The Bear

by Dustin Stevens

  And again the one after that.

  Turning away from the window, The Bear rested his backside against the sink. Feeling the cool of the metal pass through the seat of his jeans, he raised the beer to his lips, his gaze drifting toward the living room, the twin portraits just barely visible in the dim light.

  Mirrored opposites, they would stay on that wall, constant visuals of the consequences of choices one made in life.

  Working hard, doing what was right, were concepts that Molly had never quite taken to. No matter how much he’d wanted her to, regardless of how often he’d tried to impart as much, never had they managed to penetrate.

  A product of the next generation, the one that had grown up accustomed to things being handed to them, she had turned out to fulfill every prophecy his mother had had about her.

  And then some.

  At the time, The Bear had merely thought that he had chosen poorly. That he had allowed lust and greed to cloud his judgment, falling prey to her beauty and manipulation.

  Only in recent years had he come to not be so sure.

  At its core, that’s what the girls were really about. Second chances. Opportunities to finally instill in them the values that he tried so hard to the first time. To make them see what they had in him and have them want to get down in the dirt by his side, building a life together.

  Not merely siphoning off what they could before disappearing to do as they pleased.

  The Bear felt his grip on the bottle tighten as he stared at the framed photo hanging on the wall, the reaction completely ingrained.

  The woman had embarrassed him. She had spent his money, had run around on him, had reduced him as a man in his own eyes and in the eyes of the world.

  Never again.

  Seven years before, he had vowed that he would get it right. That he would find someone to be the woman he wanted her to be, that he would prove to his parents that he could have that kind of wife and live the way they were all accustomed to.

  Tilting the bottle once more, The Bear allowed the cool suds to flow down his throat. Closing his eyes, he felt it travel the length of his chest, landing in his stomach, some small bit of the wrath he felt peeling away.

  Remaining that way for a moment, he breathed in slowly, feeling his pulse recede, before opening his eyes again.

  As much as there was no denying how much the woman still got to him, even so many years later, The Bear knew there was no call for it. He would continue doing what he was doing, working from one to the next, until he finally found what he was looking for.

  And he would keep doing so until it became a reality.

  “Speaking of which,” he whispered.

  Shifting his body to the side, The Bear shoved a hand down into the front pocket of his pants, extracting his cellphone. Using his thumb, the nail of it still lined with mud and peat moss, he called the device to life, working his way through a series of screens before finally finding what he was looking for.

  Pulling it up on screen, it took a moment for The Bear to decipher what he was seeing. For him to make sense of the macabre scene, his mind barely registering as the beer slid from his fingers, shattering against the tile of the kitchen floor.

  Just as he hardly even noticed the flimsy frame of the same back door he’d passed through a moment before, practically ripping the thing from its hinges as he shouldered into it, sprinting out into the night.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The bandage was back in place around Serena’s leg. Cinched as tight as she could bear it, the strip of elastic tape was wrapped around, holding it secure, locking in the moisture and providing some small protective barrier around the raw wound.

  Putting it back on, making herself slowly wind it around her limb, had been an exercise in misery, but if the next hour or so went to plan, went anywhere near what she was hoping for, it would be a necessary inclusion.

  Pitched forward on the floor, weight distributed between the palms of her hands and her knees, Serena could feel blood congregating beneath the wrap. She was acutely aware of the state of her leg as the muscles running the length of it furled and flexed, rocking her back and forth.

  The pain it generated was excruciating. It brought tears to her eyes and sweat to her skin.

  But she could not stop. She was too far forward now, knowing that there were only precious minutes left before the lights above went out, plunging her back into darkness and taking with it any immediate hope she had for escape.

  On the floor in front of Serena, the half-chewed remnants of a hulking bite of beef brisket were splayed out in a wide arc. Ranging various shades of gray, the meat was mashed into a gelatinous pulp, long stripes of mucus and saliva connecting one to the next.

  Arching her back, pulling her stomach toward the ceiling, Serena let out a series of mighty coughs. One after another she rattled them off, deep and guttural, the sounds reverberating through the room.

  Continuing until no air remained in her system, until her face was hot from the blood forced to her cheeks, she wheezed in deep gasps before beginning anew, racking her body with each exhalation.

  The plan had three parts. Three distinct phases, each needing to be pulled off in quick succession, for there to be any hope of success.

  The first was the act of choking. For two days now, Serena had struggled to get down sips of water or even chunks of banana. Her parched throat had rebelled against most anything she’d tried to put down it, too swollen to allow much to pass.

  As painful, as uncomfortable, as it might have been, Serena knew it was natural. That it was nothing more than her body’s defenses understanding that something was wrong and working to the best of its abilities to protect her.

  And more importantly, she knew that the man had already seen it. He knew that she was in a bad state, that all previous efforts to consume had been met with difficulty.

  Leaving the brisket for her might have been an attempt to appear benevolent, a sham of extending kindness, but in reality, it had provided her with the final thing she needed to make a move on him.

