by SM Olivier
“In Ava’s bedroom. It was the room to the far right of the stairs.” I frowned. Why were they asking me these kinds of questions?
“There were three men?” Janson repeated.
“She said that already,” Crew growled.
Dominiques raised a brow at him. “Sir,” she said in warning.
“Sorry,” he growled unapologetically.
“Yes, there were three of them,” I confirmed once more, confused.
“I apologize in advance, Miss Delaney,” Dominquez said quietly. “I’m going to show you some… triggering photos, but I need you to answer the questions, all right?”
I nodded.
She held up a picture of the wooden boxes in the basement. “Did they have dogs or perhaps some other pet?”
“No.” I shook my head, feeling the tremors begin.
“What were they used for?” she asked with sympathy, although I knew that she knew the answer.
“That’s where I slept most nights,” I rasped.
Crew muttered an expletive, and I felt Zane try to pull me in closer.
“Where’s your blanket and pillow?” Janson looked green as he swallowed.
“I had none,” I responded back. I closed my eyes and took deep, calming breaths.
“And tell me about this,” Dominquez said.
I looked up. It was the metal table. The restraints were dangling down from it. “It’s where Tormentor restrained me. He, uh…liked to put his cigarettes out on me.” I unconsciously hovered my hand over the arm in question.
Janson made a noise, and Dominquez gave him a stern look. She held up another picture of the room off the porch. It was a sparse room, with just a large round metal tub, a toilet, and a sink. Tormentor had carried in bags of ice from the freezer not shown in the photo.
“Tormentor got mad when I attacked Coach after he slept with Claire. He made me sit in an ice bath for… a long time.”
“You keep mentioning this Tormentor. Who is he? A fourth guy?” Dominquez questioned.
I shook my head and grimaced ruefully. “I didn’t know Pearce’s name for a while. I called him Tormentor in my head. Then Ava told me who he was.”
She nodded as if satisfied with the answer. Next, she held up another picture. Four chains were suspended in between two trees, one set of chains near the ankles. The other shackles were six-feet above the ground.
“Boyd made me stand there for a while after I tried to discipline Aaron for hurting one of the Twins.” I frowned, not proud about pushing the boy off Charity as hard as I did or slapping him on the arm.
Dominquez lifted up another picture, giving me a questioning look. “And this one?” It was of the dog box in the back yard.
“Aaron had to sleep there overnight after his…dads found out he had tried to molest his sister.”
“Did they ever put you in there?” Janson asked.
I shook my head and shuddered. “No.”
“Did you ever see the other children get disciplined, and by whom?” Janson inquired.
“Just Boyd. Boyd would backhand most of them from time to time over the littlest infractions,” I explained. “Gideon spilled his water, Chastity cried too long after she bumped her knee while playing with her siblings. Once, Ralphie didn’t make it to the toilet in time and had an accident. Pretty much anything made Boyd angry.”
“You had free reign of the house?” Dominquez asked.
“Within reason,” I admitted quietly. “The guys took turns… guarding me. We ate from plastic utensils, bowls, plates, etc. The only sharp object in the house was attached to the island. There wasn’t another house for miles around that I could see. The one time Boyd went to the bathroom and forgot about me, I took off running. He turned the collar on high for that one. He had to have Tormentor help me back up to the house.”
“Did Stephen Carson ever… punish you?” Jensen queried.
I sifted through my memories of Coach. “No, not that I recall.”
“Who abused you?” Dominquez probed.
I sighed, getting tired of the same questions being asked but in different forms. “I don’t understand why I feel like you don’t believe me. There were three men; Boyd, Coach, and Pearce. Pearce and Boyd did most of my punishments.”
Dominquez and Janson shared another look.
Janson let out a deep sigh. “Officer Perry said when he pulled you over and when you exited the vehicle you were… nude. Why?”
I heard the gasps and the growls. “I wasn’t allowed to wear anything,” I mumbled.
“Can you repeat that?” Dominquez looked uneasy about asking the question.
