Running of the bulls

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Carra Wolfhagen stood to the right of her third-story bedroom window, a sleeve of red curtain pressed against her cheek as she looked down at the street, where the media and the curious had come to catch a glimpse of her and her murdering thief of a husband.

What were they thinking, knowing he was here with her now? That she’d had a change of heart, supported him, welcomed him into her home and taken him back?

If only she had the courage to tell them what she’d kept secret for years.

She moved away from the window and glanced across to the locked bedroom door. Fear of him rooted her here. She thought of the gun sitting ten feet away in the top drawer of her nightstand and knew if she could kill Max-right now-and get away with it, she’d do it. She’d find him in this house and take his life for the one he continued to steal from her.

Where was he now? In his guest suite? On the phone with his lawyers? Or maybe he was watching that disc.

That disc. If she phoned the police now and they came, she knew Max would somehow find a way to destroy the DVD before they made it to him. He’d burn it or smash it or crush it and flush it. He’d find some way to get rid of it. Still, at some point, she’d have her opportunity. When the time was right and she felt safe, she’d grab that disc, contact the police and be rid of him forever.

But now? Now she wanted out of this room.

She went to the door and pressed her ear against it, heard nothing, unfastened the lock and opened the door. She looked into the hallway and saw only her cat, Sasha, strolling by.

Carra went after it, scooped the animal into her arms, listened. The house was quiet. The cat purred against her breast.

Behind her, a door opened and clicked shut.

Though the hallway was generous in width, Carra pressed her back to the wall as her husband, naked save for the shaving cream dripping from his body, stepped out of the bathroom with the gold straight razor clutched high in his hand.

He was bleeding from the peak of each nipple, but he didn’t seem to notice. Too angry and too high to notice. He did a little jig in the middle of the hallway and twirled around twice, glaring at her each time, fanning out his sopping arms, nearly knocking off a side table the expensive vase she’d bought at auction with his stolen money. With his arms pinwheeling, he came over to where she was standing, stopped and then scraped the razor down the length of his stomach. With his head cocked, he flicked the blade hard and sprayed her face with a mixture of stubble, shaving cream and blood.

Carra turned her head and gasped.

She dropped the cat, ran the back of her hand across her face and smeared her lipstick with the cool pink foam. She tasted his blood on her lips and thought of HIV as she frantically wiped her sleeve across the tight line that was her mouth.

Furious, repelled, she reached out to slap him but he snagged her wrist first. She raised her other hand to strike, but he dropped the blade and grabbed it before she could. He stuck his face in hers. His pupils were tiny islands of black sand drowning in rough blue waters. His eyelids trembled from the nerves he’d fried with meth. There was nothing she could do when he was like this, only pray to God he wouldn’t beat her as he had in the past.

His lips curled back to expose the uneven, crowded yellow teeth he’d never had fixed because he knew how they could intimidate. “Remember,” he said. “I’ve got a video of you, too, Carra. Burn me, and everyone in this town will know the real Carra Wolfhagen.”

“Get your hands-”

“What was that?”

“You’re hurting-”

“What was that?”

She struggled against him, but he only tightened his grip on her wrists, cutting off the circulation to her hands, hurting her more.

“I didn’t do it!” he shouted.

“You killed the Coles! You killed Gerald!”

“I’m being set up!”

“You had them murdered!” she screamed. “It’s on that disc! You’ve murdered before! You know I know that. How could you ever think I’d forget that night? How could you expect anyone to forget what you did? You killed-”

The first blow sent her to the floor. The kick to her stomach sent her to the gray edges of unconsciousness. Her head fell to the side and she saw through the whirlwind of black flies now clouding her vision that the middle toe on each of his feet was missing. He’d had them removed.

Now, his feet resembled hooves.

“If I am responsible,” he said angrily, leaning close to her ear, shaving cream and blood dripping onto her nose and cheek and lips, “you can be damned sure you’re next.”

And with that, she violently swung her body around, swept her legs under his feet and sent him toppling to the floor, where he fell face-first on the marble floor.

Her only chance was flight.

