by M. Stratton
Seven
“Come on, Mom, I’m fine.” Donnie’s tired voice came over the phone line. “I know how to protect myself, and Dad has a whole team watching my every move.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of. Besides, it’s a mom’s job to worry about her children.”
“Mom, I know.” His voice was serious. “I may have been young, but I will never forget the fear of being in the same room with him, knowing what he’d do if I didn’t follow his instructions perfectly. Then waking up and you were gone. I remember.”
“I’m sorry, of course you do.” Stormy couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks. “I love you.”
“I know you do, but I’m not a kid anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. You and Dad did the best you could to make sure I had a childhood. Lord knows, I didn’t have one before you two came into my life. You have to know I’d do anything for you, so believe me when I say I’m fine and don’t worry about me. Nutter was always focused on you. Yes, he wants revenge on Dad, but his ultimate goal has always been you. Taking you away from Dad hits both of those goals for him. You are the one in danger, not me hundreds of miles away.”
“I miss you, baby,” Stormy sniffled.
“Mom, you have to focus on yourself and not me. This is nothing new, we’ve been dealing with this for years, why are you so worried now?”
“I don’t know, a feeling. Something’s coming. Dad had seen all the reports, Nutter has always been a model patient, and that’s what worries us. He somehow has the whole system snowed. It can only last so long. I looked deep into his eyes, I know what he’s all about. There is no way he can go this long without killing.”
“How do you know he hasn’t killed since he’s been out?”
“It would be nearly impossible.” Stormy’s fingers stopped, then started fiddling with the hem of her shirt again.
“With Nutter anything is possible.”
“Hmmm.” Stormy bit her bottom lip. “We know how intelligent he is. We feel he completely manipulated his tests and interviews with the different psychiatric teams, but we couldn’t prove it.”
“Maybe you both are looking at this the wrong way. You are two good people trying to think like someone who is truly insane. Someone who’s only focus is on revenge. I don’t think he cares how long it takes, as long as he gets it.”
“When did you get to be so smart?” She smiled remembering the small nine-year-old boy she first fell in love with.
“I always was; you knew that when I was just a punk kid running the neighborhood.”
“That I did. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
Stormy hung up the phone and stared out the window, thinking about what Donnie had said.
If anyone could get into the mind of a criminal it would be Bender, but we were talking about your typical run-of-the-mill criminals, that was his expertise. However, Nutter was a completely different animal, he was in a class by himself.
Grabbing a pad and paper, Stormy started writing down everything she knew about Nutter and what his ultimate goal was. Her mind kept spinning, trying to think like Nutter. Trying to think like a psychopath wasn’t part of her nature, but she’d read thousands of books and knew how the story was supposed to go. Authors loved to put twists and turns into books, so everything you thought would happen would suddenly change, and the ending would be different than you thought it would be.
Lost in thought, she jumped when Bender came in and put his arm around her.
“Sorry. I thought you heard me.” He rubbed her back.
“I was talking with Donnie.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Like you don’t know,” she teased.
“But there is nothing like a mother’s intuition to know if there is something wrong.”
Sighing Stormy leaned into him. “He’s fine. When did we end up raising an adult?”
“The kid was always older than his years.”
“Yes, he always was. He says he’s fine and completely safe. There’s no way Nutter would ever come for him. He thinks our problem is we are trying to figure him out using the usual methods to catch criminals, but Nutter isn’t typical. He’s not like anyone else.”
Reaching over, Bender picked up her notepad. “Is that what you’re doing here?”
“Yes, I’m trying to figure him out.”
Bender shook her head. “That’s a dark place I don’t want you to go.”
“Someone has to.”
They stared at each other. “What have you got?” Bender asked.
“Me. It’s always been about me.”
Bender frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Nutter wants me, and he wants revenge on you for taking Mick away from him. What’s the best way to do that? Take me away from you. While I won’t risk the kids’ lives, they won’t play into the equation for Nutter. We still need to keep them safe, but I am the one that is truly at the top of his list, because by default if he gets me he will also get his revenge on you.”
“What are you saying? There is no fucking way I am using you as bait.” He slammed his fist down on the table.
“That’s the thing, Nutter is confined to his house for the most part. If he is allowed to go out it is with a guard, and he has a tracking device on him. We know exactly where he is at all times. I shouldn’t feel fear when I walk down the street or am working in the bookstore, but I do. I can’t get away from it. That has to mean there is something else going on. Something we haven’t thought of. Donnie said we need to, basically, think outside the box. Nutter would have had a plan. A plan he’s been working on for ten years.”
“Why haven’t you told me you don’t feel safe?”
Stormy raised an eyebrow at him. “Out of everything I said, that is what you focus on?”
“No, that is where’s I’m starting. Talk.”
“You’d think, after all these years, you’d know bossing me around won’t get you anywhere.”
