Killing Kate(57)
“I wish someone had found it and killed him,” Justin says. “I would have killed him if he were still alive today.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “Not that it matters now. But it matters to people starring on those videos, or at least the ones who are trying to run for office. My guess is that Mike Carroll is having his little brother do the dirty work for him. He used to come and watch, you know.”
“Who?” Justin asks.
Kate smiles. “Drake, of course.”
“No!” Justin exclaims. “He couldn't have been more than a little kid.”
“He was a teenager,” Kate said. “I remembered him the first time Jenna saw him, at the funeral.”
“Why the fuck didn't you say something?” Justin says. “Aren't you supposed to protect her?”
Kate rolls her eyes. “I'm supposed to be strong for her. I can't always protect her, I just have to endure what she can't.” She sits up and puts her hand on the dildo. “And now it's your turn to endure something for me. I've told you what I know.”
Justin shakes his head. “I don't even know what to do about this.”
Kate looks almost sad. “Give Drake what he wants. He'll never leave Jenna alone until he gets it.”
“But that's not fair,” Justin says. “These people did a horrible thing to Jenna and you expect me to let them get away with it?”
Kate shrugs. “They already got away with it. Hundreds of men got away with it, Justin. The deed is done. Now all Jenna and I need to do is to figure out a way to escape our past.” She takes Justin by the hips and flips him over with a surprising burst of strength. “My turn.”
Kate pushes the handle end of the dildo inside of herself with a soft moan and works it in and out, slowly. Then she reaches into the top drawer of the nightstand and pulls out a tube of lubricant and squirts a line of it up the shaft of the dildo and rubs it around with her hand. Holding the dildo inside of herself and also pressing the base of the shaft so it stays inside of her, she pushes the tip against Justin. He winces, even though she hasn’t done anything yet.
“This will hurt,” Kate says. “But I won't make you take it all like I did. But if you want to understand Jenna, as you claim to, you need to know what indescribable pain feels like.”
Justin doesn't answer. His teeth are too clenched in anticipation of the pain to respond. When he feels it enter him, he blacks out.
Chapter 15
Justin has a sledgehammer and we are in the basement. We are both looking at the telltale brick wall that lines the entire east side wall. He has told me what Kate told him the night before but only that much. I'm not sure how I feel about finally hearing the truth. It doesn’t surprise me that much, but knowing what’s been hidden in the house the entire time I’ve lived here makes me feel sick. I think about how Jack’s bounty could have gotten Devin and I arrested and we knew nothing about anything. Even a few months dead, I’m still pissed off at him for what he’s doing to Devin and me from the grave.
I also feel sore all over, but Justin doesn’t tell me that story. I can piece together what happened between Kate and Justin last night based on the soreness between my legs and the funny way he’s walking. Part of me wants to laugh, because Justin isn’t that type of guy, but I know it wasn’t pleasant for him. Oh well, that’s what he gets for wanting to have Kate come out and play. Still, I realize he “took a bullet” for me, so to speak. Though I’m sure most guys would rather take an actual bullet and be dead than to go through what Justin went through last night. It ironically lets me know he cares.
Without a word, Justin slams the head of the sledgehammer into the wall. I watch him as he swings, slams, swings, slams, swings, slams. His face is red but I don't stop him. He moves in a jaunty way that shows me he is already in some pain. The air is stuffy down here already, and he breaks a sweat easily and I watch his arms tense and glow in the sleeveless shirt he has donned for the task. I watch him as I sit in a recliner, unreclined. I’m tense all over, and I sit with my back completely straight. I feel like a cat ready to pounce. Devin isn't home. He's working, and it's a good thing because I don't know how to tell him that we're breaking down a brick wall in the basement in an attempt to find Jack's hidden stash of child pornography with me as the star. That’s not exactly a conversation I feel like starting.
Bricks begin to loosen and dust is rampant. Time seems to stop but I know Justin’s been hacking away at the wall for maybe an hour. The sound bangs away in my ears and fills my brain. I wish I'd had the foresight to put some sort of breathing mask on, the air is so thick with brick dust in addition to the dust already settled down here. Devin and I didn't do much with the basement after we'd moved in, other than throw a few collapsed empty boxes down here. It seemed set up as Jack's hideaway, with an easy chair I’m sitting on that faces a television and even some empty beer bottles on a table next to the chair. Posters of old classic cars cover the concrete walls, mostly with women in bikinis leaning against them. They look like old beer ads from the 80’s. Actually, there are some of those too, I notice. Paint cans are stacked up against one wall and tools are scattered everywhere. It's a man cave, and we are about to completely tear it apart. “Holy shit,” Justin says, interrupting my thoughts. He hacks away a bit more at the bricks and starts to pull them away. They aren't cemented in completely, or even at all in some places, I can tell from the way they start to tumble, bringing up even more dust. I watch Justin pull more bricks away and we soon discover that the entire wall is covered in DVDs behind the bricks.