Vicious Carousel (6 page)

She hissed with pain when the cloth touched her right ankle.

“Sorry,” Kenny said. “It’s rough.” The doctor had left it unbandaged and told her to keep an eye on it, keep it clean, and to put antibiotic ointment on it if it looked like it might be getting irritated, but that the best thing for it would be to heal without a bandage. The links of the chain had dug into her flesh as she’d first tried soap and water, and then a little olive oil, to slide it off over her skin.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It needs to be washed off.”

It had been brute force and desperation that finally did the trick, hence why she’d been sitting on the couch to do it, and hadn’t moved yet when Jack had arrived home early.

But there’d been rough points on some of the links that dug in deeper than others. They gave her a tetanus booster at the hospital last night, just in case, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had one.

“Can I ask a dumb question?” Nolan said.

“Yeah.”

“Why the chain? How long had that shit been going on?”

“Only a couple of weeks,” she admitted. “I think he did it because he realized I was getting close to leaving.”

“Ah,” Kenny said. “Trying to rein you in even more, huh?”

“Yeah.”

As they bathed her, she softly told them the full story, somehow managing not to cry her way through it. When she finished, both men remained silent.

“Well?” she asked.

Nolan let out something that sounded like a disgusted grunt. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re a good person. He preyed on your trust.”

“I’m a dumbass, is what I am,” she said. “I ignored red flags. Well, in my defense, he was good at hiding the red flags at first. I let him sweet-talk me. Had I held my ground longer, he probably would have lost interest in me and moved on to someone else. The more he hooked me in, the more I was hooked, until I didn’t realize that he was just reeling me in and dangling me on the end of his line like a trophy bass. I accept I was stupid.”

“Not all men are like that,” Nolan said.

“I know. But for now, I plan on getting my life back together. The last thing I need right now is a relationship.”

* * * *

Kenny wasn’t sure, but he thought Nolan also breathed a sigh of relief at Betsy’s statement. If she stuck to her guns, she had a good chance of pulling herself out of this.

He handed her the washcloth to finish cleaning between her legs and washing her breasts. Helpful or not, he preferred to avoid those areas right now if she was capable of doing it. Not that he didn’t find her attractive, because he did, but he also wanted to try to keep a healthy boundary between them if possible.

After they rinsed the soap off her, Kenny draped a towel around her and gently patted her dry while she stood there. Her right side was turned toward him, and her swollen eye nearly made him sick to look at. The level of violence she’d endured was horrific.

After getting her out of the shower, Nolan draped his robe around her and they walked her back into the bedroom.

“I packed some stuff in that overnight bag of mine,” she said. “Just dig something out of there for now, please.”

“Okay.” Kenny found it and opened it, spreading clothes out on the bed. She pointed to a long jersey-knit skirt, a short-sleeved tunic, and a pair of underwear.

“I’m not even going to try for a bra,” she said. “I might be a masochist, but that’s pushing it, even for me.”

They helped her get dressed and then walked her out to the living room, where they eased her down onto the couch and handed her the remote control.

“Coffee?” Nolan asked.

“Please. I feel stupid asking this, but do you have a cup with a straw, and could you put a couple of ice cubes in it to cool it down? I don’t think I could handle it all the way hot right now, and cold wouldn’t be good, either.”

“Of course. Milk and sugar?”

“Lots of both, please.”

Kenny showed her how the remote worked while Nolan fixed her coffee. “We’ll call Ed, grab our showers, and then make you something to eat.”

“I’m not sure what I can eat,” she said.

“Scrambled eggs? Oatmeal?”

She slowly nodded. “Eggs sounds good,” she sadly said. “Thank you.”

“What’s wrong?” Kenny asked her. “I mean, besides the obvious.”

Her sad, lopsided smile twisted his heart. “Do you know the last time I had eggs for breakfast?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know what my required breakfast has been the past couple of months?”

“What?”

“A quarter cup of Cheerios, dry, an apple or a banana, and two cups of water.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I was trying to please him. At first, I thought okay, yeah, maybe I could stand to lose a couple of pounds.” She sadly shook her head. “It wasn’t just about that. I realized it was about control. His control of me. Down to the ounce.”

