Read my Lips
Chapter 30
A few hours before Spencer Reid snapped a picture of DR. Will Reynold through his cabin window, Anna Ackerman squealed in delight as her fiance lifted her off her feet. He twirled her around, sending her dark hair flying out behind her and nearly sending them crashing into the stainless steel refrigerator. Both of them were laughing when he placed her back onto her feet. His laughter faded as he crushed her against his chest. The sudden rough contact took her breath away. But Anna didn't mind the tight grip he had on her. When Jon dipped his head down to kiss her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips to accept his tongue.
Anna met her fiance during her first semester of law school. He was everything she'd been dreaming about since she was a little girl, except for maybe his height. But since she was only five foot four, his shorter than average for a guy height of five foot six felt just perfect for her. Their relationship was like a fairytale. Jon brought her flowers and took her dancing on their first date. Six months later he asked her to move in with him. And a year after that, on her twenty-third birthday, he presented her with the most beautiful diamond ring she'd ever seen and asked her to marry him. They decided to wait until after he passed his bar exam to start planning their wedding. And he just arrived home after passing it, on his very first attempt.
"Should we call your mom?," she asked. Anna reached across the counter for her phone. But Jon pulled it from her hands before she could start scrolling through her contact list.
"Wait," he urged. "Let's take a moment for us before you start calling everyone we know." He set her phone back down on the kitchen counter and reached for the brown paper bag he brought home from the store with him. Anna laughed when he pulled a cheap bottle of champagne from the bag. "I thought I might jinx myself if I bought the celebration drink before I took my exam. So now we're stuck with the sunny mart's finest offering."
Anna wrapped her arms around him, kissing up the column of his neck before she whispered into his ear. "I don't care what kind of wine it is as long as I drink it with you."
Jon tightened his arms around her slim waist as he captured her mouth with his. He deepened their kiss as she ran her hands through his short crop of dark wooly hair. After a moment, he became much more interested in kissing his fiance than he was in the bottle of cheap champagne in his hand. Without looking, he clunked it down on the counter. But he misjudged the reach, setting the bottle down harder than he meant too. The sudden rough jolt combined with the pressure that already built up inside the bottle when it rolled around in his backseat on the drive home. The cheap cork that wasn't really cork popped from the bottle and the young lovers were sprinkled with the bubbly wine as it sprayed from the bottle.
Anna squealed with laughter as Jon rushed to pull two wine glasses from the cabinet. Some of the wine was lost in the small explosion. But he still managed to fill them each a glass.
"Congratulations babe," Anna gushed, clinking her glass against his. She lifted her flute, swallowing the contents down in a few hard swallows. A tiny dribble of champagne escaped from the side of her mouth. Jon wiped it off with his finger before he pulled her into his arms.
"I couldn't have done it without you."
Jon followed his fiance's example and finished off his glass of wine before he took both glasses and set them carefully in the sink. Then he pulled Anna against him and kissed her like crazy.
"I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you," Anna said, the words coming out in a soft breathless whisper. Jon lifted her up, setting her on the counter before he nudged his body between her parted knees. They started pulling at each other's clothing. Jon's suit jacket and tie went first, followed by her shirt and bra. She moaned as he shrugged out of his shirt and pressed his naked chest against hers. His hand was sliding up her thigh towards her cutoff shorts when a ripple of unease suddenly shot up her spine.
Anna opened her eyes. Her scream caught in her throat. For a moment, she was sure that she fell asleep on the living room couch waiting for Jon to get home. Because the sight in front of her eyes was like something from a nightmare. A man was in their kitchen, standing only a few feet away from her and Jon. But where his face should be, there was a long elongated white mask with horns sprouting from the forehead area. He wasn't a man, but a devil with a wide menacing painted on grin. Once she got her wits together enough to realize that the strange figure wasn't a nightmare but a man in a mask, her first thought was that he was some sort of modern day clan member. Anna was white. Jon was black. People were always polite to their faces. But this was the south. Even fifty years after segregation was abolished, there were still people that had a problem with their relationship. And with a young successful black man in general.
