FicWad

THE ADJUSTERS



64

Los Angeles, Part 3



Daniel Malcolm was numb. Had been for several months now. And part of him had known it. But the full extent of it did not strike him until now.

For all the craziness that Cindy Caprese—now Cindy Barnes—exhibited, she could be perceptive, and that night was an example of exactly that. Daniel Malcolm had worried that she might insist on heading back to her place to fuck—something he was surprised she had not clamored for yet, her insatiable libido usually out and about at the first sign of him—but she surprised him by asking him out to a casual dinner and then heading out to a movie.

That was exactly the kind of evening Daniel needed. It felt almost normal. He had not had normal in a long time. And meeting the women affected by the Special—because the latest victim made it clear that a Special was indeed involved—had been the final straw: Christina’s tragic behavior, Rebecca’s hospitalization, and of course, Samantha Royston’s complete transformation into a nymphomaniac with apparently no inhibitions.

It did not take a degree in psychology to understand why Samantha in particular affected him so much. She was just like Jenn was, transformed into a horny slut unable to resist fucking any guy that showed interest.

The reports that Sam O’Neill had given him when the private investigator followed his fiancée trace from New England to Buffalo were proof enough of that. And the videos that Daniel had on a USB drive were further testimony, one he had not the heart to see.

After seeing Samantha’s behavior at the gym earlier that day, it was far too easy for Daniel to picture exactly how Jenn might behave right now, at this moment. The recording that Daniel’s mysterious contact Paul had sent him back in Baltimore before this trip to Los Angeles, the recording of Jenn on a hospital bed getting taken hard, kept popping up into his mind.

Where was she? How was she? Was she even thinking of him, aware of him? Or was she simply fucking her way from disgusting pig to disgusting pig, a mindless body with only one goal.

That was one of his biggest fears, that whatever Biff had done to head had wiped her out, either her memory of him, or her own personality. It was something Sam O’Neill, who was looking for Jenn, was always careful to point out, in shaded ways, something the normally straight-to-the-point PI did not usually do. It was not something Daniel was ready to contemplate. He did his best to not think about it—there was nothing he could do about it anyway, it was out of his hands. Like so much of his life. He would confront it when he found Jenn.

If he ever found her.

Don’t think about that.

Daniel sighed, pushed back into his seat, and tried to lose himself in the movie. Cindy laid her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her. It felt good. A feeling he had forgotten about.

After the movie, they walked out of the theater. Night had fallen, cool and clear.

“That was good,” he said.

Cindy held his hand. “Forbidden Planet. Of course it was good. Wait… you had seen it before, yes?”

“Never.”

“Get out! I’m not a sci-fi geek and even I have seen that movie a bunch of times!”

“You’re not a sci-fi geek? Really?”

“Really. Tolkien-style high fantasy, all the way.”

“But… you’re so…” He hesitated.

“Go ahead, say it.”

“You’re so… sciency.”

“That’s such a limited world view. It’s a wonder I’m okay with being seen with you.” And just to show that she was, in fact, kidding, Cindy erupted in one of her trademark crystalline laughs before twirling and wrapping her arms around him. “I missed you,” she said, serious for a moment.

“I missed you too.”

“Are you going to be okay tonight? I worry about you.”

He nodded. “I think so. You sure you don’t mind…” He did not know how to complete the sentence. He hoped she was not disappointed that he was not in the mood to head out to her place. He wanted to be alone.

“It’s fine. I may be a dumb blonde—well, was a dumb blonde—” she shook her head to let her dark hair fly about, “but I’m not stupid. But just so you know, you’re not off the hook. Before the week is out, your dick and my pussy are going to have some happy one-on-one time.”



*



“So what’s the plan for today?” Cindy asked excitedly as she jumped into the car the next morning.

Daniel looked at her and shook his head. He had forgotten just what being with Cindy meant. Today, she wore a white dress cut so short that the swirly skirt threatened to expose everything underneath whenever she moved. With her denim vest and a pair of cowboy boots, she looked straight out of a teenage-fantasy fueled western.

“I feel I must ask,” Daniel said as he pulled from the curb in front of her building. “You okay with taking the day off?”

“What? Oh, you mean, school?” She shrugged, tossing her hair about. “Sure. It’s pretty quiet this week. A couple of papers to write, a lab to prep for, a pile of reading way high. It’s all good. So, the plan?”

She looked at him with such wide-eyed enthusiasm that he had to smile.

“I figured we’d swing by the coffee shop see if they remember our guy, now that we have a possible time frame. Unless you have a better idea?”

“Not yet.”

They drove back to the bank where Samantha Royston had worked in less time than Daniel thought possible in the late morning Los Angeles traffic. He was not accustomed to large cities, and Los Angeles was even larger than that. Everything seemed out of proportion with the rest of the world, but without the claustrophobic feeling of New York City—there, tall buildings tended to make you forget you were in a huge sprawling urban ghetto. He missed New England and North Alexandria—though that place now was inexorably mixed with the feelings of having lost Jenn.

Sensing his gloomy mood, Cindy kept Daniel entertained by giving him an update on her scholastic life, comparing UCLA to Darnell back east, California to New England, graduate school to undergraduate. It made Daniel dizzy to realize just how much Cindy’s life was so similar on a daily basis to how his own life had been not a year earlier, while his own life felt like it had twisted hard into some absurd direction.

At the coffee shop, Cindy left Daniel to wander around, while he waited for long minutes for a pack of German tourists to finish their orders before he could talk to the employees. After introducing himself, Daniel showed them a picture of Samantha during her time at the bank that Brisecoeur had pulled from somewhere online.

They did not recognize her. They were not even apologetic about it: employee turnaround was high, and shifts changed constantly. Identifying employees that would have been present at the times where Samantha came to the shop was possible but required going to management.

