The Darker Side

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You made the right call on this, Smoky.”

  I’M IN THE FRONT YARD, leaves blowing around my ankles, that crisp, cold wind numbing my cheeks and hands. I welcome it for now; it’s clearing the smell of death from my nostrils.

  “I trust your judgment, Smoky,” Rosario tells me. “I meant what I said in the car—Lisa is your priority.”

  “I appreciate that. I didn’t think otherwise, but you deserve a heads-up. Also…” I hesitate.

  “Yes?”

  “To be honest, it would be helpful if you conveyed your confidence in my decisions to the Director.”

  “I’ll talk to him personally.”

  “Thanks. I ran into his assistant, and she made me a little nervous. I’m not used to this particular playing field.”

  “Rachael Hinson?” She sounds amused. “She’s formidable, true, but so am I. And I have ten years on her. Do whatever you need to.”

  “I will.”

  She disconnects and I turn to Alan, who’s waiting on the front porch, hands in his jacket pockets. I nod. “Call in the locals.”

  9

  I’M BACK AT LISA’S CONDO WITH CALLIE AND JAMES. ALAN IS coordinating with local law enforcement at Ambrose’s home. I don’t feel a need to be there. Ambrose was used and thrown away; he wasn’t important to the killer. As callous as it sounds, that means he’s not immediately important to me.

  James is walking through the condo. Doing the same thing I had done, I imagine, soaking in Lisa’s personality. She was important to our madman. Know the victim, know the doer.

  Callie looks tired. I watch as she pulls a bottle of Vicodin from her jacket pocket and pops a pill dry.

  “Yummy,” she says, rolling her eyes in faux joy and rubbing her stomach with exaggerated motions.

  “How are you doing with that?”

  “Still addicted,” she quips. “But then, that’s something you’re going to help me with before my wedding. You and I locked in a room together, sweat and barf.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “Monkeys, barrels of them. So, what do you want me to do?”

  I explain about the diary, what I’d found.

  “He spent time here, Callie. I think he stole some pages from her diary. I want you and James to go through this place with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “Do you think we’ll find anything?”

  I hesitate, then shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. He wanted us to know he was here, and he left the cross in Lisa’s body as a clue. He’s pulling us down a trail, but he hides his fingerprints…” I shake my head. “I can’t quite pin him down. I don’t have enough to work with yet.”

  James has reappeared and has been listening.

  “I agree,” he says. “All I can really tell about him, so far, is that he’s older, he’s organized and accomplished, fearless without being insane about the risks he takes, and that he wants us to know he’s out there.”

  And that he’s going to kill again, soon, I don’t add.

  “Anything else from the plane?” I ask.

  “No,” Callie says. “We still have to go through the trace we vacuumed up, and we have the bloody cushions, but that’s all.”

  “The most telling evidence then,” James says, “continues to be the fact that he wiped down his prints. He’s in a database somewhere.”

  “Yes. That and his behavior are the best leads we have.” I sigh. “Which isn’t saying much.”

  “Pish,” Callie says. “We’re only twenty-four hours in. He’s already made the biggest mistake of all—he attracted our attention.”

  James shakes his head. “Yes, but it’s not looking like we’ll catch him before he kills again.”

  Callie shrugs. “Not under our control. This is. So let’s get to work.”

  I’m about to chime in with agreement, but my phone rings. Alan.

  “Bad news,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Remember you told me to put out a search for similar crimes?”

  My heart sinks. “Uh-huh.”

  “I did that before I went to Ambrose’s place. We’ve already got a hit. Get this—it’s a fresh crime. Happened ten days ago.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Wish I was. He’s on the move. Man with a plan.”

  I close my eyes, rub my forehead. This bad news seems to bring all my exhaustion crashing down on me.

  “Give me the details,” I say.

  Interlude:

  THE DEATH

  of

  ROSEMARY SONNENFELD

  10

  ROSEMARY WAKES UP AT SIX-THIRTY TO THE SHRILL BLAST OF her alarm. She considers turning it off and going back to sleep. It’s Saturday, after all. The thought is seductive, but the rebuke is instant and fierce.

  No, that’s not how this works. Not how you work. Discipline, day in, day out, from now till death. It’s the only way.

  So she forces herself to a sitting position, legs dangling down from the side of the bed. Her feet touch the wood floor once, tentative, curling away from the cold as a reflex.

  Coffee. I need coffee.

  She stretches once and marvels, as she often does, that she could feel this achy and sluggish. She’s only thirty-four and it’s been four years since she straightened her life out.

  That’s the price you pay for the wages of sin.

  She glances out the window of her apartment. She’s living in Simi Valley, California, has been since she fled here four years ago to restart her life. It’s a nice apartment, two bedrooms, décor that’s comforting in its absolute lack of edginess. Beige carpets and off-white walls, wood floors in the bedroom and kitchen, she could be happy with that forever.

  There’s a chill in the morning air, not that common for September. She’s naked, and the chill gives her goose bumps and makes her nipples hard.

  She stands up and pads into the bathroom. She yelps once as she sits down on the toilet seat; it feels like ice against her ass. She pees, knees together, wipes, stands, flushes. Before leaving the bathroom, she takes stock of her body in the mirror.

