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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 06/15/2017
Blackmail
Born 1964, F, from Gordon, ACT, AustraliaNick and Katrina
“Everyone’s got secrets. Just depends on how much it’s worth to someone to keep it secret.” Nick leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.
“So … what? We shove random blackmail notes into people’s letterboxes and hope for the best? Doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me.” Katrina crossed her arms and waited to be convinced.
Nick leaned forward again. “So here’s the plan. We go for a walk around the rich houses, see what information we can pick up, and … I dunno, personalise each blackmail note.”
“That’s the great plan? Wander around and see what we can see?” Katrina was still not convinced.
“It’s probably easier if you come for a walk, I’ll show you something you’ve probably never noticed before.”
It was a nice evening for a walk. The fading sun stained the sky in gorgeous pastel shades of salmon and pink. A gentle breeze carried jasmine scented warmth. The view from the hilly suburb was stunning, and Katrina felt a simple envy for those who were privileged to live here and take it all for granted.
Nick suddenly grabbed her arm, making her jump. “Look at their letterbox,” he whispered in her ear.
Katrina looked at where he was pointing and shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
Nick sighed. “They’ve got their names right there on the letterbox! S & S Rawlins!”
“Okay, so how does the blackmail note go? Dear S Rawlins … How do you know if you’ve got the right S Rawlins?”
Nick sighed again. Katrina felt like slapping him.
“We’ve got their surname and address, we look it up on the internet, and BANG! We’ve got names! So then we’ve got Dear Mrs Whatever Rawlins. And look a couple of doors up, what do you see?”
Katrina shrugged. “A landscaping van. So what? They’re probably getting some landscaping done.”
Nick shook his head. “Nah, think about it. Who gets landscaping done this time of night? And their garden’s established, why would they get more work done?”
“Because they’re rich assholes and they can?”
Nick laughed. “You mark my words, the owner of the business lives there. Duncan’s landscaping. We Google the company, Google the phone number, whatever. We find out the owner’s name and there you go. Another personal letter.”
Katrina felt the first seeds of excited anticipation. This could actually work … if they were going to do it, that is. Were they? Were they really considering it? Despite herself, she could feel herself being pulled into the game.
“Okay, I’ll play along. So Mr Duncan gets a letter telling him we know his secret. Then what?”
Nick thought for a minute, walking in silence. “I guess we set up a drop point, meet them there. We get there early, make sure they haven’t brought anyone. They give us the money and we go our separate ways. We should think out a disguise. Maybe fake tattoos, you show some cleavage. Give them something to remember in case they go to the cops.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Nick veered towards a letterbox with the corner of an envelope sticking out of the slot. It turned out to be an electricity bill in the name of Ms Miranda Paton. He took a quick picture and shoved the envelope back into the letterbox.
Katrina finally spotted one for herself. “Hey look, James Bolton, Veterinary Clinic. That could be one, right?”
“Hell yeah! See, there’s four already, just on this street. I reckon we nail down a plan, then do it for real. We’ll take pictures now, check it at home. Then just do it.”
Katrina’s heart beat faster, and she felt a little breathless. “Do you really think we can get away with this?”
Nick shrugged. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Sonia Rawlins
Sonia read the note again. There was no mistake, no misinterpretation. She was being blackmailed. The envelope had been addressed to Mrs Sonia Rawlins, but what if her husband had collected the mail? What if he wanted to know who was writing to his wife? What if he had just opened the damn thing himself? Sonia felt a little faint as she re-read the words that were already etched in her brain.
“Dear Mrs Rawlins” the note read.
“You have a big secret that we happened to find out about. We don’t really want to do this, but we desperately need money and you’ve got it. We want $5000 cash. Bring the money this Thursday night at 10pm and meet us at Woodlands Park bbq area. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t stand us up. I’m sure you don’t want anyone else to know what you’ve been up to!!”
How had they found out? Sonia wondered. She had been so discreet, or so she thought. Maybe someone had seen Harold sneak in through the backyard? Maybe Harold had told someone? She would probably never know. The important question now was … how the heck was she going to get hold of $5000? She had a couple of thousand dollars hidden in a tampon box in the bathroom, but that was all she had.
She agonised over the problem for the rest of the day, her imagination bouncing around increasingly bizarre solutions. The simplest, most obvious answer eventually came to her that night.
She looked her husband in the eye and said, “Stephen, I’m having an affair.”
Stephen finished what he was doing, and rolled off his wife. “I know,” he said. “So am I.”
