Savage Sins Read online

  “Are you afraid we’re here to tattle on you to the cops?” she went on.

  I swallowed something hard, dry, and bitter. There was a dead body lying on the floor in a puddle of his own crimson blood only a few doors down. Echoing in the distance, the distinct sound of police and EMT sirens. What it all meant was this: I had maybe a minute or less to get the hell out of that house, down to the main road where my car was parked.

  “How long have you known?” I asked.

  “I’ve always known,” Stella said, leaning into me, so close I could feel her thick lips brushing against my ear. “I’ve always known everything.”

  For the first time since I became The Handyman for Tara and for Allison, I was afraid. By keeping my ulterior life separate from Stella, I could not only control the outcomes of my actions, I could protect her. But now she knew everything. Or at least, she claimed to know everything. Certainly, she knew that I had a hand in killing Allison’s husband.

  But then, why was she smiling? Why wasn’t she screaming at me, kicking me, clawing at me? Why wasn’t she calling me an animal? Accusing me of being a cold-blooded killer? A murderer? Why was she calmly standing there, her smooth face against my face, her thick lips pressed against my earlobe? It didn’t make sense to me.

  Unless what she was telling me was the truth. She’d known about everything all along. Maybe she’d even helped get the ball rolling, so to speak. Maybe she’d arranged for Tara to knock on my front door all those months ago. Maybe she’d even supplied the big black spider with the orange belly. All things were possible.

  She kissed my cheek, took a step back. The sirens grew louder. The police weren’t far. I had to move.

  Stella’s wry grin matured into a wide smile. A beautiful smile.

  “Stella,” I said, “what’s going on here?”

  “You know perfectly well what’s going on,” she replied. “You kill for your art. Is there nothing more glamorous, Vic? Nothing more romantic?”

  My eyes shifted to Allison. She was also smiling, seated at her kitchen table with all the calm coolness of a woman waiting for the tea kettle to boil. She gave me a slow wink with her exotic Asian eye. I didn’t know what was coming over me at that very moment. That very distressed moment. But I wanted them both right there, right then. The images sped through my overheated brain. I imagined Allison lying naked on the table, legs spread, trimmed pussy exposed, her pert breasts defying gravity. I pictured Stella bent over the table, her mouth on Allison’s pussy, my cock entering her from behind. It was all too much. I was growing dizzy with both lust and fear. I had to get the hell out of there. Do it now.

  Sirens blared.

  The police were making their way into the wooded neighborhood. They were behind the hill that Allison’s house rested upon.

  “Downstairs,” Allison said, suddenly. “There’s a door that leads out back into the woods. Andrew used to go out there to smoke his pot. A path cuts through the brush and leads down to the road. I assume you parked there. If you’re careful, you can avoid the police and be on your way.”

  “But you have to go . . . now, Vic,” Stella interjected. “Or bye bye book deal. Bye bye writing career. Bye bye life.”

  I wanted them so badly. But on the other hand, Stella didn’t have to explain the situation to me twice. Every second I spent in that kitchen was one second too long. I turned, but I had no idea where the door to the basement was located.

  “Second door on the left,” Allison offered. “The one between the bathroom and Andrew’s office.”

  I went to it, opened it. It was dark.

  “Light switch is on the wall to your right,” Allison added.

  I flicked it on. Heart pumping in my sternum, I descended the wood staircase not knowing if I was walking into a trap or if the door that Allison promised me would be on the other side of this basement would, in fact, appear. When I came to the bottom of the stairs, I gazed across the concrete floor, past the many boxes, chairs, and junk stored down there. I saw the door—a set of double doors to be more precise. Doors that, when opened, could accommodate something as large as a small lawn tractor if need be.

  Sirens were directly outside the house now, accompanied by the sound of cruisers making their way up the winding gravel drive. I went for the door, opened it. I faced a thick patch of woods. I saw a narrow footpath hewn out of its center. Closing the door behind me, I sprinted through the tall grass for the path. When I got there, I stopped and turned toward the top of the Craig driveway.

