by K. J. Dahlen
“What do you want?” she mumbled as she tried to breathe through her mouth. Her nose looked bruised broken and full of dried blood from where he’d hit her before, fresh blood was still seeping from the cut on her lip.
“You took something from your grandmother’s place that didn’t belong to you and I want it back.” He snarled. “Where are my books?”
*
Jessie read the hate and rage in his eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Her throat felt so dry she didn’t know if she would ever speak again. Her lips tried to move but no sound came out of her throat. She tried again and this time a hoarse whisper sounded, “I don’t know where they are.”
“What the hell do you mean you don’t know where they are? You had them, you took them, what the fuck did you do with them?” He screamed at her.
Jessie just shook her head. Then screamed as he kicked her hard in the belly. The kick sucked the breath from her lungs and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t catch her breath again until he moved off and began muttering to himself.
When he came back to her, he knelt down beside her and asked again, “What the hell did you do with my journals?”
Jessie licked her dry lips. She winced when her tongue brushed over the injury he’d given her when he smacked her but she didn’t hesitate to give him an answer, “We made a copy for the police, then Lucifer gave the books to one of his men to hide.”
“Why would you do that?” he asked with a frown.
“In case the police wanted to use the words you wrote against the men who lived here. I wanted to keep the original journals as collateral just in case.”
“And what would you have done with my journals if the cops had done that?”
“I would have gone to the press with the journals to prove that the men who lived there had nothing to do with the murders.” Jessie looked him in the eyes.
Jordan took a deep breathe when he realized what she would have done to him. She would have exposed him to the whole world. He kept his life a secret for a reason and she would have torn that all away from him. She would have left him exposed where everyone would know his thoughts and what he had done. “Why would you do that?” he asked softly. “Do you have any idea what that would do to me?”
“Because people have the right to know what kind of monster you really are.”
“People do know who I am!” he screamed at her.
Jessie shook her head. “No, they only see what you want them to see. To them, you are a man who wears a badge. A man they could come to if they were in trouble, that’s who they think you are. But that’s not the real you, is it? That’s not the real person underneath it all. I think the real person you are is who you wrote about in those journals.”
“You don’t know me!” he shouted. “You have no idea what kind of hell I’ve lived through. How dare you sit in judgement of me? Not everyone has a loving home life, not everyone has someone who gives a damn about them. When I lost my mother, I lost the only thing in my life that mattered.” He turned to glare at her. Leaning closer he growled, “Do you want to know how my mother died? Her bastard of a husband beat her to death. Yeah, that’s right sweetheart, my own father beat my mother to death and do you know why? Because the bastard was drunk again and there was a man trying to rape her. He found them together. Rather than help her out, he beat both of them to death.” Jordan sneered. “But he got his in the end, the cops took him into custody while he was passed out. They had him nailed dead to rights and now he’s spending the rest of his clearly pathetic life behind bars.”
“Is that why you turned to killing women?” Jessie asked. “To be more like your dad?”
“Fuck you bitch!” He snarled. “I’m nothing like my father.”
“Oh, you’re more like him than you think,” Jessie assured him. “But you took that little part of him and expanded it didn’t you? He killed one woman, your mother, you’ve killed at least nine women, or at least eight women and one little girl.”
“No. Michael killed those women, not me.” He shrugged.
“And how long has Michael been a part of you?” Jessie took a shot in the dark.
Jordan froze. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t even speak for the longest time. Then he turned his head and stared at her. “Michael was…is my brother. He was…is two years older than I am. When our father murdered our mother, Michael and I were sent into foster care. He was mean and he liked to push me around. I carried more bruises that year than I had in all of my eleven years before that.”
“Why? Why was he like that?” Jessie dared to ask.
“He wanted me to admit my father had the right to beat my mom to death. He talked about her like she was a whore when I know she wasn’t. I fought back and that’s when things changed. Michael was bigger and stronger than I was at the time but I knew he was blowing smoke. He just wouldn’t quit so I tried to make him quit. He took the beating just like before. Dad was always beating on one of us. He said it was to toughen us up. He wouldn’t let any of his sons be pussies.”
“What happened the day you beat your brother?”
“He told me he set the whole thing up. He knew exactly what dad would do. And he just stood there and watched it happen.”
“So you killed him,” Jessie stated quietly.
Jordan nodded. “When the DA suggested sending me to the Oceanview Institute, my grandparents were more than happy to sign the papers. That was the beginning of a nightmare that never quit. My first day, I was thrown into a locked cell. I was alone and terrified. I was in that cell for the next three days. No one came to check on me, no one gave me food or even water. When someone did come, they hauled me to a room with a bed that had straps on it. They strapped me down and attached electrodes to my head and body. They gave me three shots of electricity that paralyzed me. I mean I was just a kid. I didn’t learn until much later, what they were doing to me was illegal and just plain sadistic. There was one particular doctor there that I learned to hate. Dr. Thomas Davison. I thought I was dead several times then my brother came into my head. Michael told me I needed to man up and quit being a pussy. His voice was so loud that I could almost imagine him standing right next to me. Then he started coming whenever I needed to be strong. Whenever Davison tried to break me, he would come inside my head. This went on for six long years. The older I got the smarter I got. I began planning my release date two years before I got out. With Michael’s help, I survived that hell hole, so I let Michael plan our escape. It was his idea to set fire to the place. He was the one who saw the accelerant one day. I knocked out Davison and tied him up in front of his window, I wanted to watch him burn. Him and that nurse of his, Miss Becky. She was almost as bad as he was.”
