by J. D. Barker
Gimble rolled to her left, the legs of the chairs digging into her back. The hatchet blade came down and cracked against one of the chairs with a loud clank, and she prayed to God it wouldn’t spark as she threw herself to the side, away from the furniture. She landed hard on the concrete and winced as her left arm folded awkwardly beneath her, but then she scrambled to her feet, rubbed her arm, and brought her Glock back up. “I’m a federal agent!”
The man turned toward her, raised the hatchet again. A twisted smile rolled across his lips. “You’re trespassing, and you’re pointing a gun at me. I’m just defending myself. How could you threaten a frightened, defenseless old man?” He ran toward her, the hatchet above his head.
Gimble jumped aside and punched at his back as he flew past. She landed only a glancing blow; it rolled right off. He crashed into the side of the HVAC unit, recovered, and turned back to her. He nodded at a door in the corner of the room. “Your friend is dying in there. Let me go, and you might have time to save him.”
The flashlight from Gimble’s phone pointed up at him from the ground. His shadow covered the wall and part of the ceiling, towering over her. He coughed, choked on the smoke. The smell of gas was growing thick.
Gimble pointed her weapon at him. “Drop the ax.”
His head tilted to the side. “We talked about that. The muzzle flash alone will ignite the gas. You know it will.”
“Maybe I’m willing to take that chance.”
He coughed again. “How good a shot are you?” He raised his foot and brought it back down on her phone.
Darkness engulfed them.
Gimble ran at him.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
Fire scurried up the walls, inched across the ceiling.
I dropped to my hands and knees and peered through the smoke.
Michael brought his knee up into Mitchell’s chest. Mitchell gasped, fell back, then scrambled to his feet, the knife held out before him in an underhanded grip. The blade was red.
When Michael stood, I saw a growing stain in his side. He was wearing some kind of prison jumpsuit.
Mitchell wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. His lower lip was split. “Christ, Michael, you’re so fucking sloppy. I’ve had to clean up after you every step of the way—Erma and that girl at the motel. You can’t do anything right. I’ve been killing for years, and the police have been clueless, but in two days, you lead them right back here in some crazy, public shitshow. When I left Alyssa Tepper in your bathtub, I really hoped you’d find a way to dispose of her body, cover it up. You could have helped me. But no—instead, you call the cops.” He shook his head. “Crossroads, Michael, crossroads. You chose the wrong path. Now I’ve got to give them another body. You left me with no choice. We’ve got Nicki Milligan in there. She’s a good match for Megan, but I gotta give them you too. There’s no other way out of this. We let them find you, find Nicki, Meg and I walk away, nobody’s the wiser.”
Michael pressed a hand over the cut in his side and just stared at him, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. Confused.
“You’ve got to take one for the team,” Mitchell continued, moving the knife from his right hand to his left, then back again. “My life ended in this place. It’s only fitting that yours does too. There’s poetry there. Justification. Fitzgerald’s notes are gone. Everyone’s dead or will be soon enough. When this building goes, what they all did will die with it. I’ll finally be free. I need you to do this one thing for me, this one last little thing. I’ve seen so many people die and they all look so relieved at the end, like a burden has been lifted. I can do that for you. God knows what you did to Mom must weigh heavily on you.”
“I d-didn’t…” Michael stuttered, unable to complete the sentence.
“I suppose after twenty-two years, you’ve found all kinds of ways to spin it, help yourself sleep, but you can’t lie to me. I was there. I saw you. I saw you wait for her to fall asleep in the bathtub, then go in there and ease her under the water. You were so careful that she didn’t even wake up. You were so gentle, like a vet putting a family’s treasured dog down.”
Michael pressed at the wound in his side and only stared. He seemed oblivious to the fire around him.
