by Lane Hart
What would normally be a two-hour drive to our first stop, Warsaw, during the day only takes a little over an hour on the dark, empty roads. I pull in to the first hotel we come to that only has a few cars in the lot. It’s not even close to a five-star resort based on the brick, one-level row of a dozen or so rooms that sit across from the office that’s painted a bright orange, but I’m sure it’s the kind of place that deals in cash, not cards, and can’t afford a security camera. I doubt Tessa or I will get much sleep tonight, but hopefully we can come up with a good plan for our two locals before we head down to Sneads Ferry.
As soon as I kill the engine on my bike and put the kickstand down, I climb off and ask Tessa, “So, what do you think of your first ride?”
“That was…exciting I guess,” she says, working with shaking fingers to undo her chin strap. “A little scary, but in a good way.”
“You eventually get used to the near-death experience and enjoy the freedom more each time.”
“If you say so,” she replies with an uneasy smile.
“You mind staying right here while I go get us some rooms?” I ask. “I’ll be able to see you from the windows but would prefer if the clerk didn’t get a good look at you in case…”
“In case shit goes sideways?” she supplies.
“Right. That,” I agree because with her red hair and beauty, she’s not someone people forget. “I’ll make it quick.”
“Sure,” she replies, even though I can see the fear in her eyes of being out here in a strange place alone.
“If anyone shows up, I’ll see them coming and be out here before they come within ten feet of you,” I promise.
“Okay,” she replies with a nod, so I start toward the door.
“Verek, wait!” Tessa calls out when I’m about to open the door, making me cringe because I didn’t want anyone around here knowing my name. I freeze, assuming she’s going to insist on coming inside with me, showing the clerk her face, when instead she says, “Just one room not two.”
“You sure?” I ask in surprise.
“Yes. Two beds.”
“Of course,” I assure her, knowing her boundaries.
Inside, an old man with more salt than pepper in his hair and mustache is sleeping in a chair behind the desk, his arms crossed over his swollen belly.
I clear my throat to try and wake him, but he doesn’t budge. If not for the snoring, I would worry he’s dead.
“Excuse me,” I finally say aloud. That has him startling awake, stumbling to his feet.
“S-sorry about that,” he says as he tries to hold his heavy eyelids open. “You need a room?”
“Yes. Two nights, one room with two beds.” I glance outside to make sure Tessa is still where I left her on my bike and do a quick check to make sure no one else is out and about this time of night. The parking lot is still.
“That’ll be eighty bucks,” he says right away, which means the place is probably empty since he didn’t have to check the books. “How you wanna pay?”
“Cash,” I say as I pull out a hundred dollars in twenties from my wallet and place them on the counter. “That extra twenty is to make sure no one bothers me and my, ah, mistress,” I say to make him think I’m here for an affair rather than a double homicide.
The man winks at me. “Maids only clean the rooms when you check out or upon request.” Reaching behind him, he picks up a stack of white towels and hands them to me, then places one of the old-fashioned keys with a big, plastic number nine keychain on top. “Here’s your key and a few extra towels just in case.”
“Thanks,” I reply before I head out, hoping the old man is so tired he won’t even remember this encounter or what I look like in a few hours.
“We’re all set,” I tell Tessa as I walk over to where she’s still waiting. “I’m gonna push my bike behind the building, and then we can walk around to our room.”
“Okay,” she replies.
I know I could’ve just handed her the key to go on inside, but I don’t think she would want to be alone in the strange hotel room even for a few minutes. So instead, I hand her the whole stack of towels and key. Grabbing the handlebars of my bike, I raise the kickstand and then start rolling it toward the back.
Neither Tessa nor I speak while I work to hide my bike. Then we go back around front, and I unlock the door, flip the light on, and do a quick check inside the hotel room.
It’s as empty as I would expect, and the double beds with bright orange-and-yellow striped bedspreads are made neatly. I head over to the bathroom that has the standard sink, toilet, and bathtub with a clear shower curtain.
“Well, this is it,” I say when I motion for Tessa to come on inside.
“It…smells clean,” she remarks as she eyes the room cautiously.
“I doubt the sheets are Egyptian cotton, but we have to lay low on this adventure. No credit cards.”
“I get it,” Tessa says, placing the towels down on the foot of the closest bed. “But I think I may sleep on the towels rather than the sheets.”
Smiling, I tell her, “That’s probably not a bad idea. Are you sleepy?”
“Not really, no,” she answers.
“Good. Me either,” I say when I remove my cut and hang it up in the closet on the one bent metal hanger. I probably shouldn’t have worn it into the office, but I doubt the sleepy old man will remember it. Taking a seat on the bed next to the closet, I tell Tessa, “I was hoping we could do a little brainstorming. If you’re up for it?”
