Chapter 13

Jeff sat in a comfortable chair in Linda's old bedroom while Jill slept and Little One worked on her. The door quietly opened and Diana peeked in, then pushed a serving cart through.

"Are you hungry?" she whispered as she neared Jeff.

Jeff smiled at her. "You don't have to whisper. A bolt of lightning could strike the retreat and Jill would sleep on."

"Well, good," his wife answered in a normal voice. "It is way past lunchtime, so while the others are eating, we can as well," she said as she put out two plates on a small table nearby. Jeff moved two chairs over as Diana paused to glance at the bed. "How is it going?"

Jeff sighed. "I need to unload on someone..."

"I'm your wife," Diana instantly said as she picked up on his emotions.

"Put the food out, then we'll talk as we eat."

A few minutes later, husband and wife sat at the small table and automatically held hands while Jeff said a short prayer of thanks for the food, then included Jill.

Diana, stunned as Jeff's emotions boiled across her as if from an overturned caldron, shakily released his hand and took a drink of her iced tea.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at her with concern. "You felt it didn't you?"

"I don't know what it was, but I felt your emotions. It's like when we make love, only these weren't good emotions."

"Sorry," he said, and she knew he meant it. "Little One just ... talked to me about Jill. She sent her own emotions, as part of her communication, and ... some of what she was getting from Jill. Damn, Diana, I was there from Jill's perspective as some bastard rammed something up her — and I'm not talking about his dick. Something else, and I don't think it was a dildo, either. Maybe a metal pipe or something. Shit, the pain was staggering, and I know that I got the watered-down version." Absently, he reached for his glass of tea just as it hit him. His hand fumbled and overturned the glass.

Diana's hand reached out, but the full glass spilled, anyway. "Baby, what's wrong?" she asked as all the color drained from Jeff's face, and the ignored tea soaked into the carpet.

"Oh, fuck," Jeff said through gritted teeth, not even noticing. "I think ... Shit, I don't have a word for it," he hissed out. "But when I started to tell you about that son-of-a-bitch shoving something up her, it triggered ... something. I think that Little One sent more than she intended. When I thought of that, a large group of memories suddenly unfolded in my mind. It's ... hell, they're obviously Jill's memories. I see men doing things to me/her, I feel pain, humiliation. Oh, shit, Baby, she was a slave, a true sex slave. She couldn't stop herself, and I can feel her trying. I see men laughing, and I see one face over and over. He raped her, ordered her to do things, humiliated her, took her to other men. I see them paying him. It has to be that son-of-a-bitch doctor."

Jeff's face tightened even more. "He needs killing. Something as vile as he is shouldn't live."

"Honey," Diana said, "Let's get the Healer for you. You're worrying me."

"No," Jeff said, leaning back in the chair, his hands shaking. "No, she stood it — I can." After a moment, he calmed — his face changing. "Di, this son-of-a-bitch knew she was messed up inside. I can hear him talking about it, raising hell because she was out of commission for several weeks. Shit, that had to be back in Saint Louis before or near the time of the divorce."

Jeff closed his eyes for a moment. "He was going to sell her. I mean really sell her. He knew she was badly damaged, but as best I can tell, he didn't even do much of an examination. I think he did give her some pills — maybe an antibiotic, but I think that was all he did to help her. I can hear him talking on the phone as she sat near him on the couch unable to even say a word."

Jeff sat quietly for a while, his eyes closed as he leaned back into his chair. Finally, he opened them as he unconsciously stared in the direction of the table, his eyes unfocused.

"Jeff..."

"I'm fine, Baby," he said, his eyes returning to the present as he reached over to squeeze her hand in reassurance.

"I need to clean this up," Diana said after a second.

"Yeah, I would hate to stain the carpet," Jeff said getting up and moving the chairs out of the way, but Diana had heard that sound in his voice before.

A few minutes later, with the table moved a little to the side, both were on their knees as they rubbed big towels from the shower vigorously on the wet carpet. Diana paused for a second, "Are you going to tell Bill?"

Jeff flipped his towel over and continued rubbing, "Not in a million years. I wouldn't wish what I've seen from Jill's mind on anyone, let alone one of our family. No wonder Little One was shaken."

