—then it popped open on magnetic hinges.
Grim pulled the door open.
Darkness bathed the inside.
Hanging from the ceiling, a bare bulb. With a pull string.
Grim reached for it, clicking on the light.
He saw the water heater.
He also saw a whole lot more.
THE WATCHER ○ August 26, 2017 ○ 8:18+am
The calculations are done.
The battery is charged.
It has come full circle. Down to the nanosecond.
He initiates the countdown.
“Come to me, Redhead Number 63. Come and meet your purpose.”
FABLER ○ August 26, 2017 ○ 8:18am
Fabler looked at the wall.
The fake wall, where he’d built the secret room.
The secret room, that Grim and Presley were walking into.
Fabler closed his eyes and pictured Lori’s face.
PRESLEY ○ 8:19am
Fabler’s secret room was the size of a large closet, a quarter of it taken up by a white, cylindrical water heater. Opposite it, a prefab bookcase, containing a computer printer (same model as the one in his bedroom), several boxes of ink cartridges, a few reams of inkjet paper, an older model cell phone plugged in via an extension cord attached to an adapter on the light socket, and a small wooden box.
The scary, crazy-horror part covered the walls.
When Presley hacked Fabler’s computer, she’d seen weeks of Internet searches for red-headed women.
Plastered on all three walls, and on the back of the secret door, and the ceiling, and even the floor, were close-up pictures of redheads, printed on 8.5” by 11” paper. Well over a hundred, a giant, disorganized collage of faces. All had names and dates on them, written in black marker, with more marker used to draw big arrows from one face to the next.
Grim groaned. “Jesus Christ. He’s a serial killer.”
“He couldn’t have killed them all.” Presley pointed to the nearest pic. “Look at the date on her. Fabler was in prison.”
Grim didn’t respond. Instead, he reached for the wooden box on the bookshelf.
< A cigar box.
Grim picked it up, and Presley wrapped her fingers around his forearm.
“We agreed to leave, Grim. You don’t have to open that.”
He met her eyes. “Would you? If it was your sister?”
“We can walk away.”
“What if Brooklyn disappeared? Wouldn’t you want to know?”
“I would want to know. That’s not the question. The question is; what good can come from knowing? Fabler is crazy. Lori is gone. Nothing in that box will change those things. But if you open it, and it’s… bad… then you might do something you regret until the day you die. Something you can’t take back. And if you go that route…” Her voice trailed off.
“Finish the thought, Presley.”
“I’m not a good person, Grim. I’m flawed. I know I’m flawed, but I keep making the same mistakes anyway. I can justify my actions. I’m a pro at that. I have nightmares, and not all of them center around the things I saw in Afghanistan. We say we have lines that we’ll never cross, but we keep pushing them back, an inch at a time, and make excuses that it’s for the right reasons. Then one day you wake up and see you’re so far past your original line that you can’t even see it anymore.” She swallowed. “I need to make a real line. A line I’ll never cross. And since I’ve never found that kind of self-control, I’ve been blaming my actions on my daughter. Lying to myself, saying I’ve done it all for her.”
Presley put her fingers on Grim’s face.
“I need to walk away from here because I can’t bear what Brooklyn would think of me. If she saw me here, right now.”
“Sometimes the end justifies the means.”
“It always justifies the means. That’s the problem, Grim. I can’t face my daughter again if I take this path. And…”
“So if I open this box, we’re done?”
“If you open it, and you do what I think you’ll do… then, yes. We’re done.”
Grim glanced at the cigar box. Then back at Presley. Then back to the cigar box. Then at Presley.
Seconds limped by.
“I’m sorry, Presley. I’m not strong enough.”
“So you’re not coming with me?”
“I’d like to come with you. I would. But since you’re making me choose…”
He pulled away, looking impossibly sad.
“Fine. Goodbye, Grim.”
“When I get the money, I’ll send you some.”
Presley shook her head. “No. That’s not how this works. I don’t want that around Brooklyn.”
“Even if I come to visit with a new heart?”
She swallowed. “Even if you come to visit with a new heart.”
Presley stared into Grim’s eyes, trying to will him to do the right thing.
Then Presley turned and left.
As she walked out of the house, she hoped to hear Grim’s footsteps behind her, feel his hand on her shoulder, his voice telling her she was right.
But he didn’t leave with her. And when Presley pushed open the front door and walked out of the cabin, Grim, from the secret room, screamed loud enough to wake the dead.
KADIR ○ 8:21am
“She’s leaving.” Doruk nudged Kadir and pointed to the driveway. Presley walked alone, her back to them, her head down. “Do we follow?”
Kadir considered their next move. For a shining moment, everything had been going great. Fighting. Torture. Almost a million dollars in gold coins. Secret rooms.
Now, with Presley leaving, Kadir’s attention divided.
His dick told him to go after her.
His brain said stay, see about all that gold.
