Lizzy Gardner #2_Dead Weight (24 page)

Although branding these men was part of her ritual, tonight it all felt different. She didn’t feel like herself. She grabbed the soldering iron and pulled the extension cord as far as it would allow, and then climbed up onto the bed and straddled him once again. She made sure he was looking at the tip of soldering iron as she slowly moved it to his chest, using the permanent marker she’d already used as a guideline.

The doctor bucked and wriggled when the iron touched his soft white skin. His face turned blood red. The smell of burnt lesh no longer bothered her, which should have been her irst clue that things might be getting out of hand.

She lifted the iron before inishing even half of the irst letter. If she inished, he might not follow through with getting her what she needed. “You’re one of the lucky ones, Dr. Williams,” she said as she climbed off of him and hopped off the bed.

He looked relieved to see her packing up her things. After everything was put away, she came to the side of the bed and hovered over him, her face only inches from his. “Those girls didn’t want you. You’re a sick bastard, a pervert. Your daughters would be relieved to learn that their father was dead.”

Afraid she was going to inish him off, his eyes widened in fear— exactly the reaction she was looking for. She pointed a inger at the tip of his nose. “You’re not going to die tonight, Dr. Williams. But if you ever touch one of your daughters again or you don’t follow through with getting me what I need, this won’t be the last time we meet. And I can guarantee, if I ever do feel the need to see you again, I will finish what I started.”

Chapter 31

A Taste of Freedom

Sierra Mountains, Day 61

Vivian stared at the door to the cabin and watched it slowly creak open, surprised to see Melbourne’s assistant.

What was she doing here? Why now?

The woman looked different than the last time she was here. Her hair was pulled back from her face and tied in a rubber band. Her face was red and she was breathing hard. Once again, Vivian recognized her, but from where?

“What are you doing here?” Vivian asked, praying Jane might help her. The irst time she’d met Melbourne’s assistant was after she’d been in the cabin for one week. Jane had come alone. She’d said she only stopped by to check on her and make sure she was okay. Vivian had begged her to let her go, telling her she’d changed her mind, but it was obvious Jane had been brainwashed by Melbourne.

Vivian igured she’d be best served if she stayed calm and pretended everything was fine and dandy.

“How are you?” Jane asked.

“I’m ready to go home.”

Jane smiled. “You look like you’ve already lost a lot of weight.”

“I have, which is why I’m ready to go home.”

“Soon,” she said. “Very soon.”

Jane took some things out of her backpack and took them to the kitchen. Next, she went into the pantry.

Vivian held her breath.

Sure enough Jane came out holding the plastic bags illed with water bottles and her journal. “Going somewhere?”

“Obviously not.” Vivian rattled the chain beneath the covers.

Jane disappeared inside the pantry again. Vivian could hear her cleaning up the spilt oil and putting the water bottles back on the shelf. After that was done, Jane carried Vivian’s journal and pen back to her bedside and set them on the table next to her.

She looked around. “Other than the mess you made in the pantry, the place looks clean.”

“Yeah, your clean-freak boss did a ine job of sterilizing every nook and cranny.”

Jane looked down her nose at Vivian. “So, now we’re seeing your true colors, aren’t we? What happened to the sweet girl I met not too long ago? The young woman who was inally ready to stop stuf ing her face and make a change, once and for all?”

Vivian was done pretending. When the bitch inally stopped talking she said, “Look at you. Your ass is wider than Mount Everest and yet I’m the one chained to the bed. That makes no sense to me.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed into tiny scary slits.

The woman was actually a skinny bitch, but Vivian could tell she was insecure. “Where’s the TV your boss promised me?” Nobody had ever promised Vivian a TV but from the beginning she’d hoped to stir up trouble at Melbourne’s office.

The woman shook her head in much the same way Melbourne was fond of doing. Damn it. She knew that face.
Where the hell had she met
Jane before?

“You don’t get it, do you, Vivian?”

“You’re right, Jane. I don’t get it. I’ve changed my mind about this whole thing. I am truly grateful for what you and your master have done for me. Now let me go or I might just have to go straight to the police when I finally get out of here.”

