by Blake Pierce
“Avery,” O’Malley said. “Listen to me. He’s getting careless. He stole a phone. He used a knife and a cutting block here. We’ll get a print. We’ll find the phone and get an idea of where he might have gone.”
Rose…
That was the only thing going through her head in that moment. As she thought of her daughter, her concern became less and less about having to break the news of her father’s death to her. The main concern was now for her safety.
Yes, she knew that there were two men stationed at the motel. Sawyer and Dennison. But Biel was crazy, desperate, and very motivated.
She looked back at the message on the living room wall, written in smears of maroon.
EVERYONE YOU LOVE
“Rose,” she said.
“What?” O’Malley asked.
“I need to get back to Rose. Right now.”
“Okay, yeah. Jesus… I have to stay here on the scene until forensics shows up. Take my car. I’ll catch one of these guys back toward the A1. If you need anything at all, call Finley. Got it?”
She only nodded firmly as O’Malley offered her his keys and she snatched them from his hand.
“My God, Avery,” he said. “I’m so sorry…Rose…”
She assumed he had just figured out what she was going to have to do when she got back to the motel—what she was going to have to tell her daughter.
Everyone you love. That message replayed over and over in her head like a taunt.
A taunt which she effectively quieted with her own: Over my dead body.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
It was 11:10 when Rose jerked awake. She didn’t even remember falling asleep. She looked to the TV and saw a rerun of The Big Bang Theory. She’d fallen asleep during some lame house hunting show. She guessed that had been around ten or so.
Her mind was so muddied by these thoughts that it took her a few moments to latch onto what really mattered.
Something just woke me up. Not something loud, really. Something…weird. Now what the hell was it?
As she climbed out of grogginess and into a full panicked state of awareness, a few things occurred to her. First, her mom wasn’t there. And being so late, that was either a good thing (as she potentially was on the trail of the killer) or a bad thing. Whatever the reason, it meant that she was all alone.
No, she thought. Sawyer and Dennison are right outside. You’re safe. You’re—
But then she heard something else. This time, she heard it clearly, free of the veil of sleep. It was a thumping noise and what sounded like a deep intake of breath.
Never one to hide under the covers, even when she was a little girl, Rose cautiously stepped out of bed. The room was illuminated only by the faint glow of lights from the parking lot outside, spilling through the closed blinds and across the floor in soft white streaks. She went to the window and just before she pried the blinds open with her fingers to see what was going on out there, she thought better of it. She thought of that dead cat tied to the brick, crashing through her mom’s window. Someone was after them; it would be stupid to be so careless as to simply open the blinds.
She dropped down to her knees and just barely lifted up the bottom blind. She was still unable to see much of anything, so she scooted over to where she was kneeling directly under the center of the window. She lifted the bottom of the blinds up as quietly as she could. At first, all she saw was the glare of the soft light outside against the window. But then her eyes started to adjust to the dark and she was able to make out shapes.
She saw the police car, parked directly in front of the room. The driver’s side door was open, the interior light shining. In the seat, one of the officers—Dennison, she thought—looked to be sleeping. It wasn’t until she saw the limp way his head hung that she realized that he wasn’t sleeping at all. He was dead.
Just as this sank in, she saw another shape. This one was much closer to her, just to her right and on the concrete walkway in front of the room. It was two men, wrestling against one another. The thumping noise Rose had heard was one of them being slammed against the side of the building. As they fought one another, Rose managed to get a good grasp on what was happening—and it terrified her.
One of the men was Officer Sawyer. The other was a man she had never seen before. He was mostly bald and his eyes looked like reptilian slits in the dark. He was clearly winning the battle and the reason why was obvious. There was something sticking out of the side of Sawyer’s neck. Even in the darkness and shadows, Rose could see the glistening blood pouring out of him.
“Shit,” Rose breathed.
In doing so, she dropped the blinds a little too quickly. They clattered against the windowsill.
Outside, the bald man turned in her direction. Still fighting with Sawyer, the bald man actually smiled at her—an evil grin she barely saw through the jostled blinds.
Rose went stumbling back so quickly that she struck the bed—the bed her mother should have been sleeping in, but where was she anyway? She hated that she felt nothing but anger toward her mother in that moment, but there it was. She scrambled to her feet, let her logic and instinct come to the forefront of her mind, and rushed for the door. It was already locked, but she also set the chain lock as well.
She then backed away from the door and went to the bedside table that sat between the two beds. She scooped up her phone and scrolled to her mother’s number. With her thumb hovering over her mom’s name, something slammed into the door from outside.
Rose jumped, let out a yelp, and her phone went flying out of her hand. It bounced almost effortlessly on the bed and as Rose dove for it, something slammed into the door again. She could hear the chain rattling, the lock trembling.
Rose shrieked and every nerve in her body kicked into fight-or-flight mode. The phone forgotten, all she could think about was trying to survive. She ran as fast as she could into the bathroom, nearly colliding with the sink. As she turned around to close the door behind her, the door to the room was struck again.
