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  Where he skimps on his finances, he makes up for it with what he sinks into his entertainment needs. The center piece of his home is a $2500 flat screen television and a $2000

  stereo system that he uses for movie theater-like surround sound. A rack rests against the wall, lined with various DVDs. Upon his television stand sits spindles of bootlegged and burned DVDs, mostly pirated from the internet. Donnie does not watch a lot of TV, he mostly watches movies. Some of these movies, such as underground horror, are hard to find or have not been released in the current media formats, so he downloads them from various torrent sites. He also downloads the big Hollywood movies with bloated budgets and big stars. Finding that they fall flat all too often, he refuses to spend money on them.

  Kelly takes big sips from her vodka spiked orange juice as she watches the news. Donnie carefully puts the finishing 53

  touches on his joint and remarks, "I don't know how you can sit here and watch this shit."

  "I don't know how you can't."

  With chuckle, Donnie explains, "Well, it's simple my dear… I like to maintain a somewhat positive frame of mind and this shit interrupts that."

  Exhaling a sigh, Kelly replies, "Negative or not, you gotta stay informed."

  Donnie laughs, "This shit aint information… five stories running in a loop in between commercials isn’t fuckin'

  informative."

  "I agree. That's why I see what they have to say and then I look it up for myself."

  "I don't know… that seems like a huge waste of time ta me, Kel."

  "Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?"

  "Ha, ha… well look, they're full of shit spinnin' you their bullshit while you give them the ratings to keep them going…

  all you're doin' is giving them the power."

  Kelly looks at Donnie with a smile, "Aw, look at you, all growed up!"

  Donnie grins, "That's it… patronize me, but ya know I'm right."

  Standing up, Kelly digs her cigarettes out of her pocket.

  Drawing a smoke from her pack, she lights it and says, "I'm getting bored hanging around here."

  "Let me finish rolling this and we'll go out somewhere."

  Taking a swig from her drink, Kelly replies, "Nah, I mean living in this state… I really wanna get the hell outta here. I've been here all of my life and I want to see what's outside."

  Donnie scoffs, "It's the same shit everywhere, Kel.

  Different temperature, different neighbors, but it's still the same bullshit routine. I moved from Vero out to New York, to Texas and then to Atlanta… I found that Vero is my only home."

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  "Too bad for you…"

  "Hey, home is what you make it."

  Taking a gulp from her glass, Kelly shakes her head,

  "Nah, I don't buy that crap… your journey is what you make it."

  Donnie nods his head with a smirk, "Whatever you wanna believe, little sister."

  Exhaling the smoke from her lungs, Kelly replies, "How am I wrong?"

  "I didn't say you were…" Donnie says as he lights his finished master piece. Puffing a few times to get it burning, he takes two deep hits and exhales. With a strain in his voice that slowly eases with the release of smoke, he tells Kelly,

  "You keep dreamin'… I'm gonna smoke this and I wanna go do somethin'."

  "Sounds good… I'm gonna make another drink."

  Tossing fresh ice cubes into her glass, Kelly says, "You probably don't wanna get involved, but I need to know some things about Matt."

  Taking a hit from his joint, Donnie shakes his head while he rolls his eyes. Exhaling, he asks, "Why, is your sis doin'

  him?"

  "I don't fuckin' know! All I know is that she's becoming fucking infatuated with him and I just really want to know why you guys hate him… I want to know real shit, not rumors."

  "Yeah, but rumors are more entertaining."

  "Come on Donnie…"

  With a laugh, Donnie gives up, "A'ight, a'ight… the guy uses up chicks and tosses them away like their trash. He lies to 'em, sleeps with 'em a couple a times and dumps 'em; predator and prey shit, y'know? The fucker did it to Parker's little sister who was underage at the time."

  Kelly shakes her head in disgust and inquires, "How old was she?"

  "Fifteen…"

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  "Jesus…"

  "Yeah, that's why Parker loathes that fucker…" After taking another toke from his joint, Donnie ends his pause,

  "But, it's the rumors that really make us keep our distance from him."