  Cop cars pulled up. Allison Craig came running out of the house. She was screaming, hysterically. Stella was behind her, as though playing the part of the best friend trying her damnedest to console a grieving and shocked widow. They were doing such a convincing job, even I was having trouble believing the act wasn’t genuine. I didn’t know Allison very well, but I thought I knew everything there was to know about Stella. Looks like I was wrong.

  Dead fucking wrong.

  Turning, I made my way into the woods and down the hill to my car. The Handyman was free as a bird.

  When the reading was completed, the bookstore erupted in applause. My eyes locked onto Stella. She offered me a wink. Then she brought her hand to her lips and blew me a kiss. While there was real affection in that kiss, I knew deep in my gut that something else was present too. The look in her eyes gave it all away. In my having read the first chapter in a fictional story about a woman who arranges for her husband to be killed in his own home while making it all look like an accident, Stella was reminding me that I wasn’t reading fiction at all.

  Sure, the names and the people in Savage Sins were different. So was the fictional suburban neighborhood. But the events were almost identical. The writer who dies by falling from a basement stair tread that had been purposely loosened by a man who was sleeping with the writer’s wife wasn’t entirely fictional. The cheating man was me. He was The Handyman.

  Stella was reminding me of that fact.

  The bookstore may have been filled with people, but Stella seemed to take up all the oxygen. Up until that moment, I was aware that she knew every bit of truth behind Tara’s and Allison’s husband’s tragic deaths, but it never really hit me until the bookstore launch, that she might one day use her power over me to get something she desperately wanted. Naturally, I had no idea what that something would be, or when it would happen. But I knew it was going to come. I also knew if I didn’t manage to give her what she wanted, she could make life pretty damned difficult for me.

  So, did Stella truly love me? Or did she want to hurt me?

  Sure, she loved me. And I didn’t believe she wanted to hurt me all that much. She was my partner, after all. We hadn’t exchanged vows to love one another till death did us in. Not yet, anyway. But I’d given her no reason to hurt me. That is, no reason up until now. For the first time, we had money in the bank. I wasn’t using one hundred dollar bills for toilet paper yet or using Dom for bath water. But like I already pointed out, between my book advances, movie rights options, plus Tara’s and Allison’s life insurance payouts, we were well off for a long, long time. Maybe forever.

  So, while my eyes locked on Stella, and while I somehow felt the weight of the kiss she was blowing in my direction, I couldn’t help but believe that no matter what she had in store for me—no matter what she might use against me—my life was looking pretty damned good. It was all easy street from this point out. The Handyman was driving, and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.

  Then the door to the bookstore opened and in walked a man with crazy in his eyes.

  Mackey.

  As soon as he came through the door, the place fell quiet, like it would at a public execution. All eyes shifted to the washed-up writer as he slowly began making his way through the crowd and stopping in front of where I was standing at the podium. The madness on his tight face was so apparent that people took a step or two back to make way for him without his having to ask them to.

  He wore his usu
al ratty blazer over a stained white shirt and equally stained trousers. His thick black hair was unruly and sticking up on one side like he’d just rolled out of bed, or the local sewer. A set of eyeglasses were balanced on the tip of his nose, his face unshaven, his teeth grinding. I could smell the booze on his breath from five feet away.

  He made a fist as he approached me. It felt and sounded like a sledgehammer when he slammed it against the podium. Correction. When he slammed it against my copy of Savage Sins.

  He lifted the same hand, pointed his index finger at me. In my face.

  “You son of a bitch,” he spat. “Wasn’t it enough that you stole my woman?”

  “Good to see you too, Mackey,” I said. “I can see you’ve been taking care of yourself these days.”

