Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck Series Book 5)

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

—Albert Einstein

“I thought you were just going after Murdock,” Jake hisses into the phone as I finish tying the last knot on Murdock’s ropes, binding him to the chair.

He wriggles in the chair, his threats muffled by the gag in his mouth.

“Due to our latest visitor, I’m ensuring that no one escapes the list. Just playing it safe,” I chirp, grinning when I back up and see Murdock glaring daggers at my face.

It was almost too easy to beat the hell out of him and tie him up. The hard part was loading him into my trunk and dragging him up the stairs of the courtroom without being seen.

Fortunately, with all the chaos following Kyle’s death, no one was guarding the back entrance. I just needed Murdock’s key to get us in.

I pick up the gavel, examining it. Judge Henry Thomas is engraved on the handle.

“This is too risky.”

“Not at all,” I promise Jake.

“Shit,” he hisses.

“What?”

“Some redhead is getting out of a car in our driveway.”

My body tenses. “Hadley found us,” I groan.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. What the hell do I do with her?”

“Don’t hurt her,” I warn him.

“So invite her in for tea?” he deadpans.

“If she’s there alone, that means she’s there to help us. Just see what she wants. And I mean it; don’t hurt her.”

“Great. I’ll just make nice with the FBI while you’re killing a deputy and a judge,” he says dryly.

“Exactly,” I say before hanging up on him.

I put my phone away and study Murdock as he sweats, still glaring at me like he can condemn me to hell with just that scathing look.

“Your daughter and wife will be home tonight, safe and sound, in case you’re worried. I’m sure they won’t miss you if you don’t return.” I crouch in front of him, keeping my eyes on his as that anger slowly gets replaced by reluctant fear. “I’m almost positive they’ll cry a little, but secretly, when no one is looking at them, they’ll treasure that small bit of peace they have now that you can no longer hurt them.”

I stand abruptly, and he screams, the sound muffled by the gag.

Casually, I turn on the old vinyl record Judge Thomas has on the player, waiting for him to return to his chambers after a long day of hiding or burning any remaining evidence from my father’s case. Too bad he’s a decade too late in covering up his trail.

You know what they say about hubris…

For ten years, they got lazy, thinking this case was over and done with, not much cleanup necessary, considering they killed everyone involved and a FBI agent was on their side.

Mozart’s Requiem streams through the chambers, a dramatic composition full of passion and excitement.

I sway with the music, listening to it with my eyes closed. My father was always a Bach man, but Mozart had so much more emotion in all his compositions, in my opinion.

The sound of the door opening has me turning around and a smile dancing on my lips as Judge Thomas shuts the door behind him. I press the button on my remote, and my newly installed lock slides into place. The only way to open it is to get the remote from me.

Good luck with that.

The judge backs away, staring at the door in confusion. It seems to take forever for him to realize music is playing, and he whirls around, staring at the record player as I lurk in the shadows.

Murdock screams over the gag, growing loud enough to draw the judge’s attention to him. Judge Thomas almost trips over himself when he spots the restrained deputy.

“Greg!” Judge Thomas gasps as I step out of the shadows.

He struggles to untie the deputy, and Murdock wriggles harder, screaming and trying to get the judge’s attention. Murdock blinks and eyes the judge, then darts panicked glances in my direction, doing all he can with eye communication to warn the fool.

It’s a valiant effort, but pointless. My favorite part in the horror movies is when the idiot won’t turn around while the restrained buddy is doing all they can to alert them of danger.

“Damn it, Greg, hold still. These knots are—”

“Awesome,” I say, finishing that sentence for him.

Henry Thomas trips, falling to the ground on his knees, staring up at me with wide, horrified eyes.

How fitting.

“While you’re down there, you can say your last words,” I tell him, holding up the knife. “And maybe confess your sins while you’re at it.”

He trembles, his lips move, but no words come out. Finally, he gets out three words. “Who are you?”

Pretty sure that’s the least important thing he could have asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I ask as the music plays on and Murdock struggles against his bindings. “I’m the girl whose life you destroyed. I just have a different face, considering the lynch mob you and Sheriff Cannon sent after us crushed the old one.”

He swallows hard, his color paling.

“You even cast away your son for not following through with the barbaric show the others put on. Did you think him less of a man for not being able to rape a sixteen-year-old girl or seventeen-year-old boy?” I ask, sounding amused, when really it’s all I can do not to slit his throat now.

“No,” he says on a rasp whisper. “You’re dead—”

“So I’ve heard. Over and over. Funny thing about death—someone has to do a damn good job at killing a girl like me. So far, everyone has sucked at that task.”

