Dead leaves blew in the wind between us.
She glanced back at me. “I don’t know you.”
I smiled. “Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Blocked me out, already? Come on. You must have been thinking about me non-stop. I know … I was thinking about you…”
She appeared confused. Disorientated.
For a second I had a fright that for some reason I’d pinched the wrong girl.
I reflected on my actions leading up to this. My careful strategy in tracking her down.
There was no way it wasn’t her.
Even in this light I could see the curves were all in the right places.
We moved past the shovel and I walked her to the edge of the grave. She fell to her knees, shaking. A total fucking mess.
I rationalized.
“You know, life isn’t even that good,” I reasoned. “Especially when you get older. It will totally suck for you. I’m helping you as much as I’m helping myself. You understand it, right?”
She put her little hands around my leg and squeezed tight.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Don’t do it.”
I saw my breath leave me.
It felt so good having her there.
At my feet. Caressing me.
I reflected again.
Could it be perhaps, there was a way out for us after all…?
CHAPTER 55
At five minutes to midnight, Nadine was long gone. Sal wasn’t going to waste any more time staring down darkened roads or up into the atmospheric skyline to find her.
Who was lying. Who was telling the truth. Everything was in the grey. Taylor Shandling, Nadine’s biggest critic, over his shoulder telling him not to worry about her. That her demons would take care of themselves. Sal wasn’t sure what it was exactly. But when he thought about his daughter for some reason…
He thought about Nadine…
Once they’d finally arrived at the precinct, Sal made a pact with Taylor.
“We’re going to find this guy,” Sal said. “This so called Special Agent Will whatever. I don’t care how long it takes. We’re going to find him tonight.”
Taylor meanwhile had to look after Elsie. See that her parents were called to the station. So they could put the girl to bed.
Sal had pressing matters elsewhere.
He first went by the computer lab to have a look at how his search on the fingerprints was doing.
The machine was off.
Someone had come in and unplugged the thing from the sockets. Not any of the other computers – just this one.
“Okay, you son of a bitch,” Sal spouted. “O-fucking-kay…”
He staggered back out into the corridor, the rage filling up his chest. He needed a suppressant. Next stop was the elevator and then he swung by his own office.
His laptop was gone. Folders with pages and pages of notes were missing.
No coincidence. No mistake.
Sal walked slowly towards his desk and pulled up the chair. He sat down and reached out for the bottom draw.
He located his bottle of bourbon. Two thirds empty.
One third full.
He took a drink.
It wasn’t supposed to have been this way. Growing up. Joining the force. Even a few years ago he would have said he was normal at work. How did he get to be like this? How had he fallen so far from what was acceptable? From what was expected of him?
He took another drink.
Nadine had accused him. Accusing him of being involved. Involved like Hodge was involved. Sal shouldn’t have been that surprised. Oh sure, she didn’t come out and say it, but he knew that Nadine knew as well as he did that Taylor Shandling wasn’t involved in anything. She was by the book. Her reputation impeccable.
The opposite of Sal.
Sal closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, he was looking at a monster.
CHAPTER 56
“William Ardent,” Sal said breaking the silence. “Why is it, that I feel like I’ve heard that name before? It’s right in front of me, isn’t it? Or at least … it was…”
The man in blue glasses pulled a chair from the wall and positioned himself opposite Sal’s desk.
“Yes, I’m sure you’ve come across me at some point,” Special Agent Ardent said. “Prior to tonight, I mean.”
“Oh naturally.” Sal brandished the bottle. “Drink?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
Sal drank again. “You know. I’ve been thinking about you for a while. A really long time. I’ve always wanted to confront you about things. Dispel illusion from fact and all that.”
“I’ve been watching you for a while, Sal,” Special Agent Ardent said.
“Naturally.”
“Nadine had no idea. So…”
“It’s just between us.”
“Exactly.”
“So what’s the plan then?” Sal asked. “Are we going to stand up and draw? Shall we try and kill each other whilst sitting? Do we count to three or five?”
Special Agent Ardent leaned forward. “Sal. It’s over.”
“You don’t get to call me that,” Sal argued. “Only my friends call me, Sal.”
“Alright then. Detective Leoncelli. You can stay where you are for the moment. If you have anything you want to get off your chest, feel free to do so.”
“This is my fucking office, pal. I make the rules in here.”
Ardent leaned back. Folded his hands.
Sal finished what was in the bottle.
“It’s going to hurt, you know,” Ardent said.
“What is?”
“Every moment from now on.”
Sal stared at him. He felt his fingers scratching for his holster.
“You can come in now, officers,” Ardent called out.
Seven uniformed cops entered the room one by one.
