Pharma

[Grimnir]

It has been a long read but it is certainly worth it. Keeping a story interesting for so long - 79 chapters and counting - is impressing. I can´t wait to see where your your writing skills and imagination takes us next - although Morgan and her friends probably would have preferred a less inventive writer

Thanks. Still have a few more chapters to post. I really appreciate you and everyone else that read this story. So far Pharma is over 360,000 words. It's the Brothers Karamozov of porn. And I still have an entire outline left for the future...

Speaking of future, next chapter incoming.

I never did manage to finish the Brothers Karamozov. I am more optimistic vis-à-vis Pharma. You may have already mentioned it somewhere earlier, but do you know where you will post your stories in the future?

[LtBroccoli]

It has been a long read but it is certainly worth it. Keeping a story interesting for so long - 79 chapters and counting - is impressing. I can´t wait to see where your your writing skills and imagination takes us next - although Morgan and her friends probably would have preferred a less inventive writer

Thanks. Still have a few more chapters to post. I really appreciate you and everyone else that read this story. So far Pharma is over 360,000 words. It's the Brothers Karamozov of porn. And I still have an entire outline left for the future...

Speaking of future, next chapter incoming.

I never did manage to finish the Brothers Karamozov. I am more optimistic vis-à-vis Pharma. You may have already mentioned it somewhere earlier, but do you know where you will post your stories in the future?

I've been procrastinating on posting my stuff to AO3. I'll likely start within the next couple weeks, just trying to figure out what goes, in what order, and how often.

[LtBroccoli]

Chapter Tags: Nosex, setup
Content Warnings: Police work, lying, and being surrounded by idiots
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The calvary arrives, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows...
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Chapter 81(nosex,setup)



Aislinn did the best she could to disassociate from the terrors of being gangraped again. As much as she tried to imagine that she was somewhere else, or with someone else, the terrors she endured were too much for her to bear. What little hope she had of rescue was gone, and at this point, she was in straight up survival mode. Fearing for her life was all she could do. She was trying to stay calm as things went to shit. As she witnessed Morgana’s and then Bianca’s degradation continue, she did her best to block out the assaults.

But when the gunshots rang out, she noticed several changes.

First, the screaming stopped outside, and then later inside. Then the shots sounded different. There was a pause for a minute, then a few more random shots here and there, followed by nothing for a minute. Then two more shots, followed by yelling. It sounded like the same man that talked earlier about having fun with them. She couldn’t make out what he said, but there was some commotion. The sound of a small gas engine was followed by what she thought was a car, then a couple other small motors roared to life. A shadow entered the doorway for a split second before leaving again. What sounded like another vehicle rolled up to the cabin, and someone got out.

Aislinn couldn’t see past the door from her angle who this was, but unlike the last time someone arrived, she kept as quiet as a church mouse. Whoever or whatever just chased off about a dozen armed attackers was not someone she wanted to draw their attention without knowing who or what they were. It wasn’t until she heard an audible gasp come from the doorway that she thought she might make it out of this yet and two words from a sympathetic woman.

“Call Bob.”


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Bob was already up and off of the path from Running Bear cabin when he received a call on his phone. He was in a clearing far off the beaten path standing between two side-by-side vehicles. The only difference was this new one was painted in green and yellow and had “Hiawatha Resorts” on it’s hood and various panels. He waited for the call to come in, puffing on his vape to pass the time. The phone rang.

“Hello?... What’s going on?… You sure?… Which cabin?…. Running Bear, got it. Call Marcus, tell him we need him there in 10 minutes…. Hey, hey, hey, it’s not your fault. We’ll get through this. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Once Marcus gets there, follow what he says until I get there…. Yes, I know we need to call them. But a 911 call…. Listen, call the non-emergency line and ask to speak to one of the deputies. 911 goes to an outside call center where they’ll page every PD in the county to show up. A direct call will go straight to Ryland’s office. Let’s keep this local. Don’t need some county mountie getting a hard-on for a crazy case to make his name on…. Okay, bad choice of phrasing. I’m on my way, will be there ASAP.”

He hung up the call and took a moment to look around. He knew exactly where he was in the forest. This was his backyard, so he knew all of the hiding places far away from the hiding places everyone else knew about. There was next to no chance that anyone saw him roll up here, and even less likely that if they did, they’d piece together what he was doing out here. He knew driving back to his cabin would take too long and there was a good chance he’d be seen driving back along the paths. This way he could change in peace and quiet, stash his hunting gear just in case Sheriff Ryland Holmes gets a little too nosy, and act like he just didn’t fuck Morgana in her lovely little ass.


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Sam and Bubbles sat in the rear of the Escalade as Paul drove them up towards the main drag of the town. They found out everyone’s names shortly after getting in the SUV when Gary gave a quick introduction. No last names, just himself, Paul, Aki, and Rin. Bubbles gave her name as Kim, and Aki gave a little scoff as the pink haired Asian spoke. Rin, the older of the two sisters, gave Aki a mean look followed by an admonition in Japanese. Aki said something back and everyone in the car except for Sam glared at her. Gary responded like he was going to rip her head off as the yelling seemed to pick up. Aki said something else, and Sam had that look on his face that said that he had a question. As everyone else was bitching at Aki and she yelled back, Sam spoke up.

“What’s going on?”

“I’d rather not say.” Bubbles said. She looked pissed.

“Umm…”

“She called me a dog, okay? A fucking mutt.” Bubbles said, on the verge of screaming at Aki, holding back her anger at the woman she just saw murder two people. But Bubbles’s retort let everyone else in the SUV in on a little secret.

“You speak Japanese?” Rin asked Bubbles in an eerily calm voice.

“A little. Need it for work, everyone assumes I’m Japanese or Chinese.”

“Korean?” Rin asked.

Bubbles nodded. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Rin seemed interested in knowing more about Bubbles, but her tone stayed very calm.

The way that Rin asked that question wasn’t a request, but a demand to be met. Rin didn’t strike Bubbles as the kind of woman who takes no for an answer. “My mom’s side is all Korean. My grandpa, dad’s dad, was Chinese and Japanese. His mom was Chinese, his dad was Japanese.”

“When did they meet?” Gary asked from the front seat.

“1937, in Nanking.” Bubbles let that hang in the air for a while before continuing on with her family history. “My great-grandmother fled China for Taiwan during their civil war in the late 40’s, ended up meeting a GI and moved to the states. Her husband adopted my granddad, who later joined the Army and was stationed in Korea, met a girl and fell in love. Rinse and repeat a generation later and I’m here. We spoke Korean every day growing up, I learned Mandarin to help my great-grandma, and picked up some Japanese to speak with patients and gamers.”

“Thank you.” Rin said calmly. “No matter my sister’s … opinions, we are grateful for all you have done for us. As my husband mentioned, we owe you a debt of honor.”

“When you need to call it in, call Bob and tell him I owe you one. He’ll get in touch with us.” Gary said.

“Hey, where we dropping you off at? I’d rather not take you to the main lots.” Paul said from the driver’s seat.

“One second.” Sam said as he checked his phone. There was a message in the WhatsApp group chat about going to Hairy’s, though he figured that was a typo. “I think they’re at Harry’s, or something like that.”

“Harry’s Diner. We’ll have you there in a couple minutes.” Paul said as the Escalade broke out of the tree coverage and merged onto the town’s main street.


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When guests at Lake Hiawatha Resorts don’t come to the office for 10AM checkout, it’s standard operating procedure to send a crew to find out why the guests haven’t left yet. Most of the times, they’re running a little late or slept in. On rare occasions, things went sideways and either some locals caused some serious problems or there was an accident of some kind.

The scene that greeted the late checkout team for Lake Hiawatha Resorts when they arrived at Running Bear cabin was one straight out of a depraved, perverted nightmare.

Their first clue that something was wrong was when they tried to check the security trail cams for the area and they were still down from the maintenance on Saturday. Normally they’re only down for a few hours at most, but it was now coming up on 2 days. The next was when the checkout team drove closer to the Bear Lodges and saw one of the Bouchet Boys standing watch over the trail. There’s about a dozen brothers and cousins in that family, and none of them are any good. That caused Jeremy in the shotgun position to live up to the true meaning of the phrase and grab the 12 gauge shotgun from the back of their glorified golf cart. Clint in the rear seat grabbed the other gun while Michelle drove. This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had a run-in with those redneck assholes. For as tough as they acted, they scatter like roaches once a few shots fly in their direction.

As they arrived at Running Bear, the crew saw the Bouchet Boys running out of the cabin and hop into a side-by-side, dragging with them a naked woman and two large ass dogs. Jeremy fired a warning shot into the air, and the boys double-timed it away from the cabin. Michelle stopped the cart in front of the Running Bear Lodge as Clint and Jeremy looked around for any more of the Bouchet Boys.

“Clear on my side.” Jeremy said.

“Same.” Clint repeated.

Michelle stepped cautiously to the front door, left slightly ajar. When she pushed it open, the sunlight shone right to the dining room table. Three naked women were tied to the table and a naked man was bound to the accompanying bench.

The protocols for how to handle crazy shit range from let the drunk guy sleep it off to call for security, but there is one large, overruling directive for when things truly go tits-up. Michelle’s been on this job long enough to know that if something happens that is so crazy or vile or disgusting that it will make the resort look bad, there’s one thing she must do before anything else.

“Call Bob.”

She pulled out her cell phone and relayed the situation to Mr. Kuntzmann as she muttered the mantra of ‘Call Bob’ over and over until he picked up. The conversation was short and to the point. Call Marcus, Bob’s consigliere, and then call the Sheriff’s Department on the non-emergency line to avoid the 911 broadcasts. 30 seconds after she was off the phone with Bob, she had Marcus on the phone and he was en-route. She then called the Sheriff and asked for one or two deputies to come to the scene. As soon as Michelle told the deputy about the three women tied naked to the table, she was handed over to the Sheriff himself who said he and a few of his deputies were on their way.


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Harry’s Diner was busy on the morning of Labor Day. The old building that looked like a 50’s diner had a full parking lot as the black Cadillac Escalade pulled in and drove out of sight behind the building, where Sam and Bubbles exited. After a brief exchange with the passengers inside, the tailgate closed and the couple made their way inside the restaurant to find the rest of the Really Useful Crew.

They found their comrades sitting in a booth in the back. Joe and Mari sat on one side of the table while Steve and JC occupied the other. Sam and Bubbles joined them, but just sat quietly and drank some coffee as the rest of the table ate in relative silence. Considering it is thought of as rude to talk about gang rape in polite society, they just exchanged some small chit chat until everyone was done eating. After what was maybe 20 minutes at most, the group left and made their way to the main parking lot. While driving, Bubbles grabbed a black wig from Sam’s bag to cover up her pink hair. Just in case anyone was looking for a pink haired Asian girl with a bunch of tats.


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None of the women screamed for help or made a sound until they were certain that this new group of people that just showed up weren’t going to rape or kill them. This time Bianca was the first to beg for help, followed by Aislinn then Morgana. Drew made some noises, but was still gagged.

A woman entered the cabin, short and in her 30’s with black hair that had an Emo cut to it. She wore a polo shirt and khakis while two men in matching outfits stood by the door. The woman introduced herself as Michelle and did her best to keep her wits about her. The first thing she tried was untying the ropes that held Bianca in place, then when that wasn’t fruitful used a pocket knife to cut the ropes loose above the knot. Bianca couldn’t help but hug Michelle after freeing her, which slowed Michelle down from from freeing the rest of them. As Michelle worked on freeing the women, one of the men put his shotgun back in the golf cart and went inside to free the two other men in the house, apparently tied up in two of the bathrooms.

The nylon rope used to tie the women was pretty tough, and her knife was duller than she’d like, so freeing Morgana and Aislinn took a few minutes. By the time she got through Aislinn’s ropes, the first of the deputies were on the scene.


