Mental Manipulations

My sincerest apologies to everyone that has written me asking me to continue this series. I had a number of issues delaying this, not the least of which was the fact that I let what was supposed to be a minor back-story about the preacher get away from me, causing writer's block when I tried to figure out how to get back on track. I had hoped that writing the "Second Chances" series with rainbowdreamer would help, but alas, it didn't.

I finally figured out a way to deal with the preacher and get this series going again. There is very little sex in this chapter, and what is here isn't my usual sex scene. I promise to do my best to give more regular chapters, now that I believe I have my writing mojo back. I am already working on the next episode, where the preacher will be dealt with accordingly, and this series will be back on track.

*****

I gave up on trying to get the minister to agree to pay my medical bills, so I made arrangements to take care of them, but I decided to ramp up my work on him, and his wife. There was something about him that kept him on my radar.

I worked on a job over the next few days, and when I came home one day there was a large, familiar Harley sitting in front of my house, with an equally large man sitting on my stairs. Smiling to myself, I knew that Rat must have found something interesting on the good minster.

"Beer me, you ugly bastard!" was the first thing I heard as I stepped out of my truck.

"I'm surprised you didn't just break in and help yourself," I shot back as walked up to the house.

"Consider it a professional courtesy," he replied. "Besides, I never know what kind of psychotic animals you have wandering around inside."

"Seriously?" I exclaimed, laughing as I unlocked my front door. "All the shit we saw in country, all the crap that we barely survived, and you're afraid of a couple of house pets?"

"Fuck you," he mumbled in reply. "That fucking cat you had was nuts!"

"Awww. She loved you!" I replied, laughing at how my nine year old tabby, as docile an animal as I've ever seen, almost literally scared the crap out of Rat when she jumped up on his back as he was standing in my kitchen the last time that he spent time with me.

"Fuck you again," he replied, opening my refrigerator and grabbing a beer.

"Hey, asshole!" I said, seeing that he only had one beer in his over-sized hand. "What the fuck?"

"Oh. Yeah," he mumbled, handing the beer to me.

I then went to my liquor cabinet and broke out a bottle of 12 year old Jameson and we went out onto the deck, where he filled me in on what he was able to find out about the good reverend.

"This sumbitch is a piece of work," Rat growled after he downed a shot. "I'll give him this, he knows how to cover his tracks pretty well."

"But not well enough," I added, filling our glasses again.

"He's good," Rat replied. "But he's not THAT good."

A couple of minutes later, we were downloading the contents of a flash drive onto my computer. Rat told me that after he put all of the info that I gave him into the national databases and came up empty, he had to do the same with every individual state. Finally, after going through every single military, federal, and state database available, Rat struck gold.

It turns out that the good reverend was nothing more than a petty criminal. He was arrested for the first time, as an adult at least, on his 18th birthday under the name Dwight Corey, for attempted robbery. It turned out that the owner of the store that Dwight and his equally misguided nitwit buddies tried to rob was a Cambodian refugee who had lived through the Viet Nam war as well as Pol Pot, so three pimple-faced, greasy-haired kids weren't going to scare him, and he pulled out a .357 to hold them until the cops arrived.

For the next eight years, Dwight Corey was in and out of jail for everything from DUI to a three-year stint as a guest of the state for Grand Theft Auto. Within a year of his release from prison, Dwight Corey just disappeared.

Thanks to data mining, Rat was able to follow Dwight through a half dozen different incarnations, in and out of jail, but now graduated to much bigger ticket crimes like fraud and Grand Larceny. He always managed to disappear just before he was arrested.

Five years ago, Robert Smith appeared on the scene at Holly Hill, this time as a minster. A few months later, Sarah's parents were killed in a car accident that the state police investigators considered questionable, but couldn't prove anything.

"Thank the deities for facial recognition software," Rat said as he poured himself another drink. "I never would have found him without the stuff the feds have."

I paged through the contents of the flash drive while Rat continued talking and drinking. As I read, he explained how all of Dwight's crimes were small enough to not attract Federal, or usually even State, attention.