He scrambles up to his feet, backing toward his desk where he thinks he has a gun hidden. I smirk when he jerks open the drawer, slinging shit everywhere as he rifles through it, searching aimlessly for a gun I’ve already taken the liberty of removing.

“You won’t find it,” I tell him as he jerks the drawer completely out, tossing it at me in a desperate attempt to make time for him to dash to the door again.

I dodge the drawer easily enough, and watch with fascination as he jerks on the handle of the door over and over.

Einstein believed that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By that definition, the judge is clearly insane for thinking the door is going to magically swing open.

I turn up the music as he starts screaming for help. I know the halls are empty. It’s late, well after hours in our small town courtroom. Only a few people are here, and they’re all on the floor below us.

“Tell me how you suppressed evidence, Judge Thomas. Tell me how you overlooked eye-witness testimonies and ruled them inadmissible.”

He spins, his back to the door, his chest heaving as the music plays on, creating the perfect ambience for a Judge’s murder.

“I had to,” he growls. “I had to, or Sheriff Cannon—”

“Let’s not lay blame,” I drawl. “Tell me your part, Judge. And maybe I won’t leave you hanging from the church tower like I did Kyle.”

Murdock’s fight leaves him as panic freezes him in place. A slow smile curves my lips when the judge staggers forward, his entire body a pasty shade of white now as he gawks at me in disbelief.

They know if I could kill a monster like Kyle so savagely and live to tell about it, then I’m the real thing of nightmares. Love it.

I throw the knife, and he screams, diving to the ground as it sticks into the picture of him on the wall. He’s wearing his robes in that picture, looking prominent and pompous. The real man is sobbing on the ground while trembling in fear.

“Tell me!” I shout, smiling on the inside while playing the out-of-control mad-woman on the outside.

He curls in on himself, sobbing harder. “I did it,” he says, sobbing harder. “I did it. I suppressed all the evidence that cleared Robert Evans. But at the time, I swear I thought it was him. Johnson promised us it was him.”

I crouch, pulling another knife from my boot and toying with the handle for a nice little psychotic show.

“Tell me the rest,” I say quietly. “Tell me how you and the sheriff, along with all his deputies, sent a gang of boys to rape the children of the man you wrongfully imprisoned.”

He chokes on his sobs, hiccupping out the next words. “I never meant for the rape—”

“Bullshit!” I snap, holding the knife in front of me. “The truth, Judge. I already know it. I just want to hear it.”

His breaths grow labored and his cries get harder. It takes effort, but he finally speaks again.

“We just wanted you to feel the same pain as those women because you two wouldn’t stop defending him!”

That familiar coldness washes over me, and I slowly stand, moving toward Murdock who is positively quaking in fear now that he knows I’m a fucking crazy bitch with a knife. I’m sure the fact I’m the one who peeled all the flesh from Kyle’s body is wreaking havoc on his nerves right now.

The record starts skipping, the song coming to an end, and I let the annoying sound continue as I slice the knife across Murdock’s torso with no warning. Blood spills from the wound and red plumes grow bigger and bigger against the tan shirt.

The judge screams, as well as Murdock as I slice again, aiming at Murdock’s middle just right, and this time, the gash is deep. Everything on the inside spills out, intestines rolling from his body like an uncurling ball of yarn.

He stops moving, dying almost instantly, and I face the judge again as he spills his own stomach contents in a different sort of way.

As he retches, I come up behind him, finding his lack of fight anti-climatic. These are the men who I feared for so long? One who beats his child and wife, but couldn’t land a single punch on me? One who cries on the floor in the fetal position, praying I’ll disappear like a bad dream, instead of fighting for his life?

Instead of drawing it out, I slice the knife against his throat, finding no excitement with these kills. The blood sprays across the room, and gurgles of agony are all that escape his lips, as all other sounds struggle to make it past the gash in his throat.

I leave him there in his fancy suit, allowing it to be stained red, along with the carpeted floor of his chambers. After cleaning off my knife, I tuck it back into my boot, but I leave my other one stuck into the picture of the judge.

Then I pull out the paintbrush I brought, and I dip it into the blood. Instead of painting a wall this time, I leave a message.

A message for the man who broke my heart.

A message for the man I never should have loved.

It’s completely juvenile, but I can’t help myself.

By the time I leave, the blood has mostly drained out of them, and I walk out, stained in their shades of red, but no one notices. At least I put on the horribly huge boots, though I don’t know why I bothered.

Eventually Logan will out me.

I drive back to the house, finding myself in desperate need of a shower. There’s a silver sedan in our driveway, and my brow furrows. Hadley drives the FBI issued SUV. Maybe she got another car to keep them from looking at her GPS history or something.

Wary, I pull out a knife as I slowly open the door. All the lights are off, and none of the monitors are on.

