by Dobi Cross
“I noticed that the glass I picked at first was chipped so I had to grab a new one,” she lied.
“Make sure you change the whole set tomorrow.”
“I will,” she said as she handed the glass over to him.
Drake looked at her for a moment, assessing her.
She hid her discomfort and smiled, placing a hand on his thigh and squeezing it. She saw his pupils widen in anticipation of the pleasure to come. He quickly downed the water and grabbed her in a firm grip. As she whispered sweet nothings into his ear, his grip weakened and eventually slacked off.
Susie laid him back gently on the couch and listened to his chest. He was still breathing. She pinched him, but he barely responded. Good.
She switched on the music. It was a waltz piece that she liked to dance to with Drake. She had been surprised to learn that Drake loved to dance, and this music was one of his favorites. It would mask the noise well.
She headed to a large window in the guest room at the back of the apartment and opened it. The man was waiting. He climbed into the apartment with an extra large suitcase and carried it into the living room.
He didn’t say a word to her. She understood. He detested her for what she had done to him.
She helped him stuff Drake into the suitcase as soundlessly as possible, all the while looking at the door. She was a little afraid of Tiny and couldn’t imagine what would happen if he barged in.
The man was grunting heavily as they squeezed Drake’s legs into the suitcase. He looked thinner than the last time she had seen him. Maybe he was sick. But she didn’t ask. It wasn’t her business.
The man dragged the suitcase back to the window, pushed it onto the fire escape, and then followed after it.
Susie closed the window but did not lock it. She went back into her kitchen and poured powder from a second packet into the remaining water in the bottle and shook it. She picked up the empty packet and the items she had stuffed under the towel and hid them in a small crevice behind the refrigerator where they would not be found.
She washed her hands and then poured the water from the bottle into a second glass for herself. She drank the water and then laid on the couch as she waited to drift into unconsciousness. She had done her part.
The rest was up to him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Zora opened her eyes to see herself in a dark musty room. She tried to move but couldn’t. Her hands and feet were strapped with metallic cuffs to a stainless steel table, and her body felt weak. She wriggled her feet; they were bare and nudged a glass beaker placed next to a stainless steel surgical bowl. The beaker didn’t break.
She was fully clothed. That was a relief. Her throat tingled from the faint scents of formaldehyde in the air. She figured she was in a medical or a science building. She glanced up and shivered; a large cleaver knife loomed over, held up by a modified body scale that hung from the ceiling.
Her heart pounded as she recalled what had last happened. She had been injected with some substance and kidnapped by Pickles.
There’d been no time to alert anyone. They didn’t know she was missing. Maybe Ted wouldn’t realize she was gone. He might just assume she was sleeping. And it might be too late by the time Christina came back from work and raised the alarm. She wasn’t sure what would happen to her now, but she might not get out of here alive.
Tears pooled in her eyes.
After a moment, she lifted her chin. Her life could not be over yet. She was a fighter. She had to find a way to escape.
She blinked back the tears, and her neck creaked as her eyes darted back and forth for any escape options. She could see she was in some type of basement. There were some rusty-looking surgical type equipment along the walls and the corners of the room. An outdated autopsy sink ran across the entire left wall. Most likely a medical building then.
There was a narrow window high up on the wall above the autopsy sink. Even if she managed to break free of the cuffs and by some miracle was able to reach the window, there was no way she could squeeze through it. So that option was out. This was the one time Zora wished she was slender.
There was a large steel door on her far right. It looked solid and dense. She couldn’t breach it without a key. So that escape route was a no go.
The sound of a metal instrument clattering on a hard surface echoed in the room.
Zora’s head jerked upwards in the direction of the noise. A man stood hunched over a table, his back to her. He was wearing a black hooded jacket with the hood thrown back to reveal steel gray hair chopped in a crew cut.
Zora stiffened, and her eyes widened.
The man seemed to sense her eyes on him and he turned to look at her. It was Alfred Pickles. The janitor. The man who had pointed the case in her direction. The man who had made her life miserable for the last few days.
Her face tightened, and she ground her teeth. She wished she had never met him at the Gross Anatomy lab.
His face was cast in stone and had deep furrows as if they had been excavated. Black eyes devoid of emotion stared back at her. A set of bandaids were splayed across his nose.
“It's you!” Zora said.
The man stayed silent.
“Where am I? Why did you bring me here?” she demanded.
Pickles laid down what he had been fiddling with and headed in her direction.
When he reached her side, he said in a dry voice. “So you are awake.” His dark soulless eyes stared back at her.
Zora shivered. Panic rose in her throat and she struggled against the restraints. “Get these off me!”
“Don’t waste your energy,” the man said. “You won’t be able to break free. And no one can hear you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“From you? Nothing. I just needed you to stay out of my business. I warned you to stay away! But you couldn’t, could you?”
Zora’s breath left her at the smoldering anger in his eyes. She didn’t understand why the guy hated her. She was the victim here.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. It was more important she stayed alive than argue with him. She had to distract him for as long as possible. Something. Anything.
