by Shelly Knox
Piper followed her. “I’m not going home with you. What happened to being pampered at the spa and needing time away?”
Her sister turned to face Piper. If looks could kill, Piper would have dropped instantly to the ground.
“You are not ready for dead bodies. To think you were close to where it was found stabs me in the heart. I can’t imagine how devastated you must have been.”
“A little nauseous, actually. The stench was quite strong.”
“You were that close?!”
“Tazzie and I are the ones who found her. And I’m fine. I actually think coming here and helping with this case has been therapeutic. Tazzie made me proud. You should have seen her head straight for the body. And she’s not a cadaver dog.” Piper grinned and her cheeks provided a sharp twinge. She realized she must have smiled a lot today for her cheeks to be sore.
“This is worse than I imagined.” Keri set the luggage she dragged behind her upright and slammed the handle into the case. “You told me you were only going to write an article about a missing person. You never should have joined the search party.”
“I don’t know when you think you became my boss or parent or whatever—but you’re not. I do what I want. When I want. I’m staying.”
“No, you’re not. You’re coming home with me. I don’t want you associated with this case in the least little bit.” Keri grabbed Piper by the arm and began to pull her toward the passenger side of the Camry.
“Let me go!”
Tazzie barked and scratched at the rear passenger door window, trying to get to her master.
Jaxson stepped from the SUV. “Is everything okay here?”
Keri glanced over her shoulder. She let Piper go. “Fine, but don’t expect me to be here to help when your fragile psyche crumbles and you need to put it back together. Your bag is at the desk.” Keri stormed off to the driver’s side and put her suitcase in the backseat.
“You never gave me a key to the room,” Piper called after her.
“Doesn’t matter. I checked out.” Keri hopped in her Toyota, started her engine, and took off without saying another word to Piper.
She turned to Jaxson. “Can you wait for me while I go and try to get my room back?”
“I hope you can. The press has swarmed this small community near the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve.”
Piper hadn’t considered that. She turned and hurried into the lobby. Finding the reservation desk off to the left, she sprinted toward the counter, ignoring the opulent decorations, but she couldn’t ignore the scent of their delicious chocolate chip cookies. She explained in a high-speed voice, “My sister checked us out of a room recently, but I can’t go. I’m working on the missing person story. I hoped you could check me back into my room.”
The small-boned, brown-haired teenager with a pixie haircut asked Piper to spell her name and then punched in the information. “I’m sorry, that room has already been given to another customer.”
“I’ll take another room, then. It doesn’t matter. I just need a room.”
“Oh, ma’am. We’re booked. The media bombarded our hotel earlier today and there’s not one room left. We have a wait list.”
“I can’t believe she did this to me. That bitch.” She pounded her fist on the counter. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at my sister—not you.”
“Trust me, I understand. Sisters.”
“Right. Keri said she left my bag at the desk. Could I have it please?”
The teenager stared at her for several seconds. “I’m sorry, are you sure that’s what she said? Because I asked if she needed to store the bags, and she said no. She took each one to her vehicle out front.”
“You’re kidding me. Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m positive.”
Piper headed back to the SUV. Once there, she opened the door, sat in the front seat and slammed it closed. Tazzie barked once.
“That’s not a good face. You couldn’t get a room, right?”
“I don’t know who Keri thinks she is sometimes.” A taxi blew its horn and then cut in front of the SUV. She hesitated and then continued. “She thinks she runs my life just because she helped me after—” She paused. “It’s not like she did anything either. All she did was offer me a place to stay. I played maid while I was there. Not only did she check me out of my room, and there’s not another room to be had, she lied to me. She took my bag with her—she didn’t leave it at the hotel desk for me.”
“Well, I don’t have any clothes for you, but you can share my room with me. I have two queen beds.”
Piper glanced at Jaxson for a minute. She didn’t know whether that was a good idea. But she didn’t really have a choice. She couldn’t go home yet; the story wasn’t complete. She could spend the evening calling hotels, but she had a midnight deadline. She had to work. Thankfully, most of the story had written itself. She only had to tweak it a bit.
“I accept, but separate beds.”
“Absolutely, sunshine.”
Piper’s heart raced and her head spun at the mention of the nickname he used to use for her. Sunshine. That was his endearment for her, and no one else used that nickname. She wanted to cry for missing so much with him from when their relationship ended until now. It still cut her heart to the quick; every time she relived how he left, every time she recalled how he gave up on her, every time she remembered how he deserted her.
She shook off her memories. “Can we go to a store to buy Tazzie some food for a couple of days? Keri took that, too.”
“No problem. I noticed a Target a couple of blocks from here. You can pick up a few essentials that you need, Tazzie’s dog food, and doggie paraphernalia. Sound good, sunshine?”
If anyone had ever told her she would speak to Jaxson again, she would have scoffed at them. Now she was not only speaking to him, she was going to stay with him in his hotel room. This could either be her complete undoing or return what was lost long ago.
Chapter 13
Up in Jaxson’s hotel room, Piper opened the bags of items purchased at Target and began to unpack. “I can’t believe Keri. How could she leave with all of my provisions?”
