Chapter 32

Three weeks passed in an instant. We talked it over and decided it should be safe to go into Burlington and close out her savings account. We planned to go in early, long before anyone went to work in the strip club where she worked. We had already opened a new account for her at a branch of the bank I use in a small, nearby community.

We waited until lunch time when the sidewalks would be crowded. The bank her account is in is only a block from the strip club where she worked so we were a little nervous. We dressed her in a man’s shirt, a baseball cap and wraparound sunglasses to disguise her appearance a little without making her look like she was there to rob the bank. She looked around constantly, on the lookout for anyone who might recognize her.

I stayed with her while she closed out her account. Then we went straight back to the car and left town. I’m sure there will come a time when we feel free to visit Burlington again. But that time is not now.

I drove until we were out of the heaviest of the city traffic. Then I let Andrea drive so she could get the practice. In retrospect that turned out to be a mistake. If I’d been driving I might have noticed we were being followed once we got up into the mountains and out of traffic. We were unaware that one of the bouncers spotted Andrea going into the bank and told Mr. Califaro. He must have been more than a little unhappy to learn the witness to the murder he committed is still alive.

Andrea spent all her time focusing on what was in front of her and trying to keep the car in her lane and I didn’t have a rearview mirror so we were unaware that we were being followed. Andrea drove us home and pulled the car into the garage.

A few minutes later the doorbell rang. I was upstairs at the time. I knew when I heard the chimes it was trouble. People don’t go door to door in this neck of the woods. I rushed downstairs to find two stereotypical goons in the house. One look at them and I knew them for the thugs they were. I would have known even if one of them didn’t have his arm around Andrea, holding his hand clamped tightly over her mouth.

I couldn’t help but notice they were both holding large handguns, too.

One of the thugs, the one who wasn’t restraining Andrea, looked me over, decided I wasn’t a threat and asked me if anyone else was in the house.

I told him there was no one else here and his partner took his hand away from Andrea’s mouth. But he didn’t let her go. He continued to hold her against his body with one arm around her neck. His other hand began to explore her body.

He nuzzled her ear and growled, “I was beginning to think you didn’t really love me, cunt. You ran away before we had time to get better acquainted after we took you for that romantic ride in the country three weeks ago. We’re in a lot of trouble over that little episode. You’re going to have to make that up to us.”

She turned her head, glared at him and responded, “Aw gee! I feel real bad about that! If I’d known you were going to get in trouble I’d have let you and that other gorilla rape me and kill me. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

Her spunky response made me smile, even under these dangerous circumstances. I couldn’t help but be very proud of her. She has to be terrified. But you couldn’t tell from her voice.

He didn’t bother to respond. He probably wasn’t bright enough to say anything appropriate but he’s apparently bright enough to know he can’t win a battle of wits with her.

He was watching me as he reached under Andrea’s top and roughly groped her breasts. I could see in his eyes he was hoping I’d react. But I didn’t see any sense in getting shot or beaten half to death if I can avoid it. I’m not going to go to my death peacefully. But I’ll wait for the right moment to do whatever I can to get us out of this.

Hopefully these Neanderthals will screw up and there will be a right moment. It certainly isn’t while they’re both standing there with guns drawn waiting for me to do something stupid.

Andrea wisely offered no resistance to the gorilla who’s groping her. She stood still and let the goon feel her up. While his large hand explored under her top she pleaded, “Please, let him go. He doesn’t know anything and he isn’t involved. I’m the one you came here for.”

Not surprisingly they totally ignored her. The goon who wasn’t mauling Andrea put his gun in the holster under his gaudy sport coat. He ordered me to hold my arms out in front of me and join my fingers. I obeyed and he used a large plastic tie to secure my wrists together.

He must not have felt it necessary to handcuff Andrea. I suppose they thought it would interfere with their plans for her.

He looked around and spotted the telephone. He placed a call and when someone answered he said, “Hey, boss. We got her. She’s with the guy. We got him, too. He’s got a house out on the lake. You want us to do ‘em now?”

He listened for a minute and then said contritely, “I had to! Our cell phones don’t work out here. You said to call you if we got them.”

He listened for another couple of minutes and then said, “You got it.”

He hung up, turned to his partner and said, “Bring her. He don’t want us to do it here. He don’t want any sign of a struggle. They’re just gonna turn up missing.”

The goon wrapped his large hand around Andrea’s neck and asked, “We’re still gonna fuck the bitch before we off her, right?”

The gorilla that made the phone call and seems to be the one in charge smiled and said, “Yeah. We got time. The bitch ain’t gonna get away from us this time.”

They took us out to their Suburban. I got in front with the guy who was groping Andrea in the house. The man who seems to be in charge got in the back seat with Andrea. He pulled her shirt off and while the driver turned around and drove slowly down my driveway, the guy in back pulled his cock out and ordered me to watch while he pulled her face down into his crotch.

