The Wreight Series Box Set, page 23
part #1 of Wreight Series
“You said that you think your son killed Wilbert, why do you think that,” Joyce asked?
“Victor was beside himself behind the breakup. He told us about it. Crystal told him that she was in love with someone else. A young man she met in law school. He was a year or two ahead of her, Lance something or other.”
Joyce looked at Lewis, but she didn’t say anything.
Mrs. Chandler continued, “My husband said some very mean things to him. Later I heard them arguing upstairs. Wilbert was belittling him. There was a commotion of some sort. I came into the hallway, and my husband was lying at the bottom of the staircase. Victor was on the landing. The police said it was an accident, but I don’t think it was,” she sighed before continuing. “Later when I talked to Victor about it he said strange things. Things that made me think he had the same problem his father had.”
“What problem?”
“Wilbert had schizophrenia. He heard voices and hallucinated. He was on medication for it, but when he didn’t take his medication…” she trailed off, shaking her head.”
“Did you have Victor checked out?”
“Yes. He was institutionalized for a few years. The doctors finally found a combination of drugs that made him better. They diagnosed him with schizophrenia, OCD, and depression. They said, as long as he took his medication he’d be fine. He seemed committed to taking it. They released him, and after he received his inheritance, he left the house one day and never came back.
I was surprised when he called Monday morning. He said that he was getting married and he wanted me to attend the wedding. I thought that he must be doing well if he had found someone.”
“Did he tell you where he was living?”
“No. I was a little surprised when he said the wedding was going to be in a few days. Then he said that it was going to be online. Who would have a wedding online? I know that young people today do everything on the internet, but a wedding should be held with family and friends.”
“Mrs. Chandler, how did you connect with him to view the wedding?” Joyce wanted to get her back on the subject at hand.
“He sent me a web link. All we had to do was click it, and then we could see him and the minister and the girl he married.”
Joyce showed her a photo of Renee. “Is this the woman?”
Barbara took the photo and looked at it. “Yes. That’s her. Poor thing. Are you sure that he took her against her will? She didn’t try to alert us that she needed help? Although, she did look dazed, and that concerned me a bit.”
“Do you have any idea where your son could be?”
“No. I can give you the link that we used to see the wedding, if that will help.”
“Yes, and do you have a picture of Victor?
“Of course. Excuse me.” Mrs. Chandler rose and moved to a side table and took a picture out of its frame. She returned and handed it to Joyce. “It’s one of the last pictures I have of him. He may have changed a bit.”
“What is Victor’s full name?” Joyce stood handing the picture to Lewis.
“Victor Joseph Selby. I hope you find that girl before something happens to her. If Victor is off his medication, he may be in full-blown psychosis.”
“Thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, you can call me directly,” Joyce said handing her a business card.
The butler appeared as if by magic and showed them back to the front door. Joyce called Ross. “Ross, we are looking for Victor Joseph Selby. He’s probably got a boatload of money as an inheritance. If I’m right, he’s going to have a spread of land where he doesn’t have to worry about people hearing or seeing what he’s doing. Go back as far as fifteen years ago. I’m sending you a picture. I need everything you can find on this guy.”
Chapter Thirteen
Renee’s head was pounding, and she felt hot. She opened her eyes. The room was dark. She reached over, turning the lamp on. She pushed the blanket off her body. She was still in the wedding dress. She didn’t remember coming back upstairs. The last thing she remembered was saying I do. Oh God, she thought. Victor had drugged her, and they were married.
Tears burst from her eyes. She was never getting out of this house, away from Victor and back to Lance. Once she let go, the dam burst, and she couldn’t stop crying. Crying was not helping her headache. Crying also wasn’t helping her get out of there. She wiped her eyes. If she wasn’t getting out of there alive, she was going to go out fighting.
The lock clicked, and Victor entered the room. “Good, you’re awake.” He closed the door and set the tray he was carrying down. He locked the door, turning to Renee. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was hit by a truck. You drugged me.” She accused him.
“I’m sorry,” he started to say.
Renee folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to hear it. You told me I could trust you. I’ve done everything you wanted since you brought me here.”
Victor knew what he’d done was wrong. He didn’t want Renee to be angry with him. Victor came close to her and got on his knees beside the bed. He reached for her hands, and she pulled away from him. “Renee, my love, I really am sorry.”
“Oh great, now you’re on your knees begging her. I can’t believe you came from my loins. You’re a pussy. She is just like the others.”
Victor turned and looked towards the door. “Shut up! She is not like the others. She married me! She loves me!”
He was yelling at his father. It scared Renee, but she recognized that Victor was defending her. “Victor if you want my forgiveness you have to make up for what you did today,” Renee said in a stern voice.
“I w…will make it up t…to y..you. I p…promise,” Victor said turning back to Renee.
“How will you do that?”
Victor turned back to the door as his father spoke. “Here it comes. You’re going to have to kill her too. You thought she was the one, but I’m still here, and I’m never going to go away.”
“Victor!” Renee said sharply. She knew that he was hearing his father’s voice. “Look at me.” Victor turned to Renee. “If you want to make it up to me, let me call my brother and tell him that I’m okay. My family is probably worried silly. They haven’t heard from me in three days.”
