The Franklin Project

By Debrah D. Dennis

Being the product of heroin-addicted parents, Caron Tucker's childhood was far less than ideal. Her parents had a seemingly endless supply of drugs that left her on her own to fend for herself from an early age. Suffering violent, personal attacks for years causes Caron to take self-defense courses which later help her land her dream job.

Shelly Carson's story is a little different though equally incredulous. She was shuffled through foster homes until she was permanently placed with Father Tony, a sadistically abusive man. Shelly runs away as a teenager and learns boxing skills that help protect her from her past. When Shelly, too, finds her dream job, their two paths collide. But is it really a dream job? Or is there something more sinister going on?

This Baltimore, Maryland–based thriller will take you on a journey to both domestic and foreign places in the quest for answers for Caron Tucker and Shelly Carson. Two young women forced into unthinkable roles, who somehow managed to turn the tables and exact the ultimate revenge in the story's shockingly violent conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646547654

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

About the Author

cover.jpg

The Franklin Project

Debrah D. Dennis

Copyright © 2020 Debrah D. Dennis

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

ISBN 978-1-64654-764-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64654-765-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the women who survived trauma when they had no control or choice. We did survive, and we do go on. But we can also find comfort in imagining revenge.

Acknowledgments

A special thank you to Nik Dubish for his amazing and unselfish help in editing this novel.

Chapter 1

Caron

Caron pried up a loose worn board under a chair in her kitchen to grab some money for her trip to work. She had not trusted anyone in a very long time and learned to conceal everything of value, even her day-to-day cash. She needed to make the 11:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. shift at the grocery store across town but had overslept her alarm.

Caron's abused body needed the extra sleep after her most recent encounter yesterday evening. She had battled two men wielding what appeared to be brand-new claw hammers. She had been walking home from the corner store on an unseasonably warm fall evening when they snuck up behind her and tripped her to the ground, pounding her arms and legs to subdue her quickly. She watched through dazed eyes as the contents of her grocery bag spewed on a strip of grass between the road and the sidewalk.

The men then picked her up and carried her down an alley behind the old run-down row homes of her neighborhood with intentions of doing more harm. It was there that Caron seized her opportunity to gain control. When they were satisfied with the location, they released her, and in that split second, Caron jumped up and disarmed one of the attackers. Her reaction was so swift that it took the men by surprise. All three watched as a bloody hammer bounced off the ground before landing at Caron's feet. She quickly stooped down and scooped up the hammer.

Man number one immediately fled. Caron turned to face man number two with that bloodied hammer now as her weapon. The second man swung to strike Caron, but she sidestepped his attempts until she was able to grab his wrist and pound her hammer on his hand. He howled loudly in pain as he released his grip on the hammer, which fell with a bounce in the same manner as the first. Caron released his arm, and he, too, fled as though he were the victim.

Having defeated her attackers, Caron went down the alley and back around to the front of the row homes. She leaned against one of the old oak trees that lined the street for a moment to calm her racing heart and collect her wits. The evening air felt much hotter as she wiped the sweat from her forehead and refocused her eyes. She would not let her guard down again. On the ground next to the tree where she rested lay her groceries. She tossed aside the bloody hammer she still had in her grip and scooped the groceries back into the torn plastic bag.

Her wrist and leg throbbed with pain as she slowly limped herself the few blocks home over the broken-up sidewalk of her neighborhood. There were people on their front porches smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit, and Caron wondered if any of them were aware of what just occurred.

She realized they might have seen her throw the bloody hammer to the ground, but she ultimately didn't care. People in her neighborhood always minded their own business when it came to street violence. Caron walked on, also minding her own business.

Caron pushed away the self-pity again. She had already assessed her bruised hands and knew there would undoubtedly be questions at work. No one ever believed her explanations, so she stopped telling the truth about her attacks. Instead, she offered different excuses each time, like she was a battered spouse: I tripped on the steps, I slammed my fingers in the door, I fell off my bike, etc. Surely her coworkers believed she had an abusive boyfriend by now, but it beat hearing the snarky remarks that she made up another story, probably just looking for attention, probably just lonely, quite the imagination on that girl. None of which was helpful and only further alienated Caron, who fought to keep from going into the depths of depression. She had accepted long ago that she would always be on her own to deal with these attacks, but that did not make things easier.

As Caron rose from the kitchen floor, she realized it was not just her hands that were sore, her whole body hummed with slow, throbbing pain. She opened the cabinet above her kitchen sink to get a bottle of ibuprofen and popped four into her mouth, hoping to ease the discomfort before work. She knew she would have to suck it up if she was to make the 10:30 a.m. train to Owings Mills and her job at the Shopper's Supermarket there. Being late again would mean a write-up and another ding to her employee record. Something she needed to avoid almost as much as the street men. She needed this job badly.

