Shona Jackson- The Complete Trilogy

by Vicky Jones

  "Oh, Miss Chloe, I'm so sorry! Please, say you'll forgive me."

  Elbie looked up and smiled, seeing Chloe heading his way. His smile turned to a confused frown when he saw her stop to talk to Randy, who seemed to be distraught about something. Throwing his oily rag down on his bench, he started to walk over to them, in case he could help.

  "They only told me to give her a lift!"

  Randy's words dribbled out of his mouth, along with globules of spit as hot, salty tears streamed down his pudgy red face. Chloe's panic was building by the second but, to extract some fragments of sense out of the man crumbling in front of her, she had to remain calm.

  "Give who a lift? Who, Randy?" she demanded.

  "Shona."

  "Who asked you to give her a lift, Randy? Who?"

  "Kyle. Your father was there too. Oh God, I'm a dead man now!"

  "Randy, I swear to the Holy Ghost, if you do not tell me everything you know this instant, then I will kill you right now with my bare hands! Now, TELL ME, GODDAMN IT!" Chloe roared.

  Elbie broke into a run hearing Chloe yell. In all the years he'd known her, he'd never heard her raise her voice.

  "Miss Chloe, if I tell you, they will kill me! I got a family."

  "Here, you see this? It'll keep you and your family going for over a year! Take it, then get outta here. Now tell me!"

  She thrust an envelope stuffed with money into Randy's quivering hands.

  "I was at home around midnight last night, and there's a knock on my door, so I answer and Kyle storms in with your father and the three Bullen brothers. Kyle demanded I go with them. I had no choice, I didn't want 'em in my house with my wife and babies asleep upstairs." Randy begged Chloe for some understanding of his predicament.

  He received none.

  "And?" Her eyes shot arrows of fire at Randy.

  "I got in your father's car, sitting in the back, and I heard them say that you were with Shona in some hotel."

  "Go on–"

  "Then they gave me the address and said all I had to do was offer Shona a lift to work or I'd get the beating of my life."

  "And did you?"

  "I had no choice! At 4:45, I saw her walking down the road towards work, and I had to make it like I just happened to be driving past. I pulled over and asked if she wanted a lift, like I was told to."

  "And? What did she say, Randy?" Chloe swallowed back the maelstrom of emotion inside of her.

  "She got in. She trusted me." He lowered his eyes.

  "Then what happened?"

  "We drove half a mile until I stopped where they told me to stop, somewhere quiet. Where they were waiting. They reached into the truck and grabbed her. She was screaming so much, punching and kicking at them, but they were too strong for her. Kyle told me to get the hell outta there. I ain't heard no screams like that in my life!"

  Randy looked traumatized.

  "What did you see?" Chloe whispered as she bit the the inside of her bottom lip.

  "I looked in my mirror and saw her on the ground. They were beating the shit out of her, like a pack of wild animals. All that anger and aggression they’d built up against her! She was crying out for you, Miss Chloe, she sounded in so much pain! They knew they had to shut her up somehow, she was makin’ too much noise!" Randy paused momentarily.

  “And then I heard it.”

  Chloe swallowed hard, her heart disintegrating inside of her.

  "Heard what? WHAT, RANDY?"

  He paused again, this time for what felt like an age.

  "The gunshot."

  Elbie was only a few feet away, hearing only a few scattered words coming from a distraught-looking Randy. He saw Chloe's body sway, then her legs buckle underneath her in slow motion.

  Chloe held her hands up to her mouth and let out an agonized scream. Her world became blurry around her, her legs giving way. Elbie, who was only a few feet away by then, caught her just in time as her body collapsed into his arms.

  "What in the GODDAMN hell, Randy? Did I just hear that right?" His eyes raged with fury and confusion as he struggled under Chloe's dead weight.

  "I'm so sorry, Elbie, I'm so sorry." Randy turned and ran as fast as his enormous body could carry him, leaving the old man to hoist Chloe up in his arms and take her back to the tool room.

