by J. L. Drake
Roger didn’t say anything, but inside his thoughts was spinning.
“Used to make her really hot to torture people who’d pissed her off,” Butch continued. “Until one time I got overly excited when it was my turn and killed a couple of them. They were a couple of young women who’d bullied her when she’d been in high school or something—hell, I don’t know, I was drunk, and so was she.” Butch shrugged.
“So, you two would torture people and it would turn her on?” Roger asked. “Then you would have sex? That was the extent of your relationship?”
Butch shrugged again. “Pretty much. She really freaked when I killed them. I don’t know why, but she wouldn’t see me anymore after that. Then she up and moved away—she’s changed a lot since then.”
Roger was confused. Everything Butch was saying didn’t match up with the Sonya he knew. The woman he knew was really crazy and sadistic, but had a heart under it all. He wondered if Lloyd knew about her past with Butch, because it was nothing even close to the vague hints he’d gotten from Sonya previously.
They didn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride, and when they arrived at the old building, Butch climbed out of the moving truck, waved, and took off in his truck.
Roger sat there with the truck idling for a long time. He still couldn’t picture Sonya and Butch together, doing the things he’d said. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get it out of his mind until he talked to her, so he texted her. When he didn’t receive an answer, he headed over to her house.
As he pulled onto her street, he saw Lloyd pull up to the curb in front of her house. He thought this was odd since he normally tried to hide his presence.
Sonya was out of the car and walking up her driveway when he pulled in. She turned to look at the truck with a frown and then noticed who was driving. She smiled and waved at Roger. When he didn’t do the same back, she frowned again.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as he cut the engine and got out.
“We need to talk,” he said, “about Butch.”
She frowned and nodded.
Lloyd turned off his car and got out to make his way up the driveway to see what they were talking about.
“What’s up?” he asked Roger.
“Oh, not much,” Roger said, still focused on Sonya. “We’re just going to have a nice long talk about Butch and his previous relationship with Sonya.”
“I don’t see why it matters,” she snapped, crossing her arms across her chest. “It’s all in the past.”
Roger took a step closer to her, looking her in the eyes.
“Oh, it matters,” he snapped, “because what he told me doesn’t fit what I know about you and I need to know if you’ve been lying to me.”
“Calm down, Roger,” Lloyd said, trying to step between them. “Maybe we should do this another time, when you’re not so upset.”
Roger turned his attention to Lloyd.
“No, we’re going to talk about it now!” he almost screamed. “I’m tired of dancing around bullshit with everyone! I want the truth and you should hear it too, Lloyd.” He turned back to Sonya. “Can you do that? Can you tell us the truth? Or are you completely incapable of being honest with anyone?”
She sighed and dropped her arms to her sides.
“Come in. I’ll tell you what you want to know,” she said, and started walking toward the front door, digging her keys out of her purse. “I really don’t know why you need to know. But I’m eager to know what he told you that’s making you act like this.”
They followed her. Once she had the door open, they went inside and sat in her living room.
The men waited patiently for her to begin the tale of her past with Butch, both wanting to know how it might affect the future.
She took a deep breath and started speaking.
“Well, Butch and I were hired by this company to work together.” Sonya paused and looked down at her hands. “We would go to private parties and be the entertainment of sorts. I was just out of high school and needed money for college.”
“What kind of parties?” Lloyd asked gently, reaching over and taking one of her hands in his. “What kind of entertainment?”
“Sex, bondage stuff,” Sonya said. “We would go to people’s homes and do what the people wanted us to do to them.”
“Like what?” Roger asked, frowning. What she was saying was nothing like what Butch had said.
She sighed. “I was trained to be a dominatrix, if that gives you any indication.” She paused and smirked at the surprised look on Roger’s face. “We tied people up, whipped them, and pretty much anything else they wanted us to do.”
“Butch said you would torture people who pissed you off and you would get excited and have sex…” Roger said, watching her.
“That’s kinda true,” she said, laughing and squeezing Lloyd’s hand. “Sometimes we would get really turned on during ‘the job’ and we’d end up having sex. We didn’t beat people who made us mad; it was all just work. Maybe he thought we had something more, but honestly, I was young and sexually adventurous at the time. I was trying to figure myself out and I admit I experimented quite a bit. I had a girlfriend too…did he tell you that?”
Lloyd snickered, but quickly tried to hide his amusement by covering his mouth with his hand when Sonya turned her head to look at him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t really surprise me, but it struck me as funny the way you said it.”
She stuck her tongue out at him before turning back to Roger and continuing her story.
“He found out about my girlfriend and convinced me to invite her and her other lesbian friend to come to one of the parties,” she said. “They said yes, and we went to pick them up on our way. There was no party though. He’d made it up to get us all in one place. He took us to an abandoned building and we all started drinking. We accepted what he said when he told us the people who’d hired us had canceled at the last moment, but he still thought we should get together and have a good time.” She stopped, closed her eyes, and shook her head.
