by Jonas Saul
The meth diet guy’s hand shook violently from either too many drugs or withdrawal.
“Come closer, bitch,” Meth Man said. “We want to get a good look at you.”
Sarah looked at the kitchen to assess the odds of diving back behind the wall.
“Don’t even think about running. If we have to chase you, we fill you with lead instead of our dicks. Now come over here and make yourself comfortable, pretty thing. We’ll hang out for a while, see what you look like on the inside.”
Dive or move forward, dive or move forward …
The meth diet guy lowered his gun more out of lost energy than exasperation. He set it on the coffee table and jumped up, then walked over before she decided what to do. Diving for cover hadn’t appealed to her with the head wound still relatively fresh.
His grip was surprisingly tight as he wrapped his hand around her arm above the elbow. He leaned in close and whispered, “My friend told you to come on in and get comfortable.” He shoved her toward Parkman’s couch. “Do what he says or the sex won’t be fun for you. It’ll be violent and you don’t want that. I’m sure you’d rather enjoy it, wouldn’t you?”
She lost her balance as she hit the arm of the couch and fell, her arms out to protect her head from any impact. Going unconscious now would mean waking to a nightmare.
Her level of calm surprised her. How often had she been in situations like this in order to be only remotely worried? Or was this a form of apathy toward death?
The first man she had met in the kitchen set his gun down and surveyed her form lying on the couch. Both guns sat useless on the coffee table. He pulled his cell phone out and speed dialed a number.
After a pause, he said, “We have a problem.”
Chapter 30
Violeta held the phone so tight the plastic casing made cracking sounds from the strain.
“Can you say that again?” she asked.
“We have a problem. There’s a girl here.”
“A girl? What do you mean, a girl?”
“We were doing what you asked. The last bug was hard to find—”
“Hard to find?” The fury of hearing that sentence almost overwhelmed her. She got to her feet. “How could they be hard to find? You were the ones who installed them.”
“I know, but we forgot where we put the last one. Anyway, we were just finishing up when a girl walked in.”
“And you decided to call me?” Violeta started pacing. Her bodyguard peeked in from the hall. She waved him off. The door closed softly.
“What do you want us to do with her? Can we play with her? Does it matter to you?”
“No, it doesn’t matter to me what you do with her. That’s entirely up to you, but I want to know who she is first.”
He pulled the phone away and asked the girl her name.
The girl’s words were soft, quiet, but loud enough to sail through the phone line and touch Violeta’s stomach, causing nausea to rise in her throat. She sat back down before she fell.
“She says her name is Sarah Roberts,” he said. “She’s got a bandage on her head, too. That name mean anything to you?”
Tam had said she had killed Sarah. Sarah was supposed to be in a Toronto hospital recovering from the wound that would imprison Parkman. How could she have traveled so far with a gunshot wound to the head? Why was she here, in Santa Rosa, in Parkman’s apartment? That probably meant Parkman was coming back too.
And her paralyzed husband, Oliver, was arriving from Greece today.
Was it odd that everyone would be in Santa Rosa on the same night, or coincidence?
She didn’t believe in coincidences. Everything happened for a reason. Or it didn’t happen.
“Violeta, what do you want us to do with her?”
“No names, dammit!”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.”
The door opened and Tam entered the main living room, a smile on her face as wide and devious as the Cheshire Cat.
“Do with her whatever you want to do. But you’ve only got one hour. Then report back in.” She paused. “Oh, and Pete, make it hurt. Really hurt. Do you understand?”
“Yes, we unnerstand perfectly.”
The line clicked off.
“Tam, you look rather happy for a girl who hasn’t regained her honor yet.”
An image of the naked skinny ex-cons in Parkman’s apartment doing terrible and disturbing things to Sarah popped into her head as she set the phone down. She moistened her lips with the thought of those two spending a night with Tam to really teach her what a woman was for. Maybe those two idiots would come in handy after all.
“I found them.” Tam grinned like she had one-upped her mother.
Her words incensed Violeta to no end.
Tam plopped herself down in the chair on the other side of the living room, sweeping her arm across the back like she owned the place.
An attitude like that will get her locked in the ex-con’s bedroom for a week if she didn’t watch herself. Violeta would tie her daughter to the bed herself and let the skinny dope heads ruin her for a future husband if she didn’t control her attitude.
“Found who?” Violeta asked, barely able to hide her contempt.
“Sarah’s parents, Caleb and Amelia Roberts.”
“Where?”
Tam must’ve detected Violeta’s tone as a threat. She lowered her offensive arm from the back of the chair and sat up straighter. She cleared her throat, adjusted her pants, and blinked nervously.
