Caught in the Storm Read online

  “For Christ’s sake people. Bruno is dead. Our head of security is fucking dead.” Jackson yelled. “None of you are going anywhere until Jeremy is dead. Got it?”

  “And obviously Bruno was distracted. I think this is a lesson to everyone not to let their guard down. But that doesn’t mean we can’t go out. Ever.” Kat said. “It sucks and I’m broken up inside, but don’t let one man’s mistake punish all of us. Or should I just say, three of us.”

  “Ladies, please,” Anthony spread his hands out, “This isn’t going to be forever. Just for a little bit while we re-evaluate the situation.”

  “Define ‘a little bit’,” Evie said and started tapping her foot.

  “I wouldn’t plan on doing any Christmas shopping at the mall,” Anthony said.

  “What?” Evie shook her head. “Oh, hell no. Christmas is two months away! No. You boys have another thing coming if you think we’re going to stay locked up here for months while you do whatever the hell you want.”

  “Oh, come on, be reasonable. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that long,” Anthony said, exasperation clear in his voice.

  Evie stalked over to him. “Be reasonable? You want me to be reasonable. Fine, then you stay here with us that whole time. None of us go out.”

  “See there. Evie’s come up with the perfect solution. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going back to bed since I was so rudely woken up this morning.” Kat quickly climbed the stairs and slammed the door to her room.

  On one hand, she was happy, she was feeling more stress every time they went through those gates. But being happy to stay here and being forced to stay here were two different things. She didn’t turn around when she heard the door open behind her.

  After a few moments, Jackson spoke. “Are you going to talk to me?”

  “What about?”

  “That whole thing from downstairs.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Evie came up with the perfect idea. If you and your testosterone brothers down there don’t like it, I really don’t care.”

  “We’re going to stay here with you.”

  She turned and looked at him in disbelief, sat down and waited for him to continue.

  “For now.”

  She jumped up. “A-ha! I knew it. There’d be no way you guys could stick it out. I give you all about three days before you want to be behind the wheel of some machine, showing off.”

  “For now, until we can come up with something better.”

  “Sure, now you’re all up for finding a different solution, but when it was just us trapped here, you were all for it.” She stood up and crossed to him.

  “Now, that’s not exactly true.”

  “Oh, really? Somehow I don’t believe you.”

  “Come here.” He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her. “If we are both stuck here, I get to spend more time with you.” He captured her lips and kissed the breath out of her. “And I’ll be able to do more of this.” His hands gripped her ass and brought her closer to him. “Or this.” He started nipping down the side of her neck, moaning when she arched to give him access to her breasts.

  When Jackson started moving her shirt up, she wiggled out of his arms. She almost laughed at his confused look but just walked over, shut and locked the door. As she moved back to him, she lifted the shirt up and over her head, tossing it on the floor. “You want some of this?” She spread her arms out.

  “Oh yeah, I want some of that.” He leapt and grabbed her, knocking them both onto the bed. “And I’ll take some of this.”

  They made quick work of getting naked. He teased and tormented her by kissing every inch of her body, spending a considerable amount of time tasting her juices while sliding his fingers in and out of her. The ferocity of her orgasm shocked her. She lay there, not being able to move, when she felt him slide up her body. She tried to keep her eyes open, but he had drained her.

  “Baby, you’re so soft and wet right now.” As he slid his length into her, her walls clenched around him. He slowly thrust in and out, taking his time so she could feel him filling her up.

  She wasn’t sure how it was possible with her exhaustion, but she started moving with him. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until she was sure they had moved the bed five feet. When he threw his head back in the throes of release, she saw his muscles bunch and felt his cock jerk inside her. Letting go, she felt herself come again.

  Kat laid with her head on Jackson’s chest her fingers tracing abstract patterns. “Did Bruno have any family?”

  “Nah, it was just him. Might be some distant relatives, but nothing close. Noah thinks that’s why he got into this field. You know, if something like this happened it’d be no biggie.”

  She laughed without humor, “No biggie.”

  “You know what I mean, he wouldn’t be leaving anyone behind.”

  “What about us? He’s been working for Noah for a long time. He’s been around here for over a year. I know we’re all going to miss him.” She closed her eyes when Jackson hugged her tight with his arm and kissed the top of her head. “How’s Noah?”

  “He’s pissed. You’re right, Bruno was the one Noah always depended on, for years. It’s going to be hard.”

  “Jackson,” Kat raised up on her elbow and looked into his eyes, “I’m scared. It seems like I’ve been scared forever, but it’s always been just me, you know? But now, now I’m scared for you, for Noah, and even Anthony. No one is safe. Don’t you understand, No one.”

  Jeremy came to very slowly. It felt like he was in a fog. He tried to turn over but was unable to. Starting to panic, he strained at the bonds but was unable to move. Before he could cry out, he felt a prick and fell back into the fog.

  She returned to her seat a few feet away from him. Every ten minutes or so she’d check to make sure she had secured him properly. This was her first premeditated murder. Part of her was nervous, wondering if she could actually go through with it. It was one thing to plan it out, to visualize it in your head, but it was another to hold the knife and plunge it into his warm body. She was keeping him drugged until there was absolutely no doubt that she’d go through with it.

