by Debra Lynch
Dennis
I skip with a bounce in my step into the kitchen, but Rachel is not there.
I whistle softly. If I knew how to turn down that annoying classical music, I would, but for now, I’m stuck with the music in my head. And what beautiful music it is.
I can’t wipe the smile off my face. This evening is turning out way better than I could have ever anticipated.
And will you check this out? Rachel left a bottle of cabernet sitting in plain sight. I pour her a glass.
I reach into my pocket and finger the vial of Rohypnol. I hold it up to the light and swirl it around. Dumping the contents into Rachel’s drink, I stir it up perfectly.
Opening the fridge, I select an amber bottle of the many containers of kombucha Rachel stocks. I unscrew the cap and pour most of the drink down the drain.
Rachel probably won’t drink anything I offer unless I taste it first. That’s an easy fix. I’ll take a sip from her wine, hold it in my mouth for several seconds—I’ve perfected my fake swallow reflex—then follow up with my kombucha chaser. From there, it’s a simple matter of backwashing her date rape wine into the amber bottle. Works every time.
I tuck the bottle of wine under my arm and carry the wineglass and kombucha into the living room.
Thirty-Six
Rachel
A dim light shines from the living room as Beethoven’s ninth booms through the speakers.
I pause for a moment to control the volume through my iPhone. Such a nifty gadget, these smartphones. Why, I can manage my entire sound system, take photos, videos, Instagram posts, Facebook, Twitter feeds.
The living room comes into view. Dennis sits on my custom made sofa, feet up on my expensive glass table.
I smile. “Mind getting your feet off the table? My maid doesn’t come ’til Friday.”
“Don’t think so. I’m comfy just like I am.”
I take two steps farther into the room. “How did you get in?”
“Trade secret. But you know, you really should’ve called me for help with your security. I am the expert, you know.” The table next to him holds my bottle of wine, a glass already poured, and a bottle of kombucha. His eyebrows rise as he picks up the wineglass. “Drink before we get started?”
I sit in the chair opposite and wave him away. “Maybe later.”
He folds his arms, and his eyes narrow. “So. You’re that Bradley kid. Ruby Bradley. Didn’t recognize you after all these years. How’d I miss it? Same eye color. Different body, though. Have to say I like the new look. Blonds always did it for me.” He takes his feet off the table, sits forward, and spits out the words. “What are your precious followers gonna think when they find out your dad was nothing more than a sorry ass grifter?”
Anger spikes up my spine, but I tamp it down. “They won’t care. They love me.”
“Love? Want to talk about love? It seems to me that a certain someone in this room is in love with a certain other one. Wouldn’t you say?” When he smiles, his teeth look like those of a rotting corpse, and I want to bash his face in. “Dress looks great, by the way. Stand up and turn around. Let’s see how it makes your ass look.”
“Shut up!”
“Oh ho ho. Listen to you getting all huffy. You know Princess, that’s what I’ve always liked about you. You have spunk. Or at least you do now. When you were a kid you did everything your daddy told you. How’d that work out for you?”
When I speak, my words are measured. “You never gave me the chance to find out what life would’ve been like, did you?”
Dennis sits straight, and the look he gives me chills me to the bone. “Don’t talk about what life would’ve, could’ve, might’ve been like. I spent the last twenty years behind bars with plenty of time to think about what life would’ve been like if it wasn’t for your father.” He sits back and folds his arms again, his gaze straying over my body. “But I’d say it worked out okay, wouldn’t you? We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. Just you and me.” He points to himself. “And I for one gotta tell you that I couldn’t be happier. I thought I’d have to mold you, but it turns out you and me? We’re just the same. What is it they call it? Cut from the same cloth.”
He picks up the wineglass and hands it to me. “Cheers.”
“I’m not drinking that. How stupid do you think I am? I found your vial of whatever that was in your pocket that night.”
“If you’re so worried I’ll take the first sip.”
“I thought you didn’t drink,” I say.
