Page 8 of A Reaper’s Devotion (The Reapers #2)

L uke Smith’s house looked completely normal on the outside.

Cyrus and Daniel, along with Hank, were the ones that had volunteered to go to his property. He lived on a quiet street. It was past eight-thirty by the time they arrived. There were not a lot of cars in the driveways, and there were a few kids on the way to school.

“Anyone else feeling like this is creepy as fuck?” Hank asked.

Cyrus nodded his head, and Daniel had Luke’s keys, so they made their way to his house and let themselves in.

Once inside, Cyrus pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Daniel had already been driving in his, and Hank also quickly pulled on a pair.

They closed the main door. The house smelled like any other house.

“Is it me that thinks houses with men who steal young women should smell differently?” Cyrus asked.

“Come on, let’s see if this is his first time doing this,” Daniel said.

“You think this is his first time?” Hank asked.

“It could be.”

Cyrus wrinkled his nose. “Nah, I don’t think it is. The man looked too confident.”

“Do you think he takes women regularly?” Hank asked.

“Guys, just focus. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

Cyrus moved from room to room. He had a small dining room, kitchen, and a study.

There was nothing out of place. The home was nice and neat.

He doubled back and made his way to the kitchen, then he stood staring at the three doors that all seemed aligned together.

One was the back door leading out into the garden.

The other was a small pantry. There were several locks on the middle door, which made it stand out.

He stood staring at it and started to unlock each one. As he did so, Hank joined him.

“Yeah, that shit isn’t spooky at all.”

There was no sign of Daniel. The door opened outward, and there was a light switch, which Cyrus flicked on. There was a glow from what looked like a basement.

“Fucking weird,” Hank said.

Cyrus took the lead and made his way downstairs, and as he did, he knew Luke had done this before.

The basement was a makeshift prison. There was a bed in the corner. The window had been blackened, but there were pieces of furniture lined up on shelves, and he saw them labeled, “Rewards.”

“Holy fuck,” Hank said.

There was a board with a single line down the middle. It was split into two categories—Good Girls and Bad Girls. There was a picture on each board.

“Yeah, this piece of shit has done this before,” Cyrus said.

“And he documents this shit,” Daniel said, coming down, carrying several notebooks and what appeared to be photograph albums.

Cyrus had a feeling he didn’t want to see what was in either of those damn books, but he had no choice, so he took them from Daniel, and sure enough, it was fucking disgusting. Luke liked to play with these underage girls, take explicit pictures, treat them like toys for his own amusement.

“Okay, so he has clearly killed a couple of girls. There is no way he is going to let this shit go,” Cyrus said.

“What do we do?” Hank asked. “We kill him, and he doesn’t come back here, they’re going to find it. What do we do?”

“Do you think he’s got a killer instinct?” Daniel asked.

“The dude is fucking sick,” Cyrus said.

“Yeah, there is no denying that, but what if these girls are still alive?” Daniel asked. “He punishes them, but what if he is building himself a harem?”

“A harem of non-consenting women?” Hank asked.

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right. He plays with them, but there are no weapons on display. Nothing to make them afraid. They have rewards. I don’t think he has killed them, but where are they?”

“He’s the only one with the answers,” Cyrus said.

“Why did he have to come through our fucking town?” Now he was pissed off because they were not looking for trouble.

What they didn’t like was men or women coming to their town to cause trouble.

This was different. There was no way they were just going to allow a helpless woman to be hurt.

None of them would be able to live with themselves, even if she wasn’t a local.

That shit didn’t slide with any of them.

“I don’t like this,” Hank said.

“None of us like this,” Daniel said. “Fuck me.”

They all stared at one another. Killing this piece of shit would be easy for all of them, but right now they needed to find those women.

“I guess we’ve got to head back home and start doing some investigating,” Cyrus said.

Hank had gone and stood in front of the board where it displayed a good girl and a bad girl.

“You’d think if the girl was good, she would have been kept here, maybe with some television, or some ice cream or shit. His rewards are clearly displayed for all to see. Yet, none of them are here, why?”

“Maybe they were both bad, which is why he went to a different town and started to search.”

“We need to talk to that other woman,” Daniel said. “See if she said anything.”

