Please Save Me (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  * * * *

  Gary and Steve had just finished eating when Dorian entered the kitchen. Gary got up and got the plate he’d left in the fridge for their friend.

  “Did you find anything?” Gary asked, placing the microwave-heated food in front of Dorian and taking his seat again.

  “No. The place was empty. From the looks of it, Jose’s strapped for cash. He has no furniture, just the bare necessities.”

  “I thought Jose was married with a kid,” Gary said and looked at Steve.

  “Me, too. Maybe they split up.”

  “Well, something’s not right,” Dorian stated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All his clothes are gone.”

  “Shit.”

  “Normally I would say so, but my gut’s telling me no,” Dorian explained.

  “Do you have any ideas on what’s going on?” Gary asked.

  “I think your man is on Joe’s payroll, like I said before.”

  “Wait. Let me get this straight. You two think that Joe has hired Jose to help him get to Selina?” Gary asked. “Why the hell didn’t you mention that before, Steve? Fuck!”

  “Don’t go off half-cocked, Gary. We don’t know anything for sure.” Dorian’s cell phone chose that moment to chirp.

  “Yeah, okay, hang on,” Dorian spoke into the phone and then looked to him and Steve. “Have you got a pen and notepad?”

  Gary rushed to get them and placed the items on the table in front of Dorian.

  “Go ahead.”

  Gary watched as Dorian wrote on the paper without speaking. As the person on the other end continued talking, Dorian’s face got grimmer and his jaw clenched harder.

  “Thanks, man, I owe you,” Dorian said and ended the call.

  “What have you got?” Gary asked.

  “Joe’s not who he says he is. Joe Cox is one of ten aliases. His real name is Michael Jones, and he is a known sociopath. He is wanted in five other states for the murder of seven women. He charms the women into dating him, and when the relationship ends, he stalks them. It doesn’t matter if they end up in bed with him or not. The seven he’s killed are the only ones reported missing. God knows how many other women he’s killed. He is thirty-eight years old and has lived in ten different states in the last eight years. He was in and out of psychiatric hospitals when he was in his teens and early twenties, but he fell off the radar after that. He has warrants out for his arrest, but he keeps changing his name and credentials.”

  “Oh my God. We have to find Selina before he kills her,” Gary whispered hoarsely.

  He looked at Steve and saw his lover’s face had drained of all color.

  “What do we need to do to find this fucked-up psycho?” Steve asked.

  “My friend is looking into it. He’s running a check on all of Jones’s aliases to see if there have been any credit card payments in the area, but if he’s thinking straight, which sociopaths are known to do, he’s probably paying for everything in cash,” Dorian explained.

  “Let me call the detectives and let them know what we’ve found out. Maybe they can get more information on Jones now that we know his real name.” Steve reached for the phone.

  * * * *

  Selina quietly sobbed with frustration. Standing on the trash can only made her tall enough to get her fingertips to the sill of the window. She wasn’t going to be able to escape out that way. Moving quickly, she searched the drawers and cupboards for a weapon, but the only things she found were some toothbrushes still in their packaging, soap, and bandages.

  Shit. What do I do now?

  The door to the bathroom opened, and she cringed back as Joe entered the room.

  “Oh, you really are testing my patience, my love,” he said as he reached in and turned off the shower. “Come here, Selina.”

  Selina was too scared to move and stood frozen near the wall. She tried to push herself into the wall as he stalked toward her, but of course her efforts were futile.

  “You’d best learn that when I give a command, I expect to be obeyed immediately!” Joe screamed at her.

  She dug her heels in when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her from the bathroom. With a flick of his wrist, he flung her away from him, and she landed on the bed with a thud. Turning to face him, she was prepared for the slap across her face. Stars exploded before her eyes and made her head throb abominably. Feeling sick to her stomach when his hands began pulling at her clothes, she tried to hamper his attempts to remove them, but she was no match for a loony. His eyes glittered with madness, which seemed to give him added strength. Hands grasped her shirt and ripped it open, popping the buttons, and he tugged it off her shoulders and down over her hands.

  Selina fought him, using everything she could, but no matter what she did, he didn’t seem to notice. He tugged on her slacks, and they, too, gave way in his hands. When she was left in nothing but her stockings, underwear, and shoes, he smiled at her with his cold, blank eyes.

  “Now, that’s much better,” he said and wound the rope around her wrists again, then tethered her hands to an iron rail on the headboard. “Just lie back and relax my love. I will get you ready for the ceremony.”

  He knelt at her feet, kissed her knees, and pulled her shoes off. Selina couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and didn’t even try. They leaked from the corners of her eyes as he replaced her shoes with white-heeled dress shoes. When he had finished, he moved off to the bedside table and removed a small cosmetics bag. He hummed while he applied makeup to her face. Her face made up to his satisfaction, he then released her hands and pulled her to her feet and picked up a white dress from a chair nearby. Pulling the dress over her head, he then smoothed it down over her body. Looking at her as if satisfied with her appearance, he pulled her back into the bathroom and turned her to face the mirror.

