The Swan and the Jackal (In the Company of Killers #3)

by Redmerski, J. A.

  I grit my teeth privately at her last comment.

  Without taking my eyes off her, I call out to Dorian, “Bring Emerson in here!”

  The sound of the metal door to the break room opening echoes through the large, empty space and Emerson steps through first with Dorian behind him with a gun pointed at Emerson’s back.

  “Ross! Ross!” Bennings cries out, nearly knocking herself over within the chair.

  Leaning forward and tapping the blade of my knife against the top of her bare leg I say, “Volume, Miz’ Bennings. Remember what I said about the volume of your voice and the attachment of your tongue.”

  She swallows hard and lowers her voice.

  “Ross, I-I’m so sorry”—more tears stream from the corners of her eyes—“I’m so sorry!”

  Dorian forces Emerson to walk the rest of the way with only the gun as incentive, while Dorian makes sure to stop next to me and not put himself in view of the hidden camera I have on them.

  Ross is a short man with curly dark hair and broad shoulders and a look of terror and cowardice. Early thirties. Work boot construction-type who smells of cigarettes and cheap aftershave that he finds easier to pull off than showering. He wants to look at her, but he’s scared. He keeps his dark eyes on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.

  “Ross—”

  “Please, Kelly, just be quiet,” Emerson says in a low, defeated voice. “Don’t make this any worse.”

  “Are you…pissed at me?” Bennings asks with intense worry.

  Emerson shakes his head. “No, baby, no. I love you, you know that.”

  I roll my eyes and glance at Dorian. “Help Mr. Emerson have a seat, why don’t you?”

  Dorian grins. “I’d be delighted,” he says properly and with a broad smile.

  Two shots ring out. Emerson’s cries fill the space as his kneecaps are taken out by the bullets. He falls to the cold floor onto his side, the side of his face hitting the concrete.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Bennings screams. “He didn’t do anything!”

  I shoot up from my chair and wrench Benning’s lower jaw in my hand, forcing her mouth open—always keeping my back to the camera. She tries to cry out but begins to choke on the saliva and tears draining into the back of her throat as I force her neck back. I grab her fleshy tongue amid her screams and her struggles and her gnashing teeth, forcing two fingers into the warm, flabby muscle underneath it, and my thumb on the top to maintain my grip; her eyes pried open by terror, all the bones and muscles in her body solidifying at once.

  I put the blade to center of her tongue.

  “Please! Don’t hurt her! I’m begging you!” Emerson cries out from the floor, unable to lift himself into a sitting position, much less to his feet.

  I pause indifferently with the blade still on her tongue.

  “I know what we did was wrong,” Emerson speaks out through troubled breaths and painfully twisted features. “Paul threatened her,” he goes on. “Said if she ever left him and their daughter, that he’d make her life a living hell. That he’d take custody of Abigail and force her to pay child support.” He stops only long enough to catch his breath and let more pain shoot through his legs. “The plan was my idea. To accuse him of molesting my daughter. We just wanted him in jail. Out of the way. It was better than killing him.”

  I shake my head with disbelief.

  “Better to live a life banished by society and by his own daughter because he wears the label of a child molester?” I laugh lightly and press the blade a little harder against Bennings’ tongue, drawing blood. She cries some more, her eyes opening and closing from exhaustion and fear, but she doesn’t dare struggle knowing that one wrong move could take her tongue off.

  Emerson has no rebuttal.

  “Do you see me, Mr. Emerson?” He looks up at me from the floor, pushing through his pain. “Tell me, what do you see when you look at me? Be completely honest. I won’t hurt you for telling the truth.”

  Bennings’ eyes move back and forth, at me and in the direction of Emerson, but he’s too low against the floor for her to see.

  Emerson appears baffled by the question, and leery of it just the same. It takes him a moment, but finally he begins to stammer. “Y-You’re a man of justice.”

  I look upward in an annoyed and disappointing manner.

  Dorian laughs from behind.

  “That’s fucking hilarious,” he says. “He’s being kind—I’ll give you an honest answer.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” I say without looking at him.

  “Well, I’m just sayin’, you want the truth, I’m your guy.” He laughs again and says below his breath, “A man of justice. Fucking hilarious.”

  I look only at Emerson.

  “I said I wanted the truth.”

  “But…that is the truth.”

  With deep aggravation, I release Bennings’ tongue and she gasps sharply, sucking back the saliva that had accumulated in her mouth that she could not swallow.

  “You tell me the truth, Miz’ Bennings.” I know she’s the only one of them that will. “What do you see when you look at me? This is your chance to get it off your chest without any repercussions.”

  Bennings sneers hatefully. “You’re a sick fuck—that’s what you are. Deranged. Demented.” She spits on the floor again. “I bet you cut people into little fucking pieces for enjoyment, don’t you? When I look at you I see a man who’s not right in the head. A sick fuck.”

  I smile gently and take a step away from her.

