The Burning (10 page)

They show up at his studio to do a photo shoot in a pair of panties. During the shoot, they spill their life story. Mother doesn’t love them, family disowned them, living on the streets or with friends. No one knows they’re there, but they needed some quick cash. He butters them up and offers a premium contract for the studio that’s north of Toronto. To consider the job, they could come and see the studio. After agreeing, they end up in his cage. The cameras at L’Amore Studio would show the photo shoot, how professional it was and then the girl getting paid and leaving. What the camera doesn’t show was the girl walking out to the alley and getting in his car. No camera, or no one, ever set eyes on them again.

Jackie had been so easy. A clean girl who had been kicked out of her boyfriend’s house after a night of boozing. She’d explained to Elmore that her mother told her to not call begging for help if she ever shacked up with Mark. She’d had nowhere to turn. After three days in a shelter, Jackie had applied for the photo shoot and within two hours, she had been locked in Elmore’s cage.

The girl before Jackie got a fast execution. Elmore gave her a farewell hour of forced sex while Jackie was made to watch from her cage, and then he slit her throat. He remembered it distinctly because of how much blood there had been. It made him angry to no end that she could bleed that much, all over his clean floor. It took him two days to get the cell clean to the exact standard he expected from his hostages.

During those two days he’d forgotten all about feeding Jackie. He had heard her cries and her pleas, but ignored them as his anger overrode any sense of humanity.

And now it was Jackie’s turn. At least the next girl would be spared Jackie’s final moments.

She finished with her fingernails and had collected them all without dropping a single one as previously instructed. Jackie stepped closer to the bars and reached out to Elmore. He took the nails and examined them.

Good. A great batch that’ll immortalize Jackie at least for the next month or so.

He looked back at her near naked form and nodded toward her feet. Jackie looked down and understood. She bent to her knee and started in on her toenails. Once each foot was clipped, she handed all those nails to Elmore who took his loot and stepped to the table to place them in a small bowl where they’d be washed and ready for his teeth at a later date.

He stood back in front of her cell and pointed at the only piece of clothing she wore.

The panties.

Again, without pause, she understood and slowly slipped them off, not allowing them to touch the floor.

Elmore could see the worried look on her face and he knew why. Since this wasn’t his regular visit and he hadn’t supplied her with the requisite cloth to bathe with, would he use her body as he always did? If he did, she wouldn’t be as clean and that was never good for Elmore.

He understood. But that was the only way to deal with filth. He had to get down and dirty to root filth out. He needed to lay with her as the unclean thing she was and then he could be angry enough to remove the stain that she was from his world.

Jackie handed him her last pair of panties. He laid them down in the box that would be shipped out in the morning with the pictures he’d taken of her earlier that authenticated the use of the panties.

If the customers who bought the underwear ever knew how authentication was attained, he wondered how many would continue to purchase them.

Jackie stood in the center of her little prison, naked, shivering with fear, not cold, looking pathetic.

How dare you? Come here and act like you’re someone special. I will teach you what’s special.

Other than the little mattress he allowed them as a cot and the small thin sheet for a blanket, there was a waterless toilet and nothing else in the cell. He couldn’t allow them any way to off themselves. He also had to be careful that they wouldn’t discover a weapon to attack him with when he entered their cells for his evening pleasure.

Elmore pulled the cell keys from his pocket and found the one for Jackie’s door. For a moment the room blurred in his vision. It was always this way. His anger would rise and become a fury. In that final moment, all that mattered was the girl and removing the stain that she had become.

“No, no …” Jackie whimpered and stepped away from the door.

“Why no, Jackie? After six months, you’re used to me by now.”

“Not at this hour. You never come in the afternoon.”

“Am I required to check with you when I want to alter the schedule?”

The lock clicked, the cell door opened. He eased it open all the way. At any other moment, he knew she would be pretty. One hundred and thirty pounds, tanned skin, nice cup size and long, pretty hair. Two, three months ago, she was. He had enjoyed her labors. But now she was dirty, unclean. What Elmore did with grime was wipe it out.

“No. I just … what I mean is … I’m scared.”

“It’ll be okay, Jackie. After today, we are done here.”

It must be something akin to how cows feel when they’re being led to the slaughter house. An innate sense of impending doom. They know their fate and are powerless to stop it. In Jackie’s eyes, she knew her time had come. But Jackie wasn’t a cow. She acted more like a squirrel stuck in a corner as a large attacker advanced. The violence he detected coming off her in waves surprised him.

He stood three feet from her when she raised both her hands to ward him off.

“No, please, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

Nothing in Elmore that would be considered rational heard a word she had said. All he felt, all he saw and all he desired was an end to her. An end to the fake relationship she had made him conduct with her. An end to the wondering if someone would knock on his front door looking for her. An end. That’s what Elmore needed now.

Jackie moved to the back wall as Elmore edged closer. He brought his hands to the lip of the underwear he wore and slowly lowered the pair to his ankles. Now with his member exposed, it hardened further with anticipation.

Then Jackie sprung. Off the wall she flew at him with the violence of Tie Domi in his prime.

Elmore hadn’t expected it. She caught him off balance. He faltered and stepped backwards until he hit the bars.

Jackie’s small fist smacked him in the face, then the mouth. His response delayed, she ran past him and headed for the stairs, her flesh barely bouncing as she’d lost weight in the time she’d spent with Elmore.

He let her go, wiping at the blood that had started to seep from his split lip.

“This is going to cost you,” Elmore shouted.

Jackie made it to the top of the stairs. What she didn’t know was that Elmore had locked the metal door behind him and the only way out was with the key he held in his pocket.

He picked up his underwear, slid them back on and stepped from the cell. Pain made him angry, not horny. Jackie still had to be removed, but now it wouldn’t be because she had made him filthy with her feminine touch, but because she had hurt him.

“It’s time to pay for your misdeeds.”

“Noooo,” Jackie screamed from the top of the stairs.

“Stupid bitch,” he said as he looked at his table of tools. A handsaw, a screwdriver, and many other devices she could’ve used as a weapon sat out in the open. Instead, she had run for the stairs. He knew it was the female condition. Just being born was enough to fuck them up.

He chose the Craftsman screwdriver. If he wasn’t going to screw her, he’d let his tool do it for him.

Jackie remained at the top of the stairs, shivering, crying, her arms wrapped around her nakedness.

It was a sight he would remember. Jackie had served him well.

“Goodbye, Jackie.”

Elmore started up the stairs, one slow step at a time. His tongue came out and tasted the blood on his lip as it clotted, the slight sting of the punch lingering.

On the fourth step, Jackie sprang into action. He’d advanced slowly. Based on her performance in the cage, he had expected it.

Jackie screamed like a feline in a full fight with another as she jumped two stairs and dove at Elmore. He braced himself and lifted the long screwdriver, aiming for the center of her chest.

It connected cleanly and entered her ribs between her breasts. Her weight drove Elmore back until they both fell. The hard basement floor proved unforgiving. He hit his elbow hard enough to cause pins and needles to course through his left hand.

But Jackie hit harder. She smacked down and rolled onto her back, her mouth bleeding after making contact with the floor directly. A couple teeth had cut through her lip. She rolled her head back and forth, moaning, crying and trying to figure out what had happened to her chest.

He watched as she lifted her head and realized it was the screwdriver’s handle that stuck out of her skin. Her breathing becoming more and more labored.

Elmore got up slowly and moved closer. Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flaring in their feeble attempt to claim as much air as they could catch. But it was no use. Blood began to slip past her lips. She was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.

Elmore looked up and down her body, once pretty, now broken and dirty. He wadded up a gob of saliva and spit on her stomach.

“That’s what I think of vermin, you fucking whore.”

He reached over and laid his palm around the screwdriver’s handle. Both her hands came up to his wrist and her head shook back and forth fast, her eyes wide. She tried to say something, but only screamed as Elmore twisted the tool in and out.

Jackie’s body convulsed, her hands fell away and her eyes rolled back in her head.

In her last moment, her bowels evacuated.

“Oh, man, you are going to pay for that. I cannot believe you soiled my floor.”

Elmore got up, fished for the keys in his shirt pocket and headed for the stairs. He would clean up in his bathroom, get dressed in his plastic coveralls and grab a bag of lime from the garage.

Then he’d return, take Jackie apart with his handsaw and start planting her in the field behind his house, lime coating every piece.

No trace of Jackie would ever be found. The basement would take some cleaning, but he’d get on it and then start searching for Sarah Roberts again.

One day he’d find her. When that day came, he’d be ready.

If he couldn’t find her soon, he’d answer the resumes he had received for photo shoots and find another young girl to keep as a toy until he found Sarah.

Whatever happened, his needs came first, and nothing or no one would stop him.

Not even someone as courageous and heroic as Sarah Roberts.

On the stairs, he stopped and said to himself, “Sarah, I’m coming for you.”

Chapter 6

Sarah’s headache had completely dissipated, but the back of her neck still hurt where the stitches were. While waiting for Rod to return, she had paced the room, tried to see through the two-way glass and knocked on the door enough times to make her knuckles red. Normally she would take the time they wanted to sweat her with ease, but Drake’s life hung in the balance. It was decision time. She had to do something. She couldn’t let Rod murder Drake simply because he had an agenda.

She knocked on the glass. “Deal time. Get Rod in here. He’s got one minute, or the deal is off the table. And when I say off the table, I mean for good.”

Sarah sat back in the chair and placed both hands in front of her. She felt anger that Drake could be killed so easily — just because she was stuck in Chicago. Why was she the only one who really cared?

After what felt like a minute had passed, she looked back at the glass. She couldn’t believe it. The door hadn’t opened. Now she felt her anger rising to dangerous levels.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, slamming her hands down on the top of the table where she sat. “If you want to see what I can do, get Rod in here. Now!”

She never bluffed. This had to be it. No deal. Without a clock she couldn’t be certain, but it sure felt like a minute had gone by.

The door opened. Rod stood there.

“They said you wanted to talk.”

“We’re running out of time. Sit. Listen to what I have to say.”

Rod stepped in and shut the door. He checked the knob to make sure it held the door tight and walked over to the table. After crossing his arms, he stared down at her and waited.

“I’m going to tell you some shit, but not because I want to and not because you made me. Because it’s the right thing to do.” She paused and waited for a reaction. Rod stood like a stone statue. “I received a message in Hungary from my dead sister. That’s why I came to Toronto. There’s someone I have to save. I’m prepared to make a deal, but it has to be on my terms. It won’t work unless I run the show.”

Rod shook his head. “No way. Talk first. Then
I’ll
decide what’ll be done.”

She was clean out of options. He held the control and they both knew it. She had to go forward with this and deal with the consequences later. Another man’s life was at stake.

“His name is Drake Bellamy. He knows too much about the immigration fraud group that is being dismantled in Europe and around the world as we speak. He has been ordered killed. My sister told me where and when. I’m sure she’ll give me more details as the time gets closer.”