Trust Me II (18 page)

“Why don’t you go lay down for a while,” he suggested. “I promise to let you rest.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to get in touch with Brian and see what’s going on with the plans for the plant in Kansas.”

“I’d rather stay out here, if I won’t bother you?” she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know if I’m sleepy or just tired.”

“I’ll be in my office, so you won’t bother me at all,” he assured her. “The kitchen is stocked if you get hungry or want a snack and the television has a full satellite set up with movies and music. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours and then we can decide what to do afterward.”

“I’ll be fine; I think I’m just going to read for a bit.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” he said. Sandra accepted the kiss he offered her and watched him stand up and walk to the kitchen, removing two large bottles of water from the fridge. He handed one to her then gathered his laptop bag winked at her before leaving the room to retire to his office.

She smiled as she pulled Miriam’s book out of her bag and curled up on the sofa. The soft sounds of the city outside hummed through the closed windows, drifting up the ten floors to her husband’s flat. It was such a lovely feeling; sitting, reading, loving her life at that exact moment without a single care in the world. She opened her book and flipped to the marked page she had stopped on her last day in Italy. Miriam had explained about her first sexual encounter with Creighton and the lessons she had provided him; her first encounter with a female and the first time she and three girls from her school in Paris had spent the night teaching each other the pleasures of their bodies. She flipped the page to the new chapter entitled
My Father’s Shadow
and began reading
.

“My father was a refugee from Germany; a former soldier who had once been in charge of interrogating the enemy,”
she read.
“Two years after they had escaped their home and arrived in England, I was born, but my mother was ill and very weak and was not destined to survive; she died within hours of giving me life. With the death of my mother came a huge responsibility that no father should ever endure alone. I have often thought that perhaps I could have been a better daughter; more obedient, more tolerant of his rules and demands, but that entirely aside, my father was the person in whom I learned my lessons on love and discipline.”

Sandra found her eyes becoming heavy as she read, the words mingling among each other like a foggy daydream. She
repositioned herself, tucking her feet beneath a blue throw at the foot of the sofa and lifted the book again, continuing the story.

“Up until my fifteenth year, I never knew my father had a love interest. I had never seen him with a woman, never heard him speak of one or arrange a rendezvous. It wasn’t until one night; late in the last days of autumn that I was awoken with a knock on our front door when I was to learn my father was a man. The wife of a local merchant had arrived around midnight; distraught and tearful. She had been beaten by her husband; her face swollen and bruised. I hid on the darkness of the stairs and listened, watching as they sat on the divan, his arms around her allowing her to sob into his shoulder. She was a very attractive woman, mid-thirties with long brown hair and big brown eyes. She was married to a man nearly twenty years her senior and had never had children; the local teenagers used to gossip that her husband’s war injury had left him impotent, sterile and mean.”

Sleep began to encompass Sandra again and her eyes drifted closed only to have her open them suddenly and force herself to focus on the words.

“My father took her to the basement where my cousin used to stay and told her she was welcome to remain as long as she needed; he would take care of her husband if he tried to harm her again. He never mentioned her to me, in fact he acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred and I did not see her during the day or at meals, but three days later after we had finished eating and I sat doing my homework he told me I needed to go to bed early. He said he had some work in the basement to do and that I was not to come down there. I gathered my belongings and went to my room, though I didn’t stay long.”

Sandra’s eyes slowly drooped a little further; sleep was beginning to win out.

“An hour later he came into my room to see that I was asleep. I had shut the light off and lay beneath the covers, pretending as any teenager would when there was an event of great interest about to take place. My father was obviously convinced by my performance and left my room, going into the basement and closing the door. I snuck down the old wooden steps a few minutes later, staying as close to the wall as possible to avoid the creaking wood giving me away. My father had a specific room in the basement he would use to test new products for his business. The light was on and the room where the runaway wife had been staying was empty. I was proud of myself; my steps were light as a church mouse as I crept to a hole in the side wall of the room and looked in.”

Sandra’s ears began to buzz with the stillness of the room, her breathing becoming more rhythmic as her battle to continue reading was quickly being lost.

“My father had the woman in the room with him; she was completely nude and restrained against the brick wall; her arms above her head and her legs parted. There were steel rings in the mortar where short chains had been placed and she was cuffed tight to them, her slender body marred with yellowish green splotches of healing bruises. In her mouth was a ball gag and her nipples were clamped with small metal hinges.

As father moved, I could see that a vibrator had been inserted into her vagina with a leather strap, holding it tightly inside her body. I could hear the soft humming of its motor and thought of a picture from my history book of the inquisition; though she did not seem to be in pain. Just the opposite in fact; she was quite enjoying the feelings of the dildo. He stepped to her side; his clothing removed leaving him stark naked and in his hand was a long thin board, similar to a ruler. He struck it against her breasts and she moaned; he struck her hip and again she moaned; it seemed all so wrong but I could not stop watching.”

Sandra yawned, rolling to her side and propping the book up against the arm of the sofa.

“The woman continued to moan as he hit her, not hard, but enough to cause pink marks across her flesh. It took barely five minutes and she cried out around the ball, her body tensing and her inner thighs becoming moist with her orgasm. My father laughed, removing the vibrator and ball, but kept the metal clamps across her nipples. He asked her how it felt to be beaten with passion and she smiled; she told him she loved him and she wanted to stay with him forever. My father did not answer her, but chose instead to kiss her as he inserted his erect penis into her. He shagged her hard, ruthlessly against the stone wall, slapping her across the breasts and the buttocks until they came together.

