Victoria reached down to the base of Ward’s cock, pushed it toward Patricia’s cunt.
Ward felt Victoria teasing Patricia’s clit with it, faster and faster until Patricia reached behind him, grabbing both cheeks of his ass.
He pressed his finger against her asshole as he continued to masturbate her with his cock, his other hand still wildly stroking Victoria.
“Oh God, I’m coming,” Victoria yelled, “I’m coming, baby. Fuck her, fuck her. Oh yeah, oh yeah!”
In a single smooth movement, Hamilton shoved himself inside Patricia. As they merged together, Victoria pressed her breasts against them spreading her legs wide to take in Ward’s hand.
As Ward’s cock entered her fully, Patricia screamed with delight, coming again and again.
With Ward’s hand inside her, Victoria’s orgasm was continuous. Her screams and moans were in harmony with Patricia’s.
Victoria’s back arched. “NOW!” she cried, as Ward thrust again deep into Patricia, leaning forward so his cock rode high inside her swollen, wet, cunt.
Her eyes locked with Victoria’s, Patricia was groaning like a wild animal. “There,” she screamed. “That’s it. Right there!”
He felt the little curl deep inside her and kept riding her until her cunt was throbbing, squeezing his cock with each orgasm.
“C-c-coming, c-c-coming, oh, OH! Oh yes, you did it!”
Hamilton felt his cock throbbing as it thrust deep into Patricia’s orgasm. “Here it comes,” he cried.
“Yes,” Patricia cried out. “Come inside me. Right now!”
But Ward pulled out of her, and in one smooth motion twirled Victoria around, bent her against the white sofa, and roughly entered her.
Victoria grunted with pleasure, wiggling against him until he was buried deep inside her perfect ass.
Patricia sobbed in disappointment, and moved around in front of Victoria, pressing her cunt to where Victoria could reach it with her lips. As Ward frantically fucked her ass, Victoria’s tongue brought Patricia, who was arching her back in delirious pleasure, to one orgasm after another in a primal rhythm worthy of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.”
“Again,” he cried out. “AGAIN!” And he continued the pounding until they all achieved a simultaneous triple orgasm.
Then, with a chorus of grunts and cries and whimpers, it was over.
The disentanglement began. Patricia’s glazed eyes began to focus. She looked around, frightened, as though in disbelief at what she’d participated in. She reached for the floor to retrieve her panties.
“Let me,” Victoria said, snagging the sheer white material and using it like a slingshot to sting Patricia’s face.
“Ow!” Patricia cried. “Why did you do that?”
“Just for fun,” Victoria said.
“Yeah, we’re kinda weird that way,” Hamilton agreed. He took her by the hand and led her toward a piece of furniture in the middle of his den that was covered with a red chenille throw. Victoria whipped the throw off-to reveal the old-fashioned barber’s chair. “Sit here for a minute. The best part is yet to come,” Hamilton said, planting Patricia firmly in the chair.
Suddenly Patricia realized the fun was over.
“The fun has just begun,” Victoria said, cuffing Patricia’s legs to separate legs of the chair.
Before Patricia could open her mouth to protest Ward had slipped her brassiere into her mouth, and tied it firmly behind her head.
Now her eyes were wide open with fear. What were they going to do to her?
“Sorry to use your own underwear for this, dear,” Victoria was saying. “But I never wear one myself.” She thrust her chest out proudly, to display the firmness of her breasts that showed no trace of sagging.
Hamilton held her down until Victoria finished with her legs. Then she moved to Patricia’s arms, handcuffing them at the wrists to separate arms of the chair.
“Now we can finish off the book,” Hamilton said, watching with satisfaction as Patricia thrashed and writhed in vain trying to free herself. But the tapes were strong and the chair was firmly riveted to the floor.
“Better get some shut-eye, buttercup,” Victoria said to Hamilton.
He nodded. “I agree. Tonight’s the night.”
“And it’s going to be a busy one.”
The fear in Patricia’s eyes turned to terror as she saw Hamilton lean down, twist a dial beneath the chair.
Then the ticking began.
39
Cody slept like a log. Charley nearly had to drag him from the bed in time for their routine rendezvous with Waldo at the diner.
While Charley continued working the lamb shank Waldo had generously provided, Cody opened the Melinda Cramer file, which was still on his desk from Monday. In the middle of breakfast he realized he was one hundred percent certain that he’d found the key to the Rubik’s cube that was TAZ’s current challenge. He called Vinnie and Si into the office, and told them to make five copies of the file-for them, and also Rizzo, Bergman, and Kate to comb through looking for similarities with Androg. “Get me a list of her effects, too,” he said. “Every stitch of clothes she could have worn that night, and everything except the furniture that was found in her apartment.”
An hour later the crew squeezed into his office to report their unanimous opinion that Melinda’s murder had Androg written all over it. The list of her effects would take longer to retrieve, but there was no doubt: She was found naked. Death by strangulation, but made to look like blunt trauma so that the coroner missed it entirely until Cody had demanded a reexamination.
Was Melinda Number One instead of Raymond, after all? That’s what they wanted him to believe. But he still had the same feeling he’d expressed to Amelie. If she was Number One, why had it taken Androg two years to strike again? Then why had he struck two more victims in so few days? Something didn’t quite add up, but Cody could sense, like the hunter he was, that they were at least approaching the right trail. Maybe it took Androg two years to plan this week’s killings, starting with choosing the victims and then making sure they were taken out, one by one, and executed like clockwork.
Two years. Twenty-four months.
Cody looked at the file again. Melinda died shortly after midnight, having returned from a Halloween rave.
Tonight was Halloween night.?
As neat as a good plot. Or a well-written crime book.
But writers weren’t the real artists when it came to murder; they were just the critics, the aficionados.
Serial killers were the maestros, the true artists of the medium. Cody was pretty certain who he was up against.
But he knew damn well he couldn’t reveal his suspicions without solid evidence. He’d be the laughingstock of NYPD if he confided who he thought Androg was. He would bide his time, awaiting his break, but now with the assistance of selective perception. He knew what he was looking for, and that would make it all the easier to find. He would do a little medical background check.
Around nine Wolfsheim reported that Song’s blood count was 97.2. “While you were dancing with the fat cats last night, I was working,” Wolfsheim couldn’t resist the barb.
That meant Song was dead less than six hours when they located her. “You won’t be surprised to hear that the odor Rizzo thought was cyanide and the brown powder found on her lips and in her mouth was an intentional misdirect. The powder was applied to Song’s lips after she was dead already-and it smelled like “burnt almonds” because it was burnt almonds.
Androg had gone to the trouble of bringing the misleading evidence along just for the sake of putting icing on the cake.
Plus, there was no trace of the Excedrin-which was not laced with anything-in her system. The partially empty bottle was another misdirect.
Cody was getting impatient with Wolfsheim’s overly deliberate rhetorical style. “I know you found something, Wolfie,” he interrupted. “Get to it, Goddamit. The son of a bitch is out there right now preparing the next victim for us.”