by E V Lind
"No, you'll stay here for now. In the morning I'll go back to your place and get you some clothes, your bag and stuff. Then we'll work out what to do next."
*
The bitch would suffer. He’d make sure of it. Pregnant! With his child. His hands clenched in fists of frustrated anger as he got out of his car and stared at the house. Stupid, stupid bitch. Oh yes, she’d suffer. Dan seethed as he reached into the trunk of his car for the can of gas and hefted it up. The house was in darkness, but it wouldn’t be dark for long. Not once he’d shown her exactly who was boss.
The front door was pushed closed but fell open at the touch of his hand. Stupid whore hadn’t even secured her own property. Maybe she was still in the bathroom, nursing her wounds. Remembering what he’d done to her sent a thrill of lust burning through his groin. Maybe he’d deign to fuck her one last time.
He cocked his head and listened for a sound but there was just the regular hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the drip of a tap somewhere down the hall. He stepped carefully down the hall to her bedroom. Her drapes were open and ambient light from outside spilled onto her neatly made bed. He turned across the hall to the bathroom. His nostrils flared on the scent of the burned rug.
“Beth? Come on out. I won’t hurt you,” he called softly.
There was no reply. Not a hitch of a swiftly indrawn breath. Not a rustle of fabric. Nothing. His temper flared. She thought she could hide from him? He’d teach her to play hide and seek. He twisted open the cap on the fuel can and returned to her bedroom. Yeah, she’d learn her lesson this time.
*
The look on Colleen's face said it all upon her return the next morning.
"Beth, I'm so sorry. Your house. It's all gone, honey. The fire department was there still hosing it down when I drove past. I must not have put that mat out properly. I—"
"Not your fault," Beth interrupted her, her voice still raw and made worse by the fact that she was now fighting back tears as well.
Lost, everything lost. All her parents' mementos. Every last treasured childhood memory. Through the grief came a sense of helplessness. She had nothing but the clothes she wore. No money, no I.D.—not a thing.
"I don't know how I could have missed it, Beth. I'm sure I doused that mat."
"You did,” she whispered brokenly. “It wasn't the mat."
Colleen looked at her sharply. "You think he did it? That he went back? That’s one hell of a risk for someone in his position."
Beth had no doubt that's exactly what had happened. He was good and mad when he'd left her the first time. Coming back and finding her gone would have tipped him well and truly over the edge and she said as much to her friend.
Colleen sighed. “I find it hard to believe that someone could be so evil and vindictive. Why? Why couldn’t he just let go?” She shook her head in complete and utter bewilderment. "I picked up the Portland Tribune on the way back."
There was something in Colleen's tone that made Beth stiffen, a precursor that what she had to say was possibly even worse than what she'd told Beth already. Worse? How could it be worse than losing the roof over her head and every single possession she had to her name?
Colleen opened the paper to an inner page, her finger hovering over a headline.
Homeowner Suspected of Arson.
"What? They're saying I lit up my own house?"
"According to a key witness." She hooked her fingers into air quotes. "I'll get you a hot drink. You're gonna need it."
Beth reached forward to pick the paper up off the coffee table and stifled a gasp of pain. This morning had revealed several large bruises down her back and legs, and the burns on her cheek had turned angry, raw and weeping. The article made for grim reading. Apparently, a local detective had been driving by when he'd seen flames flickering at the window of her home. Given the late hour, and suspecting a resident was inside the property he'd entered by kicking in the front door—well, at least that last part was true, Beth thought—and was then confronted by the homeowner who was in a manic state. Manic? The only person suffering any form of mania was him but, ever the consummate charmer, he'd created a story filled with enough truth to sound believable. Besides, who wouldn't believe him? He was a decorated officer. A man respected by his peers. A husband. A father. A pillar of the community. Her stomach churned as she read the rest. About her self-inflicted wounds, her wild behavior setting her drapes alight in every room. Her assault on him.
What?
