by Keri Lake
Once inside my car, I toss my phone to the side and drive back to the employee lot on the west side of the building.
After a few minutes of staring off at absolutely no activity, I do what I always do when I’m idle.
Think of Nola Tensley.
It’s possible that Carl is leading me on a wild goose chase, as a distraction, stringing me along to keep me from Nola. Occupying my time with fruitless bullshit, so that he can swoop in and snatch her up, when I’m not looking. I’ll be damned if I let that happen.
I’ve already decided that Nola is mine. For now, anyway.
I’m not about to be the dick who tries to swindle a piece of ass while her son is missing, but the sooner I find Oliver, the sooner I can go back to whatever intriguing little cataclysm was going on before the shit hit the fan.
And if Carl Jansen has so much as left a paper cut on the boy, I’ll personally remove all of his fingers and feed them to him like a plate of French fries.
12
The Sandman
“What did you do!” The rage exploded inside The Sandman, as he stared down at the flower, his beloved Queen of the Night, lying on the floor in tatters.
He’d left the plant inside the boy’s room, so that he might see it bloom, and witness the glorious transformation that happened only once, only to return from the bar to find it destroyed. “I trusted you! I trusted you!”
“I’m … s-s-s-sorry. The k-k-kitten got away f-f-f-from me. I c-c-c-couldn’t reach him.”
“And where the fuck is the little bastard now?”
“I d-d-d-don’t know. He t-t-t-took off.” The boy pointed toward the window on the east wall of his room, which The Sandman, himself, had vented earlier in the day, when the overwhelming smell of bacon had begun to make him sick.
The next bloom would happen any day now, and that one was reserved for Nola. He’d just have to forego Zelene’s purification. It’d be incomplete without his signatures. A lie. Which meant no gratification for him, either.
Swiping up his plant, he stormed toward the door, from where he looked back at the boy. “No supper tonight,” he said, before slamming the door behind him.
Tromping down the staircase, his muscles burned with the urge to punish Oliver, for allowing that dirty vermin cat to touch his plant. He wanted to string him up and beat him for his insolence.
But what would Nola say, if she saw her boy harmed? As much as he needed discipline, The Sandman refused to dole it out. He loved Nola too much to hurt her that way.
Once on the lower level, he arranged the flower back on the shelf with the others, and examined the leaves for any sign of a near bloom. Only the one he’d reserved for Nola, the healthiest of all his plants, appeared closest to blossoming, and he refused to use it on one so insignificant as Zelene.
No, she would have to die impure. Tainted. Unworthy of his seed.
He glanced back to where she still lay unconscious, strapped down in the latex bed, completely immobile, and shook his head. Making his way past the plants, he entered a door hidden on the other side of the shelves. The dark room greeted him as he closed himself inside, shutting out the light from the main pole barn, and flicked on the bulb overhead.
A recliner sat before a wall decorated in pictures, ones he’d taken with his Polaroid. Beautiful images of each sacrifice, each soul he now owned. Below the images, a table held something of a shrine, carrying jars of eyeballs floating in solutions of formaldehyde, as well as bracelets, necklaces, charms he’d taken from each of his subjects.
The Sandman took the next few minutes to undress and slip into his full-body latex suit that he kept on a hanger, dangling from a hook in the wall. Instead of his usual latex mask, he wore the transparent latex, breathing bag hood. He could see through just fine, but with each inhale and exhale, the air was significantly reduced by a small breathing hole.
A utility cabinet nearby housed all of his devices, items he sometimes used for torture, like the violet wand, dildos, clips, clamps, pinwheels, rigid attachments he’d sometimes strapped onto his cock that had ensured pain during the times he’d inserted them into his subjects.
He reached for a bottle of latex polish, sprayed it over his hard cock, which was cloaked inside the latex, and took a seat on the recliner.
As he stroked the polish over his sheathed erection, he stared up at the wall, where the image of Marnee brought to mind her magnificent breasts and pert nipples trapped beneath the latex. How, during sex, he’d taken her flesh between his teeth, not hard enough to leave an imprint, but hard enough to make her squeal in pain. He’d suckled them, just as he had as a young boy at his mother’s breast, after she’d spanked, or punished, him. How he’d loved crawling into bed with his mother, once her anger had subsided, and suckling breasts that had long since dried up. A comfort he’d missed after her passing.
One he’d learned to find again in other women.
With one leg hooked over the arm of the chair, he hastened his strokes, imagining Marnee’s mouth gaping, eyes lifeless. And at that, his gaze shot to her blue eyes bobbing in the formalin. As his breaths rushed out of him, the bag inflated and deflated against his face, and he could almost imagine the suffering of his subjects in those final moments.
Within minutes, he felt dizzy, furiously pumping away at his cock, until the swelling in his loins was more than he could bear. He visualized the torment of watching Nola’s body squirm in the latex, and at that, climax exploded through him, pulsing against the sheath as he came inside the suit. The hood beat against his face with his fast breaths, just like breathing into a balloon, and he smiled, while his muscles turned cold and weak, his head woozy and light. He tore away the mask and sucked in a fresh breath of air. So crisp and clean, it filled his lungs like new life.
