The sex was something else. Rochelle was inventive in bed, and not the least bit selfish. As if that weren’t enough, she was astonishingly flexible. Back in high school, and into college, she had been a competitive gymnast. She’d given that up, but still worked out four days a week, and was as limber as ever.
Kyle knew he was lucky. Any man would kill to have her.
But his reaction to his wife’s good looks had changed over time. Pride was giving way to jealousy and uncertainty. If she could have anyone, how much longer would she want him? He had money. They had this house. They went to Europe two or three times a year, stayed in the best hotels. He’d spent two hundred grand on that Mercedes with the gull-wing doors for her.
Trouble was, he wasn’t the only one with money. If that was all she wanted, there were plenty of overnight millionaires in his line of work. Did she love him for him? Or for the life he provided her?
She’d never shown signs that it was anything but the former. And yet, that wasn’t enough for him to stop torturing himself. To wonder if maybe she wasn’t enjoying flaunting it just a little too much. So now he wanted her to dial it down a notch, tone down the hot stuff. Wear a skirt that was short, okay, but not one that was hiked so high it flashed the Brazilian when she took a tumble off the Christian Louboutins.
“You’re making me crazy, you know,” she said, flinging clothes, ninety percent of them black, across the rod. “Maybe I dressed that way to get your motor running, not anybody else’s. You ever thought of that? Where the hell are those pants?”
“You’re sending off signals,” he told her. “And even if you don’t mean to be, believe me, other guys are picking them up.”
She took a hanger off the rack, inspected the pants, put them back. “Shit, where are they?”
“Are you listening to me?”
Rochelle stopped and glared at him. “No, I am not. Because you’re losing your fucking mind.” She squeezed past him and out of the closet. She went to her bedside table to pick up a cell phone, and said, “I need some space, away from you. I’ll be out on the patio if you decide you want to tell me you’re sorry about being a total jerk-off.”
He plopped down onto the edge of the bed as she walked out of the bedroom. Still couldn’t take his eyes off her ass. That was the one bonus when she got mad at him; he got to watch her walk away.
“Stupid,” he said, and he wasn’t talking about his wife. “Fucking stupid.” He knew, in his heart, that possessiveness would produce the exact opposite result of what he wanted. He’d seen it with some of his friends. The harder they tried to keep a woman, the more she tried to get away.
He sat there for ten minutes, then twenty, wondering whether to go find her and apologize, or just walk out the front door, get in his Ferrari, and drive around for a couple of hours. No, maybe go out in the car, but buy some flowers, or something a lot better. Hit the Magnificent Mile, come home with something expensive and sparkly. Around ten grand. Accidentally leave the receipt someplace where she’d find it.
He’d waited a good three quarters of an hour when he decided he was ready to swallow his pride, tell her he was sorry, tell her if she wanted to dress that way, fine, but she had to know that—
His cell went glink! Not a phone call, but an incoming text. He got off the bed and grabbed the phone and was greeted with a picture under the name “Rochelle.”
Rochelle had texted a photo to him.
A very strange photo.
It was a picture of a woman—not only was Kyle pretty sure it was a woman; he was pretty sure it was his wife, judging by the red T-shirt and jean shorts—but it was difficult to be sure, what with the plastic bag that was wrapped tightly about her head. Her chin, lips, nose, eyebrows—they were a relief map of her facial features.
And while the picture didn’t show her entire body, he could just make out her arms, and something silvery on them. Was that tape? Holding her into a chair? Not a patio chair, because this shot was not taken outside. Wasn’t that one of the chairs from the basement?
“What the hell?” he said.
What kind of crazy game was this?
“Rochelle!” he shouted.
As he started heading for the stairs, the phone made another noise in his hand. Not a text, but an actual call.
Again, from Rochelle’s cell.
“Hey,” he said. “What the hell was that picture you—”
“Mr. Billings.”
“Huh?” A woman’s voice, but it didn’t sound like Rochelle.
“Mr. Billings, you need to stop and listen.”
“Rochelle?”
“This is not Rochelle. And you need to listen very carefully.”
He was halfway down the stairs when he stopped.
“Your wife can still breathe, just,” the woman said. “But if I tighten the bag any further, it will cut off all her oxygen.”
“Who the hell is this? What the fuck is going on? I’m coming down—”
“If you come down here, she will die. Are you listening, Kyle? She will die.”
He stopped at the base of the stairs, not far from the front door. “Who is this? What do you want?”