EPILOGUE
The Night of Cameron
Young’s Death
July 14, 2001
VICTORIA FORD WALKED BACK INTO THE BEDROOM WEARING NOTHING but a silk robe that was unclasped and open in the front, covering her breasts but revealing her cleavage, her smooth midsection, and the fact that she was wearing nothing else. She kept her right hand hidden behind her back. Cameron was lying on the bed with his hands tied to each bedpost. She had made sure to secure the knots tighter than normal.
He was still breathing heavily from what she had done to him. The normal lightheartedness of their role-playing was gone tonight, and Victoria saw the deep purple welts wrapping around his thigh and shoulders as he lay on his back. She had been particularly violent with the whip, but he hadn’t protested. She needed his body to look very different from the home video she had secretly taken of both of them. She walked over to the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling his waist. The silk robe slid off her shoulders and crumbled into a pile behind her. She leaned over and put her lips to his ear, whispered in the seductive way she knew would turn him on.
“I want to make sure you know how I feel about you tonight.”
As she kissed his ear, she slowly dragged the length of rope she had hidden behind her back along the side of his face and over his head until it was around his neck. She immediately felt his arousal and knew this would be easier than she imagined. She pulled the rope upward and the slipknot tightened down on his skin. His hips rose up into her. Victoria laid the end of the rope on the bed. It curled over the pillows like a serpent’s tail. Then she kissed him again, this time on the mouth. It was a deep, forceful kiss—almost violent. She could feel that it sent him into a state of euphoria. Then she kissed his chin and his neck and his throat and his chest. She continued her descent along his sternum and down to his navel, where she paused for a moment to look up at him. He was panting like a dog. Waiting. Wanting. So vulnerable and distracted that he would never have a chance.
She finished her descent and heard him moan. She wanted to bring him to the edge of ecstasy, but no further. Victoria wanted him to die at the same proverbial place where he had killed her—on the cusp of bliss and joy, and completely blindsided. When she felt that he was close to climax, she stopped and quickly jumped off him. Two quick steps put her at the head of the bed, where she grabbed the rope before Cameron’s eyes were open. She wrapped the rope in her hands and pulled with all her strength. With his hands bound to the bedposts, Cameron was helpless. It went on for close to a minute before the rope binding his right wrist broke free and he clawed at his throat, trying but failing to loosen the rope that Victoria was strangling him with.
It took another full minute before his body relaxed. Another minute more until she was sure he was dead. When she finally released her grip and looked at Cameron’s lifeless body, his face was purple and his lips were black. His penis was engorged but deflated, and fell pathetically across his hip. It was the perfect way for him to die.
Victoria quickly got to work. From her bag she removed the items she needed. Her urine was in a sealed Tupperware container. Her research told her that by now the enzymes would have broken down into ammonia, tipping off investigators that there was no earthly way possible the urine could have come from her body in the last twenty-four hours. It would be the first clue to investigators that the scene had been staged. The tampon was in a plastic ziplock. Ever since the abortion Victoria had bled frequently and heavily. The idea of planting her blood tonight in an effort to lead investigators to Tessa Young had been conjured as the remnants of Victoria’s unborn child poured from her body. Tessa carried the child Cameron was meant to give Victoria, and they both should be punished. This blood, Victoria knew, was contaminated with the toxic chemicals found in cotton tampons. It would be another clue to investigators.
The next item she removed was the wineglass that was coated with her lipstick and fingerprints. Victoria had stashed it away over the Fourth of July weekend, at the end of the night after Tessa had placed all their glasses into the dishwasher. The fact that this glass also held Tessa’s fingerprints would further lead investigators to her. The culinary knife Victoria had used over the Fourth to chop vegetables also held both hers and Tessa’s prints. The last item in the bag was the thumb drive that held the homemade sex tape. Victoria had planned the video carefully to make it look like neither she nor Cameron knew they were being recorded. It turned out even better than she imagined. She planted the thumb drive in the desk drawer of Tessa’s office.
By themselves, each item may not be enough. But all together, and added to the bowline knots Victoria had spent hours learning to tie, they would paint a clear picture of a jilted wife attempting to frame her husband’s lover for his murder. Victoria was certain of it. She believed she had calculated everything perfectly. But Victoria never planned on a district attorney refusing to follow the evidence, or a sycophant detective refusing to trust his instincts.
When Victoria was finished staging the scene, there was only one thing left to do. She turned her attention to Cameron. Moving his lifeless body was like lifting a heavy garbage bag filled with waste. But she managed, and eventually she hoisted Cameron Young over the balcony and dropped him into the night.