by J. L. Drake
She sighed and crossed her arms. “I’m not lying. Lloyd told me—when we first got together—how much money he was giving to Jennings when he sold organs. Most of that money we never see.”
Roger frowned. “What’s he using it for if he’s not giving us our share?”
“I don’t know,” Sonya said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out and why he’s still alive. Peter knew too, and it’s one of the reasons he quit.”
With a sigh, Roger ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He’d known that Peter and Lloyd had become close while working together, almost like brothers. It had upset Lloyd deeply when he’d decided to quit and get married, because they couldn’t have much contact after that without risking Peter’s safety.
“I thought he quit for Megan…” Roger said. “Now you’re telling me there was more to it?”
Sonya laughed. “There’s a lot more to it—there’s a lot more to everything. You remember when Peter bought their house?”
Roger nodded.
“Well, remember that job we made less money on than Jennings had anticipated? The one that convinced him it was time for us to move on to a new town?”
He nodded again.
“Lloyd gave Peter the money we usually don’t see from that job—one job—and it was enough to pay for his house. He didn’t have his money in the stock market and made a bunch all of a sudden like he’d said. Hell, the stock market sucks right now—everyone knows that.”
Roger’s mouth fell open in shock as he thought about it. “That was a three hundred thousand-dollar home!”
“They had enough to pay for their wedding and honeymoon too,” she said, leaning forward to drive the point home. “All that money from one job.”
“I’m finding this hard to believe,” Roger said. “I mean…Jennings just gave us a lot of money for that Bill guy.”
Sonya nodded. “That’s because he knows Lloyd knows and didn’t want him to say anything about it.”
“But why would he bring Lloyd here, after the move, if he didn’t want us to find out about him squirreling away money? I mean…it just doesn’t make sense that he would do that.”
“He asked Lloyd out of courtesy but didn’t expect him to come, or at least that’s the crap I’ve been fed on the subject,” she said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Really though, I knew Lloyd was coming because we planned it before the move. I just didn’t let on to Jennings that I knew, and acted pissed off and surprised when he got here.”
“I wondered why you weren’t madder about that…” Roger said, and chuckled. “So, what’s the plan then? Just to kill Jennings? What about finding out where the money is?”
The door from the garage opened and Lloyd walked in, hearing Roger’s last question.
“Oh, we’re going to find the money,” Lloyd said. “Then the bastard will die.” He paused and looked at the flowers sitting in the center of the table, and clenched his jaw to keep from screaming and breaking something; he looked at Sonya. “They’re from Miles, aren’t they? Why didn’t you throw them away?”
She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Because if he decides to show up again, I don’t want to have to explain where they are and make it up to him.”
“He was here?” Lloyd asked, clenching his fists.
“Don’t worry,” Roger said, “I got here before he could maul her too bad.”
Lloyd didn’t laugh like he’d expected him to, so Roger tried to get them all focused on the plan again.
“Okay, so your plan is to kill Jennings after finding out what he’s done with the money, correct?”
Sonya and Lloyd nodded, looking at Roger.
“What would have happened to me if you hadn’t brought me in on this?”
Sonya looked away and shrugged.
Lloyd stared him straight in the eyes and said, “Kill you too.”
Roger swallowed hard. “What if I say that I don’t want to be involved with this?”
Lloyd’s gaze never wavered as he shrugged.
“Fuck,” Roger said, and gripped the back of one of the wooden chairs around the dining room table. “I can’t believe you two were going to kill me.”
Sonya looked at him with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t want to, but I would have done it.”
“She’s been bugging me about bringing you onboard for a long time,” Lloyd said, stepping forward and wrapping his arm around Sonya’s waist, tugging her up against him. She went willingly.
Roger laughed nervously. “That’s nice to know,” he said, and shrugged. “I guess I’m in then, since I don’t want to die. How are we going to do this?”
Sonya glanced up at Lloyd, who nodded, and then she started explaining the plan to Roger.
“Well…”
***
An hour and a half later, Roger left Sonya’s house with a lot on his mind. He couldn’t believe all the money Jennings had been pocketing. Lloyd had filled him in on all the financial information from the time he’d started moving parts for them; three million dollars had been taken by Jennings. He had to admit, it did make him mad to know they were all risking their lives and freedom, and had trusted the old man while he was screwing them over. On top of that, Lloyd had informed him and Sonya that Jennings lived alone and talked to a picture of a woman. Sonya deduced that the woman must have been Jennings’ wife, which he’d led her to believe was alive.
This was another mystery tossed into the muddled mess of Jennings and his dealings. Together they were determined to get to the bottom of everything, and end things once and for all, with a big payday to boot.
The drive back to his small house didn’t take very long, and when he arrived he didn’t waste any time climbing into bed. He was mentally and physically exhausted and there was a lot to do to make all the plans come together. He knew he needed his rest.
***
“I think Roger was freaked out about us planning to kill him,” Sonya said to Lloyd after Roger had left.
