Twisted Tales (11 page)
Authors: Brandon Massey
“What can I do for you?”
“Umm, I was gonna offer to cut your grass,” he said. “It looks kinda high, and since you ain’t got no man here to cut it for you, I’d be happy to do it.”
As he spoke, he didn’t meet her eyes—he kept his attention focused on her body, his gaze crawling across her hungrily. Olivia felt as if spiders were creeping across her flesh, but she forced herself to stay calm.
“That would be nice of you,” she said. “How much would you charge me?”
“Aww, it’d be free—for you. Little way for me to welcome you to the neighborhood.”
She didn’t bother reminding him that he had already given her a welcome gift—the pecan pie—last night. Neither did she say that nothing in life was ever free.
She only said, “That’s sweet of you, but I won’t ask you to do it for free. How about I cook dinner for you tonight? Would that be a fair reimbursement?”
Lonnie gulped. “You’d cook dinner for me?”
“Certainly. What do you like to eat?”
He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “I love me some catfish. That’s what my mama cooks, every Friday. Fried catfish and French fries. When I was in the pen—”
He stopped, laughed nervously. She watched him, waiting for him to continue.
You can’t fool me, Lonnie. I know your life story, you sick bastard.
“When I moved away from home for a little while,” he said, “I missed Mama’s fried catfish most of all.”
“Fried catfish it is, then—though I can’t promise that I cook it as well as your mama does.”
He giggled, like a child. “What time we gonna eat?”
“How about eight o’clock?”
He bobbed his head. “I’ll be there. Want me to bring some hot sauce?”
She smiled thinly.
“I’ll have all the heat you need, Lonnie.”
Giggling deliriously, he hurried away to get his lawn mower.
Olivia returned inside the house.
There were preparations, beyond the food, to be made for tonight.
Lonnie rang the doorbell at a quarter to eight o’clock. Well in advance of their dinner date.
Olivia had been prepared for his overly eager arrival. She checked her hair in the mirror one final time, made sure that her short skirt and blouse looked good, and answered the door.
Lonnie wore a dress shirt and slacks. He carried a glass jug of Carlo Rossi blush wine.
“They had a sale on wine at the store,” he said. “I got me three jugs of this—left the other two at the house. I can get another one if we drink up all of this.”
“That’s so thoughtful of you,” she said, taking the jug. “I’m sure this one will be sufficient, Lonnie.”
He moved closer, his bulk filling the doorway. Once he crossed the threshold, that would be it. This would move from a case of subtle manipulation to an eventual life-or-death struggle. There would be no turning back.
But that was what she had signed up for.
“Come on in,” she said.
“Thanks, Miss Olivia.” He walked inside. He looked around, appreciatively. “This sure is a nice place you got here.”
“Thank you.” She showed him into the living room and handed him the remote control for the television. “Make yourself comfortable. What would you like to drink?”
Sitting on the sofa, he smacked his lips. “How about you crack open that jug of wine? I got it nice and cold.”
“Certainly.”
“Where’s that little cute dog?” He looked around.
“I put Mimi in the basement, so she won’t bother us. We can have a quiet evening to ourselves.”
His grin was so large it seemed it might consume his face.
“I’ll go get that drink for you,” she said. “Dinner will be ready in a little while.”
She strutted down the hallway, toward the kitchen, swinging her hips sexily. She heard him make a low whistle.
When she got into the kitchen, she opened the wine, and took two glasses out of the cabinet.
She also removed a bottle of pills from the cabinet. A powerful sedative that could be absorbed in liquid without leaving a trace. After a few sips, Lonnie would be in La La Land. And then this would finally be over for her.
She shook two of the pills into one of the glasses, and splashed wine over them. She filled another glass, her glass, with wine, too.
Then, drinks in hand, she sashayed down the hallway and into the living room.
Lonnie was gone. The TV was on, to the evening news.
Terror leapt in her chest. Where was he?
She heard the faint creak of a floorboard, behind her. She spun.
“Sorry, Miss Olivia,” Lonnie said, and clouted her upside the head with a blunt object.
Olivia awoke sometime later to find herself lying on the sofa. Her head ached. Rough rope bound her wrists and ankles. She had been stripped to her bra and panties. Her clothes lay heaped in a pile on the carpet.
The large clock hanging above the fireplace read fifteen past eight. She’d been unconscious for ... what? Twenty minutes?
She was alone in the living room. But she heard Lonnie’s heavy, thudding footsteps moving around upstairs. Searching through her stuff.
She had underestimated him. Once he entered her home, she should not have allowed him out of her sight, not for one second. The sisterhood had warned her about that.
She had made a rookie mistake, and she might have to pay the terrible consequences.
