Make No Mistake - Chapter 21
Shadows of the past
Make No Mistake is a novel about a women’s rights activist, a life-changing event she cannot remember, and an underground book club poised to take down the patriarchy. If you’re new to the story, you can find all the previously released chapters on the Home page: juliewise.substack.com
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Chapter 21 - Shadows Of The Past
Daniel picked up a pizza on the way to the White House. When he arrived at the President’s office, he tossed the box on the desk. The President glanced at it and turned to Frank.
“Tell him.”
“I’ve been trying to find that journalist’s family,” Frank said to Daniel. “His parents have vanished, and I thought his wife and kid had too. But the drone I’ve had scouting the city got some photos of his wife in a backyard on the outskirts of the city near Columbia Heights.”
“So that’s good news, right?” Daniel said.
“That part is, sure. But the house belongs to Margaret Carpenter,” Frank said.
Daniel looked at him blankly.
“We knew her as Meg Charbonneau.” Frank paused. “See the problem?”
Daniel’s eyes bulged. His right cheek twitched, and he thrust his hands in his pockets. He took a step back and began to pace.
“Danny boy,” the President said softly, “the files are secure, right?”
Daniel stopped and faced him.
“Of course. I keep them in my safe and no one knows the code but me.”
The President walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down. He picked up a letter opener and twirled it between his fingers.
Frank and Daniel glanced at each other.
“It’s time, Daniel. Destroy them.”
Daniel nodded.
“And Frank? Make those arrests. We need Magdalen under lock and key.”
Frank hesitated. “What about Meg,” he asked in a low voice.
“Not our problem, boys. She clearly doesn’t know about us. If she did, she would have acted long ago. We’ll deal with her later. Right now, we have to stay focused on our end game.”
The President slammed the letter opener on his desk and picked up the remote control. As Daniel and Frank left the office, the evening news was blaring with stories about the candlelight protests in the streets.
Daniel grabbed Frank’s arm as they got to their cars.
“Frank, you still know where Lena is?”
Frank nodded.
“Do me a favor. Arrest her.”
“She’s a kid, Daniel.”
“Look, her name could be short for Magdalen, right?” Daniel said.
“Is it?” Frank asked.
“No, of course not,” Daniel said, “but that doesn’t matter. It just gives you a reason to arrest her along with all the others. When Madeline finds out, she’ll come running to save her little girl. She’ll do anything to get Lena back. Anything I want.”
Trigger Warning: The rest of this chapter mentions sexual assault and rape. Please decide what’s best for you, given your experience and background, and choose to skip this chapter if you feel you could be triggered. Take good care of yourself.
When Daniel left the White House, he had the driver take him straight to his house. The air inside the mansion was pungent. The place had been closed up since he moved out. Empty pizza boxes littered the kitchen counter; dirty glasses and dishes filled the sink. The contents of the garbage bin sprawled across the floor. The cat had disappeared.
Daniel headed upstairs. He sniffed the air as he reached the top landing. It smelled like a men’s locker room – sweat-drenched clothes and testosterone. He sprinted into his office. He was panting by the time he pulled the oil painting off the wall. He reached up and turned the dial back and forth on the combination lock – his birth date. With a confident click, the door unlocked. He shoved it open.
Everything was there.
Or so it seemed.
He pulled the top five envelopes off the pile and tossed them on the desk. He reached for a black metal box at the back of the safe that had been hidden by the envelopes. He lifted out the box and set it down on the desk.
Sitting back in his black leather armchair, he opened the side drawer of the desk and reached for the bourbon. He took a swig and placed the bottle on a side table. As he pressed lightly on a small panel at the back of the drawer, it popped open to reveal a small gold key.
Holding his breath now, he held the black box in one hand and jiggled the key in the lock. He lifted the lid slowly and let out a sigh. A large manila envelope lay there, “PRIVATE” scrawled across the front in black marker. He pulled the envelope out and pushed the box away.
Within a few minutes, twenty black and white photos covered the surface of his desk. Virgins, all of them. Big brother made sure of that.
“Nothing but the best for you, kid,” he used to say.
He admired the angles of the shots. Damn, I’m good, he thought. The lighting, positioning, and even the way he arranged their hair – as if they were in the throes of ecstasy.
He snickered. Ecstasy. Good one. Drugged out of their minds.
He grabbed another envelope from the box. One by one, he matched a second photo to each one on the desk. Before and after shots.
There were no names on the backs of the photos, just initials and dates, but he recognized who they were on sight. He scanned the group for Meg. There, that one. He smiled at the memory. He nodded to himself, poured another drink and raised the glass in a toast.
“Teamwork.”
