The Suicide Princess

by Bryan, Anthony

  “It will be soon, sweetheart, it's almost over. After tonight, you'll never have to go back again.”

  Stephanie developed a gentle knot in her throat as she pointed out, “You just called me sweetheart. I love when you call me that.”

  “You are my sweetheart,” said Jacob. “ But you need to stay focused. Just remember two things: the most important thing is for you to be careful tonight. No matter what happens, I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you. The second thing you cannot forget is to keep your phone near you. Did you change my name in your contacts?”

  “I changed your name to Jillian.”

  “Okay, and what's the code?” he quizzed Stephanie.

  She answered, “Are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Perfect! If you get a text from me asking if you're free for lunch tomorrow, get your ass out of there fast.”

  “Why can't you come pick me up and bring me yourself?” asked Stephanie. “I can’t be alone anymore – I feel like I’m losing it.”

  “You know we can't run the risk of him seeing us together near his apartment. I can't be one hundred percent sure that he hasn't been watching you, so we can't take that chance. I don't know how smart or how stupid this guy really is, so I can't put it past him.”

  “Can you at least tell me what kind of car you're going to be in, so I can look to see you when I get there?”

  “No, I can't, Steph. If you know what kind of car I'm in, you might look at me, and he might see you looking. You need to trust me that I'm covering every base here, but you also need to trust me that I will be there. You won't see me, but I'll see you every step of the way.”

  “I completely trust you,” said Stephanie. She paused for a moment before working up the courage to ask, “Jacob?”

  “Yeah, Steph?”

  She said, “I just....” but stopped after not having the strength to say the words if Jacob wasn't going to say them back.

  Jacob quickly replied, “I love you, too, Stephanie. Now, let's go.” as he ended the call.

  Stephanie sat on the plush comforter on the hotel bed. She held the phone in her hand and looked down for a moment before texting Derrick, “I don’t think he plans on doing it tonight.”

  ***

  Wearing dark gray yoga pants, a gray sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and clutching a small boutique bag, Stephanie walked along the brightly lit sidewalk adjacent to the north side of Boston Common, as she approached the coffee shop just a few minutes before nine. She saw Derrick walking from his building, and she shouted, “Derrick, I'm over here,” as she waved to him.

  Stephanie looked around for any sign of Jacob, but she had no idea what kind of car he would be driving. She quickly studied the cars parked along the street, looking for even the slightest indication of one being a rental, but none of the cars caught her attention. Come on Jacob, where are you? You have to be here.

  Derrick asked her, “Worried about tonight?”

  “A little anxious, but not worried.”

  “You should be worried,” he replied with a malevolent tone. “And what's up with the outfit? It doesn't exactly look like what I was expecting.”

  Stephanie held up the boutique bag and said, “I couldn't exactly wear this in public.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied. “Let me have a peek.”

  The two stopped, and Stephanie opened the bag. Derrick saw the heels and assorted pieces of lingerie and said, “I like it. What's this?” as he reached in the bag and pointed out a plastic freezer storage bag. Stephanie moved some of the contents in the boutique bag to show him several pairs of stockings in the freezer bag.

  “I liked the way you used lingerie to tie me up last time, so I brought a whole bunch,” she said while raising her eyebrow at him.

  “What? Do you think that you're going to get brownie points for coming prepared?” he asked while groping her ass through her tight pants on the busy city sidewalk.

  “No, I just thought...”

  He said, “You don't need to think, tonight. Just do what I tell you to do,” and pushed her forward. “Let's get upstairs.”

  As they rode the elevator, Derrick asked, “Any word on the thing with your husband?”

  “I talked to him earlier, and he still thinks I'm helping him get to you. He has no idea I'm telling you everything. From what he said, he’s going to be outside here, but it doesn't sound like he's going to be waiting for you tonight.”

  “When he isn't going to be waiting for me isn't very helpful. When is he going to be waiting for me?” Derrick nervously asked.

