Be My Killer: A completely UNPUTDOWNABLE crime thriller with nail-biting mystery and suspense

by Richard Parker

  ‘What is it?’ She watched his features contort. ‘Weiss?’

  ‘It’s Tamara. I tried to stop her.’ His eyes remained fastened to Eve’s remains.

  ‘What has she done? Weiss?’ Lucas snapped.

  ‘She went into the arena.’

  Hazel hobbled quickly back to the concourse.

  When they reached the go-kart track, Tamara had found Ryan Kirby.

  ‘You fucking son of a bitch!’

  She’d taken the knife out of him and was repeatedly stabbing his dead body with it. Ryan’s head hung down and bounced with each impact. Tamara’s hand glistened red as she carved fragments from the middle of his chest.

  126

  Hazel limped her way along the curtained bays in emergency and found a doctor redressing Lucas’s dog-bite wound that Tamara had bandaged. ‘Hey. You good?’

  ‘Never mind me. You OK?’

  ‘They don’t think I’ve broken anything.’ She lightly touched the plaster under her chin.

  ‘What about Rena?’

  ‘They’ve taken her up to X-ray.’

  ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘Doctor says she’s still in shock. Where’s Weiss?’

  ‘Getting some air. He’s pretty shaken up. Any word about Tamara?’

  Hazel dropped into a plastic chair opposite him. ‘The officer with me had a message on his radio. She’s just called Broomfield PD and wants to make a statement.’

  ‘Then why the hell did she take off in the pickup?’

  ‘Good question.’ She supported her bandaged and aching right elbow with her other hand.

  ‘You trust her story?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither.’ He flinched as the nurse tightened the new bandage.

  ‘Don’t understand why she suddenly chose tonight to feel protective about us. And where has she been since she split? The farm? Maybe we should check it out while she’s with the police.’

  ‘I have to go back there anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  He raised an eyebrow at Hazel.

  ‘Lucas, what did you do?’

  ‘Need to pick up a piece of gear I left there.’

  127

  The grown-up had gone, and April knew it didn’t matter how many times she called out for help. Nobody was going to hear.

  She thought about her bedroom at home and how the sun hit the orange curtains and turned the walls the same shade. She thought about breakfast with her father and how he watched the TV over the top of his spectacles while he ate his crispy eggs. And she thought about her mother crying, like the time she’d caught her doing it in the bathroom when she didn’t think anyone was listening.

  She’d be crying now. Wondering where April was. And crying even more when she didn’t come home.

  ‘Help,’ she sobbed weakly.

  The water went inside her mouth, and it tasted like earth. April kept pedalling her legs, treading it like her teacher had shown her. She was so tired now. And she couldn’t tell the difference between the water and the darkness around her.

  Had to keep her legs moving, even though her teeth chattered with the cold. Her head dipped under the surface, and she quickly lifted her face out again. She was falling asleep. Starting to dream. Or maybe this was a nightmare and she was about to wake from it.

  April breathed the liquid into her nose again.

  ‘April!’

  She lifted her ears clear of the water. Had the grown-up come back? The voice sounded nearby.

  ‘April!’

  Should she answer? Did he care?

  ‘April!’ A lady’s voice now.

  Who was up there? They were having a conversation. ‘Down here!’

  Torchlight hit her, and she screwed her eyes against it.

  ‘Jesus, she’s still alive,’ a man said.

  It didn’t sound like the grown-up who had put her there.

  ‘Hold on, April!’ the lady yelled. ‘We’re coming down to get you.’

  ‘Help,’ April responded feebly, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

  She waited, sluggishly kicking her legs even though she could barely feel them any more. There were more lights above her. It was the search party. The one she’d been waiting for since she’d climbed the tree.

  A few minutes later, a big man was beside her.

  ‘Just hold on, sweetheart.’

  Then she was being carried out. When she was shivering against the cold night air she was disappointed not to see her parents. And the search party wasn’t that big either. There was a TV camera though. It belonged to the big bald man. And with him was a lady with blonde hair, a bandage around her hand and a plaster on her chin.