“And you’d think, after all these years, you’d know I’m not going to back down, never have, never will, lady, now spill.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “I can’t put my finger on it, but it is like I’m being watched all the time. I remember having that feeling with Nutter, like he was always watching me. I kept waiting for him to pop out from behind the corner of a building, or the other side of one of the stacks in the store. That feeling is back.”
“How long have you had it?” His voice turned dangerous.
“A few weeks now.”
“And you’re just bringing it up now?”
“I thought it was my imagination. Like all these years of his freedom hanging over us finally caught up to me.”
“But now you don’t think so?”
“No. I know we are still taking precautions, but think about what we are doing now, versus what we were doing when he was first released. Everything is becoming a habit, but if nothing bad happens, don’t we become more apt to shrug something off? Remember what you’d do if I was five minutes late coming home? You’d be on the phone with me and checking the tracking device on my vehicle. And now? Now we all wait between ten and fifteen minutes. We all know what can happen in that time.”
“Fuck.” Bender pulled his cell out of his pocket and stepped away to talk low into the phone. When he was done, he turned back around to her with sadness in his eyes. “I failed you.”
“No, no you haven’t.” She quickly went to him and wrapped her arms around him. “You can’t blame yourself. It’s human nature. Everything has been going so well for years, Bender. Years. Of course, we’d become complacent. And you know that is what he’d be waiting for. He’s a master at knowing human nature. It’s the only way he could have gotten himself released. We’ve known that since the very beginning and tried to warn them, but they didn’t want to listen to us. They knew better. There would be no way someone like him could pull one over on them. They were too smart. But you know Nutter,
you know he’d completely use that as their weakness against them and get what he wanted. Freedom. Then all he had to do was plan and wait for us to let down our guard. It doesn’t take much time to grab someone. We all know how quickly you can do that.”
“Maybe I should hire you for the team.”
Her lopsided smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You don’t want me anywhere near what you do, and I don’t want to be there either.” She laid her head on his chest.
“Have you come up with anything else?”
“No, that was it, before you came in. I was trying to get my thoughts in order to go over them with you, hoping you’d be able to expand on them. You have the criminal background, I only read about it.”
“Between the two of us, we’ll figure this out.”
“We have to, Bender, I feel like time is running out.” She closed her eyes and held on tight.
Eight
Nutter licked his lips and leaned in closer to the computer screen. There she was, his princess in her element. Her bookstore. If there was one thing he held above anything else, it was intelligence. The way she lovingly caressed the books made his cock hard, thinking of her doing the same thing to it.
His Kitten had gone and put the unrecognizable camera in the store, so he’d be able to see her all the time, and Bender’s equipment wouldn’t know it was there. His Kitten knew her place. By his side. And one day he’d have Stormy in his secret room. She’d be there and they’d play with her together, before killing her. He’d then use her corpse to create his masterpiece. He already knew what he was going to do with her. He had Kitten collecting everything so they’d be ready. He’d be able to finish his work and then sit back and wait for Bender to discover his wife’s dead body. He’d been testing the camera with each of their kills, making sure the angles would be correct. He didn’t want to miss one expression pass over Bender’s face. He wanted to see the panic and despair. He wanted to hear every shout and scream that came out of Bender’s mouth, as he realized he failed and Stormy was dead.
Nutter couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face as a laugh bubbled out. Closing his eyes, he imaged watching the video over and over again throughout the years, all the while his Kitten would be by his side. They’d travel the world, killing whenever the whim struck them. Each of them had their own code as to who would be chosen for the honor of death by their hands. They could even take turns, pushing each other to become a better killer.
For the first time in years, he started dreaming about what would happen in the future, after his revenge was carried out. It had seemed like such a long time away when he’d first started planning, but now that the time was coming to an end, he started thinking about what would come next. He could have a future, a future with his Kitten, away from here. Freedom.
“Are you going to watch her all day, Lover?” His Kitten’s voice came from the doorway.
He spun in his chair and smile at her. “No, I’m not. Come here.” He patted his lap. She sat down and wrapped her arms around him. “I was thinking about our future.”
“Oh, really? What did you come up with?”
“Once we’re done with our business here, I was thinking we should go to this little tropical island off of the coast of Brazil, I just so happen to own. Something I was able to keep off the books, so no one knows about it. We could start the next phase of our lives together there. No one knows who we are, or what we’re capable of, word travels slowly there. We could see all kind of wonders there.” He nuzzled the side of her neck. “And create our own. Think of it, Kitten, we could kill to our heart's content. I could create these elaborate works of art, spectacular in size and content. Then we could slowly allow the jungle to overtake it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of years from now; archeologists would go through and make the discovery of the greatest artist ever to have lived. My art will be discovered; they will try to figure out what the meaning is behind every piece I create. They will try to search for more, because surely, I had to have created more. And they’ll find it. My works will sell for millions, or maybe even more by then. Everyone will know the name, Nutter. And all because of you. You’ve made this all possible. If ever there was another human being made for me, it had to be you.”
