The Next To Die Part 39

Suddenly, the short man came behind her and slapped his hand over her mouth. Olivia tried to scream. Only a m.u.f.fled whimper emerged. She struggled desperately, but the ape-faced man was too strong for her. Olivia thought he'd snap her neck.

She caught a glimpse of the empty lobby. No one could see her-or save her. The man in the aviator jacket blocked her way out. He jabbed the b.u.t.ton for the bas.e.m.e.nt level.

"It'll be easier for you, Olivia, if you just give in," he whispered.

Olivia helplessly watched the elevator door shut.

Preston McBride started out the evening thinking he would get laid.

He'd met Amber (her last name hadn't come up in conversation) at a kegger party at the house of some buddies near the University of Washington campus. Preston was in his junior year, studying business administration.

Amber wasn't in college. She'd dropped out of high school a couple of years back. When she told this to Preston while nuzzled against him in a smoky, sweltering living room full of people, she seemed to be bragging. With a pink streak in her blond hair and her pierced nostril, she struck Preston as a free spirit. At one point, when she squatted down to pump the keg and refill her beer, he noticed a tattoo of a dragon on her lower back. He couldn't help noticing her terrific body too. The front of her black T-shirt was stretched to its fiber limit. After an hour of screaming at each other over the noise, he heard her say: "I think you're cute. Can we get out of here and go some place?"

They made out in his car for nearly two hours. Preston's roommate was away, and he suggested they go back to his apartment. But Amber had another suggestion: "I know it's September and all, but I'm hot. Aren't you? Let's go swimming. I've always wanted to make love on a beach at dawn."

A half hour later, they were lost, driving around, trying to find the Denny-Blaine Beach. Apparently, Kurt Cobain used to meditate in the park there, and Amber wanted to visit the stomping grounds of the late rock legend. They never did find the place.

Birds were chirping and only the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon when Preston parked the car near a deserted Madison Park beach. With apartment buildings on both sides of the sh.o.r.eline strip, and a quaint row of shops a stone's throw away, the beach wasn't exactly ideal for skinny-dipping and making love-even at this predawn hour. Some bushes camouflaged them at this end of the sh.o.r.e. Farther down, there was a beach house, a couple of lifeguard towers, and park benches staggered along the water's edge, s.p.a.ced out every few feet. Preston imagined people would be coming here soon for their morning run, or for a cup of coffee on one of the benches, or maybe-like Kurt Cobain-some morning meditation.

Preston felt cold-and terribly self-conscious-as he began to undress. He was still in his white briefs when he tested the water with his foot. Freezing.

He looked over at Amber, squirming out of her panties. For a moment, she stood before him naked, her long blond hair fluttering in the wind. Her lithe body was so white against the dark water. She swiveled around, and let out a shriek as she scurried into the surf. Preston stared at the dragon tattoo above her perfect a.s.s.

He shucked down his briefs, then ran in after her. The water was like ice, but he didn't care.

Amber wrapped her wet, cold, slippery arms around him. She was laughing and shivering. He felt her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against his chest. Her nipples were so hard. He kissed her deeply.

With a squeal, Amber pulled away and splashed him. Then she swam out toward deeper water. Preston swam after her. But she splashed him again. He got water in his eyes and stopped for a moment. Standing on his tiptoes, he kept his head above water as he rubbed his eyes. He could hear her giggling and catching her breath.

When Preston focused on her again, Amber was dunking under the surface and swimming the length of the beach. He realized that if they were going to have s.e.x, she planned to make him work for it. Once again, he started after her. She was a fast swimmer, with a good lead on him. "Come and get me!" she called, then dove below the surface again.

Preston was in over his head and had to tread water. Suddenly, he felt something brush against his leg. It felt slick. He wasn't sure if it was a fish or a piece of seaweed or what, but it gave him the creeps.

Preston shuddered. He quickly swam toward the sh.o.r.e-until he was standing in shallow water, up to his chest. Then he glanced around to see where Amber had gone. He no longer heard her laughing and splashing. He didn't see anything breaking the water's slightly rippling surface.

He felt a sickly pang in his gut. Preston told himself that Amber was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with him. He glanced over to where they'd undressed. In the distance, he could see the piles of clothes near the sh.o.r.eline. He turned and looked out at the deep water again. Nothing.

Preston tread closer to the sh.o.r.e. The cold air swept over his wet, naked body, and his teeth started chattering. He gazed over at the opposite side of the beach from where they'd shed their clothes. In the darkness-and the distance-he hadn't noticed anyone there earlier. But now Preston saw someone sitting on one of the park benches.

"Amber?" he yelled. The water was just below his waist.

Suddenly, something squirmed behind him in the water. Before he had a chance to turn around, he felt it grab his a.s.s. Preston let out a howl, then swiveled around.

Amber sprang up from under the water. She was laughing.

Preston felt as if his heart was about to explode in his chest. But he managed to laugh too. He grabbed her and pulled her toward him.

With a finger, Amber traced a line from his chest down his lean torso. She drew a little circle around his belly b.u.t.ton, gently tugging at the hair there. Amber grinned at him, but then her eyes shifted away-to something past his shoulder. "Who's that?" she asked, frowning. "Is she staring at us?"

Preston glanced back at the person on the park bench. He moved a bit closer. He could see now, it was a woman. She hadn't budged an inch-not even when some birds came and perched on the bench with her. She seemed to be sleeping. Her legs were spread apart in an awkward, sort of boneless way. Her green wraparound dress was bunched up to her thighs, and a huge dark stain ran down the front of it.

