Debra Webb - No Darker Place

All good things come to those who wait.

Gaylon moved to the side of the mattress. He sat down, and his lovely nurse struggled to draw away, but her restraints prevented her from doing so. “I’m going to remove the gag. If you scream, I’ll hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before. Do you understand?”

She nodded, a fresh wave of tears trickling from her eyes. Pathetic creature.

He tugged her panties from her mouth. “There. Now, I want you to tell me the story again.”

Moving her head up and down like a shaken bobblehead doll, she swallowed and then cleared her throat. “Can I have a drink of water?”

“After the story.” Irritation furrowed his brow. Every time he removed the gag she wanted something. She’d been here barely twenty-four hours. He hadn’t even started preparing her, and all she could do was make requests. She should be pleading for her life—not that pleas for mercy would help. Gwen Adams was going to die.

As aware of her improbable odds of survival as she might be, it was human nature to cling to hope. The foolish instinct made his work far more interesting and vastly more entertaining.

“Where...” The word croaked out of her dry throat. She cleared it some more. “Where would you like me to start?”

“At the beginning. From the moment you saw Detective Gentry in the ER.”

“It was just over two weeks after she escaped.” Her lips trembled, and she averted her eyes as if she feared her words would anger him. “January 31.”

He smiled. “She was in very poor condition.”

The nurse nodded, the movement stiff and uncoordinated. “She had spent two weeks in the hospital in Meridian, Mississippi.”

Gaylon had held Detective Gentry in an abandoned cabin about twelve miles outside Meridian. Even now, his body hardened at the memory of fucking her...of tasting her blood. He’d never had a cop before. She had been his most challenging and most satisfying prey. If only he’d been able to finish her story. “They had to do surgery while she was in Mississippi,” he prompted, not wanting a single detail left out.

“Yes.” Adams licked her lips. “The femur was fractured, but the worst was the fibula. It had to be reassembled and stabilized with screws and a rod.”

His heart raced as his mind replayed him standing over Gentry and crushing those bones in a fit of rage. He rolled his hand so the woman staring at him with such sheer terror in her eyes would continue the story.

“She had three fractured ribs and one toe that had to be partially removed from the frostbite.”

He squeezed his toes together inside his sneakers. His own injuries had been life threatening. Running through those woods, blood leaking from his chest and his ability to draw in air compromised, had been terrifyingly exhilarating. It was only by utter force of will that he survived long enough to reach help. His mother had always called him determined. Ah, but determination was merely one of his tenacious traits.

“Numerous lacerations were infected and required attention,” Adams continued, her voice growing faint with understanding that those very words described the fate awaiting her. “One spot on her left breast required removal. The tissue loss was repaired with a small amount of fat and skin from her buttocks.”

She fell silent, her body trembling.

“Then the doctors in Mississippi sent her home,” he said, urging her beyond the more mundane details. Why was it that no one knew how to tell a good story anymore? His students had been utter morons. True storytellers were a nearly extinct breed. Such a pity.

“She was released, yes.” Adams executed another of those awkward nods. “She was back home in Montgomery for barely a day when her partner found her near death.”

“Found her where?” Gaylon demanded. She knew better than to leave out the best parts. Her lips trembled with renewed fear. How utterly tedious. “I’m waiting, Nurse Adams.”

“In her little boy’s bedroom.” Adams drew in a halting breath. “Later, when I was taking care of her, Bobbie told me about that day. She was supposed to go directly into rehab, but she’d insisted on spending one night at home first. She said as soon as she was at home alone she’d gone straight to her baby’s room and slit her wrists. She wanted to die. She didn’t want to go on without her family.”

Gaylon savored the words for a moment before he prompted, “So she lost a lot of blood before she was found.”

“It was a miracle she was alive. She’d lost more than enough blood for her heart to simply stop beating.” Her mouth worked for a moment before more words came out. “She was in a coma for five days.”

“A coma? Why?” He knew the answer already, but he wanted to hear her repeat the splendid details. He couldn’t have written a more compelling story himself. Perhaps since it was his work that inspired her actions he could be considered the director.

“She’d given up.” Her voice sounded distant now, as if she was remembering the day a grief-stricken patient had shared her most painful thoughts with a trusted medical professional. “She didn’t want to wake up. But for some reason, on the fifth day, she opened her eyes and started trying to live again.”

“Bravo!” Gaylon clapped enthusiastically, making her jump. “Detective Gentry survived.” Providing a second chance for her as well as for him. He hesitated, pondering the last part. He’d been so excited when he read the medical files and listened to Adams tell the story the first time that he hadn’t thought to ask a very important question. “Why do you suppose she changed her mind? Did her family sway her decision?”

Gaylon knew better. Bobbie Gentry didn’t have any family. There were her in-laws who blamed her for their son’s and grandson’s deaths. She had the chief of police, who was a lifelong friend of her father, and she had her partner. Such a sad little detective. She hardly had anyone to care about her since she’d pushed all her friends away. He couldn’t wait to dismantle her mentally and physically all over again. Piece by piece, and this time he would destroy her completely. He would watch the life drain from her body as he finished her story.

“Either Chief Peterson or Detective Newton had been with her day and night.” The nurse blinked, licked her lips again. “Maybe one of them said something that finally got through to her. I don’t know.”

“No priest visited her? Maybe it was all those people praying for her,” he mocked. He recalled the many requests for prayers in the local news for poor, poor Detective Gentry.

“She never mentioned church while I was working with her.” Adams’s body was trembling harder now. Fear that her unreliable memory would anger him was no doubt coursing through her veins. “I can’t be sure.”

Gaylon knew the answer. Bobbie Gentry was like him; she never had time for such trivialities. Her husband, the man who failed to protect his family, had gone to church and taken their child. Bobbie had only attended on special occasions if work didn’t get in the way. Her work was her religion, her weapon her cross.

Gaylon understood every part of her. He had become thoroughly obsessed with her during those weeks when she participated in the joint task force with the FBI to find a heinous serial killer who could not be found. He’d wanted to possess her so badly that he’d thrown caution to the wind and taken her like he’d taken no other victim.

All those witless profilers had been running in circles. He’s deviated from his MO! He’s never taken victims without waiting the usual year. What fools! Admittedly, he had acted impulsively last year. With the loss he’d suffered, he had been undeniably weak. But he was beyond that now. Now he would finish what he’d started.