The Swan and the Jackal - Redmerski J. A. - Страница 52
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I cross one leg over the other and cock my head to one side. Then I glance down at the dirty gauze around her hand tied to the arm of the chair and I smile faintly, recalling what I felt when I drove Izabel’s knife through it—complete and utter satisfaction.
I pull my own knife from the inside of my coat. Bennings’ eyes lock on the blade and she stops screaming.
Leaning forward, I place the edge of the knife against the bare skin of her shoulder and drag it down the length of her arm without cutting her. I had stripped her before I tied her to the chair, and she sits in nothing but her miss-matched panties and bra, her bony legs shaking against the wood, her ribs clearly visible—she’s about ninety pounds of wicked bitch. Pale skin that isn’t beautiful, but sickly. Dark circles blemish the area underneath her eyes. I wonder what her drug of choice is, but don’t care enough to ask and resolve to believe it must be heroin.
But does Kelly Bennings really deserve to die?
Still practically in her face, I say calmly, “If you spit on me again, I’ll cut out your tongue.”
She nods furiously with tears in her eyes.
Hesitating only a moment, I reach up with my latex glove-covered hand and remove the spit-soaked handkerchief from her throat—shoved back far enough that she couldn’t have spit it out on her own—and drop it on the floor beside my feet.
“What the fuck do you want from me?!”
I tilt my head to one side.
“And lower your voice,” I tell her, “because you’re beginning to give me a headache.”
Her eyebrows draw inward and she looks at me as if to say What the fuck do I care? but won’t dare say it aloud. At least not yet. This one is bold and almost entirely fearless—it’s just a matter of time before that mouth of hers gets her into more trouble.
“You set up that hit against your boyfriend, Paul Fortright, with Ross Emerson,” I say, leaning back in my chair again.
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”
She’s not a very good liar when she knows she’s done for.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” I set my knife down on the top of my leg, covering it gently with my hand. “But what’s even worse than setting up the hit on him, is that you were in on it with Ross Emerson to try and have Fortright put away in prison for child molestation—death would’ve been a better sentence.”
Bennings’ eyes grow darker and her mouth falls open.
“You’re—You’re insane! Why in the fuck would I do something like that?”
“Because you’re a worthless bitch,” I say simply, cutting in. “A waste of air”—I twirl my white gloved hand in the air above my shoulder—“It bothers me immensely that you’re breathing mine right now.” I drop my hand back on top of the knife. “You and Emerson set up the hit when the molestation accusations failed to put him away. To get Fortright out of yours and Ross Emerson’s life. You—”
“You’re crazy! Fuck you, you psycho motherfucker!” She thrashes in the chair again. “Let me out of here! Let me go!” She starts to scream at the top of her lungs.
“Shit, man, shut her up!” I hear Dorian say from the wall.
But I’m already leaning forward with the knife pressed against her arm again before Dorian finishes his sentence. I cut long and deep and blood pours from the slit. Bennings cries out in pain and agony as the left side of her body glistens with dark, red, wonderful blood.
“AHHHHH! FUCK!” Tears shoot from her eyes.
Finally, she stops screaming and all that’s left for her to do is tremble and stutter and bleed.
“A-All right! I helped Ross! I did! But what does that matter to you?! You people were supposed to kill him! That’s what you were hired to do!”
I flash the blade in her view and she shuts up in an instant.
“You were willing to ruin an innocent man’s life for another man. You could’ve just left him.” My voice never raises.
She struggles against her restraints regardless of knowing she’ll never free herself from them.
“I couldn’t just leave!” she hisses. “Paul is a bastard! He threatened to take our daughter if I ever left him!”
“You don’t care about your daughter,” I say.
She looks shocked. And hurt.
I’m not buying it, and as much as I know she wants to believe it herself, I know she’s not fully buying it, either.
“I love my baby girl! How can you say something like that to me?”
I inhale a deep, aggravated breath and adjust my back against the seat.
“Oh sure,” I mock. “You love her enough to have her innocent father put in prison for child molestation.” I cut a long, deep slit down the length of her other arm just because I feel like it. She screams out again, but I continue calmly through her screams: “Not to mention, what you and Emerson put Emerson’s daughter through with the police, brainwashing her to make her believe that she was molested.” I’ve no physical proof of this, but I know it’s a fact, nonetheless. “You and your love affair are the lowest of the low, Miz’ Bennings, I have to say.”
I’m just now noticing that at some point Dorian left the area. I knew it wouldn’t be long once I started the cutting. But then again, he has another job to do, which is why I brought him along to begin with.
“Look, I-I don’t know why you brought me here,” Bennings stammers with thin quivering lips. “But Ross will pay you to let me go. H-He will pay you double what he was going to pay your organization to kill Paul. Just call him. Please. His number is in my cell phone. In my coat.” She looks across the room at her clothes sitting in a pile on the floor.
“That won’t be necessary.” I cross my other leg and pull away from her, sitting as casually as if I were in a boring meeting. “But I’m interested in knowing why you believe that Ross Emerson would do something like that for you.” One side of my nose curls into a faint snarl as I look her up and down. “Look at you—you’re disgusting.”
Shocked and thoroughly insulted, Bennings lashes out, “Go fuck yourself!” and it still amazes me how defiant and stupid this woman is to be in the situation she’s in and can’t keep her mouth shut.
I smile.
“So, are you going to tell me?” I ask, tapping the bloody knife against my pant leg. “Or, am I going to have to resort to more drastic measures of interrogation?”
As with anyone, I really hope she doesn’t talk.
Bennings stares coldly at me, harsh lines forming around the edges of her pale blue eyes. Strands of her hair are scattered about her face and neck and collarbone, stuck to her skin by sweat even though it’s cold in this warehouse.
I raise both brows asking her in gesture, So what’s it going to be?
“Ross would do anything for me,” she begins. “And I’d do anything for him. Anything!”
“Why?”
“Because we were meant to be together. Because I love him. Because he loves me. What more does there need to be?”
I smile again and look upon her thoughtfully.
“A valid reason to intentionally ruin or take away entirely, the life of an innocent person,” I say, but find myself thinking only of Seraphina in this moment of personal divergence. “If you can give me one good reason, one valid and justifiable reason for what you and Ross Emerson did to Paul Fortright and the two defenseless children the both of you used to get what you wanted, then I will let you and Emerson go.”
Bennings’ trembling mouth snaps shut, her thin, cracked lips stretching into a hard line.
Then it dawns on her and her widening eyes dart to and from me and all around the cold, dimly-lit, spacious area.
“What do you mean, let us go?” she asks carefully at first, but then her voice begins to rise. “Where is he? Tell me! Where is Ross?” She struggles against her restraints.
“He’s in the other room,” I tell her, glancing over my shoulder at the metal door that once led into an employee break room.
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