Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

The Story Thus Far

Chapter One: Mallory Kalvornek and her lover Julie Hanson have returned to Bronning, Minnesota, for the first time in years to catch up with friends and family. Meanwhile, their old friend (and occasional sex partner) paramedic Nettie Hastings fights to save a life, her lover Hannah drops by with an unexpected surprise, Terry Wilder grapples with writer’s block… and two little girls living in a trailer park named Heather and Gina are being carefully observed by a hidden stranger.

Chapter Two: Mallory and Julie get together at Nettie’s home with Nettie and her lover Hannah, Nettie’s friend Terry Wilder, Terry’s teen daughter Halee, and Mallory and Julie’s friend (and occasional sex partner) Cindy. Gossip is exchanged, memories shared, and an unexpected attraction between Mallory and Terry Wilder reveals itself. Meanwhile, the mother of the two trailer park girls Heather and Gina goes out for a night on the town, oblivious to the presence of the man spying on her home.

Chapter Three: At Nettie’s place, Nettie and Hannah leave the others to indulge in a bit of romantic pleasure, while Julie and her old friend Cindy get it on with Terry’s teen daughter Halee. As for Mallory, she has repaired to Terry’s place for one of her occasional bouts of heterosexual action. Appetites are indulged, confidences shared. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina are abducted from their trailer home by a mysterious and very scary man.

Chapter Four: At Nettie’s place, four women and Halee Wilder greet the morning after an evening of lesbian abandon. Later that day, Mallory rejoins Julie, Nettie, Cindy and Hannah for a day of fishing. Halee returns home and spends the day upgrading her internet in preparation for promised to be a fun night of video chat sex with her girlfriend Bethany. Meanwhile, Grace and Heather are in the custody of the mysterious man, who seems to takes delight in terrorizing them.

Chapter Five: After their day of fishing, Nettie, Julie, Cindy, Mallory & Hannah engage in a five-woman sexfest inside a tent… and with the use of Cindy’s phone, their old friend and occasional bedmate Emma attends the orgy virtually. In the midst of their abandon, Nettie has a weird, vague memory flashback that leaves her shaken, but she conceals it from the others. Back home, Halee and her new love interest Bethany (Hannah’s daughter) are having long-distance sex via their laptops. 

Chapter Six: Nettie has a heart-to-heart with Hannah about her personal demons. Later, she gets a call from Agent Bridgett Ramscone, who has an unsettling request: for Nettie to go through the documentation of her own childhood kidnapping — and the murder of her sister — as a possible way to gain insight into the abduction of Heather and Gina (who are still being emotionally abused by their kidnapper, but are also taking steps to escape). Nettie is shaken, but agrees to do what she can. 

Chapter Seven: Many years after the fact, submerged memories of Nettie’s kidnapping began to make themselves known — memories of a possible accomplice to the original crime. She shares her thoughts with Bridgett. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina work on a potential escape from their makeshift prison.

Chapter Eight: Nettie unearths more hints that kidnap victims Heather and Gina were abducted by the same man who kidnapped and brutalized Nettie and her deceased sister over a decade ago — but that man was known to have died in prison.  Gina manages to escape captivity. But Heather can’t fit through the opening they dug, and must remain behind. Nettie gets a possible fix on the girls’ captor who, while out and about, gets a flat tire — then he discovers the spare is flat as well. 

Chapter Nine: The man who kidnapped Gina and Heather must get his flat spare tire fixed, not knowing the police have been alerted to him and are searching the area. Nettie, who is also hunting for the man, manages to find his abandoned car — then, some time later, makes an even more startling discovery: little Gina, alone and weeping by an abandoned road. In the meantime, the kidnapper manages to make his escape from the area by phoning a mysterious woman to pick him up.

Chapter Ten: Mallory meets with her mother, Sharon, for the first time in months, but fails to learn the cause of the recent distance between them. Nettie is still obsessed with Jacob Brentshaw, the man who kidnapped her and murdered her sister Annamarie so many years ago, sensing he is also behind the recent kidnapping as well… but can’t get past the fact that Brentshaw was killed in prison. Her actions saved the lives of Gina and Heather, but she remains determined to keep working the case on her own. For the first time, Nettie tells her lover Hannah about her own kidnapping and Annamarie’s death, events she has refused to discuss with anyone for years.

