Cherry Hill 15 - A Love to Kill For

by Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  “You think I’m going to leave it up to the damn FBI to find Blake and to resolve this shit? No fucking way. This guy is good. He rages and murders like a monster, but is meticulous afterward to ensure he isn’t identified. This right here. This crime scene has more answers for us. We’ve been with this case from the start. We need to stay here and see what they find, and when they’re done we look around, too. The deputy was killed for reasons beyond his involvement with the drug operation. Hell, the operation isn’t even that fucking big. No, there’s another connection here,” Cassius said to them.

  Another federal agent walked over. “Rangers, we need to find this woman, the victim’s sister, Emerson Banks. Some of our people were investigating some leads, and we’d like to talk to her about her ex, Blake, her relationship with her sister and any knowledge she might have had about this drug operation. Also, her stepbrother Peter’s involvement, who seems to have disappeared along with several other key players in this thing,” the agent said.

  “Some time tomorrow may be better, Randy. Emerson Banks is Cassius’s woman, as you all know. She’s been very cooperative with giving any information.”

  “We got him! We got the asshole and his team, as well. Two of them are dead,” one of the agents called out to all of them.

  “What?” Cassius asked, feeling a mix of emotions.

  “Blake is in custody, two of his team members Matt and Scott are dead. Terrence is in custody, as well, and two federal agents were shot but were wearing their bulletproof vests.”

  “Jesus, it’s over man. They got Blake,” Alex said to him and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Holy fuck.” Cassius exhaled.

  * * * *

  Cassius was breathing through his nostrils as he hung his head under the spray of the water in the shower. His gut was in turmoil still, despite Blake being arrested, and the drug operation being destroyed and now dissected apart. It was a media fiasco on the news, and keeping Emerson’s name out of the spotlight wasn’t going to be easy. She was pretty upset about her sister being killed, yet she expressed how betrayed she had felt when Felecia slept with Blake, and then slept with his team and pretended to be sorry. She wasn’t a good person. Had always been jealous of Emerson, and how Emerson remained on the straight and narrow and finally got herself out of the situation. Cassius still couldn’t understand how his woman had been in love with Blake, or maybe it was how Blake turned out to be a serial rapist and killer, besides a drug dealer. He didn’t want to stay around, stand behind the double-sided glass as agents questioned Blake and Terrence and tried forcing a confession. Blake raged and carried on saying he would kill them all.

  He rinsed the soap from his body and stayed there with his palms against the wall. The pictures continuously flashed in his head of the evidence the agents found at the back room to some shitty dive thirty minutes from Cherry Hill in Central Valley. He was so close, and had pictures of Emerson, her work schedule at Harper’s as well as at the construction company. There had been rope, tape, supplies of food, and other shit indicating his plan. That sick fuck was going to rape and torture their woman.

  He tightened up when he sensed someone enter the bathroom. A moment later, Emerson was stepping into the shower behind him. When she hugged him from behind, he exhaled from her touch. It was like her hug instantly brought him peace of mind and relief. She was right here, in their house, in their bed, now in their shower with him.

  “Are you okay, Cassius?” she asked him and she kissed his back, ran her palms along his hips then down over his cock. She was asking him if he was okay? It was her that went through such turmoil. Her that lost her sister and then found out the man she thought she had thought she loved wanted to rape and kill her. He gripped her hand and pulled her toward the front of him. She stepped under the spray of water, tilted up as it cascaded over her head, her chin to his chest, before she used her lips to suckle against his nipple. He slid a palm along her hip, to her sexy firm ass, and the need to be inside of her, to make love to her and possess her, was overwhelming. He gripped her hips, lifted her up and she gasped.

  “I need you,” he said, holding her gaze with an intense one of his own.

