The Collectors: Revenge Becomes Her

by Hargrove Perth

  As Jane turned onto the highway, she smiled, wondering how long it would take before the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would show up at the club in Nevada. She desperately wanted to be there when they arrived so she could see his face when the ATF shut down the club and began looking for the illegal guns she reported. It wasn’t going to happen that way, of course, but it still made Jane smile. She had saved the best revenge for last.

  Four days later, Jane arrived in Reno. She was tired and glad it was late in the evening. At least she didn’t have to contend with mid-day Nevada heat.

  She considered getting a hotel room but decided to scout out the area and see if that would be a wise idea. Despite using an alias, Jane knew she couldn’t be too careful. After driving around Reno for an hour, Jane decided to go straight to Gentleman Jim’s and see if it was open for business.

  Jane was surprised to see the parking lot full of cars and motorcycles. A sign on the marquee had some obscure local band’s name as the headliner for Friday night.

  She pulled her key out of the ignition and dropped the kickstand. Jane ran a brush through her hair and unzipped her backpack. Using the mirror on her motorcycle, she quickly put on enough makeup to draw her target’s attention. She unbuttoned the top three buttons on her blouse, allowing her bra to show, and walked to the front door.

  Jane pushed the door open, walked inside, and went to the bar on the far side of the building. James was tending bar. He looked right at Jane and didn’t recognize her.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked while looking down her shirt.

  “The girls don’t talk,” Jane said and laughed, which made James smile. “Jack and Coke.”

  “You got it,” James said and turned to pick up a rock glass.

  She watched carefully as he mixed the drink to make sure he didn’t slip anything into it. The last thing Jane could afford was to end up drugged and in the back room.

  James slid the drink over, smiling. “James,” he said, “but you can call me Jim.”

  “Jennie,” Jane lied. “You aren’t looking for a bartender, are you? I’m looking for a temporary job to tide me over.”

  “I might be able to get you twenty hours a week. It isn’t much, but it’s all I have right now. It’s been a hell of a week. Some asshole tried to pull some shit and called the ATF. ”

  “Damn, who’d you piss off?” Jane asked and waited for a response but didn’t get one. “Twenty hours, That’ll work.” Jane leaned over the bar, pressing her arms against her breasts to enhance them. “You don’t mind paying me under the table, do you? I need to stay under the radar if you know what I mean?”

  James traced the line between her breasts with his index finger. “Oh, I think we could work something out.”

  An hour later, Jane was tending bar with James watching every single move she made. The customers seemed to like her. She smiled a lot and used how attractive she was to flirt with the guys at the bar.

  “This is going to work out great,” James whispered while staring at her, wishing it was closing time.

  Jane occasionally threw a wink in his direction with a smile. She couldn’t wait for closing time either, though what James thought he was going to get and what Jane was prepared to give him were two completely different things.

  Finally, it was 2 a.m. Jim locked the door and immediately went behind the bar. He wrapped his arms around Jane’s waist and pulled her close to him.

  “Right here, on the bar? Don’t you have a storage room or an office,” Jane said as she pushed his arms away from her waist.

  One thing James did not take from a woman was rejection. He grabbed Jane by the hair and pulled her toward him. As Jane stumbled backward, she grabbed a fifth of Vodka and spun around quickly, striking James in the right temple. He dropped to his knees but was far from unconscious. Jane didn’t hesitate to break the bottle of vodka over the back of James Griggs’s head.

  An hour later, James slowly came to and looked at his surroundings. He was on the stage tied with a phone cord between the two stripper poles. All the lights were off except the stage lights.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” James shouted.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you like foreplay?” Jane asked as she stepped onto the stage.

  James laughed and shook his head.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” Jane asked and slowly began unbuttoning her shirt. She slipped off her bra and dropped it on his chest.

  “Should I? James asked.

  “I’m disappointed,” Jane replied before sitting on James’s chest. “See these scars. They are courtesy of you. I would have thought I made a memorable impression.”

  James stared at the cigarette burns on her breasts, trying to remember where he knew the woman from and why she was here now.

  “Let me refresh your memory. The last time I saw you, your friend just had his brains blown out at close range with a double barrel shotgun.” She leaned closer to James, her lips nearly touching his. “My name was Jane.”

  His eyes grew wide as fear washed over his face. “Look, I’m sorry. It was Greg’s idea, not mine.”

  “I hardly believe that,” Jane said, leaning backward and reaching for the duct tape at her side. “I’m sorry, but unlike our experience at the cabin, screams being heard just wouldn’t work.”

  Jane tore several pieces of duct tape off the roll, covered his mouth, and wrapped the other pieces around James’s wrists to ensure he couldn’t pull his hands free.

  “Now to see what I can find. Be back soon,” she said and smiled while standing.

  She disappeared down the hallway and opened the door to the stockroom, looking for anything that would be painful. A bottle of muratic acid sat on the second shelf. Jane knew from working at the restaurant it was often used to brighten dull grout. A thin smile came to her lips as she picked up the bottle and grabbed a funnel off the shelf.

  “I’m back,” Jane said, holding up the bottle of muratic acid so James could see it. She took the lid off the bottle and sat it next to him on the floor before disappearing behind the bar to search for knife. When she returned, Jane used the knife to split his shirt and laid the knife on the floor next to him.

  “I could drip the word rapist onto your torso until it ate a hole into your guts…” she stopped speaking, looked down at James, and waited for some sort of reaction. Jane shook her head.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to play?”

