Blood Red

Chapter 13

Some days it didn’t pay to get out of bed. Truer words had never been spoken. It was just after midnight when Brian Freemont found the silver Mercedes parked against a tree. The engine was dead, but the hood was still warm. He called it in immediately.

The car belonged to Michelle Aarons Lister. There was no sign of her, but he could see the car keys were still in the ignition. He thought about going to look for her, to see if she had crawled away or been dragged, but after the verbal ass-fucking Captain O’Neill had given him earlier, he decided to follow procedure and wait.

O’Neill was not a happy man. It turned out that Brian hadn’t tossed his cookies on just anyone. Oh, no, that would have been an easy enough thing to escape from. No, he’d managed to blow chunks all over the legs and pants of the police commissioner’s son-in-law.

O’Neill was normally a good man to deal with; he’d always had an open-door policy and he’d been enthusiastic about his reviews for Brian since he’d joined the force. He was even sympathetic to Brian’s current dilemmas; he knew all about Angie’s disappearance and the fact that she was six months pregnant with their first child.

His example of mercy was to let Brian keep his job and stay on patrol. But O’Neill was not happy. He was never happy, he went on to explain, when the Commissioner himself called his house at three in the morning to rip him a new asshole. It was going to take a lot of ass-kissing to get anywhere near a promotion or raise, which sucked, because the captain had also made clear he’d been very close to stepping to the next level before the reprimand.

So now, it was by the book. End of discussion.

For ten minutes he was alone in the woods. The accident was off the road, and even with his flashers strobing through the night, it was foggy and murky; dark enough that he had to wonder if he was seeing things. There was movement around the edges of a few trees, flickering little traces that were there and then gone an instant later. He ignored them at first, but they were becoming more active, more distracting.

Brian eased his hand down to the holster on his hip. To date he’d never drawn the weapon in the line of duty, never had a reason to. He wanted to keep it that way. Still, he wasn’t willing to take any chances.

“Mrs. Lister?” No one answered his call.

But there were sounds now, to go with the movements. Scratching noises and occasionally a few pieces of bark could be seen falling in the off and on lights. They made a sound like hail falling across sandpaper as they struck the ground.

And the sounds were coming from several places at once.

The hairs on Brian’s neck rose and his hand unclasped the snap that held his pistol in place. “Whoever’s out there better knock it off!”

The sounds continued, undaunted.

“This is police business, and I am not in the mood to play with you!” He was starting to sweat and he could hear a ringing sound in his ears that he knew had nothing at all to do with the world outside of his skull.

A pinecone bounced off the back of his head hard and sharp. He let out a little yelp as he turned to see where it had come from.

There was nothing to see, but he could swear he heard a woman giggling.

His vision went red. Some little bitch was playing games with him and that was enough to make him want to shoot first and ask questions later.

“You come on out where I can see you, right now!”

“We’re right here, Freemont.” The voice came from almost directly behind him and he turned fast, drawing his weapon.

He realized an instant later that he had made a horrible mistake. Detectives Richard Boyd and Daniel Holdstedter had their revolvers drawn and aimed at his face before he could finish sighting.

“PUT THE FUCKEN GUN DOWN!” Boyd didn’t need a bullhorn, his voice echoed off the trees. Even in the darkness he could feel the eyes of the man burning at him.

He dropped the pistol and held his hands up. Danny Holdstedter had him on the ground and eating leaves five seconds after that.

“You outta your fuckin’ mind, Freemont?”

“Danny, someone was fucking with me out here!”

The detective frisked him hard and fast, flipping him over like a fish and checking his front as well. He pulled a six-pack of condoms from Freemont’s front shirt pocket, along with a pen and a shopping list.

“Nice, Freemont. Figured on getting lucky in the woods?” Holdstedter waved the package in the air for Boyd to see.

“That’s sweet. Good to see a man who has faith that his wife will return to his loving arms, isn’t it, Danny-Boy?”

“Oh, yeah. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.”

“Strap his legs, too. Then we’re gonna have a look around.”

“What? Hey, come on, guys! It was an honest mistake.”

Boyd walked closer and looked down at him. “No, Freemont, it was a stupid fucken rookie thing to do.” The detective’s eyes crawled over him like he was being forced to carefully examine a large pile of dog shit. “Then again, let’s look at the source.”