  But the other part of her, the larger part of her, knew that he deserved it. Men who hurt and killed women needed to die. And he had killed so many. She loved the thought of having that power over him, holding his life in her hands. Her small, delicate hands that were so much like her mother’s. Her mother, who was an angel in Heaven.

  She opened her file of the images of his journal pages in her laptop, needing to memorize all of his deepest darkest secrets in order to break him, before she killed him.

  For the next few days, they all hung around the house getting on each other’s nerves. Either the couples retreated to their own spaces or the men disappeared to ‘work out’ and the women gathered around the kitchen.

  Kat was drumming her fingers on the table, looking at all the information they had spread out on it. There had to be something that they were missing. Some other place he’d go. Getting up, she walked over to where the map of the local area was, and spread it out.

  Jackson came up beside her. “What are you doing?”

  “There’s got to be something we’re missing. We call around every stinking day and can’t find him anywhere. He’s got to be hiding somewhere else.” Her fingers continued their rhythm.

  “Or he’s dead and he’s laughing at us from the great beyond,” Evie called from the couch.

  “We know he’s not dead. Jackson almost caught him,” Lexi said.

  “He could also be on the other side of the world, giving up on us and finding new women,” Evie countered.

  “Well, this is going to be an awesomely positive day, isn’t it,” Jackson said, shooting his sister a dirty look.

  “What? You know it’s a possibility.”

  “Actually, I don’t think it is,” Anthony countered while folding the newspaper he was reading. “He’s been obsessed with me for yea
rs, and now, finding out there are three women whom he couldn’t kill? No, he’ll never give up, no matter how difficult it is for him to get to you. He wants his revenge.”

  “And that’s why we can’t give up. We’ll just keep looking,” Noah concluded as he rubbed Lexi’s back.

  “So, are you going to be our cheerleader now?” Evie snarled at him.

  “Whoa. What climbed up your ass and died?” Jackson stalked over to Evie.

  Evie threw her arms up in the air and stood up. “This whole thing sucks ass. He’s the one who’s free and walking around while we’re all stuck here.”

  “Be thankful that between my property and Noah’s we’ve got room to spread out. Think what it would be like if we were all confined to my cottage,” Lexi pointed out.

  Kat tried to ignore all of the arguing; she was getting good at it, and kept looking at the map hoping something would come to her. Her eyes became unfocused and the colors started to blur together. All of a sudden, it came to her. She didn’t think anyone heard her gasp, but she should have known better. In an instant, Jackson was next to her.

  “What have you got?”

  Shaking her head, she tried to come up with something to tell him, something that wouldn’t give it all away. “We know he thinks he’s smarter than us. What if we are looking in the wrong place? Every day we call seedy motels within an hour of here. Well, there are other places he could be.” She tapped the map. “For example, I know there are apartments for rent here. They aren’t in the best area of town, or are hard to rent. Some of them even rent by the week, no questions asked.”

  Jackson lifted her up in his arms and kissed her. “You’re brilliant! Come on, let’s start checking apartments!”

  Evie got up and walked over to the table. “Great, more places to call every day.” But everyone heard the excitement in her voice.

  While they all started looking up places on their laptops and making lists of which ones they were going to call, Kat made a mental note of what she’d noticed on the map. She had traveled all around the area wanting to be familiar with the roads for when she was protecting Lexi. She thought she remembered an old farm house that had a rental sign in front of it, on Tiffani Lane. Jeremy was very smart and he would see an isolated home on a street that happened to have the same spelling as his first victim, to be a sign.

  She sat there and battled with herself. Did she share the information or did she sneak out and see if there was anything to it? She could rationalize that if she did sneak out and Jeremy was there, she could always come back and let them know, saying she didn’t want them to get their hopes up if it was nothing. Shaking her head, even she didn’t believe it. They would all know the real reason. She wanted to kill Jeremy herself.

  She had everything set up next to the middle table where Jeremy was tied down. She felt this would be the best since she could have tools on the other tables, flanking the one he was naked on.

  Making sure everything was lined up perfectly; she took one more look around the barn. She really wanted to do this at night but didn’t want anyone who might be driving by to see lights on in the barn, and there were too many openings to cover up. But in broad daylight, well, maybe that showed how far she had come, not hiding in some dark cellar, letting the tornado kill her father and do the dirty work for her.

  She ran her fingers down his arm, feeling the coolness of his skin. She went over and adjusted the propane heater which was warming the area they were in. While she really didn’t care one way or the other if he was comfortable, she did want to make sure he was comfortable and she didn’t want him to get hypothermia. His death would be her pleasure, not nature’s.

  Since he should be starting to come out of the drug induced sleep, she walked over and pinched his balls as hard as she could. She was grinning as he jerked awake and immediately tried to pull out of his bindings. She leaned down until she was the only thing he saw.

  “Good morning, Jeremy. How are you today?”

