The Depraved (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 26)

by Jonas Saul

  “I’ll just start with what I remember,” Beverly said. “Donovan Hunter was my boyfriend in high school. I don’t know why I stayed with him for so long because he was abusive to me. Also, it should be mentioned here, Donovan was my first.”

  “First?” Sarah cut in when Beverly paused. “First what? Please explain for those listening.”

  “The first boy I slept with.”

  “Continue.”

  They both stared out the windows, neither one of them making eye contact now.

  “It wasn’t exactly consensual the first time, but that isn’t the problem here. Donovan forced himself on me all the time. I gave in because I loved him, or at least I thought that was love. When the beatings started, I knew I was in trouble, but I loved him. He was my first, my one true love. I was young, idealistic. I thought of marriage, kids, a happy home.” Beverly lowered her head to stare at her fingers as they twisted in her lap. “Boy, what little I knew of men then.” She glanced up. “When the abuse wouldn’t stop, I warned him my dad would see the bruises and then he’d force us to break up. And Donovan warned me that if we broke up it was my dad he’d kill first, so do a better job of hiding the bruises.” She paused, collected herself a moment, then continued.

  “After years of abuse, and what I know now was rape, I decided to tell my parents. They were furious with me and demanded I end it. I was too scared to end it, so when Donovan called and said to meet him at the abandoned barn that night in the summer of 1999, I was told by my dad to go and that he would drive me. If there was trouble, he would sort it out.

  “So, both my parents drove me to the barn. After they gave me a pep talk, I walked into the barn to find four boys in total; William Mason, an ex-boyfriend of mine, Alden Blair, Brent Doyle, and Donovan Hunter. They circled me before I said a word, and Donovan asked if William used to be my boyfriend. I remember being so scared that I knew I had to lie or face a terrible beating, but I couldn’t lie because Donovan already knew, I mean, William was right there.”

  Beverly stopped for a moment to open a bottle of water and sip from it.

  “You okay?” Sarah asked. “Should we continue?”

  She nodded while she swallowed. “Of course. I must get this all out. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

  “It’s okay, take all the time you need.”

  She cleared her throat, set the bottle back on the table, adjusted the hair out of her eyes, and crossed her arms.

  “When I told Donovan it was true, that William was an ex-boyfriend, he lost it and shouted about sleeping with all his friends and how much of a whore I was. What Donovan didn’t know was that I had never ever slept with anyone other than him. He was my first. William and I only ever kissed and petted each other, but I was too young to go all the way. Back in those days we called it bases, like in baseball. William and I only ever made it to second base. Most boyfriends got to first base in those days, and that was it. But Donovan forced the home run on me, and even though I thought I loved him, I hated him for it.”

  She paused again.

  “I’m sorry, this is getting too personal. I should stick to the facts, right?”

  “Beverly,” Sarah said in a soft voice. “Tell it your way, your words. There’s no judgment here.” Sarah opened a bottle of water, too. Her mouth was so dry she thought her tongue had been replaced by a chunk of suede.

  “This all took place over a minute or so and I’d told my parents to wait in the car at least five minutes, but I mean, how was I going to break up with him now? Donovan ranted on about fucking me and how good I was in bed, and how it must be because I’d been fucking—oh shit, sorry, having sex—for so long and so often, that I’d gotten good at it through the experience of multiple partners over years. But none of that was true. I was seventeen and he’d been my first. I know I said that, but it needs repeating because everything I’d learned he’d taught me and I always remained attentive to his needs to make sure it didn’t hurt or I wouldn’t get hit for forgetting something. Anyway, Donovan got the bright idea that since I was such a whore, he couldn’t be with me anymore. I’ll never forget the overwhelming relief I felt in that moment. Wait until my parents hear that he broke up with me.”

  She drank from her bottle again.

