Dead Weight

by Ragan, T. R.

  Brian’s house. The best looking house in the neighborhood, painted in neutral colors, with a fenced in front yard and lots of trees. She wasn’t sure if Brian’s bodyguard would be in attendance tonight, but there he was. Seeing the muscled man had been hit and miss when she did her drive-bys. But she had covered all her bases, which was exactly why she was wearing the same outfit she’d worn for Dr. Williams.

  After passing Brian’s house, Hayley pulled up to the curb in front of the vacant house next door and shut off the engine. She got out and pretended to examine the back tire. When that was done, she opened the trunk and bent over, making sure Brian’s bodyguard had a good view of her assets.

  “What’s the problem?” she heard a man ask.

  She turned toward the approaching man. “I have a flat tire,” she said, feigning exasperation.

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you call a tow truck?”

  She held up the tire iron in her hand. “I’m in a hurry and that would take forever. I’ll figure it out.” She went to look at the flat tire. She had let out just enough air earlier to make it look flat.

  “Looks like you ran over a nail.”

  “Yeah, looks like it.”

  “You’re going to need a jack.”

  “This is my friend’s car,” she said, leaning her hip against the car in a seductive pose. “Do you know where the jack would be stored?” She chewed on her bottom lip.

  He let his eyes roam over her, his smile broadening. He glanced over his shoulder at Brian’s house, and then looked at her again. “I’ll help you out, but it’s going to cost you.”

  He didn’t need to say another word. She knew exactly what he meant in terms of payment. “Sure, okay, but I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Five minutes of my time and five minutes of yours.”

  She smiled. “Sounds fair to me.”

  He chuckled and then leaned into the trunk in search of the jack.

  Hayley lifted the tire iron and swung hard. She was ready to strike twice, but one good swing was all it took. Working fast, she grunted and heaved until she had the lower half of his body tucked neatly into the trunk. She grabbed the duct tape from her bag and wrapped it around his mouth. Her heart raced as she ripped the tape and then wrapped his ankles and his wrists. She shut the trunk and then slid in behind the wheel. She made a circle and parked her car closer to the apartment complex where few cars were parked. She jumped in the backseat, kicked off the heels and pulled off her skirt and blouse, and then slid on her pants and skull T-shirt. Next, she pulled off the fake eyelashes, using the lining of the skirt to wipe off her eye makeup and lipstick.

  She slid on her shoes and didn’t bother to tie the laces before she grabbed her backpack. She grabbed the bottle of Jose Cuervo that she’d taken from Cathy’s liquor cabinet. She held the bottle up, making sure nobody would be able to tell that the liquor had been tainted. It looked perfect. She’d also found a miniature bottle of scotch, the kind of bottle they used to serve alcohol on airplanes. She unscrewed the cap and swallowed a mouthful, letting the alcohol drizzle down her chin and neck. She took another mouthful, then gargled and spit the rest outside on the street. She rubbed alcohol-covered hands through her hair. Working quickly, she leaned back into the car and this time grabbed the package from Dr. Williams. After carefully unwrapping the contents, she used a piece of duct tape to secure the needle in place.

  She had rehearsed this night so many times, she felt as if she could do it in her sleep.

  She shoved the roll of duct tape into her pack and then looked around the inside of the car, making sure she had everything she needed. Securing her backpack over her right shoulder, she grabbed the tequila and left the car behind.

  The gibbous moon shed enough light to lead Hayley around the side of Brian’s house without tripping over anything. She crept past a row of misshapen garbage canisters.

  The garage door was ajar.

  A shuffling noise inside the garage caused her to freeze. With her back against a stucco wall, she closed her eyes and waited. Footsteps. Shit. She couldn’t move now. Whoever was in the garage was close. Could they see her?

  She could smell smoke. Whoever was in the garage was smoking. Her heart rate soared. She was too close to finishing off Brian to be caught now. The cigarette was tossed just outside the door. A booted toe appeared and snuffed the cigarette bud. The door closed and Hayley took in a breath.

  That was close.

  She crept around to the backyard. There was a covered hot tub and a lot of dead plants. Someone had started a garden because even in the dark, Hayley could see what looked like a couple of Roma tomatoes hanging off the vine.

  She counted the windows on the house: One. Two. Three. Lizzy had access to a lot of county records. Hayley probably could have googled the house plans; either way she knew Brian owned the house and she knew the third window belonged to the master bedroom. Logic told her that Brian slept in the master bedroom. Logic also told her that was the room where Brian would take her.

  She set her backpack on the ground directly beneath the window, figuring she’d be able to lean out the window later and grab her things when the time came.

  She returned to the front of the house, inhaled another deep breath of fresh air, and headed for the front entry.

  It was finally time for her long awaited reunion with Brian.

  Chapter 37

  A Long and Winding Road

  Lizzy had been driving around for six hours, taking any and every long winding road that led to a mountain cabin. She’d knocked on a few doors, peeked through windows, made a lot of calls and talked to more than a few townspeople in and around the Reno, Nevada area, asking if they knew of a lodge with a painted sign.

