Syrah and Swingers Read online

  22

  Draven must have been close at hand, because in minutes, he strolled into Joy’s house. He wore gloves. He moved the coffee table back and sat down on it, facing her. “Joy, how I’ve longed for this moment, planned for it, and executed it, as usual, with flawless precision.”

  “Where’s Monty?”

  “Safe, as long as you obey me.”

  “Let me go. I’m not afraid of you, Draven.”

  “I don’t lead by fear, Joy. I lead by love.”

  “You nearly led me off a cliff. That’s why I left you.”

  “Had you taken that step with me, you would now have the power and control you so desperately desire.”

  “It’s you who wants power, Draven. Power over life and death.”

  Blackmoor rubbed his gloved hands together and grinned. “They are the same thing—aren’t they. Life brings death; death brings new life, free from this world. I know what you are Joy, and so do you. You fit the profile of a serial killer. I suspect one or both of your parents are killers. From a young age, you studied death, played with it, held it.”

  “You made me believe I killed my kitten, but I didn’t. Someone else crushed it in my arms as I held it.”

  “You felt it squirm. You felt it stop moving. It imprinted you. You can’t un-imprint that feeling of death. You could have been the best of them all!”

  “The best what, Draven?”

  “Killer. You’re the most intelligent subject I’ve ever worked with—equal to me.”

  “Did you kill your parents? Your sister and her family? Dr. Hoffman? My father?”

  “I was miles away. You know that.”

  Joy’s eyes widened. Her mind connected the dots. It was too fantastical to believe, to hideous and diabolical. “You weren’t rescuing serial killers! You flagged their traits. You used the criminal justice system to locate them and unsuspecting judges to send them your way. For Dr. Draven Blackmoor’s serial-killer-training school!”

  “I gave them love—taught them that their urges were perfectly normal. That they weren’t the monsters everyone made them out to be. It’s a gift, Joy. Embrace it!”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Draven stood up and paced before her. “The undergraduate in my class was so gullible. So easily led. He idolized me.”

  “He cut his own throat and you watched.”

  Draven sat down and faced her. “Time to die, Joy.” He reached for Joy’s neck.

  Joy pushed his hands away.

  “I thought you wanted Monty to live.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you know what I want, don’t you?”

  Joy’s eyes widened. “Draven, no.”

  “Trust me, Joy.”

  Joy’s mind raced. He wanted to kill her and bring her back. The only thing she was sure of was he would want to gloat—so he’d have to bring her back, if he could. If he didn’t keep her out for too long.

  She couldn’t say the words, so she nodded.

  “Say it. Say you trust me with your life.”

  Joy sucked in a deep breath—maybe her last. Sadistic as he was, Draven was compulsive. He fed off of control. “I trust you with my life.”

  Draven kneeled between Joy’s legs to get closer to her neck. He put his hands around her throat. “Your skin is so soft and warm, but you and I are so cold.” He pressed his thumbs against her carotid arteries with just enough force to pinch them closed.

  Joy’s eyes opened wide in fear. She reached up and grasped his hands. Rather than closing her windpipe, more dangerous and fatal, he opted to shut off oxygen to her brain by stopping the flow of blood to it. Timed right, she’d pass out. Timed wrong, her heart would stop beating.

  Joy’s breathing quickened. A waste, because the oxygenated blood struck a dam and could not get to her brain. Her eyes fluttered. She could breathe, but could not stay awake. Her eyes closed. Her arms went limp. She exhaled in defeat.

  Draven held on a second more before releasing pressure.

  He sat back on the table and pulled a handkerchief from a baggie he had stuffed in his pocket. He waited and waited.

  Joy stirred. Her eyes fluttered as before. She heard her heart pound in her chest. She opened her eyes.

  “Erotic asphyxiation is addictive. Did you know that?” asked Draven. “It’s said to be one of the greatest of highs. Reaching orgasm on so little oxygen that one tumbles into death at the exact moment of ecstasy. Some say it’s hallucinogenic.”