Chapter Eleven: Terry finds himself at loose ends, questioning his current life path, and decides to open up to than his dear friend and former sex partner Nettie. She and Hannah lend a sympathetic ear, then their conversation turns to kidnappings — the recent one, as well as Nettie’s own horrific abduction over a decade earlier, when her sister was murdered. She is fast coming round to the conclusion that both kidnappings involved an accomplice.

For a list of the characters from the story you are now reading, visit this page. 

For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.

And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…

by Rachael Yukey

Sail the Darkness
Walking through the cold
I’m not afraid
I know the wind will blow
Michael Schenker Group, 2021

“That was a cool movie,” Dawn was saying, as she and Allison made their way down the hall towards her bedroom.

“Told you,” Naomi called out, still seated on the couch. Chelsey had got up to use the bathroom.

“Night, girls,” said Halee, as the bedroom door swung shut.

A moment later, Chelsey emerged. “Ready to turn in, Naomi?”

“Sure!” Naomi responded with an eager nod.

Halee grinned. “You two have fun.”

Naomi rose from the couch, casting the blanket aside. Circling the coffee table, she paused by the arm of Halee’s chair. Taking her sister’s hand, she stroked the back of it delicately.

“Me and Chels were talking before the movie,” she said, her voice husky. “It’d be really cool if you came upstairs and hung out with us.”

Halee’s arousal instantly doubled in intensity. She hadn’t hooked up with either of the two younger girls since they’d chosen to become a couple several weeks before. Her mouth watered at the prospect of being alone and naked with the two of them once again.

She heaved a sigh. “I’d love to, but Bethany’s my girlfriend now, and we haven’t really talked about doing it with other girls—”

Chelsey came up beside Naomi, entwining fingers through her girlfriend’s hair. “That’s too bad—whoops!” She giggled. “I mean, it’s great that you’re with somebody, but too bad you can’t come and, y’know—”

Halee chuckled. “Believe me, I wish I could. Have a good time.”

As the two younger girls bounded up the stairs, Halee checked her texts. And smiled.

Five minutes later she was settling into bed, encumbered by not so much as a stitch of clothing. Through the wall she shared with Naomi, Halee could just barely hear rapturous moans intermingled with the squeaking of her sister’s bed frame.

She thumbed the call button for the number she’d already pulled up on her phone. “Hi,” Bethany replied, sounding a bit winded.

“Hi yourself. You working out or something?”

“Uh-uh. I just couldn’t wait till you called to get started.”

Halee snickered. “You naughty, naughty girl. You have no idea how wet I am right now. Hey, you mind if I put you on speaker?”

“Why would I mind?”

“Because Naomi and Chelsey are right on the other side of this wall. I don’t know if they’d be able to hear you, but…”

A moan of pleasure drifted through the phone speaker. “Oooh—that’s kind of hot, actually. What are they up to?”

“Same thing we are. I can kinda hear it.” The squeaks of her sister’s protesting bed frame were steadily growing louder and faster, and Halee could no longer just listen. Wriggling her middle finger between slick, moist lips and into the juicy canal of her cunt, she moaned, loudly enough for Naomi and Chelsey to hear.

“Put me on speaker!” Bethany exclaimed. “I want in on this.”

Using her free hand, Halee fumbled with her phone, managing to thumb the speaker button on the third try. She was massaging her clit in slow circles, squishing sounds emanating from her womanly center. She moaned again, thrusting her hips.

“Mmmmm,” Bethany purred from the other side of the connection. “Oh, Halee, this feels so fucking good.”

“Hey,” called Naomi’s muffled, unsteady voice from the other side of the wall. “Is that… Oh, God! Oh!” There was a moment’s pause. “Is that Bethany?”

“Is someone else talking?” Bethany wanted to know.

“Naomi,” Halee got out, her voice breathy and strained. “Yeah, it’s Bethany,” she called out. “She says—she says—oh God—” Muffled giggles filtered through the wall, interrupted by another moan.

“What’s going on over there, anyway?” Halee called out.