The top hinge popped out from the door frame and door shook loosely in its frame. Another hard attack and it would likely come falling down. Crying now, Rose slammed the bathroom door and set the lock. As her shaking fingers set it, she realized that the locking mechanism for the bathroom door was much weaker than the door to the room. Still, she felt as if she had made progress, that she had run away from the bald man and really, that was all she could do.
But now, trapped in the bathroom with no way out, it seemed like a stupid move. And with that move having pinned her here, she realized just how terrified she had been when she had dashed into the bathroom. She’d even left her damned phone out there on the bed. Not that it mattered…the guy would be in here any moment now and that would be the end of it. She might have enough time to place the call—might even get to hear a ring or two from her mom’s phone—but that would be it.
As if to confirm this, she heard a loud crashing noise from the other side of the bathroom door. The man was inside. He’d managed to kick the door down.
Someone had to see him kill the cops, she thought. And even if not, surely someone heard him kicking at the door. Where the hell is the manager?
“Your mother isn’t here?” the bald man said as he neared the bathroom door. She could hear his walking in her direction and then a sound like he was running his fingers down the door in an almost sensual manner. “Of course she isn’t,” he said, answering his own question. “She’s out cleaning up my messes. And maybe…well, maybe she has some bad news for you. I almost want to tell you myself before I kill you. Do you want to know it?”
“Go to hell!” She screamed this at him, but did not feel defiant at all. Then, following this, she screamed as loud as she could, trying to attract as much attention as possible.
“Ah, bad girl,” the man said. And with that, he started to kick at the bathroom door. The bottom of the door buckled easily, the old wooden frame splintering.
Rose looked around for a
nything she could defend herself with. But there was nothing. Not even a plunger.
I’m going to die, she thought. It was a horrifying thought but one that she nearly managed to accept with a shaky sort of clarity. She’d been hiding her fear to this point through pretending to be pissed at her mom—to shut her out and resort to the sad little teenage moods she’d used to her advantage a few years back. But really, she’d be scared, but didn’t want her mom to know. Now she was staring that fear in the face and it was like finally meeting some dark stranger and accepting them for what they were.
The next time the door shook, it came crashing in. The man had thrown his shoulder into it and it had come down easy. Maybe a little too easy. The bald man had clearly not expected it to come down with such speed. He nearly fell down, and probably would have if he had not reached out and grabbed the sink with a flailing right hand.
As he balanced himself along the side of the sink, his eyes fell on Rose in an embarrassed sort of way, as if to say I don’t know my own strength.
And it was that cocky look that bought Rose a single second. As he tried to quickly correct himself, his right foot got caught on the fallen door, wedging his shoe between the downed door and the floor.
Seeing this, Rose bolted for the door. He reached out for her, snatching at her. A blood-soaked right hand caught her shoulder and drew her back. But his grip was slick with the blood of the two cops he had just killed and Rose was able to pull away quickly.
She made it out of the bathroom and instantly went for her phone. She grabbed it and then headed straight for the door. She didn’t dare look back over her shoulder. She kept her eyes on the opened door and the night beyond.
She was three steps away from it when she felt the full weight of the bald man fall on her back. He had apparently leaped at her, crashing into her back and sending her to the floor straight ahead and slightly to the left. Her right arm struck the edge of the bed frame and a shuddering pain like electricity raced through that entire side of her body.
He grabbed her by the hair and rolled her onto her back roughly. She tried to cry out but before she could, he punched her hard in the stomach. As she gasped for air, he caressed the side of her face. She felt that he was wearing gloves, even through the coating of blood.
“I’m going to kill you now,” he said simply. “It’ll be quick; I don’t have time to show off. But first, let me tell you my secret. Do you know where I’ve come from? Do you know who I killed before I came to pay you a visit? Would you like to know?”
She whined through her gasps for breath. She heard his words but they seemed to float away into some other place. She wanted to close her eyes as he settled his full weight against her, wanted go deaf to stop hearing his voice.
Then his hands were on her throat, squeezing.
And then his mouth was at her ear, like some demented lover, about to tell her his secret.
***
Avery saw Sawyer’s body before she was even across the parking lot. Seeing it, she brought her car to a screeching halt, one wheel coming up on the edge of the concrete walkway that ran along the length of the place, connecting the rooms. As she got out of the car, the engine still running and the headlights still on, she saw the patrol car. The door was opened. The interior light was on, glowing dimly down on Dennison.
She barely paid Sawyer any attention as she ran toward Rose’s room. Even so, she still saw smears of blood on the concrete and against the side of the motel’s exterior wall. She drew her gun and after that, her instincts all went into panicked-mother mode rather than trained detective.
“Rose?” she called out, even before entering the room. “Rose, baby…are you okay?”
She was nearly weeping with anticipation and gut-wrenching fear as she stepped into the room.
She had taken only one step before she saw something come swinging for her head. She stepped backward just in time and could feel whatever it was pass by the tip of her nose by no more than an inch. When it crashed into the door—which she now realized had been kicked in with force—she was vaguely aware that someone was swinging the base of a lamp at her.
