Grace Anne

chapter 14



Thomas pushed the buzzer again. It seemed like forever before someone answered. He hated being put off and was sure that was what Michael was doing. First he’d gotten by him at work and now he was avoiding him at his house. The cocksucker was going to answer his question or hell would be paid.

“Where’s my stepbrother? I want to talk to him right f*cking now. And I don’t want to hear any shit about him being unavailable. He, f*cking, is always available.” Thomas took a deep breath and tried to reign in his temper. “He said he’d meet with me today and he’s late.”

“Mr. Cunningham is not in residence, sir. If you would like to leave your name, then perhaps if he calls in as he usually does, I will give him—”

“I just told you who I was. I’m Thomas Rutherford Cunningham, his f*cking stepbrother. Don’t you f*cking people listen? And what do you mean ‘not in residence?’ What the f*ck does that mean?” Thomas looked over at the girl in his car. Actually, he’d been surprised to see her there. He neither knew her name nor where she’d come from. He wondered if she’d been someone he’d picked up or someone that had just decided to hop in his car. He had no clue. She was giving him the thumbs up, whatever that meant.

“It means that he is not at home. And I would prefer that you toned down your language a bit, sir. There is absolutely no reason for so much profanity.”

Thomas felt his head tighten. Yeah, he was high and a little drunk, but he knew that, as a Cunningham, servants did not talk to their betters the way this a*shole was. His mother let them talk to her that way and so did his father but, by God, they were not going to speak to him like that. He started to tell the little prick that when his cell phone went off.

He barked his name into it and closed his eyes. There was that white light of pain again, the one that told him he either needed to take it down a notch or go into rehab for a few weeks. He decided that he’d like neither one, but taking it down was much better than no drugs. No f*cking way.

“We didn’t have a meeting. I told you I’d get back to you and that’s what I had planned to do,” Michael said in that calm voice of his. “What the f*ck are you doing threatening my staff?”

Thomas tried to remember threatening the man on the other end of the intercom, but couldn’t seem to make his head work. Before he could say that he’d not done it, that the servants were not to be trusted, Michael gave him a clue.

“Matt said if you ever talk to his wife that way again he will castrate you, then feed your tiny dick to the birds. What the hell is wrong with you threatening a woman in the first place?”

Michael took a deep breath, but before he continued Thomas broke in. He just wanted them all to do what they said they’d do so he could get this f*cking business over with. “She wouldn’t tell me where you were. I’ve been calling your office all morning and you didn’t answer. Then I tried your home. You aren’t there either. The f*cking servant said you weren’t ‘in-residence,’ whatever the f*ck that means.”

Thomas looked at the girl again. She was laughing and he knew it was at him. He’d take care of her right f*cking now. Slipping open the car door, he didn’t even close it before he doubled his fist up and hit her right in the face. She fell back against the window with a nice pop and he tried to concentrate on his stepbrother.

“…when I get back. I’m not going to make a decision until then.” There was a slight pause and Thomas wondered what he’d missed. “Are you listening to me? I want you to stay away from my house and my servants. In fact, I want you to stay the hell away from anything that belongs to me. You got it?”

“Yeah, I got it. But the girl…what’s her name? Wadders…Waite, she’s not around either. Where is she? With you, I suppose?” Thomas was going to get the girl, Grace, if it was the last thing he’d do. “You give me her phone number and I’ll pretend none of this ever—”

“You stay the hell away from my future wife, do you hear me, Thomas?” Michael said with a tone that he’d only ever heard once before, and he’d been afraid then too. “If you so much as go near her, I will hunt you down and kill you slowly. The same for my son. You don’t want to test me—”

“I didn’t touch the little shit. I don’t care what he said happened. I was following him out of the building and he disappeared. I thought he went in that building on Ninth, the one you’ve been whining about, but I couldn’t get in to get him.” The silence at the other end made him think Michael had hung up on him. When Michael started speaking this time, Thomas knew he’d pushed him too far.

“You aren’t to come near anything I own ever again. And if I hear of you doing anything, including breathing the same airspace as my family, there won’t be a hole you can hide deep enough in, nor will there be a place that I won’t find you. You will pray for death before I’m through with you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Thomas was terrified. He knew what his stepbrother had been in the Special Forces. He knew what he’d been doing the entire time he’d been in. He’d heard the stories or the half stories that Michael and his father talked about. And he’d even cared enough to look it up. Michael was a hired killer. And not only that, but he was f*cking good at it.

“I hear you.” His voice was not nearly a brave as he’d wanted and it squeaked a bit and that pissed him off. “But if I catch them out, all bets are off.” He closed the phone and leaned his head back against the seat. The small mewling sound made him remember the girl next to him. He looked over at her without lifting his head. Just what he f*cking needed.

The window was covered in blood. And her face was fat and also bloodied. He knew he’d hit her, but he also knew he’d not hit her that hard. He hated whiny people, especially whiny whores. Shifting in the seat to get a better look at her, he realized he didn’t have a clue who she was and he honestly didn’t care. She turned to look at him with her one good eye and started to speak.

