By a Thread

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Victim No.7 was a pretty accountant by the name of Beverly Dalton and employed by a firm on the East Indian School Road near the old downtown center. Barely twenty-two, she had just started a promising career and was living, for the first time, in her own apartment. Bev wore her soft blond hair swept over her forehead, had expressive blue eyes, and, her best feature she thought, full, sensitive lips. She was a good girl, still single, and spent the weekends in the desert, at her father’s stable where she exercised the horses.

She was a petite little thing; a slip of a girl, as folks liked to say, with long swan-like limbs. Anyone who had been fortunate enough to meet her, was immediately taken by the shyness of her exquisite charm.

The only dark spot on what had been, up until now, an idyllic life, had been the s****l assault: Bev had been molested in her apartment elevator. It happened six weeks ago, after work. She had parked in the underground, locked her car, and pushed the button for the fifteenth floor. The elevator stopped at the lobby and a man, about thirtyish, stepped through the doors, selected the top floor and mumbled something about visiting friends.

Bev was sorting out her apartment key at the time and hadn’t taken much notice until she felt his hand on her shoulder. Startled, she looked up to find the muzzle of a gun pointed at her left eye. When she tried to scream, the gun moved quickly down to her lips and, pushing her back, he lodged the barrel into her mouth. Bev was pinned into the corner of the elevator while he roughly ran his hand across her breasts. Then, moving down the front of her business suit, he groped her between the legs.

A moment later the elevator doors opened and he was gone. It had happened so quickly, Bev wondered if she might have imagined the whole thing. But there was no mistaking the taste of gun oil on her tongue.

She had reported the incident to the police but not told her parents. She didn’t want them to worry. And besides, she convinced herself, nothing had really happened. It wasn’t like he had followed her into the apartment and forced her. It was humiliating, sure, but she felt more stupid than anything else, for letting it happen. Damn, she couldn’t even give the police a description of the guy and it was no surprise that she heard nothing further from the detective who documented her complaint. So in the end, she took it as a warning to be more vigilant and a month later had dismissed the incident altogether.

She was running late. Bev had spent two hours, pro-bono, straightening out the accounts for the Women’s Rally. A shoe-box of receipts had been dropped off and she dutifully sorted through the paperwork; entering expenses into a computer spreadsheet for submission to the IRS.

It was a Friday and well after six o’clock when she finally left the office; she knew her mother would be holding dinner. As Bev negotiated the dense, Phoenix drive-home traffic, the steaming asphalt seemed to pulsate under her wheels. She grimaced when saw the backup of cars waiting to negotiate the on-ramp to Interstate 8 and made a decision that would ruin the rest of her evening: She decided to take the Old State Road out onto the desert.

Bev didn’t like the road, especially at night. There wasn’t any street lighting for one thing; the road was little used and crossed a barren, empty desert. But it would cut twenty minutes from the drive to her parent’s ranch. So, with the sun already dipping below the mountains in the west and throwing the sky into a wild dance of color, she turned onto the Old State Road and watched the shadows reaching as night-time closed in.

Her headlights picked out a stretch of highway she knew ran straight to the horizon where, against the dark purple night-sky, she could just make out the dominating profile of Monastery Peak. It cut out the starlight leaving an empty black hole in the night sky. She knew the road took a turn to the south, skirted the mountain, and a half-hour after that, she would be sitting at her mother’s kitchen table, enjoying a glass of wine and catching her parents up on her week in the City. Bev took a deep steadying breath, the fragrance of her mother’s roast of beef already manifesting itself in her nostrils. She smiled to herself and accelerated into the darkness.

The road was empty. Two cars rushed past on their way into Scottsdale for city shopping or restaurants and bars, perhaps, but other than a couple of bunnies that bounded away from her tires and the light reflecting from a coyote’s eyes, she was alone.

Suddenly, angry headlights flared up and hung on her rear bumper as if giving her the once-over. But just as suddenly, she watched the vehicle slow in her mirror, back off, and finally disappear as she made her turn to the south. Bev wondered if some cop was checking to see if she was wavering out of her lane. The terrain to her right had gained definition, sloping up in the darkness and she could smell the pine trees that grew in the lower ravines around Monastery Peak. She was almost home.

And then the unthinkable happened: With a sickening shudder, the engine faltered. She was stupefied. It couldn’t be possible. She worked the accelerator, pumping it hard. The engine caught again and momentarily, she clung to the hope that the problem had been short-lived, a bit of water in the fuel perhaps. But no; her luck had run out. The engine coughed once, and died. Her car, as lifeless as a tin coffin, rolled to the side of the road and the foreboding silence of the desert descended about her slim shoulders.

With her stomach tuning knots, she fought the panic: First turn on the flashers. Check the fuel gauge. Fine. Try the key again. Not so fine... Okay. Call dad.

Bev was just reaching for her bag when the pulsating yellow lit up the interior of her car. That was quick, she thought. The light-bar was mounted on the roof of a truck and squinting into the cascade of bright light, she watched a guy in a red checked shirt step down. He walked alongside her car, hunched as if it were raining and she suspected an older man.

