Dean Koontz - The Voice of the Night

She winced. “Yuch.”

Colin stepped back a couple of feet and studied her. “Good,” he said. “It’s a little too bright right now. Too red. But when it dries a bit, it ought to look just about like the real thing.”

“If we’d really struggled, like you’re going to tell him we did, then I’d be rumpled and dirty,” she said.

“Right.”

She pulled her blouse half out of her shorts. She stooped, wiped her hands over the dust-covered floor, and made long sooty marks on her shorts and blouse.

When she stood up, Colin regarded her critically, looking for the false note, trying to see her as Roy would see her. “Yeah. That’s better. But maybe one more thing might help.”

“What’s that?”

“If the sleeve of your blouse was torn.”

She frowned. “It’s one of my better blouses.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

She shook her head. “No. I said I’d help. I’m in this all the way. Go ahead. Tear it.”

He jerked on the material on both sides of her left shoulder seam, jerked once, twice, three times. The stitching finally parted with a nasty sound, and the sleeve sagged on her arm, torn half away.

“Yeah,” he said. “That sure does it. You’re very, very convincing.”

“But now that I’m such a mess, will he want anything to do with me?”

“It’s funny …” Colin stared at her thoughtfully. “In a strange way, you’re even more appealing than you were before.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m all dirty. And I wasn’t all that fabulous when I was clean.”

“You look great,” he assured her. “Just right.”

“But if this is going to work, he really has to want to … well … he has to want to rape me. I mean, he’ll never get the chance. But he has to want to.”

Again, Colin was acutely aware of the danger into which he was putting her, and he didn’t like himself very much.

“There’s just one more thing I can do that might help,” she said.

Before he realized what she intended, she grasped the front of her blouse and tugged hard on it. Buttons popped; one of them struck Colin’s chin. She tore the blouse open all the way, and for an instant he saw one small, beautiful, quivering breast and a dark nipple, but then the halves of the blouse fell part of the way together again, and he could see nothing more than the soft, sweet swell of flesh that marked the beginning of her breasts.

He looked up, met her eyes.

She was blushing fiercely.

For a long moment neither of them spoke.

He licked his lips. His throat was suddenly parched.

At last, trembling, she said, “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t help much to have my blouse open a little. I mean, I don’t have much to show.”

“Perfect,” he said weakly. “It’s the perfect touch.” He looked away from her, went to the cardboard box, and picked up the coil of rope.

“I wish I didn’t have to be tied up,” she said.

“There’s no other way,” he said. “But you won’t really be tied. Not tightly. The rope will just be wrapped around your wrists a few times; it won’t be knotted there. You’ll be able to get your hands free in a flash. And where there are knots, they’ll be the kind that slip open easily. I’ll show you how. You’ll be able to get out of the ropes in a couple of seconds if you have to. But you won’t have to. He won’t get anywhere near you. He won’t get his hands on you. Nothing will go wrong. I have the gun.”

She sat down on the floor, with her back against the wall. “Let’s get it over with.”

By the time he finished tying her, night had fallen outside, and there were not even threads of light at the unraveling edges of the aging, splintered shutters.

“It’s time to make the phone call,” Colin said.

“I’m going to hate being alone in this place.”

“It’ll only be for a few minutes.”

“Can you leave both flashlights?” she asked.

He was moved by her fear; he knew what it was like. But he said, “Can’t. I’ll need one to get in and out of the house without breaking my neck in the dark.”

“I wish you’d brought three.”

“You’ll have enough light with one,” he said, knowing that it would be pathetically little comfort in this creepy place.

“Hurry back,” she said.

“I will.”

He stood up and walked away from her. At the doorway he turned and looked back. She was so vulnerable that he could hardly stand it. He knew he should return and take the ropes off her and send her home. But he had to trap Roy, get the truth on tape, and this was the easiest way to accomplish that.

He left the room and went down the stairs to the first floor, then out of the mansion by way of the front door.

The plan would work.

It had to work.

If something went wrong, his and Heather’s bloody heads might wind up on the mantel in the Kingman house.

Colin stepped into a telephone booth at a service station, four blocks from the Kingman mansion. He dialed the Borden number.

Roy answered. “Hello?”

“Is that you, blood brother?”

Roy didn’t respond.

“I was wrong,” Colin said.

Roy was silent.

“I called to say I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“Everything. About breaking our blood-brother oath.”

“What’re you after?” Roy asked.

“I want to be friends again.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I mean it. I really want to be friends again, Roy.”

“It isn’t possible.”

“You’re smarter than all of them,” Colin said. “You’re smarter and tougher. You’re right; they’re all a bunch of jerks. The grown-ups, too. It’s easy to manipulate them. I see that now. I’m not one of them. I never was. I’m like you. I want to be on your side.”

Roy was silent again.

“I’ll prove I’m on your side,” Colin said. “I’ll do what you wanted to do. I’ll help you kill someone.”

“Kill someone? Colin, have you been popping pills again? You aren’t making sense.”

“You think I’ve got someone listening in on this,” Colin said. “Well, I don’t. But if you’re worried about talking on the phone, then let’s talk face to face.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Where?”

“The Kingman house,” Colin said.

“Why there?”

“It’s the best place.”

“I can think of better.”

“Not for what we’re going to do. It’s private, and that’s what we need.”

“For what? What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to screw her and then kill her,” Colin said.

“Are you crazy? What kind of talk is that?”

“There’s no one listening in, Roy.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“You’ll like her,” Colin said.

“You must be full of dope.”

“She’s foxy.”

“Who?”

“The girl I’ve got for us.”

“You lined up a girl?”

“She doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s my peace offering to you,” Colin said.

“What girl? What’s her name?”

“Come and see.”

Roy didn’t respond.

“Are you scared of me?” Colin asked.

“Hell, no.”

“Then give me a chance. Let’s meet at the Kingman house.”

“You and your doper buddies are probably laying for me,” Roy said. “You planning to gang up on me?”

Colin laughed sourly. “You’re good, Roy. You’re real good. That’s why I want to be on your side. Nobody’s smarter than you are.”

“You’ve got to stop gobbling pills,” Roy said. “Colin, dope kills. You’re going to ruin yourself.”

“So come talk to me about it. Convince me to go straight.”