Gray Wolf Security: Back Home

by Glenna Sinclair

  The file was thin, containing only four or five sheets of paper. The autopsy took up most of that room. But at the back there was a picture of a very young Boone standing on a doorstep of some strange home. It must have been taken with an old security camera or some other out of date device. It meant nothing to me, but I assumed it must mean something to someone.

  It was enough to frighten Boone into helping Elizabeth hurt the Matthews.

  I turned to the computer and looked the woman up, wondering who she was and why her death was significant to him. What came up was a headline from a newspaper in Oregon. It said: Attorney Tess Black Found Dead in Home.

  An attorney? Hadn’t Boone mentioned an attorney he knew when he was younger?

  The article was basically an obituary, talking about Ms. Black’s work with the public defender’s office. She worked for a high profile law firm before she grew a conscience and decided to work for the people instead. It also seemed to have helped that she divorced one of the partners of her former law firm. She left behind two children, a daughter and son.

  The son, I was curious to note, was approximately the same age as Boone.

  There didn’t seem to be any suspicion into her death, no mention of foul play. No mention of people who might have meant her harm. There were pictures in a later article of her children attending the funeral. The boy was tall, lanky, with that skinny look that indicated some sort of metabolism problem, or maybe a drug addiction. The daughter was fuller, healthier looking. Beautiful, really.

  But none of it seemed to tie back to Boone.

  And then…

  As I explored this woman’s life, checking out the digital footprint she left behind, I discovered a few payments she’d made to a private detective five or six years before her death. At about the same time there was an article in the newspaper that mentioned a scandal at the local high school involving her son. I almost missed it. The article came up because of a match to her last name, but there were a lot of matches to the word black. It was simply too common. But the headline caught my attention: Local Attorney’s Boy Implicated in High School Scandal.

  Apparently, Ms. Black’s son was suspended from school with two other boys for allegedly sharing inappropriate pictures of a middle school student on school property.

  That sounded too familiar.

  I read the article a second time, taking note of significant elements, such as the fact that the pictures were rumored to have been taken at a party thrown by Mr. Black while his mother was out of town, and the fact that the girl’s father accused the boys of sexually assaulting his daughter. However, the accusation was made in absence of proof because the girl was never taken to a hospital and no evidence was ever collected from her body.

  No one believed her because she didn’t rush straight to the hospital after being sexually assaulted. How ridiculous was that? How many men would go running off to be humiliated a second time after being raped? To have foreign objects placed inside orifices that had already been torn and bruised? To have pictures taken of things that should never see the light of day, let alone a camera lens? Not many, I would bet.

  Yet, because she didn’t, she wasn’t telling the truth.

  Two days suspension those boys got. And Ms. Black protested so loudly that her son returned after only half a day of punishment.

  Wow. That was all I could say to that.

  It was all beginning to make more sense now.

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  I turned around, my heart pounding from the sudden sound of Boone’s voice. “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Of course you did. Why else would I be afraid of that evidence, right?”

  I shook my head, but I could see he didn’t believe my protests. He slipped the autopsy paperwork from my hands and took a seat on the couch. He stared at it for a long time, not saying anything or even seeming to take a breath. When he finally looked up, his eyes were dark with emotion.

  “I wanted to hate her. She fought for her son despite the fact that those pictures made it obvious what they’d done. You could see the bruises beginning to form on her thighs, the blood smeared on her panties, the blood on her swollen lip. But she fought to get him reinstated, swearing her precious child could never do anything like that.”

  He shook his head, the papers in his hands rattling as he did. I got up and sat beside him, slipping the papers away and hiding them back in the folder where Elizabeth had kept them.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, sliding my hand over the crook of his arm.

  “It does.” He looked at me. “I wanted to hurt her. When I was arrested for keying a car belonging to one of those bastards—he was a senior at Stanford, like nothing could touch him—she happened to be the public defender they sent to defend me. When I saw her face, I wanted to laugh and scream all at the same time. What unlucky star had I been born under that she would be the one to defend me? Yet, there she was.”

  “Did she know who you were?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure when she figured it out. But she got me out on bail and she offered me her couch to sleep on. I didn’t stay there long…she was a lonely widow and I was an angry kid. The idea of sleeping with her and letting her son discover it, it seemed like sweet revenge. It was the only reason I did it. To hit him where it would hurt.”

  “Did it? Did he find out?”

  “Sure. She invited him over not two days after I moved in, introduced me to him as the brother of that girl he raped. That’s when I found out she knew. I think I was as shocked as her son was. That was when I realized that she had known what he was capable of, that she had known he was guilty of Annie’s rape. And it was tearing her up. That’s why she moved to the public defender’s office, why she threw him out on his ear and told him to go live with his father. She sold her house, too, unable to bear the idea that her home was the scene of such a horrific assault. And when I told her that Annie had killed herself…I think it was the nail in his coffin.”

