He saw no reason to kill her and be done with it. She was going into one of the empty cages with the rest of his pretty ladies. Let her have plenty of time to suffer and reflect upon how she brought this upon herself. The other women weren't responsible for their own hellish fates, but as Gertie watched her body wither away she'd know that this was her fault.

Ken pulled into the driveway of the rental house. It was equipped with a remote controlled garage door opener, but no good could come from the device being found inside his car, so he'd have to go inside to open it.

Gertie was stirring a little. Just a little. He didn't want to shock her again, and the chloroform was hidden inside, so he'd have to leave her. It wouldn't even be a full minute. The most she could do was get the door open, tumble out onto the driveway, and crawl a couple of feet before he caught her.

Unless she was faking it.

"Hey, you awake?" he asked her.

Gertie didn't respond.

Ken picked up the stun gun, but left it turned off. "I'm going to shock you again, so brace yourself." Though no electricity was flowing, there'd be some sort of reaction unless she was the best actor in the world. "Three, two, one." He pressed it against the back of her neck. Gertie didn't even flinch. She wasn't faking—she was still mostly out of it.

He left her in the car as he unlocked the door to the garage. He went inside, turned on the light, walked over to the far end, and pressed the button. As the door slowly lifted, he had a mental image of Gertie sprinting away, but when he returned to the vehicle she was still barely conscious in the passenger seat.

He got back into the car, pulled into the garage, then got out and pressed the button to close the door again.

Ken sighed with relief as the bottom of the garage door hit the cement. Now he had complete privacy. He sat there for a few moments, breathing deeply. He hadn't realized just how tense he'd been since dessert. But it was all good now.

Though he didn't think Gertie would give him any problems, he didn't want to be an idiot about it, so he went to retrieve the chloroform so he could knock her out completely. Then he poured some onto the rag and pressed it against her face.

He couldn't wait to see her expression when she woke up.

He carried her down to the basement.

Olivia was still alive, so Gertie would have some company, though Olivia wasn't good company, not anymore.

Getting the cage down was pretty easy. He climbed the stepladder, unfastened the locking mechanism at the top, and then slowly gave slack to the chain as the cage lowered to the floor.