  “I always need you,” she countered and slid her palm along his thick cock to align it with her cunt. He kissed her hard on the mouth. Pressed his body to hers as she sank down on his cock and pressed her against the wall behind her. They both moaned, and then he moved his lips from her mouth, pumped his hips against hers and suckled on her neck. He thought about the night she went out and how Blake nipped at her skin, suckled at her neck as if he had the right. They all could have lost her. He suckled harder and thrust deeper, faster into her, wanting to remove that man’s mark, his possession of Emerson off of her body and out of her head. The visions of the things Blake brought with him to the place, his plan to abduct Emerson, made him need her even more. To ensure she was safe, protected and well loved. He cupped her cheeks and held his cock deep in her cunt. Her lips were parted, her sexy green eyes glazed over, her chest heaved up and down, those big sexy, full breasts. Their woman was a goddess. “I love you so damn much. I was never so scared in my life, baby. Never so scared.”

  “I know, Cassius. I know, but you protected me. You, your brothers, your friends all protected me and found Blake before he could take me. I love you. Our life begins now, Cassius. You, me, Harley, Beretta, and Raven. All together, one family. Take me, baby. Make me come. Make me cry out your name, and get rid of those bad sensations and fear and just love me,” she said to him then cupped his cheeks and kissed him hard on the mouth. He rammed into her, gripped her hip on the right, her breast on the left and made love to his woman. He marked her, ravaged her, and she panted and moaned. She pulled from his lips, tilted her head back.

  “Arms up and back,” he ordered and she did it immediately. Raised those sexy, pretty pink manicured fingers up behind her, her hands in fists, her toned arms down to her full, sexy breasts that pushed forward. She was incredible. He licked and sucked and tugged on her nipples, slightly pulled back and then thrust into her again and again. He slid a finger to her asshole and she cried out.

  “Cassius! Oh my God, I need you everywhere, Cassius,” she said to him. He lifted her hips higher, slid his cock from her pussy and pressed his mouth to hers. She kept those arms of hers up like a good woman. She obeyed his order, his command. He was her commander, her lover and protector. He thrust fingers into her asshole. “Cassius, please.”

  “You feel it? You need me there, baby, because I need to fuck this ass, too. I need to possess every inch of you.”

  “Do it. I want it. Do it, I’m coming again. Oh God, you drive me crazy.”

  He chuckled and then aligned his cock with her asshole, as he gripped one of her thighs higher against his hip, opening her further. “You drive me crazy,” he said and held her gaze as he slowly nudged his cock into her asshole. She moaned and panted, but didn’t look away, didn’t close her eyes. He shoved all the way in. “Fuck. So fucking tight. I feel so much when I’m inside of you. Whether it’s this sexy mouth, this sweet wet cunt,” he said and slid a finger to her pussy.

  “Oh!”

  “Or this tight, sexy ass,” he said slowly as he thrust and thrust until he felt his cock grow so hard, so sensitive he came with a roar. She hugged his shoulders as he slid his cock from her asshole and held her in the shower. “I love you forever, baby. Forever.”

  * * * *

  “What are you telling us?” Cassius raised his voice as he stood in the command center at the Texas Ranger facility an hour from Cherry Hill. It had been three weeks since everything happened, and still they couldn’t pin anything with the rapes and murders on Blake or Terrence.

  “We don’t have any evidence we can use to charge Blake for those rapes and murders. He admitted to planning on taking Emerson Banks. He carried on about being in love with her and screwing things up when he did drugs one night and got drunk and woke up in bed with Felecia,” Special Agent
Fernandez told them. There were a few other investigators there, as well. “We’ve been going over everything. I’ve sent teams back to Blake’s residence, as well as Felecia’s home residence. After doing some interviews with witnesses, we found out that Felecia was sleeping with the deputy. We have the teams going through those homes with a fine tooth comb.”

  “Are you telling me that the rapist and killer is still out there?” Cassius asked as he gripped the back of the chair.

  “I’m telling you that it isn’t Blake or Terrence. That it has to be someone else. Someone in that group,” he said.

  “Someone who fits the same profile as Blake. A soldier, a man obsessed with Emerson,” Alex said and they looked at Cassius.

  “That could be any number of men. You guys know her, know what she looks like, and that she works at Harper’s when she isn’t working for the construction company. There could be any number of men who set their eyes on her and she never responded or maybe didn’t even fucking notice.”

