Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (32 page)

Then I thought of the police. I could alert them
that he was going to be there so they could arrest him or bring him into the
station for questioning, which would be a fine idea if the police cared. But
they didn’t. I’d already tried and failed to get the authorities to take legal
action.

No. I was on my own. If I wanted justice—and I
certainly did—then I’d have to do it myself.

With a noticeable tremor in my hand, I grabbed the
remote and turned the channel, switching from the news to a
Seinfeld
rerun in which Jerry and
friends had once again found themselves in a social pickle. I envied them,
wishing the only problems I had in my life were those of the opposite sex or
the results of a verbal faux pas, both easily fixed. Instead, my problems were
far greater than any ever encountered by the likes of Seinfeld,
Costanza
, Kramer, or Benes.

From the nightstand, I grabbed the half-empty
bottle of vodka and took a swig, felt the burn as the alcohol made its way down
my throat and into my stomach, where it slowly began to unwind the knot of
nerves that lay coiled at the bottom.

It wasn’t until I drained the last of the vodka
from the bottle that I began to feel better. The warm, fuzzy comfort came and
covered me like a soft blanket.

I twisted the top off the last bottle I had in the
room and put it to my lips. Two large gulps went down easily, adding to the
warmth in my belly. With the back of my hand, I wiped my mouth.

My head was difficult to control by this time, and
it fell back quicker than I intended it to, thumping loudly against the
headboard. It didn’t hurt. In fact I didn’t even feel it, but I heard it.

I tried to focus on the television, to pay
attention to the storyline, but it was next to impossible. The movement on the
screen was enough to make my inebriated stomach churn.

With my eyes closed, I listened to the show
instead of watching it, but the nausea didn’t subside. Fortunately, it wasn’t
long until the sound of the laughing audience faded away as I drifted to sleep.

Just before falling into the pit of darkness known
as sleep, a place that had become so unfamiliar to me, I thought of attending
one of those book signings.

Confrontational therapy and all
that.

7

N
aked,
with hair still damp from the shower, Ron sat on his bed with pillows stacked
up behind him. When his interview on the ten o’clock news was over, he clicked
off the TV and placed the remote control on his nightstand.

He smiled broadly, enjoying his victory. He’d
never planned to do television interviews. He had no author photo on the back
of his books or any of his websites. While he did podcasts and radio
interviews, he’d intended to remain a man of mystery, never showing his face to
the public. He wanted the best of both worlds; fame and wealth gained through
his writing, and the anonymity to go about his day-to-day life without
hindrance, whether it
be
from fans or police officers
nipping at his heels. But after so much time had passed and no connection had
ever been made between him and any of the murders, he figured he was safe.

Besides, no one would ever suspect that a
best-selling author was a murderer.

The interview had put him in a good mood. So good
in fact, he considered going back down to the basement and having another run
at Bethany, who was probably still crying from what he’d done to her earlier in
the evening. And he might have done it if it wasn’t for the fact that he had a
book signing tomorrow. After the interview on the news, more people would show
up than normally would, which meant more questions and more interactions. He
would need to be clear-headed and well-rested to deal with them.

Instead of going to the basement, he went to the
kitchen, still naked, where there was a red velvet cake, fresh from his
favorite bakery, waiting for him on the counter. It was a treat he felt he
deserved after all the work that had went into erasing that whore Candy from
his house and breaking Bethany in as his new companion.

He cut a piece of the cake and poured a glass of
champagne.

Ron seated himself on one of the chairs at the
dining room table. In silence, he ate the cake and sipped the champagne.

He’d worked hard to get where he was, earning
every achievement, every penny his writing had brought him. It felt good. Sure
there were times when he’d wondered if it was ever going to happen, but it
finally had. Now, it felt good to reap the rewards. The hard work wasn’t over
though. He knew that. Each story he told, each book he wrote, required
research. That meant more women in the basement. And every woman that came into
his basement was a lot of work. Fortunately, it was work he enjoyed. After all,
if he didn’t enjoy it, Bethany wouldn’t be down there now. She wasn’t research
for a story. She was just for his entertainment.

Thinking of Bethany turned his thoughts to Nicole.
He didn’t know if Bethany could take her place. Could anyone ever take the
place of his beloved Nicole? He doubted it. But it sure would be nice to have a
companion again.

Halfway through the slice of cake, he sunk into
the precious memories he had of Nicole. He could easily recall her face,
staring at him shyly from across the kitchen table. Many times he’d caught her
stealing glances at him, shy and bashful looks given on the sly. He had been
certain that she had affectionate and passionate feelings for him, just as he
had for her. Their love burned hot. He could feel it from across the table, the
heat radiating back and forth between them like an intense fire that couldn’t
be extinguished.

He could still recall the smell of her hair, the
sweetness of her breath, and he could feel the fullness of her lips as they
pressed against his. He could almost feel her skin, delicate and soft. The
memory of her body tensing and her back arching as she climaxed beneath him
sprang into his mind. It was something he thought of often, and just like every
other time he remembered the experience, he became excited.

By the time he’d finished his cake and champagne,
he had a throbbing erection and was eager to do something about it.

He put the plate and glass in the sink and headed
down to the basement.

8

T
he
line outside the bookstore was impressively long. I would’ve never believed
that so many people would flock to buy the book and obtain the autograph of a
murderer. But then again, a lot of convicted serial killers sold their work
from behind bars, so there were people in the world willing to own a madman’s
art. At least the people waiting in line outside the bookstore didn’t know they
were buying the work of a killer.

I sat in my car, parked across the street from the
front entrance of the store. Though I’d been sitting there for two and a half
hours, I’d yet to catch a glimpse of Ron.

