Because of Liam

by Erica Alexander

  Another way I have failed her. I haven’t delivered those letters to her family.

  I shake my head, trying to get rid of the thoughts and tell myself I’ll deliver the letters when we finish this thing with the asshole. I’ll wait until the girls graduate and then make the trip to Texas. I feel like a coward. I don’t want to face her husband and daughter. I wasn’t ready to see them before. There was just too much damage. I’m ready now. I have to do this.

  I’m lost in thought. Lost in the past. My eyes looking around me but unseeing. When the gentle touch brushes my back, I jump. I’m ready to fight. Training taking over, instinct overriding everything else, until my mind focuses again and I’m back in the house. Back in the present. It takes me a second to recognize that the person standing in front of me is River. To realize that the hand on my back means no harm. I try to shake the feeling off. I blink a few times. I want to smile at her. I want to assure her I’m okay, but my lips have forgotten how. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t look scared. Maybe she should. But no. None of that happens. Instead, she steps closer to me and her arms wrap around my middle and her head rests on my chest. I heave a deep breath in and her scent grounds me first. It centers me before my body realizes hers is wrapped around mine. My body remembers and my arms come up to pull her closer to me. No words are said. The music is still too loud for any kind of vocal communication, but River doesn’t need words to speak to me. To quiet my mind, to fill my dark spaces with light. We stay like this for a while, in each other’s arms. Me, feeding off her touch, smell, and strength and her eating away at my darkness.

  My lips find her forehead and I let them linger in a kiss I don’t want to end. There is nothing sexual in this moment. Just trust, comfort, and . . . and something else I don’t dare name just yet.

  She pulls away from me and steps up to the docking station where my iPhone is hooked to. The sudden silence is louder than the music playing.

  There’s this whole silent conversation that passes between us, before words are spoken.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “A place I never want to go back to again.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I don’t know how to do that just yet but having you near me helps. You ground me.”

  “We ground each other.”

  This makes me smile. I want her. And it’s not just sex. It’s not just the fact I haven’t gotten laid in almost two years and she’s pretty much the only girl I’ve talked to since coming back stateside.

  She smiles back. “I knocked, but I don’t think you would’ve been able to hear a stampede of T-rexes coming through the door.”

  The visual makes me laugh.

  “I let myself in. I wanted to know if you need any help here. Skye and Logan went to get food and drinks.”

  She’s looking around the room. I removed any identifying objects, like pictures and anything of value that could be broken or stolen and took it upstairs. We moved the furniture around so people will be able to move more freely. The cameras have been installed and the computer in my room is set up to get a live feed.

  “Everything is pretty much done. Can you find the cameras?”

  She looks about the place, checking the corners of the room and up the walls. She turns in a small circle and my eyes go straight to her ass. And she catches me. A smirk on her face.

  “I can’t find them. Where are they?”

  I point the cameras to her. One on the ceiling fan right above the middle of the room. One more on a wall disguised as a thermostat and another two on top of the bookcase in the far wall. They are hard to see even if one knows they are there.

  “Wow, they’re so small.”

  “Yeah, we got two more in the kitchen, one on the stairs, and a few others in the hall, watching the bathroom door, and one in the guest bedroom upstairs. A dozen, all together.”

  I step closer to her and take her hand. “Let me show you where you’ll be.”

  We go up to the second floor and into my room, which is clean. I didn’t have to pick up because she was coming over. All those years in the service have trained me well and I’m neat by nature. I point at the desk I set up against the wall. On it, a laptop and three large monitors where she will be able to see split video feed from all of the cameras and a large hard drive hooked up to the laptop, which will collect the videos. It cost me some money to rent all of it, but it’s money well spent. We’re gonna get the asshole one way or another.

  She is looking around my room, taking in everything. My bed is made. A deep blue blanket over it. Pillows are fluffed, and I changed the bedding as well, in case she gets tired and needs to rest.

  I wait until her eyes are back on me to show her the equipment. “This is like command central.”

  She looks intimidated by all the hardware on the desk.

  I laugh. “It is very simple, actually.”

  She looks doubtful.

  “You really don’t have to do anything. Right now, the cameras are on, but not recording. When the party starts, I’ll come up and get everything going. You’ll know it is recording because each of the images will show a red blinking light in the corner.” I point at one of the split screens. “See the number on this screen?”

  She nods.

  “It corresponds to one of the cameras. This way you know which camera is controlling the feed. All you have to do is watch. The screens are touchscreen and you can zoom in and out with this.” I tap on one of the still images and it fills the screen. I tap again and it goes back to the previous size. “I’ll come up to check on you often and we can keep in touch via text.”

  “Yeah, sounds good. I think I can handle it.” Her hands are in her jeans pockets. She wears a loose blue T-shirt. I want my hands under it.

  “I’ll stock you up with some drinks and food so you don’t starve, and through that door”—I point at the door on the other side of the bed—“is a bathroom. You don’t have to leave the room and risk getting caught by anyone.”

  She nods. Her eyes meet mine. “Do you think this will work?”

