Circling Carousels (15 page)

Bonnie was surprised at his vehemence. She couldn’t work out why he wanted to keep something so badly he hadn’t taken notice of before. It seemed the cruel Sawtell blood ran in his veins, too. Now he was probably going to keep Crystal as his concubine, own her, torture her, and then and only then would he let her go. It seemed he was doing it just to vex her, and Bonnie didn’t understand his horridly spiteful attitude. All she had accomplished was to draw attention to Crystal, to heat up Jason’s lust for the one girl someone else wanted.

Chapter 21

M
arcus remained unchanged. He did the same things he always did, but now every single thing annoyed Sienna beyond anything she had ever felt. It amazed her how her blood boiled, how the passion of anger raced through her like a wild animal. She had never felt this way before. She wanted to destroy him, hurt him, and watch him writhe in pain just as she had
been in pain.

It was okay, though. Sienna wouldn’t have to do anything. Undercover drug police were all over Marcus, watching him, listening to him, and keeping tabs on his every move. It was only a matter of time now and the police would pounce on him. Elsie giving the emails to her nephew, Zach, was only the beginning. They had wondered which rock the owner of the drug and prostitute ring lived under, and although they had been watching the organization, they couldn’t pinpoint who the lead man was until they received the emails. In themselves they weren’t enough, but they were a good start. Their appetites were tantalised, and their lust for the blood of this man was stirred up. They were gathering evidence, and Sienna, even though she
didn’t know it, wouldn’t have long to wait for the grand finale of their days together.

In her diary, Sienna wrote all of her thoughts. She hoped and prayed Marcus would never find this journal she so carefully hid. She would only ever write in it when she was completely sure he was away, and she wrote with one ear listening all the time for his car or the creaking of the front door. She wrote long entries, not holding back her feelings. Once she had written of love, of the glow of her feelings for this man. Now she wrote of the dark emotions that had eaten away at her love for him and showed her that she had been blinded by her childish ignorance and her desire to feel something good in her life. The journal depicted a rollercoaster ride of feelings. The diary was hidden under the bed, under the loose carpet square and then under the floorboards and inside a box with old letters and birthday cards inside. The chances of Marcus ever finding it were very unlikely, but still she was very careful always to make sure she put it away long before the time he usually came home. For a long time, this book was all she had, her only outlet for her emotional journey, and she guarded it with her life.

Dearest Diary, God, I hate him touching me now! I hate the way he makes my skin crawl. When I look at him now, all I see is my mother in the alley, bruised, all messed up, and no longer able to move. And I see Crystal on the streets, being sold for money, giving herself to just anyone who has a few dollars, just like mum did, and it almost kills me.

I want to grab her, hold her, and tell her to come home with me. I want to fix her, help her, and I want to have her back so much!

Marcus doesn’t suspect a thing. He still thinks everything is all right. I think about killing him. I think about hitting him and bruising him the way he did to my mother. I hate myself for what I’ve become. I hate that I have lost everything because I fell for him! I wish I could take it all back! Please let me see Crystal again. Let her be okay! She is all I want.

Sienna began frequenting the street where she first saw her sister, and although she returned time and time again, night
after night with Elsie, she didn’t see her there again. She called Bonnie, and although the story of where Crystal was now caused the madam so much personal pain to tell, she just had to be honest with Sienna. The next afternoon at the end of the school day, the black town car came to pick her up and take her to the big house. Bonnie was waiting in the foyer as she had heard the car come up the drive.

They held each other tightly, and Bonnie said she was sorry before she even told Sienna what had happened. Jason stood out to Sienna as the evil one in the story, and even with Bonnie taking all the blame, Sienna could see the truth. In some ways, she felt Crystal would be a bit safer in the company of only one man. If he was pleased with her, he may keep her well for a long while. She shared this with Bonnie, who admitted she hadn’t thought of it that way. They talked for over an hour, and by the end of their time together, they had resolved that even in a worst-case scenario, Crystal had to be better off than before. Bonnie would wait for the five months to pass and then speak with Mario Sawtell fresh from his European holiday. Surely he wouldn’t be pleased with his younger brother for deliberately upsetting a fellow industry giant. In her daydreaming, she saw Jason admonished and forced to make the sale she had requested. It was still four and a half months away, but if Sienna was correct, until Jason grew tired of her, Crystal would probably be lavished with gifts and treated better than in years.

Bonnie was grateful to Sienna for showing her the other side of the penny, and she saw in the young girl a wisdom beyond her years. She was proud of her, like a mother would be proud of her special daughter. If only Candice were here to see how well her girl had grown up.

Elsie had mixed feelings about the story, but as Sienna had thought, within a short eight weeks, Crystal was on the arm of Jason Sawtell and shot by photographers with captions describing her as his new and very beautiful girlfriend. Inside the
Daily News
on page four—the entertainment section—there was a photo spread of socialites out and about at posh restaurants, gala events, and fundraisers. There she was, with the best of
them, her sister, looking gorgeous, well groomed, beautifully made up, her hair a golden cascade of curls, and dressed to kill. “Now that’s more like it!” Sienna exclaimed as she took the paper into Elsie. The housekeeper looked proud and happy, and then she looked pale and frightened. “What happens when Marcus sees this?” she asked.