  My gaze shifted to Jake and Jimmy. Both of them had worked with Mackey and launched his own million-dollar book deal. Until the sales, the word count, and the author all went south faster than ISIS can bomb an airliner out of the sky. Word on the street has been that he only received a portion of the one million and he’d burned right through it without having paid his share to the IRS, essentially making him bankrupt. Each of them stared at their former client the same way a person might look at a bad car wreck along the side of the road. You don’t want to look at the bloody mess trapped inside the tangled metal, but then you can’t help it either. Human nature takes over. You just can’t look away.

  Mackey’s bitter frown morphed into a sly smile.

  “Don’t think I don’t know the truth about your new novel, and the follow up to come. Don’t think I don’t know how you came up with the stories. You didn’t make those plots up. You stole them. You murdered for them you son of a bitch. You muse stealing son of a bitch.”

  I felt an ice-cold chill run up and down my spine. His eyes were wet, bloodshot, and wild like a rabid dog about to bite a chunk of flesh out of my leg. That he was out of his mind, there was no doubt. That he sincerely believed what he was telling me, I also had no doubt. And it scared the living hell out me.

  “Go home, Mackey,” I said. “Sleep it off. You’re delusional.”

  It was then I realized the podium mic was live. Everyone in the store could hear mine and Mackey’s voice. I shook my head as though to clear it, and I gazed at all the people in the room who were staring at us. Their faces were painted with confusion and shock. I could see the look in the eyes of the press. They all had their smartphones out, and they were videoing the encounter between Mackey and me. Recording our every word. They knew they were onto something. A story that could go viral, if only they could get to the bottom of it.

  In my head, I saw the headline: “Washed Up Author Accuses Rival Author of Murder.” It would be a scandal that would rock the literary community at its very foundations. It would also ruin me. It could potentially send me to death row.

  My eyes avert back to Stella. One side of her mouth was turned up in a smirk, the other half, expressionless. She reminded me of the Mona Lisa. She was that complicated yet that beautiful and alluring. She knew something I didn’t. Standing there at that fishbowl of a podium, I got the feeling that she’d fully expected Mackey to show up and make a scene. It was almost like he’d messaged her on Facebook and told her he was going to do just that. It all suddenly made sense to me, because if there was one thing I’d learned in the time since I’d arranged Andrew Craig’s murder, it was this: Stella had not only been communicating with Mackey again, she’d been fucking him too.

  I’d made it home from the Craig’s hilltop home without the cops being the wiser that night. Allison hadn’t steered me wrong. The set of basement doors that led out into the woods were the perfect getaway. Her play acting had helped also. The cops bought her story of Andrew’s suicide hook, line, and fucking sinker. She told them he’d been depressed. He wasn’t being careful with his guns. She tried to get him to seek help, to lock his guns up, even if only for a little while, until he felt better about himself again. But he wouldn’t listen. It was inevitable that he would do something bad. He just didn’t want to live anymore.

  At least, these were the very words Stella relayed to me when she arrived back home that night. We sat at the dining room table, my typewriter and the manuscript of Savage Sins separating us, sipping on double shots of Jameson.

  “You knew,” I said. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that you knew all along what Allison was using me for.”

  “And that you fucked her, Vic,” Stella pointed out.

  She said this with such calmness, such coolness, it was like a blow to the head with a sledgehammer. My mouth immediately went dry, and I felt my pulse beating in my temples. I stole a sip of whiskey to calm myself down. But the alcohol wasn’t working.

  “What else do you know, Stel?” I asked, after a long beat.

  She smiled.

  “Everything,” she said. “There isn’t a single blessed thing I don’t know about The Handyman.”

  She knew all about Tara, about my work for her as The Handyman. She knew about her husband’s so-called accidental death. That it was a murder. And that’s not all. She knew how often I’d slept with Tara. She knew the time of day, the locations inside Tara’s house. She even knew the positions we’d tried out.

  “I also know that you were a special guest of the Sex Club,” she added. “At Allison’s house. You must have loved that. It’s always been your fantasy, Vic. Two beauties at once.”