  Taking a moment to think for herself, she does not want to believe what she is being told. Kelly scoffs, "Come on, Man… Rumors are 85% bullshit."

  Donnie replies, "Rumors have no percentage value…

  each one varies on its own merit, Kel."

  Sighing in defeat, Kelly says, "Alright… go ahead… tell me."

  Smoking half of his joint, he puts the remainder in an empty flip-top cigarette pack for later. Cutting the oxygen from the heat, it extinguishes itself without damaging the splif by snuffing it out. Standing up he tosses the pack on to his coffee table and walks towards the kitchen.

  "A couple years back there was this girl who used to hang out with us, her name was Charlie. She was a newbie in town and got herself a job working at the strip join in Fort Pierce. Beautiful girl, curves in all the right places, y'know?

  So, she meets Matt at one of Parker's keggers… the two were seen makin' out for a little bit outside and then she left with him. A few days go by and no one can get a hold of her, not long after that her body was found cut to shit in back in a ditch by the C-24 canal."

  Kelly quips, "Come on, that doesn't mean he did it, though. She was a stripper, they come into to contact with some fucked up people… maybe she went home with the wrong guy?"

  Giving Kelly a piercing gaze, Donnie continues, "They questioned three people, and one of them was Matt. There were bite marks all over her body so they took casts of all of their teeth… word is that they matched Matt's dente to a T."

  Kelly's eyes grew wide as the words left Donnie's mouth,

  "But, if he did it then why is still out?"

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  "They didn't get the signatures from the guys they were questioning so it couldn't be used in court and that was all the evidence they could find to link anyone to Charlie's murder."

  Taken back, Kelly takes a gulp from her drink. Donnie sees that she is disturbed by what he just told her, so he takes a step closer to her and calmly says, "Then again… those are just rumors anyway, right?"

  The last thing that Kelly wants to believe is that her sister had fallen for the advances of a suspected murderer.

  Slamming down her drink, she makes herself another as if the alcohol will somehow erase what Donnie had just told her.

  Not knowing how to deal with the information, Kelly begins to inch herself towards denial. She knows how much Donnie and his friends hate Matt, but she does not know how far they will go to make him out to be a villain.

  Midway through her next cocktail she convinces herself that Donnie is simply putting her on. If there is any validity to his story, then she will surely find it on her own. Almost everyone in her age bracket is a computer geek out of daily necessity. Kelly knows that all she has to do is search through the news sites in regards to Matt. Through search engines she can turn up old news articles and in theory, dispose these things as convoluted tales. While Donnie walks off into his bedroom, she keeps her disbelief to herself, hoping for a positive outcome for her sister.

  Donnie's cell phone rings, shaking Kelly from her thoughts. On the third ring Donnie answers the call, "Hey man, what's up? Sure, sure… I'll meet ya there. A'ight, see ya."

  Hanging up his phone, he looks at Kelly, "Hey, I'm meetin' Parker over at the bowling alley in a half hour, wanna come?"

  "Nah, I think I'm gonna get goin'… there some stuff I wanna catch up on."

  Donnie shrugs, "Cool, if you change your m
ind, call me."

  "Yeah, yeah I'll do that."

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  Finishing off her drink, Kelly realizes that she has completely lost her buzz. Grabbing her purse, she says her goodbyes to Donnie and heads back home. While she is driving home, the more she harps on what Donnie said, the more she needs to know the facts. She finds little room in believing Donnie and his friends, fearing that they have a vendetta against him. Her mind swims in theories as she smokes a cigarette, keeping her emotions at bay behind the wheel. Knowing that her sister is out with this man does not help her to calm her negative thoughts.

  "What could he be doing with her right now? Where could the two of them be?" she asks herself as she taps her steering wheel idling at a red light. The light turns green and she accelerates, making the next turn onto a back road for quicker ride home. Smoking in quick drags from her cigarette, she drives ten miles over the speed limit to get home in hope that she will ease her own fears.

