Locke dark captive tale, p.17
Locke : Dark Captive Tale, page 17
And the world wasn’t going to understand her mad descension. They were going to see a woman flee from her life when she was really going to flee from him.
His little prey was slowly becoming his captive.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Twenty-Four
Kali
I stood outside Max Locke’s law firm.
The day was sunny, and the streets were packed. People were laughing and some kid was skipping past me with a balloon in hand. All seemed joyous—except me.
I stared at my reflection in the dark glass doors, and I saw an exhausted woman growing madder every day. My blinks were slow. Plagued by exhaustion, my body still felt sore after my night terror and subsequent orgasm or two.
You happened to think more rationally when the sun came up. When the light pierced you in the morning, it wasn’t just dosing you up with its rays. It was giving you a harsh dose of reality. I felt it, and the clarity was a punch in the gut. I felt ashamed of myself. Ashamed of my sick urges, my desire for unhealthy things.
This needed to stop.
As I continued to stare at myself drowning in my thoughts, I knew I needed to shake tail and catch the bus to Ryan’s house to look after his demon spawns. This was a severe detour, one that I had pretended was an innocent walk that led me straight to Locke’s firm.
But I was really here for a reason. A justifiable reason. One that evoked this response, and it was because before my night terror, I had seen his car again last night. On the balcony, I had been keeping a diligent look out. At one point, I watched as Sylvia talked on the phone, puffing on smokes that she lied about cutting down on. She was a little too close to some addicts out front of our building, but they were harmless, so I didn’t worry. The car showed up just as she went inside. It had sat idle before the building, unmoving. A pricy car always caught the attention of residents in Hawthorne, and yet nobody fucked with it. I couldn’t have been the only one that sensed him.
What did he want?
Was he trying to provoke me?
Or was he going to fucking kill me after all?
It stressed me out, sort of spooked me because those windows were too tinted under the streetlamp, and I didn’t know what he was doing. After an hour, he left.
“What’s gotten into you?” Sylvia asked as she stepped inside. She caught me standing by the window blinds, sneakily peering out intermittently.
“Nothing,” I answered without even looking back at her.
“What are you looking at?”
I shook my head. “Just watching out, Syl.”
When she came to stand next to me, I still wouldn’t look at her. “What are you watching out for?”
My voice was hardly above a whisper. “Danger.”
From my peripheral, I caught her nose wrinkling as she looked me over. I hadn’t bathed, or changed my clothes, or even cooked dinner.
“You gonna make one of those tinfoil hats?” she joked dryly.
“This isn’t funny,” I retorted, peering out again. A quick peek. One he would not see so easily if he was down there. “I am trying to protect us, Syl.”
Without pressing me, she went to bed early, and I was pretty certain she wanted to get away from me. Whatever. I’d cook up some acceptable bullshit later to justify my erratic behaviour.
Then I had entered the kitchen. I had plugged my phone into the wall earlier, a little disturbed that it was already on half charge. Which meant he had charged it the month he had it. But my passcode was still in place, so he couldn’t have gone into it, right?
Paranoid, I went through my entire phone, but it was exactly how I had left it.
Because Sylvia was useless giving me information on Locke, I spent the night combing through the internet instead, reading everything I could about him. There weren’t bucketloads of information on Locke, but his name popped up enough times. He owned most of downtown Blackwater. He was responsible for giving downtown a facelift, turning it from cesspit to classy. All things that everyone already knew.
He was also a prominent defence lawyer with an impressive win streak. Notorious for letting criminals go, or for giving them tamer sentences. Like Conor Thames for example. That crazy dude flattened a guy’s head into a pancake and had only served eight years.
However, lately Locke had gone underground. He didn’t take on any new cases. He was hardly seen around Blackwater. No one talked about it. No one asked about it. Because word on the street was Locke had eyes and ears everywhere.
There were still whispers, though. Short sentences you couldn’t escape here and there. After a while, you could put the sentences together to formulate a picture.
The picture I got was he was extremely dangerous (no shit, Sherlock, he killed two people in one night). Before the club, I didn’t know what made him that way, and even now I wondered why exactly he blew that loving family man away in such a cold manner.
Word on the street was he left a trail of bodies behind, and they seemed to always be the rich and elite he targeted. It was no wonder many of these men fled Blackwater—they must have felt like targets themselves.
Locke was scary, and nobody wanted to fuck with him for a reason. He was a giant mystery, and there was not one damn picture of him on the internet!
To make matters even more convoluted, there were a few news articles. Not from recent years. They dated back more than two decades ago, and even then they said very little. But what I gathered was he had gone missing for over a month, like Sylvia had said. When he emerged from the unknown, he had been very malnourished and on the brink of death. The articles were bizarrely vague. But a word kept popping up in them. A word that sent a chill down my spine again and again: Hole.
He had been in a hole.
And if I really wanted to think about it, it didn’t take much to link the men he had killed to that hole.
"Why did you kill him?"
"Because he killed me first."
Was Ronald in the hole with him?
