Past Imperfect
Page 20
“We found a room in the basement. Judging by the chair with built-in manacles and the instruments of torture laid out on a table, it’s been used for this purpose before.”
“I don’t intend to torture him… very much, but I need to see this man die and to be the cause of it.”
The Homeland agents grabbed Ballou by the arms and lifted him up. Ballou struggled briefly before going limp, as he accepted his fate. Fate had always had it in for him it seemed, and with Nicole dead, he had lost his will to fight against it. Ballou was dragged off toward the door that led to the basement.
“Hey, White.”
White turned to see Rodriquez with his hand extended. “You’re all right in my book, mister. Hell yeah, you are.”
White shook his hand, and then Powell’s. After Jessica received equal praise, they all took seats to await Sienna’s return. To no one’s surprise, she took her sweet time at her task.
Ben Wagner returned home from taking his wife and infant daughter to visit his mother-in-law, whom he hated for blackmailing him and forcing him into his marriage. He didn’t fault himself for seducing the woman’s then thirteen-year-old daughter. Ben Wagner was the type of man who thought he could do no wrong. He had inherited a small chain of auto supply stores after his father passed away. Because he paid someone to manage the business for him, he never had to work.
Being nearly winter and a cloudy day, the sun had set early and the house was dark. In fact, it was too dark. The porch light was a fixture that worked from dusk to dawn and should be lit.
Wagner looked about the cul-de-sac, and seeing lights in his neighbors’ windows, he assumed the bulb on the porch had blown out.
As he entered the house his hand flipped on a light switch. Nothing happened. A moment after that, his own lights went out, as someone struck him from behind.
Wagner came to gradually. After registering the pain radiating from the back of his head, he wrinkled his nose from the harsh scent filling his nostrils. It was the odor of gasoline.
Wagner was lying on his side where he had fallen after being struck. Someone had duct taped his wrists, knees, and ankles. There was also a wide strip of tape covering his mouth. His cry for help was muffled and his struggle to rise was useless. Along with the discomfort of being restrained came the awareness that he was also wet. Liquid, unleaded gasoline to be exact, had been poured over his torso to soak his shirt and the floor beneath him. It also saturated the crotch area on his pants, making it appear as if he had wet himself.
Power to the lights had been restored. Wagner looked around to locate his attacker but saw no one. A few seconds later, when he realized that he could hear sounds coming from somewhere in the house, he cried out as loud as he could while muzzled. When someone responded to his muffled pleas, Wagner’s eyes bulged with surprise when he glimpsed his attacker.
Samantha walked around the staircase and into the entryway where Wagner lay in wide-eyed shock. In her gloved hands were several sheets of paper concerning Wagner’s financial situation.
She grabbed a wooden chair that was positioned near a coat rack and dragged it over near Wagner, to sit beside him.
“I’m going to remove the tape from your mouth so we can have a conversation. If you yell for help, I’ll kick you in the face until you stop. Nod if you understand me.”
Wagner nodded, and Samantha reached down, gripped the corner of the tape she had left sitting up, and yanked the duct tape from Wagner’s mouth. He made a face of discomfort from the stinging sensation, and after licking his lips, he spoke.
“What’s going on? Are you and your sisters robbing me?” Wagner asked, referring to Cassandra and Kelly. Only Cassandra had been introduced to Wagner as Samantha’s sister, but Wagner paid little attention to any female over the age of fourteen.
“No one knows I’m here.”
“Then who hit me and tied me up? And what’s with the gasoline?”
“I did all that.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“Why?”
“You’re a pedophile, Wagner. I don’t like pedophiles.”
“I am not a pedophile. You can check. I’ve never been arrested for anything relating to that.”
“I know your record. When you were younger your father bought your way out of trouble or managed to get the charges changed to something that would look less damaging in your police file. And now that you’re on your own you continue to buy your way out of trouble, by paying off the mother of your wife.”
Wagner stared at Samantha while squinting. “You’re not really thirteen, are you?”
“On the outside I am.”
“And on the inside?”
Samantha smirked. “I wonder about that myself sometimes.”
Wagner struggled against his bonds again. “Cut me loose and I won’t tell the cops about this.”
“You won’t tell anyone about this. I also had a list of demands.”
“Demands?”
“You were to set your wife and child up in a good apartment and give her a monthly income that more than paid for her needs. When she turned eighteen, you would have divorced her and given her a lump sum of two million dollars. After she moved out, you would have never made personal contact with her or your daughter.”
“Those are your demands?”
“They were going to be, but I found something in your house that changed my mind.”
Wagner looked up at her blankly, then laughed. “You’re fucking crazy, do you know that?”
“You wouldn’t have agreed to my demands?”
“Hell no.”
“Have you wondered why you’re covered in gasoline?”
“You want to scare me into agreeing to do what you want. Oh, and let me guess, I have to give you money too. Am I right?”
“You’re wrong. Until I found the pictures, I was only planning to help your wife. She needs to be free of you, and so does her daughter.”
“She’s my daughter too and—wait. What pictures?”
Samantha removed a set of photos from the pile of papers she was holding. They were obscenities depicting girls as young as three-years-old. The naked adult male in the shots was wearing a Halloween mask that resembled a skull. It was the type of mask held on by a rubber band. The male’s height, weight, and curly brown hair were a match for Wagner.
“You hid these well, but I’m excellent at finding things. I’m willing to bet that your fingerprints are on all of these.”
Wagner’s face twisted into something ugly and more fitting for his true nature.
“You little bitch! You think you can threaten me with blackmail?”
“I had been planning to do that to get you to accept my demands, yes, but seeing these photos changed my mind.”
“Call the damn cops. My lawyers will have those photos tossed out of evidence because of the way they were obtained.”
Samantha slapped the tape back over his mouth. “I’m not going to call the cops.”
She stood, reached into a pocket, and removed a book of matches.
Wagner was shaking his head violently in protest of what she had planned. When she lit a match, he lifted his legs and attempted to kick her. Samantha sidestepped him and tossed the lit match onto his crotch.
In the coming days, the police would receive the photos in the mail and confirm that Wagner had handled them. Wagner’s wife would eventually inherit his assets and her daughter would grow up safe from the monster that sired her.
As for Samantha, like her adoptive father, Mr. White, she would continue to hunt worthy prey. And most of them would never see her coming.
TAKEN! RETURNS
MR. WHITE - BOOK 2 - A TAKEN! SERIES - AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER - ON SALE NOVEMBER 16th.
Afterword
Thank you,
REMINGTON KANE
Join My Inner Circle
REMINGTON KANE’S INNER CIRCLE
GET FREE BOOKS & SHORT STORIES, INCLUDING THE TANNER NOVEL SLAY BELLS
and THE TAKEN! ALPHABET SERIES.
Coming Soon
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT’S COMING NEXT
Make Contact
CONTACT THE AUTHOR
CONTACT THE PUBLISHER
REMINGTON KANE – OFFICIAL AUTHOR WEBSITE
Bibliography
CLICK HERE TO SEE A COMPLETE LIST OF MY BOOKS
PAST IMPERFECT
Copyright © REMINGTON KANE, 2020
YEAR ZERO PUBLISHING, LLC
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Created with Vellum