“What about the other patients who were there?” Jessie asked feeling sick to her stomach. “Didn’t their lives matter at all to you?”
Jordan hung his head and he didn’t say anything for a moment. Then Jessie watched as he changed almost right in front of her. His shoulders grew wider and he stood a little straighter while his body language seemed to stress he had become another person altogether. He turned his head slowly and there was a look in his eyes that she’d never seen before.
“Michael?” she whispered to confirm the change.
Michael tipped his head in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything.
Jessie knew this was trouble. Her heart began to pound in her chest and she never missed Lucifer more than she did right at this moment. Jordan, she was sure she could handle but Michael? No one could handle him.
“Now bitch, you’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know.”
“I don’t understand.” Jessie frowned.
“My brother Frankie talks the talk but he don’t walk the walk.” Michael sneered. “All his life, Frankie has been a mama’s boy. Every single time we got into it, he ran off to Mom and I took a beating for it. The old man would come home and anyone in trouble would get his ass beat. Most days that was me and I took
it until I couldn’t anymore.”
“You set your mother up, didn’t you?” Jessie accused. “Your brother said you did, that’s what set him off the day he beat you.”
Michael smiled. “Yeah, that was the day my brother became a man. He finally felt the rage I lived with every day since I was ten years old. He finally felt it and I could see it in his eyes.”
Jessie wanted to look away but found she couldn’t. She knew she should keep her mouth shut but she found she couldn’t do that either. “That was the day you took your last beating wasn’t it? The rage he felt that day was stronger than anything you ever felt wasn’t it? He beat you again didn’t he? That’s why you can’t leave him alone, isn’t it? His rage was greater than yours and he beat you hands down. You thought your rage was bigger than his didn’t you? But he showed you up didn’t he?”
“You don’t know shit about me bitch.” Michael stomped over to her and grabbed her shirt half lifting her off the floor of the cavern. He hauled her close to him and grabbed her throat. His fingers bit into her skin squeezing together, threatening to shut off her air. “Frankie was such a baby back then, so I told him the truth about our mother.”
Jessie could feel the panic inside her rising and she fought to get free of him but with her hands tied behind her, she couldn’t struggle much. She could kick out at him and she rammed her foot hard enough in his crotch that he dropped her back to the dirt floor.
“You bitch!” He hunched over with his hands covering his junk. He didn’t quite go down to his knees, but he paused in his rage long enough for Jessie to catch her breath. “I’m going to enjoy killing you whore.” He wheezed.
Jessie turned her head and stared at him, then turned away. As she did, she thought she saw a shadow moving near the front of the cavern. Closing her eyes, she paused for a moment then she felt it. Lucifer was close by. She didn’t know where, but she could feel him. She knew it might be just a trick of her own mind, but she had to believe he would come for her. Taking a deep breath, she knew she just had to survive a few more minutes.
Jessie just had to get through a few more minutes with a murdering killer who wouldn’t hesitate to slit her throat for no other reason than because he could.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucifer led his men through the cornfield and over to the rocky edge of the bluff. The night’s darkness would have slowed him down if he hadn’t known his way so well. Even with the brightness of the full moon, the trail had been hard to follow.
As soon as he’d seen the red clay on the floor, he’d known where Jordan Tate had taken Jessie. There was only one place on the farm that had clay like that. One summer when he’d been a kid, he’d gone exploring and at the edge of another cornfield, he found a small cavern, hidden by an outcrop of fallen rock.
When he’d come home that day his grandmother had scolded him, telling him he shouldn’t go to the cave anymore. It wasn’t stable as rock slides were often present after a heavy rain. Then she made him clean up the trail of red clay he’d dragged into the house on his clothes and shoes.
When Lucifer knelt at the edge of the field, his men knelt with him.
Demon was the one to ask in a low voice, “Where are we Captain?”
Lucifer pointed at a small rock formation. “Just over there is a small cave. It has the same red clay that was in my bedroom. It’s the only place on this farm with that particular clay.” His eyes searched the outcrop of rock. He could feel she was close.
“Is there another way into the cave?” Demon asked. “I’m only asking because we can’t all storm that little cave. We’d have to go one at a time and all we’d be doing would be giving him us as targets. I don’t want to eat a bullet.”
Lucifer nodded. “Nor do I.” He continued to stare at the outcrop of stone and searched his memories for another way into the cave. Then he remembered something his grandfather told him a few days after he’d found the cavern. “My gramps told me about another set of tunnels all throughout this bluff. According to the history of Whiskey Bend, the caves up here was where they stored the whiskey they brought up the river when this town was just starting out a hundred years or so ago. When the boats brought supplies up river, they would store the extra up here in these caves until it was needed. The caves were cold and kept the stores sometimes for months before it was used.”
