Betrayed

by Shelly Knox

  His radio raged with gangster rap and he beat his steering wheel with the palm of his hand to the rhythm. Lost in the violent rap verses, he almost missed the turn Louisa took. This wasn’t her usual route home. Had she made him? Did he get too close? Louisa turned left at the next light and then an immediate right. She had made him, but what she failed to notice was she just turned in to a no-exit alley. When her car came to a stop, he pulled up behind her and walked to the driver’s side of the Mini Cooper.

  “I only wanted to tell you your brake light’s a goner.” He headed back for his old Camry. He heard her car door open. He had to play it smart.

  “Sorry. A woman can’t be too careful. Thanks for telling me.”

  He turned toward her. Her hands held her pregnant belly in a protective stance. He headed back to her and offered his hand. She tentatively took his proffered hand, and when she did, he gripped it with all his might and pulled her into him so fast she didn’t have time to scream before his free hand covered her nose and mouth with a damp cloth and he clamped down. She breathed in the homemade chemical drug and passed out in just seconds. He carried her to the back of the Camry, opened the trunk, and slipped her into the dark, dank tomb.

  He’d had to find a new place to take Louisa because the Rangers and FBI agents were swarming his comfortable spot. It was a drive, which was why this time he used chloroform. He found the recipe online and couldn’t believe how easy it was to make. Of course, it was the dark web. He pushed the CD into his car’s stereo system and played his killer music. Having my baby … what a lovely way of saying how much you love me. He hated that song. It made him angry. That’s why he played it: to get in the mood for the kill. He heard it for the first time the day he learned his mom didn’t even know who his father was.

  His mind floated back to his eighth birthday. He was hiding in his mother’s closet, waiting for her to come to find him, but she never did and he fell asleep. He awoke to her boyfriend’s booming voice. And the song, “Having My Baby.”

  “Bitch, did you get pregnant on purpose?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. You know I would never trick you—especially not you. I love you.”

  “You don’t really think I can love some skank whore, do you? You don’t even know who Laddie’s father is—poor kid. I doubt the baby is mine. For all you know, Laddie or the baby could grow up to become some freak serial killer and will slit your throat one day.”

  “If Laddie and the baby are the problem, I’ll kick him to the curb and get rid of the baby. It’s not like I love him or anything. I only kept him for the extra money every month.”

  “You’re a bitch and a horrible mother. Laddie so deserves better than you. I’m outta here.” He grabbed his jean jacket and headed for the bedroom door. He glanced over his shoulder. “Do you even know where he is?”

  She didn’t say a word; she just slowly shook her head and then followed his pointed finger to an ever-growing puddle of urine coming from the closed closet door.

  Her ex-boyfriend slammed the apartment door as he left.

  His mother opened the louvered door and pulled him out of the closet so hard she wrenched his right shoulder. He screamed and screamed like a wounded dog. She backhanded him across his face and split his lip. He screamed even louder. She punched him in his stomach. His breath caught and he struggled until his lips turned blue.

  “You’re not dying on me, kid. I’m not going to prison for you.” She slapped him again and he inhaled deeply as he finally caught his breath. She tossed him on her bed and sat down next to him.

  With his good hand, Laddie reached for the butcher knife his mom kept under the pillow for protection. His little fingers were just a bit short. Then Nancy raised her arm to hit him again and he scooted back to get away from her. Now he could reach it. He clenched his small fist around the knife handle and then lunged for her. He stabbed her with all his might. He stabbed her for not loving him. He stabbed her again for not knowing who his father was. He stabbed her again for only keeping him for the money. He stabbed her a final time for saying she’d kick him to the curb.

  He watched as his mother slumped to the floor. Blood pooled around her. Laddie dropped the knife. He tensed and froze in place, afraid the clattering noise might wake his mother, but it didn’t. He took this opportunity to crawl under the covers. He always slept on the floor in a sleeping bag—a very stinky sleeping bag. He had never slept in a bed. After he snuggled under the blankets and closed his eyes, the soft mattress cuddled him in a dreamless sleep.