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Tommy sat in the shower stall in the basement, straining his hearing to piece together what happened. Ever since he was left down here, he had nothing to do other than sit with his own thoughts. Hearing the scene break down above him left him severely anxious about what happened to the girls while he was down here. It sounded like a dozen guys and even a girl involved at some point. He did his best to drown out the guilt he was feeling and the fear that one of these guys would go too far, knowing that they were ultimately Bob’s guys. At least that’s what he hoped.

He wondered how they were going to handle things going forward. Would Morgana run into his arms after Drew freaked out, or would she double down on her husband? He never even thought about asking Morgana to leave Drew before this, just kept that thought at a distance while they fucked like rabbits while he was out of the country. Now, the ball was in the air, waiting to see where it bounced. And what about Aislinn? She was a pretty cool chick who was almost as sexy as Morgana. She was an absolutely great consolation prize. Assuming she wasn’t permanently fucked up from the trauma.

As Tommy sat in the silence, he heard a ruckus upstairs. A few minutes later, there were footsteps and a man knocked on the door. Tommy acknowledged, and a moment later this man freed Tommy from his makeshift prison in the shower stall. After giving Tommy a moment to put some clothes on, the two went upstairs and looked for James, who was in the bathtub in the main floor suite.

Once dressed, they joined everyone else in the living room.


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Bob arrived on the scene a few minutes after the Sheriff did, and the scene was crazy. Three cop cars and a medic arrived from the exit path as Bob pulled into the lot in his official side-by-side. His right hand man Marcus was conferring with Sheriff Ryland Holmes when he approached.

“What’s going on?” Bob asked, looking at Marcus and then the Sheriff as he spoke. His consigliere wore a gray suit with a white shirt and dark tie and stood at around 6’3”. The Sheriff was around 5’9” and had put on a few pounds as he aged into his 50’s, but he still struck an imposing figure. He had a dip in his mouth and a half-filled bottle of black spit in an old Mountain Dew container.

“That’s what we’re tryna figure out.” Ryland said, a slight country accent taking over his speech. “We got a call from Michelle that she walked in on three women and a man all naked and tied up in one of your cabins, with obvious signs of sexual assault. There were two other men tied up in the showers. Michelle said she was coming up the trail with two co-workers when they spotted the Bouchet Boys.”

“Those assholes. They’re always up to some shit.” Bob said, acting like he wasn’t dick deep in their business. “So they captured and raped the women?”

“Not exactly. My deputies are still talking to everyone, but it sounds like the Bouchet Boys weren’t the only ones up here this weekend.”

“Whatchya mean?” Bob asked.

“Well, turns out that some crazy shit happened on Saturday that led to a home invasion and a weekend long gang rape. Details are sketchy still, but a group of men and one woman raided the house, held them hostage, and did all sorts of things to them. Then left them tied up as they fled. That’s when the Bouchet Boys showed up. Supposedly a gunfight broke out, they kidnapped, raped, and supposedly shot the girl from the first group, and one of the guys too.” The Sheriff said, taking a moment to gauge Bob’s poker-face reaction before he continued. “We’re ‘bout to canvas into the woods, but to be honest, the whole thing sounds kinda fishy.”

“How so?” Bob asked, feigning concern.

“Well, what doesn’t make sense to me is this whole story about the first attack. From what my deputy’s telling me, the stories line up but sound preposterous. We got ourselves a planned out robbery that turned into a gang rape of everyone that stayed here, and two others that were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Wait, so there was another couple here? Where are they?” Marcus asked the Sheriff.

“Don’t know. Details are still kinda sketchy, but one of the guys said that Saturday morning, just as everyone went for a hike, they found a Chinese woman on the trail. Looked like she took a nasty fall. They, the victims, took the Ch…Asian girl back to the cabin, when a real Karen and Ken showed up, demanding that everyone else leave. A fight breaks out, they call the help desk to get it sorted out, and while they’re waiting 3 guys with guns break in, taking hostages. One of the guys, an Aussie bloke named Drew, tried to go all hero ball and fight back, but they beat the shit out of him and the Ken. Ken and Karen’s names are Joe and Mary. They beat the shit out of Joe pretty bad, then the guys took turns raping the women. Counting Mary, there was Drew’s wife Morgana, her sister Aislinn, and a friend of theirs named Bianca. Saturday was pretty rough for everyone, but Sunday we’re guessing Mary and Joe changed their tune and started helping the attackers.”

“How many attackers were there?” Marcus interrupted Ryland, who used this moment to spit some chew spit into his bottle.

“3 guys and a girl. The girl was the…Asian girl. Freaky chick. Pink hair, tattoos all over. The three guys all called each other Dave. One was a portly guy, one had a fit dad bod, and the other was skinny but ripped. The fat guy and the dad bod were middle aged, at least older than the victims. All of them but 2 are in their 20’s. Bianca is in her 40’s and James, one of the guys we found tied up in a shower, is in his 50’s. Real foul-mouthed bastard, too. Anyways, they think that the skinny guy was the youngest of the group. Everyone else is in their mid to late 20’s, but they guessed Joe and Mary were late 30’s, early 40’s.” Ryland paused to take another spit as Marcus looked like he was doing math in his head.

“That was Saturday. So for two whole days they’ve been stuck here being attacked?” Marcus asked. He was much better at pretending to show concern than Bob was.

“Looks like it. Everyone left this morning, made Joe and Mary drive everyone but the fat one and the Chi..neese girl away. One of the girls in the living room, think it was the blonde, said that she was called Kim by the fat one when no one else was around, and she threw a shit fit when she couldn’t find her phone. They tore the inside apart looking for it. Just as they found it, that’s when the Bouchet Boys show up. The fat one drops after some gunshots, and the pink haired girl runs away, but gets caught by the boys. They proceed to strip her and fuck her as the rest of the boys take turns on all 4 four of them tied up in the living room, including her husband. Then they take the girl outside, blondie hears some screaming, then gunshots and the boys laughing. They look like they’re ‘bout to come back in, but then your staff shows up, and that’s how we got here.”

“And that was this morning?”

“Not even an hour ago. As soon as Michelle called us, my niece showed up with another deputy. They called for a medic and a K9 unit. Still trying to see how much of this story checks out. We didn’t see any fresh shells on the ground, but there was a lot of commotion in the path. If there was a shooting, someone cleaned up after themselves. Only casings we found are old. Most likely from previous guests taking pot shots into the woods.” Over the Sheriff’s shoulder, a shorter blonde woman in a deputies’s uniform spoke into a CB radio attached to her shoulder. Bob and Marcus saw her get some news and upon hearing it made a bee line for the Sheriff.

“Uncle Ry, we got something.” The woman said as she approached the small group standing off to the side.

“Boys, you remember my niece, Deputy Aly Holmes.” The Sheriff motioned to the woman, who was maybe 5’3” on a good day, even with the boots and Deputy hat. She was a very pretty woman, with brown eyes and crisp features. The constable uniform hid her figure, but even twenty pounds of body armor couldn’t hide her ass and hips.

Bob gave a quick smile to Aly. “We’ve met before. Howya doin?”

“Could be better. Sir, Jackson found something about half a click west north west, just radioed it in. There might be some credence to this shooting story after all.” Aly said to her uncle Ryland after quickly acknowledging Bob and Marcus.

“What is it?” Ryland asked.

“Jackson says he found some clothes and shoes covered in blood, and a toe. Forensics is on their way, but it’ll take them about an hour at least to get here.”

“A toe?” Marcus asked.

“That’s what he said. He’s sending pics, but it might…wait, there it is.” Aly said as her phone buzzed after receiving a picture of a human toe near a pair of pink Adidas shoes and shreds of some pink sweatpants. “Fluffy picked up on the scent about 100 yards away, Jackson said they found some blood around that area but no bodies. Then they followed some ATV tracks the rest of the way until they found this.”

“What do you make of this?” Ryland asked Aly. She thought for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders.

“It doesn’t sound like something the Bouchet Boys would normally do. I mean, each part by itself isn’t too far for them, but we’ve never had to deal with them murdering people they just met before. The rape and assaults sounds like them. Toying with and killing an Asian girl just for fun, I could see that. Moving the two of them into the woods, maybe they wanted to make sure Yogi and Boo Boo had lunch. Whoever it was must’ve pissed them off. They’re too unstable for the guns for hire thing, so most likely they ran into someone shitting in their neck of the woods and wanted to take care of things their way. But we won’t know who for a while.” Aly paused to scratch her head, then took a look at Bob and Marcus to study their reactions to what she said. Both were calm. Too calm for her liking. “Sirs, you realize I’m describing a double homicide on your property. Try as hard as you might, this doesn’t stay quiet forever and the more people involved means someone will talk. Someone finds a body out there, press is all over this.”

Bob nodded. “I know. This is ain’t my first rodeo. We had a murder a few years back, a few hunting accidents here and there, and every so often crazy shit happens. I’ve been here since the 90’s, I’ve seen some shit.”

“We may seem pretty calm, but there’s a lot of things we have to work through. As soon as we help with this investigation, I have half a dozen NDA’s to write up and probably 7 figures in settlements that we’ll have to shell out because of this. Two rapists getting whacked by a bunch of inbred redneck hillbillies barely registers on my radar right now.” Marcus said, his voice calm but tense. “My job is to protect this resort at all costs, and keeping a gang rape and two murders out of the papers is more important to me than worrying about whether Will and Wendy Wapist walked westerly with a wound or wode a wide to Walmart.”

Aly eyed Marcus during his little diatribe and noticed his fists clench as he kept talking. “Well, sir. You worry about keeping today’s events off of Nextdoor, I’ll investigate a multi-day sexual assault and a double homicide, mmkay?” Aly’s tone rose a little as she put the sass on a little more. Ryland stepped between the two of them.

“Let’s remember we’re all on the same team here, okay? We all have jobs to do. Aly, take point on things and lead the witness statements. I’ll go see what Jackson found. Bob, Marcus, once we give you guys the all clear, then you do what you need to do. Sound good?” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Good, let’s get to work.”

Aly walked off back to the cabin, still a little heated from that exchange. Bob couldn’t help but check out her ass as she walked past. Ryland hit him in the arm and gave Bob that look that he’s seen from several dads, brothers, and husbands over the years. ‘Don’t even think about it.’


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Deputy Scott Jackson knew he was in for a crazy day when he got the call to show up with Fluffy, his German Shepherd K9 partner, over to the cabins at the Lake Hiawatha Resorts. He didn’t know how crazy until he arrived on scene.

The Sheriff’s niece Aly was first on the scene, and told Scott that there might be two bodies out in the woods. It didn’t take him long to find a possible trail, and maybe a minute to find a bunch of blood in the woods maybe a couple hundred feet from the Running Bear cabin. But while he found evidence of violence, he didn’t find a body. Instead, he found what he thought were ATV tracks. It could’ve been a side-by-side, but that’s not his area of expertise. All he knew was that Fluffy had something else to follow.

And follow they did. The tracks wound around trees, through some shrubs and weeds, up and over the creek a couple times, eventually running through an area known locally as Bear Country. This was where the bears liked to hang out and hunt, and the locals know that going out here can be pretty dangerous. Not just because of the bears, but because they’re close to where the Bouchet Boys live.

Deputy Jackson knew something was off when he approached a clearing near the entrance to a den. Fluffy smelled her prey, but also got a strong whiff of Black Bear. The dog didn’t want to go any further, when a man wearing hunting gear approached from the other side of the clearing. Jackson hesitated for a moment, seeing whether he should sick Fluffy on him. His dog was scared and he knew there’s no way to call her off in this state. Instead, he reached for his pistol with his left hand.

“Woah, woah. I’m unarmed. You Scott?” The shorter man in hunting gear said as he quietly approached, carrying a shoe box.

“Deputy Jackson to you. Stay where you are.” The shorter man paused where he stood. Scott took a look at him. He was short, with a goofy grin and very short hair. He looked like that one ugly ass comedian that kept nailing every primo piece of ass that hosted SNL, and had an air of confidence that was just a little too comfortable. On top of that, he knew his name. This guy had the advantage over him in information. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

The shorter man held the box up in the air, then put it on the ground and stepped back. “Got a gift for you, from a friend of ours. He wants you to have this one no matter what. But there’s another one just like it over there if you’re willing to talk.”