“She’s already gone home to her parents, and other than the fact he kidnapped her, she didn’t know anything,” Cyrus said. “Remember. All he kept telling her was to be a good girl.”

Daniel shook his head.

Hank had moved on from the good and bad girl board, and started to look around the basement.

“Be careful, you don’t know what kind of traps this man has set,” Daniel said.

“Dude, he hasn’t set many traps, look around you.” Hank frowned. “I’m trying to think of myself in terms of a weird dude.”

“A weird dude?”

“I kidnap women in order to build up my own special harem. I keep them locked in the basement and give them rewards for good behavior. However, assuming both my current women have been bad girls, it’s time to bring in someone else,” Hank said.

It painted a messed-up picture.

“Sure, I’m prone to violence, but I don’t kill my girls. However, they’re bad girls right now, and I want to add to them, so what do I do? I have to stash them.”

Cyrus saw what he was doing.

“But I live in a nice neighborhood. Probably with nosy neighbors, and they like to meddle. So, I’ve got to stash them inside the house, but in a way that makes it impossible for them to move. I can’t allow them to make too much noise.” Daniel joined in and he spun around.

“This shit is fucked up,” Cyrus said.

However, they started to look at the basement for possible signs of a door, or something that could stash a human.

After looking through the whole basement, they found absolutely nothing, and Cyrus was pissed. “Then it’s got to be upstairs in the main house.”

When they got to his house earlier, none of them had even considered what they might find.

They carefully moved from room to room throughout the downstairs. Cyrus was the first to go upstairs, and he thought about the good girl. What if the good girl was exactly that, a good girl? So, she got to stay upstairs in the guy’s bedroom.

He went to the room he assumed was Luke’s and stepped inside. Tipping the bed up, he checked to see if there were any hidden doors or secret hideaways. There was nothing.

Next was the en-suite bathroom, and finally, he began to pull out all the clothes, and that was when he saw a small door with a single key inside.

Without waiting for a response, he flicked the key and twisted it.

He opened the door, and there, chained with her arms above her head, was the girl from the “good girl” side.

She was sweating, and her eyes looked wild.

There were fading bruises all over her body.

“In here,” Cyrus said, calling out to the others.

“Fucker,” Hank said.

Her mouth had a single layer of tape across it, and she looked terrified. The good girl got to say in his bedroom.

Daniel took the lead, and Cyrus stepped back.

One woman was found, and he went and stood by the man’s window.

As he stood in the window, he looked at the man’s garden.

It was pristine, but he noticed there was a single garden shed at the bottom of the yard.

The garden was just a layer of grass, nothing indicating someone who liked to garden. He didn’t like the look of that shed.

“She’s in the shed,” he said. He just knew it, and as he made his way downstairs, then out into the yard, he got to the shed and found it locked with a bolt. This time there was no key, but he didn’t need one. Lifting up his foot, he brought it down to the door and slammed it open.

The “bad girl” was curled up, shivering. The son of a bitch had left her in the garden shed, as the night’s had started to go cold, without a single layer on. She was completely naked, and it looked like she had some wounds that had started to become infected.

****

“H ow can anyone do that ?” Willow asked.

Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t know. From what the two girls were able to tell us, he attacked them on the street. He knew they came from families that, according to them, wouldn’t give a shit.”

“He must have messed up with that other girl he attempted to take. Her parents were already looking for her.”

“It’s fucking messed up. He didn’t kill them, but he didn’t think anyone was going to stop him. Both women have been with him for about two years.”

“Two years?” Willow asked. “How?”

“I guess a lot of people where he lives don’t know each other’s business. Not every place is like Lost Creek.”

“Do you think you’d know if someone was kidnapping and keeping girls ... against their will?” She looked toward him.

“Yeah, I’d like to think we run a tight enough ship that we’d know when shit was hitting the fan.” Cyrus sighed.

“What’s going to happen now?” Willow asked.

“The sheriff is dealing with it, and Luke becomes another person’s problem.”

“You don’t like that?” She saw that it bothered him.

“No, because there’s a chance he’ll go to prison and not serve a long enough sentence, then he’ll come right back here to seek revenge. It’s fucked up.”

She placed a hand on his arm. “It’ll be okay.”

“So, I guess you and I better talk about what we do and don’t know about each other,” he said.