Black Death (A Sam Rader Thriller Book 4) Page 8

  His son became his world and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to ensure he had a normal upbringing, or at least as normal as possible. Whether it was fulfilling his everyday needs, or just gifting him everything else, Ray ensured Norman would never want for anything.

  But Norman had a mean streak, one visible to many who knew the boy and his father. From an early age, the brat, as he was known amongst many circles, would often tease those smaller and weaker than himself. He was the kid who sat in the back row of class, pulling on the ponytails of those girls unfortunate enough to be seated in front of him.

  It wasn’t unusual for him to bale smaller kids up for lunch money, quickly recruiting a couple of helpers who would also do his bidding. His name in grade school was well known and most of the kids, as well as some of the teachers, tried their hardest to keep clear of him.

  By the time he reached high school, his demeanor grew more violent, leaving a wake of victims and injuries behind him and his cronies. Despite being called in for meetings on several occasions, Raymond Prescott refused to believe that his only boy could be responsible for the things he was accused of.

  Raymond had worked hard enough to save a substantial amount of money and by the time Norman had turned 15, had invested heavily in a local bar called the Lucky Star. It sat on the Lower West Side and attracted the kind of clientele that weren’t afraid to part with their money.

  To increase his bottom line, Raymond began to hire barmaids who were willing to provide “extra services” to the regular crowd, for those clients willing to pay a little extra. Before long, even the local authorities began to drop in from time to time, willing to add their own stamp of approval.

  But Raymond’s luck took a hit in late 2004 when he suffered a stroke, leaving him unable to look after himself, let alone a bar. Norman took over the running of the establishment, eventually dumping his father in a cheap senior’s retirement home where he would get the care he needed.

  At least that’s what Norman told himself. In reality, the cesspool he had dropped his father in was one of the worst nursery homes in all of Chicago. The old man suffered for nine months before slipping away late one night. Only seven people showed up to the funeral, none of whom were his son.

  As his father was being buried, Norman was in the middle of “hiring” a new barmaid, one he needed to test out personally. When it came to the bar staff, he needed to ensure they knew what kind of services his establishment offered and it was up to him to make sure they were at the level needed.

  He had married Nancy in late 2006, after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve Ball the previous year. He had treated her like an absolute queen while they dated, showering her with gifts and praises until she was so starstruck, there was no way she could see the real him.

  But Norman, not one to mask his real self, let her have both barrels soon after moving her into his home. She never saw it coming and once he had his hooks in her, made sure she was so terrified, there was no chance of her escaping. He found that it was never difficult to scare someone, especially when they had loved ones which he could threaten.

  It wasn’t long before Nancy began to bore him. More than that, she became a damn nuisance. She would often question him about why he stayed out so late, why he needed to remain at the bar for long hours and why she couldn’t visit it. Norman did his best to keep his wife as far away from his business as possible.

  When she had announced her first pregnancy, Norman had first hit the roof, then hit her stomach in a fit of alcohol-induced rage. He beat her until she was on the ground, then continued kicking her until he saw the blood leaking from between her legs, slowly pooling on the pale tiles of the kitchen floor.

  She had told the nurses that she slipped on that occasion, the kitchen floor still wet after mopping it earlier. Of course they knew she was lying, but without the victim willing to supply the information, no one bothered to follow things up. And thus Nancy had returned to the home she shared with Norman, and the place she would eventually think of as her own place of execution.

  But nothing could have prepared her for the monster that Norman became, a beast who took pleasure in her pain. He would dish out slaps and punches as easily as some people swatted flies. If she didn’t move fast enough, he would kick her in the butt, sometimes hard enough to send her sprawling.

  She knew he was cheating on her, Norman admitting the fact each time he raped her. This became an almost weekly occurrence and normally when he came home drunk on Sunday night. Norman had a habit of bending Nancy over the kitchen table, not bothering which hole he stuck it in, then begin shouting about the women he’d screwed that week as he did his thing.

  Although initially trying to break free from him, Nancy quickly learned that it was easier to simply let him get it over with. It usually only took a minute, sometimes less and once he was finished, generally let her be.

  But nothing prepared her for the horror that happened on Christmas Eve, 2013, the night that her sister had confronted him and caused one of the biggest events of her young life.

  Nancy had been almost twenty years younger than Norman when they met and despite her friends and family advising her against marrying the man, Nancy did anyway, always too stubborn to listen.

  Her sister, Clara, had always warned Nancy, not trusting Norman since the very beginning. She wasn’t surprised to learn that he was beating her, often visiting with Nancy while Norman was at work.

  But no matter how much she begged her sister to leave, she refused, the fear visible in her eyes each time Clara confronted her. It was as if Norman had reprogrammed Nancy in a way that she was unable to go against him. The truth was, Norman had threatened to cut her sister’s tits off if she so much as uttered a breath about their marriage to anyone.

