Chapter 27 Mason #2
“Mason, no…” he began, tears spilling down his cheeks. “You don’t know them, what they can do—”
“I do know them, Tobi. Now is not the time, so listen to me,” I interrupted as he started to say something.
“Remember the day of the signing? You asked me about souls. Well, you need to get out of here. Get somewhere safe and…” I glanced at the adults around him “…and pray to my Higher Power to save our souls.”
I saw the moment when Tobi remembered the day of the signing, and he got the message. Stay quiet. Get away from everyone. Then escape and call Lee. He nodded.
The church members took my comment to mean I was trying to get Tobi to worship the devil or something, because they began grumbling and quoting Bible verses at us again.
They half-dragged Tobi out of the room, his mother falling in line behind them. Soon, it was only Conyers and Dreyven left in the room with me.
“So, Mason, here’s how this is going to go,” Dreyven said, sitting on the edge of the desk, the gun still in his hands. “You’re going to meet us at this address, tomorrow at 2 p.m.,” Dreyven said, writing an address on a piece of paper, then handing it to Conyers to shove in my pocket.
“We’re going to be making a trip to the West coast tomorrow,” he said.
“It may have taken me a while to get back what I lost in Milwaukee, but I’ve built up quite a base here.
A base my friend, Bill, here is going to run in my absence.
Not as much competition here as there was in Milwaukee,” he snickered.
Bill snickered back as he sat in the chair next to mine.
“And it pays a helluva lot more than selling books and Bibles ever did!” He joked.
Dreyven just smiled thinly in response, turning back to me.
“We’re going to make a visit to your place in Seattle, pack up your shit, clean out your bank accounts.
Then you are going to disappear. You are going to do exactly what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, for as long as I tell you to do it,” he continued, flicking on the computer monitor on his desk.
“Or someone on this screen is going to be very unhappy to have ever known you.”
The screen flashed, and the air caught in my throat.
The first photos were of Zem, outside her college dorm right after Christmas.
She was wearing a coat that I bought her as a gift.
Then I saw photos of Lizzie and Ev in Seattle, the Devereaux family, the signing at Twin Peeks with Lee and the twins.
There was even one of me standing at the door to the Devereaux household, Mama K standing in the open door.
Another photo showed Lee and I at the arcade the day before, his arm around me, his hand resting possessively on my waist as we’d played pinball.
I felt the crushing weight of despair settle in my chest as I looked at the pictures. Each of these people had opened their hearts and lives to me unconditionally.
That… that was the moment I broke, and the tears began in earnest. Up until that point I'd held tight to my fury, kept my terror leashed until I could get Tobi out of the picture. I’d been holding out some kind of hope that I’d be able to get away, to escape.
Now I knew it was over—they had me. I would do anything—do anyone—to make sure my friends could live their lives untouched by the poison that was Dreyven Reckner.
I’d managed to escape for a little while, but I’d always felt in my bones it was just a reprieve. I had known Dreyven would come for me. It was what had driven my anxiety all these years. I slid my hands toward my phone in my pocket. I had to get help.
Dreyven’s gaze remained steadily on me, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed as the picture of Lee and I flashed on the screen.
“So fucking oblivious. You thought you got away by running. Well, you won’t be running anywhere now. Not when I have the people you care for in the palm of my hands,” Dreyven said, glaring at me.
“They’ll… they’ll miss me, come looking for me,” I said hoarsely, my throat closing up at the threat to these people I had started thinking of as family.
“What’s to miss?” Dreyven asked, leaning forward on his desk.
“Some fucker disappears on vacation? I’m sure it happens all the time.
I doubt they’d even realize you were gone.
Maybe I should just send one of the videos of you whoring yourself out to the newspapers.
I’m sure it would make complete sense if you disappeared after that story broke.
But…” he paused as he studied my face. “…I think we want some insurance, just in case.”
My fingers twitched toward my phone as my anxiety skyrocketed.
I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers across the screen and call for help, but I knew I didn’t dare.
Conyers spotted my involuntary movement, though, and grabbed me before I could do anything but brush my fingers across the screen.
“Of all the stupid—! You son of a bitch! What did you think you were gonna do? Call the police? I own the cops in this county, boy,” he growled as he held the phone in his hand.
