by Lisa Gerkey
“Make me understand! Honey, you can come in the room with me and Grant, and we’ll take you home, back to Nashville with us. We can help you, Kennedy! There are people who can help you, not just me, but people qualified to protect you if you’re afraid of someone.”
She shakes her head frantically, her face hidden behind her dirty, stringy hair. Her eyes are sunken, with dark circles around them. It looks like it’s been days since she’s had a shower or sleep.
“No! No. I don’t want anyone to help me. This is the last time you’ll see me, Jaycee…I…I’m sorry…okay? I never meant for anything bad to happen to you. I love you, sissy. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do, and I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.”
She turns and runs down the hallway. We’re on the third floor. Since she’s headed toward the elevators, I go to the stairway that’s near our room. I don’t give a fuck if I’m running around in only my underwear and an oversized shirt, I must stop her.
She’s in trouble. I know she is. She needs help before it’s too late. If I let her disappear, who knows what will happen to her.
I make it down one flight of stairs to the second floor. A few more steps and I hear a door close and footsteps behind me.
When I make it to the door that leads to the first floor, I grab the handle to open it, and a large hand clamps down over mine.
“I knew I’d get you!
A loud primal scream escapes me. It’s late, but I have hope that someone at the front desk might hear me.
“What do you want from me, David? How did you find me?”
“I saw you with your boyfriend. You’re a nasty fucking little bitch, aren’t you, Jaycee? Huh? Did it make you feel good when he fucked you like a wild animal in front of everyone?”
He grabs both my arms and pulls me to him like a rag doll.
I don’t remember him having so much strength before, but maybe that’s because I’ve never seen him act like this before. He only ever hit me once, but from the look in his eyes now, I know his intentions now are much graver than simply backhanding me.
“Grant will come for me! If he gets his hands on you, he’ll kill you! I hate you! I fucking hate you, David! It’s over between us. We’re divorced. You need to let it go! You need to let me go, David.”
He drags me away from the door to a hidden area underneath the stairs. Even if someone came by, they couldn’t see us. I fight, but there’s nothing I can do. His hold on me only tightens.
“You’re my wife! I didn’t agree to the goddamn divorce, so you’re still mine. You’ll always be mine. I couldn’t give you what you wanted back then, but I can now. I’ve been learning about the stuff you want. Just for you, Jaycee. Just for my beautiful wife, so I can please her from now on in the bedroom and you never need to cheat or run away from me again.”
“I’ve never cheated, you crazy bastard! Believe what you want, but I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve changed all right, but it has nothing to do with me! What happened to you? What happened to the man I fell in love with and married?”
I pause for a few seconds and stop fighting him and let my mind race with possibilities. I must get away from him. Why the hell isn’t someone using the stairs? If a single person would walk by, I could call out for help.
Chapter Thirty
Grant
I wake up in a state of panic. A few seconds later I hear a loud racket. It sounds like someone’s trying to tear the door down. I reach across the bed for Jaycee and I find she’s not there. Panic sets in.
More pounding on the hotel room door and this time, it’s accompanied by loud shouting. I jump from the bed, uncaring I’m in only boxer briefs and swing the door open. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“David Jennings is somewhere in the hotel, boss. We wanted to warn you to keep Jaycee close until we find him. Troy also spotted her sister a few hours ago. We’ve already notified the authorities.”
“Fuck!”
I leave Jeremiah standing while I look in the bathroom, then I grab a t-shirt and jeans out of my bag and quickly tug them on. “Jaycee’s gone! I went to sleep with her right there in that bed beside me. Goddamn, motherfucker! How the hell did I sleep through her getting up and leaving the room!?! Fuck!”
“Calm down, man. We’ll find her.”
Thanks to hotel management and the local police, we’re able to scour the whole place, but we find no sign of Jaycee anywhere. David had a room here, but he checked out last night.
