I'll Sing for my Dinner (24 page)

“You like that, baby? Yeah, I can see you do. God, you’re even wet,” he said. “You always like it, don’t you? I never seen a whore so hot to trot as you are. It don’t matter who or where.”

He put his hand inside my panties and stabbed a finger inside me. Sick pervert that I was, it felt good, even though it hurt, and I felt my juices begin to flow. It always happened. Even with that brute in West Virginia who savagely beat me and raped me, I got wet and had an orgasm. When I was gang raped at the homeless shelter in Memphis, I came so many times I lost count. I had orgasms over and over when the truck driver in Kansas tied me up and repeatedly sodomized me for three days.

“Take my cock,” Alejandro said. “Take it out so I can fuck you.”

Fumbling with his belt, I finally got it undone and unzipped his pants. Reaching inside, I found his hard cock. It had always seemed small, but after being with Jake, it was like a joke. I squeezed him, and stroked him, and he moaned.

His hand grabbed my panties and pulled them down even as his body pressed against me. The bark of the tree dug into my back, but that was a minor pain compared to everything else. He tried to spread my legs, but the panties around my knees prevented it. Suddenly dropping to his knees, he grabbed my panties with both hands and pulled them down to my ankles.

For the first time, the pistol wasn’t pointed at me. I stared at the bare skin above his t-shirt, the soft indentation where his neck met his shoulder, outlined by his collarbone. That same soft place I had stared at as the man in Kansas City raped me in that filthy alley.

A dog barked, very close to us. Alejandro’s head jerked to his left, toward the sound.

I didn’t miss in Kansas City, and I didn’t miss with Alejandro. Pulling the athame out of my pocket, I plunged it into that soft skin at the base of his neck, burying it to the hilt. He froze in place. For a brief instant, I had a vision of him rising from his crouch, pushing the pistol into my stomach, and pulling the trigger.

But he didn’t. He leaned back a bit, then stumbled when he tried to rise, falling backward and lying on the ground, staring at me. He made a pawing motion at the knife, but his hands and arms didn’t seem to work properly. His legs started to twitch, then violently kicked. A rattle of air escaped his throat, and he lay still.

The shocked expression on his face, the wide-open eyes, was the same as the rest of them. In death, they all looked the same. Eddie, the man in West Virginia, the filthy drunk in Kansas City, the truck driver in Kansas, and now Alejandro. It was jolly good fun while they tortured and raped me. None expected me to fight back.

“Jesus Christ,” I heard Jake say. Turning my head to the right, I saw him standing there holding a shotgun. Mari stood by his side wagging her tail.

He rushed to Alejandro, kneeling beside him for a moment, then dropped his gun and spun toward me. I braced myself. Oh, dear God. Maybe it would have been better if I’d let Alejandro kill me. I had been lying to Jake for so long, letting him think I was a good person. Now he could see for himself what kind of monster I was.

Jake swept me into his arms, hugging me and kissing my face.

“Are you all right? Oh, God, Cecily. Are you hurt?” I could hear an echo of his voice. I realized that it was coming from his pocket. My phone was still broadcasting.

He was crying. His hands were all over me, gently checking me for wounds.

“Say something,” he pleaded. “Did he hurt you?”

I took his face in my hands and kissed him. I didn’t know if it was the last time I would ever get to do that, so I made it a good one. He kissed me back, and that broke me. I started shaking so hard that my legs gave way. Jake gathered me into his arms and lowered me to the ground.

“Cecily, please, love. Are you okay? Talk to me.”

“I’m okay,” I managed to say. “I’m so sorry. Jake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I told him. You have to believe me. I only told him I’d go with him so he wouldn’t kill me. I’m sorry. I love you. I didn’t want to fuck him.” I was babbling. Babbling and sobbing and trying to kiss him all at once.

“It’s okay, honey,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean it. You’re a survivor. You did what you had to do to save your life.”

I drew back and looked at his face. It was filled with worry, and with love. “You’re a fool, Jake McGarrity,” I said. “All I ever do is cause you problems.”

