by Rivers, Mal
Each of us armed, but only with our standard handguns. I had extra clips, but they were in the glove box. As they came nearer, we had a decision to make. Do we go for an easier target, and fire at windscreens, hoping to impede their view? Or do we go for tires, and hope to stop them dead in their tracks? Either way, we needed to cut short their advantage over us. If we allowed them to pass unhindered, we were nothing but target practice.
“Aim for the driver,” I said. “I’ll take the two on the left. Colonel, you take the one on the right. Get behind me, Boss.”
“Nonsense, my aim is exceptional,” she said.
I didn’t bother arguing, as I was too busy preparing myself for two difficult shots on two separate moving targets. They were driving toward us in a relatively straight line, so I could get one in the head easy, but I doubted I could get both within such a short amount of time.
It turns out my assessment was correct, but I had a little luck. I nailed the car closest to us and it steered off into the direction of the other. They didn’t collide, but it made the other driver steer off sharply. The man in the backseat of the first car was now firing almost directly at me from fifty feet away. He was a lousy shot, and I had four more of my own to take him out, which I did.
With the other car and its occupants slightly off in the distance, I checked to my right, to see the final car steer wildly into the chain linked fence of the parking lot. Two thugs came out. Ryder and Huntington had obviously wrecked their windscreen and vision, but not taken out the driver.
I placed my hand on the passenger side door and said, “I’m going in to get an extra clip, stay down and watch your six, there’s at least two others.”
Ryder nodded and continued aiming out toward the parking lot. By the time I got inside and retrieved a clip, one of the thugs was shot dead. The other was taking cover inside the backseat and firing wild shots out the window.
I could have taken him out there and then, but it would have taken a fair amount of ammunition. It is a common misconception that your average car door is capable of shielding a bullet. However, it would have required a little guess work on my part to hit him.
My frugal use of ammunition was a mistake. The ten seconds I waited for an opening allowed the two thugs from the vehicle to my left to open fire on Ryder and Huntington. After I managed to take out the guy on the right, I told them to move round.
I exchanged fire with the remaining two thugs, leaning out the passenger side, but the odds weren’t in my favor. Their rate of fire meant I couldn’t stay inside the Lexus, otherwise I’d die by the misconception I was talking about. I decided to make it look like I had been hit by not returning fire, keeping my body below the windows, hence keeping out of their line of vision, while in the meantime joining Ryder and Huntington outside, on the driver’s side.
Ryder was bleeding from the left shoulder, in silent agony. Huntington was even worse. He was gut-shot, and it looked unlikely he would make it. He was already gargling blood, trying to speak, but I told him to be quiet.
I waited for the two thugs to approach. If they were smart, they’d take me from either side. I waited for the footsteps and realized they weren’t smart. When I judged them to be fifteen feet from the car, I jumped out. I shot the first thug in the heart, and double tapped the other guy in the neck and somewhere around the sternum.
With the panic over, I looked over Ryder. She didn’t scream, but I could tell she was in great pain. The gunshot wound was lower than I expected, an inch north of the heart.
“You’re gonna make it,” I said.
She looked at me and gasped. She tried, but no words escaped.
Huntington didn’t have long. His right arm reached over and grabbed my leg.
“Protect her—” he gabbled.
“I will.”
“Whatever she thinks happened—someone is after her. Think about it—all of this is about her.”
The words overcame him and he didn’t speak again. Within a minute he drew his last breath and bled out, slumped against the back door.
Ryder wasn’t nearly as strong physically as she was otherwise. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. I looked into her eyes and tried to talk to her. She stared back and closed her eyes. I dialed 911 before I checked the damage.
“Hey, stay awake, I’m gonna check it out,” I said.
Her head waved to the side and I tore her yellow summer shirt from the neck down, and pulled it over her shoulder. What I saw almost made me faint. The drastic realization made the blood rush to my head. It wasn’t the severity of the wound, nor was it the fact she didn’t wear a bra.
It was there—the small scar from her army training—except, it wasn’t a small scar at all. It was huge, trailing diagonally all the way down from her neck into her left breast. There were various other large scars across her chest and breasts too.
Lee Lynch’s final victim, the only one to survive—was Kendra Ryder.
34
I was slumped in a chair next to Ryder’s hospital bed, getting a headache.
It was midnight and she was asleep. During the time she was in surgery, I had everyone come my way. The LAPD questioned me for an hour and considered taking me back to the station for further questioning. Luis Flores arrived just in time to save me from that pickle. He corroborated my story that we were likely targeted by the gang, and confirmed that the people I had shot dead were low end gangbangers, although, they weren’t known to be directly associated with any particular gang.
He couldn’t save me from the FBI, though. Agent Gibbs was fair enough, but seemed intent on making sure Ryder didn’t leave that hospital bed without her knowledge. A step further and she would have cuffed her to it.
Naturally, she wanted answers, but I dodged them, insisting that she wait for Ryder to regain her senses. I had no mental capacity left, and I had no idea how to explain what Huntington’s body was doing at the parking lot.