  “Not going by your initial evaluation of the crime scenes, of the way the women were taken, raped and tortured before being killed, or figured it to be someone in the military, someone with a fixation on brunettes. We need to think out of the box here. We need to gather a new list. To think about a typical profile of a killer rapist like this. The fixation, the secretiveness,” Jeb said.

  “Let’s start at the beginning. Let’s pull everything out and see if we missed something. We’ll wait to hear back from those teams Hernandez sent out. We have no choice. We need to start over,” Cassius said, and then they all started to pull open the information they had and began to put their heads together. Cassius was determined to figure out who this killer was. Could Emerson have been right? She told Raven that she didn’t believe Blake was the rapist and killer. “What are you thinking about?” Alex asked him as the other agents were working the case, too. There was a lot of manpower on this because the serial rapist was still at large.

  “I’m thinking about Emerson. About how she admitted she couldn’t believe Blake was a rapist and killer. We got so upset with her. Raven, Beretta, and Harley questioned whether or not Blake still had a hold on her. Now I’m thinking what if she was right, Alex? What if we were all wrong, and then got caught up in ending the drug operation and as the feds took over, we dropped the ball on this?”

  “We didn’t drop the ball. The Feds told us they had evidence and believed Blake was the killer. He was seen in all the places those women were seen. They frequented the Freeway bar and grill. It was out of our control. Let’s focus on what we have and anyone else we think could be a potential suspect, we fucking investigate. Come on,” Alex told him and he exhaled but got onto the laptop and began to rack his brain like everyone else in the damn room.

  * * * *

  Emerson got off the phone with Raven. She told him she just left the construction company and was going to stop into town in Benter to grab some fresh vegetables and fruit from the market. They were preparing dinner and looking forward to spending the rest of the evening out back by the fire pit. She smiled as she walked through the market and grabbed some things. When she saw the homemade brownies, she thought of Beretta. Apparently he had a sweet tooth, and brownies were his favorite. She decided instead of grabbing the ones already made, that she would grab what she needed to make her own brownies for him instead. She hoped they let her take the time to make them. It was pretty difficult to get anything done when she got home from work. She always wound up making love to one of her men, whether it was on the kitchen island, against the hallway wall, in the bedroom, the shower, heck, out by the fire pit and even inside the truck just last night. She smiled wide and giggled. She was so in love with them. She gathered what she needed and then headed out to the parking lot.

  She placed the bag into the back seat of the car when she felt the presence behind her. As she turned, he shoved her hard against the doorframe. She felt the gun against her spine. “You fucking scream, you fucking gain any attention, and I will kill people.”

  Her heart raced like crazy. “Pete? What the hell are you doing? What do you want?” she asked him.

  He stroked her hair from her cheek and wedged the gun tight against her side as he pressed his erection against her ass. “What I’ve always wanted, Emerson. You.”

  He yanked her from the car and then started pushing her toward a truck. She looked around her but he shoved the gun hard into her spine, definitely causing bruises. “I don’t understand this. You aren’t going to get away with this. The police are looking for you.”

  “They aren’t looking for shit. They got their guys, Blake, the deputy and the rest of those pussy assholes. Now get in,” he said and shoved her toward the front seat of the truck so she would have to slide over. She went to move, to shove from his arms but then he banged her hard against the inside door frame of the truck. Her ribs and side smashed against the metal and she cried out. He forearmed her over the back of her neck, her cheek hitting the metal. “You don’t make a fucking sound. I’ve waited forever for you. For fucking ever.” He lifted the gun and she was crying and in pain but she couldn’t let him get her into the truck. She couldn’t. As he lifted his arm and she went to climb up into the truck, he lifted her, slid his hand under her ass and squeezed. She gasped and went to smack him and as he jumped up he elbowed her in the mouth. He gripped her hair and shoved her down onto the floor of the passenger seat. Her head hit the door. She was in pain and he looked like a monster.

  “Let me go,” she yelled at him and he shook his head and began to drive the truck out of the parking lot.

  “This is it, Emerson. All those years of being forced to watch you, to pretend to look at you like you were my sister when all I wanted to do was to fuck you, to claim you my woman. You fucking started seeing Blake, screwing him and gave him your virginity and I should have fucking put a stop to it.”

