In her own clothes, she slipped unnoticed from the mall. She rode home on her aged motorcycle. The VW had to go after the event. It had brought back too many memories. It was just another of those life adjustments she had to make. She never called what had happened “her escape” or “attempted murder.” She hadn’t escaped, not really. And she didn’t like to remind herself of how close she’d come to death. She always thought of it as “the event” or, if she felt brave, “the abduction.”
The motorcycle was efficient in the rush-hour crush from Richmond to San Francisco. While everyone sat in endless rows of traffic, she could lane split. She made it home to her apartment complex before 8:00 and jumped into the shower. She spent the next hour doing her hair and makeup before squeezing into a cherry-red cocktail dress, which rode the rail between sophisticated and slutty. It was short enough and plunging enough to show off her assets, but cut conservatively enough to be flattering. The night was cool enough for nylons, but she went without. She wanted people to see her bare skin.
She called for a cab. No drinking and driving for her. Besides, a dress and heels didn’t work well with a motorcycle.
While she waited for the taxi to arrive, she checked herself out in the mirror. She looked good in the dress. Seeing how good she looked pleased her. If she wanted to get Jarocki-technical about things, looking good boosted her self-esteem, and wasn’t that a good thing?
The therapist was wrong about her. She didn’t hit the town to put herself in danger or reinsert herself into the same situations that had led to her abduction. She went out to have fun. Plain and simple. She was alive, and that was worth celebrating at least once a week and twice on holidays.
Her cell phone rang. The cab was outside. She told the driver she’d be down.
She checked herself out one last time. She smiled. She was dressed to kill.
CHAPTER FOUR
Laurie Hernandez was dead. She dangled from her wrists, her body slack, her head canted forward. Beck shined a light on her face. Her expression was peaceful. Gravity took hold of a strand of bloody spittle, pulling it toward the ground. She had no doubt bitten through her tongue. He’d put her out of her misery after a couple of hours of punishment, with a thrust of his knife to her heart. He wasn’t a monster.
The abduction and punishment had gone perfectly. He’d snatched Laurie Hernandez after work. She’d been so absorbed with her cell phone, she hadn’t noticed him following her on BART and on the street. He knew her route home. It had been easy to just walk up on her, tranquilize her with an anesthetic pilfered from Urban Paws, stash her in a Dumpster while he got his Honda Pilot, and then transport her to his skiff to drive out to the pier. Every step had been planned and calculated.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
No reply came from the dead woman, but he thought she had learned. She said she had while he flogged her, but most of them did. They were willing to say anything just to make the pain stop. But there always came a point, usually just before he ended the punishment, when the sinner either confessed to their crimes or remained defiant. In Laurie Hernandez’s final minutes, she’d begged for forgiveness for all she’d done.
She’d almost thanked him when he put the whip down and stood before her, placing the knife over her heart. She had surprised him. He’d expected a fight with thrashing, kicking, and screaming. Instead, he got only surrender. She just closed her eyes, and he drove the blade home with a hammer blow to the butt of the knife.
“People are unpredictable creatures,” he said and stretched to pat her cheek with his gloved hand.
He left Laurie Hernandez to hang while he got down to the important business of cleanup and disposal. When he’d lived in the open country near Bishop, it had been easy to operate. Bishop had afforded him the isolation, time, and space to be casual with the housecleaning. Here in San Francisco, he had to be more precise and refined with his punishments. These were skills he needed after the debacle in Bishop. Losing one of the two party girls he’d collected there was a mistake that he was lucky to have gotten away with. The city wasn’t so bad, though. San Francisco was a city with benefits. While the desert was his friend before, the ocean was his friend here. He could simply bundle Laurie Hernandez up and sink her body out there. If she ever washed up, the water would have done its damage, leaving no ties back to him.