“Shit,” Bill said, looking down at his watch. “I’m going to be late.”
He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and dashed out the door to take the bus downtown. Bill rarely, if ever, drove. The transit system in Seattle could get him to just about anywhere he needed to go. Bill looked out the window of the bus, watching the people as they hurried to their jobs, thinking what a joke it all was. He could make what they made in a year in only a few days.
The bus stopped at 6th Street, and Bill stood up to signal this was his stop. He exited the bus and looked at the address scribbled on the small piece of paper. His destination was nearly six blocks away, but it was a nice day. It wasn’t too hot, a soft breeze blew, and the pollution of the city wasn’t heavy like usual.
Bill stopped and looked at the number on the building and paused to check the address.
“This must be it,” he whispered and knocked on the door.
A tall woman walked toward the door, opened it, and stepped backward. Bill stepped inside and looked at the empty space, wondering where exactly he was going to install the program when it didn’t look like the company was ready to open and none of the computers were installed.
“I have to admit, I’m a bit confused,” Bill said and turned to the woman. His mouth dropped open as the hammer struck him in the head.
“Hello, Bill,” she said while dragging a chair over to the beam where she had tied his hands behind his back. “Do you remember me?”
Jane reached up with her right hand and removed her sunglasses, allowing them to fall to the floor at his feet. She sat down in the chair and crossed her legs.
“This isn’t possible,” Bill whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You didn’t think I would allow you to live after what you did to me, did you? Or did you think that since a year had passed after the death of Jack that maybe I had put the past behind me?”
She leaned in close to him, close enough that Bill could feel Jane’s warm breath on the skin of his neck.
“What do you want, an apology?” Bill asked with sarcasm.
Jane laughed and shook her head before reaching into her coat pocket and removing a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and said nothing.
“What do you want?” Bill shouted.
“Hmm, now that is a many sided question, isn’t it? I want the life I had back, the life I had before I waited on you and those disgusting pigs at the restaurant that day, but we all know that can’t happen, so I will settle for something else.”
“I have money. You can have a comfortable life,” Bill offered, nearly pleading.
“Why would I want money? You see, if I allow you to live, then you might decide to do this to another woman, and I just can’t allow that to happen.”
Jane leaned forward, putting the cigarette out on Bill’s cheek. He didn’t scream. He just glared at her.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to scream now. I understand that,” Jane whispered into his ear. “But you will scream later, I promise.”
Jane pulled a vial of Ativan from her jacket pocket and filled the syringe to 5 cc, which would be enough to relax Bill. She then loaded 2 cc of Dilaudid, a strong pain killer, that would keep Bill unconscious until she got him outside the city. She injected the drug cocktail directly into his jugular and went to retrieve the large rug in the next room.
She returned, waited for approximately thirty minutes before cutting the zipties securing Bill, and allowed him to fall face first on the concrete before rolling him up in an old piece of carpet and dragging him to the loading dock doors. Jane backed up the old Ford truck and pulled the rug containing her captive into the bed of the truck then secured it with duct tape. It was only a two hour drive to the Oregon border and the abandoned cabin she had found, but Jane couldn’t afford to take any chances or an unexpected escape. As the Tannau cover dropped closed and locked, Jane smiled.
“One down, two to kill,” she whispered.
Bill was groggy as he attempted to open his eyes and focus them on something, anything that might give him insight into where she had taken him.
“You’re awake, I’m Jane, by the way,” she extended her hand, laughing. “Sorry, guess formal introductions aren’t necessary between us, are they?”
Jane pulled a folding chair, like the kind people took on camping trips, next to the support beams of the cabin where Bill was tied down. “You can scream all you want. No one will hear you.” She laughed and looked down at him, smiling. “That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Are you getting your kicks doing this?” Bill screamed.
“Maybe, maybe not, it isn’t about me, remember, it’s about you. What would you like to happen?” Her smile turned to a hearty laugh that filled the cabin. “I forgot, you don’t have any say in this, just like I didn’t have any say in what you did to me.”
Jane reached into the duffle-bag and pulled out a ball-peen hammer, rolling the handle up and down the length of her thigh before lurching forward suddenly and striking Bill’s left collar bone. The sound of an audible snap of the bone was followed by Bill’s screams as Jane looked at him with no emotion. She lifted the hammer over her head a second time and Bill began to plead.
“Please, please don’t,” he begged.
Jane sat the hammer on the floor, sat down in the chair, and leaned closer to him, waiting for him to plead with her again.
“I suppose I should show a little bit of mercy,” she said, leaning back in the worn chair, a leftover remnant of when the old hunting cabin was once treasured by someone.
His eyes closed as Bill sighed deeply. “You’re going to kill all of us, aren’t you?”
“Maybe, why do you care? You’ll be dead before tomorrow night. You didn’t think I was going to show you that much mercy, did you?”
Bill looked into her eyes, into the eyes of the woman, who had called herself Jane, and saw zero emotion as her eyes looked coldly back at him.