  He placed her on his stool, her arms safely tucked over the bench. Grabbing his crowbar, he stomped into the workshop at the back of the tool room and thundered it down with all his might onto the floorboards below him, shattering them into tiny pieces.

  He simply didn't care anymore.

  Scrabbling around in the hole he had created, he pulled out his escape box, ripping the lid off to get to his hip flask. He poured a measure into a clean glass and gently tried to rouse Chloe, stroking her hair firmly as he sought to wet her lips with the strong liquor. She gasped and coughed, almost falling off the stool as the alcohol started to take effect. When she realized where she was, Chloe stared into Elbie's anxious eyes and begged him to tell her what she had been told by Randy wasn't true.

  "I'm so sorry, but I haven't seen her all day either. It's not like her. I'm so sorry, darlin'." Elbie crumbled as he watched her release a fresh set of strangled sobs. He forced another few sips of brandy into her mouth to help calm her.

  "Oh, Elbie, it's all my fault! If I hadn't got involved with her, then Kyle would never have–"

  "Now, you listen to me, girl–" Elbie gripped her face in his hands firmly, his own eyes overflowing with tears. "Do you have any idea how much that girl loved you? She would've given up her life to spend just one single second with you, you know that?" The tears were streaming down the old man's face now. He had lost the last friend he had there.

  "Oh, Elbie! What am I gon' do now? I can't live without her, I loved her so much!" Chloe's mascara-smudged eyes were heartbreaking for him to look at. Turning away, he caught sight of the answer staring him in the face.

  His diary.

  Kyle and Bruce clinked glasses, celebrating the successful meeting with the investors that had just concluded.

  "We are covered, aren't we, Larry? The sheriff's on our side with regards to the disappearances around here?" Kyle asked quietly after the investors had left. "Now the broad is gone, people around here are gon' be asking questions."

  "Well, that's where a lot of the money goes. Well, Ellis's money, you could say, but we're not gon' tell him that, are we? It's an expensive business keeping this town quiet."

  Kyle nodded his head in agreement.

  "Just one last loose end to tie up," Bruce added. "The old man and that fuckin' diary of his. I don't know what dirt he thinks he's got on us, but it's best for everyone if it, and he, disappears. Understand? Then we can all get on with our lives!"

  Understanding perfectly, Kyle drained his glass.

  "I'll go pay him a lil' visit."

  "What is this, Elbie?" Chloe asked, holding the leather journal in her trembling hands.

  "I been keeping a log of every despicable crime that has happened in this place over the last few years now. There's dates, times, names. It's all in there, proof that can be checked up on. They ain't getting away with it any longer. I seen two of my friends die here. I'll be damned if I'm gon' go the same way."

  Chloe held the old man's hand as he shook with years of pent-up anger at the treatment he had witnessed and not been able to stop.

  "I was gon' give it to the press so they could blow the lid of this, but someone up top must have found out about it. Some truck near as damn ran straight into me the night I had arranged to meet a reporter in town. Put the fear of God in me at the time, but now, after Shona? Well, I couldn't give a damn anymore. It has to stop, NOW!"

  "What are you going to do, Elbie?"

  "I want you to have it. I'm gon' get in my truck and I ain't gon' stop driving until I get to my daughter's ranch. I don't know what the hell I been waitin' for. I told Shona a while back not to waste a single damn second of any potential happiness she could have with you,
and there I was doin' the same! I'm a goddamn fool! But no more, I'm outta here!"

  Kyle sauntered down the balcony steps and headed towards the tool room, a grin on his smug face, feeling all the strands of his master plan finally coming together.

  Elbie collected the few possessions he had from the workshop, fastened his tool belt around his waist and put his flask and the few dollars spare he had from his box in his pocket.

  "Elbie, take this." Chloe reached into her jacket pocket and handed him a thick wad of money. "Call it your retirement bonus!"

  Elbie held the money, then reached out to her, taking her into his arms in a tight embrace. "I hope you can find happiness. Shona would want you to be happy!" The tears were rolling down both their faces now.

