“All is well?” I ask, gesturing to the back of his vehicle.
“Yep. Got a call that there was a serious car accident about a mile north of the quarry. But when we got up there…nothing. Looks like a prank call.” Ron shakes his head. “Fucking kids.”
I’m nodding in agreement when Ron’s partner, the paramedic I haven’t met yet gets out of the ambulance and introduces himself. I shake Ollie’s hand and he immediately starts talking my ear off about how kids these days show no respect. “It’s those damn video games. Turns their brains into mush. When I was younger, we played outside and got dirty. We didn’t Skype this or download that. All going to shit, I tell you.” I have to fight back a laugh when I see Ron roll his eyes behind Ollie. I want to tell Ron that he opened that can of worms, but I remain silent and let Ollie unleash and reminisce about the good old days. But after a few minutes, I’ve had enough and I’m itching to call Clare. I’m just about to make up an excuse to leave when I see Trent running toward us. He’s wearing jeans, sneakers and a hoodie and looking crazed.
“How is she? Where’s Carol?” he screams between pants.
I look at the other two paramedics, see the confusion written all over their faces, and put my attention back on my best friend. “Trent, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Carol?”
“Who brought her in? How bad is it?” Trent asks, ignoring my questions. His eyes dart from me to my colleagues. Trent’s hands are shaking and he’s sweating uncontrollably, despite the frigid temperature.
“None of us did, Trent.” My friend’s eyes narrow as he tilts his head. “But let’s check the ER. See if she was brought in some other way.”
A sickening feeling settles in my gut as I rush into the ER with Trent. It takes less than thirty seconds for Trent to grill the receptionist and learn that Carol hasn’t been admitted. Nevertheless, Trent and I search the ER and even bust into the OR, but Carol isn’t here. My stomach is in knots, warning me that something is definitely wrong. “Call your sister, Trent. Now.”
Trent nods and fumbles as he dials. He’s holding the phone to his ear and raking his fingers through his crew cut when I see his eyes well up and relief wash over him. I want to share in his joy, but I can’t. Panic seizes me and I suddenly feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. “Where’s Clare, Trent?” I ask. Trent is still talking to his sister but abruptly stops the second I utter Clare’s name.
I see the dread in Trent’s eyes the moment he puts it all together. “Fuck!” he screams.
I want to puke right there in the hospital lobby. I immediately call Clare, but it just rings and rings. Trent and I take off running and don’t stop until we reach his house. We enter Trent’s home through the unlocked front door screaming Clare’s name, but the house is silent and she is nowhere to be found. Nothing is amiss, everything seems to be in order. There is no sign of a struggle and her cell phone is lying on the kitchen counter.
I am close to breaking down and losing my shit until I see Trent disappear to his basement only to return with a duffel bag and a small arsenal in his arms. “My gut’s telling me that we pay Brady a visit. What’s yours saying?” Trent asks.
We have no evidence. No leads. All we have are Clare’s memories. And Brady Sullivan hasn’t been the star in any of them. We could be completely wrong. Or we could be walking into a trap. But I can’t worry about that. And as I watch my best friend slip two sniper rifles, two Glocks and a Beretta into a bag, it doesn’t appear that Trent’s worried about it, either. “The same. Let’s go.”
• • •
Chief Brady Sullivan lives in a small Cape Cod on a tree-lined street a few blocks over from Trent. His well-maintained yard is enclosed with a picket fence and windchimes are dangling from the chief’s porch. His driveway is empty and there are no lights on inside. “Does he have a dog?” I ask.
“No,” Trent says, reaching over the front seat. When he whips back around, the two Glocks are in his hands and he offers one to me. I take it and tuck it into my pants. But it won’t be there for long. Once we’re inside, out of sight from pedestrians, that gun will be in my hand and ready to fire. “What time does he usually get off work?”
