ll get the possession paperwork.”

“Wait.
” Jacob took a few steps forward, inserting himself between his attorney and her.  “I’ll talk to her.  No.”  He shook off Morgan’s hand.  “I want to.  You can wait for me in the lobby, or leave.  Either way’s fine by me, and it should be fine by my uncle, too.  I haven’t done anything.”

“Jacob, you need to learn to think with the right head.”  Morgan
scowled at Lisette’s phony bewildered expression before he turned it back on his client.  “I know she’s very pretty, but she’s playing you.”

“Fuck off, Sal,” Jacob snapped, a sudden blush staining his cheeks.  “That’s
got nothing to do with it. She’s got a pile of dead girls, for Christ’s sake.”

Morgan stomped across the yellow-tinged linoleum. “Your uncle won’t be happy to hear about this
.  You ought to consider those types of things before you act on childish impulses.”

Lisette flattened herself against the door
jamb as he swished past, suit jacket flapping.

Jacob rolled his sleeves to the insides of his elbows and sat
.  “He’ll get over it.  I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Well.”  John
checked the time on his iPhone and slipped through the crack in the door.  “I suppose I’ll leave you to it.”

EIGHTY-EIGHT

I’ve barely gotten use to the dulcet tones of my own raw, full-throated scream of recorded terror, when the track cuts off.

Déjà vu envelops me when the door flies open and a trembling, blindfolded girl stands in the threshold, silhouetted by low lighting. 

The girl
stumbles down slick granite steps when her legs are kicked out from under her.  I climb to my feet when the door shuts, deadbolt tumbling.

“Are you okay?”  I clamp a hand around her elbow and pull her to her feet. 

She makes no move to remove the blindfold. 
Scared stiff
suddenly makes sense.  I grapple with the blindfold’s knot and rip it off.

She blinks so fast her lashes blur
, eyes that look more like chestnut orbs expanding as they rake the bleeding walls.  Can she hear the echoes of my screams?  They’re still pounding in my head, louder than the roaring blood ringing in my ears. “What’s going on?”

How can I even answer that? 
I want to lie or sugarcoat, smooth the worried lines creping around her lips, since she can’t be more than sixteen.  So young and pliable, with a face full of makeup she won’t realize she doesn’t need until she’s older.  If she even gets the chance to age.

“Don’t worry.
” I brush away the locks of brown hair glued to her face with black tears.  “You’re going to be fine.” 

“I need to call my mother.”  Her sweaty hand finds mine when I lead her to the wall Abby and I leaned against for so long.  “I snuck out.  She’ll be worried if I’m not there in the morning.”

“We can’t call her now, but we will when we can.”

Her round little-
girl face crumbles as she slides down the granite.  She hits the floor with a
thud
and buries her head between her kneecaps. 

I’ve run out of tears, otherw
ise I’d be right there with her, but I trail my hand up and down her back and squint at the ceiling. The lights are on—I can’t work out whether that’s a good thing. 

“How long have you be
en here?” she asks after her sobs drip into sniffles.  The knees of her jeans leave red splotches around her eyes.   

“Not long.” Well, it’s true.  Technically I haven’t been here long, since
it’s my second turn with this nightmare.  “You’re going to be okay.  People are looking for us.  What time was it last time you checked?” 

“Two in the morning.”

Ticking dangerously close to three a.m., but I’m not sure if three a.m. even has significance.  All I know is it seems like a cursed hour, and it’s unlikely she’s been reported missing.

“What’s your name?”

“Hannah.” 

Hannah’s a palindrome
.  I don’t know why that’s the first thought that pops into my head, so I brush it off. “I’m Brooke.  What were you doing before she took you?”

“I was going to meet my boyfriend.”  She stutters over the
B
.  “We were going to meet in the cemetery.  My mom thinks he’s too old...”

“The cemetery?”

She nods, her tiny double-chin of baby fat nodding, too.  “We were going to meet by the back gates.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Looking through the bars at the headstones.  Then it all goes black.”

EIGHTY-NINE

“I d
on’t want to get you in trouble.” Lisette slid into the chair across from Jacob.  “Your uncle won’t be happy you’re here without Sal.  I don’t want him storming in with his panties in a wad.”

“Fuck my uncle.”

She laughed as she pulled out a pad of yellow, blue-lined paper, but it sounded weaker than her normal one through the speaker by the one-way glass—at least to John’s ears.  “I’ll pass.”

Is he really this easy?
the voice inquired. 

John had mulled over the same thing, but decided Jacob was too dense to feign being taken by feminine wiles.  And he was quite surprised Lisette had any to begin with.

“How come you’re not married, or with anyone?”

She flipped to a blank sheet of paper.  “That’s not something I like to talk about.”

“Bad memories?”

He really did l
ook interested.  John’s brow creased at the earnest set of Jacob’s jaw. Dilated pupils, but he’d expected those.

He’s not putting on a front.

