The Tease (The Darling Killer Trilogy) (19 page)

I sighed. “We had an argument,” I confessed. “She stomped off.”

“What happened?” Pip asked.

“She was mad that I gave private lessons from home instead of from her studio.”

“Ooooh,” Ronnie said. She glanced around and whispered, “She’s kind of a control freak about… well, everything.”

“I noticed,” I said wryly. I glanced around at everyone. The atmosphere wasn’t the same as a usual rehearsal, where we’d grab each other in jest or make flippant jokes. The girls were smiling, as if they’d all agreed to soldier on as usual, but their faces betrayed a strain and tension. “She threatened to kick me out of the troupe.”

Frenchie gasped. “She didn’t!”

I nodded.

“She’s done that to me, too,” Pip said.

“And me,” Sasha said. “It’s a control thing.”

I shook my head. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Let it blow over,” Pip said. “It always does.”

Ronnie and Frenchie looked at each other, clearly troubled.

I glanced at my phone. “We’re running half an hour behind,” I said. “Should we get started so we can leave at a reasonable hour?”

“But we shouldn’t start without Tish,” Frenchie said.

“Says who?” Grant asked. We jumped. He’d been sitting so quietly on the piano bench, I’d forgotten he was there. He pulled the wireless remote out of his shirt pocket. “You’re adults. You all know what your numbers are. I can run sound from the front row and shout at you to smile, or tell you someone’s out of step.”

“But… she…,” Frenchie trailed off.

“Let her get mad at me,” Grant said. “It’s happened before. It’s kind of funny to get yelled at by someone so tiny.”

“Seriously,” Pip said. “When she comes back, she’ll yell at us for getting started without her, or she’ll yell at us for sitting around while we should be rehearsing. I’d rather get yelled at for doing something than
not
doing something.”

A nervous chuckle filled the air, and we got started. We ran through the first group number with no problems, Trixie standing in for Tish and Frenchie for Lisa.

By the time we’d run the entire show, Tish still hadn’t returned, so Grant and I showed them our piece. Dead silence filled the room for a few moments, and then the girls started applauding.

“That was HOT!” Ronnie said.

“Smoking,” Pip agreed.

“You have great chemistry.”

I grinned at Grant, and he grinned back.

“We’re a good team,” he said.

I felt chills. “We are,” I said.
Grant. Why would you say something like that now?

Trixie looked towards the door. “I’m starting to worry,” she said.

“Oh, she’s just mad,” Ronnie said. “She wants us to see we can’t do it without her.”

“But we can,” Sasha said. “It was actually easier.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment. No one wanted to agree, but I could tell they all did.

“Are we going to wrap here?” Grant said.

I looked around. “I think so,” I said.

“I’ll go kill the lights,” he said, “and then I’ll come outside with you all. I’ll just wait in the parking lot till everyone’s driven off safely.”

“Thank you,” Trixie said, and the other girls murmured agreement. As we started for the dressing rooms, Frenchie pulled me aside.

“Velvet,” she said. “Can I talk to you a sec?”

“Of course,” I replied.

She hesitated. Tears welled up in her dark blue eyes. “I’m, um,” she said, and wiped her eyes. “I’m having a hard time… dealing with this. Lisa and I were really close. I’m wondering if, um, you know… someone I could talk to.”

I put a hand on her arm. “I do,” I said. “Just tell me around where you’d like to go, like closer to home or work, and we can find someone.”

“I don’t have a lot of money,” she said.

“That’s ok,” I said. “There are plenty of community places, and some people take a sliding scale.”

She sighed. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel better, even knowing… that there’s someone.”

I gave her a hug. Her body shook against mine, heaving with quiet sobs.

I don’t know why I opened my eyes.

I don’t know why I looked over her shoulder.

Grant stood in front of the open door to the sound booth, doorknob still in his hand, staring. He closed it abruptly and leaned back against it, one hand over his mouth, one over his stomach. I couldn’t see his face from stage – not with the lights on me and him a fuzzy figure in the back of the theater – but I knew it was a mask of shock.

I knew where Tish was.

I pulled away from Frenchie. “I’ll meet you in the dressing room,” I said.