My palms were sweaty, and my armpits were quickly
become equally moist. In spite of taking an extra
Xanax
before leaving the motel, my nerves were shot.

To top that off, I needed to pee. It seemed
stopping at a drive-thru for a large Pepsi wasn’t such a wise decision. Lesson
learned.

The whole point of crawling out of the motel room
and fighting the traffic to come downtown to the bookstore was to work up the
courage to go inside and look at Ron, to see him in person without letting him
see me.
Self-prescribed confrontational therapy.
But
there I sat, in my car, unable to bring myself to do as much as reach for the
door handle.

Even though I was unable to conjure up the nerve
to go inside, I considered the day a success. I’d actually made it to the
bookstore, which is more than I would’ve been able to do before my stint at
Alpine Grove. So there was that.

But even though I’d made progress and had taken
initiative toward getting well, I was still disappointed in myself. Damn it, I
wanted—no, I
needed
to move on, to
forget that Ron
Redwine
existed, walking the same
streets and breathing the same air that I was. If I was going to piece my life
back together, I had to do this.

For the next hour, I did my best to talk myself
into moving my ass, to opening the door and stepping out of the car, to
crossing the street and stepping inside the store. Yet I continued to sit
behind the wheel without moving a muscle.

Cursing myself, I kept my eyes trained on the
front door, never looking away for more than a second or two at a time.

As the minutes ticked by, I became so captivated
by the front door of the store that I was unaware of anything else. Traffic
whirred past, but I didn’t see or hear it. The line of people waiting to meet
Ron dwindled down one person at a time until it no longer existed, but I didn’t
notice. I’d fallen into a trance, hypnotized by the shiny metal frame of the
glass the door, a metal frame that reflected the sunlight like the blade of a
knife reflected the light of a bare dim bulb.

I was so transfixed on the door that minutes would
pass without my eyes blinking and without me even noticing. When my lids
finally did blink closed, it felt as though the insides of my eyelids were
lined with sandpaper.

For a couple of seconds, I didn’t realize that Ron
had come outside. I saw the door open, was aware on some level that someone had
emerged from the building, but it wasn’t until I noticed the shoes that I
snapped out of my reverie and looked up at the man who’d ruined my life.

 
He looked
exactly the way I remembered him. His hair was graying at the temple and he’d
gained what looked to be about twenty or thirty pounds, but there was no
mistaking that this was in fact the man who’d ruined my life. This was Ron.

It was odd to see him out in the world,
interacting with other people as if he were just another person on the street.
Had I not known him, had I not been held captive in his basement and tormented
by him for months as he murdered numerous women only feet away from me, I
would’ve been able to see him as others saw him, as a tall, handsome man who
was clean-cut and well-dressed.
An intelligent man who’d
found great success as a writer.
A man who was
articulate and polite, friendly to everyone.
A man who
was quick to flash a smile.

But I did know him. I’d seen him drenched in the
blood of his victims. I’d watched as he raped a corpse before hacking it to
bits and carrying it out of his house in trash bags. I’d seen him beat the hell
out of a woman who tried to escape his clutches. I’d seen him mutilate a young
woman before causing her to
miscarry
her unborn child.

I didn’t find him handsome. I found him hideous
and repulsive, disgusting even at his best.

As I watched him hold the door open for an
obviously smitten young woman, I added polite to the list of things the rest of
the world saw when looking at him.

No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t see
him that way. All I saw when I looked at him was blood and gore, anger and
rage, torture and brutality. While the rest of the world saw a well put
together and debonair author, I saw a sadistic madman.

The young woman who had followed Ron from the
bookstore seemed to be flirting with him. She used her left hand—undoubtedly to
display the absence of a wedding ring—to push a strand of her long, blond hair
behind her ear while smiling broadly up at Ron, who happily smiled back.

That’s what I saw with my eyes. But in my mind, I
saw him beat her as she screamed and begged for her life. I saw her blond hair
turn red as it became saturated with her own blood. I saw him dismember her
lifeless body after sexually assaulting her corpse. It was a shame I had to see
that, and an even bigger shame that she couldn’t.

Reading their body language, I continued to watch
the two have their brief but telling conversation on the sidewalk in front of
the bookstore. Finally, the young woman reached out and grabbed Ron’s hand,
cupping it in hers. She flipped it over until his palm was facing up. Then she
produced a pen from her pocket and wrote on his skin. I didn’t need to see what
she’d written to know what it was. She’d given him her phone number. If she was
lucky, he’d never dial it.

Ron looked down at his hand and smiled.

The woman said something to him before turning and
walking away. Aware that his eyes were following her, she twisted her hips and
bounced her hair with every step, sashaying her way down the street. That was
quite a show she put on for this man she didn’t know. She had no idea the kind
of danger in which she had just placed herself.

I turned my attention back to Ron, who stood
watching the woman walk away from him. The look on his face was one that I’d
seen before. He wanted her, but not for the reasons she expected. She was
probably looking for a one-night stand, maybe even a casual relationship in
which she got the joys and bragging rights of sleeping with a somewhat famous
writer. He was looking to torture and kill her, adding her name to a long list
of others that had come and gone before her.

When Ron turned and walked to his car, I became
aware of the pain in my hands. My fists had become so tightly clenched my
fingernails had dug into the flesh of my palms. Glancing down, I relaxed my
fingers and saw eight crescent-shaped indentations on each hand.

Afraid to lose sight of him, I quickly looked back
at Ron, who was now getting in his vehicle,
a nondescript
silver SUV. There were hundreds just like it in the St. Louis area. How very
clever of him. He knew better than to stand out from the crowd.