“Tonight I’ll make an exception. Seeing as it’s a celebration. Not a fan of wine, though.” He holds up the kombucha. “Got my drink right here for a chaser. As you yourself said, if I don’t drink how do I expect to get my fluids?” He slaps his thigh. “You really do know how to tell a good joke. You know how to do a lot of things right. Unfortunately though, your wardrobe could use help. I went through your closet and found your panties. Can’t have my wife wearing that secret underwear fit for a whore. But don’t worry. All your secrets are safe with me.” He leans forward and winks. “And I do mean all your secrets. Felony theft. Breaking and entering. Vandalism.”
I smile sweetly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He holds the wineglass aloft. “Let’s get this party started.” He takes a large sip, and I watch him swallow. Then he chug-a-lugs his kombucha. He hands me the glass. I set it down on the table.
“It’s okay,” he says. “You keep up your grifter lifestyle and I’ll cover for you. In fact, I’ll take care of everything. After tonight I’ll move in. I’ll do all the cooking, cleaning, I’ll watch over you. But there is one small issue and he goes by the name of Levi.”
“Levi has nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. Levi is a tiny problem but nothing you and I can’t handle. We’ll get rid of him together. Got it all planned out. We’ll wait for him to come over tomorrow, you invite him out on the deck and that’s where I’ll come in.” He pats his pocket. “I got me a knife. We’ll slice him up together and you push him over the deck. You claim self-defense. Everyone will believe it. They’ve all seen the way he looks at you. It’s just a matter of time before he attacks you and tries to get you to have sex with him. Or if you don’t like that idea, we can come up with something that makes it look like more of an accident.”
He has a knife. My vision blurs with anger. “Are you crazy? You really think I’d live with you? I despise you. I wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with you.”
I have to keep him talking. My body buzzes with red hot fury as I keep an eye on his movements.
“But you are in the same room with me.” He gestures expansively. “This whole house will be ours. Just you and me in our love nest. But first you need to answer some questions.” He pats the sofa. “Come sit next to me.”
I want to slice Dennis up myself, but I let him talk. Give Dennis enough rope, and he’ll hang himself. “I’m good here.”
“Fine.” He hands me the wine. “Make yourself comfy. Drink up.”
I thoroughly wipe the rim of the glass on the hem of my dress and take a gulp. “Ask away.”
“How’d you know where I worked?”
I throw my head back and laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been following your progress for years. Can’t say there was much to follow when you were in the slammer. But I would like to know how you liked your roommates. Did Bubba try to have his way with you in the shower? Did you play the old ‘dropped my soap’ routine so he could … oh, you know better than I do about what Bubba wanted.”
His eyes flare with anger. “Shut up! Just answer the questions because I’m the one who’s asking.”
“Now Dennis. That isn’t a very nice way to treat your hostess. You are a guest in my home, after all. Act polite for a change.” I take another sip of wine. “As I said, it was a simple matter of following you around on what the system so lovingly calls—”I make air quotes—“‘Release day.’ You went straight from the
slammer to a halfway house, then you got that job with your uncle at the store. Then you rented that hell hole you live in.”
He licks his finger and makes a tick mark. “One point to Rachel. How’d you know I wouldn’t turn you in when you stole the letter opener?”
My eyes grow wide, and I gasp. “You thought I stole something? Is that why you started stalking me?”
“Stalked you? You shoplifted. It was my job to turn you in.” He lifts a finger for emphasis. “I have the footage to prove—”
I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows. “Footage? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The truth is that Dennis’s parole officer, one Tom Sanders, is a student in my wildly popular ashtanga yoga class.
One afternoon after class, he left his notebook in the locker room. It was more than my prying eyes could handle, and I had eagerly torn through page after page of dirt on his parolees. All in the name of research, of course. One never knows when the next good idea for the show will arrive.
South Orange County is a small area, and I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that one of his wards was Dennis. My heartbeat sped up when I read Tom Sanders’ account of Dennis’s proclivity for accepting bribes from shoplifters. Tom Sanders was still in the investigative stage, but it was all I needed to hear.