  Looking good, as always. Too bad that’s never been a helpful thing.

  Rosemary observes that her breasts are still perky, a perfect 38C. Her belly is still flat, no stretch marks or scars. Her five-five frame isn’t slender, but it isn’t fat either. She has muscular thighs and a firm ass. Her pubic hair is brunette, just like the waist-length hair on her head. She likes not having to shave down there anymore.

  Perfect body, but then, why wouldn’t it be? I always aborted when I got pregnant, didn’t I? Eight times, yes, sir. My uterus is so scarred now, it’s doubtful I’ll ever have any children. Which is probably a good thing. Kids deserve better than me.

  She turns away from this thought by turning away from the mirror, and heads back into the bedroom. She grabs the necklace and hangs it around her neck; a small silver cross on a thin silver chain. She kneels down next to her bed, knees on that hard, cold wooden floor, bends her head forward, closes her eyes, and prays as she does every morning.

  “God, thank you for another day of freedom from the sinful life I used to live. Thank you for giving me the force of will to stay away from the temptations and the hungers that still plague me. They’re better, Lord, but they still bother me. Sometimes I think about drugs and fucking and I just want to get up and go out and score some coke and booze and suck a nice big cock. Even saying it now makes my pussy a little bit wet. But every day, with your help, I manage not to give in. I turn away from those temptations and I thank you for helping me find the strength to do that, Lord.”

  When she first started praying, years ago, she never used that kind of language. She used cleaner words, tried to be more pure. She found it unsatisfying. She’d talked to Father Yates about her problem in this area.

  Father Yates was in his fifties, but he was pretty cool. He’d give anyone a chance—ex-hookers, recovering drug addicts—as long as he felt your intentions were gen
uine, he was there for you. Nothing seemed to faze him.

  “Rosemary, the things you find yourself wanting to say to God—the unclean things—tell me how you feel when they come to you.”

  “Like urges, Father. When I need a drink or a fuck—sorry, Father—real bad, it’s like a bunch of black waves washing over me, one right after the other. If I hold them in, the urges just get stronger. But if I talk about them, if I put words to them, I get some relief.”

  “Give me an example.”

  She’d stared at him. “You want me to say it like I think it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t know, Father. I’m talking about some pretty dirty stuff here.”

  He’d chuckled. “Rosemary, I’ve heard every profane word that exists. I’ve heard things in confession that would curl your toes—confessions about bestiality, the fantasies of child molesters—I promise you, I can deal with whatever you want to say.”

  Looking at him then, she believed what he was saying, but it was still hard. The things she felt, the words to describe those things, were secrets. There was a time when she lived those words, when she said them without a second thought. Times had changed.

  On the other hand…

  She could sense that there might be a certain relief to be had by putting voice to the dark things that bubbled up inside her.

  But, what if…

  It was the big concern, the greatest one of all, the one that keeps us from owning up to our sins.

  “Father, if—if I do…” She bit her lip, which trembled. “Do you promise to still like me afterward?”

  She couldn’t look at him. He grabbed her chin and forced her to raise her eyes. The kindness she saw there made her want to cry with relief.

  “I promise, Rosemary. On my love of God.”

  She’d cried a little, and he’d waited while she did. Then she’d wiped her eyes and had started talking, telling those secrets. The words were like a flood, dark and awful, but so needing to be spoken.

  “Sometimes, Father, I just want to fuck, you know? Not make out or make love or any of that stuff. I want a cock in my mouth and in my pussy and I want them there after I’ve swallowed a bunch of booze and snorted as much coke as I can get my hands on. I want it and even while I fight wanting it, I get turned on, and that makes the wanting even stronger, you know?

  “It’s always been like that. People think girls like me are victims, and some are I suppose. But I’ve never been able to get enough. Never. The dirtier the better. Spit on me, piss in my face, make me a fucking whore, it’ll all make me come that much harder and stronger. I want it for days, I want it for weeks, I want to be fucked till I stop breathing.”

  The words had rushed out, uncensored, and then she’d been done. She’d snuck a glance at Father Yates, had been relieved to see no shock or judgment on his face. Perhaps even more precious, in its own way, even more important, was that she didn’t see the slightest hunger there. No hint of voyeuristic thrill.

  “Thank you, Rosemary. How do you feel, having said all that?”

  “Better,” she’d replied without hesitation. “The wanting goes away. Kind of like…” She searched for a metaphor. “Like squeezing a big old whitehead zit. Hurts to do it, thank God when it pops, you know?”

  He’d smiled and nodded. “Yes, I do.” His face got serious. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Rosemary, I think saying it is better than doing it, don’t you?”

  She’d blinked, surprised by this concept.

  Was it better? In this society, sometimes it didn’t seem so. Say the words suck a cock in public, and you might as well be sucking one on an escalator, you know?

  Still…there was a big difference between talking about drinking and fucking and waking up from a blackout with a stranger’s come in your ass.

  “I guess so, Father. Yeah.”

  “Then my advice, when you pray? Say what you need to say. Don’t worry. God can handle it.”

