Un-Merciful Heart

This is the third installment of the 'Un-Break My Heart' sequels. Yes, I know that "unmerciful" isn't hyphenated. It is called literary license. The same rules apply. If you are looking for a happy ending sorry, many things don't end happily. Read a fairy tale, (as long as it isn't the Brothers Grimm). While this is not a Loving wife story, it does continue the events which were first chronicled there. It was added for continuity. Un-Break My Heart was a dark vignette and I just can't get around a happy ending for it.

To the reader: I have taken a different tact from most others in writing this. In most stories, the person the protagonist is cheating with just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Most times their actions are seen solely as a lustful consequence of actions known to us; performed by the male or female protagonist without any real consequences befalling the convenient cock or pussy. I don't happen to share that view. They are now actors and not just acted upon. They are now an integral part of the story and shouldn't be allowed to just exit stage left when Janet and Dan kiss and make up or when Harry and Joyce decide to try a more open arrangement. No, they need closure too. What if Joyce doesn't want to be a cum bucket for Tom? What if Wilma really likes that meat she's getting fed and decides to break up the marriage, kids or no kids? (shades of fatal attraction) What if, God forbid, Harry gets a real case of the ass over being relegated to second cock or in some cases no cock? Should Tom get out of jail free? No consequences for Wilma or Ted. Also, I wanted to explore the concept of the sexual predator, the predator that seeks out vulnerable relationships, as well as the predator who hunts for the most vulnerable of us. They are out there. So is Turner

Again, thanks to Patricia51 for allowing the "use" of a character or two to lend a sense of place and time. Thanks to the readers who liked the original story and those who didn't. And special thanks to the editor: LadyCibelle. I hope you weren't kept awake too many nights!

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Deputy Inspector Pat Gibson was rushed. This wasn't particularly surprising. Her position as backup Children's Protective Services liaison officer for the Sheriff's Department frequently kept her rushing from one place to another, one case to another. Add to that the normal case load of a working inspector, the ubiquitous paperwork, and the demands of a working wife and mother and one would normally expect to find her rushed. What was unique this time was that she was on time. Her husband, Mike Gibson, now head of the Tactical Response Unit had called her to sit in on the briefing on the whereabouts of a missing person, Daniel Turner. Normally, this would have not been within either's scope of duties but the Gibson's had been the filing officers that rainy night Turner had been admitted to County General and both had developed an interest in the man's case.

Turner had been brought into County Hospital, broken, sobbing and rain soaked. In deep shock, all anyone had been able to get from the man was the run-on expression "un-break my heart" over and over until the combination of drugs and exhaustion overcame him. Turner was placed under observation and later sent to the state-run sanitarium where, after six months of treatment, it had been decided that he was functional enough to leave. Upon his release, the senior hospital administrator had sent an advisory to all local PD as well as the Sheriff's Department to keep the man under loose observation. The only known contact had been a brief meeting between Turner and his wife, now undergoing divorce proceedings. The next day Turner had disappeared.

She turned the corner stepped into the interview room where she and the other officers involved in Turner's disappearance were to meet. Pat Gibson was greeted by the grinning presence of her husband.

"Hey, you made it!"

Pat looked around at the empty room. "So where is everyone? "

Mike came around to where his wife stood next to the door. "They are probably on their way. But you know we could put this time to good use," he teased and reached his arms around her.

"Mike, in the station?" she exclaimed.

Her husband smiled into her face. "Why not? I thought that we might refine our frisking techniques"

She laughed throatily. "You are frisky enough as it is! Ohhh!"

The door came open and banged into her knee and the face of Lieutenant Linda Shannon peeked through the aperture. "Why don't you two get a hotel room?" she admonished without stepping into the room.

"Because you never give us two consecutive days off together," Mike explained. "Damn, I almost forgot! I do have a piece of information on Turner while we are here!" He reached across to the table next to him and pulled a file from his duty board roster. With flourish he announced, " Voila! Turners DD214, or parts of it. A good portion was blacked out before it was given to me."

Pat looked at her husband and frowned. "Let me guess? Special Forces? Seals?"