Mitchell took a step closer. “I get it—that’s what you did. You put her out of her misery. And she was miserable. We were days away from being homeless, destitute. You did her a favor. Kudos, brother. I didn’t have it in me. Not then, anyway.” Mitchell smiled. “Telling him I did it, spinning it like I was some imaginary friend. That was inspired. We know the truth, though. We both know it was all you.”
The heat of the fire pressed in at me, but I couldn’t move. My eyes kept flying from Mitchell to Michael and back again. At my feet, Nicole groaned. I switched the scissors from my right hand to my left, wiped my sweaty palm on my jeans, then returned the scissors to my right, gripping them tight.
Mitchell’s gaze never left Michael. “When you told Max he had to get rid of her body, that the police would assume he did it, you were so convincing. He was high as a kite, like Mom, but still, at four years old? To think with that kind of clarity? You inspired me, Michael, you really did. I wanted to be just like you. Fitzgerald and I talked about all that a lot. Pieced together what little you told him with what I knew, filled in the blanks. I gotta be honest, I think it all scared him a bit. Not enough to make him stop, though. I think he relished the fact that you had it in you.”
“None of this is true,” Michael said. “Mom…Mom drowned on her own. Max blamed himself. He thought the police would blame him. The drugs made him paranoid. That’s why he…he did what he did. The things you’re saying…they’re not true. That’s what Dr. Bart believed, and he tried to convince me that’s what happened, but it’s not. It’s what he told me when he wanted me to become Mitchell—he tried to force me to believe it—but it wasn’t true.”
Mitchell shook his head, his face red, a vessel bulging at his temple. “Become Mitchell? You’re still acting like I’m not real. Like I’m just one of your hallucinations. Your little imaginary friend come to life.”
Michael blinked. His face was riddled with confusion. He glared at Mitchell, then at Nicole lying on the ground at my feet, then at the scissors in my hand. “I don’t know what you are, M—”
Mitchell lunged at him.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven
Gimble
Gimble closed the distance between them with three fast steps. She charged at him through the dark, didn’t give him a chance to move out of the way. When the barrel of her Glock pressed into the soft flesh of his belly, she leaned in, put all her weight behind it. He twisted beneath her, managed to get the hatchet up.
Gimble pulled the trigger. She couldn’t see a damn thing, but she squeezed her eyes shut anyway, waiting for the entire room to go up in a giant fireball. The gun jumped with the first shot, and she fired again. She fired a third time. Each time, she forced the muzzle deeper into his abdomen.
The heavy blade came down, struck her just above the waist, and Gimble jerked to the side, knocked it away with her free hand. The hatchet clattered onto the concrete.
He collapsed against her. A grunt escaped his lips, and she pushed him away. His limp body fell to the ground.
She dropped the gun. Gimble staggered, caught herself, and leaned forward, her hands on her knees. She drew in a deep breath and coughed. The smell of the gas burned her throat, her lungs. “Dobbs! Where are you?” she finally managed to say.
She heard nothing but the steady drip of water.
Her hand went to her side, where the blade had hit. Her shirt was torn, but it hadn’t broken the skin. There wasn’t enough force behind the blow.
She raised her head. “Dobbs!”
Thump.
The sound came from her right; it was barely audible, like someone hitting a mattress. She turned toward it. “Again!”
Thum
p.
Her hands out before her, Gimble moved as quickly as she dared, shuffling her feet. When the toe of her shoe struck something, she carefully maneuvered around it. She crouched low, the air a little easier to breathe near the floor. “Keep going!”
Thump. Thump.
Her hand found a wall; she pressed her palm against it. She heard Dobbs again, still to her right, and she moved toward the sound, following the wall until she reached a hallway. A moment later, Gimble’s hand traced a door frame.
The door jumped with the next thump.
“I’m here! Hold on—” She found the doorknob and twisted, but it didn’t open. She ran her hand back up the side of the door frame and found a bolt, a heavy metal thing at least half an inch thick. She yanked it aside and pushed open the door.
