Undressed At Sea: A Psychological Thriller (Drew Stirling Book 2) Read online

“What’s wrong?” she asked him. He had been eating in silence.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s not you. I’m thinking about the latest news, have you heard?”

  “No.”

  “Another student is missing.”

  “God, that’s terrible.”

  “I know. Her name’s Madison Reed, a sophomore. She’s not in my department, so I’ve never crossed paths with her. But the other one, Jill, was in one of my classes last year. The administration is in a frenzy. I’m, well—I’m always skeptical, but I saw the picture. It’s hard not to see a connection.”

  “Connection? You mean a serial killer or something?”

  “Yeah, that kind of connection. But it’s too soon to go speculating about a serial killer, I mean we don’t even know if either one of them is actually dead. They could simply be missing for their own personal reasons.”

  Drew knew about being missing for her own reasons. She hoped that there was an explanation for these two girls, one that didn’t include anything nefarious, but it was hard to imagine a coincidence like that without thinking there must be a connection.

  “Be careful, in any case,” he said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry. There’s probably an explanation.” She didn’t think it was something for her to worry about. She had enough on her mind as it was.

  He asked her if she ever saw the poster for Jillian McCormick and she told him she had. She and Jillian were similar, both petite, pretty blondes, who could pass for high school girls.

  “This new missing girl, Madison, wait until you see what she looks like,” he said. “You’ll see what I mean. Petite, blonde, young looking, pretty. You could be sisters. Just be careful. I’m not saying panic.”

  “You got it. I’ll lock my doors and windows. I won’t jog through the woods in the middle of the night, and I definitely won’t help any good looking guys with crutches.”

  “Crutches?”

  “Ted Bundy reference.”

  “You the serial killer expert?”

  “I like to read.”

  “Okay, what’s with the crutches?”

  “So, Bundy, he was a good looking guy, a real charmer. He would use a fake cast on his arm to lure young college women to help him. He’d say something like, Could you help me with my books? Then when the Good Samaritan coed helped him, he’d hit her on the head with his fake cast, and throw her unconscious body into his car. He drove a Volkswagen Beetle with the passenger seat removed, so he had room to store the body.”

  “You have weird hobbies.”

  “That’s not the weirdest thing, he was into necrophilia. No shitting.”

  “Gross.”

  “And, you know what else?”

  “Can this get any weirder?”

  “He might have a kid out here, somewhere. He got married when he was on death row. He snuck his wife a little gift of his DNA. Supposedly she ended up pregnant.”

  “Bullshit. You serious?”

  “Would I lie about something as fucked up as that?”

  “You definitely need a healthier hobby. What do you think about learning more about sailing?”

  He was attempting to change the subject. That was fine, Drew thought, although she loved talking about serial killers, watching serial killer documentaries, television series, and movies. Ann Rule was one of her favorite authors, true crime stories fascinated her, especially the creepy shit.

  Drew considered sailing with Kyle; it was fun and adventurous, she’d admit that for sure. She was getting to like him, too, and that was the hard part; getting into sailing meant getting into him. If he ended, the new hobby would end, and it wasn’t like she was going to buy a sailboat. There is never gain without risk.

  “I enjoyed being out there, it was so beautiful, especially the dolphins. I’d love to go again.”

  “Good. I’ll get something on the calendar.”

  They changed the subject and chatted about baseball.

  Kyle told her that he was impressed that she understood sports and could talk not just about baseball and football, but about the Padres and the Chargers and other specifics, like the difference between a linebacker and tight end.

  Drew was impressed by how many other faculty members seemed to like Kyle, but she kept this to herself. Whenever they were together, students, faculty, and even admin staff would always stop to say hello to him. Occasionally, he’d introduce her to someone, but she suspected that many of the students that stopped to talk were those that he knew only by face and not by name. He was popular with freshmen students, especially the women, and he seemed to enjoy the attention.

  People who were familiar with Kyle would often stay and chat for a moment, they’d shake Drew’s hand, and say something about her modeling career. She lost count of how many people had told her that they were impressed she’d entered the bioengineering field. It’s not an easy course of study in general, and the programs at UCSD were prestigious. Being one of the top departments in the nation meant getting accepted was an honor in and of itself. She understood the stereotype about attractive blondes, especially those that were models, and was not offended by the surprise people expressed when they found out she was a student in the hard sciences.

  ...................

  “Hey, Kyle.”

  A tall, attractive man, who Drew assumed to be in his mid-forties, approached them.

  “Been out on the water lately?” he asked.

  “Hey. Yes, I was out recently. With Drew in fact. Drew this is Ryan Mills, mathematics. An old friend of mine. Ryan, Drew Stirling.”

  “Hi, nice to meet you.” He smiled and stuck out his hand.

  Drew took his hand. He had a strong, confident grip, but he held on to her hand a moment too long.

  “Terrible, this thing with the blon—the missing women,” he said. He seemed embarrassed and looked to his feet momentarily. Then he looked up again and shook his head.

  “It’s tragic, for sure,” Kyle said.

  Drew listened to them chat. Guy talk. The weather. The Chargers. The Padres. The surf. Fishing. Gossip about a faculty member. Traffic.

