Chapter Twenty-Two
Joshua
A sour brew of frustration eats at my gut as I head to New York.
The police contacted my lawyer and asked me to take a lie detector test after all. It’s a waste of my time, but if I refuse, it will look suspicious, so I just need to do it and get it the hell over with.
And there’s a public charity auction tonight that I promised ages ago to attend. I contributed a pre-Raphaelite sketch. I could beg off, but at this point, with the police investigating me and aware that I haven’t been staying in my penthouse, I am afraid that might look suspicious.
So I will stop off at my empty penthouse suite and don a tuxedo. Then I will go rub shoulders with a bunch of boring ass-kissers for a couple of hours, while I mentally go through the steps of field dressing them and wrapping their parts in butcher’s paper and mailing them to their families. I find these creative visualization exercises to be very soothing.
In the morning, my lawyer and I will go to the police station to do the lie detector test.
I’m curious why the police are pushing for this now. Has someone given them new information, since Sergeant Ruiz last spoke to me?
I am still completely in the dark about who’s behind all of this. Someone has clearly infiltrated my company, if they know that I fired Toy. And that person knows the address of my penthouse apartment and knows that I haven’t been staying there.
I’m also worried about leaving the house unguarded at this point.
There shouldn’t be any reason to worry. I rebuilt my entire alarm system. And I have the solution to any invasion of my property by law enforcement, or anyone else who could pose a danger to me. Just blow it the fuck up. It’s only money, right?
And yet, somewhere deep inside me, I don’t know if I would ever do that. Could I kill Toy if I had to? I’m not sure.
This is bad. This is very, very bad.
I’m checking the video feeds at Blackthorne daily now—but he’s always there. It’s not him. They keep him sedated and calm and very, very securely locked up, because Dr. Barnard knows what would happen if they fail, and not just to himself and his family. Their prisoner is the only man who’s as vicious, cunning and ruthless as me, and he can never set foot outside those walls again. People would die—innocent people, not just predators. That isn’t a problem for me, but Dr. Barnard, like most people, has a conscience, and it would weigh heavily on him.
I should fly out to California to check on him one of these days, but I hate to leave Toy alone for that long.
The smart thing to do would be to run, go to ground until I can solve this mystery. I could even take Toy and Elizabeth with me. I own property overseas, and I have fake identities set up in case I ever need them. I am a very organized psychopath who plans ahead.
But my stubborn pride won’t let me do this. Only cowards run. My father taught me that. A lot of his “wisdom” was just self-serving bullshit, but not all of it. At the same time that he was torturing me, he was very painfully driving home necessary lessons in survival—not just of the body, but of the self. Better to die as the man that I am than to live cowering or submitting to another.
I will not flee from some nameless chickenshit phantom who won’t even meet me on the field of battle.
What I will do is find him and fucking force him to fight me before I demonstrate the definition of the word “agony”.
He—or she, possibly—has snatched far too much power from me already. All hunts are on hold until I can figure out what I’m up against, and that is not acceptable. I’m feeling the need to kill again, and it’s adding to my general irritability.
The situation with Toy bothers me even more than my nameless adversary, though. She brought so much satisfaction to my life when I first captured her. She was a better high than any drug. I woke up excited for what every single day brought to me—and now that’s gone, and life feels dull and flat again.
She does everything I tell her to, and it just pisses me off.
I want her to have some spark of personality. No, more than that – I want her to fight me.
But she’s afraid that if she does, I’ll beat it out of her.
And she’s right.
I have never been able to tolerate defiance. The rules of survival were beaten into me early on. Whipped, burned, stabbed, punched, kicked into me. I am a god. I am a king. I rule absolutely or not at all. These are the rules I’ve established with Toy. She may not defy me in any way.
But I also don’t like this new thing I’ve created.
It’s a situation I’ve never encountered before—a dilemma without apparent solution.
I am always able to compartmentalize, though. I am on my best behavior when I arrive at the Mid-town Museum for the auction that evening.
The red carpet laps like a bloody tongue down the marble steps. Flashbulbs explode like supernovas, and photographers swarm and churn behind the velvet ropes, howling questions at me as I stride past them. “Joshua, no date tonight?” “Joshua, are you seeing anybody these days?”
I just flash an enigmatic smile at them. If only they knew the answer to that question.
Yes, I’m seeing someone exclusively. I kidnapped her and beat her name and her identity right out of her. She’s chained up in my torture palace right now, with a thick collar squeezing her pretty white neck and yesterday’s whip-marks fresh on her ass.
That thought brings a genuine smile to my face. I truly enjoy manipulating people, choosing what they will think and what they will believe. It’s more fun than a game of Cards Against Humanity. I’ve presented this magnificent façade, and the paparazzi have swallowed it whole and are begging for more, please.
It occurs to me that in the past, I would have arranged for a beautiful socialite to accompany me to the auction. I wouldn’t have had sex with her, because I only had sex with women who were blindfolded and ignorant of my identity, but being seen with models and starlets was good for my image. I probably should have done that for tonight. I can’t believe it slipped my mind. Then again, the thought of another woman touching me all night long makes me murderous, so it’s just as well.
When I get inside, all the glitterati are drifting among the exhibits, sipping cocktails and preening for the cameras.