"He was smart enough to stay under the radar," Rat said. "Everything that he did was on a smaller, local scale. I had to do some major digging to find this bastard."

The more that I read, the more a pattern started to emerge. The only difference was the scale of his crimes. As I read further, I saw that he basically didn't exist for a couple of years before he appeared as Reverend Robert Smith. Within the year, Sarah's parents were dead, with Dwight taking over Sarah's father's congregation.

"So all of this is over medical bills?" Rat asked as I sat back.

"It started out as the medical bills, but it turned into more than that," I replied. "A lot more."

"I can't explain it," I continued as he looked at me silently. I COULDN'T explain it to him! I can't explain what's happening to myself, much less anyone else! "I just got a bad vibe from the guy."

"He's a religious fraud, he's a wife beater, and just a general asshole."

"He beats his old lady?" he replied. That was a major sin in Rat's world. Violence against women and kids was something that we both hated, and part of a code that we both lived by, one that had gotten both of us in trouble before. Not that either of us would change that belief... "That kinda shit ain't right."

"So, what's your plan?" he asked me a few minutes later, when I got up for another beer.

"His downfall," I replied.

Rat and I spent the rest of the day, and most of the night, drinking and catching up. Somehow, I made it up to my bed, but Rat never made it off of the deck.

The next day, I told him that I wanted to go back to the pastor's house the next Sunday while everyone was in church, and sneak back in. I had an idea to play with Dwight's head, and I was hoping to get further into Sarah's.

"Why the hell do you want to sneak in like that again?" he asked, incredulous. I knew that my plan went against everything that we knew, but there really was no other option.

"Because it worked last time," I replied. Rat stared at me for a second before he shrugged his shoulders.

"Ahh, fuck it. Why not?" he said. "Let's hear your plan."

*****

Sunday morning found Rat and myself on our stomachs in the woods behind the reverend's house at 3:00 A.M., watching the house and the church. As I expected, he had no goons watching the house or church yet, which would make the plan easier to execute.

Rat had some state of the art communications gear that he had "borrowed", so we were able to keep in touch with each other during the day. I popped open the latch on the basement window and then waited, keeping watch while Rat approached the church. A couple of seconds later, he gave me a thumbs-up and we both snuck into the buildings.

We decided that I would take a closer look through the house while Rat went through the church offices, placing some software on Dwight's computer and tapping his phone line and doing all sorts of other Rat-like stuff.

At 5:00, I heard someone moving around and I let Rat know. I hadn't found anything else useful down there, so I was just sitting in the corner of the basement at that point, waiting. Within a few minutes I heard footsteps coming down the stairs from the second floor and then going into the kitchen. From the light sound of the footfalls I knew that it was Sarah.

I tried to follow underneath her as she moved around to read her thoughts, but I was having a hard time. I could tell that she was not in a happy mood, but reading her individual thoughts was proving a little more difficult.

I soon caught a whiff of coffee being brewed, and then bacon being fried. I did my best to ignore the rumblings in my stomach as I moved around. I soon heard a heavier set of footsteps coming down the stairs, telling me that Dwight was up.

I listened as he sat down and Sarah served him his breakfast. Surprisingly, I didn't hear Sarah sit down to eat, nor did I hear any conversation. A couple of minutes later I heard his chair scrape on the floor again as he got up and started going back upstairs. He stopped when he reached the stairs and I heard him say, "Make sure that you're on time, woman. You make me look bad when you're not there early to greet my flock, and dressed appropriately!"

"And for crap sake, cover up that bruise!"

That last statement got my attention, and I really hoped that it didn't mean what I thought it did.

I slowly walked up the stairs, waiting behind the door in hopes that I could read her thoughts better as she cleaned up the kitchen. She was definitely pissed off, mostly at Dwight, and her body was achy.

A few minutes later I heard Dwight coming back downstairs. As he reached the landing, just on the opposite side of the door from where I was standing, I heard, 'I hope that fat dumb bitch is on time! I need to get my rocks off before I go on!'

"I'm leaving, woman," he barked. "I have work to do before the morning services."

"I hope you learned your lesson last night," I heard just before the front door closed.

