“I don’t know. She just wasn’t enough of any one thing to make a stranger pay attention to her,” she said. “She wasn’t attractive enough, she wasn’t weird enough, she wasn’t young enough, she just wasn’t anything enough. I mean she was a great lawyer and a wonderful person, but to someone who didn’t know her, she’d look pretty plain vanilla.”
Aspen agreed.
“So why her?” Christina asked.
Aspen considered it.
“Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.” A couple of cops on horseback passed by and waved at them. They smiled and waved back. “Was Rachel seeing anyone?” Aspen asked. “You know, romantically?”
Christina chuckled, as if the concept seemed strange.
“Maybe, but not that I know of. The woman was a workaholic. Much unlike me. Why?”
“When a woman goes missing, nine out of ten times a lover did it,” Aspen said.
“Right. But in this case, with four bodies, there’s obviously something a lot more sinister going on.”
When Aspen got home later that afternoon, two news crews were waiting for her in the parking lot. They probably thought she had some great big juicy tip for them.
Well, too bad, because she didn’t.
Something in her gut told her to turn around and walk away before they spotted her. She had nothing to say and didn’t want to contradict Teffinger by accident. But another part of her said to talk to them.
Just to reinforce that she didn’t know anything.
Just in case Teffinger was right, and someone out there perceived her to be a threat.
So she walked over.
Nonchalantly.
They recognized her and got the cameras rolling.
She stopped and smiled.
“Do you have any idea why anyone would trash your apartment?”
What?
The smile fell off her face and she looked up at her door.
“Were they trying to find something?”
It was open.
“What does this have to do with the four killings?”
A policeman was inside her apartment, talking to someone.
Shit!
She ran in that direction.
“Is someone after you?”
“Is this a warning of some kind?”
“What do you know about the four killings?”
“Why was Nick Teffinger trying to find you?”
She stopped just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, then turned and faced them.
“I don’t know anything about anything,” she said. “Anyone who thinks differently is wrong. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”
Then she ran up the stairs.
Draven liked the money but he didn’t like the cleanup. In fact, sometimes he wondered if it was even worth it. Like right now, for example, as he drove up to the cabin.
This was the sick part.
He never knew what to expect.
All he could hope for is that things hadn’t gotten too bloody.
He arrived at the cabin shortly before noon, saw that the car that had been there yesterday was now gone, and pulled in front of the structure as the tires kicked up a cloud of dust. The radio played “Heart of Stone,” which he hadn’t heard in years. He left the engine running until it ended, watching a bluebird bounce up and down on the branch of a lodgepole pine.
He took a swig of Jack and stepped out.
The sky above him was just about perfect-blue, sunny, warm and inviting. A thick pine fragrance filled the air. He stood still and listened.
No sounds came from anywhere.
Not from inside the house.
Not from the gravel road behind him.
Not from anywhere.
Good.
He walked to the front door, found it locked as it should be, and used his key to get in. He located the body in the bedroom, posed in a spread-eagle position on the bed, covered by a white sheet. He checked the DVD recorder and confirmed that the client had removed his souvenir copy of the snuff.
He couldn’t see any blood on the sheet and pulled it off.
The woman’s eyes were closed.
He saw no visible evidence of trauma or blood.
Excellent.
This would be a piece of cake.
He felt for her pulse and found none.
Her body was still warm.
She couldn’t have been dead more than an hour or two.
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand up and down her body, tracing her tattoos. She didn’t move. He felt his cock swell and pushed it down but the pressure only made it stand up more. Maybe the woman needed one final act of love to send her off. He checked his wallet to see if he had a condom.
He did.
So he put it on and mounted her.
She was tight.
He took his time.
Working up to the verge of a climax and then backing off.
Two times.
Then three.
Then four.
Finally he couldn’t stand it any more and thrust like a rock star.
“Yeah baby!”
“How’s that feel?”
“Good, huh?”
“You like it.”
“You like it.”
“You like it.”
Then he exploded in her.
Drenched in sweat and exhausted, he collapsed on her and didn’t move. Staying inside her. Then he closed his eyes just to rest them for a second.
At some point later, he felt movement.
Very minor.
Barely perceptible.
When he opened his eyes, the woman was staring at him.