I had never known my father to be so cruel, but she was enjoying it, begging for more. I remained frozen to the small peep hole watching as he continued to torment her, forcing her to climax over and over again.

“When at last he released her from her chains she collapsed on the floor near the side wall from which I was watching. She was unconscious; a reaction to the many long hard orgasms she had suffered. My father seemed like a different man and he lay on top of her, having sex with her as she panted in her sleep. After a few minutes and another orgasm on his part, he lifted her off the cold floor and left the room, carrying her back to the bed she had been sleeping in. He was once again the father I knew; gentle, strong and caring as he tucked her in and kissed her lips softly. She moaned and whispered his name, bringing him to lie next to her on the old bed; her arms wrapped around his neck and a small smile across her lips. They fell asleep embraced in each other’s arms and I thought for a moment of what he had lost when my mother died.

“I watched through the hole in the wall over the next four nights, as my father repeated his actions on her, performing one unspeakable sexual act after another and becoming quite aroused myself. It was during those encounters that I discovered my own body and I would play with myself, watching her beg him for another orgasm. But then it all ended, abruptly.

“My father had gone to London on business assuring me that he would return in two days’ time. I went down to the basement that first night, but she was gone. There was nothing left except for the room where they had enjoyed their own style of lovemaking; the chains remained in the steel rings, the floor moist with water and what appeared to be dried blood, though he had never caused her to bleed that I saw. The bed was askew with sheets and blankets and her clothing she had worn and he had washed for her was no longer lying on the floor where they had been for nearly a week. When my father returned, he seemed slightly distressed and I knew it was because of her leaving him.

“Rumors began to circulate around town that she had left her husband and ran away with a secret lover; perhaps my father was not the only man in whom she had been shagging, or perhaps she used this as an excuse to leave an abusive marriage. Either way, I never again saw my father with a woman; his room was returned to a place where he would work and never did I mention to him what I had seen. Life slowly returned to normal and the world continued to turn.”

Sandra’s eyes closed and the book slipped from the sofa, landing softly to the floor. Somewhere between sleep and conscious she heard the words repeating themselves behind her closed lids.

Rumors began to circulate around town that she had left her husband and ran away with a secret lover…I had never known my father to be so cruel…I remained frozen to the small peep hole watching as he continued to torment her…the floor moist with water and what appeared to be dried blood.

Her eyes popped open when the words made their way past her subconscious and into that space of reality. Miriam had unknowingly solved the murder of Lynette Stone.

Sandra gathered the book and hurried into the office to find Creighton absorbed in his work; his laptop open on the desk in front of him, his long fingers intertwined beneath his chin as he stared at the screen. He looked up as she nearly ran to the desk, her face ashen and her breathing labored as though she had been on one of her famous runs.

“You have to read this,” she panted, setting the book in front of him. She pointed at the chapter she had just read and waited as he silently did as she ordered. A frown slowly creased his brow and his jaw set. She knew he had come up with the same conclusion she had.

“Do you know what this means?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Besides the perversion factor, Miriam just accused her father of killing your neighbor’s wife,” she said.

“I can’t believe it, all this time and nobody ever knew what he was really like.”

“Miriam didn’t even suspect his alter ego and she was his daughter. I think Andrew needs to hear about this.” Creighton nodded and removed the phone from his pocket, pushing the buttons that led to his connection with his brother.

She listened silently as he relayed the new information they had learned, reading the passages to Andrew. Her legs were shaking and her stomach did a strange sort of flip. This was sort of nauseating and she had no choice but to move to the sofa and sit down. She felt slightly dizzy with all that was happening around her and she held her breath, counting to ten to control herself from vomiting.

The room was quiet as Creighton spoke with Andrew, agreeing with him several times. The conversation seemed to drag on for an eternity when in actuality it had been only a few minutes. When he hung up, he looked at her, his eyes a mixture of relief and irritation.

“Well?” she asked anxiously.

“We can’t jump to any conclusions, but Andrew is going to take this evidence to his superiors and see what they make of it. In the meantime, he thinks it may be prudent for us to meet with Miriam and try to push her for more information.”

“How? I thought she was out of the country promoting her book?”

“She was,” he told her. “But he got a call from her solicitors that she had returned to Europe to arrange her father’s funeral, and was willing to meet with them and answer their questions.”

“If we go and talk to her, wouldn’t it jeopardize the case against her father, if there is one?”

“He’s dead Sandra,” Creighton said, taking the book and moving to where she sat on the leather sofa near the side window. He joined her on the narrow seat and pulled her hand into his, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. 

“Nothing we learn or do will affect that. It’s just a matter of legalities at this point. If the courts decide the evidence against the old man is strong enough, they will open and close the case in one hearing. At least the victims will have been put to rest.”

“What about the others? Miriam said she never saw him with another woman; don’t you think she would have noticed something odd if he had a dark side?”

“Maybe she did,” he said lifting the book. “We need to read this book of hers and see if there are any other hints or innuendos.” He drew a deep breath as he opened the book again, absently scanning the pages.

“What’s the matter?” she asked in a soft tone, watching his distracted expression become haunted.

“I have wondered a lot over the years, why he decided to go to the barn that night he caught us,” he answered. “He had been gone most of the day; there were no lights or sounds from the old place and he never went into the barn before; he hated it and forbade Miriam from going in there. Why did he suddenly take a notion to visit it that night?”