AGONIZING pain squeezed Carol’s head like a vise, strong enough to make her stomach roll. She tried to raise a hand to it, to rub her temples and ease some of the pain, but she couldn’t. Something restrained her hands so that she couldn’t move them.
With a moan she opened her eyes and blinked in the darkness. She lay on a hard floor. Her clothes were wet and muddy. Her hands were tied behind her back.
Then it came flooding back and she remembered. She remembered Jack’s face above hers, the figure swinging something behind him. Her pulse fluttered and she tried to get her bearings. Why couldn’t she move?
It was too dark. She couldn’t see anything. Then lightning flashed outside a large picture window on the far wall and she spotted the outline of a piano in the dazzling glare. Bobby’s piano.
With a sob she tried to sit up. She rolled until she could get to her knees, the movement causing the vise in her head to twist a little tighter and nausea to roll in her stomach. She bowed her head for a moment and tried to push the pain into the background. She’d done it before. She’d battled headaches most of her adult life and knew how to force them back.
When she felt like she could lift her head without it threatening to fall off, she looked around but still couldn’t see anything. Then the flare of a match nearly blinded her.
“I fought him,” Rhonda explained as she walked around the room and lit candles that had been placed on every surface. Carol recognized them as the candles she’d prepared at her house in case the power went out. Rhonda had carried them all to Bobby’s house. How long had she been unconscious? Why was she tied up?
“For weeks, now, I fought him. He’s obsessed with you. Carol this and Carol that. Carol in the coffee shop and Carol here and Carol there and Carol on the news and Carol in the papers and Carol in the meeting with Maurice or the Governor or in open court. Carol, Carol, Carol! It was maddening.”
Carol wasn’t even aware that Rhonda knew Jack Gordon. How close were they? Were they related or in some kind of relationship? Or were they a team, partners in crime, a murderous pairing of beauty and the beast?
“Tonight was just the last straw. He just kept on and on until I actually wanted to kill him.” Rhonda nodded exactly once, then finished lighting the next to last candle before she walked to stand directly in front of Carol.
Carol felt her eyebrows furrow. She remembered the tall figure swinging something heavy with great force. She wondered if, in fact, Jack Gordon was dead as a result of that blow.
“And then you and me, well… we worked that Kennedy case together. Hour after hour, meal after meal, all that time with you and he was like a caged animal who suddenly learned how to unlock the door.”
“How…?” Carol swallowed. “How do you even know Jack?”
The candlelight gave the room an odd glow. Shadows of the flames danced on the walls and the black framed glasses Rhonda wore reflected the flickering candlelight. Carol couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, and wished she’d move so she could.
Rhonda lit the last candle, swished the matchstick out, and tossed it onto the saucer beside the now burning candle. Then she asked, “Jack who?”
Carol nervously licked her dry lips and began to work at the ropes binding her wrists. She did not understand this situation. Her head throbbed making it difficult to concentrate. She had no idea why she was tied up, why her candles were at Bobby’s house, or what Rhonda was talking about. She needed more information. “Who, Rhonda? Who are you talking about?”
Rhonda tipped her head back and laughed. When she looked back down, the laughter vanished. She tapped the side of her head with a finger. “Rob, silly.”
“Rob?” Carol’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand, Rhonda. Who’s Rob?”
Rhonda crouched down and lifted Carol’s chin to look her in the eye. “My mother used to have this Christmas candle set with red candles that she set up in holly and pine branches. When I was seven, I was playing with the candles and knocked one over. The dried twigs caught fire quickly and in minutes, our whole house was engulfed. My dad died trying to save my brother, Rob. All I had left was my mom.”
She pinched Carol’s chin and moved her face slowly to the left, then back to the right. “That guy really got you good. Nothing a little makeup can’t fix though.”
Carol felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of her stomach. “Thank you for saving me, Rhonda. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along.”
Rhonda laughed. “I didn’t save you. That was Rob. He was so angry that another man was touching you.”
Carefully, slowly, she said, “I thought Rob died when you were little. You just said he died in the fire with your father.”
Rhonda whispered, “I thought he died, too. But then he started talking to me the night after his funeral.”
The full implications of what this woman had just said hit Carol. They had it all wrong. Everyone had it wrong. There wasn’t a male serial killer with multiple personalities, one of which was a female personality. Rhonda was a female serial killer with multiple personalities, one of which was a male personality. Carol understood that she was mere hours or maybe bare minutes away from meeting her Maker. Carol never let Lisa down before, but she didn’t know a way out of this one.
Lisa’s life raced through Carol’s mind. How tiny she was at birth, her first steps, the first time she sat on a horse, running into her father’s arms for the first time in her life, singing in front of the church while Carol played in the orchestra, holding her grandfather’s hand. It was as if she flipped through a stack of pictures, and the last one in the pile was Lisa lying in her bed, eyes filled with grief and worry when she asked Carol if she was going to die, too.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked in a near whisper.
Rhonda rose to her feet and walked in a circle around Carol while she spoke. “Every time I fall in love with someone, he kills her. The first few times I didn’t know it was coming, but I started looking for signs and learned how to appease him with substitutes. It worked before, but the exposure to you was so constant, I could find no peace.” She stepped back in front of her. “I tried to hide how I felt for you, but he knew. I can’t hide anything from him.”
She gripped her head with both of her hands and squeezed. “Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!” she growled, spittle flying out of her mouth.
When she looked at Carol again, the angle was just right so that she could see deep blue eyes shining in the candlelight. Rhonda had brown eyes. Was she wearing contacts? Carol could have sworn that just a moment ago her eyes were brown. But, in the dim flickering candlelight, she must have been mistaken.
Rhonda walked over to the piano and picked up a black wig and put it on. She expertly applied a fake mustache and goatee, then removed the glasses to complete the look. Carol started sobbing, knowing it was hopeless. She bowed her head. “Please don’t do this to me, Rhonda. Oh, God, please don’t let her do this to me.” One of the knots tying her hands came loose, and Carol had to stop herself from giving it away. She began to work the next knot.
Rhonda knelt next to her and ran a hand down Carol’s hair. She cupped her cheek with her hand. Her voice sounded deeper, like a male tenor voice. “Rhonda had to shut up for a while. I’m Rob. We’ve met before a few times, but I was wearing my sister, the puppet, so you probably don’t recognize me.”
“You don’t have to do this, Rob. You can stop this right now.” Carol tried to keep her voice calm and soothing.
Rob, speaking through Rhonda’s body, said, “I don’t have to do anything. I do whatever I want to do. You know what I want to do right now?”
Carol knew, but she had to stall him. It was lame, but she couldn’t think of anything else. “I’m really thirsty. Do you want to share a cup of tea or some water with me?”
“I’m not thirsty. What I really, really want to do is watch you die, Carol Mabry. That’s what I really want to do.” The bloodthirsty look in Rhonda’s eyes terrified Carol and she momentarily froze.
Finding her voice at last, she asked, “Why do you hate me?”
Rhonda laughed a little bark of laughter. “I don’t hate you. You’re less than nothing to me. But my sister thinks she’s in love with you. She’s sick, see. I keep trying to fix her and she keeps messing up and I have to come back and fix it. The bottom line is, you have to die. She doesn’t deserve you.”
The serial killer everyone knew as Richmond Red reached into the pocket of her black pants and pulled out a capped syringe. “This will make it all feel like a dream. You won’t be scared anymore. In fact, some women die with smiles on their faces. It’s really quite beautiful.”
As she uncapped the syringe, the last knot on Carol’s wrist came loose.