“Shut up,” he snarled at her. “You just shut the f*ck up. And if you think you’re going to get to a hospital anytime soon, then you’re f*cking out of luck. I just gotta figure out what to do with you.” He tried to think, but her crying and whining again had him reach over and wrap his hands around her throat. He let her go when she shut up.

She was dead. As soon as he realized he’d killed her, he laughed. “Now, brother dearest, you’re so f*cked. What will your little family think when they find a dead hooker on your doorstep?”

Thomas got out of his car and walked to the other side. He was pulling her out of the passenger’s side door when he thought of something really funny. If whatshername… Grace found out about her future husband’s former life and this hooker on the lawn she would come running to him in no time. Yes, Thomas thought as he kicked the hooker again, things were about to get really good for him.

Thomas went back to his house after making a quick trip to his buddy’s. After scoring a few grams of some sweet stuff and hitting it with him Thomas was feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, that he didn’t care that his phone was ringing or that he was driving a little on the fast side. When he finally pulled into his drive he simply left the car running and went inside. Life was good.

The pounding on the door had him sitting up in bed. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was sure he’d only just lain down. He was nearly to the door when he saw the flashing lights. Stopping in the living room he tried to remember if he’d done anything wrong to warrant the police showing up at his house. Thinking hard, he started to go back to the bedroom and escape. He needed to leave, and right f*cking now. Picking up his gun out of the dresser near his window Thomas opened the window and slipped out. He was nearly to the back of the lot when he saw the cop.

F*cking no way was he going in. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the gun in his hand going off, him or the cop, but the guy just sort of crumpled to the ground, his head suddenly a mess. Thomas had a few moments of pure glee that he’d gotten the drop on the guy when he realized he’d just killed a cop. Before he knew it he was running for his life and there were f*cking cops everywhere.

