The Ripper's Daughter

by B Anders

  The kids would have loved you. You would have made an excellent pediatrician if things hadn’t turned out the way they did.

  “Jessie, I’m tired. Please, don’t give me any shit about this,” Colby's tone was almost apologetic; “I have to shackle you to the headboard before I can sack out on the couch.”

  Jessie hopped up on the far side of the bed without a fuss. She not only extended her foot toward the board but also untangled the chains for Colby’s convenience. Unlike the other times, Jessie didn’t lay back as Colby started to fasten the end securely to the heavy wood post. Instead she kept a fixed gaze on Colby’s every move, her face a furor of concern. Once Colby was satisfied the chains were secure she turned toward the door.

  “Wait,” Jessie’s voice cracked. When Colby turned back to her with a quizzical look she found the courage to continue, “You could sleep here with me just as well. The couch wasn’t great in its best day. And it’s just too creepy for you to sleep in Jane’s bed. You really shouldn’t do the stairs by yourself yet either. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t slept here before … with me.”

  Colby studied the woman chained on the bed before her for a long while. Her eyes raking themselves across Jessie’s naked ass, up her side to her small firm breasts. Being naked in bed together would be so wrong on so many levels.

  “When we slept together last, I thought … we were falling in love.”

  “No,” Jessie quietly corrected with a smile, “we were in love but neither of us was ready to admit it then.”

  “So says you,” it was not an accusation but a statement.

  Jessie nodded, “Yes, I say so. So it is true enough. Now, stop getting caught up in semantics and come to bed before you catch your death of cold standing there wet and buck-naked. Come if for no other reason than respect for an old friend. You’re my last patient ever. I don’t want you to die on me just yet.”

  In a rare moment of unguarded emotion Colby spoke from her heart, “Am I only that to you? Your patient?”

  Jessie pulled down the covers on Colby’s side of the bed, “I don’t know, Colby. All I know is that as long as you come to bed, I won’t ask why. I don’t want to sleep in this bed without you.”

  Colby smiled an easy grin that softened the hard lines of her weary face. “An offer from a beautiful woman, I cannot refuse. Push over. Don’t hog the covers. And, we’re just sleeping so don’t get any ideas.”

  Jessie nodded with a little smile and made space while Colby climbed into the warmth of familiar sheets. A silent prayer was on her lips for a night of trouble free sleep.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what? Letting me sleep in your bed? Here’s to old times,” Colby sighed contentedly as she settled down to rest.

  ***

  It was late. Her brow was furrowed from the pounding in her head. Even the soft pillow did little to ease her discomfort her. Gentle fingers caressed her cheek and she could not stop herself from melting into the touch.

  “Head hurt? Bad?”

  “Yeah,” Colby moaned unable to keep the pain out of her voice.

  Jessie pulled Colby’s head to her breast. Her fingers expertly stroked the still wet hair as she probed Colby’s skull. The further back she got, the more Colby’s face was pushed into the cleft between Jessie’s softly rounded breasts. The smell of ivory soap on Jessie’s skin was more erotic than Colby could have imagined.

  “Oh wow! You got a big knot back here,” Jessie informed her. “Probably could use some ice or a cold cloth. Sleeping might not be such a great idea, right now.”

  “I know,” Colby breathed and then before she could stop herself, she placed a light kiss on Jessie’s chest.

  For an instant, the world stopped moving.

  “It’s been a long time, Colby.” Jessie rasped.

  “Sorry,” Colby stammered. She was ashamed of her own desire. Jessie was only trying to make her feel better.

  “Don’t be. It’s okay. It’s funny I never thought we would be like this. You sick in my bed with a bump on your head. I always thought it would be … you pushing me onto the bed and ripping off my clothes. You always liked playing rough.”

  Colby eased back to look up into Jessie’s eyes. They were so clear and certain. No hesitation or regret.

  “You’re shackled,” Colby began but Jessie interrupted to steal her own hungry kiss from Colby’s lips as a hand was moving downwards to gently caress Colby’s breasts.

  “Its okay, Colby. It’s better this way. I don’t want to hurt you. I have horrible dreams where I hurt people. Sometimes, when I wake up the dreams were real. I frighten myself.”

  “I don’t want it to be like this.” Colby replied, “Its wrong, Jessie. Please, don’t.”

  She tried to move away. A gentle tackle brought her back down onto the bed. Jessie was straddling her now.

  “Shush. I just want to touch you. It’s been so long,” Jessie whispered.

  Colby felt Jessie’s soft lips slowly kiss their way down her neck, ruthlessly breaking down her resistance. Jessie’s hands were all over her now, first gently and then insistently stroking, teasing the most sensitive parts of her anatomy. Whimpering, Colby felt herself opening up to Jessie’s touch, those long, talented fingers prodding and pushing. Entering her, slowly at first and then faster and harder until she found herself screaming Jessie’s name over and over and over again. When it was over, they lay huddled together, Jessie cradling a sleeping Colby, protecting her from the night.

  *****

  Chapter 11

  Monday, March 16th

  “Morning.”

