Chapter 26 #2
“If you think about it, though, he got freaked out because we were rummaging around in the basement. He must have been searching my room to see if I found something. You have control of the alarm system—you could disarm it tonight so I can go in and finish the search.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Whatever you want is down there.”
“Can you honestly tell me if you went there tonight you could stay away from her room?”
As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. I can close my eyes right now and smell her skin, imagine the warmth of it chasing away the cold that’s taken over my chest since I saw that look of betrayal in her eyes. I can barely restrain myself now.
“Fine. I’ll take a look at the DVDs tonight, then.”
“What DVDs?”
“I thought I told you. I found a bunch of old DVDs hidden in the wall of the basement. The oldest ones are from ten years ago, give or take. I just got an external drive delivered today so I can see that’s on them.”
“They’re not movies?”
“I don’t know. They don’t have any labels on them just a letter and a date written on the case in magic marker. It could be financial records. It’s not nothing, though. You don’t hide family pictures in a lockbox behind a fake breaker box.”
“It’s not what I’m looking for, but you never know what might be helpful. Let me know what you find, okay.”
“Sure.”
“Do you need me to replace your stash?”
“No, I brought it with me. Told him I’d beat the shit out of him if he tried to stop me.”
Anton chuckles. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“Be glad you didn’t. You put a camera in my girl’s room I’d have to kick your ass, too.”
“Settle down, puppy. I’m glad you’re finding your balls, but don’t forget I’m the guy who’ll slice them off and make you eat them.”
“I will not forget that,” I say. I must be losing my mind.
We are searching for evidence of a murder Anton committed when he was around my age.
He is not to be fucked with and the most violent thing I’ve ever done is knock out the teeth of some kid who tried to mess with me in juvie. “I need a gun.”
“What’d you need a gun for?”
“You want me to keep dealing, I need a gun. Especially now that I’m living in party house. Everybody’s going to know I got this shit now, and a hundred people come through this house every weekend.”
“You know you’re not a juvenile anymore. You get jammed up with a gun and you’re going away for a while.”
“So if they steal from me, you’ll just give me more free of charge?”
“All right,” he says. “Come by tomorrow. I’ll have something for you.”
After my nerves have settled, I go down to the front door and retrieve my package.
When I get back to the second floor, I see a girl at the other end of the hallway slipping through the door of the servant’s stairs that lead to the kitchen.
I don’t get a good look at her except I can see she’s small and brown with a stubby ponytail sticking off the back of her head.
She doesn’t look like the type of girls that usually come over, and I didn’t figure Monday at 4:00 pm was going to be hopping, but what do I know.
Rourke is basically a wildcard. She could be anybody.
I lock the door when I go in my room anyway. I’ll need to add some security—a camera at least—and maybe a better lock. I wonder if Rourke would let me put a metal core door on here. I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t even know if his absentee dad will let me live here.
The DVD drive is attached to my laptop with a USB cord.
I’m feeling so fucked up. I don’t want to do this.
I didn’t even work out this morning and I’m feeling all keyed up.
The disks are stacked on the coffee table, so I set up there, plugging my laptop in to the charger since I don’t know how long this will take.
The Wi-Fi signal is super weak because this place is so big, but I’m able to check my email.
Nothing except the latest invoice from my mom’s hospital and a bunch of spam.
When I open the first disk, there’s only one file listed, and the name is just a date.
I click on it and a video opens, showing what looks like a basement.
The camera is pointed at a sofa with Devin and Mom sitting on it.
My mom has a dreamy expression on her face, like she’s drunk.
Her dark hair is cut in a bob, and she’s wearing a going out to dinner dress. I hit play.
“Stand up for me, Lindsey,” Devin says, and she does it, swaying a bit on her feet. She giggles.
“Now bark like a dog.”
My mom goes, “Ruff, ruff, ruff.” Devin laughs, slapping his knee and I can hear more laugher, though I can’t see who’s doing it. It sounds like a man and a woman.
“Bark like a chihuahua,” Devin says, and my mom does that too, a high-pitched yapping noise.
“This fucking bitch will do anything I tell her,” Devin says.
My stomach twists. I remember her telling me that Devin was like family to her, yet here he is humiliating her.
But why is she doing this? Could she be drunk?
I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
When he tells her to do something she does it, but otherwise she just stands there looking dazed.
Devin asks her to crawl on all fours and kiss his shoes and a bunch of other things like that, cackling the whole time.
The video jumps, and a number of items are added to the weather coffee table between my mother and the camera.
Peanut butter, a jar of pickles, a lighter, a cucumber.
Devin takes his boot off and makes her lick the peanut butter from his toes.
His face is alight with malevolence. What could she have possibly done to make him treat her this way?
My mother is one of the most harmless people I’ve ever known.
He makes her eat the entire jar of pickles, then drink the juice, which makes her throw up.
A woman yells for someone to get a trash can and a black man, wait no, Deja’s father, thrusts it under her mouth just in time.
He looks at her with the same resentment as my father.
I expect them to attack her with their fists at any moment.
Once her stomach is empty, he takes her arms and leads her up the stairs with the trashcan in his other hand.
The video jumps again, and she’s back, the front of her dress soaked with water.
Through all of this she still looks peaceful, her expression trusting and childlike. And then things get even worse.
“Show us your tits, Lindsey,” Deja’s father says, sitting next to her on the sofa.
She’s flanked on either side by David and Devin.
I need to look away, but I can’t, because I have to know if she’ll really do it.
But of course she does. She drops her dress to her waist, displaying her body for them with no self-consciousness whatsoever.
I slam my laptop shut, my earlier nausea returning.
I go over to the window and look out, gripping the sill until my knuckles are white.
The sound of my own heart is so loud I can’t hear anything else.
I knew Devin was a piece of shit, but I figured he was the regular kind—sleeping with his friend’s wife, greedy, dishonest, a thief, and selfish.
But torturing an innocent woman for the amusement of you and your friends?
That’s not normal. Doing what I’m pretty sure he is about to do? That’s not close to normal either.
Except I won’t know for sure unless I at least fast forward through the rest, and I need to know exactly what they did to her.
I also now have the dilemma of deciding what, if anything to tell Deja about her parents’ involvement in this.
There’s her father as plain as day, and I’d bet money the woman we never see on camera is her mom.
I run upstairs and find Rourke playing a military shooter with a headset on, yelling at someone in Italian. I try the door to the bar, but it’s locked.
“You need a drink?” he yells, covering his mouthpiece with his hand.
“A fucking strong one, too,” I say. He waves me over and unclips a carabiner from one of his belt loops.