Deceived - The Complete Series (33 page)

“Can I see her?”

“Yes, one family member at a time,” the woman said, looking over at the two men.

“That’s fine. They’re my drivers,” she said.

The nurse gave her a strange look but said, “She’s in 101, you can go on back.”

Angela thanked her and went back over to the two men and said, “Have a seat, I’m going to see her. Only family are allowed back there so you’ll have to wait here.” They didn’t look like they liked the idea, but they sat down.

Angela went back. The sounds of the beeping and the machines forcing air into the lungs of the sick and wounded nauseated her. It brought back too many unpleasant memories. She shook that off. She couldn’t help Blake. She couldn’t go after the bastard Cancer that took him. She was damned sure going to help Joanne though. The bastard that did this to her was going to pay.

She stopped at 101 and looked inside the glass walls. Joanne’s face was so beaten and swollen that it was barely recognizable. She slid the door open and went in. She was shaking with rage as she bent forward and kissed Joanne on the only spot on her face that wasn’t bruised. “I love you so much. If it takes the rest of my life, I’m going to make this up to you. You better hurry and wake up. I heard that cowboy say he’d be back in town this weekend. Wake up girl. I love you.” She had tears in her eyes. Joanne didn’t flinch. She kissed her again and said, “I will be back as soon as I can. I’m going to fix this.” She left then, out the back door and down the stairs. She’d be long gone before the men in black noticed.

*****

T
homas stood next to the elevator across from the loft with the tire iron inside the sleeve of his jacket. He was thankful he lived at the top of the building on a floor where his loft was the only unit. He heard the elevator approaching and he took a deep breath as he slid the tire iron out of his sleeve. He was holding it in both hands when the elevator doors slid open. Steve never saw the first blow coming. It caught him on the side of the head and he stumbled backwards. Thomas pressed the stop button on the elevator as he stepped inside. Steve was stunned and confused, but not unconscious. He was trying to get up when Thomas delivered the second blow to the back of his head. That one knocked him out cold. He was tempted to hit him again...but he wanted him alive. He grabbed him by the back of the coat and dragged him out of the elevator. He looked down at the polished marble floors and saw the trail of blood.

“Fuck,” he said, taking off his jacket. He left Steve bleeding in the hall while he wiped up the blood with his jacket. He got most of it and pressed the down button on the elevator before turning back around. Steve was moving and groaning again. “Mother fucker. Am I going to have to kill you to keep you down?” He raised the bar again and brought it down hard. That one should keep him down for a while. He opened the door to the loft and dragged him inside. Then he went back out in the hallway and cleaned up the rest of the blood.

Once he was inside the loft he went and got a chair from the kitchen. He struggled until he got Steve up on the chair. He held him to it with one hand while he pulled the masking tape out of his pocket. He attached one end of the sticky tape to the chair and began to wrap it around Steve’s arms and chest. He wrapped it around and around...probably twenty times, before he was satisfied that Steve wouldn’t be able to get out of it. Then he tipped the chair back and once again he struggled with the dead weight until he got the chair and Steve into the kitchen. He closed the kitchen door and went into his bedroom where he stripped off his clothes and changed into a t-shirt and pair of jeans. He slipped on his tennis shoes then and left the room...leaving the door unlocked for the first time in over a week...and he went to get his girl. He wanted Angela here for the grand finale and then they could go and start their new life...together.

*****

T
he cab Angela was riding in drove up to the curb in front of the loft in time for her to see Thomas driving away. She couldn’t tell how many people were in the SUV. She paid the driver and ran across the street and bypassing the slow old elevator, she ran up the stairs. Thomas might not be gone long, but before he got back, she was going to find out what he was hiding in that room. She still had a key to the front door. She let herself in and went straight to Thomas’s room. She was ecstatic when she saw that he’d left the door open. She went straight to the closet and pulled the cord for the attic. She took a deep breath before climbing up into the room. As soon as she was up inside, that weight on her chest became crushing. She was literally struggling for breath as she stood frozen to the spot and looked at the wall in front of her. It was papered with photos of her...some of them were her and Blake...only it wasn’t Blake. Thomas had cut out Blake’s face in all of the photos and inserted his own. There were also pictures of Joanne...lewd, vulgar things had been done to the area of her genitals and breasts. Her eyes were scratched out. The pictures of Steve were just as frightening. A red sharpie had been used to draw a line across his neck that looked like blood and his eyes hadn’t been scratched out, they’d been completely obliterated. Angela had to swallow the bile and acid that were suddenly filling her throat.