  “I have no idea, but I know he'll tell me as soon as he plans on doing it. He thinks I'm going to help him by telling him when you'll be going out to the alley. I'll tell you the second I know something.”

  “And it's definitely not tonight?”

  For the first time since meeting him, Stephanie saw tremendous weakness in Derrick as his fear of Jacob was evident in his string of questions. She answered, “It's definitely not tonight.”

  The two reached Derrick's door, and he asked her, “Once you walk in there, there's no walking out until I'm done. If you do this, I own your ass.”

  “You give me your word that Karen is free if I do?”

  “You have my word, cross my heart,” Derrick said as he made an x motion across his chest with his fingers.

  She took a deep breath and said, “Let's go in.”

  They walked through the door to Derrick's apartment, and he instructed her to go in his bedroom and change. She asked, “Are you going to hurt me tonight?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Tonight is going to be very painful.”

  “Can you make me one of your drinks while I change? Something to make it just a little easier for me.”

  “I guess I'll be a nice guy and do that for you.”

  “Thank you,” she said. As she walked to the bedroom, she finished, “Your slave is very appreciative.”

  As soon as Stephanie closed the bedroom door, she placed her ear against it and listened until she was certain Derrick was in the kitchen. She could hear the sound of the glass crushing the pills on the granite counter top, and she hurried to open her bag. She took out the plastic freezer bag and opened it to remove a cell phone hidden among the stockings. Stephanie glanced around the room as if she were looking for something. She saw a small pile of dirty clothes in the rear corner and she quickly hid the phone within the pile.

  While Derrick was waiting for Stephanie on his living room couch, the bedroom door opened, and Stephanie emerged wearing the same yoga pants and sweatshirt she was wearing when she walked in. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “I'm not comfortable with this anymore, Derrick. I can't go through with it.”

  “You can't go through with what exactly?” he asked as he was becoming obviously angry.

  “This, you, all of it. I can't play your games anymore. I'm done with you.” Stephanie said and started walking to the front door to leave.

  As she was passing Derrick, she felt him grab her tight ponytail and pull back with enough force to make her fall to the floor. Stephanie crashed to the ground and yelled out in pain. She started to get up when Derrick yelled, “Where the fuck do you think you're going?”

  He grabbed her hair with one hand and the hood of her sweatshirt with the other, and he dragged her into his bedroom. He pushed her to the ground next to her boutique bag, rolled her to her stomach, and sat on her back. As Derrick was sitting on Stephanie to hold her down, he rifled through the freezer bag to pull out a handful of the stockings. He pulled both of her arms behind her back and quickly bound her wrists together. Using a second stocking, he tied her ankles, and said, “I told you, you go when I say you can go. You're done when I tell you you're done, and you're not even close to walking out of here.”

  Stephanie cried, “Please, Derrick, please don't do this. I'm so scared.”

  Derrick walked out of the room and to the glass coffee table in his living room. He pick
ed up a small video recorder from the table and began walking back to Stephanie. The contents of her purse had spilled across the floor from being thrown, and Derrick saw her cell phone alerting to an incoming text message. He picked up the phone and yelled to Stephanie, “Your friend Jillian wants to know if you're free for lunch tomorrow. Want me to tell her that you're probably not going to be up for it?” as he laughed.

  “Derrick, you have to let me go. I don't want to do this,” Stephanie pleaded as he walked in with the camera recording. He focused the video on her hysterically crying face as she begged.

  “You see, that's where you're wrong, Princess. I don't have to let you go, and I'm not going to. In fact, I plan on having a lot of fun with you tonight. You, on the other hand, I don't think you're going to be having too much fun.”

  Derrick reached his hand into the back of Stephanie's yoga pants and he pulled violently, ripping her pants down, almost to her knees, while holding the recording camera with his free hand. Derrick rolled Stephanie to her back and crouched next to her.

  “So, it looks like you don't want to cooperate tonight, but that's okay. I have the cure for that. He placed the camera on the floor and removed a tube of lipstick from his pocket. “Look what I found from the pile of shit that fell from your purse,” as he showed her the lipstick. He removed the cap, twisted the tube, and grabbed Stephanie by the hair. He used the bright red lipstick to write SLUT across her forehead as she whimpered incoherently.

