But that night she had hurried out of the house, so distracted she’d left her purse and phone behind, and driven with him to the abandoned cannery. She had been appalled that Cade was staying in such a place.
She was under Quinn’s complete control within minutes of stepping out of the car.
She had put up a fight, even after he’d bound and gagged her, but he was far stronger, and told her that if she wanted to see her son, she’d have to behave. She became docile then, even though he knew she didn’t really believe him. But he’d been true to his word-never having promised that her son would be alive when she saw him.
It interested him that she was so grief-stricken. Wept for a boy she never knew.
She’d been enraged for a time, which Quinn had found stimulating. Later, when he’d moved her to the plastic-covered room in the warehouse, he allowed Kai to enjoy her and then kill her. Quinn had left without telling Kai that he’d be at the cannery next door, finishing his artwork on Cade. Kai, at that point unaware of Cade’s existence, had thought Quinn was generous. Quinn had hidden Cade’s body before going back over to the warehouse.
Kai, who had already been up late turning on the hose at Irene Kelly’s house, had fallen asleep when he finished with Marilyn. The hose business was a trick of Quinn’s-he had many such tricks, designed to unsettle a victim. Kai was happy to do it and had nearly been caught, or so he said.
Quinn changed the plates on Marilyn Foster’s Chevy Malibu, put the originals in the trunk, woke Kai and had Kai follow him as he drove her car to a large storage locker in one of the buildings Quinn owned. There they removed the body of one of Kai’s earlier kills, taking her from the freezer in which Quinn had kept her for him-in exchange for letting Quinn practice his designs on her skin. Kai admired the decoration as they put the body in the trunk of the Malibu.
They drove toward the beach and delivered the car to its parking place. These were some of the riskiest moments, because if Marilyn had been reported missing, there was always the chance an ambitious cop might run a plate check and see that these were not originally on a Chevy Malibu. Or even though he wore a hoodie, a wig, and dark sunglasses, he might be seen parking the car by someone who somehow managed to recognize him. Or a cruising patrol car might go down the street while he was changing the plates back. Any of those possibilities could lead to complications.
These dangers had only made it all the more thrilling.
When Kai took Quinn to pick up his van, Quinn mastered a strong temptation to choose a route that went past Marilyn Foster’s home.
Kai helped him load the freezer into the van and take it to the cannery, thinking Quinn was going to abandon it there. After Kai left, Quinn hooked up a generator and placed Cade’s body within the freezer. He admitted to himself now that there had been tenderness in the way he had done it.
People were easier to love when they were dead.
He set the generator running and went back over to the warehouse. Kai had already moved Marilyn Foster’s body to the metal table. Quinn prepared his canvas by removing all her bindings, then thoroughly washing her, including all her orifices and wounds, and cleaning her fingernails and toenails. He dried her, then sealed the buckets of wash water and carried them down to the van.
By the time he came back to the room, she was ready. He used an airbrush and stencils and metal-based paints, permanent markers and calligraphy brushes to cover the bare skin of Marilyn Foster even as her body continued to go through the changes of rigor mortis. When he was inspired, he could work for hours. He stopped only to refuel the generator at the cannery next door.
He wasn’t able to spend as much time on her as he would have liked, but she would serve her purpose.
He cleaned up, removing the plastic tarps, and took her to another section of the warehouse, setting her out in a manner that would cause the light from the multitude of high, filthy windows along one wall to bathe her skin and bring out the brilliance of her new colors.
He drove off and called Donovan, who called the police from a stolen cell phone to report the body’s location. Donovan destroyed the phone; Quinn destroyed all the other evidence. Quinn was thoroughly exhausted by the time he reached his own bed.
He awoke ten hours later and groggily watched the television news while checking the Internet compulsively. He watched Irene Kelly’s press conference with interest-he enjoyed seeing that she was so frightened, even before she knew that Marilyn Foster was dead.
Two moth-covered bodies had certainly set things in a whirl! He could not help but feel pleased. He looked carefully through the online news reports for any reference to the discovery of a third body, but there was none. He had thought the noise of the generator might attract some attention, but apparently either other industrial sounds in the area or all the racket made by the police in the warehouse kept that from happening. He wanted the generator back if he could retrieve it, but not at the price of his freedom.
He went back to bed and thought of Cade before falling asleep.
Quinn kept the generator running for a week, then decided it was foolish to risk being seen going in and out of the building. The police had traced ownership of both buildings to his company, but there was nothing unusual in Moore Properties owning real estate. He was credited with helping to revitalize the area. He had employees who worked on that sort of thing, exactly so that the company’s image remained positive.
“He’s starting to come around,” Kai announced happily from his seat near the gurney.
Quinn smiled, nodded, stretched, and sighed.
Other than the moment when he had noticed the blood on Kai, nothing in today’s activities had been arousing. Exciting, yes, but not the sort of thing he ultimately found satisfying. That was all right, though. His involvement in the abduction and killing first of Cade and then of Marilyn, so close to each other in time, had left him sated. Experience said he wouldn’t remain so, but the restless edge was off for a while.
Quinn supposed that, as a matter of self-preservation, at some point he would have to kill Kai and Donovan and-saving the best for last-his father. But that could wait. Besides, his father had plans, and like his brothers, Quinn was curious about them. That curiosity would keep them all doing just as Nick Parrish bid them to do.
For now.
The plane landed smoothly and taxied toward a hangar. The flight had been short, as intended. It was a flight that Donovan had completed many times between these two destinations in recent weeks, in part to rehearse, in part to allay the suspicions of anyone who might have noticed the flight today. It was a remote area but not utterly uninhabited.
The plane came to a halt, and they disembarked, but Donovan did little more than help them unload before taking off again. He would eventually meet them in Las Piernas.
The drugs that had been given to Parrish at the prison were finally wearing off. With Kai’s help, Parrish came woozily to a sitting position.
“Thank you, Son,” he said, and Kai beamed. Parrish looked over at Quinn and gave him a charming smile. “You’ve both been of great help to me.” He stretched. “How good to be free! But we haven’t any time to waste. Quinn, you have what we need?”
“Yes, sir.” Quinn opened a locker at the back of the building and brought out the wig and clothing stored there.
They changed quickly and packed up all signs of their presence. The gurney was moved to a locked storeroom behind a workbench, covered with a drop cloth, and then loaded up with boxes and other items. Donovan would dispose of it later.
They climbed into the Ford Escape (Quinn wondered even now if irony had determined Donovan’s choice of vehicle) parked just outside the hangar. Quinn drove, Kai sitting next to him. Their father sat in the back, looking calm and pleased with himself, and not at all like someone who might at any moment be apprehended as a prison escapee.