  “If we can get him here, yes. I think it will. Guys like him, ones driven by ego, think they’re above everyone else and will never get caught. He won’t miss this chance.”

  “Becca talked to a few people who are friends with his friends and someone said he was coming. I hate to say this but using Skye as bait is the only thing that’ll get him here. He’ll try to get to Skye and . . .”

  Her voice cracks and she stops, before saying the word. Before saying that horrible word. I take two steps toward her and pull her into my arms, trapping the hands in her pockets still, between our bodies. “We will get him. One way or another. I promise you.”

  “Liam . . .” Her voice is muffled against my chest. She pulls back a little, frees her hands, and they come to rest on my waist. Her fingers hook on the belt loops in my jeans. I love this, intimate way her hands rest on my body.

  “Liam, you can’t promise me that. As much as I want him to pay for what he did to me and God knows how many more girls, you have no control over the outcome of this. We don’t even know for sure if he will show up.”

  Her head is tilted back and the tips of her hair brush my arms around her back.

  “We’ll get him.”

  She tries to protest again, but I silence her with my lips. I kiss her gently. I have no intention of taking this further than a silencing kiss, but River has a different idea, and she takes the kiss a step up. Who am I to complain? We kiss and kiss.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I have an eagle’s eye view of everything. The twelve camera feeds are split among the three screens in front of me. One for the living room, one for the kitchen and one for the hall and the guest bedroom.

  People are mingling around, but he’s not here yet. I can see Logan and Liam talking to people, and the beer is flowing as the number of red cups in people’s hands indicates there
’s free alcohol in the place. I can see Skye in the kitchen, a red cup in her hand, but I know there’s no alcohol in it. There have to be about thirty people around the house. The stairs going up to the second floor have been closed off with ‘do not cross’ tape. Logan says it can be bought in any novelty store or online, so it will not raise any suspicions, but it’s a clever way to keep people downstairs for now. I know it won’t stop Jon if he shows up. I’m watching Logan and Liam when they both rub their necks.

  We have a set of agreed upon hand gestures. If either Logan or Liam rub the back of their necks, this means Jon is here. I find him a moment later. He’s standing by the front door. My insides contract and my stomach drops. It feels like I’m on a never- ending roller coaster, but I know it’s only the shock of seeing him for the first time after knowing what he did to me. I shake off the feeling and tell myself to stop it. He can’t hurt me anymore. I zoom in on his face. For anyone else, it may just look like he’s casually looking around. But I can tell his eyes are searching. I watch on the next monitor as Skye leaves the kitchen and walks into the living room. Logan must have texted her. That’s another thing we are doing. Texting each other, keeping everyone in the loop. My phone vibrates.

  Liam: Are you okay?

  Me: Yes. I’m good. Let’s get the bastard.

  Liam: We will.

  As I watch, Jon takes a few steps into the room and starts talking to people. He makes his way to the kitchen and gets a cup but does not fill it to the top. He is keeping his wits about him. He’s watching Skye. He is not approaching her as I expected him to. He’s keeping his distance and watching her from afar.

  And for over an hour that’s all he does. Skye has made several trips to the kitchen, and every time she comes back with what he thinks is a new beer cup he smirks a little and it dawns on me what his MO is. If he never approaches his victims until the last moment, no one in the party will be able to say he was with them. And by the time he does approach them, most people are drunk or at the very least buzzed and not able to recall Jon ever being near his victims.

  Skye is tittering a little to the side. She fake trips on someone and hands come up to steady her, holding both her arms. Jon’s hands. He wormed his way next to her and he’s talking to her now. Skye’s head tilts to the side, and she looks like she’s trying to concentrate on what he’s saying. Somebody give my sister an Oscar right now. If I didn’t know for a fact she hasn’t actually consumed any real alcohol, I would swear she’s drunk.

  I can see Liam a couple of feet behind them. He’s keeping track of the cup in Skye’s hand. If we are right about this, Jon will try to sneak something into it soon.

  He talks to her for a couple of minutes. I zoom the camera on them, I’m trying to read his lips, but I can’t. His right hand goes to his jeans pocket and a moment later, it’s out and he’s holding it at his side. Something is in his hand. He leans into Skye and whispers something in her ear, which makes her turn and lower her head. His hand comes up to the cup and drops something in it. Bingo!

  The next moment, Liam bumps into Jon’s back and he turns to Liam. Skye dumps the contents of the cup on a potted plant behind her. When Jon turns back, Skye’s tilting the cup up as if she just finished her drink, and I can see Jon’s satisfied smile. After about ten or fifteen minutes, she starts leaning to the side—this timing is important. We researched this and for most cases, the effects start to show in twenty to thirty minutes after ingesting the roofies, which was the drug found in the girls we believe are Jon’s victims. Jon puts an arm around her waist and starts guiding her to the back of the room and toward the stairs. I can see Logan tense and start to follow them. Liam steps in front of him and whispers something in Logan’s ear. Whatever Liam said stops Logan from screwing up our plan. We need more than drugs in a cup. We need him to try to hurt Skye, so we can get it on video. We need intent.