  Part two was the book. Making sure it fell to the floor beside her as she rolled from the mattress, locked in the throes of choking, it rested no more than a few inches from her hand. Inside it, most of the pages had been stripped away from the binding, ripped out slowly and quietly, making sure not to appear too obvious in the event he was watching.

  Now they were stacked up inside the loose cover flaps, all ready to be unleashed the instant she heard the metal slides of the outer locks move into position.

  And part three, the most important, was what lay coiled on the ground by her side, an omnipresent reminder of her situation since the moment she’d arrived.

  The only question that remained at this point was if the man would take the bait. If he was even watching the cameras embedded around the room, and if so, how long it would take him to get there.

  Calling for help would be too dishonest, too insincere. The first time she’d done as much had ended with her being backhanded into submission, the time since doing nothing to make her believe the same wouldn’t be waiting a second time.

  The man might have brought her dinner, but there was no way he felt any sort of attachment that would compel him to come to her aid.

  If anything, his actions thus far only proved that the more she reached out, the more he would withhold, finding the sport in it, enjoying toying with her in such a fragile state, asserting his dominance.

  Trying that, looking up to the light fixtures above, begging for help, would expose her. He would see through it, entering with his guard up.

  If he came at all.

  Serena couldn’t allow that. He had to believe in her performance. She needed to sell that she really was choking, that all the time and energy the man had put into bringing her here really could be extinguished so fast, derailed by something as random as a piece of beef.

  Her body rolling backward and forward, Serena threw her full force into the cough. She i
gnored the stabs of agony in her leg, the tears streaking from the tip of her nose, even the spittle hanging from her bottom lip.

  Just as she would continue to do so until the man arrived or the lights were extinguished above, whichever came first.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  The information provided by Carly Whitehair’s mother had been the proverbial good news-bad news. Barely able to keep it contained as he pulled away from the house, Reed retraced his path from moments before, easing to a stop just past the same sign on the edge of town. Pulling up on the opposite side of the street, the headlights blazed forth, extending into the distance toward the faint glow of Muskogee up ahead.

  This time as well, he didn’t bother putting the car into park, instead waiting with his foot on the brake as he jerked his phone over onto his lap.

  In the back seat, Billie was up on all fours, moving constantly.

  Having watched the entire conversation with Whitehair moments before, nose smudges lined the passenger window. Seizing on the heightened state of her partner as he slid back into the car afterward, she hadn’t stopped pacing since they’d departed, the vehicle shifting just slightly beneath her weight.

  So used to the movement, to the ways his partner released energy, Reed barely noticed as he scrolled through his recent call log. Finding what he wanted, he hit send and put it on speakerphone, raising the volume as loud as it would go.

  Three rings and it was answered, Deke displaying the usual distracted tone that denoted he was at work.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “I’m still working through what you sent me-”

  “The farmer’s market,” Reed said, blurting the words out, cutting Deke off. “I’m sorry, I know you’ve been digging on the powwow and the fair and all that other stuff, but that’s the common link. The markets.”

  All sound bled away for a moment before Deke asked, “You sure? I looked at the Muskogee market. Not a lot jumped out at me.”

  Gritting his teeth, Reed rolled his head to the side, a grunt sliding between his lips.

  That afternoon, when Trixie had mentioned them doing work at farmer’s markets, he had made the mistake of assuming her to mean a farmer’s market. Given where they were situated and what was in the area, that meant Muskogee.

  Not until speaking to Whitehair did he realize his mistake.

  “Positive,” Reed said. “The last three women all spent time at markets, but not just in Muskogee. Carly Whitehair always went south to Checotah. Darcy Thornton’s boyfriend said she was a health nut and would drive all the way to Tulsa for their big one every month.”

  With each word that spilled out, things made a bit more sense.

  A predator, someone who was actively hunting for new targets, would need to cover a large swath of ground. All of the towns Reed had been to that day were too small to ever hit more than once. The pattern would have been too obvious.

  It would have made people like Carver Ecklund pay attention.

  Instead, they had devised a system for getting into various communities without ever drawing the least bit of attention.

  And to make it worse, they likely had a way of getting these ladies to hand over their addresses and personal information without ever thinking twice about it.

  “Okay,” Deke said, “so, you want me to cross-reference all of them, see which vendors they had in common?”

  “Yes,” Reed said, nodding for emphasis, “or you can come in on the backside, run the credit card reports from each of the girls.”

  “Really?” Deke asked, a bit of disbelief obvious. “At a farmer’s market? You don’t think they would have just paid cash?”

  In most instances, the answer would be an emphatic yes. People who frequented such markets knew to bring their own bags and plenty of cash, the enterprises running on a system that had been cast aside as antiquated and outdated by the rest of society.

  “I think that’s our guy’s way in,” Reed replied. “I think he advertises he takes credit cards...”