Putting this on the list of things to do that might require Brisecoeur’s help, he looked for Cindy, and saw her taking to two young men—boys, really—sitting in a corner booth. She nodded to Daniel.

“Dan,” she said. “Here’s Tim and Guapo. They may be able to help us.” The boy named Tim was looking down at his large cold coffee, while the boy named Guapo, who looked older, stared Daniel straight in the eyes, a smile on his lips.

Daniel pulled out his phone, showed them Samantha’s picture. “Do you remember seeing this woman here? She used to come regularly until about six months ago.”

The boys looked at the picture, and then exchanged a glance. Tim blushed, while Guapo smile’s widened.

“Look, Tim, it’s your girlfriend!”

“Shut up,” mumbled Tim.

Guapo turned to Daniel. “Tim here got a crush on the puta.”

“Well, she’s cute, and sweet…” Tim hesitated, made a face.

“Was cute, was sweet…” Guapo corrected, laughing.

“She changed, didn’t she?” Daniel asked, prodding the two boys, just enough to let them know that he knew something.

The boy named Tim blushed harder. Guapo laughed. “No shit she did! She’s always had that smoking hot body, but she usually kept it pretty well hidden—you know, ugly sweater, pants—but then one day she starts really showing off, man—nice long legs, tight ass, firm titties. All on display, all on show. Tim here was going nuts, right, cabron?”

Guapo continued. “The little cocktease started coming on to us, too. Us and everyone else that looked at her for more than a few seconds, and let me tell you, there were a lot of men that looked at her for more than a few seconds. She gave even your legs a run for their money, chica,” he added in Cindy’s direction, his eyes running over Cindy’s legs without any attempt to hide it. “And she had the hots for Tim, too. Come on, cabron, don’t deny it—she pretty clearly noticed that you were staring at her every time she turned her back to you. and she couldn’t have missed your hard-on when she sat on your lap that one time, you dog!”

Tim stammered something, refusing to look up. He muttered, “I wanted to ask her to a movie or something, but she never came back.”

“Little Tim here wanted to court her all proper,” Guapo clarified with a huge grin. “I kept telling him that a puta like that, no need to wine and dine her—you just run a hand between her legs and poof, they open up like a flower.” He made a gesture with his hands. “You know exactly what I mean, don’t you, chica?” He leered at Cindy, who to Daniel’s amazement, blushed.

Tim grunted. “Come on, man!”

“Oh please. The puta wanted it, and wanted it bad. The only reason why I didn’t drag her out back and fuck her tight little asshole is because you liked her and bros before hoes, cabron!”

Guapo turned to look at Cindy once more, his smile turning into a smirk. “I should drag you out back and fuck your ass, chica. You look like you’re a fun ride.”

As Cindy giggled—giggled!—Daniel fought back a surge of anger, and redirected the conversation. “Did either of you see her hang out with anyone here, say, right before she changed?”

“Well, she’d often hang out with this other chick from the bank—okay looking, but not as hot. A bit chunky.”

“Any man?”

“No. I mean, guys tried to hit on her all the time—hot little ass like that—but she turned them all down.”

Tim made a noise. Daniel turned to him. “Sometimes she would talk to one of them a bit longer,” Tim said. “Rare, but it happened.”

“Was one of those times around the time when she changed?”

Tim actually stopped to think. “there was this one guy, she sat down with him for a long time. Then they left together.”

“Was it her fiancée?” Daniel showed him another picture that Brisecoeur had send him, of Samantha Royston’s fiancé.

“No. This guy was… older. Dark hair. Really intense.”

“When was that?”

Tim looked at his friend. “Remember when you went out to San Fran to hook up with that girl?”

“Oh yeah. Tina. Hot perra that one.” He looked back at Cindy, giving her another blatant once-over. “She was crazy for gangbangs—loved to get a bunch of men to cream all over her while she frigged herself off.” His look suggested he would not be adverse to seeing Cindy in that situation.

“That was it. You were gone that day.”

“Do you remember when it was?”

“September 24th.”

Daniel nodded, and stepped away. He glanced at Cindy, but she was looking at Guapo, who made a gesture for her to turn around in place, and to Daniel’s continue amazement, she did, with a smile on her face. She seemed drawn to Guapo, who returned her attention in spades.

“J’écoute,” Brisecoeur said when he picked up the phone once Daniel dialed in.

“How fast can we do an image search?”

“Depends what sort of image you’re looking for, and where they’re stored.”

“I don’t know, actually.”

“Je vois. I will need a bit more than that.”

“Fine. I think I’ve narrowed down where the possible Special was during a time window. A coffee shop, only one entrance.” He stepped outside, confirming what he had seen earlier. “There’s a security camera pointing at the door, and I’m hoping that you can access the recording and isolate a picture of the guy.”

Brisecoeur whistled. “You’ve been watching too much CSI, mon ami. You know the odds on something like that actually working?”

“Astronomical?”

There was a pause. “Yes. Pretty much.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to try?”

“Are you kidding me? Sounds like fun. What’s the address of the coffee shop.”

Daniel gave it to him. “Might take a while,” Brisecoeur responded. “Do you have any… constraints, something distinctive about the guy?”

Daniel walked back inside. Cindy was still talking to the men. She was sitting on Guapo’s lap, and had an iced coffee in front of her as big as her head.

“Quick question,” he asked Tim, focusing on the task at hand. What was she doing anyway? “The man you saw talking to Samantha, any distinguishing feature?”

Tim thought back. “He had a bandage around his head. Like a headband. Like he had been hurt.”

Daniel conveyed the information to Brisecoeur.

