by Carina Adams
“I would have believed you.”
“Yeah, you would have.” I nodded. “And you were the one person I didn’t want to know.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. “I already knew he was a fuckin’ monster.”
“Everyone knew he was a monster! They were still all too eager to believe that it had only happened a few times. That I hadn’t asked for help.” I shook my head, trying to force the tears away. “That I lied about what I’d seen.”
I chewed on my lip, trying to find the words that I’d spent years searching for. “I didn’t want you to look at me any different. I was ashamed. It was bad enough for you to know that we’d had sex, but the rest of it made me even more dirty.”
“You didn’t have sex with him.” His voice was calm, even. He was more controlled than I’d ever seen him. He shot from the chair, kneeled in front of me, and grabbed my hands. “That was not sex, Cris. You were an eleven-year-old girl who was brutalized by a man you were supposed to be able to trust. Nothing you would have told me would make me look at you any different. Then or now.”
I couldn’t fight the tears. “I wanted to play softball that summer,” I admitted quietly. “You didn’t want me to. You wanted to spend the time at the beach.”
His hands tightened around mine. “It was not your fault.”
“I thought you were being selfish. I just wanted Dad to spend more time with me, and he never came unless I had a game. Coach Glass was so nice. He and Mom started dating and he made her smile. He always had time for me. When you told me you didn’t like him, I was so mad at you.”
He nodded. I regretted that. More than I could explain. I’d driven such a huge wedge between the two of us. Maybe if I hadn’t, things would have been different.
“One afternoon, it was raining, so we decided to have a movie marathon while you were gone with your friends. The video he put on was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was him with one of the girls who refused to testify. I know I saw it. I didn’t make it up. He told me that she was his favorite, but that if I acted like her, he’d love me the most.”
Matty closed his eyes, his jaw clenched. “How many times did he film you?”
I swallowed, the lump in my throat not budging. “A lot.”
“The detectives didn’t believe me,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. “When I told them about the tapes, they talked to the other girls. All of them denied it. They never found proof, so obviously they didn’t exist.”
“The letters.” Matt took a deep breath, “He says he still has those tapes.”
I nodded. It had been one of the threats he’d held over my head for years.
“He’s never going to release them, Cris. They’d incriminate him. Not you. You were a little girl.”
“You don’t understand. The things I did. The things I said to him.” I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “He coached me. It’s disgusting. How many upstanding members of society can say the words, ‘I made a porn movie,’ let alone, ‘I made a nasty porn when I was twelve’?”
“You were just a kid.”
I nodded. “I was just a kid when I testified that he’d raped me, and yet I was the pariah. I ruined a good man’s reputation, remember? I was obviously disturbed because I’d become obsessed with my mother’s boyfriend, and when he turned me down, I cried rape. I was the one everyone blamed after Parker Elliot killed herself because the police investigated all the time she’d spent with Dale and were asking uncomfortable questions.”
“And all of those people were wrong.” He watched me closely. “Okay. So, there are tapes.” His jaw clenched, hating the words he said. “What else is he holding over your head? What could he possibly have that makes you fear him?”
“You.”
“Me?” He leaned back. “Sweet pea, I’m not afraid of that sick fuck. Let ‘im come after me. I’ll finish the job I started.”
“At first, he told me that no one would believe me. That it was my word against his. Then he started to threaten you. If I didn’t want to do something, or say something on the videos, he’d tell me he’d hurt you. Or Mom. He even told me he was going to shoot Daddy.”
I took a deep breath. “One day, he called me in to watch another video. I hated seeing them. But this one was different. Worse.” I bit my lip. “It was you.”
Matty’s face fell. “What?”
“You and Erin Bean.” I swallowed. “She was only—”
“Fourteen,” he answered for me. “We were the same age, Cris.”
“You’d just turned fifteen.” I shook my head. “He had the tape. There was no way you would have gotten out of it. Statutory rape makes you go on the sex offenders list. And now? If that came out now, even if you didn’t go to jail, you’d never get a job.”
Matt lifted his hands to grip my cheeks. “Sweet pea, Erin and I were both minors. I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.”
No. I shook my head. “I asked Ms. Tamworth.”
“Your guidance counsellor?”
I nodded. “A week or two before you caught him that day.”
“Jesus Christ!” He pushed away from me, standing so quickly I jumped. He rubbed his eyes and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Was there a single fuckin’ adult in your life who actually helped when you asked them to?””
“I didn’t tell her about Dale.” I’d been too afraid. “I gave her the scenario and asked if it was true that the boy would go to jail.”
“It’s not true. She lied. I don’t know why. Maybe she thought Dad had told you that to keep you from sleeping with an older boy. Maybe she was just a bitch. But it’s not true.” He dropped onto the floor again. “I wish you had told me years ago. I would have taken care of it.”
“You were fifteen. You’d already been sent to juvie. What more could you have done?”
“I would have killed him.”
“I can’t imagine you killing anyone. You’re not a bad guy. You’re the good one.”
