by Cass Sellars
“Why don’t you come over here and do that. Deal with me now,” Sydney taunted, hoping to gauge the ease of his manipulation. She thought she saw him falter as he stepped off the blanket, Jenny’s neck pressed under his forearm.
“You just want to lure me away from her. You think you can corrupt her again.”
Sydney thought his reaction was promising. She knew she had started a train that she couldn’t stop now, and she prayed her instincts were right.
“I’m just here so we can talk, right? That’s what you wanted.” She shrugged at him and held her palms up. He didn’t move away from Jenny. He seemed to feel safe in his position hiding behind his victim. Sydney wanted to derail him, move him emotionally until it devoured him. Had Jenny’s life not been balanced on that fine line, she would have enjoyed the game of it.
“Actually, I want you here. With us.” His voice was demanding but disturbingly calm. “I want Lillian to watch as I punish you for what you’ve done. You deserve to see her take pleasure in your final destruction.”
He was too committed, too fixated on his end game. He needed to have his attention shifted, and Syd thought she knew exactly how to accomplish that. There was no going back now.
“Ben, I want her back with me now. You can’t keep her from me, you know.” Sydney hoped the strategy was the right one and just enough to shift his attention from Jenny to her…just long enough. Syd knew if he let Jenny go for only a few seconds, a shooter could take him.
“You filthy dyke. You have no right to be here. Lillian is mine.” He shoved Jenny roughly forward and walked a few feet from the blanket. He circled her, teasing the knife around her body and ensuring, unintentionally, that no one would risk Jenny’s life in an attempt to incapacitate him. He eyed Sydney, mocking her as he skimmed the blade dangerously near the skin left bare by Jenny’s summer dress.
Sydney felt the shift she had hoped for. She advanced farther, keeping her hands in clear view and stopping approximately thirty feet from him. She could see figures near the trees in the wood line shift as they transformed into rifle-wielding officers. They sidestepped to keep up as the subject moved closer, always maintaining cover and sight line.
“Are you so scared I could take her from you?” Sydney felt the sting of anticipation and adrenaline. She made her voice still deeper and darker, and she embarked on a tactical approach from which she knew there was no retreat. She took a deep breath and began. “I mean, take her from you again? Are you afraid that she remembers how good it felt to have my mouth on her, Ben? How good it felt when I held her hot, naked body against mine?” Syd taunted him and saw him pause as the images found purchase in his disturbed mind.
He pointed the knife at her in a furious gesture. “You shut the fuck up! You cannot talk about her that way. She told me she hated you touching her. She told me it would never happen again!” His voice trembled with fury and indignation as he continued to shake the knife in Sydney’s direction, forgetting his prisoner.
Sydney saw Jenny step incrementally behind him as Ben zeroed in on Syd, the object of his wrath. She knew that if officers could retrieve Jenny, they would wait for the opportunity to take him into custody. She took slow, measured steps to her left, edging closer to the trees and the waiting police. He unconsciously mirrored her moves, and she carefully calculated the next step in her game.
“You know that isn’t true, Ben. You watched me in the car, didn’t you? You watched my hands slide over her smooth skin. You saw how much she liked it, how aroused she was. You saw how good I am at making a woman feel satisfied. You couldn’t hear it, but she begged for more.” Syd laughed tauntingly at the enraged man and watched Jenny freeze in place, obviously terrified to move in the event Ben turned around to find her.
Syd calculated that he was nearly six feet from Jenny, and she needed him to move a little farther toward her, which he did suddenly and all at once as he charged toward her with the knife leveled in front of him.
“Are you remembering it? Can you see it in your mind? Are you picturing my hands all over her, Ben? Stroking her body? You can’t decide whether or not you loved to watch, or you’re pissed that a woman like me can do it better than you, make it better for her.” A dark figure pulled Jenny into the shade of the woods and disappeared. Syd felt her body relax a millimeter. She wouldn’t let herself lose focus, however.
“I’m just going to stand here and let you think about that, Ben.” Sydney was letting anyone who could hear her know that she would no longer try to move him any farther. Their next moves would be calculated on his current position. At least, she hoped that was the case. He’d stopped and was staring at her, the knife still raised. She felt ice course through her veins when she pictured Lillian describing her repeated rape at the hands of this despicable man who’d chosen Jenny as his next victim. She squared her shoulders and held his gaze. In her mind, this was no longer a battle; this was the last move at the end of a war that Ben Barrett would soundly lose.