  128

  Hazel’s feet were aching in her heels but she was way too jumpy to sit amongst the audience for the screening so just hung around at the back. Despite efforts to adjust it, the air con was on full blast and everyone was still wearing coats.

  There was about ten minutes left of the movie. Like the rest of the cut, it was a combination of real footage and actor reconstruction. Criteria had insisted upon it. Against her wishes, another director had been brought in to hastily shoot the additional scenes in Vancouver, and Hazel hadn’t even been introduced to him.

  Hazel’s earnest expression filled the cinema screen as she addressed the lens. Her talking head had been recorded in a sound studio. Fun Central was still a no-go area.

  ‘After Tamara Hickman’s frenzied attack on Ryan Kirby’s body, she fled. I wasn’t convinced by her story. Why try to warn us that particular night? A spy cam that my cameraman left positioned at the turkey farm recorded the revealing low-grade footage that follows. He’d jammed it between two of the corrugated panels of the poultry shed he’d concealed himself behind prior to us being taken prisoner by Wade and Tamara. It seems Wade Hickman had no idea what was going on right under his nose. The man inside the shed Wade had shown us wasn’t a recovering addict. Only Tamara knew who he really was and had been conducting a secret relationship with him. This was the reason she was so eager to protect him from the intrusion of my crew. This first sequence is real and was recorded in low light, which has been enhanced.’

  Her features were replaced by a bleached fisheye POV of the poultry shed interior. Its lean prisoner was now clothed in jeans and an olive field jacket, his dark dreadlocks tied in a ponytail. He was standing below a single bulb, hurriedly loading a rifle but displaying no signs of the withdrawal he’d exhibited when Wade had taken Hazel, Lucas and Weiss in there. The sound of raindrops striking the corrugated roof was discernible, and when his phone rang he hit speaker and continued hastily feeding in the bullets.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ Tamara’s tremulous voice fought with the engine of the pickup.

  ‘I got held up. Been trying to call and text you.’

  ‘I was with Wade. I couldn’t answer my phone.’

  ‘I caught the little girl who’s been poking around at Fun Central and stole from Kirby’s bag of tricks.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Just locked her in one of the old feed bins. Wanted to find out if she’d seen my face.’

  ‘Jesus. Did she?’

  ‘She has now.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘You driving?’

  ‘It’s all gone wrong. Maybe I should go to the cops and make a statement.’

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded; temper barely restrained. ‘Jesus, Tamara, all you had to do was send Wade in there so Kirby would kill him before I took care of Kirby.’

  ‘Kirby didn’t finish the crew. They were still alive when I got there with Wade. And the cops had arrived. You didn’t show!’

  ‘I’ve been dealing with the kid.’

  ‘And I had to find out what the fuck was going on. Wade started a shoot-out. He’s dead. So are the two cops.’

  He nodded and absorbed this. ‘What about Kirby?’

  ‘Dead as well. One of the crew stabbed him.’

  ‘But this is
good.’

  ‘No. I had to think on my feet. Told the crew about Kirby staying at the farm.’

  ‘What the fuck for?’

  ‘Had to justify why I got Wade to drive out to Fun Central. But I said Kirby killed Meredith. Don’t think they bought all of it though. Maybe we should run.’

  He shouldered the rifle and was silent for a few seconds. ‘No. Make your statement about Kirby but get it dead straight in your head first.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the kid?’

  ‘We’ll let Kirby take the blame.’

  ‘Don’t kill her. Better we make it look like an accident. Head to Third Base. There’s a natural well. Push her in there. Nobody goes out that way any more.’

  ‘OK. I’ll call you when I’m done. Just hold your nerve.’

  The footage froze, and Hazel’s voice-over continued.

  ‘But Tamara didn’t know about my attack in the forest. It was obvious to me that two men were involved. Working in tandem, Ryan Kirby and his accomplice had easily achieved the murders of the online victims as well as those at Fun Central.’

