If she walked into a room even with others there I went and got cheeks the fuck out. I have no idea what Jules told her about my behavior and quite frankly could give a fuck. Victoria-Lynn is now my only concern. It was hell going off to the hospital and sending her off to school when there was so much to be done and things were so unstable.
Lately I've become very clingy, I hated for her to be out of my sight. And when we slept, I kept her body damn near buried under mine. How the poor girl got any sleep like that was beyond me, but she never complained, just held me as tight as I held her.
Uncle has been gathering more info in the few days he's been here. He thinks in a situation like this with so many heavy players we needed to cross all our T’s and dot every I; though he says he's not above capping someone if the need arose.
Right now we're focusing on the neighbor who has information on Stephanie Baldwin's disappearance. Dad, uncle and I are right this minute sitting in her living room. Mrs. Dillard is a lady in her early eighties who prides herself on the fact that she's lived alone for the last twenty years and is very self-reliant. She remembers the young Stephanie Baldwin as a beautiful vivacious girl who came to the neighborhood as a blushing bride and soon became a dull shell of herself.
"She was a beautiful young girl, all of eighteen when they got married I believe...That first year you couldn't ask for a better neighbor. She picked up little odds and ends from the store for me when I couldn't get out, helped me with my yard work, little things that added up you know. Then gradually things started changing..."
"Can you remember anything that was going on at the time, anything that you might attribute to the change?" We’d decided to let uncle Marcus do the questioning and we'd jump in if we thought of something he hadn't. That was probably best since I’m not sure she’d forgiven me and Jules for breaking her windows.
"Well let's see now, that was so long ago, hmm... let's see. I think that that's right about the time him and Stephen started carrying on around here. He wasn't sheriff then of course, wasn't much of a deputy either if you want to know the truth. But some body apparently put in a good word for him and he landed the job after a couple of years at the community college and then whatever training he had to put in."
"You say they started carrying on, in what way?"
"Well now, there was a lot of coming and going, that much I remember, all hours of night. A whole lot of creepy characters in their hunting trucks tearing up and down the streets, no respect for a body. Of course he was the police so what could you do?"
"Let's go back to Stephanie for a second, what do you remember about the night she disappeared?"
"Hmm, heard the baby screaming from all the way over here, she had to be three at the time then. That's what caught my notice, Stephanie never let that baby cry like that, not ever."
"What makes you so sure that she was even there, maybe she'd already left."
"No she didn't either, seen her with my own two eyes not five minutes earlier pacing back and forth in the window before his truck showed up. Don't know what all was going on over there but in the days leading up to that night there was a lot of screaming going on over there."
She dropped her voice an octave here as if afraid someone might hear her. "I think he was hitting on that poor girl. You know back then we didn't make too much of those things and people stayed to themselves, not like today. When I think back on all the little mishaps it makes me think you know. And then later, little Victoria-Lynn became prone to accidents herself too if you know what I mean, disgusting." She shook her head sadly.
I wanted to hunt the fucker down and drive a stake through his black heart. I was sitting there with my legs shaking like I needed a fix. What I really needed was that fucker’s blood on my hands. The more she talked, the more convinced I became that he’d offed his wife the fucking douche.
"What else happened that night? You heard the baby screaming and then?"
"Then nothing. But I peeped outside a little while later because it was all quiet like. I'd gotten so accustomed to the hollering back-and-forth between them that went on for hours, I guess I was a little surprised that it ended so quickly. Mind you I could never really make out the words but no one yelled like that if they were just talking. Then I saw Stephen's truck pull up outside and the two of them got some tools out the back and went around to the yard. I think they were digging something back there because they had shovels and the like. Anyway the next day I see Kenneth drive up with a young apple tree in his truck bed. Mind you Stephanie had always told me that Kenneth hated anything to do with gardening and the like. Then of course there was no Stephanie out in the front yard with little Victoria-Lynn the next day. Next I heard they were saying that she'd run off but I knew better. That girl would've never left her baby, she loved that little girl something fierce." She nodded her head emphatically.
"So what do you think happened Mrs. Dillard?"
"Well now, no one pays me to think do they, but I'll give you my opinion nonetheless. I think he did her in and buried her in the backyard under that tree."
"If you thought that why didn't you ever tell anyone?"
"Well, at first I waited for someone to come around asking questions, but after a few days of nothing I started asking around and that's when I heard that awful lie he's been telling everyone ever since. How she'd ran off with some man. What man I ask you? The girl hardly left the yard unless it was to be inside the house, he had her so afraid she hardly stopped by anymore to have a chat. I'm telling you, you don't have to take my word for it but I believe she's buried under that tree."
I felt my skin grow cold, that's the same tree Victoria-Lynn had told me about, I was sure of it. Could he really have done this? Even with everything else we've been uncovering about his sick fucking ass this was just...How the fuck did he still appear human?