“Are you still thinking about it, Ben?” She slowed her voice to get him to stay focused on her as four helmeted figures moved up behind him. She continued talking so his attention stayed on her. “Are you wondering what I have that you don’t? Can you picture it? Can you see us together? Are you wondering what I’m doing when I make a woman scream my name, over and over again? I make them satisfied, Ben. You just make them pity you.” Syd would admit that she was deriving a little perverse pleasure from taunting him. A molecule of satisfying verbal revenge on a man she would cheerfully dismantle with her bare hands.
Ben screamed and shook the knife, suddenly lunging toward her.
He cried out as he was propelled to the ground almost instantly, the knife wrenched from his hand. His arms were jerked into cuffs behind him, and Syd heard the team lead’s voice, “One in custody. Clear.”
Syd finally exhaled fully and bent over, bracing her hands on her knees in an attempt to still her racing pulse. She listened to the voices of the team as they moved Ben to the parking lot, his screams of rage and vitriol filling the air. Syd thought for a moment that the residual silence now swirling around her seemed somehow louder than the chaos of the past few minutes.
She walked slowly back toward the makeshift command center. She couldn’t see Jenny, but she knew she was okay. The buzz of the adrenaline flush still obscured the periphery of her vision, and her movement was still a little unsteady. She tried to remember when the adrenaline dump had last affected her so drastically.
“Syd.” Parker’s breathy voice was a welcome sound as she approached the lot. Syd lifted her up as Parker wrapped her legs around Sydney’s waist and held on.
“Hey, you okay?” Sydney buried her face in Parker’s hair.
“Are you?” Parker wouldn’t let go.
“I’m fine. It was quick.” She realized the words were true, but it didn’t help her unsettled state of mind. She needed her pulse to slow before she faced what would be a furious police command and potentially angry Mack.
“Where is Jenny? Did Mack get here?” Syd scanned the lot. Parker slid from her arms, and Sydney thought the void created by the separation was painful.
“They’re over here.” Parker dragged her in the direction of the commotion.
“How did they take it when they figured out what we were doing?” She knew she was in hot water, to say the least. If she got on the wrong side of the department, she might never see another evidence reconstruction contract again.
“We? We had nothing to do with that.” Parker’s stern words, obviously intended to scold, were clearly overshadowed by relief.
“But it worked. I heard everything. You did it. I couldn’t believe what you were saying, but it worked. I think several guys are going to have to go take cold showers after all your dirty talk, but you did it. I’m so proud of you. I thought Mack was going to pass out, Syd.” Parker skimmed her fingers over Sydney’s face as if to trying to reassure herself that she was in one piece.
“I guarantee yo
u that she did better than I would have. I couldn’t have done it if it was you out there.” Syd breathed into Parker again and closed her eyes. Parker clutched against Sydney, seeming to know intuitively that she needed the grounding embrace.
When Mack saw Syd, she didn’t speak. She simply hugged Syd tightly, fighting tears of relief welling in her eyes.
“Thank you.” Mack held her tightly. “Jenny’s in the van with the detectives. She’ll want to say thank you herself.”
Sydney skimmed an arm across her forehead to wipe away the perspiration born of the past intense moments.
A very angry-looking Sergeant Lu stared at Sydney as he approached. “What the fuck was that, Hyatt?”
She shrugged. “I knew from his letters that he was pissed because he had been taken out, in his eyes, by a woman. He thought I was her, or I represented her, whatever. I had to piss him off so much that he couldn’t help but focus on me. Besting him in the eyes of a woman that he thought was his is what made him go off the rails to start with.” She pointedly avoided the details they’d gotten from KC and the real Lillian.
“You violated every tenet of proven hostage negotiation. You put my people and the hostage in danger—”
She doubted she had heard the last of it, but she cut him off anyway. “So, what you’re saying is, you don’t think I have a future with the department, Hank?” She counted on their friendship getting her a little bit of a pass.