And the perverted fat man in the trunk, the one that talked about little boys, did he touch Max when he was a little boy in that hole?
These thoughts consumed me and disturbed me.
What was wrong with Blackwater? I kept thinking in some other reality maybe my dad didn’t end up going murder-suicide on us. Maybe I was still with my mom and sister in the city and Aurora was still doing ballet and that fuckhead was behind bars and not let out on fucking parole because they had asshole scum lawyers like Locke on their side. Imagine that kind of world.
As I stood in front of the law firm now, Aurora flashed through my head, and I whispered to her, “Sis, you know, at this rate, I might be seeing you soon.”
I’d looked at our photos last night too before I’d passed out—
I went still, brows furrowing because I passed out with that phone against my chest and yet it was on the nightstand, plugged in.
My breaths picked up.
CrazyamIcrazycrazycrazy—
No, I was not crazy.
He had returned to me last night, and although I couldn’t be certain he was in the bedroom with me, I had a strange feeling he was. I had woken up soaking wet. And sticky! I was goddamn adamant he had touched me—
And what the fuck, now my pussy was throbbing all over again.
See, this was unhealthy, and the sun was telling me this with its bright rays of judgment. It was saying, “Get inside that firm and tell that fucker NO MORE. Tell him to leave you alone!”
Yes, yes, and that was what I was going to do.
I needed my life back, after all.
I needed it back in all its bland, boring, repetitive glory.
He may have made my body addicted to his vile touch, but not my mind! And my mind was itching for safety. For familiar grounds. For the way it used to be, before he had taken me.
Something told me if I devoted anymore time on that man, he was going to destroy whatever was left of me.
And I couldn’t have that happen.
With that thought in mind, I entered the law firm.
This place was posh. Everything Locke owned was posh. The front desk had a beautiful secretary in a pencil skirt and business blouse. There were offices behind her, and a waiting room to my left filled with equally polished looking people. I glanced down at my leggings and baggy babysitter shirt. Oh, fucking well.
The young woman immediately noticed me, and her smile was tight as I stopped in front of her. She seemed confused—I was confused also. Because I didn’t know why I was doing this again. What was wrong with me?
But then I remembered the murders, the ruthless fucking, the black car stalking me, the figure busting into Derek’s room to grill him about me, and when I knocked into said stalker who had returned my phone unbeknownst to me and pretty much half-blamed me for the mess I made by saying, “We both made this mess, didn’t we?”
On top of that, I was sure he rubbed me to near orgasm last night. Or maybe he had somehow made me do it myself—settle down, pussy! The betraying little bitch throbbed once more between my legs, begging me not to do this.
Yeah, fuck it.
Before she could ask me why I was here and not at a homeless shelter, I said, “I want to see Max Locke.”
She tilted her head to the side, giving me the same look Sylvia had been giving me lately. “Um, I’m sorry, is he expecting you?”
“No, maybe—I don’t know. At this rate, he probably knows I’m here already.”
Now her brows came together. “So, you don’t have an appointment with Mr Locke?”
I glanced down at her nametag. “Look, Kennedy, you know, you don’t understand some things, okay? He’s expecting me. I think he’s been pushing me to do this, so here I am.” As if to reiterate that point, I called out over her shoulder and in the general direction of the offices with their blinds down, “Here I am, Locke!”
She gave me a polite smile, like she was trying to pacify a nutter. “Okay, well, if you’d like to take a seat, I’ll make some calls—”
“Is he not here?”
She shook her head. “He hasn’t come in lately.”
“Can you call him and let him know that I’m here?”
“Who are you exactly?”
“Kali.”
“Kali who?”
“Kali Arden.”
“Are you a client?”
“No, but he’ll want to see me.”
“A lot of people come around trying to pencil a meeting with Mr Locke, but he’s a busy man—”
I shook my head, cutting in, “No, no, you don’t understand. He’ll want to see me, I know it. I want him to know I’m here—that I went out of my way to get here. Because I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to get inside my head, and I want to tell him to stop. He needs to know, Kennedy.”
She kept giving me this sweet smile I wanted to rip off her face. “Of course, Kali, I’ll let him know.”
I tapped my finger on the counter. “Like now?”
“Now.”
“So, you’ll give him a call?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
Instead of sitting down next to people who were judging me, I crossed my arms and stared at her intently as she picked up the phone and made a call. Her smile was gone as she waited through the rings. I could hear them from here, so I edged a little closer, listening intently.
And there I was—a nutcase with black bags under her eyes, zero make-up, a baggy shirt with a faded Disney princess on it, leggings I spilled hot coffee on this morning when I got side-tracked thinking about that man being in the bedroom with me last night.
I understood how it looked, the lunacy bleeding out of my desperate eyes as I clasped my hands together anxiously. He needed to know I was here. He needed to come. I needed him to leave me alone because I couldn’t stop thinking about this fucked-up man, and now I was losing it.
I needed my sanity back.