Harold Duncan
Harold Duncan of Duncan’s Landscaping considered the blackmail letter with distaste. He didn’t know how they had found out about his affair with Sonia Rawlins, but he didn’t particularly care if the secret came out. Maybe Sonia would finally leave that asshole husband of hers and they could be a proper couple.
He had until Friday night to decide what to do, but his mind was already made up.
He screwed the letter into a tight ball and handballed it into the garbage bin.
Goal. Five points.
James Bolton
The veterinarian felt sick to his stomach. He read the blackmail letter over and over again. Printed words and phrases doubled and tripled through the prism of his tears.
“You’ve been a bit naughty, haven’t you, James … $5,000, 10pm on Saturday … or we’ll expose your little secret …”
He thought back to earlier in the year, when someone had broken into his garage. He’d thought at the time that it was just kids, but now he wasn’t so sure. Whoever it was had obviously found his stash of “Barnyard Love” magazines and decided to cash in on his secret shame. And the photos that were hidden with the magazines! Graphic photos taken with his own camera of consensual acts of love between himself and his patients.
If his clients ever found out about his activities … Lord, it didn’t bear even thinking about. His business would crash and he would go bankrupt for sure. It wasn’t even impossible that he might end up in jail! Oh God, he couldn’t begin to imagine the humiliation if this ever became public. It would kill his mother just as dead as if he knocked her over the head with a nail-studded baseball bat.
Nausea churned in his stomach and he walked quickly to the toilet, vomiting as quietly as possible so he didn’t wake the old bitch up.
There was no question that he would pay the money on Saturday night.
Nick and Katrina
Nick looked at his watch. Quarter to ten. He was feeling a little deflated that his big plan was going so badly.
Katrina fidgeted beside him, her breasts bulging from her low cut top. There was no way anyone was going to notice her face, but she had applied heavy makeup just in case, and wore huge dangling hoops in her ears. Her supermarket perfume was overpowering, and made Nick sneeze.
“What if no-one comes tonight, either?” She whispered.
“Well we knew that not everyone was going to pay up. But even if we snag just one or two out of the ten, it’s not a bad return for a couple of week’s work.” Nick sneezed again and hoped his watery eyes didn’t smudge the teardrop “tattoo” carefully drawn in black ink under his right eye.
They fell into a bored silence, then stiffened and grabbed at each other in fear and excitement as a car swept into the carpark and stopped. The headlights went out, plunging all the players into a quiet darkness.
The driver just sat there until they both felt their nerves were going to snap. Then at precisely ten o’clock, the car door swung open and the veterinarian stepped out and looked around, peering into the shadows.
Katrina was shaking with nerves. “I don’t think I can do this,” she hissed.
“Come on, it will be over in a few minutes. Just look menacing. Sexy but menacing.”
They approached the man, who was now holding out a shopping bag in trembling hands. “Here,” he whispered. “Please just take the money, please don’t tell anyone about … you know.”
His tears glistened in the moonlight, and Katrina felt like the lowest lifeform on earth. Still, five grand was five grand.
She took the bag, quickly peeking at the contents. So that was what $5,000 looked like. Not really that impressive, and it quite frankly smelled like damp dogs. She closed the bag and looked at the vet.
“You’ll never hear from us again, I promise. But I sincerely hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I reckon I have.” James scratched his head and thought for a moment. 'I really need to find a better hiding place.'
Tony and Miranda Paton
Miranda paced the floor, the blackmail letter clenched in her fist so only the top lines of text were visible.
“Dear Ms Paton. You have a secret and we know what it is. If you want it to remain a secret, you’ll …” The rest of the letter disappeared into angry creases.
“How could anyone find out about this?” She asked for the twentieth time. “We were too careful, it’s impossible!”
Tony watched her, his calm discipline a counterpoint to her angry energy. “It wasn’t addressed to your real name. It’s probably a hoax.”
Miranda turned on him. “It doesn’t matter what name they used,” she hissed. “And we can’t just presume it’s a hoax. What if they really did see something? Anyway, of course they’re going to address it to the name I’m using at the moment. We are NOT losing half a million bucks because of some two-bit thieving mongrel blackmailing …” She ran out of words and glared impotently out the window.
Tony took a sip of his iced water. “Don’t sweat it, babe. We’ll take care of these jokers, finish the job, maybe have a holiday.”
He finished cleaning and reassembling their guns.
“We’re just about the best assassins around. Those morons won’t even know what hit them.”
