Damnable
CHAPTER 11
“IF YOU’LL ONLY RELAX, COMPOSE YOURSELF A BIT, YOU might just survive this. I have to say, you’re one of the lucky ones.”
Valentine wasn’t certain she’d heard him. Or if she had, whether it had registered. She was strapped facedown on the bed, limbs spread-eagle. A custom-made tilt cushion was wedged under her hips, pushing her ass up and out, presenting her. She was more cute than pretty, a strawberry blonde with freckles across her nose and cheeks. Loose, pale breasts pressed against the mattress beneath a set of lungs that wouldn’t quit. The screams kept coming with hardly a pause to ventilate. Valentine hadn’t ever heard anything quite like it, which surprised him. Loud and stinging in his ears. A looping shriek. It was giving him a headache.
Vocal cords, he thought, letting the words sink in. That kind of screaming wouldn’t be good. He was going to have to do something about that when the time came. An idea surfaced, and he felt the satisfying click of a mental tumbler falling into place. Vocal cords. Yes. That would take care of two things. Three, the more he thought about it.
He gave a nod to Lucas, who stood like a sentry in the corner, holding a tranquilizer rifle across his body. Lucas smiled, nodded in response. The cage was set back some, farther from the bed, pushed into a custom recess in the wall designed for that purpose. Eager eyes watched from behind the bars, eyes almost glowing with a pent-up energy, a glint to the whites that was both animal and human, yet not quite either. Valentine unlocked the cage door, keeping the cattle prod at the ready. The Get was becoming more difficult to control each day. He’d drugged it the day before and put a radio collar around its neck, a high-tech piece of research equipment banned in the U.S. that was designed to administer a fifty-thousand-volt shock at the touch of a button, but he still wasn’t sure it was enough. It was as if the Get could sense some ultimate moment approaching, the anticipation filling it with excitement and purpose. The thought pleased Valentine, even as he gripped the cattle prod tightly.
The woman screamed even more loudly at the sight of the cage door swinging out, something Valentine hadn’t thought possible. The Get hesitated, then slid sideways through the opening, speeding up then shuffling to a sudden stop like an ape a foot away from her. It straightened its back and stood, the angle of its spine rivaling that of a man. It stared at the woman.
The regimen had been simple. Pornography in HD, several times a day. Allowing it to play with the bodies of the other women, explore them, experiment with them, after it finished consuming their hearts. It would sniff them, lick them, nip at them, embrace them, digitally penetrate them, then crawl back into its cage and masturbate. Valentine had given the Get a live woman once before. That test run hadn’t turned out well. He was more hopeful this time, having exposed his creation to more explicit sexual imagery than most men would ever see in a lifetime. He was finding it hard to temper his optimism. After so many years, the goal was finally in sight. The winds of destiny filled his sails. So far, everything had fallen into place. He was confident this would be no different.
The Get stepped forward toward the bed and the woman let out her most piercing screech yet. Her facial muscles twisted and strained. Her tears dropped and puddled on the mattress.
“Y’know, Boss, I have a Nine Inch Nails CD out in the car. Might help set the mood.”
Lucas’s chuckle died in his throat as Valentine shut him down with a look. He glared at the large man for a pregnant moment, then shifted his attention back to the Get. Counting on more than one trial run, even thinking about one, was impractical. Only a few days were left, maybe even just one or two. There would only be one chance at getting this right when the time came, and he was not about to tolerate any distractions.
“I’m just saying,” Lucas mumbled.
Its sense of smell seemed to be what the Get fell back on, what it relied on most of all. It sniffed the air, leaning its head toward the woman as it caught various scents. She was wearing a vanilla musk, a rather common type of perfume among the girls Lucas had procured. Fitting, too. They had all smelled like delicacies of some sort.
Things were definitely different this time, Valentine could tell. He noticed the presence of an understanding that hadn’t been there before as it lowered its head and snuffled its snout against the small of her back, as it ran its nose down to the cleavage between the twin globes of her ass. She was sobbing now, yelping and choking as she tried to catch her breath. The Get nuzzled its face into her genitals, snorted, then climbed over her back and mounted her. His optimism notwithstanding, Valentine hadn’t expected that. No hesitation, no tentativeness. No confusion. This time, the Get seemed to know exactly what it was doing.