The shorter man slowly backed up from the box. Deputy Jackson let Fluffy smell it first. No bomb. No gunpowder. No drugs. He stepped forward and opened the lid. In it were several stacks of $20’s. He took a quick count. 10 stacks. A thousand dollars in each stack.

“Box looks half full.” Scott said. He didn’t like taking bribes, but child support is expensive.

“The rest is over by the trees there.” The shorter man pointed. Scott looked at the box, then the short man, and back again a couple times.

“What’s the catch?” Scott asked.

“You recording?” The man asked. Scott shook his head, but just to be sure made certain that his badge cam was off.

“Go ahead, we’re clear.” He’d catch hell for ‘forgetting’ to turn his camera on again, but he liked where this was going.

“All you gotta do is call in that you found something. Some clothes torn to shreds, some shoes, and a toe. All covered in blood. You couldn’t find anything else, the trail ended here in front of the bear den. You make sure that the samples are all taken from the blood found here, and run the toe in your database. When the results come back for a Japanese lady named Kono Rin, make sure she’s declared deceased. This was all that you could find. She’ll match the description of the pink haired lady from the cabin, and these were the clothes she wore. There’s enough blood to drown a horse over there, and the chunks of meat nearby were too tainted to get a good sample. All that was left was this toe. You keep the 10 grand from that box and the other ten from over there. You make sure this happens, and our friend makes sure you’re well taken care of going forward.”

Scott let the other man talk while he thought about it. It took him all of about 2 seconds to accept the bribe and what came along with it. He knew this friend was almost certainly Bob Kuntzmann. He’s already got half the station in his pocket. To be honest, Scott was jealous that he hadn’t been bribed yet. He figured being one of only 2 canine police in the area would make him a high priority. He figured he was always too upright and pure to accept a bribe so he wasn’t approached before, but this was some good money. And he knew that Bob was good on his payments. Out of the 19 deputies in the Hiawatha County Sheriff’s Department, 17 of them had taken bribes from Bob once or twice, and 8 were on his monthly payroll. The only reason the other didn’t accept anything was Bob wasn’t crazy enough to offer the Sheriff’s niece a payday. And he just hadn’t been approached yet. It sucked being the only deputy not having enough money to buy a newer truck.

“Okay. We got a deal. But I can’t be seen walking out with 20 grand in cash.” Scott said.

“We’ll take care of that. Think you might have a nice package waiting for you at home. Something for you and Fluffy here.” The shorter man said, as he walked Scott over to a clearing by some trees. After a few minutes of staging the crime scene, the man left with two shoeboxes into the woods. One carried some medical blood bags, and the other $20,000 in cash. Scott radioed in what he found.

Later that night at home, as Scott was at home relaxing drinking a beer, there was a knock at his door. A man dressed in a blue vest and black clothes knocked on his door and left a package. In it was a gift set from Omaha Steaks and $20,000, all of it in 20 dollar bills.


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The interviews went just like Aly figured they would. The women stopped and started repeatedly, horribly ashamed of what they went through. They described everything that they could, but the realization of everything that happened, followed by the emotional release they felt from finally not being under threat or assault for the first time meant they could let their guard down. The men were more reserved in what they said. It was obvious to Aly that Drew was raped by at least one man, but refused to elaborate on it until pressed. The other young man, Tommy, seemed quite withdrawn during the conversations. The only man who wasn’t holding back was the older Aussie man, James St. Croix. He was fuming mad once released, and chewed Bob out before settling down. Aly figured that James and Bob were friends, and that James was of the generation where men had 4 emotions: angry, horny, hungry, brick on the foot. Once James settled down, he and Bob walked off in private for a few minutes, then returned in a much better emotional place. After that, Aly was able to get a few words in with them.

Everyone’s story lined up for the most part. They all agreed on what they did Friday before the attack, what happened early Saturday, and how the attack started. They described Drew trying to play hero, then the intruders raping Morgana, then Bianca, Mary, and finally Aislinn. They included details of all of the guys taking turns on the girls, including the three here. When asked why, they said it was that or get shot. One event they described that scared them the most was Bianca calling her daughter at gunpoint to reassure her that everything was fine. After that, Sunday was more of the same, but with Joe and Mary switching teams. Aly felt that that was pretty weird, but after how much blood loss Joe suffered from his beating, it made sense in a twisted, Stockholm Syndrome kind of way.

Where the stories didn’t line up was when everyone split into separate areas and told different stories. That made sense as they couldn’t corroborate what the others saw. But the descriptions of the captors also didn’t line up completely, either. It didn’t help that they all wore masks the whole time and no one had any distinguishing marks like scars or tattoos aside from the dead Asian freak. James’s description of the men was off from what the women and Drew came up with. Then again, he’s the only one that referred to them all as ‘young blokes.’

Aly also saw a gap in the story Tommy told regarding the sex with Morgana. Drew described it in very explicit detail, as though it was burned into his memory. Tommy confirmed everything after Aly brought it up to him, and he tried to play it off as though he didn’t remember. She knew he was full of shit for that, and he was very evasive about whether or not he and her had something going on before this weekend. She’d put money down that they were banging.

When asked about any missing items, Tommy said that he brought a camcorder with him that they took, along with some tapes or drives that he used for footage. They used his camera extensively over the weekend, making sure to record as much as possible.

Even with as crazy and over the top as the assault was, there was little to no desire to pursue an investigation from the victims. The intruders were explicit in their threats of telling everyone they knew what happened, and how videos of the most depraved acts would be sent to their friends and co-workers if a word of this ever got out. Bianca just wanted to put the whole weekend behind her and get back to her daughter before school started back up on Tuesday. Aislinn was on a visiting visa for a short time and worried that any type of criminal investigation could cost her her new job. Drew and Morgana were in a similar boat. James was livid about everything that happened, and Tommy kept blaming himself since he was the one that invited everyone and rented the cabin. Aly consoled the women as best as she could, and recommended that if they won’t press charges, they should at least get checked out at a hospital for any STI’s or diseases and speak to a therapist to help them with the trauma. She opened up to them, talking about how when she was a kid she was assaulted and even held hostage one time down in Harbor City, but was rescued by a kind, good cop who even took a bullet for her that day. “He’s a big reason I’m a cop today”, she told them. Then she texted them some contact info for a doctor to speak to down south in Harbor City, Dr. Michelle Bartlett-Zelensky, along with the number and email of a cop friend of hers down South in case they couldn’t reach her. Turns out he’s the same cop that helped her when she was in trouble all those years ago.

Aly stepped outside to find out what she could from Sheriff Ryland and Deputy Jackson about the body parts he found. A toe and some women’s clothing was found drenched in blood and shredded to pieces in front of a known bear den. They saw that the toe was cut clean off, not chewed off. Scott Jackson thought for a moment, said he didn’t notice that. Aly shook her head in disgust. She didn’t like Scott, thought he was just another brain-dead local yokel until she found out that the only reason he moved up to Hiawatha County was he was kicked off his local force for being a drunken shitbag who beat his wife bad enough she left him and he left to avoid getting fired and charged. She wondered if he was too drunk to notice, or sober and an idiot. Ryland helped Scott out by suggesting that the Bouchet Boys might’ve chopped the girl up to make her easier to eat. That would be an even bigger mess, but there’s no way to tell where without Scott’s dog leading the way, and weather reports said a pretty bad storm was incoming sometime today, which would wash away whatever evidence they found. Aly couldn’t help but get the feeling that Scott was hiding something, but didn’t want to say anything in front of her uncle.

As she was talking things over with Ryland and Scott, Bob and Marcus went inside and spoke to everyone about what happened. She wasn’t privy to the details at first, but seeing as how no one wanted to press charges what so ever after their discussion, she’s guessing that the only thing they needed to work out was the size of the settlements. Bob organized rides for them back to the main part of the resort.

Aly was beyond frustrated with how everything went. She had an open and shut case that just needed a little investigation where she could not only crack this wide open with a little bit of forensic and cop work but would break up the Bouchet Boys once and for all. She knew that putting those pieces of shit behind bars for the next 30 years can only be topped by putting them all in a 6 foot deep hole in the ground and would go a long way to cementing her case to be the next Sheriff or possibly even move on to another department or even the FBI. Instead, she just saw her strongest case ever ride away on an electric golf cart. She knew deep down that Bob and the Bouchet Boys worked together, but she could never prove it. She knew that half of her co-workers were on the take, and she knew that the number of men described in the second assault was way too many for just the Bouchet Boys. She knew that she could bring that skinny, slimy piece of shit Pete in for an interview and after 10 minutes she’d break his ass and he’d confess to everything. She knew that the fat guy described by Drew that raped Morgana first after the Boys showed up was Bob. But without any proof to go on, she had nothing. She knew that this toe and blood that was conveniently found wasn’t the Asian girl from the first rape party but someone else that they wanted to say was dead, and dollars to donuts she had a connection to Bob or one of his friends. And that random girl in heels and a leash that showed up almost certainly was that missing girl from Chester County, the one who’s parents own a large tract of land nearby, and that Bob kidnapped her.

But she’ll never crack that case. Not as long as Bob controls this town.

Aly walked around in silence for a moment before deciding to get away and text the one person who knows exactly what it’s like to be so close to nailing a monster to the wall, just to watch them sneak away. She pulled out her phone and texted her mentor, Detective George Lewis from Chester County Police Department.

“You are not gonna believe this shit.” She typed a wall of text and sent it to him before getting in her car and leaving the crime scene in another deputy’s hands.



-------------------------------------------------------------

To Be Continued...

[Grimnir]

Thanks. Still have a few more chapters to post. I really appreciate you and everyone else that read this story. So far Pharma is over 360,000 words. It's the Brothers Karamozov of porn. And I still have an entire outline left for the future...

Speaking of future, next chapter incoming.

I never did manage to finish the Brothers Karamozov. I am more optimistic vis-à-vis Pharma. You may have already mentioned it somewhere earlier, but do you know where you will post your stories in the future?

I've been procrastinating on posting my stuff to AO3. I'll likely start within the next couple weeks, just trying to figure out what goes, in what order, and how often.

Ok. Thank you. Please let us know what you decide.

[LtBroccoli]

Chapter Tags: Nosex, setup
Content Warnings: Plotting and Covering up crimes
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Everyone heads home, but there's another problem coming for the Club...
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Chapter 82(nosex,setup)


Bob rode in the back of the second extended golf cart basking in his handiwork. Marcus sat next to Clint. The rest of the cart was filled with everyone’s luggage. Everyone else rode in the front cart. He texted back and forth with Marcus through WhatsApp over the events that just occurred and how to move forward. Marcus already had verbal agreements to the NDA from Bianca, James, and Tommy. Aislinn and Drew wanted a couple days to look over the paperwork, and Morgana would do what her husband recommended. Marcus knew that Tommy and James were in on it, so their ‘settlement’ would be nothing more than some timeshare vouchers and some token amount of cash that would be ‘generously donated to the rest of the party.’ The two bandied about some numbers about how much this would cost him, and where the money would come from. Bob figured high six to low seven figures, while Marcus reminded Bob of his legal fees, so this would be low seven’s.

As far as the money itself, he had that figured out as well. Maddie’s parents were finally starting to give in to Bob’s demands on selling their land in the area to him. It would cost him a lot of money out of pocket, but within 10 years he’d have a billion-dollar development up and running. Maybe sending that video of Maddie getting gang raped on the beach along with a note telling her parents that far, far worse would happen if they don’t comply was just the motivation they needed to reach out and sell. He’ll buy the land from them for a fair price, pump Maddie so full of drugs she won’t remember her name, let alone the last week, and send her home. If they think of going to the cops again after this, the videos they made of her will end up on the dark web, along with her address and phone number. But that’s long term. Short term, he’ll take the cash out of Sam and Bubbles’s share of business transactions until they’re square.