Sully arrived just after midnight and we took turns to watch over Ryder. I explained very little to him, but I gave him the bit about the scar.
“Wow—I don’t believe it,” he said. “I guess that explains why she has—you know—fake tits.”
I nodded, but said nothing in reply. We kept our voices low, just in case she was awake with her eyes closed.
“What does this mean?” he said. “Why didn’t she ever tell you?”
I shrugged. “There are things I’ve seen that I’ll never tell her. But, I have to wonder what she was thinking. Maybe she didn’t want to get involved—I don’t know. She didn’t know Lee Lynch was dead until a few days ago—maybe she thought he’d escaped. The fact the murders were happening in California… maybe she had reservations about the whole thing. It’s not for me to judge her. Not after seeing her scars. I don’t care how strong she acts, that will have damaged her.”
Sully nodded. “No shit. You think she’ll be okay?”
“Once we get through this, sure.”
“Well, I finished my errand, with the exception of Zeus Higgings. I’ve got all the details here.”
“Nice,” I said. “But I’ve got something myself. I think I have a good idea what’s been going on.”
“You know who killed Guy Lynch?”
I scratched my head. “Not really. But I think I know who the Cross Cutter is. Or should I say, was.”
During the next hour I sought out a free computer in an unoccupied office on the floor below. I hadn’t asked for permission, but I doubted anyone would notice. You may recall Ryder’s earlier performance with the redacted army records, now, it was my turn to try something. There was a detail practically staring me in the face the whole time, and I had to wonder if that was the real reason she had gone through the fiasco beforehand; she wanted to tell me what happened to her twelve years ago, she just couldn’t say it outright.
It was 5AM when Ryder stirred. I’d been napping in the chair beside her when she threw a paper cup at me to get my attention. Sully was watching TV and didn
’t even notice.
“Morning,” I said, yawning.
She nodded and pushed her back against the headboard. She was wearing a hospital T shirt that managed to hide the scars, just like her own clothing. “They removed the bullet?”
“Yeah. You got lucky.”
“Huntington?”
I shook my head. “Nah, sorry.”
She sighed. “Curse it. How the devil did they—did they follow him or us?”
“Not us. I didn’t spot a tail—” I paused for a second. Ryder looked at me curiously, and I affirmed my stance. “They didn’t tail me, but it seems a little too coincidental now. Kacie managed to track down Melissa, and then Andonian finds me at Dr Bishop’s office—”
“The devil were you seeing her for?”
“I figured she’d tell me the name of the impostor Lynch. I didn’t get it, but it seems immaterial now, seen as you’ll be talking with the FBI shortly.”
She grunted.
I held up a sheet of paper that I had printed out downstairs. Similar to how Ryder had done it; a replica of one side of the army records, using the same font and size. It was the part of the records that described the capture of Lee Lynch.
“I did a little bit of detective work myself,” I said. “It’s a little late, but here’s the part about Lee Lynch and his final victim. Very little is mentioned, but when I tried cracking the victim’s name, using the same method you used with a word processor, I came up with something. The blacked out section is 0.86 inches long, and with the same settings, it’s the same length as your name—Kendra Ryder.”
She simply nodded. Sully, by the window, leaned over my shoulder to inspect the sheet of paper.
“You wanted me to know, that’s why you made such a display of this exercise earlier,” I said. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?”
“With some things, it is just easier to remain silent,” she said. “The scar—you saw it?”
I nodded.
“All of it?” she said, embarrassed.
“Yeah,” I said.
Her head lowered and she began to mumble. “It didn’t matter what type of clothing I wore, the tip of that scar could always be seen. It was always with me. I thought hiding the majority of it for the rest of my life would help me to forget. How wrong I was.”
Sully took the sheet of paper out of my hand. After reviewing it, he said, “The records never stated that you survived, if anything it makes it sound as if you were dead by saying you weren’t at the trial. Was that for your own good? Do you really think that corrupt group from back then is out to get you, like they did Guy Lynch?”
She shook her head and waved the thought away. “I would hope not. As for Guy Lynch—I suspect you have come to realize his significance after all, haven’t you, Ader?”
I nodded and rubbed my chin as I tried to collect my thoughts. “After hearing all the psychology talk over the past few days, I have a pretty good idea. The murders twelve years ago were far more precise, and the killer kept his MO pretty together. So, your scar—it doesn’t make much sense. It was all over the place, and whoever did it cut recklessly into your—” I paused and failed to say the word, ‘breasts.’ “Anyway, why would Lee Lynch suddenly act like that? Doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, Lee Lynch wasn’t the one responsible for all those other murders. It was someone else entirely. Someone he knew, someone probably involved with that corrupt group, the only person truly linking both past and present events—his brother, Guy Lynch.”
Sully looked at me and glowered. “Wait, you’re saying that the killer in Afghanistan… was actually Guy Lynch, and that he’s the Cross Cutter, too?”
