by Eden Butler
“Yeah. It’s in the file. I’ll get it. That asshole isn’t a criminal. He’s a psycho. He won’t have his bases covered, but I think we should send a few teams in. One to his place out in Mandeville and another to his office. He also owns a warehouse out in Gretna. We’ll send some men out there too.”
“Good. Get that file and I’ll let Sammy and Dean know.”
I turn on my heel, ready to bust through the door, but Frank stopped me, calling after me before I could leave. “I am so sorry, man. I got sloppy.”
Dean was right, but Frank didn’t deserve my anger. Not really. The shit he’d been through? The struggle he’d had just to get to some sense of normalcy was something that took strength. He should be allowed mistakes, probably more than any of us. I’d come to New Orleans all piss and vinegar, looking for my mother’s best friend, thinking that flashing her picture around would open a few doors. I’d been sloppy too and I’d nearly gotten taken out because of it.
“I’ve been there, man. I understand.” I slapped Frank’s chest, hoping my smile, that easy glint in my eyes told him we were cool. “Just get ready for some work. Once we get Alex back and have this asshole handled, I’m taking this shit out on your sloppy ass.”
There was a crackle in the music. It was something old, something with the gravel of history and that deep haunting tone that only time-worn music gives off. It was the song that woke me. Someone’s husband had been murdered, I guessed from the lyrics, but his body had never been found. Just the head, caught in the spokes of a wheel. I didn’t recognize the song at first, but the singer had to be Leadbelly, an old blues man from the forties that Wanda only played when she was broke and wanted sympathy from her kids.
The song repeated, a loop that I couldn’t ignore. When the chorus came again, I knew the song: “In the Pines,” a tune that haunted, had given me nightmares as a kid, hiding under a flat pillow with a thin, threadbare blanket pulled up to my chin. But, now, lying on a bed with my ankles and wrists tied by blue nylon rope, there was no pillow or blanket to hide me.
I blinked against the light shining in my face. My stalker, that bastard who’d harassed and invaded my life for months, moved the lamp toward my face and kept it there. “Good girl.” I hated the soft cooing in his voice, like the endearment meant something to him, like I meant something to him. And when the creep sat next to me on the mattress, arm immediately stretching over my waist so he could hold himself close to me, I turned my head, not wanting to see his face or the way I blanched, not yet ready to give anything away. I needed to think, plan, figure a way out of this shithole I’d landed in.
“Such a pretty girl,” he said and I jerked as his cold fingers reached up to move my chin so I would be forced to look at him. “Same eyes, same pretty mouth.” As who? I had no idea. I hadn’t seen this asshole since I was a kid and he’d come to tell me I’d be moved to New Orleans. And yet… and yet… had I possibly seen him somewhere else? There was the faintest echo of familiarity. But then, nothing. “The nose, it’s not like hers, is it?”
“I… I don’t know who you mean.”
My voice was dry, and it felt like I’d been chewing on sandpaper. But as I cleared my throat, trying to bring some moisture into my mouth, the freak sitting next to me became unreasonably irritated, leaning over me with his eyes tight and his teeth gritted. “Forgot her, did you? That sweet, pretty girl? Forgot how hard she worked for you? What she did to protect you? Forgot all about her?”
He couldn’t possibly mean… no. How would he know her? But it could only be my sister. No one but Stevie had protected me. Not even Mrs. Timmons with her Eggo waffles in the morning and store bought brownies after dinner would have protected me. That old woman had been sweet, but the bottom line was that Stevie and I helped her pay her bills. That’s why we were welcomed into her home.
He came closer and the grip of his cold fingers tightened, but I would not cry out or wince. He wouldn’t get that from me. No matter what he did to me, I wouldn’t let him see that I was scared or hurting or in a rage. “Stevie, the sweet,” he said, closing his eyes as he spoke my sister’s name. He looked disheveled, tired and there was a fading scratch on his cheek and along his chin that I hadn’t seen the night he attacked me. He caught me staring and frowned. “That cat was a menace.” And under his breath I heard him mutter, “And too damn quick,” and a small sense of relief crested in my heart at the idea that Minion had escaped him. God, I hoped I would too. The asshole tightened his hold on my face, smiling. “Sweet Stevie. Too sweet. Too weak and I told her. I told her so many times, not to tell.”