Marcus asked Bob if he should make inroads with Aly, attempt to get her on Team Bob. Bob thought about it for a second before saying no. Bob already had nearly ever other deputy on his payroll aside from her, and she was just enough of a goody-too-shoes to blab about it and bring the whole thing down. Besides, Bob knows about her connection to That Mother Fucker, and nothing would make either of them more happy than to have proof to take to the Feds about his business. He’d just have to put up with her for a while, keep her out of the loop and try to push for someone else to replace Ryland when he finally feels like retiring.

Bob relaxed, knowing that as soon as this group was out of his hair it was back to business as usual around the lake. There were still several nice weekends of the season, and the pumpkin and apple farmers would be coming up in the next week or two for the start of fall festivities. But right now, he just puffed on his vape, remembering how great Morgana’s ass felt on his cock.


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Joe and Mari dropped off JC first at his van as they said goodbye. JC thanked them for the opportunity to get a measure of revenge against Bianca. “Ten years. I’ve waited nearly ten goddamned years to get back at that bitch. What I did will stay with her a lifetime. Thanks, I really owe you one for this. Ever need anything, hit me up.” As soon as he was on the road, he gave his girlfriend Holly a call to let her know he was on his way back to Harbor City. They had a small argument about him not calling or texting much over the last couple days, but he gave a good story about the family emergency he had to deal with. He was called Friday after work, his great uncle James said that his sister Tammy was pretty sick and he needed some help around the house for the weekend as his family left him and his wife alone on vacation. They’ve been having trouble getting to and fro, and Tammy fell a couple months ago and broke her hip. JC had to drive them around and take care of them, and they were nagging shits the whole time, bitching about their kids and all that. JC explained that Jim and Tammy weren’t blood relations, but were more like adopted grandparents, watched him a lot as a kid when he was growing up, and that some of the stuff he had to help them with was tending to the family business, a butcher’s shop. He didn’t want to freak Holly out by dragging her along to spend the whole holiday weekend, making the vegan work at a butcher’s shop. They agreed to talk about it more when he got back home in a few hours. After hanging up, he congratulated himself on the job well done.

Meanwhile, Sam officially checked out of the hotel after dropping off JC, and while he was thrown a little back at some room service charges, he decided to swallow the costs and pay up. Plus, in case anyone asks, the room service charges would help with any alibis they needed. How could he have been at the cabin if he was in his room eating dinner? After a couple minutes, he was back in the parking lot with Steve and Bubbles loading their stuff into Steve’s white Ram 1500 with a random window cleaning service magnet on the side covering his Red Briar Security logo. After a quick goodbye, Steve drove them out of the parking lot.

Traffic heading out of town was a little thick, slowing them down by a solid half hour. They stopped at a gas station with a full convenience store and restaurant built in for some gas and pee breaks. Sam used this as the perfect opportunity to dump the shells he’d scavenged from the crime scene. He dumped some trash along with the bullet casings into a trash can right after a young dad threw a smelly diaper into the can.

Bubbles drove the next leg of the journey, and Steve took this time to text Ray. The last he heard from him was Friday before arriving at the lake. He knew that Ray had a tendency to fall off of the grid before the semester started on Tuesday, so Steve figured he’d get a call or text from him at some point throughout the night.

Aside from that, the drive was pretty quiet. Sam received a WhatsApp message from Joe and Mari after arriving home around 3PM. They dropped everything off and were uploading the footage they had before her sister Crystal dropped the kids off in the evening. They’d talk later in the week after everything was uploaded.


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————


Drew wasn’t in any condition to drive so Bob offered to have one of his staffers drive them, but it would take a little time to find someone willing to drive 3 hours down and either get an Uber back, or have a coworker drive down after them. In the end, two of Bob’s most trusted employees, Darren and Troy drove with them. Darren drove Drew’s Mercedes while Aislinn sat in the passenger seat and the married couple were in the back. It was a very quiet ride, with only some random music that Darren picked out. He tried to make some small talk, but no one was talkative aside from what was absolutely necessary. No matter, he already knew what Aislinn sounded like when she had his cock in her pussy from a couple hours earlier. Darren appreciated Bob’s sick sense of humor by having one of their rapists play the good samaritan and drive them home. After a few hours and one fuel stop, Darren had the three Aussies back home and jumped into the Lake Hiawatha Resorts shuttle van that Troy followed them in for the trip home.

Bianca insisted on riding back with James and Tommy, and no one really fought her on it. She sat in the rear, just wanting to get some shut-eye. Once they were on their way, she texted Sophie to see if she was on her way home and how her trip went. Sophie responded that it was fine and they would be flying back home shortly. Bianca said her trip was fine as well, and that she’d be home in a few hours. Sophie surprised her mom by asking if she could come home a little sooner. The original plan was for the 11-year-old to stay with her dad for the night then head to school in the morning, but spending a whole weekend with him and his pregnant girlfriend was more than she could handle. Bianca agreed, putting her kid’s needs and wants ahead of her own need for privacy and silence. She had a fitful nap in the back as James drove and listened to his audiobook about the invention of the Stealth Fighter. After a few hours, Bianca was home and collapsed in a blubbering mess in the shower until her daughter came home.

James, well, all he was looking forward to was getting home, showering, taking a shit and going to bed.

Tommy spent the drive in quiet introspection. He couldn’t chance talking about what they went through and most importantly put the women through without risking Bianca hearing it. Instead, he thought about everything that happened and how to move forward, and what he discovered. He knew that Drew was cheating on Morgana with a woman down in Melbourne, but had no way to tell Morgana about it without showing her how he found out, since Drew opened the phone for their attackers. He couldn’t show her the screenshots, at least not right now and not without one hell of a story. But that was enough scheming for one weekend. He thought about how he much he loves Morgana and only put her through what he did so he could be with her. He thought about how much it broke Drew to watch his wife get fucked by everyone, and how much it hurt Morgana to watch Drew fuck her sister. He remembered the look on Drew’s face when Tommy made Morgana cum right in front of him, knowing how to treat her the way she deserved. He saw the looks of anger and lust in his face as Drew fucked Bianca and Mari and especially Aislinn, and knew that Morgana saw it, too. Tommy placed the wedge between the newlyweds and hit it with a hammer to split them apart. By the time they finally sat down and talked about what happened, it’ll be too late and too much to overcome. Whether it happens tonight, next week, or next month, every time they see each other they’ll see what they did. When Drew makes love to Morgana, he’ll see James’s cock in her mouth or Steve buttfucking her into next week. Eventually, it’ll be too much and Drew will leave. Hell, he’s already half out the door with that Celeste girl or whatever her name is. Drew won’t have a problem fucking Celeste going forward. He didn’t just watch half a dozen men sodomize her. All Tommy had to do was sit back and wait. And if, by some tiny chance Drew doesn’t leave Morgana, there’s always Aislinn.

A question ran through Tommy’s mind over and over again. Would he do it again? He tossed that around over and over for the entire 3 hour drive. When he received a WhatsApp message from Morgana asking how he was doing and her saying that she missed him, he had his answer.

Yes. Yes, he would do it all over again.


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————


‘Is this what death is like? Just darkness and beeping and murmuring?’ Ray Hibberton thought to himself. He couldn’t open his eyes, they were too heavy. His hands were too heavy to move. His legs might as well be in another area code for what he could feel.

‘Wait, beeping?’ Ray thought about that for a moment. Why would the Afterlife have beeping? That didn’t make any sense. And he wasn’t religious. He was still alive. How? Where? Ray stopped to take inventory of his surroundings. Beep. Beep. Beep. Another, different beep, then a third beep and the original beeps returned. Feeling returned to bits and pieces of his body, and he felt things on his body. Hands, arms, face. Tubes and tape.

He was in a hospital. And it was bad, from the sound of the machines.

Ray replayed the events in his mind. He was in that slut’s room, just fucked her good and went to stand up. He fell, hit his head, and collapsed. Wait, did he hit his head? He tried to replay that part, but it was all a blur. Eventually there was some screaming, then…

He remembered something happened. Bits and pieces of paramedics lifting him and carrying him, the inside of an ambulance, then the ER, then…

Here he is. He’s in a hospital recovery room. But the murmuring. He focused on the murmuring.

Two voices, talking to each other. If he focused just a little harder…

“Wow. That is a messed up story. You believe her?” The first voice said. He sounded big, the bass in his voice boomed throughout the room once he found the strength to listen.

“Yeah, I do. She’s a damn good cop, and knows her shit. She’s spent her whole life up there, she knows what that asshole can do and has done. Frankly, I’m surprised Bob even went to the trouble of hiding his identity at all.” The other voice was older, shorter.

“What’s that saying of his?” The booming voice said.

“One crime at a time. You’re thinking he was up to something else. And that something else needed him to have an alibi. Probably the homicide they covered up. Which means that whoever that toe belongs to likely isn’t dead, but some VIP that has ties either to Bob or one of his close friends.”

“I wasn’t there yet, but it makes sense when you put it that way.” The big voice said again. They mentioned homicide, not murder. Only pigs use the word homicide, everyone else calls it a murder. That means he has pigs in the room, waiting for him to wake up.

“Still, it’s almost a little too convenient, y’know?”

“What is?” The booming voice asked.

“As soon as the first group of attackers leaves, the second comes in right on their heels, and the Asian girl with the pink hair and green contacts just happens to lose her phone, and she’s the one the rednecks fuck, kill, chop up, and leave in front of the bear den. Could be coincidence, but I don’t like coincidences. I’d much rather tie things together. But it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not our case. Old John Doe over here is.” The cop with the softer voice spoke, and Ray picked up an important piece. They called him John Doe. They don’t know his name. At least that’s something good. If they had his name, they’d have raided his house by this point, found everything that tied him to the Club.

“Think he’ll wake up soon?” The booming voice said. If Ray wasn’t so zonked out on medications, the bass from that man’s voice would’ve shaken him awake. He figured that man must be huge.

“Who knows? Doc said he’s pretty bad off, had a heart attack and they discovered a head wound and cancer on top of it. While they were in working on his heart, they found a tumor on his lungs. Big enough they could see it with the naked eye. Surprised if this guy wasn’t in constant pain. Hopefully he wakes up. Otherwise Cappy’ll pissed about the overtime. What did Carly say City found?” Wait, did he say cancer?

“John Doe fits the M.O. of our video cases. City detectives found a fully outfitted rape kit in the young woman’s room and a couple cameras set up around it. No ID, no phone, just a generic car key in his bag. No key fob, so walking around playing Marco Polo through East Oakville wasn’t an option.”

“But that also narrows it down.”

“Yeah. Let’s us know we’re not looking for a newer car. We’ve called up the local wreckers to see if anyone has towed a late model non-American car in the last few days.”

“Why non-American?” The cop that said Ray had cancer asked. Holy shit, cancer? On top of a heart attack?

“Wasn’t a GM or Ford key, none of the old heads on scene recognized it. Didn’t look Japanese, either. Hunch we’re going with is that the car was parked nearby, and that’s got John’s everything. Once we find out who he is, we can see how he knows the victim. But according to the witness statement, she’s never seen him before in her life. No signs of breaking and entering, and he was waiting for her in her bedroom after her shift at work ended. He had ample information on her, but didn’t know her. That, plus the cameras recording everything, and he fits our Strangers on a Train case.” The booming voice stated. How long could Ray pretend to stay asleep?

“And if he doesn’t wake up soon, we get paid triple time and a half to sit around and watch him sleep.”

“Triple time and a half?”

“Yeah. It’s Labor Day, so we’re working a holiday. That’s double time right there. We’ll be over 60 hours by the end of the week, so time and a half becomes double, and if that includes a holiday, we’re at triple and a half.”

Ray opened his eyes a little. He looked around, waiting for them to focus a little. The two blurs moved closer. One was a huge, dark blur that came into focus as it neared and blocked out the overhead light. The shorter one walked with him.

“Oh, look who’s awake after all.” The shorter one spoke, and Ray looked at him. He was bald with a reddish beard. “Welcome back to the land of the living. I’m Detective George Lewis, Chester County Police Department. This is my partner, Xavier Harrison.”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions. What’s your name?” The big one boomed.


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To Be Continued...

