Urge to Kill

She was aware that she’d made only a soft humming sound.

She tried again, screaming his name in her mind. Something warm was trickling along her body, tickling her armpits. She could smell it. Urine. Hers. The ammonia stench of her mindless fear.

Oh, Richard! Please!

The curtain rattled open on its rod, and all she could look at was the knife.

41

Cindy Sellers sat on a bench near the Seventy-second Street entrance to Central Park and had what for her was a crisis of conscience.

Certainly she’d promised Harley Renz she wouldn’t make public that the .25-Caliber Killer’s latest victim had been shot inside his hotel and then dragged outside, to where the body was discovered. It was made clear to her that the police had settled on that detail being known only to them and the killer, so they could sort out the inevitable false confessions that were sure to interfere with the investigation.

But from Cindy’s point of view, that curious fact was what gave the story its appeal. A question posed to her readers was always good for additional circulation. In this instance the question was simple and easy for her readers to understand: why was the body of this particular victim moved?

Only the killer knew the answer, and, as of now, the police were the only ones aware of the question. So like a game, Cindy thought, and the police have an extra card in their hand.

Of course, if she revealed that card the NYPD wanted to keep close to its vest, she’d lose Renz’s trust. She had to smile. She and Renz didn’t really trust each other anyway. That was part of the game they played. Wolves on the prowl, both of them. And if she did include that inside-outside angle in her story, Renz would be angry, but he’d get over it. They were both forced to live with the fact that they were useful to each other.

Cindy was aware of the warm sun on her shoulders as she slumped forward and began tossing popcorn to the pigeons from a greasy bag she’d bought from a street vendor. The pigeons waddled cautiously toward the kernels at first, then rushed at them, nudging competitors out of the way. Like people, Cindy thought. Like newspaper readers elbowing each other aside to get to the next edition of City Beat before the rack was empty.

Fighting each other to be able to read her story.

If our situations were reversed, would Renz run the story with all the facts, including the one about how the body had been moved?

She knew the answer to that one.

Her fingers reached the bottom of the popcorn bag and found nothing but the grit of salt. She crumpled up the bag and tossed it to the pigeons. They began to peck at it and fight each other over it.

Cindy watched them. Bird nature. Human nature. Maybe it’s why I really don’t like people.

She brushed her hands together to rid them of most of the salt on her fingers, and then fished her cell phone out of her purse.

Her decision had been made. Already her conscience no longer bothered her.

How could she have even considered not running the entire story? It was strange how sometimes she questioned herself, when she knew her job and her purpose. She had enough on Renz to sink him anytime, if she so chose. At least, he thought she did.

The idea of leverage is when you have it, use it.

No more self-doubts, she vowed, as she pecked out the number that was a direct line to her editor. I’m a professional practicing my profession. A gray and white pigeon standing off from the others and watching her seemed to be bobbing its head in approval.

Zoe lifted her head from Quinn’s bare chest and squinted at the clock by her bed. Almost nine o’clock. She had a ten o’clock appointment with a schizophrenic patient who was beginning to show distinct symptoms of paranoia.

Deciding to let Quinn sleep, she laid back the sheet that was covering her to the waist and gently lifted his arm, which lay heavily across her. As she moved the arm she could feel the strength in it, but it didn’t resist her, as if it knew even as Quinn slept that she was something to be protected rather than harmed.

While Quinn was gentle in bed, he was the most physically powerful man she’d ever slept with, and a man who knew violence. A far cry from the postgraduates and professional intellectual types Zoe was used to. She wondered if it was the sense of danger, of potential violence, that intrigued her. No, she didn’t wonder. She knew. She also knew she was safe with Quinn. The best of both worlds.

Smiling as a coconspirator with her own devilish self, she began sliding out of bed.

His big hand found her shoulder and closed on it, stopping her. Had he even been asleep?