“Where did you come from?” she asked through her open window. “I was just about to call my dad.”

“I’m outta Avondale. Patrol this stretch of road all the way to the border and back, most nights. It’s not the place to breakdown, Miss, fer sure. You outta gas? I gotta a can in the truck.”

“I wish it were that simple. I filled up yesterday and the gauge shows three-quarters.”

“Humph. Probably electrics, then. Here, let me pop the hood.”

With a sense of dread, Bev realized her mistake far too late: Before she could protest he pulled back on the car door and squatted to reach for the hood release under the dash.

Bev had pretty legs; a fact she celebrated with short skirts and by wearing four-inch pumps.

He ran his eyes along the calf muscle, up to where her dress was hiked, held back by the seat cushion. Bev watched his hand snake toward the hood release but a moment later, his fingers diverted. He touched the softness behind her left knee and ran his hand up the curve along the bottom of a bare thigh. Bev was so shocked she made no cry nor offered any protest. Not until his hand forced up the hemline of her dress.

Her chest caved. “Don’t,” she threatened and tried to get an arm up. But he just laughed and reached in to get a grip on her throat. He dragged her scrambling body from the driver’s seat, bucking and kicking. He lifted her clear off the ground by the neck. Suddenly there was a second man. Bev was aware of his hands, first running across her breasts and then, reaching around, he cupped and squeezed her buttocks. He clamped his arms around her waist and hauled her bodily toward the truck.

“No,” Bev screamed, knowing there would be no saving herself if they got her inside the cab. She kicked harder. Someone hit her across the face.

The shock of violence stilled her and the hands about her throat tightened. With dread she realized he might choke her to death, right there, at the side of the road. Her body seemed to crumble.

“Now you just do as you’re told, Miss, and everything’s gonna be fine,” the man in the red shirt hissed in her ear. He pulled her up by the neck again and gave her a shake. “You hear me?”

Bev nodded. He shook her some more before setting her down.

She stood by the truck, her nerves lacerated and her bowels feeling loose.

“You’re a nice little piece,” the man said, running a hand down her bare arm. “A bit of City ass for some good ol’ country boys. What’dya say, sweetie? You gonna help us out?”

He was much younger than she first suspected, but his hard-planed features were weathered and his eyes unforgiving. “You’re going to r**e me?” Her voice was small.

“Not just me. There’s three of us, sweetie. You’re in for a busy night.”

The strength drained from her legs and Bev reached for the truck fender to stop from dropping to her knees. “Please,” she managed. “Please don’t do this. You can’t.”

The man in the red shirt just laughed again. He was standing too close, smothering her. She looked up, pleading into his face. “You can’t.”

He ignored her and turned back toward her car. “Get a hook on this thing,” he called out. “Let’s get the f**k outta here.” There was movement inside the cab and the gears ground as the truck was expertly backed up to the front of her car. She gasped as a third man piled out to attach the chains.

Oh God, all three, she turned her face away and wiped the tears on the back of a hand.

Bev was herded up onto the front seat of the truck cab. Standing a mere five-foot tall, Bev’s feet didn’t even touch the floor mat and, squeezed between the men, she had the sensation of being very very small. With her mind clouded with apprehension and her pulse thundering, she tried to be brave. Bev decided not to resist. She would just do her best to please them, let them have what they wanted and she hoped that, in return, they would be gentle with her. So when the driver slid a hand up and cupped the bulge of her inner thigh, Bev offered him a little something: She opened her legs. And she made no protest when the man on the opposite side lazily stroked her right breast.

They drove a mile further on with her car swaying in the chains and turned onto what appeared to be a logging road; just a dirt track winding between the pine trees. They ground to a halt in a clearing and the headlights picked out a trestle where hunters had hung deer to be gutted. She saw the leather straps.

This is it, she tried to focus. This is where it will happen.

Bev was dumped from the truck, landing on hands and knees in the pine needles. The men tumbled out after, and taking hold of her arms, forced her up and stood her in the harsh circle of light from the truck’s headlamps. There was the hungry look of coyote in their eyes and Bev felt helpless and very alone. The men retreated.

Bev stood, swaying silently, her high-heels sinking into the soft earth, and tried to make out her assailants in the blinding lights. The red shirt was there, lounging on a fender and looking at her legs. She could just make out a second man, standing behind. He was of a heftier build, dark skin and greasy hair. A Mexican maybe.

Another was sitting on the front bumper, hands on knees. She recognized him. He had been in her apartment building and now he called out to her. “You got a pretty p***y for us?” She tried to confirm his features in the glare of the headlights. This time she would have a description.

“Yeah,” the red shirt chimed in. “C’mon now. Lift your dress, baby. Let’s see what you got hidden up there.”

The men began laughing and Bev heard the pop of beer cans. Oh god!

“Your panties getting wet?” someone else asked. She didn’t answer.