[Shocker]

I’d say you timed this very nicely to show up on Labour day weekend. Soon the club will know what it feels to be fucked.

[LtBroccoli]

Chapter Tags: Nosex, setup
Content Warnings: Too Many Phones, Too Many Phones
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Ray wakes up, and Adam realizes that something is wrong...
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Chapter 83(nosex,setup)



“Oh, look who’s awake after all.” The shorter one spoke, and Ray looked at him. He was bald with a reddish beard. “Welcome back to the land of the living. I’m Detective George Lewis, Chester County Police Department. That’s my partner, Xavier Harrison.”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions. What’s your name?” The big one boomed.

Ray said nothing. He focused on the big black man hovering over him, wondering how long they’ve known he was awake.

“I’ll ask you again. What. Is. Your. Name?” The voice echoed through the room. Ray defied him by staying silent. The smaller of the pair of pigs, the white one, leaned over next to the bed, with his mouth right by Ray’s ear.

“HELLO!? ANYONE IN THERE?!” George yelled into Ray’s ear. Ray jumped back as best he could in a hospital bed and turned to him.

‘Fuck you Pig!’ is what Ray tried to say, and is what he yelled in his mind. “Blaaarrr, eh” is what came out of his mouth.

“Blarey? Your name’s Blarey?” George kept on him.

“Blaaarrr, eh.” Ray said, a confused look overtook his face as he knew that something was wrong.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” The black one asked as he held up 4 fingers. Ray tried to say 4, but only “blaaarr, eh” came out.

“Blarey’s not a number. Try again.” The mountain of a man repeated.

“Blaaarr, eh, niiigggaaarr, blaaarr, eh.” Ray tried yelling at the black cop, but it was just the same thing over and over.

George looked at Xavier and laughed a little. X gave him a dirty look. “You think this is funny?”

“Absolutely. His brain turned to mush, and all that’s left is random yells and racial slurs. Like a Fox News viewer” George said in between chuckles.

X turned his attention to George. “It’s pretty common in stroke victims when the damage is in the rear left of the brain. My wife sees this all the time. They lose speech and motor functions, but when they’re angry they can scream all the nastiest shit they want. The brain is wired in a way that speech uses a different path when angry.” X turned back to Ray. “Can you move your arms or fingers or wiggle your toes?”

He tried raising his right arm, but it didn’t move. His left moved with a little difficulty and pain, but the right was a passenger on his body. The left arm was sore and from what Ray could see covered in bruises. His left foot moved with some difficulty as well, but the right was non-responsive. Everything on his right side was off. When he tried to smile or frown, the right side of his face drooped.

“Nothing.” George said. X nodded.

“Stroke, and a pretty bad one at that.” X said. “Still, that’s for the docs to confirm, make sure this asshole isn’t faking it.”

“Yep. Let’s go tell Cappy what we know.” George motioned to X before turning to Ray. “And you, don’t you go hopping down the hallway on your good leg. We gonna have a talk soon. You’ve been a baaaad boy.” The two cops left the room, leaving Ray trapped alone in his body, broken, with only his thoughts to keep him company. That, and the incessant beeping of the monitoring equipment.


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————


Nobody at the apartment complex admitted to calling the towing company on Labor Day for the white late 90’s Beemer parked in the owner’s personal spot. One old woman said she saw an older white guy get out and leave the car on Saturday night before leaving the lot. She didn’t know who he was, nor could she identify him. Just another old cracker parking in their lot. The car was still there all day Sunday. When Monday morning rolled around, Jolly Roger Trucking showed up and grabbed the car in a matter of minutes. A half hour later, a city police officer drove through the lot, as part of their usual patrols but didn’t find anything that interested them.


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————


Adam Finnegan was not the model of health and vigor by anyone’s definition. He would be a healthy weight if he were over 7 feet tall. But barely breaking 5 feet on a good day has meant he’s spent his entire adult life pingponging between being a fat ass and a fat fuck. He’s tried over the years to stay under 200 pounds, but he first needs to stay under 300 for more than a few minutes at a time. So he decided to spend Labor Day working out. Or at least that was his plan before he received a message on WhatsApp about his website.

The short, pudgy auburn haired man was maybe 10 minutes into his stationary bike ride when his phone blew up. He tried to ignore it until the seventh alert on his “other” phone interrupted him.

“WHAT?!” Adam hopped off his bike and pulled out his Samsung Galaxy A15 in the red case from the small pile of phones sitting next to his home gym setup. There were 5 phones sitting on the pile. The first was his personal Android in a gray case. The second was a black iPhone with a Chester County Police Department sticker on the back of it. The third was another Android phone in a yellow case with a sticker of a computer repair company on it. The fourth was an old flip phone. The fifth was the phone in a red case. He used it for one reason and one reason only: to communicate with members of the Club.

Adam wasn’t just in the Club. He WAS the Club. He built it from the ground up. He owned the domains they used, the backend servers, the IT infrastructure, all of it. He even had a whole separate personality he used when doing Club business.

Pedro.

He checked the red phone’s notifications. He had his alerts set up so that whenever he was away from his rig, he could see and hear everything that happened that was important. In this case, it was slew of messages from someone uploading footage where they tagged several other users, and a handful of conversations following up on a deal. Adam saw that the footage was from Joe and his wife Mari, and their adventure up north to Lake Hiawatha. Whatever happened, there was a lot of it, and still more to come. He’d check it out once the first batch was complete. Then there was another batch of videos attached to the same project coming from another account he recognized. Bob, or one of his cronies, uploaded a shitload of high quality security cam files to the server and attached it to Joe’s files. He’d have to check this out once he’s done with his workout. But the notification that caught his eye was from a man named Jeff.

Adam recognized all of the account numbers since he created them after all. He used a system of identifying info and personal clues to create a unique four digit number for each user, like a code cipher that he could read. Jeff was a good pervert who had a thing for geeky girls. Jeff worked with the Harbor City University Marching Band as some kind of advisor and instructor, and had taken part in several trades and parties over the years. Adam knew Jeff for a long time, though Jeff only knew Adam as ‘Pedro’. He also knew that Jeff wasn’t one to complain about a deal taking too long or something having a hiccup, so when he saw Jeff’s messages asking if Ray had uploaded anything or taken part in his side of the trade yet, as he hadn’t heard anything yet from Ray after they agreed to a trade the week prior. Jeff had held up his end of the bargain by making a tight little Asian slut scream and sent him the video last Thursday and was waiting to see what Ray did to the blonde slut Meg. Ray hadn’t responded to any messages over the weekend and from what he could see, hadn’t watched the video yet so he couldn’t release it for group viewing without ‘Pedro’ signing off on it first.

Just as Adam was about to respond, a thought occurred to him. Ray could be pretty flighty at times, but something was amiss. If there was one thing Ray was timely about, it was fucking bitches. If there were two things, the other was uploading his exploits for all to see. He took his phones and left his gym and walked across the hallway to his secure room, and after entering the passcode and thumbscan to get in, entered an IT nerd’s dream setup. The wall of monitors was recently upgraded to include 3 ultrawide monitors stacked on top of each other, and 2 43” inch TV’s off to the side of them. He logged onto the Club’s backend servers and made quick work of the logs, showing that Ray had not logged in since last week. He checked WhatsApp and the Club’s internal chats. No dice, Ray hadn’t talked to anyone in a few days. He then surreptitiously logged in to the Chester County Police Department’s servers. Seeing as Adam was the IT Director for the department, he had every rhyme and reason to log in to his department’s servers whenever he needed to. His only problem was that if something went wrong with Ray, it would only show up here if CCPD was the primary department on the case. If not, he’d have to wait until Tuesday before he could log in to the surrounding departments. All traffic was logged in and out of those servers, and he could use his official work accounts to bypass the security measures, but would need to explain why he was rooting around the city’s files on his day off. There was nothing in the CCPD database about Ray, Meg, or anything else this weekend involving rapes or sexual assaults. There was a case number under Harbor City PD’s purview and mention of a John Doe at Harbor City General Hospital in critical condition that was taken from the scene. Two officers were waiting for the crime lab to open on Tuesday to get prints and DNA samples ran to confirm ID. John Doe was described as a white man in his 50’s to 60’s.

Adam sat back in his seat and pondered his next move. He couldn’t risk the cops finding out what Ray had in his apartment and computer, but then again he didn’t know if that man in the hospital was Ray or some other stranger. He couldn’t risk stopping over, and he couldn’t ask anyone from the Club to go yet. He could activate the HACF protocol on Ray’s computer if it was still turned on, but he’d have to pull that move right away. Plus, telling a computer to Halt And Catch Fire isn’t exactly the nicest thing to do someone. Adam thought for another moment before pulling the trigger. He checked the connection logs and remotely connected to Ray Hibberton’s PC. It was still on, though disconnected from the Club’s website. Looking through the activity logs, Ray hadn’t used it in a couple days. The last time anyone used this PC was Saturday afternoon. No matter. He switched the computer’s failsafe on. It was part of the programs he had everyone install to gain access to the Club. If something went wrong, he could remotely destroy the computer in several nasty ways. First, he’d cripple the main OS by disabling and deleting several key files. Then, the machine would quietly boot into a hidden partition running a small version of Linux that he cooked up himself that would do a destructive wipe and reformat of the drive, destroying the contents of the hard drive. Finally, he would overclock the CPU and boost the voltage high enough by running some supercomputer math while shutting down the motherboard’s fan and thermal safeties, causing the CPU to overheat until it caught fire. He knew from his nearly 20 years of working in the police department IT’s team that forensics can only do so much to recover data, and when things get really hosed, they ask him for help. Even he couldn’t recover data from a PC that was cooked to well done.

He thought for a few minutes before sending the HCAF commands. Once the process starts, there’s no way short of stopping time itself or killing all power to the machine to stop it, and even then pulling the plug only puts a pause on it until it’s powered back on. And with modern laptops almost all having internal batteries, anything that isn’t ancient or a tower PC is cooked. But he also knew Ray’s living situation. The old man lived by himself in an apartment on the top floor of a three story complex. If he set it on fire and no one was there, he might cause a disaster that could possibly kill his neighbors. What he decided to do was put in a dead man’s switch for this situation. The HCAF program would be on standby and would execute on one of two situations. First, if Ray did not successfully log in to the Club within 72 hours, the program would run. That would give him until about 4PM on Thursday to do something. Adam would check in to make sure Ray was still alive or not in the meantime. The second contingency is if a text was sent to the program’s trigger email with the correct code. He kept it simple. ‘7984HCAF’. Ray’s code ID in the Club and the program’s name. He could send the email from from any address, including a text message from a burner phone. Not many people know this trick, but each carrier has a built-in method to translate texts to emails for people who prefer it that way, especially the deaf. In this case, if Adam’s out and about and finds out that the John Doe currently in the ICU really is Ray, then he can tie up that loose end before things go too far off the rails. It took Adam a little bit to whip up the code and install it on Ray’s computer.

Adam hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but he would do anything necessary to protect his Club.
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To Be Continued...

[Shocker]

Also protecting the club is protecting himself.
Another excellent chapter.

[LtBroccoli]

Chapter Tags: Nosex, setup
Content Warnings: Panic and Overdosing
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The group starts to get back to normal, but Bubbles is asked to do something big...
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Chapter 84(nosex,setup)


Tommy couldn’t sleep heading into Tuesday, the first day after the ‘Cabin Party’, as it was being called on the Club’s website. The video was still being uploaded and spliced together, but the amount of raw footage was astounding. The Club praised Tommy for his ingenuity and adaptability as all of the plans went awry early Friday with Bianca’s addition, and the compliments flowed like wine in France, talking him up for everything from his acting skills to his shrewdness, even to how well he fucked and how lovely his cock was.

So it was now, at 4AM, that Tommy found himself logged into the Club’s website with a glass of scotch in one hand watching Morgana and Drew try to sleep through the hidden cam installed in their new bedroom. He saw the couple wake up over and over again from nightmare after nightmare, and just as soon as one would zonk off, the other would wake up screaming, expecting the worst to happen. Back and forth they went all throughout the night.

