by Murcer, Rick
“I’m going to do the same, right after I talk to the captain, and don’t worry about me.” He gave Manny a big brother look. “You need to do this because you have to be one-hundred percent ready when we get the break we need. We all do. Got it?”
Manny pressed his lips together. “All right. I’ll go take a nap. Happy?”
“No, but it will have to do,” responded Corner.
CHAPTER-60
Knocking at the door of his cabin, Manny waited for Louise to open it. Each second the door went unanswered, his anxiety escalated. Apprehension was taunting him like an older sister, and he was seconds from breaking down the door when the safety chain rattled and the door swung open. He let go of the breath he was unconsciously holding as Louise grabbed and hugged him in the same motion. He could feel her heart thundering through her vice-like grip while she burrowed her head under his chin. The natural scent of her hair engulfed his senses, and he closed his eyes in appreciation.
“I hate it when you don’t let me know you’re okay. You should have stopped by.”
Manny held her close. “I’m sorry, honey, but that freak threatened the Crosbys and we had to make sure everyone was safe. There was just no time. I’m sorry, really.”
She mumbled something about being an asshole, and he smiled.
“Don’t do that again. I didn’t know what was going on and that scared me.” She released her grip on her husband, and they locked eyes. Manny could see remnants of an emotion she would never be comfortable feeling.
“I won’t. I promise.”
Louise searched his face with the intense stare of a CIA interrogator. She kissed him on the mouth, and they stepped back into the room.
“By the way, Agent Corner called and told me to remind you that you’re to take some time off, and he’ll call you in a few hours. He said you promised.”
“I’m going to try, honey. I’m tired, but I need the mind to cooperate.” He slipped out of his sandals. “We think it will be safer if we all bunk up with another couple and then have the ship’s security provide guards.”
Louise nodded. “Okay. That makes me a little nervous, but you guys are the experts.” She frowned and shifted her weight. “Could he be whacked out enough to try something?”
“I really don’t think so. He thrives on the one-on-one ritual to get his kicks, so an attack on a group would be totally out of his MO.” Manny didn’t mention that the killer’s methods had already evolved, or maybe devolved.
Louise shrugged. “What do we do now?”
“Corner will call back when he gets the room arrangements so there isn’t much to do until then.”
She hugged him again. “Tell you what. I’ll call the restaurant and order a couple of steaks with all of the fixings, and you can get into the shower. We’ll just have a nice, quiet dinner in here so you can get some rest.”
“Better make it three, if you’re going to eat,” he winked. “And that shower thing is the best idea I’ve heard today.”
*****
Gavin brought his wife up-to-date and told her he was going to have Mike and Lexy come to their cabin and wait until Corner called with new rooms.
“Maybe you should go get them. You have a gun, and they don’t,” said Stella with more than a little concern in her voice.
“Good idea. Go ahead and call them and tell them I’ll be there to get them as soon as they’re ready.”
Stella reached for the phone as Gavin walked out to the balcony to retrieve his sandals and, in the process, catch one more glimpse of the glowing sunset. But there was another reason he left the room. Some of his courage had slipped out the back, and he needed to find it.
For one of the first times he could remember, he was afraid. Not for himself so much, but for Stella, Mike, and Lexy. He had never really had his family threatened, definitely not like this, in all of his years as a cop. This madman was different, and he wondered if the killer even knew what was coming next. He felt for the 9mm and hoped this move was the right one.
The balcony door slammed open and Stella hurried through, barely able to speak. “Gavin, there’s no answer at Mike’s room.”
“Lock the door, Stella.” He pushed past his wife and bolted through the cabin door, gun in hand, hoping, praying everything was fine, that the killer was simply playing mind games. Maybe Lexy and Mike were out on the verandah. But his hope was swallowed by the petrifying panic running through his gut.
CHAPTER-61
John Eberle was stretched halfway through the door of his cabin, looking both ways for any signs of commotion. He didn’t see any and was thankful.
No telling what all that running and shouting had been about a few hours ago, and frankly, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. It was lobster night, and he had no intentions of missing his favorite cruise meal. God willing, he might even have three of them.
After a few steps down the hall, he swore. He had forgotten to take his pill. The magic one. Dinner would be a painful excursion without his acid-reflux medication. Heartburn had been an uncomfortable way of life for him until ten years ago when he discovered acid inhibitors. If his seventy-six-year-old body couldn’t handle the surgery to correct his hiatal hernia, then the medicine was the next best thing.
“First the weenie, then the joints, then the guts, then the mind,” he groaned.
He retreated inside and shuffled to the bathroom. His thin, arthritic hands struggled with the foil package until he finally released the pink, pain-saving tablet from its sealed prison.
“Safety packs, my ass,” he complained, while downing the pill with a shaking glass of water.
As he turned away to leave the room, he caught the reflection of an old man in the mirror and wondered when the change had happened. He hated sneaky and getting old was just that. He didn’t feel like the wrinkled, age-spotted portrait flashing back at him.
Occasionally, his hands didn’t work so well, and at other times, he had to hit the head ten times a day. Maybe he felt it a little then. And sometimes, when he lay awake at night for hours on end, and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Maybe then too.