“Chelsey’s eating my—my—oh, God—Ohhhhh!”

“I didn’t catch that—what did she say?” Bethany gasped.

Halee gasped, then caught her breath. “Naomi’s getting her pussy eaten,” she moaned.

Then Naomi was crying out over and over, clearly in the throes of ecstasy. Gradually her voice subsided. Halee was rubbing her clit with wild abandon, breath hissing through gritted teeth, her hips churning. Bethany’s moans filtered through the phone speaker.

A loud cry came through the wall. “Did you hear that?” said Halee. “That—Oh! That was Chelsey.”

“I h-heard something.” Bethany got out, stumbling through her words. “Me and Chelsey—Ohhhh! W-we haven’t—oh, Jesus—haven’t met.”

“What’s happening, Chelsey?” Halee yelled. She pressed her phone against the wall, wanting Bethany to hear the reply.

“Hi, Halee!” Chelsey’s last syllable came out as a high-pitched shriek. “I’m—I’m—I’m sitting on Naomi’s face!”

A moan was wrenched from Halee’s lips, waves of pleasure intensifying at the thought of sweet little Chelsey riding her sister’s open mouth.

“Oh God, I’m coming!” Bethany screamed. “Oh God, oh God, oh my GAWWWD!”

Halee felt her own climax build, then claim her, each breath exploding from her chest, accompanied by hoarse “huh!” sounds. Finally she managed to get out, “Oh God, I just came,” then collapsed.

From the other side of the wall Chelsey was gasping for air, intermittent cries escaping her lips. Then she screamed like a banshee, a high-pitched shriek that rose in intensity before suddenly cutting off. Halee thought she heard the dull plop of a body falling to a mattress.

“Now that was an orgasm,” Halee proclaimed, still getting her wind back.

“Sure was,” a breathless Chelsey panted.

“I heard it,” said Bethany. “Sound really carries through your walls, huh?”

“It’s an old house,” said Halee.

Suddenly Laney, Halee’s Boston Terrier, began to yip furiously.

“Hush, Laney,” said Halee. The dog obligingly shut up, and Halee listened intensely, soon picking up the thud of a door closing downstairs.

“Dad’s home,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice. “Hey, Bethany, I’d better hang up. Have a good night.”

“Night. Tell Chelsey and Naomi thanks for the good time!”

Laughing, Halee signed off. “Get some sleep, you two,” she called through the thin plaster wall. “I’m gonna run downstairs for a minute.” Shrugging into her bathrobe, she exited the room, a four-legged ball of fuzz hot on her heels.

She found her dad kneeling in the foyer. Their golden retriever Tinkerbell  had come to greet him at the door, and Terry was scratching her behind the ears. “You’re back early,” she remarked.

“There was a slight change of plans,” Terry replied, getting to his feet.

“Good. Where’d you go instead?”

“I took a walk, followed by a visit with Nettie and Hannah. How was your evening? Any of the young ones give you trouble?”

Halee shrugged. “Maya was a little pissy about bedtime, because she knew we were watching a movie. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Terry slipped past her, making his way down the hall. “What movie?”

Halee followed, both dogs at her heels. “Monster Squad. Dawn and Allison are about the age where you let Naomi watch it, so I figured it’d be okay.”

Terry paused in the dining nook, turning his head towards her with the touch of a smile. “Solid choice. Have the dogs been walked?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. I think I’m going to see if I can get some writing done.”

Halee’s eyebrows lifted. “At this hour?”

Terry’s eyebrow lifted in amusement. “How late are you going to be up coding for your computer course?”

Halee’s only reply was a shamefaced grin. Terry let her off the hook with a smile and a shrug. “In any event, I have an idea of sorts, and there’s no time like the present, don’t you think?”

Halee watched her father’s retreating back as he strode down the hallway. His forays into the writing office were few and far between these days, and usually of brief duration. Did this late-night flash of inspiration mean things might be turning around for him? Or would this prove to be yet another exercise in disappointment?

The corners of her mouth curved upwards, slowly forming a grin. Beneath her sardonic exterior, Halee Wilder was an optimist at heart. “C’mon, Laney,” she said, and made her way up the stairs, her terrier close behind.