From where she lay, she could see the phone, lying on an end table. A red light on the cradle would indicate whether someone had called. The light was not lit.
That meant they had not called to check in yet. They had no idea of the danger she was in.
When an entrapment date was set, the sisterhood was supposed to call during the event, to confirm that the operative was safe. But they never promised precisely when they would call, to prevent the operative from furtively glancing at the phone and possibly alerting the prey that something was afoot.
If they called and she did not answer, they would dispatch back-up assistance immediately. But they might call five minutes from now—or two hours from now. You never knew when.
You assumed such risks when you signed up for the job.
As a last resort, there was a panic device that, once activated, alerted the sisterhood that you required emergency assistance. Resembling a tiny key chain, you wore it around your neck on a lanyard, and pressed the button only when absolutely necessary.
Lonnie had taken off her lanyard. It probably lay in the mound of clothes on the floor. Out of her reach. It didn’t matter, since she was tied up.
How was she going to get out of this?
She tried to loosen the knots, but she was bound tight.
Lonnie began to come downstairs. He was reading something. Her diary.
Tension tightened her stomach another painful notch.
“Hmmm,” Lonnie said. Flipping through pages, he crossed the living room and sat at the foot of the sofa, near her feet. He glanced at her. “Ain’t this interesting? Sound like you know all about me, don’t it?”
“Lonnie, please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“Then what was you planning, then?” He removed the bottle of pills from his shirt pocket, shook it. “You was gonna give me some of these so I’d fall asleep, then you was gonna call some folks here to catch me, wasn’t you?”
“No, it’s not like that—”
“That’s what you wrote in here!” He flung the diary across the room. It struck the wall and fluttered to the floor like a dead bird. “I ain’t going to prison again, uh-uh. I’ll kill myself before I go back to that place.”
“I want to get you help, Lonnie,” she lied. “That’s all. That’s what we do. We help people like you.”
“Help me? Ain’t I heard that before?” Lonnie laughed. He put his meaty hand on her thigh, rubbed. He leaned closer to her. His breath stank.
The phone rang.
Olivia wanted to whoop for joy.
If she didn’t answer the phone within four rings, they would assume the worst and would be busting down the door within ten minutes.
Lonnie paused. Indecision flickered on his face.
“Who’s that calling?” he asked. “That’s your folks?”
Stall, stall, stall.
The phone rang a second time.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t see the caller ID from here.”
Lonnie cursed under his breath.
The phone rang a third time.
Lonnie lumbered to his feet and hurried to the phone. It rang a fourth time.
He brought the phone back to her. But it had fallen silent.
She contained her excitement.
Lonnie studied the caller ID display.
“Oh, it was only my mama. Must’ve been calling to check up on me.” He grinned. “My mama’s real overprotective.”
Shit!
There would be no last-minute rescue, she realized. She was going to have to find her own way out of this situation.
Lonnie placed the phone on the coffee table behind him. He knelt beside her. He rested his fingers on her thigh again. His hand felt like a piece of cold, dead meat.
“You got real nice lips,” he said. “Can I kiss you?”
Oh, God, I can’t deal with this. This is too much.
But denying him would only infuriate him. When Lonnie White was angry, he could be extremely violent. She remembered the photos she’d seen of his last victim. The woman had required major surgery to reconstruct her face.
“Well ... okay,” she said. A plan had begun forming in her mind.
Lonnie’s face floated above hers like a low moon. He opened his mouth, guided his lips to hers.
She clamped her teeth on his tongue and bit down hard. Warm blood squirted into her mouth.
Lonnie howled. He fell on the floor, holding his mouth, blood spilling between his fingers.
She spat out the tip of his tongue. It landed on the sofa like a giant pink comma.
“How’s that for a tongue kiss, you sick bastard!”
Lonnie was shrieking. He tried to rise off the floor.
Olivia lifted her legs in the air, parted them as much as the ropes around her ankles would allow—and brought them down over Lonnie’s head, like a vise. She had him trapped between the juncture of her thighs, in a scissor hold.
He beat against her legs, but her muscles were strong, the result of months of rigorous training.
She squeezed.
Lonnie emitted a garbled scream.
She rolled onto her side, gaining more leverage. She intensified the hold.
Lonnie’s face was turning blue. His bloody tongue lolled from his mouth.
“How’s it feel?” she screamed, spittle spraying from her lips. “Feel good, fucker?”
Finally, Lonnie’s face went slack. His eyes slid shut.
He had passed out.
Her leg muscles throbbed, but she slipped her thighs over his head. She moved her feet through the clothes on the floor, found the emergency alarm, and pressed it with her foot.
They would be here very shortly.
Olivia lay back on the sofa. She started to cry.
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