Blackmail(Hazel Dow)
Nick and Katrina
“Everyone’s got secrets. Just depends on how much it’s worth to someone to keep it secret.” Nick leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.
“So … what? We shove random blackmail notes into people’s letterboxes and hope for the best? Doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me.” Katrina crossed her arms and waited to be convinced.
Nick leaned forward again. “So here’s the plan. We go for a walk around the rich houses, see what information we can pick up, and … I dunno, personalise each blackmail note.”
“That’s the great plan? Wander around and see what we can see?” Katrina was still not convinced.
“It’s probably easier if you come for a walk, I’ll show you something you’ve probably never noticed before.”
It was a nice evening for a walk. The fading sun stained the sky in gorgeous pastel shades of salmon and pink. A gentle breeze carried jasmine scented warmth. The view from the hilly suburb was stunning, and Katrina felt a simple envy for those who were privileged to live here and take it all for granted.
Nick suddenly grabbed her arm, making her jump. “Look at their letterbox,” he whispered in her ear.
Katrina looked at where he was pointing and shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
Nick sighed. “They’ve got their names right there on the letterbox! S & S Rawlins!”
“Okay, so how does the blackmail note go? Dear S Rawlins … How do you know if you’ve got the right S Rawlins?”
Nick sighed again. Katrina felt like slapping him.
“We’ve got their surname and address, we look it up on the internet, and BANG! We’ve got names! So then we’ve got Dear Mrs Whatever Rawlins. And look a couple of doors up, what do you see?”
Katrina shrugged. “A landscaping van. So what? They’re probably getting some landscaping done.”
Nick shook his head. “Nah, think about it. Who gets landscaping done this time of night? And their garden’s established, why would they get more work done?”
“Because they’re rich assholes and they can?”
Nick laughed. “You mark my words, the owner of the business lives there. Duncan’s landscaping. We Google the company, Google the phone number, whatever. We find out the owner’s name and there you go. Another personal letter.”
Katrina felt the first seeds of excited anticipation. This could actually work … if they were going to do it, that is. Were they? Were they really considering it? Despite herself, she could feel herself being pulled into the game.
“Okay, I’ll play along. So Mr Duncan gets a letter telling him we know his secret. Then what?”
Nick thought for a minute, walking in silence. “I guess we set up a drop point, meet them there. We get there early, make sure they haven’t brought anyone. They give us the money and we go our separate ways. We should think out a disguise. Maybe fake tattoos, you show some cleavage. Give them something to remember in case they go to the cops.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Nick veered towards a letterbox with the corner of an envelope sticking out of the slot. It turned out to be an electricity bill in the name of Ms Miranda Paton. He took a quick picture and shoved the envelope back into the letterbox.
Katrina finally spotted one for herself. “Hey look, James Bolton, Veterinary Clinic. That could be one, right?”
“Hell yeah! See, there’s four already, just on this street. I reckon we nail down a plan, then do it for real. We’ll take pictures now, check it at home. Then just do it.”
Katrina’s heart beat faster, and she felt a little breathless. “Do you really think we can get away with this?”
Nick shrugged. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Sonia Rawlins
Sonia read the note again. There was no mistake, no misinterpretation. She was being blackmailed. The envelope had been addressed to Mrs Sonia Rawlins, but what if her husband had collected the mail? What if he wanted to know who was writing to his wife? What if he had just opened the damn thing himself? Sonia felt a little faint as she re-read the words that were already etched in her brain.
“Dear Mrs Rawlins” the note read.
“You have a big secret that we happened to find out about. We don’t really want to do this, but we desperately need money and you’ve got it. We want $5000 cash. Bring the money this Thursday night at 10pm and meet us at Woodlands Park bbq area. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t stand us up. I’m sure you don’t want anyone else to know what you’ve been up to!!”
How had they found out? Sonia wondered. She had been so discreet, or so she thought. Maybe someone had seen Harold sneak in through the backyard? Maybe Harold had told someone? She would probably never know. The important question now was … how the heck was she going to get hold of $5000? She had a couple of thousand dollars hidden in a tampon box in the bathroom, but that was all she had.
She agonised over the problem for the rest of the day, her imagination bouncing around increasingly bizarre solutions. The simplest, most obvious answer eventually came to her that night.
She looked her husband in the eye and said, “Stephen, I’m having an affair.”
Stephen finished what he was doing, and rolled off his wife. “I know,” he said. “So am I.”