“Sure,” she says as she sits on the other bed with one leg underneath her. Finally in the light, I can see now that she’s wearing a thin black hoodie that’s zipped up over her shirt and a pair of jeans. It’s a lot of clothes for summer in the South but probably a good call for the ride. Although, I doubt that’s the reason she picked the outfit. Every time I would visit Tessa in the treatment facility, she would be wearing several layers of clothing and even have a blanket or two over her, like she’s trying to hide herself.
“So, where do we start?” Tessa asks.
“There are two men who work here in Warsaw. They’re not related but obviously close since one got a job at the funeral home and the other works at the cemetery.”
“Creepy,” she says with a shiver as she wraps her arms around herself.
“They are,” I agree. “The third man lives in Sneads Ferry and works at a pawn shop. But first, these two…”
“What’s your plan for…going after them?” she asks, rather than come out and say kill them.
“I’m not sure yet,” I admit. “If we could get them both to the funeral home late tonight or early tomorrow morning, I was hoping we could make use of the crematorium.”
I watch Tessa’s face to gauge her reaction to that idea. She barely flinches before she says, “That would be…convenient.”
“As long as there are no cameras, then it would mean a better chance of destroying evidence of whatever we do to them before. Or what I do.”
Tessa nods. “You could take out the employee at the funeral home first, then use his phone to call the other one over.”
“That’s a good idea,” I agree. “Best way to get them both there.”
“And I think we should leave early this morning, wait until he shows up to work, and then go for it.”
“This morning? Really?” I say in surprise. “That doesn’t give us much time to check to see if there are cameras or figure out how many other employees could be in the funeral home. It’s a family-owned business, but we need to be careful in case other people come through.”
“I know all of that, and of course we need to be careful. But we’re not that far from Myrtle Beach. Roman could be here by lunchtime, as soon as Charlotte realizes I’m not in my room.”
“True,” I agree. “So we go tonight. I’ve got a ski mask in my bag I could wear to look for cameras around the perimeter before going inside. The number of cars in the lot should give us a head count.”
“I could w
ait by the bike, keep an eye out for traffic.”
“Yeah, that could work,” I agree. “What about when I go inside? Are you going to wait then too?”
“No, I want to go in with you,” she says. “I’ll stay out of the way, but I want to be there.”
“Okay,” I reply. “Do you have any…preferences for how I take them out?” I ask as if we’re discussing what we should have for dinner and not how I should kill two men.
“No, not really. I don’t want them to suffer I don’t think, even though they should.”
“I can make it quick,” I assure her. “That’s probably better than dragging it out – less chance of getting caught. Maybe knock them out and then throw them in the oven?”
Tessa nods and looks away after that detailed description.
“I hope you know how brave I think you are for being here,” I tell her softly. “And never forget that these men deserve to die a thousand deaths for what they did, not just to you but to at least three other women we know about.”
“Can I take pictures? Just to show the other girls?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. Having that kind of evidence out there is just too risky.”
She nods again and I hear a sniffle. “I figured so. That’s why I wanted to come with you because unless I see it for myself, I wouldn’t be able to believe they’re really gone.”
“I know,” I say. “And I want you to have that closure. I wish the other girls could too. But you’re also here to tell me if they’re the right men, to make sure we don’t kill an innocent.”
“Of course,” she says, reaching up to swipe her fingers under each eye to dry up the tears she doesn’t want me to see. “If these are the ones, I’m certain I’ll recognize them. I wish I could forget their faces. It was dark in the van, but I still saw them and heard them up close.”
“I know and I trust your judgment on this,” I tell her. “I just…I don’t want you to look at me differently after it’s over.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Verek. If I had the strength to do it myself, I assure you I would.”
“You’ve thought about this moment for a long time? Ending them?”
“Ever since the moment the first one touched me,” Tessa says. “They made it clear they were going to kill me. I would’ve killed them all in that moment if I had a gun.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t then. But I’m glad I can do this for you, to keep your hands clean and your conscience clear.”
“I’ve felt…dirty since it happened. Not sure if my hands or any other part of me will ever be clean again,” she says as she gets to her feet. “Do you think I have time to take a quick shower?”
“Yeah, sure,” I reply since I have no clue how to respond to her admission as she heads for the bathroom. “But Tessa,” I say before she closes the door. “I don’t think there’s an inch of you that’s anything but perfect.”
Chapter Five
Tessa
* * *
The sun isn’t even up yet when Verek parks his bike on the side street across from the funeral home after slowly circling around the roads that border it twice. There are no lights on inside and no cars in the lot, which we hope means it’s empty. Now we can wait for the employees to show until we find…well, I don’t even know his name.
“Who are we looking for here?” I whisper to Verek as I keep my hands on his waist. I tell myself I’m just being careful in case he has to take off in a hurry, but the truth is that it’s nice to be able to touch him. The contact soothes my anxiety about what we’re about to do.