He nodded and glanced at the flowers on the table.
Turning abruptly, he took ahold of her arm and fast-walked her down the hallway toward her bedroom.
Sonya gasped, but didn’t say a word, even though he was squeezing her arm too tight and it hurt.
Arriving at her bedroom, Lloyd ushered her inside, kicked the door shut behind them, even though they were alone, and shoved her down onto the bed.
“Take your clothes off,” he ordered harshly, tugging his shirt off over his head and throwing it on the floor before his hands fell to the buckle of his belt.
With shaking hands and wide eyes, Sonya complied, getting excited. She knew Lloyd wouldn’t hurt her and she wondered what he had planned.
After only moments, they were both naked.
Sonya watched as he bent down and withdrew something from the pocket of his discarded pants: handcuffs.
She wiggled backwards on the bed, glancing from his face to the steel rings connected by a chain, which he held in his hands.
“Lloyd…” she whispered.
“Shh, babe,” he said. “I have plans for you.” He knelt on the bed, reached forward, and captured her wrists. “Lay down.”
She bit her bottom lip and did as she was told, willingly letting him restrain her by handcuffing her to the headboard.
He looked down at her and stood back up beside the bed, letting his eyes roam over her naked body.
She could see he was very aroused, and the anticipation of having him caused a throbbing ache inside her that needed to be soothed. She started to pant with excitement.
“I’m going to fuck you so good you’ll never forget you’re mine,” he said, running the tips of his fingers up her leg, over her hip, across her ribcage, and between her breasts, barely touching her.
She whimpered. “I know I’m yours,” she sighed. “I love being yours.”
He knelt over her again.
“You’re going to love being mine even more when I get done with you,” he said, and l
eaned forward, kissing her lips slowly.
***
Sonya woke up when a faint metallic click sounded above her head and her wrists were freed. She forced her eyes open a crack to watch Lloyd kiss each of her wrists before laying her arms gently across her chest. She smiled, stretched, and purred, before turning on her side, facing away from him, and wiggling backwards to snuggle.
He wrapped his arm around her narrow waist, pulled her tight against him, and kissed her shoulder.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She wiggled and enjoyed the delicious aches where her body throbbed from his attention.
“No, you didn’t hurt me,” she sighed, and wiggled against him. She felt his lips curve into a smile against her shoulder.
“Good, I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I have to go soon.”
“No,” she whined. “I want you to stay.”
He chuckled. “I wish I could, but I have to call Butch.”
Sonya stiffened and turned her head to look at him.
“Butch the Butcher? That Butch?” she asked.
Chapter 25
“Yeah…” Lloyd said, kissing the tip of Sonya’s nose. “I know you don’t like him, but he would do a good job.”
She rolled over on her back, moving away from him slightly so she could look at him.
“You can say that knowing how he loses his shit and butchers people?”
Lloyd laughed. “We’re going to butcher people, so who would suit our purpose better?”
“I don’t know…” she said with a huff. “There’s just something about him I don’t like.”
“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do you think Jennings will approve him?”
He shrugged. “He’s big, can move stuff, and won’t mind what we have planned—that’s what Jennings is looking for, so he should meet with the old bastard’s approval.”
“I still don’t like it,” Sonya sighed, closing her eyes. “He’s too damn violent.”
Lloyd laughed. “For you to say that means something—you must really see him as an insane asshole.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she sighed, opening her eyes again.
“I love you,” he said, and kissed her. He looked her in the eyes as he pulled back. “I want you to call off sick from work tomorrow.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want you to pretend to be sick for a week, so we can get this thing done without you fucking that little morgue weasel again.”
She smiled and sweetly asked, “What if he comes to the house again?”
“Tell him you have something highly contagious,” he said, before throwing back the covers and getting out of bed.
“What do I have? Lloyd-itis?” she asked, and laughed. “Should I tell him it will lead to his death if he comes near me?”
He laughed. “Yes, that sounds perfect.”
“You know I might have to go in anyway, right?”
He frowned. “Why? If you’re sick, you can’t go in.”
She shook her head and yawned. “If I don’t have a doctor’s excuse and I miss too many days, I can get fired.”
He walked around the bed and started putting on his clothes.
“Have Jennings write one for you.”
She laughed and rolled onto her side to watch him. “Yeah, right! He’d want to know why I can’t go to work and then lecture me on keeping up a good front. No thanks, I’d rather not go there.”
“How many days can you miss before you’ll get in trouble?”
She thought about it for a second, counting on her fingers.
“I can miss two, maybe three days without a doctor’s slip, but I still might get in trouble.”
He sighed, zipping up his pants.
“Take as many as you can,” he said, kneeling on the bed and kissing her. “I don’t want you there anymore than you have to be. I definitely don’t want you fucking Miles again.”
She kissed him back and nodded. “I won’t if I don’t have to—it’s not like I enjoy it. I hate it when he touches me!”