Holdstedter pulled a long white zip tie and locked his ankles together while Boyd watched. “Stay put, dipshit. We ain’t done talking about this.” Boyd took the time to pick up Brian’s revolver and remove the shells before putting the weapon in his jacket pocket. The two detectives went over to the wrecked car and began talking.

Brian watched them as they moved around the car and examined the ground carefully. A few minutes later they were gone and Brian was left alone. He sat very still, afraid to move.

The sounds started up again when the other cops were out of hearing range. He tried to ignore them as they came closer… slowly, steadily.

Business and pleasure do not always mix. Maggie knew that very well. She was reminded when she spent the night with Leonard Morton. Leonard was a large man, half-bald and sweaty on the best days. He was pleasant enough, actually rather charming in old-fashioned ways, but he was also, simply put, a bit of a pig. He even had the nose for the assignment.

Still, she did what she had to and stayed the night as she had been paid to do. And if she felt worse about it than she normally did, well, that was to be expected when you got right down to it. She suspected Ben would know what she was doing and that bothered her more than she wanted it to.

Tom was going to pay for that. She didn’t know how, but he was going to regret fucking with her. Thinking about his sorry excuse for a face made her grind her teeth together. She could feel a headache coming on and he would pay for that, too.

She just had to work out the details.

She got home a little before the sun rose. The apartments were all dark, which was about what she’d expected.

There was a note against her front door. It was written on the same antiqued stock as the poem she’d gotten a week earlier and the few pieces of artwork and poetry she’d seen in Ben’s bedroom.

She opened the single piece of paper and read the words carefully.

It read:

She folded the paper and looked over her shoulder to the window of his place. Silly, really, that a poem could make her feel better. But it did.

She took the paper inside her apartment and carefully set it out on the kitchen table. A few hours under a frying pan would take the worst of the wrinkles out, and after that she planned on pinning it to the wall.

She was just getting ready for a few hours of sleep when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Well, I kind of expected a phone call from you today.” Tom’s voice crawled through the receiver. He was sounding like he was ready for a fight.

“Really? Why?” He wasn’t the only one who could do innocent.

There was complete silence on the other end for a few seconds. Monkey Boy had to think. It was seldom a pretty thing to watch and almost always took longer than should be necessary.

“Well, just because I haven’t heard from you lately.” He was puzzled. She didn’t much care.

“Hey, school keeps me busy and the client list isn’t getting any smaller.”

“So, Jason Soulis called me. He wants to get together with you tonight.”

“Okay. He can give me a ring to set up the particulars. Anything else?”

“Uhh. No, I guess that about does it.”

“Well, there it is. Talk to you soon, Tom.” She hung up before he could say anything else. She didn’t want to hear his voice, didn’t want to think about him. She wanted free of him, once and for all.

It was time to move on. She had enough money to handle it, but it would take time to work out the details: time or a gun big enough to erase Monkey Boy off the face of the earth. Maggie liked the second idea better, but wasn’t stupid enough to do anything about it.

Ben watched Maggie go inside her apartment and breathed a sigh of relief. With all of the people who had vanished of late, he didn’t exactly love the idea of her being out all night.

She cast her eyes in his direction and he studied her as he always did. Every detail of her face fascinated him. He wondered, as he did from time to time when he was feeling a bit self-conscious, whether or not he qualified as a stalker. There was something wrong with watching her as often as he did, and he knew that, but couldn’t stop it.

Didn’t want to stop it.

It still wasn’t any of his business what she did with her life, but that didn’t change how he felt. He was in love with the girl next door. The only reason she lived across the courtyard from him was because, once he decided he liked to see her, he found out where she lived and moved in. Elegant, beautiful, quiet, studious; she was all of those things and that, more than anything else, had caught his attention. She could have been a truck driver and he would have felt the same way. She was a prostitute and he knew he could deal with it. All sins were forgivable when faced with love.

Once she went inside her apartment, he sighed and let himself breathe again. Then he turned on one of the cell phones he’d purchased to deal with Brian Freemont and plugged it into the modem of his laptop. He was done with Freemont. The sick bastard would be suffering plenty in the near future.

His hand ran along his ribs and he winced. He was not done with Thomas Alexander Pardue. The long list of research notes he’d written down earlier was on his left and the computer was on his right.

“Fuck with me, Tom? Trust me; you don’t know what being fucked is.”

It was just possible that Pardue would figure out who was behind it when the time came, but long before then, Ben would be done with him. His fingers tapped keys with the skill of a surgeon and he started his own symphony; a song just for Tom, a special song of desperation and financial ruin.