His Kitten looked down, then glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t take all the credit, you had a plan to being with, I simply added to it.”
“Yes, but what you added was perfection. I wouldn’t be this close to the end without you.”
She smiled at him. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
“And I for you, Kitten.”
When she laid her head on his shoulder, he wrapped his arms tighter around her. He never wanted to lose her.
Nine
“Bender,” Stormy whispered, as she pressed the camouflaged panic button she wore. Standing still behind the counter of the bookstore, she looked around, trying to figure out if someone was here, right now, waiting for her.
The door banged open and she watched as Bender came in with his gun drawn, looking around. Sidestepping, he came over to her. “What’s going on?” He didn’t relax his stance and scanned the room.
“I was expecting a delivery of a special book, I thought this was it, so I opened it.”
“You didn’t wait for Crissy or someone else?”
“No, look at the return address, it’s Evie’s, in Boston. I didn’t think twice. I knew she was sending me something. But she’d never, ever send something like this.”
Bender peered into the open box and saw row upon row of Nutter Butters. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Stormy shivered. “Evie knows I haven’t been able to look at one of those since that psychopath came into my life. She’d never do this.”
“No, you’re right, she never would. Maybe you should go on that spa vacation she brought up. Something’s up. It seems like your feelings were right.”
“The kids!” Panic fisted around her throat.
“Are fine.” He tapped his ear, which had a discreet com to his guys. “They’re fine. I have a visual confirmation on both of them.”
“Oh thank God.” Stormy relaxed for the first time she opened the box. “Wait, how did you get here so fast?”
“I’ve been sticking close by at The Night Club. There’s plenty to do there and you’ve got me jumping at shadows. This was the closest I could be, without setting up shop in that very comfortable chair there. Which if I remember correctly, you hate when I do that. You claim I scare off customers.”
Stormy patted his chest. “That’s because you’re Big Bad Bender, who always has that scowl on his face.”
“There is that.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
When the bell over the door rang out, Bender pushed her behind him and drew his gun back out.
“Oh!” A female voice sounded shocked and she started to back out of the door.
“No, don’t worry,” Stormy said. “Bender put that away. Excuse my husband, he’s a bit protective. Come on in, is there something I could help you with?”
The attractive woman nervously tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and licked her lips. “Are, are you sure?”
“Yes, please. Come on in. He…” Stormy point back over her shoulder to Bender, “…was just leaving.”
“Stormy…”
“Bender…” she sighed. “Everything is fine, nothing is going to change in the next fifteen minutes. Let me help this customer, and you go get Williams to come back and look into that.” She cut her eyes to the box still on her desk. “He’ll be able to figure it out.”
“Fine. I’ll be right back.”
He was out the door in a flash, and through the front windows, Stormy could see him running down the street, back to the club. She knew he’d return with reinforcements within the next five minutes. She was pretty sure he was already barking out orders to his team while he ran.
“Excuse me.” The voice of the woman came from right beside her. St
ormy jumped, not realizing she was so close. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No worries, I seem to always be jumping at something.”
“That’s not good for your heart.” The woman gave Stormy a small smile.
“I’m used to it by now. What can I help you with?” She tried to focus on the woman in front of her and not Bender and what he was going to be looking into.
“We have some feral cats in our neighborhood. We feel so bad for them and want to see what we can do to take care of them, without causing them any harm. Do you have any books about that?”
“I’m not sure about feral cats specifically, but I know we have some books about the care and feeding of cats.”
“Oh, we’ve been feeding them really well. Table scraps. They can’t get enough.” The woman smiled at Stormy.
“That’s nice of you.”
“I don’t like to see people or animals suffering.” She placed her hand on her chest. “It hurts my heart.”
“Here, I think this one might be the best one for you.” Stormy handed the woman the book and cocked her head to the side. “You look familiar to me.”
“Oh, I should. I was in here last week. I’m new to the neighborhood, but I love how this place feels. Not sterile like those big box stores.”
“Oh, yes. Well, thank you. I’ve tried hard to make it that way. Do you have any children?” Stormy tried to remember exactly when she saw the woman in her store but opening the box this morning had pretty much made that the thing that was foremost in her mind.
“No, I haven’t been blessed with any.”
“I was just going to say we have special events for kids all the time. But there are some for adults too if you’re interested. I have a flyer at the counter.”
“That would be wonderful. I don’t have very many friends right now.”
They walked back to the counter talking. Bender was there with Williams and they were removing the box. Bender nodded toward her and walked back out. Happy to have the cookies taken away, she focused on the customer. “I’m Stormy, by the way.” She held her hand out to the woman.