Devil's Kiss

by Celia Loren

  I see Richard begin to recover and spot what I’m doing. He struggles to his feet and lurches toward me, blood pouring down his face. I feel a surge of panic and finally twist the knob with enough leverage to open the door a crack. I push my way through it and up the outdoor stairs.

  I’m halfway up when I feel his hand around my ankle. He yanks it hard, and I lose my footing. Without my hands to break my fall, I land hard on my chest and hips, turning my head so I don’t crack my chin open. His hands are clawing up my legs now, trying to pull me back into the basement.

  “Help! Help me!” I scream, as I kick back at him as hard as I can. Now I’m glad I’m wearing heels—hopefully the stilettos will do some damage.

  But he’s too strong. I feel him crawl over my back and grab me by the throat, pulling me back toward him. He yanks me to the foot of the stairs, tossing me to the floor of the room and slamming the door shut behind us. I moan as my hip and knee hit the thin carpet. I can feel myself bleeding from the edges of the cements stairs.

  I turn over to see Richard advancing on me, anger grotesquely twisting his psychotic features.

  “I tried to be nice to you,” he says, his voice deadly quiet, “You just remember that.”

  His leg swings back, and I feel his foot collide with my ribs. I know, deep down, that the pain is just beginning.

  Chapter Nineteen

  West

  I’ve always hated hospitals. My mom was in them constantly—for overdoses and god knows what else. They all smell exactly the same.

  The door of the Black Rock was unlocked when I got there. Olive wasn’t answering her phone, so I knew something was wrong right away. I sped home and found the place on fire. I got Stick and Stacy out, but they were both unconscious. The fire trucks and ambulances arrived quickly, at least. They were both taken into urgent care immediately, but I still haven’t gotten an update. I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. I stand up and pace around the small waiting room.

  I bring my phone to my ear and replay Olive’s voicemail, though by now I know it by heart. Who is this guy from Concord? Why wouldn’t she have told Stick or me about him? As soon as I ask myself the question, though, I know the answer: because Stick was already crazy overprotective. My mind flashes back to the first night she was back in town, when she gave me the fake name. Something she told me, that I never asked her about. I asked her why she was back in town, and she said something about being attracted to the “wrong kind of guy.” So she was running from him—that’s why she moved back home?

  I need to talk to Stick right away. It’s been almost two hours—who knows what this psycho’s done with Olive. Finally, a middle-aged doctor pokes her head in, a grim, tired expression on her face.

  “How are they?” I ask.

  “He’s regaining consciousness. He has some second degree burns and issues related to smoke inhalation. The woman we’re keeping sedated—she needed to have a breathing tube put in.”

  “Can I see him?” I ask.

  “Briefly” she says, “Try to keep him calm. He’s frantic about his wife.”

  “Fiancee, actually,” I correct her, “But I’ll do my best.”

  I follow her down a white hallway and into a room. Stick’s lying in bed, hooked up to beeping machines.

  “Fuck,” I murmur. I can’t stand to see Stick like this.

  “Where’s Stacy? They won’t—” he begins hoarsely before collapsing into a coughing fit. I grab a plastic cup of ice chips from a side table and put it to his lips. He carefully takes one and lets it dissolve in his mouth.

  “Can we have the room for a minute?” I ask the doctor, who’s still standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Sure,” she says, glancing between us.

  “Stacy’s going to be fine,” I reassure him as she leaves.

  “At least Olive wasn’t home,” he whispers.

  “I need you to stay calm, OK?” I caution him. “There’s no other way to say it, but Olive is missing. Some stalker from Concord followed her out here. I need to ask your mom about it, she’s the only other person I think might know about it.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god...” he moans. “The fire was him? Thought I must have left the stove on. My mom’s phone...give me your cell. Never remember it unless I’m typing it on a keypad.”

  I pass it over to him. “Look, arson investigators will be here soon. Just tell them what you know. The club will be fine. Anything in the house is burned up, anyway.”

  “It’s all gone?” Stick asks softly.

  “I’m sorry. It didn’t look good,” I reply.

  “You pulled me out?” he realizes. “And Stacy?”

  I nod.

  “Fuck, and after what happened with Olive, what I did. Those pictures...I’m sorry, man. Thank you. Thank you,” he pauses, his eyes going blank. “I was supposed to pick her up. I forgot to pick her up last night. I turned my phone off because I was mad...Oh shit. Oh shit.”

  “Stick, you have to stay calm right now, OK?” I understand how he feels, but I need to get out of here and find Olive. “Listen, the cops are already involved because of the house, and I told them she’s missing. But I want to find this fucker myself. Jail isn’t good enough.”

  “Find him. You find that son of a bitch,” Stick says.

  I nod and take off back down the hallway. Ratchet already has the brothers assembled at the clubhouse and I want to have all the information I can before I get there. I call the number that Stick keyed into my phone as I hit the down button on the elevator.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice answers groggily. Fuck, I forgot how early it is still.

  “Christine?” I ask.

  “...yes? Who is this?”