Caron poured coffee into a to-go cup and grabbed a pumpkin muffin and ran out into an overcast fall morning with leaves falling like a gentle rain. The breeze and leaves soothed her soul, as she loved this time of year. The wind whipped up her short blonde hair, making her 5'4" frame appear taller and indeed she did feel taller after the previous night's victory. She felt a small rejuvenation of her spirit with the chilly morning air after the warmth of last night. A sure sign that Mother Nature's last breaths of summer were being exhaled.

She managed to make the train just as the doors thudded closed. Settling into her seat, she began the process of thinking through her workday. She knew a new shipment of fruit had arrived that needed to be shelved. She wondered how bad the broccoli and green beans would be as they were high-volume sellers and on sale this week. Later in the day, she would need to sanitize the potato bins as apparently, someone saw mold underneath and reported it to the store manager. Breezing through the door with a fake smile in place, Caron greeted Ms. Kelly at the register and began her day.

Caron made her way back to the produce cooler where she loaded a cart with squash to restock the shelves. She was pushing it through the swinging doors when Eddie, her coworker, bumped into her. Caron let out a small whimper, and Eddie pounced as she knew he would. She immediately regretted whimpering as Eddie would always ask her questions designed to figure out her homelife. She fully realized Eddie thought she was abused and was unable to bring herself to tell him her truth.

Caron, what's going on? Looks like you smashed your hand again. You okay? Eddie asked.

Caron smiled and said, Of course. You know me, the store klutz, then pushed past him onto the store floor.

He followed closely beside her and said, You do know that if you ever need anything, I'm here for you, right?

Caron turned and looked at her handsome tall coworker and said, Eddie, you are a worrywart. Go back to work. She laughed to add authenticity to her statement and moved along to stock the squash.

Enquiring eyes bore down on her back as she walked away.

Eddie was a good guy, and Caron felt sure she would have asked him for help had domestic abuse been her issue. She wished it were. Then at least she would know what was coming. Caron managed her workday without any more whimpers and punched out promptly on time.

Chapter 2

Later that night, as she lay in bed, Caron wondered, as she had so many times before, Why me? What makes me such a desirable target?

She thought about that first trip to the corner grocery store to buy milk when she was nine, almost ten years old.

The store was only a couple of blocks away, but Caron felt like a newly independent girl being allowed to go alone. She was surprised her mother would even permit this, but Caron supposed she was now old enough to be trusted on her own. She was lost in the excitement and was skipping along the familiar pavement when an older boy pulled her into an alley and punched her so hard in the belly that she lost her breath. He stole her money and made her take off her clothes and stole those too. Her protest was met with another fist, so she lay whimpering in the alley naked, ashamed, and scared. Caron could never forget that feeling of not having control over her own self.

Later when the police and doctors were done, Caron returned home in the back of a police car with her mother. She longed to feel the security of her father's embrace, but that would not happen. Instead, her parents sent her to bed still crying and confused. They declared sleep was all she needed to feel better. Caron found them the next morning zoned out on the sofa, high once again.

Even at an early age, Caron understood her parents had a drug dependency issue. She tried desperately to shake her mother awake then her father, but both were completely unresponsive. Feeling utterly lost and alone, Caron went back and lay on her bed, terrified and crying until she fell asleep again.

For many years to come, sleep would be her only escape. It provided Caron the solace she did not get from her parents after any of her attacks. In her sleep, no bad guy could hurt her. Caron would not allow them in. Instead, she learned to deliberately dream of a happy life, one where she could eat cake any time she wanted or could have a soft and cuddly puppy to crowd her in her small bed at night.

Caron liked it best when she dreamed of both her parents holding her hands and walking down the middle of an amusement park. They would be looking up in awe at all the lights and sounds the rides generated, deciding which ride to try first. She had heard her classmates talk about the fun they had at Kings Dominion, and she wished desperately her parents would take her. But it never happened.

Caron's parents were vile and disgusting and, to put it bluntly, trash. They were both heroin addicts with sporadic periods of sobriety that never lasted more than three or four months. Caron would live for those in-between months when her mother would cook a real dinner or fix a lunch for her to take to school or even do her laundry. Caron would deeply love her mother during those periods only to have her heart shattered once again. And it always seemed to Caron that when she needed them the most, they would be strung out and oblivious. She had learned ways to cope on her own after every attack over the years, and by the age of sixteen, she no longer had love for her parents.

Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Caron began to plan for her escape from home and the ugly life she felt she was trapped in. In her gut, she knew the change was necessary for her mental health and her desire to be happy. She decided to steal any cash she could find the next time she found her parents strung out, and she would get away. At the time, Caron was uncertain of what her destination should be but knew she needed to put a plan in place. She opened the map app on her phone and randomly decided she would go southeast and be a beach bum. Her thought process was Why not? At least she could see the ocean and listen to its calming waves crashing the shore whenever she wanted. She would find a job that did not require previous work experience, like cleaning hotel rooms or waiting tables. That settled, she knew she needed to wait for the right opportunity.

To hell with them, she thought at the time.

William and Sonya Tucker were worthless human beings and even more worthless parents.