“It’s okay, babe,” Lloyd said, squeezing her hand a little tighter and wrapping one of his arms around her. He glared at Roger for putting her through this. Honestly, he wanted to know all the information too, but he didn’t want Sonya to suffer, and he could see that she was.
She opened her eyes, nodded, and continued.
“After we were all drunk, he convinced them to let him tie them both up, telling me it was just a game, for fun. He said we were just going to show them what we did at parties and then let them go, so I went along with it.”
She stopped speaking and stood suddenly, startling both the men; Lloyd didn’t let her go in time and almost got dragged off the couch.
“I need a drink,” she said, heading around the couch and toward the archway leading to the dining room and kitchen. “Do you guys want anything?”
“Sure, I could use a drink,” Lloyd said, frowning and looking at Roger.
Roger shrugged. “I’ll take one too, I guess.”
They both stood and moved to follow her, but she came back into the room with a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.
Lloyd smiled and took two of the glasses from her; he knew she didn’t drink often, which meant whatever was coming next in the story was serious.
Everyone sat down again and Sonya poured them each a drink. They sat quietly, sipping their whiskey, waiting for her to continue.
She tucked her legs under herself, leaned her head against Lloyd’s shoulder when he wrapped his arm around her, and looked down into her glass while she swirled the amber liquid around in small circles.
“I played with them first, doing all kinds of kinky stuff to them while removing their clothes—they loved it,” she said, and took a sip of her drink. “Butch loved it too—he was really turned on when it was his turn with them. He started out gentle, but eventually he started to get rough. I tried to stop him, but he hit me, and while I was half out of it, he tied me up too.
”
Lloyd took a large gulp of his whiskey, almost draining his glass. Right then he wanted to gut Butch for ever raising a hand to Sonya and he vowed he would make the bastard pay someday, somehow.
Roger watched Lloyd and Sonya, noting how distressed she was getting and how angry he became as she spoke; he suddenly wished he hadn’t let Butch rile him so much, and that he hadn’t insisted on needing to know everything.
“I remember hearing them scream, which kept me conscious,” she said softly. “I fought hard to get free, to help them, but I couldn’t.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued to stare down into her drink. “He beat them really hard—until they were bleeding—grinning and laughing the entire time. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He just kept getting more and more violent, and eventually their screaming stopped—he’d killed them.”
“Damn,” Roger said, drinking down the last of the whiskey in his glass. “I had no fucking idea. That dumb fuck made it sound like it was all your idea and you were some twisted bitch.”
Sonya laughed, sniffled, and took a sip of her drink.
“I was a twisted bitch,” she said with a half-smile. “I still am, I guess.”
Lloyd chuckled.
“Anyway,” Sonya said, looking sideways at Lloyd and smiling, “I moved away after that, and cut all ties with Butch.”
“Did he hurt you?” Lloyd asked, looking down at her calmly while seething inside, ready to kill at a moment’s notice.
She shook her head.
“Despite what he’d done to them, he never hurt me, other than that one time he hit me,” she said. “He did get mad when I wouldn’t fuck him that night…I managed to get away after he untied me, before he could make me…”
“He’s a sick fucker,” Roger said. “I’m sorry about all this…I should have trusted you. I should never have believed what he said about you.”
Sonya smiled at Roger. “It’s okay. Nothing is your fault, and besides, I feel better now that you both know.” She looked up at Lloyd and smiled; he leaned forward and kissed her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” she whispered when he pulled away. “I should have and then we wouldn’t be here right now, in this fucked up situation.”
Lloyd smiled and caressed her cheek tenderly. “I’m glad you told me. Now I have an even bigger reason to make sure that bastard dies.”
“I’m with you on that one,” Roger said, standing. “You need anything, you call me—I’m in.” He set his empty glass down on the coffee table and headed for the front door, but turned back and frowned at the couple. “Why are you dressed up, Sonya? And why did you park out front, Lloyd?”
They laughed, realizing that they hadn’t told him about their day and the money they’d stolen back.
“I think you need to sit back down,” Sonya teased, wiping the last of her tears from her face as she poured him another drink.
“Okay…” he said, and came back over to sit down. “Is this going to be more bad news? Because I don’t think I can handle much more right now.”
“It’s good news,” Lloyd said. “Very good news.”
They told Roger about their trip to the bank and the money they’d taken from Jennings’ bank accounts. The news of their plunder raised his spirits, and they drank to the beginning success of their plan.
***
Butch sat in his motel room, drinking beer he’d picked up from a convenience store. He couldn’t help but wonder how Roger was doing, and if he was still stewing about what he’d fed him in the truck. He knew Roger wasn’t gay, but he’d enjoyed pissing the other man off—all the stuff about Sonya had been a bonus.
“Pull the strings and watch the puppets dance,” he muttered, and chuckled.
He almost jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. Cursing, he dug it out of his pocket and frowned when he noticed it was Jennings.