  Joy sucked in extra air to try to send more oxygen to her brain. She tried to sit up. “You’re wrong, Draven. That’s all you know. True love is deeper than sex. It transcends sheer physical pleasure by moving into realms of ecstasy that death could never reach.”

  Draven lunged forward and covered Joy’s nose and mouth with the handkerchief.

  It smelled of chemicals. She knew the scent. Her eyes widened before her lids drooped. She passed out.

  Blackmoor stroked Joy’s cheek. “Shhh, sleep it off. You’re never more beautiful than when you’re obedient.”

  Max stood in Captain Jayda Bank’s office, letting her word-bullets assault him. Chief Goldsby, a portly man with wavy white hair, stood beside her chair with his arms crossed. The spider veins inflamed his cheeks, making them ruddy. He smirked, enjoying the fact that Captain Banks this time, and not him, put Max in his place.

  “Here I thought my officers were in town, interviewing witnesses, not gallivanting to Chowchilla to play twenty-questions with Ursula Winters, aka Belladonna, who is now quite dead. Get Joy in here! Now! Because I’m not done yet, and neither is Chief Goldsby, am I right?”

  Chief Goldsby could not have grinned any wider. “You are right, Captain Banks, and I’m relieved to know you had no knowledge of this insubordination. This will cost you your badge, Max!”

  Max sighed with both regret and acceptance. Goldsby had been after his badge ever since he had become chief three years ago, taking over for David King, Max’s father, after a serious heart attack. He never understood why Goldsby hated him so much, but people rarely had good reasons for hate.

  Max punched his phone.

  Joy’s phone rang and rang and flipped over to voicemail. “She’s not answering.”

  Captain Banks tried. “No answer.”

  Max rose to his feet. “Captain, something’s wrong. Joy would pick up. I’m going to her house!”

  Chief Goldsby yelled, “You get back in here! I did not dismiss you! You’re done, Max! Finished!”

  The chief’s deep voice trailed after him. Max turned. “Keep calling her, captain!”

  Max raced through the hallways, the squad room, and out the door. He hopped in his car, flipped on the lights and sirens, and raced down the hill. He turned a hard left onto Stagecoach Street, flew out of Grape Gulch, and sailed through the intersections, slowing only when he could not be sure oncoming cars had seen or heard him.

  Max used voice commands to try Joy’s number again and again. “Call Joy Burton!” The number rang. “Hi, you’ve reached Dr. Joy Burton. Please leave a mess—”

  Max’s heart pounded, ready to explode. Every childhood memory available to him flashed before him. She had pushed him under the bed. “Hide, Pride.” He thought it was funny. He repeated it as he crawled under the bed. “Hide Pride. Hide Pride.” Joy shushed him. “Don’t talk.” He leaned his head into her shoulder. She sucked her thumb and held the kitten, whose meow gave them up. Ursula yanked them out of hiding. At the table, she’d tried to save him too. And she would not let their father’s tear them apart. He grimaced. He’d all but forgotten her. How could he have done that? She’d never forgotten him but she let him go, thinking he had a good life with his father. This time, he had to find her. He had to protect his sister.

  Max reached the gate that led to Joy’s house. He punched in the access code. The gates opened with torturous slowness. When open just enough to squeeze through, Max punched the gas pedal and the car flew up the hill.

  Max braked hard and
leaped from the car. The front door was ajar. Max called it in to the station. He ignored the suggestion to wait for backup.

  Max withdrew his Glock, pulled back the slide to load a bullet in the chamber, and aimed it dead ahead. He entered the house. The lights were out.

  He cleared the dining room on the left, the living room, the kitchen, the first guest bedroom, the second guest bedroom, the guest bathroom, and finally, he entered the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. He cleared it and the master bathroom. He flipped on the lights.

  The door of Monty’s enclosure sat wide open. Monty was gone. So was Joy.

  Max dialed Joy’s number again. As he waited for it to connect and ring, he tried to imagine a perfectly logical, harmless explanation. But when the first ring hit his ear—not from his phone but from somewhere in the house, his heart burst in his chest. He followed the sound to the living room. He picked up Joy’s cell phone from the side table next to the sofa.