“They live on Olivet Road. There’s a large vineyard behind their house.” She gave her mother the house number. “I parked out front and waited for one of them to leave so I could report some kind of activity for you, but they stayed home all day.”
“Do you understand what the word dead means?” Violeta asked. Without waiting for a response, she got up from her chair and looked at the closed door. “Martin?” she called.
The door opened. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Get Derek. I want to talk to both of you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Right away.” The door shut softly.
“You see that?” she asked as she walked to the front window. “That’s loyalty. That’s respect.” She pulled the curtains shut and turned back to her daughter. The rage building inside had to be saved for Oliver, Sarah, Parkman and anyone else she had to straighten out tonight, but Tam was coming very close to unleashing it and needing a straightening out herself. “Those men do what I ask, when I ask. They never question authority and they are rewarded for their efforts. Do you get how that works?”
“Yes, Momma. I get it.”
Violeta narrowed her eyes. “No, I don’t think you do, little girl. You’re seventeen and you still have no idea how everything works in the big world, do you?”
Tam remained silent. Smart girl. Violeta gave her that one.
“You see, normally, finding Sarah’s parents’ house would pull you back into the family. You would have regained your honor with me.” She said the words as they pained her.
“Why normally? What do you mean?”
“You do know what dead means, right?” This time she waited for an answer.
Tam nodded. “Yes, Momma.”
Violeta shook her head. “I’m afraid you don’t.”
There was a soft rap on the door.
“Come.”
The door clicked open and both bodyguards entered, dressed in their uniform grays, their suit jackets, Hugo Boss.
“Martin, you stay with me. We’re going to meet up with my ex-husband tonight.”
Tam gasped. Violeta pointed a finger at her without looking her way. “You stay right where you are. We’re not finished.” She lowered her hand.
“Derek, it seems we have a problem at Parkman’s apartment.”
“They’re having trouble with the bugs?” Derek asked.
“I would’ve thought the same thing, but no. They got all the bugs. But while they were there, a girl entered and saw them. This girl has to be removed from the
scene.”
“What are they doing with her right now?”
Violeta snuck a glance at Tam and offered her a wry smile. “They’re enjoying themselves. Taking out their manly pleasures on her.” She looked back at Derek. “The girl’s name is Sarah Roberts.”
Tam sucked air in audibly.
“Don’t move!” Violeta yelled at her. “We’re not done.” She turned to face Derek. “There won’t be much left of Sarah by the time you get there. Wait for Tam at Parkman’s apartment. She will be along shortly. Just secure the premises and wait for Tam. Can you handle this situation?”
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
“Then go. I’ll leave it in your capable hands. When you’re done, come back here and watch the house. We’re leaving to meet with Oliver.”
He nodded, stepped back a few paces, turned and exited.
“Martin, please, have a seat, relax. I have a mother-daughter issue to iron out and then we’ll leave to go see Oliver.”
Martin sat on the chair by the door and pulled out his cell phone to pass the time.
“Now,” Violeta said as she finally turned to face Tam. “Where was I?”
“Sarah’s alive?” Tam whispered. “And in Santa Rosa?”
“That was why I asked if you knew what dead meant. Since you said Sarah was dead and she’s evidently not, you must not know what that means.”
“But Momma, I said I shot Sarah and I think I killed her. I didn’t know one way or the other if she was dead.”
“Oh, come on. Have the decency to not sit there and try to backpedal your way out of this.” Violeta strode across the floor and stopped directly in front of Tam. “How dare you? In front of Martin, too. You disrespect me at every turn.”
She lashed out, the back of her hand hitting Tam’s cheek so hard, blood bubbled up on her lower lip.
“Martin,” Violeta shouted. “Stay seated. This is my daughter. I will discipline her as I see fit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tam held her lip and cried, averting her eyes to the floor.
“You came home and told me Sarah was dead. And now she’s here, tonight of all nights. Well, guess what, your father is back from Greece. I didn’t tell you because it may come as a shock to you, but he was jumped by some street gang in Athens, mugged and stabbed.”
Tam gasped and looked up at her mom, her wide eyes glazed over. “Is he okay?”
“The Greek police sent a nurse back with him because the knife severed his spine. Your father is paralyzed from the waist down.”
A flood of tears burst from Tam’s eyes as she keeled over.
Violeta allowed her daughter to feel the pain a moment. Then she kicked Tam’s foot to regain her attention.
“Because you found Sarah’s parents is the only reason I don’t put you in a hospital right beside your father. But now you have to regain yourself, yet again. You lied. Sarah Roberts is not dead.”
“Did you have anything to do with what happened to Dad?” Tam blurted out through her tears.
