A Killing in the Valley Read Free

attention on the drive here, she’d been too spacey, but she knew it was way the fuck out in the boonies.
    He put his hands on her shoulders. “We aren’t leaving. Not yet.” He started to push her down onto the bed. She backed away, then reached back and slapped him across the face, as hard as she could.
    “Don’t touch me!” she yelled. She was still high as hell, she could feel it, but not high enough that she couldn’t take care of herself.
    He stared at her for a moment, feeling the color rising in his face. The slap had stung, but the doing of it was the real hurt.
    He started toward her again. She backed away, her hands holding her dress in front of her, an instinctive and pitiful act of protection. He grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off her feet. She tried to bite his hand, but he wrapped his fingers around her neck, hard, almost cutting off her windpipe.
    “Don’t,” she tried to choke out.
    He threw her onto the bed. One hand tore off her panties, the other covered her mouth to muffle the screaming.
    She was back in the living room. She had managed to get her clothes on. She didn’t know where he was—somewhere back in the house, that bedroom or the bathroom next to it, where she’d been sick.
    She had to get out of here. She didn’t know the location; she hadn’t been paying any attention during the drive. She did remember they had turned off Highway 154 past the town of Santa Ynez. If she could get to the county road they had turned off to get here, somebody could drive out from Santa Barbara and get her. The way she looked, nobody would pick her up hitchhiking. She knew that because she had checked herself out in the mirror, after he had finished with her. One eye was almost completely closed, her bottom lip was split and oozing blood.
    She reached into her purse, took out her cell phone, and started to dial.
    “Who the hell are you calling?”
    She jumped, turning toward the voice. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. “Nobody,” she said instinctively. That was an obvious lie, the phone was in her hand and she had been punching in numbers. “My mother,” she improvised. “To tell her I’m gonna be late.”
    His head shook slowly, back and forth. “You were dialing 911, weren’t you? You were going to call the cops on me.” He reached out for the phone. “Give it here.”
    She started backing away. “No.”
    He came toward her, stepping slowly. Except for his boxer shorts, he was naked. “Give,” he ordered her, holding his hand out.
    She stopped and stared hard at him. What more can he do to me, she thought with suddenly clarity. She felt powerful all of a sudden. “What are you going to do if I don’t?” she asked in an aggressive tone of voice. “Kill me?” she taunted him. “That’s all that’s left for you to do to me. You’ve done everything else already.”
    He stared back at her. He had gone too far, way too far, and he knew it. “Look,” he said, trying to placate her, “I’ll drive you back to town and drop you off and you’ll never see me again.” He forced a smile. “I’m sorry.”
    Her smile back at him was like the grim smile of a death’s-head. “You don’t know how sorry you’re gonna be, you shitbird.” She started to dial again on her cell phone.
    “Don’t call the police!” he yelled at her. “That won’t do either of us any good.”
    She momentarily stopped dialing. “The police?” She laughed in his face, that was such a lame idea. “You think the police would do anything for me against someone like you? My word against yours, whose are they gonna believe?”
    What she was saying was true, he knew that without her having to spell it out. She had come here with him willingly. They had done drugs and drunk almost an entire bottle of tequila together. He’d bought her a pair of cheap earrings at the mall, which could be construed as payment for sexual favors. Most importantly, she was working-class Latina and he was an