  “This is Stick’s friend West. Maybe you remember me from when you lived out here? I used to stay with you—”

  “West? No, I don’t remember anyone named...Oh! Grady?” she breathes.

  God, it’s been years since anyone’s called me by my given name.

  “Yeah, Grady, that’s right. I go by West now. I’m in Stick’s motorcycle club with him, and we’re roommates.” Well, not anymore. “I’m sorry to call so early…”

  “What is it?” she asks nervously, aware that late night or early morning calls are never good news.

  “Well, there’s been some trouble here,” I tell her, “And I think it has something to do with some guy that Olive had trouble with back in Concord.”

  “Oh my god, what happened? Why aren’t you asking her?” Christine splutters.

  “She’s missing,” I say, as gently as I can. I hear her gasp. “And Stick, he’s OK, but the guy set fire to the house. I need to know everything you know about this guy so I can track him down.”

  “Yes, yes...Richard Lees. He’s a cop,” she says.

  “A fucking cop? Of course. OK. Richard Lees. Anything else you can tell me about him?” I ask.

  “I never met him,” she says, “Olive didn’t tell me that much about him. I think she was embarrassed, felt like she had done something wrong, somehow brought it on herself. They dated, he was controlling, I think he may have hit her even. She tried to break it off, he started stalking her, she filed a complaint against him. Oh my god...You have to find her. Do the police have anything yet?”

  “They’re doing what they can, but I have to be straight with you,” I say, “I’m going to get this piece of shit myself.”

  “You find him, and you put him down,” she says. I can hear the anger and bitterness in her voice, matching what I heard in her son’s just minutes ago. Christine is no wilting flower, that’s for sure.

  “Call me if you think of any more information,” I say, and hang up.

  The clubhouse isn’t far from the hospital, and I make the drive there in record time, my knuckles turning white as I grip the handlebars. I have to find her. The lot in front of the clubhouse is packed with bikes. When I let Ratchet know that someone had fucked with one of our brothers and kidnapped his sister, every brother and prospec
t mobilized. Richard Lees has no idea what he’s started.

  I turn off my bike and walk quickly through the front door. Heads turn toward me as I enter. I’ve been in tents in the desert of Afghanistan before important missions, and this is exactly what that feels like.

  “What do we know?” Ratchet asks from his seat at the bar, mercifully skipping any preamble.

  “Richard Lees. Cop from Concord, New Hampshire,” I inform the men. “Stalked Olive for a while out there, followed her out here. I think he may be driving a blue sedan, I’ve got the plate numbers. Noticed it following us a few times, and saw it last night leaving the Black Rock.” I mentally kick myself for not following it.

  “Stick and Stacy?” Ratchet asks.

  “Recovering,” I tell him.

  Ratchet nods and stands up. “We’ve got other chapters coming in. The car’s our best lead, so they’re covering the highways as they drive in, and we’ll go over every inch of this town until we find it. Use any contacts you have. If this guy’s a cop, the police will be all over it, so if we want to find him first, give him real justice, we’ll have to act fast.”

  I repeat the license plate number for the brothers over and over until every one of them has it memorized. Ratchet brings out a map and I break up the town into sections, just like I’d do if we were tracking insurgents. Guns are loaded and tucked into waistbands, and my brothers head out to track Richard Lees down. Only Ratchet and a couple prospects are left in the clubhouse. The president takes me aside.

  “I hate to say it,” he mutters, “But if he’s hidden the car in a garage, under a tarp, or ditched it, we don’t have a shot. You tried her phone?”

  “Rang a few times, now it’s going straight to voicemail.” I feel my cell vibrating in my pocket. “Wait, hang on...” I check the caller. It’s Olive’s mother.

  “Christine,” I say.

  “It’s my fault. I told him where she was. I didn’t know...” she sobs.

  “Christine, calm down. What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “I called the station, and I asked to speak to his partner, and it wasn’t the same man who came to see me,” she sputters. “A man came to see me, to follow up on the complaint that Olive had filed. He said his name was Carbee, but actually it was Richard Lees. Carbee is his partner. We spoke today and he said that Richard was fired. No one’s talked to him since.”

  “So Lees who came to your house, gave you a fake name, and you told him what?” I press.

  “I let him inside my house! And I told him where Olive was! It’s all my fault. I was so stupid,” she cries.

  “He’s a predator,” I tell her firmly, “Preying on people is what he does. He would have found her somehow.”

  I hear her sniff and take a deep breath. “I have his photo. His partner sent it to me. I’ll text it to you.”

  “That would be a big help,” I say.

  “You care about my daughter?” she asks.

  “Very much,” I respond quickly, surprising myself.

  “Good,” she says softly, “It makes me feel better that someone’s looking for her who cares.”

  “I should go. I want to get out there,” I say.

  “Right. Texting you the photo now,” she replies.

  I hang up, and a moment later, I get a text. I open the photo and examine it. Must be Lees’ graduation photo from the police academy. He looks normal, good-looking even. You never can tell. I quickly forward the photo to all my brothers. I realize Ratchet is watching me.

  “What are you going to do?” he asks.