  A honking horn brought him out of his reverie. He swerved and just missed having a head-on collision. “That would have been great with a body in the trunk.”

  As he approached the exit he’d been waiting for, he clicked on the blinker and veered off the highway. He couldn’t break any rules of the road. The last thing he needed was to have a cop pull him over. The drive had taken a few hours because he wanted to be sure he wasn’t being followed. He needed to check on Louisa and make sure she was still out—although he doubted she was.

  A pull-off appeared once he rounded the curve in the road and he slowed down. He glanced in his mirrors to ensure no other cars or people were near. He didn’t see a soul, so he pulled off and stopped. He hit the emergency brake and grabbed the bag he had placed in the footwell of the passenger side.

  He headed for the trunk but monitored his surroundings to make sure no one was around in case Louisa fought with him when he opened the trunk. He should have tied her up. He would now. After opening the trunk, thankfully he found her still very groggy. He couldn’t do anything to hurt her until he got the baby out, so he decided to only tie her up and not give her any more chloroform. He pulled the twine from the bag and wrapped her wrists and ankles individually, and then tied another piece of rope from the hands to the feet so she would not be able to stretch her legs out all the way. He stuffed the gag into her mouth. Just as he was finishing, he heard a vehicle coming around the bend in the road. He quickly closed the trunk and headed back for his door. Quickly, he tossed the bag into the Camry and then he started to get in. A cop car pulled to a stop in front of him.

  A cop exited the vehicle. He motioned with his chin and said, “You having car trouble, mister?”

  “No, sir. Just pulled over to stretch my legs a little.”

  “Okay. Be careful getting back on the highway. People come around that curve like it’s a racetrack.”

  “Thank you. I will.” He climbed back into his car as quick as possible but trying not to look anxious. He didn’t want to have to kill a cop; he also didn’t want to be made. As he pulled out, the policeman waved and then got back into his own vehicle. He waited and waited to see whether he pulled up behind him. Suddenly, the cop car lights started up and the siren wailed as the vehicle sped toward him. He was about to get his gun from the glove box, but the cop car zipped past him in a blur. He fell forward, hitting his forehead on the steering wheel. His heart pounded and hiccupped. He stayed still for a few seconds more. Then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed again. “Louisa must have thought she’d been rescued.”

  Then a shuddering realization belted him in his gut, rocking him forward and gasping for a breath. “What if the cop copied my license plate number? Why didn’t I steal a license plate to avoid detection? She’s right. I am getting sloppy. If I don’t straighten up, I’m going to get caught.”

  Chapter 45

  The road that led to the new location came just in time to keep him sane. This was another park area, but the huge area had a back lot where few ventured—at least, so his research informed him. Once he pulled the car in as far as he could, he put the car in park and slipped in his song. The familiar music of “Having My Baby” began to play, and then suddenly he was in another world. An exciting world of life and death, and he held the key.

  He opened the trunk and could see that Louisa was finally awake. The fear in her eyes and the scent of fear mixed with the ammonia smell of urine had him hard in a
n instant. “What’d you do, piss yourself? Fuck, you women always piss yourselves.”

  The fear made it hard for them not to urinate—it was an automatic bodily reflex. Sometimes they shit themselves as well. That he took no enjoyment from. The pee let him know he had scared them—enough that they lost control. The ammonia stench propelled a shower of fortitude and power over him. Power he thrived on. Power that made him who he was. Power that he would use now to savor his upcoming deviltry.

  He lifted her from the trunk and tossed her over his shoulder. “Jesus Christ! You weigh a ton.” His bag of tricks hung from his right shoulder as his plaything slumped over his left. She was hurting his shoulder though, so as soon as he got her over the two fallen tree trunks, he dropped her to the ground.