My brother shook his head. “Is that all he has on you? The tape and some bullshit threat on me that’s not true?”
I swallowed and nodded. I didn’t need to tell him what exactly was on those tapes. I would never be able to face it myself, so he didn’t need to hear it, to have those images stuck in his head.
“Was it just him, Cris?” As he asked the question, he clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. It was too painful for him to even contemplate. “Was it just him? Or were there other adults?”
My heart stopped. He must have read more of the letters than he’d admitted, and was desperate for me to put his mind at ease. As much as I wanted to soothe him, to pretend it had never happened, this was no longer the time to protect him.
“There were others.”
He took a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. I need you to tell me who. Because this time, I’m going to make sure you never have to be scared of any of them again.”
“You really can’t go to jail? That tape really can’t hurt you?”
He shook his head. “No. It can’t.”
I felt like such a fool. There’d been more than once when I’d decided to research it, but I always got too scared. Matty had already gone to jail once because of me, and I couldn’t handle the idea of it happening again.
So, I’d written back to Dale. Promised him that as long as Matty stayed safe, I’d go anywhere with him. Let him do anything to me. I knew that Dale was angry, that he claimed I owed him and that my freedom was the price tag. Matty’s freedom had been mine.
“As long as you’re safe, I’m not afraid of him.” I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “He can’t hurt me any more than he already has.”
I nodded, as if to prove the point to myself. I wasn’t that helpless little girl anymore. I’d trained, I knew how to hurt someone who attacked me. If he ever came near me again, I would do what I’d been taught, and subdue him until the police could arrive. I would press the fact that he’d violated his re
straining order.
I realized that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt free.
I couldn’t wait to tell Rob.
35
Rocker
“Mind if I join you?”
I glanced over at Jessie as she slid onto the stool next to me, but didn’t respond. Instead, I took another sip of the Jim Beam that had been keeping me company since Cris walked out.
“You should probably cut yourself off if you’re ever going to drive home,” Jess told me quietly.
I shook my head. “Not going home.” And tipped the rest of the amber liquid back.
“I’m sorry that I caused problems.”
I turned my neck to look at her. “You didn’t do anything. I did.”
She twisted her lips and shook her head. “That’s not true.” She sighed. “I don’t like her very much.”
She acted like it was a surprise to me, that I didn’t know how the two of them felt about the other. It had been crystal clear from the moment they’d met back at Liam’s months before. Some petty, territorial catfight had been the least of my worries, and truthfully, I’d hoped they’d get over it.
When I didn’t reply, she raised a hand and let it fall on top of the bar. “Fine. I may have antagonized her a bit.”
“Stop antagonizing my ol’ lady, yeah?” Then I poured another drink. “She’s not pissed at you this time. It’s me.”
“Are you going to pour me one?”
I frowned as I looked at her then back to the bottle in my hand. “Sure.” She grinned. “When you turn twenty-one, I’ll be the first one to pour.”
She rolled her eyes, reminding me of my sister Meg. “We’re in the clubhouse. What happened to ‘we make our own rules’?”
“We do. I make them. I’m not giving you alcohol.”
She took a long breath. “I’m not giving up, you know.”
I knew she wasn’t talking about the drink. “On?”
“You.”
The announcement had me turning around to make sure no other brother had heard her.
“I know you think I’m just a kid. But I’m never going to change my mind. I told you when I was sixteen, I’m going to marry you one day.” She lifted a shoulder. “I claimed you first.”
Women were fucking nuts. The whole lot of them. I had no idea what to say to shit like that, any more than I’d known what to say when she’d made the announcement the first time.
Jess was my friend, a little sister, and I’d never thought of her as anything else. I didn’t think I ever would. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I also didn’t want her to keep thinking that one day my feelings might change.
I took a long sip, staring at the wall. “Cris claimed me first,” I told her. “When I was fifteen. I’ve belonged to her ever since.”
“Things change.”
“That won’t.”
I was still at the bar later when my best friend sat down next to me. “How much have you had?”
“I’m still sitting upright. So, not nearly enough.”
“Good. We’re riding.”
“No bike,” I reminded him.
“Good thing we need the truck,” he argued.
“They’re watching me,” I reminded him. “Waiting for me to fuck up.”
I’d been interviewed by Boston’s finest twice more since Cris had been found not guilty. I’d had Hansen’s blood on my boots. I’d plead the fifth. I’d served myself up on a silver platter. It was just a matter of time before they filed charges formally.
Now we were playing the waiting game.
“Trust me. They’ll never find the bodies to pin on anyone.”
“Where we going?”
“Maine.”
I finally looked at him, realizing that my brothers were gathered by the door, most looking serious, all looking deadly.
I put the glass down with a thud and turned to face him. “What’s going on?”
He slammed a piece of paper onto the bar. “I’m going to kill these motherfuckers. With or without you.”
I didn’t move my eyes from him. “Talk. Now.”
He cracked his jaw, the rage he had inside barely contained. “They’re associates of one Dale Glass.”
Just the name made my blood boil. “Associates?” I forced the word through clenched teeth.