  “I acted upset, started to back away and leave telling him I understood, that I was bad for him, but he stepped up to me and drove a sucker punch in my jaw that flattened me on the floor of that barn. Then he landed on me and punched me several more times. I can’t remember how many in total, but it rendered me close to unconsciousness.”

  “It’s okay. No one needs to know how many times you were hit in the face.”

  “Okay,” Beverly whispered. “Thank you.” She cleared her throat again. “I remember being scared, but then something tugged on my body. When I looked up, Donovan had my pants down. Underwear, too. I was exposed and all four boys were staring between my legs.”

  Sarah adjusted herself in her seat, knowing what was coming and not really wanting to hear it, but knowing she had to. This woman deserved to be heard, if nothing else.

  “Donovan was going on about me being a slut and a whore, and that I was a good for nothing cunt. I’ll never forget him saying that a woman was nothing more than simply a life support system for a cunt. He’d read that in a book, he said. For some reason that horrible statement stuck with me. Anyway, William was first—”

  “First?” Sarah said. “First what?”

  “He pulled out his cock while Alden and Brent grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs open. He entered me dry and I screamed. Donovan dropped a hand over my mouth to keep me quiet while William pumped himself inside me. He finished quickly and then I remember it was the pastor next, Alden—although, he wouldn’t be a pastor for another decade yet. And all this time, my brain was fuzzy from the punches, my eyes unable to focus, and I felt like I was dying due to lack of oxygen because Donovan didn’t know his hand was covering my nose, too.

  “Someone, I think it was Brent, said they had company. Donovan’s hand ripped off my mouth and he was on his feet. I gasped in air as Alden stopped thrusting between my legs. When I saw Donovan upside down from the position I was in on the floor, looking up and back at him, he had a large knife in his hand hidden behind his back.

  “I distinctly heard my father shout something, and then Donovan was running, the knife out in front of him. I screamed and screamed, thrashing around, but the three boys held me down with their body weight alone. Minutes later, Donovan returned covered in blood. He said a man and a woman had been outside in a car. The man attacked him. Now, they were both still in that car, but they were dead now. He’d stabbed them both.”

  Beverly paused to close her eyes. The memories had to be harsh, the retelling bringing them to the surface. Her bottom lip was quivering.

  “Are you sure you want to continue?”

  She nodding brusquely. “Not sure I could do this again. We’re here now.” Even her voice quivered now. “Anyway, with my parents dead, or so Donovan said, I became numb. I recall the other boys’ worried expressions. They thought they’d come for some fun promised to them by their pal Donovan Hunter. They didn’t buy into murder. So, Donovan ordered Alden to finish by threat of violence. He’d lost his erection, but soon got it back. Then Brent fucked me, and finally Donovan did, although by his turn I was bleeding. It angered him, so he hit me a few more times.”

  She drank from the bottle again.

  “One of the boys wanted to know what they were going to do next. They were all so scared. And one asked what would happen if I got pregnant. Who’s child would it be because all four of them finished inside me. None of them used protection.”

  Sarah placed a hand over her stomach. Maybe they shouldn’t have done this right after lunch.

  “Donovan ran outside and returned with a coat hanger. He’d found it in my dad’s car. Said he knew they used this for home abortions. Anyway, dazed and confused, the boys held me down while Donovan shoved the coa
t hanger up inside me.” She gripped the edge of the chair tight, inhaled once, then continued. “And spent quite some time jamming it upward as far as it would go, shoving it left, shoving it right. My abdomen was on fire and I was bleeding profusely now.” She glanced at Sarah, her eyes wet and rimmed in red. “Donovan was laughing. He said the blood acted like lubricant and since so much was coming out now, they could go one more round without worry of impregnating me as their stuff would just flow right back out.”

  She lowered her head to her knees and held her breath.

  “I’ll stop the recording, Beverly. You don’t have to do this.”

  Sarah reached over the armrest to hit the button.

  “No,” Beverly said. “Wait. I’m almost done.”

  Sarah brought her hand back to her stomach, hoping she wouldn’t throw up. Everything churned around in there like a paint can being mixed prior to use.