  “What you’re really seeing,” I say, “is a man created by people like you. Evil incarnate who dance their way through society dropping poison on the tongues of the innocent. You deface, despoil and destroy the light in those who are still too young to control their own paths, by stripping them of their light and leaving only darkness.” Me. Izabel. Cassia. “You’re an infection. A malignancy. And you’re right, Miz’ Bennings, I am a sick fuck. I revel in what I do. I covet it. And I’ll never stop because being a sick fuck who takes pleasure in torturing people like you who made me this way, is the only thing I can ever imagine being.” I stab my knife into Bennings’ uninjured hand, straight through the bone and the tendons and into the wood of the chair arm beneath it.

  “FUUUUUCKKK!” she cries out.

  Emerson cries out too, reaching a hand out to her, but still unable to move.

  Casually, I step backward and out of view of the hidden camera and turn to Dorian.

  “You might want to go wait in the car,” I tell him.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” he says, shoves his gun into the back of his pants and heads toward the exit.

  “Jesus!” I hear him say to himself as he gets farther away. “I’ve got to get a reassignment.”

  The tall metal door closes behind him and I look back at Bennings and Emerson who know that this night has just taken an unfortunate turn.

  I waste no time and get right to work.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Fredrik

  “How is she?” I ask Greta over the phone, sitting in my car at the airport after just arriving back in Baltimore.

  “Well, from the video feed,” Greta says, “she’s doing just fine. But I don’t feel right about this, Mr. Gustavsson. Cassia knows I’m here and it must be confusing to her why I haven’t been down to see her yet.”

  “She’ll understand.”

  Greta hesitates, likely rearranging the words she had been about to say, and says instead, “Will you be returning soon?”

  “Yes. I’m already back in town. I have a few things I need to take care of and then I’ll head that way. Expect me no later than midnight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  This is it.

  This is the moment in which I have to make a decision. I can’t go back to that house until I figure it out. I can’t because one look at her and my mind and emotions and decisions will be dictated by her and all my reason will leave me.

  My hands ti
ghten around the steering wheel as I stare out the windshield at the cold evening where exhaust swirls chaotically from the tailpipes of running cars. I watch people come and go from the airport parking lot, dragging their wheeled suitcases behind them through a lightly dusted snow-covered sidewalk. Businessmen. Couples returning from vacation or arriving here to spend the holidays with family. All normal rituals catered to by normal people. I’ve never dreamed of being like they are. You have to know a normal life before you can miss it and dream about having it again.

  The only life I miss is the one I lived with Seraphina.

  I leave the airport and find myself in the same diner I was in a few nights ago, and for the same reason—I can’t go home. And the very same waitress who served me that night is also here on this night. She steps up to my table with a bright white smile and average-sized breasts and long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail at the back of her head.

  “Back again so soon?” she says, holding an order pad in the palm of her hand. “Can I start you off with some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” I smile slimly and lay my arms across the table.

  Watching her walk away, I study the perfect shape of her body—the curve of her hourglass hips, the roundness of her ass, the naked skin on the back of her neck where little strands of chocolate-colored hair have broken free from the ponytail holder.

  But all I can see is Cassia.

  Before the waitress comes back with the coffee, I’ve already left the diner and am heading straight for my house.

  It’s just after ten o’clock at night. There are two lights burning on the upstairs floor—the kitchen and likely the television in the den. I stare at the house for a long time, thinking about Cassia. About Seraphina. About how any of this could’ve ever happened.

  I’ve made a decision.

  I’m going to help Cassia. No matter what it takes, I’m going to help her get better. I remembered on the drive home what I had read in the files Izabel gave me:

  The treatment to help Carrington cannot be successful if Carrington is not the personality that I’m treating.

  But Cassia is here now and she has been for a year—more than a year because she’s been living as her true self for a while, made a life for herself in New York. That has to mean something. That has to be good news. I will get her the best care in the world.

  I’m going to help her.

  I step out of the car and into the cold air, walking briskly up the sidewalk toward the front porch. But before I put my key in the doorknob, my instincts start going haywire. Greta never once peeked through any of the curtains while I sat in the driveway in the running car. I’ve not seen her shadow moving through the lights in the house. She’s not eager to open the door for me.

  The pit of my stomach grows into a heavy knot.

  My mouth has run dry of saliva.

  My heart is heavy.

  I open the door carefully and peer inside the dimly-lit house finding it eerie how quiet it is; only the low volume of the television in the den making any kind of noise.

  “Greta?” I call out carefully.

  No answer.

  Then I hear the pipes squeaking and I recognize it right away as the shower being turned off. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, I finally close the front door behind me and make my way into the kitchen, dropping my car keys on the counter. Slipping off my long black coat, I drape it across the seat of a barstool. Then I prop my hands on the counter and drop my head in-between my rigid shoulders, looking down at the black marble counter.

  “I thought you’d never come back,” I hear Cassia’s voice behind me.

  Raising my head slowly, I turn it to see her standing there where the hallway wall and kitchen meet, dressed only in one of my button-up dress shirts. Her long blonde hair is wet, laying against her back.

  But something’s very wrong with this picture. Everything is wrong with this picture and that voice in the back of my head is roaring in my brain.

  Leery of her—confused, shocked, concerned—a gamut of emotions keep me stone-still, with my hands still braced against the bar, my shoulders as stiff as rock.