He was thrilled that she did. He loved being with Piper. He loved watching her do mundane tasks like unpacking shopping bags. He loved catching glimpses of her trying to capture a glance his way. His insides churned and his perspiration increased as he realized he was with the woman he believed he lost forever.
A snore drew his gaze to the top of the bed and he shook his head a little at the picture of Tazzie sound asleep on one of the pillows. She reminded him of the princess and the pea—the mattress wasn’t good enough for her; she had to sleep on top of a pillow. Of course, she was the heroine of the day and she knew it.
A lull in the conversation reminded him he should say something. “She’s always been a little passive-aggressive. I don’t know why it surprises you. She didn’t think you should stay—she wanted you to go home with her—and when you said, ‘No, I’m staying,’ it was her way to get back at you for not doing what she ordered.” Jaxson took off his gun belt and other Ranger equipment and placed it on the small desk in the corner of the room.
“Wow. I didn’t know you felt that way about my sister.” Piper crossed her arms over her chest and her lips thinned.
Holding his hands up, palms toward Piper as if holding off the storm of the century, he added, “I’m supporting you! I’m on your side. Don’t get mad at me because I spoke the truth—maybe a little too harshly—but it’s the truth.” He took his shirt off but left his T-shirt on.
After sitting on the edge of the bed, he untied his shoes and slipped them and his socks off.
“Getting comfortable?”
“Yes. I’m hot as Hades. I needed to unburden some of my clothes.”
He reached for Piper across the small gap between the two beds. She met his proffered hand and he pulled her onto his lap in one smooth move. “Don’t be mad at me for what I said.”
S
he fixed her jaw and thinned her lips into a scowl. “I’m not.” She kissed his cheek. “She is my sister, though. I had to at least try to defend her honor.”
“Does she have any?”
She punched his shoulder. “Jaxson!”
“Kidding, kidding.” He needed to take her mind off Keri. He kissed her neck, chin, cheek, and finally found her mouth. And his heart soared into the air, all the way to heaven, when Piper met him as eagerly as he had hoped.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and put her soul into the kiss.
He laid back onto the cool bedspread with her on top of him, never breaking the kiss. He slipped his hands underneath her shirt and let his thumbs creep under her bra and play with her nipples. Her moan made him steel-rod hard and he wanted to take her now.
She jumped off him in a split second. She covered her mouth with her hand. Tazz jumped from the bed and sat next to her. Her service dog pawed at her leg. When Piper didn’t respond immediately, Tazz barked once.
“Sunshine, I’m sorry. I…I…I wasn’t thinking.” He tried to reach out for her but she backed away, never moving her hand off her mouth. Her breaths were heavy.
She removed her hand. “I can’t stay here unless you promise never to do that again.”
Chapter 14
Keri brought the journal outside on the patio by the pool. The automatic pool sweeper ran back and forth over the dark-navy tiled bottom. With a glass of Long Island iced tea on a lounge chair near her pool, she slipped off her cover-up, pushed up her sunglasses and then sat on the chaise lounge so she could work on her tan.
Keri picked up the glass, wet with condensation, and took a sip of the cold drink, then set it back down. The tea provided a sweet and sour taste that hit the spot. She flipped open the journal and turned to a new section.
Waiting at a stoplight only a mile from the fast-food restaurant, my heart pounded, and my palms weren’t damp—they were wet. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck and then found its way to the curve of my backbone and followed it to my panties. Maybe I should have called Jaxson and told him what I was doing. I wondered if I had been stupid.
Glass splintered the driver’s side window as someone hit it with a baton. Tiny shards settled in my hair, down the front of my blouse, on the seat, and embedded in parts of my clothing. I didn’t have a chance to scream before a hand with a damp cloth clamped over my nose and mouth. I tried not to breathe. My ghastly terror didn’t allow me to hold my breath more than a few seconds before I took in a deep breath. The pungent chemical scent filled my lungs.
My vision blurred. My body forced me to take another breath. My head spun and my stomach rumbled with queasiness. Then everything went black.
A dog barked in the distance and brought Keri’s head up at a perfect breaking point.
She hung her head down and let out a long breath of air. After taking another sip of spiked tea, she wiped her hand on her cotton cover-up before she touched the journal again.
When I awakened, he had me tied on a metal examination table, my legs tied to the side restraints. My right and left arms were tied the same as my legs. After I had assessed my bonds, I realized he had stripped me of all of my clothing, even my panties and bra.
I laid there bare, the cold steel table shooting a chill through my body and goose bumps prickling up on my arms and legs. Jaxson would kill me, if Samuel didn’t first. Fear beckoned at the edges of my brain, but something inside me held it at bay, not letting the fear overwhelm me.
A man cleared his throat. It was him. I knew it was him. “I see you finally woke up. Took long enough. I thought I was going to have to perform uncomfortable procedures to wake you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“How unoriginal, and you a journalist. Almost every female has asked me that one.”
He took a horse crop and ran it down each of my arms, circled my breasts, made a beeline to my pubic hairline, and then down each leg. I closed my eyes as the crop penetrated my sex. Tears streamed down my cheeks. He pulled it in and out and let his thumb circle my clitoris with each thrust. My body self-lubricated, to my mortification.