  She screamed out in pain and his prick throbbed with excitement. He grasped the rope around her hand and then pulled his switchblade from his pocket. In two seconds, he had cut the rope that tied her feet to her hands. Then he used the long length that was still tied to her hands as a rope to pull her to her final resting place. He had already prepared the grave so once he killed her, all he had to do was push her into the hole and throw dirt on her.

  She screamed and moaned and with each utterance of pain and fear she belted, he feared he’d cum before the finale. And then he was there. They had arrived at their play area, where he would be God, and she would be just a little whore who had skimmed money from the collection plate at St. Anthony’s.

  He didn’t think he could wait until he removed the baby; he needed release now. He unzipped his pants and spread her legs. She fought and wriggled until he pulled out his thirteen-inch stiletto knife. The stainless-steel blade fired open the second he pushed the release button. “Move again and I kill the baby.”

  Louisa froze as if she turned to granite.

  He sliced her panties free and took her for his pleasure, and his pleasure only. After a moment, he pushed off her, got to his feet and zipped his pants.

  Louisa had somehow gotten her gag loose and she pleaded, “Please don’t kill my baby.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” And then he stabbed her under her ribcage, his hand pushing up against the unique bolster of this particular knife. It kept his hand from slipping onto the sharp edge. He pulled on the handle and her body arched into the air as he wrestled the weapon out of her chest.

  He moved to her head with his Italian blade. He gripped the Bocote wood handle that displayed waves of dark streaks swirling across a warm golden-brown surface. Proud of this knife, he knew it made a statement. He knelt beside the harlot. Blood flowed into a rushing stream, pooling at the river’s end. Still she squirmed, writhing in her attempts to get away from him.

  “Please, please, let my baby live.”

  He ran the tip of the steel blade over her face. He pushed the tip into the skin below her eye. Not a long cut, only about a half-inch. Still, red tributaries trickled from the mark and made him tingle inside. He licked the blade and the rusty metallic liquid turned to a heavenly nectar in his mouth. Savoring the flavor, he made another half-inch cut over her other eye. He plunged just deep enough to make it bleed. And he licked the skin where he pierced her skin. The blood trickled onto the ever-whitening skin. And he dallied as he licked and sucked on the slashes he created. The wounds bled and generated their own piece of art in the shapes of long streams that poured along her cheeks and then the chin and then down the neck. The streaks excited him and made him want for more.

  A power came over him and he made another cut, then another, and still another until her face was nothing but a mass of blood and his dick grew hard again. He held his breath then put the tip of the knife into the skin just below her right ear and plunged it into her throat at least an inch deep. Her death rattle was quiet and uneventful. But he still had to cut her throat—it was part of his ritual.

  He cut her from one ear to the other. Her head hung by a short layer of tissue. He slit her throat out of habit. She was dead, but now he was sure she’d never come back.

  She didn’t scream or squirm, or writhe, or pat her baby bump. He had to get a move on it though, to save the precious cargo.

  His crude technique to remove the baby left jagged pieces of skin, torn muscle, and red stains pooling on the ground around her. He needed release. He pulled his prick out and jacked off to the musical notes of death. He never took his gaze off her eyes; she didn’t have a soul any longer. And that’s what rocked his world. He almost missed catching his ejaculation so that he didn’t leave any evidence. He tucked his cock back into his briefs and slipped off the gloves with semen all over them. He stuffed them in his jean pocket. White sticky fluid dripped from his pocket onto the ground, but he didn’t notice. He pulled out a clean pair of gloves from the other pocket and slid them on.

  Louisa didn’t seem to have the strength of the others. She died with barely a whimper of a struggle. An urgency overcame him. The bitch stopped breathing awhile back. He couldn’t remember how long ago she stopped. If he didn’t move faster, he would lose this baby and the whole thing would have been just for pleasure. Not that pleasure was evil. He continued cutting open the uterus to free the child.