My spine tingled and I turned my head, my gaze sweeping through the waiting room. There were a couple men I hadn’t noticed before—big men in suits—standing around, staring at me. When I looked back at Kennedy, her eyes were on them too, like she was speaking to them with a single look.
Ah. Locke’s men, perhaps.
He had eyes and ears everywhere, wasn’t that what everyone said?
My face felt clammy. Oh, shit, what if I overstepped the boundaries now? What if he took this as a huge slight?
I took a step back, feeling like this was suddenly a very stupid, impulsive idea.
“No answer,” she told me then, looking back at me without a single shred of that niceness from before. “Do you want to leave your name and number and I’ll let him know you’ve been—”
“Don’t bother,” I interrupted, flatly. “He knows I’m here already.”
I stepped out and stood there in the middle of the sidewalk for a few moments, taking in deep breaths. I had just made an absolute nutter of myself to everyone in that firm.
As if to make matters worse, the black car was back and parked right in front of the firm. I stared at it in disbelief, my being frozen still for a solid moment before anger rushed through me. That secretary had tried to call him—and here he was, right out front, probably laughing at my display of lunacy.
Sidestepping a grungy dude in jogging pants and a grey sweater, I crossed the sidewalk in four steps and pounded on the driver’s side window. “Open up!” I growled, uncaring how many heads were turning my way as they passed by. Immediately, people began to walk around me, some pausing as I continued to knock on this window without stopping. “I know you’re in there, Locke! Open up! Now—”
The window rolled down instantly, and an angry old man looked back at me. “What the hell do you want, Miss?”
I stepped back in surprise, my anger quickly replaced by remorse. “Oh, my God, I am so sorry! I thought you were someone else—”
“Get away from my fucking car.”
I took another step back, nearly tripping when I bumped into that grungy dude in the jogging pants. Face flaming with embarrassment, I told the angry driver, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t fucking pound on my window again—”
I quickly turned around and raced down the sidewalk. I avoided everyone’s eye as I ducked my head and counted my steps. I groaned inwardly, instantly feeling like maybe I really was losing it. Doubt crept in when I thought of how many times I’d seen a black Mercedes and assumed it was Locke following me.
How fucking paranoid and crazy did I sound now?
Yet still—STILL—I looked over my shoulder, scanning the streets for him.
Twenty-Five
Kali
Ryan was taken aback when he opened the door on me. I wasn’t sure why. Dude had that doorbell camera that sang a tune when you rang it. He could have judged me silently the entire way to the door and pretended I didn’t look like a sad charity case at his doorstep.
“Hey Kali,” he said, looking me over while he stood before me in his crisp designer clothes bullshit. “Kids are already downstairs. I’ve sent a text about dinner and bedtime routine already.”
“Okay,” I simply responded. Before I entered, I turned around and glanced around the street, searching for that black car. I walked from one end of the gigantic porch to the other in case it was just out of sight.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I entered, feeling rattled because that black car was everywhere, but not today. Why not today? What was he playing at?
Maybe he’s leaving you alone.
Yeah, right.
It just meant he had another trick up his bloody sleeve.
“Yeah,” I eventually answered as Ryan stared expectantly at me. I kicked off my shoes. “I’ll look at the text now.”
“Great.”
Pausing for a moment, I wondered aloud, “Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?”
He peered at me strangely. “Like what?”
“I don’t know, any men lingering around the place?”
Okay, probably not the best thing to ask. But after Derek’s experience with Locke, it couldn’t be helped.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Am I expecting some ex-boyfriend of yours to be stalking you while you’re at work here, Kali?”
Whoa, whoa. My eyes widened. “No, not at all.”
“Because I can’t have that around my kids—”
“I promise, nothing like that at all.”
“Then why the bizarre question?”
“I care for an old man and someone broke into his unit—”
“Am I expecting someone to break into my house?”
I had dug myself a hole. “No, forget about it, I’m sorry for asking. I just—I was worried, that’s all.”
But Ryan didn’t look happy. He frowned at me, swallowing back his words as he glanced quickly at his watch. I guess his appointment was more important because he irritably said, “Like I said, I texted you the routine, please follow it.”
Nodding, I hurried past him and out of the entrance room. That was like fifteen steps. Who needed an entrance room that needed fifteen steps to walk out of? It made getting away just awkward.
My feet were sore, I’d walked in them all day. As I descended the stairs, I glanced at my feet and noticed I’d worn mismatched socks. One yellow. One light brown. The light brown one had smiling poo emojis on it. Great.
Downstairs was enormous and had a guest bedroom, a gigantic toy room/second living room. Like the upper floor, there were massive windows all along one side with a view of the backyard. A patio door leading to the yard was in the corner where the exercise area was.
The playroom was unparalleled. There was easily twenty thousand dollars’ worth of toys in here. Donatella was building a pyramid with her blocks and Hilfiger had perfected a plane figure built from colourful magnets. The second I dropped down to play with Donatella, he came blazing through, demanding my attention. He knocked the blocks down with his foot which made Donatella scream and throw them at him. He shot her that smirk—that fucking smirk that was suddenly digging under my skin.