  She listened for another half an hour as Beverly spoke about being raped again while she bled out, virtually hemorrhaging, or as close to that as Beverly could remember. She recalled waking up and the sun was shining through the cracks in the wooden walls, and how long it took her to crawl out of that barn. The sun was almost out of the sky when she made it to the shoulder of the road.

  Her parents’ car was gone. Everyone was gone. She’d been left for dead, and was very near death by the time a passing motorist saw her. She needed blood at the hospital and was treated anonymously for days as she wouldn’t speak at first. After her parents were found dead several days later almost an hour’s drive away at the base of Park Road in a city called, Oshawa, she couldn’t cope with life and threw herself into Lake Ontario while out walking with her support group. She didn’t want to live anymore as she was already dead inside.

  Surviving that swim, unable to drown herself, she had a revelation. It was God’s will that she lived. So, she changed her name and tried to make a life for herself, but soon learned that all men ever wanted from her was her vagina.

  So, fuck it, she started stripping at an early age. Might as well show it to everyone, grind in their lap, and take home five grand a week for it. With the money she made dancing in the early 2000s, she financed a boob job, a nose job, dyed her hair, grew it out long, and even had botox in her lips to puff them up.

  Then, several years back, Donovan Hunter walked into her strip club and asked her for a dance. She had tried to avoid him, but it seemed with all the surgery, he didn’t recognize her at all—not even a little.

  She later learned Donovan thought she was dead through a conversation they had when he was high. That led her to believe nothing she did would ever make him think she was the Jamie Morgan of his past.

  She was Beverly Wilder now, through and through.

  When he asked her for a lap dance, she ran into the back of the club and vomited.

  Donovan thought it was disrespectful an unprofessional, so he came back the week after, and the club’s boss told her to stop fucking around and just dance for the guy.

  So, she danced for him. And in those moments, she understood her purpose. She had met Joanne Stevens years before and look what men did to her. Now Beverly was being ordered to dance naked by her boss, a man. And to dance for a man who had murdered her parents and gang-raped her to near death over fifteen years ago.

  Dead inside, and wanting to die, she decided the best way was to kill Donovan Hunter and then other cops would kill her and it would be done. She’d even heard the term, “suicide by cop” in the past. An easy way out.

  After several weeks of befriending Donovan, he brought several of his friends with him. One of them was William Mason, married now and running a parachute company.

  Beverly couldn’t believe her luck. She could take out two of her abusers. So she investigated further and learned that Alden Blair had turned to God and became a pastor, no doubt to handle the overwhelming guilt he’d spent his entire life harboring after what he had taken part in. And Brent Doyle was a married school teacher, substituting at the time.

  Soon after, Donovan and Beverly agreed to see each other outside the club. Their relationship started, and he was abusive within months, telling her she had to quit her job. There was no way a girlfriend of his would work outside the house, let alone be a stripper whore. Beverly agreed because this was her end game, her way out of her horrific life.

  So, she planned all four murders, no wives or kids involved.

  A month before it was to go down, pilot license acquired, dates and times set up, the letter to Donovan already written and waiting for his mailbox, she heard something that shocked her to the core.

  Donovan was so drunk, she asked about his old girlfriends. Then she brought up the Jamie Morgan name, and Donovan took pride in how that one went. He said he was duped by her, the whore. The lying bitch slept with all his friends. He had to end the relationship with Jamie Morgan, he said, and she couldn’t take it so she killed herself. He called Jamie Morgan a stupid whore cunt.

  Served her right, Donovan said. Whores are good for one thing, and that’s servicing cock. Once they’re done with that, there’s no reason for them to live anymore.

  He went on to talk about the three friends he’d had at the time that this Morgan bitch had kept fucking behind his back and how they’d all dealt with it as adults. Part of Alden Blair’s guilt for sleeping with a whore had brought him to the church. When he made pastor, he went back to each of them and said they had to come clean for what they did—all of it—or they’d never see the inside of the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Donovan went on about how that had to remain personal, and that coming clean in any public way would cause ripple effects none of them could survive—he guaranteed it.

