She was important to him.
So he was fucked, unless he could figure out what to do about the man who’d taken everything from him. He just had no idea where to start looking.
The little Mazda Miata ripped past him in the darkness, swerving erratically around the bend in the road. He caught a glimpse of long brown hair and turned on his flashers. This could be fun.
The car pulled off the road, narrowly missing a tree near the edge. A quick license plate check told him what he already knew: the owner was a college student and had a record. The night was looking better already.
He pulled over behind the sporty two-seater and moved to the driver’s side window. The girl inside was already terrified. She had long brown hair, dark brown eyes and a mouth made for pleasing men.
“Did I do something wrong, officer?”
“I need to see your license and registration, please.”
“What was I doing wrong?” She had the audacity to sound offended.
“You were weaving all over the road, for one.” He sighed and shook his head. “I need to see your license and registration, please. Now.”
She sighed and pulled out her purse, digging through layers of debris while he waited. “I’m not drunk, you know.” Her voice had taken on an edge that he found annoying. Now and then he ran across one that got bitchy and that took all the fun out of his evenings. Unfortunately, it was looking like he’d found one with attitude.
“That’s one of the things we’re here to find out, miss.”
Her ID said her name was Veronica Miller. She was nineteen, officially too young to have alcohol on her breath, but he smelled it. “Have you been drinking, Ms. Miller?”
“No. I haven’t been drinking. I don’t drink.” Now she was rolling her eyes, so obviously put out by his daring to question her. Brian clenched his jaw, ready to just lock her in cuffs and get it over with.
“Why don’t you step out of the car?”
“Look, I told you I haven’t been drinking, okay?” There. She was starting to break a bit, putting on the wide eyes as soon as she realized he was serious.
“Just step out of the car, please.”
She climbed out, but very reluctantly. Her big brown eyes were doing the fast blinks that normally meant the water works would be coming soon. She swayed a bit as she stood in front of him; just shy of five and a half feet in height, she was slender and pretty and drunk enough that he would be justified in taking her to the jail for a sobering night. Brian pulled out the Breathalyzer test kit and watched in satisfaction as she got closer to tears.
“Please don’t do this, mister.”
“Just doing my job, Ms. Miller.”
“I mean it. I can’t get another ticket.”
“You were driving while intoxicated. You’re too young to be drinking at all.”
“Are you going to give me a ticket?”
“What other choice do I have?” He let his eyes roam over her body for a moment, knowing he shouldn’t be looking so blatantly. It had to be her idea.
“My dad’s gonna freak out.”
“I can’t help with that. I can’t just let you go. You were weaving all over the road. You might have killed someone.”
“Come on, have a heart, I’m just at the limit.”
“I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”
Three minutes later, just when he was thinking he might have to actually book her, she decided to try offering her body instead of getting locked up. Naturally he agreed and they moved into the woods. She was trembling and that made it all the sweeter when he started taking off her clothes, peeling away layers to reveal the beautiful body underneath. She was trembling and whimpering by the time he had her fully disrobed. He wanted her so badly he would have actually paid her for the pleasure, but knowing she was scared of him and what he could do to her made it all that much sweeter.
They kissed for several minutes while he explored her with his hands. She was hesitant to return the favor, but eventually started making life interesting again. Finally he moved into position, savoring the way she looked on all fours. Just as he was preparing to penetrate her, she ran. One second he was moving behind her tight, little ass and ready to get a home run—she shaved, which was a new one for him—and the next, she was up and running, leaving him humping air.
Brian cursed and gave chase, pulling up his pants as he started after the damned fool girl. Now he knew fear, too, because she could ruin him with a word. The accusation was all it took for a girl to cause him troubles, which was why he normally made sure they had at least a few drugs on them.
She was fast, moving with surprising speed and grace for a naked coed. He watched her as she ran, his eyes still taking in the sight of her body as she managed to avoid obstacles that should have had her down in the dirt. In the long run, he was faster. He had more on the line than she did and desperation fueled his pace; all she was risking was being sore in the morning. If he got busted by some little cunt telling people what he’d done, he’d lose what little remained in his life worth having.
The area was already dark, and she was drunk. That didn’t stop her from giving him one hell of a run and didn’t stop him from getting angrier and angrier as they ran through the woods. But as he knew would happen eventually, she slipped and fell, hitting the ground hard and whimpering as he came up on her.
He took her in the mulch and dirt, forcing himself on her and listening to her screams; they were sounds of beauty. Her sweet young face was a beautiful thing to see; dirtied and tear streaked, her eyes looking everywhere but at him until he grabbed her long hair and made her see his face. When he was done, he pulled himself from her and savored her tears.
She was still crying when he got dressed. She was still lying in the carpet of the woods when he pulled out his night stick and cracked her skull open. Just to make sure that he could hide the evidence properly, he used a rock to hide the marks left by his bludgeon.
Looking down at the ruins of a girl he’d stopped for driving badly, Brian Freemont felt at peace for the first time in several days.
IV
A house is not always a home.
Angie Freemont was learning that and learning to live with it. Brian used to be a sweet man, attentive and loving. Something about working on the police force had changed him, and not for the better.
She was in the kitchen and cooking for him, preparing his early morning dinner. It was something she always insisted on doing, having his meals ready for him. She felt she had to, not because it was her wifely duty, but because he was the one providing for her and he was the one working his ass off.
She chopped the onions with the skill of a chef, which was appropriate enough. She’d worked as a line cook all the way through high school and had done it through her three years of college, too. In her mother’s words, she came from a long line of have-nots and in order to get what she wanted she had to work for a living.
