The 7th Victim

“I believe him, Deacon. Jonathan has no reason to lie to me.”

“Well, whoop-dee-do for you, Miss Perfect Parent.”

“If you won’t take my offer, I’m gonna go back to court, let the judge decide.”

Deacon’s face curled into a snarl. “You bitch. Do that and you’ll be sorry.”

Vail smirked and shook her head. “I don’t respond to your threats anymore, Deacon. There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.”

With that, Vail felt something hook behind her right foot—and Deacon’s right hand push against her chest. She was moving backward faster than she could react, and a second later her head struck the wood floor in an explosion of blinding pain.

fifteen

I awake with a start. I realize I’d fallen asleep in my room. Shit! He’s coming. Creaky floorboards. Heavy footsteps.

Before I fell asleep, he was with a whore. I know her, she’s been here before. I’ve seen her eyes, the way she looks at him. They’re mean eyes.

The door swings open and my father stands there, his overalls unbuttoned at the top, the straps dangling at his sides.

“There was someone here.”

He sneers. “She was a bitch, I got rid of her.”

“I didn’t like her.”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t like you none, either. She thought you were bad. Ugly. Just like your mama saw you.”

Mother. She didn’t know what it meant to be a mother. She couldn’t have. She was a bitch, just like the ones he brings home.

“Let me tell you something, them bitches are real bad. They see you as trash. Ugly, rotting trash. The whores always say mean things about you. They say you’re ugly and you’re lucky to have a father like me who takes care of you.”

Lucky is not the word I use to describe my life.

He comes over to the bed and I’m waiting for the belt to come whipping at me. I shy away, waiting. . . .

“It’s your mama of a whore’s fault you’re ugly. She made you this way.”

I lift my head slowly, still waiting for the leather to snap against my skin. But I notice he’s not wearing a belt.

“Time for a haircut, your hair’s gettin’ too long! Come on, now!”

He grabs me and pulls me off the bed—

Amazing stuff! He realized he had to do something with it, publish it somewhere. He could use someone else’s name so no one would know it was him. Or maybe I do want people to know what I endured. Fiction or nonfiction? It’s all true, but who’d believe it? They’d look at him like he was the bad one, because who wants to be associated with someone who’d been treated like that?

But there were people who would be interested in this stuff. People who’d eat it up, consider it downright brilliant. They’d read it and read it again, show it to other people, scrutinize it until they broke it down by word choice, grade level, and whatever other silly metrics they’d designed to evaluate writing.

And the cops would analyze it, too.

Let them comb through it, they’ll never get anywhere with it. Of course it meant he’d have to cover his tracks. So be it. Put it out there and see what reaction his readers had. If it came off well, maybe he’d go for a bigger audience.

He closed the laptop and yawned hard, but a jolt of pain made him wince. His face was killing him. The last bitch got in a cheap shot, a roundhouse punch that landed square and stunned him for a second. After letting him in the house, something must’ve tipped her off, because she took the first swing. But he wanted her dead a little bit more than she wanted to be alive, because after hitting him she started to run. He grabbed her arm, spun her around, and punched her back, a left and right combination, real fast. All he knew was that it hurt his knuckles. But she went down and then he got his pipe out and that was that.

He’d been on the receiving end of a beating too many times, so if you wanted to go toe to toe with him, fine, he was ready to rumble. He knew all the moves because he lived through them.

He shoved an ice pack against the lump on his forehead. The swelling had drained a bit into the side of his face and jaw, but fortunately the discoloration was easily covered by makeup. An FBI agent with a large purple and black bruise on his face would attract attention, and that was something he needed to avoid.

But if there was one thing this bitch taught him, it was that he needed to handle these encounters better, find a way of knocking them out faster, before they had a chance to swing at him. Next time it could be a knife or a broken bottle.

He made a list of possible solutions, but they all involved risk—the biggest of which was being seen in public buying a weapon. But the Internet, on the other hand, allowed him to go anywhere and do anything he wanted, without anyone scrutinizing his face or questioning his motives.

He could buy whatever he needed, within reason. A simple search brought him to numerous websites that sold stun guns, which could incapacitate a bitch for minutes at a time. All he’d have to do is touch the probe to her body—hell, even her clothing. The longer the contact, the longer the period of incapacitation.

He clicked on the Frequently Asked Questions link, and read: “Using a high pulse frequency, stun guns scramble the nervous system and make the muscles work so rapidly their source of energy converts immediately into lactic acid, exhausting and disabling the muscles. At the same time, the pulse interrupts the brain’s nerve impulses, causing the stunned individual to lose muscle control and become disoriented. This incapacitated and confused state will last two to five minutes or longer depending on body mass and. . . .”

Minutes! He only needed a few seconds, really. A few seconds to get his hands around her neck, a few seconds to squeeze the life from her body. Two hands, two eyes. Two bugged out eyes, the capillaries bursting from the pressure. . . .

He quickly paged through the website, entered the credit card number, then logged off. He’d have the package tomorrow.

It seemed almost too good to be true.

sixteen

The room spun for a second before coming back into focus. Vail blinked a few times and realized she was staring at the light fixture on her ceiling. No, not her ceiling, not anymore. Deacon’s ceiling. Deacon’s house.

The television was on, the unmistakable sound of cars racing around a track blaring from the speakers. A cigarette was burning down near the filter in an ashtray beside Deacon’s recliner. And—what the hell?—her pants were unzipped.

What time is it?

Why am I on the floor?

Why does my head hurt so much?

Vail rolled onto her side and saw Deacon’s empty Lazy Boy. Where the hell is he?

She felt like a hammer had crushed her skull. She reached back and felt a bruise, as if her head were a piece of damaged fruit. Whatever had happened, it involved Deacon. And that meant it wasn’t good.

Vail pulled herself up and stood in the middle of the living room, which tilted back and forth like a seesaw. She swayed, dizzy and wobbly, bending her knees and holding her arms out like a surfer for balance. After steadying herself, she stumbled out to her car.