Dobbs was on the floor, his arm and the leg of his jeans soaked in blood. Off to the side, the flashlight from his phone lit the room, a bubble of light.
Photographs of Michael Kepler and Megan Fitzgerald covered the walls. There was a cot. A few milk crates had been repurposed as furniture. Books. A toilet and sink in the corner of the room. The lock was on the outside of the room—someone had been kept here.
She went to him, knelt down. “Can you stand?”
Dobbs nodded, but it was clear he’d lost a lot of blood. His face was deathly white. His hair was greasy, soaked with sweat. He raised a trembling hand, touched Gimble’s cheek. “I think I love you.”
Delusional too.
Gimble grabbed his phone and tucked it into the front pocket of her jeans with the flashlight pointing out. She lifted his good arm over her shoulder and put her arm around his waist. “On three—” She counted down and got him to his feet. His legs nearly buckled, but she held him, waited for him to grow steady.
“He cut the gas—”
Gimble was already pulling him toward the door. “I know. We need to hurry.”
She got him through the door, down the hallway, and back into the subbasement. His eyes fell on the lifeless body.
“Patchen. He killed Begley,” Dobbs said between panting breaths.
“Kepler’s here. He’s loose in the building.”
He didn’t respond to that. Somehow, though, Dobbs managed to quicken his pace.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
The heat of the growing flames pressed at me from all sides. “Don’t hurt him! Stop!” I shouted, hurling myself at both of them.
Nicole grabbed my leg, tripped me, and I fell to the floor. She tried to wrestle the scissors from my hand, but I kicked at her; my foot landed square in her face, knocking her back. Heat seared my skin. I rolled to the side, got back on my feet.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mitchell throw himself at Michael, pushing off from his right foot and flying across the hall. Michael tried to sidestep him. The movement tugged at the wound in his side, and he winced, slowed, but it was enough—Mitchell hit him at an odd angle, and he fell against the burning wall. He pulled away but not before the shoulder of his shirt caught fire. He jumped forward and slapped at the flames until they were out.
Michael spotted his gun against the baseboard about five feet down the hall and dived for it. The moment his fingers wrapped around the steel, he pulled his hand away—it was too hot. He twisted back around just as Mitchell landed on top of him, his knee on Michael’s right arm, pinning it down. He held Michael’s other arm back with his left. Mitchell raised his knife and aimed it at the center of Michael’s chest.
I raised the scissors.
Michael’s eyes were on mine, pleading. I heard my name in his defeated gasp.
Mitchell’s arm swung through the air, arcing down toward Michael.
I jumped on him.
I threw myself onto Mitchell and buried the scissors in his back. The first blow landed inches from where I had stabbed him earlier. I brought the scissors up and stabbed him again. The blade hit bone, maybe his spine. I yanked them out, stabbed him again. And again after that. He tried to buck me off, but my legs were wrapped around him. I wouldn’t let go. I kept stabbing and stabbing until the back of his shirt was soaked in blood. I stabbed him until I was exhausted, and then I rolled off to the side and fell to the floor beside them.
Michael’s head, only inches away, twisted toward me. He coughed and blood flecked his chin. “Fire…get out…Meg…”
I forced myself back up, shaking my head. “No, no, no, no.”
I pushed Mitchell off him; the scissors were still buried in his back. His body rolled to the side and thumped against the wall. The flames caught his hair, and his vacant eyes stared back at me.
When I looked down at Michael, I saw the blade of Mitchell’s knife in his chest, buried nearly to the hilt. His hand went to it, tried to pull it out, but he was too weak. His fingers fell away.
My eyes filled with tears. I touched his cheek. “I’ll get you out, Michael. Stand with me. I’ll carry you if I have to. Don’t die on me!”
He looked up at me as if my words didn’t make sense.
“We have to leave the blade in, though,” I told him. “Taking it out here might be more dangerous than leaving it in. I’ll get you outside, find help…”
He blinked slowly. His lips moved. I leaned in closer, put my ear near his mouth.
