by PJ Fernor
She’d wake up and smile at him and they’d steal a little more time from the night before falling asleep for good.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets and crosses the street.
“Plans change,” he whispers.
As soon as he crosses the street, he sees the door to her room open.
He freezes in place.
She shuts the door and walks toward a soda machine that hasn’t worked properly in two years.
He watches her.
She’s talking, but it’s to herself.
“That’s good,” he whispers. “Keep talking and walking.”
That’s what she does.
When she turns the corner and is out of sight, he hurries toward the door.
Of course, it’s locked.
She’s not dumb enough to leave the motel room door unlocked.
That’s okay.
He has a key.
He can get into any door at the motel.
He can get into anything he wants in town…
With one twist of a small key later, the motel room door opens.
Once inside, he looks right to the closet.
He’s not here to lounge or snoop.
He doesn’t even want to be there at all.
But there is no longer a choice.
Plans have changed.
He didn’t want them to change and he didn’t ask them to change.
He moves to the bed and strips one of the pillows of its pillow case. He tosses the pillow to the other side of the bed on the floor.
Now he moves to the closet.
He opens the door and steps inside.
Now it becomes a waiting game.
Lucky for him, he has patience.
He can stand there for hours if need be.
He doesn’t need to stand there for hours though.
Just minutes later, the door opens.
She’s back.
He feels his heart wanting to race, but he keeps it calm.
She walks to the bed, pauses and puts her head back.
“I can’t believe he just let it all go,” she says to herself. “The case was right there. He was going to meet the killer and then he doesn’t? And then… Jim. That guy is everywhere. All the time. I’m missing something. But what? Unless it’s…”
She turns and holds up her right hand, her pointer finger in the air.
“That’s it!” she cries out.
Now he has to make his move.
He opens the closet door and runs forward.
Before she knows what’s happening, he has the pillow case over her head.
“I’m really sorry to do this, Lizzy,” he says. “But I have no choice.”
She tries to fight him off, but it’s no use.
He shuts his eyes and pulls the pillowcase even tighter against her head and face.
Chapter Seventy-Four
The next morning brought a soft coating of frost on the tips of the grass. I only managed a few breaths outside before I shivered and went back inside to the kitchen.
I stood with a cup of coffee, lost in thought for a little bit.
In the living room, Ben slept on the couch, looking very uncomfortable.
His feet hung over the other arm of the couch. His right arm was thrown over the back of the couch. His neck looked crooked, his mouth open, but he wasn’t snoring.
I knew his back and neck were going to be talking back to him the second he woke up.
When I saw him shuffling into the kitchen, rubbing his lower back, I simply smiled.
“How did you sleep?” I asked.
“Not great,” he said. “But at least I know Lo and Trevor stayed apart.”
“You’re so good to us, Ben.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t like the kid. Trevor, I mean. I just…”
“I get it,” I said. “And I’m sure Lo and him find it annoying. They just want to be close.”
“Too close,” he said.
I smiled. “Not easy dealing with a teenager, is it?”
“I could ask you the same about dealing with an old, stubborn man with Alzheimer’s.”
“It’s worth it,” I said. “We have a lot of memories in the making.”
“I hope more good than bad, Allie Down.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I’m going to check in with Muldavey. Send him off to get some sleep. I probably should stay close to the house today. Really don’t want to put anyone in danger.”
“That’s smart,” I said. “I’m going to call Lizzy. See where her mind is at. We’re getting close to figuring this out, Ben. I’m sure of it. It’s someone close. I’m not sure how close. But whoever it is, they’ll mess up. They don’t want to hurt anyone else. Which is odd to me. It’s like they had this urge to kill and once that was done, that was it. They didn’t hurt Mrs. Mickels. They just scared her. The same with your father. And the note for Lo.”
“I’m not taking any chances,” Ben said.
“Neither am I,” I said. “Let me go call Lizzy. Get this day moving. It’s cold out there today.”
“It’s that time of the year,” Ben said. “Ready to hear my father argue with the weatherman over snowfall totals again?”
“I can’t wait,” I said.
Ben laughed. “You’re too good to me.”
I moved to my toes and kissed Ben’s scruffy cheek. “Love you, Detective Welloski.”
“Love you too, Detective Allie Down,” he said.
I left my coffee cup on the counter and went upstairs to call Lizzy.
Two calls and no response later, I sighed with curiosity.
Instead of worrying, I got dressed and cleaned myself up a little in the bathroom.
I called Lizzy two more times and there was still no answer.
Now my interest and worry were slightly peaked.
Back downstairs, Ben’s father was awake and sitting in his chair.