Jane crossed her arms against her chest. “You signed a contract.

Consideration has been fully extended.”

“I was told I would have a television—breach of contract.”

“Sorry, there’s nothing in the contract about you getting a television.

Whoever mentioned a television was probably just trying to get you to the cabin—like using a big juicy bone to lead a dog outside.”

“There’s also nothing in the contract about me wearing a cuff and chain,” Vivian said, ignoring the dog comment.

“You’re wrong. The contract states that the client will be con ined.

Besides, you think they’re going to care about any of that after they see that you signed a contract and paid thousands of dollars to do it?

The only one who would be dragged to a cell and put behind bars is you.”

“We’ll see about that,” Vivian growled. “Are you inished here?

Because I would appreciate it if you would leave now.”

Jane sighed as she went to the door and picked up her backpack.

When she looked back at Vivian, her gaze fell on the mirror and on the fabric puddled in a heap on the ground.

Shit. Vivian held her breath again.

Jane’s hand grasped the doorknob.

Vivian could literally taste freedom. She was so close to escaping.

But then Jane turned fully around and said, “Damn. I almost forgot.”

She unzipped the front section of her backpack and reached inside.

Smiling, she held up a cuff: a fur-lined cuff that looked much smaller than the cuff Vivian had finally gotten out of.

Jane held the cuff outward at chest level as she came back toward the bed. “I need to replace your cuff, Vivian. You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight. It’s time.”

Vivian felt like the baby deer she’d seen through the kitchen window. Trapped. There was no way she was going to let Jane come near her. “Stay away from me.”

“Don’t make this any more dif icult than it needs to be. You’re on your way to living a happy and healthy life. Why mess it all up now?

Your hormones are making you think irrationally.”

“There’s no way I’m going to let you put that cuff on me. Is this what happened to Diane?”

Jane blinked, trying her damndest to look nonplussed.

“She was here, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve never heard the name. You’ll have to talk to Anthony about all of that. Right now you need to stay calm.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“You did this to yourself, Vivian. Why can’t you people see that?”

As Jane moved toward her, Vivian readied herself for a ight. She refused to stay in this torture chamber for another hour. She might have lost a lot of weight, but she could still hold her own.

Jane reached for the blankets and pulled them off with a lick of her wrist. She looked from the empty cuff on the bed to Vivian’s face.

“That’s right,” Vivian said. “I’m free.” And then she lunged with all the viciousness of a grizzly bear.

They rolled across the loor, neither able to take full control of the other. Vivian had a wad of Jane’s hair in her ist and she pulled so hard she felt a tuft of hair come loose.

Jane hardly seemed to notice. She still held the new cuff and she kept hitting Vivian with it, hitting her head, her arm, her hip, wherever the cuff would fall.

Jane was relentless and determined.

Why did she care so much? What was motivating Jane to ight to keep Vivian here? It made no sense.

Refusing to let her get the upper hand, Vivian summoned every bit of ight she had left inside and rolled over Jane, pinning her with her weight. She’d lost a lot of poundage, but she was no Kate Moss.

Vivian used her right hand to keep Jane from pummeling her further with the cuff.

Jane smiled at her, creeping Vivian out with a reaction that did not compute until Jane spit, hitting Vivian square in the eye and causing temporary blindness. “You bitch,” Vivian cried out.

Her body angled now, Jane used her boots to repeatedly kick Vivian until Vivian managed to throw her weight on top of Jane once again.

They were on the move, rolling across the loor toward the kitchen table.

Every time Jane took a swing at her, Vivian felt the ight leaving her.

Her body felt bruised and weak. Lack of food wasn’t helping her situation. She knocked into a chair. It toppled over.

Vivian’s head hit the wood pedestal under the table and that’s when she stopped fighting back. She had nothing left.

The room was spinning now and Vivian couldn’t hear anything. Her vision was blurred. As Vivian’s eyesight returned, she saw something scrawled beneath the wood table. Words carved on the underside of the table in the same way someone might carve their initials in the trunk of a tree.

Three words:
Diane was here
.

The chains rattled.
Click. Click
.