We learned a lot that night, he thought. He sat back in his chair, holding his empty glass up to the light. He had known the President would ask him to get rid of the photos at some point. He had duplicates stored at a warehouse in Rome for this exact reason.
He texted his security team to confirm there had been no unusual activity at the warehouse. The response was immediate.
All good. Round-the-clock surveillance. Security cam checked daily.
He rocked back in his chair. He didn’t have to destroy the originals. He could just say he had. They’d never know.
Daniel tucked the photos back in the envelope and locked them in the safe. He stretched out, the couch squeaking under his weight. He kicked off his shoes and poured another glass, placing the half-empty bottle within reach on the floor.
His eyes felt heavy, as he downed the drink and tossed the glass on the rug. Just a quick nap, he thought, and then I’ll go back to the condo.
Husky snoring soon rumbled through the room.
Jumbled images bounced and twisted through his mind. Tommy, grinning at him, calling him by his nickname – Bud … grabbing a smoke behind the gym … Jimmy’s bedroom, the latest Playboy magazine … driving, windows down, The Rolling Stones blasting … going to class drunk … the soft plop of pennies whipped at popcorn ceilings while the teacher’s back was turned … jacking off in the bathroom …
Daniel sighed and turned over, settling into a deeper sleep, images dissolving into a kaleidoscope of color, and then … nothing.
He heard her voice, and his eyes shifted. He zoomed in on her face. There she was, graduation night, sitting on Tom’s lap, laughing, tossing her head back, running her fingers through her long black hair. She was cool; different from any girl he’d ever met. Dark eyes that flashed when she was angry; so smart – she had the top marks in the school; she made him think of a cat when she walked – alert, ready to pounce or dart away, more wild than tame. And he wanted to tame her. She was the one he picked when they shared their plan with Jimmy.
“Anything for my lil’ brother,” Tom said, punching him in the arm. “Your first time needs to be special. Whatever you want.”
Jimmy was cautious. He had already had a few run-ins with the local cops. He knew them on a first-name basis.
“We have to think this through,” he said. “I can’t afford to get caught again. Pete warned me that I’d be behind bars next time.”
“No problem, man,” Tommy said. “Gotcha’ covered. I’ll slip something in her drink; she won’t remember a thing. We’ll take her to that abandoned barn in the back forty, and no one will ever know.”
“We can’t leave her in the barn,” Jimmy said.
“No, that’s your job, kid,” Tom said. “You know the back alleys. You find the spot. We’ll drop her there and cover our tracks. Piece of cake.”
Someone hit the fast-forward button in his mind. Suddenly, they were in the barn. Tom and Jimmy ripped off her clothes and stuffed them in a garbage bag while he got his camera set up. He pushed them out of away so he could arrange the shot.
“C’mon guys, this is my night. And I want a good photo. So, back off. You’ll get your chance.”
He got everyone posed, stripped down, pressed the timer, and joined them for the photo.
Tom and Jimmy held back, so he could have the first go. When he was done, he sprawled on his back, gulping air. He felt huge, powerful, and drunk. He craved something more. He stood up and watched Tommy fuck her. When Jimmy hesitated, Daniel growled and shoved him away. He bent down and slapped her across the face. Her head bounced. No response from her but it turned him on.
“What the fuck, Bud?”
Jimmy grabbed his arm and pulled him off. He pushed back.
“You said you’d let me do it my way,” he hissed. “And this is what I want. If you can’t handle it, go wait in the car.”
Jimmy said no one would find her down by the wharf.
“Not even the addicts go there,” he said.
It was 3 a.m. They left her body behind a dumpster.
“Time to move on,” Tommy said, clapping his hands together as if slamming a door shut. “Happy birthday, kid. Even if she wakes up, she won’t remember a thing, so we don’t need to worry about being fingered for this.”
He asked for a copy of the photos.
“You, Jimbo?”
Jimmy shook his head.
As the images blurred, Daniel rolled over on the couch, his mind doing cartwheels. When the dizziness passed, the videotape in his head sped forward. Jimmy in a suit … Tom’s stag night … he could hear Tom’s voice.
“She’s a virgin, bro. Just the way you like them. See you at the church in the morning. Don’t forget the ring.”
Another wave of dizziness as he pictured the naked body of the unconscious girl on the bed. Daniel sucked in cool air, turned, and threw up on the carpet. He pushed himself to a sitting position and held his head in his hands. A drum solo worthy of Nick Mason hammered his skull as random scenes of girls, sex and blood flashed behind his closed eyes. Years of teamwork and pleasure. Every year on his birthday and a few in between. The girls remembered nothing – Tommy made sure of that. Jimmy found the drop-off spots. Jimmy was the one who insisted they stop once DNA testing came in.