He looked at Cindy, who was laughing with the Guapo, who was running his hand up her thigh. He gave Daniel a glance and smiled thinly as his hand squeezed her thigh. Daniel held the man’s gaze for a few seconds. Then he stepped outside once more. Cindy could take care of herself. It’s all out of my hands.

To his surprise, Brisecoeur came back to him within five minutes. “Well, you are one lucky bâtard,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “There’s indeed a photo of a man coming out of that coffee shop with something that looks like a headband around his head. I’m sending you the best two pictures I could extract. They’re not great though—can’t do facial recognition, too fuzzy. You think that’s the freak?”

“I think it’s our best lead until now. Thanks.”

Daniel went back inside. He showed the pictures to the Tim, who confirmed that it was the man he had seen talking to Samantha Royston. Daniel thanked him, then turned to Cindy, who stood after pulling out Guapo’s hand from underneath her skirt where it had wandered.

Guapo grinned. He grabbed a napkin off the table and wrote down a number on it. “Call me,” he said simply as he handed the napkin to Cindy. “I know what you want.”

Daniel kept his mouth shut as they left the coffee shop. Inside, he was fuming, and the extent of his anger surprising him. Cindy looked at him with a smile as she tossed the napkin in the nearest garbage can. “You okay?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Come on, spill.”

“Not now,” he said. He needed time to digest this.

Cindy smiled, and poked him on the shoulder.

Back in the car, Daniel hesitated before starting. Let it go. She’s doing her thing. You know her. You know what she likes. You know what she wants. He forced his anger down, and it went, easier than he had expected, only to be replaced by the gray numbness that he had grown used to. It’s all out of my hands anyway.

Cindy was looking at him with a frown on her face.

He ignored it. “Okay, so here’s what we know. Our victim Samantha Royston meets with a man that we presume as the Special at this coffee shop—according to Tim, they did not come in together, did not seem to know each other. Time-wise, she’s our first victim.”

“Of those we know.”

“Of those we know. Our second victim is Christina Vanni. We do not know where the initial contact happened.”

“But that park that she described seems a logical possibility.”

“Our third victim is Rebecca McGregor, at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. The odd thing is that she’s the first of the victims to come down with what Brisecoeur calls the Freak plague, and much faster than anyone else ever has, at least according to him.”

“I'm really curious about that Freak plague, by the way. But how do we know she’s the third victim?” Cindy asked. “I mean, maybe she was exposed first, and she only collapsed now.”

“Except that there are no reports that she was acting weird. At least, none that Brisecoeur could find.”

“Maybe she kept it hidden?”

“If the first two victims are any indication, she would not have been able to.”

“The second victim seems less… broken than the first. Maybe he’s calming down with each encounter.”

“Maybe. Still, something weird about the third victim.” Something was in the back of his mind. “Something else. About where she was found.” He pulled up the information he had on his phone. “A diner, actually, on Ventura Boulevard. Pretty out of the way from where she lived, and not in a great part of town. Wife of a CEO. What was she doing there?”

“You think she was meeting someone?”

“What if she was meeting him?”

“Oh, that’d be twisted!” She said it with not a little bit of sexy glee. “Can you imagine, going to meet a Special knowing what he can do?” The way she said it made Daniel pause. There seemed to be almost an eagerness to her voice.

“Maybe she didn’t know.”

“Or she did,” she said with a grin. “You know, some girls like to give up any sort of control and let their man just manhandle them and use them however they see fit. Just sayin’.” She squirmed in her seat, a look of barely contained hunger on her face.

“So I’ve been told,” Daniel said, looking at her. That Cindy was exactly that sort of girl, that there was little that she enjoyed more than giving up control to a man—the right man, she always hastened to point out—was something he had discovered early. Where it came from, he did not know. How to deal with it, he knew even less.

It went a long way too to explain her behavior at the coffee shop with Guapo, who seemed like the dominant type.

“So how do we figure out if she knew the guy?” Cindy asked.

“We go see the husband, obviously.”



*



“Nice place,” Cindy said, looking at the mansion tucked away in short dead-end street.

“A bit… ostentatious, no?” Daniel said.

“You’re just jealous.”

“Not really. It’s big, it’s ugly, it’s cold. It can’t be a pleasant place to live.”

“So you think the husband will tell you what you want?” Cindy said as she exited the car.

“Probably not. But he didn’t strike me as the kind of man that can control himself. So if he knows the guy in the picture, his face will tells us. And that’s going to be confirmation enough for me.”

“I thought Super Cop was supposed to take care of the husband and McGregor.” Super Cop was Agent Shawbank. They still used their code, even though Daniel was certain that ADCorp knew they were working together.

“If this is the only way to catch the guy, I’ll risk it.”

They made their way through the long straight path to the front door, and pressed the ringer. A variant of the Big Ben chimes echoed through the house.

There was no answer.

A second ring achieved no better.

Daniel turned around, taking in the view from the front door.

“Do we break in now?” Cindy, again, had a tinge of mockery in her voice. She had suggested that course of action earlier.

“No.” He nodded toward a house next to the McGregor residence. A curtain was still moving. “We go ask them questions.”

Five minutes later, they were knocking on the door of the smaller mansion. It was still large a house, with two floors and a balcony sitting atop the front porch. Flowers lined the house, indicating an eye toward decor, unlike at the McGregors.

Daniel knocked far longer than decorum allowed, and Cindy was starting to look at him weirdly until finally the bolt on the door pulled and the door opened partly.

“For God’s sake, can’t you take a hint? Whatever you’re peddling, I’m not interested.” The voice was male, old, and scratchy.

“We’re not selling anything, sir. We’re investigators, and we have a few questions about the McGregors.”

The old man snorted. “Fucking maggots,” he said. Whether he meant the McGregors or themselves, Daniel was not sure.