He gingerly stepped out of the bathroom and looked around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything else. His weary eyes settled on the navy-blue suitcase still resting on the vanity. Martha, his wife, had bought it about five years ago, when they had decided to start traveling.
Beautiful Martha.
There are lots of things you don’t experience living on the farm in Bristol, Tennessee, and they had been ready to broaden their horizons. The farm life had been a good one, but not the fast lane for sure. They’d wanted to see some of the world they read about or saw on the travel shows. Martha had always wanted to go on a cruise, so they’d gone.
The Western Caribbean voyage had been a wonderful time. In fact, it had been so good, they planned another one six months down the road. This time they would travel in style and see the Southern Caribbean.
But Martha would never see the rich teal waters and white sandy beaches of St. Thomas or the Divi Divi trees of Aruba.
A single, lonely tear ambled down his wrinkled cheek as he remembered how that damned cancer hadn’t taken no for an answer. It had grown so fast. Like hungry garden weeds after a warm summer rain. The doctors called it one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer they had ever seen. They just couldn’t stop it. The greedy son of a bitch wouldn’t give her one more trip, and one more is all she really wanted.
His wife of fifty-one years had been laid to rest the day they were supposed to embark on that next cruise. He’d promised himself, after she passed, that he would take a couple trips a year and tell her all about them. It was the least he could do.
“This has been a good one, honey. A little excitement with two folks dyin’ from heart attacks, but it’s been a good trip, aside from that,” he whispered, hoping she heard.
He pulled the handle of the heavy door, wincing until it swung open. He stopped dead in his wobbling tracks and blinked, b
ut the sight before him was still there. Bigger than life.
A tall, muscular man was emerging from the young couple’s room across the hall. Not that unusual, except crimson streaks of blood ran down his left bicep and on the sleeve of his yellow island shirt. The big man looked at John with contempt he’d never seen. His dark gaze burned a hole directly into Eberle’s head.
This giant means to kill me.
Then, as if he were reading the old man’s mind, the big man relaxed his stare and smiled. “Have a good one, old timer.” He turned aft and headed down the hall, whistling.
Eberle stood still for a moment as his pulse gained some semblance of normalcy.
He had spent time in Vietnam. He had seen things, but had never been as afraid of dying like he had been thirty seconds before.
Putting his hand on his heart, he risked a look at the front of his shorts. As he sighed in relief, Eberle was struck with a terrible, overpowering thought.
Where did the blood come from and what did he do to those nice honeymooners?
CHAPTER-62
Running his hand over his freshly shaven face, Manny realized he did feel a little better, but he was still beat. Even after the hot shower. The only real cure for what ailed him now was a few hours of hard sleep, and this murdering bastard in the brig. Or better yet, in the morgue.
And what of Louise? The last few weeks hadn’t been a picnic for her. This week was supposed to be a no-brainer, a super vacation that would overshadow the delayed mammogram results.
Dinner at the swank Supper Club would have helped them both get their minds off that one, but not tonight. Maybe the only thing worse than not getting some R & R, aside from being keelhauled, was disappointing her.
No rest for the weary.
He ran fingers absently through his soaked hair and his thoughts swarmed to the message the killer had written on Christina Perez’s mirror. Gavin and Stella were okay, so far. He wondered if Sophie had checked on Mike and Lexy again. He would call them too when he got dressed, just to make sure.
But the message could have been just a con, a brain screw. For all they really knew, the poem could have been some dark, derisive misdirection . . . part of the killer’s perverse, deadly game.
Manny threw on a pair of gym shorts and a tank top and stepped out of the tiny bathroom just in time to hear the knock on the door. He reached for the 9mm and glanced at Louise, who had risen from the bed.
“Must be dinner,” she declared.
He nodded and looked through the door’s peephole to confirm. He dropped his gun behind his leg, unlocked and opened the door quickly. The startled look on the server’s face almost caused Manny to laugh out loud.
“Sorry. Just wanted to make sure it was you.”
“Yes sir.” The server rolled the cart into the room. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, not now, thank you,” he answered, glancing both ways down the hall.
“Wait.” Louise reached past Manny and handed the server a five-dollar bill.
Manny began to close the door, when he noticed Alex and two of the ship’s security staff coming down the hall in his direction. Manny waited, reading their body language and not liking what he saw.
Alex stopped, looked at Manny, and then cleared his throat.
Manny’s senses didn’t have to work overtime on this one. Alex wasn’t here for a cup of coffee.
“Tell me I’m wrong, that he didn’t kill again.”
“We thought they were safe. It happened about twenty minutes—”
“Thought who was safe?” Manny interrupted.
“These two men will stay here, but you need to come to room 6214 and see for yourself. We may have a witness.”
The pit of Manny’s stomach turned to ice. For a moment, he couldn’t feel anything, like a 400-pound wrestler was standing on his chest.
But reality screamed and put him in motion. He turned to Louise. “Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone, not even these two guards.” Then he pressed past Alex, hurrying down the hall to Mike and Lexy’s cabin.
CHAPTER-63
The energetic knock on Ethel Manis’s door startled her. She had just finished her room service meal of double-cheese pizza and diet pop. Thank God her prolonged bout with seasickness was over. She didn’t think food could taste this good.