"What the fuck!," Jon cursed, turning towards the masked intruder. The man didn't answer back. He just pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at Jon's chest. Jon barely had time to ball up his fists before the man fired. The gun made a strange muffled boom when he pulled the trigger. And for a moment, Anna allowed herself to believe that the gun wasn't real. Maybe this was a prank. But it wasn't. There was a silencer on the weapon.
Jon gasped as blood bubbled up out of his mouth. He staggered backwards before he fell. When he hit the floor, the blood really started gushing out. The puddle under his body spread rapidly. Anna knew she ought to do something. But she was frozen in terror, her eyes locked on the man in the devil mask. It wasn't until he took a step towards her that the spell broke. She leaped down from the counter, her bare breasts bouncing with the movement. Anna turned and ran. But she only made it a few steps before her attacker hit her with a different sort of gun. Every muscle in Anna's body went stiff and she fell to the floor with a painful thump.
Anna felt the squeak of his latex glove on her arms when he grabbed her. She willed herself to fight. But her body was still immobile from the shock. The first thing her attacker did was brush her dark hair back from her face. He held her tenderly, like they were lovers. And that scared her more than the gun in his pocket. The man brushed his glove covered fingers across her lips. Anna screamed internally as he placed a square of silver duct tape over her mouth, gently pressing the corners of it down so that it adhered to her skin.
Casanova lifted his lover up into his arms. Anna Ackerman wasn't the one that got away. She wasn't Eliana Kaminski. But she was still beautiful and intelligent. She was an accomplished piano player and a third year law student, exceptional in every way. Anna was created to be a concubine of the greatest lover in history. Like all his other lovers, she was meant to be his.
Once her screams were muffled, Casanova bent Anna over the kitchen table and fastened her wrists behind her back. Handcuffs or zip ties would be more efficient. But he preferred the rope. He liked the way it burned the tender skin of their wrists when they struggled against it. A sudden flash of Eliana's wrists flashed through his mind. Her delicate skin, rubbed raw as she struggled against her bindings.
"Running away is against the rules."
Casanova spoke in a gruff monotone, taking care to hide his southern accent. His newest conquest looked enough like Eliana that it was becoming hard to separate them in his mind, especially now that Anna was bent over the table with her back to him.
"I told you there would be consequences."
Casanova grasped the waistband of Anna's faded denim shorts, yanking them down her legs along with the skimpy pair of underwear she had on underneath. The jolt from the stun gun was starting to wear off. He knew he ought to shock her a second time. But he was enjoying the way she was struggling against his hold. He gripped her firmly by the rope that was binding her wrists, lifting her arms up at an unnatural angle. Her choices were simple, lay forwards against the table or have her shoulders dislocated. He kept her immoble in that manner as he pulled his leather belt from his belt loops. On the last one, the tip of his glove caught, leaving a tear in the latex. But he ignored that for the moment.
Counting aloud, Casanova brought the belt down over Anna's bare ass and thighs over until her skin was red and covered in small welts. The sight of it made his dick throb behind the zipper of his jeans. He released his grip on her wrists and tossed the belt on the table in front of her. That way it would serve as a visual reminder as to what would happen if she didn't submit. Casanova pulled a condom from his pocket and unzipped his pants. And then he did what he believed all men secretly wished they could do. He saw a beautiful woman. And he took her.
The sun was sinking low in the sky when Casanova carried Anna Ackerman's limp form into her home's attached garage, placing her in the trunk of her dead fiance's car. She stopped struggling after the second time he raped her. But he gave her enough sedatives to last the duration of his drive anyway. Staying inside her house as long as he did was risky enough. After Eliana managed to escape, he wasn't planning on taking any more chances.