“Good,” Lloyd said, standing and slipping on his shirt. “Try to stay away as much as possible so we can get this over and done with.”
“I’ll stay home for a few days,” she said. “I still wish you could stay with me tonight,” she complained and snuggled her face into her pillow, pulling the covers up over her shoulder.
“Soon, babe, we can spend as many nights together as you want,” he said, kissing her lips gently.
“Bye,” she sighed.
“Bye,” he said, smiling down at her, thinking how beautiful she was. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow and see you at the meeting—good luck finding out about the FBI.”
She closed her eyes, nodded, and yawned.
“Tomorrow,” she mumbled. “Love you.”
Lloyd turned and walked out of the bedroom as Sonya fell asleep, leaving the door open behind him. He paused in the dining room to glare at the flowers on the table and thought about ripping every single petal out of each flower and sprinkling them in the blood from Miles’ corpse after he’d killed him.
With that thought putting a grin on his face, he left the house to head home…and to call Butch the Butcher.
***
Lloyd pulled into the driveway of a boarded up house in an abandoned neighborhood. He climbed out of his car—leaving it running—and opened the rolling garage door that squeaked in protest. He pulled in, cut the engine, and shut the garage door.
Using previously placed crates, he climbed through the broken window in the back wall of the garage and walked through the well-worn path in the knee high weeds to the back door of the old house. With his keys, he unlocked the padlock he’d used to secure the entrance. Once he had it open, he stepped into the darkness, using the same padlock to secure the door from within.
He heard a scratching noise behind him and froze. Holding his breath, he listened for a moment and determined the sound was a rat.
With a sigh, he turned and walked confidently through the room and headed down a long hallway to his right. Very little light filtered in through the boarded up windows, but as his eyes adjusted to the faint lighting, he could see exactly where he was going. Stopping briefly, he knelt and flipped a switch on a small generator sitting outside a doorway. It kicked on and shattered the silence with its diesel motor as it chugged to life. He stood and continued down the hall to the next doorway—the first one on the left—and entered it after flipping the switch on another generator sitting in the hall.
“Ah, nice,” he said as the bare light bulb in the ceiling came to life and illuminated the room.
The light from the bulb shone down on a twin-sized mattress that was bare except for a sleeping bag and pillow on a metal and wire frame. A desk stood across the room from the bed, and on it was all manners of technology, surrounding a laptop. In front of the laptop stood a simple metal folding chair.
With a sigh, he sat down at the desk. He wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in his bed…alone. Knowing that even if he tried, he wouldn’t get a good night’s rest, he decided to work instead.
He reached forward and pressed the button that would turn the laptop on. While the computer booted, he looked through his cell phone to find Butch’s phone number. He waited for his prior acquaintance to answer.
“Hello,” Lloyd said. “This is Lloyd, and I might have a job for you—interested?”
“Of course,” Butch said with a laugh. “I’m broke as fuck right now. I could really use a job.”
“You’d be the muscle on a team that’s going to do a large organ harvest, but you’ll have to be interviewed…”
“What the fuck?” Butch snapped. “Interviewed? Horseshit!”
“Don’t get too bent about it,” Lloyd said. “It’s a short job with a big payoff, so it’s worth the small amount of bullshit.”
“Fine,” Butch huffed. “I’ll be there tomorro
w around noon.”
After ending the call, Lloyd checked his email using his cell phone as a hot spot, and waited for the first generator he’d turned on to do its job and heat water so he could take a shower. When he found out there was nothing interesting in his inbox, he decided to call Jennings and let him know Butch would be in town soon for his job interview.
***
Jennings was sitting on his couch reading a book when his cell phone rang. He jumped and scrambled to answer it.
“Hello?”
“My man, Butch, will be here tomorrow afternoon for his interview,” Lloyd said. “Right before the meeting.”
“That sounds fine,” Jennings said briefly, wanting to get back to his book.
“By the way…I told Sonya to call off sick for a couple days,” Lloyd informed him.
“You told her to do what?” he snapped. “She can’t miss and get in trouble at work. They would take more notice of her and it could compromise her cover.”
“Pfft! Cover? I don’t think it much matters if she gets in trouble at work. What are they going to do? Fire her? That might actually be good, in a way.” Lloyd laughed. “Besides, she’s running ragged with this side job of friending the woman now, and I don’t want her around the morgue geek any more than she has to be.”
“I don’t care what kind of excuse you have for this—I’m not happy about it.”
“I really don’t give a shit if you’re happy or not. Everything is not all about you and what you want. You have to consider the other people on the team you’re overworking.”
He dropped his book to the floor. “You need to realize, Lloyd, this is my team and I say what goes. If you don’t watch your mouth and attitude, you’ll be out. Do you hear me? Out!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I’m not being respectful,” Lloyd said sarcastically, and laughed. “I hope I didn’t disturb your wife by calling so late…”