She turned and looked to the right. There was a desk there with candles all over it...and a picture of a bride. It was cut out of a magazine and Angela’s face was pasted over the models. A man in a suit stood next to her...with Thomas’s face. Angela was gasping for breath and shaking, trying to get her anxiety under control as she turned again and saw pictures of herself that almost made her toss her cookies for sure. They were photographs of her...naked in her own bed. Thomas was in some of them, doing things to her. She was wheezing as she tried to get her breath. Her hand suddenly went to her belly and she looked up to say a prayer. When she did, she saw a shelf above her head. On the shelf was a leather bound book and a shoe box. She pushed the chair that sat in front of the desk over and stood on it, grabbing the book and the shoe box down off the shelf. She had to get out of this room before she hyper-ventilated.

She took the steps down two at a time. When her feet hit the floor, her shaky hands dropped the box she was holding and the contents spilled out. All around her were syringes...and vials. Angela began to retch...and then she saw the gun. She bent down and picked it up with her shaky hands. She’d never owned a gun, but she’d shot one. Her father used to take her to the range with him when she was a teenager. She knew how to load it and she knew how to take a steady shot. She dropped the clip and saw that it was loaded. She put the clip back in, set the safety switch and tucked it into her pants. Then she carried the book over to the bed and sat down. The words she read would chill her to the very bone.

Chapter 10

The first entry was dated just about a year ago...the day after Blake had died...

It’s finally over and all I can say is that I feel so relieved. Blake was strong...to strong. Each time I relieved Angela so she could take a break, I made sure that he got an extra dose of morphine. His respirations would go down so low that even when he breathed it was almost impossible to see his chest move up and down. A few times over the past few weeks I thought he was dead...and then the son of a bitch would begin to gasp and suck in oxygen once again. I was ready to just freaking wrap my hands around his throat...but I’ve been patient for this long, I couldn’t let myself become impatient enough to blow this now.

I was there by Angela’s side as he sucked in his last breath. I had to be careful that she didn’t see the relief on my face. I’m afraid that she wouldn’t understand that it was really nothing against Blake. It was simply that she and I belonged together...we always did. She met Blake first, the universe screwed that one up and not it was finally my time to set it right.

I took her into my arms and let her cry into my chest. I’m so glad I spent so many years disciplining myself. It was a miracle that my cock didn’t get hard with those beautiful breasts crushed into my chest. I wanted to take her right there. I would have happily fucked her on the floor of the room where her dead husband lay. He wasn’t going to be doing her any longer...right? But once again, I knew she wouldn’t understand it, so I played the strong shoulder...the good friend. I can play that as long as it takes. Someday soon, she would realize what I have already known...that we belong together.

The panic, disgust and anger were a sharp mixture of acid and ice water coursing through her veins. The acid was burning her stomach and throat and the ice water was drowning her. The edges of her consciousness were turning black and she was minutes away from closing her eyes and giving into it...but then Thomas would win. He hurried Blake’s death. A sharp pain ripped through her guts as she had that thought. The last days of Blake’s life he was so confused and disoriented he didn’t even know her name. Part of that was because Thomas had given him more medication. He took the last conversations she’d ever have with her husband away from her and for that alone, he needs to pay. She took in a slow, deep breath and then she breathed it out slowly. She repeated that until she started to feel calmer, and then she turned the page. She was instantly plunged into more insanity than she ever believed possible.

The entry was dated one month ago...