“I didn’t have any clothes,” I said a bit louder. “I woke up, and I didn’t have any clothes on. All my jewelry had been removed. My phone was gone.”
“Did you encounter any other abuse other than physical?” Janson prodded.
I shook my head. “Not that I know of. I passed out from a lot of my punishments, but I think I would have known if I was… sexually abused. I mean, Boyd would grope me from time to time, but Tormentor forbid him to do anything else. It was like he wanted to recondition me before…before they… raped me.”
Dark spots clouded my vision as I remembered Boyd’s cold small hands reaching out to grab my ass, pinch my nipples, stroke my thighs.
“Is there a reason why you denied a SAK?” Dominquez inquired softly.
“My client just said she doesn’t think she was raped,” Victor said grimly.
I had nearly forgotten that he was sitting in the corner behind me.
“I understand,” Dominquez said finally before she stood. “However, we think it’s best if she gets one anyway. As it stands right now, when we finally located the cabin, there were signs of a struggle, but Reginald Boyd was no longer present. Eight-year-old Aaron hasn’t been found. And Ava is standing by her story that she ran away ten years ago. But she says she’s only been with Stephen Carson and Reginald Boyd for the last few years. She did say Boyd attacked her but isn’t aware if he was alive when she left.
“Claire states that she ran away as well, that Carson was her boyfriend. No one has mentioned this Pearce man. Any personal effects were removed from the house when we got there. Only the children’s rooms were left untouched.”
I gaped at them, and I felt panic grip me once more. “That’s a lie,” I whispered in horror. “Did you conduct a DNA test on the children? There is no way they all share the same mother and father.”
The air was taken from the room once more.
He’s out there.
They didn’t find him.
He’s going to be so angry with me.
I heard a loud keening sound before I realized it was coming from me.
“Five things you see.” Instantly, Lochlann’s face was in front of mine.
I shook my head. “No, no, please no,” I cried, shaking my head. “He’s going to be so angry when he finds me! No, no…”
“No one's going to find you,” Kyler growled, crouching down beside Lochlann.
Gasping for breath, I shook so hard my teeth were grating together. Crew and Zane were pressed close to me. I heard voices, but they sounded so far away.
Darkness closed around my vision, and I welcomed it.
30
●
Aftermath
“What the hell?” I muttered as I looked at the screen.
Several photos were flashing of me, Claire, and Ava on the television. I saw pictures of myself I’d never even seen before. Pictures of Claire in gymnastics when she was younger, and in cheerleading, more recently. Old images of Ava flashed on the screen. She must have competed in horseback riding, I idly thought. She seemed quite popular before she… ran away.
“Sorry, Peyton, we’ll turn it off,” Kyler stated before picking up the remote.
Lochlann, Kyler, and Crew were watching television, and it was somewhat disconcerting to see the talking heads speaking about me, Ava, and Claire.
I shook my head. “No
, leave it on,” I insisted before taking a seat beside him, making sure my IV pole was tucked off to the side.
After my panic attack, I had gone back downstairs to take another shower then a nap, tucked in close by Zane and Paxton. Paxton had been so apologetic for leaving in the middle of my questioning, but I told him I had understood, and I did. If the situation had been reversed, I would have felt the same level of devastation, and I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t have reacted similarly.
“Are you sure?” Lochlann looked at me, uncertain.
Paxton and Zane came into the room, carrying snacks and drinks for us. Paxton handed me a water and pudding, while Zane handed out beers to everyone else, save Paxton. I was really proud of him for not turning back to drugs and alcohol to cope.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I nodded as they flashed to a scene of Coach Carson getting arrested from his house in town. His head was bent in total desolation, and if I hadn’t been taken by him, I might’ve believed he felt some shame and remorse for what he had done.
“They want me to testify against him in a trial, and they still haven’t found Boyd or Tormentor,” I said in a somewhat detached tone.