She swung her gaze back to the area he had been working. A silver picture frame rested on a table adjacent to it. It was the same picture that had been in the news report. Anna Hammond.
“She’s beautiful,” Zora said.
The man followed her gaze. Zora could see the longing and agony on his face.
“She was the light of my life. And those monsters took her away from me,” he said.
“You mean Professor Oakley?”
“Him and all the others. Drake Pierce, Calvin Faulkner who covered for him in exchange for a new job, and Martha Adams, who squelched the harassment report just for the sake of a promotion. My daughter was nothing to them. And they made sure she never got another job. But it only got worse after that. She found out she could no longer have children. She was damaged from the rape. They ruined her life!”
The man grabbed the beaker at her feet and threw it against the wall. It ricocheted off the bare surface and shattered on the concrete floor, tiny crystals dispersing everywhere.
Zora shrunk into herself. The man shook with fury. She needed to be more careful.
“And my little angel changed,” Pickles continued in a faraway voice. It was like he was no longer with Zora but somewhere else in his memory. “Gone was the bright cheerful girl. She became so withdrawn and fearful. All her friends and co-workers abandoned her. And there was nothing I could do to help her. Nothing I said worked. I failed her.”
Zora saw the anguish reflected on his face. She knew that look. She had felt that way when her sister disappeared.
“So she lost hope and killed herself. Do you know that rapist bastard had the guts to come to her funeral?” The muscles in Pickles’ jaw twitched. “He was there laughing and drinking like nothing happened. I couldn’t believe it. My daughter wa
s lying dead in a coffin while that bastard was having a good time.
“The police couldn’t do anything. There was no evidence.” Pickles’ face morphed into anger. “Nothing. Zilch.”
“A month later, I got a note sent to me at work that my daughter’s rape kit had disappeared after Professor Oakley visited the forensic lab. I traced the person who sent it, and he told me what happened. He had seen Professor Oakley removing it. He had been afraid and resigned after it happened, so the police hadn’t known about it.
“And then I heard about Martha Adams’ promotion and Calvin Faulkner’s new job right after Anna’s death. Anna had mentioned their names after she first filed the employee complaint. They had moved on with their lives like nothing happened! And that’s when I swore I would make them pay for their sins. And they needed to feel the terror of being helpless before dying.”
“Is that why you used Rohypnol and formalin?” Zora had to keep Pickles talking.
He shrugged as if it were nothing to kill. “Rohypnol, to weaken and paralyze them first. Ironic, isn’t it? And easy to get from Mexico. And then came the shot of formalin. I watched their masks of horror and pain as their bodies shut down.”
Zora couldn’t imagine how it must have felt to have burned from pain on the inside as they died. She was at a loss for words for a moment.
“But now you’ve killed three people! Wouldn’t Anna be sad to see what you’ve become? Is this what she would have wanted?” Zora said.
Pickles shook his finger at her. “Don’t you dare mention my daughter’s name! You know nothing about her!
Zora refused to back down. “Then what about me? I didn’t do anything to you, yet you pointed the police in my direction. You had planned to ruin my life just the way your daughter’s life was ruined,” she cried out.
Pickles shook his head vigorously. “I did nothing wrong! I’m not going to listen to this nonsense.” He picked up a syringe from the bowl near her feet with his gloved hands. It was already filled with clear fluid. “It’s all your fault. You had to put your nose into it. And despite my warning, you wouldn’t stop. Now you know too much.” He pulled a tourniquet from his pocket and tied it around her arm.
Zora guessed what was about to happen next. She struggled against the restraints. Sweat broke out on her skin. Her heart galloped. “Wait! Don’t do this!” she cried out.
“Goodbye, Zora.” He plunged the needle into the now visible vein in her forearm.
Zora felt a burning sensation begin in her arm and then sweep through her body. Her nerve endings were on fire. She jerked repeatedly against the restraints. Her chest tightened.
She screamed, wanting to double over. But the cuffs held her back.
Sorrow filled her heart. For losing her dream, for never seeing Christina and Marcus again, for a lost chance with her mother, and for a life destroyed by revenge and bitterness.
Zora found it harder and harder to breathe. She had run out of time.
Her vision blurred.
Then everything went pitch black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Drake opened his eyes to find himself naked, shackled with metal restraints to a steel table, a large cleaver knife pointed towards his groin from an overhead anchor. The rotten smell that filled the air made Drake almost throw up.
An enlarged version of a farmhouse sink jutted out on one side of the wall. The room was dank and windowless. He could see large cobwebs at the corners of the small room and thick layers of dust on the floor. This was a room that hadn’t been stepped in for quite some time.
Drake shivered. He wasn’t sure how he got here. He had taken a drink from Susie and passed out. Susie. She must have had something to do with this. He would deal with her later. But first he had to find a way out.
He moved his arms and legs to check if the cuffs were secure. A sharp intense pain pierced his groin and he arched back on the table. He looked down to see blood pooling on the table from between his legs.