It was like reading about someone else's bad dream, except it wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare, and it was hers.
But now she was wanted by the police for a crime she didn't commit. Dan had very effectively destroyed her entire world and left her destitute. She closed her eyes, let the paper drop into her lap. She must have made some kind of sound because she sensed Colleen by her side immediately.
"We'll sort this out, Beth. We will. He can't get away with arson. They'll be able to pin it on him for sure. The fire investigators—"
Beth shook her head. "He's clever. He's already covered his tracks. It'll be my word against his."
"And mine. I'll go to the station. I'll make a statement." Colleen's voice rose on the strength of her outrage and her conviction that the truth would be believed.
"Don't!" Beth's voice gave out on the harshly uttered syllable. It was little more than a rasp as she reached for her friend's hands and looked Colleen straight in the eyes. "Don't get involved. Don't let him make you a target, too."
"I can't just sit here and let him get away with it. It's not right, Beth. It's just not right."
"I know it's not, but we can't touch him, Coll, don't you see? He's already spun his web. No one will believe us."
"What about the cop who took your statement when you filed the application for the restraining order? Surely he believed you?"
"The application Dan used to light the rug on fire, you mean?" Beth shook her head. She watched as dull disbelief leeched into Colleen's gaze. "No, they're all on his side."
Her body ached, her voice was shot and her face throbbed with pain. Right now, all she wanted to do was crawl into a dark space and never come out.
"What are you going to do? I mean, you can stay here for as long as you need to—"
"Just give me a few days to get stronger again. I'll sort something out."
"Are you sure?"
Beth thought about what Dan might do to Colleen if he discovered her friend was sheltering her and shuddered. "I'm sure. I'll get out of here as soon as I can walk without wanting to throw up with every step."
"Oh, my God," Colleen said, still holding onto Beth's hands as if her life depended on it. "The baby. Are you... Do you think you...?"
"I think it’s still okay. I passed a bit of blood when I peed but that’s all. He didn't kick my stomach. I wouldn't let him."
"He's gonna want to find you, isn't he?"
Beth let her friend's words settle deep into her bones. "Yes. Yes, he is. But I won't let him. I won't."
*
Dan settled in his usual seat at the diner, where he could see the comings and goings from the kitchen and through the front door. No sign of Beth. It had been a couple of weeks. She should have been back here by now.
“Coffee?”
The waitress held the carafe poised over his mug.
“Yeah, thanks...Colleen,” he added as he eyed her name tag. “Where’s the other girl? What’s her name...Beth?”
The woman’s hand shook a little, splashing coffee over the rim of the mug. “Didn’t you ask about her last week? She hasn’t been in for a while.”
Dan stiffened, a curl of irritation snaking through him. He shot out a hand and grabbed the woman’s wrist as she started to turn away.
“I’m a cop, it’s my job to ask questions. And,” he continued as he applied a little more pressure to the woman’s slender wrist, “it’s your job to answer me when I ask ‘em. Do you know where she is?”
The waitress sh
ook her head and she tugged against his hold. “I have other customers to serve. Please, let me go.”
“You’d tell me if you knew, right?” He applied a little more pressure and his smile widened as he heard her gasp.
“Of...Of course. But I have nothing to tell you.”
There was a distinct wobble in her voice. Dan’s eyes narrowed as he studied her face. He knew scared when he saw it and he knew a lie when he heard it. What wasn’t she telling him?
“You’d better not be lying to me, Col-leen.” He drawled out the two syllables of her name and let go of her. “Because I will find out.”
Colleen stepped out of his reach the instant he released her but it didn’t matter. He’d made his point. And he’d be back tomorrow and the day after that. And he’d keep asking her until she told him exactly what she knew. He had his ways.
*
Beth looked in horror at the fresh bruises on Colleen’s wrist.
“I’m so sorry, Coll.”
She still couldn’t get used to the sound of her voice, to the husky rasp that remained after that night.
