Margo's Lullaby

by Groves, B.

  Shaking, Dean walked over to the music box and stared at Margo’s picture on the mantel.

  “Margo? Where is she?” Dean asked.

  “Was it Randy?” He asked struggling not to sob.

  The ballerina stopped turning and Dean sucked in a breath. Then started again.

  Somehow, some way he knew he had his answer.

  Dean turned as someone pounded on the front door. Cautiously, he approached it. He didn’t have a weapon. Quickly, he grabbed Gabby’s butcher knife from the block in her kitchen and held it behind his back.

  “Dean! Open up!”

  Dean flinched when he heard Michael McConnell’s voice.

  He cautiously opened the door.

  Michael stood on the porch with both hands at his sides, and shoulders slumped.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Dean asked.

  “I can take you to Gabrielle,” Michael answered.

  Chapter 24

  Dear Diary,

  They hurt me. All because I wanted my boyfriend to tell me why he wouldn’t leave his girlfriend for me. I went to the party. I shouldn’t have. I don’t remember much after that. But, I felt it. I felt them doing things to me. I heard them laughing. They were touching me. They wouldn’t stop! I tried to get away, but I couldn’t. I was tied up.

  They cut me loose, but they told me if I ever told anyone what happened they would kill me. They would come and burn down my house with my parents in it.

  The man grabbed my arm before I left. He said if I told anybody he would kill us.

  Gabby heard me, but I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her anything. If I do, she might die. They were serious. I know they were. I saw them before. I’ve been there, but he told me he would protect me from that. That he loved me and would protect me. Why didn’t he do that for me?

  I have to act normal. I don’t have a choice. They’ll kill me.

  -Margo

  Gabrielle still wasn’t sure exactly what happened as she tried to regain her senses.

  One moment she was getting ready to leave for the police station and the next moment Jason McConnell was at her door offering to have her sign her statement right there.

  She appreciated his saving her a drive, and went to turn around to offer him coffee when he grabbed her behind and tried to blindfold her.

  She remembered them struggling, and his awful scream when she bit his hand.

  She’d taken self-defense courses in the past. Because of Margo, there was always some nutcase who threatened her family with bodily harm. Nothing ever came to fruition, but she never wanted to take that chance.

  He turned her around, and before Gabby could move again he backhanded her, and Gabby remembered a white-hot pain coursing through the side of her head, and then darkness.

  Jason told her when she came around she hit her head on the side of the coffee table.

  “I could have killed you there, but I figured you needed to know the story first before we suicide you,” Jason said with a smile.

  Gabby struggled to sit up with her temple pounding and found her hands bound by handcuffs at her back.

  She focused on seeing Jason sitting at a small wooden table in the middle of a dark room with only a dim light on above him.

  She thought she would gag when the smell of alcohol, marijuana, and some other smell she couldn’t identify went up her nose.

  She was placed in a corner, beneath her an old carpet that felt like sandpaper underneath her hands. An old sofa was to her left, and some old, worn out recliners to her right.

  Her eyes scanned the place for any means of escape. The door was tightly closed, and the windows looked boarded up.

  “Where am I?” Gabby asked.

  Jason turned up from his phone. He was still in uniform and smiled.

  “Welcome to the party, Gabby,” Jason said with a grin. He glanced down at his hand. “Damn, you bit the shit out of me. I have to cover that up somehow.”

  She coughed and tried to clear her voice. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, that’s right. Margo never told everything in her diaries did she?”

  Gabby froze at the mention of her sister. “What are you saying?”

  Jason smirked at her. “Gabby, let me introduce myself. I was the guy Margo talked about in her diaries.”

  Gabby thought she had the wind knocked out of her. She fell over on her side as the news sank in that Jason was the one Margo was referring to.

  “Jason…” Gabby tried to speak. She tried to say anything wrap her head around the fact that it was Jason McConnell all along.

  “Why? What…” It was all she could squeak out.

  “You see this place, Gabby?”

  Gabby’s eyes looked around and settled back on Jason. Her shock was turning inside of her. It was turning to rage. Absolute rage was taking over where only moments ago she couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Yes.”

  “When I first met Margo, she was invited here by one of her friends. Remember those rumors about the secret parties you heard all the time at school?”

  “This is it. Isn’t it?” Gabby said through gritted teeth. She struggled against the handcuffs. Not getting anywhere, she gave up for now and leaned back against the wall.

  Gabby ears perked up when she heard a truck pull up outside.

  She prayed that it was Dean coming for her.

  Jason’s head turned, and he smiled.

  Gabby didn’t know what that meant.

  Jason leaned over in his chair. “She was sweet. Sweet and innocent. A beautiful young girl with so much potential but had a wild side that needed to be explored.”

  “Oh, I bet you just enjoyed that didn’t you?” Gabby asked.

  It wasn’t so much that Jason was seeing her sister on the side, it was how he was telling his story. The sickening way his lips curved into a malicious grin. He ate Margo up and spit her out. Margo could have handled him dumping her, it was what came after that Gabby dreaded hearing.

  “Margo was also very feisty—that wild streak—but very clingy. She did everything I told her to, but I was tired of her and ready to move on to the next girl. The younger they were the sweeter they tasted.”