  "Thank you, Elbie. You're the father I shoulda had!" She grabbed his bag and held it close to him. "Now, go!" She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve.

  They heard footsteps approaching the tool room and a very familiar voice singing happily to himself.

  Chloe felt the panic slice through her.

  "Elbie, go, NOW!" She heaved him towards the metal back door.

  "Look after yourself, Miss Chloe!"

  He disappeared through the door and raced over to his truck parked twenty feet away. Kyle appeared in the doorway, his smug smile fading as he saw Chloe standing there, the open back door blowing in the wind.

  "Where's the old man?"

  "I ain't seen him!" Chloe lied, hiding the diary in her inside jacket pocket.

  He walked over to the open door and watched Elbie roar away fast.

  "Arrrggghhhh, FUCK!" Kyle banged his fist into the door, recoiling in agony as the metal rivets tore the skin off his knuckles. He barged past Chloe and ran to the nearest phone.

  "EARL! The old man's headin' your way. Get in your truck and chase him off the fucking road if you have to!"

  "Sorry boss, but that idiot little brother of mine still hasn't returned with the truck yet, after we sent him to finish the last job you gave us!"

  Kyle slammed the phone down and, with one last murderous look at Chloe, he smoothed his jet black hair back into place and disappeared.

  Putting her hand over her pocket, Chloe felt the edges of the diary. Completely exhausted, she thought of the one place she could go where she knew she would be safe.

  Chapter 81

  Chloe arrived at the Birds' farm late. She’d driven around for hours and hours, visiting every place she’d ever been with Shona, including her favorite place down by the riverbank, in the hope of finding some sign of where they had dumped her body. It broke her heart into even tinier pieces to know she was out there somewhere, cold and alone.

  Driving up to the farmhouse, she saw something that sent a chill through her bones. The Bullens' dark green Ford pickup truck was parked outside, the tail hatch dangling loose.

  Slamming on the brakes, Chloe jumped out of the car and ran up to the front door, praying that the murderous owners of the truck hadn't already done something terrible to Tom and Ruby too.

  "Tom, Ruby! Open the door! Please!"

  Chloe shifted her weight between her feet, waiting for the porch light to click on.

  "Chloe! We've been trying to find you!" Tom extended his arm to guide her through the kitchen to the table.

  "I saw that green truck. They murdered Shona. Where are they? I'll kill them! Oh, Tom! Shona's gone, she's gone!"

  "Chloe, calm down! Please, for heaven's sake, take it easy!" Tom tried to hold her as her body shook. As she lifted her head to take a breath, she saw a young man cowering behind Ruby.

  "Miss Chloe, I'm so sorry for what I done, but I had to come here. I had to bring her home. Couldn't leave her lying out there in the cold, in that goddamn place all alone." Billy Bullen was standing there, patches of dry, dark blood staining his dirty white undershirt.

  "You killed her? YOU? WHY?"

  Chloe flew at Billy, who offered no defense as she rained down blows on him. Tom threw his strong arms around her, comforting her as best he could.

  "Please…please try to calm down." Ruby held Chloe's raging face in her hands.

  "I didn't wanna do it! They made me!"

  Billy continued to snivel as Ruby held Chloe until her body felt limp in her arms. Carefully, she carried her to a chair at the kitchen table and soothed her distraught sobs until Chloe was calm enough to receive an explanation as to why the youngest Bullen brother had ended up on their doorstep that evening.

  Chapter 82

  Saturday evening, three nights later.

  For the last three days and nights, Larry Bruce had hardly left his office. Pouring himself drink after drink, he sat silently in his leather chair, his dim desk lamp the only light in the room.

  Out of the corner of his red eye, he noticed a flicker of movement in the darkness, near his open door.

  "Who's that?" he slurred.

  The figure stepped forward. Her face was pale, the dark circles hanging like hammocks underneath her tired eyes. She looked almost ethereal in the low light.

  "Where the hell you been for the last few days?" Bruce demanded, a tiny fragment of concern in his drunken voice.

  "Around," Chloe replied aloofly.

  "What you doing here?"

