Sean laughed hard and stopped abruptly. “You mean officers Bozo and Kelly?”
His blatant disrespect for them wasn’t as nauseating as the fact he didn’t seem to regard the damage he did to Luke’s reputation at work. Luke stared him down but made no sudden move. It wasn’t that he had any to make though, with the copious amount of margaritas coursing through his system and impairing any good judgment he might need to make.
“You don’t understand… this is bigger than you or I and… and… “, the Captain suddenly went mute and fell back into his couch with his hands rubbing his eyes desperately.
Sean awaited the completion of whatever it was that he intended to say. He drew closer, leaned closer and asked again. “What is bigger than you or i?”
Luke shuddered and seemed to regain some level of sanity and consciousness. He looked around and right back at Sean as they locked gaze and seemed expectant of one another.
“You were saying something right before you blanked out Luke… what aren’t you telling me?’ Sean reiterated his desire to make progress.
Luke slowly eased himself up from the couch and headed for the bar to pour himself some more whisky. “You shouldn’t listen to anything I say… I’ve had too much to drink already”.
Suspicious and unrelenting, he pressed harder as he neared the elusive man, but Luke had snapped out of whatever state he had been in now and that was becoming apparent, He poured himself some scotch and handed his old pal a glass as they both downed the colored liquid in one gulp before ramming the glasses on the tale immediately.
The buzzing sound from within Luke’s pants made him jittery while he snuck his hand in and brought out the burner phone that made Sean stare on in oddity.
Fidgety and somewhat evasive, he turned and looked at Sean with a thin smile. “I need to take this… give me a minute”.
Sean obliged by nodding his head gently before returning to the couch where he planted himself into as his old mate slid into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. His actions set in motion an endless chain of thoughts in the uneasy Sean, whose instincts had begun to ring bells he wasn’t sure he wanted rung.
Springing himself from his seat to check around the living room and set his mind at ease, he began with the frames on the walls, all looking old and with dour images of the Captain either with his work colleague or with his brothers from years past. Some brought smiles across Sean’s lips, while others made him wonder why the man would even decide to keep them in the first place.
His interest peaked and dulled until the last frame lining the wall came into view. It was without doubt familiar and he was certain he had seen the make and design before. He reached for it and felt through the empty inside as the edges bore proof of torn residue from the paper it once held in it.
“Oh… bother not about that silly old thing!” Luke came back into the room saying. “I always mean to toss it away but it used to hold enough sentimental value that I just cannot seem to find myself able to do it”.
“I bet it does”, Sean nodded and looked back at Luke.
Luke definitely wasn’t himself; his sweat covered body, coupled with his somewhat trembling hands which he did poorly to hide were apparent.
Sean looked at the frame on the wall once again and back at the man before asking, “Are you sure you’re fine buddy?”
Nodding and sucking air through his slit lip, Luke laughed hard. “Of course… I think I might have had too much to drink”.
Sean nodded, walked away and headed towards the window where he could have sworn he saw a car parked behind the rental he got. There was nothing there now, but he could have sworn his memory recalled a black SUV parked just a few feet behind his car when he heard a dog bark and went to look out the window.
He turned back around and the frame was gone from the wall. “You finally got the nous to take it down I see”.
Luke smiled worryingly. “Yes. I guess I finally found one”.
They shared a brief laugh and Sean took in a deep breath before letting out a sigh in exhaustion.
“What have you found out so far about Susan’s murderer?” Luke immediately shifted their topic of conversation.
Sean shrugged, sighed again in exasperation and replied, “I read the coroner’s report in the morgue and it seems her death might not entirely be from the same hands that meticulously slaughtered the other folk”.
Luke looked grilled off belief and he slowly reached for the “Papa” chair before letting himself into it.
“I don’t get it… didn’t the killer cut her up like the rest of the bodies?” he asked.
Sean bobbed his head immediately. “Yes he did but the patterns don’t match and he was cruder this time around… almost like he didn’t know the first thing about cutting a body up anymore”.
Luke seemed to have caught on and his eyes widened before his nostrils flared up. Years of experience and spending time around crime scenes taught him well and the assumption they could draw up from the information his friend got him wasn’t one he wanted to hear.
“Oh my God!” he exclaimed. ‘He might have a protégé!”
Sean had passed his intended message across well enough, and with that, he headed straight for the door without saying goodnight. Something about Luke worried him and he would find out exactly what his friend and those at the CIA weren’t telling him even if it would be the last thing he would do.
Stepping out of the house and into the silent streets, he circled around his car and gently went to the floor on his knees to check for any blinking objects or signs of a bogey but found none.
“You might be overthinking things”, he thought to himself before noting Luke waving at him through the window.
Barely caring to return the wave, he got into his car, took a minute to reflect on the bothering frame he had seen on the wall and where he was certain he had seen the same kind earlier in the day. The coincidence of finding such copies of the frame in the same day and in houses of two people he knew was striking but something else piqued his curiosity.