  She tuned out their conversation. Unlike most people, who merely said hello, this guy seemed to be a genuine old friend. Drew retrieved her phone and Google searched for news about the latest missing girl.

  She does look like we could be related! Crap.

  Drew read an article. Madison Reed was last seen on a Friday over a week ago. Nobody knew exactly what time she was last seen on campus, and her roommate had spent the weekend elsewhere. Madison failed to show up for classes on Wednesday, and by the weekend her mother called the school. On the following Monday morning, she was listed as officially missing. People suspected that something dreadful must have happened to her as the similarities between her and Jillian McCormick, who had gone missing nearly seven weeks ago, were striking.

  With no sign of what had happened to either of the young women, the local police issued warnings. Authorities gave all kinds of advice: don’t be out alone after dark, be aware of your surroundings, report suspicious men, and other admonitions that Drew thought were both practical and useless at the same time. Drew sighed, closed the Google search, and realized that looking made her feel depressed.

  She went to Instagram and scrolled for something uplifting. Puppies and kittens. She felt better.

  Ryan was about to leave when he stuck out his hand again. “Nice meeting you,” he said to Drew.

  She took his hand for a moment out of politeness but then quickly withdrew it.

  Ryan then turned to Kyle. He said, “Nice getting caught up. We should have the wives set something up. A barbecue. See you.” Then he turned and walked off.

  Drew glared at him.

  Kyle watched Ryan walk away. “Just an old habit. Don’t take it like that. We used to do stuff on the weekends.”

  She remained silent. She picked at the remainder of her lunch.

  “You sure you’re finished?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I
’m full.”

  “Not lunch, don’t be an ass. I meant with her.”

  “Yes, Drew. Look at me,” he said.

  She stared into his eyes without blinking.

  “I’m not going back. Promise.” He looked back at her without flinching.

  “Okay,” she said. But she had a nagging feeling.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  One perhaps ought not to wish for hookers, but there are circumstances when corruption is the only hope.

  ~ Christopher Hitchens

  Women are whores. Every fucking one of them. One thing the Old Testament got right: Women should be like any other piece of property. Goddamn cunts.

  ~ Chip’s father

  ...................

  Chip forgot about Joan after his first summer in California. His grandfather, on his dad’s side, had died. He’d left behind a house in Huntington Beach. Surf City. The house was a dump, but his dad told him that it was theirs, no bank to pay. It was the reason they’d moved to California, something about a trust.

  “My father, your grandfather, was a real motherfucker,” his father had explained to him. A real bastard, but he managed to do one thing right in life: he had bought a house in a middle-class suburban community in Southern California and had paid off the mortgage before he died and left the house to his only grandson.

  “I hated the man. But he did you right, son. He left this fucking place to you.”

  Chip had never met his grandfather. His father told him once, on a night he’d been heavily drinking, that his grandfather wasn’t simply a mean, cruel man. No, he was something worse.

  “Back when I was your age,” his father had said to him, “kids got a smack here and there. An occasional beating or a whopping. It was normal in those days. But your grandfather — oh no — he wasn’t normal. No, not at all. He’d done things. Fucked up shit. Pure bastard.”

  Chip noticed his father’s voice was different when he talked about his own father, as if there was a ghost in the room, or that he expected the old man would walk into the room with a belt, still alive, and ready to dole out punishment.

  “Go get me another beer, boy,” his father had said to him that night. “Before I give you a taste of my childhood.”

  ...................

  “So, do you think your father’s treatment as a child led him to be so abusive to you?” Hawkins asked.

  Chip looked at him like it was a really stupid question.

  “Is that supposed to be a trick question or something insightful? Yes, of course, my grandfather started a chain reaction. Hell, his father was probably a monster, too.” Chip had little emotion in his voice when he spoke.

  “Can you tell me more about this time when you were starting high school?”

  “Sure. I was fourteen, about to turn fifteen, when my dad tells me he has lung cancer. Just like that. I came home from school, and he says to me, Boy, I have lung cancer. Get me a beer. And that was about it. No crying about it. He told me not to get too excited about being a lone bachelor just yet because he had a couple more years left, a couple of fucked up years, but he said he wasn’t going to just roll over and die. He said he wanted to get a little more pussy before he croaked. And then he told me, What the fuck, I’m going to smoke cigars again. Hell, it’s not like they can kill me twice. Sure as shit, he did start smoking cigars.”

  “Did your father have any women around? Girlfriends? Anyone? I’m wondering if you got any female role modeling at all?”

  “No. No girlfriends. Women came around. Not girlfriends. He paid. It was pathetic, but who was I to judge? He also had a massive porn collection. That’s what hooked me. It’s not like the internet is today. Fuck, any teenager with a computer or a smartphone can be watching live fuck shows twenty-four seven. But back then we had videotapes and magazines.”

  “What were your feelings back then about girls your own age?”