Without another word between them, Dwight walked out of the house. I quickly warned Rat that he was about to have company, and then listened for Sarah.

'Work, my bruised ass. I hope you get VD from that whore!'

A couple of minutes later I heard her go up the stairs, and then the shower turned on. I quietly slipped through the door and walked up the stairs. I walked past the bathroom door, trying to peek in at her in the shower, and into her bedroom.

Looking around her room quickly, I saw a long skirt and a blouse hanging on her closet door, telling me that her closet was a safe place to hide and read her as she got ready.

A few minutes later I heard the water shut off, and then she walked into her room. Peering through the slats, I saw her lean body just a couple of feet from me, wrapped only in a towel. I watched her as she stepped over to her dresser and pulled open a top drawer.

'How's this for appropriate dress? Is your whore dressed appropriately?' she asked as she pulled out an ivory-colored lace thong. She looked through her drawer a little more and pulled out a matching bra. These were definitely not the type of underwear that she was wearing the last time I was here.

As I watched, Sarah turned towards her bed, unwrapped her towel and dropped it on the bed. I felt my eyes widen and I caught my breath as I looked at her body. Sarah had a huge bruise on her left side, just a couple of inches below her breast as well as a big bruise on the outside of her left thigh. She was also moving gingerly as she got dressed.

'Bastard!' I heard as she put her bra on and adjusted it. 'He's lucky that I didn't memorize that electrician's phone number! Oww! Damn it!'

I watched silently as she got dressed and made her final adjustments in the mirror before she went downstairs and then left the house. I let Rat know that the house was empty and then waited a couple of minutes before I stepped out of the closet.

I went back up to the attic and started looking around when I heard Rat's voice come through my earpiece. "Dude, this is one strange motherfucker we've got here," he told me. "He just spent the last hour in his office doing some kinky-ass shit with a woman I wouldn't let my dog fuck."

"I've seen some of the women you've been with," I replied. "That's saying a lot!"

"Did you find anything?" I asked.

"I haven't looked through the office yet," he said. "I was busy setting up all of my toys. I do think that it's interesting that he has one hell of an industrial-type safe in his office."

"Yeah, he's got a .45 in his night stand, too," I replied as I continued looking through the attic.

"He's got a .357 in his desk," Rat said a couple of minutes later. "This is one seriously paranoid dude!"

I smiled to myself, knowing that Dwight was about to discover a whole new level of paranoia. "Wait until he discovers that he's missing a round from his cylinder," Rat added. "It's a bitch finding that out at the last second!" hearing that made me smile even more, knowing that we were on the same wavelength after I did the same thing to Dwight's gun in his nightstand.

"See what you can find in his safe," I told him. "I'll talk to you back at the house."

I spent that next hour or so searching the house for hidden stash spots but came up empty. Rat notified me that the services were ending, so I wrapped up my search and found a spot to hide in Dwight's bedroom, as he would be my main target tonight.

After a couple of seconds, I realized that hiding under his bed was the best spot, especially considering what I had planned for Dwight.

Just as last time, Dwight and Sarah came in the house together and almost total silence followed. Even without my newfound abilities I could feel the tension between them. To my surprise, they both left a few minutes later in Dwight's car. Right after that, Rat contacted me again.

"I just saw them leave," he told me. "If you're done there, come into the church. You need to see this."

I snuck out of the house through the basement window again and started walking to the church when a car came down the drive towards the lot. I stood behind a corner of the building and watched as one of Dwight's security goons stepped out of the car. He then started towards the church.

"You've got company," I told Rat. "One of Dwight's security is heading your way."

Rat gave me a double-click, and as the goon walked in the front of the church, I slipped in the same way Rat did. I then silently walked down the hall and hid around the corner from the office, thinking that was where he was going. After a few seconds I heard his footsteps coming down the stairs and watched as he entered the office.

I couldn't see what was going on in the room, but I could hear things moving around, and then a soft metallic thunk, telling me that the goon was in the safe. I quickly and quietly snuck down the hall and used a small mirror to peek into the room and see what he was doing. As I watched, the goon slid out the shelves at the top of the safe, revealing a hidden compartment. The goon then reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of very small items and put them in the safe, replaced the inner sleeve, and locked the safe back up.