  She could see the anger in his eyes as James glared at her, knowing that if he could somehow free himself, he would gladly kill her.

  Jane picked up the knife and drove it into his shoulder. His screams were muffled by the layers of duct tape covering his mouth.

  “You know, it really is a shame that I won’t have the opportunity to hear you scream like Jack and Bill did. I’m sorry.”

  She slowly pulled the knife free from his left shoulder and reached into her bag to retrieve the ball peen hammer.

  “Have you ever shattered your kneecap? I hear it is quite painful,” Jane whispered as she raised the hammer over her head and struck his right knee as hard as she could and heard the shattering of the bone.

  James continued to scream as she broke his left kneecap, then his left and right collar bones. When the screaming stopped, Jane realized she needed to wait. He needed to be awake for her final moment of revenge.

  She walked to the bar and made herself a drink, as James lay unconscious. She took the bar rag and cleaned everything, wiping down the bar, all the glasses she had touched, and the bottles. Not that it mattered, her fingerprints weren’t on file anywhere. Jane had never been in trouble in her life, not even a single traffic ticket. She was dead as far as the world knew, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

  Once she heard James beginning to stir, she carried the glass with her and sat down on the floor.

  “Well, it’s nearly five. I suppose I should get on with it,” Jane said looking at her watch. �
�You probably have a cleaning crew who comes in the morning to get this place ready, and I sure as hell don’t want to be here when they arrive.”

  Jane took the knife and cut a small slit in the duct tape over James’s mouth. She inserted the funnel and taped it securely in place as James fought against her.

  “I hear muratic acid is rather corrosive,” she said while picking up the bottle and holding it over the funnel. She poured it into the funnel with her right hand and reached around with her left to pinch his nose closed so James couldn’t breathe, knowing eventually it would force him to swallow.

  His face was red while holding his breath, fighting against Jane without success. Finally, he swallowed and Jane removed her hand from his nose then poured the rest of the acid into the funnel.

  She sat back and watched him gag while struggling as the acid ate his esophagus and stomach. He coughed and blood gurgled up through the funnel. Jane reached over with the rag from the bar wrapped around her hand and pulled the funnel and the duct tape free, watching as his liquefied insides slowly trickled out his mouth.

  Jane watched for nearly thirty minutes as he slowly died, then she used his phone to take pictures of his corpse. She carried her glass to the bar, washed it, put on her shirt and buttoned it before letting herself out the backdoor, never looking back.

  Three weeks later, Jane dropped the phone in the mail, addressed to Detective Halloran. She hoped the women on James Griggs’ phone could be identified and their families would finally find peace.

  She smiled while walking away from the post office in Southern California, stepped onto the boardwalk, and watched the sun begin to rise over the beach. Jane was finally free.

  Epilogue

  “Jonathan, this was delivered for you,” Sherri said, as she stepped into his office. It wasn’t unusual for the florist to make deliveries to Jonathan. Families often sent flowers in gratitude after their court cases were finalized. To date, he had prosecuted over seventy-five men and women, all charged with sex trafficking.

  He pulled the bow loose from the plain white box and removed the lid. Inside were a dozen red roses, not exactly the norm in what was generally sent, along with a single card. Jonathan lifted the envelope from the box, tore it open, and removed the card. It read, ‘Eternally grateful, Jane’.

  The card fell from his hand as Jonathan looked out the third story window of his office to see a woman, dressed in black, leaning against a motorcycle, looking up toward his office. He ran from his office, down three flights of stairs, and into the street, but Jonathan was too late. The woman Detective Halloran aptly named Jane Doe was already gone.

  Jane sat on the deck of the cabin with her laptop in front of her - the same cabin where three men raped her mercilessly for days. She stared at the sun as it dropped below the mountains, casting shades of red across the serene water of the lake.

  She had a new life now, a new identity, thanks to Kathleen, who called in a few favors, and transferred the title of the cabin out of the fictitious name James Griggs had it registered under, and into Jane’s new name. With the money she had stolen from Bill Hyndes, Jane could live a comfortable, quiet life, and no one would be the wiser. Wise investments would allow her to live off the interest if she was careful. Yet, somehow, Jane didn’t feel complete. She felt there was more to be done.

  Her eyes scanned the pending ad on a nationally known advertising forum and hoped the keywords she used to tag the ad would reach those who needed help.

  Are you a female, a victim of violence? There is help. There is someone who can set things right.

  The phone number listed was one set up through a scrambled signal that crossed several internet providers, which could be sent to any phone. Disposable phones with internet access were easy to get and difficult to trace, if you knew how to mask them, and thanks to Kathleen, Jane knew more about how to stay under the radar than even some of the best conspiracy theorists. Jane smiled, knowing she had found her true calling in life and silently thanked Jonathan for saving her. Her hand hovered over the keyboard before she hit the key to post the ad.

  She thought about Carol, and the countless women like her, who needed help, who needed someone who could help them disappear and start over, who needed someone who wasn’t afraid of an abuser and who would set things straight…

  Within 15 minutes, her phone rang.

  “Yes,” Jane said.

  “I need help,” a woman said on the other end of the line, her voice trembling with fear. “Can you help me?”

  “Where can I meet you?” Jane asked then listened as the woman gave the address of a local coffee shop located close to where the terrified woman lived.

  “Wednesday, 3 o’clock, I’ll be wearing a black leather jacket and blue sunglasses.”

  Jane disconnected the call. She had exactly 72 hours to make it to New Hampshire…