Tiffany was doing the dishes. He could sense her nervousness, caught her glancing at them through the doorway every once in a while. But he knew Zoe was too absorbed in what they were doing to notice. She sat next to him at the dining-room table, her head bent over the maps he'd spread out as they tried to determine how many homes, or how many square feet of land, would be manageable per volunteer.
"We need to cover as much ground as possible while we have them."
She frowned over the less densely populated area to the east. "But that gives this volunteer more than he or she could handle on foot."
"We should break it up, then. We want everyone to complete their routes within a reasonable amount of time," Colin said. "That way, if we have to search again, we'll know exactly what's been covered and what hasn't. Better to be methodical than overly aggressive."
"The police were methodical."
"Doesn't matter. I once saw a show where the missing girl was right in the middle of the park they'd been searching for days. It's easy to overlook something."
"I suppose." She seemed more relaxed now that dinner was over. Or maybe it was the sedative taking effect. She'd drunk about half the wine Tiffany had brought her after dinner.
Hurry up and finish, for crying out loud, he thought, lingering over his own glass. Experience had taught him that Rohypnol took effect in about thirty minutes, but she'd been sipping her wine at least that long. Had she drunk enough of it? If so, he should see a change in her fairly soon....
"I say we go as far as Stanford Ranch," he said.
She nodded, and once again he wished she'd finish her damn drink.
He didn't want to wait for Tommy and James to arrive. He preferred to have Zoe to himself first, alone in his bedroom, as if she was his wife instead of Tiffany. Maybe he'd share her later, once he'd had his fill, but he planned on taking hours and didn't want anyone rushing him. If he was going to kill her anyway, he could do whatever he wanted without fear of hurting her so badly she wouldn't recover. And that promised to add a whole new dimension to the experience. He generally tried to keep his slaves alive as long as possible, which meant he had to be somewhat careful or he'd destroy the object that was bringing him pleasure. It wasn't as if slaves were easy to come by. He'd only had four. One was in a coma. And Samantha was passed out upstairs. Four wasn't that many. At times, he feared the consequences of getting caught as much as Tiffany did.
But his cravings were growing more and more powerful and so was the thirst for blood and violence. There had to be pain, excruciating pain, or he could no longer achieve the same kind of climax. That was why Rover had finally rebelled. That was also why Colin couldn't have regular sex with Tiffany anymore. It did nothing for him. Even with the bondage and the hot wax, he couldn't satisfy himself.
He remembered his first slave, a ten-year-old girl named Laurie he'd kidnapped from a park only six months after he and Tiffany were married, back in Virginia when he was in law school. Tiffany still believed he'd let Laurie go, but he'd killed her and hidden her body in the woods--hidden it so well he didn't think it'd ever been found. At the time, he hadn't been sure that Tiffany would go along with such a permanent solution and hadn't wanted to tell her. Since then, he'd acted as though he'd been forced by necessity to take the situation further each time. She didn't need to know he'd been perfectly comfortable with it from the beginning; this image served him better.
Laurie was back when humiliation had been exciting enough. Now he needed a more visceral high.
"Colin?" Zoe's voice, filled with curiosity and confusion, broke into his thoughts.
He blinked, suddenly aware that he'd been staring past her. "Sorry."
He faked a yawn. "It was a long day at work, and I'm tired. How're you holding up?"
"Fine. We're almost done, aren't we?" She sat back and drank the last of her wine, and he motioned to the glass as she set it aside. "Would you like some more?"
"No, thanks."
"We've already got routes for the ten volunteers I have confirmed--and one extra. But I say we do one or two more, in case someone brings a friend."
She leaned over the maps again. "It's better to have too many than too few. But the railroad tracks are pretty far away. We should focus on this area over here." She indicated the part of the map that dipped down into Roseville.
"Tough call. Sam could be anywhere." Like upstairs...
"When I talked to Detective Thomas about this, he said we should concentrate our efforts within a two-mile radius of the house."
"Detective Thomas knows we're searching?" Colin felt no fear; he'd expected as much.
"I told him when I spoke to him earlier. He'll be joining us, along with some of the other men and women on the force."
This shattered the fantasy Colin had been building, but he had to deal with reality, had to know exactly what he was up against. "Did you tell him you were coming over?"
She slid her glass toward the center of the table. "No, why?"
"Just wondering if we should've invited him. He's got to be more experienced at organizing a search than we are. And he's already been through there."
"But like you said, we need to look again. You're doing a fine job,"
she said with a grateful smile.
She was so sincere, so anxious for an escape from the situation he'd placed her in. It made him feel incredibly powerful to be the person in control of her happiness.
He couldn't have James and Tommy over tonight, he decided. They'd just get in the way....
"Besides, I don't get the impression he's had to deal with many child abductions," she was saying.
"What about your private-investigator friend?" Colin asked. "Should he be here?"
She glanced at her empty glass as if wondering when she'd finished it--or why she was feeling so light-headed after only one glass with dinner and one afterward. "He couldn't have come, even if we'd invited him," she said.
"Why not?"
"He had some interviews tonight."
"Who's he meeting with?"
"Sam's best friend and her parents."
Perfect. "Jonathan" was preoccupied. "Does he know who you're with?"
She closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake. Sure enough, the Rohypnol was starting to work.
"Zoe?"
She opened her eyes but squinted at him. "Hmm?"
"Does he know you're here?"
"Mmm hmm."
"He does?" he prompted. "You told him, Zoe? You told Jonathan you were coming to our house for dinner?"