CUTTING ROOM -THE- Read Online Free PDF Page A

computer monitors sitting on metal carts. He opened the other curtain, revealing another three monitors on the right — six computers in total. The carts looked like the audiovisual carts teachers used to wheel into classrooms in elementary school when they wanted the class to watch an educational movie. Behind the push carts and video camera was another wall of black curtains. The monitor screens were all on. On each monitor Gabby saw a different person.
    â€˜Hello, Gabby,’ said a man on one of the screens, leaning into the camera.
    â€˜Good evening, pretty,’ said another.
    And another. ‘Hey there, Gabriella. That’s a real sexy name you have. I like your hair.’
    The man on the first monitor laughed. ‘He likes naturals.’
    Gabby’s eyes grew wide with fear. She tried to speak but the gag wouldn’t let her. She pulled hard on the scarf above her, but it only tightened on her wrists, twisting her hands around and around in mid-air. She tried to kick out, but there was nothing to use for leverage. She spun uselessly, her feet barely touching the floor.
    Reid turned his attention away from the screens and back to her. He’d put on a tight, black mask that covered his face. Besides an opening for his mouth, the only part visible was his eyes. The flecks of gold in them that Gabby had found so intriguing a few hours earlier danced excitedly.
    Gabby tried to scream but couldn’t. She just twisted helplessly around and around, her suspended body jerking about. She thought of her mom and dad and sister in Bloomfield, sleeping in their beds, dreaming nice dreams. She wondered how they would react when they found out she’d been raped by a strange man she’d willingly gone home with. Her mom would break down and cry and scream and probably blame everything on the evil city of New York till her Dad told her to stop. Her Dad, though, would secretly blame Gabby for being a slut and hooking up with someone she’d met in a bar. The tears streamed down Gabby’s face. Then a cold fear stopped her heart as she looked at the excited faces on the computer monitors watching her. Gabby knew then that as sure as the sun would rise in the morning she would never again see it. And she would never see her family, or have to witness her mother scream out in pain, or feel her dad silently condemn her judgment over the next Thanksgiving dinner. Because at that moment she knew she was going to die. Off in the distance, behind the wall, she heard the whir of what sounded like a motor, but it wasn’t a car engine. It was more like a blender. Or a buzz saw. Scenes from every horror movie she’d ever watched flashed through her head.
    â€˜Gabriella, baby,’ Reid said, as he slowly approached her, flashing his model-perfect smile through the mask’s black slit. One arm was outstretched, the other hidden behind his back. ‘You’re about to become so very famous. You’re going to be a star, Gabby. A star. And now I’d like to introduce you to some of your biggest fans …’

4
    Miami, May 2011
    City of Miami homicide detective Manny Alvarez chomped on a greasy beef empanada and sifted through the awful pictures that covered his squad desk. The crumpled body of a young woman dressed in just a pair of black panties lay inside a dumpster, her long blonde hair tangled in the mound of garbage she’d been found buried in. Only her face was visible in the first series of photos, peeking through piles of rotting food, trash bags, discarded paint cans, and broken furniture, her terrified brown eyes open wide, staring up at what was, ironically enough, a perfect, blue Miami sky. What was left of her lips was twisted into the most grotesque smile Manny had ever seen. The fingers of her left hand, the nails painted pink, reached out from her fetid grave. When Manny had first arrived at the scene with the rest of the crime-scene crowd and the pack of