Then she came to the sex magazines.
“Surprise,” she muttered.
Already feeling disoriented and revolted by the crime magazines, Gillian could only stand to look at a few of these. The photos didn’t depict beautiful women in seductive poses.
The last magazine Gillian inspected dealt with bondage and sado-masochism. Then men and women pictured wore chains and leather. Some wore black leather masks that made them look like medieval executioners. The victims were tied spread-eagled to a bed or shackled to a wall or suspended from a ceiling beam. Gillian flipped the magazine shut. She dosed her eyes and took deep breaths.
She felt as if she had descended into a dark world of perversity.
A world in which Fredrick Holden loved to wallow.
Any more nasty little secrets? Gillian wondered. She bent over the drawer and glanced at the covers of the remaining magazines. Most of those near the bottom of the drawer appeared to be S&M. She left them there.
She spread half a dozen of the crime magazines on the bed and took a photograph. She did the same with several of the sex magazines. After putting them back in the draw she returned to the bathroom and once again scrubbed her hands.
Enough goddamn exploration for one afternoon, she thought.
Keep it up, you might find something really nasty.
She gave a sour laugh. In the mirror above the sink, her face looked a little bloodless, her eyes glassy. There were specks of sweat above her lip. She hadn’t taken pictures of the S&M stuff at the bottom of the drawer. Hadn’t wanted to.
She felt nauseous. Needed fresh air.
Gillian changed into her damp bikini, grabbed a bath towel, and went to the den. She took a beer from the refrigerator behind the bar.
The hot concrete sundeck hurt her feet as she turned toward the spa. Setting her beer and towel aside, she started to remove the cover.
She hesitated.
So you really want to go in this guy’s hot tub? Especially after that dream ... God only knows what’s gone on in it ... who might be in the water.
Yuck.
She picked up the cold bottle of beer and took a drink.
Maybe I should get the hell away from here, she thought, while the getting is good.
“Hey there!”
Gillian whirled around.
Chapter Eleven
“Why don’t we take a breather?” Rick suggested.
Bert grinned along with her frown. “You can’t be pooped again already ... a strong fellow like you.”
“Must be the aldtude.”
“Okay. Five minutes.”
He stepped backward to a waist-high boulder, eased his pack down, and sighed as the straps went loose on his shoulders. The sigh was for Bert’s sake. He’d found the hike rather easy so far and his occasional pleas for rest stops had nothing to do with the effort of lugging his pack up the trail. His only motive was to slow their progress, to avoid overtaking Jase, Luke, and Wally.
So far, fine. He hadn’t seen them since that morning.
The boys had had a fifteen-minute lead by the time the tent was rolled, the packs were ready, and they started out. Fifteen minutes, Rick quickly realized, was too short a gap. Bert didn’t hike with a leisurely stroll; she took long, sure strides that ate up the trail. Though Jase and Luke might be fast on their feet, Wally had seemed like the type who would hold them back. Rick felt sure that, without the frequent stops, they would’ve caught up with the boys by now.
There was also the possibility that the boys would take it slow or even stop and wait to make sure of another encounter with Bert. If that was their game, Rick’s delays would only postpone the meeting, not prevent it.
Rick opened a side pocket of his pack and took out his plastic water bottle. He unscrewed the cap and took a drink, then passed it to Bert. The shadow of her bush hat left her face as she tipped back her head. She shut her eyes and drank.
“I’m wondering if we really want to go over Dead Mule Pass,” he said. “Are we locked into that?”
“It’s the route I planned,” she said, and returned the bottle to him. “That’s how we’ll make a circle and get back to the car without backtracking. What’ve you got against Dead Mule Pass other than its name?”
“Sounds like a tough climb.”
“That’s a good one. All of a sudden you’re pooped at every turn and worried about a little climb. Aren’t you the same guy who did a lOK run last month?”
“That was different.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I am onto you, y’know. You don’t have to pretend with me. Took a while, but I figured it out after about the third rest stop. You just don’t want us running into our friendly neighborhood teen trio.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, my ass.”
“It’s your ass I’m worried about,” he said, forcing a smile. “And other nearby areas.”
“You still think they want to jump my bones.”
“You think it hasn’t crossed their minds?”
Bert shrugged. “I suppose it probably has. That hardly means they’ll try it, though. There’s an enormous gap between wanting something like that and actually trying it.”
“Maybe. I just think we’re better off avoiding those guys. I mean, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere and they’ve got us out-numbered. Why tempt fate?”
“Rick, they’re three guys on a camping trip. They seemed perfectly normal to me.”
“Even Jase?”
She hesitated. Frowning, she said, “Jase I could do without. If I were alone out here and he showed up, I might be a little concerned. But you’re with me, and Jase has Burgher and Wally in tow. Those two guys wouldn’t try anything.”
“If they thought they could get away with it, they might.”
“Would you? Suppose the situation were reversed, and you’re out here with a couple of buddies and run into someone like me? Would you and your pals try to rape me?”
“Of course not.”
She put a hand on his thigh. “Sure about that? You’re talking as if it’s inevitable that all guys would try it in a situation like this.”
“It would occur to most guys. It would occur to me, I’m sure. But I wouldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
Rick shrugged. “Aside from being a decent guy with moral scruples, I suppose I’d be chicken.”
“Afraid the cops’d get you?”
“That’d be a major deterrent. Thing is, and why I’m so worried, this area isn’t exactly teeming with fuzz. We’re pretty much beyond the reach of the law out here. A guy could get away with most anything.” Rick went cold inside. “Especially if he didn’t leave witnesses.”
“Plot thickens,” Bert said. “Now we’re talking murder.”
“You rape someone, you don’t want a prison stretch, nobody knows you did it except you and the victim. Even if you’re not a cold-blooded killer, you’re scared. The thrill is over and you realize what you’ve done—the consequences if you get caught.”
Bert’s fingers tightened on his thigh.
“You take these three,” he went on. “Jase wouldn’t kill us out of panic. He’d be more likely to do it for kicks, or just to be on the safe side, or just for the hell of it.”
“You don’t even know the guy,” Bert muttered.
“I know his type. Burgher, he seemed aloof. The rational sort. He’d see the logic of eliminating us and that might override his qualms about it. Wally, he’d panic. He’d no sooner get his pants up than he’d start seeing himself getting gangraped in prison.”
Bert looked into his eyes. “You’re scaring me,” she said.
“I just think we need to realize the—”
“I mean you’re scaring me. What the hell is going on inside your head? We meet three guys who don’t give us any trouble at all. Next thing you know, you’ve got them raping me. Jase kills us for kicks, Burgher kills us because it makes good sense, and Wally kills us so he won’t get sodomized in prison. My Christ! Your imagination is revolting.”