The young woman gasped as the thing rammed itself into her. She bucked and lurched as much as the restraints would allow, screaming again, yelling for it to get off of her. Whether it was driven by some primal instinct, some atavistic anger, or peculiar urges all its own, Valentine couldn’t tell, but he watched in fascination as the Get threw its upper body forward and clamped its baboonlike jaws onto the back of her neck, biting right through the coils of hair. Her head snapped back, her eyes running with mascara, saucered and fixed, bulging in shock. She let out strangled grunts as the Get thrust against her repeatedly, jolting her. One of the thing’s hands grabbed a clump of hair at the top of her head as it pumped harder and faster. Valentine heard a final gasp, a cracking, ripping sound. He watched, unblinking. The Get bit down harder, shaking its head, until its teeth tore through her neck and it pulled her head from her shoulders by her hair.
A fountain of blood spurted out and the Get covered it with its mouth, swaying its jaws euphorically as it drank, holding the young woman’s head high, thrusting itself one final, violent time against her buttocks before rearing back and erupting in a feral wail of triumph.
“Holy shit!” Lucas said. His hands twitched, fingers fidgeting over the tranquilizer gun.
Valentine said nothing. He circled the bed slowly, carefully, watching as the bloodlust gradually drained from the Get’s eyes. Its breathing began to grow more calm. Eventually it dropped the woman’s head onto the bed and pulled out of her. Without the need for any prodding or encouragement, it climbed down and loped back into its cage. It reached back and pulled the cage door shut behind it, then receded into the shadows and curled onto the floor.
Blood was everywhere. Valentine took it all in, running his eyes over the scene. Sprays and splatters of arterial red dotted and slashed and pooled for a radius of several yards from the front of the woman’s body. Her head lay on its side on the mattress, that same expanse of shock in her eyes, locked now in an eternal gaze.
“I can’t believe it,” Valentine said. He looked back over his shoulder at Lucas. “After all the planning, all the preparation. After all the worrying . . .” His eyes drifted back to the body. Blood was still dripping from the neck hole. “After everything, it turns out I couldn’t have scripted it better myself.”
He smiled broadly. “Absolutely, one hundred percent perfect.”
HATCHER SAT ON THE WHITE SOFA, ELBOWS ON HIS knees, hands drawn to his face. One hand balled in a fist, the other cupping it. He bounced the edge of a knuckle lightly against his chin as he stared at the glass coffee table.
Wright flipped her phone shut, turned to Reynolds. “He wants you back at the precinct. He’s sending a pair of uniforms over to watch the place in about an hour. I’m staying until they get here.”
Reynolds nodded. Hatcher noticed he gave Wright a look behind her back. He caught Hatcher’s eye and gave him a similar one, a cross between suspicious and irritated. Then he left.
Wright let out an audible breath. She tilted her head back and rubbed her hand across her eyes. She stared at the ceiling as she spoke. “Maloney made some calls. DEA was watching the street, had a tip about large quantities of crystal meth. Deal was supposed to go down this afternoon. That must’ve been what you saw.”
Hatcher said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Look, it’s not your fault.” She lowered her gaze and shrugged. “We shouldn’t have left her with you in the first place. Our mistake.”
The words hung in the air. Hatcher maintained eye contact but didn’t respond.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, it wasn’t fair to expect you to be her security.” Wright took a seat next to him on the couch and placed a hand on his arm. Her touch was almost nonexistent, like she was afraid the weight of her fingers could cause a bruise. “If there really was a threat, there should have been a few cops watching the place, not one non-cop with no backup. We don’t even know what happened, if anything even did. And you may not have been able to stop it anyway. You aren’t even armed.”
Hatcher rubbed his palms down his face and stood. “I don’t feel guilty. So you can stop trying to keep me from blaming myself.”
“You look like you feel guilty.”
“Well, I don’t. I feel frustrated. Angry. Somebody out there is fucking with me.”
Wright shook her head, gave her eyes a roll. “I wish you could listen to yourself. That’s pretty damn arrogant. This is all about you all of a sudden?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind explaining that to me?”
“Don’t ask me how I know. It just is.”
“So somebody snatched Deborah just to get at you?”
“No.” Hatcher stared at a patch of carpet. “I don’t know. What’s important is that I figure out what’s going on.”
“I think it’s best if you leave that to us.”
He swiveled his head to meet her gaze. “Yeah, because you’ve been doing such a bang-up job so far.”
“I mean it, Hatcher. You’d better not interfere with us on this.”
“You’re the ones who told me to protect her. I accepted the responsibility. I’m not walking away just because I screwed up.”
“So what do you plan to do? Go around beating up people at random until you find someone who knows something? That seems to be what you’re good at. You’re not a detective, Hatcher.”
