Before He Lapses

“Sure,” Holland said.

He crowded them into the foyer as he opened the door for them. The moment they were standing on the porch, Holland slammed the door.

Mackenzie started toward the porch stairs but Ellington held his ground. “You don’t think it’s worth pursuing?” he asked.

“Maybe. But I don’t think anyone that is guilty would willingly share some of those details. Besides…we know his girlfriend’s first name. If it’s really pressing, we can probably weed her full name out from his records. The last thing we need, though, is the hasty arrest of an academic advisor who is already on thin ice and in a bit of controversy.”

Ellington smiled and joined her heading down the stairs. “See…it’s things like this that are going to make you an amazing wife. Always keeping me from doing something stupid.”

“I suppose I have had ample practice these last few years.”

They got back into the car and when Mackenzie was in the seat, she again realized how tired she was. She would never admit it to Ellington, but maybe she did need to take it easy.

One or two more days, little one, she thought to the growing life inside of her. Just a few more days and you and I will be getting all the rest we want.

CHAPTER EIGHT

She knew she shouldn’t be doing this, but it was hard to resist. Besides…with a new semester on the way, this would be a good way to kick things off. One last fling. One last night of absolute craziness. And if it went the way it usually did, she’d leave feeling empowered—so empowered that it would easily override those quick little flashes of regret.

And it would be a great way to start the new semester.

Marie hadn’t even tried to talk herself out of it. The moment she’d parked her car in the garage, she knew this was where she would end up tonight. All she’d had to do was make the call, to let him know that she was back in town and wanted to see him. He had never denied her before and after three weeks apart, she highly doubted he would deny her now.

And of course, he hadn’t.

It was 11:05 when she walked to the back of the apartment building. It was in a sketchy part of town, but not so bad that she felt endangered by walking alone at night. Besides, it was only about eight miles away from campus and she knew that the crime rate anywhere near campus was incredibly small. Anyway, she was so excited about what the next few hours would bring that any sense of danger was long gone.

When she reached the door at the back of the building, Marie was not at all surprised that it was locked. She buzzed his apartment number and was rewarded with the sound of the lock disengaging right away. He said nothing to her through the speaker, just unlocked the door. That made her smile; he would probably be in a very serious mood. Dominant, even.

Cute, she thought. But we know who always ends up as the aggressor…

That thought made her even more excited as she stepped inside. She didn’t even bother with the elevator, wanting to get to his apartment on the second floor as quickly as possible. She took the steps two at a time, her heart rate spiking from the exertion as well as the anticipation of what was waiting for her. The expectancy of it, from her drive down from New York to right now, approaching the apartment, was its own delicious foreplay.

It had been a long drive. She was stressed out. Tense. Man oh man, she was going to wear him out…ride him right into the ground…

When she reached his apartment, she found the door unlocked. She opened it just a crack and saw that the lights were out. Still, there was some illumination coming from the back of the main area, maybe a candle or something.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sultry. She closed the door behind her and locked it.

“Waiting for you,” came the answer.

“Good. But…you can’t have me unless you tell me exactly what you want.”

She heard him chuckle lightly somewhere in the darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she could see his shape in the living room, lying on the couch. She smiled and started to walk over to him.

The apartment smelled dusty and unused—mainly because that’s exactly what it was. She knew he had a better place, but she also knew that he did not like to have her there. He liked to keep his personal life private. From what she understood about him, he spent very little time at home. She’d only seen the outside of it, usually meeting with him here or, on a few occasions, the back seat of his car or a hotel. While she understood the need for privacy, she also wished she could just ravage him in a huge bed for once, maybe with some mood lighting and music.

But keeping it all hidden was sexy, too. It was part of the allure. It was why she was practically fighting back to the urge to pounce on him right then and there.

But their trysts had always been about the build-up. Teasing, some rough foreplay, even some playfully derogatory remarks from time to time.

“Come to me, Marie,” he said.

