CHAPTER 64
“How long are you planning on keeping me here? Holding me hostage in my own apartment?”
Hayley watched her smoke ring float upward. It made it within two inches from the ceiling before it disintegrated. “This apartment does not belong to you,” she told the scumbag.
“Then why are all of my belongings in here?”
“Because the law-abiding citizens of Sacramento pay taxes, this apartment belongs to the taxpayers.” Hayley took another long drag on her cigarette and then said, “I pay taxes, so we’ll just agree that this is my apartment. And I want it back.”
He chuckled. “You’re going to get caught, and they’ll put you behind bars where you belong.”
“And who, exactly, is going to catch me?”
“My probation officer,” he said smugly. “She has a thing for me.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod, “that’s right. What day is it?”
“Thursday.”
He licked his lips. “She’ll be coming around later today to get laid. She likes it hard and fast, right against the wall over there.”
“Too bad for her.”
“Why’s that?”
“Unless she has a key to your place, she won’t even realize you’re home.”
“She’ll see my car parked outside. That’ll be enough to make her kick the door down if she has to.”
“Your car isn’t out there. Remember the underage girl you were going to rape before I interrupted your little party?”
“You’re talking gibberish. That girl was at least twenty-five, and she climbed into my car of her own will.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Well, good, because the truth shall set you free,” Hayley said, then coaxed out another smoke ring and watched it roll up toward the ceiling. This time it made it all the way before it vanished. When she looked back at him, he seemed uncharacteristically agitated. “What is it?”
He was trying to wriggle free, but that wasn’t going to happen. Hayley had used his own personal roll of duct tape that she’d found in his car to bind him to the radiator.
Thank God for old buildings. Nothing like a cast-iron radiator to anchor a hostage securely.
His ankles were also duct-taped, but they weren’t attached to anything, and he kept kicking the floor, which was why she’d also duct-taped his calves and feet to a pillow. The hollow thumps he raised with all his thrashing were comical.
“Where are the keys to my car? If you did anything with my ride, I’ll be forced to fuck you in the ass.” His face reddened; his brow scrunched as he struggled to get loose. “I’m going to make you pay, you motherfucking bitch of a whore.”
Hayley smiled. “You are a ballsy one, aren’t you? All tied up and making threats.”
“You’re going to regret ever showing your face to me. I’ll make sure of that.”
“That’s my line.” She stood and made her way into his bedroom. On top of all its other odors, the room smelled moldy. The stench was nearly unbearable. She needed to step up her pace and get this over with. On top of his dresser she found another roll of duct tape, ropes, a dildo the size of a small cannon. What a fucker.
“You never told me what you did with my car! Get back in here right now and tell me where it is.”
He was becoming belligerent. She never should have removed the duct tape from his mouth.
She left his room and made her way to the kitchen, grabbed a plastic bag filled with a few random grocery items, dumped everything out into the sink, and then realized the plastic bag was too thin. She looked through a few more drawers until she found a thicker bag used for weeds and debris. She walked back into the room, where he was still thrashing about, and then pulled up a chair in front of him and took a seat.
“OK,” she said. “Let’s start. Tell me: Why do you rape people?”
“You are fucking insane. Let me go right now, and I’ll consider not pressing charges.”
“You’ve said it yourself,” Hayley went on. “You’re easy on the eyes; you know a thing or two about carpentry. Overall, I think we’d both agree that you could have a decent life. Is it about power?”
“Fucking cunts—all of you. Every woman I’ve ever fucked wanted it. Wanted it bad, enjoyed every minute. You’re no different than the rest of them.”
“You know damn well that no woman would want you. That’s why you have to drink and do drugs and go for the women you know you can easily manipulate and control.”
“You’re as stupid as the rest of them. You think I care what you say?”
“I’m going to give you one more chance to explain why you do what you do. Make it good, because somebody needs to stop you from raping women, and I really don’t want it to be me.”
“I don’t do anything the guy next door doesn’t do. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Go fuck yourself.”
“Tell that to the eighty-two-year-old widow you left with broken ribs and bite marks. According to the newspaper, you kicked the shit out of her and spent three hours forcing her to carry out perverted sex acts.”
“That stupid bitch loved every minute of it. You should have heard her. She kept begging for more, practically wept with joy.”
“You really are one of a kind. And you’ve made it very clear. You’ll never stop degrading women, hurting people, making everyone else pay for your inner pain. You deserve to die.”
Hayley took in a sharp breath as she came to her feet and readied the bag.
“What’s that for?”
“You’ve given me no choice.”
“I do it for the fucking thrill,” he said, panic lining his voice. “There. I answered your question. Happy?”
Hayley set the bag to the side and ripped off two pieces of duct tape. She put one piece of tape over his nostrils.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “People have sex all the time.”
“Rape isn’t sex.”
“I bet you’ve been raped. And you liked it, didn’t you? I saw you watching the other night. You could have stopped me sooner, but you were enjoying yourself.”
“You’ve said enough.” She pressed the other piece of tape over his mouth.
The man was almost dead the minute she’d watched him carry the young girl into this dump, but he didn’t get that. He didn’t understand that Hayley didn’t have a choice. It had taken her years to come to grips with the fact that the police wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything about scumbags like him. It was up to her to stop him. She put the bag over his head and sealed it tightly around his neck.
He was screaming now, or trying to. His high-pitched shrieks were muffled beneath the tape. She forced herself to watch, waited until the deed was done, until he fell silent once and for all.
She wasn’t proud of what she’d done, but he needed to be stopped.
After she cut him loose from the radiator, she made sure everything she had touched was wiped clean and in its place, keenly aware of her actions, knowing she was walking a very fine line between reality and insanity. Between life and death. Between good and evil. But it couldn’t be any other way. She’d known that when she was twelve and her mother’s boyfriend had curled up next to her in bed and taken away her innocence along with her choice to choose a different path.
Deep down, she’d known all along that it couldn’t have ended any other way.
She stepped out into the night, didn’t pause to take a breath. She walked onward, head held high as she let go of the past—the burning anger that came with sadness, hurt, and blame flittered away like moths. It was time to move on.