  It had seemed like strange advice, and to be honest, it had been hard to implement, but she got the hang of it. Some might find it blasphemous, but you know what? Fuck them and their high horses. Truth was, it worked. She talked to God without a censor, and she had almost five years on the straight and narrow as a result.

  She figured God knew what was up. God knew her love for Him grew every day she made it through without fucking a stranger or drinking a beer or snorting a gram.

  She figured God had watched when she turned tricks at seventeen and started making porno films at eighteen. Figured he’d seen her all-black gang bang under the bright lights (Big black cocks in a tight white hole! The cover of the video had proclaimed) and her foray into dog-fucking for the bestiality black market. God had seen her toward the end too. Like when she was on her knees in a hotel room that could only be described as grotesque, as some fat fuck spit on her face and called her a “meat puppet” and she smiled and agreed because she needed some money for blow and because it kind of turned her on too.

  God had been there the Day It All Changed, she was sure of that. She’d been lying in bed in another shitty room. She was sick with the flu, was sweating and cold, but the guy fucking her didn’t care. He’d paid extra to do her without a condom, he had sores on his pecker, but she really didn’t give a shit, she’d pretty much accepted that she was on her way out.

  He was there above her, his tongue literally hanging out, panting like a dog, and then his face had changed. It had contorted into a look of pure hate. He’d raised a fist and started hitting her.

  He didn’t stop until he’d broken her nose in three places, broken her jaw, knocked out a tooth or two, blacked her eyes shut, broken her left arm, and cracked a few ribs. Then he fucked her again and she passed out.

  She woke up in the hospital, and Father Yates was there, sitting next to her bed. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just moved closer, had taken one of her hands into his, and had looked down on her with those gentle, gentle eyes.

  She’d started crying then. She cried, on and off, for days. Father Yates and others from the church stayed by her bedside until she was ready to be released. They didn’t preach or judge or even say much of anything at all. They were just there for her.

  She’d come to understand that God was present for the good and the bad, and it wasn’t that He was cruel, but that He knew—goodness was a choice. Rightness was a choice. Free will was the road to salvation, and God wasn’t going to make you do the right thing. God’s job was to be there if you chose Him, there if you didn’t.

  Father Yates and the church had helped her get onto her feet. Helped her clean up, find an apartment and a job. Were there for her in the beginning when she strayed, twice.

  She remembers all of these things now, as she often does, and adds some final words to her prayer.

  “Thank you God, for helping me, and for listening to my bad fucking mouth and my dirty thoughts, and for letting me say what I need to say so I can stay on the path. Amen.”

  Dirty words and evil thoughts were her secret things, and you can’t stay clean with secrets so God let her spew her bile and never blinked, however raunchy things got.

  She stands up and goes to shower. No work today, but discipline was the key to her life now. Waking every day at the same time, not letting herself sleep in or be slothful. Sunday through Friday she ran a mile. Saturday she let herself off on the running, but she still got up, showered, had her coffee, and then went to the church to volunteer.

  All of which, she reflects, helps keep the real secret, the true dirtiness inside her, at bay. That one terrible thing when she’d—

  A knock at the door startles her from this thought. She frowns.

  Who the hell is that?

  She grabs a bathrobe and checks her face in the mirror, chastising herself immediately for this vanity, knowing that this is one habit she’ll never break.

  She opens the door without peeking through the peephole. It’s Saturday morning, and this is Simi Valley, after all
. One of the safest cities in the nation.

  The man has a gun and a smile. He levels the gun at her face and walks forward, causing her to backpedal.

  “Scream and I’ll shoot you dead,” he observes, calm, cool, collected. He closes the door to the apartment.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she asks, voice trembling.

  He puts a finger to his lips.

  “Shhhhhh…I have something for you, Rosemary.”

  He reaches into a jacket pocket and lifts out a bag. She recognizes it right away, of course.

  Cocaine, sweet, beautiful, delicious cocaine.

  “It’s okay, Rosemary. God will forgive you for this, so long as you give yourself up to Him before I kill you. Remember: God is love.”

  She feels the old familiar demon rise inside her, even now, even after all these years, even with a gun in her face. She feels the truth that she so often reflects upon: she was a Jezebel born, not made.

  Dear God, I’m scared, I’m so fucking scared, but even so, I want that coke so fucking bad, and (she can’t be dishonest talking to God, not now not ever) it won’t really be my fault because he’s making me do it so that’s kind of a relief because it sort of lets me off the hook, you know? Forgive me for that.

  On the heels of this, puzzlement:

  How does he know I’m a coke addict?

  She struggles to remember if she’d seen his face at her Narcotics Anonymous meeting, or at her church.

  No, she thinks. I would have remembered those eyes. Those awful eyes.

  “Come now, Rosemary,” the man says, his voice almost gentle. “We have work to do.”

  Does it matter, Lord? Does it matter that I never would have done this coke by myself? Even though I really want what he’s giving me, doesn’t it make a difference that I didn’t go looking for it?

  Rosemary had always felt the presence of God while praying, but never His voice. This time was no different. God didn’t speak to her, but, as always, God was there.

  He was there when she snorted the coke at gunpoint, He was even there when the end came, with all its darkness.