“Don’t do it boy. She’s just like the others. Let’s put her in the ground next to them. That’s the only way to keep her forever. Kill her, kill her and bury her in the backyard.”
Victor grabbed his head, hands over his ears. “No,” he yelled! Renee had gone too far. She had pushed him too hard. He was fighting his father. She reached out her hand to touch his face.
Victor opened his eyes. He couldn’t kill her. He loved her. She was his wife. He got up and left the room, locking the door behind him. Renee got off the bed and put her ear to the door. She couldn’t hear anything. He wasn’t talking out loud. She didn’t know what to think. She was taking a big chance pitting him against the voice in his head. She heard his feet on the stairs. She moved quickly and quietly back to the bed.
The lock clicked, and Victor came inside locking the door behind himself. He walked to the bed and handed her the cell phone. “No call, you can send a text. That’s all.”
She pressed the power button and waited for the phone to cycle on. She went to her contacts and pressed the button for text messaging. She prayed that the police would be able to get her location from the message. She typed a message.
Darrell, I’m okay. She looked up at Victor who was reading her text. “Can I tell him that we got married online today?” If he said yes, she hoped that the police would be able to find the video or something and track his IP address. Victor hesitated. She tried to manipulate him. “Your parents were able to see it. It’s the least you can do to make it up to me.”
“Okay.”
Renee added I got married today, I’m now Mrs. Victor Selby. She hit send quickly. She hoped that they would be able to track him by his name. They should be able to find her if he owned the house or maybe by the registration on his car or car insurance. She turned the phone off and handed the phone back to Victor. “Thank you.” All she had to do now was stay alive until they found her.
Victor took the phone and put it back in his shirt pocket. “Are you st…still mad at m…me?”
Renee took a deep breath, “No, but I am tired.”
“You sh…should eat something and g…go to bed.” The drugs he gave her made her sleep most of the day. He got the tray from the table by the door and handed it to her.
Renee didn’t want to eat. She wanted to go home. Renee needed to keep her strength. Even if she were found, she would probably have to fight Victor for her freedom. She took the tray. He’d cooked a chicken breast and mashed potatoes with green beans. He had never once brought her something with a bone in it. She had hoped that he would bring her a T-bone steak. She’d eat all her food and then stab him in the jugular with the bone, but he had been smart enough not to bring her anything she could use against him.
Victor sat watching her as she ate. Renee was his wife now. No one could take her from him. Not even his father. He loved her.
While she ate, Renee thought about what he had yelled at his father. He’d said she wasn’t like the others. “Victor,” she said getting off the bed and putting the tray on the table by the door. “What did you mean when you said that I wasn’t like the others?”
“Ha, ha. You slipped up again. Now you have to tell her, and she’s going to freak out. Then we can add her to our black beauty collection in the yard.”
She moved to go back to the bed, but Victor grabbed her hand, pulling her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her. Renee tried not to stiffen and pull away from him. “We d…didn’t ki…kiss.”
“What?” Renee asked quietly. Her skin crawled as he rubbed his cheek against her shoulder.
“At the we…wedding. We d…didn’t kiss. I w..will tell y…you if you ki…ki…kiss me.”
Renee squeezed her eyes shut. “You want a kiss?” She was afraid of where this could lead. She didn’t want to start using her body as a bargaining chip. Victor nodded his head. “You will answer my questions about the others if I kiss you?”
“Yes, if you ki…kiss me on the li…lips.”
“Okay.” Victor’s eyes popped open. Renee could tell he wasn’t expecting her to agree. She got off his lap. “Stand up.” She didn’t want to kiss him, but if she didn’t, he might go back to thinking that she didn’t love him. Since she had slipped out a tidbit of information to her brother, she was determined to stay alive a little bit longer.
Victor stood facing Renee. He lowered his head, Renee tilted her head back. Victor’s lips touched hers softly, and his arms went around her waist. He continued to press his lips to hers innocently. Victor had no idea how to kiss. Had he never been kissed before? Renee wasn’t about to become his teacher. Renee pulled back from him. “Now tell me what you meant.”
Victor waited to hear his father’s taunts, but there was nothing. Renee moved away from him and sat on the bed facing him. “You aren’t the first woman I have brought here. The other’s all hated me. They fought me and tried to get away from me. You aren’t like them. You married me, and you have never tried to hurt me or leave me.”
Renee was filled with fear. If they were different and had not made him happy, where were they? Most likely dead. She wanted to know, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
**
Lance and Darrell were in the kitchen. Everyone else was spread out in the living room. All of Renee’s friends and family along with Lance’s family were camped out in Mrs. Andrews living room. The television was on, but all of them were sleeping. Lance had put his phone on the charger, and he was standing next to it.
Darell’s phone buzzed. He looked down and saw Renee’s number. “It’s from Renee.”
Lance moved to stand next to him to see the message. They both read it to themselves.
Then they looked at each other. Lance’s phone rang, and he answered it quickly.
“It’s Irvin. I have a location. The address is a Rural route north of Greenville Texas.”