“What?” she said, searching my face. “What is it?”

“Just go,” I said, still looking back at the sound booth. “
Go.
” I pushed her gently.

She took a step back, but didn’t leave the stage. “Velvet? Velvet, what’s happening?”

I stepped down off the stage and headed to the back. I don’t remember when I started running. I remember realizing I was halfway up the aisle stairs, thinking
This is stupid to run up stairs in heels, I should stop
and not stopping.

“Don’t go in there,” Grant said hoarsely. He had gone pale, his lips almost bloodless. “Don’t.”

“Is it Tish?” I asked.

“It’s soundproof,” Grant said. “The booth is totally soundproof. We didn’t…”

“Move,” I said.

“Look, you don’t—”

“Move!” He moved.

I reached for the door handle and stopped myself. I pulled the hem of my tank top to cover one fingertip and pressed the handle down. The acrid smell of blood hit my nose. I was dimly aware of Frenchie on stage, her arms wrapped around herself, half-crumpled where she stood, shrieking at me to tell her what was happening.

Tish lay on the floor of the sound booth in a puddle of blood that looked impossibly large. More blood, too much blood, smeared her body.

I glanced at the counter and saw a pen. I used my sleeved hand to pick it up and poke the light switch on. I stepped in, holding my breath, careful not to touch anything.

It made no sense. Her throat was bruised, her eyes wide and vacant. Yet there was so much blood smeared on her legs, her stomach, smeared around jagged wounds that gaped at me. Her clothes were folded next to her hips, but she was only wearing purple lace panties. Her purple bra was folded atop her clothes. She was barefoot. Her earrings were gone; one earlobe looked bloody, as if someone had ripped the hoop out. A pair of stockings was jammed into her pink mouth. The word “darling” marched in precise handwriting under the curve of her left breast.

“S
omething really upset him,” I murmured, looking around the room. “Upset him… or really turned him on.”

“Just – just call the police!” Grant called to Frenchie. He glanced at me, then shielded his eyes from the room. “Look, you probably shouldn’t be in there.”

“What’s changed?” I asked. I looked at the switches sound panel. “Are all these normal?”

“I – Jesus, Anna, how can you just look at that?” A strange grey shade replaced his skin’s olive undertones.

“Sorry,” I said. “You were pretty together last time, so—”

“There wasn’t all the blood,” he said quietly.

True. Lisa wasn’t bloody. A voice did shriek in one corner of my mind; the kind of wordless, gibbering sounds made me sick at the thought of surrendering to them.

I sensed the edge of the abyss. It was one short step away and then a seductive leap into madness, into letting that wordless shriek bubble out of my mouth, letting the terror clamp its mouth on mine and possess me utterly.

I turned away from it with an odd little click and sense of disconnection, and I could almost see the room from above.
He didn’t fight to get her in here because there are no scuff marks on the door. Her sport drink didn’t spill. She was in here or unconscious.
The floor was carpeted, so I had no way of knowing if he’d knocked the chair over. I frowned.

“Do you see her shoes?” I asked him.

“Out here? No,” he said.

I scanned the room and saw her sneakers and white socks shoved underneath a counter. Why would he do that?

They destroy the illusion. Her tank top and dance pants aren’t feminine enough for him. Folded up, they complete the tableau, covered by the lacy bra. The shoes aren’t salvageable. He wanted them out of sight.

“Can you just glance at the sound board?” I asked Grant, positioning myself so I’d block his line of sight from her body. “Is it the way you left it?”

He didn’t look in. “I have the wireless controls, remember?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Sorry.”

“We would’ve noticed,” Grant said. “I would’ve noticed the sound levels changing.”

A sick feeling rose in my throat as I thought of her shrieking under him while we ran the show just a few hundred feet away.

“He got off on this,” I said. “It was a thrill for him. Doing this while we were right down there. Almost like saying, ‘You can’t catch me.’ He’s flaunting his intelligence and cunning.”

“Why did he have to stab her so many times?”

I look again at the wounds on her leg and torso – their width, their depth, and the worst ragged one in her left lower abdomen. Why would her neck show choke marks if he stabbed her to death? There was more bruising on the right side of her neck than the left.

