by R. G. Ryan
“I never planned to be a hooker, you know. I wonder if anyone does?”
Cassie nodded in understanding and replied, “I know I didn’t and for sure Muriel didn’t.”
“He was always mean—you remember that? But he started getting meaner after everyone left. It was like he dumped all his frustrations on me. He’d come home from doing whatever it was he did—photography, I guess—and he’d start in on me, you know? Just picking at me. Telling me that I was getting fat and that I wouldn’t be any good to him if I didn’t lose some weight. Well I’ll tell you something, I may not have had a lot of brains in my life, but I always had a great body.”
“You still do,” Cassie said softly as she reached over and rubbed her shoulders.
“Thank-you,” Eddie replied, embarrassed by the compliment. “There was this one night he was going off on me, you know, and I just lost it and started yelling right back at him. All of a sudden he came at me and shoved me against the wall and started slapping me on the head, in my face yelling and cussing—really out of control.” She became quiet as if unsure whether to go on and then continued, “Then he raped me. Oh, we’d had sex plenty of times, I mean with that little creep he wanted it all the time.”
“I remember,” Cassie said distantly.
“But Cass…” she lifted her head and looked at her, the tears starting to flow again. “Cass, all the time he was doing it with me he kept calling your name. It was like he was taking out all his hatred of you on me. He ripped me up pretty good. When he finally crawled off me I was bleeding because of, you know, what he’d done.”
Cassie put both arms around her and pulled her close.
“I am so sorry, baby. So sorry for your pain.”
Eddie was content to rest in Cassie’s arms for a moment.
Then she said, “But that’s not the worst of it. I was bad enough off that I sneaked out and went to emergency. Took them twelve stitches to close me back up.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I decided then and there that I was done. There was no way I was ever going back to a monster like that. So I took off and went back out on the streets. He, uh…he found me after one day. And I thought I was being so clever.” She shook her head at the memory. “When he first found me he didn’t even seem mad or anything. He just came up behind me while I was walking and squeezed my arm real tight and guided me to his car, telling me all the way not to cause a scene ‘cause he wasn’t going to hurt me and that he just wanted to talk. So, he took me back to his place…”
She suddenly bent over covering her face with both hands as sobs once again wracked her body.
Cassie sensed that it was not the time to speak, but to just stay close.
When Eddie was able, she rose back up and said, “We got back to the house, I told him that I wasn’t really in much shape to, you know, have sex with anyone cause of my, you know, injuries and everything. He said not to worry because his friend wasn’t like that. I asked him what he meant by that and while I was talking he suddenly turns on the lights and…” She stopped, her eyes looking away inwardly and then continued, “Cassie, something happened then that I’ve never been able to figure out. It was like he changed right in front of me. A kind of darkness seemed to take him over—I could see it in his eyes.” She shuddered. “I’m getting chills just talking about it.”
Cassie said, “I think I know what you’re talking about, because that time when I was going to leave and he showed me those pictures, I saw the same thing take place.”
Details from her memory were trying to force themselves to the surface of her consciousness.
“You know,” Cassie mused. “I studied multiple personalities in one of my psych classes in college. It’s funny, until now I never put it together that maybe Paul suffers from that condition.”
“Suffers?” Eddie said derisively. “The only one that suffered was me! I was watching this change take place in him and before I could figure out what was going on, he hit me on the head and I must have passed out because when I woke up I was in my room. I was a mess. Even now, I’m not right. So, that’s my story. Pretty gruesome, huh?”
Cassie was momentarily too stunned to speak.
“Eddie, I…I mean, that’s…I can’t believe you’ve never told anyone about that.”
“Who was there to tell? Really, who would care enough about a two-bit hooker like me to do anything about it? And of course there was no evidence.”
Cassie took a deep breath and said, “Eddie, that’s a horrible memory, but it’s only that—a memory. Sometimes you have to light fires to stuff that’s in the past. If you don’t, the past comes seeping into the present and messes up your future. I heard someone say that once, and I believe it’s true. That circumstance is gone! It can’t hurt you anymore unless you choose to let it. Just burn it up and let it go!”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to let the flames of your will destroy that memory. Until you do, I’m afraid you’ll relive the pain of that experience over and over.”
Eddie dropped her gaze, pondering Cassie’s words. Finally, she looked up—a glint of resolve in her eyes.
“Burn it up, huh?”
Cassie smiled.
“Yeah.”
“I can do that. I guess I just needed to get that out, you know, talk about it and stuff.” Eddie paused and reached over suddenly to hug Cassie. “Thank-you for caring about me. No one has ever cared about me like that and it feels, well, it feels—it makes me feel special.”
“You are special, Eddie. You are one of the most unselfish and giving people I’ve ever known. You’re funny, bright and loyal. I know that you love me and I love you back.”