He turned and started walking out of the room when I sent him a message. 'Write down the safe's combination.' I told him.

The goon stopped momentarily and then walked back to the desk. He pulled out a stack of sticky notes and wrote down the number and then stood at the desk, looking confused.

'Leave it there, and forget that you did that,' I sent.

He stood there for a second before shaking his head and then leaving. A second after the front door was locked from the outside, I heard Rat's voice softly on the earbud.

"20," he said, asking my location.

"Office," I replied.

Seconds later, Rat came down the stairs from the sanctuary. "The meat is gone," he told me.

"He put something in the safe," I told him. I discreetly slipped the combination into my pocket, keeping it for later.

"Damn," he replied. "I was looking through his vestry before the meat showed up. Why the hell would a minister need hidden cameras, and a bench that sure as hell ain't no kneeler, in his vestry?"

"And before you ask, no, the cameras didn't catch me. He's got them controlled by a commercial grade DVR in the closet."

We then went up to the vestry and he showed me what he found. Dwight had the room wired not only with a half-dozen cameras, but as I examined the room closer, I found that he also had a few microphones hidden, including one in the bench that Rat pointed out, which definitely was NOT a kneeler ... at least, not one that is normally used in a church.

Looking at the angles of the cameras, I was starting to get an idea of what Dwight was doing, and it definitely was not Christian in manor. Not knowing how long Dwight and Sarah would be gone, I didn't want to risk either of us getting caught, so I sent Rat back to my place, telling him that I had more recon to do, and I would see him in the morning.

'What are you up to?' I heard him ask as he looked at me. He then agreed, and after I gave him my keys he slipped out the back of the church.

Once he was gone, I went back down to the office. Using the goon's note, I had the safe open in seconds, and immediately found another .45 auto sitting on the top shelf.

After releasing the round from the chamber and pocketing it, I looked into the hidden compartment. Here I saw a stack of discs in sleeves and a few thumb drives. I pulled out the discs and saw that all of them were labelled with a woman's name and a date. Attached to a couple of thumb drives were sticky notes with similar info.

I immediately made plans to come back with a lap top and copy as much of the data as I could. Looking at my watch though, I knew that I couldn't risk any more time in the church so I carefully put everything back together as I found it and slipped out of the church and back into Dwight and Sarah's house.

I was back in the house about an hour when Dwight and Sarah came home. More odd silence between them followed as I heard Sarah start cooking and Dwight came upstairs, where I was hiding under his bed.

From that vantage point, I watched as he took off his shoes and his pants then dropped to the floor.

'Damn, that bitch gets wild on Sunday mornings! I thought she was going to break my dick off inside her fat ass!' I heard.

'Too bad that uppity cunt downstairs is so damn stubborn-minded. She's not a bad fuck either. She's just too damn smart, and smart-assed, for her own good! Otherwise this would all be a hell of a lot easier!'

'Maybe she needs to have an accident, too.'

I then watched his feet and ankles as he walked out of his room and into his bathroom, where I heard the shower start up seconds later.

I lay under his bed for a few hours as I waited for Dwight to go to bed. To my amazement, the only communication that I heard between the two of them was when Dwight growled and barked orders at Sarah. Sarah, for the most part, didn't speak unless she was responding to him.

After dinner, Dwight left again and I listened to Sarah as she cleaned up downstairs. I knew that she would be going to bed before Dwight, so I slipped into her closet again while she did the dishes. A short time later Sarah walked into her room and I watched her from the closet once more as she got undressed.

She was still moving gingerly as she took off her clothes, and I saw the bruise on her ribs was darker than it was that morning. 'Damn! He got me good that time!' I heard as she looked at herself in the mirror.

Standing in front of her mirror in only her bra and panties, she looked at herself for a couple of minutes. She then groaned as she reached behind herself and unclasped her bra. She complained quietly to herself about her bruises as she continued looking at herself in the mirror after she slid her panties down her legs.