With silence, I step into the house, stealthily close the door, and gingerly make my way through the eerie quiet. A garbled sound comes from the back room, something sounding like pain as a loud grunt follows.

Without hesitation, I kick open the door to Jake’s room, flipping on the light immediately, raise the knife in the air, and…freeze.

Jake curses, Hadley squeals while covering her bare breasts with her hands, and my mouth opens and closes a few times in complete shock.

“What the hell?” Jake asks, as though I’m the one who has lost my fucking mind.

“What the hell?” I shoot back.

I rarely get surprised. Usually I hate surprises. This time…I’m not really sure how I feel about this little nugget of unexpectedness.

Hadley groans while dropping her head to Jake’s chest, and he grips her hips, rolling her under him. “Close the door,” he says over his shoulder.

And holy shit. His hips start moving.

He can’t even wait until I pick my jaw up off the floor to finish?

I slam the door, stumbling backwards as I head toward my temporary room. I’ve dripped blood everywhere now. I have to look like Carrie after the prom, yet neither of them felt compelled to stop fucking on my behalf.

My first thought is to call Logan.

My second thought is how stupid that is, considering I can never speak to him again.

My third thought is…I really need a drink.

I step into the shower, clothes and all, and start stripping under the cold spray. I don’t even flinch against the chill, but I melt into the warmth when it finally comes. My clothes lie in a puddle at my feet as I wash away the blood and death, refreshing and cleansing myself of the madness.

I’m almost done when I hear the door to the bathroom opening.

“Any reason you kicked down my door armed and ready to kill?” Jake asks from the other side of the shower curtain.

“I should have killed someone in the shower,” I state randomly. “Like in the horror movies when the murderer always sneaks up and slices the knife through the curtain. The water runs red then.”

“Nice. And yeah, I’ve seen all the same movies, Lana. It was something you tortured me and Marcus with, because we hated them, and you refused to watch them alone.”

“I was scared,” I state quietly. “I can watch them alone now.”

He blows out a breath. “Answer my question please. What happened back there?”

I roll my eyes and stick my head out of the shower to glare at him. “I heard noises that didn’t sound like pleasure—which really should say something about your skills—so I barged in to save your life. From a lesbian who had your dick captive in her vagina. What the hell, Jake?”

His lips twitch. “You said to play nice.”

“I didn’t say those words. And how does ‘play nice’ translate to fuck her raw?”

He shrugs. “She’s cool. Hacker like me, only not as good as me because she got caught.”

“I was a kid!” I hear Hadley yell, admitting her eavesdropping.

I try not to smile. “And you’re not a lesbian?” I ask.

She walks into the bathroom, her hair a red disarray of wildness. Her clothes are not exactly on right, as though she hurriedly got dressed.

“I told you I wasn’t. I like women, but I’ve been put off by men for a long time. Since you killed Ferguson…some of the unease has lifted. Tonight I met Jake, already knew he was the same as me, and…well, you know what happened in the end.”

“Can we discuss this when I’m finished washing off the judge and deputy?” I ask dryly.

Jake grimaces, his eyes flicking warily to Hadley, but she just shrugs. “You’ve seen what I’m working with. It’s only fair I see what you have.”

I’d laugh under normal circumstances, but I haven’t thawed enough for that yet.

Jake, however, snickers under his breath, seeming to relax at her casual reaction.

“Later. What’s up? Why’d you track us down? And more importantly, how’d you find us?”

She flicks her gaze to Jake. “He’s not as good as he thinks he is.”

She smiles sweetly at him, her double entendre clear, and he arches a challenging eyebrow at her.

“Alright then. Jake, make sure no one else can find us the same way she did.”

Hadley bats her hand. “I’m way better than Alan, and he’s the only one who would be tracking you. No way will he find you the way I did.”

Her phone goes off, and she checks it. Her frown forms immediately.

“What?” Jake asks her, peering over at her phone.

I expect her to shield it from him, but she hands it to him instead. “Guess I need to borrow a brush,” she says to me. “And some clothes. Thor over there ripped my pants open, and now the zipper is gone. My shirt has something on it too. I’ll spare you the guessing game as to what.”

I groan while waving my hand in her general direction. “Take what you need. But I hope you look good in red.”

She curses before flicking her red hair. “Red is the one color I can’t pull off. Every shade clashes with this. I thought you had a black hoodie or something.”

“My black hoodies are kill shirts, and probably have traces of blood on them. Not a good idea to wear them.”

She spins and walks out, plucking her phone back out of Jake’s hand on her way. I look at him questioningly.

“They already found the judge and the deputy.”

A smile curves my lips. “Good. Now the real fun begins.”