As the night drags on, a steady stream of women find ways to bump into me, rub up against me, and I go rigid with disgust. My cordial mask almost slips several times. I haven’t had sex in weeks now, but I find myself oddly faithful to Toy. I will find a way to regain that spark again, and I will fuck her raw when I do.
I am at the bar, looking over their inferior selection of Bordeaux, when someone taps my shoulder hard.
I glance down in my annoyance, but it’s not another gold-digger with a hungry crotch. It’s Sergeant Ruiz. I hadn’t noticed how much shorter than me he was, until now. He can’t be more than 5’8”. He’s stuffed into an ill-fitting tux, and his eyes are bloodshot. He doesn’t reek of alcohol, though, so it’s not the demon rum that has him looking so disheveled; something else is haunting him, eating away at his soul.
I smile benevolently at him. “You don’t look well, Sergeant. Having trouble sleeping?”
He fixes his gaze on me. “I know what you are, Joshua Smith.”
This should be fun. “Oh, and what is that, exactly?”
“A fraud with a phony identity and a dicey past. A man who makes the people close to him disappear.” His Brooklyn accent drips with loathing.
“And you felt that it was so important that you relay your insignificant little opinions that you needed to come harass me tonight? Because we already have an appointment tomorrow morning.” I look him up and down. “Or perhaps you came to me for sartorial advice. Here it is. Burn that abomination you’ve rented and stop trying to mingle where you don’t belong.”
He smiles, showing even white teeth. “I came so I could make a note of who you go home with tonight. So when she disappears too, we can add that to our list.”
I manufacture a cold smile. I incline my head toward the Police Commissioner, who flashes me a smile and waves at me. I’m a generous contributor to the Police Officers’ Benevolent Society.
Then I return my attention to Ruiz. “Do you enjoy your job, Sergeant?”
He’s not intimidated in the slightest. He meets my gaze steadily, which is more than most men are capable of. “Not if it means being hamstrung by rules and regulations while girls are dying.”
“There’s nothing more tedious than a crusader chasing after a lost cause.” I stifle a yawn and let my gaze wander the crowd before favoring him with a cruel, calculating smile. “Do you think if you can find that missing girl, it will make you feel better about how you failed your own daughter?”
To his credit, he doesn’t flinch or curse or blubber. He just looks at me with amusement and contempt. “You know the worst kind of man to make an enemy of? A man who has nothing to lose. I’ve watched rich assholes like you get away with shit for far too long. My wife died of cancer because her boss didn’t clean up the asbestos in her workplace, and he’s living in Bermuda right now, swimming dick-deep in whores. My Rosa died because she was partying with some rich little piece of shit who didn’t call an ambulance because he didn’t want daddy to cut off his allowance. He walked away scot-free, and you think I care about losing my job? Please.”
His face is flushing redder and redder, and sweat beads on his forehead. “And no, I don’t think I’ll find Tamara Bennett, or what’s left of her. Or her neighbor Heather Abelard, for that matter.” So he knows about Heather’s disappearance too—and thinks I’m responsible for the disappearances of two girls. His hazel eyes fix on me. “But if I could take out the person who killed her, I could spare more women from suffering the same fate.”
Oh, good. Just what I need right now. An adorable little Don Quixote tilting at windmills. It’s too soon to tell if he’s going to prove to be mildly annoying or an interesting challenge.
“I’m fascinated by how your mind works, Sergeant. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts. Perhaps I should come visit you on Pennyroyal Street, sometime soon, to continue this discussion?” Yes, I made sure I knew where he lived.
“Apartment 3B,” he says without flinching. “Looking forward to it.”
He meets my gaze and refuses to drop it, until someone walks up and taps me on the shoulder. I incline my head politely. “Until we meet again.”
Ruiz glowers at me, then sidles away, sliding through the crowd. Manhattan’s upper crust scowl and move away so he won’t rub up against them. He stinks of the lower classes. Poor man. He’s very much out of his league here.
I could still stage his suicide, but that would be discourteous under the circumstances. Unlike my little phantom texter, Sergeant Ruiz challenged me like a man—openly. He threw down a gauntlet. Only a weakling with no concept of the laws of chivalry would kill him or get him fired. I will let this game play out however it is meant to.
A little while later, I’ve returned to the bar and am about to order the least offensive of their Bordeaux selection when a slender blonde woman with a bony chest slides up next to me.
“Joshua Smith,” she slurs, and the sickly-sweet scent of half a bottle of bargain-basement perfume mingles with the rum and coke reeking from her pores. Her hair is bleached platinum blonde and hot-rollered into perfect waves. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“Yes, let’s keep it that way.” I turn away.
“I’m Tiffany. And I’m very friendly.” She seizes my hand and tries to put it on her silicone-enhanced left tit. I grab her wrist and hold it crushingly hard. She yelps in pain as I rearrange the muscles in my face and drop my mask. I let her see the look in my eyes—the one I show to my prey right before the knife descends.
“I wouldn’t touch your filthy twat if my cock was wearing a full hazmat suit. Touch me again and you’ll withdraw a bleeding stump.” I release her wrist, and she’s crying as she scurries off. That cheers me up considerably.
I lean against the bar and close my eyes and think of Toy. Sweet, broken Toy. How will I ever fix her?