"Now back then with everyone going around spreading that filth, who was I going to tell? In those days people just disappeared as I'm sure Stephanie found out, and no one came looking, not for long anyway. Next thing I know, Kenneth's the sheriff and everyone just took it as gold that she ran off and left her child. Broke my heart to see that little girl grow up believing that about her mama. She ought to have known that her mama loved her completely. Of course he never let me near her, he'd always hated my closeness with Stephanie, now I know why."
"Thanks for your time Mrs. Dillard, you've been a lot of help." We stood to leave.
"Does this mean you're going to finally do something about that poor girl?"
"Looks like. Let's just keep this little talk between us though shall we."
"I'm not stupid young man, I watch Discovery Channel. I'll tell you the world sure is a changed place, yes indeed, everybody's lost their dang blamed minds."
We started to leave her house through the back way when uncle thought of something else to ask.
"Have you seen any other suspicious activities around here in the last few years? Anything that made you uncomfortable?"
"Well..., except for the traffic back-and-forth and the strange cars, sometimes from out of town, I can't say that I have.
Then of course there were the visits from ambassador Johnston. Use to wonder what his elitist ass was doing in these parts. Mind you, all of this took place in the dead of night when any decent body was in bed. But who can sleep with all that racket?"
"Racket?" I had to ask.
"All the hooting and hollering. Seems to me those men always had something to celebrate, dang near every other weekend or there about. And always in the dead of night, and let's not get started on the empty beer cans all over the place the next day. At first I thought somebody had complained and that's why the ambassador came out, but that doesn't make much sense now does it?"
"Thanks again Mrs. Dillard we'll be seeing you." We each shook her hand as we took our leave.
"Thank you young man for giving me the opportunity to finally get this off my chest after all these years."
As soon
as we were out of earshot I said what I'm sure we were all thinking.
"Fuck, ambassador Johnston, Melanie's father. What the fuck could he have to do with this shit, and what does Melanie know about it?" Give me a reason bitch, just one. I’ve been waiting to break her fucking neck. I’m sure if she were involved in this shit my brother wouldn’t mind. He’d probably want to do it himself.
Chapter 26
"Obviously there's more going on here with Melanie than we know, so now we'll have to be very careful when dealing with her. I have an idea of how to handle that though, let me give it some thought. It's not the wisest thing to go up against an American ambassador unless we have all our ducks in a line, but you can bet your ass he's up to no good dealing with this bunch."
"Marcus, my son goes to these people's house, Melanie sits at the dinner table with my fucking wife, fuck them, if they're involved in this shit I want them taken care of like yesterday."
"Thaddeus, you always were a hot headed shit..."
"I'm hot headed? You shoot people for a living you dick."
They went back and forth with the insults while I sat in the backseat contemplating our next move. I didn’t even look at my brother who had his eyes closed with his head leaning back on his seat.
"I say we have our own little hunting game, starring the sheriff, the ambassador and all their little demented fuck pals."
"Speaking of hot heads." Uncle Marcus turned around to glare at me while dad drove.
"I don't know how sweet little Natalia deals with you lot. Now you two calm the fuck down, these things take time and planning. We want to walk away from this shit smelling like lilies, no one should even know that we're involved at all. I’ve already got some things in the works. I studied those files and found a pattern; the majority of their victims were either runaways or indigents, I'm going to put someone in their path..."
"Marcus..."
"Relax Thaddeus, I'm not going to grab some innocent kid off the street and put them in the line of fire, I'll use one of my operatives. While that's being set up we need to find a way into that backyard. The easy way would be to let Vicki open a case of inquiry into her mother's disappearance. We'd have to do it in another jurisdiction though. We could use the fact that the sheriff is too close to the situation and so are his deputies, that's one option but it will take time. The other option is to coordinate everything to go down together."
"How're we going to pull that off?" I sat forward in my seat.
"Easy, the same time we call in the tip off about their little sick fuck game, we tip them off about the body in the backyard. I just need to get back there long enough with my machinery to make sure she really is there."
"I don't want Vicki involved so I guess we'll go with door number two."
"She might have to become involved at some point boy."
"No."
Don't fuck with me on this uncle Marcus you won't win. I'm going to protect her from as much of this shit as I could. If she started digging into this shit and word got back to the wrong people she would be in real danger. From the list of names we'd uncovered I knew we were dealing with some heavy hitters, these men will do anything to keep their secrets hidden.
No one knew that we'd uncovered their little game so right now the only thing we had to worry about was the sheriff and whether his losing control over her would cause him to come after her. Who knows how that fuck's head worked?
Hopefully he'd never suspect that she remembered anything about the night her mom disappeared. I still felt the need to run right to the local high school and snatch her ass and take her home until this shit was over.