“To some degree,” Ryder said. “We will have to discern certain facts from your report.”
“I don’t believe it,” Sully said. “Let’s say he was—that means someone staged a Cross Cutter murder against the actual Cross Cutter himself. Man, that’s some messed up carry on.”
“Which is why no one thought to look in that obvious direction,” Ryder said. “Had Guy Lynch died differently, once we learned more about his history, we may have reached the conclusion quicker. The very fact he died, for all intents and purposes, as a—Cutter victim, was the stumbling block.”
I thought about it for a second, and then shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not following. You knew years ago that Lee Lynch’s attack on you was different. Why did this never occur to you?”
She groaned as she turned her head on the pillow. “All of the victims before me were male. My thought at the time was that I was his first female victim. When I saw him holding the knife, he looked lost. I assumed he was at a loss, trying to figure out what to do with his first female victim.”
“But instead he literally didn’t know what he was doing.” I coughed nonchalantly. “Why was he the one you found that day, and not Guy Lynch?”
She sighed. “I assume both he and Guy Lynch have taken that answer to their grave.”
“If Lee Lynch didn’t kill the others… how did you track him down?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t the killer I followed. It was a matter of location and logistics. All of the victims were made to look as if they had been killed where they were found. But I noticed something that contradicted that fact. The rigor on the arms and the hands was all wrong. They were elevated, meaning the victims had been killed somewhere else and transported to the separate kill spots. It took two weeks, but after doing a little mathematics, I made a list of likely locations that could prove to be the point of origin.”
She let out a sigh and continued, “Then, I found it—that basement. With a wooden table. Grooves were notched into it at either side for a very clear purpose—to drain the blood into something portable. As well as taking the body to the kill spot, they’d take the blood too, so they could pour it out, making it more realistic, as it would have looked inaccurate for such a scene to lack a decent amount of the victims’ blood. They also left telltale evidence trying to put blame on the radicals. All of it very juvenile.”
“So when you said you found Lee Lynch, and Huntington captured him—that was true, quite literally. He saved you back then.”
She nodded. “It was my own fault. I was young and ambitious. I watched over the building without informing anyone. I saw someone go in, and then I tried to enter stealthily, but was hit over the heard. The next thing I remember is being laid on that table. Then I remember the light coming from the trap door, before I passed out.”
Sully interrupted, one finger raised in the air. “Maybe Lee Lynch was a bystander. Like an assistant to his brother. He found you and went to work on you.”
“Perhaps.” Ryder yawned, which was uncharacteristic of her. “Perhaps they were both there at one point. I felt another presence there in all truth. But when I was found, it was just him.”
A half body peering behind the door interrupted us. A member of the LAPD who was babysitting the room looked at me, and then noticed Ryder awake. He gave a half smile and then disappeared. It wasn’t long before Agent Gibbs of the FBI entered, along with Johns and Mantle of the BI.
“Miss Ryder, you are awake,” Gibbs said. Mantle and Johns stood back and tried to look sympathetic.
“Clearly,” Ryder said.
“How are you?”
“Well, I am not here for my own amusement. I trust you have questions.”
Gibbs nodded. “Like you, I am also not here for my own amusement. Why did you flee your home?”
Ryder grunted. “Ader insisted that you were ready to throw the book at me. I had an appointment that really couldn’t wait.”
“An appointment which got you shot. I’m offended you prefer such an option as opposed to speaking with me.”
“Never mind that. I suppose you wish to know what that meeting was about, and why hoodlums are currently after us?” Ryder said.
Gibbs gazed toward the window. “Not particularly. I am already aware of your situation with the Danturas and their swarm of followers. Despi
te your complete lack of appreciation for any authority, we do have a brain between us. I spoke to Agent Swanson of the San Francisco Department. I’m assured a major arrest is to be made tonight. But, you already know that.” Gibbs cocked her head and smirked. “I’m led to believe you think the person responsible for Guy Lynch’s death will be among the group arrested.”
“Responsible, yes. It is not a certainty that this person killed Lynch, however.”
Gibbs grinned. “Naturally, you would like that, seen as it gives you a little leverage to earn a fee. Can’t have us taking that away from you, can we?”
Ryder gave a grimace and shuffled herself upright. “I am not in the habit of chicanery. I leave that to my assistant. I am serious when I say this event is not as simple as you may perceive.”
I had to wonder for a minute where Gibbs’ and the FBI’s point of view lay, but she answered it without me having to ask. They obviously hadn’t figured Guy Lynch as the Cross Cutter, not yet. They were still fishing, but it seemed they were close enough to our way of thinking. I wondered if Cassandra had been successful in getting her point across.
“Regarding the Cross Cutter,” Gibbs said. “Have you anything to say about the previous seven murders?”
Ryder remained coy, and let Gibbs show her cards first. “At this moment, no. But I suspect you have.”
“What is it York says? Nerks.” Gibbs folded her arms, looked at me and turned back to Ryder. “You suspected the murders weren’t by a real serial killer a long time ago.”