“What… what did she tell?” My stomach turned and I could taste the thick hint of bile working up the back of my throat. I knew what he’d say. Just that scared, lost look in this bastard’s eyes told me what he’d done to my sister.
“She took those pictures.” He laid next to me, fingers still on my face, eyes going wide like he was lost somewhere in memory. “She had them all and then she told and we had to make her stop telling.”
He couldn’t see my face and I closed my eyes, trying to reign in my fury, trying not to pull on those ropes so tightly that I’d shake the bed. This asshole wasn’t big, but he was bigger than me and as he adjusted, laid closer, the weight of his body sank onto my chest and I had to take short breaths to keep air in my lungs. “I did this to her… after… to… to… make sure all the air went out.” Stevie didn’t speak to me then, not like she had the night he’d chased me. I couldn’t hear her telling me what to do. Behind my closed lids, I could only see the picture that this asshole painted. He spoke of her death like it was beautiful, like his fingers around her neck went there with love, not contempt. “Stevie with those flushed cheeks, that sweet, sweet skin.” He climbed fully on top of me, both of us prone, leg to leg, chest to chest, and my heart raced, the fear mobilizing when he wrapped his fingers around my neck. “And when I squeezed, tighter and pressed her down,” he leaned all his weight on my chest, “all that color on her skin went white. Pale.”
“You… you killed my sister,” I choked out. The words were forced, laced with an accusation that had him loosening his hold on my neck and leaning off my body.
He didn’t seem to like that word or the simple description I’d used for what he’d done to Stevie. The man frowned, and the sharp features of his angular face softened as he stared down at me. “She kept talking. We couldn’t have that.”
“And if… if I don’t talk?” I held his gaze, hoping that the shine of my tears would not distract him, would make me seem excited, not scared. “Will you still kill me?”
He stared at me for a long time, inclined on my body, his finger rubbing lazily against my collarbone, just above my heart. I guessed he wanted to feel my heartbeat, maybe he was marking the differences from my hard racing beat to Stevie’s and how it must have slowed before stopping completely. Whatever he was thinking, he kept to himself and as he watched me, gaze flicking over my cheeks to stop on my lips, I said small, desperate prayers, hoping God would give me an opening, some small advantage that I could manipulate to get away from this bastard.
“She would never let me taste her.” I couldn’t help the groan, that sharp hint of vomit that roiled in my stomach. God, this asshole must have driven Stevie crazy. Following her around, asking her out and what else? Had he tried to force himself on her? Had she fought back? Is that really why she died?
“No?” I said trying like hell not to pull away from him when he slid up my body. He smelled like rubbing alcohol, a sterile stench that made my eyes water, but I forced that same sweet smile on my face, the one Wanda had taught me to use whenever one of the Sweethearts got a little too handsy.
“I finally took one. That night when I laid on top of her and felt the air wheeze out of her lungs.” I could feel him shift, moving his hips so that the outline of his hard dick jarred against my thigh. “She tasted like candy. Peppermints.” He frowned, lowered his eyes. “What do you taste like?”
I h
ad to do something quick. I had to make some move to unhinge him, catch him off guard. Otherwise I’d end up like my big sister with this twisted fuck sticking his tongue in my mouth as he choked the life out of me. “I… I don’t know. Nothing good, I’m sure. Haven’t brushed my teeth in a while.”
The air felt tight in my lungs, cluttered by my fear, by that whispering pull inside me that told me to fight, to do whatever I could to keep surviving. I’d taken worse scores, kissed uglier, dirtier men just to land a hustle. But none of them had taken my sister from me. I hadn’t wanted to kill any of them.
Could I do it? Let him touch me? Use the advantage of his weakness for my sister to get out of this place? He continued to watch me, I guessed, deciding what he would do, if I lived or died. As he did I took in the room—low lights and small area, something like a large pantry with empty shelves and only this bed against the furthest wall. There was no flatware, no dishes or anything really I could use as a weapon, but he had tied my feet too close together, in the center of the headboard, not on each end. And my tennis shoes were easy enough to slip off.
