CHAPTER 22
Jenny disconnected the tube from the needle sticking in Dean Newman’s forearm. Then she wrapped the whole kit and caboodle up and shoved it all inside her handy-dandy bag. Next, she peeled off the tape, along with a few of his arm hairs, and then yanked the needle out. “Sorry,” she said. “Did that hurt?”
Dean didn’t say a word. He looked like a wet noodle. He just sat there in the passenger seat of his SUV, slumped against the door like a rag doll.
“I bet you’re wondering how you got an IV in your arm.”
“No,” she said, answering Dean’s unasked question, “I’m not a nurse. I’m a chemist. But making a homemade IV turned out to be no big deal. There’s a good chance you might get an infection, of course, but no need to worry about that because you’ll be dead soon.”
Once she had all her things packed away, she took hold of Dean’s arm and pulled him toward her, trying to drag him over the console and into the driver’s seat. This wasn’t going to be easy. She opened the driver’s door, turned her back to it, braced her feet against the console, and heaved. Good God, the man was a load, but she was making progress. She had to stop a few times to take a breath and then try again. His shoulders were across, then his trunk—and then, finally, all in a rush, she was flying out of the car and he was coming out of the SUV after her, hanging up at the last second or he would’ve crushed her beneath him.
“Jeez. How much do you weigh, Dean?”
He couldn’t answer her, of course, but she had to admit she was having fun with him. Well, if you could call pulling a two-hundred-pound man from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat fun. It was slow going tucking his legs down where they needed to go and hoisting him up behind the wheel, but she managed.
“I was surprised you showed up tonight,” Jenny told him, panting beside the open door with her hands on her knees. Even in the cold night air, she was sweating like mad. “Despite not being prepared, I put a lot of thought into how I might get rid of your body. I thought about chopping you up and feeding you to the big boar on my parents’ pig farm but decided against it. Besides, I don’t even think the eight-hundred-pound boar would enjoy nibbling on you, Dean. You don’t look anything like the big hot stud who used to throw the ball across the field every Friday night. Those tight pants of yours always made the cheerleaders work extra hard for you.”
She had her breath now. She straightened his clothes and his hair as best she could, then fastened his seatbelt nice and tight and walked around to the other side of the vehicle. She climbed into the SUV’s passenger seat and pulled the bottle of whiskey she’d brought from beneath the seat.
She wore rubber gloves and a hairnet. She was on her game.
After opening the bottle of booze, she slid close enough to reach over and put it to his lips.
One of his fingers twitched.
The alcohol drizzled from his mouth and down his chin. She put his hand around the bottle, making sure his prints were there in case they found him sooner rather than later.
“I don’t have much time, Dean. The muscle relaxant I gave you only works for so long. In case you didn’t know what was going on, you’re paralyzed. If you could speak, I wonder what you would say right now. Maybe one more apology?”
Jenny laughed. “Nah, just kidding. I don’t care one iota about what you’re thinking. I just hope you’re feeling even a tiny bit of what I was feeling when you held me down, naked and cold out on the muddy field, while your friends had their way with me. I hope now you might really understand what you did to me.”
She took a breath, even found herself enjoying the view of the murky canal—Dean’s watery grave. “How does it feel to have zero control, Dean? It’s not fun, is it? In case you were wondering, it never took much to trigger memories of that day. Every time I see a football game, I have flashbacks. Certain smells bring me right back to the night that you and your friends raped me. I wish your pals were here now so I could watch them do to you what they did to me after you were finished. Two guys at once. A dirty shirt stuffed so far into my mouth I thought for sure I would suffocate. Your big, strong hands are what kept me from being able to scratch their eyes out. You do realize that, right? Your fingers were clamped so tightly around my wrists, I had bruises for a month. Did you know that I had nothing to look at but you while your friends poked and prodded? I bet you didn’t realize that your breathing quickened in excitement as the minutes ticked by. Did you know that not one time during that incident did you have the nerve to look me in the eye?”
Another finger twitched.
“What were you thinking would happen tonight, Dean? Did you really think you could ruin my life and then just expect me to forgive you? Are you kidding me? You just decided one day that it was time to come clean? You thought you would just travel through the city, knocking on every one of your victims’ doors and say you’re sorry? I don’t know about everyone else you messed with, but I, personally, don’t care if you’ve changed or even if you spent the last ten years drinking yourself into oblivion. You did what you did because you’re heartless and cruel and now you’re finally going to pay for your actions.”
Jenny sucked in a breath as she worked to get her anger in check. “I better get the show on the road. I don’t want you waking up too soon. Once you drive your car into the water, it should only take a few minutes for you to drown.”
He’d fallen over against the driver’s door. She did her best to haul him upright and clamp his fingers around the steering wheel. She made sure every window was open, too. “Everyone’s going to think you started drinking again. You couldn’t live with yourself, so you drove into the canal.”
Jenny sat back so she could survey her work. Everything was in place. She leaned over and turned the engine on. Then she examined the passenger window, hoping she would have enough time to jump out before they hit the water. She really didn’t feel like getting wet.
After tossing her bag out the window and making sure there was nothing else left in the car that might incriminate her, she used both hands to pick up his right leg and plunk his foot hard on the gas pedal. The SUV’s engine roared.
“Easy, now,” she said, pulling on his leg so he wasn’t flooring it. This might be trickier than she’d thought. If she just had him drift down into the water, the vehicle might stop before he went under. She pushed down on his leg again, then slipped the SUV into gear.
The surge of power caught her off guard. Jenny fell back against the leather seat and was sent soaring into the frigid water right along with Dean Newman.