Cindy looked at Daniel, and then made a gesture that said let me handle it. She moved next to him. “Sir?” she said, in her best melodious voice. “We only have a few questions. It won’t take much of your time. We’d be sooo grateful.”

Daniel wanted to shake his head. He had seen Cindy pull off that trick back at Darnell so often. Even though she was generally among the top three smartest persons in any room, she had always played the blonde bimbo—she was blonde then—in order to appear less threatening, or so she claimed. She had practice.

The old man in the door shut up and looked her up and down, spending way too much time on her shamelessly exposed legs. Cindy made no move to cover up, and even subtly changed her posture.

Daniel remained silent.

The old man grunted again, then closed the door before pulling the chain. When he opened the door, his eyes were back on Cindy who was smiling broadly. “Fine,” he grunted again. “A few minutes. Then you scram.” That one he directed at Daniel.

“Of course,” Daniel said.

“Oh thank you!” Cindy practically squealed.

The old man let them inside, and his eyes never left the young woman. Daniel was torn between shaking his head and punching the man.

The old man, who looked like he was in his seventies, was short, and his diminutive presence was emphasized by an arch in his back. He was dressed almost elegantly, but his shirt had been washed too often and had lost much of its original color. His hair was white and so thin that it felt as though it would fly away like dandelion seeds if one were to blow on it.

He directed them to the living room, which was beautifully arranged, and Cindy sat and crossed her legs and the old man almost lost his footing on the thick carpeting.

When he had recovered, he grunted again before dropping down in a chair in front of the couch. His eyes never left Cindy’s thighs, who made absolutely no attempt at covering them, even if she could given the dress she wore.

“So what did the asshole do?” asked the old man.

“He’s embroiled in a suspicious story.” Daniel said. He played a hunch. “It’s a sordid and immoral affair, I fear. What can you tell us about him and his wife?”

The old man’s eyes lit up at Daniel’s words, and he managed to pull his eyes away from Cindy to look at Daniel in the eyes. “She’s a whore. A filthy whore. And he’s an asshole. Everybody knows she’s with him only for his money and the life he can give her, and in return she’s a good little trophy wife. But he treats her like shit, and then he’s surprised when she steps out on him. She’s a whore, he’s an asshole! They deserve each other.” He was nearly spitting throughout his soliloquy.

“So she was seeing another man?” Daniel asked. “What can you tell us about him?”

The old man paused and eyed Daniel suspiciously. “Maybe I said too much already. Who are you folks anyway? You don’t look like cops or government, but these days, you can never tell.” He gave Cindy a look at that, his eyes straying down to her legs.

Daniel was about to respond when he caught Cindy’s eyes. She was looking at him and then off to the hallway, then back at him, then back to the hallway. She could not have been clearer had she yelled what she wanted him to do. Astonishingly, the old man did not notice.

“Well,” Daniel said, standing up. “Thank you for your help, sir. We won’t bother you any longer. Before I go, mind if I use the restroom?”

The old man gave him another suspicious glance, as if he feared Daniel would snoop around or be up for some other despicable behavior, but then his eyes were once more pulled toward Cindy who had moved on her chair and was uncrossing and recrossing her legs and smiling a broad smile befitting the airhead she was playing.

“Sure,” the old man grunted. “Hall, first door on the right.”

Daniel was not sure he wanted to know what exactly Cindy had in mind, but he could guess. She definitely was having way too much fun on this outing, despite the seriousness of what they were doing. It’s all out of my hands.

Pictures lined the walls of the hallway, beautifully framed and even to Daniel’s untrained looked to be of high quality. Shot in black and white, they represented deserts scenes, and people. In many of them were of a couple, young adults, the man bearing a resemblance to the old man. These were too recent to be pictures of the old man himself. A son, or a nephew, probably. And probably living in this house. Several of the shots were of the woman in the couple, young and good looking, and shot to highlight her best features, pictures taken by someone that appreciated her beauty, that much was clear.

Daniel wandered around the house a little, ending up in the kitchen, and wondered how long he needed to give Cindy. There were no sounds from the rest of the house. Pulling out his phone he checked to see if there were any messages from Brisecoeur or from Shawbank. Nothing. He sent a message to Shawbank asking her, next time she spoke to James McGregor, to check if he knew of any infidelity on the part of his wife.

After fifteen minutes, his phone buzzed with an empty text from Cindy.

When he made it back to the living room, Cindy was standing, looking like nothing was amiss. She was still smiling, but now she looked like the proverbial cat that had swallowed a canary and had enjoyed every single second of it. The old man was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's...?"

“Charles? He's coming right back. He's getting something for us.” Charles? Munch munch went the cat.

Charles returned, and handed over a small thumb drive to Cindy, who thanked him and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Charlie,” she said in her softest voice. “You’re the best.” The old man blushed bright red and could not meet their eyes. Daniel wondered exactly what had Cindy done that had required the old man—Charles—to go and change his trousers while getting that thumb drive.

There was an awkward silence. "Well," Daniel said, and he looked askance at Cindy to confirm his words. "I guess we're all done here. Thank you for your help, and sorry to bother you."

Daniel waited until they were back in the car to ask any question, and even then, he did not know what to ask. Cindy looked at him curiously before answering one of his unasked question.

“You were right. The guy on the photo, from the coffee shop, looks just like a guy that used to come by often, and always when Rebecca’s husband was away. They tried to keep it pretty hush hush, but Charles has an eagle eye. He’s an amateur photographer and videographer, you know?”

“Let me guess,” Daniel said, remembering the pictures he had seen at the house. “He has copious pictures of Rebecca?” The way the houses were set up, he probably had a good view into her backyard.

Cindy grinned. “Oh yes. Pictures, and movies. He seemed quite taken with young Rebecca. She had this bad habit of sunbathing topless, Charles said. So Rebecca and this man got in on for a bit, until last summer.”

