by J. L. Drake
Jennifer and Hank were making money from the men who abused me. How many other girls had they done this to over the years? I sunk down in the passenger’s seat, wondering how responsible my silence truly was for their rapes. And some of their murders, I reminded myself, thinking about the bones in my basement.
“Wendi?” Jonathan was calling out my name, but I was staring straight ahead through the windshield, the road before me hazy and endless. “Get it together. I need you to focus,” he said, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder lightly.
I took a breath. Willed my eyes to focus and my heart to stop pounding inside of my chest. I looked at several houses on each side of the street, studying their structure and the sense they gave me. A few of them were two-story dwellings, but none had boarded up windows, and they didn’t look right to me.
“I don’t think these are it,” I said finally, hating to disappoint Jonathan and feeling disconcerted myself.
“Let’s drive down a little farther. There are a few houses down at the end of this street. I think this is a dead end road,” he murmured thoughtfully.
The truck lurched forward and I focused intensely on each house we passed. We were reaching the end of the street. The house at the very end was a rundown Victorian home. It was shrouded in darkness. I don’t know why, but I felt drawn to it—in an inexplicable, creepy sort of way.
“I don’t see any boarded up windows…” Jonathan said, cutting into my thoughts.
“Look! There’s a flood wall behind it and a narrow alley between it and the back of the house!” I said, leaning forward in my seat.
“Does that mean something to you? A flood wall?” he asked excitedly. I shook my head.
“No, but it means we can go around somehow and look at the backside of the house. I can’t be certain from here if this is the house, but another view might help. There has to be an alleyway, or something between it and the flood wall,” I commented.
Jonathan backed up the truck, using an adjacent driveway to turn us around. I don’t know why, but as we pulled away, I almost got the feeling that the windows of the house behind me were watching—like evil, menacing eyes—following my every movement.
Chapter 60
Jonathan placed a comforting hand on my knee as he pulled away from Clemmons Street and circled back around to the barely passable alleyway behind the dilapidated Victorian home. There was, in fact, an alleyway between the old house and the flood wall, and we rode down the alley slowly, approaching the backside of the structure. There was a tall flood wall to our right, and it was covered in illegible graffiti.
Jonathan stopped the truck directly behind it. So much for not looking suspicious, I thought, staring up at the big, ugly house. Sure enough, there was a boarded up window on one of the first floor rooms. My eyes drifted upward to the room directly above it. There were two, tiny, square windows, just like the ones I’d seen in the room on the second floor that was mine.
I stared at the windows, more certain than ever. “That’s why there was never any light coming through…” I spoke aloud, but I was mainly talking to myself.
“Why?” Jonathan glanced my way. “Talk to me,” he begged.
“Claire couldn’t see anything through the boards that were covering her window and it was always dark on the other side of my window too. It always looked like nighttime outside from my point of view in the room. It makes sense now…the flood wall was blocking out the daylight.”
“Are you sure this is it?” he asked quietly.
“Positive,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on the house of horrors.
Despite its decrepit appearance, the house didn’t seem to hold as much fear for me now as it had as a child. I knew the people inside it were evil and cruel, but they were also weak-minded and pathetic. Anyone who could hurt a child—or children I should say, because I wasn’t the only one—was an absolute coward. “I’m not afraid of cowards,” I said aloud, staring at the house intently.
Jonathan squeezed my hand. “I know you’re not. You are very strong, Wendi,” he said softly. I kept my eyes on the house, but I was grateful for his kind words. Hearing someone call me by my real name again was incredible. Jonathan opened his middle console and pulled out an official looking Polaroid camera. He snapped several photos from where he sat in the driver’s seat.
“Can you arrest them yet?” I asked breathlessly.
“We still have work to do. Tomorrow night is Friday and I want to post up at the skating rink, see if we can gather any more information before we present the case to the local police. I also want to question Zach some more. Maybe now that I know where the house is, he’ll cave and give me some more information.”
“God, I hope so,” I said. My entire body was trembling, but it wasn’t from fear anymore. I was angry beyond belief. I couldn’t wait to get these scumbags. Jonathan put the truck in reverse and backed down the alleyway slowly. Just as he was pulling out, I spotted two shiny headlights coming down Clemmons Street. We were headed in the other direction, but I kept my eyes fixated on the passenger’s side mirror. I stared at the reflection, focusing on the beacons of light.
The headlights belonged to a mid-sized two-door vehicle, and it was pulling into the front driveway of the Victorian home. “It’s them! Someone’s pulling in! Turn around!” I shouted to Jonathan.
“Wendi, we can’t just run up on the house and start making accusations…” But I didn’t get to hear him finish, because I jumped out of the slow moving truck, and I took off on foot, running toward the house of horrors.
Chapter 61
I raced back up the alleyway, stopping abruptly at the back of the house. Where I stood now, I was only a few steps away from the room Claire died in. I wasn’t ignorant enough to go inside the house, but I had to see who was getting out of that car. I had to see their faces. I needed to know who lived here, and see if I could match any faces to those I remembered.