He blinked away a few tears as he worked. They were not tears of sorrow, he was beyond that and had been for a long time. They were tears of rage. Ben had been a victim plenty of times in his life. Pardue was hardly the first man he’d ever run across who felt the need to kick his face in and he likely wouldn’t be the last.

He was just the first one Ben decided to play dirty with. Oh, he’d certainly hacked a few accounts in the past, that was true enough, but he’d always done it for what he considered a good reason. When his uncle Dominick had run into troubles paying his house notes, Ben had fixed the problem long enough for the man to recover and go about his life. When the insurance companies had refused to pay a few claims that were due to his father, he’d fixed that too. It was easy when you had the right equipment and the proper tools.

Ben had both and knew how to use them. Danni had been the latest trick he turned. He’d even promised himself he’d stop after that, because sooner or later even the best hackers got themselves busted and he wasn’t dumb enough to think it wouldn’t happen to him if he kept it up.

But this was different. He could deal with an occasional beating; they happened every day to people just like him. He could even deal with the threats of more beatings, because he never intended to announce what Maggie did; if she’d thrown rocks at him and called him the worst names she could come up with when she found him on the sidewalk the night before, she still would never have had to worry about that.

So she was a prostitute. It was a job. He could deal with that and he would pretend the knowledge didn’t bother him in the least, because he never wanted to hurt her.

But Tom? The very thought that Pardue would ever strike her in anger, would ever touch her or know her body… that was exactly enough to make him want the man to suffer.

He started with the bank accounts. After that he moved on to land deeds and credit cards. When he was done there, he moved into the police databases in the area and added a few minor, niggling warrants to the list of outstanding orders; nothing that would get Tom on “America’s Most Wanted”; just the sort that would cause him to be pulled over. He also cancelled Tom’s car insurance and revoked his driver’s license.

When he was done, Pardue had twelve thousand dollars to his name. It was enough to let a few days or even weeks pass before the man discovered he was broke.

All of Pardue’s money went into a series of legitimate trust funds. They’d been established a long time ago, under several different names.

When he was finished, Ben set aside his laptop and disconnected the cell phone. He stared out the window and squinted against the glaring reflection of the sun on Maggie’s side of the building.

“Fuck with me again, Tom. Fuck with me again, and you’ll see how nasty I can get.”

Ben closed his eyes and went to sleep on his couch. It had been a long night and he was tired. In his dreams Maggie was with him as she had been the previous afternoon: she was sleeping and he watched her while she dreamed.

The International House of Pancakes was paradise: The food was plentiful and fattening and the coffee flowed in great rivers of caffeinated pleasure.

Boyd needed the caffeine and so did Holdstedter. Old Danny was looking about as white as toothpaste from lack of sleep. Real toothpaste, not that gel shit everyone thought was so cool.

“This shit ever gonna stop?”

“What? The disappearances?” There was already a backlog of cases to investigate and seven more people had vanished and been reported since midnight.

“No, Richie, the unclean love you have for Whalen. Of course the disappearances.”

“Sooner or later the town’s gonna run out of people to have disappear. But don’t worry, Danny. Our asses will be long fired before then.” He poured more syrup over his pancakes. Sugar and caffeine, those were the secrets to keeping him happy. “And Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“You go ahead and keep it up about Whalen and me. You just do that. It gets funnier every time you say it.”

Danny grinned. “Doesn’t it though?”

“Not as funny as the look on Freemont’s face last night.”

Danny nodded and broke into a bright, sunny smile. “Does my heart good to know he shit himself.”

“Boy has a bad case of the stupids going. Gonna be fun to see what O’Neill does to his sorry ass.”

“Did you want to shoot him as bad as I wanted to shoot him?”

“You kidding?” He held his index finger and his thumb a quarter inch apart. “This close to popping an eye out the back of his fucken head.”

The man in the booth behind Danny was looking green. Boyd savored the expression. It was never wise to eavesdrop on cops.

“See? That’s the problem with you. You always gotta take the hard shots. I was gonna go for the gut. I like to see pricks like him squirm.”

The excitement was getting to Danny. He had color coming back into his cheeks. “What hard shot? His eyes were bugging out.” He shrugged and cut another wedge out of his remaining pancakes. “I was waiting to see if they’d just fall out on their own, but they didn’t. I gotta tell you, I was disappointed.”