“I guess we deserve that,” he whispered, attempting to make peace with what he had done and how his life was about to end.
“I would offer you some Dilaudid to numb the pain, but I’m sure you understand this is personal.”
He watched as Jane walked to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. It was dusk, the sun was just beginning to drop below the horizon and was barely visible through the forest outside the door. Tears welled in Bill’s eyes while realizing this was how his life was going to end.
Jane stood watching the sunset, remembering how it was the only view she had when she lay tied to the bed as they brutally raped her over and over again. Her demeanor changed immediately as Jane turned and walked inside, closing the door behind her.
Bill watched as she reached into the duffle-bag, removed what appeared to be a photograph, and something held tightly in her left hand that was carefully obscured. Jane laid the picture in the center of his chest, picked up the hammer, and placed an 18 penny nail in the center, striking it quickly, and driving the nail through the picture, and into Bill’s heart. His screams filled the cabin, pouring out through the missing windows and into the blackness of the night.
“A little inspiration to help me stay focused on the task at hand, and a little something to keep you still. The less you move, Bill, the longer you will live. Right now, that nail is sealing the hole it left in your heart, but if you struggle too much, then you will slowly bleed to death. How long you live is up to you.”
Bill attempted to muffle his panicked cries as Jane turned to pull a pair of pliers out of her bag. “You know, the internet really is a wonderful way to find someone when you know what their name is. I suppose none of you thought about the fact that I might escape, so keeping your identities a secret really didn’t matter.” She turned around to look at Bill, opening and closing the needle-nosed pliers in her right hand. “I’m so glad you didn’t believe escape was possible.”
She smiled, looking down at him. “So which do you prefer first, toenails or fingernail
s?”
An hour later, Jane had a tablet sitting on her lap as Bill opened his eyes. “So, I was thinking about your offer, and a girl could always use some money. I have all the information for you to route a large sum into my offshore account, I just need your banking information.”
“Fuck you,” Bill said with hatred in his voice.
Jane scoffed at his remark. “I guess I should have told you, I already hacked your accounts. You don’t have a penny to your name. It looks like you set up an offshore account with your girlfriend and transferred your money there. Did I mention you also bought two one way tickets that will be redeemed by the end of the week? This was your chance to live, Billy dear, and you blew it by not being polite.”
His breathing was labored as the continuous beating of his heart allowed more and more blood to seep into his chest cavity.
“Are you thirsty?” Jane asked while dipping a rag into a bowl of water. She held it over Bill’s cracked lips, squeezing the rag just enough to wet his lips. “I could give you more to drink, if you asked nicely.”
Bill stared at her, noting how that beautiful innocence they prized, so deeply, was absent from her expression. Their actions had created a cold blooded killer who had no remorse.
“Who’s next on your list? Jonathan?”
“Why would I kill the man who saved me, who allowed me to become what I am today?”
“You were never going to let me live. You’re no better than any of us now,” Bill struggled to whisper.
“But I am different because I don’t kidnap women, rape them, kill them, or put them face down in some unmarked grave somewhere for a few grand in my pocket.”
“You’re still a murderer,” Bill replied, hoping to convince Jane that she was the same as them.
“That’s where you are wrong, Bill. I am much more dangerous than you or your friends when it all comes down to it. Vengeance is… satisfying, and I have nothing else to lose. I’m a nameless face in the crowd. The world thinks I’m dead.”
Bill attempted to spit in her face but found his mouth was too dry. Jane leaned closer to Bill with an expressionless face
“Do you know how Jack died?” Jane asked as she began walking around Bill’s body as it lay on the dirt floor. “It wasn’t torture that killed him. He suffocated.”
Bill’s eyes were beginning to glaze over as Jane knelt next to him. “Let me whisper it in your ear, Bill, because you’re going to die the exact same way.”
His head turned as the glint of candlelight reflected off the scalpel Jane held in her hand. He understood what exactly she was about to do long before Jane whispered it into his ear.
“Just do it,” he managed to say. “Just get it over with and let me die.”
But dying would not be so easy, as Bill quickly learned, and Jane allowed him to languish until the moment came for him to die in the same manner as Jack Stryker.
Jane had a grave waiting for him, but Bill Hyndes’ final resting place did not hold his body until countless photographs were taken, including a close-up of the picture of Bill laughing with his hand over Jane’s face as he raped her, it was the picture that was nailed to his chest.
“Detective Halloran, this arrived for you,” Officer Benton said and handed off the envelope. He stared at the post-mark for a moment. “Who the hell do I know in Oregon?” he mumbled before tearing open the manilla envelope and removing the contents. He rifled through the pictures and quickly realized whoever had sent him these photos was the same person who had murdered Jack Stryker.
“Get Jonathan Masby over at Briggs and Dalton Law on the phone right now. Tell him to come to the station,” Halloran ordered and sat down in his chair.
He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, slipped them on, and began carefully examining the photographs, which all appeared to have been taken inside an old abandoned hunting cabin somewhere.