  A montage of snapshots depicting Ryan Kirby in combat uniform followed.

  ‘Ryan Kirby was ex-military and had been discharged on grounds of substance abuse and mental instability after killing civilians in Syria. He’d found an ally through a PTSD chat room, and they’d both been drawn to Fossen’s @BeMyKiller Twitter timeline, choosing the victims whose comments inspired them before stalking them for sport.’

  A car arrived at the mocked-up Vancouver turkey farm. The actor portraying Tamara appeared from the Hickmans’ living quarters, and the actor with dreadlocks playing the unidentified killer emerged from the driver’s side. He opened the rear passenger door, and they pulled out a Ryan Kirby lookalike. He was delirious as they helped him to the poultry shed.

  Hazel picked up her narration. ‘The unidentified man we know only as Killer 2 brought Ryan Kirby to detox at the turkey farm just after Kirby had shot Denise Needham and he had mutilated Caleb Huber. Neither of them stabbed Kristian O’Connell. Police have now arrested a dealer for his murder.’

  The scene cut to a two-shot of the actors playing Tamara and Killer 2 naked in bed having an intimate conversation.

  ‘Killer 2 had got clean at the farm the previous year and had begun a secret relationship with Tamara. It was during Kirby’s recovery that Tamara saw a way of disposing of Meredith.’

  The scene wiped to the Tamara actor talking in the woods with a Meredith lookalike and haggard twenty-something man.

  ‘Tamara was also a small-time dealer but she hadn’t let Wade know it was more than just a sideline. She used Meredith and others to sell crank at Fun Central. But Meredith began blackmailing Tamara after she witnessed the way she dealt with a pusher who had been stealing from her.’

  The Tamara actor pulled out a handgun and shot the man point-blank in the chest. The image froze.

  ‘To avoid implicating herself, Tamara plotted with Killer 2 to murder Meredith and make it appear it was part of the @BeMyKiller executions. Tamara sent the tweet from Meredith’s account shortly before she was taken to Fun Central by her lover.’

  The scene dissolved to a replica Meredith shrine being doused with petrol by the actor playing Killer 2. He touched a match to it and the pillar went up.

  ‘Both killers took it in turns to methodically target the documentary being shot at Fun Central. Kirby posed as a taxi driver to get close to the participants. After they’d dispatched their targets, Ryan Kirby believed they would end their lives in a suicide pact, preferably on film. But Killer 2 and Tamara planned for all the executions to be laid squarely at Kirby’s feet. Tamara would dispose of Wade, her husband, by getting him to arrive at Fun Central during Kirby’s killing spree, and then Killer 2 would shoot Kirby and make it look like suicide.’

  A low definition still of the real Killer 2 taken at the poultry shed in Broomfield slid into the frame.

  ‘Tamara didn’t make her statement. But she was picked up by police a few days later and confessed. Given what we’d captured with our spy cam, she had no choice. She’s now awaiting trial. Killer 2 vanished. Little is known about his identity or whereabouts. If any viewers think they recognise this man, please contact the number at the end of the credits or our production website. At the time of this movie release, a police manhunt is still ongoing and, until he’s captured, the hashtag #BeMyKiller remains subject to a social media ban.’

  129

  As the rescue of April Weeks was re-enacted, Hazel slipped out of a packed Studio One and into the lobby.

  Rena was schmoozing Criteria’s representative. ‘All done?’

  ‘Going to quickly grab some air.’

  ‘You know Vance?’

  Hazel regarded the tan, twenty-something exec but didn’t. None of the seniors were going to make tracks to a tiny independent cinema in Broomfield. The movie was going to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and was set for an October theatrical release but she couldn’t think of a more appropriate place to have an advance screening than her home town.

  Like the rest of the crew, Rena had been reluctant to return but had insisted on coordinating the reception.

  ‘How was the audience?’ Vance asked glibly, clearly more interested in getting back to his cosy conversation with Rena.

  ‘I think most of them were too busy trying to keep warm. The air con only seems to have a wind tunnel setting.’