The defiance and anger on her face surprised Violeta. It almost made her step back at the expression of hatred in Tam’s eyes. In response to the outburst, Violeta swatted Tam three times, back and forth, like sweeping at an errant housefly.
Tam’s head swiveled with each hit. When she stopped, another spot of blood bubbled up from a horizontal cut on Tam’s cheek.
Violeta turned her hand over and saw the offending ring. It was the diamond ring she had taken off when Oliver left four months ago. It was back on as a good show of being the wife for his return tonight. She had forgotten all about it and now Tam might need stitches.
Tam’s hand came away from her face, blood seeping down the palm, along her wrist.
“How dare you,” Violeta snarled. In a mocking, whiny voice, she said, “Did I have anything to do with what happened to Oliver?” She stepped back in case Tam decided to charge at her. “I’m not so powerful that I could hire a Greek street gang in a city I’ve never been to. The fact that you asked that shows just how much respect you have for me.” The image of the two naked ex-cons came to mind again. Tam just committed herself to their arms. She would order Tam to move in with the ex-cons as their play toy when this was over.
“If I had to regain my honor,” Tam said, “because I thought I had killed Sarah by accident, and now Sarah is alive, then that negates me having anything to fix in the first place.”
“No. That’s not how it works. We deal with the information we have at the time. You had a job to do and you did it.” The blood was clotting fast on Tam’s cheek. She wouldn’t need stitches after all. But she would need to clean up as it now graced her neck and the collar of her shirt. “The information we have now is Sarah’s alive and that will cause new problems. Since we thought you had killed her, I want you to go to Parkman’s apartment and finish the job for me. Don’t worry, my men will have her unconscious by the time you get there.”
“What are they doing to her?” Tam asked.
“Everything a pretty young girl like you shouldn’t know.”
“Are they raping her?”
Now it was Violeta’s turn to smile like the Cheshire Cat. “In every which way possible,” she whispered. “You won’t be able to recognize her when my men are done and Sarah won’t be able to use her plumbing down there ever again.”
Violeta was in the zone, exactly where she wanted to be. Sarah Roberts would soon be out of the picture. Oliver would sign the documents and Tam would move in with the oversexed ex-cons where she would also learn what it’s like to be abused. And if anything stood in Violeta’s way, she always had Sarah’s parents as barter. This time next week, Violeta would have her business deal sewn up, her money transferred, and her vacation to Europe booked. Even her babysitter for Tam, two horrible dirty ex-cons, was all now arranged. She smiled. She was in control after all.
You are either in control or you aren’t. There’s no middle ground.
“Get up, Tam Rood. Clean your face and change your shirt. Then drive to Parkman’s apartment and see what my men are doing to Sarah. When they’re done, muffle the shot with a pillow and let Derek handle the rest. You do that, your honor is right as rain.”
Tam shot up out of her chair, walked past Violeta, a hand still on her wounded cheek, and left the room.
Violeta laughed out loud for effect. Tam had to learn. Violeta was in charge and, as long as her heart beat in her chest, Violeta would always be in charge.
“Martin, bring the car around. We’re going to the private clinic on Petaluma Road to meet my asshole ex-husband. I understand they’ve registered him in now.” Then she thought of something else. “Oh, and Martin.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Bring my fashionable walking cane. The one with the hidden blade in it.”
He frowned, wrinkling his forehead.
“I don’t believe Oliver is paralyzed,” Violeta added. “I want to find out on my own. His legs should be able to handle a knife wound if he can’t feel anything down there. If he’s not paralyzed, I may need the blade to protect myself.”
“Your cane will be in the car, ma’am.”
Martin stepped out and quietly closed the door.
Chapter 31
On Parkman’s sofa, Sarah listened to the phone call. The skinny one had said the name Violeta.
What is her business with me?
It had to be the head injury. She would remember a woman named Violeta. It was one letter away from Violent. Parkman had said her last name was Payne.
Violent pain.
Interesting.
The skinny guy set the phone down. He licked his lips as he stared at the wall, moistening them until they shone like a red stone brushed by a river’s torrent. He glanced at skinny meth-diet guy number two and nodded so subtly, she almost missed it.
Meth Diet licked his lips, too.
Was it prison they escaped from, or a mental care facility? She wanted to hurt them a moment ago. Now she wanted to
kill them for the lip-licking shit. Whatever they were thinking shouldn’t cross the rational mind of a civilized man in society. These men represented everything uncivilized in society.
“Okay,” Sarah said as she sat up on the couch. Both idiots had left their weapons on the coffee table in front of her. They were an easy grab for them and too far for her, but she had another idea. “The way I see it, you guys have only two options.”