“Text it to me,” Lance said grinning. They’d found Renee, now all he had to do, was get to her.
“Was that Irvin?” Darrell asked whispering as Lance ended the call.
“Yea, he’s texting me the address. I’ll send it to Joyce on the way.”
“I’m going with you,” Darrell said as if he expected a fight.
“I already knew that. Let’s go out the back.” Lance said tucking the phone into his pocket
They eased out the door and made their way around the house and through the gate. Lance unlocked his car and got behind the wheel; he programmed in the address that Irvin had text to him. As they pulled away from the curb, he told Darrell, “We can’t tell her that we are going there. Not that she could stop us.”
“Agreed,” Darrell said as Lance called the detective on his car’s Bluetooth system.
The line rang a few times before she picked up. “James.”
“It’s Lance. Darrell got a text from Renee’s phone. The guy’s name is Victor Selby. He…”
Joyce interrupted him. “I know. We’re on our way to his place now. How long ago did you get the text?”
“Five minutes or so. How did you find out it was him?”
Joyce ignored his question. “What did the text say exactly?” Darrell read it out to her. “That’s good. He hasn’t harmed her. I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I know anything.” She ended the call. She would explain it all to him later. She wanted to get to Renee as fast as possible.
She had Ross call the local police department to have someone watch the house. Hopefully, the small-town cops wouldn’t do anything stupid. All she needed them to do was to sit a safe distance away and watch the house.
Thanks to Victor’s mother they were able to find property records from 2004 when Victor bought the house. He’d paid cash for it. They discovered that Victor owned a black van and an older model Chevy truck, registered to him at the same address as the house. He still had a shit load of money from his inheritance.
They also learned that a marriage license in the state of Texas had been issued in Victor’s and Renee’s names two days before she disappeared. In the information from his psychiatrist, it indicated that he was classified as having very superior intelligence with an IQ of 140, which was just a few points shy of genius. That alone made him an exception. That coupled with the fact that he was probably off his medication, suffering from psychosis and had medical knowledge, made him very dangerous.
Renee had been smart enough to get a message out to her family, but by that time Joyce and her partner already knew where to find him. She just prayed that Renee’s luck held out long enough for them to get to her. If Joyce were right, Victor had taken the other missing women as well. It was entirely possible that they were dead.
**
Deputy Sheriff Billy Talbourt sat on the side of the road watching the house that belonged to Victor Selby. He’d been asked just to sit there and keep an eye on the place until Detective James from the Dallas P.D. arrived. All the sheriff had told him was that the detective from Dallas thought the owner might be involved with some crime.
The sheriff said he was pretty sure they were barking up the wrong tree. Victor Selby had bought the house years ago and had never been a problem. He kept to himself, but Billy sat in the dark watching his house all the same. He was bored to death. The house was quiet. He couldn’t see any lights from the windows.
His car was hidden well within the trees that flanked the narrow roadway. Billy looked to the right as he caught a glimpse of headlights coming up the road. The car was moving quickly. As it passed, he noted that it was a white Mercedes. Billy picked up his radio. “Sheriff Walker, a white Mercedes just passed by me heading up the road to the Selby house.”
Billy waited, then the radio crackled. “Billy, no one is to get near that house until the Dallas police get there. Do you copy?”
“Copy that.” Billy looked to see that the car had pulled off the road a few yards from him on the other side.
Lance turned the engine off consulting his phone to be sure they were in the right place. “That has to be where she is. There’s nothing else out here for miles. We’ll leave the car here and check the place out and see if there is a way to get in unseen.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the police? They should be here any minute.” Darrell didn’t want to put Renee’s life in danger, but he didn’t want to leave her in that house any longer than necessary.
“I’m not waiting,” Lance said getting out of the car. Lance opened the trunk and took out a crowbar. Darrell got out when he closed the trunk, and they crept up to the edge of the property using the trees as cover. The house was at the top of an incline, and the ground was uneven. There were stones and sticks all over.
Lance was grateful for Perry bringing a change of clothes to Mrs. Andrew’s house. He got better traction in the tennis shoes than he would have in his other shoes. He hadn’t left there since Tuesday afternoon. His sister, brother, and mother had come with food for everyone and clothes for him. They stayed and did whatever they could to help. This tragedy had bonded them all together.
Nothing happened for a few minutes, and then Billy saw a man get out of the driver’s side going to the trunk. He opened it, reached inside and then closed it. In the dark Billy couldn’t tell what he had in his hand. He was joined by a second man, an African American. A few seconds later they moved through the trees going up the hill towards the Selby house.
Billy got out of his car, running towards the car. He peered inside, and when he was satisfied that no one was inside, he moved around it, following the two men through the trees as quickly and quietly as he could. Billy should have let the sheriff know what was happening, but it was too late now. He had orders not to allow anyone near the house.
Lance and Darrell moved around to the side of the house, creeping past the garden. Lance watched as Darrell edged closer to a separate building. Darrell stood, looking into the window on the side of the building. He made his way back to Lance. “It’s a tool shed. No one is in there,” he whispered to Lance.