  Max called Captain Banks directly. “She’s gone. I think Blackmoor has her. I just know it. The door was open and Monty is gone.”

  “Who is Monty?”

  “Her baby—a twenty-one-year-old ball python.”

  “Got it. I’ll put out an APB. Stay put, Max. I’m sending an evidence collection team there.”

  Max paced the floor. How could he wait—it was impossible! He called La Lionne Sauvage Vineyard Resort and Spa.

  “La Lionne Sauvage, how may I help you?”

  Max remembered that voice—the snooty guy at the desk. “Dr. Draven Blackmoor.”

  “I’m sorry, but Dr. Blackmoor checked out this morning.”

  Max disconnected. He needed the evidence guys to get to Joy’s fast so he could leave. Meantime, he searched for clues. He scoured Monty’s enclosure. Empty.

  Blackmoor played psychological games—Joy must have told him all about Monty while they were together. What else had she told him that he could use to slice her heart to pieces and inflict pain with one cut after another and keep her bleeding?

  Blackmoor parked his car next to an old barn. He hopped out, opened the trunk, and, still wearing gloves, he lifted Joy into his arms and carried her inside. He set her down on a chair and tied her hands behind her back. He brushed a wisp of hair out of her face and unbuttoned the top few buttons of her shirt. He wrapped his hands around her neck. He didn’t press or squeeze. He just felt the pulse of her carotid arteries beneath his thumbs. Normally, the thumb was not the finger used for that, as thumbs were less sensitive, even without gloves, but he pressed hard enough to feel Joy’s blood surge beneath his skin. He let out a growl of pleasure.

  Blackmoor asked, “Is everything ready?”

  A voice behind him said, “Yes.”

  Blackmoor left the barn and drove back to town.

  Joy awoke. She tried to speak but the words came out slurred. Her throat felt dry.

  A noose hung from the rafter directly over her head. Three flat white lamps cast light down on her and about the barn, creating eerie shadows over a tractor and into the recesses of hay bales and farm equipment and tools.

  A pitchfork stuck in the chest of a dead farmer. He had a look of surprise on his face, as if he had been interrupted halfway through pitching the hay.

  A card table had been set up. A sharp knife with a long blade lay there as if waiting to flay an animal. A phone and a tablet computer sat beside it.

  A burlap bag tied with string writhed and wriggled. Monty! She was alive! A galvanized tub filled with water sat beside the bag. A chill ran through Joy’s bones. If Draven put Monty in the water, she’d drown.

  Joy’s eyes searched the shadows of the barn to get her bearings and assess her situation. She could hear someone moving around behind her.

  By the time the evidence collection team arrived, Max had his own ideas of what had happened. He’d gone back out to his car, put on gloves and booties, and set to work. He found no papers, no messages. Max made a mental note to insist that Joy install security cameras on the gate and on the house. If they’d have been in place, he would have a name, a face, and even a license plate, instead of an APB, hope, and a prayer.

  Max did have one item he could use. He hopped back in his car, flipped on the sirens and lights, and shot back to the station.

  He flew through the door and headed straight for the computer surveillance room, run by Nathan Riggs, the station’s computer nerd and surveillance expert, who had wired Steele for his undercover sting of A-gamer at The Stinky Mule bar.

  Max rushed into the room. Banks of computers whirred softly, while small lights of white, green, or red illuminated their bland metal faces. “Riggs, I need you to do that thing you do with phones.”

  Riggs spun his chair around to face Max. His dark brown hair swept straight back, like a monkey’s. He had an off-kilter smile like Elvis Presley, which he seemed to think made him as attractive as Elvis Presley, but his thin limbs betrayed that confidence. He adjusted his black-rimmed glasses. “Hmmm. I do a lot of things with phones, Max, from extracting info from a SIM card to unencrypting them to—”

  “Locating them. That thing.”

  “Ahhh. Now we’re getting somewhere. You want me to employ our cell site simulator, also called IMSI Catcher or a Stingray, to locate the whereabouts of a phone.”