“Ok so we’ll find the tunnels then what?” Jinx asked. “How do we find the one holding Jessie?”
“Hopefully without alerting the murdering bastard that’s holding her hostage?” Demon added.
“We’ll have to move quietly until we find them. Once we get him far enough away from her, we’ll strike. But we have to separate them. I won’t risk causing her harm.”
“Don’t you worry Captain, we know what to do,” Jinx assured him. “You trained us all too well and those are the type of lessons a man never forgets.”
Lucifer stared at his men before issuing his orders, “If you go around to the left, you’ll find an opening. Hard rains over the years have caused some movements in the shale and those same rains have opened up crevasse in the stone. Once inside the tunnels, you need to make your way south to get back to the main cavern. The closer you get to the cavern you’ll notice a change in the ground. Only the main cavern has the red clay. The rest of the tunnels and caves are dry but that one is damp. Be careful, cuz you don’t know what you might find. My grandmother warned me those caves were no longer safe and that warning is well over twenty years old. I’m going into the small cavern. If they’re there, I’ll be the one to take the fire. You guys come up behind him and nail that bastard if he gets through me.” He grabbed Jinx by the collar and pulled him toward himself. “You find her if I’m dead and you keep her alive. You hear me? You keep her alive if I don’t make it.”
Jinx smiled manically. “Can we kill him?”
“You’d better.” Lucifer grunted.
“Fair enough.” Jinx nodded then turned and with most of the men, snuck away in the dark.
Demon, Charlie and Mitch remained behind. Lucifer checked his weapon one more time. Just before he stepped away, Mitch grabbed him by the arm. Lucifer started then looked down at the other man’s hand covering his arm. He raised his eyes to Mitch’s face. Glaring, he jerked his arm away and told the other man, “Don’t lay your hand on me again, unless you want to lose it.”
“I want that bastard alive. He needs to stand trial. We need to find out how many women he’s murdered over the years and where they’re buried. We need him alive when this is over.”
Lucifer scoffed. “Well, we’ll do our best to accommodate your wishes, but if he don’t want to play fair, then I’m not going to let him go on breathing. This ends here and now.”
“I’m with you on that Captain,” Demon added with conviction while glaring at Mitch.
Lucifer nodded then stepped carefully over the rocky ground. He placed his feet slowly on the ground before moving forward. His military training taught him how to move over rough ground without making a sound and he was using that training right now. Moving low and cautiously he made his way to the opening of the cavern. Pausing a few minutes, he allowed his men the time they would need to find the other way in.
Turning his head, he glared at Demon and the other two men. “You stay here and guard this entrance. If he manages to get through me, you take him down.” Then he turned his steely gaze to Charlie and Mitch. “Don’t get in my way on this. I won’t kill him if I don’t have to, but he isn’t going to leave this cave without one of my men riding shotgun. If he’s hurt or killed my woman, he’ll leave bleeding. He may or may not be alive when he comes out.” Lucifer turned and made his way to the cave and then he disappeared into the rock.
Pausing just inside the cave, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the total lack of light. Step by step, he moved unhurriedly deeper into the cave.
He went beyond the first cavern and made his way into the short tunnel leading to the larger cavern. Before he stepped inside, he qu
ickly peeked around the corner and saw Jessie laying on the ground at the feet of the man they knew as Jordan Tate.
He watched as Tate kicked Jessie in the belly. Lucifer’s eyes narrowed and his fingers gripped his weapon a little tighter as the red haze of his rage washed over him. Instead of rushing into the room, he took a deep breath and held it for a moment. He had to get ahold of his temper before he made a mistake that would cost Jessie her life and possibly his own. He had to fall back on the hours of military training and trust that his men were getting themselves into position.
Then he heard Tate swear a blue streak. Peeking around the corner again, he heard Jessie speaking to the man.
“What’s the matter Michael, didn’t the other women you murdered ever fight back?”
“They never saw me coming. Little Frankie always led them to believe they were safe with him, but he knew I needed to watch them die. Just like I did with Davison. I needed to watch as that bastard burned alive. I wanted to see the devil’s minions take his soul to hell. I made Frankie stop and watch along with me.”
Lucifer peeked around the corner again. This time, he watched a bit longer but he was confused by the man’s words. The light from the lantern lit up the small cavern and he could see the man standing there was Jordan Tate but he was speaking like he was someone else entirely. Deranged motherfucker.
“Why did you watch them?” Jessie asked.
Lucifer knew she was stalling him. Smart girl. Just another two minutes and his brothers would be here.
Michael began to pace back and forth, back and forth. “The day I watched my mother die at my father’s hand, she looked at me just before she died. She stared at me for a moment then she cursed me. She could see something in my eyes that told her I’d been the one who called my father home. She knew what I had done, and she cursed me for it. Then she looked over at Frankie and begged him to forgive her for not protecting him more. I was watching her eyes as she died and when the light finally drained, I saw her soul leave her body. I’d never seen anything like that before. It spooked me for the longest time but then I realized I needed to see it again. I needed to know if that was just a one-time thing or if everyone’s soul left their body the same way.”