***

“You look tired,” says the teenage girl, leading the way up the stairs.

“I don’t like to sleep,” the younger, black-haired girl replies. “I have bad dreams.”

“I’ll bet you do,” says Jamie Nelson. She pulls down the ladder leading to her attic bedroom and begins to climb, beckoning Nettie to follow. Once aloft, she bypasses the old-fashioned pull-chain that turns the ceiling light on, leaving the room bathed in the glow of a half-dozen lava lamps. Easing into the battered old love seat, she waves Nettie over to join her.

Once they’re both settled, Jamie places a hand on Nettie’s knee. “This is the first time you’ve come over by yourself, little sister. What’s up?”

“Oh—everybody’s busy. Uncle Jason’s on one of his clinicals, Aunt Lisa is at work, Julie’s doing this robotics camp thing.” As she lists each person, she ticks them off on her fingers. “Anyway—I dunno. It just got quiet in the house, is all. I hope it’s okay—”

“Sure, it’s okay. I told you to come by any time, didn’t I? Wanna listen to a record?”

“Yeah!”

Pushing herself to her feet, Jamie crosses the room, Nettie trailing in her wake. Reaching her shelves full of vinyl, Jamie steps to one side, extending her arm in dramatic fashion. “Anything in particular?”

Nettie purses her lips thoughtfully. “Most of what we listen to is pretty old,” she says after a moment. “I mean, that’s great, I love it, but what do you have that’s newer?”

Jamie thinks for a moment, then draws a record from the “P” section. “Pharoah,” she says, displaying the cover. “Maybe my favorite new band. This is their second album, and it just came out last year. Interested?”

“For sure! Can I put it on?”

A moment later, the two girls are snuggling on the love seat. As the album progresses, Nettie runs a finger along the top of the older girl’s thigh, and is rewarded with a slight shiver. She wonders if Jamie might be interested in doing some of the same stuff they did last time she was there with Julie and Mallory. After the record is over, of course.

***

“Earth to Antoinette.”

Nettie’s head jerked up. She was standing in front of her record shelves, fingers resting against the spines of her Pharoah collection. Hannah was seated on the love seat, margarita in hand, gazing at her with raised eyebrows.

“Sorry,” said Nettie, giving her head a quick shake. “You into Pharoah?”

“Never heard of ‘em.”

“Then prepare to be educated.” Nettie extracted her copy of The Longest Night, the same album Jamie had played for her all those years ago.

“You okay? You kind of—zoned out there.”

“Yeah.” Placing the stylus in the groove, Nettie crossed the room, settling onto the love seat just as the full-fury assault of the opening riff slammed through the speakers. “I just got to thinking about the first time I heard this record. It was pretty much brand new at the time. Jamie played it for me.”

“And Jamie is—oh, yeah. Wasn’t she the one that used to play guitar in Mallory’s band?”

“Yup. She was—” Nettie trailed off. She picked up the glass of orange juice she had poured for herself and took a sip. She’d drunk two glasses of bourbon that evening, and was steadfastly refusing to have a third.

“You know,” she said, “I think I might have to quit drinking. I’ve got just the hint of a buzz, and it’s pissing me off. Once I get to that point, I want to get shitfaced, or at least close to it. That’s not good.”

“Would it help if I stop drinking around you?”

Nettie mulled that over for a moment. “Thanks, but no. I’m going to be around people who are drinking for the rest of my life. If I decide to quit entirely, it’s something I have to do on my own. And I haven’t decided that, yet. I’d like to hit a point where I’m like Terry—y’know, he’ll have a couple drinks two or three evenings a week, and he’s just enjoying the flavor and a light buzz. I’ve never seen him even close to drunk. I want to be able to do that, without craving more.”

Hannah was nodding slowly. “And maybe you can, in time. I think it’s great that you’re cutting back. But you were saying, about Jamie?”

Nettie set her orange juice down and laid her head against the cushion. “Remember last weekend in the tent, when you asked if I was okay? I had this sudden flood of memories while we were video chatting with Emma. It’s like I’d blocked out a good eighty percent of everything that happened during that year after Anna died, which is basically the time I spent in Dickson, then suddenly it all came back. And you know what?”