Harold Duncan
Harold Duncan of Duncan’s Landscaping considered the blackmail letter with distaste. He didn’t know how they had found out about his affair with Sonia Rawlins, but he didn’t particularly care if the secret came out. Maybe Sonia would finally leave that asshole husband of hers and they could be a proper couple.
He had until Friday night to decide what to do, but his mind was already made up.
He screwed the letter into a tight ball and handballed it into the garbage bin.
Goal. Five points.
James Bolton
The veterinarian felt sick to his stomach. He read the blackmail letter over and over again. Printed words and phrases doubled and tripled through the prism of his tears.
“You’ve been a bit naughty, haven’t you, James … $5,000, 10pm on Saturday … or we’ll expose your little secret …”
He thought back to earlier in the year, when someone had broken into his garage. He’d thought at the time that it was just kids, but now he wasn’t so sure. Whoever it was had obviously found his stash of “Barnyard Love” magazines and decided to cash in on his secret shame. And the photos that were hidden with the magazines! Graphic photos taken with his own camera of consensual acts of love between himself and his patients.
If his clients ever found out about his activities … Lord, it didn’t bear even thinking about. His business would crash and he would go bankrupt for sure. It wasn’t even impossible that he might end up in jail! Oh God, he couldn’t begin to imagine the humiliation if this ever became public. It would kill his mother just as dead as if he knocked her over the head with a nail-studded baseball bat.
Nausea churned in his stomach and he walked quickly to the toilet, vomiting as quietly as possible so he didn’t wake the old bitch up.
There was no question that he would pay the money on Saturday night.
Nick and Katrina
Nick looked at his watch. Quarter to ten. He was feeling a little deflated that his big plan was going so badly.
Katrina fidgeted beside him, her breasts bulging from her low cut top. There was no way anyone was going to notice her face, but she had applied heavy makeup just in case, and wore huge dangling hoops in her ears. Her supermarket perfume was overpowering, and made Nick sneeze.
“What if no-one comes tonight, either?” She whispered.
“Well we knew that not everyone was going to pay up. But even if we snag just one or two out of the ten, it’s not a bad return for a couple of week’s work.” Nick sneezed again and hoped his watery eyes didn’t smudge the teardrop “tattoo” carefully drawn in black ink under his right eye.
They fell into a bored silence, then stiffened and grabbed at each other in fear and excitement as a car swept into the carpark and stopped. The headlights went out, plunging all the players into a quiet darkness.
The driver just sat there until they both felt their nerves were going to snap. Then at precisely ten o’clock, the car door swung open and the veterinarian stepped out and looked around, peering into the shadows.
Katrina was shaking with nerves. “I don’t think I can do this,” she hissed.
“Come on, it will be over in a few minutes. Just look menacing. Sexy but menacing.”
They approached the man, who was now holding out a shopping bag in trembling hands. “Here,” he whispered. “Please just take the money, please don’t tell anyone about … you know.”
His tears glistened in the moonlight, and Katrina felt like the lowest lifeform on earth. Still, five grand was five grand.
She took the bag, quickly peeking at the contents. So that was what $5,000 looked like. Not really that impressive, and it quite frankly smelled like damp dogs. She closed the bag and looked at the vet.
“You’ll never hear from us again, I promise. But I sincerely hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I reckon I have.” James scratched his head and thought for a moment. 'I really need to find a better hiding place.'
Tony and Miranda Paton
Miranda paced the floor, the blackmail letter clenched in her fist so only the top lines of text were visible.
“Dear Ms Paton. You have a secret and we know what it is. If you want it to remain a secret, you’ll …” The rest of the letter disappeared into angry creases.
“How could anyone find out about this?” She asked for the twentieth time. “We were too careful, it’s impossible!”
Tony watched her, his calm discipline a counterpoint to her angry energy. “It wasn’t addressed to your real name. It’s probably a hoax.”
Miranda turned on him. “It doesn’t matter what name they used,” she hissed. “And we can’t just presume it’s a hoax. What if they really did see something? Anyway, of course they’re going to address it to the name I’m using at the moment. We are NOT losing half a million bucks because of some two-bit thieving mongrel blackmailing …” She ran out of words and glared impotently out the window.
Tony took a sip of his iced water. “Don’t sweat it, babe. We’ll take care of these jokers, finish the job, maybe have a holiday.”
He finished cleaning and reassembling their guns.
“We’re just about the best assassins around. Those morons won’t even know what hit them.”
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