That shouting, from the ex-cop, didn’t sound like a whoop of joy. He hadn’t found the gold. He’d found something else. Something bad.
Kadir came to a decision.
“Stay here, watch the cop. I’ll take care of Presley on my own.”
“You sure, Kadir?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He squinted at Doruk. “What are you trying to say?”
“It’s just…”
“What?”
“Well, she beat you up pretty good.”
Kadir considered his revolver. Shooting Doruk would be hugely satisfying. Even smashing him in the face with two pounds of chromed steel would scratch an itch that had been irritating Kadir since he’d first met the man, years ago. But instead of doing either, he forced a smile.
“If I need you, Doruk, I’ll call for you. Wait here.”
Doruk shrugged.
Kadir took off into the woods.
GRIM ○ 8:22am
Grim had heard the expression seeing red, but hadn’t really understood it.
Staring into the cigar box, his head felt ready to pop.
The dried blood inside practically glowed.
He rushed back into the kitchen, and Fabler wore a thoughtful expression.
“You found the box, I see.”
“You son of a bitch. Part of me… I always hoped… I didn’t want to believe you did it.”
“Just kill me, Grim. It’s what we both want.”
Pilgrim shut his eyes, getting his breathing under control.
“Tell me what happened, Fabler.”
“You already know what happened. You got the evidence right there in that box. Fill in the blanks. Use your imagination.”
“I want the whole story.”
“The whole story will destroy you. Take your revenge. You’ve been sitting on your ass for over three years. Be a man and get it over with.”
“I thought you came here for my money. Didn’t you find the gold?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Fabler offered a sick grin. “She can obviously hear you.”
Grim squeezed the box, shaking it like a rabid animal he was trying to strangle. “TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!”
Fabler met Grim’s eyes. “Lori suffered. She suffered like no one has ever suffered before.”
Grim made a fist, ready to beat Fabler’s face to hamburger.
Grim’s mind drifted back to Iraq. The many horrors they’d encountered.
One in particular stood out. The only time Grim had seen Fabler become rattled.
Now Grim put on a sick smile.
“Remember that journalist in Kirkuk? Hoopland, I think his name was. We found him in that storage container dwelling. Beheaded. I can see by your eyes that you remember. That video was something else, wasn’t it? Those bastards sawing at his neck. Hoopland blinking and moving his mouth, even after his head came off.”
Fabler’s eyes got wide.
“Do you remember the conversation we had? About how long a person can live with his head cut off? Hoopland’s face kept twitching for more than a minute. We decided it came down to how much blood, how much oxygen, was still in the brain. Concluded that Hoopland was still aware when his head came off. Aware he was dying. And that freaked you the hell out, didn’t it, Fabler?”
“You going to cut my head off, Grim?” Fabler looked somewhere between terrified and enraptured.
Grim didn’t answer.
He began hunting through kitchen drawers.
PRESLEY ○ 8:24am
A hundred meters down the road, Presley knew she’d made the wrong choice.
Every step she took away from Fabler’s cabin was a step in the wrong direction. She felt it. Leaving was a huge mistake.
And yet, Presley couldn’t reconcile what Fabler had done years ago with the person she’d come to know.
Presley slowed down.
A sad, sorry thought. But one Presley couldn’t discount.
Whatever the reason was, Presley found herself heading back to the cabin.
Sounds, to her right. The snap of a twig.
Presley stopped and looked to the tree line.
KADIR ○ 8:26am
Kadir huddled behind a bush, squinting through the notched leaves, trying to keep his body low so he wasn’t seen. He had his Ruger Redhawk clutched in his fist, and Presley didn’t look armed.
Presley looked at him, looked straight at him, and then her eyes passed over and she scanned the woods to his right.
But Kadir wound up being surprised, when Presley turned around and began walking back to the cabin.
FABLER ○ 8:28am
Watching Grim rifle through his kitchen drawers, Fabler had conflicting thoughts.
Fabler had contemplated suicide so often he likened it to reminiscing about an old friend. Death, as frightening a conce
pt that any conscious mortal could hope to comprehend, also offered comfort.
Fabler shook his head, trying to dispel the doubt. But the seed remained, and began to grow.
“Found one, you bastard.”
Grim held up a plastic garbage bag.
Then the realization hit Fabler, and his whole body quaked.
“What conclusion did we come to in Kirkuk, Fabler? Two minutes? The brain could live without oxygen for two minutes? I’ve got my watch on. Let’s see how you do when you can’t breathe for two minutes.”
Fabler tried to keep his voice even. “Be a man, Grim. Shoot me.”
“You look scared, Fabler.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Tell me what you did to Lori.”
“I was having a nightmare, Grim. A bad one. You know the kind. You’re in a firefight, explosions, bullets, all you want to do is run away but you’re pinned down. You scream, but you can’t even hear yourself over the sound of the guns booming…”
Fabler couldn’t tell if Grim was buying it or not. He went on.
What Happened to Lori Page 30