I crept around the side of the house, edging up to the front corner, just as I heard the sound of two car doors opening and closing. Before I could even peek around the corner at their faces, I felt two big hands grabbing me from behind. I started to scream, but the sound was muffled by a hand placed over my mouth.
“It’s me,” Jonathan whispered in my ear. “Don’t scream or they’ll catch us.”
I nodded, my heart racing so fast I thought it would burst through my chest. Together, we peered around the corner, just as three figures were heading through the front door. I saw their faces only briefly—a quick flash—and then they were gone.
“Let’s go,” Jonathan said, leading me by the elbow back down the alley to the truck. “We’ll find out who lives there and get a search warrant. It was just too dark,” Jonathan said, starting up the engine and looking at me sadly.
“It may have been dark, but I recognized all three of them,” I said, my voice quivering.
He looked at me incredulously. “Who were they?” he asked, driving the truck away from Clemmons Street.
“Jennifer, the one who called herself Jeanna. Hank, the one she referred to as Garrett. And the other man, I don’t know his name, but I knew his face.”
Jonathan looked at me, waiting for me to explain more about the last man. “I saw a lot of men in that house. I don’t know them by name, only the way they looked…and smelled,” I finished, staring down at my sneakers. Without saying a word, he sped up angrily, barreling down the streets of Flocksdale, taking out his anger on the roads.
Despite Jonathan’s anger, I couldn’t help but smile. Even though it was terrifying seeing the house and my captors again, I felt a deep sense of self-satisfaction because now I knew where the monsters were. They’d been haunting my dreams for so long I was starting to wonder if they were real anymore…if they’d ever been real in the first place. Now I knew they were, and I knew just where to find them.
***
I was ready to go home after that, but Jonathan was revved up and ready to investigate. After leaving the hou
se on Clemmons Street and throwing his little tantrum, Jonathan rode down to Weston Street. I pointed out the house with the covered limousine. “That must be where Jed lives,” I told him.
“This is definitely not where our buddy Zach lives,” Jonathan stated matter-of-factly.
“How do you know where Zach lives?” I asked.
“I looked at the identification in his wallet. Lucky for you, he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s license. If he had, he would have driven to your house the other night, and then you would have been stuck with his vehicle in your driveway. What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up? Just admit that you need me…” he joked, giving me a smug sideways glance.
“Where does Zach live?” I asked, not in the mood for Jonathan’s humor. He looked up and down the street.
“About five houses down from here,” he said pointedly. “But what I’m concerned with now,” he said, pointing straight ahead, “is figuring out if this is really where Jed lives.”
I stared at the shabby clapboard house with the covered limo in the back. There was definitely someone home in there because it was lit up like Christmas morning. Suddenly, the front door to the house swung open right on cue, and a middle aged man with a beard came barreling through it unsteadily. At first I thought we’d been spotted, but then I saw his mouth moving, and I realized he was shouting back at someone inside. He said something else, and then stumbled over to a white sedan on the street in front of his house.
The man looked like he might be drunk. I figured he was going out for a drive, but then he simply reached inside the driver’s side door and retrieved what appeared to be a pack of cigarettes. He pulled the plastic wrapper off the top and ripped off the cellophane, glancing around the neighborhood sketchily. I thought for sure he was going to spot us. For a moment, his head even turned in our direction and he appeared to be staring straight at us, but then his eyes shifted away, and he headed back toward the entrance of the house.
My heart was beating rapidly now. I knew who he was. At first I hadn’t been certain, but then I’d seen his eyes clearly in the pale moonlight, and I’d known beyond a shadow of doubt. I knew those eyes well; I’d never forget them—staring back at me in the rearview mirror of the limo. I wasn’t sure what his real name was, but in another life, he’d called himself Jed.
I was pretty sure that not only had Jed been the one who’d driven me to my first meeting with Jennifer, but that he’d also been the one who drove me to the spot where I’d been dumped afterward, blindfolded. Earlier, when my eyes were closed and I was imagining that ride in the backseat blindfolded, I’d remembered smelling something musty and dank in my seat. It was the same aroma that hit me when I’d climbed inside Jed’s limo with Claire and the two boys the first time.
I shivered, goose bumps popping out all over my arms and calves.
“He’s talking to a woman in the doorway,” Jonathan said, lifting the binoculars to his face.
“Let me see!” I demanded, yanking them out of his hand. “Sorry,” I whispered, lifting the lenses over my eyes.
The woman standing next to Jed—if that was even his real name—was the short, plump woman I’d seen wrestling with Claire right before she was killed. She was also the one who’d drug Claire’s lifeless body back in the room, so she quite possibly was the one who’d killed her. Honestly, it didn’t matter who did what anymore. They were all guilty in my mind. Guilty as sin.
“Do you recognize either one of them?” Jonathan asked steadily.
“It’s Jed, the limo driver. And the woman was there in the house too. I’m pretty sure she helped commit Claire’s murder.” He immediately lifted his cameras lens, zoomed in, and started snapping more photos.
***
On the drive back to the rental house, or “the burial site” as I’d come to think of it, he asked me more questions about the people I’d seen in the house. “I didn’t see many of the faces of the men who came in the room, like I said. It was dark and I think I was unconscious or seriously doped up for most of it…”
The look he gave me made me cringe. “Please don’t look at me like that. I don’t want your pity,” I told him firmly.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, Wendi,” he said hesitantly.
