Unraveled Read online

  With a quick flick of his tongue, he popped the prosthesis out and slid it back into its case. “In the ring, I have mouth guard, so no one sees teeth anyway. Is clever, yes?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Very clever. But that does raise a question. If you’re not allergic to the sun and you hide your fangs while in the ring, why do they call you Vasili The Vampire Voskoboynikov?” Somehow, I managed to get through the pronunciation without it sounding like a sneeze.

  Vasili “the Vampire” Voskoboynikov, fighting out of Vladivostok. The cage-side announcer was sure as hell earning his ducats with this one.

  The emotions governing some facial expressions are legible regardless of the species. Anyone who’s seen a cat in the seconds after it slips off a counter knew which one Vasili was wearing now—embarrassment.

  “It happens after my first fight. I do everything right. I put strap, eh…snap-on in mouth for walk out to arena. I switch for mouth guard and no one sees. I am strong in fight, but not too strong, you see? I take punches. Act like hurt. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Midway through second round, I have opponent pinned. I tell him like I tell other, ‘Just give up. I do not want smash your face.’”

  “Very gracious of you.”

  “Yes. But opponent, he says ‘smash this, fucker of mother!’ and head-butts Vasili. Break his own nose. Then there is blood. Blood…everywhere.”

  Something about the pause between these last two words snagged my attention. When I glanced up from my pad, a filament of fear awakened in my chest.

  Vasili’s garnet eyes had turned to backlit rubies. He was no longer looking through me as clients so often will when recollecting, but at me. My wrists. My neck. All places where blood pulsed through visible veins.

  I abruptly stopped my scribbling and shook my pen for effect. “Silly pen. Ink must have run out. I think I have another here.” Without breaking eye contact, I reached over to the end table next to my chair and pulled out the drawer, fumbling within for the vampire repellent I kept there in case of rabid bloodlust.

  Gone.

  My stomach did something akin to a death roll.

  The closest back-up was at my desk, which now seemed miles away.

  “Tell me, Vasili. How is it you came to know something about the Dude Bro Strangler?” I had meant it to be a change in topic. But speaking the words while looking at the naked hunger on his face woke me to another disturbing possibility.

  Maybe Vasili was the Dude Bro Strangler.

  “Blood,” Vasili repeated, rising to his feet. “Hot, gushing, pooling blood.”

  I couldn’t decide which I found more alarming: actually being able to hear the saliva coating each word, or how much better his English became when he extemporized on this particular topic.

  “Vasili,” I said, employing my very best this is not a request voice, “please sit down.”

  He did not sit. “When blood is so close, how can Vasili control himself?”

  “Because I believe Vasili is a kind-hearted, intelligent young man and wouldn’t want to hurt anyone if he can help it. That’s how. But I need him to sit down.” I blamed the growing dread for my accidentally adopting Vasili’s habit of referring to himself in the third person.

  “Blood is like drug,” Vasili said. “Is too strong. Vasili cannot resist. ”

  I was on my feet now, taking one slow, deliberate step back for Vasili’s every step forward. Careful not to cower, not to move like prey. If I could just get to the phone, press the intercom button, give Julie the signal…

  “But you can resist, Vasili. You are the master of your hunger. Your hunger is not the master of you.” This was how far I’d fallen—resorting to quoting the affirmation tape I’d made for a former vampire client afflicted with impulse control and low self-esteem. Unfortunately, that particular vampire had once been the real reason Henry the VIII snuffed it and I was beginning to suspect that self-control, like sun sensitivity, was acquired with age.

  “Vasili licks blood from opponent,” he continued, giving no sign he’d either heard or registered what I’d said. “Referee sees. Coach sees. Audience sees. Audience cheers. People call Vasili the Vampire, so Vasili must act like movie vampire after that. Lick blood from canvas. Only fight at night. Is funny, yes?” He said this without a single trace of humor gracing his features.