Cassie meant every word. She thought about the life that Eddie had lived—men using her body while the constant debasement and degradation withered her soul.
She said, “How about we keep walking. Standing here is making me cold and we have a long ways to go.”
Eddie nodded and began moving forward, her head held higher than before.
Chapter Twenty-four
I stood in place, with the HK raised in a firing position and the laser locked on Morgan’s left eyeball so he’d be sure to see it. He shook his head as if attempting to clear his vision and then looked at me again his face screwed up into an expression of complete and utter disbelief.
Since he was already in shock, I decided to give him another jolt. So I reached up and jerked the hood off so he could see that it was me.
His eyes grew so wide that I thought his eyeballs would pop out of his head. He started mouthing something, and even though I couldn’t hear him, I could read his lips.
He said over and over, “This is impossible!”
I smiled and motioned for him to get out of the van. I could see him hesitate, thinking about trying to make a getaway. So I put two rounds through the front windshield…on either side of his head.
I said over my comm, “I’ve got the little prick!”
“Roger that,” Gerry replied. “Please advise.”
“Give me a few minutes to sort out the situation.”
Then I hollered to Morgan, “Get out of the van and keep your hands where I can see them.”
I could tell that he was still thinking about taking off, so I put another round through the windshield into the seatback. That seemed to convince him because he came hustling out of the van with both hands held over his head.
As he came around in front of the headlights he said, “You’re not gonna’ kill me, are you? I mean, aren’t you some kind of law enforcement, or som—“
“Shut up, Morgan! Whether I do or do not kill you depends entirely on my mood over the next few minutes. And I have to tell you that right now, you are not helping your situation.”
“Hey, no problem. I was just—“
I fired a two round burst into the ground in front of him.
“What part of ‘shut u
p’ do you not get? Walk toward me slowly and stay in the headlights.”
Even from thirty feet away I could tell that he was trembling visibly, whether from terror or being amped up, I couldn’t tell.
When he got to within six feet I told him to stop. And then I just stared at him without speaking.
He couldn’t take it.
“Aren’t you going to say anyt—“
I quickly stepped forward and punched him square in the nose.
It felt good.
I actually wanted to do it again, but I restrained myself.
He dropped to his knees with his hands pressed against his nose vainly trying to stop the bleeding.
“You broke my nose!”
“Yes, I did. And if you don’t start listening to me, I’m going to break things on your body you didn’t even know you had.”
Holding one hand out, he said, “Okay. Okay. I get it.”
“Now, where are Cassie and the other girl?”
“I don’t know.”
I reached out and slapped his ear.
“Ahhhhh, man! Come on! It’s true! I was just back at the cabin and they weren’t there.”
“The cabin?”
“Yeah.” He stopped to wipe blood on the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s this place I found out here when I was doing some landscape photography a couple years back. Seemed like a good place to use for…you know.”
I parked the laser site right between his eyes.
“Did you hurt her, you piece of shit?”
“Hurt her? Hell no! But she just about beat the crap out of me. When did she get so damn strong?”
That made me smile.
“Well, let’s just say that she’s been anticipating running into you again someday for a long, long time. So, she’s not injured?”
He subconsciously rubbed the back of his head.
“Except for hurting her foot when she kicked me in the back of the head and knocked me the hell out, she’s not injured. At least, not from me.”
I suddenly noticed that the pupils in his eyes were dilated significantly. He was on something.
I said, “Gerry, you copy?”
“I’m here.”
“You getting this?”
“Roger that.”
“I’m going to have him drive me back to the cabin. Cassie obviously doesn’t know that I’m out here. Maybe I can pick up her trail.”
“Got it.”
I jerked the barrel of the HK toward the van.
“Get up and drive.”
He stood slowly and started to walk toward the van, but stopped and turned around.
“So, you were talking to someone else. That means there are witnesses, which also means that you can’t kill me.”
“Get in the van, Morgan.”
I waited until he was behind the wheel before I climbed in beside him.
He was grinning.
“Something you want to share with me?”
“Share with you? Uh…no…not really.”
“Why are you grinning? You think this is funny?”
A crazy laugh erupted.
“Funny…well, yes. But not for any reason you’d understand.”
We headed back the way he came, bouncing uncomfortably along the uneven dirt road. When we arrived at the pathetic little cabin and found that it was, in fact, deserted, I pulled my phone out intending to dial the number of the SatPhone, for that is what I assumed it to be. But, I had no service.
I said, “Gerry, do you have a SatPhone with you?”
“Affirmative.”
“I’m gonna read you a number and I need you to call it.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
I read the digits to him and had him repeat them back to me.
“Please try to call and keep calling until you get something.”
“On it.”
I had Morgan walk in front of me while I cleared the house.
When we got to the bedroom, he glanced back over his shoulder and said with a smirk, “Looks like you’re a little injured yourself.”
