Pretty Stolen Dolls (26 page)

“There were no signs of sexual assault on the other victims.” He places his hands on his hips and tilts his head.

“
I
was a victim, and he
raped
me…over and fucking over again.”

“Jade,” Dillon says my name again and I’m sick of hearing it. His arm reaches for me, but I shrug away from him.

“Rape isn’t something new for him,” I snap. “Murder and butchery isn’t something new for him. These victims are older because it’s a message for me. This is all for me.”

“I just meant he didn’t rape the other women…”

“Well he raped
me
!” I screech, causing a chorus of gasps.

I wave at them all. “Don’t act like you don’t already know my fucking history. Don’t act like you don’t all talk about it behind my back.”

A rage-filled scream escapes me before I’m picked up and slung over Dillon’s shoulder. I don’t fight him, I just sob into his back.

My ass is placed in the passenger seat of his Crown Vic and the door is slammed shut, trapping me inside with my emotions in chaos. I’m suffocating under the weight of my reality. My heart is bleeding out and I can’t patch the wound.

I gasp for air as my chest restricts, tightening. I can’t breathe.

“It’s okay,” he coos. “It’s okay.” The door slams as Dillon gets in on the driver’s side. His arms grip mine and I’m dragged into his lap. Straddling him, I cling to him. “Breathe. Feel my heart beat against yours.” He begins tapping,
du-dum…du-dum…du-dum…

Air washes into me and I let him bring me back to him.

“I need you inside me,” I tell him.

“You’re in shock, baby.”

“Please, I need to feel you,” I tell him, tugging at his belt buckle. He grips my wrists and then rests his head against my forehead, breathing deeply.

“There are people everywhere, baby, and you’re in shock. I’m not taking you like this.”

Dropping his buckle, I shake out of his hold and climb back into my own seat.

“Jade…”

“Stop,” I choke out. “Just…don’t say anything.” My throat aches from sadness, my head roars and compresses.

“Scott, two nineteen.” The crackle of the radio and beep gives us both a reprieve.

“Dispatch, this is Scott, two nineteen,” he barks. “Go ahead.”

“We have a match on the black truck, license plate 764 KNY.”

“Go ahead,” Dillon tells her, looking over at me.

“The truck has been reported as suspicious by the staff at the Six Mile Motel.”

“Copy that.”

He looks over at me and I can sense he doesn’t want me to go before he even tells me. He’s out of his mind if he thinks I’m staying here.

Knuckles rap at my window and I startle. Winding it down, I see Maureen standing there with her fucking blood-eating Dolly—a gift from a fucking psychopath.

“Jade,” she questions, huge tears in her eyes. “Where’s Bo?”

Shit.

“Maureen, Bo is going to be okay. I promise.”

Big fat liar.

“Rename your dog.” I roll the window up and order Dillon to drive.

We drive in silence and I try to blink away the vision of my parents from my mind. Gravel crunches beneath the tires as we pull onto the weathered road that leads to the cheap motel.

“There.” Dillon points to the black truck.

It’s Bo’s.

Unclipping my belt, I push open the door and take a timid step outside.

“You don’t need to be here, Jade,” Dillon tells me across the roof of the car.

“Yes, I do.”

We make our way over to the truck and without touching it, we look through the window into the front seat. Empty water bottles litter the floorboard in the passenger side, which is common for Bo. He’s messier than the college kids he taught.

“There’s blood,” Dillon announces, looking into the back of the truck. A man approaches and lifts his shirt with a name badge on it.

“Hey, I’m Tim, the manager here.” He nods his head and then folds his arms, rubbing the goatee on his chin.

“Can you tell us how long this truck has been parked here?” Dillon asks him.

“A couple days. We just assumed it belonged to one of our guests, but then it didn’t move and we noticed the blood.”

My eyes scan the area and I gesture to the camera with my head. “Does that work?”

“Yeah, they’re new, but no one mans them. They upload onto the cloud.” He shrugs.

So, he didn’t think to go look to see who parked the truck here? I shake off my irritation and push him toward the entrance of the motel. “We’re going to need to see them.”

I leave Dillon to call it in and follow the willowy guy inside. It stinks of sweat and cum and if the tissues overflowing his trashcan are any indication, I’d say he uses this office as he would his bedroom.

“You’re pretty for a cop.”

Pretty little doll.

“I’m a detective.”

“How old are you?”

Is he serious? I look like shit from crying and I’m here investigating a truck bloodied up with a woman’s life splayed all over it.

“Just show me the feed, Tim,” I grit out.

He pats the chair next to him.

“I’ll stand.”

The time stamp flickers in the corner of the screen and then the truck appears, pulling in.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The truck stops and a figure gets out and walks around in direct view of the cameras. He smirks up at it, like he knows I’ll be watching and holds something up in his hand.

“It’s a keycard,” Tim chimes.

I can see that, Tim.
Like I need him narrating.
Dipshit.

He moves across the lot and uses the key on one of the doors.

“Find out who’s name that room is in,” I bark at Tim, who scurries to the front desk.

I use the computer mouse to fast forward until he comes back out of the room, two hours and twelve minutes later.

“Cindy Harris,” Tim blurts.

Bo’s co-worker.