An idea formed in my mind. A brilliant idea. I could lure Dennis in by shoplifting, something I was damn good at. What I wasn’t counting on was the fact that the letter opener was worth more than nine-hundred-fifty dollars—felony theft territory.
As much as I was bent on revenge and oh, believe you me, revenge against Dennis was the only thing that kept me going some days, I wasn’t ready to go to prison over it. I would’ve even taken the rap for a misdemeanor, but my hunch was right. Dennis liked bribes. The only thing he loved more than bribery was blackmail.
He sits forward so fast I flinch. “Oh come off it. You stole that letter opener and I covered for you.”
I bat my eyelashes and cross my legs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I pick up my wineglass, swirl the contents, and take a few more heavenly swallows.
“Just tell me how you knew. How’d you know I’d let you go?”
“Let me go? What are you even talking about?” I sit forward and a few pieces of spit of my own lands on Dennis’s glasses. “You spied on me, sprayed out my surveillance cameras, smashed my partner’s and my windshields, you planned to drug me. Oh, and don’t forget about the vile text messages, the obscenities you scratched into my car and your plan to hurt Madeline. Where I come from they call that stalking.” I jab my finger at him and have the satisfaction of watching him wince. “You can add breaking and entering and vandalism to your list tonight.”
My heart pounds, and I cross my arms to keep my body from exploding. When I think about Dennis’s hands all over my skimpy underwear, I want to throw up.
Dennis shakes his head. “Who’s the criminal, Rachel? You stole my heart, you showed me how much you loved me. You invited me to your class, you wore my going steady bracelet, you redecorated my house.” He smiles. Takes a sip off his drink and sets it down carefully. “You love me.”
The anger that swirls around me threatens to engulf my body. I want to grab Dennis’s head and smash his face into the glass coffee table repeatedly until the room fills with blood. “Love?” The room looks strange. It tilts sideways, and my head feels woozy. “Are you insane? Don’t answer that question because I have all the proof I need.” My voice rises. “Spending one second in a room with you is all it takes to know what it feels like to be with somebody who’s batshit, legally, spiritually, undeniably, off their rocker.”
A roar fills my ears as angry tears well in my eyes. My mouth fills with saliva, and I spit on Dennis’s glasses. “I hate you! You killed my father!”
Thirty-Seven
Rachel
Something is wrong. I have a hard time getting to my feet, but I manage to gulp in deep breaths as the memories flood back. I clutch the arm of the chair and see one, then two likenesses of Dennis smirking at me. He calmly removes his glasses and wipes them on his shirt. His voice sounds far away. “Feeling okay, Rachel?”
Thirty-Eight
Twenty years earlier
Rachel
“Where’s the bag, Ruby?” Dennis asks.
I continue to eat my corn flakes while watching Scooby-Doo. “I don’t know,” I say.
“Fine. I’ll just settle in with you ’til your dad gets home.” He slouches next to me, and my side of the sofa bounces up. I scoot away.
Dennis is one of my father’s grifter buddies. That is, they were buddies. Until a deal went wrong.
I’m only nine, just a little girl who loves her father and thinks of his cons as a game, a way to make my daddy proud. Whatever the scam is that Dennis and my father are involved in has something to do with cash. A boatload of money—a gym bag stuffed with bills. Twenties, hundreds, even five-hundred-dollar bills overflow the satchel.
I’ve never liked this friend of my father’s, and I like him even less when he lays his slimy hand on my leg. “How’s about you and I have a little fun while we wait for your daddy?”
I bat his hand away. “No.”
He sits up straight, and his dark eyes pierce mine with their intensity. “Now what kind of hospitality is that to show your daddy’s friend? Not very nice, if you ask me.”
He drops his hand on my thigh again, this time working it higher until he touches my cotton panties. My heart speeds up, and I shove his hand away. “Stop it. That’s wrong.”