“Get Nicole out,” he whispered. “Save…Nicole.”
I shook my head. “We’ll both get her out, you and I together. Or she can help me with you…the three of us, we’re all getting out.”
He didn’t answer.
I choked on the black smoke between sobs, coughed, wiped my eyes, and kissed his forehead, his cheek. “I love you, Michael. You know that, right? I’ve always loved you. Nobody else. Only you.”
When I lifted my head and looked down at his face, I knew he was gone. His eyes had glazed over, his mouth hung slightly open, and he was no longer breathing.
I don’t know how long I sat there—a minute, maybe two. When I forced myself to turn away, I saw Nicole. She had crawled halfway down the hall before collapsing. I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and went to her, keeping low, avoiding the smoke as much as I could. The flames had worked their way up the walls and were eating at the ceiling now. Chunks of plaster started to fall, little bits at first, then bigger pieces.
“Can you hear me?” I shouted at her.
She turned to me slowly. She was choking behind the duct tape. She had tried to pull it off, but Mitchell had wrapped it around her head so many times, there was no way to get it off by hand, we’d need—
I looked over at Mitchell behind me—the scissors were still buried in his back. He was covered in flames, his skin black and charred.
There was no time.
Michael lay so still beside him.
I turned away, couldn’t look anymore.
I grabbed Nicole around the waist and forced her up. The cuts on her feet were black with a mix of soot and blood. She fought me at first, but when she realized we were heading toward the stairs, she pushed forward. The two of us hobbled, inched toward the only way down, the only way out.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine
Gimble
Dobbs stumbled for the third time, and Gimble tugged him back up, pulled him closer. “We’re almost there,” she said reassuringly.
“No, we’re not,” Dobbs replied. His leg buckled again, and he nearly fell. Somehow, she kept him standing.
She’d managed to get him out of the subbasement and up the first flight of stairs into the main basement level, the long hallway. She closed the heavy metal door behind them, and while that seemed to hold most of the natural gas at bay, she could still smell it. She imagined it was coming up through the HVAC vents.
“I smell smoke,” Dobbs said. “You need to leave me and get out of here. If there’s a fire and that gas reaches it, the—”
“Just keep moving,” Gimble interrupted, dragging him along. Patchen had killed the building’s
power, and by doing so, he’d done them a favor. If the HVAC had still been running, pumping the gas through the building, it would have surely ignited by now.
They reached the metal fire door leading back upstairs, and Dobbs collapsed. Gimble caught sight of his face as he dropped beside her—she saw his eyes roll back in his head.
Gimble dropped to her knees. “Dobbs! Not now, we’re almost there!” She slapped him, hard, right across the face.
He groaned but didn’t move.
The fabric he had wrapped around the hatchet wound in his arm had come loose, and his arm was covered with dark red blood. She pulled off her belt, wrapped it around his arm, and yanked it tight using a foot against his torso for leverage.
Dobbs’s eyes shot open, and he howled.
“There he is,” Gimble said, removing the belt.
His head swiveled, unsure of where he was. Then he remembered. His eyes pleaded with her. “I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”
“I didn’t haul your ass this far to watch you die.” Gimble helped him back to his feet. “One more flight of stairs. If the building blows, it’ll happen fast and I’ll never know what happened. I leave you, I’ll have to live with that. Contrary to what my team might tell you, I have a conscience.” She reached over and jabbed the wound in his arm.
Dobbs jerked away, now fully awake.
She glared at him. “Every time you slow down, I’m doing that again.”
He nodded, leaned back against her.
Gimble shoved open the door, and the smoke rushed in at them, gray and black. The air was hot and smelled of burning timber. “Move!”
She pushed him out into the thick of it and pulled the door shut behind her. Gimble couldn’t see a fire, but she could hear it, a low rumble somewhere nearby. She tried not to think of all the gas building up below them.