The area where he left his vehicle was secluded. But still, he sat in the Mazda Jon's politician daddy bought him until he was sure he was completely alone. The area where he parked and planned to leave the Mazda was in the opposite direction from Anna's house to his little hideaway. He smiled as he climbed from the vehicle, thinking about how easy it was to thwart the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. They'd been chasing their own tails since they arrived, making mistake after sloppy mistake. He was playing chess and they were playing checkers. They'd never catch him. Even after he made the mistake of letting Eliana escape, they were still no closer to finding him than they had been a week ago.
Casanova lifted Anna's naked body from the trunk, quickly transferring her to the trunk of his own car, where there were tarps waiting as yet another forensic countermeasure. He paused for just a moment, stroking her dark hair back from Anna's face as he thought about all the depraved acts he planned to force upon her slender body. Those thoughts consumed his mind as Casanova drove back across town and towards the wooded area where his hideaway was located. He didn't have a cell phone with him. He wasn't stupid enough to bring anything that might be used to track him to this place. Or to Anna's house. The drawback to this was obvious. No one could reach him. If he had his phone with him, Casanova might have seen one of the dozens of missed calls that came in from a different phone booth each time. He might have had some idea of what was waiting for him when he arrived at his hideaway in the woods.
It was a long walk from his car to his underground paddock. The sun was setting as he followed his winding path between the trees, painting the sky in soft shades of pink and orange. If he arrived a little earlier, he might have deposited his latest addition in her room and taken one of his other paramours out to enjoy the evening sky. A few of them had been held captive long enough to know better than to scream if he took them outside. The idea of it drove him to move faster through the woods. But he didn't start running until he heard a muffled scream.
His girls occasionally broke his rules and called out to each other. But hearing one of them scream like she was being murdered was concerning. The last time Casanova heard a girl in his hideaway scream like that, it was because a giant snake came up through the makeshift toilet in her holding room. And she was screaming for him. He didn't even punish her for that. He wasn't the monster the media liked to make him out to be.
Casanova rushed to deposit Anna in the bed that was most recently occupied by Eliana Kaminski, bolting the door shut behind him before he hurried down the hard packed dirt hallway. He didn't hear any more screams. But he could definitely hear strange noises coming from the end of the hall. The door to Dakota Miller's room was not only unlocked, but cracked open. Casanova pushed past it, rushing inside.
Casanova stopped just inside the doorway to Dakota's room, his mouth gaping open under his mask as the rage slowly bubbled up inside him. Will Reynolds was not only inside his hideaway, his dick was buried in Dakota's backside. And he was roughly fucking her, thrusting hard enough to make her cry out in pain. Dr. Will might be his partner in crime. But that did not mean he was allowed access to Casanova's hideaway. And he certainly didn't have permission to come in a start fucking his women. Especially not this one, who was a particular favorite of his. Dakota was his most docile and obedient lover. And she was an extremely talented artist, the one that drew the portraits on all his calling cards.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?," Casanova roared.
Casanova's loud shout startled his partner. But not enough for him to stop the back and forth snap of his hips. Dr. Will thrust twice more before he found his release. A low groan issued from his throat. He withdrew, letting his victim fall forward onto her bed and using her sheets to clean himself up before he bothered to turn and address the other man in the room.
"Don't be dramatic," Dr. Will chortled. "It's not like I fucking killed her."
"These women are mine!," Casanova barked. "You're not even supposed to be here! This is my place! What the hell were you thinking, coming here?"
Dr. Will offered him a snort of indignation as he stepped forward into Casanova's personal space. His erection was slowly fading. But he was still stark naked and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
"What was I thinking?," he repeated. "This is your fucking fault. You're the one that let that little bitch slip away! And she led her goddamn FBI boyfriend straight up my fucking ass! I've told you a hundred times, pick women that no one is going to miss. You can't kidnap the girlfriend of an FBI profiler and not expect there to be any consequences. Now they're onto me…." Dr Will paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. When he spoke again, it was in a hiss that was barely above a whisper. "Just remember… If I go down, we both go down."