  Jessie groaned the greeting out loud as she stretched muscles stiff from a deep dreamless sleep. Turning over with a smile, she lazily peeled away the soiled bed clothes which clung like a second skin to her hot, sweaty body. She had woken multiple times throughout the night hungry for another taste of Colby and found the other woman more than accommodating.

  Colby considered Jessie’s choice of a word versus the usual two before replying, “You didn’t use a qualifier. Is it a good morning or not?”

  “It’s most definitely a good morning,” Jessie sighed happily as she pulled Colby’s naked body up close to her own, hands moving downwards to grope the other woman’s tight, compact ass, teeth sinking into the smooth, soft skin of her neck.

  “I missed us more than you could know, Colby.”

  Colby stroked Jessie’s tussled brown hair back from her brow, “I felt how much you missed me with every thrust of your fingers last night. You fucked me over good. What am I to you, Jessie? Your sex toy?”

  Jessie frowned a little, “I thought I was making love to you.”

  “Somehow fuckin’ and love has always been the same thing to you. So, I guess last night has to be close enough for me.”

  Jessie’s frown deepened, “Are you saying my skills in bed aren’t so good? You weren’t complaining last night when I made you come again. You were screaming my fuckin’ name out loud for Christ’s sake.”

  “You’re bed skills are fine, baby girl,” Colby retorted. “It is your romance skills that stink. I told you. I didn’t want it to be like this with you chained to the bedpost. Granted, it may be one big turn on for you but I wanted more than some mindless fuck. Shit, Jessie, I can get that from any crack whore. I wanted to sweep you off your feet. I wanted it to be special.”

  Jessie’s grin spread across her kiss bruised lips. “Oh grow up! You want special? Compared to the stinkin’ back rooms and alleys where you’ve been screwing toothless hookers in for the last few years this is practically the friggin’ Ritz.”

  “That’s the thing with you, Jessie, you’re happy if life is just good enough to satisfy you, never mind anybody else. The truth is you’ve always been a goddamned selfish little bitch. Marty loved you. I loved you, but we … I was never good enough for you, was I? We could have had something real together, you and me. And you know what else? The Ritz doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s the Taj now. You can�
�t even muster a fantasy romance never mind the real thing.”

  “Well, fuck you too, Colby. What do you know about the real thing? I thought you were better than Marty. You’re just the same underneath. Just another cold, mean, drunken bastard, like he was. You never understood how tough it was for Jane and me. You never even tried to find out. After I stopped hoping you'd come rescue me, I nurtured a long, strong hatred for you over the endless hours I spent strapped to a mattress in a padded cell. God only knows why I even fucked you.” Jessie mumbled at her own realization, "I must be coming off my meds hard."

  Jessie released her hold on Colby with a rough shove and retreated to the far end of the bed. She curled tight into a ball with her back to the other woman. Colby sat up on her side of the bed. Her head spun with the action. Unnerved, she reached out instinctively with a hand to steady herself on the nightstand.

  The wood was real, heavy oak. It matched the bed and the dresser. But when she moved her fingers away, she noticed there was no dust. The thought troubled her but she found herself fast losing focus when the pounding headache behind her eyes doubled time with the strain of her thoughts.

  “I gotta piss,” she announced out loud for no real reason to Jessie’s back.

  There was no reply. Colby pushed up from the bed. She staggered balancing her dead weight on skinny mosquito legs. The bedpost was close enough to grab and she reached for it. She needed a lifeline on which she could brace her unwieldy body before attempting to take another step forward.

  “Colby, what the shit?”

  “I’m okay. Give me a minute,” her voice sounded muffled in her own head. “Re-entry is always a bitch.”

  When Jessie didn’t venture a reply, Colby used the welcomed silence to practice a step. Her left leg held so she followed with the right. After two more tentative steps she was able to let go of the bed frame. Careening wildly she snagged the corner of the bureau before grabbing the edge of the bathroom doorframe just in time to prevent her face from kissing the floor.

  Colby could feel a stormy sea of twisting thoughts swarmed through her brain like angry locusts. Lowering herself onto the toilet she cradled her pounding head in her hands. The reality of the disaster her life had become was hitting home even more poignantly after her post-coital blow up with Jessie.

  Her today was a stark difference from her first day on the force. The straight arrow recruit who thought she had won the jackpot when she got paired up with a decorated Boston PD veteran detective all those years ago. And, the drunken, washed up has-been unable to get out of the friggin’ train wreck her life had become.

  But Colby knew that between then and now there were plenty of milestones. The first time Marty used a nightstick to beat in a suspect’s face, she puked her lunch out into the gutter. The first time Marty screwed a prostitute instead of busting her pimp, she sat in the car with the radio on loud looking the other way. The first time Marty offered to split a payoff, he beamed like a proud father when she accepted with a muted nod. The first time Marty pocketed some powder from a coke bust, he smiled when she took a bit of the candy for herself.

  It wasn’t long before she was the one fucking the hookers while he cheered her own. It was so easy to slip from silence to co-conspirator; she barely noticed the change herself. Sitting in his empty house, with his daughter’s slick still drying on her thigh, the same daughter chained to the bed outside for her own protection, the road to hell was remarkably clear in hindsight.