“Morning, Allie,” Ben’s father said with a big smile.
“Ben.”
“Feels like snow out there.”
“What’s the forecast say?” I asked with a grin.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ben’s father said.
“You should change the channel then,” I said.
Ben’s father waved at me.
I walked into the kitchen and held my phone out. “Lizzy isn’t answering her phone.”
“So?” Ben asked.
“That’s not like her.”
“Maybe she slept in.”
“I don’t think she’d sleep in,” I said. “Not with this case going on.”
“You never know,” Ben said. “Maybe she has her phone on silent. And she’s eating breakfast or showering. Give her a little bit.”
“I did,” I said.
“Then go check on her.”
“You’re okay here?”
“It’s my house,” Ben said. “Of course I’m good.”
“You know what I mean, Ben.”
“You mean with Trevor?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m fine,” Ben said. “I’ve got my gun on the counter for when he wakes up.”
“Ben…”
“I’m kidding,” he said. “Sort of. Just go find Lizzy. I know this is going to bother you. Find Lizzy and bring her back here.”
“Okay,” I said.
I grabbed my keys and left the house.
As I drove to the other side of town to the motel, I called Lizzy three more times.
Each call went to voicemail.
I didn’t like it one bit.
When I arrived at the motel, I saw Lizzy’s car.
I hurried to her door and knocked.
It was a panic knock, but I didn’t care.
I wanted nothing more than for her to open the door so I could yell at her for not answering her phone. So she could tell me she forgot a phone charger and her phone died. Or some kind of quirky reason that matched her pe
rsonality.
Nobody answered the door.
I ran down to the main office.
A guy with a name tag that read Jeff looked up from a newspaper.
“Can I help you?”
“Room twelve,” I said. “I need to get in there.”
“I’m sorry…”
I flashed my badge. “You know who I am, right? I don’t want to play that card. Listen to me, there’s a detective in that room that’s helping me with a murder case. She’s not answering her phone. I’m worried. If you don’t unlock that door, I’ll kick it down or shoot it open. Which do you prefer, Jeff?”
Jeff folded up his paper and reached for a key.
I wiggled my fingers and he tossed me the key.
I ran out of the office and down to room twelve.
I begged to find her.
I unlocked the door and went into the room.
The bed was perfectly made.
To my right, the closet door was open.
I walked there and looked inside.
Empty.
I thought I heard a noise in the bathroom.
“Lizzy,” I called out. “It’s Allie. You didn’t answer your phone.”
At the bathroom door, I twisted the knob and felt my heart jump into my throat.
I had no idea what I was going to find.
“Lizzy, I’m coming into the bathroom,” I called out. “Just tell me you’re in there and safe.”
There was no response.
I opened the door and stepped into the bathroom.
I gasped.
Lizzy wasn’t there.
Lizzy wasn’t in the room.
Detective Lizzy Cold was now missing.
Chapter Seventy-Five
I turned back to the open closet.
That caught my attention because Lizzy’s bags were on the floor next to the bed.
So why was the closet door open?
I walked to the closet and checked again.
Other than a few warped, metal hangers and an iron with the cord loosely wrapped on the top shelf, it was empty.
I slowly turned and looked around the room.
The bed was made, except…
I pointed to the pillows.
There were two on the right side, but only one on the left.
As I moved around the bed, I saw a pillow on the floor.
Missing a pillow case.
An open closet door. A missing pillow case.
“Something happened here,” I whispered. “Lizzy is missing…”
The words still moved chills up and down my back.
I took deep breaths, not wanting to panic.
I turned to walk back toward the door to exit the room so I could begin to make all the necessary phone calls.
That’s when I noticed the bottom corner of the bed.
Something sticking out from it.
I crouched down and lifted the sheet.
There was a pillow case.
Turned inside out.
When I saw blood, there was no more holding back my panic.
I grabbed for my phone as I fell to my backside on the floor.
My hands shook as I went to call Ben.
At the last second, I decided to try something else.
I called Lizzy instead.
Just to see what would happen.
All I could assume was that Lizzy figured something out and something happened. Maybe she knew who the killer was and she wanted to find out for sure. The only reason she’d want to do that was to make sure she was right before telling me. Because that meant it was someone close to me. Or us. Or to the case. Or…
Or maybe the killer just followed her.
The rest of us had been at my house.
Ben and I keeping the house safe inside with Muldavey handling things outside.
I should have never let Lizzy leave the house.
I should have forced her to stay.
As the phone rang and I stared at the screen, I thought I heard a noise.
By the time I got to my feet, Lizzy’s voicemail had picked up.
Her light, quirky voice, so happy for being someone who worked with death all day long…
I ended the call and looked around the room.