I nodded, looking away out the passenger window. The houses became blurry as my eyes began filling with tears. I held them open wide, struggling to keep the tears from spilling over my eyelids. “I’m going to get them for you,” he said, reaching out to take my hand. “I promise you I will. I couldn’t protect you then, but I will now…”
I thought about the egg. Falling over the edge, making a successful landing to the ground.
“Thank you,” I told him. “Thank you for everything you’re doing to help me.” I let the tears spill over, feeling a rush of relief. I thought about Jonathan’s promise the whole ride home, and even though it was hard to believe, I wanted to trust in him. If anyone could rescue Wendi Wise and bring these monsters to justice, it was him.
Chapter 62
“All I want to do is take a shower. Wash all the grime and filth away, everything that I’ve seen and had to think about tonight,” I told Jonathan, plopping down on my living room couch.
“Go take a shower,” he coaxed me, massaging my shoulders gently.
“I don’t want to take a shower with him upstairs,” I said, referring to our prisoner. “I don’t want to be naked with him anywhere in the vicinity. I know that sounds stupid,” I muttered.
“It doesn’t sound stupid. I’ll stand guard outside the door. I need to give him more food and water, anyway. Maybe put a towel under him because he’s probably shit his pants by now,” he said, wrinkling up his nose.
“I know you’re the police. But we need to go to the local police with this. We can’t hold him here forever. We know all the major players now, and we can give the police their addresses. We’ll tell them my story. We have dead bodies in the basement. The longer we wait, the greater chance we take of losing evidence or being unable to obtain DNA. And I know it seems fishy—the fact that I’m renting the house where the bodies are buried—but I just started renting this place. No one in their right mind would believe those old skeletons were put there by someone who just moved in here. With search warrants, you guys will definitely find more evidence in their homes. Possibly find more bodies… Hell, Ruth might even be involved, as much as I don’t want to believe that. I’m pretty sure her husband, Charlie, was one of those men who—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. He squeezed my hand assuredly.
“I agree with you completely, and you’re starting to sound like a cop yourself,” he said, chuckling slightly.
“Promise you’ll guard the door?” I asked, sounding and feeling smaller than I’d like.
“Yes. And as soon as you get out of the shower, we’re going to drive down to the local police department and tell them everything,” Jonathan said firmly.
“Really?” I asked, feeling a glimmer of hope from somewhere deep inside me.
“Really,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “Now go wash up. You’re smelly.” He winked at me flirtatiously.
Our prisoner was asleep and still firmly attached to the radiator. I headed into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I double checked the lock three times. Jonathan took his post, leaning against the wall next to the doorway. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would keep me safe.
I turned the shower on and started stripping off my clothes. The water was hot, but I wasn’t ready to get in yet. I stood in front of the full length mirror that was nailed to the back of the door, letting the room fill with steam. I stared at myself in the mirror until the glass turned foggy, making me disappear. “Have you seen this girl?” I whispered, staring at the blurry shape of my face in the mist.
I’d barely been intimate with a man since childhood, and I still felt uncomfortable looking at my own naked body. I wiped the condensation from the mirror and continued to stare at it, forcing myself to
examine the contours of my body. For the first time in a long time, I felt genuine desire for a man. I wanted to lay naked with Jonathan and feel him touch me sweetly. I placed my hands on my breasts, imagining they were his hands. But then I imagined cruel, rough hands grasping me in the darkness, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure.
I pressed my body against the door, knowing that Jonathan was right there waiting, only inches away from me on the other side. I wanted to kiss him and press my face into his chest again. I never wanted to feel unsafe again.
I stepped under the shower head, eager to wash the darkness away. The strawberry shampoo and body wash that Jonathan bought me were propped up on the soap tray. I squirted a dollop of shampoo on my palm and started scrubbing my hair thoroughly. My body felt heavy from lack of sleep and exhaustion from today’s stressful excursion. I yearned to have a bath tub.
I know it sounds strange, but I plopped down on the floor of the shower, letting the water consume me. The water from the shower head formed its own little trickling dome of water around me. It felt like a protective shield. I closed my eyes, my thoughts drifting back to a memory of me in a bathtub at that Victorian home. I was slumped down in the sudsy water and Jeanna—Jennifer—was leaning over me, pouring warm water over my head. She’d been gentle as she bathed me. She’d talk or hum while she did it, feigning motherliness.
It made me sick to think of it. I opened my eyes, thinking about something she’d said: “I’m sorry, darling. It’s almost over. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be here. We just do what we’re told…” By ‘we’ had she meant her and Hank? If she wasn’t making the calls, then who was? Was there something even bigger going on here? Was there some sort of kingpin pulling the strings?
I jumped out of the shower, drying off with one of Ruth’s holey towels she’d left behind. I needed to stop Jonathan from contacting the police just yet. If we turned them all in now, we might never know the whole, complete truth behind it all. We needed to go to the skating rink and the plaza. I had no clothes to put on besides the dirty, crumpled clothes on the wet floor, the ones I’d worn previously.