  Watching it all unfold through the camera lenses is surreal. Jon worms his way to the back of the room while keeping a firm hold on Skye at his side. She’s still holding the now empty cup, and he takes it from her hand and chucks it into the trash bin Liam set up by the kitchen. He looks around over her head, but no one is watching him. People are drinking, making out, dancing to the loud music I can hear filtering up to the second floor. He makes his way to the stairs and removes the tape from one side of the wall before taking the first step and then placing the ‘do not cross’ police tape back in place. I lose them for a few seconds until they show up on the camera in the hallway again.

  I know the door is locked, but my heart still speeds up when I hear him trying the door for the room I’m in. All doors are locked, except for the guest bedroom we set up with the cameras, but this time those cameras will also have a sound feed, so we can hear anything he says.

  I watch as he tries both the bathroom and Logan’s door and then the last door in the hall. The smile on his face when it eases open is sickening. A moment later, there’s a knock on my door. I get up to let Logan and Liam in and we rush to the desk to watch the monitors. I realize I’m shaking when Liam’s hands cover mine and his arms go around me. He kisses me on the forehead and pulls me close to him. Tension radiates from Logan in waves. He’s a tsunami in the making.

  Jon wastes no time dragging Skye to the bed. Logan’s fists ball next to me and Liam takes one hand off me and squeezes Logan’s shoulder.

  “We need him to try to do something. Just hold on one more minute.”

  “I know, but this isn’t fucking easy.”

  Sweat beads on Logan’s creased brow, despite the chilled air-conditioned room. Sounds come through the computer and we can hear Jon speaking.

  “I almost wish you could remember this tomorrow. But you won’t. Your sister didn’t either. She never knew what hit her. Feisty little bitch she was. Even half unconscious she put up a fight. But my special mix guaranties that no one remembers what happens. Not before, not after, and especially not during it. None of them remember and I’ve done this dozens of times.”

  He goes up on the mattress and pulls Skye to the middle of the queen-sized bed.

  “What? What are you talking about? What mix?” Skye’s voice is drowsy, her words slurred.

  “You switched the cups, right?” I ask Logan even though I saw him do it on the video.

  “Yes. She’s acting.”

  “She’s doing one hell of a job,” Liam says.

  “Oh, I have my own little recipe. Rohypnol, and a few other drugs. They work together quite nicely. And the beauty of all this is that you won’t remember a fucking thing. Nothing at all.” He laughs.

  Shoes off, he starts to unzip his jeans and looks at her, taking in what she’s wearing for the first time. This is something we planned. Having Skye wear clothes that would be difficult to remove. She’s wearing skin-tight jeans, a tucked in T-shirt, and chocolate brown knee-high boots. The boots are riding boots, with a stretch band on the inside and no zippers. And they are a pain to put on and take off.

  “Why are you always so difficult? Couldn’t you just wear a skirt like River did? Make my job easier? Now I have to rip these boots and jeans off you before I can get my dick in that cunt of yours. And that pisses me off. I was going to be nice to you for old times’ sake, but I’m not going to be nice anymore. I’m going to make you bleed like I did your bitchy little sister. I’m going to leave my mark on you.”

  Jon’s jeans come off, but his underwear is still on and thankfully for us, he loves to hear himself talk.

  “I couldn’t believe my luck when I heard about this party. My last week on campus and my last chance to get you. Make you pay for all the times you turned me down. I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect send-off if I had planned it myself.”

  Logan’s back is so rigid, it’s about to snap.

  He starts to tug her right boot off and only succeeds in bringing Skye down the bed with it.

  “You are really pissing me off now, you know. If I had a knife, I’d just slice this shit off you a
nd I’d make sure to leave a few cuts behind for you to remember me by. Oh, wait? You won’t remember a thing.”

  He removes the first boot. Skye tries to scramble up the bed to get away from him. He follows her.

  “No, you don’t. We didn’t even start to have fun yet.”

  “What are you doing?” Skye’s movements are feeble. The blond hair covers her face, and we can’t see her expression.

  “What am I doing? Isn’t it clear by now, sweet Skye?”

  The second boot comes off.

  “I’m going to fuck you. And when I’m done. I’m gonna fuck you again. And after that, I think I’ll fuck you in the ass. You always did have a nice ass. River got the tits, but you have the ass.”

  Skye kicks at him, evading his hands, but Jon finds her ankles and pins her legs down to the bed while straddling her knees. His hands go to her jeans’ button.

  “No, no, please, no.”

  “Looks like you’re going to put up as much of a fight as your sister did. That’s okay. I like it when they fight. Makes it all the more fun for me.”

  “Please, no.” There’s real fear in Skye’s voice. She’s no longer acting.

  “Beg all you want but be assured there’s only one outcome for you tonight. I’m going to rape you. Yes, rape. And you can’t stop me. The beauty of it is that you won’t remember a thing and no one will be able to help you. No one will know anything. No one was paying any attention to you. It’s just you and me.”