I called her again.
The phone rang and this time I took it off speakerphone.
That’s when I heard the noise again.
A vibration coming from the other side of the bed.
I hurried to where her bags were and realized that’s where the sound was coming from. I dropped to one knee and put my phone on the bed. The first bag I tore open the zipper and let out a cry of relief when I saw the screen of a tablet lit up with my name across it.
The call came to an end and the tablet screen went dark.
Lizzy was missing, but her tablet was here.
I started to think and then snapped my fingers.
“Lo,” I whispered.
I thought about Lo.
She had a tablet and had it all linked up to her phone. Meaning she could text and all that from her phone or tablet. And it would show up on both. She also had a feature to find her devices. A few months ago, her phone slipped out of her pocket in between the seats of my SUV. In a panic, Lo used her tablet to find her phone. All she had to do was log into her account and it showed where her phone was.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please work…”
I swiped at the tablet and there was no password to access it.
That was good.
Sort of.
I clicked the app to look for Lizzy’s phone and was prompted with a password.
“No,” I whispered. “What would it be…?”
I gritted my teeth.
I didn’t know enough about Lizzy to even venture a guess.
I put the tablet on the bed and decided to dig through Lizzy’s bag.
Knowing her… she probably had some crazy password. And she probably had it written down because she couldn’t remember it.
She probably had it in her phone though.
But if she did that…
I noticed a little zipper at the back of the bag.
I unzipped it and looked inside.
There was a small, clear bag rolled up.
I pulled it out and unrolled it.
Inside the bag was cash, a key, and a piece of paper.
I dumped everything onto the bed.
There was one hundred and eighty dollars in twenties and the key was too small to be a house or apartment key. It was probably for a safe or something. The piece of paper was a neon orange sticky note folded in half.
When I unfolded it, there were letters and symbols written out on it.
“This it is,” I said.
I let out a cry of happiness and grabbed for the tablet again.
I entered the password, clicked submit and then-
Wrong password.
“No,” I said. “This has to be it.”
I looked at the sticky note again.
I pointed to the O.
“Maybe it’s a zero…”
I tried the password again and it was still wrong.
I gritted my teeth and felt my throat tightening.
Once again, I reviewed the password. There was only one other thing to try. A lowercase l that might have been a one.
I carefully typed in the password for a third time and hit submit again.
It worked!
I stood up and grabbed my phone, watching the screen load.
A few touches of the screen later and I watched a map appear and begin to move.
And then it was there.
A small blinking cursor.
I knew where Lizzy’s phone was.
Chapter Seventy-Six
I needed to call Ben. I needed to call someone.
Instead, I was too focused on the dot on the screen.
Lizzy’s phone!
I rushed out of the motel room and got into my SUV.
I kept my phone in the
cupholder next to me and held Lizzy’s tablet with my right hand.
Driving with just my left hand, I sped out of the parking lot.
Lizzy’s phone was on the other side of town.
It didn’t occur to me where it was until I was a few minutes into my drive and found some sense of calm.
Lizzy’s phone was somewhere near the access road where the power lines were.
I felt myself lose my breath for a second as memories came back to me.
It was the same area where a woman’s body had been found.
In fact, that was the case that led me to the bigger case of The One.
In some odd way it was like time wanted to repeat itself. To take me back where so much began. As though it were one big circle. Which made me wonder if this was ever going to end.
I drove faster, putting my one-handed driving skills to the test.
I watched the mountain seemingly grow out of the horizon, lifting itself up, showing itself to me.
I had no idea what I was walking - or driving - into.
Just because Lizzy’s phone was there didn’t mean…
Well, it didn’t mean much of anything.
There was a chance I’d find Lizzy’s phone and Lizzy.
I thought about the blood on the pillowcase and I shivered.
I assumed someone had been waiting in the closet and jumped out at her, putting the pillowcase over her head.
If the killer held the pillowcase long enough…
I shook my head.
I didn’t want to think about it or believe it could happen.
But if it did…
That meant the killer put Lizzy’s body into his vehicle and drove her across town to dump her body.
Which made sense in a criminally morbid way.
There was another possibility too.
The killer was smart enough to drive Lizzy’s phone to a random location across town and just toss the phone out the window.
That implied I was going one way and the killer was going another way.
Even still, Lizzy’s phone was the only chance and clue I had at the moment.
As I closed in on the other side of town, I slowed my driving so I could zoom in on the tablet to get a better look at an exact location.
It showed me that the phone wasn’t on or near a road.
That worried me.
I saw the dot begin to move so I came to a stop.
I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
“It’s moving for sure,” I whispered.