She then saw the bald head and the leering face of Ronald Biel. There were flecks of blood on his face, stretching from his brow to the lopsided sneer he gave her as he dropped the lamp and came at her with his bare hands.
Avery brought her Glock up and fired just before his gloved hands touched her throat. The shot caught him high in the left shoulder, spinning him like a top. He slammed into the door frame and then stumbled out onto the concrete. Torn between her need to stop Biel and her heartbreaking need to find Rose, Avery missed a beat and glared around the room.
She found Rose, lying on the floor. There were bloody handprints around her neck. Her eyes were open, but she was not moving.
Avery’s body went slack for a moment and she thought she might collapse to the floor. But then she felt the reassuring weight of the Glock in her hands. She let out a moan that tried to evolve into a scream as she turned back toward Biel.
He had made his way outside now, running as well as he could into the parking lot. He was about eight feet away, favoring the side she had just shot. Avery brought up her gun, her hands trembling and her eyes blurring with tears.
She fired and knew right away that her current state sent the shot wide right. She steadied herself and fired off tow more shots. One took him high in the same shoulder. The other, she wasn’t sure.
But he kept moving.
Avery’s legs gave out then, the grief pulling her legs out from under her. She kept the gun raised and in a blur of pain and sorrow and absolute hatred, fired off nine more rounds, pulling the trigger until she heard all clicks.
She kept squeezing the trigger with her right hand as she used her left to get to her feet, pulling herself up by the door handle.
“Mom?”
Gasping in a shocked breath, Avery turned and saw Rose sitting up. She was pushing herself up by her elbows and looked very much out of it.
Rose ran to her and gathered her up in her arms, dropping the expelled Glock. “Rose! Oh my God! Are you okay?”
She nodded. “My throat hurts. He strangled me for a while, I think. But then he heard your car pulling up. But…Sawyer and Dennison…”
“I know, honey,” she said.
“Mom…he said he had a secret. That he had been somewhere before he came here. What was he talking about?”
Avery’s heart felt like it was being wrung dry. “Hold on, baby,” she said. “I have to call this in—”
“Mom? Please. Tell me.”
Slowly, she took Rose’s hand and told her. And although she did not think it possible, the night seemed to grow about ten shades darker.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Weston Motel was a circus within twenty minutes. The entire parking lot was awash in headlights as patrol cars and sedans pulled into the lot. Avery and Rose remained in their room, which was getting quite crowded. Avery was relaying what had happened to Connelly while an EMT looked Rose over.
Rose had a few bruises on her neck but there seemed to be no real damage done. She had also been looked over to see if Biel might have left prints on her but because he had been wearing gloves, there was nothing. The same was true of Sawyer and Dennison. And although no one had been there to witness what had happened to them, the running theory was that Dennison’s throat had been slit and then he had been stabbed in the chest and stomach a total of six times.
As for Sawyer, it was believed that he had stepped away for a moment to get a cup of coffee from the front desk, as there was a mostly empty paper cup near his body and the smell of coffee mingled with blood. He had been stabbed with the same knife used to kill Dennison. There had been only two wounds on Sawyer—one in his side that had likely punctured a lung, and then another in his throat, where the knife had remained lodged in. Rose had described seeing something sticking out of his upper chest area when he had been wrestling with Biel as she spied the match
through the bottom of the blinds.
It was not a pretty picture, but it was the picture they had.
Through all of the commotion, Avery managed to ignore most of it and focus on Rose. She’d had only five minutes or so to grieve the loss of her father with just the two of them before the first cop car had arrived. Since then, she looked like a zombie, staring off into space. She’d answer questions when they were asked of her but that was about it. Avery wanted to yell at everyone in the room and those gathered outside to tell them to give them a chance to process it all. The girl had just lost her father for God’s sake, could they get a little bit of privacy?
But when she saw the first news van pull up outside, she knew that any hope for privacy was gone.
Connelly was standing in front of Avery, clearly a little out of his element. Avery had never seen him at a loss before. It did not look good on him.
“You fired every single round,” Connelly said. “And you say you’re only sure you hit him twice.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I thought Rose was dead and I lost my mind there for a moment.”
“That’s understandable,” he said. “But you hit the bastard. Twice. So he’s bleeding. And if he’s bleeding, that means he probably left some sort of a trail. Which way was he heading?”
“I don’t know. Just straight across the parking lot is all I know for sure.”
“Okay. Let me get some guys on that. I’ll be right back.”
She watched Connelly walk through the door and then turned back to Rose. The EMT was finishing up, giving her a nod of approval.
“She’s lucky,” the EMT said. “No serious damage from what I can see. If she reports trouble breathing or any sort of pain in her neck in the next few days, you may want to get X-rays done. But I think she’ll be fine.”
From outside, she could hear people shouting. She went to the wrecked door and looked out. A line of four cops was trying to hold back a news crew. As she watched this, another news van pulled in. More headlights trailed behind that.