  “Blood-borne pathogens are no laughing matter.” I risked a large step backward to bring myself closer to the desk. When I felt its reassuring edge behind me, I made a desperate grab for the phone, stabbing my finger into the intercom button.

  I heard the muffled click of the line going open at Julie’s desk.

  The rush of relief I felt was pitifully short-lived. No sign of acknowledgement from Julie’s end. Nothing but dead silence.

  “Pretty doctor fears Vasili? Why?” By this point, he had me bent back over the desk in a manner not at all dissimilar from my position in the minutes prior to his arrival at my office.

  “Vasili, this is your last warning. Sit. Down.” My fingers scrambled over the wooden surface behind me. Where was it? It had been here—right here—before Crixus and I had knocked everything off my desk in our impassioned fury. Hadn’t I seen him put it back?

  “Vasili only wants little taste.” His tongue was warmer than I would have expected and not altogether unpleasant as he dragged it slowly across my lower lip. Was it not for the near certainty that he’d likely kill me any second, I might have persisted with the verbal warnings a little longer. “Mmm,” Vasili said. “Doctor taste like chicken.”

  At last I seized on what I had been searching for with a fierce pulse of joy. Not next to the stapler where it was usually kept, but hidden in the pencil cup.

  “Back!” I shouted, pointing my weapon at him. “Don’t make me shoot.”

  Vasili lunged and I pulled the trigger, catching him point blank in the face. He shrieked and staggered backward, clutching his face.

  “No bite!” I shouted, and kept right on shooting.

  Fsk fsk fsk.

  The little spray bottle’s nozzle emitted jet after jet as I rotated the little square head from “Spray” to “Squirt.”

  Someone wasn’t fucking around.

  “We do not try to bite our therapist.” Fsk fsk fsk. “We do not.”

  “Stop!” Vasili begged. “Is burn face! Why you do this to Vasili?”

  “Because Vasili doesn’t. Fucking. Listen.” Fsk fsk fsk.

  “Please!” he cried. “Is smell like a thousand rotting holes of ass!”

  “Concentrated garlic water, kiddo. Are you ready to behave?”

  Vasili dropped his hands from his face and blinked at me through bloodshot, streaming eyes. “But internet site says garlic is myth.”

  I lowered the squirt bottle but kept my finger on the trigger. “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, Vasili.”

  The young vampire muttered a long string of florid Russian curses under his breath and slung his training bag over his shoulder. “This is number one bullshit!” He pointed a pale finger at me. “Vasili is not paid enough.”

  “Paid enough for what?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Goodbye, doctor who is not as pretty as Vasili said she was.”

  He slammed the door hard enough to send one of my framed diplomas crashing to the floor. I stood over the pile of paper and shards for a long time, thinking.

  It might have been minutes later, or hours, when the door creaked open.

  There stood Julie, pale and sweaty, wearing a guilty, hangdog look I hadn’t seen since the bad old days. Since I’d caught her and Crixus in the supply closet. But that had been eons ago. Long before Crixus and I were married. Before we were even a couple. Amazing how a memory can sting, even when filtered through time and forgiveness.

  I didn’t ask
where she’d been. I wasn’t certain I wanted to know.

  She sniffed at the air still redolent with garlic. “Did he—”

  “Yes. He did.”

  “I threw up,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to hear it.” I walked around her to retrieve the trashcan and proceeded to carefully pick up the broken glass.

  “I was sitting at my desk, waiting to make sure everything was okay when I got sick to my stomach and had to book it for the bathroom.” She worried the hem of her sweater as she talked. Another habit I wasn’t pleased to see the return of. It usually only happened when she lied. “Something I ate for lunch, I think.”

  “I thought you brought leftovers today.”

  “I did. But one of the dental assistants stopped by and offered me a plate from the catered lunch some periodontal implant rep brought by, and it looked way better than reheated lasagna, so—”

  “It’s okay, Julie. You don’t have to explain. These things happen.” And with Julie around, they happened a lot. Why did knowing this make me feel so tired and sad?