“It’s not your fault.” Colleen hastened to assure her. She sat down next to Beth and sighed heavily while she subconsciously rubbed her wrist. “But you are going to have to leave, sooner rather than later. I’m pretty sure he knows I wasn’t telling him the truth and it won’t take him long to figure out where I live. He’ll come here. I’m sure of it.”
Icy shock ran through Beth’s veins. She was still healing, but Colleen was right. She couldn’t stay another day. It wasn’t fair to her friend, especially not now that she was very firmly in Dan’s sights.
“You’re right,” Beth nodded. “I’ll go. I shouldn’t have stayed here this long as it is.”
“It wasn’t as if you could go anywhere else,” Colleen protested then got up abruptly and began to pace. “He can’t go on intimidating people like this. Someone has to make a stand sometime.”
Beth shook her head. “No, don’t. He’ll kill you if you try.”
“He can’t kill everybody,” Colleen said heatedly before all the fight sagged out of her. “Look, I’ve been saving my tips for a couple of months. I want you to take them.”
“No, Colleen, I can’t do that. You need the money.”
“Not as much as you do. Please, I insist. I feel bad enough that I can’t let you stay here. Damn, it makes me feel so angry, so utterly helpless, that I can’t even help a friend without him having control over it. He is such a bastard. Where do you think you’ll go?”
“I don’t know,” Beth said. “But wherever it is, it’ll have to be far away from him.”
“He’s going to keep looking for you.”
Beth’s throat constricted on a surge of fear. “I’ll just have to make sure he can’t find me.”
The next morning Beth counted the money Colleen had left for her on the kitchen counter before she’d headed into work. A couple thousand dollars. It felt all kinds of wrong accepting it. Beth had money. She’d just have to go out in public to get it. Although, whether the bank would let her withdraw any of her savings when she had no cards and no identification on her could be a major hurdle. But she had to try and access her money somehow.
It was a short ride on the bus to the nearest branch of her bank. Beth alighted from the bus and pulled the cap she'd borrowed from Colleen's wardrobe down low on her forehead. She’d worn her hair loose so it hung forward to hide her cheek and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as she approached the front door. Not easy when she was also trying to avoid the security cameras that were posted all around the outside of the building.
"Miss, you can't wear that in here."
Beth looked up at the security guard standing at the bank's door. He nodded toward the cap then pointed to the sign on the door.
"No caps, sunglasses or hoodies. Bank policy."
She slipped the cap off, ducked her head and went into the bank to join the line for a teller. She shifted uncomfortably. Even with the way her waist was beginning to show signs of thickening, Colleen's jeans weren't exactly a snug fit on Beth's smaller frame, and the sweatshirt she'd borrowed hung about her body like a deflated balloon. It felt like everyone was staring at her—from the security guard at the door to each and every customer and staff member in the building. She kept her eyes down, flicking up only when she sensed movement in the line in front of her. Finally, it was her turn.
She explained she wanted to close out her account and that she'd lost her ID. She'd expected the look of skepticism from the teller but when she'd written down her account number and provided a signature the woman turned to her computer screen and punched a few keys.
"I'm sorry, Miss, but that account has been frozen. If you could wait a moment, I'll call the manager over."
"No, no. Don't bother," Beth insisted, already turning away from the teller and heading for the door, even as the young woman exhorted her to remain.
Her accounts were frozen? Why? By whom? A sense of helplessness threatened to swamp her. It was another reminder that Dan's reach went farther than she had stopped to consider. The knowledge made her feel stupid, useless—everything he'd ever told her she was. Dan had successfully cut her off from everything. No doubt he hoped to force her to turn to him, eventually. But, she promised herself fervently, she wouldn't. Ever.
So, she had nothing. A flicker of anger lit inside her. Having nothing meant she had nothing to lose. She shivered in the early fall air as she walked along the busy Portland street. As she passed a thrift store she hesitated a moment. She needed a coat and some clothes of her own.