Andrea started sucking his cock while the goon and I stared into each other’s eyes. He saw the hate in my eyes. He seemed to find it really amusing.

The car turned onto the road and I glanced at the driver. He didn’t strike me as being particularly bright. It’s pretty obvious neither of these men are. But the driver, though cruel and perverted, seems nowhere near as intelligent as a Golden retriever I once owned.

The driver wasn’t paying as much attention to his driving as he was to what was happening in the back seat. I noticed he had placed his pistol between his legs so he could get to it in a hurry if I tried anything. I was evaluating my chances of reaching it if I dove for it. They weren’t good. But it might be the only chance we’d have.

I was just about to jump for the gun when the guy in the back seat screamed. The smug look was gone from his face in an instant. He reached for Andrea’s head and the driver slammed on the brakes.

Before the driver figured out what was going on I dove for his gun. It wasn’t easy with my wrists joined. But it was a life-or-death situation. And it was now or never.

I managed to get a grip on the pistol before the driver even realized I was reaching for it. I got lucky and my finger slipped right inside the trigger guard. He tried to stop me as I pulled the gun away but instead of grabbing my wrists or my hands he grabbed the barrel of the pistol as I was pulling it away. The gun went off, shooting him right in the belly.

He didn’t even cry out. He gasped in shock, swerved across the road and drove into the drainage ditch.

Fortunately, the car was almost stopped when he lost control of it. I pulled the gun the rest of the way up just as the man in back with Andrea was pulling his gun out. He was too late. He was still pulling his gun out when I put a bullet into his forehead.

The driver looked up from his stomach with a stunned look on his face and whispered, “You shot me!”

The truth of the matter is that he’s more responsible for that bullet hole in his belly than I am. But I accept full responsibility for the hole that appeared in his forehead a moment later.

I scrambled from the car and immediately bent over and vomited violently. I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. When I was able to move I turned back to the car and opened the back door. I pulled Andrea out and she threw her arms around me. My wrists are still tethered but I slipped my arms over her head and held her tight.

I was deafened by the three gunshots from that large caliber pistol inside the SUV. We both were. It took us both a moment to realize we were asking each other if we were alright.

I lifted my arms and pried myself out of her frantic grip. I finally got her attention and was able to get her to reach into my pocket for my knife. She cut the plastic handcuff holding my wrists together and I reached into the car for her shirt.

She put it on without an argument for a change. I asked her if she had any idea where they were taking us. I assumed we were on our way to the same narrow trail into the woods where she escaped from them the first time.

She took a moment to calm down a little and she struggled to remember the path she took on that dark and very scary early morning walk from the clearing where she almost died.

She thought back to that night with obvious reluctance. She didn’t look too confident. But after a moment’s thought she answered, “Maybe. I might be able to find it.”

I did my best to avoid looking at him as I pushed the body of the driver over to the passenger side. It took some coaxing to get Andrea back into the car with those two dead bodies. But I can’t leave her out here alone.

I said, “I’m sorry, honey. I can’t move this gorilla into the back. He weighs close to three hundred pounds. And I can’t leave you here. I need your help to find that clearing. Just get in and look out the window. Don’t look at them.”

She shuddered and said, “I know. You’re right of course. But damn!”

She trembled violently. But she climbed back into the backseat beside the dead goon whose cock she had clamped her teeth down on and created the diversion that saved our lives.

I’m just as reluctant to climb into the blood-soaked driver’s seat. But it has to be done. My ears are still ringing and I can still smell and taste the residue from those three gunshots in that confined space. The metallic taste in my mouth is making me ill. Add to that the disturbing coppery smell of the blood that’s all over the front seat and is already soaking through the seat of my pants and I’m quickly growing very queasy.

I almost had to get out and vomit again. There’s blood and brain matter spattered around the quarter sized hole in the driver’s window. I hit the switches to lower all the windows but that only helped a little.

The culvert in which the SUV came to a stop isn’t deep or muddy. I was able to drive out of it easily. I continued down the road slowly while we both looked for a narrow dirt track into the woods.

We have several things going for us. There’s no traffic. That’s an important consideration when you’re driving around in a vehicle with two dead bodies. And on the side of the road away from the lake there is absolutely no development. If we spot a narrow path into the woods it’s likely to be the one we we’re looking for.

It took us a long time to reach anything that looked remotely like it might be a trail into the woods. Andrea couldn’t be certain it was the right one but she said she thought it might be. I turned in and drove slowly up the dirt trail with branches scraping the SUV on both sides.

I wasn’t paying attention to the distance we traveled. But thinking back I guess we were probably close to five miles from my house. It must have been pure hell for a scared sixteen year old girl, all alone in the dark, early in the morning with no idea where she is and with two men trying to kill her after just witnessing a murder. I continue to be awed by this girl’s bravery and strength of character. I know grown men who would be reduced to babbling idiots if they were forced to go through what she has.