“The last time we talked shop Brady mentioned that one of his rookies had the balls to bitch about his six to six shift, that six a.m. was too fucking early. Brady had told him that he wouldn’t be getting any sympathy from him since that’s been his shift for the past five years.” Trent looks at his watch. “Which means unless he hit the bar or stopped for dinner somewhere, Brady should be home right now.”
“Alright, let’s sweep the house.”
Trent nods and we make our way to a side entrance. I am prepared to bust down the door, but I have the lock picked in less than a minute. No home security alarm sounds as we cross the threshold and the next thing I know we’re standing in the man’s kitchen. With guns drawn we silently drift from room to room, trying to detect even the subtlest noise or muffled scream. I catch Trent nodding to the one door we haven’t tried yet and he mouths, “Basement.” I quietly turn the knob, but the door is locked.
Brady Sullivan lives alone in a relatively safe town. He feels secure enough not to have an alarm system, so why is this internal door locked? Again, I go to pick the lock, but this time I’m not successful. If I had more patience and time I would get it, but both have run out. Trent tells me to step back. Less than five seconds later, I watch Trent thrust his massive body against the door. When he’s finished, what’s left of the door is hanging off its hinges. I find a light switch, flick it on and we immediately descend the stairs. Like the rest of the house, nothing seems out of place. The one-room basement is clean and doesn’t even have a musty smell. A weight bench with free weights and a treadmill take up over half the basement. About a half dozen plastic bins line the far wall.
“Ever been down here before?” I ask.
“No. I watched a baseball game in his living room once, all the other times we hung out were at the bar,” Trent whispers as we move farther into the room.
I walk over to one of the bins and I remove the lid. Christmas ornaments and strands of white lights are neatly tucked inside, ready to be strung for the quickly approaching holiday. I look in another bin and I find a plaque with Brady Sullivan’s name on it, praising him for his then ten years on the police force, and his high school diploma. I peek into a third bin and find more ornaments and fake wreaths.
I trusted my gut and it led me here, to a basement full of Christmas shit. My heart has been racing since I discovered that Clare was gone, but now it feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest. I have never felt so helpless in my life. Or wrong.
“Let’s check that out,” Trent says, gesturing to what looks like a closet.
Frustrated, I nod and we make our way to the door. Trent turns the knob, but it’s locked. I am not given the chance to pick the lock because Trent has already decided to use his body as a battering ram. But unlike the basement door, this one doesn’t budge. The hairs on my neck begin to rise and I clench my gun. Something is behind that door. I join in the assault and together we break the door down.
The basement light bleeds into the small room and for a minute neither of us speak. I can’t form words as I stare at what must be hundreds of photos taped to the walls. Every square inch is covered with them and I flip on the light to get a better look.
“Holy fuck!” Trent utters.
I fight the urge to vomit as my eyes rapidly drift from one photo to the next. I’ve seen some disgusting things in my lifetime, like kids being used as bait to lure enemy troops out into the open, but these images of this poor girl, a girl who is barely a teenager, being violated will forever haunt me. “Who is she?” I ask.
I don’t need to ask who the male is in the photos. He may be seventy pounds lighter and four inches shorter, but his pale blue eyes give him away. Sick fucking bastard!
I squint my eyes and that’s when I see it. The resemblance. Clare and this young girl coul
d be sisters. They have the same hair color and blue eyes. They even have the same freckle pattern across their noses.
But the girl in these photos is not Clare. I’ve spent hours studying Clare while she slept, when she thought I wasn’t looking. I know every curve of her face, every freckle. I know that she has a mole just below her right knee. And this young girl doesn’t have one.
“That’s Bree,” Trent chokes out. “She couldn’t have been more than twelve in these photos.”
The look in the girl’s eyes as she lay there, while Brady Sullivan tortured her, made her bleed, makes me want to shoot up the room, destroy every last photo and give her back her dignity. I feel the bile rise in my throat and I look to the wall to my left. The young girl is missing among the photos on this wall. A house with blue shutters is the focus and is displayed in various stages of construction. Trees flank the property on both sides, but a large body of water can be seen behind it.