  It was getting dark and she had yet to find one wooden sign with flowers painted on it. She had just filled up her gas tank for the third time when she picked up her phone on the first ring.

  “I found it! The sign that Debra drew matches this exactly. It’s the Evergreen Lodge. The reason Debra couldn’t see the name of the lodge is because the letters are painted the same brown as the wood. Everything else on the sign is white.”

  Lizzy pulled to the side of the gas station parking lot where people could put air in their tires. She put the car in park and hit the menu button on the navigation system. “What’s the address?”

  Jessica gave her the address and Lizzy punched in some numbers, messed up, and started over again until she got the hang of the navigation system. She finally managed to type in the street name and number, knowing she would still have her work cut out for her once she found the street.

  “Have you heard from Hayley?” Jessica asked.

  “No. I’ve been calling all day. I think she shut her phone off,” Lizzy said.

  Jessica sighed. “I never should have lent her my mother’s car.”

  “If you need to get home, call Cathy. I’m sure she’d be glad to pick you up and take you wherever you need to go.”

  “That’s okay. I’m fine. Hannah and I will keep each other company until Hayley returns. Call me if you find the cabin.”

  “I will,” Lizzy said. “Call me if you hear from Hayley.”

  It took Lizzy twenty minutes to find the sign. She made the right turn as instructed and followed the narrow, winding road. She took it slow, keeping an eye out as she drove. The cabins were few and far between.

  Debra had said they drove for a while before finally stopping. Lizzy figured she would head for the top of the mountain and work her way down. She’d already called Detective Roth, who was not happy that she’d headed to the mountains without telling him where she was going. Although he was annoyed with her, she could also tell that he wasn’t surprised. He was a nice man with two grown children and a wife who kept his dinner warm. He was satisfied with his life and it showed. With all the murder and mayhem, they were becoming fast friends.

  Lizzy pulled over and lower
ed her window when she saw a woman getting groceries from her trunk. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a secluded cabin on this very street that I believe is owned by Anthony Melbourne. Do you know where that might be?”

  “I don’t recognize the name, but if you go to the top,” the woman offered, “there are three more cabins. The one on the top is brand new. Before you get to the top, though, a few miles up the road, in fact, you’ll see a turn-off. It doesn’t look like much, but there’s a long trail. The kids and I take walks over there every once in a while, but the path dead-ends. At that point, at least in the daylight, if you look uphill you can see the roof of a small cabin in the middle of the woods. We’ve never bothered to go all the way to see who lives there, but since I’ve never heard of the name Melbourne perhaps that’s his cabin.” She shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t be of more help than that.”

  “You have been a huge help. Thanks.”

  The woman continued unpacking as Lizzy drove off. After a few miles, just as the woman had described, there was a turn off. Lizzy grabbed her cell phone, figuring she could use the free flashlight application to see where the hell she was going. She stepped out of the car. The temperature had dropped drastically; Sacramento would still be hot and sultry. Not so in Nevada.

  ***

  Sierra Mountains, Day 72

  Vivian sat on the bed, her foot propped on a pillow before her. The knife in her hand was the sharpest knife she could find. It had a good heavy weight to it and the blade was sharp. She looked at her foot and examined it closely to determine where the best place would be to cut through skin and bone.

  She had already ripped a sheet into strips of cloth. She would use a few of those as a tourniquet. There was no alcohol to drink, which would have been nice under the circumstances.

  Cutting through bone was not going to be easy but she had found a meat tenderizer that she planned to use to break the bone if need be. She would have to cut through tendons and muscle. Severing the nerve would hurt the most. Other people had amputated their arms and legs to free themselves. There was no reason why she couldn’t do the same.

  She had been thinking about it for days. Planning, gathering tools. She could do this. She had no choice, she told herself.

  Diane was dead. The scrawled note beneath the tabletop said it all. Diane had been here. And nobody had seen her since.

  Vivian had thought it was strange that Melbourne had accepted her into the program so quickly, but now she knew why. She had called him more than once. She had asked too many questions. She knew too much.

  What bothered Vivian most these past few days was that she’d realized what a waste her life had been. She was smart. She should have gone to a doctor and found a way to work with her weight and her loneliness.

  Others had done it.

  After getting help, Vivian could have gone to school and made something of herself. Lots of people had controlling mothers who drove them up the wall. Many young girls had lost their fathers at an impressionable age.

  Vivian should have told her mom to leave her alone. She never should have taken her mom’s word as gospel. Vivian had done nothing wrong. She wasn’t a failure. She was strong and she would prove it.

  Trapped in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, she thought, and now suddenly everything seemed clear. Timing was everything.

  The cabin was only slightly bigger than her apartment. She rarely went outside when she was home, but as soon as she’d been cuffed and chained, she’d wanted nothing more than her freedom. Melbourne didn’t realize he might have found a cure for much more than weight loss. Isolate people by force and suddenly they want to live and see the world!

  She laughed: a bitter laugh, but still a laugh.

  Ready to be free, she took hold of the knife and held it steady, the blade hovering over her flesh at the smallest part of her ankle. She could do this, she told herself.

  Before she made her first slice, the door to the cabin swung open.