A look of concern crossed her husband's face. "Nope. I wish it were that tame."

"Psy Ops?" his wife asked. "What the hell is that?"

"Psychological Operations. Military Intelligence. These folks are trained in how to fuck with your head and never lay a hand on you. In a week they can have you jumping at your own shadow. Give them 2 weeks and you will kill your best friend if they ask you to. Three weeks with them and you will kill him and eat the body. A month and you will do anything they ask. Very hush hush and deep black ops. These folks give the guys over in Spec Ops nightmares. Turner worked for them for 15 years in one capacity or another before he married and came to live here."

Lieutenant Shannon took the folder and looked it over. "And this is relevant how?"

"Well, if we see a man playing solitaire with a deck of cards and muttering to himself we'll know who to look for," he explained with a shrug.

Linda gave him a playfully disgusted look. "Well, I hate to bring this up but I need Pat"

"So do I," Mike complained.

Pat gave her long suffering husband a reproachful look. "What do you need, Lieutenant?"

"A cowbell hung around her neck?" Mike offered but no one acknowledged the observation.

"Pat, the vice-principal, Mr. Simmons, over at Fraser Middle School in Dale just called. There has been a guy coming by checking out the kids while they are out during their lunch break. He believes it's Leonard Strickland. Can you go check it out for me? My usual person is in court this afternoon."

Without a pause, Pat moved off past the lieutenant. "On it." She stopped as her husband called her name.

"If it is Strickland, have the vice-principal give Tactical a call next time," he grinned.

She smiled at her husband. "Will do. That will just make his day!"

The man sat eating his lunch watching the children play. The yard of Fraser Middle School was not usually filled in early March but the slate of warm temperatures had brought the youngsters out. The man bit into a moist ham sandwich he had made that morning, as he scanned the yard. His eyes fell on a girl leaning against a school wall. Her hair was long and blond, surrounding a small oval face. Her body was still slender, her breasts only just beginning to hint at the fullness to come. She had placed one foot against the wall, carelessly revealing the crook of her knee and a length of slim thigh.

Washing the bite down with a swig of Pepsi, he noted that no one came around her. She stood alone, watching the others at play; mindful of her solitude. He took another thoughtful bite of the sandwich. He could use that. She was probably a new student, he guessed. She hasn't yet made friends or formed a cadre of companions. He watched as the girl smiled wanly as a group of boys raced past her, yelling something. She watched them for a moment then peered down at her feet. The man nodded to himself. Yes. This could very easy. And she was the perfect age.

He set his sandwich down and opened a small packet of potato chips and began munching thoughtfully. The urge was still there. The drugs and treatments had taken the edge off but his body still needed release. He had tried to assuage that need with older women. He had even had an affair with a married woman several months ago before her husband had walked in and caught them. He smiled at the memory of the look of shock on the husband's face followed by revulsion; he had taunted the hubby about the husband being the last to know. The husband, because he certainly was no man, had just turned and fled. But even that episode had soured. The cops had started coming around, a prospect the man on the bench didn't need. This was followed quickly by the Department of Social Services nosing around. He had dropped the woman quickly after that. And she had been a great fuck with the added benefit of having two succulent little girls of her own.

"Get up, Strickland," came a harsh voice from behind. Strickland set down his lunch, rose and turned. His eyes met the stony gaze of what was obviously a sheriff's female plainclothes officer. She was perhaps 5'5' with dark hair. Her expression was one of quiet disgust. Behind her stood a mousy man who Strickland knew to be a vice-principal of the school.

"Come around here; you know the drill." She said as he came around and assumed a position leaning on the back of the bench. "Get your feet back." She began a pat down search.

"Strickland, you know you aren't allowed within 500 feet of a school. What are you doing here?" she continued. "This violates your parole. I can run you straight back to prison. Is that what you want?"

He looked back at her from over his shoulder. "I wasn't doing anything but eating my lunch. Can't a man have a little lunch outside on a day like this without the cops harassing him?"

