Roses Are Red - James Patterson [61]
Now! Go! Not a second to lose.
He moved very fast. He seemed to fly across the room and onto the queen-size bed. He fell on the sleeping figure with his full weight.
There was an ooff, then a startled cry. He slapped a wad of electrician’s tape across her mouth, then handcuffed both slender wrists to a bedpost.
Click-click. So fast, so efficient.
His hostage tried to scream, tried to twist and turn and break free. She had on a yellow silk teddy. He loved the feel of it, so he slipped it off her body. He caressed the silk, ran it over his face. Then back and forth through his teeth.
“It’s not going to happen. You can’t get away. Stop trying! It’s annoying.
“Please try to relax. You’re not going to be hurt,” he said then. “It’s important to me that you not be harmed.”
He gave her a few seconds to take in what he had said. To understand.
He stooped close until his face was only inches from hers. “I’m going to explain why I’m here, what I plan to do. I will be very, very clear and precise. I trust that you won’t tell a soul about this, but if you ever do, I’ll come back as easily as I did tonight. I’ll get through any security system you can buy, and I will torture you. I will kill you, but first I’ll do much worse than that.”
The prey nodded. At last — understanding. Torture was the magic word. Perhaps it ought to be used more in schools.
“I’ve been watching and studying you for a while. I think you’re just perfect for me. I’m certain, and I’m usually right about these things. I’m right over ninety-nine percent of the time.”
The hostage was lost again. He could see it in her eyes. The lights were on, but nobody was home.
“Here’s the idea, the concept. I’m going to try and give you a baby tonight. Yes, you heard right. I want you to have the baby,” the Mastermind finally explained. “I’ve studied your fertility rhythms, your contraceptive program. Don’t ask how, but I have. Trust me. I’m very serious about this.
“If you don’t have the baby, I will come back for you. Justine. If you abort the baby, I will torture you horribly, then kill you. But don’t worry, this child will be very special,” said the Mastermind. “This child will be a masterpiece. Make love to me, Justine.”
Chapter 82
AT NOON THE NEXT DAY, the case seemed to take another terrible, and unexpected, twist. I was in an interview at MetroHartford when Betsey broke in. She asked me to please come out into the hallway. Her face was ashen.
“Oh no, what?” I managed to say.
“Alex, this is so creepy that I’m still shaking. Listen to what just happened. Last night, a twenty-five-year-old woman was raped in her apartment in a suburb outside Hartford. The rapist told her he wanted her to have his baby. After he left, she went to a hospital and the police were called in. In their report, it states that the rapist wore a Clinton mask — like the one worn at the first bank robbery, Alex — and also that he called himself a mastermind.”
“Is the woman still at the hospital? Are the police with her?” I asked. My mind was racing, already filled with possibilities, rejecting the notion of coincidence out of hand. A mastermind in a Clinton mask, just outside of Hartford? It was too close.
“She left the hospital and went home, Alex. They just found her dead. He warned her not to tell anyone, and not to abort. She disobeyed him. She made a mistake. He poisoned her, Alex. Goddamn him.”
Betsey Cavalierre and I went to the dead woman’s apartment, and the scene was beyond horrifying. The woman lay on her kitchen floor, grotesque and twisted. I remembered the bodies of Brianne and Errol Parker. The poor woman had been punished. FBI technicians were all over the small garden apartment. There was nothing Betsey or I could do there. The bastard had been right there in Hartford — maybe he still was. He was taunting us.
This was as stressful as any case I’d ever worked. Whoever was behind the robberies and gruesome murders was