  “She took you in and left him out in the cold.”

  “His father didn’t want him, either. He was living on the streets while I was living in luxury. What better revenge than that?” Boone ran his fingers through his hair, a heavy sigh slipping from between his lips. He looked at me, guilt heavy in his eyes. “But I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to make them all pay—not just him. And I think she knew it.”

  He got up and went to the computer, typing a few key words into the newspaper search bar. A second later a small series of articles came up. Local Man Arrested for Drug Possession, one said. Another read, Local Man Found Beaten in Alley. And yet another said, Local Man Commits Suicide Days Before Returning to Stanford.

  “She helped me. We papered their cars with flyers we’d printed out with Annie’s name on them. Just her name, written over and over again. We called them day and night, sometimes saying her name, sometimes just allowing the line to be open. We talked to their friends, their employers. We harassed them to the point that they couldn’t go anywhere without people pointing them out in a crowd. The whole town knew what they’d done by the time we were done.”

  “The beating…”

  “Not me. A group of boys from the local high school who were tired of living under the reputation they’d left behind. He survived the beating, by the way. Moved out of the state and never looked back.” He turned and leaned against the desk. “The one who committed suicide mailed a letter to her office that said he was sorry for what he’d done. But even in death he wanted to blame everyone but himself. He claimed it was Justin, her son, who’d instigated the whole thing. Claimed Justin was the one who picked her, the one who fed her the drinks, the one who raped her first. He also claimed that Justin was the only one who took pictures even though Tess hired an investigator right after it happened and he proved there were at least two separate cameras involved.”

  I sat back down on the couch and wrapped my arms around my chest, letting it all sink in. “And Justin? What ha
ppened to him?”

  “Died of a drug overdose three years ago.” He made a sound like a sad chuckle. “Lived longer than I thought he would.”

  I nodded. “So they’re all dead except for one.”

  “He lives in Texas. Runs a small non-profit counseling service. They specialize in helping teens who are survivors of rape.”

  I gasped. “You’re joking!”

  “No.” He shook his head slowly. “I went there once, had a tour of the facility. They actually do really good work there. I made a sizeable donation.”

  “It’s alright for him to live because he’s helping people now?”

  “It’s alright for him to live because the beating he took left him permanently paralyzed. He only has movement in a single finger on his right hand. He couldn’t hurt a woman if he wanted to.”

  I bit back a smile, a little afraid of what he’d think if he saw my pleasure in someone else’s pain. He’d stolen Annie’s life on that one night. It seemed appropriate that someone had stolen his potential in her name.

  “It’s okay. It makes me smile whenever I see him, too.”

  “You stopped them. You kept them from hurting anyone else.”

  “I did.”

  “And she helped you.”

  “She did.”

  “What happened to her?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not really sure. She had a heart ailment that she took pills for, but they weren’t those pills.” He looked down at the floor. “When the one guy killed himself, I decided it was time for me to move on. She was pissed when I told her. She didn’t want to be alone. But she said she understood. She gave me the check, told me to go to school, to take care of myself. Asked me to come around from time to time to see her. That was all she wanted in payment. I was happy to agree. I…hell, I felt free with those three guys taken care of. Maybe I’d do what she said. Maybe I’d go to school like my dad wanted me to.”

  He sighed heavily as his eyes came up to meet mine. “Six months later, I went by to see her. She wasn’t expecting me. I could see her through the window, could see she was unconscious on the floor. Sirens were already screaming on the street behind me. I ran because I panicked. I had no idea her security system had taken a picture of me.”

  “But you didn’t do anything.”

  “Didn’t stop the cops from coming to my hotel the next day. Didn’t stop Justin and his sister from making accusations. They said I came back for more money, that I’d been threatening her. They even came up with some emails they claim I sent. The cops didn’t have anything to go on, but that didn’t stop Tess’s daughter and her ex-husband from spreading rumors. They got me kicked out of school and made it nearly impossible for me to get a job almost anywhere on the West Coast. His law firm had long arms, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s why you do what you do, isn’t it? Because you couldn’t make a living any other way?”

  He shrugged. “I met a woman who’d known Tess. She wanted to know if I could do for her what I’d done for Tess. She said that Tess absolutely glowed the final months of her life. She wanted to glow, too. And it just sort of went from there.”

  “And now? Why are you afraid of this?”

  He picked up the file and tossed it toward the fireplace. “Because people believed it then. What if they believe it again? What if the cops decide to open a new investigation, especially in light of the fact that Justin’s dead? What if they conveniently find my fingerprints on the bottle of pills after all this time?”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them. It was a relatively small town and one of those boys? The one who committed suicide? His father is now chief of police.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “But I have blood on my hands. I made those boys pay for what they did. What if they found evidence of that over the years? What if they decide to try me for murder because my harassment of that boy led to his suicide?”