  Christmas time had always been the hardest for Nancy, with Norman always insisting on hosting the Christmas Eve meal for the family. It was one of the only times where Nancy could have her own family to the house, which in reality only meant Clara. Their mother and father had passed, which only left the two sisters. Clara’s husband, Mike, was a financial advisor and could barely speak above a whisper, too shy to leave an impression on anybody.

  Whilst the rest of the people engaged in conversation, Nancy and Clara tended to keep to themselves, sitting at the opposite end from where Norman would sit with his two brothers, plus a number “business associates”. As the dinner progressed, he would eye the sisters as they sat whispering to each other, imagining all the stories his wife was sharing about him.

  By the time most guests had bid the hosts farewell, it was near midnight and the alcohol had flowed a little too freely for Norman. He struggled to stand upright and when Nancy passed a little too close to him, reached out and grabbed her arm with a fierce grip. Clara saw the look of pain on her sister’s face and stepped in.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, Norman? This is your wife, you son of a bitch. You’re supposed to be protecting her.”

  For a moment, Norman simply sat and stared as this little hurricane began whipping up winds beside him, a finger darting into his face every few words.

  “See this bump here? She’s fucken pregnant, pregnant with your baby. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Nancy shrunk back as she listened to her sister unleash years of frustration and anger. She wanted to intervene and talk Clara down, but somehow, she remained frozen, unable to move.

  Norman continued to listen, watching the little firecracker pop off before his very eyes. And then, just as she was beginning to wind down, he began to laugh, slowly at first, then with the kind of bellows reserved for only the most humorous of situations.

  Clara simply stopped, stared at him for a moment, then turned back to her sister. Mike stood next to Nancy, one arm around her shoulders as if trying to shield his pregnant sister-in-law.

  “Honey, you need to leave now, with us, tonight. Grab your things and let’s go.”

  Looking back, Nancy would later say that she wished
she could change her decision at that moment. But as she looked across to where Norman was sitting, his stare was enough to tell her what words could never convey. If she left then, they would all be dead before they reached the car.

  One look told Clara that Nancy wouldn’t leave and without another thought, grabbed Mike’s arm and pulled him towards the door.

  “I’ll call you in the morning,“ Clara said absently over her shoulder, speaking about a phone call that would never eventuate.

  Clara and Mike’s car hadn’t reached the end of the driveway before Norman struck the first blow. He had simply stood, taken two steps towards his six-month pregnant wife and punched her square in the face. Blood poured from her nose as she hit the ground, her voice temporarily lost.

  As she tried to stand, the wind suddenly left her as Norman’s boot exploded to the side of her chest. A second swing caught her to the side of the face and Nancy fell onto her back. As she lay like a turtle with her arms and legs splayed out, Norman took a single step forward, raised one leg and brought the heel of his boot down into the middle of her stomach, effectively killing his unborn son in the process.

  Nancy struggled to breathe as her consciousness faded in and out in waves of agony that radiated out from her middle. She tried to roll over, but the pain was too intense. And while she thought this session had run its course, Norman had other plans.

  He left the room temporarily, leaving Nancy writhing in agony on the floor. She could barely make out his footfalls and tried again to roll over. But no matter how hard she tried, her body seemed to be paralyzed, refusing to move.

  She suddenly felt her dress being pulled, followed by her underwear. Aware that she was bleeding, Nancy had hoped that Norman had simply gone to get her a towel. She knew how much he hated her bleeding all over the place.

  Before she had a chance to comprehend what was happening, she felt something blunt push again her vagina. The blood already leaking from her had lubricated the object and she felt whatever it was force its way into her, brutalizing her in a way she had never felt before.

  “Wanna fuck something?” Norman shouted at her. “Fuck this.” The object tore into her, reaching what felt to be the middle of her stomach. The fetus must have been pushed aside, because the place where it felt to reach was far beyond where she had felt the little kicks only a few hours before.

  Pain tore through her, as Norman pushed and pulled the object, thrusting it into her like a maniac. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. He must have leaned down at some point and spat in her face, because she could taste his saliva through her own terror. And just before she finally passed out completely, Norman whispered a final insult into her ear, one she knew to be true.

  “Your dirty cunt will never birth my child.”

  Nancy woke up in a hospital bed three days later, her baby gone forever and her husband sitting in a jail cell. It had been Clara herself who had returned to the house, walking in to find her sister on the floor less than half an hour later. By then, Norman was fast asleep on the couch, passed out from his late-night workout session.

  Mike called the ambulance while Clara did her best to save her sister’s life. She succeeded, keeping her from bleeding to death until the paramedics arrived. The police arrested Norman on the spot and took him in, Clara glad to finally free her sister from the monster.

  But while Norman did face court, there were too many corrupt officials in his back pocket. It didn’t take long for the prosecution to drop the charges on the condition that Norman attend anger management classes. He made the promise, signed the paperwork and was back home before the week was out.

  Nancy spent more than a week in hospital, her caring husband visiting her a single time, to take her home upon her release. Clara watched from her own car, grieving the sister she knew would end up dead at the hands of a man she couldn’t escape. Not unless she did something drastic, such as hire someone to end him once and for all.