“No. What?”

Nettie smiled. “It’s almost all good stuff. The kind of stuff you want to remember, you know? It’s like I’ve been blocking all this good shit, because I’m afraid of the bad shit that comes with it. And you know, I haven’t been with those four girls all together since I came back home. Matter of fact, I haven’t seen Emma at all in ten years or so. Being with the four of them like that—it just kind of brought everything back.”

Hannah polished off her margarita. “But that’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s weird. Like I’ll be doing something, and it’ll trigger a memory from back then. I was looking at my Pharoah records, and suddenly I was just—I dunno. Transported back. Me and Jamie alone in her room when everyone else was busy with life. It was the coolest room—she had the whole attic in this ginormous old house her family lived in. There are a lot of other memories like that. Jamie and I got really close while I was in Dickson, and I’d forgotten all of it.” There were tears in Nettie’s eyes now. “That fucking sucks.”

“So maybe it’s time to reconnect.”

Nettie lifted her head, took another sip of juice. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna go down to Dickson when everyone is there the first week of August. Wanna come with, if you’re not working?”

“Absolutely. I do have one question, though. What the fuck were your parents doing while you were living at Julie’s house for a year?”

Nettie let out a mirthless bark of laughter. “We haven’t really talked about my folks, have we? Well—they’re batshit. Or were, in Dad’s case. They met while they were both inpatient at Prairie St. John—that’s the nut hut in Fargo. The whole fucked-up situation with us getting kidnapped, then losing Anna, drove them off the deep end. They both ended up in institutions again. Even when they got out, they weren’t really in a position to take care of me, not right away.”

“Ouch. That blows. But I think it’s good that you’re recovering your memories. I’d love to hear some of them, if you’re ready to talk.”

“Oh, I am. I just wish I could get at the important ones.”

“I don’t follow.”

Nettie’s eyes narrowed. “I still can’t remember much from when me and Anna were captives. Maybe I never will. I was pretty sick, on top of everything else. It could be those memories just—aren’t there. But part of me feels like it’s important—like if I could remember some of that, it might give me some insight into what just happened to Gina and Heather Dulcey.”

Hannah laid a hand on Nettie’s arm. “It’s probably not a thing you can force,” she said. “Just something you have to let come in its own time, if it ever does.”

“Oh, I know. And I’m going to try not to think about it too much, at least for the next couple of days. I promised you the weekend. Johnstown tomorrow?”

Hannah grinned. “Dinner and tongue exercises? Can’t wait.”

***

Pulp, thought Terry Wilder. Purest pulp. I wouldn’t read this to my dog.

The punchline, of course, being that he just had read it to his dog. Tinkerbell, curled up at his feet, had rested unperturbed as he read aloud through two chapters of a story he had tentatively entitled “Junkyard Jet Skis.” Leaning to one side, Terry scratched the dog absently on the side of the neck. She changed position slightly, an indescribable noise escaping her throat.

“It’s horseshit, isn’t it, Tink?” said Terry. “You can tell me. I won’t take offense.” Tinkerbell shifted a little to afford him better access to the scruff of her neck, but declined to venture an opinion regarding Terry’s attempt at post-apocalyptic fiction.

“No literary criticism tonight? Exactly what do I keep you around for, then?” The dog shifted position again, clearly demanding to have her belly rubbed. Terry obligingly moved his hand in that direction. The fingers of his other hand beat a restless rhythmic pattern on the arm of his office chair. For once he wasn’t looking at a dead end; the direction the story should go in the succeeding chapter was fairly clear in his mind. The question was whether the damn thing was worth pursuing to begin with.

Fuck it. It’s pulp, but it’s pulp with DIRECTION, damn it. Might as well ride this out; see where it goes.

Leaning forward, he tapped the ENTER key with his free hand, the cursor blinking at the beginning of what was to be the first paragraph of chapter three. He lifted his other hand from Tinkerbell’s belly, intending to return it to the keyboard. But before he could push his chair forward to do so, Tink rolled over, sat up, and sprang into his lap in one smooth motion. Curled up, she barely fit between the chair arms.