I had just got done talking to Victor and Grandpa on the phone, about ten minutes prior. Grandpa had asked if it were okay to come by and speak to me. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like it wasn’t going to be a good talk. I had already started to brace myself. The little brick wall in my head was getting taller and taller.
“You won’t have to do it alone,” Kyler reassured me as he threw an arm around my shoulder.
I leaned into him, taking strength from him. “Thank you,” I murmured, knowing he wouldn’t abandon me. “I still don’t understand it,” I muttered. “Why did they take Claire and me?”
“Because,” Grandpa said, striding into the room with Henry, “Those boys were… damaged as children.”
I tried to sit up, but Grandpa waved at me. I was glad to see that he looked somewhat better since I’d last seen him at the hospital yesterday. He had color back in his face, but his eyes were still… sad.
“I owe you an explanation, Peyton, but it’s a long one… if you’re up for it?” He looked hopeful, and I knew I couldn’t deny his request, so I nodded.
He feigned a smile and continued. “When I met your grandmother, Evelyn, I was drawn to her vulnerability and beauty. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother skipped out on them when she and her sister… Ava were just little girls. I thought I was so in love with your Grandmother. We were married three months after we started dating because she was carrying your father. Back then, you didn’t…compromise a girl and not do right by her. It wasn’t until after I married her, I realized how very, I guess you could say, damaged, she was.”
He sat down on the ottoman in front of me, and from the droop in his shoulders, I knew how deeply this story hurt him.
“She wanted nothing to do with me once she got pregnant, but I thought that was because she was young and lacking the desire …well, for intimacy.” He cleared his throat, but when on. “She was only seventeen when I started courting her, I was twenty-one. So, I respected her wishes and left her alone. After David was born, she suffered from postpartum depression, and she made a move out of our bedroom. I never fought her on it, because I thought that’s what she needed from me. I wasn’t about to pressure the mother of my child.
“From there, things didn’t get any better, though. She continued to spurn me, so I threw myself into my work. My father had just passed away, and I was determined to make him proud. I would go out from time to time, and Evelyn continued to push me away, but I was becoming lonely, and I was a young… virile man. I became angry and told her I would find someone else, and I did.” He looked ashamed by his actions.
“It wasn’t until I was out with my… mistress,” he continued softly, “at a party a couple of years later. I started to hear rumors about Evelyn’s past. I heard that her father had abused his two daughters… sexually and rented them out to his friends. Apparently, her sister had become promiscuous enough for most of the men to know who she was. While Evelyn hated the touch of men, and despite the years of therapy she’d gone through, she still didn’t like men touching her, even me.”
I didn’t know why he was telling me all this, but I figured it had to be important. Was this the backstory of why my kidnappers chose me?
“I excused it, though, at first, because I thought she was a good mother.” Grandpa looked so distressed. “She had forgiven my affair with Sean’s mother and even relented to taking him in and treating him as her own, after Sean’s mother decided motherhood wasn’t for her and wanted to travel the world. My children seemed happy, they were fed, and they had pretty much anything they wanted. But after years of a cold marriage bed and her aversion to intimacy, I asked her for a divorce. I told her I would set her up in her own home and would continue to care for her. But she liked the social status I provided her. She was dirt poor when I met her, and I had given her a taste of life she wasn’t accustomed to. To her, everything was about appearances and not reality. I couldn’t live like that anymore.
“She fought me at first, but then suddenly she agreed to it. Then she asked me for one more dinner, just the two of us. I thought she wanted to keep it civil for the children. She had the cook make my favorite food and pulled up one of the good bottles of wine. She plied me with so much alcohol and had seemed like the girl I’d first met. We slept together, and shortly thereafter she told me she was pregnant. She told me the only way she was keeping the baby was if I agreed never to divorce her.”
At this point, I looked over at Crew. He looked… pissed. Crew’s ex-girlfriend Jana had used their unborn child as a weapon, too, and the subject was still raw for him. I wished I could go over to him and hold him, but my dog, the IV pole, wouldn’t let me go that far.