“He didn’t stab her to death,” I murmured. “He’s right handed.”

“What are you saying?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me,” he said, his voice tight.

“Sometimes stabbing is a substitute for penetration,” I said. “Some guys stab women because they’re impotent.” I paused. “He isn’t.”

“Wha – oooh.” He groaned and sat down quickly, resting his forehead against his knees. “Don’t tell me any more.”

The facts still raced mechanically through my mind, but I stopped them before they reached my lips.
Once he found the right place, the right shape and depth – he could brace himself with his left hand, choke her with his right. He’s probably tall, if he tried the leg first, but he could get a better angle with the stomach.

“I won’t,” I promised.

I’m worried I might hurt someone
, Max had said. Maybe talked about the Darling Killer to test me.

Maybe when Grant and I left the lobby, he came back here.

I had to tell the police about him.

I turned to leave the room, but something bothered me. I looked at Tish again, at the balled-up stockings in her mouth. Her mouth looked more distorted than Lisa’s had. Were the stockings thicker?

She was wearing socks and sneakers that day. Where had the stockings come from?

I knelt closer to her. The stockings were black fishnets. Tiny rhinestones glimmered from a fold in them, tucked away in her mouth.

I glanced at the door in the back of the soundbooth. It was one inch ajar, the hallway dark behind it.

She wasn’t wearing stockings. He’d headed through the hall to the dressing room and found a pair in my bag.

I shuddered, flicked the light off with the pen, left the sound booth, and sat down next to Grant.

I wonder how long it took with him I wonder if he watched us with sick mirth on his face I wonder what she thought as her eyes faded our last talk was a fight and he really took care with her—

• • •

“You’ve known about this for
how
long?” Detective Brack exclaimed.

I put my face in my hands. A crack in the plastic chair kept catching at my tank top; it was certain to be a mess of snags when I got home.

“I started to really suspect him tonight,” I said, shivering. All I wore was a tank top, my Capri pants, and my battered practice heels. “I mean last night.” It was getting towards one in the morning.

“Two more women are dead,” she said.

“The ACA and APA Codes of Ethics both state that you don’t break confidentiality unless there’s an imminent risk of harm to an identifiable party—”

“Ethics and the law don’t always overlap, and you know it,” she said.

“Necrophiliacs aren’t always killers, and
you
know it,” I snapped.

“I only know the facts of the case, ma’am,” she said. “Your necklace. Your client. And now, your stockings in the mouth of a dead woman who just threatened you.”

I swallowed. “I can’t explain it,” I said.

She sat down, and her tone became reasonable. “Look. Miss Zendel. You’re in a tough spot, I get that. You want to do your job. You want to do the right thing. This is the right thing. I need to know everything you can tell me about this person Max. I need to know every impression, no matter how small. I need to know everything about every session.”

I nodded.

“Do you think he has a fixation on you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t think so from his body language in session, but now I don’t know.”
Great. I was hypervigilant about his body language because I was initially attracted to him. Can this get worse?

“Did he threaten you?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Even when we discussed terminating therapy, he—” I stopped myself.

“Why did that come up?” she asked.

I sighed. “I saw him in the audience at a show, so I addressed it in the next session after Lisa’s murder.”

Her lips thinned fractionally, and her nostrils flared. It was barely noticeable. She must have decided not to shout and frighten me.
Good control
, I noted absently.

“So it was inappropriate, and I was concerned about a boundary violation, but he felt strongly that he wanted to continue therapy with me. I was the first person he’d ever told and he didn’t want to start over. He trusted me.”

“Is that the only boundary issue that came up for you?” she asked.

“Other than him showing up at the theater tonight,” I said. “Grant said he wanted to talk to me. But that’s it.”

“Did you ever have sex with him?”

My fingertips went ice cold. “No,” I said frostily.

“Any kind of sex?”

“Never,” I said through clenched teeth. “Not. In a million. Years. He is a
client
.”

“A client you’re protecting,” she said.

“I promised to protect his confidentiality,” I said. “I did a homicide assessment, and concluded he was not a serious risk to others. He was seeking help for his urges.”