A guttural roar erupted from his throat. Someone had damaged him. He tried to move his waist with caution but stabs of pain eclipsed each maneuver.
He swore. He would get his revenge on the person who had done this to him. There was one likely candidate. Someone who had the guts to go up against him. Alfred Pickles.
Well, he wouldn’t go down easily. He moved his left shoulder. No pain there. That meant the tracking device had not been found.
He smiled. Once Tiny discovered he was missing, he would activate the tracker. And then they would rescue him. He would hold on till then.
Drake heard a scream from the other side of the wall. The sound pierced his heart. Something nasty was going down in the next room. His heart beat faster, and fear gripped him.
Hurry, Tiny, hurry.
He grew weaker. The pool of blood was spreading on the table. His limbs felt heavier. He shook his head to drive away the dizziness.
He didn’t know how long he could last before he passed out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Zora struggled to open her eyes. She was lying on what looked like a hospital bed. Low light beamed out from a single light source in the ceiling and cast a glow on her. A screen had been drawn around the bed.
Zora turned her head to the right and spied Christina folded into a chair by the side of her bed, her fiery red hair in a ponytail. She looked exhausted and tired.
“Christina?” Zora’s voice croaked.
Christina startled awake and looked at Zora’s direction. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled forward.
“Are you okay?” Christina said, concern and worry written all over her face. “Thank God you are awake.”
Zora tried to move her limbs but her body felt heavy, tired. Her bones ached. It was like they belonged to someone else.
“Where am I?” Zora asked.
“You are at Lexinbridge Regional Hospital. Everything is okay now.” Christina brushed back the hair away from Zora’s face.
“How did I—?”
“We found you from the tracker in your pendant. Your mother installed one in it after what happened to your sister.”
Zora looked down at the pendant that nestled at the base of her neck. “I didn’t know it had a tracking device.” She reached down with effort to touch it. It was cool against her fingers. And it had saved her life. Her mother had saved her life.
An unusual sensation filled her chest. Zora didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel bad. She would think about what it was later.
“But how did you guys know to look for me?” Zora asked.
Christina’s green eyes stayed solemn. She sat down on the bed beside Zora. “Remember how I always told you that when I’m super restless that I feel something is wrong? I felt that way while at work and I couldn’t concentrate. I finally gave up and took permission to leave early. The ER wasn’t so busy so the other nurse said she could cover for me.
“When I got home, everything seemed normal. That was until I noticed a used syringe—capped with a needle tinged with blood—on the floor. That’s when I suspected something was wrong. I checked all the rooms in our apartment and you weren’t there.
“Your bag was on the kitchen counter. That was unusual. I searched it and saw the warning note. Your phone was also there.” Christina cocked her head in mock exasperation. “And you know how you never leave your phone behind. So I called Marcus. He knew about the tracking device and called your mom, who activated it. He then called the detectives, told them that you had been kidnapped and who the possible suspect was and gave them the tracking information. We headed there straightaway and found you in a room in the basement.”
“Where?” Zora asked.
“In the Gross Anatomy building on campus. Can you imagine? Right under the same place where the first victim was found.”
Christina adjusted the bed sheets around Zora. “The cops searched the other rooms on the floor and found a Drake Pierce lying unconscious next door in a pool of blood around his legs. He w
as rushed to the hospital but his genitals were already badly damaged.”
“Genitals?”
“Yes, I heard the killer did a number on him. Like a mini-castration.”
“Ouch.”
“Ouch indeed. I’m not an advocate of violence, but once I heard what he did to Anna Hammond, I figured the guy deserved it. No babies in his future except adoption.”
“What about Pickles? Did they catch him?”
“Yes, they did. They arrested him as he was rushing out of the building. The cops believed that someone alerted him that they were coming, but they haven’t found out who.”
Zora’s shoulders relaxed. She was glad he was no longer a threat.
“You, on the other hand, were lucky,” Christina said. “The EMT worked fast on you and rushed you here. They had seen the syringe on the table and suspected what happened. Once you arrived, you were given sodium bicarbonate, lots of fluid, and dialysis to flush the chemicals from your system. I’ve been here ever since, waiting for you to wake up.”
Zora reached for Christina’s hand and gave her a warm smile. “Thank you.”
Christina placed her other hand on Zora’s. “I’m just glad you are okay. It might be a week or two, but the doctors said you’ll be back on your feet in no time. Your mom was also here for a while, but she just left for a meeting and said she’d be back once she’s done.”
It was strange. Zora felt no anger on hearing that her mom had left her for a meeting. Maybe a brush with death had changed her.
“Where’s Marcus?”
Christina’s eyes twinkled. “He refused to leave your side. I literally had to push him to leave. I told him the faster he went with the detectives to the station to give his statement, the faster they could make sure Pickles was locked behind bars. I’m sure he’ll come running back once he’s finished. Give me one second.” Christina pulled her phone from her pocket and started typing into it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sending a text to your mom and Marcus to let them know that you are awake.”