  Selina couldn’t help it. She looked worse than a clown. Opening her mouth, she gave way to hysterical laughter. The eyeliner he had put beneath her eyes left dark tracks on her face as the tears continued to flow. She had two round blotches of blush standing out in prominent relief on her cheeks, and the red lipstick he had placed on and around her lips made her look like she was ready for the circus.

  Her laughter turned to a cry of pain when he roughly grabbed a handful of hair, turning her to face him. His fist connected with her face, and she howled with agony, blood pouring down over her mouth and chin from her nose.

  “Shut the fuck up, you little slut. If you make one more sound, I will kill you here and now,” Joe shrieked.

  She froze as the cold, metallic blade of a knife brushed against her throat and then the tip pierced her skin.

  Chapter Twelve

  Steve paced the floor, unable to settle down knowing his woman was in the clutches of a murdering sociopath. He glanced at his watch again and saw that only five minutes had passed since he last looked. Gary was slumped in an armchair with his eyes closed, but he knew his lover and friend wasn’t asleep. Dorian had gone to his room to rest but had said he would let them know if his friend came up with anything.

  Moving over to the windows, he stared out without really seeing anything. He had never felt so useless in his life. He wanted to be out there looking for Selina, but he had no idea where to start. The detectives had said they would be in touch, but they obviously didn’t have anything on Jones either. Every second seemed to take an hour, every minute a day, and every hour that passed felt like a lifetime. Spinning on his heel when he heard a step behind him, he looked at Dorian when he entered the room. His friend didn’t look like he’d had any sleep either.

  “We’ve got him,” Dorian said.

  “Where?” Steve snapped.

  “He hired a rental property in a town about ninety miles from here. He used his first alias.”

  “Let’s go.” Steve headed for the door.

  “I’ve notified the police, too,” Dorian explained as he and Gary followed.

  “I don’t care. If we get there first, we go in. Do
you have any spare weapons?” Steve started the truck.

  “Can birds fly?” Dorian replied.

  “Good. Did you get the layout of the place?” Steve inquired.

  “Yeah, and my friend, the one who’s been doing all the searching for us, is going to meet us there for backup.”

  “Excellent. Let’s see if we can beat the detectives.” Steve pushed the acceleration pedal to the floor.

  * * * *

  Gary had never felt such fear in his life. The thought of their precious Selina in the clutches of that psycho motherfucker made him feel ill. She was the love of their lives and had managed to do the impossible. Breaking through Steve’s walls had been an absolute miracle in his eyes. His friend and lover had been open and carefree once those walls had come tumbling down, but she was his miracle, too. Selina had found a quiet moment to talk to him when he had met her in the filing room earlier in the day. It had only been for a few minutes, but that time had changed his outlook on life. He hadn’t even realized she knew what he was doing. How could he when he hadn’t known himself? But with her eyes so full of love, she had seen the real him. Only one other person had seen through his façade, and he was sitting beside him, his expression grim as he concentrated on driving the truck at a breakneck speed.

  Gary pushed his thoughts aside and looked out the window. They were getting closer to her, and he could feel a need, a desperation to find her before it was too late.

  “How much farther?” he asked Steve.

  “Fifteen minutes, max.”

  “My friend Darrick is already in place. He’s scouted the area and found the best places for us to get in,” Dorian stated from the backseat.

  “Are other houses close by?” Steve asked. “I don’t want any of the neighbors getting in the way.”

  “We’re in luck. The house is situated on a large block of land. It should be far enough away from other houses to not cause problems.”

  “Good,” Gary replied. “Hurry, man, we need to be there now.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Fuck, Gary, I need to hold her and know she’s safe. God, I can’t lose her. We have to save her,” Steve said in an anguished voice.

  “Yeah, I know. We have to get her back.” Gary only barely held in a sob, a hitch of anxiety clogging his throat.

  * * * *

  The blood trickling from the small wound in her neck tickled over her skin as she looked into the blank eyes of a killer. Her body began to shake, and even though she was sweating, inside she felt cold. So cold, her bones ached. He gripped her hair, and pain stung her scalp as he dragged her from the room. A sob caught in her throat when she spied the table set up in the living room. It was draped in a pristine white tablecloth with candles lit in the center. There were two crystal goblets with what looked to be red wine in them, and the flickering light of the candles gleamed on two small metal objects. A fire crackled in the hearth on the far wall, barely throwing out enough warmth to heat the room. Or maybe she was just too scared to feel it. On a small red velvet cushion sat two yellow-gold rings, one smaller than the other. She moved her eyes about, looking for Jose, but she couldn’t see him. She wondered whether he was in on this or whether Joe had somehow forced him into it.

  He released her hair and took hold of her right hand, pulling her so close to the fire burning in the hearth she was scared the dress she wore would catch fire.

  “Jose, get the fuck in here. Now!” Joe roared.

  Selina waited with terror for Jose to appear, but he didn’t show. Joe, obviously insane with anger, tugged her out from behind the table, shoved her into a chair which had rope on the floor next to it, and began to restrain her again. He released her and left the room, calling for his goon. Wondering how Joe thought they were going to be married with no celebrant or priest in sight, she sighed with relief for the unexpected momentary reprieve. His footsteps receded as he searched the house, but the low mutterings of his voice got louder and louder.

