She tried surreptitiously working her wrists, moving them just the slightest, trying to stretch the ties. She set her jaw, put all her concentration into forcing her hands apart.
For now, he didn’t notice and kept right on talking. “Then it was simply a matter of finding other people with last names that were birds. Women I could manipulate. Not that it was easy. It had to be women, an added benefit to the game for my own personal enjoyment.” He looked at Andi slyly, then walked toward the stack of board games.
Andi pulled harder at her restraints. They didn’t budge. As for a weapon, the only thing she saw was a tiny screwdriver small enough to be used on a computer, left out by a stack of video games. But there was the bookcase itself, if she could find a way to topple it. Unless it was bolted to the wall, she could possibly maim or even kill him, should the heavy electronic equipment hit him just right. The gamesman killed by his own games. Or she could grab the gun and fire it in this tiny space, damning where the bullets ricocheted.
“—Belinda Meadowlark was easy,” he was saying. “She was so damned hot for me, wanted it so bad she was practically panting for me when I tossed her off the ferry into the water.” He licked his lips, his tongue flicking against his skin, and again his erection was hardening under his pants.
“Trini didn’t know me, so she was easy. I couldn’t take the chance she’d see some resemblance between me and Greg, so I always wore a disguise. She thought it was funny. Actually worked in my favor.”
Carter grabbed another chair and dragged it over in front of her. He sat down and leaned forward, close enough to her that his breath ruffled her hair. “I was always worried she might go scrolling through your wedding pictures, though, and make the connection, but she really didn’t like Greg much, so she had no interest in your wedding.”
Oh Trini. I’m so sorry.... Andi’s throat was hot with unshed tears.
Carter went on. “I pretended to fall for her, and because she was such a promiscuous slut it was easy to start a relationship. Too easy.” He grinned, a leering, smug, king-of-the-world grin. “Poor little bird. She had a shellfish allergy. I pretended I had one, too. I really planned to sneak some shrimp into her diet somehow, but then I found out about cricket flour, that it’s in the same family as shellfish. It was perfect. You should have seen the way her eyes bulged as her throat was closing. She choked to death knowing I wanted to kill her far more than I ever wanted to fuck her.”
Andi couldn’t stop the gasp of horror from behind her gag. Again she worked the plastic ties at her wrists. Had they given a little? Stretched? Oh please!
“And then your brother left his wallet at the scene of the crime!’” He chortled and shook his head. “I’m telling you, it was perfect. Perfect! The best kind of surprise.”
He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I took away Trini’s cell phone and dropped it into the lake miles from here. There were just too many calls to my cell phone on it. Of course I gave her the number for one of those disposable phones, not my real cell, and supposedly untraceable, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. A good player knows all the risks.”
He tilted his head to one side, as if he were really thinking things through. “It did get harder and harder to find women with names of birds. There was the first one in eastern Oregon, Nightingale, and then Meadowlark, then Finch, then Tern ... those last two were close together because you, my dear, were becoming a problem. You and that dumb cop. I followed you around, both of you. I knew we were heading to the endgame.”
Andi was sweating, though the temperature in the room wasn’t all that warm. She was still working her wrists, but the zip ties weren’t giving a quarter of a damned inch. She glanced at the digital clock and saw that they had been locked in this tiny room twenty minutes already. Would Luke be looking for her? Surely he’d realized by now that she was missing. It had been well over an hour since she’d first been abducted. She bit her lip and Carter caught the movement.
“What’s the matter, little bird? Worried? Maybe you’d like a pill for what’s ailing you.”
Andi gazed at him in confusion.
“You know those pills, the ones your guru shrink prescribed?” He waited, letting her wonder. “Pretty strong, weren’t they? Those blackouts? I switched ’em out. I had a friend get me a key, and when you weren’t home, I sneaked into your house and looked around and found your pill bottle.”
Luke had been right about the size of the pills, Andi realized. She couldn’t believe the depths Carter had gone to.
“No one was picking up on my bird killings, so I decided to start leaving you notes. I had a key to your cabin, but I had to cover my tracks, so I faked the break-in. I couldn’t take a chance that someone might start questioning how someone got in and left the message for you.”