The safe was out in the open, roughly the size of a dorm fridge. Combination lock. Callie turned around, because she knew that Sidney was there. The woman seemed heedless to the blood on her face, the bloody footprints that led like breadcrumbs to the closet door.
Callie told the bitch, “Open it.”
“Calliope.” Sidney shook her head the same sad way that Andrew had in the tunnel. “Even if I wanted to, do you think Andy would give me the combination?”
Callie felt her teeth grit. She ran through the inventory in her purse. She could pump enough heroin into this evil cunt to stop her heart. “When did you know it was me?”
“Oh, baby girl, from the moment you walked into the meeting.” Sidney was smiling, but there was nothing fun or sexy about her mouth now, because she had been playing Callie like a fiddle the entire time. “I gotta say, Max, you clean up really nice.”
“Where are the tapes?”
“Andy was right.” Sidney was openly looking at her again, appraising her body. “You really are a perfect little fucking doll, aren’t you?”
Callie’s nostrils flared.
“Why don’t you stick around, baby girl?” Sidney’s smirk was sickeningly familiar. “ Andy will be home in a couple of hours. I can’t think of a better wedding present than letting him watch me fuck you.”
Callie looked down at her hand. She was still holding Linda’s knife. “Why don’t I cut the skin off your face and leave it hanging on the front door?”
Sidney looked startled, as if it had never occurred to her that fucking with a needle junkie who had survived on the streets for twenty years was a bad idea.
Callie didn’t give her time to consider the implications.
She lunged at the woman, knife first. Sidney screamed. She fell onto her back. Her head banged against the floor. Callie could smell the huff of tequila as she jumped on top of her. She raised the knife over her head. Sidney scrambled to defend herself, catching Callie’s wrist with both of her hands. Her arms shook as she tried to keep the knife from plunging into her face.
Callie let Sidney’s focus stay on the knife, because the knife only mattered if you played fair. Callie hadn’t played fair since she’d chopped up Buddy Waleski. She rammed her knee straight up between Sidney’s legs so hard that she felt her kneecap crack against Sidney’s pelvis.
“Fuck!” Sidney screamed, rolling to the side, gripping her hands between her legs. Vomit spewed from her mouth. Her body was shaking. Tears poured from her eyes.
Callie grabbed her by the hair, wrenching back her head. She showed Sidney the knife.
“Please!” Sidney begged. “Please don’t!”
Callie pressed the tip of the knife into the soft skin of Sidney’s cheek. “What’s the combination?”
“I don’t know!” Sidney wailed. “Please! He won’t tell me!”
Callie pressed the knife harder, watching the skin curve against the blade, then finally give, opening up a line of bright red blood.
“Please …” Sidney sobbed, helpless. “Please … Callie … I’m sorry. Please.”
“Where’s the tape from before?” Callie gave her a moment to answer, and when she didn’t, she started to pull the blade down.
“The rack!” Sidney screamed.
Callie stopped. “I checked the rack.”
“No …” She was panting, terror filling her eyes with tears. “The player is behind … there’s a space behind the rack. It’s on the … there’s a shelf.”
Callie didn’t remove the knife from her face. She could so easily reach down, cut Sidney’s leg, and watch the woman’s life slowly ebb away. But that wouldn’t be good enough. Andrew wouldn’t see it happen. He wouldn’t suffer the way that Callie needed him to suffer. She wanted him terrified, bleeding, unable to stop the pain the same way she had been every time his father had raped her.
She told Sidney, “Tell Andy if he wants his knife back, he’s going to have to come and get it.”
16
Leigh had put her emotions into stasis inside the cramped conference room with Dante Carmichael. She had known that the only way she would survive the rest of the day was to divide herself between being an attorney and being everything else in her life. One compartment could not spill into the other or there would not be any pieces left to categorize.
Dante had left the photographs of Ruby Heyer’s mutilated body spread across the table, but Leigh had not looked at them again. She had stacked them together. She had returned them to their file folder. She had put the folder inside of her purse and then she had walked out into the hallway and told her client to get ready for jury selection.