Page 58 of The Lady Has a Past

He glanced at his watch. He had a few hours to kill before he met with the bitch. He went into the bedroom, pushed the bookcase out of the way, and spun the combination lock on the hidden wall safe. He opened the door. There was a pile of cash inside that he kept on hand in the event he needed emergency bribe money. There was also a bottle filled with the drug. He took the stuff with him when he traveled to Los Angeles. It made it easy to handle the streetwalkers. They weren’t as satisfying as the socialites but sometimes he needed additional stimulation.

He took out one of the two envelopes inside.

He crossed to the bed, unzipped his trousers, and pulled himself free of the briefs. He dumped the photos onto the bed and shuffled through them, looking for the ones that aroused him the most. He tossed the Merryweather images aside. She had been scared but not scared enough. He had seen the rage behind the fear. It ruined the experience for him. Made him nervous.

He picked up another photograph and studied the image of himself kneeling between the legs of the helpless woman. She was the socially prominent fiancée of a banker. The chain around her ankle was clearlyvisible. He liked that. The photograph made him look powerful. Potent. The woman was properly terrified.

He started to stroke himself, straining for an erection.

Thirty minutes later, he gave up. He could never come when he was actually with a woman, but afterward the photos allowed him to fantasize his way to a climax. At least that was how it had worked in the past. Lately, however, the pictures no longer stimulated him as much as they once had. He needed something more invigorating, the kind of stimulation he got with the prostitutes. When he was with them he could do as he pleased.

But Guppy would not allow him to do any physical damage to the women who were chosen for the game. She insisted it was too risky. He was forced to limit himself to the photographs.

He had figured out in his teens that his impotence was caused by women. All his life they had laughed at him. It was only when he had them chained to a bed that they finally realized he was the one in control. That was when they cowered and pleaded. That was when he saw fear in their eyes.

He collected the photos, got to his feet, and went to the nightstand. He took the pocketknife out of his trousers and carved a neat slash across the throat of Angela Merryweather.

He felt the stirring in his loins. Excitement rushed through him. One by one he went through the pictures, using the knife to cut the throat of each woman. Within minutes he was in the rush of an explosive climax.

When it was over he sank down onto the bed to savor the aftermath. For a long time he gazed at the photos. After a while he gathered them up and stuffed them back into the envelope.

He knew now what he had been missing. The only thing that stood in his way was Guppy. For her, the kidnappings were simply a business that brought in a great deal of cash and made it possible to secureextortion materials over some important, influential people. She would never allow him to kill the women. There was no profit in that.

He would have to get rid of Guppy before he could do what he had to do to reclaim his manhood.

The phone rang, jarring him out of the hot new vision of his future. He went into the sitting room of the suite and picked up the receiver.

The voice on the other end was familiar. He could not believe the bitch had the nerve to try to blackmail him. The rage boiled up inside him again, ruining the euphoric aftermath of the orgasm.

“Yes, I’ll meet you, but we must be careful,” he said. “We must not be seen together, not at this time of night. The paraffin chamber in the spa. Thirty minutes.”

Chapter 25

Kevin Draper finished polishing the last cocktail glass and slipped it into the overhead rack. He tossed the white cloth into the basket and headed for the door. He was beat. He used to look forward to meeting the late-night crowd at the illegal casino in town, but lately all he wanted to do after closing was go home and pour himself another whiskey, a big one.

Throughout his shift he had been sneaking sips from the glass he kept under the bar—just enough to keep him going but not enough to get in the way of his work. He could not afford to lose the job. His sideline as an occasional chauffeur depended on maintaining his position as a bartender. It had been made clear to him that he wouldn’t be of any use if he started getting drunk on the job. A driver had to be reliable.

It had seemed so easy back at the start. A lot of money in exchange for some driving.Nobody gets hurt,the voice on the phone had assured him. He just had to keep his mouth shut and be available when he was needed.

He opened the door markedEmployees’ Entrance, let himselfout into the desert night, and walked down the lane that ran behind the hotel. The handsome Buick was one of three vehicles left in the parking lot. At this hour the only other staff on duty were the night clerk, Hiram, at the front desk and Pete, a bellhop who covered room service if someone ordered a late-night snack. The guests all had liquor cabinets in their rooms, so there was no call for drinks from the bar.

Nobody gets hurt.

He repeated those words to himself several times a day now.

He got behind the wheel of the Buick and cranked up the powerful engine. It really was a beautiful car. Men admired it. Women loved it. At first he’d given his coworkers free rides. A couple of the maids and some of the treatment ladies who worked in the spa had made it obvious they were available for dinner and a movie in town. Back at the start he had dated nonstop for a while. But somewhere along the line he had lost interest in that kind of thing.

He no longer looked forward to meeting his buddies at the casino, either. He just wanted out of the gang, but he was afraid that leaving would cost him his life. He didn’t know much—had made it a point to know as little as possible—but if he tried to quit he was pretty sure the voice on the phone would conclude he was a threat.

Nobody gets hurt.

He drove away from the resort and turned onto the main road that would take him through the small town. The house he was renting was about a mile past the shopping district.

The sky glittered with stars and the moon was almost full, but the desert was a vast, dark world at night. There were no streetlamps between the hotel and the town. After he passed through the short shopping district with its galleries and boutiques, there was another eerie stretch of darkness before he got to his house.

When the headlights first appeared in the rearview mirror he noticed them because there was never any other traffic on that stretch of pavement at that hour. His first thought, as it usually was lately, wasthat it might be a patrol car. But the headlights were too fancy. They were the lights of an expensive speedster.

Panic twisted his insides and made him go stone-cold. Maybe the voice on the phone had concluded that his services were no longer needed.

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