  Still Colby had to admit it took two hands to clap. It was she who willing took each turn, in spite of many warnings from friendly voices over the years. It was her refusal to listen to reason and yield. She decided to believe his bullshit that she was bullet proof and above the law. Truth was Marty wasn’t bullet proof in the least. He had a finger in every dirty pie in town and he was pissing people off big time. Whatever Dark Angel came for him in the end, she was sure he had it coming. Either way the pigeons were finally coming home to roost. And, they were shitting all over her on their final approach to the runway.

  Sitting there alone pushing the last of the liquid from her dehydrated body, Colby tried to make peace with her demons. At the end of it, she had little to celebrate and much to regret. Even if she could balance her failures with a triumph like finding the killer and ending the slaughter it would be short of redemption. It would be nothing more than a hollow victory.

  It was too late now to make amends, she knew that. Marty, that bastard was long dead. His victims would remain forever faceless and voiceless. Jessie was broken beyond repair. Her destruction sanctioned by Colby's apathy. She stood by consumed by guilt and fear, and done nothing to stop them as they took Jessie apart piece by piece. Nothing remained but for her to end the game. She would make damned sure of it. Colby stood empty, but stronger in her resolve.

  After washing her hands and splashing the sleep from her face Colby emerged from the bathroom. Jessie noticed the grim set of her jaw immediately and sat up in bed pulling the blankets to her chest, her eyes hooded and wary.

  “What now?” Jessie asked with a sneer. “Are you going to beat the shit out of me now, Officer Willis? Spread my butt cheeks and fuck me up the ass with your night stick like the good doctor because seeing me in pain turns you on. I’m so scared.”

  It was all bravado on Jessie’s part. Colby could hear the fear in her voice. An emotion she could play on to get the truth she wanted. Colby grabbed the wooden desk chair and turned it backwards to sit.

  “No more games, Jessie. I don’t want to play anymore. I want to end this charade. Tell me who the killer is, I know you know. You were here that night.”

  Jessie looked at Colby and gave a slow, deliberately shake of her head, “Can’t. Don’t ask me.”

  “I want to know the truth, Jessie. It doesn’t matter to me if you did it. I swear I won’t let them lock you up again in some shit hole like some goddamned animal. We’ll go south across the border to Mexico. We’ll go live by the sea somewhere in a shack on the beach. Swim all day and watch the stars at night.”

  “They’ll catch us, you know that.”

  “If they catch us, they won’t take us back alive. I’ll shoot you first. It won’t hurt. A single shot to the back of the head, followed by another to the heart. And then I’ll put the damned gun in my mouth and blow the back of my head off.”

  “You’re one crazy bitch, Colby.”

  “Yes, I’m crazy. Crazy enough to love you. Yes, I do love you, Jessie. I’m sick of all this running, all these lies. I want to know the truth. Talk to me, Jessie. Tell me who the killer is.”

  Colby could see Jessie’s lips moving but a rushing in her ears drowned out the words. Her vision narrowed until all she could see was white.

  “Hey! Dummy! Wake up so I can knock your block off good and proper. You fucked my little girl under my own roof? You friggin’ piece of shit!”

  “Marty? What the fuck?” Colby realized she was on her back staring up at the ceiling.

  Marty was standing over her, all 6 feet, 200 pounds of him, glaring down. “You are a little shit, you know that? I taught you and fed you and treated you as my own and you screw my kid. A fine 'thank you very much, Marty. I am very grateful to you, Marty.' Let me just say I am very, very disappointed in you, Detective Willis.”

  “Shut up, old man, you’re dead. Get over it, you jealous, controlling bastard. Your little girl wanted to sleep in my bed. You did everything you could to turn me against her and like some stupid, fuckin’ idiot, I did as I was told. I stood by and watched you try to destroy her self-confidence, watched while you egged her to go on dates with the neighborhood tough guys. Did you worry they were slapping her around? Or were you hoping they'd put her in her place.”

  "You got no right talkin' smack to me, kiddo! I made you and I'll break you. Dead or not, I'm still twice as much a hard ass as you."

  "Hard head is more like it. You didn't know a good thing when you had it. You treated Jane and Jessie like dirt. I fell for the pe
rfect family scene you painted for me. That was what you liked about me, wasn’t it, Marty. I was a drooling sidekick too thrilled with your attention to notice what a prick you were.”

  “I should've been so lucky,” Marty sneered as he squatted next to her. “As sidekicks go, you sucked. Once you join me here in hell, I’m gonna kick your skinny ass from one millennium to the next until the end of time. You’ll be screaming for every damned demon to save you from me!”

  “So, same old, same old,” Colby choked and flashed a smile that slowly curled down into a snarl. “So help me God, no demon is gonna help you if I ever find out you laid more than a hand on her.”

  Marty rolled his eyes, “I’m a heartless bastard, not a friggin' prick. But, you got more important things to worry about than me and where my dick fucked around. You need to find the killer. Asking her ain’t gonna get it done for you. You be a detective, go detect. “