“You think he did the Lister woman?”

“Nah. He’s too sweaty right now. I bet he was figuring out whether to offer his mouth or his ass to O’Neill.”

“So I guess he’ll be using both today. Captain’s luck just got better.”

“You ever see the captain’s wife?”

“Nope.” Danny went to sip at his coffee.

Boyd waited to make sure his timing was just so. “Then you have no idea how true what you just said is. Gawd almighty, that woman could scare a dildo.”

Danny coughed coffee out of his nose as he tried to laugh. “Oh fuck, that burns…”

“Schmuck. The captain isn’t even married.”

“Then whose picture is that on his desk?”

“The commissioner’s wife. He has to pleasure her at least once a week or his life goes to hell.”

“You lie like a rug.”

“You don’t believe me, you go ahead and ask him.”

“Anyway. What have we got on Freemont?”

“We got DNA evidence that should get him in jail nice and easy.”

“So where is this evidence?”

“Not with us yet.”

“See? There you go getting all cocky again.”

“It ain’t cocky. That little shit is up to something. I don’t think he did his wife, but I know he did something. And did you see his face right before he blew his dinner? He was ready to run home to momma.”

“Oh, and I saw it after he tossed, too. Man, I wish I had a digital camera. He’d be all over the Internet on that one.”

“So, what happened to Michelle Lister, Danny?”

“She wasn’t abducted. Or if she was, she didn’t get taken from the car.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Automatic transmission was still in drive.”

“Good point. You know, with everything that woman has gone through, I gotta wonder if her family is really dead. This could be a kidnapping of some kind.”

“I thought the boy was confirmed dead.” Danny put a thoughtful look on his face. As far as Boyd was concerned, it didn’t fit. Danny never had to think hard.

“He is. By the same people that lost him.” More coffee to wash down the paste his pancakes had become. “It could be an inside job.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I, but I had to put it out there.”

“Okay, so the kid is still dead, at least as far as the hospital is concerned. We just don’t take them at their word.”

“Anything on the rubbers?”

Danny looked at him without any comprehension for about seven seconds and then nodded. “Oh, those rubbers. I was thinking galoshes.”

“You would.”

“Anyway, yeah, they’re a match for the one found near Veronica Miller. Circumstantial, but a nice addition.”

“Not so circumstantial if we work this all out. Nice catch yesterday.”

“Oh, I was fishing. I wanted to find something on that fucker.”

“Don’t worry. He’s ours. Guilty as sin, you ask me.”

Danny wiped his mouth and pushed his empty plate away. “Oh, he’s ours. Even if he isn’t, he’s mine.”

“I’m sensing hostility.”

“Yeah, well, creeps like him give creeps like me a bad name.”

Boyd was about to answer when his cell phone went off. He answered that instead.

“Boyd.”

“Where are you?” It was Nelson on the switchboard.

“Eating, and off duty.”

“You wish!”

“What now, Nelson?”

“We’ve had a total of nineteen missing persons reported today. You need to get down to the station now.”

“NINETEEN?” His bellow cut through the breakfast crowd and a few people dropped utensils or in one case, a glass full of orange juice. “You better fucken be kidding me, Nelson.”

“I wish I was, Boyd. Nineteen.”

Boyd pushed away his pancakes. Suddenly he had no appetite.

Kelli spent half the morning pacing, waiting to be questioned about Michelle’s disappearance. She felt like she was going to throw up. Tension did that to her, it always had. Right now, tension was her middle name.

The entire family she had been living with for the last few years, ever since she moved up to Black Stone Bay, was missing. Not really a stretch to find that the police wanted to talk to her about it.

That didn’t make her any more comfortable with the idea.

Detective Boyd said he’d be coming by to talk with her, and she was waiting. He’d also said it might take him a while to get to where she was. It seemed there were a lot of people missing in Black Stone Bay.

She walked around the house until almost noon and then she stepped outside into the overcast weather. The air was thick with fog and the sound of the waves was a resonating hiss as the ocean attacked the land on the other side of the Soulis place.

The leaves were falling in greater numbers now, and the entire area was starting to look barren. Autumn always made Kelli feel a little melancholy, but this year, it was starting to frighten her.

Jason Soulis was across the way. She saw him in the front yard of the massive place and thought about waving, but changed her mind.

He was staring at the house she lived in, his face unreadable in the gloom. A moment after that, he moved toward the far side of his own place, pausing exactly long enough to give his usual wave and nod of the head.