Hatcher shrugged. “You don’t need to be a weatherman to ask which way the wind blows.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Wright said. “You wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Hatcher stared at her, locked eye to eye. Good for her. She was giving it right back to him, unblinking, refusing to give ground. He decided he liked that. And she was one damn sexy woman, he had to admit. Stubborn as all hell, but damn sexy. He circled the coffee table and walked toward the kitchen.
“Hey, wait a second.” Wright followed him, then reached out and snagged his arm, turning him back to face her. “You’d better not know where to begin. Because if you do know something, and you’re not telling me, things are going to get very difficult for you. Don’t hold out on me, Hatcher.”
“You guys are the ones who think you’ve got a mole in the department. Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because this is a police matter!” Wright tossed her hands in the air. “You can’t try to storm the beaches and take the hill in this kind of situation. I don’t care what the commercials say. You’re not an Army of One.”
“If you’ve got a mole in the department, I can’t trust you. It could be you, for all I know.”
She let out a short, disgusted breath. A you-can’t-be-serious frown stretched her face as she stared into his eyes. Hatcher’s expression didn’t change.
“I’m not a mole,” she said.
“Okay, suppose I did cross you off the list. Then how about Howdy Doody out there? You’ll tell him, because he’s not on your list. Thing about moles is, if you’ve got one, you can’t assume you know who to exclude. The only safe play is to suspect everyone.”
“Even me?”
Hatcher walked into the kitchen, got a bottled water from the refrigerator. She stood in the entryway and waited, watching him. He unscrewed the cap and tilted the bottle toward her before taking a drink. “Especially you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You want my confidence? Help me find her. Just you. Nobody else gets involved.” Hatcher took another swig of water. “Tell Phony Maloney I went to my mother’s. Send Opie Taylor out to the filling station for some bait to make sure he doesn’t follow me. Tell me everything you know, starting with that whole charade back at my brother’s office.”
“You’ve got some chutzpah, you know that? Even if it what you’re proposing wasn’t illegal, not to mention something certain to result in career death, why would I do all that for you? What could possibly be in it for me?”
Hatcher finished off the water, put the empty bottle on the counter. He walked past her to leave the kitchen, pausing in the entry to face her, their bodies almost touching. “Because you dig me, whether you want to admit it or not.”
Tiny grunts of protest were all she could manage as she trailed him into the living room.
“Did I just hear you correctly? Dig you? What is this, The Mod Squad?”
Hatcher spun, stopping her short and peering down into her eyes. “In my line of work, we used to call that deflecting.”
“You know, I used to think you were one of the most arrogant asses I’d ever met,” she said, her teeth slightly clenched. “Now it’s clear that you are—bar none—the single most arrogant ass of all time. Congratulations.”
“Are you going to keep trying to laugh it off? Or admit it and help me?”
“I’m not trying to laugh anything off, I am laughing it off.” She pressed up on her toes, bringing her glaring eyes closer. “And there’s nothing to admit, and no I’m not going to—”
Her words disappeared into his mouth as Hatcher pressed his lips against her and wrapped his arm around her waist, yanking her body close. She broke the kiss off and slapped him across the face. He tugged her back and kissed her one more time. She slapped him again, harder.
The second slap really stung. He touched the side of his cheek, still holding her around the waist. She lifted her hand to slap him a third time and he caught it behind her shoulder. They both stood there in that position for several seconds, a mock tango pose, his arm tight around her, his hand fisted around her wrist. She began to squirm, trying to push him away. He constricted his arm around her more, pulled her in even closer. He leaned forward, slowly this time. She pulled her face back, arching her spine, almost in a dip. He managed to close the distance, brushed his lips against hers, staring steadily into her pupils.
“This is sexual assault,” she said. Her raspy voice was barely above a whisper.
“So call in Deputy Pasty-Face and have me arrested,” he said. He touched his lips against hers again briefly, retreated a few centimeters to watch her eyes as they switched focus between the two of his, back and forth.
“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice so low now it was barely audible.
He kissed her again, more urgently this time. He felt her kiss back, felt the flick of her tongue graze his as her lips parted. She shrugged her hand free from his grip and grabbed him by the hair, the other hand clawing against his back. She opened her mouth wider, devouring him, her tongue extending deep. Tasting, probing.
She seemed unnaturally light, weightless, as he grabbed the back of her thigh and stood straight, lifting her off the ground. She wrapped her ankles across the backs of his knees, never taking her mouth off him. He spun and stumbled forward a few steps until they bumped against the wall. He groped for the door latch nearby, still kissing her as he threw the deadbolt. It took him twenty seconds to cross the room like that, stiff-legged and unsteady, another five once he reached the bedroom until he reached the bed.