  "To find out if everything they say about you is true and to see once and for all if you've finally found the decency to admit to me, your daughter–" the word caught in her throat "–what a murdering bastard you are!"

  "What the hell you talking about?" Bruce replied, adjusting his tie.

  "Where d'you wanna start? Cuban? The Bullens–" She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. "–and Shona." Saying her name aloud still pierced Chloe's heart, but she owed it to her to find out the truth.

  "Whoa–" He held his hands up. "I don't know what you think you know here, but–"

  "OK, I'll tell you," Chloe interrupted matter-of-factly. "Three black guys a while back, you remember? The ones you set up with those wallets? D'you know what happened to them afterwards? The sheriff handed them straight to the Bullens! We can all guess what happened to them then, huh?"

  "Why you so bothered, Chloe?"

  "So, you admit to framing them? For God's sake, be honest for once in your fucking life."

  Chloe didn't care anymore. Nothing would hurt her as much as what he'd already done.

  "Of course I did. I ain't having that dolt Ellis bring in more coloreds every goddamn day. I wanted the message to get out they wouldn't last five minutes here. I called the boys, and they took care of it, so what?"

  There wasn't a shred of remorse in Bruce's voice.

  "And Cuban?"

  "He was tougher, stupider than the others. When he attacked Kyle, he called up to me and yeah, I got the Bullens onto it. Can't have an out of control colored on the loose."

  "Kyle attacked Shona first! Cuban was just defending her. Does that change your view now?"

  "A nigger's still a nigger," he replied flatly.

  "Now Shona."

  She swallowed hard on the lump in her throat.

  "What about Shona?"

  "You knew, didn't you?"

  "Shona led you astray. Before her, you were gon' have the control of the business, a wealthy man, a family–"

  "I was MISERABLE before her!" Chloe shouted, the first bit of raw emotion she had been able to express in days. "You don't even know me, do you? How the hell can you be my father and not know one goddamn thing about me?"

  "Shona Jackson was a waste of space. She was never gonna amount to anything and was trying to take you down with her. She was mentally unstable! I couldn't have her preying on my–"

  "No, Larry. You let me tell you about Shona Jackson–”

  Wednesday evening, three nights earlier.

  Tom and Ruby led Chloe to the barn where Shona's bed was, followed by Billy Bullen who sniveled over what he had been forced to do. Opening the barn door, Tom flicked the light on. Looking over, Chloe saw her battered body lying on her bed. She broke out
into fresh sobs when she saw the state they'd left her in.

  Saturday evening.

  Chloe leaned back in her chair, her voice eerily calm.

  "Let me tell you about Shona Jackson, Larry. I pursued her, ME! She avoided me because of her feelings. When I was with her, she listened to me, really listened. Asked about my drawings, my ambitions, she even knew what my favorite color was. Even though I never actually told her, she just took the time to notice. I'd never laughed like I did when I was with her. But you…YOU set me up with a monster!"

  Bruce sneered as he drained his glass.

  “You know something, Larry? You're so big on protecting me, did you know Kyle raped me? Yeah, real good job you did protecting me! You know who'd make me feel better every time I was hurt? Shona. Then the only night we ever made love, you know who set that up? ME! When I found out what happened to her afterwards, I felt like I couldn't wake up another morning. All I wanted was to be with Shona. You say you were protecting me? Bullshit! You've hurt me more than anybody!"

  Chloe glared at him.

  "So, where did those animals bury the bodies?"

  "I don't know. They don't tell me so it can't get traced back to me. That's why I pay them so goddamn well," he replied, remorseless.

  "Not good enough. I want you to get them to tell me where they are," she demanded loudly.

  Bruce shook his head. "Impossible."

  "What about Jeffrey?"

  "Ellis?"

  "Why are you screwing him over? He's done nothing but try to help you. He made you an even richer man than you were before, but you go and blow it by betting his money away and hiring thugs to do your dirty work! I know all about the sheriff being on the payroll, and Sam Lewis. You pay him a lot of money to keep things out of the papers, don’t you, Larry!"