The narrow track ended in a small clearing. I stopped the car and we got out. She pointed at a small mound off to the side and said, “That’s where they buried Mr. Graham.”

Looking around I got the uncomfortable feeling I could make out other mounds, other possible grave sites. I began to have second thoughts about keeping this place a secret. There might be young women buried here whose families would like their loved ones’ remains returned to them.

I walked around the clearing, careful to avoid leaving any tracks. I came to the conclusion that there are, indeed, several other graves here. I turned to Andrea and told her what I was thinking.

She actually looked relieved when I told her I was thinking about reporting the site to the police.

She said, “I’d like that. The things you said about burial and gravestones make sense. But I don’t feel comfortable making that decision for others. I wouldn’t have wanted my body to end up here, even though I have no family to miss me. This little clearing is creepy as hell!”

I hugged her and said, “Okay, let’s dump these assholes here. We’ll take the SUV back to my place. You can get our car and follow me to someplace we can leave it. We’re going to have to torch it. I don’t want us to get dragged into this and I don’t want to leave fingerprints or DNA evidence for the police to find. We can’t do that here, though. It will have to be somewhere we don’t have to worry about the fire getting out of control.”

I have a place in mind. There’s an old furniture factory in Bristol that’s closed down now. We can leave it in the parking lot when it gets late enough that no one is around and torch it there without endangering any buildings.

I pulled the bodies out of the car and left them lying on the ground where they fell. They aren’t worth burying. Thug number one’s cock is still hanging out of his pants. That reminded me that there might be DNA evidence on his cock and the bite marks on his cock would no doubt draw their attention to that area of his body. I remembered seeing a pint bottle of whiskey on the floor of the Suburban when I was dragging his body out. I went and looked. The bottle is still half full. I poured it on the bastard’s limp cock and hoped that would be sufficient. I know I can’t bring myself to torch a human body.

We drove back to the house and took showers. I disposed of the empty whiskey bottle and burned the blood stained clothing we were wearing in a small pit I dug beside the house. When there was nothing left but ashes I filled the hole with dirt and covered it with mulch. I covered the driver’s seat of the SUV with a tarp and put my five gallon gas can in the back.

We waited until almost dark and drove to Bristol. We parked by the town square where we were unlikely to be noticed at that time of day. We ate a light meal in town. Neither of us had much of an appetite.

After we ate we walked down to the river to kill some time. We spent quite a while there. Not talking. Just staring at the shallow river and listening to the rush of the water around the boulders. It was very soothing. We both needed that.

It was almost ten o’clock when we drove through town to the deserted furniture factory. It’s still earlier than I would have liked. But I’m not comfortable with Andrea driving around alone in the dark, either. She just learned to drive and isn’t very experienced.

I drove past the small factory and parked around the corner on a side street. I made sure no one was watching and I doused the interior of the SUV with gas. I put the gas can back in my car and made Andrea wait for me there.

I drove back to the factory and parked. I looked around and when I was as sure as I could be that no one was around I got out, opened the car’s gas cap and tossed a lit match through the open driver’s window.

I walked away as calmly as I could. I stopped at the corner and turned back to look. I still don’t see anyone around. The Suburban is totally engulfed in flames. I walked to my car and drove slowly away.

Unfortunately, there’s one more thing I have to do before we can go home.

I drove to Burlington. I tried to leave Andrea at a small diner for a little while. She absolutely refused to get out of the car. No amount of pleading or threatening would get her out.

She knows what I have to do. She insisted that I might need her to point out the man I have to find. Mr. Califaro has my phone number now. The goons told him where I live. He knows about me and he knows Andrea. This won’t be over until I do something about him.

I parked in the dark, narrow alley which runs the length of the entire block behind the strip club. Andrea pointed out Califaro’s car nearby. We have nearly three hours to kill before he normally leaves. But I doubt very much he’ll be leaving on time tonight. He’ll be waiting for his two goons to let him know Andrea and I have been disposed of.

He must have known they intended to rape Andrea. I can only hope he’ll assume that’s why they’re late returning. At least I hope he’ll attribute the fact that they haven’t yet returned to that. But so much time has passed since they called him from my cabin that he must surely be on edge by now.

I know I can’t just wait outside for him to leave the building. He’ll feel obligated to wait in his office until he hears from his goons that the problem Andrea and I represent has been resolved. The two idiots already screwed it up once. I doubt if he trusts them all that much to get it right the second time.

As much as I hate the idea, I know I’m going to have to go in after him.

I got out to scout the area, looking for security cameras. I checked the buildings on both sides of the narrow alley. I brought a can of spray paint with me in case I spotted any. But this isn’t a high crime area. No place in Vermont is a high crime area. No place, except perhaps for that little clearing in the woods near my home.