He was stronger than she was, but right now, he wasn’t moving. She pushed herself up just as he rolled onto his side. He was bleeding from the mouth. He’d split his lower lip. He blinked at her in confusion and put a hand over his mouth in an effort to stop the blood, which was pooling on the floor.

Behind him, in the bedroom he was using, would be the disc and a telephone. He’d been shaving. He would have kept them close. They’d be in the attached bath.

Youth had left her years ago, but she’d kept in shape, and so she leaped over his body, though not high enough. He lifted a hand as she jumped, tripping her. She went down hard, sliding across the floor.

For a moment, she was dazed, but adrenaline was as powerful as the sound of him making an effort to stand. She looked over her shoulder and watched him push himself to his feet and lean against a wall. He was naked, he was bleeding and he was vulnerable, but rage was at the forefront and that’s what propelled him toward her now.

As quickly as she could, she was on her feet.

Wolfhagen reached out a hand and swung toward her head. She could feel his fingers brush through her hair as she lurched toward the table beside her.

On it was one of her prize possessions-an original crystal Lalique Bacchantes vase that could send fifty New Yorkers into early retirement. It was thick and it was heavy, but Carra was able to grab it and smash it in tiny piece at his bare feet. She did so as he was still coming toward her, but the moment the broken glass lodged into the bottom of his feet, he stopped in pain and looked incredulously at her. All around him was a circle of sharp glass. He was trapped and he knew it.

“You’re going down,” she said, backing away from him and toward his bedroom. “You’re out of my life now.”

She darted into the room, slipped into the bath, saw the disc on the vanity and grabbed it along with the cordless phone on the wall beside the sink. She took each back into the hallway, the phone poised above her head and ready to strike in case he was waiting for her.

But he wasn’t. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing in the growing round of his own blood.

With the blood dripping from his mouth, the remnants of shaving cream still clinging to his body and the patches of thick hair he’d yet to shave off, he looked like a monster to her-which, of course, he was. His voice was muddled when he spoke, but he was so oddly calm, she could understand him in spite of his smashed lip.

“You won’t win,” he said. “I video taped everything we did back then. There’s a safe deposit box with each tape. If anything happens to me, my lawyers have access to all of it and they have orders to release the tapes to the press. It’s then that the world will know the truth about you.”

“I’m not worried about the tapes, Max.”

“You should be.”

“Why? I’m not on them.”

“I’ve seen you on them.”

“No, you haven’t. I thought about it this morning, after you threatened me with them last night so you could come to the party and stay here. You’ve got nothing on me. I knew where you hid the cameras back then. I knew where not to stand. But if you think I’m wrong and that you’ve got something on me, I’ll take my chances.”

“Like you’re doing with the police? They’re going to question me again, Carra. They’re going to wonder what happened to my face and my feet.”

She looked down at his feet. “You’re going to show them your hooves, Max? Is that it? Please. Here’s what I know about you. When I leave here, you’ll pull the glass from your feet and you’ll fix your lip. Your too vain not to do otherwise. And if you do tell the police what happened here today, I’ve got my own story. We had an argument and you attacked me. Guess who lost?” She kept her eyes on him, turned on the phone and tapped numbers.

“I wouldn’t call the police, Carra.”

“Who said I am? Tonight, it’s all about business and you’re going nowhere.” She cocked her head at the bedroom as the phone started to ring. “That’s where you’re staying from this point forward. You’ll have no access to a phone, to this disc, and no way to ask for help. What you will have is four men standing guard outside your door. Make one move when they get here, and it’ll be your last.”

“People can be bought, Carra.”

“Not these men, Max.”

“You don’t know a thing about money or people.”

“Then prove me wrong. We’ll see who’s right.” She held up a finger. “But if you try it, know that they’ll have orders to kill you.”

“Death doesn’t frighten me.”

And there it was-his greatest lie yet. For the first time since he came back into her life, she felt as though it was she who had the upper hand. And, so, she pounced. “That’s a lie,” she said. “I think you really believe you have a chance to be on top again and because of that, I think you fear death more than you hate your body, more than you hate your childhood and more than you hate your miserable fucking existence.”