There was something about him she found endearing and something else that she couldn’t hope to fathom; he was an enigma. He’d had a girl over several times now, but he never left with her and other than her he’d never had any visitors that she knew of. A man that good looking—even if he was miles too old for her—should have been going out and enjoying life. Instead, Jason seemed perfectly content to just sit inside that big old mansion and do nothing.

Who are you to judge? What have you been doing with yourself except babysitting since you got to school?

She did go out; she just didn’t do it often. Life kept getting in the way. First there was Teddy—brief pause for stomach lurch—and then there was school, and between the two of them she always found it was easier to get a good book and read than it was to go find a party. She didn’t think she was really designed for that life, anyway. There were girls who could go party every night and find a guy and have a blast, and then there were girls like her.

Kelli was not a victim of low self-esteem. She knew she was pretty enough, she knew guys looked; she just wasn’t really in it for a fast fling and a polite nod to whomever she had bagged a couple of weeks earlier.

A new car pulled up in front of Jason’s place. This was a muscle machine, a Camaro with a glass-packed muffler. She knew it well enough and seeing it made her want to throw rocks.

Tom Pardue was a sleazy bastard if ever there was one. He’d actually asked her once, right after she got into town, if she wanted to hook for extra money. One look from her and he’d tried to laugh it off as a joke, but she knew better.

Her interest was piqued, so she stayed where she was and waited to see what would happen between Tom and Jason. If it was what she suspected, her estimations of Jason were about to take a plunge.

Naturally, she never got to find out. Around the same time Tom was knocking on the man’s front door, Detectives Boyd and Holdstedter pulled into the long driveway.

They got out looking shell-shocked. She smiled and stood up. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

“Ms. Entwhistle, how are you today?”

“Okay, I guess.” She wasn’t, but it was the sort of lie you were supposed to tell; and really, it was less worrisome than screaming and ripping her own hair out, which was closer to how she felt.

“I’m sorry to bug you, we just had to ask a few questions, especially under the current circumstances. I hope you understand.”

“Of course, Detective Boyd.”

“Listen, just call me Boyd. It’s ‘detective’ if you’re a suspect, and you aren’t.”

“I’m not?” She felt a little of the storm in her stomach subside.

Boyd looked surprised by her response and Holdstedter answered for his partner. “No, not at all. We actually talked about it and decided you weren’t stupid enough to kidnap your own employers. Seriously, who would you ransom them to?” He had pretty teeth in between his perfectly kissable lips. She pinched her thigh to get those sorts of notions out of her head.

“Funny, man. Very funny.”

Boyd nodded. “He likes to think so. I like to keep him from crying, so I pretend he’s right.”

Holdstedter didn’t look at all offended by the comment. “No, you were never a serious suspect.”

“What we wanted to see you about is if you can think of anyone who would have reason to make the Listers disappear like this. Do you know if they had any enemies?”

She shook her head in an instant. “No. I mean I used to joke about them both being lawyers, but I don’t think either of them ever really got into the sorts of cases where they would make enemies.”

“Doesn’t take much. Do you remember if either of them were working on big cases?”

“The only thing they talked about since… since Teddy disappeared was going after the hospital. They wanted to make them suffer for losing their baby.” She looked away and had to fight hard to stop the tears. Damn, it was supposed to get easier, not harder.

Boyd moved closer and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. She was touched, because she really didn’t think he was the type to do that with too many people.

“I know it’s hard, but I just want to make sure we’ve got our bases covered.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What for?” His voice was gruff when he asked. “For having feelings? Please. Even Danny over here has feelings and believe me, he’s very superficial.”

“My ass, your face. A match, Richie.”

Kelli laughed. Both of the detectives smiled. Holdstedter winked at her. “I knew there was a smile in there somewhere. Now and then you have to dig for ’em.”

“How about new people in their lives? New neighbors around here or new coworkers?”

Kelli looked over at Jason’s place. “Only one I know of is Jason Soulis.” She pointed to the great gray house across the street.

Boyd looked, and for just an instant she saw a shark’s smile on his face. “Now, that ain’t his car, is it?”

“Oh, please. No, that’s Tom Pardue’s car.” He said the name at the same time that she did, and she looked back at the detective. “You know him?”

“Oh yeah. We’re old friends. We’ve been buddies for years.”

Holdstedter chuckled and shook his head. “You know, I think you should put him on your Christmas card list, Richie.”