“I bet you taste sweet too,” he said, ignoring my stupid joke, chewing on the side of his cheek like he was hungry, like he wanted to take a bite from me.
“I… I might.” I hated doing this. I hated pretending. With Ryan, I never pretended. I wanted him at all times, even just then, with that psycho moving closer, with his stale, hot breath getting closer and closer; what I wanted more than anything in the world was Ryan. But he would not be back from Biloxi in time and just like every other moment in my life where I had been threatened, where I had stupidly allowed myself to fall into a dangerous situation, I would have to play my own rescuer. It’s what I did. It’s who I was.
He pulled my hair back, and with his crazy eyes focused on my face he leaned forward and kissed me. I fought the repulsion, tried not to think of his too thick tongue licking against mine, and instead thought about how the kiss would distract him from how hard I had to wiggle my feet to free them from my shoes, and what I would have to do next if I was going to slip out of the bonds holding me down. He seemed to like the way I tasted, how I brushed my hips against him as I struggled to free myself and I felt his erection harden and his hands tighten in my hair, giving me the time to slide my narrow feet from the knotted rope.
“I saved you,” he said, panting down on top of me as he held my face. “You were so tiny but I saw the fire, just like Stevie and I knew, one day you would be strong.” When I frowned, confused, the freak laughed. “Wanda said you would not last but I knew. I knew you had the fire.” And then it clicked together with the snap of dumb realization and I had to force myself not to scream. This was Davidson. The name had not come to me when Frank mentioned their client. He had not registered when Wanda had mentioned it infrequently over the years. But somewhere among all the bullshit I’d tried to forget, his name had come back to me, linking all the ties he had to my life. The bastard had done something to maneuver my life. He’d been the asshole Wanda feared, the one who’d take kids like me out of safe, secure homes and tossed them into Wanda’s care so she could mold them, shape them into hustlers that would keep her bank account fat.
He was the damn puppet master.
“How…” I started. So many questions flooded in my mind, so many warring emotions of pain and fury and blind, blistering rage.
Davidson had a small chip in his front bottom tooth. Most of the tooth was gone and when he laughed, his smile widening, I could see a cavity behind one of those perfect, straight molars. “You borrowed a light from me the last day of the trial. I knew you instantly.” It was hard not to shake or pull away from him when those cold fingers stroked my cheek. “You looked at me, cracked a joke about needing to stop smoking and then walked away. But I felt that spark between us. I knew you had grown strong enough for me.”
It had been, quite literally, a 30-second conversation. So random, so innocuous that I didn’t even remember what I’d said. Until that night, I couldn’t have told you what Davidson looked like. But he had found me, after all those years, he’d found me again.
“And now here you are, with me.” He leaned up running his hands along my ribs. “All for me. Not that bastard.” When I frowned, refused to say a word, Davidson pulled at my collar, shaking me once. “You let that dirty roughneck touch you, didn’t you Stevie? Didn’t you?”
“No,” I lied. “No… no one.”
He waited. Watched, eyes hard focused before the grip on my shirt eased. “Mine, Stevie. All mine.”
Well, shit. That’s what this was. I was the replacement. I looked like my sister, sure, and to this whack job I was her. No. I wasn’t going to play this game and when Davidson pushed up my shirt and nestled his nose against my stomach, right at the spot Ryan had kissed clean, I used his fondling as a distraction again, squeezing my hands together, wiggling them back and forth to loosen the knots. Stupid fucker.
But I didn’t keep my attention on him and didn’t immediately notice that his breath no longer moistened against my skin. When I finally noticed and flicked my eyes down, away from the work I’d tried to do on the knots, I saw Davidson glaring at me, and his jaw clenching angrily. I’d been caught.
“You are not a good girl,” he said, all the softness leaving his features.
“No, Crazy Flakes,” I said, slipping down as far as I could on the mattress. “I never was the good sister.” And then I lifted my legs, using the momentum from the mattress to push my hips off the bed and wrestle my legs around Davidson’s neck. I squeezed, pulled against the ropes still holding my wrists, but my thighs went tight, and I used all my strength and that ancient, raw adrenaline pumping in my veins to control the man with just my thighs and knees.