  “Normal. I think normal. I didn’t know what normal was. I’m not sure I do now. Women, they’re hard to understand if you have a normal life, at least that’s what I hear people say. I didn’t have any real girlfriends in high school if that’s what you’re asking. I wanted one, sure. I went to the beach in the summer and secretly stared at them. Me and a couple of buddies, we used to climb up on my roof and check out the neighbors, two college girls that sunbathed nude. We’d check them out with an old pair of my dad’s binoculars. But my old man caught us up there.”

  “Was he upset you were peeping on the neighbor?”

  Chip laughed.

  “Hell, no. He was pissed that the roof would leak. He told me and... What the fuck was his name? Skippy. He said to me and Skippy, You fucking young perverts, I got a whole goddamn box of Betamax in the garage. Help yourselves and stay the fuck off my roof.”

  “And did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Check out those tapes?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Of course. I was a teenaged boy. Whacking away. Sure. Sometimes a few times a day. God, some of that shit was fucked up, too.” Chip got silent. He didn’t know what else to say.

  Hawkins waited.

  After three minutes Chip broke the silence.

  “I still can’t bring myself to throw all of that stuff away.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Shitty. But sometimes... It’s just a release. Sometimes. It’s like taking — I don’t know — Xanax. Or drinking a bottle of wine or smoking some weed. One of these days that video player is going to quit working. It’s not like I’m going to take all those tapes down to the local photo restorer and ask to have them all put onto DVDs. Hell, I guess I should throw the stuff away. It’s funny, sad, kind of, how it’s still a catharsis. I think it sometimes keeps me from doing things I’d really regret.”

  “And your wife, her feelings about it? Does this cause any problems between you?”

  “No. No problems. She doesn’t know. Or if she does, she never speaks about it. She’s got her own issues. What kind of woman never wants to have sex with her husband? A fucked up one, that’s for sure. But she’s got other good qualities, and she doesn’t complain about anything. I mean sex-wise. Sure, she bitches about little things, shit around the house. We should do more with other couples, why don’t I invite her to more work functions? Not that she likes crowds, but I should at least invite her, she tells me. I never understood that about her, if it’s a woman thing, or just her. She hates parties and social events. Work events with a bunch of strangers is hell to her, so I don’t ask her. I put things on the calendar and go alone. Once in a while, she’ll complain, saying you never invite me, and I say, What the fuck? You hate that shit. Then she will say something like But I still want to be thought about or some other shit. I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe she just wants to feel included?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Have you thought some more about couples counseling?”

  Chip had considered it, but his wife seemed happy. She had a few girlfriends. He made decent money. He had his hobbies. She shopped, went to tea with her girlfriends, visited the local gardens, and volunteered occasionally. Why rock the boat?

  “Let’s go back and talk a little bit about your role modeling, or better, I should say lack of role modeling, from your father. How did you view his interaction with women during this period after he told you he had cancer?”

  “It took me awhile to catch on that he was hiring prostitutes. I just thought he was dating at first. He’d often have the same women come on a regular basis, like a gardener, a pool guy, or a housekeeper. I could hear him. I’m not sure if he was physically violent, but he was verbally abusive. He must have paid pretty good because I saw some of the same women come back, sometimes for months. I know he went through a lot of money. After he died, well, I was only seventeen, but almost eighteen. By the time the trust got sorted out, I was an adult and took control.

  “I didn’t know much about handling money; we’d always been pretty poor befo
re my grandfather died. But he’d left the house and a couple hundred thousand dollars. My dad went through most of that money. Whores and booze. By the time I had him cremated and paid off some bills there wasn’t much left. But I did own a house.”

  “So, tell me about his addiction to prostitutes. In what ways do you think that altered your view of women or caused some of your later—”

  Chip interrupted him. “Let me tell you a story.”

  ...................

  “Chip! Chip, goddamn it,” his father yelled from his bedroom. “Get me a couple beers.”

  He did as he was told. A naked woman sat on the bed and the room reeked of marijuana. Chip looked down and handed his dad both of the cans.

  “Don’t be shy, boy. The other beer is for her,” his father said. He nodded towards the woman and handed the can back to Chip. “Give it to her. Be a gentleman.” He laughed. Chip gave her the can but avoided looking at her.

  She spoke to Chip’s father, “Is he shy?”

  His dad laughed again, and looked at his son. “No. He’s gay, or stupid, or something. Ask him if he wants to fuck. I have another forty bucks in my sock drawer, but I expect a discount, the kid will fire off his rocket in about ten seconds.”

  Chip’s faced turned red, and he walked out of the room. He didn’t want to start a fight; he knew how quickly his drunken father’s behavior could escalate into full blown monster mode.

  “Oh, he’s cute,” the prostitute said. She followed Chip out of his father’s room. “I’ll do him for twenty. This time. One time only.”

  Chip was nervous and not sure what to do. He didn’t want to face his father’s wrath. He didn’t want to be teased and taunted or be called a little faggot and a pussy for the next week. He definitely didn’t want to be hit. So he walked into his room and sat on the bed.

  “First time?” she asked. She began undressing him.

  He nodded.

  “Just lie back.” Her voice was reassuring and professional.

  She took his penis into her mouth, but he wasn’t hard. He was embarrassed, and his shame only made it worse. He started to panic. His father would tease him without mercy if he found out.