“Jesus,” he mumbled, looking at the last picture, and what was being shoved into the man’s mouth. He stared at the word rapist burnt into the skin of the dead man’s stomach. “This is more than personal.”
Chapter Twelve
Clues, Questions, Closure
Jonathan walked into the precinct and searched for Detective Halloran. The Detective stood, motioning for Jonathan to join him at his desk.
“It seems she isn’t finished yet,” he said, tossing the photographs across the desk at Jonathan. “Your friend Jack is in the background of that picture.”
Slowly, Jonathan pulled the pictures closer so he could see them. “Jesus,” he whispered upon seeing Bill in the photograph and how horrible he looked.
“Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”
Jonathan pushed the pictures away from him and turned his head, attempting not to become sick as the images of what happened in the cabin flooded his mind.
“Look, I haven’t stayed in contact with them since graduation. We all went our separate ways. I still can’t believe Jack or Bill would be involved in something like this,” Jonathan lied and placed his hand over his mouth.
“You want a trash-can?” the Detective asked. Jonathan shook his head no.
“You know, I find it hard to believe that you would spend four years of your life with these guys and not know they were like this.”
“Was Jack a womanizer in college, the answer to that would be yes. Hell, he was good looking. He had his pick of any sorority sweetheart he wanted, but nothing ever was said about him doing anything like this. Jack would have been expelled.”
“What about the other man in the picture? How do you know him?”
“His name is Bill Hyndes. He and I were friends…” Jonathan’s voice trailed off, wondering how much longer Detective Halloran was going to question him.”
“So he was like your other friend, Jack, then?”
“No, not at all, Bill and Jack weren’t anything alike. Bill was really shy, his family didn’t have a lot of money. I don’t think he even had a girlfriend in college.”
Halloran nodded his head and reached for the pictures. “You know what disturbs me the most about these pictures?”
Jonathan shook his head no.
“Whoever was holding the camera hasn’t turned up dead yet.”
Jonathan nodded his head again. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was the next one on Jane’s list.
“I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions,” the Detective said and then watched Jonathan leave.
He pulled a letter similar to the one left on Jack Stryker’s body out of the envelope, comprised of words cut out of different magazines.
“Two down, one to go,” the note read, which puzzled Detective Halloran. Three men had been visible in the pictures the murderer had sent him plus whoever was behind the camera.
“Either she killed whoever is behind that camera first or they’re helping her,” Halloran mumbled. His statement couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jonathan sat in his car with his head resting against the wheel wondering what Jane was going to do next and grateful he had managed to avoid being present when James Griggs, and his friends, had been taking pictures for the sick scrapbook he kept. It didn’t take too much thought to figure out he used those pictures as leverage, for blackmail against their client list, if the need ever arose.
His hand rested on the key as it sat in the ignition. Jonathan started his car and drove back to the office. He barely said a word to Sherri as he walked past her, went directly to his office, and closed the door.
Sherri quickly followed Jonathan and entered his office without knocking.
“What is it?” she asked while closing the door behind her.
“Bill Hyndes is dead.”
“Oh my,” Sherri whispered and sat down. “Is there anything I can do?”
“She’s killing us one by one, Sherri, and it’s brutal and very personal. She is making us pay for what was done to her.”
Sherri didn’t respond
and remained quiet as Jonathan stood and looked out the window.
“I don’t blame her. She has every right,” Jonathan said as he looked at the street below, all the people hustling to catch a cab or running to the subway entrance were clueless about the dark things that happened in the world. He wished he didn’t know the dark side of humanity now that he had experienced it firsthand.
“I need to make a will, Sherri, just in case,” Jonathan said without emotion.
Sherri stood, unsure what to do or say. They were still working through everything that had happened. She looked at her engagement ring and twisted it.
“I want to make sure you get everything in the event something happens. Would you ask Tom to do it for me?”
“Yes,” Sherri whispered, turning to the door, and wiping the tears from her face. “Maybe you should tell the police the truth. Maybe they could stop her. You helped her escape, Jonathan. That should count for something,” she said with her hand resting on the door knob.”
“I don’t want to, Sherri. I should have killed all of them the minute I knew what was happening and I didn’t. The truth is… this is exactly what we deserve.”
Two days later, the headlines of the Seattle newspaper read ‘Man found brutally murdered’ as Jane sat in her hotel room in downtown Seattle. She picked up her backpack and left the newspaper lying in the center of the bed as the door closed behind her.
Jane secured her bag to the back of her motorcycle and put on her helmet. She watched the people walking by her completely oblivious to what she had done, which caused Jane to smile.
“Two down, one to go,” she whispered before starting her motorcycle and leaving Seattle behind her.
The road ahead of her would be a long one. The information she had found about James Griggs on the internet showed his liquor licenses for his various establishments in Nevada and in Texas. There were a handful of Big Jim’s Gentleman’s Clubs registered to James Griggs in three states. Evidently, kidnapping women and raping them had been a profitable business for him.
The Collectors: Revenge Becomes Her Page 11