Swimsuit - James Patterson [74]
He wanted to fuck her again. Very much so. And he would.
“You can untie me now,” she said.
He patted her, got up, reached under a chair and into his bag, then went to the camera that was clipped to the heavy folds of the curtains.
“What are you doing? Come back to bed, Henri. Don’t be so cruel.”
He turned on the floor lamp and smiled into the lens, then went back to the canopied bed, said, “I don’t think I caught the part when you were calling out to God. Too bad.”
“What are you doing with that video? You’re not sending it? You’re crazy, Henri, if you think they’ll pay.”
“Oh, no?”
“I assure you, they will not.”
“It’s for my private collection, anyway. You should trust me more.”
“Untie me, Henri. My arms are tired. I want a new game. I demand it.”
“You always think of your own pleasure.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “But there will be a price to pay for this.”
Henri laughed. “Always a price.”
He picked up the remote control from the ornate night table, turned on the television set. He clicked past the hotel welcome screen, found the channel guide, pressed the buttons for the BBC.
First there were sports scores, then a market wrap-up, and then there were the faces of the new girls, Wendy and Sara.
“I absolutely loved Sara,” he told Gina, who was trying to loosen the knots binding her wrists to the headboard. “She never begged for her life. She never asked any stupid questions.”
“If I had use of my, ah, hands, I could do some nice things for you,” Gina said.
“I’ll think about it.”
Henri clicked off the remote, rolled over, and straddled Gina’s fantastic ass. He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbed his thumbs in circles at the base of her neck. He was getting hard again. Very hard, painfully so.
“This is becoming boring,” she said. “Maybe this reunion was a bad idea.”
Henri closed his fingers gently around her throat, still just playing a game. He felt her body tense and a film of sweat come over her skin.
Good. He liked her to be afraid. “Still bored?” He squeezed until she coughed, pulled at the restraints, wheezing his name as her lungs fought for air.
He released her, and then, as she gulped for breath, he untied her wrists. Gina shook out her hands and rolled over, still panting, said, “I knew you couldn’t do it.”
“No. I couldn’t do that.”
She got out of the bed and flounced toward the bathroom, stopping first to wink at the camera. Henri watched her go, then he got up, reached into his bag again, and walked into the bathroom behind her.
“What do you want now?” she asked, making eye contact with him in the mirror.
“Time’s up,” he said.
Henri pointed the gun at the back of Gina’s neck and fired, watched in the blood-spattered mirror as her eyes got large, then followed her body as she dropped to the floor. He put two more slugs into her back, checked her pulse, wiped down the gun and the silencer, placed the weapon at her side.
After his shower, Henri dressed. Then he downloaded the video to his laptop, wiped down the rooms, packed his bag, and checked that everything was as it should be.
He stared for a moment at the three diamond wristwatches on the nightstand and remembered the day he met her.
I… have time for you.
Together, the watches were worth a hundred thousand euros. Not worth the risk, though. He left them on the table. A nice tip for the maid, no?
Gina had used her credit card, so Henri left the room, closing the door behind him. He walked across the forecourt without incident, got into his rented car, and drove to the airport.
Chapter 99
BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I was back in my bunker, back to my book. I had a month’s supply of junk food in the cupboard and was bent on finishing the expanded chapter outline for Zagami, who was expecting it in his e-mail box by morning.
At seven p.m., I turned on the tube: 60 Minutes had just started, and the Barbados murders were headlining the show.
Morley Safer was speaking: “Forensic experts say that when combined with the five Maui murders, the deaths of Wendy Emerson