“Why does his have her initials on it?” he whispered.
He had caught sight of it; etched into the corner of the frame and on the clinging piece of paper which he could assume once held a picture, were the initials “S.S” in black ink. Still unsure on what to make of his discovery, he ignited the car, took another look at Luke and waved back eventually before driving off. The frame and the discovery he had made wouldn’t escape his mind still and he pondered hard on it until the lights flickered on in his side mirror.
“There you are”, he grinned upon seeing the same SUV he was sure he had noticed earlier.
They were smart enough not to drive away and find a different parking spot, but they obviously still weren’t as good as he was, seeing he would have changed cars and tried to drive ahead of the car he tailed before allowing such person to drive past him eventually.
“What is going on?’ he muttered underneath his breath. “Who are you people?”
He would find out, but first he needed to keep acting like he wasn’t aware of the fact that he was being followed.
***
Staring into his mirror and hearing the troubling noise from the croaking frogs and toads seemed to settle Detective Jake’s mind while he tried to conjure the best possible result from his visit to the morgue. Sarah’s words on a possible protégé resonated in his consciousness and he had been unable to clear it off ever since.
He wondered how such a protégé could even exist when he had kept his fantasies to himself and never thought of sharing it with anyone. It was one of the reasons he had his rules and made certain to never break them, regardless of how tempting the lady might be or what her pedigree in life might be.
“Did I make a mistake?” he questioned himself like he couldn’t recall the actions he had taken.
The problem was, he could remember each cut to the bone and every act he performed on those bodies
to detail. Years in medical school had horned his skills into perfection and he boasted one of the best scores in the surgery room in his class.
“Maybe I made a mistake”, he thought again, rushing out the bathroom and heading for his living room with enough intent in his steps.
He paused, stared at the air conditioning vent and wondered what results he would find in his quest for answers and assurance that he had done everything right from the onset. Ten years of perfection looked like it was about getting tossed in the bin and he couldn’t have himself go down in such manner without finding out where he might have gone wrong.
Hurrying over to the vent, and ripping off its front cover, he pondered hard on the possibilities that may have caused him to make a mistake; being drunk was the most possible reason he could fathom but he had not had a drink in years and he hoped to remain so.
“Where are you?” he sighed, while his hand did the search for the wooden box normally placed in the space behind the air conditioning vent.
Feeling nothing through his search and unable to sight the box, his heart skipped its beats and suddenly felt like it would collapse.
“No… no… no… no!” he cried atop his voice, recognizing trouble was what he would fall into should the box be missing.
He was sure he had it in there; there was no other place deemed safe enough to keep lurks of hair from his victims as trophies with their names clearly tagged with each hair. Frustrated and angered by the missing box, he plunged his fist further into the vent hole and searched ferociously until his finger caught a metal and sent him jerking his hand out.
“This cannot be happening!” he sounded in paranoia before looking around his living room.
There was a reason he had kept his life far away from everyone and had no friends; it was to keep his privacy just the way he intended for it to be. He had managed it for years and stuck to the “code of one” to no worries. The thought of someone entering his house and managing to cart off his trophies spelled more trouble than he could even begin to imagine.
Detective Jake raced to his bedroom to retrieve his firearm, before setting up his laptop to view the surveillance images the cameras set around his house kept on a daily basis.
Flipping through the folder on his computer meant to hold the recordings resulted in widened eyes and a gasp. “What the… what on earth!”
He was without doubt right; someone had managed to sneak into his home, gotten past the security and dealt a great deal of damage to everything he kept from the world. First, his trophy case was gone and now his surveillance images and videos had been wiped clean for the past two weeks.
“Who could do this? How is this even possible?” he asked himself in a frustrated tone before tossing the laptop in his hand against the wall and hearing it crash.
His sanctuary had been violated and a level of insult had been slapped right across his face in the most unruly of manners. His stomach sunk with pain and his knees gave way, forcing him to the ground while his eyes remained fixated on the smashed pieces of his laptop on the floor before him. There just could be no other explanation other than the fact that he had been without doubt found out.
The questions only grew longer and more disturbing.
“Who?” he asked again.
There was a level of intelligence to the perpetrating act, not to talk of the audacity the culprit had in coming into his house without notice. It made the detective sick and frightful for the first time in a long while. Looking around the room and worried there were things he was still missing, he got back to his feet.
He wouldn’t look weak or give his opponent the satisfaction of seeing him at a low ebb. The feeling remained though, while his brain tried to work its way around whatever was going on.
“How long has this been going on?” the thought while perusing his room with his eyes.
He needed to act normal but there wasn’t going to be any form of perfection in the act. He needed to set his mind straight and that wasn’t going to occur while he mopped around the room. Detective Jake had never found himself in such situation where he wouldn’t have control, but there he was and without doubt, playing second fiddle in a dangerous game someone in the shadows had just opened up.