No, he wasn’t.  And that meant nothing good in regards to his guilt.

He must like her a little more than you realized.

John’s molars ground against the mocking lilt of that voice.

And maybe you
do, too.

Suddenly
, he wished he had some Bailey’s to spike the coffee he held in his hand.  Maybe it would drown hallucinations. Though something told him it would take a lot more than alcohol to loosen its grip.

Lisette must have shut Jacob
down with a sharp look because he held up a hand.  “Sorry.”

“You want to tell me what happened with Caroline McKay?  If you didn’t do anything, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I wasn’t involved.”  He ran his fingers through his hair, chest inflating as he took a deep breath.  “It happened over a three-day weekend, at my high school.  I wasn’t there until Monday night.  My friend called.  Asked what to do.  There was blood everywhere.  Both of them were friends of mine, Austin and Caroline.  I told him she needed to go to the hospital, but he wanted to kill her and get rid of the body.”  He studied his knuckles.  “I couldn’t let him do that.  I wrapped her in a blanket, and put her in the back of my car.  She opened her eyes and looked right at me.  If she mentioned my name in the hospital, that was why.  She knew I didn’t do those things.  We had English together.  Worked on projects for school.  She went to my mother’s funeral, and sat with me the whole time.  I’d never have hurt her.”  

Lisette
uncapped a pen with her teeth, speaking around the pronged edge.  “How long have you been in a relationship with Bianca?”

“It’s not a relationship.”

She spat out the cap. “You just liked boning her, huh?”

Jacob grunted, shifting uncomfortably.  “That’s all it was ever about. 
I never cared about her.”

“Did she ever mention this
blog of hers during pillow talk?”

“We never had
pillow talk
,” Jacob said, grimacing as if the words tasted bad.  “It was just sex. I mean, I always left right after we were done.”

Lisette scribbled onto the paper.  She didn’t look up when she spoke. 
“When’s the last time you slept with her?”

“I don’t know.”  His eyes rolled up. To the right.  Thus indicating a
‘remembered’ event.  Jacob was many things, but now—this very second—he wasn’t being a liar. “Three months ago?  I don’t have it scribbled in a datebook, or anything.”

Her hand
streaked across the pages, blue ink smudging her skin.  “What else can you tell me?”

“How about this.”  He leaned forward
with a meaningful look that promised she wouldn’t be happy with whatever proposition he’d dreamt up.

She glanced
up from her notebook to his face, paused, and tossed aside the lock of hair she’d been spinning around her index finger.  “Jacob, I don’t have time for fucking around, okay?  This is important.”

“I’ll tell you something about Bianca if you answer a question.”

She flopped back in her chair.  “It better not be
have you ever had a train pulled on you
.”

He tipped back his head and laughed. 
“You’d never do that.  You have self-respect.”

She dropped the pen
.  It rolled to his side, and he handed it back. 

“Spit it out, then
.”

“How come you never dated anyone after
Steven died?” he asked, a mixture of curiosity and concern on his face. 

Her back stiffe
ned, but her voice didn’t waver.  “You must have done some research on me.”

“I thought you were interesting.  Always have.”

And here we were, thinking she didn’t have some deep, dark, tragic past. 

John hadn’t given Lisette’s backstory a great deal of thought, though he’d suspected her mother had died when she was a child.  Women knew about makeup, clothes; how to wear different faces depending on who was watching at any given time, and John had always assumed it was something mothers passed to their daughters. 
She didn’t seem to have interest in any of the above. 

She didn’t say anything for a moment, but the angle in which she held her head told John she was staring into the metal surface of the table.  Probably at her hazy reflection.  “Would you jump back in
to dating after your fiancé croaked?”

“
No.  But it’s been…seven years?”

“It’s not an interesting story.  I focused on work.  It kept me busy.  Kept my mind off of him.  A lot of people do that.”

“Bury themselves in work to bury their feelings?”

“Who’s to
say I even have feelings?  I’m half-robot.  Or haven’t you noticed?”

Jacob ran his tongue over his teeth and gave her a small smile
that bore no trace of his usual leer.  “You’re the most beautiful robot I’ve ever seen.  You don’t try to be, but you are; that’s what kills me.”  His grin got a little wider.  “You always look angry when people compliment you.  It must embarrass you.  But then you get embarrassed for feeling embarrassed, and then you get mad.  Maybe that’s why you try to ugly yourself up.  Only it doesn’t work.”

She slapped the table, b
ut it only seemed to amuse him.  “Can we please get back to the motherfucking
point
of this little chat?  I have a vagina-burning fuckwad to find.”

He
crossed his arms over the sleek line of shiny lavender buttons on his shirt.  “Bianca and I stopped…’seeing’ each other a while back.  Another guy, I guessed.  Bought her a big-ass diamond ring.  Looked like it weighed a pound.  That happened around the same time she cut her hours at the club.  I didn’t ask, she didn’t tell, but seems like she found someone a lot better off than me to sink her hooks into.”