I watch the powerful walk of the man who kept me locked away for all those years—the man who butchered my parents. He holds up the keycard again and slips it on top of the wheel of the truck. Darting from the office and through the reception out the doors, I run over to the truck and search the tire. Just like in the video, it brushes against my fingers right where he left it.

“What’s that?” Dillon asks with a firm nod. I hold the key up and point to room five with an outstretched arm.

He holds his hand out for me to give him the key and I hesitate before dropping it in his palm. I don’t know if I can cope with what’s behind that door. My mom’s body strung up like she was a fucking doll flashes in my mind and I have to hold back the sob tearing up my chest for escape.

Dillon’s heavy boots pound against the ground with my timid steps following behind. Holstering his gun, he warns me to stay back and bangs his knuckles on the door with heavy raps. “This is the police. If anyone is inside, I need you to come out slowly with your hands raised high in the air where we can see them.”

Silence.

Pushing the key card into the lock, the handle gives and he gently pushes it open with his gun aimed and ready. “Jesus fuck!” he grits out, lowering his weapon and shaking his head. I come up behind him and look inside. Written on the wall in blood above the bed where a slain female lays naked are words that haunt me.

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.

So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.

The doctor came with his bag and his hat,

And he knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.

He looked at the dolly and shook his head,

And he said, “Miss Polly, put her straight to bed!”

He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill,

“I’ll be back in the morning, yes I will, will, will.”

My cell buzzes in my pocket and I slip it out while waving for the people who have gathered to stand back. “Phillips,” I snap into the cell.

“Did you like your gift?”

Ice floods my system, solidifying me and rooting me into the ground. “You bastard,” I hiss.

“Oh, please. I did you a favor,” Benny says with a click of his tongue. “Did you know your precious Bo was fucking that whore?”

“She was innocent,” I bite out.

“There’s no such thing,” he snarls. “She was a dirty little whore. How could he ever go to her when he had you?”

“You’re an animal,” I choke. “You…my parents—”

“Would still be here if you didn’t fucking run.”

They’re gone because of me.

I ran, ran, ran.

“Why now, Benny?” I scream. “Why wait all this time?”

Dillon is in my face, attempting to steal my phone, but I duck away from him.

“Benjamin,” he snarls. “And every time you call me Benny, I’m going to cut a slice out of Bo.”

No.

“Why now, Benjamin?” My arm wraps around my middle and I try to stop myself from falling into the abyss of Benny’s insanity while focusing on Dillon barking out orders on his cell.

“I was curious about what you would do, I suppose, and coming for you wouldn’t have been easy. So I tried to get by without you.” He breathes heavily into the line. “But I couldn’t. They weren’t you.”

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

“Who weren’t? There’ve been no other bodies,” I say aloud.

Dillon is circling me like a shark now, his hands on his hips and a firm glare on his face.

“Hmmm. Are you ready to come home now, dirty doll?”

I choke down the bile rising in my throat. “Tell me where you are.”

“That’s what I have been doing this whole time. But if you bring anyone with you, I’ll slit your sister’s throat before you ever get a chance to get her back.”

“Wait,” I say, rubbing my shaking palm over my face to clear my head. “Where? I don’t understand.”

“If you don’t come for me, then I’ll be coming for you.”

The line goes dead and I drop my arm, slapping the phone against my thigh.

“Was it him? What did he say?” Dillon demands, his palms on my shoulders, centering me. I wiggle from his grasp.

“Nothing that makes sense,” I sigh, and then scream into the darkening sky.

“We’ll get the call traced.” He paces back and forth. “Did you know her?” he asks, pointing to the girl in the room.

“She’s Bo’s work colleague. The one he cheated on me with.” I rub a hand through my hair.

“Do you know the reference to the creepy as fuck poem?”

I sigh and try not to think about my time locked away with him, but it’s impossible and I’m launched back there before my next breath.

Benny hardly ever drinks, but when he does, it’s always accompanied with the same solemn mood.

“Stand in the corner,” he barks at me.

I do as I’m told and wait for him to enter. If he’s under the influence, maybe I can get the upper hand and steal the key to my cell—wait for him to pass out and then free Macy and myself. The familiar clanking of the door didn’t make me flinch as much anymore. You know you’re fucked up when you get used to your abuse.

“Turn around.”

I move to face him, not bothering to cover my modesty. He raped that from me a long time ago. Modesty is a joke.

“Whatever I say to you, I want you to repeat, ‘I know, Benjamin’.”

“Why?”

His jaw goes tense and ticks. “For one fucking day, can you just do as you’re told?”

“I’m not a child, Benjamin,” I huff.

Always the defiant one, I think it’s what keeps me alive.

“If you don’t do as I fucking ask, I will get my pretty little doll to do it instead,” he growls, pointing a shaking finger past me.

Macy.

No.

“Okay, I’ll say it.”

“What are the words, dirty doll.”

“I know, Benjamin,” I stutter out.

His brows crush together and his chest rises and falls heavily. “Get on the bed on your stomach and spread those fucking legs wide for my cock.”

I do as I’m told, swallowing the dryness in my throat. He’s going to go in raw and it will hurt. Pain isn’t a new thing for me, but I learned his moods and routines and could usually preempt his visits so I could prepare myself to accept him.