Tommy hated what he saw. He hated how much pain he put Morgana through. He hated how much he hurt a friend in Drew. He hated how they screamed and yelled at each other any time one of them wanted to feel even a little human warmth. He hated himself for what he did, and he hated scotch. He wasn’t now nor ever was a scotch man. He only drank it because it’s a ‘real man’s drink’ and he hates himself right now, so might as well drink something he hates.

He switched the camera to one of the guest rooms. Aislinn had long since passed out. She must’ve stopped at a dispensary and picked up a bag of THC gummies and downed enough to mellow out. She was high within an hour and asleep shortly thereafter. Even with all of that chemical additive, her sleep was anything but restful. Tommy figured the only reason she forced herself to sleep to begin with was she had to catch a plane back to Melbourne in the late morning.

Tommy took another sip and switched back to Morgana and Drew. They were both up and fighting again before Drew broke down in tears and Morgana consoled him, followed by her running to the bathroom to throw up. After she cleaned herself up, they whispered something to each other, then tried to get back to bed. Eventually Tommy finished his drink and did the same, not looking forward to returning to work.


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Out of the group, the only two that traveled into work on Tuesday were Tommy and James, and mostly because it’s kind of hard to work from home on a construction job. Tommy had maybe an hour of sleep the night before. James on the other hand acted as chipper and bright as Tommy had seen him in a long time. For a moment, he wondered if this was James’s reaction to a hangover. Most people are beyond miserable, he turns into Bert from Mary Poppins. It turns out that James actually got a full night’s sleep and was well-rested. James had a good night, chatting with Steve for a while. He didn’t watch too much of the footage on the Club’s site, but instead just relaxed to some classical music and slept. He awoke to a couple texts from Bianca, and they agreed to meet later on in the week for lunch to get know each other. He didn’t bring up what happened up at the cabin, and neither did she.

The two men spent the day working, getting back in the grind of things as they focused on buttoning up the new HQ tower. If they hurried up, they would have the exterior walls and windows up by October, sealing the building up from the elements before winter arrived. Winters in Harbor City can be anything from mildly unpleasant to kill-me-now cold and miserable.

Tommy for one was glad to be back at work. It was something to keep his mind focused on, and meant that the guilt wouldn’t eat at him. At least, not in the foreground of his mind.



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Two things that suck about a crime taking place over a holiday weekend were the delay in processing from the crime labs and sharing information across police departments.

While Harbor City Police Department does have a fully stocked crime lab of their own, they operate on a skeleton crew over the weekend, and their resources are focused on higher priority crimes like murders and kidnappings, or anything that The Brass decides is worth putting on top of the pile. Rarely if ever is a sexual assault case put on the top of the pile, even when the perp is lying in a hospital room waiting for identification. By the time John Doe was in the hospital for his second full day, his victim had already been sent on her way and was trying to figure out how to live with what happened to her. John Doe on the other hand laid in a hospital bed, barely able make any noises.

The second part of the holiday weekend that sucks is coordinating information between departments. The rape took place in East Oakville, which is squarely in HCPD’s jurisdiction. But because the victim was a student, the university’s PD wanted to take over and invariably squash the case, or reclassify it as a break-in. They try to go out of their way to bury sexual assaults as that stat looks bad to the parents of incoming freshman. To keep the university from messing things up the HCPD detective on the case, Nick Pascal, called an old friend of his from Chester County PD to come in and assist. But since it was Sunday, his friend was off so he sent a message to the county detective on duty, Carly Graspper.

Carly was new to the force, a recent transfer from Humdinger when her old Captain was hired on as the Deputy Chief of Chester County Police Department. Carly left her home in Humdinger, about 300 miles away from Harbor City, after she helped take down the Mayor and several council members in an underage sex trafficking sting operation. Carly is a tiny woman, barely 5 feet tall and skinny as a rail. Her dark hair, blue eyes, and pale skin on her tiny frame with an A-cup chest make her look half her age. The reason why she was picked for the previous operation was when she does her hair and makeup right, she could easily pass for a middle school girl. But after transferring to Chester County, she’s gone out of her way to dress in business suits and do her makeup to make her look older. It’s helped a little in dealing with assholes.

Speaking of assholes, that’s what she had to encounter when she arrived at the scene of the crime Sunday afternoon. Nick Pascal was onsite with three uniformed officers from the City and they were arguing with 2 officers from Harbor City University. Detective Pascal, a taller skinny man with a salt and pepper buzzcut, was deep in a yelling match with the college cops when Carly showed up. The college cops tried arguing with them, and thought for a brief moment that they could bully the ‘little girl’ into agreeing with them. As soon as Nick mentioned the cameras and that the suspect wore a shirt to cover up some tattoos, Carly told everyone in the room to “shut the fuck up, right now. All of you.” It took Nick a moment to realize that County was now involved, and that Carly wasn’t going to take any shit from, as she put it “rent-a-cops with a hard-on for busting keggers.” One of the cops from the college didn’t get the memo about picking a fight with a woman half his size. By the time he was right next to her trying to intimidate her, she had her tazer on his balls. “Go home. Now. This is now a City and County crime scene.”

Carly and Nick worked the crime scene all day Sunday. They took witness statements, bagged up the cameras that John Doe used, saw that he was extra careful about fingerprints, and spent extra time recreating how he got in. An extra copy of the house key was found in his bag, and it was freshly made. There were no signs of extensive use and even had the little brush marks that come from the grinding and buffing wheels. The car key he had on him didn’t have a key fob attached and had no logo on it, so they couldn’t just keep hitting the buttons until a car made noise. They counted out the bus as John Doe’s escape plan because the buses stop running in this area around midnight and don’t pick back up again until 5AM. That meant that he had a car in the area, but it could be anywhere within a short walk in a crowded neighborhood where seeing a grown man walking down the street with a backpack is the norm, not the exception. None of the immediate neighbors had a doorbell cam and they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. None of them heard anything, which lines up with Meg’s description of events of being ambushed and gagged almost right away. The footage they reviewed from the cameras in the room showed John Doe setting up and testing them, making sure they grabbed footage of the scene. Then the two detectives saw the attack for themselves. The man stood behind the door and immediately covered Meg’s mouth and zapped her with a stun gun. He zapped her again as he tied and gagged her on the bed, then proceeded to strip her and prop her ass up for a rough fucking. After raping her, he talked some trash before standing up. Once he was to his feet, he lost balance, fell, and cracked his head off of a piece of furniture on the way down. The next couple hours of video was him mostly laying on the floor not moving and Meg crying. The footage ran out before the roommates Crystal and Zoe arrived. They were out of town for a football game the night prior and didn’t get back until after breakfast with Jeff, one of the band leaders. They were all on the same bus. He dropped them off at the house after they ate. Their other roommate was out of town visiting her parents for the holiday weekend. Neither of them knew about the key copy that was made, nor did they give their keys to anyone recently. Neither of them recognized the man. Both Nick and Carly thought that was odd, since that wouldn’t explain how John Doe got the key or their schedule. They had to find the connection. Carly made sure that they were out of earshot of the roommates before telling him why she was so insistent on being part of this case. She remembered a few months earlier how she was brought in on a series of cases that her fellow detectives in CCPD were working on that all had the same modus operandi. Victims, almost all women, would arrive home to an ambush. A stranger would attack them, subdue them, then rape them in view of at least one camera. The victims could never identify the attackers as they were usually wearing masks and covering up any tattoos or scars. They couldn’t recognize the men and each attack described a different attacker, usually a man. But the two factors they all had in common was they recorded the attacks and the victim had no clue who the attackers were. (Author’s Note: See the last two scenes of “Lake Hiawatha” for this conversation). Carly’s coworkers had case files over a decade ago that matched this M.O., and had one they worked from right before she joined the team. The previous case they worked was also another young woman in college, though she lived out in the suburbs and commuted. (Author’s Note: See “The Stephanie Taylor Investigation”). They felt they were dealing with an organized group that setting up women for rape by strangers and watching the films later, likely in some kind of trade. John Doe fit the description of one of the attackers for some of the crimes, and if they could find out who he is and how he came here, they might finally be able to crack this case wide open.

So that’s why Carly is hanging out at Harbor City PD’s SVU office early on a Tuesday morning, drinking coffee with Detective Pascal. They were waiting for the crime lab to come back with something, anything on John Doe’s identity. It took until almost Noon for anything to come back from the crime lab.

John Doe was one Raymond Hibberton, 60 years old from the Woodland Fields section of the city. This was from a successful fingerprint match from a DUI he was arrested for back in the 90’s. He avoided jail time and only received probation for a few months and a suspended sentence. At the time, he was in the corporate world, but the information was over 20 years old. The sperm samples were blank, showing a likely vasectomy.

Carly and Nick got to work in a flash. She texted her fellow Detectives at Chester County Ray’s details and followed up when they had more. Within a few minutes, she had a phone number and an address in a North Junction triplex. By the time they were able to get a warrant for his apartment, Carly got a hold of his taxes while Nick searched the web. Ray was an economics professor at Chester County Community College who worked a few odd jobs throughout the year. The most common and recent of those was Red Briar Security where he moonlighted as a cable installer. While they waited to get his bank records, the pair were able to access his phone records as well as reach out to other departments to see if they had anything. Apparently his son Dave had filed a missing person’s report early in the morning when he failed to show up to work at the community college and didn’t respond to any calls over the weekend. The DMV registered a white 1996 BMW 5 Series. A quick google search showed that the car key they had was a match for that make and model. Nick made a call to dispatch to ask a unit in the area to canvass East Oakville for a older white Beemer. It took less than 15 minutes before they received a message back that the car was sitting in a city impound lot after Jolly Roger towed it from an apartment complex in East Oakville the day before. Nick called the impound lot to make sure that the car was still there, if anyone had been in it, and making sure that no one went near it until he arrived. Meanwhile, Carly had Ray’s phone and bank records. The last texts he sent were on Friday, the day before the attack. His last 5 phone calls were to local restaurants and one answered from a local number on Friday afternoon. That same number had sent him a text on Monday while he was in the hospital. A quick search showed that the number belonged to Steven Wilcox, of Empire. His number was all over Ray’s records at different times of the day and week going back months. Steve worked for Red Briar Security per his LinkedIn page, so it’s likely they were friends from work. Carly had his address so she could have a pleasant conversation with him later on. Two other numbers texted Ray on Sunday. One belonged to his son David. The other was unknown, but a quick run through the phone records showed it belonged to one Samuel Mapleton. She pinged Ray’s phone through the cellular towers, and it was sitting in the middle of the city impound lot. Once they had the phone, they could read his text messages and get more context on these relationships with Steven and Samuel.

It was shortly after 1:30PM by the time the two detectives had a warrant for Ray’s home and his car. Since his car was in the impound lot and not going anywhere, they decided to visit his apartment first. Carly and Nick travelled together as Carly told George and their Captain what they were up to.



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Staff meetings suck. And interdepartmental meetings on the first workday after a holiday suck even more, usually because there’s at least one or two stragglers who took the day off to extend their weekends. That means that someone has to fill in to cover for a manager, and probably has no say or authority to do anything with other teams.

The County Divisional Meeting happened on the first Tuesday of each month at 1PM, right after lunch time so everyone either had to fight off the post-lunch tiredness or hangriness for pushing off their meal. The meeting had one representative from each of the main areas of the police department. Vice, Homicide, Robbery, Special Victims aka Sex Crimes, White Collar, Forensics, Administrative, Information Technology, Traffic, Code Enforcement, Organized Crime, SWAT, and Management all had someone representing them. This meeting is normally attended by the CO’s of each squad, either a Lieutenant or above. But with so many people out, there were a lot of Sergeants and Detectives at the meeting.

George Lewis represented SVU. Adam Finnegan was there on behalf of IT.

The meeting was mostly the Deputy Chief asking how things had gone the previous month, what were the causes of any outstanding issues, how were the different groups dealing with their budgets, stuff that management cared about. George was mostly checked out of the meeting when his phone buzzed several times. He waited for Deputy Chief Cartier to finish his next rant about making sure that they don’t speak to the press without talking to the PR officer first before he checked his phone. He couldn’t help himself when he saw what was on screen.