“Do you enjoy this? You are so wet!”
Appalled that my body responded to this sicko, I just wanted to die! How could I respond to this evil man? How could my body betray me like this? Just the thought of this betrayal and my quiet tears turned into very loud sobs.
Keri had to wipe her own cheeks. She remembered how Piper had struggled with her body sexually responding to some of the things he did to her. It made Keri sick to her stomach. No matter how many times the psychologists and psychiatrist explained to Piper that it was her body’s way to protect her, to prevent or minimize tissue tearing and pain, Piper didn’t believe them—not at first, anyway.
Her psychologist had to repeat the education behind biological responses that a female body takes to protect itself. The psychologist had to repeat it many, many times. The problem was that this physical response was hidden in our culture because defense attorneys blame the victim to get their violent clients off.
Piper had several reasons to blame herself. And she latched on to every one of them. Women can have an autonomous nervous system reaction that causes them to freeze. But society latches on too well, she didn’t fight back; that means she consented. And, if a woman’s body lubricates for protection, she enjoyed the “sex.” These horrible false beliefs perpetuate shame and guilt among many survivors. Society believes the woman could have stopped the attack or encouraged the assault. It’s the victim’s fault.
After Piper eventually accepted that her body’s reactions were part of a woman’s evolution to protect herself, she began to heal. She finally began to forgive herself.
A welcomed breeze brushed her hot skin, cooling the heat. Keri reached for her cold drink. The heat had melted most of the ice and her glass sat in a puddle of liquid. She took a sip anyway. The warm liquid didn’t taste as good as it had earlier, so Keri set the glass down and returned to the journal.
“You’re enjoying this, cunt. You are wet, wet, wet and ready for me.” The man I knew as Samuel undressed, although I refused to watch.
I kept my eyes closed. He laid on top of me and placed his soft penis against my folds.
“Damn you! You cunt! You ruined everything!” He got up and lit a cigarette. After taking a couple of drags, and making rings as he exhaled, he sucked and sucked to make the end red hot. Then he pressed it to my belly.
I sucked in a deep breath but refused to scream and give him what he wanted. He repeated the process, making the embers red hot, then pressed it to my breast, and then he lifted the cigarette and pressed it to the other. He burned the tender areas of my arm and the soft tissue under the breasts. All in all, he burned me over four dozen times. I’ll have these scars for the rest of my life.
Then Samuel grabbed a long flashlight that most law enforcement carried with them to use both as a flashlight and a weapon. He placed it at the entrance of my vagina and laughed, a haunting laugh that put the fear of God in me. I didn’t know if I could survive being sodomized with a large weapon like he held now. It would tear me to pieces.
Chapter 15
Jaxson started to step toward her but stopped before he advanced. “I promise, Piper. I swear it won’t happen again unless you want it, unless you state clearly that you want to make love.”
“Don’t hold your breath. I’m broken, Jax.” Piper returned to the bed and sat on the edge. Tazz followed her, jumped on the bed, and laid next to her.
Jaxson’s weight changed from one foot to the other. “You’ve never…since…”
“I haven’t been with a man since the attack.”
He crossed his arms across his chest and continued shifting his weight. “You were always so…you…”
“Yes, I liked sex before. Don’t fret. I have orgasms all the time.”
His head tilted a moment, and the muscles tightened in his cheeks as she guessed he tried not to smile. Jaxson’s
phone interrupted the uncomfortable conversation. He talked in whispers but was all business once he returned the phone to his pocket.
“Get dressed. The press got wind of the body and are insinuating it’s Angela. We need to get to her house and talk to Luke and Natalie.”
Piper dressed by rote. How could she have kissed him like that? How had she let this happen? It was her fault, really. She sent him mixed signals. She wouldn’t do that again. She couldn’t take a chance he’d leave her a second time. Not now. She wouldn’t survive him leaving again.
She couldn’t let him destroy her again.
Chapter 16
It wasn’t long before Piper and Jaxson were on their way to Angela’s home, where her mother and boyfriend were keeping vigil. Thankfully, traffic was light at this time of night. The eleven o’clock news announced that a female body was found in the search area for Angela Daniels. The television reporter didn’t come right out and say the body was Angela’s, but by explicitly stating that the body was found in the search location for Angela, she might as well have.
Piper hadn’t seen the body, but Jaxson told her he didn’t think it was Angela. The body was too decayed for less than twenty-four hours. If he was right, could that mean we have a serial killer in Texas? The vehicle slowed and Piper focused her eyes to see where they were. As he parked in the driveway, she was glad to see that the police presence was keeping the media down in size.
A few minutes later, Jaxson and Piper stopped at the door of Angela’s home. Jaxson took a deep breath before knocking on the door. “I texted Luke to let him know we were here.”
Luke answered. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to show your face here, either of you.” He turned his back and headed inside the house.
Jaxson followed Luke inside while Piper quietly closed the door. When she joined the men in the family room, Piper asked, “Where is Natalie?”