  “Fucking bitch. What the hell is going on?” he spat at her.

  “Now, is that any way to talk to a woman who’s got you spread out naked?” She shook her head at him. “No, it’s not. You have so much to learn. Maybe you’d feel better if you knew a little bit about me?” When he said nothing, she continued, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dana Marshall and I’m going to have the pleasure of killing you. Slowly.”

  After the whole house was asleep, Kat carefully slid out of the bed without waking Jackson. She crept quietly to the bathroom and put on the dark clothes she had hidden there earlier. Once she made sure her weapon was secure at the small of her back, she carefully opened the door and walked out into the bedroom. She took a moment to look at Jackson, knowing that leaving to find Jeremy would ruin their chances together, but the pull of having her revenge was too strong.

  “No, no, no,” Jeremy said, his voice laced with frustration. “You’re doing it all wrong. They’ll be scared enough waking up like this.” He shook his hands. “You don’t need to let them know what you’re going to do to them. It takes something away from the whole experience I think. Give them some time to wonder. Leave a little to the imagination.”

  Dana blinked at him, not believing what he’d just said. He didn’t believe her; this must be part of his plan for getting her to let him go. She wasn’t going to fall for it. She injected her voice with more authority, “I’m in charge and you’re going to die.”

  “Oh, yes, blah, blah, blah. At least come up with something original; otherwise, you run the risk of them laughing at you if you sound like a B-grade movie.”

  She grabbed him by the cock and squeezed as hard as she could, while yanking it down. “I’m in fucking charge.”

  Her eyes grew large as his dick became hard and throbbed under her hand. This was all wrong; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had to think of some way to gain the upper hand.

  “That’s it, everyone likes it rough every once in a while. Harder. Come on, you want to fuck me. Do it,” he all but screamed at her.

  She dropped his cock and took a few steps back. Closing her eyes, she brought the image of her mother to mind. Her mother who was taken from her way too soon by this bastard. She couldn’t save her mom, but she could save other women. And it all started here. With Jeremy. She could do this.

  Jeremy lay there with his mind racing. Why was he tied, naked, to the bed with a beautiful woman he’d never seen before, saying she was going to kill him? He knew what he had to do in order to make her stall. If he could stall her, he could find a way out of this. She was no match for him. He was by far superior.

  Dana approached with caution, wondering what he was going to try next. She decided the best way for her to get in the right mindset for what had to be done, was to read his journal. Knowing what he did to all those women, what he did to her mother, would help her do what needed to be done.

  Without saying a word, she picked up the journal she created from the photos and started reading, leaving him to lie naked and tied up, wondering what she was doing. As always, the rage started to build in her as she read further and further into the book. She lost track of time and even that someone was there with her. She could picture everything in her mind; she knew what he did, and she knew what they felt as he had sliced into them, again and again. She knew he had to feel it. He had to experience the pain and suffering those other women had felt.

  Going back to the beginning, she read about Tiffani. While she didn’t have the ‘tools’ he’d had, she did have knives, and knives would have to work.

  Picking up the knife, she walked over to him. Bile rose in her throat when she saw his cock come to life as she got closer. “You make me sick.”

  “But I also excite you. You want me. You’ve read my journal. You know what I’ve done, yet you still want me. You want me to dominate you, make you obey my every command. Submit to me. I’m sure your pussy is already dripping wet, wanting my cock inside of you. I see your eyes; you can’t den
y me. I know what’s inside of you. I know what lives there.”

  He might know what lived inside her, but he had no clue as to what she really wanted. “No.”

  “Your mouth says no, but I bet your nipples are hard and your panties are so wet I could suck the juice out of them. Take your clothes off and climb on top of me. Let me slide my rock hard cock deep inside you. I’ll pound you so hard and take you so high; you won’t know what comes next.”

  “Oh, but that is where you are wrong. I do know what comes next. You’d kill me, just like you killed all those other women.”

  “Oh, you think so little of me. I didn’t kill every woman I fucked. Just the ones that Anthony wanted. Oh, and the ones that looked like my mother, but see you don’t have to worry about either of those. I’ll just fuck you like you’ve never been fucked.”

  “You lie,” she hissed.

  His cock twitched as if it were beckoning her over. She couldn’t take it any longer; she knew he was playing with her and she had to end it. Gripping the knife tightly in her hand, she walked closer to him. The gleam in his eye was the last straw. With a quick movement, she brought it down and stabbed his hand to the table. His screams filled the darkening night air.

  Jeremy lay there with sweat coming off his face and dripping down into his hair. His body convulsed involuntarily while his mind raced from place to place. He couldn’t comprehend what was going on. She walked around the table, slashing his skin with another knife, saying things to him he couldn’t quite understand. He was surprised at the pain. It shouldn’t hurt this much.

  It had been so long since he had felt this much physical pain. Daddy didn’t like it when he played too loud. He had to keep his mind in the present if he wanted any chance of getting out of this alive. He had to concentrate on what she was saying. Focus on her tone, on the words, in order to find a way out of this.