Boyd’s eyes narrowed for a second and he nodded. “Or maybe we could pay him a visit sometime.” Then he shook himself and looked back at her. “So, does Pardue visit this Soulis guy a lot?”

“No. I’ve never seen him over there before.”

“Bet he ain’t selling Girl Scout cookies.” Holdstedter crossed his arms and looked at the car as if it were guilty of a dozen crimes, merely by being associated with Pardue.

“How long has Soulis been in town, Ms. Entwhistle?”

“If you’re Boyd, I’m Kelli.”

“How long, Kelli?”

“Around two weeks, I guess. Since the early part of October.”

The two detectives nodded in unison. “Well, isn’t that interesting.” Boyd’s question was rhetorical. He reached into his coat and pulled out a cigar. “You mind?”

She shook her head. “I like the smell of a good cigar.”

“How do you figure?” Holdstedter was looking at Boyd, his smooth brow wrinkled in thought.

Boyd lit his cigar, filling the foggy air with plumes of the aromatic tobacco. “Two weeks. We’ve had a lot of things happening around here for the last two weeks.”

Thinking back on that gave Kelli a case of the heebie-jeebies. A lot really had happened in the last fourteen or so days. Enough that she found herself wondering what had happened to her entire world in that amount of time.

Boyd and Holdstedter stared at the Camaro and nodded, saying nothing for several moments.

“Would you guys like some coffee or something?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. But thanks.” Boyd looked at her. “Listen, not that you’re a nosy neighbor or anything, but have you met that Soulis guy?”

“What the hell kind of name is Soulis, anyway?” Holdstedter scratched idly at his chiseled chin. “Sounds like a stage name for a bad magician.”

Kelli laughed again. She thought it was weird herself.

“Scottish, I think. I read about a castle over there where they burned a Lord Soulis for witchcraft.”

Holdstedter looked at Boyd as he answered; a smile grew on the taller detective’s face. “Since when do you read?”

“Since your mother stopped putting out.” Then Boyd got a horrified look on his face and looked toward Kelli. She was too busy laughing to pay much attention.

“I can’t believe I said that in front of you.” His eyes were wide and his face plastered with apology and shame.

“No, please,” she waved aside his horrified look. “I needed that.”

“Yeah, so did Danny’s mom.”

“You’re a bad man, Boyd.”

He nodded and smiled. He had a nice smile under all that gruff. “That’s what Danny’s mom always said.”

“Okay, one more mom joke and I’m gonna open up with the Whalen comments.”

“Okay, okay. You win. I’ll leave your mom out of this.”

“Smart move.”

“Besides, your sister’s better in bed anyway.”

Kelli laughed again. It was good to laugh. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

Tom walked around the side of the mansion and shook his head. He was proud of his house. He had a damned nice place. He could have fit about seven just like it inside the place he was circling.

Jason Soulis said he wanted to see him, and so here he was. Soulis was his favorite kind of client; he didn’t make demands and he always paid upfront. So now and then he could make a house call for that sort of customer.

It was just a pain in the ass when they weren’t where they said they would be. He went around to the back of the mansion, marveling still at the dark gray walls and the high gloss of the marble. He didn’t figure he could make the sort of money that would be needed for a house this fine without pimping every single bitch on both college campuses. Not that he wouldn’t be willing to, of course.

The back of the house overlooked the Cliff Walk, and he spotted Soulis over near the edge. The man was dressed in the sort of style that only worked for filthy rich people: He looked casual, but the clothes all had a fit that was too perfect. There was a chill in the air, but not much of one. Soulis was decked out in a suit and a greatcoat and gloves.

He stared out at the ocean as Tom approached. Before he was within ten feet of the man, Soulis waved to acknowledge his presence. “It’s a beautiful day here.”

Tom shrugged. It was a shitty day as far as he was concerned, but the customer is always right, unless, of course, he was wrong.

“I have a fondness for the ocean, Mr. Pardue. Forgive me my trifles.”

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Soulis?”

Soulis reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. “For tonight.”

Tom made the money disappear. He didn’t bother counting it. He had no doubt in his mind that Soulis would take offense, and something about him was intimidating. He didn’t like that feeling. He was used to being the one who intimidated just by being there. Soulis couldn’t have cared less if Tom were waving a gun in his face. That was the feeling he got from the man.

“Thank you.”

“Do you like Black Stone Bay, Mr. Pardue?”