He fell forward onto the mattress with her beneath him. They bounced lightly against each other.
She sucked in a breath, like someone coming up for air. “This is a crime scene.”
He kissed the side of her neck, sliding his lips from below her ear to her shoulder and back again. “The bed is made. You already searched it. There’s nothing in here to find.”
“We shouldn’t do this,” she said. He unbuttoned her blouse and began to kiss the middle of her chest, kneading the sides of her breasts with his lips. He unclasped the front hooks and pushed them apart, let the cups fall to the sides.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” She swallowed, drew in a sudden breath as he tugged on her nipple with his teeth and began circling it with his tongue. “But we have to be quick.”
He slid down until he was kneeling in front of her, running his hands up under her skirt and kissing her belly. She kicked off her shoes, ran her heels down his back. He curled his fingers around the silk bands of her thong near her hips and peeled them down. Her skirt bunched around her waist.
The well-manicured strip of light brown hair pointing toward her vagina was cottony, fragrant. The perfumed scent of it blended with the light odor of sweat and the moist, briny scent below it. He kissed his way lower, brushing his nose against her clit, inhaling her. He parted the outer lips between her legs and traced the contours of them with his tongue. She let out a moan as he licked her, gasped as he thrust his tongue deep. He felt her hands find the sides of his head. Her fingers burrowed into his hair.
“Still want this to be quick?” he asked.
“Take however long you want.” Her panting, whispering voice was even raspier than normal. She pulled down on his head, pressing his face into her. “Just don’t you dare stop. Not without finishing what you started.”
WRIGHT FLIPPED THE PHONE SHUT AND FELL BACK NEXT to him on the bed.
“The uniforms have been delayed, thank God. Fortunately, Maloney didn’t ask too many questions. I told him I’ve been on the phone and asking you questions all this time.”
“I heard you. I was right here.”
She stuck out her lower lip, blew a few strands of hair away from her face. “I can’t believe we just did that. I can’t believe I just did that. Oh. My. God. I just can’t believe it.”
“If you’re calling me unbelievable, I’ll take that.”
“I’m saying, I have no idea what came over me.”
Hatcher yawned, stretched his arms. “I’m pretty sure it was me.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t so bad. You certainly seemed to enjoy it. I know I did.”
“That’s not the point. It was completely reckless. Aston ishingly, foolishly reckless.”
There wasn’t much use in arguing the point. It was the truth. And he had to admit it bothered him a bit, too. In hindsight, acting out a letter to Penthouse was a bit surreal. And weird.
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not exactly something I planned. We just got swept up in the moment. It happens.”
She sat up, started to button her blouse. “I don’t even want to think about what I look like.”
He leaned forward, ran his hand down her back. “You look great.”
“Why do I think that means I look like a woman who just got fucked silly—while on duty no less—in the apartment of a possible missing person?”
“I told you that you dug me,” he said, flopping backward onto the mattress. “You wouldn’t listen.”
“Okay, so maybe I was attracted to you. A little. Big deal. You’re a good-looking guy. Believe it or not, I don’t go around balling every guy I’m attracted to.”
“I would hope not.”
She turned away and finished buttoning her blouse. Hatcher sensed her body grow quiet, could tell she was forming a question.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Know what?”
She twisted back to look at him. “What did I do to give it away? I thought I was doing a good job of not sending you any signals.”
“Remember when I took your gun?”
“Not something I’ll be forgetting anytime soon. And I should hate you for that, by the way.”
“I did it partly to test you.”
She blinked a few times, thinking. “Test me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I wanted to know if you were interested.”
“And me punching you and threatening you and telling you that you were under arrest convinced you?”
“No, you not hurting me did. You could have tried to knee me in the groin, or gouge my eyes. You could have even simply left and called for the nearest patrol car to come assist. But you didn’t want to hurt me, didn’t want to get me in real trouble. You were just pissed.”
“You’re a strange guy, Hatcher.”
Hatcher shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“You know, Maloney put together a jacket on you.” She leaned back on her arm. Her voice softened. “I read it. I didn’t understand much of the military jargon, but I remember it said you were some kind of Special Forces interrogator.”
“Something like that.”
“And it said you were convicted of abusing a foreign national.”
“That was the charge I was sentenced under, yes.”
She rolled onto her stomach. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind you asking. I’m not sure I should answer.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I wasn’t meaning to pry.”
Hatcher let out a long breath. “I stuck a pistol in the mouth of an Iraqi interpreter and blew the back of his head off.”