  Quickly, she used the blanket to cover her leg, the knife, and the strips of cloth. No footsteps or rattling of a key had warned her that somebody was coming.

  It was Jane.

  And yet for the first time, she realized it wasn’t Jane at all. She knew that face. She and Diane used Skype when they chatted. No wonder she had recognized the woman the first time she paid her a visit. The woman standing before her had the same blue eyes, the same face as her friend, Diane.

  It was Diane’s sister, Andrea Kramer.

  “What have you done with Diane? Where is she?”

  Andrea set her backpack on the floor. She sighed and took a seat on the edge of the pull-out bed. Vivian Hardy looked a hundred times better than she had when she first came to the cabin. “You look great. It’s such a pity that you’re not going to be able to show off your weight loss to your friends and family.”

  “I could care less about my weight loss,” Vivian said. “Even when I joined WWW where I met Diane, I only wanted to lose a few pounds. More than anything, I wanted to make new friends.”

  “Aren’t you glad you met Diane?” Andrea asked with disdain. “If you’d never met her, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, now would you?”

  “Diane cared about everybody she ever met. She was the best friend I ever had.”

  Andrea shot to her feet in a flash. “You don’t have to preach to me about all of Diane’s wonderful attributes. Her friends called her an angel sent from heaven, which is why I did her a favor by sending her back to the place where she belongs.”

  “You killed your own sister! I tried to warn Diane about you, but she wouldn’t listen. There wasn’t anything in this world that she wouldn’t do for you.”

  “Diane was fat. She was selfish and she was weak.”

  “She was the most compassionate being I’ve ever met in my life.”

  Andrea couldn’t bear to listen to such mindless chatter. She went to the kitchen, shuffled around through the drawers and came back into the room with a butcher knife. Somebody needed to shut the fat bitch up once and for all.

  Chapter 38

  First Time for Everything

  Hayley knocked on the front door again, louder this time. The loser who opened the door was approximately the same width and height as Brian, but that’s where the resemblance ended.

  “I need to talk to Brian,” Hayley said.

  “Where is Tango?” the guy asked.

  She shrugged, and then squeezed her way past him when he stepped outside to take a look around.

  Hayley walked into the living room and found herself standing before Brian and one of his many woman friends. They sat side by side on a beige, well-used couch playing video games, both pointing their controllers at the television.

  The woman with long brown hair stopped what she was doing and looked at Hayley. She looked stoned out of her mind. Brian looked more like a rock star than a drug dealer with his thin, muscled body and black spiky hair.

  It took a moment longer for Brian to look up at her. His head tilted to the side as he said, “What the fuck?”

  Hayley set the bottle of tequila she’d brought on the table in front of them. She pretended to sway as she raked her fingers through already tangled hair. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Where the fuck is Tango?”

  “Your boy at the door asked about him, too. Who’s Tango?”

  Brian shouted the name, Mike, telling him to find Tango so he could have a talk with the man.

  Hayley figured Tango must be the guy in the trunk of Jessica’s car. It had taken every bit of strength she had to get the lower half of Tango’s body into the trunk. Dead weight was heavier than shit.

  Keeping her expression deadpan with just enough innocence wasn’t easy. She looked at Brian and said, “Can we talk?”

  “I’ve heard things about you. If you have something to say to me, say it.”

  She straightened and looked at the woman. “In front of your friend?”

  “You’ve never been the shy type.
”

  She swallowed, wondering how her plan could possibly work with three against one. Mike, the guy who had answered the door came back inside and took a seat. “Tango must have run to the store,” he told Brian. “He’ll be back.” He grabbed the tequila Hayley had brought and drank from the bottle.

  The woman elbowed the guy and told him to save some for the rest of them.

  Unfortunately Brian wasn’t taking the bait.

  Lizzy’s words played through her mind...you’re one of the smart ones, Hayley. She didn’t feel too smart at the moment. She had to think fast.

  Brian relaxed a little and released a bored sigh. “What’s the problem, Hayley?”

  With everything to lose, Hayley began unzipping her jeans, slowly, as if she were going to do a strip tease for Brian and his friends. “When you’re fucked at such a young age,” Hayley said in the sexiest voice she could muster, “it screws with your mind and pretty soon you don’t care who you’re screwing as long as you’re doing someone.” She let out a crazy laugh. “Remember what you used to tell me about your dick?”

  The girl with the luxurious hair got a chuckle out of that. She used her elbow to jab the other guy. “Turn off that crap. I want to know what Brian used to say about his dick.”

  The room was silent. All eyes were on Hayley.

  Brian came to his feet and threw his gaming controller on his empty seat. “Looks like I’ll have to take care of this in private after all.”

  A couple of steps brought him to Hayley’s side. He grabbed the back of her neck and began to steer her out of the room, towards the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” the woman asked.

  “Don’t you be jealous, sweetie. This will only take a minute.” He snickered and then looked at his friend. “And there’s plenty to go around.”

  Brian grabbed Hayley’s arm instead and pulled her down the hall and into a bedroom to the left. Unlike Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, Brian’s room was remarkably tidy. But he took her to the wrong room.