“How long had you been planning to leave?”

“Before the damn chain? Over a month. I decided to be the perfect slave, do everything he said, exactly as he said, no matter what. I was trying to make him think I was working my ass off—literally—to please him.”

Her left eye stared down at her lap. “I think that’s why he bought the chain. Because he was either suspecting I was up to something, or he was further testing me. That’s why I let him put it on me at first. I thought okay, if I fight this, he’ll know. So I acted like I was happy to obey.
That
was a mistake, and I didn’t realize how bad a mistake it was. The abuse ramped up from there.”

“I thought Ross said you were at the club a few weeks ago? That Loren slipped you phone numbers?”

“I was. Jack would beat me where the bruises wouldn’t show, or where they’d look like they belonged. There were also face slaps, things like that, but nothing to leave a mark, usually. But after that night at the club, it’s like he knew, and things went downhill fast. Part of me wonders if it was a test to see if I’d still be there when he got home later. If so, if he followed his normal pattern, he likely would have apologized, been all sweet and nice, treated me like a princess until I healed up.”

“And then he’d do it again.”

She reached up and touched her nose.

“Shit.”

“I’ve learned my lesson, don’t worry. And thank you for opening your home to me. I promise I’ll try to get out of your way as soon as I can, and I’ll pull my weight while I’m here.” She harshly laughed. “Well, once I can walk on my own. I’ll do chores and stuff until I can afford to pay rent. And even after, of course.”

He touched her shoulder. “You’re welcomed to stay here as long as you need, and stop worrying about money. Please don’t rush to get out of here on our account. You focus first on healing, then the rest will follow.”

“Thank you.”

Nolan brought her coffee with a straw, a glass of water with a straw, and three ibuprofen. She swallowed the ibuprofen first with the water, then sipped the coffee through the straw.

“It’s perfect, thanks.”

They left her sitting there and retreated to their bedroom to call Ed.

The men quickly showered and dressed and made breakfast for themselves and Betsy. They were ready to go when Ed arrived. He drove, Nolan riding in the backseat with Betsy. Everything hurt, but she wanted this done, and as soon as possible.

At the building where the sheriff’s detective was stationed, a receptionist made them wait in the lobby until the detective came out to greet them. Ed took the lead, introducing everyone.

“Ms. Lambert,” the detective said, “thank you for coming back in this morning.”

“Did you arrest him?” Ed asked.

“He’s in jail right now. He’ll be arraigned later today.”

“Will he make bail?”

“That depends on the judge. The case is…complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Betsy asked, her stomach churning. She suspected she knew exactly what “complications” would get thrown in her face.

“Let’s go talk in private.”

He led them to a conference room and had them wait there while he grabbed his laptop and some files.

“Turns out that Mr. John Bourke, aka Jack, has been in trouble with the law before, about twenty years ago,” the detective said.

Her stomach fell. “He was?”

“He had four years’ probation for assault on one Mrs. Jill Bourke. They were in the middle of a divorce at the time.”

“That’s all?” Ed asked. “No outstanding or recent cases?”

“That’s where it gets interesting. He was the subject of two calls for service in Detroit, for what sounded like domestic disturbances, but no charges were ever filed in those cases. Those happened just a couple of months before he moved down here. There was another complaint filed against him six months before those, but the witness withdrew her complaint and refused to testify. Prosecutors had to drop the case due to lack of evidence.”

“The son of a bitch is going to try to use BDSM as a defense,” she said. “He’s going to threaten to release pictures he took of me to try to get me to recant.”

Then again, she’d heard Tony say something about finding a camera last night. Wouldn’t surprise her if that had also ended up with her stuff.

She could only hope it had.

“He is claiming the two of you had a consensual relationship,” the detective said. “That you agreed to the chain.”

“I didn’t agree to it. I was scared to refuse it. I was ordered to wear it. So no, I didn’t fight him, but the fact that I clawed it off my leg yesterday, along with a good chunk of my own skin, should be proof that I wasn’t willingly wearing it.”