Could it be him?
She didn’t know another soul on the ship. The room steward had already come to roll down her bed and leave one of those tasty little chocolate mints on her fluffed pillow. He knew she was in for the night. There could be only one explanation and that enlightenment raised her hopeful heart.
Her son.
She pulled her stocky frame from the edge of the bed and waddled to the door, glancing at the mirror as she went by. She couldn’t see much. Mostly lighted shadows, but she knew she didn’t look pretty. She didn’t care, not really. She wasn’t here for a damned beauty contest.
Her stubby fingers dragged the chain away from the safety lock, and she yanked open the door. Standing in front of her was a tall man with massive arms and chest. It looked like him. She tried to focus on his face, but the combination of her poor eyesight and long shadows hanging in the narrow hallway diluted any clear look she might have otherwise had.
“Is that you son? Is that you? Speak to your old ma. Bobby?”
The silence seemed to have a mind of its own as Ethel waited for the man who stood quietly in her doorway to answer.
“Yes, Mother. It’s me. Aren’t you going to invite me in? It’s been a long time.”
The old woman couldn’t believe her ears. It had been an eternity since she heard her son’s voice. She knew everything about it. Everything. The high, the low, and even the subtle lisp. Ethel closed her eyes. She had rehearsed this blissful moment for what seemed like a lifetime. But now she was heartsick. The deep, intelligent voice belonging to the man at her door wasn’t her son.
A mother knows.
“I don’t know who you are, but you ain’t no son of mine; you ain’t Bobby Peppercorn.” Bitter disappointment ripped at her very soul. “This is a cruel joke on a sick, old woman, and I hope you rot in hell.”
She started to close the door, but it was too late. A strong right hand stopped it from swinging shut, and the big man stepped into the room, shoving her hard toward the bed.
Her body throbbed with pain. But the pain seemed to sharpen her senses. Her mind grew bright with the realization that the cancer robbing her body of life wasn’t going to be her demise. It would never have the chance.
Ethel’s bad eyes focused enough to watch him reach for the empty, plastic soda bottle. He pulled the Smith and Wesson from his waistband.
She wasn’t going to see her son after all. Her heart broke again.
“Oh, you’re my mother, all right. You have helped me to develop into the man I am today,” her visitor stated. “Don’t you remember me? We used to talk so much.” He threw back his head and laughed.
Ethel shook. She did remember.
A mother’s secrets.
She heard him place the barrel of the gun into the plastic bottle and felt it rest against her temple. Ethel clutched the letter in her shirt pocket.
He pulled the trigger.
The makeshift suppressor did its job. A muffled mmmffftttt sounded as the right side of Ethel’s face detached from her shattered skull.
*****
He gazed at the dead woman’s disfigured face as he wiped the blood and gray matter from his hand and gun. “Yes, dear Ethel. More of a mother to me than you will ever know.”
CHAPTER-64
Manny saw that Agent Corner stood talking to Richardson and Captain Serafini in front of room 6214. The three were involved in a lively discussion. The FBI agent was extremely animated and appeared to be far more than agitated as he addressed Richardson and the captain. Whatever the conversation entailed, the FBI agent was getting his way.
When Corner noticed him, the agent’s look turned from angry to grav
e. Manny could tell that he had wanted to hide his initial reaction, but it was too late. Manny saw everything in a blink of an eye. The agent’s face told him all he needed, or for that matter, wanted to know. Manny’s shoulders slumped.
“What happened? Where are Mike and Lexy?” he said softly.
Corner glanced at the other two men and then back to him, hesitated, and spoke.
“Mike is in the infirmary with a nasty concussion and multiple skull fractures. Dr. Kristoff says he got lucky. It could’ve been much worse. He’ll have some side effects for a few months, but will be fine in the long run. At least physically. Tough kid.”
The other two men remained silent as Agent Corner rubbed the back of his neck. “Lexy wasn’t so fortunate. She was . . . raped and bitten like the others.”
Corner swallowed hard, causing a deep chill to run through Manny’s spine. He hated what the agent was going to say next.
“I’m sorry Manny. She . . . she didn’t make it.”
Instinct caused Manny to reach for the door. He had to see for himself.
His hand hesitated on the silver handle while he sought some kind of purchase for the twisting realities spinning a tale he didn’t want to accept.
It had only been days ago that Lexy and Mike had stood in front of the preacher and recited their vows. She was beautiful and so full of life, so happy. She wanted to be a mom, a wife. Do the PTA thing.
Tears are not uncommon in a marriage ceremony, but Lexy’s had been the real thing, the kind that showered the wedding guests with genuine joy.
Till death do us part.
First Liz and now Lexy? He was going to wake up any second. He had to . . . because he wasn’t sure he could take anymore.
The knob began to groan and turn in his hand. “Damn it,” he sighed softly. “I should have known. We should have checked on them after Sophie called.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Detective. We all should have done something. Mike answered the phone and said he was fine. He’s a cop, for God’s sake. We all thought they were okay. How could you have known? You can’t be there every time. It doesn’t work that way, never has.”