“What the hell…” Trent trails off as he draws closer to the largest photo of the house, the one that has the words Our Home written above it. “It looks just like…but it can’t be.”
“What, Trent? What is it?”
“Brady and Bree’s childhood home was demolished five years back. A Wawa stands where it once was. But the house in this photo, it looks just like it, but nicer, like…new.” His eyes narrow. “Wait, I know that covered bridge…right here,” Trent says, pointing to the top left-hand corner of the photo. I hadn’t noticed it before, but Trent’s right. That’s a bridge, weathered and in bad shape, but it’s a bridge. “The bridge has been out for the past several years, which has stopped people from passing through that area.”
It’s the perfect setting. Remote. No one around for miles. No one to hear Clare…
“He’s recreating her…and his childhood,” Trent says.
My pulse quickens and my head starts to spin. “Bree and Clare resemble each other, but not enough for Brady to mistake one for the other,” I somehow get out.
“Unless he’s so far gone, too sick, that he can’t.”
I look to my right again and this time I don’t see Brady’s poor sister being abused, stripped of her innocence, I see Clare. Her being tortured while Brady smiles with perverted glee. Her being held against her will. Her fighting back. Her kicking and clawing and biting, anything to get away. I rip the photo that Brady has labeled Our Home off the wall and lock eyes with Trent.
I can’t lose her. I won’t survive it if I do. And the way Trent is looking at me right now, he knows what I’m thinking. He knows I won’t be able to live without her. “Let’s go get her,” Trent says.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chief Brady Sullivan
Her lips are fuller now and she wears her hair long, past her delicate shoulder blades.
I promised myself I wouldn’t touch her until she awoke, but I can’t help it and I caress those chocolate locks I once fisted and pulled until her eyes watered. Lying in our bed, with her hands above her head and tied to one of the bed posts, my sister looks like an angel. My mouth begins to water as my gaze drifts over her body, as I take in her black stretch pants and t-shirt. She’s been out cold since I rescued her from Trent’s home, but the second she wakes up I will show her the clothes I bought her. What she will wear, what I will peel and tear off her whenever I desire.
I wish Mace were alive right now so I could thank him personally for finding Bree. I know he failed me before, finding me women and claiming that they were her. And there were many. Each time Mace would present one to me, he would swear that he found my love. But after only a few minutes alone with them, while I questioned them as they lay there strapped to a mattress in one of our holding cells, I knew they were imposters. Those women had no idea who I was. They couldn’t remember our life together. I understood that some years had passed, that memories and details could fade a little, that we’d both aged a bit, but the way those women looked at me, like they had no fucking clue, it was clear that none of those women were Bree.
But I wouldn’t need to interview the woman now lying before me to try to detect deceit…a betrayal. The fire in her eyes, the fear I saw in them as I watched the drug I injected into her bloodstream, told me that I’d found her. She looked at me just like she had all those years ago. Just the thought of her frightened, of her mounting panic escalating out of control makes me hard. I fist my cock as I remember how the connection was made. Bree’s eyes would light with appreciation every time I protected her from our mother and her boyfriends. She relied on me, trusted me, even after I punished her that first time.
I’ll never forget that day. When I watched some kid in her class smile and then wave at Bree from across the playground. A hint of a smile tugged at Bree’s lips in response. I nearly lost it right there. Because Bree was mine. Mine to comfort. Mine to hold when she cried. Mine to punish.
I waited until our mother was passed out in bed before slipping into Bree’s room with my belt looped in my hand. I roused her from her peaceful slumber and told her that I was angry with her. Her eyes filled with tears as she begged me to tell her why. I told her that I would after I spanked her for upsetting me. Through her tears, she nodded and turned over. I spanked her until she had no tears left and her voice was hoarse. After I was done, I kissed her on the forehead, tucked her into bed and told her that I was happy with her again. It wasn’t a lie. That first time was magical. The joy I experienced as I watched her cry in pain, writhe in the bed and plead for me to stop made my heart full. I knew it was the start of something extraordinary.
