Chapter 61

"Well, I see you finally found out the family secret," boomed Marion's voice from behind us.

I wheeled around and ended up on my butt, my knees still shaky from trying to absorb too much information at once.

"Hey, little brother, it's not that bad," she grinned teasingly. "Of course, I've known about this little room for years, so I can imagine it must be quite a shock to you to imagine Mom and Dad down here, doing, well..." Marion ended by sweeping her hand around to include the various devices in the cavernous room.

Especially Mom! "How ... How did you find out?"

Marion looked a little sheepish. "Just about the same way I came down now. They left the door open one night when they were, well, you know ... I went looking for Mom for something and found them down here. I was about 13 or so. Life hasn't been the same since..." she ended, somewhat wistfully. I belatedly noticed the housewarming plant she was carrying.

"Did you ever... ?" I couldn't bring myself to ask.

" ... use this stuff?" She guffawed. "Once. Well, kind of. Mom and Daddy were away, you were out with Mac somewhere. I had been obsessed with what I saw down here. It was all I could think about, day and, uh, well, night."

My stoic sister actually blushed!

"Since I had the house to myself, I snuck down here and tried some of the stuff out. It was hot. I pretended I was imprisoned down here, typical teenage fantasy stuff. Everything was OK until I jiggled something on the stocks over there and couldn't get out. I was completely naked by that time and totally exposed, helpless."

"What happened then?" Nicole asked breathlessly. She was totally wrapped up in this yarn Marion was spinning. At least, I was sincerely hoping it was a yarn. I mean, this was Mom we were talking about...

Marion gave a wry grin, remembering. "Mom found me. I had left the door ajar and she knew I was down here. I think she must have known I had found out about the cellar. She wasn't mad at all. She didn't laugh at me, either, when she found me trapped. She just said, 'That's my favorite one, too, ' and, then brought me upstairs. She never said another word about it."

I sat there on the cold stone floor, astounded at the revelations I was hearing. All my childhood heroes, not to mention my sainted mother, were falling from their pedestals and I was left speechless. I just sat on the cold floor, gumming the air, looking like a fish with my mouth opening and closing.

Marion continued her survey of the room, "I do like the improvements you've made, though. It seems bigger, too." It was kind of a question, but not really.

I looked around again, paying a bit more attention this time. Ah, yes! Some of the equipment strategically came in pairs, particularly the pieces I preferred to use on them or the things that they liked me to use on them. Most of those were newer than some of the solitary units. Two stations, no waiting, if I knew my impatient wenches. The various winches on the wall and the wires that criss-crossed the ceiling were new, too. The ropes were all fresh and the chains were shining. I idly wondered who the Hell they had hired to do this contracting job. And could he keep his mouth shut? But that was a worry for another time.

Struggling up from my sitting position, I hugged Sally first and then Nicole, reassuring them that this was a good thing, even though I still didn't trust myself to talk. I was still a little stunned about Mom. And Marion. As we wound our way up the stairway to the bedroom, I began to have serious doubts about having moved back in with my sister. As unconventional as my life appeared to be, adding my sister to the equation was not something I wanted to even contemplate.

I shut the heavy door to this new family twist firmly behind me.

We continued with the tour of the house, now with Marion in tow. The third floor of our new home was mine, or at least one end of it. Sally had made my new office up there into a masterpiece, though I could also see Nicole's touch here and there. Sure, it was way up on the third floor and all. In fact, it was the only room that was currently used up on that level, but it was perfect. It spanned the entire width of the back end of our wing of the house. I could see Marion thinking about a similar office on her wing.

Sally had completely knocked out the outside walls on three sides and windowed them in floor to ceiling. Walking into my office was like walking into a rooftop paradise. I had a sweeping panoramic view overlooking the manicured grounds all the way down to the river in the back. I also had an unobstructed view of just over 60 to 70% of the rest of estate. The windows were made out of that photo-gray glass that turns darker in bright light, so I didn't even need blinds.

A beautiful blonde wood desk and matching chairs completed the office furnishings Sally had provided, together with some matching butter soft leather couches and chairs gathered in a conversation grouping around a small table in one of the far corners. Everything else, all my files and the manly stuff that normally cluttered up the floor around my desk, I could keep in an adjoining workroom that had bookshelves and tables and even a small bathroom. The main office was for show. This was my 'home court advantage.' This room was for me, a wedding gift from Sally and Nicole. I checked the invoices later. There was not a single charge for this room, which was why it was such a special surprise. They had been planning this for a long time.

My girls, all four of them, had decided amongst themselves that this office was to be my sanctuary. They would come into it uninvited only in the direst emergencies and even then, under the threat of certain punishment. It was a rule they wanted and that they had insisted upon. Their reasoning was that I had provided each of them a place of their own they could escape to for sanctuary, quiet time or whatever. Sally and Janey had their house and Nicole and Simone had their apartment for quiet time. This office was to be my space.

I wasn't sure I liked that arrangement, yet. It was still too new and we were continually working out the kinks of the changes in our relationship. The other kind, too. I joked that that rule was just their way of getting away from me. It was a poor joke. Sally looked especially hurt and Nicole even teared up. Talk about feeling like shit.