They stood and Diana took their towels into the bathroom. When she came back, "Can you eat now? I'm starved."

"Yeah, me too," he said looking at her as he slid her chair out for her, his countenance taking on his mission face. Seating himself, he continued, "Tomorrow afternoon after Jill is healed, or maybe the next day, I'm going to take a little trip."

"No, Jeff," Diana said grabbing his hand. "I don't want you to go off and kill this guy. I'll admit he deserves it, but I don't want you to go to jail..."

Jeff looked at her and chuckled with a sound that scared her. "It won't happen that way. And I won't be going to see him tomorrow. Things have to be done first. But this is bigger than just Jill. She heard a lot, even though she couldn't respond to it. I need to get some other people involved. We need to get to the bottom of this — then the bastard will get his due."

While Diana and Jeff ate their late lunch, Doctor Ingles sat in his home office, glass in hand, his feet propped on his desk, a two-thirds full bottle of single malt, ten-year-old bourbon nearby. He was exhausted.

I thought the bitch would surely head straight for Saint Louis. Shit, I still can't believe she broke her conditioning. She shouldn't have been capable of that.

The day that Jill left, his contact had called at the last minute to postpone, and Ingles had come home early — only to find her missing. He now sorely regretted the oversight in not writing down her tag number, not to say anything about keeping her car keys with him. He had been certain the stupid bitch would be heading for Saint Louis, though, because her husband worked out of the airport there. She didn't have the option of going home, since the house had been sold. Logic would dictate that she would try to get to her husband at the airport, though.

How in the fuck did she break her conditioning? he thought for the tenth time.

Ingles had gotten into his car, only to have to gas up, frustrating him even more at the wasted time. Cursing, he hit I-94 headed East, expecting her to go toward Saint Louis. He put the pedal to the metal as they say, but five miles later met a trooper sitting in his patrol car just over a small rise.

Fuck, I thought that son-of-a-bitch was going to arrest me. He wouldn't even listen to what I said about being a doctor trying to catch up to a mental patient. Then I had to wait for him to write the ticket — and he took his fucking time, Ingles fumed as he remembered.

Ingles had remembered to turn on his radar detector then. He had rolled through every rest stop looking for her car. Nothing. Then, late in the day, he topped another small rise and there stood another state trooper beside his patrol car. Ingles' expensive radar detector did its job about detecting the laser the trooper was using all right. But the detector went off a split second after the cop pulled the trigger on the laser, the detector doing Ingles absolutely no good. He saw the trooper hurriedly opening his car door, and just pulled over, sighing.

Shit!

Ingles hadn't even bothered with an explanation that time. At least it hadn't taken the trooper long to write the ticket.

Just after eight that night, he turned around and headed back for Bismarck. By the time he had gotten home, pissed and too tired to think, he just went to bed. Early the next morning, he had gone to the police with his story about a mental patient who had left. He had told them that she was in dire need of her medications, but was afraid to tell them that she might die without them, thinking that might bring up a deeper inquiry than he was willing to risk. He had given them the phone number and address of his house, claiming it was a small clinic. Then he had to prove he was a doctor, but the bored cop who took the report at the office didn't seem to give a shit about anything other than finishing the complaint and getting on to the next report. Missing persons, particularly persons who wanted to be missing — mental patient or not — weren't the highest priority, obviously.

Of course, Ingles had failed to tell the cops that the medications were really the drugs that he had used to make Jill so much more susceptible to hypnosis and consequently making her will into his. That's the downside to this shit, he thought. The drugs work, but the body quickly becomes totally dependent on them. A few days without them and the patient would probably die. The tanker that the slavers used had a well-designed and hidden compartment, and the inspectors are easily bribed, anyway. The slaves would never be found there, but two of the women died on the ship on its way to Iran when that idiot didn't give them the drugs like he was supposed to. That had cost them money and they killed his lazy ass for it, he laughed to himself.

Well, even if she gets the cops or her husband to believe her, she'll never last to testify against me. Still, the bitch running off has cost me a lot of money.

Sipping the bourbon, he continued to go over the time since her escape. After he had reported her missing — he got fussed at for not having the tag number of her car — he had stopped to eat breakfast and think. That's when it had hit him.