  “I’m more interested in the person who owns the phone.”

  The most annoying thing about Riggs was his dire need to give a tech lesson as he worked. It always came off as trying to show off how smart he was rather than a true offering of knowledge, but no one cared, because Riggs knew how to use machines to his advantage just as well as a Star Trek Borg.

  “Number?”

  Max gave Nathan the number, and he started punching buttons. “It’s cool technology really. Your cell phone naturally seeks out the strongest signal tower from your location. Our simulator acts like a cell tower, except that it both sends and receives signals. It’s a go-between, but while it is forwarding your signal, it’s also collecting data. By triangulating the strength of other cell towers, we can pinpoint a location. And, what people don’t realize, is we can also collect numbers dialed and calls received from that phone, log the duration of calls. Hell, I can even send fake text messages or fake calls to or from that device. I got it! That phone is at La Lionne Sauvage Resort and Spa.”

  “Thanks, Riggs. You’re the best!” Max slapped Riggs on the back.

  Max’s sirens wailed against the dimming day. The last of the sun’s orb dropped behind the western hills, as if falling into the Pacific Ocean beyond them.

  By the time Max arrived at the resort and winery, twilight overtook the day, and night worked to overtake twilight.

  Max started with the snooty receptionist. For purely an intimidation factor, Max flashed his badge again. “We know that Dr. Draven Blackmoor is still on the premises. Do you happen to know where he might be?”

  The receptionist raised his nose into the air. “While we pride ourselves on service, we do not put tracking chips on our guests.”

  “Thanks…for nothing.”

  Max dialed Draven’s number and listened intently. Nothing in the lobby. He’d try the spa, the dining room, the tasting room. He’d scour the property until he found that damn phone.

  23

  Max left the spa and headed to the restaurant and lounge. He’d walked all over the property, dialing Draven Blackmoor’s number and waiting to hear a phone ring. Many times, phones rang, and his heart skipped a beat. He scoured the crowd, hoping to see Blackmoor, only to be disappointed by others on their phone. Max crossed a square. His eyes washed over the multitude of lit and unlit windows in the two-story hotel. If Blackmoor had checked in under another name or had an accomplice who did it for him, it could take a full day to knock on doors and search room-by-room.

  The day began to cascade over him and wear him down, like a sandstone cliff beat away by a tempest. As his wall of hope wore down, it exposed helplessness and fear.

  Max stepped into th
e restaurant. He told the raven-haired hostess he was meeting a friend. He didn’t even bother to flash his credentials. He strolled between the multitude of tables, filled with affable tourists and romantic locals, listening for a harmony of rings—the one in his ear synchronized to the one sitting beside Draven Blackmoor.

  Max walked down the carpeted rows, past tables draped in white linen, and round-backed chairs that cradled guests in an opulence of beige and red tones, wood and glass. Clinks of cutlery and voices ranging from soft to boisterous made Max’s job tougher.

  With each ring, Max craned his head right, left, behind him, before him, in a sad dance that astute guests noticed. It was the “oh, look, that poor man can’t find his friend” kind of look.

  His hopes shot up each time he saw a man with a phone to his ear.

  Max rounded the corner at the end of the room and stalked up the aisle on the other side. At the end of the aisle, he reached the lounge, a tucked away retreat. He ducked into the well-lit stone tunnel and entered a dark wood and stone cave with brown leather seats and a polished wood bar. Pictures of the winery, illuminated with picture lights, adorned a brick wall.

  Max dialed the number again. Used to disappointment by now, he turned to leave. But the ring in his ear and a ring at the bar aligned. He held his breath. No sign of Draven.

  The phone in his hand continued to ring.

  The bartender reached under the bar and the ringing in his hand stopped. The bartender waved Max over. Max stepped forward. “Are you Max?”

  Max’s forehead creased. “Yep. I am.”

  “Dr. Blackmoor had an errand to run, but he asked me to keep his phone, and if anyone came in looking for him, to buy him a drink. I thought he was kidding, until his phone started to blow up with your name on it.”