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  CHAPTER 8

  Finishing their meal at the sports bar, Matt excuses himself from the booth and walks towards the bathroom.

  After the embarrassing ordeal, the two shifted into mindless small talk. Even though they were discussing the mundane such as music, Emma's mind never left the subject of the girl's accusations. While the two ate their lunch, the bar crowd grew by four more; two younger men and two older gentlemen. The two younger men have been watching Emma from the bar and making suggestive comments amongst themselves. With her attention completely fixated on Matt, she was unaware that she was lustful eye candy to the two lunch time drunks. They watched Matt walk to the bathroom and decided to make their move on Emma.

  The two men in their dirty work shirts walk over to Emma casually with liquored confidence. One of the men 59

  slides into the booth in front of her while the other stands at the foot of the table, leaning over her.

  "What’s your name, you purrty little thang?" the man sitting in front of her asks.

  Lifting her head up to see the men who are surrounding her, she whispers, "Emma…"

  "That's a lovely name… I'm Jasper."

  Nervously, Emma replies, "Well, uh, my boyfriend will um be back any second now and…"

  "Oh, so that's your, uh boyfriend, huh?" Jasper says with a grin.

  "Yeah… kind of…"

  "Well, sweet pea, how about you give me your phone number, that way you can talk to someone who looks like a man?"

  Looking at his greasy, brownish yellow grin, Emma's stomach starts to turn. Jasper’s friend reaches over and starts playing with her hair as Jasper chuckles in her face.

  "Come on, Girl… just gimmie dem digits!"

  Pulling away, Emma resists loudly, “No… just leave me the hell alone!”

  "How about this… what you say, when your man comes back and we take him out back and stomp the dog shit outta

  'em? Wha 'cha say? Would 'ya gimmie dem digits then?"

  With a shudder, Emma feels a chill ride throughout her body. She is hit with a feeling of total helplessness as she looks around for some kind of help. Then suddenly from behind Jasper's friend, Matt says, "How about I kick the ever lovin' shit outta the both of you right here?"

  Jasper's friend turns around and moves to throw a punch.

  Matt blocks his attempt, grabs him by the arm and slams his head off of the table next to the booth. Collecting himself, Jasper tries to slide out of the booth, but before he can get out Matt grabs his beer mug and smashes it over his head splashing beer on to Emma. Falling to the ground and holding his bloodied head, Jasper's painful screams fill the tiny 60

  restaurant. As Emma watches in shock, the manager comes over, waving a wooden baseball bat. The Manager yells,

  "That's it, you two pay your bill and get the fuck outta here or I'm callin' the fuckin' cops!"

  Matt pulls forty dollars out of his wallet and tosses on the table of the booth. As Emma shakes, Matt pulls her up by her arm and the two quickly leave the restaurant. The manager shouts, "…and I never wanna see you fucks in here ever again!" as the door closes behind them.

  Making their way to the car, Emma trembles in her steps as Matt calmly goes around to the driver's side. Emma does not know how to act about the brute force she had just witnessed. She has never had a man come to her aide in such an aggressive manner before. What she is used too is being pushed around and her lovers steering away from a fight. This display was something alien to her, leaving her shaken with confusion. Taking her seat beside Matt, all she can do is stare at him while wondering what kind of beast those two men awakened in him.

  Pulling out of the parking lot, Matt squeals his tires out on to the main road. Saying nothing, Emma relishes in the moment feeling turned on at Matt's display of violent power.

  Thinking to herself, she comes to terms with the fact that this man she is with will do anything to shelter her from those who seek to harm her in anyway. Her shock wears off and she finds comfort in Matt's brutal protection of her.

  Glancing over at Matt, she takes a deep breath and says,

  "Thank you…"

  With a nod, Matt replies, "Don't mention it… those guys were trailer trash and I wasn't about to let them do anything to you."

  Popping a cigarette into his mouth, he lights it and asks,

  "What do you wanna do now?"

  Emma smiles mischievously at Matt, "Can we go to your place?"

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  Glancing over at her, he grins at her expression, "Sure, baby… anything you want."