“I wanted another child,” Grandpa said. “I grew up in a big family and wanted one of my own, so I agreed to her terms. Ava was born, named after Evelyn’s sister. She and her sister had been extremely close for years, and Ava had even stayed with us for a time. But they started drifting away from each other. When I finally realized I hadn’t seen Ava in a long time, I asked Evelyn why. Evelyn told me her sister had taken after their father. My wife wanted no part of Ava any longer.
“I thought she was just being dramatic at the time. I thought she was jealous of her sister’s new life. Evelyn loved her sister, but Ava always got more attention. Sometimes she resented her for it. Then I heard Ava had found a successful businessman who became her second or third husband, but the rumors of her affairs had stopped. I heard she was unable to have children and began to foster them instead. From the outside looking in, Ava looked like she had the perfect life.”
Just as my stomach started knotting up, I felt Kyler begin to rub my arm. I looked over and saw the grim look on Lochlann’s face. I had a feeling they had the same sense of impending… doom. Something told me this was the part of the story I would find more difficult to listen to.
As if sensing my feelings, Grandpa looked at me with sympathy, and strangely, deep hurt. “Would you like me to stop?” he asked gently. “It’s not a pretty explanation. I don’t want to stress you out further, but you have the right to know.”
“Maybe the rest should wait.” Paxton stared at the floor. His jaw was moving intermittently as he played with his tongue ring.
“I want to know,” I said resolutely. I would rather know everything now. Eventually, I would have to face my demons, and I wanted to know what I was working with.
Grandpa patted my hand. “A few months after my Ava turned four, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy came forward to say how their foster mother had been molesting him. He told the authorities that my sister-in-law had been taking these boys in, some as young as eleven, and… teaching them things an older woman had no business teaching them.”
Zane came over to my right side and sat close to me, while Kyler continued to soothingly caress my back. I felt
my stomach churn even more, feeling sick at the depravity this monster, my Great-Aunt Ava, had shown. I guessed I’d really hit the gene pool lottery. My family was full of debauched individuals.
“At the time, Ava was fostering five boys. The state came in, and four of the five boys tried to deny that she molested them, but the evidence proved otherwise. They had convinced themselves that they were in love with her, that they were fortunate to have found someone who took care of them so well, that it was the first home they had found love in. Oh, it was a huge scandal, and I felt somewhat responsible for not pushing Evelyn further to explain to me why she wouldn’t see or talk to her sister anymore. I began a college fund for those boys. I paid for their therapy.” He paused, then looked at me. “Stephen Carson, Reginald Boyd, and Pearce Webber and his twin brother Percy were four of the five boys.”
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths in and out. Some of the puzzle pieces were falling in place, yet at the same time, the puzzle had grown larger. Who was Percy? Tormentor had a twin? Where were they? My anxiety began to rise once more, but I forced myself to remain in the moment.
Five things I could see: Zane’s fingers linked with mine, Kyler’s thigh pressed close to mine, Paxton’s worried expression, Lochlann’s watchful blue eyes, Crew silently coaxing me to remain with him. Four things I could feel: my soft cashmere sweater, Zane’s touch, Kyler’s caresses, my ring. I had my ring again. Three things I could hear: the low drone of the television, guitar music coming from upstairs…Golden and Madison were missing. I should just outright ask them if they were a thing now…
Huh, I guess I had centered myself once more.
I blinked. Everyone was staring at me. I nodded at Grandpa to continue.
“I knew Stephen and Reggie had moved back into town, and they seemed like respectful members of the community,” Grandpa continued grimly. “Reginald was a bit off, but he always was such a strange little child. He was smart, but…socially he never fit in anywhere, but I still noticed how Stephen, Pearce, and Percy took care of him. Reginald was older than the twin boys and Stephen, but they took care of him. I thought it was because he was tinier. But it was rumored that he was a result of incest, plus his first six foster homes he had been placed in before Ava’s had been nightmares as well.