  He pushed her back to her stomach as he stood and continued, “That's to remind you of what you are. I just don't like that you can easily wipe it off and forget, so I'm going to put something on you that you can't wipe off.”

  Derrick slid his belt from his waist and folded it in half. He trained the video camera on Stephanie as his hand pulled back and jerked the belt forward, sending a welting slap across her lower legs. Stephanie screamed in pain, and Derrick reached back to strike again. “Oh, you are in for a world of hurt, you stupid bitch,” he said as he prepared to hit her again. “You might want to bite down on something.”

  Crack! Snapped the leather belt against Stephanie’s soft skin. Derrick unloaded lash after lash of his belt against the back of her legs, her ass, and her lower back as she wailed in agony.

  “Please, Derrick! Please, I’m begging you to please stop!” She cried.

  Derrick’s hand reached down and grabbed the back of Stephanie’s pink lace thong. He pulled harder and harder, causing a ripping sound as he tore her panties off of her. The fabric painfully dug into her skin with each pull until they finally broke free.

  Derrick rolled her torn and tattered underwear into a ball and stuffed them into Stephanie’s mouth. He told her, “This ought to shut you up!”

  Derrick stood back over Stephanie, and he looked at the rapidly swelling welts left by his belt. He snickered while he started unbuttoning his pants, and he said, “You might want to go to your happy place right about now.”

  As Stephanie attempted to mentally prepare herself for whatever horror she was to face next, she heard an explosion from Derrick's front door. The thunderous boom rocked through the entire apartment, and Derrick yelled, “What the fuck!”

  Within a second, the apartment filled with yelling, “BOSTON POLICE WITH A SEARCH WARRANT! BOSTON POLICE WITH A SEARCH WARRANT!”

  A S.W.A.T. team flowed into the apartment and the lead Officer raced toward the rear bedroom. Derrick saw the large officer, dressed in all black tactical gear, coming towards him while carrying a large assault rifle.

  The Officer yelled, “BOSTON P.D. GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND, NOW!”

  Derrick hesitated a moment longer than the officer was willing to allow, and the officer drove the butt of his rifle to the side of Derrick's head, immediately dropping him to the floor stunned and nearly unconscious.

  Stephanie felt a police officer’s hand on her shoulder and the blade of his knife between her wrists. The knife began slicing through the stocking being used to bind her as he told her, “Just hold still. You’re safe, now.”

  The officer then cut the stocking from her ankles and helped her to pull her pants up as she rolled to her side. Stephanie reached to her face to wipe the lipstick writing from her forehead as she said, “Thank you. Thank you, so much. I thought I was going to die in here.”

  “I think you might be right, ma’am.” Said the officer while stopping her from wiping her forehead. “You need to leave that there for just a few more minutes. We need to have someone take a picture of it for evidence. Is that okay with you?”

  “Yes, just please hurry -- this is so humiliating.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, ma’am. None of this is your fault.”

  As Derrick was being handcuffed, and officers were tending to Stephanie, Jacob was at the front door of the apartment pleading with an officer, “My wife's in there, you have to let me in.”

  The officer replied, “Sir, this residence is a crime scene you can't come in,” while pushing Jacob back.

  Jacob suddenly saw Stephanie running to him from within the apartment while yelling, “Jacob!” She burst past the officer posted by the door and into Jacob's arms.

  “It's over, baby. It's all over. I have you now, and I'm never letting go. Do you hear that? I'm never letting go.”

  Jacob held Stephanie up as he felt her body collapse. She tried to speak, but her crying made nearly all the words flowing across her tongue completely incomprehensible. “Oh my God, I love you,” was all Jacob could make out.

  ***

  Derrick sat alone in a small interrogation room at Boston Police Headquarters. The room was painted a pale blue color, and the only furnishings were a small table with a chair on either side. He looked at the large mirror on one side of the wall, and assuming someone was watching him from the other side, he shouted, “Are you dickheads coming in here soon or what?”