Terry regarded the animal sourly. “Jesus Christ. Do I have to type around you?” Rolling the chair as close to the desk as he could, he reached over the top of Tinkerbell’s silky red fur, his fingers resting lightly on the keys. “You win, fuzzball. Let’s do this, shall we?”

***

From the Diary of Mallory Kalvornek, June 12th, 2022

I don’t know. I just don’t. I’ve spent the past four hours wandering the wooded areas of the family property, and my head isn’t any clearer than when I started. Also: I didn’t realize how out of shape I am. My legs ache from the miles I walked, and my body is coated with sweat.

I thought after a few days spent in the house my great-great-grandfather built, taking a walk through the woods, revisiting my childhood playground, I’d know the right thing to do. But I’m still fucking clueless.

So many things different, so many the same. There used to be this maze of tunnels in a big bramble thicket about a half-mile into what was once the pasture, which has grown over pretty heavily, as there haven’t been cattle on the property since before I was born. I used to use that thicket as a playhouse when I was little. I even kept a bunch of plastic dishes and doll furniture out there, and I’d bring some of my dolls along when I went to play. If my cousins came to visit, it’d be a fort, a castle, a dungeon, or whatever popped into our heads at the time.

Can’t get into those tunnels now. The entrances are completely choked with brambles. When did that happen? It could have been while I was still living here; I don’t think I’ve been back to that place since I was ten or so. I never even took Julie there. I wonder if some of those old plastic toys are still there, entombed in the brambles? Probably; I don’t remember retrieving them.

The little pond is dried up. That process was already well underway when I was a kid; it was an artificial pond my grandpa created by digging out a trench from the nearby swamp. Over the years, the trench filled in with muck. No more water flow. Julie and I used to go there sometimes in high school. Julie was fascinated by the frogs, and could spend an entire afternoon watching them. Now that the water has receded, the frogs are back in the marshes. Some nights we can hear their chorus from the porch.

But a lot of the old paths I used to walk are still there; game trails of longstanding that the deer still use to this day. And there’s signs of human activity. Following a path, I found Jason’s favorite deer-hunting location. He’s got a comfy stand, complete with portable heating, in a tree at the top of a hill. I climbed up and sat in there awhile, just taking in a nice birds-eye view of the eastern section of the old pasture. It sure is beautiful, even more so than when I was a kid. With the cows long gone, the forest is gradually reclaiming the land.

I also checked out the fields, at least the ones attached to the homestead, and boy, did that bring back some memories. My renter has soybeans in this year, which is a crop my dad grew on a pretty regular basis. The bean plants are still short, but they look good. There’s been enough rain that I don’t think they’ve had to run the irrigator thus far.

As I looked out across the fields, my mind flashed back to when I was a little girl, and I used to ride on the tractors or the combine with Daddy. That stopped around the time I was seven or eight. Like playing in the bramble thicket tunnels or so many other things in life, it’s not something that ended with any kind of purpose; it just sort of tapered off.

Then in high school, once we were old enough, Dad started hiring Julie and me to do fieldwork, an arrangement we continued to draw on for spending cash when we’d return for the summer during our college years. I’ve spent a lot of time out there, going back and forth across the fields in a tractor cab. Can’t say I miss it, exactly, but there’s a certain nostalgia attached to those younger days.

I sold the tractors and field equipment the year Dad passed—that’s how I got the money to settle the surprisingly stiff inheritance tax. All that’s left in the machine shed are Dad’s tools and an old John Deere model R tractor from the early 1950s that Dad was planning to restore and never got around to. I couldn’t quite bring myself to sell that one. The shed feels empty without the big tractors, the combine, or the other bits of machinery that Dad preferred to keep out of the rain.

The house is falling into disrepair, and some decisions about its status will have to be made soon. Either I need to fix it—which will NOT be cheap—or just board it up permanently. Dad was never great about maintaining the place to begin with, and was unable to do even a token amount during the last year of his life. It’s still livable, but that condition is growing marginal. All Dad’s stuff is still inside; I never went through it. My bedroom remains unaltered, except for the stuff I took with me when I moved out.