Shit, the bitch went the other way. She isn't headed for Saint Louis at all; she's going to wherever it is they're keeping her kid. Yeah, that place that the company owns. I'll have to find out exactly where it is. Somewhere around Denver I think. But just in case she did head for Saint Louis and I missed her, I'll get a detective agency to watch for her at the company's facility at the airport. I'll have them put someone there 24/7 waiting for her ass to show up.

That hadn't gone over as easily as he expected. The first agency wanted to know his relationship with Jill Madison, not buying into the escaped mental patient thing, and hung up on him.

The second one wanted to ask too many questions, too. But the third one just wanted his credit card number. After giving the detective his story, he had a brainstorm and told him what he knew about this conference center that belonged to Wainwright, Inc. Hell, they got the address and the phone number while I waited on the phone. How did they do that? No matter, he would keep checking. If the bitch didn't turn up dead, he would check out this place himself. Worst-case scenario, I can always have her killed if she surfaces somewhere. She's the best looking bitch I've ever seen, and had the sweetest tight pussy I've ever been in, that just milked my cock to perfection... Did have, until that stupid Iranian stuck something up her. Hell, I can still sell her to one of those fucks. They get off on a totally submissive slave. If the dumb shits forget to give her the drugs and she dies on them, it's their problem.

IN ONE-HALF MILE, MERGE RIGHT ONTO I-85 SOUTH, the GPS voice said.

"Carla, Baby, I know how to get there. The place is less than two hours out of Atlanta. I have been past it several times. We don't have to have that thing on now," Fred laughed.

"Well, Jessica and I don't know anything about Georgia, and we love to hear Sweet Thing telling you what to do," Carla said, referring to the female voice on their new GPS system.

MERGE RIGHT!

"Okay, okay," Fred answered the computer voice. "I'm merging right, but you are a pushy bitch," he laughed.

CONTINUE 60.2 MILES ON I-85 SOUTH.

"Yes, Ma'am," Fred said, mock-saluting the GPS.

Halfway through the little town of Pine Mountain, Carla suddenly said, "Pull over quickly. We've got to have a picture of that Bed and Breakfast over there."

On their right was an old two-story home with a high peaked roof. The basic color was a deep beige with white trim — and there was plenty of trim. The spindled porch railing on the bottom floor was duplicated on the second floor with a smaller porch. High above was a widow's walk with a high peaked roof. Under the porch roof was beautiful spindle molding that corresponded with the lower railings. The whole house was so well kept that it looked as if it had just been built. The grounds almost appeared sculptured with the dark green grass and plants that surrounded the house, not to mention the hundred-year-old oak trees.

"How old is the house?" Carla said as Fred opened the door so Jessica could train her camera.

"A hundred years, maybe older. I have no idea, but I agree; it's beautiful."

"If we weren't in this, we would spend the night there," Carla vowed.

Rolling again, they turned the corner, and Fred voluntarily pulled over this time. "They've made an effort to save their little town," Carla said as she motioned toward the old stores and shops that lined both sides of the downtown area. Gaily painted and decorated, every store was different, but all seemed to have the same general theme. Nothing looked rundown, but everything was, indeed, old. There were people everywhere.

"I like this place," Jessica said as she stepped out the door to take another picture with Fred's camera.

DESTINATION ON LEFT. TURN LEFT!

As Fred eased the rig to a stop and shut down, he glanced at the women as they looked through the windows enthusiastically. "Want to go inside with me to check in?"

"Yeah, we..." Jessica started.

"No. We'll just wait," Carla interrupted with a glance at her daughter.

"Okay. Be back in a minute," Fred said getting out of the driver's seat as Carla went to sit with her daughter. They were whispering as he closed the door behind him.

He followed a woman of about thirty into the Lodge/General Store. As they came to the registration counter and she walked on around it to face him, she said, "You must be Mr. Wilson?"

Fred's eyes drifted to the well-filled-out top she wore before he flicked his eyes back to her face. She's probably used to it, he guiltily thought. She's pretty, and with that body... "Yes, Ma'am. How did you know?"

Fred had already figured it out, of course, but he waited.

"Well, we're not exactly being trampled to death by the rush today," she laughed. "And you did say that you were in a Tourmaster. By the way, that sure is a nice rig you have."