  Kelly walks into the quiet house and tip toes through kitchen, gathering a tall glass and filling it with ice. She quickly makes her way to her bedroom and locks the door behind her. Taking a seat at her computer desk, she reaches into the mini-fridge that sits beside it. Pulling out a half empty bottle of rum and fresh bottle of tropical punch fruit juice, she mixes herself a cocktail. With a few waves of her mouse, the screen saver turns off and she goes straight to her search engine of choice. After playing with various keyword combinations, she finally starts to get somewhere in her search.

  She starts with reading an archived report from a local newspaper dated from 10/23/2008.

  Charlie Regal, a dancer from the local erotic club Dirty Talk was found in a drainage ditch by the C-24 canal.

  Authorities have reported to us that foul play is most likely the cause of death.

  Making her way down the list of links, she finds a follow up dated on 10/30/2008.

  Charlie Regal, the erotic dancer who was found dead by the C-24 canal last week, police say was in fact dumped there. An autopsy report confirms that she died from asphyxia, death by strangulation. The body was severely cut and bitten, by who they believe to be the suspect or suspects.

  Over the next few links the articles simply report the information from previous stories. No list of suspects to be found and no mention of Matt's involvement. Kelly hits a brick wall with a sigh of relief. Just to be sure, she runs a few more searches with different words, but she finds nothing.

  Part of her is angry that Donnie would lead her on in such a way. However, she is glad that she does not find validity to his claims. With a smile on her face, she sips her cocktail and reads through the latest blurbs from her favorite news sites.

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  Irritated, Kelly sends Donnie a text message, “You liar!

  He was never a suspect!”

  He replies, “That’s what I heard…”

  “Rumors, huh?”

  A minute later he replies with, “Maybe…”

  “You asshole…”

  Donnie sends her a text back, "Sometimes… why don’t you unplug and join us at Vero Lanes?"

  Kelly smiles and types her reply, "Sure ;)"

  Emma stands before the threshold of his apartment as Matt jiggles the key to unlock the dead bolt. It is a beaten down building of twenty units on a dirt road just off of a main road named Oslo. At one time Oslo was filled with various shops, working warehouse spaces, and gas stations
. Now it is hollow reminder of what terrible economic times can bring.

  Most of the shops are dormant and the warehouse spaces await new tenets to clear away the cob webs. Some feel in due time this stretch will reclaim its rightful place again, while many stick to their doubts that are grounded in the hurtful reality that those days are gone.

  With a twist of the knob, Matt flings the door open and waves his arm by Emma, greeting her in. As Emma slowly steps inside, Matt reaches around the corner and flips the light switch on the wall. The one bed room cubby is suddenly lit up with the kitchen lights; four florescent bulbs from the ceiling fixture quickly flutter on. On the inside the scenery is much nicer and elegant than Emma had expected. He has beautiful surreal painting prints hanging from the walls and an entertainment center that is tastefully off to the corner.

  There is a covered couch and a love seat centered in the living room with antique glass end tables that sit beside them.

  Emma looks around with wide eyes and an approving grin, "You like Dali?"

  "Love 'em… I wish I could afford the actual paintings, but those go for millions."

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  Giving Matt a suggestive glance, Emma comments, "I like the sexual tones in his paintings."

  "Oh, really?"

  Batting her eyelids, she replies, "Yeah…"

  Looking over at the closed door, Emma asks, "So, is that your bed room?"

  "Yeah…"

  She begins to move towards the sealed entry when Matt asks, "Hey, do you want a drink or somethin'?"

  Stopping in her tracks, she wanders over to Matt and answers, "Sure…"

  "I have beer, vodka, rum, tequila, and bourbon… what'll you have?"

  "Surprise me!"

  As Matt prepares Emma a margarita, she watches him in lustful awe. He can feel her gaze and he knows that it will only be a matter of moments until he has her. Tossing some ice into a big plastic cup, he makes her a heavy handed mixture; four parts tequila, to two parts margarita mix.