“Tonight I finally saw her completely nude. Her skin is a smooth and gorgeous as I imagined it. I didn’t see a single blemish. I watched through the hole in my closet while she undressed. I watched her soak in the tub and as she washed every sexy, sensuous part of her body, I stroked my hard cock and imagined it was me washing her, and then rinsing her and then using my tongue to dry her...licking her dry...mmm...I came in my hand like a fucking virgin teenager as I watched her. By the time she finished and dressed, I was waiting in the living room with a cold glass of wine for her. She smiled at me and I almost gave myself away. God it’s so hard to not touch her. It’s so hard to not just throw her down and fuck her. When she’s mine, that’s what I’ll do every day...whenever I want it. She’ll want it to.

She’s started seeing someone. Some rich piece of shit who is a client and ex-boyfriend of Kim’s. I’m not worried about him. I’ll get rid of him easily when the time is right. She and I are getting closer. It has to be her idea that we get together...as long as she doesn’t take too long. I will force the issue if it becomes necessary. My father always used to say that women are the stupidest animals on the planet. Sometimes you had to even lead the stupid bitches to the trough to take a drink before they thirsted to death. He was a great man, my father. He was tough, but he kept us all in line. My mother was a typical stupid bitch. I don’t know how many times he had to beat her with his fists or put her in the box and leave her in the hole out back before she would understand what he was trying to tell her. She couldn’t do anything right. I got my fair share of beatings too, but not as many as her. Being male definitely has its advantages. I was smarter than my mother and my sister. I learned faster. I only had to spend time in “the hole” twice. I learned how to cope when I was in there, and small spaces actually became my friend because of it. My stupid sister was down inside there at least six times before she died. I was so sick of hearing her cry, so sick of listening to her beg me for help. I only pushed a little bit more dirt over the box...I didn’t know Dad had it measured out just right from the oxygen he pumped in there to the ratio of dirt that sat on top of it. I didn’t know that little bit of dirt would be enough to suffocate her. I’m pretty sure Dad always knew it was me...but he seemed relieved to have one less stupid woman to take care of. I know that I was happy she was gone. It gave me a whole new lease on life to know that if something bothered me, all I had to do was take control of the situation and get rid of it. People felt really bad for me that year. First, my sister is found naked and dead out in the back pasture. Imagine the shock! Then my mother fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck. Stupid cunt. I heard her on the phone right before it happened. She was on her way to meet with a lawyer...she was going to divorce my dad. Too bad she slipped on that little toy car. I sat at the top of the stairs and watched her fall. Her blue eyes made contact with my green ones and I swear the terror I saw there reenergized me. I saw the moment that her neck snapped. I remember smiling and then going back to my room and jacking off for the first time. It was strange to me to be so turned on while watching my mother die...but the more I closed my eyes and pictured it, the harder my cock became in my hand. I pounded it until I came in my hand again and then I gathered my things to go to the store. I spent an hour grocery shopping with money I found in her purse. By the time I got home, Dad was there, and probably as happy as I was to see her lying crumpled at the end of the stairwell. We both acted shocked. Once the police were gone, we had a hamburger and a beer. He never put me in the box again and the last time he beat me he was drunk and he fell into the creek, hit his head on a rock and drowned. It was tragic. Ha Ha!

Angela was about to turn the page with her shaking hands when she heard the front door. She closed her eyes and called on all of the rage inside of her. She pictured poor Blake there at the end...she pictured Joanne’s pretty face...she even let herself draw an image of his poor sister suffocating in a box...and then she stood up and made sure the gun was hidden under her blouse before she went out into the living room to meet him.

Chapter 11

“Hi Thomas,” He spun around and the look in his eyes almost made her lose some of her resolve. Once again she had to remind herself of all of his victims and once again she reminded herself that she was not going to be one of them.

“Ang...what are you doing here?” He was holding something in his hand. It looked like airline tickets. She wondered where he was planning on going...and who he planned to take with him.

“I came by to talk to you. I hope you don’t mind, I let myself in.”