On a more humorous note, I either forgot—or maybe never noticed back then—what a pile of junk this old piano is! I got it tuned early last week, the day after we had the power turned back on, and it wasn’t really worth the money. It’s got a thin, reedy sound, lacking in both body and sustain. The high notes just kinda go plink. It’s very old, almost a century, so you’d think it’d be worth something as a collectible, but really it’s not. There are zillions of these old budget uprights all over America, and mostly people have to pay to get someone to take them away. There’s a warm and fuzzy sort of nostalgia to sitting in the living room plunking around on the instrument I practiced with for all those years, but as I prepare for my fall concert series, I’ll be using the keyboard I brought along.

Bottom line: I’m no closer to deciding what I should do with the property than when we first turned into the driveway a little over a week ago. I know I want to hang onto it, but that’s a massive commitment I’m far from certain I can handle, and it would be a hell of a lot to ask of Julie.

Speaking of Julie, I suppose I should take a shower before she gets back. She’s out fishing on Lake Anne with her dad and sister. They invited me along, but Jason’s bass boat isn’t really big enough for four people to effectively lure-fish out of and besides, I’d been kind of needing an afternoon on my own to wander the farm. Not that it helped much, damn it.

Anyway—shower. Got to freshen my smelly self up before Julie arrives, because for some reason, despite all this crap floating around in my head, I’m as horny as a bull moose in rut.

***

“Good morning, Nettie. How are you?” Bridgett Ramscone leaned back in her office chair, a cup of coffee in the hand that wasn’t holding her phone. Through the big window set into her office wall, she looked out upon the cubicle farm that comprised her domain at the DEA’s Minneapolis office. She wondered why Nettie would be calling her out of the blue; she hadn’t heard a peep from her since they’d parted ways in that Virginia hotel over a week before.

“All right, you?” Nettie’s tone said she wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but would consent to play along.

“It’d be better if it wasn’t pissing rain. It’s been coming down non-stop for three straight days.”

“Yeah, it’s about the same here. Look, Bridgett, I have a question for you.”

Bridgett pursed her lips. “I might or might not have an answer.”

“How does a DEA agent go about getting information? Like, if you wanted to know about a person, or a business, or, you know, an organization—”

Bridgett sat up straight. She’d wondered when this was coming—and intended to use it for her own ends. “Databases. Records. Some stuff we have in-house access to, other times we have to make phone calls, wave our badges under people’s noses, occasionally kiss a little ass. Why?”

Nettie hesitated for a moment, then plunged ahead. “I’m interested in a few details regarding the Dulcey girls’ kidnapping, is all.”

“That so?”

“Bridgett—”

“Stop.” Nettie went silent. Bridgett took a sip of coffee before she went on. “Listen to me very carefully, Nettie. This is not our case anymore. If we’re being honest, it never really was. We’ve already pushed the boundaries, and we only got away with it because endangered children were involved. Now that they’re not, well—”

Nettie’s sigh was audible through the phone connection. “Okay, look. It’s not really the Dulcey girls I’m interested in. What I really want is some stuff related specifically to Jacob Brentshaw. I—”

“Brentshaw is dead, Nettie. We’ve covered this.”

“Don’t give me that crap.” Nettie’s voice had gone ice-cold. “If you really believed that, you’d never have contacted me about the Dulcey kidnapping in the first place, so let’s just cut the shit, Bridgett.”

Bridgett sighed. She’d avoided giving this line of thinking an overabundance of houseroom, but she couldn’t deny her suspicion that something had gone horribly awry within the corrections system. “What exactly is it you want to find out, Nettie?”

Nettie blew out her breath. “Well, let’s start with the reason I want access to the Dulcey case. Did they get a facial sketch from Gina and Heather?”

Bridgett shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. I could find out.”

“How would you go about that?”

Bridgett’s mouth stretched into a tight little smile. This was the moment she’d been angling for. “What you’re really asking is how you can find out. The answer for the moment is—you can’t. You have to go through me. Want to change that?”

Nettie was silent for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. “I know where you’re going with this, Bridgett, and the answer is that I can’t leave what I’m doing. What you’re offering is something I want in a lot of ways, but I won’t, I can’t—”

“I know you think that,” said Bridgett, “and I think I even know why. But there’s something I want you to consider. You saved the lives of two children last week. If not for you, the perp would have got his tire fixed and gone back to find Gina missing and Heather still trying to claw her way out. He’d have most likely killed Heather, and Gina would never have made it out of the woods. You single-handedly saved two little girls. How often does that actually happen in your current job?”