  “Like what they did led to your sister’s suicide? No judge in his right mind would convict you!”

  He shook his head. “And what if some of my victims hear this story and decide they can bear the humiliation of testifying against me? I’d go to jail for dozens of cases of fraud. That’s almost worse than a life sentence for murder.”

  I got up and crossed to him, touching his arms, a little thrill of excitement mixed with fear rushing through me at the feel of his powerful muscles flexing under my hands.

  “You don’t want your skeletons exposed. I get that.”

  “I’m not a good man, I know that, but I’d rather hold onto my freedom.”

  “She can’t hurt you now. I took the file.”

  “Knowing Elizabeth, she’s got half a dozen copies hidden in half a dozen other locations.”

  “Boone, what’s done is done. You can’t let the past define you any more than I can.”

  He snorted a little, his eyes slowly moving over me. “Talk about allowing the past to define her…”

  I looked down at myself, at the bathrobe that was tightly cinched at my waist. I stepped back and untied it, allowing it to fall slowly from my shoulders. I shyly looked up in time to see his eyes darken in lust. That sort of look had always frightened me, sometimes leading to a panic attack, in the past. But not this time.

  I snagged my fingers under the edge of my t-shirt and slowly lifted it up over my head. My breasts fell heavy, my nipples puckering in the sudden cool air. My instinct was to cover them. I pressed my hands to them for a moment, my eyes moving shyly to his.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” he said, his voice low and husky.

  “I don’t want to be defined by what those men did to me anymore.”

  He bit his lip, chewing it like it was a piece of meat. “You aren’t. Not to me.”

  “But I define myself that way and I don’t want to anymore.” I slowly dropped my arms from my chest and snagged my thumbs under the waistband of my boxers.

  “Erin,” he said, warning clear in his tone.

  “You have to promise to take it at my pace.”

  “I…Erin…” His voice was thick with lust and longing, but also with restraint.

  “I want you to touch me.”

  He groaned as he watched me slowly peel the boxers down over my hips, my thighs. I bent over, stepping out of them before I straightened again. The lust was back in his eyes, but it was tempered with affection. Admiration. I liked having that gaze flow over me.

  He closed the gap between us, his hands moving to cup my jaw. He kissed me with that gentleness he’d always touched me with, his control remarkable. I could feel him literally vibrating, his breathing slightly ragged, his hands shaking. But he only kissed me, not daring to go further.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I pulled back slightly. “You won’t. I know you won’t.”

  He groaned deep in his chest. “Are you sure, Erin? You don’t know—”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done this voluntarily before. But you should know that I can’t…” I stopped, suddenly afraid to say the next words.

  “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t…you don’t have to use protection. The scarring…they say it’ll be nearly impossible for me to ever have children.”

  He made a strangled noise, his fingertips pressing harder into my flesh. “Bastards,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “But they don’t matter anymore. Remember?”

  He nodded, too, our foreheads pressed together. “They don’t. Only this. Only us.”

  “Yes.”

  He scooped me up into his arms and carried me into the bedroom, my heart pounding as he leaned over me to lay me on the bed. I slid over and tugged the comforter up over my nakedness, watching as he slowly, almost methodically, removed his own clothing. I wasn’t the only one with scars. There were marks on his body, too, a thin line along his ribs that was not dissimilar to the line on mine. Smaller lines here and there, some thick, some
thin.

  “What are those from?”

  He looked up, his eyes still glowing with need. “What?”

  “The scars.”

  He reached down to touch the first I’d noted, the long line on his ribs. “I got into a fight with a guy who thought I was sleeping with his girlfriend.”

  “And the others?”

  “Some are from playing football. A few are from meeting the wrong end of my father’s belt.” He climbed onto the bed beside me, sliding under the comforter. “We all have our baggage.”

  “I guess we do.”

  He rolled onto his side and slipped a hand over my belly. We kissed for a moment, a promise being made with lips and tongues, with the mingling of our breath. When his hand slipped up over my breast, however, panic began to spark in my chest. I quickly pushed his hand away, sitting up a little.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “It’s okay.”

  I could hear the disappointment in his voice. He thought I was done. But I was just getting started.

  “Can I see your scars?”

  His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he pushed the comforter down, exposing his chest and his stomach. I ran my fingers over his chest, letting my fingertips dance in the fine hairs that grew between his nipples. And then I touched his nipples, amused by the hard, teeny tissue.

  “I’ve never touched a man before.”

  “Anywhere?”

  “No. I kissed a boy once, behind the bleachers at school. But nothing more than that.”

  “You can touch me anywhere you want. I won’t hurt you.”

  I bit my lip as I moved my hand down the center of his chest to his navel. He had an innie, a lovely little hole that broke the congruity of his flat, hard stomach. Below it was a line of thick, dark hair that disappeared below the edge of the comforter.

  “They call it a treasure map.”