“What happened last summer?”

“She changed. She turned, as Charles put it, into the perfect little housewife. She had always been on her best behavior when James McGregor was around, of course, but she was a lot more casual and even sometimes a little wild when he wasn’t. But that changed. From one day to the next, she always wore elegant dresses, perfect hair and makeup, heels around the house, whether her husband was around or not. And she was super dedicated to him, too. From what Charles could hear at night sometimes, she became much more vocal in the bedroom, with her husband. Like, really vocal. Fuck-me-like-a-bitch-in-heat vocal. Charles was disappointed at first because she had stopped sunbathing topless, but then it turns out that James McGregor really liked his wife stripping for him in the backyard. Frank’s got video.” Cindy’s smile broadened, and she handed over the thumb drive. “There are also shots of the boyfriend on there.”

“What happened to him?”

“That’s the weird thing. Last summer, the guy shows up at the house, which Charles thinks is weird because James McGregor is there as well, and up until then the illicit lovers had been able to keep their forbidden lust secret.”

“Illicit lovers? Forbidden lust? What have you been reading?”

“Shush. Anyway, the guy arrives, goes in, and then a bit later, an hour or so, a black minivan shows up at the house, and people come out with a large chest that they put behind the minivan which scatters away. Frank hasn’t seen the guy since. He also got that on video.”

“Wait—was that around the time when Rebecca McGregor changed?”

“Very good, Agent Malcolm. Yes. Pretty much around the same time..”

Daniel turned, his eyes staring into space. He tapped the steering wheel with his palms, thinking. “So assuming that the guy, Rebecca’s illicit lover, is indeed our suspect, our Special, then he knew her from before. She predates all the other victims. And indeed, at some point, she changes.”

“One hypothesis: he did something to her.”

“Except this feels… different. Think about it. The others, the Special broke up their relationships. Turned them into nymphomaniacs. Here, it’s the opposite. Rebecca turned to her husband, became, as you say, a good little housewife.”

“Second hypothesis, then: the husband did something to her. Maybe he’s the Special?”

“Why would he do that to the other women, though? And that doesn’t explain why the guy was at the coffee shop talking to Samantha before she turned into a nympho...”

“Into a slut,” finished Cindy, relishing the word on her tongue.

“Right. So my money’s on Coffee Shop Guy being the Special. And then there’s the tattoo that Rebecca had on her hip, similar to the one the Nymph”—Calypso—“has on her finger, similar to the one that my HR contact Elizabeth has on her finger. Too many similar tattoos. And there’s the way my colleague reacted when she heard about the tattoo. No, something’s going on, but that part I don’t think is related to the Special.”

“So you think Rebecca McGregor is being controlled, but not affected by the Special. Controlled like the Nymph.”

“Maybe. And then this guy discovers that Rebecca had been changed. And he tries to do something about it. But he fails. And then…”

“He gets mad, takes revenge on people around him…”

“People in seemingly happy relationships…”

“And then eventually he confronts Rebecca…”

“And things go south…”

“Why? What happened?”

“I don’t know but I have an idea. First, I need to send the videos to Brisecoeur, see if he can use them to identify our suspect.” Daniel paused, looked at Cindy. “What?”

“You’re just so fucking sexy when you’re all smart and stuff.”

Daniel’s mouth opened and then closed. He tried again. “What’s with you today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. What did you do to Charles anyway, to get him to spill all that stuff out?”

“Oh, Charlie’s a sweetheart. He’s all gruff and stuff, but deep inside, he’s lonely. And he’s so in love with his daughter-in-law that it’s driving him crazy. So I helped him a bit. He liked my legs, so I let him touch them. I may have given him a peek at my panties, too—you see this dress, it’s so hard to remain proper with it.”

Cindy was grinning as she laid back in the seat and spread her legs, revealing a pair of skimpy white underwear that left little to the imagination. “And then I noticed that Charlie was getting all red in the face and that he was staring at my chest, so I may have opened up my dress and let him stare at my tits all her wanted while he caressed my legs. And then I may have let him take pictures of my tits before he pawed them like stress balls, and I may just have make him come in his pants when I pressed my hand between his legs.”

Daniel’s throat was dry. He did not know what to do, and whether he would be expected to go and punch the dirty old man.

“You… may have…?”

Cindy studied him in silence, a little smile on her face.

It’s all out of my control.

Daniel sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Cin?”

“Oh, I have a few ideas.”



*



Doug Fairbank was nervous. He probably had reasons to be. Rebecca might show up, she might not. Her bastard husband might be with her, keeping her from leaving. Hell, he may even come in with her. Or he might show up alone. Everything was possible.

Doug was not worried about the husband showing up. He patted his pocket. He had something to deal with that eventuality. The bastard had it coming anyway, after what he did to him. Fuck, Doug might go after him even if he did not show up here with her. Doug might go and find him and punish him. Punish him beyond taking his wife away from him, that was.

No, he was nervous because he had no idea what to expect from Rebecca. He needed to talk to her, needed to know what she would say, how she would explain what she had done.

Eight months ago, at her request, he went to visit her at her house, the way they sometimes did it, because it was nicer than meeting up at some anonymous hotel. As usual, he had wondered whether that was the day that she would tell him that she was leaving her husband to be with him.

But no. She was waiting for him in this perfect light purple corset that hugged her body tight, and she seduced him, and then her husband James stepped out of the shadows and started beating him up within an inch of his life, and then proceeded to fuck his wife on top of him. Rebecca was moaning in pleasure as Doug lay beneath her, in agony.

How could she betray him like that?

The waitress dropped by to ask Doug if he was interested in more tea, and he nodded. She was okay, not pretty, not ugly, average really, with a nice enough smile to guarantee herself decent tips. He saw the ring on her finger, simple but meaningful.