With a subtle sigh, he reached for his jacket, picked it up and made for the door before noting a blue paper taped to the back of his door. It definitely wasn’t his; he never used suck sticky notes and had never assumed they were useful even when they gave them a bunch of them at the office. He yanked it off the door and peered closer into it to verify its content.
There were no words, but a crudely drawn smiley face. It was all his intruder left him with…
Chapter Six
D
ays trickled past and nothing about Susan’s murder gave any meaningful insight into what might have gone wrong for her. Knowing Susan darn too well and the level of risk she would always be willing to go through all in bid to close a case, Sean couldn’t help but spend sleepless nights wondering what his ex-wife might have gotten herself into.
To further cap just how odd the entire investigation was, he still couldn’t figure out why the CIA had interfered. Something about the entire ordeal stank but he still couldn’t figure out where the stench emanated from. Luke had been seemingly uneasy but it wasn’t something unusual especially when the media and entire governing body in the entire state were on his neck for answers.
In a long and perfectly dragged sigh, Sean rolled on his back and stared blankly into the ceiling. His vision remaining blurry from lack of sleep for a good period, and his throat feeling parched, he reached his left hand for the bedside stand to help himself with the remaining beer he had sipped through the night before realizing he was all out.
“Darn it!” he muttered.
Slowly rolling out of bed, and dragging his legs as though they weighed tons, he headed for the window and yanked the drapes aside to have a look out the hotel window overseeing the seaside. Chuckling some bit upon realizing he had fallen victim to marketing hype as regards the beautiful sight he was bound to get if he booked a night at the exotic hotel, he squinted and looked away briefly to the floor.
Keeping his head low and his demeanor unchanged, he understood too well what might have been the cause. He wasn’t alone after all and without doubt was still being watched. Slowly shutting the drapes as though he had not noticed the reflection from a camera’s lens just some distance away, he turned around and hurried for his boots.
The camera person without doubt had hidden well enough behind a large van but didn’t expect Sean to make him out. Hurrying out the front door with his barely laced boots, Sean pulled up his hood, slipped his hands into his pockets while holding his caliber in place in case of any unexpected situations.
“Good morning Mr. Simon”, the lady cleaning the hallway greeted him.
Almost forgetting he had signed in with the fake name, Sean looked up and noticed the elderly lady waving at him. “Good morning Henrietta… how are the kids?”
“They are giving me hell as usual, but what is life without them?” the lady giggled before turning away immediately.
Sean managed a smile, slipped into an elevator with opened doors as the last occupant stepped out from it. Stretching some bit and taking in deep breaths almost as though he was about making a drug bust or a call on the door to a terrorist cell, he punched in the button for the ground floor before slowly retreating and resting his back against the aluminum wall.
Smiling tenderly with copious amount of thoughts swarming his mind, he murmured, “You’ve got to stop messing with me Luke!”
He wouldn’t put it past the man to have private investigators tail him and it was going to irritate him and also affect the effectiveness of his task in finding Susan’s killer. Hearing the doors chime open and the fresh breath from the ground floor unlike the humid ones he encountered on the top floors hit his face, he walked out immediately, barely granting any notice to th
e lad at the reception waving in his direction.
He didn’t think he had the time, considering the photographer he had spotted might be moving at any point in time. Although, he counted the stalker leaving immediately as unlikely, having seen the same van parked outside for the past three days. He had mistaken it for an electricity or cable company but now it seemed clearer.
Feeling the safety of his handgun still in place, he walked out of the building doing well not to arouse suspicion or any form of unwanted attention to himself; donning the hood was and jogging boots were meant to give the impression he was going out on a morning run.
“There you are”, he purred gently like a predator knowing his prey’s fate would soon be decided by him.
The figure, so consumed with paying attention to his window and awaiting it to come open again had not seen Sean approaching from his blind side having used the cars lining the opposite side of the street as his cover. Upon catching sight of Sean a tad too late, he took to his heels, running through the early morning crowd of people hoping to get to work and knocking some to the ground in the process.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going dummy!” a disgruntled man yelled in anger.
Without turning around, the man yanked up his hood and raised a middle finger at the commuter he had shoved aside to make his escape. “Fuck off!”
Sean paused, scoffed and smiled. “Saucy… I see”.
His stalker was definitely young, apparently from his slender build and athleticism which made it rather difficult to catch up with him. His feet moved fast enough to get him a good few feet ahead and his endless swerving and cutting though corners indicated just how well he was used to being chased. He never made his runs in a straight line and Sean barely managed to keep up but remained relentless.
Hearing himself breath aloud and painfully as his stalker made good pace ahead, Sean looked to the streets in confusion on what next to do. Sighting a motorcycle nearing from the end of the street, he hurried into the road with his arms spread apart and creating some falsehood to indicate his body was larger than it was.
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