With a sound of satisfaction purring in his chest, he squeezed the last drops from his cock and bit his lower lip at the magnificent glide of latex over its swollen head.
With that out of the way, he was ready to deal with Zelene.
13
Nola
The sound of Oliver’s laughter fills the dark room, as I lie on the couch, watching a video of me chasing him through the park. “I’m gonna getcha, Oli! I’m gonna getcha!” Through tears, I smile, watching my little boy, only two at the time, squeal in the afternoon sun with delight. I swipe him up into my arms, and he laughs harder, as I blow raspberries against his stomach.
“Give me some!” Denny shouts from behind the camera, and his hand reaches out to tickle Oli. “I meant some of this.” The camera pans away, but the sound of kissing plays on my memories of feeling like everything was right in the world that day.
Now I’ve lost them both. First Denny. Now my little boy.
A sob rips through my chest, as the weight of that settles down on me, and I tip back the bottle of whiskey, already half gone, letting the burn sink down my throat. I don’t even like whiskey, but it’s the only thing I could find when I rifled through the cupboards of the in-law suite, looking for something hard-hitting to get me drunk enough to numb the pain. As if Voss left it behind because he knew I’d need it, at some point.
For the first time in my life, I have nothing to live for, and it occurs to me how terrifying that is. How easily one can be swayed into thoughts that’d otherwise seem absurd. Thoughts like, how long it would take to drink oneself to death.
How lonely my mother must’ve felt.
For years, I hated her for neglecting me, ignoring me. I dare say, if she could admit it to herself, she probably even wished Jonah and I could’ve been shipped off somewhere else after Nora’s disappearance, but at least my older brother could take care of himself.
I still needed her. I still wanted her to be my mother, and I remember the nights she lay on the couch, just as I am, watching videos of my sister. Ignoring dinner. Ignoring the cleaning. The laundry. Me.
It pissed me off that she could be so preoccupied with the past, when I was still very much a part of her present, but as
I lie here, losing myself to these short little snippets of Oliver’s life, I get it now. And I thank God that I don’t have another child counting on me, because I’d probably be just as useless.
Nora was her first baby. Her first time being a mother. She represented all of her first joys in life, and when she disappeared, that joy was stripped from her.
I know this from personal experience now.
Lifting Denny’s phone, which I forbade Jonah to take with him, I check the account that held the original instructions to find Oliver, one I suspect—hope—belongs to the kidnapper, as Denny wouldn’t have known a damn thing about encrypted anything. He was never tech savvy enough. Couldn’t even figure out how to use the damn phone for the longest time. So, I’m certain he wasn’t the one who put the app on his phone.
My emails remain unread. I’ve sent a total of a half-dozen messages to the encrypted email address in the last two days, each one growing increasingly desperate. Not a single response back.
I push up from the couch as another video begins.
I can’t take it.
I can’t stand to watch my son, hear his voice, and know that I may very well never see him again.
Few things can torment the way the mind does. Two straight days, I’ve fought random visuals of my son, chained somewhere in darkness. Cold. Alone. Terrified. I’ve imagined him enduring agonizing torment without the ability to do more than cry out in pain. I’ve awakened far too many times to the sounds of those screams in my sleep, until I decided sleep was no longer a possibility.
The alcohol helps, though.
Stumbling down the hall, I lose my balance and slam, shoulder-first, into the wall, before continuing on. Once I reach my studio, standing in the middle of all that pottery, I look around at bowls on shelves, the vases with their gold vining.
The scars of suffering that supposedly make them more beautiful.
Well, fuck that.
I throw the bottle at one of the shelves, knocking down an entire row of bowls I repaired. Each shatters on impact. Hours of work, gone in seconds. Grabbing a nearby broom, I set the phone down and swing at the next shelf, and the next. Plates, vases, platters come crashing to the floor. Barefoot, I step over the pieces, ignoring the sharp slivers of pain across the bottom of my feet.
“There’s nothing … beautiful …” Another swing takes out a shelf of glazes. “About pain!” Between sniveling and sobs, I pause for only seconds to catch my breath, then keep on with my assault, until my pottery room looks as destroyed as I feel inside.
Dropping the broom, I fall to my knees, and the sound that tears from my chest carries a level of pain I never thought myself capable of.
The kind from which there is no coming back.
* * *
I lie on the floor staring at the shattered ceramics. I would stay here all night, but the sickness from the half fifth I drank earlier has moved down into my belly, cramping my gut, while the room spins in my periphery. I push up from the floor, falling backward a few steps, and stumble toward the bathroom.
Everything moves slowly. Fluidly. As if I’m underwater, sinking deeper.
The urgency in my belly compels me to hurry, and I just make it before the fluids shoot up my throat into the toilet. Over and over, I heave and vomit, expelling the poisons of my misery, until I don’t have anything left in me.
I’m empty inside.
I rinse the sour taste in my mouth with mouthwash, and another wave of dizziness hits. Lying down on the floor fails to stop the spinning in my head. I clamp my eyes shut, weak hands cupping my face, and the silence pulls me under.