  “You’re sick. You’re absolutely sick. You killed those women? It was you who raped them and killed them?” she screamed at him.

  He palmed her knee. “All practice before I finally had you in my bed. You had to have known that I wanted you. But you didn’t fucking care. You’re so sweet and nice to everyone, to the men, leading them on, making them think they have a chance, and then you deny them.”

  “That isn’t true,” she said and tried getting up and reaching for the truck door. He slammed the butt of the gun down onto her arm and shoulder. She cried out as the pain went across her shoulder and down her back. Tears streamed down her face and she was so scared she was shaking. She thought about her men. About Cassius. Oh God, if Pete were successful, if he raped her and killed her, it would be Cassius that would find her. She had to fight. She had to do something.

  * * * *

  “She isn’t answering the phone. Fuck, we’re too late. I was too fucking late figuring this out!” Cassius yelled as Alex drove the Ranger SUV and an all points bulletin was put out on Pete’s truck. He called his brothers. They were grabbing guns and heading to help. The guys at the construction company got right to town, met the Sheriff in Benter and were asking if anyone saw anything. Their phones kept ringing, more information was coming in. A 9-1-1 call came in. A make of the truck, a man with Pete’s description talking to Emerson and then forcing her to get into the truck was caught on a witness’s cell phone. Pete had her. He had their woman and he was going to torture her, rape her and kill like Pete had done to those other women. The federal agents found evidence in a back wall behind Pete’s bed at his house. He had a whole other room back there. A special faux wall and in it were all pictures of Emerson since she was a teenager. Pete kept belongings from his victims, their schedules and tactics to grabbing them. There were videos of sick sexual deviant behavior that he enhanced and acted out on his victims. He was a maniac and now he had Emerson.

  Cassius was trying to swallow but it felt like his throat was closed. As they got into Benter, saw all the police activity and cruisers, as well as federal agents, the call
came in over the radio. A sighting off the back woods trail. “Get there! Get there now. It’s them. He has her and maybe she’s trying to get away!” Cassius yelled and then called his brothers to tell them to head that way, too. The sirens blared as Alex skidded out, made a U-turn and headed toward the scene of the accident. They had to get to her in time. They had to. He couldn’t have failed Emerson. Cassius and his brothers all promised to protect her, to love her and have a good, happy life now. This asshole wasn’t going to take that away from them. He wasn’t going to win.

  * * * *

  “Get your hands off of me,” she yelled at him and smacked his hand away. He put the gun in the side of the driver door and yanked out a knife. She fell back against the floor and passenger door frame. He slashed at her body, ripping her skirt.

  “Do as I say,” he said to her as he kept glancing at the road and then her. They were off the main road and on the side one leading toward Closter, away from Benter and Cherry Hill where her men were. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Open your thighs. Do it,” he ordered.

  “No.”

  He slashed at her leg, cutting the skin. She screamed. “Open for me. Let me see that pussy your men have been fucking. You whore. Four fucking men their sizes? What happened to refusing to be a fucking slut? You were too sweet, too nice and proper to fuck Blake and his team? Why these men? Why the fuck didn’t you wait for me?” he demanded through clenched teeth and he raged. Actually raged and thrust the knife into the leather seat over and over again.

  She closed her eyes and sobbed. He was out of control, insane, and she was going to get killed. The cut on her thigh stung and then he poked at her knee with the knife, puncturing the skin. She screamed. “Put your leg up here, show me it. Lift that skirt and show me it,” he demanded as he breathed harder and harder. She slowly started lifting her foot and thigh upward. She leaned slightly back and as her back hit the bump in the floor, and the door, she felt the leverage and the thought popped into her head. She had to fight. She had to escape. The truck slowed down as he licked his lips, his eyes off the road a moment as she pulled her skirt to her waist, let the sick bastard see her panties. She lifted her torso and he glanced at the road as a car horn sounded, and she made her move. She pulled her lower foot back and slammed it into his right leg. He lost control of the vehicle, dipped into a ditch and she screamed and tried getting up. She scrambled over the seat. Horns honked and she reached for the handle of the truck door.