Gibson had just finished checking his pockets when she looked up at his face. "Yeah, a man can, Strickland. But you are no man. You" she said shoving her finger into his chest to emphasize her point, "You are a piece of shit. Shit should stay in a sewer. As I recall, we asked you nicely to leave town."

He resumed his position. "I can live anywhere I want as long as I notify the PD of my whereabouts. I did leave where I was living. You and DSS/CPS saw to that. That could be called harassment. What more do you want."

"Citizens can be harassed, Strickland, not shit." Pat Gibson looked at him levelly. "Why are you are still in our jurisdiction, Strickland? We want you out of the country but we'll settle for out of the county. It is a good thing Mr. Simmons here saw you and recognized you from our flyers. No telling what you would be up to by now."

The two stared at one another for a long minute. They knew the next one to speak lost.

"So are you going to arrest me?" He asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. But, I will be watching you. Sooner or later you will screw up big time and I can bust you and send you back for something other than violation. Now get out of here and do not come back. If you are found here again, Mr. Simmons has orders to call the lieutenant of Tactical." She smiled. "And you have no idea how much my husband would love to get that call."

Strickland retrieved what was left of his sandwich and began walking back to his place of work, aware of the pair of eyes boring into his back from the office.

What he was not aware of, what none of them was aware, was a fourth set of eyes watching his progress. Less than one hundred feet from where the man had been sitting another man stood observing the entire encounter. He had not moved from his spot since Strickland had seated himself outside the school twenty minutes previously. The watcher was of average height and weight with a slender whip cord body. Dressed chinos, a blue polo shirt and deck shoes, he appeared like any successful dot-com professional out taking a walk from any set in the industrial park two blocks down the street. His dark hair was cut short and neatly combed save for the comma of dark hair which came down over his right eye. Their expressionless gaze held on Strickland until he turned the far corner before stepping off in the same direction.

Leonard Strickland made his way down the hall to the cube he shared wit another worker at the receiving dock of BioMetric Pharmaceuticals. It was old and worn with the stains of years of use in shipping and receiving. He sat down in a worn swivel chair and began counting the containers for the shipment going out to the Seattle office. The work was boring and the pay was terrible but he was always frugal so he had been able to make ends meet with a little left over for his weekend "activities" as he liked to call them. This had been the best job he could land after leaving his former employment where he had worked as a sales representative. That had been a dream job. Nice surroundings, free coffee and a supervisor who had spent more time banging away the tired old sack of flesh he called his assistant that he did paying attention to the floor. That was where he had met the Turner broad and since then, events had been on a decided decline. Not that he blamed her. With his record it had been lucky to find this job. But, after having been pulled in twice for questioning after the husband had disappeared things had become a little strained at the company and Strickland had decided to leave.

Most of the people he had worked with knew he had been banging Sheryl Turner and he made no attempt to hide it. He flaunted it in fact. She had a nice body, big natural tits with huge nipples. She loved to have them sucked. Nice legs and a pretty firm round ass for a woman her age. But there had been two things he really loved about her. One was her clit. He had never seen one like it. When she got excited it would stand out away from her pussy like a miniature cock. He had loved that; she did dearly love to come. She had complained that ever since her "weak–assed", that was her term for him, husband had begun climbing the corporate ladder he hadn't had the time she wanted him to have for her. Which had been a lot of crap, Strickland knew. She had just wanted cock, and a lot of it. And Strickland, with 9 inches of prime Kansas beefsteak had been just the man to give it to her.

The second thing Strickland relished was that she had two daughters and paid little attention to either of them. When Strickland had heard about the daughters he had worked harder at getting the mother into his bed and he into her home to see just what was available. The plan had almost died in stillbirth when on his first time at her house he had been feeding it to the mother. She was a yeller when her time came; she was just reaching her peak when he looked over and saw the middle girl, looking around the corner. Strickland kept up the pace and smiled, reassuring the child that mommy was just fine. The kid turned and left. When they were finished, Strickland had expected to see them in the living room but they were nowhere to be found. They had obviously made their own way back to the sitters next door.