Sal quickly got out of his chair. “Arrest this man,” Sal slurred. “Arress him. He’s tressing in my –”
“Officer Davis, Sergeant Lobb and Sergeant Grady – could you please restrain the detective? Shoot him if he goes for his gun.”
Sal put his arms in the air. “What the fuck is going on? How dare you!”
“Detective Leoncelli, I wish to advise you at this time you are under arrest for the crime of murder –”
“Whose murder?” Sal demanded.
The officers grabbed him and forced the cuffs on his wrists.
“Whose fucking murder?” Sal shouted.
They went to push him out the room.
“Wait,” Special Agent Ardent said.
The cops presented Sal to him.
Ardent took his phone out and held it up to Sal.
“We found images like these on your computer,” Ardent explained. “Along with a whole lot of ties with a pedophilic sex cult.”
The images on the phone were nothing more than a blur to Sal.
“Fuck you,” Sal barked at him. “This is a load of shit.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ardent asked, putting his hand on Sal to hold him still. “Look at the picture. Are you sure you don’t recognize her?”
The image came in with jarring focus.
It was a girl as Ardent had suggested. She’d been bludgeoned to death.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Sal announced. “This is total shit.”
“Are you sure?” Ardent said quietly. “Look again.”
Sal stared at the photo.
It was his daughter.
CHAPTER 57
Taylor was with Elsie in the precinct’s waiting area when the shots went off. Her eyes immediately lifted up towards the sound of gunfire, thinking of Sal. She was worried something very bad had happened.
“Will you be right without me for a minute?” Taylor asked Elsie.
Elsie looked exhausted. She shrugged.
Taylor signaled to the officer at the front desk. “Watch her, can you? Till her parents get here?”<
br />
The officer nodded.
Taylor said goodbye to Elsie and rushed to the fire escape, running up the stairs. As she reached the floor where Sal’s office was, the commotion only got louder.
She pushed the door at top open and peered through the gap.
“Restrain him! Restrain him! Restrain –”
Taylor nudged her way through with her pistol drawn.
Sal was on the floor in the corridor outside his office, with a group of officers trying to pin him to the floor.
As she walked down further she caught a glimpse inside the office.
There was a man with a broken pair of glasses pressed up against the back wall.
Shot in the head.
“Get out of the way,” Taylor said pulling the other officers off Sal.
“He just killed Special Agent Ardent,” one of them exclaimed.
Taylor looked down at Sal.
Blood was gushing out of his mouth.
He’d been shot several times in the chest.
“Oh no,” Taylor gasped. “Sal. Sal, stay with me.”
She knelt beside him, clutching his hand.
“Detective Shandling,” one of the officers said.
Taylor couldn’t turn her attention away from Sal. “You’re going to make it.”
He forced a smile.
“Detective Shandling! This man is a killer.”
“No,” Taylor corrected. “He’s a bloody good cop. Better than y’all.”
“He murdered his daughter!” one of the officers shouted.
“He’s working with pedophiles!”
Taylor peered round at their earnest expressions. She didn’t believe it.
“Sal. Sal, that isn’t true, Sal.”
Darkness crossed over Sal’s eyes. He closed them.
“Sal!” Taylor cried shaking him. “Is it true?”
Consciousness came back briefly. He tried to say something.
She leant down and put her ear to his lips.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“No,” Taylor gasped. “No, Sal! You didn’t do it!”
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He shook his head. Tried to whisper again.
Taylor put her ear to him.
“You’re all that’s left,” Sal said. “It’s just you now.”
CHAPTER 58
Nadine looked from her phone to the landscape outside the taxi cab. “You can drop me here.”
A minute later she was out of the car and walking alone across the deserted road. The sound of the midnight ocean’s waves crashed in the distance.
She took out her phone and dialed the number she’d received.
It answered on the first ring. “Hello?” came the muffled voice.
“I’m almost there,” Nadine said. “Are you here?”
“Whereabouts are you?”
“I’m walking across a big car park near the beach. I see the pier you mentioned. Will you be on it?”
“I’m already there.”
Click.
Nadine put the phone away. Inhaled deeply.
She continued across the long stretching jagged concrete area till her feet found the footpath. The footpath which led to the pier.
And there he was.
Just a shape.
An outline.
A figure.
A tall, anonymous man standing at the end of the pier. He could be anyone really.
Nadine stared down the line into the darkness. She was feeling it now. The feeling he wanted her to feel.
The terror was all encompassing.
CHAPTER 59
Simon McGuiness looked over his shoulder and saw Nadine walking from halfway down the pier. It was a face he knew only too well. A face he’d studied long and hard. Her tangled, blondish black hair spilling out down her shoulders in perfect symmetry. The dark sunglasses from which behind held many secrets.
Yes. He knew all about Nadine and what she’d been up to.
And he was quite sure, she knew very little about him.