  Grace received a response almost immediately once she made contact with Clara, the sister offering the killer whatever amount of money she demanded. But money wasn’t Grace’s driving force and thus refused to take any. This was about saving the life of a woman that had suffered horrifying injuries at the hands of a man she had put her trust in.

  If anything, Grace wanted to drive straight to the house, slice the asshole’s throat and hold Nancy in her arms, telling her that everything would be OK. She wanted to make him suffer, to make him endure the kind of pain he inflicted on his trusting wife.

  But she knew that this wasn’t about herself getting revenge. If it was, she would have made them all suffer. Their death would not have come as quickly as it did. Instead, she would have made them lie defenseless, as her anger tore them to shreds, a little piece at a time.

  No matter how much anger and hate she felt, Grace knew that despite being labelled a cold-hearted killer by the press, she had her own morals to adhere to. Nothing could ever make her cross the line that these people did. Whilst they may have painted her as a sadistic killer, Grace saw herself as someone like the person responsible for putting down suffering animals at a vet, someone yielding compassion to end the suffering once and for all.

  Clara, unsure of the exact words to use, simply used her sister’s injuries and the duration over which she sustained them as her justification. She added Norman’s details as best she could without naming him. She needed to, in case someone else was watching, the ones that monitored these types of places for the authorities.

  But Grace only needed minimum information, able to seek out what she needed from other sources. Despite being a direct message-to-message system, there was always the chance that others could be watching and not even Grace took those kinds of risks.

  Once she had what she needed, she simply replied with a single emoji, one Clara understood immediately. It was a single rose, one Grace had manipulated herself, the petals of the once beautiful flower now as dark as the depths of death itself.

  Norman always worked long hours, or at least that’s what he told those interested enough to listen to him. But rather than work, what he did was sit in his office and either gamble online, or berate his staff, calling them into his office one at time.

  His favorite days were those when he needed to ‘interview’ new staff. Because of his unique style of management, staff turnover was quite high at the Lucky Star. There wasn’t a week that went by where one of the barmaids didn’t run off, not bothering to return after a shift where Norman had put the hard word on her.

  He had surrounded himself with women, ensuring that any position they could handle was allocated to one. There were only two positions that he needed men for and those he always ensured were kept well away from his females.

  The first was the door security. For that position he had hired two ex-bikers, both too fat and lazy to do much more than sit by the entrance. He had initially ordered them to stand by the door, but after one of them had collapsed from exhaustion after a couple of shifts, he had conceded and given the OK for them to drag a couple of bar stools out.

  Both doormen worked their shifts from two in the afternoon, all the way to two in the morning. Only once the place had fully emptied were they allowed to piss off. Rick, the younger of the two, had elected to move into one of the upstairs rooms in exchange for a slice of his paycheck and Norman, never one to turn down cash, had jumped at the chance.

  The other position that Norman needed a man for was the cellar hand, the one responsible for unloading the delivery trucks, as well as keeping the bar stocked at all times. For this he had hired an ex soldier called MartyReed. He’d copped a bullet to the side of the head in Afghanistan and it left him a little short ‘upstairs’.

  Norman found him to be perfect for the job, because he didn’t drink, was too stupid to chat up the girls and worked for half the money he was prepared to pay. This made Marty another fine addition to the Lucky Star.

  Grace set up all the usual monitoring she
used when focusing on a chosen target. Time was never on her side, almost mindful of what could happen if she took too long to eliminate her victim. It was Ellie Bunting that always steamrolled her way into Grace’s mind whenever she thought about what could happen if she took too long.

  Ellie had been one of her first cases, a woman that had been bashed by her boyfriend on a daily basis. This was before Grace had access to her current monitoring help and a good month before Clive came on the scene.

  Grace began to follow Ellie’s boyfriend for several days, to try and get a feel for how his days unfolded. The night before she had planned to execute her intentions, said boyfriend had had a little too much to drink and simply squeezed a little too hard when putting his girlfriend into a headlock.

  He never noticed her passing out, too intoxicated to understand that he had cut off her airway, crushed her windpipe and rendered her unconscious without the ability to breathe. She died with minutes, while the boyfriend passed out beside her, spending the night next to his girlfriend for the very last time.

  Grace had promised herself that she would never allow that to happen again. Once she had a target in her sights, her time to execution was usually hours, not days. It was how she had proceeded after Ellie had paid the ultimate price.

  Norman had placed a ‘Wanted’ ad on one of the local job boards and Grace answered it almost immediately. Her plan was simple. Go to the interview, work that evening and then when the time was right, end the fucker. He already owned his own establishment and as long as there were no cameras, she was as good as there.

  But there were cameras, both inside and out. It was Clive that had given her a rundown of what to expect in the Lucky Tavern, and it had also been Clive who had given her the answer to getting around the surveillance. He, or she, would simply disable the cameras ahead of time for her, ensuring there would be no trace of her.