  ‘Hazel?’

  She halted by the main door and turned back to Rena.

  ‘You will be attending the party.’ It wasn’t a question. The gathering was being held in an aseptic cocktail bar a few blocks away.

  ‘Of course. Somewhere else I need to be first though.’ She pulled the handle and escaped into the chill air.

  130

  Having found The Hollows housing project on her TomTom, Hazel pulled into the driveway of 244, switched off the engine and got out of her Mazda. As she walked up the short paved path to the front door, the curtain at the window ahead of her was pulled aside and a blonde head appeared over the ledge. She smiled but it dropped out of sight.

  Hazel rang the bell and heard feet squeaking up the hallway.

  Vanessa Weeks opened the door. ‘Hey,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hi.’

  Vanessa gestured for her to come inside. Hazel could smell baking.

  It was only the third time Hazel had met April’s mother. The first had been at Bennett’s office when Vanessa had reported her daughter missing; the second when she’d been driven out to Hazel after she and Lucas had pulled the little girl out of the well at Third Base. Minutes later and they probably would have been too late. April had been close to exhaustion when they’d found her.

  After Tamara Hickman had told Broomfield PD she would make a statement, Hazel and Lucas had driven to the turkey farm and found it deserted. Lucas had retrieved the spy camera and they’d viewed the footage of the conversation between Tamara and the unidentified killer. Third Base was where Tamara told him to dispose of April. It was only Hazel’s childhood recollection of her trips there with Meredith to spy on the older kids that had allowed them to locate the missing girl so quickly.

  Third Base was a place name that only existed on the lips of Broomfield residents. Perhaps even the most unexceptional past held something worth retrieving.

  ‘Hi there.’ Ben Weeks was whispering too. He was a thickset man with bushy sideburns and he loitered awkwardly at the doorway to the lounge.

  ‘She’s been looking for you through the window all evening. Now she’s hiding.’ Vanessa pointed into the kitchen.

  ‘How is she?’ Hazel peered through the doorway but couldn’t spot April at the dining table.

  Vanessa and Ben swapped a look.

  ‘She still won’t leave the house.’ Vanessa’s expression sagged and wiped away the lines of her smile.

  ‘But she went out into the yard yesterday,’ Ben added quickly, eager to emphasi
se progress.

  ‘Can I say hello?’

  Vanessa pursed her lips. ‘She’d like that.’

  Hazel went into the small country-style kitchen. The oven was purring, and the baking aroma was stronger. But there was no sign of April.

  Hazel got onto her hands and knees by the table and lifted the cloth. April was cross-legged underneath. She was wearing dungarees and had her hair in plaits. ‘Hi there.’

  April didn’t reply.

  ‘Remember me?’

  April nodded.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’ Hazel unclenched her hand and showed her what it held. ‘Do you know what this is?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘So you know this is a friendship bracelet.’ Hazel had bought the kit from a craft store in town that afternoon and had braided and knotted the rainbow string as adeptly as she had when she was ten. She gave it to April. ‘That means we’ll always be friends.’ It’s what she’d said to Meredith, when Hazel hadn’t been able to conceive how the years in Broomfield would change her.

  April started tying it around her wrist.

  ‘You know you’re safe now, don’t you?’

  April secured it but her face was unconvinced.

  ‘Here with your parents. They’re keeping extra watch.’

  But the man who had taken April was still loose, and she knew Vanessa and Ben wouldn’t sleep until he was caught.

  Hazel had already started building a file on Killer 2. She had a small lead and was steadily tracing him via the PTSD site he’d signed up to under a false name.

  ‘And I’ll be watching too. Making sure you’re safe. I promise you that.’

  A Letter from Richard

  It’s always my intention to attempt to do something different with each of my thrillers so I really do appreciate you giving it a chance. Thanks for the time you’ve spent with this book and, if you did enjoy it, I really would be grateful for any words you can leave as a review. Its success depends on them but with so many other great books out there to be read, I certainly don’t take the time this requires for granted.