She saw what he was looking at, and grinned. “Just married,” she said. “Best day of my life.” Her eyes lit up as she spoke, and Doug felt the stirring of anger in his stomach. He swallowed it down, forcing himself to remain calm. It would not do to lose control now.

After all, he was meeting the love of his life, his true love, his soul mate, and soon he would have no real reason to be angry at other people's happiness, would he?

—What if she dumps you?—

It was that nagging voice again, that nagging voice that spoke to him more and more, told him to unleash his anger, get his revenge. Punish that bitch, it said, punish that little bitch for being happy, punish her to show her that all women are whores who sell themselves to the highest bidder.

It was the same voice that egged him to go and find James McGregor and pop his stupid ass for what he did to him, and then punish Rebecca.

—Shoot the bastard in the balls, just to see his stupid fuck face as he loses his precious dick. Then pop a round in his fat stomach. Then turn the cunt into a cum-guzzling retard, only happy when she’s drenched in jism—

But he disregarded the voice, managed to quell the cold rage, and let the gentle waitress go without touching her, without turning her into a bimbo airhead that offered her body to customers as appetizer or dessert.

It took so much effort to resist those impulses which were getting stronger and stronger that he almost missed Rebecca when she came in.

She stayed by the door, looking around, looking for him, as beautiful as ever. She had changed her hair, both style and color. She was now blonde, and her once dark brown curls were straight and golden.

He remembered her joking that James would prefer her so much better if she were blonde.

Rebecca had seen him, and was walking toward him. She wore an elegant dress, tight around her body, dark hose and black high-heeled boots. She looked high class. It was another bad sign. She used to wear casual clothes whenever they would meet—she was more comfortable, more herself, she would say, and the more comfortable and herself she felt, the happier she was.

Today, she looked the part of the trophy wife to a tee. And men in the diner noticed, for she looked good, better than everyone else in the area. She had that untouchable aura, that slightly arrogant bearing that seemed to entice and titillate a certain section of the male community.

She was beautiful, unattainable, untouchable.

She sat down in the booth in front of him. She looked at him oddly for a moment, and Doug tried hard to read something in her eyes, to get a sense of how she felt, a sense of the Rebecca he knew, the Rebecca that sometimes would spend an entire date speaking with a British accent just because, the Rebecca that enjoyed sitting on the couch and catching up on the latest television series with fresh popcorn and a tall glass of wine. The Rebecca that liked to laugh and be ridiculous, the Rebecca with whom he had fallen in love over the past year, the Rebecca that he was sure had been in love with him back.

“Doug?” she said, midway between a question and an affirmation.

“Hi Beck.” He used her favorite nickname, the one she had when she was growing up, a single girl with four brothers. “You look good.”

She smiled, but it was a polite smile, he could tell. “Thank you. Doug, why did you call me?”

He had not expected that question. “What do you mean, why?”

“It’s over, Doug. You and I, it was a mistake. It took me away from my darling James. I almost lost him because of it. I won't risk it again. Don't call me anymore.”

Things were happening too fast for Doug to react appropriately. He had not expected her to say any of that. She was treating him like she had never felt anything for him, and that more than anything else hurt like mad.

The betrayal he had felt when she let him get beaten up by her husband had hurt, but part of him was holding on to a hope that she had had no choice, that McGregor had forced her to act that way, had forced her to bait him. But now, now that she was alone with him and McGregor was nowhere around, she rejected him still, and that betrayal dove right down to his heart.

As he sat back, shocked, Rebecca rose and turned.

“Beck, please, wait!”

“Can I get you something, hun?” The waitress appeared by their booth, preventing him from reaching out and grabbing Rebecca, to ask her exactly what was going on.

“Beck!” he shouted after her.

“Sir, what do you—“

The waitress was in the way. She was between him and Rebecca, who was leaving. Men were staring at her, at her legs, at her ass. She did not want to see him any longer.

—The bitch! The backstabbing bitch!—

“Get out of the way!” He growled at the waitress, who just stood there—dumbly, he thought, didn't she know this was important? Cold rage welled up within him. Rebecca was getting away, and this stupid bimbo was in his way.

He grabbed her shoulder. He did not think, merely reacted, merely felt. The spark of energy that he had come to know so well, that spark of energy he had discovered once he had woken up in that hospital, more dead than alive, after James McGregor had beaten him within an inch of his life before fucking Rebecca right on top of him, jumped from the palm of his hand to the waitress’s shoulder.

And with it came the clarity, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision. His cold rage made him so clear headed it was almost a high. He felt through the connection with the waitress the love she felt for her new husband, could almost picture it in his mind. And the warmth, and the giddiness, and the sheer happiness reinforcing how wretched he felt, how everything was spinning out of control, and that cold fury inside him, that systematic rage at the happiness of others overran everything.

He did not even have to think it, did not even verbalize any of it. Through his touch it went, searing itself into the waitress's brain—he did not even know her name, did not care, for she was merely in the way, not only an obstacle but a reminder of what had been denied him, what was still being denied.

In the flash of an instant, his commands had imprinted themselves in her mind. He could almost hear the rewiring, the fire burning through her brain. The order for her to leave everything behind, to drop her life and hitch her way to Mexico, somehow—Tijuana, or somewhere like that, convenient, populated—and start fucking around, selling herself off to a brothel, and having no limit whatsoever about what she might be made to do.

The image of famed and possibly mythical donkey shows flashed through his head, and he knew that it flashed through the waitress's head as well, and she would hunt it down, he knew, and it would be a small price to pay for what she was doing, being in the way of his love.