  Gabby shook her head and turned away from Jason in disgust. She fought back tears knowing Jason’s rejection of Margo started the downward slide.

  Why didn’t you tell us? She silently asked her sister.

  “All my life my father has pushed me to do things I didn’t want to do,” Jason said becoming introspective. “I didn’t want to play football. I hated it. When I entered college, I injured my knee on purpose. Oops. Career-ending injury. I took the job as a local cop so I could continue to do what I do without arousing suspicion.”

  “What’s that you continue to do?” Gabby asked her eyes narrowing.

  The front door of the shack—or whatever this was—opened.

  Gabby turned and chills ran up and down her spine. Her body sunk back into the corner even further, and a moan escaped her lips.

  Standing in the doorway was Randy and Melanie White. Randy sneered at Gabby and Melanie shot her a murderous glance.

  Gabby tried to catch her breath. She turned her head trying to figure out how she would escape this.

  There was a clock on the wall. It was only noon. Her phone was now in Jason’s possession. All morning it had been ringing and messaging. She knew it was Dean trying to communicate with her. If only she could get to the phone…

  “You got her?” Randy asked with eyebrows raised.

  Jason shrugged. “It was easy, she never saw it coming.”

  “What about the neighbors?” Melanie asked.

  “No one saw me,” Jason explained. “I pulled the car around the back.”

  “We need to get her car soon,” Randy commented.

  Randy kneeled in front of Gabby and smirked. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. She met his eyes. He gave her a once over, and said, “I warned you, but you had to come back
here and sniff around.”

  Gabby was shaking so hard she could hardly speak. “I don’t know what to tell you. Margo—”

  “Killed my only son,” Randy said. “But, this is more than that.”

  Gabby noticed Randy resting a gun on his knee and pointed right at Gabby’s face.

  “I don’t… don’t understand,” Gabby said.

  Melanie laughed behind Randy.

  “Want to know what happened to your sister? That little bitch was a fighter, I’ll give her that.”

  Gabby was hauled to her feet.

  “Before you show her,” Jason said throwing the handcuff keys to Randy. “Unlock her. Dean Walker is being a pain in the ass.”

  Randy scoffed at the mention of Dean’s name. “It should have been him that day,” he muttered.

  “What if she tries to run?” Melanie asked.

  Jason put his own gun on the table. “She won’t.”

  Melanie took the pistol from Randy. She put it up to Gabby’s temple. Gabby could feel the cool metal against her skin, and the terror coursed through her veins.

  She was released from the handcuffs. She rubbed her sore wrists. She looked around for anything. A means of escape. A weapon. Something that could aid her.

  “Let me do it,” Melanie said practically licking her lips. “Payback for her little whore sister killing my son.”

  Jason waved his hand. “Too messy in here. We can’t cover it up. You’ll have it soon enough. It's bad enough you two couldn't wait a little longer.”

  Jason forced the phone into Gabby’s hands. She could only stand there and stare at the emergency button.

  “Don’t,” Jason warned. “Send Dean a message you’re all right. That’s it.”

  With shaking fingers, Gabby thought of her message. She looked up at the three in the room watching her expectantly.

  She typed it and handed the phone back to Jason hoping that he wouldn’t notice the double meaning behind her words.

  Satisfied, Jason hit the send button, and Gabby could only wait and see if Dean understood the message.

  Her hands were once again pulled behind her back, and she heard the click of the handcuffs.

  “How much longer do we have to wait?” Melanie asked.

  Melanie was high on something, and that made Gabby fear for her life even more.

  She kept pulling the gun away from Gabby’s temple and putting it back, laughing as if it was some kind of joke.

  “Until I have my father as our alibis,” Jason said. “Take the gun away from her head. We don’t need any accidents right now.”

  Reluctantly, Melanie pulled the gun away.

  She then grabbed Gabby by the throat. It wasn’t hard enough for Gabby to struggle to breathe, but enough to scare her.

  “If it was up to me, your whole family would pay dearly for what they did,” Melanie seethed.

  “Melanie!” Jason scolded. “If you hurt her, then I can’t set it for a suicide.”

  Melanie let go and smiled a toothy yellow grin.

  Randy grabbed Gabby’s arm, and she stumbled behind him while he led her to the next room.

  He fished for a key in his pocket and unlocked the door. Gabby was then shoved into another dark room.

  She only saw outlines of furniture and turned around in confusion.

  “Why am I in here?”

  “I figure you will die soon, and since we have time, I can show you,” Randy said.

  He turned and flicked on a light switch.

  Gabby’s eyes adjusted to the room. It differed from the rest of the shack they were in.

  It was neatly decorated. The walls were a dry-walled plain white with a lamp on one side a bed and a bedside table on the other end.

  A desk with a computer was sitting with some kind of photo album and printer to her left.

  It was what was on the bed that made Gabby catch her breath in her throat.

  At each corner of the bed, there were bondage straps laid neatly across the duvet and on the pillows.

  “What is this?” Gabby whispered.

  Randy laughed behind her.

  “Your sister got a little out of hand with me,” Jason said from behind her. “She originally wasn’t picked, but Randy took a fancy to her.”