He took a ragged breath. “Yeah, but I’m your fool,” he said, “and you’re stuck with me.”

~~~

Chapter 31

Jake

I arrived just in time to see the man Cecily called Alejandro pull her panties down around her ankles. I was carrying the shotgun, but couldn’t use it for fear of hitting her. I shifted the gun to my left hand and started to draw my Glock when she pulled that damned knife out of her pocket and struck. It was fast and clean and she didn’t hesitate at all. The look on her face was one I hoped never to see again. Absolute calm combined with pure hatred.

Cecily looked more bedraggled than I had seen her since the day she first walked into my bar. Her hair was full of twigs and leaves, her legs were dirty and scratched, and her dress was little more than rags.

I tried to help her pull her panties up, but she shooed me away. Taking them off, she wadded them up and threw them into the bushes. I must have looked puzzled, because she blushed and said, “I was scared, Jake. I peed my pants. I don’t want to put them back on.”

I had seen combat veterans do that, so I completely understood. Hell, I almost did it a couple of times.

I boosted Cecily up onto Lightning’s saddle, then mounted behind her, wrapping my arms around her and holding her close. I turned the horse and headed back toward the house.

We left the drug dealer where he died. I figured that I would let the sheriff’s department clean up the trash.

We had gone about a mile when my phone rang.

“Jake McGarrity,” I said when I answered.

“McGarrity. This is Deputy Tom Schafer. I’m at your place. Where are you?”

“A couple of miles away. I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said.

“What the hell happened here?”

“A bunch of thugs broke into my house and tried to kill my fiancée. There’s another one out here by the creek. Call Don Wilson in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver and tell him you have a bunch of Baltimore drug dealers.”

“I’ve called the Sheriff and the ME. They’re on their way,” Schafer said. “Are you walking or driving?”

“Riding,” I answered and hung up.

Cecily leaned back against me, one hand on the pommel of the saddle and the other over my hand wrapped around her waist.

“You found me pretty quickly,” she said.

“Mari found you. I told her to ‘find Cecily’, and she took off running toward the creek.”

When we reached the stable, I dismounted and pulled Cecily down. Mari was jumping around, trying to lick her face. She knelt down and hugged the dog, scratching her ears and telling her she was a good girl.

I took Lightning into the stable and hitched him to the post next to his stall. At the other end of the building, I could see a man in uniform, probably Schafer, standing near the body of one of the men I’d killed. Cecily started in that direction

“Cecily, no. Let’s go around, sweetheart.”

“Why? Do you think I’m so fragile I can’t handle a dead body?” she asked, continuing on her way.

She stopped by the body and looked down at it. Then she looked up at the deputy.

“That’s Ramon Torres,” she said. “He’s a drug dealer and enforcer from Baltimore.”

Giving him a wide berth, she sidled past him out the door. I followed her.

She gave a quick glance toward the body in the yard near Barney, but didn’t stop on her way toward the porch.

“Cecily, you really don’t want to go in there,” I called.

She ignored me, walking up on the porch and bending to look at the man lying in the doorway. He had a round hole in his forehead. The rest of his head was spread all over our foyer. I had a brief irreverent thought, wondering if insurance would replace all the coats and shoes.

“Miguel Torres, Ramon’s brother,” Cecily said. Then she whirled around, bouncing down the steps and coming to a halt in front of me.

Looking up at me, with a serious expression that brooked no nonsense, she asked, “What did you do in the military, Jake?”

It was the first time she ever asked me a question about my time in the service.

“I was a sniper.”

Nodding, she said, “Maybe we are meant for each other.”

Turning, she walked toward the third man. “Alberto Morales. The man out by the creek is Alejandro Morales. He’s the leader.”

Then she sat down next to Barney and pulled his head into her lap. Mari came and lay beside her, nosing at Barney’s body. Tears spilled down Cecily’s cheeks as she scratched Mari’s ears.

“What the hell happened here, Jake?” Schafer asked.

“Cecily called me and told me that drug dealers from Baltimore were here to kill her,” I said. “She ran, and one of them followed her. I took out these three, and took the horse to go look for her. The other one caught her about three miles southwest of here.”

He glanced at the Semper Fi tattoo on my forearm. “And you killed him, too?”

“No, he was dead when I got there. But I would have killed him if I got to him first.”

Schafer jerked, turning to look at Cecily. She looked like a little girl, sitting there in her ragged dress crying over her dog.

Ted Yost arrived shortly after we did, and the U.S. Attorney came about two hours later along with a couple of FBI agents from the Denver office. Cecily and I gave our statements, and then the FBI questioned each of us separately. I only told one lie. I said that the men I killed threatened me with their guns. No one asked me how far away I was when I shot them.

We spent the night in a motel after they finally let Cecily get some clothes from the house. At first, one of the sheriff’s deputies tried to keep her from going inside, saying it was a crime scene.

With her normal contempt for stupidity, she asked him, “Do you think this outfit is attractive?” indicating her ragged, bloody dress. “I’m not very fond of it, myself. Do you need it for evidence, too? Maybe I should just take it off. There isn’t anything under it. The thugs who wanted to kill me didn’t give me a chance to pick out my wardrobe for the day. Just tell me what you want me to do, Deputy. I’ll be a good little girl.”

Ted stepped in and let her go wash and pack a bag.

~~~

Chapter 32

Cecily

It took a couple of days before the cops let us back in our house. When they finally did, Jake tried to leave me at the bar while he went home to clean up and meet the people who were putting in the new door. I told him that I was the reason for the mess, and I wasn’t going to make him clean it up by himself.

Brave and noble words. I had seen Miguel’s brains splattered all over the foyer, and it really didn’t bother me that much. But I hadn’t realized how much adrenaline and anger I was running on at the time. I also hadn’t considered that everything would have dried in three days’ time, or how bad the smell would be in the summer heat.

I really wasn’t prepared for the smell. When Jake opened the door, I took one breath, then hurried over to the flowerbed and threw up. Jake was right behind me. It was sort of a bonding experience, as if we hadn’t been through enough together.

He took a card out of his pocket. “Ted told me to call these people to come clean the house. I figured that I’d save the money and the insurance hassle. Maybe that was a bad idea.”

“You think?” I asked. “Hell, that smell has probably permeated everything in the house.”

He made the call. They had to come out from Denver, so we took the horses out for a ride. When we got back, we waited for the cleanup crew in the stable. We stayed in the hotel for three more nights, and when we came home, I had to deal with sorting out all my clothes, which had to be cleaned or laundered.

I told him no more killings in the house. I meant it as a joke, but he looked so terrible after I said it that I had to hug him and kiss him and tell him I was only teasing.