“Holy shit.” George said, reading Carly’s text saying that they had an ID on the John Doe, and X responding back that the man was a person of interest in a couple of similar cases from years earlier. Carly was on her way to his apartment with Nick Pascal to execute a search warrant on his apartment and car. X said he’d help out and head over to the impound lot and would meet city officers there. A county uniform was on their way to talk to David Hibberton, Ray’s son. He filed a missing person’s report earlier in the day.

“What did you break this time?” Adam said.

“A case. Maybe a big one.” George said, not taking his eyes off of the screen.

“What do you mean?” Deputy Chief Cartier asked George as kept scrolling, glancing up only when everyone else was quiet.

“Oh, City had a 261 that we’re helping them out with over the weekend in East Oakville right outside of Collegetown. Victim was ambushed, bound, gagged, and raped in her bedroom. Perp set up cameras to film the whole thing. After he gets his jollies off, perp has a heart attack and cracks his head off of a nightstand. Doesn’t die, but the roommates find them the next morning. College cops tried to bury it, but we got there and helped city get those pricks out of there. Oh, by the way, if you get a complaint from those college cops about one of ours pulling a taser on one of theirs, that prick deserved it.”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Detective Graspper isn’t one to normally threaten… oh, who am I kidding? That’s par for the course for her if some meathead tried to flex over her.” Cartier said. “Continue.”

“Anyway, case lines up with a slew of others we’ve had over the years. Home invasion, vics don’t know the perp or perps, and cameras up the wazoo filming things like it’s Big Brother. Perp had no ID on him, and you know how things work on a holiday weekend. Carly’s working with Nick Pascal over at City on the case. Looks like they got a name.” George went back to the screen and scrolled back to where he saw it. “Raymond Hibberton. 60, living out of North Junction.”

“Ray Hibberton?” Adam caught himself saying almost a little too quickly. The sound of shock almost caught himself by surprise. George was too busy reading the screen to see Adam’s face.

“You know him?” George asked, looking up briefly from the phone.

“Used to, it’s been a while.” Adam thought quickly, something he was very good at. “At least I sort of did. Is he a teacher at 4C? Cause if so, that’s where I know him.” Adam waited for George to read type something on his phone and for a response a moment later.

“One sec…Yeah, Econ prof at 4C. He’s a POI in a few of our older cases of similar M.O. but he always had an alibi.”

“Yeah, he was a prick. Kinda crazy, always manic, had a real weird vibe and all.” Adam spoke some truth about Ray, but didn’t want to go further. Never give George Lewis more than a sentence when he can choke you with a paragraph. “You mentioned other cases?”

“Please don’t get him started, we’ll be here all day.” The Deputy Chief said, trying to get the meeting back on track.

“Yeah, it’s thin. Real thin. We’ve had a few cases over the years that we’ve called Strangers on a Train.” George said.

“Huh?” Adam pretended not know what George was talking about.

“Like the old movie?” Cartier asked.

“Yeah. First rule of violent crimes is that they’re crimes of passion. Rape, murder, assault, there’s almost always a personal level to it. Someone got hurt, so they get revenge. Someone got rejected, so they take what they want. 9 times out of 10, the victim knows the rapist, or at least has an inkling of who they are. The cases of the loner jumping out of the bushes in the park are few and far between. They’re just the ones that make the news. So when we get a bunch of cases over a decade or more about women being assaulted in their homes by strangers and these strangers are filming it, that’s very suspicious. But it reminded me of that old Hitchcock movie ‘Strangers on a Train.’ Long story short, two guys on a train bitch about their wives and how they want them dead. One guy says he’ll help the other by killing that man’s wife in exchange for returning the deed. Rest of the story isn’t important, but that’s what I think is happening here. We’ve got a group of some kind that is trading rape targets, or selling them off. I think trades are probably likely. So, Guy A picks a woman he wants to rape but can’t because he can’t get away with it, sends the info to Guy B. Guy B does the deed and sends the film back to Guy A, who then returns the favor by raping a girl Guy B wants to see get it. Who knows, maybe they make a sport of it, some kind of game? And we think that our John Doe, Ray Hibberton, is one of the guys in this group.” George paused as he scrolled through the messages.

“Anyone talk to him yet?” Cartier asked.

“X and I were in HC General most of the day yesterday waiting for Ray would wake up. He did sometime in the afternoon.” George said. Adam tried his best to hide his panic.

“Did he say anything?” The Deputy Chief asked.

“Yeah.” George said, pausing for a moment. Adam felt his heart jump into his throat. “He said ‘blaaarrrr blaaaarr, blaarr.’” Everyone in the room looked at George as he moaned for dramatic effect. “He stroked out, brain’s turned to mush. Doctor says he had a stroke when he cracked his head off the furniture. They’re hopeful that he can recover, assuming nothing else goes wrong. I’d love to get the confession and the names of his colleagues, but since his brain is applesauce right now, it wouldn’t hold up in court. And we have no clue what the OpSec is like. There’s so many questions we have, and this is the first time in at least 10 years one of these guys was caught. That’s pretty impressive, to be honest.” George said, looking at Cartier the whole time.

“What’s the plan?” Cartier asked.

“Carly’s on her way to Ray’s house right now with Nick from City. X is heading to an impound. Ray left his car parked in some apartment lot over the weekend, got towed first thing yesterday morning. Another reason we couldn’t ID him, he didn’t have anything on him. Phone and wallet were in the car, and it’s old enough that it doesn’t have a key fob to play Marco Pollo with. You know when you forget where you parked so you walk through the lot pressing the lock button until you hear a beep from your car. So X will check out the car and Carly his pad.”

“How long until they’re onsite?”

“Not sure Chief. They’re en route now, but the apartment is in North Junction. Figure they should be there soon.” George said.

“Keep me in the loop.” Cartier said as he pulled the meeting back on agenda.

Everyone in the room focused on George as he spoke, and George was answering the Chief’s questions. No one looked at Adam for his reaction to this news. He’s glad, because he felt like someone just walked on his grave. He couldn’t wait for the meeting to end, and left as fast as politeness would allow. He returned to his office as quickly as possible and shut and locked the door behind him. Nearly hyperventilating, he triple checked that the door was locked and opened the VPN settings on his personal phone. After establishing a secure, unlogged connection, Adam navigated to a mail server he controlled and sent a mail to an email address that connected to a specific computer in North Junction. The subject line and body text were the exact same.

‘7984HCAF’. Halt And Catch Fire.



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Sam Mapleton was not having a good day. He slept like shit the night before, maybe getting two or three hours of sleep the whole night. Each time his eyes closed, he saw the same thing. The short Yakuza woman shooting the middle aged couple dead, and scrambling to pick up the shells. They were still warm in his fingers when he picked them up. He grabbed all that he could, not bothering to see which were from his gun and which were from the AR-15 one of the brothers gave her. He looked up from grabbing a fistful of shells to see what was haunting his dreams. Two people gunned down. He didn’t know them, would never have even thought about them, but he’d never seen a person die before. Sure, he’s seen dead people, but none of them expired in front of his eyes, and he sure as shit didn’t have anything to do with their deaths. But there he was, actively covering up two murders.

His mind raced each time he went idle. He put the shells in an empty plastic soda cup in the trash right after a dad disposed of a shitty diaper. No one would want to go digging through the trash to find what was in the can, and no one would have any reason to suspect anything. They were at least 30 miles away from the scene of the crime when he dumped the shells. Even if someone did find them, they’d have to track the shells to the guns. One was an AR that belonged to some hick, the other a 9mm that might be registered to some gangbanging thug, but he’d never know. He used that gun for two rapes so far, only firing shots this time. Then he would have a panic attack each time a detail that came up slipped past his notice, like the shots he fired before Paul and Gary showed up. He didn’t collect those rounds. He didn’t know if he cleaned those rounds of fingerprints before he loaded the gun. He was 99.9% sure he wore gloves when he loaded them and cleaned the rounds after Bob asked for the gun, but there was still a sliver of doubt. But what if some pig did find them, and he was sloppy? His perfect alibi is shot to shit.

Sam withheld his panic just long enough to focus on work. He was a workaholic at heart, and knew that when he needed to distract himself from the shittiness of life, there was always work. He contacted his real estate attorney, Mark Matthews of Matthews and Finnegan, and gave him the scoop on what Bob proposed. Mark would have the paperwork ready for him and Bubbles to sign by the end of the week. All in all, that part of the day was pretty smooth.

Bubbles was at work the whole day. She came home with him, took a shower, ate, and went to bed. By the time Sam woke up, Bubbles was already at the hospital. Her schedule had her working close to a 24 hour shift. She texted him when she could, letting him know that he’d be coming home instead of crashing at her apartment. She was off the next day and a half and wanted to sleep in their bed. Plus, she needed to do some grooming in the morning. She said it was ‘time for a change.’

So it was a bit of a surprise when around lunch time Sam received a message from Pedro, asking where Bubbles was. He let the unknown figure from the Club know that Bubbles was at work at the hospital. A quick thanks and Pedro was gone. Sam wondered what this was about, but went back to work.


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Bubbles sat in the dining area eating a Snickers and drinking a coffee when her phone buzzed with a couple notifications from WhatsApp. The name wasn’t listed, but the ID number was ‘0000’. She was caught a little off guard by this. Pedro rarely reached out to anyone. Then another message came through, and a third. ‘Get to a quiet place and message me back. ASAP.’ Pedro never sent messages like this. She took her Snickers and coffee and made her way to one of the break rooms where doctors could catch a few zzz’s. After making sure she was alone, she responded.

‘I need a favor. A big one. We have a problem. Ray has become a loose end. He got busted this weekend and is in HC Gen ICU under police watch as a John Doe. He cannot talk to the cops nor leave the hospital under any circumstances.’

Bubbles looked at the message a couple times before responding. Was he asking her to do what she thinks he’s asking her to do?

‘Yes. He had a stroke and heart attack Sunday. Cops are hoping he’ll talk soon, but he’s in bad shape. Patients die all the time in the ICU.’

She responded that she wasn’t on rotation to the ICU. Even if she could get up there, there’d be too many questions.

‘I’ll take care of that. You’ll be on rotation through the ICU area tonight. I trust you can come up with something. Look, I would do this myself but the cops watching know something about me and would ask why I’m there. I can’t say more than that. I can get you in his room, you do the rest.’

Bubbles thought for a long time before agreeing to Pedro’s request, but she didn’t make any promises. If something goes sideways, she’d bail. She wasn’t going to risk her life and career to end a friend of a friend’s life.



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Carly and Nick arrived at a white and triplex house in North Junction shortly before 2:30PM. From what Carly had found out, the house belonged to a little old lady who’s husband passed away a couple years earlier and she lived in the ground floor. The second floor was occupied by a tenant with no obvious relation, and the third floor was rented out to Ray Hibberton for the last few years. From everything they could tell, Ray lived alone. He’d been divorced for several years and lived in this one bedroom apartment maybe a ten minute walk from the 4C campus. When they arrived, they knocked on the first floor door until the little old landlady answered and asked them to wait a few minutes. A few minutes turned into 15 as Nick’s patience started to run low. As he waited, two more city uniformed cops showed up, followed by the lady’s middle aged son. A little back and forth where Nick explained that they had a search warrant for Ray’s apartment and they were going in one way or another seemed to piss off the son, but Carly took him to the side and explained that it would be much easier and cheaper to just let them in. “You don’t want to have to pay to replace the door, and it’s a huge pain in the ass to get us to reimburse you. You let us in, do what we need to do, and we’ll be out of your hair before dinner.” The son agreed, but still gave the stink-eye to Nick the whole time. Nick saw that the older lady liked his charm better than Carly’s, so the detectives made some small talk making their way up to Ray’s apartment with their respective people. The little old lady said that Ray was a model tenant, though sometimes got a little loud on the weekends. He always paid rent on time and was handy for things that broke. The son didn’t like Ray because he ‘gave him the creeps’ and was always checking out his wife and daughters any time they came around. He never said anything directly, but was always averting his gaze at the last minute when caught.