  “No, I do. I—”

  “Maybe you should go back to your desk,” I suggested. “In case my one o’clock shows up early.”

  “Sure,” she said. And then, “I’m really sorry.”

  She always was.

  Meanwhile, my brain had more pressing matters to chew on. Like what Vasili had meant when he said he wasn’t getting paid enough. A language barrier issue? His way of articulating that he was paying too much for a therapist only to get a load of garlic in the face?

  Wishful thinking, that. Damnable human optimism.

  I knew better.

  What I didn’t know was what Vasili had been paid to do, and by whom. Any more than I knew why the name Adelaide had triggered one of my “episodes.”

  Vasili had been right about one thing.

  Something around here reeked of number one bullshit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I had my four o’clock cancellation to thank for what started as a terrible idea and quickly evolved into a terrible plan. With an unallocated block of time on my hands, I cracked open my laptop, determined to find out as much as I could about the Dude Bro Strangler.

  Dr. Wolfe’s brief summary had been pretty close to accurate. Eight victims so far. One a month, every month, always on the same date. All blond, blue-eyed and built like extras from Gladiator. All found in gyms. All strangled with some sort of garrote. All had names like Trevor, Todd, Preston, Chase or Brock.

  Brock Peterson’s murder had been the one Dr. Wolfe referred to when he’d said the last one had happened in my own back yard. According to the ongoing coverage, a friend had found Brock’s body slumped on a deadlifting bench earlier this morning.

  I punched up the local news website and clicked on the first video I found.

  In it, a man with feathers of bleached blond hair sticking out of his backward ball cap found creative ways to flex while addressing the attractive reporter. The caption beneath his sleeveless Swole Patrol t-shirt read “Brodie Billings, Longtime Friend and Training Partner of Brock Peterson.”

  “B-Rock was a real stand-up guy,” Billings said. “I’ve never seen anyone hit the circuit like that. Never skipped a rep.” Here, Billings’s voice choked up and he cleared his throat, his neck tendons popping with the effort. “It really makes you think about your life, you know? You never know which squat thrust could be your last. I mean, strangling B-Rock on leg day? Whoever this guy is, he’s more gnarly than an anal prolapse.”

  I recognized the broad brick wall behind Brodie as belonging to the Powerhouse Gym just at the border of historic downtown Plattsburgh.

  Six minutes would see me there.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I shoved everything into my laptop bag and clicked off the many lamps on my way out the door.

  “Heading home early?” Julie had stayed later than usual, a calculated move to make up for her earlier absence, or so I suspected.

  “I think I will.” I breezed by her without stopping, not quite ready to make nice. “Have a good night.”

  Eight minutes later, I pulled into the Powerhouse Gym parking lot and killed the engine. The area closest to the building was choked with police cruisers and cordoned off with garlands of yellow crime scene tape. A solemn gathering of mourning dude bros congregated just beyond it, pressing for entry to the parts of the building the cops weren’t using. Impassioned pleas of “Brock would have wanted it this way!” and “We need to dead lift, man! We owe it to his memory!” fell on deaf ears.

  “They’re brave,” I said, sidling up to the greenest-looking patrol cop in the bunch.

  He stood up straighter when he saw me, squaring his shoulders as if newly reminded of his duty. “Miss?”

  A triumphant thrill skittered through me at being addressed as a “miss” rather than a “ma’am” or even a doctor. Between Crixus and Vasili, my blouse had a total of about three buttons holding it together. I had decided to use this to maximum effect, adjusting my bra strap to haul my breasts a couple inches higher than their usual cruising altitude. I’d also freed my hair from its ubiquitous bun and pocketed the modest meteorite of my wedding ring, but stopped short at stashing my glasses.

  History had taught me the painful folly of trying to seduce someone I couldn’t see.