  “I’m going to focus on the bad stretches of town. If I wanted to hide someone, that’s where I’d go. Somewhere where people wouldn’t report seeing something strange.”

  “I know tempers are high,” he says, “But if you find this guy—”

  “What?” I ask, frowning at him. He better not be about to tell me to turn this fucker over to the cops.

  Ratchet trains his hard eyes on me. “Just don’t forget to make it look like an accident. You hear me?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Richard

  I watch Olive sleep on the mattress. She’s been out for a couple hours, and I’m beginning to worry. I don’t want to cause any permanent brain damage. God, that wouldn’t be much fun to live with.

  Finally, I see her blink. She’s having trouble, because one eye is swollen shut. Her mouth opens slightly and she tries to turn over, but quickly stops, grimacing in pain. It’s cute to watch her struggle. I wonder if she even remembers where she is.

  I stand from my chair and drag it over to the head of the mattress. I watch her good eye frantically dart back and forth. I reach down and smooth the hair down her back, and pull a stray piece out of her face. Olive moans, though perhaps she’s trying to speak.

  “Shhh,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I wish you hadn’t provoked me like that, Olive.”

  I see tears begin to stream down her face as she pulls a little at the cuffs around her wrists. I frown. It’s not like I wanted to see her like this.

  “It’s OK,” I murmur reassuringly. “I know you’re sorry. Here, I have a towel to clean you up a little.”

  I take her by the shoulder and turn her over so that she’s lying on her hands. Her back is arched awkwardly, but she’s shown me that she clearly can’t be trusted without the cuffs yet. I take the towel from the back of the chair and dab gently at her swollen cheek as she grimaces.

  The towel is quickly stained red with dried blood, and I move down her neck and toward her chest. When I touch the upper part of her breast, she flinches back. I roll my eyes at her.

  “Don’t worry Olive,” he says. “You’re not attractive in this state. We’ll have to wait until you’ve improved a little. I did take your pants off while you were sleeping, but that was just because I thought it would be easier to clean you.”

  Clearly alarmed, she tries to move her legs, and feels the duct tape that I wrapped around her ankles, directly onto her skin.

  “I can’t have you trying anything again,” I shrugs. “I don’t want to have to treat you like this, Olive,” I remind her. “My behavior toward you is a direct result of your behavior toward me. I don’t want to have to keep telling you that.”

  I move toward her stomach, lifting up her shirt to her bra. I can’t remove the shirt without removing the handcuffs, so it stays on. At least I can clean the blood that soaked through it to her skin. I hear a rasping sound from her throat.

  “My brother...” she finally mumbles.

  “Your brother was a piece of shit. A terrible influence on you and probably a fucking gun runner. You have no real idea what those motorcycle gangs are like. And I saw that bar you worked in. And you fucked that guy in the bathroom there...God, who knows what diseases you probably got.”

  In my anger, I press down a little hard on her rib and she cries out. “Well, fuck, I’m sorry, but Olive, I care about you. You have no idea how upsetting it was to see you in a place like that, hanging out with those people.”

  I move to her legs. The cuts here are mostly on her knees, probably from when she tripped going up the stairs. The rag is mostly red now, but I’m still able to clean up a little blood from her skin. I stand up and look down at her. She looks a little better, I think. I walk to the corner and toss the rag on the edge of the utility sink. I take a half-full bottle of water and bring it back to the bed with me. I kneel and slip my hand under the back of her head and raise it up, putting the bottle to her lips. I let her have a few sips, then put it down next to the mattress.

  “Sorry. Don’t have a lot of supplies yet,” I tell her, “Thought I’d have more time to set up, but I had to take advantage of that opportunity last night. You know how hard it’s been to get you alone?”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Well, it’s been a long night,” I say, though at this point it’s actually midday. I kick off my shoes and undo my pants, sliding them off and folding them neatly on the chair. I carefully step over he
r to the far side of the mattress and lie down beside her.

  I turn on my side and nestle my head next to hers and drape my top arm and leg over her. I feel safe going to sleep now that she’s securely tied up and in a weakened state. The gun is safely across the room, by the sink, and I’m confident she won’t try anything for a while. And eventually, she’ll learn.

  A comforting darkness begins to envelop my brain as I drift off to sleep, listening to Olive’s labored breathing on the bed beside me.

  It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  West

  I’m paused at a stoplight, using the opportunity to stand for a second and stretch my legs. They’re stiff and cramped after riding around on my bike for hours. I hear the ring of my cell and my heart jumps as I see the caller is Ratchet. Maybe one of my brothers found Olive.

  “Anything?” I ask.

  “Nothing yet,” Ratchet replies. “Why don’t you come in for a little, and take a break. A couple of other chapters are here now, those brothers can take over for you, West,” he suggests.

  “I’m going to keep looking for a while,” I say adamantly, “Sun’s setting...he could be waiting to make a move until it’s dark.”

  “Just for—” he begins.

  “I can’t,” I cut him off. “I’ll check in soon.” The light turns green and I gun it through the intersection, keeping a watchful eye on the road for the blue sedan. My eyes feel blurry, and I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything.