Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (37 page)

His work table was nearly three times as large as
the one he used to have. The vast array of tools was neatly placed on the
pegboard above the work table. There were much more of them now, and they
consisted of both things I was familiar with—saws, drills, knives, pliers, and
cattle prods of various sizes—and things I’d never seen before.

On the shelves above the work table were bottles
of liquids with labels I couldn’t read from where I stood. There were also jars
of what appeared to be human feet, but from this distance I couldn’t be sure.

Instead of chaining women to the floor, he now had
a stainless steel table, to which he had attached bolts and leather straps. It
appeared to be an autopsy or embalming table. I wasn’t sure which, but there
was a trough that ran around the inside edge of the table for catching bodily
fluids and a hose leading from it to the drain in the floor.

I was relieved to see that there wasn’t a woman
currently strapped to the table, but the smell of bleach hung heavy in the air
and the floor was still wet, which were both big indicators that there had been
not too long ago.

My heart was heavy, my guilt heavier. If only I’d
had the guts back then to kill Ron, no more women would’ve died. Instead of
slipping my hand out of the handcuff and running out the front door, I
should’ve walked down the hallway to Ron’s bedroom where he sat finishing up
his book, and I should’ve plunged a knife into his blackened heart. Had I done
that, so many lives would’ve been saved.

Tears clouded my vision, the same tears I’d shed a
thousand times before. Without a doubt, I’d shed them a thousand more. I didn’t
see the guilt leaving me any time soon. But I had to push it aside and not
think about it. There was work to be done and I couldn’t do it while crying.

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I stepped
further into the basement.

It was easy to imagine the horrors that had taken
place in here because it wasn’t that long ago that I was witnessing them first
hand.

At the sight of all those instruments of torture,
I felt sick. Not just sick with guilt but physically ill, as though I may vomit
at any time.

I looked over his collection, which now included a
car battery and a spool of wire, a hydraulic lift with a sling—the kind used to
lift patients out of bed, a blowtorch, a collection of hunting knifes—all of
which had a blade longer than four inches, a plastic tub large enough to hold
an adult, several containers of
hydrofluoric
acid…I
couldn’t look any more.

When my stomach rolled and I felt the bile rise up
in the back of my throat, I turned around to run from the basement.

I was shocked to see Ron standing there.

He was no more than a few feet away from me,
wearing only his underwear. There were visible marks where the straps had
pressed against his skin, but somehow they hadn’t stopped him from getting out
of the bed.

I’d sorely underestimated Ron.

“Stop right there,” I said as he took a step
toward me. It was disturbing to know that the son of a bitch had been sneaking
up on me and had gotten so close. I dared not think of what would’ve happened
if I hadn’t turned around when I did.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, Nicole? Didn’t you
want me to chase you? Women like it when men chase them. It adds to the thrill,
I suppose. Well I’m here. I’m chasing you. I’m giving you what you want, just
as I always have and always will.”

“I don’t want you to chase me. I want you to
stop.” I held up my hand, a stop-right-there gesture that he ignored. He
advanced a step, and I retreated. He took another step toward me, and I once
again backed away from him. This time, I stopped when my back came in contact
with the work table. I felt dirty just being in contact with it knowing what
its purpose was, but at the moment I had no other choice.

“Now, Nicole. I’ve given you chase. Let’s end this
charade and go back upstairs.”

“I said stop where you are.” A stern warning, once
again ignored.

As he advanced another step, I pulled the
Taser
from the holster on my right hip. I kept eye contact
with him while I withdrew the weapon. I wanted to keep him occupied so he
wouldn’t have a warning of what was coming his way.

This was the
Taser
X26
CEW. With a field range of 35 feet, it was more than enough to stop Ron’s
approach. And it did it well.

The darts shot out of the gun, prongs attaching
themselves to the bare skin of Ron’s chest. His body stiffened and he fell to
the floor.

With no time to waste, I spun around and grabbed a
bottle from the shelf above the work table. I rushed over to Ron and swung the
bottle, smashing it against his head. The
Taser
had
taken the fight out of him, leaving him with no way to defend
himself
. The bottle did the rest of the work. It knocked Ron
unconscious.

It seems Ron had sorely underestimated me as well.

I pulled the prongs of the
Taser
from Ron’s chest and dropped the gun to the floor. I’d worry about replacing
the cartridge later, when I had more time. But for right now, I only had a
couple of minutes to get Ron off the floor and on the table before he woke.

Had there not been a hydraulic lift in the
basement, moving Ron would’ve never been possible. There was no way I could’ve
lifted him from the floor. But fortunately for me—unfortunately for others—he
had added one to his collection and it was standing near the work table.

I wheeled it over to Ron, lowered the sling, and
wrestled with him until he was in it. Then I lifted the sling and wheeled his
limp body over to the cold, steel table. I wasn’t gentle with him in any way.
In fact, I was much rougher with him than I needed to be.

As soon as he was on the table, I pulled the sling
out from under his body, shoved the lift out of the way, and began strapping
him to the table. I didn’t tighten the restraint around his throat as much as I
could have. The last thing I wanted was for him to choke to death before I was
done with him. But I still had to make sure he didn’t get loose again, so I
pulled the rest of them as tight as they would go. Houdini himself wouldn’t
have been able to break free.

Immediately, I picked up the
Taser
and changed the cartridge, replacing it with one of the extras I carried in the
pocket of my cargo pants. That little episode just proved that with Ron, I
could never let my guard down. Not ever.

15

W
hen
Ron regained consciousness he was pissed, but I didn’t care. He could get as
mad as he wanted, scream as loud as he liked, but there was no way he was
getting off of that table.

“You fucking bitch,” he yelled.

“Now is that any way to talk to the woman you
love?”

“Let me up.”

“No.”

“If you let me up right now, I’ll let you live.”

I tilted my head and pretended to think. “How
about I keep you where you are, and I still live? Yeah. Let’s do that.”

It was obvious that my sarcasm only made him
angrier, which was precisely the point. His nostrils flared and spit flew from
his mouth as he spoke.

“I’m warning you, Nicole. You do not want to do
this to me.”

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Nicole, let me up from this table. We can be
great together.”

Trembling on the inside, I stood several feet away
from Ron, afraid that if I got too close, he’d reach out and grab me.

His head was turned, his wide eyes staring at me,
full of hate.

“Imagine the things we could do together.
Just you and me.
The stories we could tell. The fun we could
have. Think of it, Nicole.”

Without saying a word, I turned and walked away,
making sure to pound each step as I left the basement. I wanted him to feel the
sinking feeling that came with the sound of retreating footsteps, wanted him to
feel the loneliness that came from being left alone in the dark, defenseless
and scared, not knowing what was in store.

At the top of the stairs, I flicked the switch on
the wall and darkness filled the basement. To the sound of Ron shouting my
name, I slammed the door shut.

I stood on the other side of the door shaking and
congratulating myself on having the courage to do what I had done. I was proud
that I’d maintained a level head, kept my wits about me, and was able to think
quickly in a situation as frightening and stressful as that one. But I could
never let it happen again. Next time, I may not be lucky enough to turn around
before Ron got to me. I had to stay on my toes from now on.

From the dining room, I quickly brought in a chair
to wedge under the doorknob. Just in case Ron managed to get off the table, I
didn’t want him to be able to get out of the basement.

When the door was secure, I went through the whole
house—both levels—locking doors and windows and pulling the drapes closed. When
finished, I plopped down on the couch in the living room, but then I began to
worry. I hadn’t noticed a door leading from the basement to outside, but what
if there was one? What if Ron got off the table, went outside, got a spare key
from a fake rock or under the WELCOME mat, and slipped into the house while I
slept?

Worried that my fears would actually happen, I
went out the front door, checked over the door, under the mat, under the potted
plants, under every rock I could find, but found no spare key.

I then went back inside, locked the door behind
me, and headed out the back door to do the same thing. Sure enough, under one
of the potted plants on the deck I found a spare key. I took it in the house,
locked the door behind me, and put the key in a kitchen drawer.

Just in case.

My nerves were shot, and my hands were still
shaking uncontrollably. There was no way I’d be able to sleep, so I went in the
kitchen and looked for something to take the edge off.

Seeing as I was in Ron’s house, I trusted nothing.
No open containers for sure, even though I doubted that anything upstairs was
tainted. I’d learned that upstairs was Ron’s house, his home. He kept his
upstairs life and his basement life separate. But still, I decided it was best
to play it safe.

I found a sealed bottle of wine in the wine rack.
After opening it, I poured some in a glass and carried both it and the bottle
into the living room. Settling onto the couch, I drank the wine and tried to
pretend I was anywhere other than Ron’s house.

It took two glasses of wine to stop the trembling
in my hands. It took another two to calm me down, and another one to make my
eyelids droop. I left the glass and the bottle on the coffee table and curled
up on the couch. Even with my shoes on and no blanket to cover myself, I fell
asleep quickly,
Taser
clutch in my hands.

∞

It was a nightmare that woke me. In it, I hadn’t
turned around in time to catch Ron sneaking up on met. Before I was even aware
of his presence, he had wrapped his hands around my throat, squeezing the
breath out of me as he dragged me across the room. I woke with my fists
flailing as I tried to fight him off and keep from being bound to that table.

When I realized that I was safe on the couch
upstairs and there was no sign of Ron, I relaxed and caught my breath.

According to the clock on the wall, it was a
quarter to eight.

Considering where I was and what was happening, I
wouldn’t have thought it possible for me to be hungry, but my stomach rumbled
loudly and it wouldn’t be ignored.

Ron was a lot of things. He was a sadist, a
kidnapper, a
necrophile
, a rapist, and a murder
enthusiast. Fortunately he was also a great chef with an immaculate house. His
kitchen was fully stocked, the pantry filled to the brim with every ingredient
I could possibly need to make hundreds of dinners and every utensil I would
need to prepare them.

However all I wanted was eggs.

It took a little while to familiarize myself with
the kitchen and find everything I needed, but once I did, it didn’t take long
to fry up a couple of eggs and slather some pats of butter on two pieces of
toast. I washed it all down with a glass of cold milk while sitting on one of
the stools at the breakfast bar.

Once the roar in my stomach had been silenced, my
appetite satisfied for the time being, I put the dishes in the sink. From the
living room, I brought in the wine bottle and glass and put them where they
belonged.

I wasn’t quite ready to head downstairs yet and
deal with Ron. It was too early in the day and my breakfast hadn’t even settled
yet. I needed some time to prepare myself before facing him.

In the meantime, I went into the study which Ron
used as an office. It was small, located just off the living room. The only
furniture was a clutter-free desk and matching chair, and a bookshelf lined
with copies of
his own
books.

On the center of his desk was a laptop. I went
directly to it and pressed the power button. While it booted, I looked through
the desk, searching drawers for notes or anything else I might find of use, but
there was nothing other than blank pads of sticky notes, empty notebooks, and a
handful of red, black, and blue ink pens.

The only item in the desk that I found to be even
remotely incriminating was a calendar filled with notes written in small,
precise letters.

I studied the pages of the calendar, trying to
make sense of the notes. Since I knew Ron and knew the types of things he did
in his basement, it was easy for me to determine that the initials were for
women he’d taken into his house. A capital R followed by a period.
A capital T.
A capital B.
All
initials of women.