“Too easy to trace,” he said. He was on the police force by then, working his way up.
It had also been Jimmy’s idea to dump their first names and use their middle names when they went away to college.
“It’ll be harder to track us,” he said. “They’re not the names we used in high school, so no one can find us in the yearbooks. I’ll get us new ID.”
Tom smiled. “Good idea. So, I’ll be Andrew. What’s your middle name, Jimbo?”
Jimmy frowned. “Francis but call me Frank. Sounds like a man, not a monk.”
“And of course, you’ll be Danny boy,” Tom said, punching him in the arm.
“No way! It’s Daniel or nothing,” he glared.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Tom added. “From this moment on, you and I? We’re not related. We have different fathers and different last names anyway. No one will know.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“I have plans, Danny boy. Big plans. One day, it might make all the difference in the world.”
His stepbrother always had an angle, Daniel thought.
He grabbed his chest and tried to sit up, a sharp pain stabbing his left side. The room shifted, his eyes blurry, as he gulped air in small breaths. When the throbbing eased, he pushed himself onto his feet and staggered out the door.
The President turned off the news and tossed the remote onto a side table. The arrests would definitely stir things up. Push-pull, he thought. The basics of a good golf swing...and political strategy.
He strolled down the hallway from the office to his bedroom, stopping periodically to admire the immense portraits of the founding fathers along the walls. Tall, strong white men just like him who knew what was best for the country. For the world.
He sat down in the armchair in the corner of his dressing room and shook off his shoes. He thought about the conversation with Frank and Daniel.
“Beware the weak link,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.
Daniel had seemed suitably scared. He had skittled out of the room like his feet were on fire. Frank seemed … hesitant. The President had seen his eyes flicker as he brought Daniel up to date.
The President drummed his fingers on the desk. I’ve known him for years, he thought. He doesn’t have secrets from me. He stretched out in the chair and closed his eyes, remembering their adventures. It had started the night of their high school graduation, Daniel’s 18th birthday. And it became an annual tradition.
He sat up and frowned. Daniel and his damn photos. The President strode over to where his suits hung and pushed them out of the way. He touched a button in the center of the back wall. A small section lifted up and a drawer appeared. He scanned the contents and closed the drawer, halfheartedly shoving some suits back in place. His copies of the photos were still there, if he needed to put some pressure on either of the men.
He sat on the edge of the bed and started to take off his tie. His hands paused; his mind raced.
He was there every time, but he never fucked one. He closed his eyes and pictured the moment Frank straddled Meg’s body, hesitating.
“Guys, she’s totally out of it. I can’t do this if she’s not even moving.”
They shoved him onto her, and he went through the motions.
He was in all the photos. But he never did it. He became the driver. He knew the best places to stash the bodies.
The President rested his hands on his knees.
Frank’s hiding something, he thought.
Frank pounded his fist on the steering wheel.
“Fuck this train!”
The freight train which had been crawling past the intersection had now stopped, blocking traffic in both directions.
He thought about wheeling around and trying another route but realized that, given the length of the train, it was probably blocking the next two crossings.
He reached over and turned up the radio, slapping his hands on his thighs in time with the heavy metal bass. The train reversed, inching across the road. He picked up his phone and sent a text.
Back in 10.
Frank turned off his car and gazed into the night. A crescent moon peered above the horizon, casting an eerie light on the distant trees.
He leaned forward, drumming his fingers on the dashboard.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he snarled. He picked up his phone and typed in another message.
Make it 20.
He could see the three engines again. He heard the squeal of metal against metal as the train ground to a halt. A dull throbbing growl echoed through the valley. The train snaked forward, gradually picking up speed. He counted the cars and quit at two hundred. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel.
“Longest train in the world,” he groaned. If he could just get home, everything would be okay. All he had to do was keep things quiet for six more months. Then he could retire and live life on his own terms.
Bells clanged in the crisp air as the crossing arms lifted. He turned the key and revved the engine. He allowed the car in front of him a bit of lead room and pressed his foot to the floor. The Corvette leaped forward, like a racehorse from the starting gate. He pulled into the underground parking garage of his condo ten minutes later.
He took the elevator to his penthouse suite. The apartment was dark, illuminated only by the glow of the moon through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows. The lights of the city sparkled below.
Flicking his eyes appreciatively at the white leather couch, he strode into the bedroom.
Alessandro stretched his long legs and stood up, dropping the white chenille blanket on the floor. His naked body glistened in the moonlight. He followed Frank into the bedroom and softly closed the door.
Yes, not an easy chapter to write or to read. I am glad to hear the words and approach had the intended impact without turning you away from the page. And, yes, a reckoning is coming. Thank you for your insights and comments.