Then the bottom fell out of his design on the night the husband had come home. Strickland couldn't resist taking a jab at the poor cuckolded son of a bitch. He had almost felt sorry for him. The guy was out working hard to provide a better quality of life for the wife and there she was, legs in the air giving it up for the first guy with a big cock. When he had run out, Strickland had tried to restrain her but she was pretty upset by then. It finally dawned on her that her chuck wagon was rolling away and she had called the police. When they arrived he had had to sit in the bedroom waiting for them to leave. While waiting, it came to him that he had left his raincoat laid out on the sofa to dry. The sheriff's investigation eventually turned him over. He had been pulled in for questioning twice. His management at work was beginning to look at him as more a liability than an asset. By that time, a confluence of factors: a husband in a state institution, the wife nagging Strickland about his promise to marry her, and the police and CPS were almost camped outside her door and his work reexamining his viability caused him to take action. He dumped her and made plans to change places of employment. It wasn't until a few days later that several of the sheriff's finest came by and suggested that he leave town. He did.

Strickland took a clipboard of completed order forms from his desk. Beneath them he saw the manila colored envelope used to house inter-office memos. On the front was a double row of blank lines where one could fill in the addresses name. Several names had been crossed off already indicating that it had been used several times. The remaining name was his. He frowned and picked it up. He spilled the contents onto the desk. They consisted of two prints from a digital camera. The prints were taken that day at lunch. The first was of him alone sitting on the bench eating his lunch. The second was of him and a short dark haired woman facing one another. Strickland recognized it as he and Gibson from lunch that day. On the back of this was note contained one line in precise handwriting; Today. There was no signature.

Shaken, Strickland spent the next couple of days quietly. He did not go out to watch the school at lunch nor did he go out in the evening for a beer as he usually did. Instead he watched and waited. Occasionally he would get a glimpse of movement or a snap of sound but these he chalked up to nerves. He took a different route from his usual for the next two days. He paid attention to co-workers and their interest in him.

Each time he came back to his desk expecting another envelope. The first day, the envelope appeared. If contained a photo of him purchasing a coffee at Starbucks. The next day another arrived. It illustrated his entrance to work. The message was clear. His biographer was familiar enough with Strickland's life that changing a single aspect would have no effect on their ability to track him. If a man needs to be at point A at a certain point at certain time, how he arrived there was of little importance. After the third day no further envelopes welcomed him.

After a week, he believed it was safe to return to the school. He had decided that the envelopes and their contents had most likely been supplied by a member of the Sheriff's Department and sent to un-nerve him. It hadn't worked. Just that afternoon he had made a first cautious contact with the young girl. Pretending to be a visiting parent he had opened up a conversation and discovered several facts. The girls name was Deidre and she had just transferred to the area from a school in the northeast. Her mother had divorced just two years previously from the girl's father. Strickland was delighted to find that the girl had been upset at the move due to the fact that she had adored her father. Strickland knew that this too could be worked into his favor. At first he had toyed with the idea of approaching the mother. He knew she worked at BioMetrics as he did but quickly rejected the idea. The taste of the Turner woman was still fresh in his mouth.

It had been surprisingly easy. The girl was a latchkey kid and lonely. After his initial meeting he managed to arrange two other meeting. By the third, he had convinced her to accompany him to a mall the following Thursday night as her mother had to work late on a project. He set his plans and waited.

Thursday night arrived and Deidre Simmons smiled as she contemplated her reflection in the mirror. Her mouth set in a frown as she noticed a small patch of red begin to form on her forehead. Damn! What a time to get a zit, she thought. Her first date and she was getting a pimple. Well, she corrected herself. It wasn't really a date. Mr. Davis was really much too old. She had really been flattered when he had asked her to meet him at the mall to help him pick out a pair of shoes for his niece's graduation from middle school. Men really had no taste in clothes. He had told her about how he had noticed how well she dressed and wanted her help. At least he paid attention to her; not like her mother. Since the divorce her mother had been too busy to pay attention to her or anyone except her job; and her father was 800 miles away. He still called her though; still called her his 'green–eyed girl'. She missed her father.