The detective walked her through her story again, checking his notes as he went. Now, without fear pressed against her spine like a straight razor, she was able to take her time, be reasonably cogent, remember details she might have forgotten to tell them the night before.

There was a knock on the door and a woman stuck her head in. “Barbara Stallings, state attorney’s office.”

The detective waved her in. “Perfect timing.”

Betsy let Ed and the detective get the attorney up to speed. Then Stallings looked from Nolan to Kenny. “And you two gentlemen are?”

“Her friends,” they said together. “And,” Nolan added, “she’s staying with us for now.”

“I’m filing for the TRO after we’re done here,” Ed told Stallings. “Mr. Bourke doesn’t have any idea where Mr. Becker and Mr. Yates live, so she’s safe with them.”

The government’s attorney sat back and eyed them all. “Between you and me and the fencepost,” she said, “I don’t care what people do in their bedrooms. You’re all ‘friends in common,’ as they say, aren’t you?”

Ed glanced at the two men before focusing on the attorney again. “We all have a lot of friends in common, yes. It was other friends who vouched for these two men as a safe place for her to stay while she tries to get her life back together. If she goes to a shelter, she’ll only be there for a short while anyway. Her friends wanted to step in to help her get her life back in order. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, there’s not. I just want to know what I’m dealing with. I’m no stranger to alternative lifestyle dynamics. I’ve seen a lot, and I don’t judge. I can see this is obviously not a consensual level of injury here. But the ankle chain is going to come into play, that she wore it for several weeks before all of this happened.”

“He didn’t even know I’d taken it off when he beat me,” Betsy said. “I was sitting on it. I heard him drive up and hid it under me.”

Stallings leaned forward, arms crossed in front of her and resting on the table. “Miss Lambert, if you had the chain off, why didn’t you run when he started beating you?”

“I couldn’t,” she said. “He would have seen I had gotten free. I was afraid he’d catch me and hurt me worse. I didn’t know he was going to attack me the way he did. And, hello, I was naked at the time, so it would have been difficult getting away without clothes.”

Stallings nodded. “Okay. That makes sense. Just remember, if this goes to trial, his attorney will be asking you questions like that. I will not tell a witness what to say, but I’m sure Mr. Payne here will be able to help you understand the kind of character assassination you’ll be subjected to if you’re forced to testify against Mr. Bourke. I’m going to do my best to get him to plead out to something reasonable, but I can’t promise that will happen.”

“Bail?” Ed asked.

“Felonious assault, false imprisonment, battery, extortion—I’ve got a grocery list of charges I’m going toss at him when he’s arraigned. Not all of them will stick all the way through to trial, especially if he pleads out, but the more I throw at him, along with his previous conviction for assault, I’m going to ask for two-fifty.”

“But he won’t get that,” Ed said.

“Probably not. Probably lucky if they give him one hundred thousand. But he might not be able to make bail. If so, then lucky us, he can sit there and rot in a cell while I dangle a deal in front of an overworked and underpaid PD who doesn’t want to defend an abuser in the first place. This isn’t a ‘he-said, she-said’ kind of situation with no visible wounds, obviously.”

Once they finished there, Ed drove them to another building where Betsy had to speak to a judge in chambers before Ed filed paperwork.

Then, they headed back to Kenny and Nolan’s house. Before Ed left, he said, “I’ll follow the arraignment and let you know what happens. Is there anything else at the apartment you need to get?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You mentioned pictures. Do you think he has any memory cards or anything?”

Nolan nodded. “There was a camera, Tony said. Hold on.” He went to what was now her bedroom and they heard him digging around. A few minutes later, he returned with a computer bag—what had been her computer bag, holding what had been her computer—and a camera case.

The men searched through them. On the camera, dozens of pictures, including ones of her during play and after “punishments.” And several other memory cards.

“I don’t know if he had any other memory cards besides those,” she said.

“What about the computer?” Ed said.

“It was mine, but he took it and changed the password. Do you think Tony can fix it?”