James Conway - In Cold Blonde

Syd was alone in the bullpen, comparing the names in the address books of Colin Wood and Adam Devlin, and had found seven matches through the first five letters of the alphabet. And all seven names were also listed in the yearbook. A notation in Colin Wood’s appointment book explained it; they’d had a ten-year high school reunion last year. So they gotten together with all their old friends and exchanged numbers.

Syd was sure the names of other potential victims were on that list, but the way it was going, there were going to be twenty or thirty names on the list before she finished. Far more names than she’d expected, which disappointed her. She was hoping the combination of the two address books and yearbook would point her at just one or two people. But even twenty or thirty names did help narrow their focus and at this point, every little bit helped.

Syd leaned back in her chair and stretched. She was stiff. She hadn’t been to the gym or dojo in almost a week. She depended on her workouts, not only to stay fit, but also to help throttle back her stress. And she could feel her anxiety level building. Not the case so much; Syd was confident they were close to finding the Lady in Red. It was Ryan. Well, Ryan and Anne to be more precise. Syd could live with Ryan taking the Lotto money; she didn’t agree with it but she understood the money’s irresistible appeal. Hell, there was a fresh stack of messages piled on Ryan’s desk from friends, relatives and complete strangers hitting him up for some of that precious money.

Anne was another story. She was truly dangerous.

Syd’s cell phone rang. She answered. “Syd Curtis.”

“It’s Alex Cortez from Newport Beach.”

“Hey, how you doing, Detective?”

“A little frustrated to be honest. I’ve come up empty on Colin Wood’s dad. His office says he is in seclusion due to the death of his son. I stopped by his house and he’s either not there or refusing to come to the door. Short of getting a warrant and breaking down the door, I’m not sure what else we can do.”

Something didn’t feel right. “What kind of man won’t help the police find his son’s killer?” asked Syd.

“One who can’t deal with his feelings,” Cortez said, not convinced. “Or has something to hide.”

“Yeah, my spidey sense is tingling, too.”

“I do have some good news, though,” Cortez said. “I showed the surveillance photo of the Lady in Red to Zachary Stone’s assistant, and she positively ID’d her as the woman who met him.”

“Great. And we’ve had some other interesting developments.” She brought him up to date on the interview with Emily Devlin and the yearbook discovery. “I should have twenty names or so by morning. So far, half the numbers I’ve found have OC area codes, so we could use your help contacting them.”

“You mean warning them, don’t you?”

“And then some. Something happened in high school, I’m sure of it, some kind of brutal humiliation or gang rape, something horrible enough for a woman to kill and mutilate her attackers years later. So if any of the guys we go see were involved, they may lie about it. I think we should do a lot more than just warn these guys, we should interrogate them.”

“Good point.”

“I’ll finish some time tonight and email you a list of the OC names. But here are two to get you started tonight.” Syd grabbed her list. “Blake Hunter, oh, wait, no, he lives in Malibu. Here, Jonathan Battle and John Crystal.” She told him the phone numbers.

“Thanks, Detective. I’ll let you know what I find. And hey, I hope we can all actually meet face to face one of these days.”

“Oh, we’ll meet,” Syd said. “At the Lady in Red’s trial.”

Cortez laughed. “I like the way you think. Have a good night.”

“Yeah, you, too,” Syd said and hung up.

At the Lady in Red’s trial, Syd thought. They were going to catch her, Syd was more certain of that than ever before. But she wondered if they should be in such a hurry. As she just told Cortez, something dreadful went down eleven years ago. These guys must have done terrible things to the Lady in Red. Syd didn’t know why she waited so long to seek her revenge, but she understood, firsthand, the Lady in Red’s desire for revenge. Syd, herself, had killed twice.

Syd felt her murders were justified. In court she would probably be acquitted of Ernesto’s murder; a self-defense plea would certainly fly. But her stepfather was another story. She planned that one. She intentionally closed that garage door knowing the fumes would kill him, clearly pre-meditated murder.

And the thing was, Syd had no regrets. Given the chance, she would kill them both again.

Syd was sure that the Lady in Red felt the same way. Her murders are totally justified in her mind. The Lady in Red must know she’s going to get caught and has decided that revenge is worth any incarceration or execution.

And here was the irony; these boys broke the law when they attacked her in high school, but didn’t get punished. And now, because of their crime, the innocent victim has become a serial killer. Yeah, yeah, Syd knew that two wrongs don’t make a right; but she also knew that sometimes revenge sure makes you feel better.

She glanced at the clock, seven-fifteen; almost time for Ryan’s dinner meeting with Anne at the Beverly Hilton. And that meant it was time for Syd to take a break. Syd would get back to the appointment books later, but first, a little surveillance.

On Ryan and Anne.

Ryan would freak if he found out, Syd knew. But hey, a girl’s got to protect herself, doesn’t she?

Alice woke up with a start. And then she panicked. She was blind. Something was stuffed in her mouth, her hands were tied behind her and her feet were bound. She tried to scream, kicked her feet, fought to free her hands.

“Take it easy, Alice, you’re going to hurt yourself,” a voice said. Blake’s voice. And he called her Alice. Shit, she thought, he knows who I am.

He did indeed. Blake had dragged Alice into his office after knocking her out, and then grabbed a pair of handcuffs from his bedroom. Fur-lined, of course, and usually used for Blake’s kinkier call girls, but the handcuffs were real so he pulled Alice’s arms behind her back, snapped the cuffs snuggly around her wrists and slipped the key into his pocket. He used rope from his bedroom to bind her ankles. The rope had been used to bind feet before, but usually to his bedpost.

And to Blake’s surprise, the whole thing was turning him on. “Freak,” he mumbled to himself, laughing at his own perversions.

He finished off by gagging her with a washcloth held in place with a bandana then slipped her head inside a cloth, eco-friendly grocery bag from Whole Foods.

She was out for a long time. At first Blake was grateful as he used the time to find the infamous video in one of the storage boxes stacked in his office closet and set up his video camera. After fifteen minutes, she was still unconscious and he began to worry that he’d hit her too hard. He actually put his hand on her chest to check her breathing, and once he determined it was slow but steady, he copped a quick feel of her tits. Very nice.

She finally woke up a few minutes later kicking and screaming into her gag. After he calmed her down, he pulled the sack off her head. He expected her eyes to be wild with fear, but instead they burned with a fierce hatred as she continued to curse at him through the gag.

“Whoa, throttle back the venom, dude,” Blake said. “I’ll take the gag off if you promise not to scream. No one can hear you anyway, so chill, Alice. And if you’re nice, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

But Alice wasn’t done venting yet. In an incomprehensible rant into her gag, she bitched him out then called herself a fucking idiot for letting him get the drop on her. Finally, she leaned back against the wall, her vitriol spent.