They opened the door to the apartment and what they saw shocked everyone. The place was a mess, with trash all over the living room and kitchen, the walls covered in various pictures and documents, and bits of red string tying things around the room like a conspiracy murder board. The lights were dim, with only one lamp having a bulb in the entire place. Notebooks full of writings were strewn about the room covering every topic from Keynesian Economics in the late 20th century to the proper way engage in anal sex.

Oh, and the 10 kilos of cocaine and $20,000 in cash was kind of weird, too. That was just the coke that he hadn’t already used and was still sealed up.

Nick and Carly called in for more backup as they looked around, being careful not to touch anything. They weren’t expecting to find enough coke to kill a horse, let alone piles of papers and random drives laying about. They spent the next couple hours working with the various officers that arrived, cataloging everything they found. Ray had two laptops and a tablet along with a couple old phones and several drives. One of the computers had a “Property of Chester County Community College” on it, and the other one was an older gaming laptop from a few years earlier. Nick saw that something was off when he touched the gaming laptop and it was hot to the touch. Carly confirmed, and they marked that down as they listed it in the evidence they found.

While Carly was searching through Ray’s bedroom, she found a box hidden in the back of the closet. It had several pieces of jewelry, pairs of panties, bras, and photos in it. Some of the photos were Polaroids, but most of them were obviously printed at home. She studied them, paying close attention to the faces and body positions. Carly saw several pics of women being raped and abused in various states of undress and distress. There were at least a dozen different women in there, and some of the clothing items matched what was in the box. This was his souvenir box. Something that George taught her was that a lot of rapists like to keep mementos of their conquests as a reminder of what they did. They like to visit them, giving them a chance to relive their crimes. That reliving can sustain them for a long time, but eventually the memories fade and they feel like they have no choice but to go out and do it again. He said that they usually have a preference, but if an opportunity arises, they will gladly take what they can get. Carly knew that if they could identify the women here, they could tie Ray and who knows who else to these crimes.

The detectives also found several hard drives and flash drives that they would have to go through, not knowing what was on them. Since Nick and his department was the primary, they would catalog everything they found and share their findings with Carly at County. By the time 6PM rolled around, they had everything cataloged and accounted for. Nick returned to his precinct while Carly decided that it was getting late and that she’d have to pay Steven Wilcox a visit in the morning.


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At the impound lot, Detective Xavier Harrison arrived on site and spoke with the staff running the lot as he waited for an officer from County and one from the City to arrive. After making a little small talk, the group made their way through the lot a white 1996 BMW 5 Series registered to Raymond Hibberton. The car was dirty and the inside was kind of a mess. The officers opened the car and took a look around. It didn’t take long to find Ray’s driver license and proof of insurance attached to his driver’s side sun visor. This was an old trick used by drunks and druggies to limit how many movements they had to perform when pulled over. The pic matched the man in the hospital, more or less. In the backseat under a bunch of blankets was a gym bag with a change of clothes and some snacks. The glove box had every receipt for every repair going back 10 years, along with his cell phone. They made sure to get a copy of the phone’s image before sending the physical one over to City.


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Bubbles didn’t know how Pedro pulled it off, but somehow mid-shift he got her assigned to a rotation through the ICU to check the various patients to tag along with various Anesthesia Consults. When a patient is in the Intensive Care Unit, bad shit has happened to them, and it’s pretty common that they might need to go into surgery with little to no notice. They almost always have something wrong that complicates matters. A simple surgery can go horribly wrong because a heart attack patient is on a medication that could prevent clotting, or could cause a seizure, or some allergic reaction they didn’t know about could rear it’s ugly head.

So that’s how she ended up here, late in the evening in the ICU doing rounds. She traveled with her attendee for the day, Dr. Wilson, listening to him bitch and moan about how ‘some dumbass really fucked the schedule up today’ and how he should be golfing instead of here. Bubbles paid him no mind. He was a brilliant doctor but a complete dick. It wasn’t the first time he bitched about doing rounds in the ICU. With the way his billing system works, anything he does in the ICU for Medicare patients gets charged at a lower rate than any of the surgeries he works elsewhere in the hospital. Plus, they are almost always more complicated than what he deals with when doing plastic surgery or the occasional ACL repair. But when he has to deal with the ICU, he does only what he needs to do at the bare minimum and sends his residents to do the shit work.

Bubbles covered her pink hair in a bouffant scrub cap and put a mask on before going into each of the patients rooms. One by one she checked over each person in the ICU. Most were older people suffering from the effects of aging, though a couple were younger. One was a man in 40’s who was about 400 pounds and lost his left foot to diabetes and another was a young woman in her 20’s recovering from getting hit by a truck while crossing the street. The woman should survive, but she’ll be in a lot of pain for years. The man, well, unless he made some serious changes he was going to lose his other foot soon.

Then she arrived at John Doe’s room. The records still had his name as John Doe, even though he was positively identified as Raymond Hibberton by his son David. The first time she entered the room to check him out, Ray was asleep while his son and his girlfriend tried to talk to him. A nurse was talking to them about what happened, how difficult any recovery would be, and whether or not Ray had a living will. David was pretty upset about the last part, but the nurse was insistent that David should seriously consider going with a DNR order, or Do Not Resuscitate. He tried to argue against it, but it’s when she was checking Ray’s current meds that the nurse put Bubbles on the spot and asked her to describe what CPR was really like.

“Well, it’s not like the movies. Best case scenario, if his heart stops we’ll break his ribs pushing on his chest to do compressions. First time I performed CPR I broke an old lady’s ribs, almost all of them. She didn’t make it. Worst case, they’re already dead and we’re trying for a small miracle to save them. There’s nothing gentle about CPR. And that’s assuming it does work fast enough to not cause brain damage. Lack of oxygen to the brain for several minutes while trying to restart the heart will likely cause irreparable brain damage. If he were otherwise healthy, maybe. But looking at his records, he’s pretty bad off. His heart might keep going, but his brain is badly damaged, and the heart is only going at this point out of habit. He’s suffering from a stroke, heart attack, and Stage 3A lung cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes. Even if he somehow survives the next 24 hours, he’s looking a very long road to recovery before the cancer finishes him off in the next few months. And with his heart in its current condition, he would not be strong enough to survive chemo or any other treatments. If he makes it to tomorrow, you should have a consult with Palliative Care. Make him as comfortable as possible for the time he has left. I’m sorry.” The last part was added by reflex. She knows how hard it is to receive this kind of news, but she’s done it so many times over the past few years that it almost becomes habit. Honestly, everyone dies. It’s just a part of life, and she’s more mad than sad about it. When her patients die, she takes it as an insult from Death itself.

David was pretty distraught over this, but thanked Bubbles for the brutal truth. She noticed how much he looked like Ray. Dave was a tad bit chunkier around the face, but just like Ray with brown hair instead of gray. As Dave and his girlfriend stepped out with the nurse, Bubbles looked over Ray. He was still asleep. She was alone with Ray. Bubbles stared at the readouts, going over his current medications. He was on a low dose of Heparin for blood thinners, and Morphine Sulfate as a pain killer. She knew that she could kill him by increasing his dosage of any of a dozen different medications right now, but all of them could be easily tracked back to her. If she gave him anything outside of the purview of anesthesia, she’d have a lot of uncomfortable questions to answer. Instead, she knew if she gave him something so simple and mundane as ibuprofen or aspirin it could trigger a hemorrhage, and with as bad as he was it wouldn’t take much to kill him.

She didn’t know how long she was alone with him, but at some point he opened his eyes. Ray didn’t recognize her, but she did him. This was Sam and Steve’s friend, someone they’ve played together with, drank together with, even gangraped together with. And here she was, standing by his bed staring at him as he stared back at her. Here he was, completely helpless against anything she might do to him.

But also with the slight chance that he might take down everything that meant a damn thing to her. She thought long and hard about what getting caught killing Ray would mean, but even worse how things may go for her if he survives. The cops could find out everything about the Club, and Ray worked with Sam on a project. She loved Sam, and he loved her, even if they hadn’t said it yet and had weird ways of showing it. She always played it off as something else but deep down she was terrified of losing Sam, especially to this asshole lying on the bed.

She increased the dosage from 0.2 mg/hour to 2.0, citing that the patient was experiencing acute pain and that he has a history of opioid use, hence the increased dosage. Bubbles knew that this much was on the high end of what’s acceptable, and with everyone else would likely either overdose in the next few hours, or the interactions with the Heparin would cause a hemorrhage. Either way, she didn’t expect him to make it to the end of the night.

As she left Ray’s room, Bubbles noticed a couple of police officers in the waiting room right outside of the ICU. Two of them were uniformed officers, and one was a middle-aged bald man with a red beard. He sat in a chair next to Dave and his girlfriend, talking about what they knew about Ray Hibberton. She didn’t make it obvious that she was avoiding the cops, but went out of her way to not cross paths with them.

It was 9:26 PM when Bubbles finished her second round of the ICU and was on her way to the vending machine when she received a page. Code Blue in Room 2047A. Ray’s room. She bitched about not getting a Snickers as she put 2 and 2 together and realized where she was going. A moment later, the Code Blue was rescinded. She arrived at the room as the Emergency Nurse on staff informed the Attendee that the patient’s son had just signed off on the DNR earlier that day. The Attendee looked around and saw Dr. Kim Park standing at the doorway. He motioned for her to come in, and Bubbles did so. The Attendee asked her to check his vitals one more time.

“No pulse, no rhythm, respirations are zero.” Bubbles said flatly.

“Shit.” The Attendee said, grabbing Ray’s wrist to feel for a pulse, just to be sure. “Calling it. Time of death, 21:27.”

Bubbles lingered around the room for a moment before heading back to the hallway. She kept her cool as long as she could until she made it to the break room and broke down crying. She sobbed for maybe a minute or two as she opened her phone and typed two messages. She sent a text to Sam that she’d be home in about an hour or two, and one message on WhatsApp to Pedro. She wrote and deleted the message at least a dozen times before she sent it.

“Ray’s dead.” As soon as it was read, she deleted the message. She only hoped that Sam would be asleep by the time she got home. Telling her boyfriend that she just killed one of his friends was not on her plans for the day.



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Morgana waited until after dinner before venturing out on her own. Drew was a mess most of the day, just secluded in his new home office as she worked from the kitchen table. Once dinner was over, Drew did his best to act like everything was normal, but each time she came close to him to comfort him, he pulled away. She saw how he looked at her with a mix of anger, shame, and disgust. It took until later at night before she could get more than a few words out of him.

So here she was, right before bed, sitting on the toilet reading the instructions for the pregnancy test she held in her hand for the umpteenth time in the last few minutes. Everything had been turned upside down in the last few days. Saturday morning they talked about if her period still didn’t show up before they left the lake, they’d stop and get a test. Then everything went to shit and she dealt with morning sickness and multiple sexual assaults.

As she waited for the results, a hundred thoughts ran through her mind, everything from when to who was the father. Was it Drew’s? Was it Tommy’s? Was it one of the other men from the cabin? Or did it even matter? She thought back to the previous month, before everything happened. She thought about the first time her and Tommy made love right after getting her IUD removed, and how after that they were almost always careful. She thought about how she surprised Drew when he got home and how they banged like rabbits, screwing every chance they had. She wanted to be a mom so bad, especially to have Drew’s baby.

So why was she so upset when the test showed two lines? Why was her first reaction to want to call Tommy that she was pregnant and not her husband?

Morgana stared at the test and cried for a long while before leaving the bathroom, looking for Drew watching the telly. Time and time again she imagined this moment, how happy they’d both be. Instead, it felt more like a funeral. Drew was in shock and Morgana distraught. He put on a brave face and told her how much he loved her, but she could see a little resentment in his eyes. She knew deep down what he really thought when she first told him.

‘Am I the father?’

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To Be Continued...

[Shocker]

The net is getting tighter.