I was sitting in my chair later that afternoon, enjoying the new smell of the carpets, expensive leather and fresh paint. Sally knocked on the doorsill.

"You like it, Master?"

My grin was couldn't get any bigger. "Yes, I do. Very much. Thank you, again."

"I'm glad you like it." She stood silently, enjoying watching me enjoy her gift to me. Then she continued, "I brought this up for you. Where do you want it?"

"Where do I want what? I thought the movers had gotten everything put away."

I knew my office stuff was complete. I had marked and sealed and numbered all the boxes personally, then counted them at the new house and checked the seals. Twice. Old habit.

"This metal case," she said, holding it up higher for me to see. "It's not Janey's, Nicole's or mine. Simone said you'd know what to do with it. She got kind of a strange look on her face when she saw it, like she knew what it was but didn't want to remember."

She was holding a large aluminum briefcase, heavy by the way she was standing. The one Mac had given me at the wedding. Given back, more accurately. It slowly came back to me where I had first seen it. Stinking, dark, clouded memories of flashing knives, death, fire, screams, empty men hurting Simone...

I shook my head to clear it of those searing memories.

"Just put it there, by the door. I'll take care of it."

It stayed where she put it for about an hour. I couldn't bring myself to open it, but I couldn't get that nagging feeling out of my head that it was somehow important. I had ignored the damn thing long enough and now that it was finally out in the open, I had to deal with it.

I took it into the workroom and, using some of the tools I had left over from my time at the agency, I opened it. It was an expensive case and the locks were more than a cut above average. Still, they were no problem for me to open. I was a little worried that the case might have been booby-trapped or something, but you really only see that in the movies and spy novels. Right, and they only used the X-Ray machine in the bomb-squad unit to check the kids' candy at Halloween, too...

The lid popped open with a slight creak and the old smell of musty air assaulted my nose. I lifted the top up slowly, revealing the hidden contents. I wish I hadn't.

What I found inside sickened me all over again. I had more flashbacks of glinting knives, the stench of human waste and acrid smoke. My knees felt a bit rubbery as the contents brought back the memories of those sleepless days of searching for and then finding Simone, her hair stapled to a wooden post, her body bearing ugly marks as well as the feces, piss and ejaculates of dozens of men.

At first I thought the case was just stuffed full with untidy bundles of money, thousands of dollars. Then I saw the corner of a white square. Using the eraser end of a pencil, I carefully lifted up the clumps of cash covering it up.

The first thing I thought was that it was a stack of family or vacation Polaroid snapshots. I was so in denial. What I saw in the case, when I finally opened my eyes and my mind, was a thick stack of photos of girls and young women and surprisingly, one or two boys. Donning a pair of latex gloves, I quickly sorted through the pile of pictures and estimated that there must have been about 30 or more different females pictured in them, most of them in much the same shape I had found Simone. A couple were actually in worse shape and I hadn't thought that that was even possible.

My stomach finally revolted. I had to rush to the bathroom, afterwards rinsing out my mouth to get rid of the sour taste of bile. Not an auspicious initiation of the new facilities in that room.

I laid out the several wads of money stuffed in the case by denomination. The top layer was mostly $20 bills, probably the price they charged for the use of the girls, but underneath that top layer were several stacks of very large denomination bills. These were the cash payments for the children, when they were sold and probably for payoffs to accomplices. This would have to be a cash business, after all and cash and carry, at that. They would have had to have a lot of cash handy. The larger denominations raised the value in the case to staggering levels.

I carefully bagged the cash in several large Zip-Lock bags. The fingerprint people in the lab would have a field day with all the clean prints on the bills. All the time I was working on the contents, carefully bagging the evidence, I didn't even realize I had made the decision to take this to the agency. By this time I was running purely on instinct.

There was a vial of clear fluid in the case, stuffed down along one side, semi-protected by being wrapped up in an old rag along with a couple of syringes. It was probably the drug they used on the girls to make them easier to handle at first. There was no label, so it went into another bag along with the two syringes. The lab would figure out what it was and, with any luck, what company had made it. If it was rare enough or a narcotic, they might even get a lead on the source.

Not surprisingly, there were no new needles in the case. Only the two used ones and I could actually see dried blood on them. They obviously didn't care about blood-borne diseases like hepatitis or AIDS or a hundred other minor medical maladies. I had a feeling that the girls would have been used up way before anything like that became a problem and those bastards knew it. They counted on it.

I was closing the case back up when I noticed a shadow on the bottom of the case. There was an unusual bump in the lining. I wasn't expecting anything to be hidden in the case, so I hadn't looked that close. My mistake. Running my fingers carefully around the edge of the case, I finally found a discrete cut hidden along the back seam of the lining material. I ripped it open. I didn't give a shit about the damage to the lining, as they wouldn't need it back. OK, so I was a little pissed I'd missed it in the first place.

I stared at the exposed bottom of the case. I couldn't believe it. It was a fucking notebook. The kind they use in the labs, with numbered pages. We used to have to use them in school. A dull, chewed up pencil was jammed down the spine for safekeeping. I remember I had done the same with my pencils so I wouldn't lose them.