I grabbed the back of his shirt, jerked him around and slammed him into the wall driving the air from his body in a loud “Whoosh!”
“Let’s try this one more time, you bastard. If you don’t stop talking I will introduce you to a level of ‘injury’ you’ve never even imagined before.”
“Okay, okay. Just trying to make con—“
“Shut up!”
I shoved him back into the front room and made him sit at the little table in the kitchen.
Once he was seated, I said, “How long ago did the girls leave?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Guess.”
He wiped some more blood from his nose.
“I don’t know…maybe…thirty, forty minutes ago? But that’s just a guess.”
I said, “Gerry, I need you to fire up that chopper and try to find Cassie and—Morgan, what’s the other girl’s name?”
“Eddie,” he replied bitterly.
For some reason I had forgotten her name.
“Find Cassie and Eddie. Figure they’ve been walking for approximately forty minutes. And Cassie has a sprained foot or something, so they can’t have gotten far.”
“Yeah, about that,” came Gerry’s troubling reply.
“What’s going on?”
He sighed and said, “Well, it seems that the chopper is temporarily disabled.”
“What? How?”
“We don’t know. Something to do with the rear rotor. A wind gust blew some debris into it and knocked it off kilter. We just found out a few minutes ago when I had the pilot start prepping to come and pick you and your prisoner up. Bottom line is, we can’t fly.”
“Well, shit!”
“Roger that. We’ve got another chopper en route from North Las Vegas, but it’s going to take at least another hour for them to get prepped and make the journey.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to find them with what I have to work with.”
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“Hey, can’t be helped.”
I signed off and turned my attention back to Morgan, who sat at the table, still smiling at me as if he knew something that I didn’t know.
I didn’t like that smile. So I knocked it off his face.
He fell out of the chair and onto the floor moaning and rubbing his jaw.
“What was that for? It’s not my fault that they’re gone!”
“You’re right. But it is completely your fault that they were even out here in the first place.”
“Look, they can’t have gotten very far. It’s like I told you—Cassie has a bum foot, okay?”
I stared at him. I was pretty sure my first punch had broken his nose, and that this one had, at the very least, dislocated his jaw. But he was staring back at me as if nothing was wrong.
“Morgan, let me make a promise to you.” I leaned in closer for effect. “If we don’t find those girls, I will hurt you for a long time and then I will end your miserable life in the most painful manner I can devise—and trust me, I can devise a lot of pain. And then I will leave you out here and no one will ever find your body.”
Morgan stared at me, suddenly sober. I could tell that he was working out something in his head.
Finally he said, “So, maybe you should drive the van and I should walk out in front…you know, see if I can spot something on the road.”
I didn’t respond, but merely looked at him with the hardest expression I could summon. After a few second’s silence, I jerked the HK in the direction of the door and watched as he crawled to his feet and started walking…with no ill effects.
But, he had to be hurting. I was! Hell, if he hadn’t been there with me and had the FBI not been listening in on the comm, I’m pretty sure I would have wept openly. Or something. Whatever was going on with him, I still had to keep up the pain. It’s not that I
am needlessly cruel. I just had to convince him that I didn’t care one way or the other whether he lived or died. In my experience, once you establish that in a captive’s mind, it produces amazing results.
I tossed him a flashlight, started the van and had him walk along in front of me as I followed slowly behind.
After we had gone a few hundred yards, he hollered, “Hold it!” and threw his hand up before kneeling down to examine something in the dirt.
I brought the vehicle to a sudden halt and called out the window, “What is it?”
“I think we’ve caught a lucky break. Take a look at this.”
He trained the light on something in the desert sand.
I got out of the van and came over beside him, on the alert for any aggressive movement. There, clearly indented in the surface of the desert, was the front half of an athletic shoe. I could tell right away by its size and depth that a woman had left it.
I said, “There’s only one.”
“Yeah, I know, but where there’s one, there’s two ‘cause of what they’re very loyal to each other and for the fact that Cassie can barely walk, remember?”
Morgan stood up and scanned the immediate area for more signs of passage.
I did the same, walking carefully several paces forward playing my own flashlight over the ground while Morgan headed off at a forty-five degree angle.
I heard Morgan shout something.
“What is it?”
“C’mere.”
He was pointing to something just outside of my field of vision. As I got closer, my light revealed what had captured his attention. There on the top of a small mound were two well-defined sets of footprints as if two people had stopped there and stood still. Both of us approached carefully and knelt down for closer scrutiny.
I put an edge on my voice and asked, “All right, scout…what do you make of those?”
“See how the two footprints on the right are even impressions? And how the set on the left has one print that’s way deeper than the other?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“It’s like I keep tellin’ you! Cassie has a bad foot! Therefore, she would be favoring that side. Look at it, it’s right there.”
He pointed once more to the obviously deeper impression in the second set of prints.