Not working was driving her crazy, but the baby’s health had to be considered and even now her unborn child was considered at risk. The pregnancy had not been an easy one, and it wasn’t getting any less difficult. Something about the blood types for her and Brian put their child at risk. There were medicines to take, and endless warnings that she couldn’t get too active.
That hadn’t made Brian a very happy man. He was constantly horny. She was too, but now with the baby on the way, she normally felt too crappy to do anything about it. Besides, it was hard to get down and get funky all over her husband when there was a basketball stuck inside her stomach and her back felt like she’d been wearing a damned saddle all day.
She sautéed the onions in butter and tossed in the meat she’d been marinating. He liked cheese steaks. It was Friday night and he was stuck working the worst shift the department could throw at him. He told her he’d asked for a switch to dayshift half a dozen times, but so far he was still stuck with the shit detail.
The peppers went in next, and their aroma permeated the air. The spatula cut through the already sliced meat and blended in the vegetables as the steak cooked. Next came a little olive oil, and then the white American cheese. The crusty bread was done already, and merely waited for her husband’s return to the house. Finally she tossed in the finely sliced mushrooms and stirred again before deftly flipping the meat into the hard rolls.
He would be home soon, and dinner was done. She slipped on her jacket after everything was set up and then stepped outside to catch a breath of clean air and to cool off. The house was nice, but she always felt like she was going to melt if she spent too much time in the kitchen.
They came for her in the darkness; a little boy of maybe nine or ten and a young girl who was only a few years older.
She never even had a chance to scream before they attacked, inhumanly strong hands clutching at her arms and pinning her to the hard wood of the porch, pressing her belly into the wood as they tore at her coat.
Angie fought hard; straining her wrists to break free of the demons and grunting as the girl finally ripped the fabric of her jacket away and bared her skin.
She should have been able to take them, should have been able to at least slap the little boy away from her and fight the girl. She had never been a weak woman, physically, and she could still put a hurting on a man a hundred pounds bigger than she was, as Brian had learned the one time he decided to slap her.
But the kids were too strong and seemed to feel nothing when she managed to land a kick. The girl looked at her with dead eyes. Dead, as in glazed over and dry enough that it looked painful to stare into them.
Angie finally found enough breath to scream, wrenching her hands free of the monster’s grasp. She landed a beautiful punch in the girl’s face and felt the delicate, teenaged nose break under her knuckles.
The little boy only seemed intent on getting her clothes off of her, and his fingers found purchase enough to rip her blouse open in an explosion of buttons and thread.
The girl she’d hit kept moving in, her hands bruising Angie’s flesh, and Angie screamed again as she was pinned for the second time. Her breasts were tender, made sensitive by the changes brought on from her pregnancy. She screamed a third time when she felt the boy’s teeth break the skin around her nipple.
And then the teenaged girl with the blond hair and mashed nose hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious.
She felt herself moved, heard the girl tell the boy to stop being a pig and heard the boy make a rude comment that had both of them laughing. The world faded in and out for her, an endless blur of motion that ceased only when the ringing in her head got too extreme.
The wind around her became a roaring voice. No, not the wind: the sound of crashing waves.
Angie woke up just in time to feel the water closing in around her head. She tried to catch her breath but failed, and instead sucked in water. She thrashed, drowning and terrified, but it did no good. They held her under the water with their thin hands and incredible strength. She tried to escape again and again, but soon the burning in her lungs was too much and the blackness came back to swallow her again.
And finally she awoke, soaked and naked and shivering in a different sort of darkness. There was no light of any kind, but she could hear just fine, hear the sounds of the things that moved around her, and feel their hands as they touched her in the lightless, echoing void.
“Who’s there?” Her voice, weakened though it was, echoed around her.
A voice giggled off to the right. “Mommy? Is that you, Mommy?”
“Shhhh. Be nice. She is with child.”
“Mmmmm. Babies.”
“Leave me alone!” her voice boomed in the darkness and ricocheted off distant walls.
“No, Mommy. I’m hungry now. Feed me.”
The teeth clamped down on her breast again and then there were more mouths, all of them biting at her skin, all of them penetrating flesh and meat and sometimes even bone.
Angie Freemont screamed for what seemed an eternity, pushing and fighting and trying desperately to escape from the agonies they delivered onto her. She tried to stand and they knocked her back down. She tried to claw at their flesh and they ignored her best attacks. Finally she stopped struggling, feeling every last bite.
She took a long time to die.
Chapter 9
I
He wanted to be truthful with the detectives, but he couldn’t, not even if it meant Angie’s life.
He knew that, and hated himself for it.
Brian Freemont came home to an empty house and at first thought Angie had finally decided to leave him. It didn’t take him long to realize that her clothes were still there, along with her suitcases and everything else she owned. Her purse was still exactly where she’d left it, on the edge of the couch. After that, it took about ten minutes of looking around to see the shreds of her clothes on the darkened porch.
He dialed 911 and sat down on the edge of the stairs leading up to his house. He wasn’t about to touch anything else until the detectives got there. His heart was beating too fast and he was sweating despite the late October chill.
When the phone rang on his hip, he jumped. His fingers scrabbled madly to answer the damned device, and he hoped beyond all of his wildly growing doubts that Angie was calling him.
“Angie?” His voice was trembling as much as his hands.
“No, Officer Freemont,” he knew the voice as soon as the man spoke, and he felt rage blossom in his chest. “It’s not your wife. I’m just calling to let you know that your accounts are back where they should be.”
“What did you do with Angie, you sick fuck!”
“Your wife?” The voice sounded surprised enough that Brian guessed the man either knew nothing about her disappearance or he was an actor with supreme skills. “I don’t know anything about your wife, Freemont. Maybe she found out about your extra job benefits.”