"Who the h.e.l.l is that?" Amber repeated. Covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she crept closer to the sh.o.r.e-toward the sleeping woman. "Oh my G.o.d," she whispered.

Shivering, Preston covered himself up as well. He stared at the woman slumped on the bench. Had she been in the water? Her face was shiny, and her short, platinum-blond hair was matted down on one side.

Amber let out a shriek that must have woken up half the residents of the apartment building nearby. The birds flew away. One grazed the woman's head, but she didn't move at all.

Several lights went on in the building-including an outside spotlight. It illuminated the ripples on the surface of the lake.

Now Preston could see the gun in the woman's hand. Now Preston realized the woman's face and hair weren't dowsed with water.

It was blood.

Sunlight sliced through the blinds in his studio loft. He'd been up all night, and had lost track of the time. That often happened when he was painting.

He favored cla.s.sical music while working on his art. Wagner was on the stereo, cranked up to Twilight of the G.o.ds, Funeral March Twilight of the G.o.ds, Funeral March. The orchestration was rousing. He felt goose b.u.mps covering his near-naked body.

He wore only a pair of snug black boxer-briefs as he put the finishing touches on his latest masterpiece. His lean, chiseled body was flecked with several different-colored paint smudges. It was almost as if he'd become one with the canvas.

A tracklight from above illuminated the painting. On either side of the easel stood a pair of tall, cathedral-type candleholders he'd bought in Paris. The candles were almost burned down to stubs. It was his own fault they burned so fast. Every once in a while, he'd take one of those tapers out of its ornate holder, then tip it over his chest. The hot wax splattering on his skin gave him a delicious little jolt of pain that kept him going.

He was exhausted, having been up the last thirty-plus hours. He wasn't sure how long ago they'd left Olivia Rankin on that park bench by Lake Washington. But he could still smell her flowery perfume on his skin-along with the oil paint and his sweat. The combination of scents was arousing; it smelled of s.e.x.

His drive from Seattle to Portland had taken three hours. He'd arrived home at dawn, then immediately shed his clothes and gone to work on his masterpiece. He wasn't going to bed until he finished.

The painting was of Olivia, sitting on that park bench by the sh.o.r.eline-just as they'd left her.

In his one and only art show-given in a Portland cafe nine years ago-a critic commented that his work was "derivative of Hopper with its vivid colors, heavy shadows, and melancholia." He didn't sell anything at that exhibition, and he didn't have another art show. But he didn't change his style either.

Olivia Rankin's "death scene" was indeed full of intense colors, shadows, and pain. And it was almost finished.

To his right, he had a cork bulletin board propped on an easel. It was full of location photos he'd taken last week: the beach at Madison Park, the beach house and park bench. Working from these "location shots," he'd completed the background and the setting-right down to the DO NOT FEED THE WATER FOWL DO NOT FEED THE WATER FOWL sign in the far right of the painting-a couple of days ago. All that remained was filling in Olivia. He'd done preliminary sketches from pictures he'd taken of her while she was out shopping-and again when she ate lunch in the park. She'd been an oblivious subject. Those photographs and his preliminary sketches were also tacked to the bulletin board-along with three snapshots he'd stolen from her photo alb.u.m a few nights ago. sign in the far right of the painting-a couple of days ago. All that remained was filling in Olivia. He'd done preliminary sketches from pictures he'd taken of her while she was out shopping-and again when she ate lunch in the park. She'd been an oblivious subject. Those photographs and his preliminary sketches were also tacked to the bulletin board-along with three snapshots he'd stolen from her photo alb.u.m a few nights ago.

He stepped back and admired his work. He'd captured Olivia's blank, numb expression as she sat there with a bullet in her brain. He was proud of himself for that little gleam of moonlight reflecting off the gun in her hand. He used the same method-adding just a few slivers of white-to make the blood look wet.

He'd decided to call the piece Olivia in the Moonlight Olivia in the Moonlight.

Absently, he ran his hand across his chest-over the sweat and the dried flecks of candle wax and paint. His fingers inched down his stomach, then beneath the elastic waistband of his under shorts.

The telephone rang.

Letting out a groan, he put down his paintbrush and started across the room. His erection was nearly poking out of his underpants.

He pa.s.sed a wall displaying several of his other masterpieces. There was a painting of a woman floating facedown in a pool; a vertigo-inducing picture of a man falling off a building rooftop, a businessman sitting at his desk with his throat slit; a naked woman lying in a tub with her wrist slashed open; and several other "postmortem portraits." Some of the subjects in these paintings appeared to have died accidentally or committed suicide; but all of them had been murdered. He'd killed them all for money-and for the sake of his art.

He grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. "Yes?"

"Did you get any sleep yet?" his a.s.sociate asked. "Or have you been painting all morning?"

"I'm just finishing this one," he answered coolly. "What do you want?"

"We have another job-for the same client."

"How soon does it have to be done?" he asked. "I need time to prepare, and I won't be rushed."

His a.s.sociate let out an awkward chuckle. "Relax, you'll have time. The client likes the way you work."

He said nothing. Of course the client liked his work. He was an artist, and they were commissioning him to create another masterpiece. To him, each one was special. Each murder, each painting.

"Call me later and we'll set up a meeting," he said finally. "I can't talk right now. I'm painting."

"G.o.d, you're a quirky, kinky son of a b.i.t.c.h." His a.s.sociate let out another uncomfortable laugh. "You and your artistic temperament artistic temperament."

The artist just smiled and gently hung up the phone.

Books by Kevin O'Brien

ONLY SON.

THE NEXT TO DIE.

MAKE THEM CRY.

WATCH THEM DIE.

LEFT FOR DEAD.

THE LAST VICTIM.