  “I’m going to kill that fucking imbecile,” Joe roared with demonic fury as he opened the front door of the house, slamming it against the opposite wall with a loud bang.

  Feeling that her time was running out, Selina twisted, tugged, and turned her restrained wrists. Blood seeped from her torn, burning flesh, but she ignored the pain. When she felt her hands slip a little more in the rope, her own blood helping the process, she gritted her teeth and pulled with all her might. Biting her lip to keep her cry of elation contained when her hands pulled free, she stumbled to her feet and raced through the house.

  Peering out the side glass panel next to the back door, praying that Joe wasn’t near and couldn’t see her, she opened it. There were no lights on in the house to relieve the blackness of the night, and the moon was covered by clouds. The hinges creaked loudly in the silence, and she took off, running, heedless of the pounding behind her skull and her blurry vision. She didn’t bother taking the steps down from the porch, she jumped over them. With adrenaline pumping through her veins, she ran.

  Selina screamed with fear as her short flight came to an abrupt end. She had run into a hard, immovable object and tilted her head back to look into Joe’s insane eyes. The blood on his hands, his clothes, and his face made her stomach roil, and bile threatened to erupt.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Steve took the Glock Dorian handed him and checked the clip while Gary took the .38 and did the same. Darrick had been waiting for them and gave them the layout of the place. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his fear and anxiety aside and called on his karate training. He had learned to control his emotions when he did karate, and so had Gary. The sport had helped them both to keep their rage and bitterness under control.

  “You two take the front and we’ll go in the back,” Steve said. “Count to sixty to give us time to get into place and then storm in.”

  Steve led the way around the house, moving quickly but keeping to the shadows. They crept up the steps onto the back porch, and he looked over to Gary, letting him see how much he loved and admired the man who was his best friend and lover. If he was going to go down, he was making damn sure Gary knew how he felt. Gary looked back at him, and he could see the same expression in his eyes.

  Giving a nod of his head, he reached for the door handle, expecting to have to kick the door in. The knob turned in his hand, and as he pushed it open, the rusty hinges sent out a protest. He held his breath and eased it open slowly, hoping the slight sound wouldn’t be picked up by Joe. Slipping through the small gap, his eyes scanning quickly, he moved across the kitchen to the door on the far side. Just as he peeked around the corner, he heard Dorian and Darrick kick in the front entrance.

  The knot of fear in his gut expanded when he saw Selina in the clutches of that motherfucker. She was battered, bruised, and bloody, with a knife held against her throat, but she was still alive. Joe was using her as a shield, his hand high up on her throat and the knife pressed against her skin. Dorian and Darrick stood frozen just inside the room, guns in their hands but pointed toward the floor.

  “Drop your weapons or I’ll slit her throat here and now,” Joe screamed, looking toward them.

  Realizing he hadn’t noticed him and Gary, Steve kept on the balls of his feet and crept forward with Gary breathing down his neck. He didn’t take his eyes off Joe, but in his peripheral vision, he saw Dorian raise his arm.

  “I could shoot you before you even get the chance to move,” Dorian stated in a cold, hard voice.

  Selina whimpered, but Steve didn’t look at her. He had to keep his focus and take Joe out before it was too late. Time was running out, because in the distance he could hear the wail of a siren.

  Inching his way along the wall, he breathed shallowly and lightly so Joe wouldn’t hear him. He was so close and yet still too far away. He didn’t want to shoot him, because he was scared he would hurt Selina, worried that the bullet would pass through Joe and into her.

  He heard Dorian or Darrick move, and Joe turned his back a littl
e more. He was now totally out of Joe’s sight. Steve was within arm’s reach when a noise sounded behind him. Joe snapped his head around to look over his shoulder, and Steve knew he had to act now. With a karate yell, he leapt forward, grasped Joe’s arm, wrenched Selina from his grasp, shoved her in Dorian’s direction, twisted, and shoved Joe’s arm and hand which still held the knife up, trying to get him to drop the knife or stab himself. He stepped back quickly as the fucker squealed like a stuck pig. It didn’t seem to slow Joe down though. Cold rage burned in his eyes as he pulled the knife from his side and lunged, holding up a second knife Steve hadn’t known about.

  Steve lifted his arm up, ready to block the strike, but Joe didn’t connect. Gary spun Joe around, twisting his arm. When Joe’s hand was directed toward his own body, Gary thrust. The knife in Joe’s hand entered his chest, and he died in the next moment, before he had even hit the floor. Gary had done what Steve had tried to do. He’d aimed for the fucker’s heart but must have missed. Gary’s aim had been true.

  Steve spun around and ran to Selina. Taking her from Dorian, he held her close as she clung to him. Her whole body was shaking, and her deep, hysterical sobs tore out his heart. He went down to the floor on his knees, taking her with him, and he realized he, too, was shaking like a leaf. Gary came up behind her, hugging her from behind. He looked up to see Gary crying with relief and only then felt wetness on his own cheeks. Through her sobs, Selina was chanting something, but he couldn’t make it out. She was too distraught for her words to be comprehensible.