“Let me see,” he says, pulling a piece of paper from the inside of his cut. It’s covered with his messy handwriting that’s hard for me to decipher when I lean forward to try and read over his shoulder. “The guy here is Donald Franklin Jr.”
“And this is Franklin’s Funeral Home, so it’s his?” I ask.
“His father, Donald Franklin Sr., has owned it for thirty years according to Reece’s intel. The old man is apparently still hanging on, but his son ‘Donnie’ handles day-to-day operations.”
I gasp when that name triggers a memory of that night.
“What is it?” Verek asks, glancing at me over his shoulder.
“I just…I remembered what one of them said,” I tell him as my pulse races at the reminder.
“Can you tell me?”
“Someone, I don’t know who, but I remember someone saying, ‘Don’t forget to wrap it up, man. We don’t know where this bitch has been and…and we can’t leave any DNA in case someone finds her body before Donnie takes care of it.’”
“You heard them say that?” he whispers.
“Yes. It was right after…right when I was thrown in the van,” I say with a shaky breath.
“So they were going to kill you, all of you, eventually,” he grits out. “And then Donnie here was going to make you disappear so that no one ever found out. Those sick fucking bastards!”
“Shh,” I say when I press my fingers to his lips, getting distracted by how soft and kissable they are before my hand drops away in embarrassment. “Someone could hear us.”
“Sorry,” he says softer, clearing his throat. “Now I know we’re doing the right thing.”
“We are,” I agree. “These men, they’ve probably killed women, no telling how many, but only after they hurt them beyond repair.”
“I’m sorry,” Verek says again, this time meaning for what they did.
“You should probably go ahead and make your lap around the place before the sun comes up.”
“You’re right,” he agrees with a sigh. “I don’t like leaving you here alone.”
“You’ll be close enough that you’ll hear me if I shout your name,” I point out, even though I’m not keen on him leaving me either, even if it’s just for a short while. “Go,” I whisper.
“Okay,” Verek says before he climbs off his bike and removes his helmet. He grabs a black mask from the saddlebag. “I’ll be right back,” he tells me. As he walks toward the large, white, two-story funeral home that takes up the entire corner, he waits to put on the mask until he’s well away from me, as if he’s afraid he’ll scare me. There’s nothing he could ever do to make me afraid of him, although, I think he’s worried that I’ll look at him differently if we go through with our plan. If he can eliminate the monsters from my nightmares, then I’ll be forever grateful to him, more so than I already am for the night he saved me from hell. I know it wasn’t just Verek but Roman and the entire Savage Kings MC working together to find us, but it was Verek’s face I saw first.
After the pain and humiliation I had been through for hours, I thought I was dreaming about him. God knows my first thought when I woke up restrained, alone with four men, was that I wish I had just gone home with Verek. It would’ve made me a horrible person, and I would’ve hurt Paul when I told him, but at least I could’ve lived the rest of my life practically normally, other than losing my fiancé. It was the less evil of the two choices I was unaware that I had earlier in the night. Verek wouldn’t have hurt me. Well, maybe just my heart after he treated me like one of his usual one-night stands. But I would have survived and moved on with my life, not be sitting out here, plotting the murder of several horrible men.
Before that night, I never thought I would be capable of condoning such violence. I guess that’s the strange thing about surviving such a horrendous ordeal – it made my conscience go numb like it’s been injected with a big dose of Novocain. Or maybe I lost my conscience completely…it died in that storage unit even though my body refused to follow. I was a good person before, and bad things still happened to me. Nothing could be worse than what I survived. If there is a hell, it was those hours I was abused, so I’m not scared of a hell in the afterlife.
Another way to think of this, what Verek and I are doing, is that sometimes, even bad deeds can be good. By killing these four men, how many women are we saving in the future? How many have they hurt an
d then disposed of so that they’re never seen or heard from again?
Death is the only punishment they deserve, and they would never get it from the criminal justice system. The other women and I would have to relive our nightmares over and over again in trials and appeals. No, I couldn’t go through with that or put that burden on Cari, Robin, and Sandy. They barely survived after days and weeks of being held compared to my twenty or so hours.
When we get home, I can’t wait to tell them that the assholes who hurt us are finally dead.
Chapter Six
Verek
* * *
“I didn’t see a single camera,” I tell Tessa quietly when I get back to her, still sitting on my bike. I shoved the mask I had worn into the back pocket of my jeans just in case I need it later.
“Guess they’re not concerned about people stealing bodies,” Tessa comments.
“Guess not.”
“So now we wait?” she asks.
“Now we wait,” I agree as I look over my shoulder toward the back of the funeral home. The parking lot is in front of us, but the entrance is a street over, so I doubt anyone will see us back here before they go inside. And even if they do, we’re just hanging out as far as any random person passing by is concerned. It would probably be prudent to remove my license plate just in case. Once that’s done, I slip it into the saddlebag and then take a seat on the curb behind the back wheel.