  She walks toward me and I still can’t will myself to move, and then she passes me up and moves around the bar.

  “Where’s Greta?” I ask carefully.

  Cassia opens the fridge and peers inside, but I get the feeling it has nothing to do with any real interest in anything that’s in it.

  “Was that her name?” she says so casually that it sets my nerves on edge.

  Then she closes the fridge with a beer in her hand and looks right at me. Popping the cap off on the edge of the counter, she places the bottle to her lips and takes a small drink, never taking her eyes away from mine.

  “Where is Greta, Seraphina?” I ask once more and inhale a deep breath, trying to contain my calm façade.

  Seraphina smiles, but it’s a casual, innocent smile and not one of malice.

  She sets the beer on the counter.

  I finally straighten my back and let my hands fall away from the bar and down at my sides.

  “I’ve missed you so much, love,” she says and it wrenches my heart. “I’m not sure how you found me, or what I was doing downstairs with a chain around my ankle, but you found me fair and square and I always knew you would.”

  She walks back around the counter and steps right up to me—the scent of her skin intoxicating and familiar, her closeness even though still a few feet away, enough to make me relent, to want to push her violently against the wall and bury myself inside of her.

  My heart is breaking.

  I swallow hard and say, “Yes, I found you,” but it’s all I can get out.

  Seraphina steps closer, placing the palms of her hands against my chest and her warmth sinks through my shirt and right into my skin.

  “I was going to run,” she says softly as her head slowly descends toward my heart. “I was going to leave, but I’m tired of running, Fredrik. I just want to be with you again. Where I belong.”

  My arms have collapsed around her body and I didn’t even know it until looking down and seeing them there.

  I shut my eyes softly and take her in, all of her, because it’s been so long since I’ve felt her this close to me, was able to inhale her scent and feel the heat of her body against mine.

  But I force myself quickly back into reality.

  I pull away from her gently.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, looking up at me with a slightly tilted head.

  “Where is Greta?” I repeat.

  “She’s in the basement,” she says as if it really doesn’t matter. Then she smiles and grabs me by the hand. “Come with me, love.” She pulls me along and reluctantly I follow her past the den where the television is glowing against the dark walls and then toward my bedroom.

  That voice inside is screaming, but I continue to shut it out, my mind too perplexed and excited and regretful and relieved to do anything else.

  Seraphina practically dances into my room.

  She stops at the bed where she looks back at me while fitting her fingers around the buttons of my shirt she’s wearing, breaking them apart. Then she stands before me naked, the dress shirt pooling around her bare feet.

  I shake my head. “No,” I say, taking a step back. I want her. I want her more than anything right now, but my conscience is beating the shit out of me. “I’m not doing this with you, Seraphina.”

  “Why not?” She approaches me, her slim, shapely hips swishing seductively as she moves, snake-like, the way only Seraphina could ever move.

  Dragging her fingertips down my chest, she searches for my buttons next, but I carefully place my hands on top of hers and push them away.

  “You can cut me, love,” she whispers, turning her back to me so that I can see the scars I put there, and just imagining it makes me hard. “I know it’s been a long time. How have you managed?”

  I step away from her when really what I want to do is give in, to feel her un
derneath me again, to taste her love for me again.

  But I can’t. All I see in front of me is Cassia. Maybe it’s the long, blonde hair, or that she’s wearing no makeup, I don’t know, but all I see is Cassia. And I could never hurt her like that.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Seraphina asks, starting to get impatient.

  She looks up into my tortured eyes with her perplexed soft brown ones and then she steps closer, her mouth turned downward, her expression full of remorse.

  I can’t do this.

  “Fredrik?”

  “I…Seraphina, I can’t do this.” My hands come up and I spear my fingers through the top of my dark hair and then hold them there. “You betrayed me.” I feel my voice rising, the anger inside of me rising. “I loved you. You were everything to me. My dark angel. My salvation. My sanity.” I’m the one with tortured eyes now, I know. I look right at her. “I’ve looked for you for six years. SIX YEARS!”

  My hands fall away from my head and become half-fists in front of me.

  She steps even closer, her hands out in front of her too, reaching for me in her slow and careful steps.

  “I know, Fredrik…I know and I can never forgive myself.”

  “You betrayed me!” I feel my face twisting in anger.

  “I know!” Seraphina’s eyes begin to glisten with moisture. “But I betrayed you because I loved you! Not because I loved someone else!”

  “YOU DESTROYED ME, SERAPHINA!” My voice rips through the house.

  She flings herself into my arms.

  “But I love you! I’ve always loved you! Why can’t you forgive me?” With her arms bent between us, her fingers grasp desperately at my shirt. “If you loved me so much, why couldn’t you forgive me?!”

  “I DID!” I thought I pushed her away, but I guess it was just my mind that did it—I’m holding her now instead. “I forgave you a long time ago, Seraphina. For years, I kept telling myself that when I found you I’d kill you.” A tear falls from both of her eyes and trails down her cheeks. “But I knew, the deepest part of me knew, that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. I would’ve tortured you. Yes, I would’ve done that much. But I couldn’t kill you.”