“If you worked for me, I’d make sure you spent the rest of your career guarding the student lounge at a remedial junior high.” He made a disgusted noise and turned toward the remaining assembly of officers.
“Promise me you wouldn’t, Syd. I don’t think I could take it.” Parker placed a firm hand onto Sydney’s chest.
“Hell, no. Clearly, there are too many rules.” She smiled at Parker and feathered a kiss over her temple.
Epilogue
Six months later
Parker threaded her fingers through Syd’s and reclined against her in the back seat of Mack’s SUV, lulled by a ridiculously simple drive down a country road.
“Did I tell you what happened in court today?” Mack addressed the passengers—her wife, Syd, Parker, and Mia.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell Parker either, so go ahead.” Syd sounded happy at the news.
“Well, apparently, the DA heard from an unnamed source that Leanne Mason had been one of Ben Barrett’s victims. He went to Maclean and convinced her to testify at trial and at a subsequent trial for her rape. He filed a series of other charges as well. She’s also filing a civil suit against him because the same someone appealed for a pro bono deal on her behalf. Turns out that the little slime ball has a family trust fund worth about five million.”
“Nice work.” Parker knew that the “someone” was Sydney, who couldn’t stand to let an opportunity for justice go by without a fight. “He won’t be in a position to hurt her or anyone else again.”
“Let’s hope not.” Jenny still sounded raw from the experience and her recent testimony.
Mack held her hand and pulled their SUV into the lot. “You were awesome, by the way. Half the jury was crying, and the other half was furious.”
Syd reached up and squeezed Jenny’s shoulder. “I’m on the stand Monday. Hopefully, the trial will wrap up soon.”
Jenny ran an appreciative hand over Sydney’s, but her usual snappy replies had been absent since the ordeal.
It was weeks before Jenny had slept through the night. Nightmares had kept a good night’s rest out of her reach. Syd knew the trial threatened to bring it all flooding back. Most days, though, she was close to feeling like her old self again.
“Are you two sure about this?” Mack looked dubiously at Parker and Sydney when they had all piled out into a lot in front of a lonely, dimly lit strip of shops.
“Yes. We’ll be fine, you chicken.” Syd laughed at her. “Parker’s hung out here before, and she says it’s great.” She winked at Parker, who just shook her head. She’d come to terms with the crazy that had invaded their lives again. Syd was learning to hover less obviously, and Parker was learning how to appreciate that Syd would always be there to shield her from monsters and bad guys—and goose bumps.
They approached the bar, and Syd ordered a round of drinks from a man in his late forties. She handed him a fifty-dollar bill on a twenty-five-dollar tab. He looked tired and grumpy before the ridiculously generous tip transformed his attitude. Syd passed out drinks and caught someone moving toward them. Parker stepped forward and hugged Charlie, who fisted a wad of keys and a bottle of Stella’s vodka.
“Jenny, you remember Charlie?”
Jenny smiled and reached out her hand. “Of course.”
Parker pointed at Mack, holding Jenny’s other hand firmly. “This is Mack Foster, Jenny’s wife.”
“It’s a pleasure, Mack. Welcome.”
Parker turned and grabbed Mia’s hand, pulling her toward the front of the group. “And finally, Charlie, there’s someone I would like you to meet,” Parker said happily.
Mia pushed a springy red curl behind her ear and held out her hand when Parker tilted her head in Charlie’s direction.
“Charlie Harris, this is Mia Wright.”
About the Author
Cass Sellars is a certified fraud examiner and criminal justice professional. She has led white-collar criminal, corporate and financial fraud, and theft investigations. Formerly an editor of a small magazine, a creative journalist, and a public speaker, she’s always been a writer at heart. The Lightning Series has allowed her to explore the world of romantic suspense fiction.
After life-changing experiences as a victim of corrupt “justice,” she felt compelled to write about powerful lesbian characters who have the opportunity to fight for those who have been victims and seek justice where money and politics are not always the only winning assets.
Sellars grew up in the Midwest and England, but spent much of her adult life on the East Coast. She currently lives near San Francisco. She dabbles in interior design, event planning, singing, travel, and women’s music and works at being a vital part of the lesbian and creative communities.
Visit her website: http://www.casssellarsauthor.com.
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