He began to choke and tried to pry my legs from his neck, but a woman’s strongest muscles are in her lower body. Men may have upper body strength, but women are designed to stay lower to gravity, prepare for birth and birthing with those agile, strong muscles. Davidson couldn’t budge me away and I laughed, giddy, when he face turned red and that disgusting tongue of his bulged out of his mouth.
“You’re going to untie my wrists,” I told him, getting an eager nod from him. “I’m not releasing you until you do.” And I didn’t, sliding on my back so that the man could loosen the knots and I held him like that, pathetic and panting until both hands were free and I was able to sit myself up with that crazy asshole still between my thighs. “See?” I told him when I’d gotten him onto the floor. “You weren’t wrong. I am strong. That fire is bright.” He slapped my leg twice and tried digging his fingers into my thighs before I eased up my hold.
“Knew… knew you… would be…”
And because he smiled, like some sick, proud father and because my temper was primed and I wanted to do nothing more than bash the smile right off this asshole’s face, that’s exactly what I did, reaching onto the bed to grab my shoe. I whacked Davidson right in the nose three times. Blood poured out, covered my jeans, but I didn’t waste time worrying over if the creep was passed out or dead. It didn’t bother me either way and I grabbed my bloodied shoe and its mate and left that damn pantry and the bleeding psycho behind.
The house was older, right on the lake and there was a dock some two or three hundred yards away. It was secluded, except for a larger, older home on the lot next door. Both looked abandoned, as though it had once been a family parcel and everyone had left. Davidson’s place was wood framed and most of the white siding was gone or going with rows that were bare or at least threatening to fall.
I climbed away from the house, down the long, gravel drive way with no intention of looking back and no idea how I’d get myself away from this place and back to Ryan. Looking up, to check if he’d followed, I noticed that the house was a Craftsman, something that had once been fine and well maintained, but time and effort had exhausted its quaint front porch and intricate gables and round turrets. The place was completely dark, dwarfed by the large Victorian next door
with a high deck and tower that rose up beyond the roofline. Past both properties was Lake Pontchartrain, calm, serene current stretching out for miles and all around the lots were trees and greenery that concealed the entrance to the gravel road out front. Seclusion, then for the crazy asshole who thought I could replace my sister.
I thought about taking the boat docked below, but didn’t want to chance running out of fuel in the middle of the lake this late at night. So, like most of my life, I decided a walk down the road until I could find a store or somewhere to call Ryan would have to do. I had just made it over the hilly driveway, nearly to the entrance of the opening when the sudden click and distinct cocking of guns greeted me.
“Don’t shoot!” I said, throwing my hands up as two enormous men jogged toward me with the lights on top of their guns blaring in my face.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Escaping,” I said, suddenly tired. I knew the Boy Scout ilk when I saw it and those two yahoos could be a print ad for head bashing security companies everywhere. They were dressed in all black, looked like they were all amped up to play soldier, but I didn’t care about their size or the reach of their guns. I wanted to be home, safe and I wanted one of these G.I. Joes to go handcuff Davidson to a freight train. “Where’s Ryan?”
Realizing who I was, they lowered their guns. “He’s on the other side of the property, miss.” The bigger of the two offered me an awkward pat on my shoulder. “Are you injured? Do you need a medic?”
“No. God, no. I’m okay.” The second guy stepped back, chatted with a voice on his radio and I heard the shout and threat and the familiar grunt that Ryan generally made anytime I pissed him off.
“Ma’am, Mr. Ryan will be here momentarily. He… a… says that you aren’t to move.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, trying to decide if it would be tacky to just fall down on the gravel while I waited. My addled brain actually debated it for a while, as if having something mundane to do was the most precious thing in the world. I’d just about confirmed that I did not care if it was tacky or not when I heard the thunder of footsteps to my right and felt my own feet being swept out from under me. I smelled that delicious, perfect scent of Ryan’s neck and felt his wide, wonderful arms around me.