The following week, Caron had another random attack that she once again had to deal with on her own. Being raped for the third time took its toll on Caron, and it was the last straw for her and her parents. She had her plan in place and was ready to act.

The next morning, Caron clearly saw her opportunity as she watched her parents dance around their small row home to unheard music, high again. She rummaged through her mother's dresser and found a large stash of hundred-dollar bills. Without hesitation, she peeled off ten for herself.

She stuffed only what was necessary of her belongings into a duffel bag, along with the money she stole, and let the screen door slam loudly as she left, knowing her parents couldn't care less. In truth, her parents were too high to realize she was even in the room, much less that she was leaving.

Caron walked to the nearby metro stop and hopped on a southbound train. She rode to the end of the line and walked the rest of the way to the Greyhound bus terminal. There she bought a one-way ticket to Ocean City, Maryland, part one of her plan accomplished.

Easing into her seat, Caron let out a sigh of relief. She was sure this was the beginning of something great. It had to be. She needed it to be. She searched for cheap hotels on her phone and settled on one at the southern end of town.

I wonder how long my phone is going to work before dear old mom cuts it off? she wondered.

Indeed, her mother did cut the phone off within the week. But by that time, Caron managed to get a job that paid under the table at a restaurant and soon replaced it with a pay-as-you-go phone. She also managed to find an apartment to share with three other girls.

Caron kept her head down and earned money that she carefully hid behind the small refrigerator of their efficiency apartment. She saved as much as possible over the 8 months, but there was never much left after rent and food. Having only $750 saved, she finally realized she needed to return to Baltimore and find a real job. But she lost all her savings the day she returned to Baltimore, her cursed city.

Caron was ill prepared for the sudden attack just four blocks after she got off the bus. She lost all her funds with her clothing in the duffel bag. Luckily, she had her phone in her pocket, so she was able to call the police. They gave her a ride to the station to report the mugging and sadly made her realize it was not likely she would see the money again.

She was feeling defeated, again. The old lack of control over her life feelings came pouring back. The detective was very sympathetic and suggested Caron should check out a women's shelter nearby. Feeling desperation taking hold, she took the detective's suggestion and walked the six blocks to the old armory building that housed the shelter.

The women who ran the shelter were incredibly helpful to Caron, who in turn was enormously grateful. She needed a break. They gave her some clothing to hold her over and found a bed for her to sleep at night. A couple of days later, they advised her of an open position at the Shopper's Supermarket for the produce department and that the store was not too far uptown in Owings Mills. Caron was just nineteen then, and seven years later, she still worked at that Shopper's.

Chapter 3

It was five and a half years ago, when Caron was twenty, that she vowed to herself to become deadly. She would have to harden her resolve and learn to defend herself so that she would no longer be a victim. She wanted to rid whatever look she had that made her a target and transform into someone you didn't want to mess with. She worked extra hours whenever possible at the Shopper's to afford this defense training and took it very seriously.

Her journey of learning to skillfully fight back was working as her last two attacks were decidedly big victories. Caron smiled, knowing she was finally taking control of her own safety and essentially her own life. She looked forward to putting an end to being a victim and felt she finally had the means to do this. Or at least she was pretty damn close.

RAM's Gym was in a strip shopping center near Caron's apartment. RAM got its name from the owners, Reggie and Mike, and was furnished with newer equipment and offered excellent self-defense classes. The owners prided themselves on having well-maintained equipment and a clean gym environment, which was appealing to Caron. Caron entered the gym, her second home these past few years, and began her warm-up on a punching bag.

Reggie Jones was Caron's primary strength and conditioning coach. Reggie was a bald Black man, short at 5'5", but as strong as an ox from years of working the weights. He had kind eyes and a heart to match. Nothing seemed to delight him more than his six-year-old daughter, Olivia. At least once a week, he would pull up pictures or show a video of her on his phone to Caron. Caron loved that side of Reggie. She didn't have that kind of affection growing up and was always an eager viewer. Reggie was also a curious man and sought to learn trivial things. Most of these things he stored for later use to provide examples as he trained his athletes.

One day, he shared a story of how he once bet on a cockroach race because he had read somewhere that the darker-colored ones were significantly faster than the paler ones. Clearly, that was not true as he handed over a hundred dollars when the pale cockroach ran a crooked path but still crossed the finish line first. His example meant to support the saying, You can't judge a book by its cover.

But when it came to Caron, nothing was trivial to him. He understood Caron's desire to not only feel safe but to ensure her own safety.

Reggie worked Caron hard as he had once worked himself hard for similar reasons. Reggie had been bullied when he was younger because of his size. As a kid, he was scrawny and always the shortest one, but he had been determined to stop the bullying by bulking up, which of course, he did.

After a brief break from the weights and conditioning, Caron headed back to Mike Heller for the second half of the day's training. Mike was undeniably the lethal half of this training team.

Being a former Navy SEAL, Mike had the best of the best training with hand-to-hand combat and the technical skills Caron desired to have herself. Mike was a tall White man, strong but not muscle-bound like Reggie.