“He has her! I’m sure of it. Everything was perfect when we went to sleep. She didn’t just vanish.”
“You love her.”
It’s not a question. Troy merely states the fact and there’s no point in denying it.
“I…Yeah. Yeah, I fell in love with her before she even knew I existed. We have to find her, Troy. She’s come so fucking far after everything Malcolm and his cocksuckers did to her. I don’t want her to lose all that. Fuck. I don’t want to lose her.”
“We need to get Jensen and Jon down here, but it’ll take them a while to drive.”
Troy gives me a look. We’ve worked together so long; I can read him like a book. I know what he’s thinking.
It’s ridiculously late, or early, to call, but after only two rings she answers the phone. “Master G…I was lying here thinking about you. How did you know?”
“I need your help with something, Kendra.”
“Oh, baby, I’ll help you with anything you need. You only need to name it, or better yet, come over and demand it.”
Frustrated, I clear my throat and bite my tongue to keep from saying something I shouldn’t. I need her help. “It’s nothing like that. I need to borrow your plane. And your pilot. Right now.”
Kendra works in fashion. She started with small entertainers around Nashville and moved her way up to bigger and better. She often flies to California or the Big Apple. Her father, Henley, could’ve bought her a private jet, which I assume she’ll have one day, but he didn’t want to spoil her too much. He outfitted her business with a small M350 and a pilot at her disposal for events too far away to drive.
“Um…Okaaaay…sure, Grant. I’ll make sure it’s ready. Can I ask why?”
“I’m in Memphis…on a…it’s business. I need Jensen and my brother to join me. It’s time sensitive so there’s no time for the drive. If you can get everything set up, I should have them here in an hour.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Kendra. I owe you one. I’ll let the guys know it’ll be ready to go when they get there.”
Already, I’ve let too much time pass. While I wait for the rest of the guys, Troy and I run our own ideas across one another.
“They’ll be here in about an hour. We need to go over things. We know David probably has her. Jayson also pops into my mind. I think it would be a mistake to rule him out altogether. We don’t know if he’s keeping an eye on the girls or not. For all we know, he’s been biding his time until he finds the opportunity to nab one of them.”
“Jeremiah’s going through footage from surveillance cameras. We’ll soon know who we’re dealing with. Hang in there. I know it’s hard as fuck to do, but Jaycee’s smart, and she has one hell of a determination to get through shit. She’s already proven that.”
I haven’t told her how I feel. Sure, I’ve said things, hinted around, but I haven’t had the balls to look her in the eye and tell her how much I love her.
I fucking love Jaycee Jennings and so help me, when I find her, I will tell her and then I will haul her ass to the nearest courthouse and make her mine. Anything that’s left to iron out between us can happen after I give her my last name.
By the time Jon and Jensen show up — the police, Troy, and I have everything set up in a conference room the hotel was gracious enough to give us to work out of.
“Thank god you all are here.”
“We got you, bro. We’ll find her.” Perhaps my brother now understands how important Jaycee is to me
.
“Did anyone call her friends?” Jon rests his hand on my shoulder to offer a small bit of comfort.
“No. There’s nothing anyone can do. We don’t need more people involved besides those we need to search for her.” I don’t want Josh around when I get Jaycee back. It’ll be me who takes care of her. I hope like hell she isn’t hurt. I know she’ll be frightened, and I can deal with that, but, I can’t allow myself to think about the motherfucker putting his scummy hands on her.
“Can I as a question here? Keep in mind, I’m not trying to be the bad guy and I’m not insinuating anything, but…is it possible she went with her ex-husband willingly?”
“No, Jensen! It isn’t fucking possible! She hates him. He abused her, mostly verbal and emotional, but he did hit her once. At least that’s all she admitted.”
Troy comes back with a stack of something in his hands. He tosses them down on the table causing them to scatter.
“Looks like we have one hell of a situation on our hands.”