“What does the old bastard want now?” he muttered, and answered the call. “Hello?”
“I’m pleased with the progress you and Roger have made with the building move,” Jennings said. “How much longer do you think it will take?”
“We’ll be working on the rest in the morning,” Butch said, “and should have it all done sometime tomorrow.”
“Will you two have everything done tomorrow for sure? Will everything be ready and operational so we can do the harvest on Saturday?”
Butch rolled his eyes and took loud gulps of beer, not caring if he was overheard while he listened to Jennings’ questions.
“All I know is that Roger said we’d meet at the old building at eight o’clock,” he said. “I don’t know about the rest. Why don’t you call him and ask?”
“I tried him first, but couldn’t get ahold of him,” Jennings said.
Butch frowned.
“You don’t think the feds nabbed him, do ya?” he asked, pretending to be concerned. He laughed silently when Jennings got upset.
“I certainly hope not,” Jennings said in a rush. “I’ll call Sonya and see if she has heard anything.”
“Okay, you do that,” he said, trying not to laugh out loud. “I hope everything’s okay. Bye.”
He bent over laughing at the speed with which Jennings ended the call and shook his head.
“These people are stupid,” he said.
He was just finishing his beer and standing up to get another one when his phone rang again. Frowning, he picked it up. The number displayed on its small, illuminated screen was unfamiliar. He held it and looked at it for a couple moments before he decided to answer it.
“Hello,” he said tentatively.
“Hey, this is Irvin,” a semi-familiar voice said. “We worked together on the Spencer job a couple years ago…”
“Yeah, hey, man,” Butch said. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a contact that’s looking for some fresh parts,” Irvin said. “I’ve already called everyone I could think of and ran across your number in my phone…do you know anyone who has any?”
“I might,” he said, taking the phone with him while he retrieved another beer from the box on the dresser. “Can I call you back at this number?”
“Nah, just call him direct,” Irvin said, and rattled off the phone number.
Butch wrote the number down on the side of the beer box before he ended the call.
He cracked open the fresh beer and smiled at the pleasant hiss the opening can made; it was a sound that he never got tired of hearing and that always made him happy.
He held his phone for a couple of minutes, staring at it, wondering if he should call Lloyd.
“Ah, fuck it,” he said, coming to a decision; he dialed the phone number he had for Lloyd and waited for the little weasel to answer.
“Hey, remember when I said about finding a contact to help move parts?” he asked.
“Yes, I remember and was thinking it’s a good idea,” Lloyd said. “Why? You have a lead on someone who wants some?”
Butch was a little bit shocked, but he didn’t let it show.
“Irvin just called and gave me a phone number to contact if I had anything,” he said, glancing down at the number on the box; he couldn’t help but think maybe he could swindle a couple extra dollars out of being useful in a transaction.
“Go ahead and set something up,” Lloyd said. “The harvest is going down Saturday as far as I know…”
“Yeah, I just talked to Jennings and he said something about this weekend,” Butch said, pleased with himself for having another use to the team. “I’ll set something up and we’ll get this all handled.” He ended the call and returned to the bed to lounge against the headboard and watch TV.
“Things are going pretty smooth right about now,” he said, and drank more beer.
***
“Who was that?” Sonya asked Lloyd as he came back from the bathroom.
“Butch,” he said, grinning.
She raised an eyebrow at him and sat up on the couch—they’d been snuggling an
d talking since Roger had left and she was now calm.
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” she teased, resting her chin on the arm of the couch and looking up at him.
“It is,” he said, bending down to kiss the tip of her nose. “He just got himself linked up with the undercover fed on the black market. He’s going to hang himself.”
Chapter 35
Agents McCoy and Croce made it to more than half of the hospitals on the list before they decided to call it quits for the day. They’d found nothing suspicious in any of the morgue paperwork they’d looked at, although they did have copies of everything so they could look it all over more closely when they had time. Even the medical examiners had all seemed straight-laced; nothing about them had thrown up any red flags with the agents.
“I wish that would have gone better,” Croce said as she climbed into the driver’s side of the car. “Hopefully we have better results tomorrow.”
David didn’t say anything as he got in the passenger’s side. He was disappointed. He’d been sure they’d find something somewhere. And he hoped he wasn’t on the wrong track. Not only would be it be embarrassing to have derailed the investigation so badly, but he would be no closer to getting Daniel justice than he’d been before.
“I hope so too,” he said as he buckled his seatbelt. “There are still quite a few hospitals—that’s a lot of possibilities.”
Croce nodded. “Do you want to go back to the office? Or do you want me to drop you at your hotel?”
“Just drop me at my hotel, please,” he said, having brought his belongings with him for the ride, in case he’d needed to check anything in the files or from his notes.
“Okay,” she said, and backed out of the parking space of the last hospital they would visit for the day.
They didn’t talk during the journey, each lost in their own thoughts.
David was mired down by his self-doubt and disappointment.