Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

having her mouth to herself. Warren said, “What is it, kid?”
    “I have to go to the bathroom.”
    “Wee-wee in your pants.”
    I had a weird sense of deja vu. There was something familiar, but I couldn’t think what.
    I said, “I have to go, too. Shall I wee-wee in
my
pants?” I was being deliberately crude, hoping to gross him out.
    He grimaced. “All right, all right, you can both go. You, too, Julio?”
    Julio shook his head.
    He left Julio where he was, untied my feet and Libby’s. At the bathroom door, he untied Libby’s hands and told her to go while we watched, the gun trained on my ear.
    Cheeks flaming, she turned slightly away so at least he couldn’t see her face. When it was my turn, I took a different approach. I stared at him as I unzipped, not sexual, just boldly immodest. Then I dropped my drawers and pretended to examine them.
    I cried out in high alarm, “Oh, yuck, I’ve got my period! Jesus, what a mess.”
    The man who could stick a letter opener in another person’s eye and apparently not bat his own practically turned pea-green before my eyes.
    “I’ve got to get a Tampax.”
    “Shut up and pee.”
    “Warren. I’m not kidding. I’ve really got to. It’s going to be all over my jeans, on Julio’s couch. …” I held up a piece of toilet paper, thinking chances were good he’d never find out there was nothing more revolting on it than a saccharine flower design. “Look at that.”
    I was right. He averted his eyes. “Okay, okay.”
    “I’ve got spares in my purse.”
    “Go get them.”
    I got up and started to waddle, jeans around my ankles. “Pull up your pants, goddammit!”
    I complied, virtually hearing the creak of wheels as he tried to figure a way to avoid witnessing unimaginable grossness, yet keep me in sight. I made a big show of tearing off a wad of toilet paper and stuffing it in my panties to catch the overflow.
    Warren brought Libby with us to find my purse, keeping her covered while I rummaged for the Tampax. While my hands were out of sight in the purse, I took three of Mickey’s Seconal capsules—all I had left—out of my plastic pill container and stuck them under the sleeve of my turtleneck.
    Triumphantly I extracted a tampon, waving it in his face. He looked as if he were witnessing ritual butchery.
    Good.
    * * *
     
    When he’d destroyed the last of the chips and salsa, he glanced again at his watch. “Time to go. The travel arrangements will be the same. Only this time I will be threatening Little Miss Muffet with this example of modem weaponry.” He waved the gun. “She’ll go first; then Rebecca; then Julio. All three of you will be dead in about five seconds if anything untoward happens.”
    He sure was talking peculiarly—like a schoolteacher. His mother had been one; maybe he’d picked up the habit from her.
    Suddenly I remembered the story Ricky had told me and realized what the déjà vu was about. Like mother like son, I guessed. She sounded bonkers, and Warren certainly was.
    Before we left, he filled up the bathtub. And then he hunted up a plastic trash bag to bring along.
    Mercifully, he untied Libby’s feet before we left, and slung one of Esperanza’s jackets around her shoulders, hiding her tied hands. Julio, too, was given a shoulder-draped jacket. I was untied for driving.
    * * *
     
    The aquarium seemed nearly deserted, though it’s never completely so, I’d learned the other night. There are always security guards at the very least, and lots of people work late. This part of the operation would depend partly on luck—whether ours or Warren’s remained to be seen.
    We slipped in the back door and behind the scenes to aquarist territory. “To the dive lockers,” said Warren.
    He opened Julio’s locker, tossed his equipment on the floor, and had me pick it up. Then we all took the elevator to the roof. The lights weren’t on.
    “Could I ask what this is all about?” asked Julio. “Because I’ve got the feeling you’re going to send me down there, and I can’t go in the dark.”
    “Yeah, you can ask. Suit up while I tell you. Rebecca, untie him.”
    Warren kept the gun trained on him, not letting his eyes stray for a millisecond, as Julio undressed and put on the wet suit. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me—this was my first look at a very fine body I wanted to live to see naked again.
    “You know what the Sheffield Pearl is?”
    “Yes.” Julio stiffened.
    “Ever seen it?”
    “I