  “And once someone approaches that fits, all he has to do is ask to see ID,” Deke finished, slow dawning arising in his tone as he pieced together exactly what Reed had a moment before.

  The practice was almost so simple it had no business working, but Reed had seen it done a thousand times. He himself had been in the same position as the girls more often than he cared to remember.

  He could be virtually anywhere making a purchase using plastic. All it took was the vendor asking to see his license for him to readily agree, making the entirety of his personal information easily accessible.

  Address. Date of birth. Even his social security number, all in plain sight.

  “Son of a bitch,” Deke whispered, each word extended, punctuated by a breath. “Alright, I’m on it. Shouldn’t take long at all.”

  “Thanks,” Reed said, Deke not bothering to reply as he cut the call off, heading to work on his newest charge.

  The moment the line was disconnected, Reed maneuvered back to the main menu on his phone. Scrolling down just a couple of entries, he found Thad Martin and punched his number in.

  As the line began to ring, he checked the mirrors and pulled back out on the road, gunning the engine hard, the speedometer spiking before him.

  “Martin,” the man said, his voice a marked contrast to the one that had been coming in a moment before.

  “Mattox,” Reed replied. Jumping straight ahead, he said, “Farmer’s markets. There’s our common thread.”

  Taking only a moment for the information to settle in, Martin asked, “Yeah? The one here on the north end of town?”

  “No,” Reed replied, setting the cruise control at seventy-five miles per hour, the glow of Muskogee growing brighter along the northern horizon. “Well, yes, but not just that one. I think our guy is hitting all of them in the area.”

  On the opposite end, he heard a series of mutterings and obscenities, none quite clear enough to be made out, even if the underlying tone was clear.

  Every last one reflected exactly what Reed was feeling standing out in front of the Whitehair home as one realization after another settled over him.

  “Pull everything you’ve got,” Reed said, not waiting for the man to finish the self-flagellation. “I’m on my way in.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  There was no way to know exactly how long Serena had had to keep the charade going. Long enough that her knees ached from being perched on the hardwood floor. That the lower half of her leg felt as if the brand was again flush against her flesh, the skin on fire, the bandage seeming to grow ever tighter.

  For her throat to become dry and raspy, raw to the point she knew she would be hoarse for days thereafter.

  What she did know was that it worked.

  The instant the sound of the metal scraping could be heard, Serena jerked her focus up to the door. A jolt of electricity traveled the length of her body, her eyes flashing as she stared up, flinging the excess saliva from her mouth as she waited in anticipation.

  Positioned just in front of the toilet, making sure that the initial contact would drive him sideways into the wall instead of back out into the hallway, she held her body rigid. With her right hand, she took up the book, forcing herself to continue coughing loud enough for him to hear, to play out the ruse as long as necessary.

  It was time.

  The instant the door swung open, Serena launched the book toward the man’s head. Flipping the top cover open as she released it, the loose pages inside fanned out into a wide flurry, completely obscuring him from view.

  “What the hell?!” the man yelled as the spine landed harmlessly against his chest. Not expecting it, human nature took over, his hands flapping, shoving aside the papers writhing through the air.

  Exactly as Serena had intended him to.

  The book was never meant to be a weapon. The man was too large, his reach too long, for her to ever be able to wield something so inconsequential.

  The book was nothing more than a distr
action. The weapon was what lay by her side, spooled into a loose coil, intended to connect her to the wall forever thereafter.

  Still on her knees, Serena grabbed at the chain beside her. Wrapping both hands around the steel links, she snapped her entire body forward at the waist, using every bit of energy she possessed, sending it hurtling at the man’s exposed legs before her.

  Like a scene from a movie, the chain unspooled as if in slow motion, seeming to hang suspended, traveling parallel to the floor, the last of the papers drifting down on either side.

  Through sweat and tears, Serena watched as it unfurled, her breath held, willing it to go exactly where she wanted. Inch by inch it crept on, traveling the short distance between them, before landing square, the clear din of steel connecting with bone ringing out.

  The instant contact was made, an animalistic cry of pain shot from the man, the force of the shot sending his bare feet out behind him. Falling straight forward, his torso smacked hard against the floor, his weight sending a tremor through the boards as Serena jerked back the chain, lining up for a second shot.

  The first part of her plan had worked beautifully. It had gone better than she ever could have imagined, putting the man down, his head lined up, fully exposed before her.

  All she had to do was connect. One more violent shot, one more clear contact, and he would be out of commission.

  She could do it.

  She had to.

  Saliva flowed from the man’s open mouth as he stared up at her, his eyes narrowed in pain and hatred.

  “You bitch,” he snarled, pressing his hands into the floor, lifting his chest a few inches from the ground. “I’m going to kill you for this.”

  Paying the man no heed, Serena planted her left foot. Balancing her weight against it, she twisted again at the waist, twirling the chain back, before jerking forward, willing the metal whip to do her bidding just one more time.