Shit. I run my hands down my face. “Kennedy was here.” I sit down and pick up four or five pictures that show Jaycee standing outside our room in the hallway with her sister. It hits me, she isn’t wearing many clothes. Well, she had on one of my t-shirts and panties when she went to sleep. She was his wife for years. He’s already seen all of her. I remind myself. My angel is strong. She’s trained her body hard and knows how to defend herself. She’ll be okay…Jaycee has to be okay when I find her.
“What the hell is this?” It’s from a camera in the parking garage. It’s Kennedy with Jaycee’s ex, David. Then I move on to the next photo and the next.
“Well, it looks like her baby sister is fucking her ex-husband. Literally.”
“So, what? Kennedy and David?” I look over to Jensen for his take on the situation. He takes the photos and concentrates hard as he looks at them. He’s a good profiler when we need it.
“It doesn’t look consensual. Here. Look at this one.” He slides it across the table. “Look at the girl’s face, her eyes. She looks terrified.”
Troy steps back to the table with a few more printed off images. “The rest of them, boss.”
Jon walks behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. What the hell am I going to find here? It’s like they all know it’s something terrible. The door opens and a local detective we’ve been working with walks into the room.
When I look down, I wince and shove my chair back to stand. I look at the ceiling to avoid looking at the images now spread out.
“Fuck! How the hell did I let this shit happen? I should have never allowed her to come to Memphis! Goddamn it!” I kick the chair halfway across the room.
A rope binds Jaycee’s hands. In one image it’s plain to see he’s putting her in the backseat of an SUV. In the next photo, I can see her ankles tied with another piece of rope. Lying on the pavement beside the vehicle, I can see shredded material…
“Don’t jump to conclusions. I know what it looks like, but it could be anything. We’ll find her, G. We’ll move heaven and earth to get it done if we have to, but I promise you, we’ll find her. Did you see the last couple of photographs? Her sister’s in the car too. At least they’re together. If Kennedy is anything like her sister, they’ll conspire and come up with a plan. Troy watched the entire footage. David roughed her up a little, he ripped her underwear off, but he didn’t do anything more to her, not here at the hotel. Get it together so we can find these girls before he harms them further. If the worst case scenario does happen, we’ll take care of her and get her through it. We’ll get her through anything that happens.”
“You’re right, Jensen. It’s fucking hard to hold shit together when it has my heart tied up with it, but you understand that, don’t you? We’ll split up so we can cover ground quicker. The first place we need to look is the club where Kennedy works.” I look at Troy and Jeremiah.
“There’s no question they work illegally. I’m certain the zoning regulation doesn’t allow sex parties. You can’t even serve alcohol where there’s total nudity. The whole damn place was just wrong, so we’ll start there. If they’re doing those obvious things wrong, who knows what more we’ll find.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jaycee
David sits at an old kitchen table. His narrowing eyes glare across the room at Kennedy and me. He’s brought us to a rundown apartment; it’s his place, he says.
He was gracious enough to remove the tape he put over our mouths after he got us inside the nasty place. Although, judging from the few people I saw, I doubt they’d have noticed or cared if we’d screamed.
“What do you want, David? This won’t end well for you. You’re aware of that, right?”
I lived with him. I know he’s dangerous, and I fear him and hate him with a passion, but I won’t cower away from him anymore. The bastard won’t win this without me putting up a fight.
“It’s simple, I want you, Jaycee. You’re my wife. Why can’t you understand that?”
Kennedy’s been quiet, hasn’t said a single word until now, she laughs, a short sardonic sound. “It’s funny because you didn’t seem to want her too much a couple years ago…when you came to my bedroom a few weeks after I moved in with you.”
I struggle with the rope that binds my wrists. “What’s she talking about, David? Huh?”
“Shut up! Both of you! I’m not in the mood to listen to your shit right now. I’m going downstairs to see Pete for a few minutes. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
Kennedy’s a few feet away from me. David left me on the floor, in front of an old tan colored, ragged couch. She’s across from me, with her back against the matching loveseat. Her dirty, tangled hair hides much of her face. She sweats profusely, and I can see her body shake.