"I don't want Melanie anywhere near Vicki, she can't come to the house..." Jules didn’t even butt in, just kept silently calm which is never a good thing.
"She might get suspicious if you guys just stop her cold turkey..."
"I don't care, she's not coming near her again. I don't know what the fuck she's up to but I don't trust that bitch. Jules can stage a breakup or some shit or I can bury her ass in the woods, I give a fuck. But she's not coming back to the house."
"I see why you three needed me, not a rational brain cell between the lot of you. Boy you can't go around offing people, these things need to be handled with care. We can probably use Melanie to our advantage, we just need to know her part in this mess."
"I doubt she's part of the hunting parties. I think her gong to see Kenneth had more to do with getting Vicki out of our house than anything else." Dad shook his head.
"I'm not willing to bet Vicki's life on it. Whatever her reasons she was wrong, if she comes near her again I will personally gut that bitch."
"Damn you're a vicious little shit. I better get this shit figured out before you have us all swimming in blood."
"Whatever works."
Vicki was a little preoccupied that night when we went to bed. She'd been a little off all evening but I'd waited until we were alone to bring it up. "Something on your mind babe?" She cuddled closer to me as I rubbed her back.
"No Roman, everything's fine."
Like hell. "Look at me cheeks."
I moved her head on my shoulder so I could look into her eyes, they were worried and...sad.
"What's on your mind baby? You can tell me."
"My mom, what if he...and I...if she's been there all this time Roman, I use to play under that tree, I..." She broke down in tears.
I let her cry for a little bit, to get it out of her system. But when it seemed like there was no end to her pain I had to put a stop to it. "Babe please stop, you're gonna make yourself sick, you didn't do anything wrong...please."
For the first time in my life I was at a lost, I really didn't know what to do, and that sucked because she's the single most important thing in my life and I'm helpless in the face of her sorrow. There's nothing I can do to take the pain away.
"Tell me what to do for you, please, what do you need me to do?"
"Just hold me, tight, don't let go okay."
"Never. I'll never let go."
I wrapped her up as tightly as I could without actually absorbing her into my skin. It was hard to think straight with all the stuff running around in my head. Her sadness cut deep, it made me realize that there were some things in life I cannot bear for her, some burdens it wasn't possible for me to carry, things she'd have to bear on her own and I hated it.
I hated the images in my head of her as a lost little girl whose mother had just been gone one day. A little sweetheart left at the mercy of a tyrant who made her life a living hell. I never wanted to hurt anyone as much as I wanted to hurt Kenneth Baldwin in that moment. I kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tighter.
"Babe, we can't go back, we can't change what is we can only go forward. I learned something new today, something about your mom." I felt her tense up.
"No no baby, it's something good, someone who knew her before you were born and after. This person said that you were the apple of your mom's eye. That she loved and adored you, the two of you use to play out in the front yard together and you were a happy baby.
Please hold onto that. At least now we know he lied about that, she loved you, she would've never left you baby. And I can't help but think that she wouldn't want you to beat yourself up over this. She'd want you to go on with your life and find joy and love. Everything I want to give you."
"It breaks my heart."
"I know baby, but we'll make it right I promise."
Victoria-Lynn
I didn't know who Roman had spoken to today and for some reason he wasn't saying, but with everything he was saying only one thing kept playing through my head. She was under the apple tree, I had to get her out. I owed her that much for believing all these years that she'd left me in hell. I couldn't let on to Roman what I was thinking, I know him, he'd never let me go anywhere near that house, but I had to find a way.
If my father had murdered her I was going to make sure he didn't get away with it any longer, I just have to
figure out what to do.
Chapter 27
Nothing has hindered our love life thankfully. Even with all the craziness going on around us I still find it hard to keep my hands off of her even though I have been taking it easy on her lately. I know her mind has been preoccupied and since I want her focused solely on me when I take her, I've been inside her less than usual these days. I didn't plan to let that situation last for much longer though.
I needed her and she needed me, now more than ever. It's like reassurance that we're here and we're strong and together. No matter what we face we'll be doing it from a place of strength and unity. Though I wouldn't take her selfishly, I won't neglect that side of our union either. I think it's very important to keep that bond. It also means that I've been making love to her a lot more lately as opposed to fucking. It's been hell reining in my body's natural tendency to want to pound away inside her and take things nice and easy. The fire in me for her is avaricious, every touch, every sense calls for me to dominate. It's the nature of my beast, but she needs gentle right now so that's what I'm giving her.
The softness of her neck under my lips as I rock back and forth into her body, the sweetness of her wet heat clenching around me as a lift her legs higher on my back. The sweet moaning sounds she utters as I brush against her cervix with the head of my cock makes me groan in ecstasy.
There's nothing like the feeling of being inside her, sharing this oneness with her. Every time, each and every time, it made me renew my pledge to protect and love her always.
Dangerously In Love Page 10