  Finally, he had the infant out and tied off the umbilical cord. He cut the cord with the same knife that killed his mother.

  But the baby wasn’t breathing. The lips were blue.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” he yelled. He wiped off the baby’s mouth with his T-shirt, then covered the infant’s nose and mouth with his and blew in two quick breaths. He wouldn’t have a clue about infant CPR if she hadn’t made him take an online class to learn how to do this shit. He’d never had to use it before today; he’d assumed the whole thing had been a waste of time. He blew two more quick breaths. He hoped he didn’t have to start chest compressions; he was afraid he’d do it too hard and break one of the baby’s brittle ribs.

  He didn’t want to hurt or kill the babies. They were innocent. Not like mothers and fathers. They were nothing but whores who tricked men into fucking them so they could have a child and collect welfare checks. Women toss the innocent children to the curb at the first chance of a better opportunity.

  No. He wouldn’t hurt the baby.

  Chapter 46

  Later that night, the dark lot, cluttered with semi-trucks, remained quiet. One of the two lights flickered on and off, making it gloomy, eerie, and secluded. This time, she’d scheduled the meet at the Big Country Truckstop.

  He disconnected the infant car seat and set it on the passenger side floor. He loosely covered it with a windbreaker. He didn’t like leaving the kid unattended in a car. If the kid cried while in the sleeper of his big rig, he couldn’t have been heard. But this was the junky Toyota. It was small and low to the ground, so if the babe cried, anyone nearby would hear it. Hell, he hoped the kid didn’t start crying. They’d both be done for.

  He headed inside the cafe and stopped at the Wait to Be Seated sign. He hated to wait, and almost slipped through to find a seat by himself when he noticed her. He nodded and headed to the booth where she sat, drinking some kind of dark soda.

  She nodded and took a sip of her drink. “You have it already?”

  He touched each ear nearly to the respective shoulder. Crackling, creaks, and pops emerged. “Yes. I had this one in the wings.”

  After setting the glass on the table, she drummed her well-manicured nails. “Any chance you could have been made?”

  His answer was quick and firm. “None. It was clean and easy. She’s been dead twelve hours and no one has even reported her missing. Plus, as a Hispanic, she’s not blonde with blue eyes, so I doubt she will garner much publicity in the news. They may announce it, buried under the Texas football team scores and latest wins, but that will be the end of it.” He didn’t dare tell her about the cop and his worry that he took down his license plate number. She’d kill him right where he sat and somehow make it look like another person did the deed.

  “You aren’t wrong. I think you nailed it,
actually. Okay, here’s your part of the cut.” She pulled a neatly folded paper bag from her light-gray Gucci handbag.

  He reached out and grabbed the paper bag. He put it on his lap and opened the flap. Peering inside, he saw the bag contained stacks of money. A half grin, half sneer formed. He could move to a foreign country about now—one that didn’t have extradition laws—and retire from all of this. He may not be able to quit the killings altogether, but he could be smart about them and live off the money he had put aside over the last year.

  She said, “Now take me to my part of the deal.”

  He left a two-dollar tip and then headed outside. She followed him to his vehicle.

  After he unlocked the cab and pulled the baby’s car seat from the car, the infant began to wail. He didn’t even try to console the kid; he just handed it off to her.

  The kid hollered. He cried. He kicked. And he took his little clenched fists and raised them up and shook them at the world. He’d had a crappy start in life and he already knew it.

  Chapter 47

  The hotel room had turned cramped and messy and the air stale. Actually, it smelled like a hot, sweaty dog. Piper smiled and glanced at the bed where Tazz slept after their morning walk in temperatures already in the low nineties. Her little snore warmed Piper’s heart.

  Jax had returned late last night, after midnight. This time, Piper went back to sleep. If she were to function, she had to sleep. Without the rest, her body would rage war against her. What really bothered her was that he had left early this morning before she awoke. She hadn’t seen him in probably thirty-six hours, give or take a couple of hours.