That she would send pictures—taken by her johns, pictures they themselves could keep as souvenirs—to her husband at regular intervals was merely an extra, a general lesson to be driven into the mind of every man that love hurts. Why should he be the only one to suffer that lesson?

All of this took no longer than twenty seconds, and Doug left the waitress there to contemplate the next phase of her life as a Mexican whore to run after Rebecca who had made it outside by then.

“Becky, please, wait!” he shouted after her. She was already outside, heading out to her car, her heels clacking on the asphalt, those heels that she told him she hated wearing unless she had to, which was when she was with her hated husband.

She ignored him as she approached her car. The parking lot was nearly empty, the diner not being very frequented during the day between lunch and dinner. One of the reasons he had asked her to meet him then.

“We have nothing else to say to each other, Doug,” she said without turning around. “If you try to see me again, I'll call the police.” She sounded like she was talking to a petulant child, with patient tolerance.

“Beck, what did he do to you?”

“Who?”

“Him. Your husband.” He could not bear to say his name. He almost called him the Bore, the nickname they had for him, but that might antagonize her, and he had too much control still. Though the voice in the back of his head kept sneering.

—The bitch is playing you. She’s played you since the beginning, you schmuck—

“He’s done nothing to me,” she said, finally turning toward Doug. “He’s my husband, and I love him. I owe him my devotion and my whole self.”

“But you said... we... what about our plans?” Doug hated how he sounded, like he was begging, like he was whining. He did not know what else to do.

—Bullshit! You know exactly what to do—

Rebecca looked at him, her head tilted, as if she was considering something. Was she remembering? Was she remembering the times they had been together, the plans they had made to run away together, to ditch their sad lives and go south and live on a beach somewhere away from the cesspool of the rat races?

“Doug,” she said, “I don't ever want to see you again.”

Her tone of voice was cold, dismissive, unemotional, as if she was merely swatting away a fly that was buzzing around her head.

—The bitch!—

—The stupid fucking bitch!—

Before he had time to think, his hand was reaching out. Rebecca was about to open the door to her car, and he grabbed her arm, and the contact sparked the way he knew it would.

Cold rage bubbled inside him, returning his clarity, his focus. Strength, control, and power.

Rebecca froze.

It was organic. He felt his emotion washing over her. She closed her eyes. How close were love and hate, how quickly one went from one to the other. He loved her, had loved her like he had never loved anyone before, and now he wanted to see her on her knees, begging him to take her back, ready to do anything, be anything.

—LOVE ME!—

Whether Rebecca's widening eyes had anything to do with the ferocity of his emotional shout he could not tell, but react she did, if not to his unspoken words then to whatever it was that his touch was doing, had been doing ever since that day at the hospital when he woke up a broken man that by all accounts she be dead.

“My love,” Rebecca said, her voice trembling, her eyes wide, unable to contain all their emotion.

She pulled up to him and kissed him, a hungry and demanding kiss. And Doug's anger almost abated at feeling her in his arms again, feeling her embrace, her lips on his. They had had so many times together, meeting surreptitiously in the daytime between various perfectly valid trophy-wife activities, sneaking away to some motel somewhere, or a small bed and breakfast in the mountains.

It was all possible again. Because she would leave her husband now

—she had no choice—

to be with him, to spend the rest of his life with him, loving him

—worshipping him—

The thought had not even finished rippling through his mind, still tinged with the anger still bubbling beneath the surface, that Rebecca kissed the side of his neck and ran her hand in the front of his slacks and before he could do anything dropped to her knees in front of him.

“Beck?”

“I need your cock.” Her voice was coated with need and lust and Doug was torn.

—Let the bitch show you how sorry she is—

“Come on,” he said, trying to pull her up. “Let’s do this somewhere nice.”

“Please, baby,” she moaned, looking up at him, her eyes teary, her hand pressing against his crotch and the hardening cock underneath. “Let me show you how much I love you—how much I need you. Please baby, Let me be your little slut””

His hand clenched in her hair, his arousal spiked. Her words tore through him. He loved her, wanted to take her away from all of this.

—But she is a slut. She fucked her husband over your bleeding body, and she enjoyed it, enjoyed your suffering—

He shook his head, trying to regain some sense of control.

Rebecca in the meantime had unzipped his slacks and was reaching inside to touch his rabid cock which reacted by reaching out on its own, and his own hands were pulling Rebecca's head toward it and soon her lips were wrapped around the tip and she was swirling her tongue around and he was moaning and clutching her.

—Make the bitch gag!—

“Please baby,” she said, her lips wet with her saliva, her eyes begging. “Please fuck my little slut mouth—use me, use me like a thing, a whore. Use me like I know you want to.”

He did. Lord help him, he did.

—Fuck the bitch—

She was perfect like that on her knees, in her elegant dress that was getting ruined as knelt on the rough pavement, looking up at him.

—Like a good whore should, looking up to her john, getting ready to do whatever the fuck he wants no matter how depraved because HE’s the boss—

He closed his eyes and Rebecca sucked him inside once more, and there was no subtlety in her movements as she took him in as deep as she could, which was a good two thirds of his cock before he hit the back of her mouth in such a way as to make her retch, but she did not pull him out of her mouth, merely kept slamming it in and making those noises that made his heart ache and his cock throb.

He finally grabbed her head and pushed her away, and she gasped with her mouth wide open, her eyes desperate, hungry, insane. “Get in the car," he growled.

—Fuck the bitch. Fuck her up good. Fucking two-timing opportunistic cunt!—

Rebecca scrambled to open the back door of the car and climbed inside, on all four, even as she flipped her dress over her perfect ass, exposing the flimsiest pair of panties Doug had ever seen in real life. It did not cover anything, merely framed what she had to offer.

“Fuck me, baby,” she moaned, swaying her ass back and forth to entice him. One her hands slipped between her legs, hooked a finger into the gusset of her panties to pull them aside. “See how wet you make me?”