She did, approaching the couch and finding him still fully dressed. That was fine with her; it would just stretch the foreplay out for longer.

“That’s cute,” she said as she knelt on the floor in front of him. She kissed him softly, flicking her tongue against his lips in a way she knew he liked.

“What’s cute?” he asked.

“You, thinking you’re in control here.”

“Oh, I am,” he said, sitting up.

“I’ll let you think that for a while,” she said, nibbling at the soft flesh of his neck. He stirred against it and she felt his hands on her—one at her back, another at the back of her head. “But we both know the tr—”

Without warning, he grabbed her by the back of the head and jammed her head forward. She was pushed forward with violent speed, her forehead slamming into his knee.

“What the…”

But before she could get the question out, he was on top of her, pressing his full weight into her back. Her head reeled from the strike and for a moment, Marie legitimately had no idea where she was.

As she got her hands under her to fight back against him, his hands were in her long blonde hair again. This time, he drove her head hard into the wood floor. Marie fought against it for a moment, but she quickly started to feel the world swimming away as a flaring pain radiated in the back of her head.

Somewhere very far away, she was aware of him grabbing her by the waist of her pants and pulling them down. Then the world went black for a moment and she only came to after that because she felt his mouth on her, roaming seemingly everywhere.

It made no sense. She would let him do just about anything to her and would, in return, do just about anything for him. So why would he…?

This thought was also interrupted by the floating darkness that came and went. But this time when it came, it stayed for quite a while.

***

It had involved more work than he’d thought but he was finally able to relax around two in the morning. The hardest part of all had been knocking her unconscious. He simply didn’t think he’d have it in him. Strangling people was one thing. It was just a matter of convincing yourself to do it and then applying the pressure once their neck was in his hands. But slamming Marie’s head into the floor had taken more grit than he had been expecting.

When she was out, the rest of the work was hard but enjoyable. And as he went about the tasks, he started to feel comfortable with the decision he had made.

He’d killed Jo Haley and Christine Lynch outright. With Jo, he’d slept with her, enjoyed the encounter immensely, and then strangled her when round two had gotten started. And perhaps the sex was to blame, but he had almost changed his mind—had almost chickened out. He’d learned a lesson there and opted to skip the sex when it had come to Christine. And then her body had been found and he’d seen the story on the news—just a blip, really, but an eye-opener all the same. It had made him rethink things…that he couldn’t just kill them.

But he had to retain them. The ones beyond Christine, the ones that needed to be silenced. There would be more, including Marie. And if he could not kill them outright and just leave them where they fell, that meant he had to do something else. He had to be more discreet, more careful.

He looked at his work and thought he would be fully capable of getting away with it. He stood in front of the opened coat closet that was located in the hallway. Marie was in the closet, completely nude and hanging by her bound wrists from the coat rack that ran horizontal across the width of the closet. There were also three strips of reinforced duct tape covering her mouth. Her body was hanging downward but her arms were stretched up over her head from where he had tied her wrists together. It was an oddly seductive pose and it made him regret not sleeping with her before he’d taken her captive.

He’d been standing there, staring at her and enjoying the sense of power and accomplishment, for nearly fifteen minutes before Marie started to stir. She let out a little groan, trying to lean forward and sleepily realizing that she was being held in place. This seemed to alert her, her eyes flaring open and her legs standing upright. She looked around feverishly, taking in her situation: aching head, stark naked, bound to an iron bar in a coat closet, being watched with malicious intent by a man she had been sleeping with quite regularly over the past two months.

She tried to speak, a single syllable trapped by the duct tape. A sound that he thought as a question: “What?”

It was the only word she could get out as the severity of the situation came slamming into her.

He walked up to her and cupped her chin in his right hand. She jerked back away from him only to find that it caused her bound arms to pull back at an awkward angle. He slowly ran his hand down from her chin, across her right breast, toward her inner thighs. For the first time since they had started sleeping together, she closed her legs to him as he explored downward.