“We’ll get out of here, honey. I promise. I’ll get you the help you need, the best available. You can get yourself clean. It’ll be hard, but you can do it, Kennedy. If I came back from the shit I’ve been through, you can too. Please don’t give up, sweetie. I love you so much, and I’ve missed you.”
“I made your life miserable. You shouldn’t care what happens to me.”
“No, baby. You never made me miserable at all. Sure, I got frustrated sometimes, but it was always because I worried about you.”
She tosses her head from side to side to clear the hair away so she can look at me. Her green eyes that used to be so bright and happy are dull and void of anything.
“You accused David of coming into your room. What was that about, Kennedy?”
“It was right after I moved in with you when he did it the first time. I…I didn’t always fight it either, Jaycee. I’m a terrible person. Your kidnapping is my fault. They were after me that night. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I caused all that to happen to you. After that…the drugs…they helped me forget.”
I wiggle around and lay down on my side. I scoot my body across the thin stained carpet. When I get close to her, I sit up and scoot backward, so my back is close her. “Turn around so you can reach my hands, Kennedy. Hurry! Help me get this rope untied so we can get the hell out of here.”
She turns so she can find my hands with hers. She works with the piece of rope for what feels like forever when at last I feel it give and loosen. Just about the time it happens, we hear a noise out in the hallway. I scurry back over quickly to the spot he left me. I can’t let him see my wrists are no longer bound. When he’s least expecting it, that’s when he’ll find out.
He dumps a handful of pills on the kitchen table. He grabs something from the counter and smashes them. Then he finds a short straw and leans down to snort the powdery substance. He leaves a little on the table, and I realize his intention when he lifts Kennedy by her hair and hauls her to the table. He places his hand on the center of her back and pushes her forward then he holds the straw with his other hand and watches as she inhales the remaining white dust from the table.
When she’s done, he keeps his hand on her back and
reaches around to stroke her ass with the other, then he draws back and hits her, hard. The blow is so forceful it shoves her forward. The table moves causing my sister to lose her balance and fall to the floor. “Stupid fucking cunt!” David kicks her with his heavy black boot.
“Stop! Stop it now, David!”
I work to remove the rope from my ankles. I don’t fucking care if he turns around to see because I’m done; done with fearing this asshole or any other. It’s time to end this shit. I know how to end it. I only need to grow a set of balls and do the job.
He’s still bent over Kennedy where she cowers on the floor. Cursing and calling her disgusting names. I get up before he has time to notice I’ve even moved, and grab his right arm that’s flying in every direction while he talks, and I pull it behind his back as hard as I can.
Kennedy’s eyes grow huge when she sees what’s happening. She shakes her head from side to side. I know it’s her way of telling me to stop. He’s bigger than me, but I remember every bit of my self-defense training. I trained hard, day after day, to prepare myself for something like this. I know I can beat him. He’ll hurt one of us, or maybe even kill us both, so I have nothing to lose but everything to gain if I try to beat him first.
I know Grant. I know he’s looking for me. By now, he’s probably got the whole damn state of Tennessee involved, but I don’t know if he’ll find this rundown, condemned apartment before it’s too late.
I shove the bastard’s wrist up toward his armpit as hard as I can until I hear his bones pop, and he wails out from the pain. “I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch! I think you dislocated my goddamn shoulder.”
“Good! You hurt my sister, David! You deserve so much more than a hurt shoulder! Don’t you think? Huh?”
If I hadn’t caught him off guard, there’s no way I’d pull this off, but he was so focused on abusing my sister, he didn’t see it coming.
I let go of his arm and jump back, preparing for a fight. “Why did you do it, David? What happened to you? Help me understand because I don’t have a fucking clue what changed you so much!”