“Trust me. It’s better that you don’t know.”
Hatred oozed through me. “They hurt her?”
“Yeah.”
I was off my stool before he’d finished the word.
“I’m taking the van, Pres,” Tiny told me. “You ride with me.”
I nodded. I couldn’t drive for shit; I’d had too many to drink. I’d been waiting eight fucking years to feel that prick’s bones break, to bleed him dry for what he’d done to Cris. I wouldn’t have missed it even if I had to ride bitch.
There are some professions that terrify most people. When you tell people you know someone who works for the FBI, they give you a nod and then slide away, hoping you don’t look at them too closely. Or if you know someone who works on a bomb squad, you know you that person is not only badass, but could blow up your entire block if you piss him off—because he wouldn’t know how to diffuse it if he didn’t know how to build it. To me, the most intimidating was the circus or rodeo clown. Those fuckers paint a smile on their face and spend way too much time trying to get you to pay attention to them. They’re hiding something, and it ain’t good.
In reality, the most dangerous professions often get overlooked.
At any given time, on any given day, a carpenter has his vehicle full of tools. He can drive those tools over state lines without as much as a glance from staties. Tools that are capable of the worst kind of torture, tools that can rip a man’s tongue out and remove his appendages, one by one, and then, when you’re ready, tools that can kill. When you’re done, you clean the tool the way you normally do—soak it in vinegar for three hours, then scrub with a tooth brush, and rinse. It’s also a great way to prevent rust.
Pig farmers. Even worse, pig breeders. Pigs eat everything, even bone. Nursing sows eat ten to fifteen pounds of food each in one setting. Offer pieces of a cut-up corpse, soaking in water or milk, to the fifty sows on a farm, and you can dispose of more than one body in very little time. Of course, you need to cut the heads off first, so things like teeth and hair aren’t left behind as evidence. Or, if you just don’t care and know you’ll never get caught, you can feed them the heads, too.
I’d never trust a carpenter, because I was one and I knew what I could do with my tools. And, while I’d never trust a pig farmer, I did know one or two and had them on my payroll.
It hadn’t been hard to locate the men on Mateo’s list. We’d hauled two from their beds, and a third from his office at the junior high where he was reviewing game tapes. Then, while the Bastards took the three of them to have some fun, Mateo, Tank, and I met up with Mac.
The old man shook our hands, serious because the situation was nothing more than business. Then he pointed to the apartment building we stood outside. “28 D.”
“You sure he’s in there?” Tank clarified.
Mac nodded.
“There are tapes,” Mateo spoke quietly. I’d already lost my shit when I found out, but it was like he didn’t want to risk another outburst. “Is there anywhere he frequents where he might hide them? Other than here?”
Mac scratched his cheek. “I don’t know. I’ll find out though.” He nodded at me. “You want me to come in?”
I shook my head. This was Bastard business. I didn’t want him even more involved unless he had to be.
“I’ll look for a hiding place,” he informed us as he picked up his phone.
Glass, the stupid fucking piece of shit, didn’t expect us. He’s screamed like a fucking goat when we’d busted in his door. The walls were too thin to have much fun there, and I wanted to take him to his friends, so I knocked him out and then we carried him to the truck.
On
ce we all got to the old barn, we gave them each a chance to tell us where the tapes were. We promised that the first one who told us would be spared the night I had planned for the others. The three coaches were ultimate team players, each refusing to talk.
The landscaper though, he didn’t even make it through the first round of ‘How Many Fingers Can You Lose?’ before he started to sob and told me right where they were hidden. All three copies. One in an area they could all get to whenever they wanted, so they could relive the glory days. Another in a safe location to use for collateral against the others. And the third, that he’d made to protect himself. I rewarded him with a knife across his throat.
I sent two teams out and then called Mac with the location of the third. He was going to turn the ones he found into one of his cop buddies. Someone Mac swore could be trusted. I wanted those fucking dicks to know that my girl hadn’t been lying on the stand. I’d destroy the other two copies, because I didn’t want anyone ever seeing them.
I’d let the boys handle the other two pedophiles. They knew enough about Mateo’s history to understand those fuckers had hurt Cris. Tiny laughed, looking happier than I’d seen him in a long time, when I told him he could take lead. Sadistic fuck actually found joy in torture.
Mateo, Tank, and I took Glass. We spent hours with him, each of us taking turns, getting the vengeance Cris deserved. My hatred toward him merged with my feelings for Hansen, and I did all the things I’d wanted to do to the man who had hurt my little girl. This piece of shit was no better. He might not have beaten her, but he’d betrayed her trust, stolen her childhood, changed her outlook.
When I strolled over to the farmhouse hours later, the sun had started to lighten the horizon, and I felt like a weight had been lifted. Farmer Ted greeted me warmly. I hadn’t seen him in months, not since Slasher had sent me up here back in May. He took my money and got me a coffee as if it had only been the day before—like this was our normal routine. We shot the shit and he didn’t ask a single question, as if I wasn’t paying him to dispose of four bodies.