  “Gathering around like that.” I bestowed upon him a coy lipsticked smile. “Standing there like a giant bro-ffet, when for all they know, the killer is still nearby, searching the area for his next victim. It’s a common tendency among murderers, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”

  “Returning to the scene of the crime, you mean?”

  “See, Sgt. Perkins?” I traced my fingertip across the bottom of his badge. “I knew you had the look of a man who knows his business.”

  Perkins had the kind of skin that didn’t so much blush as stain. He grinned at me from a face that looked double-slapped. “I try, miss.”

  “Tell me something, Sergeant.” I lowered my voice a register and leaned in a little closer, letting my breast accidentally brush his upper arm. “Did you see the body?”

  “You’re not some kind of reporter, are you?” It was just the right kind of question. One that informed me unequivocally that the last threads of his caution were quickly fraying.

  “Do I look like a reporter?”

  Hook, line, and accomplice.

  He examined me a good, long time. Longer, perhaps, than was necessary to determine whether or not I was likely to paste his face all over the evening news.

  “Reporters don’t wear glasses,” he said, clearly pleased by his own shrewdness. “The lenses would cause a glare on camera.”

  “Very good, Sgt. Perkins.” I gave his chest a playful poke. “No, I’m not a reporter. I’m a psychologist. I’ve been following this case since it first broke on the national news. I’m putting together a psychological profile. Trouble is, I haven’t been able to review a crime scene firsthand.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you know how political these things are. The career climbers get direct access while professionals like us with genuine interest and ability are relegated to the sidelines.”

  “You’re not wrong about that,” he said.

  A couple more minutes of this, and Perkins might just purr. I waited, ready to give him another nudge if he required it, almost positive he wouldn’t.

  “I got a look at it, all right. I was the first officer on the scene. I was in the middle of a routine traffic stop one block over when the call went out. I kept things secure until homicide showed up and ran me off.”

  “So you must have seen Brock Peterson up close, then.”

  “I sure did.”

  “Then maybe you can tell me if there were any unusual marks on his neck. You see, I’ve been compiling a list of similarities between the ind
ividual murders, and this would really help me out.”

  His brows bunched at the center of his forehead. “Unusual how?”

  “You know. Redness, abrasions, puncture wounds…”

  “He was strangled, if that’s what you mean. There were ligature marks.”

  “But nothing else? Say, anything that looked like a puncture wound? Or, two puncture wounds, maybe sort of close together? Maybe in the general vicinity of the jugular vein?”

  “You mean like a vampire bite?” He laughed, apparently highly entertained by the idea.

  “A vampire bite?” I laughed too, only mine leaned a little more toward hysteria than humor. “Of course not! How ridiculous. A vampire.” I hissed and mimed fangs with my fingers, which sent us both into another round of snickers and snorts.

  “A vampire.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

  “So, were there?” The humor vanished from my voice almost as quickly as it vanished from Perkins’s face.

  “Were there what?”

  “Puncture marks. Were there any puncture marks on his neck?” I detected a hint of a simmering teakettle’s whistle in my desperate query.

  “No,” he said.

  “What about blood? Had he lost any blood?” The kettle had gone from a simmer to a full boil.

  The unmistakable gleam of genuine fear now shone in his eyes. “What? No.”

  “Was he pale? Was he cold? Did he look like he’d gotten a wicked hickey from an undead Russian cage fighter? God damn it, level with me, Perkins!”

  “Let go of my collar!” Perkins seized my wrists and attempted to pry my death grip from his lapels. Until that moment, I hadn’t been aware that I’d grabbed them.

  “Hands off the lady.” The unmistakable snick snick of a gun being cocked punctuated the order.

  A small herd of goose bumps broke over my scalp and migrated down my neck.

  I knew that voice. I would always know that voice. The last time I’d heard it had been in the seconds before the catastrophic car crash that nearly cost me my life.

  It was this and nothing else that stunned me out of my fevered inquisition of poor Perkins.