  Gabby turned and stared at the two men in disbelief. The shock of what Jason told her sank in.

  Gabby eyes filled with tears. “How could you?” She cried.

  She thought ten years ago her world was turned upside down the day Margo took a gun and shot her classmates. This… this was a whole new level of truth for her.

  It was all coming together now, and it hit Gabby square in the chest like one of the bullets in the gun.

  “What did you do to her?”

  Randy walked over to the photo album. He thumbed through the pages. Gabby could only catch glimpses of the photos.

  She needed to see it but dreaded it at the same time. Her mouth dried up, she couldn’t even find the words to describe what they were saying to her. What she was discovering. What Margo wrote in her diary for the months after she was raped didn’t even touch the surface of what these people put her through.

  Randy held up the photo to Gabby’s face. “Look,” he said.

  Gabby turned away and closed her eyes. She couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to see it.

  Melanie grabbed the back of her head and held her face. “Look,” she wheezed into Gabby’s ears.

  Gabby opened her eyes, and as the picture focused, all she could do was sob.

  Margo was lying on the bed. Naked with her eyes closed. Her hands and feet bound to the bedposts. Gabby could make out other kids—kids she knew from school—standing around the bed with putrid grins on their faces. She heaved when she saw Jake White front and center, hovering over Margo with a huge smirk on his face.

  Gabby looked away from the photo. She couldn’t even breathe. She couldn’t think. All she could do was cry. Cry that her sister went through that kind of torture and her family never knew.

  Why? Why didn’t she tell them?

  There was a night where Margo came home. Gabby heard Margo crying in her room. She knocked on the door and asked if Margo was okay. She remembered Margo yelling at her to go away.

  Now, Gabby wished she barged in. She wished she’d made Margo talk. Somehow.

  Gabby was so repulsed, she thought she would be sick on the floor.

  Then, she became angry. It built like a festering wound inside of her broken heart. A burning fire took hold of her. A fire so bright that her inner thoughts frightened her. Her only thoughts were punishing Randy, Jason, and Melanie at the business end of a gun.

  She balled her handcuffed hands into fists, biting her lip to keep from crying out in despair.

  “We provide drugs, the kids provide girls for sites that specialize in this kind of thing,” Jason explained.

  “And, you get a taste test first,” Gabby said with only revenge on her mind.

  “Not all the time,” Randy spoke up. “Can’t damage the goods.”

  Gabby was dumbfounded by these revelations. How did they do this?

  “How have you gotten away with this for so long?” She asked.

  “The perks of being a cop in a small town. Some very nice local customers too,” Jason said.

  The three of them snickered. Gabby lowered her head. It wasn’t just her sister that suffered at the hands of these monsters, but God knows how many girls over the years.

  “Oh, there have been girls that have threatened us over the years,” Randy explained. “I ran one of them off the road one day. She never bothered us again.”

  “Margo wasn’t any different. She tried. There are times the money and more drugs work, and there are times we have to place threats. We told Margo if she tried anything her family would burn to death in their home,” Jason said.

  Gabby went cold at the confession. She reeled back from the thought there could have been one night they could have all died because of these three.

/>   Gabby’s tears streamed down her face. She was partially in shock trying to process what happened to her sister, and other girls through the years.

  It would never excuse Margo from her actions, but now Gabby couldn’t help but feel somewhat relieved by the answers she was being handed by Jason McConnell and Randy White.

  Gabby was getting nervous. The time was ticking by, and she didn’t know what could happen to her from there. Yes, it was a relief to have answers, but at what price would she pay?

  Would she live long enough to tell the story? Did Dean receive her text? Did he know she was in serious trouble?

  She needed to stall them.

  “Jason. Why?” Gabby asked. “You have a good life and a good career. I don’t understand this.”

  “The good guy act I had my whole life was just that. You never knew me well enough to understand living constantly in my father’s shadow,” Jason said with an obvious bitterness in his voice.

  “We all want to do better than our parents at that age,” Gabby said. “It’s the choices we make as adults that define us. Why do something illegal? Just to get out from under your father’s shadow? It’s not an excuse.”

  “Can we stop talking now and get on with this?” Melanie asked.

  She turned to Gabby and said, “You have room to talk. Your sister killed my only son. My child.”

  “Maybe if Randy hadn’t raped her, you wouldn’t be here now,” Gabby shot back.

  Melanie gave a primordial cry and lunged for Gabby. Gabby was too fast for her and stepped out of the way. Melanie hit the floor hard and turned with rage plastered on her features.

  “I’m going to kill her now,” Melanie yelled.

  Randy helped Melanie from the floor. He grabbed his gun from his jean pocket and held it to Gabby’s head.

  Gabby could feel the sweat forming on her brow. She breathed heavily and froze in place. Her eyes darted towards the door. Where was Dean?

  I love you, she thought. Tell my parents I’m sorry they had to lose another child.

  Jason dispatched his gun from his holster and pointed it Randy’s head.

  “Enough!” He screamed. “We’re partners, remember? I told you I need my father to cover our alibis in case someone sniffs around about her death, you dumbass.”