  My head was buzzing with adrenaline. At the same time, I found myself growing rock hard. Stella knew everything, but she wasn’t angry. It didn’t make an ounce of sense. She wasn’t screaming at me or freaking out. It was the strangest sensation knowing that she was well aware of everything and that she seemed okay with it all.

  I drank more whiskey.

  “How is it possible you know everything?” I pressed. “I’ve been so careful.”

  She laughed aloud. “Who do you think began the neighborhood Sex Club in the first place?” she said.

  She set her hand on my leg under the table. I put down my glass, took hold of her hand, pulled her in me. Our mouths joined, and I kissed her hard and long. I stood, and so did she. She turned around and pulled her skirt up for me. She wasn’t wearing panties. I pulled down my trousers and immediately entered her hot wet sex. I wanted to go slow, to make it last as long as I could. But with one hand up her shirt, caressing her left breast, pinching her nipple, and the fingers on the other hand massaging her swelled clit and Stella moaning, “Faster, faster, faster,” I pumped away at her ferociously.

  When she came, she shouted. Her entire body trembled while her heart-shaped ass pressed against my thighs and pelvis. She knew I was about to release, so she spun around quick, dropped to her knees, took hold of my hardness. She opened her mouth and pumped me until I exploded, and she took care of me with her lips and tongue. It seemed to take forever, but that was fine by me. I was living in ecstasy, and so was Stella. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.

  When it was all over, and we sat back down at the dining room table—the pages of my new manuscript now disheveled, the typewriter pushed aside at an odd angle—I felt exhausted. I poured us more drinks, and I smiled. Not because I was able to make love to Stella, which always made me happy, but because it somehow came as a relief that she knew everything. That she knew all about my affairs and now, the murders.

  She knew that I was The Handyman.

  Sipping some whiskey, I said, “You understand that it wasn’t my idea to . . . how shall I put this . . . take care of Tara’s and Allison’s husbands. Both women claimed to be in abusive situations. They came to me. Begged me—”

  She threw up her hand as if to say, Enough.

  “I know,” she said. “The girls came to me first. I’ve known everything about their husbands for a long, long time. We’re all in the Sex Club together, remember? You were available. You needed something for your work. Some kind of radical spark. Their husbands had to go, one way or another. Using y
ou was the perfect solution. You become their Handyman, and in turn, you not only collected on the insurance payout, you got the material you so desperately needed for a new novel. It was a sweet deal all around.” She set the same hand down on the disheveled manuscript. “Thus, Savage Sins is born.”

  My head spun even more. Stella wasn’t my muse. She was more than my muse. More like a fixer. An arranger. A very dangerous arranger.

  “I could go to prison for a very long time if anyone were to find out, Stel,” I said, stating the obvious. “You know that, right?”

  “If you’re suggesting I might one day go to the police with what I know, remember, I’m as much to blame as you. I put it all together . . . put the plans in place. You could say The Handyman was my creation, my brainchild.”

  There, I thought. She said it. The Handyman was her creation.

  “I could have said no to it all, Stel. I had a choice.”

  She smiled again, drank some whiskey. “Let’s not dwell on this, Vic,” she said calmly. “Let’s concentrate on getting Savage Sins published for a million bucks. That’s all we need to focus on.”

  We sat in a silence that wasn’t really silence. The wind blowing outside and the chimes that hung from the eaves were making music. You could make out the cicadas in the trees and the occasional dog barking in the near distance. Cars were speeding past on the main road that ran perpendicular to our neighborhood street.

  Stella got up, went around the table and into the kitchen. She drank whatever was left in her glass and washed it out in the sink, setting it upside down on the drying rack.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “You coming, Vic?”

  I looked up at her. “Stel,” I said. “You’re not mad at me for what I’ve done with Allison and Tara?”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not the only one, Vic.”