Wright swallowed. She watched him, examining his face. “You’re serious.”
“My jokes may not always be great, but they’re usually funnier than that.”
“Why would you do something like that?”
“I was having a bad day.”
“Is that supposed to be one of those funny jokes?”
“No. I wasn’t the only one having a bad day. That Iraqi and another were caught after an IED exploded near a barracks on one of our installations. It killed several GIs. They were both employed by the army, had access to the base. They were considered trustworthy. The other one had text messages in his phone that indicated another attack was imminent. But he wasn’t talking. The sight of his comrade’s brains in his lap loosened his jaws. I’d do it again if I had to do it over.”
“Hatcher . . . that’s horrible.”
“No. Horrible was the sight of American soldiers with their limbs missing, good kids from Alabama and California and Kansas who were betrayed by people we’re over there trying to help.”
“And you think getting mad at that justifies cold-blooded murder? It doesn’t matter whether he deserved it. What matters is the kind of person you are.”
“I didn’t do it because I was angry. I did it because American lives were at stake. And I didn’t murder him. He was already dead.”
A look of confusion contorted her face. “What do you mean?”
“He had a heart attack. Apparently some congenital defect.”
“Are you saying you shot a dead man?”
“He was being interrogated separately. The EMTs hadn’t even arrived, but he was all gone. I could see what was happening, saw them being ridiculously gentle on the other guy, saw that he just knew he had absolutely nothing to fear. He had that mocking smile in his eyes, like we were powerless and the clock was ticking. I realized nobody there had the balls to do anything about it. As long as he had that look, he wasn’t going to talk. So, I got rid of it. I dragged the dead guy into the room like he was still alive and did it before the other one could tell he wasn’t. By the time I shoved the pistol I’d just taken from his cohort’s mouth into his, he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.”
“I guess I should be glad to hear you’re not a murderer. But still, that’s brutal, Hatcher.”
“The Iraqi government thought the same thing. They refused to believe the heart attack wasn’t caused by torture. Torture was a big issue by then. Uncle Sugar couldn’t afford to let it go.”
“I’m surprised you only got twelve months.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because they wanted to keep this quiet. But to do that, they had to offer a sacrifice, appease the locals. They knew if they leaned too hard on me, I’d be inclined to spill my guts about the role I played for our government, about what I was tasked to do over there.”
“What was that?”
“Things far worse than what I was prosecuted for, that’s for sure. It’s the dirty little secret of war. We want to pretend torture doesn’t work. We want to pretend we’re too civilized to engage in it. Wrong on both counts. It does, and we’re not.”
“So they gave you a light sentence hoping to keep you quiet.”
“Yes. That, and because they didn’t want some inconvenient details to come out like the fact I wasn’t even the one doing the interrogation. That I was summoned to observe through a two-way mirror. Or that they left a loaded pistol on the table a few feet from me. That three MPs and four field-grade officers watched me pick it up, check the clip, and walk by them into the interrogation room and drag the guy’s body next door. Any one of them could have stopped me. No one said a word.”
“Why not?”
“Because that was why I was brought in to observe. I don’t think they knew I would do exactly what I did, but they did expect me to do something.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hatcher waited a long moment before responding. “You know why I was selected for my prior specialty?”
She responded with a subtle shake of her head.
“The army gives everyone in SF these psychological profiles, a bunch of tests and questionnaires. At first, I thought it was because I scored so well. But that wasn’t it.”
The light in the room was fading, casting everything in a dim, silvery glow. Hatcher lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He could feel Wright’s eyes on him as he pondered his own words. He thought he may have already said too much, shared too much, but he kept going anyway.
“They knew from experience. It doesn’t matter how just the cause, or how much the bad guy has it coming. How vital to the mission it is, or how many lives it saves. You can toss that all aside. What they wanted, what they needed, carried a steep price tag, and I was the type they could live with having to pay it, so long as they didn’t have to themselves. They all knew the score. The rest of the people around you, your peers, they stop looking at you the same way. They keep their distance. They know it has to be done, but they can’t relate to you anymore. I had no family to speak of. Hadn’t seen my mother in years; my father in over a decade. No siblings, not that anyone knew of. Was unmarried, didn’t even have a steady girlfriend. In their eyes, I could afford the price.”
Wright put a hand on his chest, gave it a gentle press. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
“That’s why they picked me,” he continued. “Same reason no one stopped me. It had to be done, and I was just the guy to do it. They needed someone they could live with damning.” His eyes settled on hers for a moment, then he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling again.
“I was damnable.”
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