“You’ve won,” Nadine announced emerging down the pier. “Whatever the game is you’re playing, you’ve beaten me. I’m here.”
“I’ve been waiting for this for some time,” Simon mused. “To see you here, as you are now.”
“Were you trying to give me this?” Nadine asked, holding up the VHS tape.
“I take it you haven’t watched it yet.”
“Funny, VHS players aren’t all that handy these days. I don’t know why you couldn’t just send it to my phone. If you really wanted me to see what’s on it.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“What?” Nadine snapped. “You mean there’s someone else mixed up in this?”
“Actually, yes that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Do I know them?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Simon watched her carefully. She was still feeling him out.
And he could see she was scared.
“You must want something from me,” Nadine said. “You might as well just get it out there. Who knows, I might even oblige.”
“I want to talk to you about a story.”
“A story?”
“A story you tell people. A story you’ve told many times.”
Nadine exhaled. She stood near the pier’s edge. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“There’s no other time, Nadine. No other place.”
“Well, what about it then?”
“I want you to tell it to me.”
“No.”
“Come on, Nadine. I think that’s fair. Don’t you? You’ve told it so many times…”
Nadine shook her head. “What’s on the tape?”
“I think you know the answer to that. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t know the answer. Alright? Look. Just tell me what you want. Tell me… Tell me… What the fuck we’re doing here…”
Simon took a step towards her.
He reached for her face as she recoiled.
He pulled her sunglasses away.
“Look at me, Nadine. Let me see your beautiful blue eyes.”
She stared at him in the moonlight.
Her mind full of horrors Simon couldn’t even imagine.
“Once again, Nadine. I want you to tell me your story. Tell me what happened. And this time… Tell the truth…”
CHAPTER 60
SEVENTH NOTE
It takes a certain kind of demeanor to rape someone. Staying calm is number one. Without calmness, there’s no clarity. Without clarity, then you’re not really present. Raping someone whilst not being present is counterproductive. Defeats the purpose. But you do need a severe level of calm, because the person you’re raping quite often is experiencing the opposite. They get wild. They lose all inhibition. They lose control.
You have to be able to get through that. Whilst they’re in that state. You have to stay calm so that you can detach. So that you can’t be swayed. Any appeal to logic or sensibility is going to dry you right out. The children can get inside your head, with all that emotion. All that screaming and wailing. Calmness is pretty useless then of course. Which is why you have to be calm and ferocious at the same time. But calm first, I think.
These are lessons I didn’t find out the night I took the girl from the elevator. I wasn’t able to establish these ideas properly until I’d gone through a least a dozen other kids. In the beginning I remember, each one of them was special to me. Even if only for a few hours, I was obsessed with them. They were so beautiful until … I turned my gaze towards them…
“Don’t. Don’t do it.”
I looked down and found myself out in the middle of nowhere again, back with the girl clutching at my ankles. Begging for her life.
I remember taking her by her hands and lifting her back up. Wiping her tears away with my jumper.
“Do you want to be my friend?” I asked.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Kiss me then.”
“Kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Kiss me on the lips. Come on, darling.”
She allowed me to kiss her, but she wouldn’t kiss me back. That was a mistake on her part. A little bit of wrong, a little bit of disgust. A little bit of grace on her behalf, and maybe I would have made a new best friend.
Instead I took my sunglasses off.
And I showed her my eyes.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Why’d you do that?” Simon asked. “Was it supposed to scare her?”
“No,” I replied. “I just wanted her to see me again. It was like she’d forgotten me… It wasn’t the same as the first time we were together.”
“Do you know why it wasn’t the same?”
“She was only twelve. I’m sure she was going through all sorts of ups and downs.”
“No. That’s not correct.”
My arms went inward. “No?”
“You took the wrong girl.”
“I thought I might have but –”
“There were two of them. Two sisters. Twins. One was Elizabeth. The other was Elsie.”
“Elsie? Not Elsie who we just –”
“You didn’t recognize her.”
I felt my body cave in. I lowered myself to the edge of the pier.
Sat down with my feet over the edge. “There’s been so many. Their faces sort of blur. But I thought she was special. I dreamed about her. Or at least. I thought it was her…”
“Did you kill her then?”
“Did I kill who?”
“Elizabeth. The one you brought out to the woods and kissed.”
I looked down at my reflection in the water’s surface. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“Nadine. The truth.”
I swallowed. “Yeah I shot her.”
“Where?”
“Through her throat. I lay with her in the grave for the rest of the night. Then I … buried her in the morning.” I looked up at him. “Who knows?”
“All the local authorities. I’ve been recording this conversation. Not just for them. But for Elsie too.”
“Who is she to you?”
Icy Stares (Guess The Killer Book 1) Page 12