Unbeknown to the lovely woman and her young friend, Marcus was highly unlikely to see the paper that day or for a while again. He hadn’t come home that night. Sienna hadn’t noticed, except that now at breakfast time, he was nowhere in the house, his bed was perfectly made, and his keys, phone, and overcoat were still gone from their usual places.

“We will have to pretend we didn’t see it, and he will never show us the pictures so everything will be okay,” Sienna ventured. Elsie said, “Well, he certainly doesn’t want you to know anything about Crystal. He thinks you’ve lost interest in finding
out what’s going on with her, so he’s not going to say a thing.”

Meanwhile, the whole day and night and then halfway through the next day went by before they found out where Marcus was. Elsie and Sienna were in the room with the massive television, enjoying the freedom while he was away, watching a favourite old movie with the surround sound booming. On the coffee table sat Elsie’s mobile phone. It vibrated and lit up. Worried it may be Marcus, she sat bolt upright in concern until she saw who the caller was. She answered it, and Sienna muted the movie. She certainly wasn’t trying to hear the conversation, but Sienna could tell that Elsie was excited. After about two minutes, she asked the caller to repeat what he had told her while on speaker phone so Sienna could hear, too.

The caller was Zach, Elsie’s nephew, who Sienna had not yet met, and his message was wonderful. In short, he said that Marcus had been apprehended two nights ago while working and was caught in the middle of a well-orchestrated and long overdue bust of his organisation. Marcus had been charged with a string of felonies and was to go to court the following week. The evidence was overwhelming, and it was unlikely he would receive less than two life sentences. He had been denied bail, as
the magistrate believed he would be able to raise any sum no matter how high the amount. He was a flight risk and no amount of financial penalty would stop him from leaving the country, so they kept him locked away and under tight guard.

Zach was careful to tell Sienna and his Aunt Elsie that this was not at all official, and maybe he shouldn’t be telling them, so they should keep this quiet. Elsie’s nephew was sure things would take a turn for the worst because as the story unfolded and as the evidence was sorted through, Marcus was less and less able to come up with anything to help his case. His lawyer was requesting a deal be made in return for Marcus naming names and testifying against others. The district attorney would not have it and was standing by his decision to go to court and let the full force of the law decide Marcus’s fate.

The phone call came to a close, and Zach, feeling he had done the right thing with the news, went to bed and slept well. The two women jumped up and down in each other’s arms and danced around the theatre room. Then they raced each other to the kitchen for ice cream to celebrate. There was no topping this news, so they went to bed, too, but before she slept, Sienna wrote a short entry, with absolute joy, in her journal, and then she didn’t hide it as she had to before; she just put the book away in the bedroom drawer and turned off the light.

I have to write it down, Diary. I’m so tired, but I have to write! He’s gone! Marcus is gone! I never have to see him, touch him, or let him touch me ever again!

It feels so good to be free and yet I’m scared. I haven’t had to be alone before.

He’s always been there, but I don’t care. He deserves to rot in prison. He ruined my life and now I get to start again! I get a new beginning, and I’ll make a new start with Crystal, maybe with Elsie, too! I can’t wait until I can be totally sure he can’t get to me again!

I need to sleep, but I am so very happy! Thanks to everyone who helped set me free! Thank you, Elsie, thank you, Zach, thank you, policemen and detectives! I love every one of you! Gotta sleep now!

Sienna’s dreams were still full of fear and dread, but when she awoke in the early hours of the morning, the lovely girl felt like a massive weight had lifted from her shoulders. This was the freedom she had longed for these last months and years, and she felt blissfully happy!

Chapter 22

B
onnie was really irritated. The little scum, Jason Sawtell, had had the audacity to turn up on her doorstep to thank her
for alerting him to Crystal’s presence in his life. He found her a marvellous companion, and now that he had dried her out and done her up, she was the perfect piece of arm candy and was a photographer’s dream. She wasn’t bad in bed, either, he brazenly informed her. Bonnie wanted to slap the smug smile off his face, but he turned away and walked back down the steps before she had the chance.

Week after week, Jason was in the paper at all the high-end social events, and on his arm was the blonde beauty, and no one knew from whence she came. Before Sawtell found her, she was nobody, so the tabloids were unable to trace her lineage or drag up her past. It sickened each one of them, Bonnie, Elsie, and Sienna, that she was a mere seventeen and he was forty-one years old, but this was nothing compared with the news of one month later when Jason Sawtell proposed to his young girlfriend and only out of fear, Crystal agreed to become his wife.

Bonnie was sure this would be the undoing of Jason. His brother would put a stop to this madness when he returned to the country. There was no way the great Mario Sawtell would allow his brother to marry a former streetwalker. To avoid the embarrassment, he was sure to give in to Bonnie’s demand to buy the girl from him. Besides, it was almost certain that Jason would tire of her by then; in fact they all held the view that if the cameras weren’t watching, he wouldn’t have stayed with her this long. He was a social climber and the lure of the media was enough to make him do almost anything, even if it could do his family and the business great harm. If it was ever discovered that Crystal Carmody had such a questionable past, the carefully built Sawtell kingdom could very well come crashing down around them all.