Vivian didn’t have to look at her feet to know what had just happened. She felt the familiar fur collar around her ankle, only snugger this time.

She was going to die here.

***

The mounds of paperwork, Lizzy realized, whether she was at the of ice or at home as she was now, were getting out of control. She had missed exercise this morning, but she didn’t care.

So far she’d managed to go through a few of Vivian’s notebooks, mostly depressing journals about her life. Nothing concrete. Vivian mentioned Diane on more than one occasion, but it was all standard chit chat transferred to paper.

Therapeutic? Possibly. Helpful? Not really.

Lizzy glanced at the envelope Hayley had given her. She picked it up and pulled out the pictures of Frank and Carol. She hadn’t had time to look at them until now. Looking at the pictures made her sad, made her understand what Hayley had been talking about last night.

The evil. The darkness.

It was always there.

People could pretend that everything came up roses if they said it enough times, but the darkness would always be there. Maybe not on their street, or even in their neighborhood, but it was there. .somewhere close, lurking, waiting.

One picture.

That was all it took. It was enough to make her want to lose her breakfast. Lizzy jumped to her feet. Clutching the envelope to her chest, she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. She left so fast, she didn’t have time to leave a note telling Hayley where she was off to.

***

Ruth Fullerton looked much worse than the last time Lizzy had seen her. No pretty silk scarf covering her head, only tufts of hair here and there. Her skin was the same ashy color, but her eyes were much more defined—hollow and sunken.

There was no denying it now; Ruth was clearly running out of time.

She was bed-ridden. A nurse took care of her until Frank returned home each night. At the moment, the nurse was in the other room watching a soap opera.

Lizzy had exchanged pleasantries with Ruth when she irst entered the room. But now it was time for the UNpleasantries.

“Ruth,” Lizzy said, her voice lined with sadness, “why did you hire me?”

“I want closure,” she answered, her voice raspy. “I need to know what happened to my daughter.”

Lizzy sat in a chair next to Ruth’s bed. Her elbows rested on top of her knees, her head bent forward, ingers sifting through her hair.

She lifted her head, straightened, and looked deep into Ruth’s eyes. “I think you know exactly what happened to your daughter.”

Ruth looked seriously confused.

Lizzy hated to upset the woman, but there would be no lies coming out of Lizzy’s mouth today. At least not in this room. Nothing but the truth, the sordid awful truth.

“You’re in denial, Ruth.”

“Have you found her?”

“Not yet, but I think we’re close.” One call from Jessica and she’d know where to go, but Jessica hadn’t called, and that wasn’t helping Lizzy’s shattered nerves.

Ruth was staring at the ceiling now.

With each breath Ruth took, Lizzy could see the rise and fall of her chest through the thin fabric of her nightgown. “I need you to tell me about Frank’s relationship with Carol.”

“He loved Carol with all of his heart.”

Lizzy shook her head. “That’s bullshit. All bullshit.”

Silence. No rebuttal.

“He’s a sick man,” Lizzy told her, “and the worst part is I think you know it.”

“Everything Frank ever did was out of love.”

Lizzy’s head fell forward, back into her hands. If Ruth Fullerton knew what Frank did to her daughter and did nothing to stop him, then Lizzy hoped the woman died right this very moment. “Your husband raped Carol. I have reasonable cause to believe he raped Carol on a regular basis. So consistently did he put his dirty disgusting hands on that girl that there is no possible way YOU could not have known.”

“Why are you doing this?” Ruth asked.

Lizzy shook her head in wonder. “Are you serious? Did you know that Frank was raping your daughter?”

“He would never do such a thing. Never.”

Filled with rage, Lizzy picked up the envelope and whipped out a picture, the worst picture out of the pile, and handed it to the woman.

“Then explain to me, Ruth, what the fuck he was doing with Carol in that picture!”

Ruth tossed the photo to the floor. “Where did you get that?”

“Your husband needs help. He took those pictures, Ruth. There are dozens more just like it.” Lizzy handed her another picture, but Ruth wouldn’t grasp onto it. She turned her head so she didn’t have to see the truth.