“Okay, not often—but it’s not like it’s something you do every day, either.”

“The point remains that there’s more than one way to help people, and honey, you’ve got a gift. You’re a one-in-a-million talent. Can you honestly say that about what you’re doing now?”

Nettie snorted. “I’m not even sure that’s a thing with what I’m doing now. Still—”

“I know it’s not. Oh, I’m aware that you’re an outstanding paramedic, because every damn person I’ve come across that’s worked with you gives rave reviews. Still, there’s a limit to what that means. You’re obviously better than most, but at a job that thousands of people do, and do at least reasonably well. What I’m telling you is that you’ve got a god-given natural aptitude for something that damn few people can do at all. I’ve got departmental training and years of experience, but if I had to choose between the two of us for someone to pick out the right clue from a heap of information and extrapolate to a logical conclusion—well, fuck. I’d pick you.”

“I—” Nettie seemed to trip over her words. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll think over what I said. I meant every word.”

“Fair enough. In the meantime, can you help me run some stuff down?”

Bridgett sighed. “I shouldn’t. We’d be sticking our noses in where we have no business. Tell me what you’re looking for, Nettie. I reserve the right to say no.”

“Okay. From the Dulcey case, I want to know if a sketch was taken. If it was, can you get a digital copy?”

Bridgett thought for a moment. “I sort of have an, um—an in with Latisha Miller. I could probably get it that way. I have to think they took one.”

“Also, can you find out if anyone showed the girls pics of Brentshaw?”

“I’m sure they didn’t. Why would they? That’s a closed case. Nettie, this is dangerous territory at best.”

Nettie heaved another sigh. “Okay. I have a list of names here from the old files. Known associates and relatives of Brentshaw. Can you run them and find out which ones are still alive, and their current information? Phone numbers, addresses, all that?”

Bridgett sat bolt upright. “Now hold on there, cowgirl.”

“What, for chrissakes?”

“What precisely are you planning to do with this information?”

“Look it over. Try to narrow it down to likely accomplice candidates. See if I can get some insight into who might have been helping him—and if I’m right, who might be helping him now. You don’t seriously think he hoofed it all the way to the nearest bus stop, do you?”

Bridgett rubbed her eyes. “No. I’m pretty convinced he had help, or we’d have corralled him. But I’m also not sold that your Brentshaw theory isn’t all wet.”

“It’s still worth looking into, and I’m not even doing it on your time. What’s your problem, exactly?”

“My problem is what you’re likely to pull. If I get this info for you, I want your word that you’re not going to be tracking these people down. This is a damn dangerous road, do you hear what I’m saying? If you think you’ve got something, you don’t go off and pursue it on your own. You come to me with it. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” Nettie’s tone was sour.

“Okay, said Bridgett. “Text me the names, and I’ll pull the info and get back to you. Anything else?”

“Yeah—but you’re not gonna like it.”

“If I don’t like it, I can tell you to go to hell.”

Nettie burst out laughing at this, and Bridgett joined in, easing the tension a notch.

Nettie took a deep breath. “Any chance of getting the prison records of Brenshaw’s death?”

Bridgett froze for a moment, thinking hard. She took a sip of coffee before she answered. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “But it might not be that simple. This is one of those things that’d probably require an agent to visit the facility. Someone with a flair for ass-kissing, because they’re not going to like the insinuation that they might have fucked up somehow. I don’t have the authority to make them cooperate with us. Miller might, but no way is she going to use it based on what we have. Worse, it’s not local. He was killed in the high security facility in Tucson.”

“So no.”

“So not at the moment. You’d have to be able to provide real evidence that Brentshaw is in fact not dead, or it’s most likely a wasted trip.”

“Okay,” said Nettie. “I guess that’s where we start. If you can get me a look at the artist’s sketch, and run the names I’m gonna text in a few minutes, we can go from there.”

“Sounds good. Remember what I said, Nettie. About everything. We’ll talk soon.”

On to Chapter Thirteen!