Mother f*ck.

~~~

Verrie watched the news lead story run again. The stupid cock sucker had killed a f*cking cop. Not to mention the debutante that he’d killed earlier. What the hell he’d been thinking killing a girl on camera was…it didn’t bear thinking. She started to turn off the television when they showed the scene again. She smiled. He’d done a very good job of killing the girl; she was impressed. Not that they showed much. Some blurred pictures of the girl on the ground and the frantic interview with the butler at the home of Cunningham. Verrie wondered, not for the first time, if all men simply had a brain in their dicks and, every time they came, a little more of it leaked out. She swore that that was why there were so many old men in nursing homes. They’d f*cked themselves stupid.

There was an all-points bulletin out for Thomas Cunningham. The FBI said that they were taking precautions. She couldn’t figure out what the hell they were doing in on it when the family of the dead bitch came on. The senator of New York. Well, when Thomas did something up, he certainly didn’t do it in half measures.

Killing a senator’s daughter was big news. And even bigger news was that she had only been seventeen when she’d been murdered. Verrie turned off the television and sat on the dirty couch. They were running out of time. The money had arrived yesterday, but Ginny had insisted that they try very hard not to spend it like they had done with what they’d brought with them. Verrie snorted. Like she gave a good f*ck what she said. Reaching between the cushions she pulled out the stash that she knew Guinevere had stuffed there yesterday. Twenty grand would go a long way to having a good time. Smiling, she started for the door only to stop when Ginny started in on her.

“No,” she snapped. “I told you we have to lay low. And if you kill anyone right now, especially right now, we’re never going to see this thing to the end.”

“Like you care. All you want to do is f*ck that boy, Cain. Well, he ain’t gonna have you. In case it escaped your notice, you are his mother as far as he’s concerned.” Verrie felt the pain from the other woman. “And on top of that, you’re old. Nobody that looks like him is gonna wanna f*ck someone as old as you are.”

The pain in Verrie’s head was immense. But she didn’t move or so much as acknowledge it. She stood still while the blood trickled from her nose and ears.

“I f*cking hate you. You’ve been a f*cking pain in our ass since the first time you showed up. Why? Why do you have to be so cruel?”

Verrie started to answer, but she couldn’t speak until Ginny let her.

“I’m going to destroy you when this is over. I’m going to make sure that you are never allowed to come out ever again.”

“F*cking try it, cunt, and see where it gets you. You may be the top dog now, but I’m the one that pulled the strings. If I want I’ll murder myself a cop and get us put into jail for the rest of our lives. And you know who will have to be the first when we get there. Your little pansy ass would never survive past the first night.” They had been in jail twice now and, both times, Verrie had been the one who’d kept them together. “I might just let you be the first and then see how much you need me just for the fun of it.”

Ginny went away and left her to herself. Verrie sat on the couch and thought about how they had become. She knew there was probably a technical term for what they had developed into, but she neither cared enough to look it up, nor did she give a good shit. They just had become.

Verrie knew that she couldn’t make any one of them not appear again. And none of them knew who was in charge, but all of them knew that it wasn’t Guinevere. She knew that Ginny and the others couldn’t survive. And if they didn’t, or worse yet, got caught and put into a hospital, she might as well be dead. They would keep them so doped up all the time there would be no way for any of them to be very productive.

Being first, as in the host, was Guinevere’s role. Ginny had come to Guinevere when things had been too hard for her. Ginny the child had a horrific childhood. Over the first years of her life, the most fragile ones, her father and mother had abused Guinevere to no end. Locking her in closest, starving her, or worse, making her eat well beyond what she wanted were just a few of the things they’d done to the already unstable child. Then when things had gotten bad, or out of her control, Guinevere would become the docile, sometimes self-abusing Ginny again. It wasn’t until later, in her preteen years, that she’d turned to her.

Verrie had been the bad-assed Guinevere. Guinevere would turn to her when things got to be overwhelming. And Verrie would take care of it. The boy who had made fun of where she’d lived had been in a diving accident. A little bit of drugs from Guinevere’s mother’s array of barbiturates in his water bottle made him dizzy and he slipped off the high dive during practice and hit his head. He’d died almost instantly.

Then there was the little girl from the library that had made fun of Guinevere’s clothes. They weren’t new, nor were they very clean. That little girl was mauled to death by a dog. Verrie had known the dog was wild and had let it smell the girl’s shirt every day for two weeks while Verrie beat him. When he’d been allowed out of his pen and found himself with his supposed tormentor, he’d gone wild. The girl never had a chance and had died from massive injuries. Verrie felt bad for his death. She hated to see animals killed.

Over the years, she’d gotten better at hiding the murders. Then one day, she simply didn’t care. She killed her first man at the house Guinevere and Roscoe had shared. It had been a dump and he was in jail on some crime that he’d always told them that he’d been framed for. As far as Verrie had always thought, Roscoe was an idiot. But the man she’d brought home because she’d been lonely and horny had proved to be so much fun that she’d made a habit of killing men whenever she could.

They’d been having sex. Of course, that was another thing. Verrie simply loved sex. But this guy with his huge cock had satisfied her completely. She asked him if she could tie him up. He’d told her that he wasn’t really into that sort of shit, but he’d tie her up. She really wanted to bond him to the bed and he wasn’t playing fair so she pulled the gun and cuffed him to the bed.

She thought maybe he was excited. His cock was still semi-hard and she’d been happy to see that he hadn’t screamed at her. Guinevere’s kids were just down the hall and she didn’t want them to barge into her fun. When she’d sat over him and told him what she had planned, he looked like he thought she was insane. The pillow over his face probably gave him the first indication that she was serious.

Every time his cock became flaccid she’d suck him off. No man could resist her mouth and she made him hard almost immediately. Well, she could at first. After the fourth time she’d cut him he was harder to…well, get hard. She smiled at her pun. By the time he’d lost consciousness the first time she’d already cut him enough that she knew he was going to have to die. Then, when she’d gagged him, the real fun had begun.

At first Verrie had experimented, played with the way she cut him. She was inexperienced in the way she killed him; she could see that now. But as the years had gone by her work with a blade had become precise and perfect until she knew when she had a man in her clutches he was hers until she’d had enough. Killing a man slowly, she could bleed them out and still have her fun. She was able to make the killing last for days now rather than the few hours she’d had the first time. She thought of the people she had killed that night and decided to go to the furnace room and check on her latest victims.

She’d had to hide them quickly before one of the others came to her. Verrie hadn’t expected anyone to come by and nearly catch her in the act of having fun with the man she’d picked up at the bar the night before. She wasn’t stupid. She was a murderer, but not that. No, never that. She’d wrapped him in the throw on the back of the disgusting couch and hidden him behind it when someone had started ringing the door bell.

Her landlord at the door simply wouldn’t leave. Finally, after an hour of him asking about the different aspects of the apartment, she’d taken one of Ginny’s pots and hit him over the head with it. It took her forever to get the landlord’s body down to the furnace room and even longer to get the first man she’d killed down there too. She’d had to hide the f*cking prick who’d wanted to make sure the stove was working correctly before he came up missing. Now she had the landlord all wrapped up in plastic and the dead man from earlier both tucked in the basement. She needed to find somewhere to put them, and fast.

She made her way to the basement and was trying to decide the best way to move over four hundred pounds of bloody dead weight then the f*cking debutante killer popped out from behind the furnace.

“You have to help me. I can’t go…the police were at my house and now I can’t go back.”

She stared at him as he continued to rant.

“They think I killed somebody. I didn’t…I don’t think I did. My stepbrother and that cunt, they framed me.”

“They have you on tape, you f*cking moron. There was a security camera at the gate where you left her body. When you kill someone, you can’t leave any witnesses.” She smiled at him, thinking that was a good plan. “You get in touch with your brother yet?”

“He’s not my brother,” he snarled at her. “He’s my f*cking stepbrother.”

When he lunged at her, Verrie smiled bigger and pulled the trigger on her gun.