* * *
Something rough jostles me, but I’m too exhausted to react. I open my eyes to a crisp white collar and the scent of something warm and masculine. A chiseled jawline with a five o’clock shadow, and beyond it, pictures on the wall passing by.
Voss? Am I dreaming?
Arms tight around me, he carries me along, only evident in the fast movement in my periphery. My body lands against a soft and inviting surface, and warm hands grip my face.
“Nola? Where’s Jonah?” His voice is like an angel’s, calling me away from the blackness tugging at me.
“Voss … Oliversgo …on.” Another round of tears stings my eyes, but I’m so out of it, I don’t even know if I’m crying.
“He’s not gone. Get some sleep.” It’s a dream, I’m certain of it, but one filled with more light than the nightmares telling me my son is dead. I want to stay in this dream. Stay with Voss and Oliver. And the hope that my son is still alive.
“Y’stay?”
“Yes. I’ll stay.”
14
Voss
I only planned to look in on Nola, on my way back to the Conservatory, but not seeing Jonah’s car in the driveway had me worried something might’ve happened.
He’s usually here this time of night, as late as it is, watching the place.
Can’t remember the last time I worried about a woman.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I rub my hand down my face and across the back of my neck. When I first found her in the bathroom, the blood all over the floor and tiles had me thinking she was dead. Which, truth be told, messed with my head for a minute, until I caught sight of her bleeding foot, and a small piece of ceramic lodged in it. In those brief moments, though, it occurred to me how much I actually give a damn about this woman. How weak and helpless I felt in a matter of seconds. But more surprising than that was the wave of relief that knocked me over, when she finally moved and shifted. A flash of light illuminates the dark room, and I lean forward toward her glowing phone on the nightstand. With a quick glimpse her way, I lift the phone off the nightstand and see that Jonah’s texted her about five times in the last hour.
His last was five minutes ago:
Just tell me you’re okay, or I’m coming over to check on you.
Nola’s deep and hearty snore fills the room, and I blow out a breath.
I’m okay, I type back.
I’m sorry. For everything. We’ll catch this bastard.
I don’t bother with that one, and place her phone back on the nightstand.
She can deal with all that tomorrow, when she’s sober again.
The truth is, they won’t catch him, because they’re chasing after the wrong thing. Surgeons, florists, gardeners. Too obvious.
I have the most insight on the killer, and I still haven’t tracked the cunning bastard.
Part of me has remained intrigued by the chase, while the other part of me is growing a bit tired of the games. That’s just what he wants, though. To wear me down and confuse the shit out of me, until I lose sight of what it is I’m looking for. He’s counting on me to get sloppy and frustrated. Even if time is ticking against me, patience and focus are the only two things that will help me win this game.
Because losing means losing Nola, and I refuse to concede so easily.
I remove my jacket, draping it over the foot of the bed, and unbutton the first few fastenings of my shirt. After kicking my shoes off, I slide onto the bed next to her, and drag her body back against mine. Somehow, she feels smaller to me, more fragile than before. Recalling the first day I arrived here, how sassy and smart-witted she was, it’s a far cry from the sad and tormented woman lying next to me.
I push away a strand of hair covering her eyes and stare down at her. It troubles me to see her this way. I hate that she’s in pain, but it infuriates me to know Carl is the reason behind it.
For so many years, he made my life a living hell growing up, and although I’ve learned to live with my demons, I don’t like seeing her curled up in a ball, passed out, because she can’t deal with reality. A reality he paved for her. Perhaps even one that I paved, by agreeing to hunt him down.
I want the spitfire from before. The one who doesn’t take any shit, and isn’t afraid to face the harder side of life. She needs to go back to believing that Oliver is alive, that she has a chance of finding him, or she’s going to
end up inadvertently killing herself by doing something stupid.
With Nola snoozing away, I slide back out of her bed, check to make sure the windows are locked, and head down to the lower level of the house. My head is still spinning from the little field trip to the Conservatory, and I need something to smooth out the edges. When I arrive in the kitchen, I open her cupboard and find it stocked with bottles of whiskey.
What the hell’d she plan to do? Drink herself into a coma?
Rifling through the cupboards produces a shot glass, and I down a couple sips of whiskey, before heading back through the living room and out to her art studio.
“Jesus Christ,” I say, taking in the surrounding damage.
I lift a broken bowl from the floor, unable to identify its other pieces in all the rubble scattered about, and toss it back with the others. Woman did a number on the room.
Eyes still wandering the destruction, I fix my attention on a phone lying off to the side. This one different from the one I answered earlier.
I open it up to find the CryptoMail app and click on it. About six messages remain unread, and I click one that sounds like Nola wrote it, begging for her son’s life. I get a sense the others are more of the same, so I click on an older message, the first in the inbox, with the sender enticing her to play a game of trust.
Next, I check the texts where an address was given, and her response, letting him know she’d be there.
I’m guessing shit didn’t go down the way Carl hoped. Or Nola, for that matter.
Unless it did.
After all, he managed to separate her from her cop brother. Separate her from me. He’s slowly isolating her, making her weaker.
Breaking her down bit by bit, so he can slide in with ease.
I slam the phone down on the floor and hammer the wooden broom handle into it, smashing it to pieces.