  So it was decided they would confess to each other and their wives.

  All the men told their wives who then met to talk about it privately.

  Beverly Wilder was invited to talk about it with them as she was then connected to Hunter.

  The wives felt since the men were mere boys, and it was close to twenty years ago at the time, and they were all so sorry, not to mention Pastor Blair had ordained this confession to them, that they should all let it go and move on.

  The women agreed that this Jamie Morgan bitch had tried to fuck their men over and she paid the ultimate price for her misdeeds, and why should their husbands suffer for it now.

  Their rationale was, if a woman wanted to act like a whore, she didn’t have the right to be upset when she was treated like one, fucked and left without cab fare.

  The women had taken the men’s side and voted among themselves to forgive their men and maintain their secret.

  None of them knew that Detective Donovan Hunter was recording that meeting from one block away. If they had picked up the phone to call the police, or decided to privately tell anyone about what they knew, Donovan would have executed them all.

  “At least that’s what he told me one month ago.”

  Beverly slid off the chair to rest on her knees on the floor. Then she lowered farther, bending forward until she placed her face in her hands and wept.

  “I killed them all, Sarah,” she said between gasps. “But in the end, I couldn’t shoot my first love. How pathetic is that?”

  Sarah got off her chair and gingerly placed an arm over Beverly’s back and held her as she wept, crying with her.

  They stayed like that for over ten minutes, until Beverly was able to get ahold of herself and continue.

  “Staying with Donovan for these past few years saved other women. I can’t count how many times he hit me and raped me, always threatening he’d leave me, arrest me on trumped-up charges, and destroy my life if I ever tried to fuck around. All the while I was planning his murder. And don’t think sex was a hardship. He killed anything I could ever feel toward sex. I stared at the ceiling every time and waited for him to finish, roll off me, and go to sleep.”

  She broke into tears again. “Why can’t I just die? Please, Sarah, I need the pain to go away.”


  “It’s okay, Beverly.” Sarah had no idea what to say in these moments. She’d never been here before and prayed she’d never experience this again. Her heart was torn, and her anger seethed at Detective Hunter. She’d seen shades of his control, his masculinity taking over.

  She also understood now why the wives were killed. They knew and they did nothing, which is almost as bad as being a part of the action.

  “The worst of it all,” Beverly whispered between sobs, her voice nasally as her nose was clogged now. “That coat hanger ripped away from me any chance of ever having a baby. They took away my family that night at the barn, and stole any chance of me having a family in the future. And for what?” She shouted this last bit. “So they could all fuck me? Really? Is that what men are reduced to? My life, my future, my parents’ lives, all ripped away, stolen—so a few men could experience orgasms? If that’s the case, humanity is completely fucked and must end.”

  And that’s where Sarah couldn’t control her tears anymore.

  They wept together, on the floor, while the digital recorder continued, taping them in their moment of grief and absolute dread.

  Chapter 35

  It was nearly four in the afternoon when Sarah stormed out of the corner office of the cottage and bolted for the front door.

  “Sarah?” Aaron called after her.

  She kept moving, across the living room, past the sofa, then into the kitchen, her eyes on the target—the front door.

  Parkman was in the kitchen, spreading butter on toast. He looked up as she past him.

  “Sarah?” Parkman said. “You okay? Where are you going?”

  She tore open the front door, then continued toward her car.

  Feet pounded behind her as Aaron and Parkman gave chase.

  “Sarah?” Aaron shouted.

  Twenty feet from the car. Fifteen. Ten.

  “Alex!” Parkman yelled.

  A tree rustled to her right. She snuck a glance that way in time to see Alex swing like a monkey from one branch to the next. He flipped once in the air, then landed on his feet not one meter in front of her vehicle.