  A moment later, a gruff, overweight Detective in his late forties walked into the room. He was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt with a very loose fitting tie, and he introduced himself, “I'm Detective Carter, and you are?”

  “Pissed,” Derrick replied as he pressed an ice pack against the large lump on his head.

  Detective Carter sat across the small table from Derrick, and he peered over the top of his reading glasses as he replied, “There's two ways we can do this son, and the easy way doesn't have anything to do with you being a smart ass. What's your fucking name?”

  “Derrick Hanson,” he replied. “And when I get out of here, I'm suing the shit out of all of you people.”

  “I wouldn't go spending that big lawsuit money just yet if I were you,” said the Detective.

  “The girl in my apartment, Stephanie, she wanted to be there. She was there on her own. She came up there knowing damn well what was going to happen.”

  “Well, unfortunately for you, she's down the hall telling a very different story. I also saw a video you were making that sure doesn't look like she wanted to be there. In fact, I'll quote, 'Derrick, you have to let me go. I don't want to do this,' is exactly what she said on the video.”

  Derrick angrily replied, “That shit is so out of context. Have fun trying to get anywhere with that.”

  Detective Carter said, “Let's just set that issue aside, because to be honest, that's really the least of your problems right now. We'll get back to it, though. For now, just tell me about your relationship with Karen Borden.”

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend, Karen. You had a relationship with her, right?”

  Derrick stumbled for an answer, “I mean, I know her, but barely. I know who she is, and that's about it.”

  “So, you only knew her a little? She was an acquaintance, someone you knew in passing?”

  “Why do you keep referring to her in the past tense?” Derrick asked. “Is she okay?”

  “No, she's not okay, she's actually dead. But the fact that she's dead is of less interest to me than how she got to be that way,” Detective Carter col
dly stated.

  ***

  Four Nights Earlier:

  Stephanie and Jacob had just walked into their house after discussing their plan to stage Karen's suicide as a murder. They had fine-tuned the necessary details to convincingly lead the police to the conclusion that it was Derrick who was responsible for her death.

  They stood on the stairway talking until Stephanie said, “You're right, I'm just going to leave. Call me when you're done?”

  “I will,” said Jacob. “What time is it now?”

  “It's three-fifteen.”

  “Shit! You have to go, because I need to hurry. Let me take care of everything here, and you go take care of things on your end,” Jacob said as he started quickly walking up the stairs. After a few steps, he stopped and said, “Steph... Please be careful.”

  “I will, Jacob. I know you're not going to say it back, but I love you.”

  Stephanie walked out of the house, and as the door closed, Jacob said, “I love you, too.”

  Jacob climbed the stairs, and he paused with a feeling of anxiety as he stood at the doorway to the bedroom. Karen's upper body was obscured by the doorjamb, but he could see her legs extending outward from the closet. He took several deep breaths as he thought, You have to do this, Jacob, you have to do this. He took one last breath and said to himself, “Here we go.”

  He entered the room, and Karen's lifeless body came into full view as he walked in. Her face was a pale gray color, her lips had turned a dark shade of blue, and her now clouded eyes had the dark spots of petechial hemorrhaging which occurs during strangulation or hanging.

  Jacob reached into the closet, with socks over his hands to avoid leaving his fingerprints, and he unbuckled the belt from the garment rod. He then placed the belt around Karen's neck and rolled her body onto her stomach. Jacob knew the internal injuries to the neck and throat of the victim of a hanging are much different than the injuries sustained by strangulation, and he needed to replicate the latter. He placed his knee in the back of her neck, and he began to forcefully pull back on the belt until he felt her throat crushing. He pulled and tore at her shirt to cause rips and strains in the fabric to indicate a struggle. Lastly, he pulled her hands behind her back and bound her wrists together with a plastic wire-tie to complete the illusion of Karen being murdered rather than having taken her own life.