Fifteen minutes later she walked out the store with Colleen's jeans and sweatshirt in a paper bag under her arm. She stopped at her friend’s home for only a few minutes. Long enough to leave the clothes she'd borrowed, to stash the small amount of money Colleen had given her in a used envelope in the lining of her coat and to leave a short note, together with her key, to thank her friend for all the help she’d given. After signing off the note with a promise to call her friend soon, Beth let herself out the house one last time.
FOUR
Mighty pissed, Dan paced the confines of his living room. Where the fuck was Sherry? She had to know he was due home from work and yet her car wasn’t even in the drive. You’d have thought, after twelve years of marriage, she’d know better.
He rode the wave of anger that threatened to consume him and squeezed his eyes closed until it ebbed away. He hated losing control—and it was all that bitch’s fault. She’d pay. He’d make sure of it. The idiots at the bank had called him the minute she’d shown her ugly face, but instead of taking her to an interview room and holding her, like they’d been explicitly instructed, they’d let her go. Reviewing the CCTV footage inside and outside the bank had been a waste of time. It had shown her approaching and leaving the bank on foot and then it was as if she’d vanished into thin air.
He’d wasted precious time checking with the bus companies. None of the drivers remembered seeing her, and she would have been memorable. He'd made sure of that.
His fingers twitched and tightened as if wrapping themselves around her scrawny little neck. As if squeezing against the cords of her throat. As if pressing down on her windpipe—slowly, slowly crushing it. The power was his. Let her live. Let her die. It was up to him. Just thinking about it, he could almost feel her pulse against his fingertips, feel the fear that fluttered like a trapped bird in her jugular. His cock came to throbbing life.
She should have done what she was told. How dare she think she knew better? He controlled her. What she wore, what she said, what she did. Answering back at him had been a defiance he’d been forced to punish, but when she’d filed the restraining order on him? That had been a declaration of war. She had no right to humiliate him before his peers at the station like that. Justice would be his.
There was a sound at the front door. Dan listened carefully, smiling to himself as he identified his wife’s steps on the tiled entr
ance floor. About time she showed. The door to the living room opened and he heard her gasp when she saw him standing there.
“You’re home,” she said redundantly, her voice shaking.
“And you weren’t,” he stated bluntly.
Sherry set the baby, still in her car seat, down on the living room floor.
“Dan, I’m sorry, I had to take the baby for her sho—” she started, but he cut her off.
“I don’t give a fuck about your excuses. Come here. Get on your knees.”
“Dan?” Confusion knotted her brows.
“You heard me,” he said, his voice low and level. “On your fucking knees.”
“Not now, please. The boys will be dropped home from practice any minute now.”
“Then you’d better be quick, hadn’t you?”
She hesitated and he held her gaze. The disbelief reflected on her face soon changed to acceptance. Yes, that’s right bitch. You’re mine to control, he thought with a sense of triumph, all mine. She bent her knees to the floor, her hands reaching for the zipper on his pants, her fingers tugging his erection free.
He knotted his fingers in her hair and tugged hard, earning a swiftly stifled moan of pain. Fuck, he loved that. He reckoned he could come right now if he just twisted his hands a little tighter, like so. She made another noise.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch, and do as you’re told,” he ground out.
His cock was painfully hard, primed like a rocket about to go off. She leaned forward, her lips parting as she took him into her mouth. Dan hissed in a breath as he felt the rasp of her teeth over the head of his cock, felt the draw of her tongue underneath. He pushed forward, filling her mouth, occupying her, controlling her. She tried to pull back but he tightened his hold on her hair and thrust again, once, twice and then he was there—pleasure rippling through him as his cum hit the back of her throat, making her gag. He held her like that until he was entirely spent then gave her hair a hard yank back, watched his still half-hard dick fall from her mouth. A dribble of semen remained on the edge of her lip and her eyes watered, making her mascara run.