“Yeah. It’s home.”

“Indeed. It’s starting to feel that way for me as well.”

“So, Maggie hasn’t given you any troubles?”

Soulis finally turned to look at him, one dark eyebrow raised in a question. “Should she?”

“No, no, I just like to make sure everything is going the right way. I wouldn’t want you dissatisfied.”

“She has proven to be everything I expected.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“You have excellent tastes in ladies.”

“Maggie’s something all right.” He would never think of her as a lady, but if Soulis wanted to, that was his choice.

Soulis stared down at the waters, his eyes watching the waves shatter themselves against the rocks.

“Do you suppose there is any way to survive the waters here in the bay?”

“Yeah. Don’t fall in.”

Soulis smiled thinly. “No doubt.”

“Was there anything else I could do for you, Mr. Soulis?”

“One more thing, actually. There is a policeman who’s caught my attention: Brian Freemont.”

The name meant nothing. “What about him?”

“I would like you to post his bail.”

“I thought you said he was a cop.”

“He is. He just isn’t a very good one.”

“What’s he in jail for?”

“He is currently incarcerated for pulling his firearm on two other police officers.”

“That’s gonna be an ugly bail to post.”

Soulis held out a much, much thicker envelope. “That should suffice.”

Tom managed not to whistle. Soulis would have thought it rude and classless. Around Soulis, Tom wanted to look like he was in the big leagues. He wasn’t, he just wanted to be.

“There anything else?”

“Yes. Let him sit a bit. I don’t want him getting out until sunset.”

He didn’t ask questions. He knew better. Jason Soulis probably wasn’t the sort of man who liked to have questions asked. The money went into his pants pocket.

“Mr. Pardue?”

“Yes sir?”

“Do I have to warn you about disappointing me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good. Have a nice day.”

Tom left, part of him offended by the casual dismissal and part of him happy to go. Soulis was a scary man and he didn’t even try to be that way. It was power; the man had power and in abundance. He doubted there was much of anything Soulis could want and not get. Someday he intended to be in the same position.

Maggie met with Jason Soulis and spent the night again. He was as imaginative as ever, and she was thoroughly sated.

Unfortunately, he was not. She lay back as he moved over her, his mouth starting at her feet and moving slowly, languidly up her legs, preceded by his hands.

Her skin felt feverish. Her breaths came in gasps. His tongue lapped at her flesh, his teeth nipped at her skin, his nails drew lines of sweet fire across her nerve endings. Her hands clenched the sheets, pulling at the tough silk and stretching it out of shape.

“God, Jason…” She whined; there was a point where pleasure bordered on pain and she had reached it. He kept going, crawling up her body, his mouth on her inner thigh and then higher, his hands sliding across her stomach, her ribs, moving to her breasts.

He was merciless and she hissed in pleasure, moaned in agony. And still he kept going. His body slowly worked over the contours of hers, his hands and mouth traveled everywhere, sliding over her front and sides and back as he explored.

He used her. She returned the favor. Enough was enough, and she decided to get inventive right back. He kissed. She bit. He scratched, she clawed. He thrust, she arched. He tasted, she drank. He bruised, she cut. Well before they were finished, both had begged for mercy and been granted none.

Finally, she solved a mystery. The taste she had in her mouth when all was said and done, so familiar but not common. It was blood. She drank his and he drank hers. It was intoxicating.

When the sun was almost up, she rose from his bed and dressed hastily. Her body still felt feverish, and she was in a daze. Jason watched her stand and move about, and smiled at her.

“Find a safe place, Maggie. Be with someone you can trust for the day.”

“Why?”

“Trust me on this if nothing else. Find a safe place. Come to me tonight, when you want your questions answered.”

Exhausted, elated, and nearly delirious, she nodded her head and left his house. The glow of the coming dawn seemed too bright to her eyes and she drove quickly, trying to keep her calm.

“Damn. I gotta start getting some sleep. This is crazy.”

The roads were mercifully devoid of people. The trees were alive with the watchful eyes of crows. She found herself noticing the birds at nearly every corner, all of them intent on her, staring as if she were a succulent morsel of food.

Maggie pulled into the parking lot and barely avoided hitting another car parked in the space next to hers. The world was swimming and swaying by the time she got out of the car and started for her apartment. The courtyard seemed miles longer than it should have.

She was almost home, almost safe, when the ground lurched under her feet and she fell. The darkness was complete and silent and blissful.