But Doug was distracted. She was shaved, completely. Rebecca always kept a slim trimmed line around her pussy—she thought the bare skin look repulsive, reminding her of prepubescence.

And then there was the thin golden chain that hung down from a small ring attached to her clitoris.

In a daze, he reached with a hand, and fingered the chain. Rebecca moaned, and misunderstood his attention. “You like it, baby? It makes me so wet, always touching me and irritating my little clit, I can't not think about it, ever. I’m wet all the time now. Like a good little slut.”

And wet she was, Doug saw. She was practically dripping. Did she do that for her husband? Did she shave and get pierced for her husband, that husband that she was about to leave to be with him?

—That bastard that kicked the shit of you while the bitch laughed?—

Ice was running through his vein.

—Hurt the bitch—

Without thinking, he slapped one of her exposed cheeks, the sound resonating in the confine of the car. It was a hard slap, and Rebecca yelped in response, and Doug also felt that current run down his arm and jump out.

Rebecca moaned, and tilted forward on the backseat while raising her ass up. “Oh yes,” she growled this time. “Spank my ass, baby. Spank it hard. I'm just a little slut, just a little cunt that doesn't know how to keep her legs closed.” She was saying exactly what the voice in Doug's head was saying, and rather than unnerve him, it merely confirmed his views. He slapped her again, harder, then again, and again.

And Rebecca moaned and spread her legs further and juices were starting to drip down the inside of her thighs, and the chain dangling from her cunt was swaying back and forth with each stroke, and it angered Doug further.

“Hurt me, baby,” Rebecca was saying. Her right ass cheek was a bright red now, but she did not try to move away from his hits. “Hurt me bad, punish me, make me pay. I've been such a slut. Do what you want with me, anything. I'm your cunt, your thing, your toy. AH!”

She shouted when Doug shoved three fingers into her pussy from behind, and then immediately started thrusting back against his hand, in time with his aggressive back and forth.

“Feels so good, baby, feels so fucking good. Tear me up, baby, tear me up! Fuck yes!”

She looked at him over her shoulder, and her eyes held such subservience that despite himself he felt a pang of something that could have been guilt. But then his fingers brushed against the chain, and the image of James McGregor forcing her to get a piercing in that most intimate of places just stoked his cold fury.

—Stupid cunt, stupid filthy cunt—

He stood and taking a quick look around—there was no one—he slipped his cock between her legs and Rebecca moaned louder and thrust her ass up. "Oh yes, baby. Fuck me with that big cock."

Taking a hold of her hips, he plunged into her without warning, balls deep, and the feel of her familiar tightness was both comforting and infuriating. It was the Becky he knew, and yet at the same time she mewled unlike she had ever done before.

"Fuck yeah," she wailed, as Doug's cock pulled out and pushed back in, his fingers digging into her skin, probably bruising it. He did not care.

—Mark the bitch. She’s yours to do with as you please. She’s nothing but a toy—

He fucked her hard and fast, and Becky took everything he had to offer and more. He was like a crazed man, although his composure remained cold and calm, as it did whenever his cold fury took over.

He kept eyeing Rebecca's asshole, winking in and out as she pushed her ass back in time with his thrusts.

—Warm and tight—

As if to prove his point, he ran a thumb in the juices that were dripping down her thighs and then pressed it into her asshole. A small part of him expected her to protest, but she did not. In fact, she merely opened herself up further, and tilted her ass up to offer him better access. This tightened up her pussy, which felt wonderful on his cock.

“Fuck my ass, baby! Shove your thick cock in my little ass and destroy it. It's yours, baby, it's all yours. I'm your little bitch—fuck your little bitch, baby, fuck her ass good!"

The pressure of her sphincter on his thumb made his head swim, and he wondered what it would feel like if it were his cock in there.

—Go! Pound her asshole raw and make her feel every inch of it—

And then he wondered whether she had ever had anal sex. She had told him she never had, and never would no matter how much her husband begged, but now who knew? Maybe her husband had sampled that forbidden charm. The thought made him cringe. He pressed his thumb into her in time with his cock.

Rebecca shuddered. And kept shuddering. Her moans were becoming incoherent, her movement chaotic.

—The bitch is coming. She's getting plowed from behind with a thumb up her ass and she's coming like a sex-starved slut—

He wanted to feel her thrash in orgasm around his cock while it was up into her ass, figuring that the vibrations and the squeezing would be out of this world--the girls he had taken that way in the past weeks had certainly given him some of the best sexual experiences of his life.

But before he could pull out and shove his cock into her ass and claim her as his, Rebecca came. Or at least, that was what Doug thought at first. She let out a wail that was half pleasure and half pain, and then she seized, stiffening in a way that almost choke his cock off.

She collapsed in the seat, shaking slightly, and then the shaking got worse, and she started convulsing, and unintelligible sounds were coming out of her mouth followed by a thick drool that pool on the leather seats.

In shock, Doug pulled out of her and try to hold her but her convulsions became worse and she was threatening to bash her own head against the front seats and Doug tried to hold her down and then in one final seizure that made her bite down on her own tongue she collapsed for a final time, her eyes and mouth open, her body limp, unresponsive.

Doug panicked. “Beck? Beck? BECK?”

—You fucked the bitch to death!—

“No, no, no, no…”

He tried to find a pulse, could not, realized he did not really know where or how to look for one, and then he looked up again, saw no one. He closed the door to the car, and ran to his. He pulled out his phone, called 911, reported seeing a woman having a seizure in a car in the parking lot of the diner on Ventura Boulevard, then drove off to park in the distance where he could see the police and ambulance arrive five minutes later.

He was grasping the steering wheel so hard it hurt.

What had he done?