He smashed it on the corner of Dreyven’s desk, then threw it on a bookshelf.
The lights flashed crazily on the display for a moment, then went out. Shit.
Dreyven smiled approvingly at Bill.
“Good job, Bill! I should have checked him when I brought him in—an error I won’t repeat. Search him.”
Conyers ran his hands over me, pulling my pockets inside out before stuffing them and the paper with the address back in my pockets.
Dreyven just smiled when Bill indicated I wasn’t carrying anything else, except my wallet.
“Bill here has been an excellent partner in the business. He found me a unique way of laundering some of the business money that was deeply in need of cleansing,” he said.
“For a fee, of course,” Conyers added.
“For a fee,” Dreyven amended. “You know, he’s the one who came up with the idea to open a church here,” Dreyven said, sighing happily.
“Idyllic Midwest. Churches on every corner. No one looks too closely at the money that goes in and out of a church. Not even the Feds. I can run just about any amount of money through the church books I want. Whores, drugs, guns. Doesn’t really matter where it all came from. ”
“So, here’s what’s going to happen, Mason,” Dreyven continued. “There’s too many breadcrumbs out there that might lead someone suspicious to my door. So, I’m letting you go.”
I almost didn’t comprehend what he said, and my mind struggled to make sense of it.
“…Letting me go?” I asked, dazed. Dreyven smiled evilly and continued speaking.
“Tomorrow, you will meet us at that address in Cleveland by 2 p.m., then we’re boarding a plane to Milwaukee, where you are going back to work.” I shuddered when he spoke, the knowledge of what he intended making my stomach roil.
A small hope flared that there might be some way to escape, but my thoughts must have been written on my face, because Dreyven barked, “Don’t get any bright ideas, Mason.
You always think you’re smarter than everyone else.
I told you, we own the cops in this county.
One phone call to 911, one suggestion to any of your buddies that anything is wrong, and someone on that screen is dead. ”
The blood drained from my face. He was going to let me go—only to force me to come back to him of my own volition.
“Bill will reach out to the Convention Committee and tell them you’re sick, or your pet goldfish died. I don’t really give a fuck. You aren’t going to be speaking at that convention. I can make much better use of your mouth elsewhere…” his voice dropped off as his gaze roamed my body.
“Let me explain what happens if you disobey me in the slightest. If you are late, one of them dies. If you run, someone else dies,” he said, nodding towards the photos of my friends. “You’ve made so many friends, Mason, I’m not even sure who I would pick to go first.”
He tapped the screen and Zem’s picture.
“This is the girl, isn’t it? The one you stole from us?”
I just stared at him, mutely, still in shock from everything that had happened. Dreyven ran his fingers over her face, desire and arousal apparent on his face.
“I’d really like to meet her sometime, Mason. Just give me a reason…”
“They won’t believe I just want to leave. They won’t,” I insisted.
“Then you’d better convince them. You’d better convince him, or he might be the first one I kill,” he said, tapping the gun against the photo of Lee.
I swallowed. The terror, which had receded for a few moments, spiked at his ultimatum.
“You’ve got me, leave them alone!” I said, my voice shattered. There had to be some way out of this. Someone who could help me. Something niggled at the back of my mind, a name, a phone number… and the face of the detective who had tried to help me when I’d woken in the hospital.
My thoughts were interrupted by Dreyven leering at me.
“You seem to be forgetting that you aren’t in charge here, you fucking whore.” Something in my expression must have changed, some hint of defiance that must not have satisfied him, because he frowned at me.
He picked up the desk phone and dialed, and when someone answered he looked at me and said, “And just to show I mean business… Gavin? Do it.” He said to the person on the other end of the phone then hung up.
An image of Lee, battered and bloody ran through my mind, followed by similar ones of all my friends.
“No!” I screamed, lunging across the desk at Dreyven. “I’ll do whatever you want! Don’t hurt them!” I yelled. I desperately grabbed for the phone, but Dreyven yanked it out of my reach. Instead of the handset, I ended up with my hands fisted in the front of Dreyven’s suit.
Dreyven obviously wasn’t expecting me to fight back. He and Ricky had long ago beaten the fight out of me, or so they thought. When I grabbed the front of his suit, he jumped. I saw something cross his face, a flash of emotion. Surely, he couldn’t be… afraid… of me?