A sound to my left brings me back to the present and I watch Bree shift and pull against the restraints. Her eyes flutter beneath her lids and I wonder what she’s dreaming about. My cock grows hard at the possibilities. If it’s me she’s seeing in her mind, loving her. She’ll be awake soon, and then we will be reunited properly. We didn’t have a chance in Trent’s living room, but here we will have all the time in the world to make up for the years we’ve spent apart. Out here I can show her just how much I love her, how I’ve missed her, without anyone interrupting us. Because this place doesn’t exist. No one knows about this home I’ve built for her.
I was devastated when our childhood home was leveled due to safety concerns, because that was the home where I earned Bree’s trust. But now I know it was for the best. I’m happy how things have turned out. We need a fresh start.
The exterior resembles our old home, but the interior has all the bells and whistles, everything she could possibly want. The room I am chomping at the bit to show her is the bedroom we are currently in. This room is an addition and not part of the original layout of our childhood home. It was designed with Bree in mind, to meet her needs and mine. There is a master bath with a claw-foot tub and a shower spacious enough to accommodate both of us comfortably. I imagine that she will use the tub often to soak her soon-to-be sore muscles and bruised skin. My cock hardens even more at the thought of her flesh littered with welts and my hand marks.
Soon, sweetheart. We’ll be together again.
I watch her wince in her sleep. I wonder what is causing her distress. My thoughts immediately go to Trent and Griffin McGuire. What did they do to her while they held her captive? There’s not a doubt in my mind that she was held against her will, forced to live with those sick bastards, because Bree would have gone to the police the second she outsmarted Mace and fled. And there’s only one reason that Trent and McGuire didn’t report Bree’s sudden appearance and her story that she was kidnapped. They wanted her for themselves.
They’re going to pay for taking her, for doing God knows what to her for the past week. It will be when they least expect it, when they think they have dodged a bullet and the girl they stole just ran away when Trent foolishly left her alone and vulnerable.
I have to admit that I never thought Trent had such unorthodox tastes. He’s always come across as an average guy, the kind who would marry, have a bunch of kids and coach Little League. The kind of guy who
would have a picket fence and enjoy stringing Christmas lights from his gutters. The kind of guy who would have felt comfortable in the home I have been living in for the past several years.
I think about that modest and very normal-looking Cape Cod and smile. It served its purpose and will continue to help me maintain appearances for as long as I need. I will ensure that the grass is mowed and the sidewalk is shoveled. I’ll keep the fridge and pantry stocked with essentials and make sure that I have chips and dip on hand when I invite the guys from the force over to watch a ballgame. I’ll even make certain that my home is Christmas ready and run up my electric bill from all the lights. But I will never sleep under its roof again. All my nights belong to Bree, here in this home that I built for us.
• • •
Clare
I have felt this kind of pain before and I know what I will encounter once I force my eyes open. My vision will remain blurry for a bit while I squint and try to bring Brady Sullivan into focus. I can feel him. He’s close. I try to keep my breathing steady, to remain calm as I replay in my head how I ended up here, wherever here is.
With my eyes shut, my other senses become sharper. I can hear breathing to my left and smell his cologne. I’m tempted to take a peek and tell him to go fuck himself, but I don’t. Because lying here, as I pretend to be asleep I can think, buy some time. I resist the temptation to wiggle against whatever is keeping my wrists tied together above my head and try to stay still.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Am I still in Quarry Hill? Has he taken me back to that hell hole, to that cell? As discreetly as possible, I sniff the air. Again, I smell the monster’s nauseating cologne, but I also detect another scent. Vanilla. There’s no way I’m in one of those cells where mildew, urine and blood had assaulted my senses.
“I know you’re awake, sweetheart.” His voice is soft, gentle, the tone one would use when speaking to a lover. My stomach sinks and I want to be sick. The muscles in my neck ache as I slowly turn my head and open my eyes. As expected, it takes me a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the light. “That’s my girl.”
I Dream of Spiders Page 19