His voice goes high pitched and mocking. “That’s wrong. What would you know about wrong?”
I jump off the sofa, bent on escaping into my bedroom and slamming the door locked, but Dennis grips me with his reptile-like hand. “Stop right there, missy.” He gives me a saliva filled grin, some spit sticking to the corners of his mouth. “You’ll like it. Besides, your daddy owes me. Let’s just call it his way of paying.”
I have a vague idea of what Dennis has in mind. My heart bangs in my chest, and I yell, “No!”
I kick Dennis in the shin, but he tackles me to the living room floor. My chin hits the ground, and I taste blood as my teeth slit through my lip. My heart beats wildly as I frantically scramble to escape, my legs thrashing. I reach up and grip his greasy hair and yank. “I said stop!” I kick and scream, but Dennis is stronger.
“Shut up! Somebody’ll hear.” He covers my mouth with his dirty hand and carries me into my room as I fight like a greased pig. He finds a sock lying on the floor and shoves it into my mouth. I kick and flail wildly, but I’m no match for a grown man.
He smacks me down on the bed. “Play nice and be a good little girl,” he croons.
I want to yell for him to stop, but I can’t. Terror roars through me as the coppery taste of blood mixes with the rough wool of the dirty sock. I squeeze my eyes shut, convinced I’m going to choke to death.
Hot tears blind my vision as Dennis’s nasty, sickeningly cold hands slide over my tender flesh. I swallow painfully, my nose filling with snot ’til I’m sure I’ll suffocate.
I’m pinned under a boulder. My weak hands shove in a feeble attempt to remove his repulsive body from mine. I want to yell at him to let me up, but his hand covers my mouth, keeping the sock in place. I shake my head violently from side to side. “Mmmph.” Get off of me, you disgusting monster, I want to scream.
And that’s when Daddy shows up.
The door swings open. The look on his face is crazed, his skin beet red. “What the fuck!” He towers over the bed and yanks Dennis off of me like a deranged madman.
Dennis hops off the bed and zips his pants, holding his hands in front of him. “This ain’t what it looks like.”
“Ruby, get under the bed. Now!” Daddy lets out a guttural roar. “I’ll kill you!” He leaps on top of Dennis, and the two fall violently to the ground in a heap of fists, sweat, and blood.
I quickly dive under
the bed, tear the sock out of my mouth and cover my ears, my eyes squeezed shut tight.
When I force them open, I see that Dennis has managed to scramble out from underneath my father and is hightailing it for the door. Next thing I hear is a violent argument spilling through the bedroom door.
A blow must have landed on Dennis because I hear him let out a horrible cry. “You sick motherfucker!” Daddy screams.
“You lying bastard. Where’s the money?”
The front door slams. Daddy and Dennis must have taken their fight outside because I hear their raised voices and grunts filtering through my bedroom window.
Then things get quiet, and I hear a blood-curdling scream.
I jump up, slam the door and lock it, grab my Disney Princess nightgown, a pair of panties, and yank them on.
I duck under the bed again, and this time I sob with my hands clamped over my ears. My pelvis burns, and I’m going to be sick. I scramble out of my hiding place long enough to throw up in a trashcan. My body convulses with sickness, then I launch myself back underneath the bed, the dust bunnies swirling before my eyes. My head aches, and I feel dizzy as hot tears sting my eyes.
When the police and social workers find my trembling body concealed underneath the bed, I am not a sweet innocent little girl anymore. I’ve turned into a zombie who won’t speak. The most they get out of me is an unfocused gaze and a few nods.
It turns out that I don’t speak for two whole years. The thoughts inside my head bang around with enough noise to keep me company without blurting the horrors out loud.
When I discovered that Daddy was dead, knifed to death by Dennis’s hand, I didn’t cry. A wave of deep anger welled up inside of me like a volcano threatening to explode.
My anger and vengeance had a name.
Dennis Smith.
That repulsive man would regret the day he met me.
From that moment forward, an intense focus ruled every second of my life.