Out of the Darkness

by Heather Graham

  “And Davey was ready to move quickly!” Sean said.

  “To Davey—our hero!” Tyler said.

  They all lifted their glasses to Davey. He smiled and lifted his Shirley Temple. “To best friends forever!” he said, and then grinned. “And to Megan. I get to see my girlfriend tomorrow!”

  Everyone laughed. He passed a picture of Megan around. They all assured him she was a pretty girl, and she was.

  There was a stretch of silence around the table, and then Tyler spoke.

  “I really wish we could have taken him alive,” he said. “There was a lot we could have learned from him. I still want to know how the hell he broke in to the playground to be able to display the poor woman he killed, thinking she was our Suzie.”

  “I do, too,” Craig said. “But since he was aiming at your heart, you had no choice but to fire. You know, he would have shot you—and then Sarah. And then he’d have gone for Davey and killed anyone else in his way—until he was stopped. Our agents are still in the hospital. Guzman might be out in a day or two. Luckily, Knowlton didn’t really know how to kill someone with a knock on the head. Walsh—the fellow we found in the subway tunnel—will be another week or so. But his prognosis is good. Then there’s the cop he shot on the street—he’ll be in the hospital for a few weeks. Needs several surgeries. So, Tyler, yeah, you shot and killed him. You saved your own life—and probably others.”

  Sarah made a mental note to visit the agents and the police officer in the hospital. She hadn’t done so yet.

  “How did he find us?” Suzie wondered.

  “He wasn’t just good at hiding,” Tyler said. “He excelled at being a people watcher. He was excellent at observation, something he learned—according to earlier notes we recently dug back up from the horror park murders—from the man he admired and all but worshipped, Archibald Lemming. The guards had said that Lemming loved to hold court—and Knowlton loved to listen and learn. Patience, Lemming had taught him, was a virtue. So Knowlton discovered the safe house—by lurking around in any number of his disguises and maybe by following one of us. He watched, and he found an agent he could take by surprise. He was adept at so many things, and he was able to bide his time and wait.”

  “And,” Craig said, “we found out that he stole his ‘Adler’ FBI identification three years ago. The man did know how to wait and bide his time. He took Special Agent Walsh down for his plain blue suit—and to keep him from showing up at work. He called in sick on Walsh’s phone, left him to die in the tunnel—after stealing his gun. Once you all escaped him and he was out on the street, I think he decided he’d kill until he was killed himself—but of course, we were the focus of the rage he’s had brewing for the last decade.”

  They talked awhile longer; they enjoyed shepherd’s pie.

  Then Suzie and Sean prepared to leave, hugging everyone.

  “We need to keep in touch this time,” Suzie said. “I think...I think we’re relieved and grateful—and sad. But...”

  “But we will keep in touch—I’ve missed you, Suzie. Yes, we will be haunted by what happened to Hannah. But we’ll stay friends this time. And I think it will help,” Sarah assured her, hugging her tightly in return.

  Sean shook hands with Tyler, then the two embraced. “Hey, Boston isn’t that far, my friend. We have to all keep in touch,” he said.

  Tyler nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  Sarah noted he didn’t refute the fact that Boston wasn’t far.

  Her heart sank a little. He was returning to his old life; she would be returning to hers.

  She thought of the nights they’d been together since Knowlton had died. They had been intense.

  They hadn’t talked yet. Not really talked. They had made plans for Hannah’s funeral. They had answered any last-minute questions they could for the police and the FBI.

  It had been easier just to be together.

  Davey got up from the table. He was anxious to leave; Renee was taking him for a haircut so he could look his best when he saw Megan.

  “I got a girlfriend!” he reminded them all.

  Soon after, Tyler smiled at Sarah and asked her softly if she was ready to go.

  She nodded.

  They weren’t staying at the hotel any longer. They went to her apartment on Reed Street.

  When the door was closed, he pulled her into his arms and very tenderly kissed her lips.

  And suddenly, all the things she wanted to say came tumbling out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why. I think I was always afraid...maybe I didn’t want to be hurt myself, and so I tried to make sure Davey wasn’t hurt. It seemed to be a way to cope. There are bad people out there...or sometimes, just rude and unkind people. I haven’t been... I’ve been... I just knew how some people felt some of the time, and I love my aunt and Davey and my family, and...I...there was really no excuse. I never meant to push you away. I just didn’t want others to feel they had to take on my responsibility—”

  His finger fell on her lips. “Some people want part of your responsibility.”

  “Oh, I know that! And I should have had faith in Davey being sweet and wonderful in his own right, I just...”

  To her astonishment, Tyler slipped down to his knees. He looked up at her, eyes bright, and pulled a small box from his pocket. He flicked it open, offering it to her.

  “Sarah, I’ve loved you forever. I’ve loved you when I was with you and when I wasn’t with you. When I was away, you interfered with everything I would try to do, because I could never get you out of my memory...my heart, my soul. Sarah, we’ve wasted a decade of life, and life, as we all know, is precious. So...will you marry me?”

  She was speechless, and then she fell to her knees in turn and began to kiss him. And they both started to shed their clothing, there on the hardwood at the entry to the apartment. When they were halfway stripped, he suddenly laughed, stood and pulled her up. “Let’s not celebrate with bruises!” he said. She laughed, too, and she was in his arms again.

  Making love had always been amazing. That afternoon...

  Every touch, breath and intimacy seemed deeper, more sensual, more erotic. More climatic.

  He stroked her back. Rolled and kissed her shoulder.

  “Hmm. I think we celebrated. But you haven’t actually said yes!”

  “Yes! Yes...yes...”

  She punctuated every yes with a kiss.

  “I can go anywhere. I mean, we are New Yorkers, but Boston is a great city,” she said breathlessly. “I can and will go anywhere in the world with you. We can have a big wedding, we can elope, we can do anything at all. None of it matters to me, except being with you, waking up with you, going to sleep with you...” She stopped, then straddled him with a grin. “My Lord! I could write romance again. Giant bugs—and romance!”

  He laughed. He pulled her to him, and they talked and talked, and made love again.

  No big wedding. They weren’t going to wait that long. A small ceremony at Finnegan’s, applauded by whomever might be there, with just Kieran and Craig and Suzie and Sean—and, of course, their families, including—very especially—Davey and Aunt Renee.

  Sometime that night, very late that night, they finally slept.

  * * *

  SARAH FELT THAT she was walking on air. She’d called Kieran, who was at work at the offices of Fuller and Miro, but she could meet for lunch.

  Relief was an amazing thing. Or maybe it was happiness. So much time wasted, and yet maybe not wasted. She and Tyler had both grown through the years.

  And now...

  Now they were together. And she was going to marry him. It wasn’t even that marriage mattered so much to her—that she would wake up every morning next to Tyler did. That wherever they went, whatever they did, she could go to sleep with him at night.

  She’d loved him as long as she could remember.
>
  And now...

  The morning had been good. She had worked on her latest manuscript; an Egyptian connection, not through Mars, but through a distant planet much like Earth. The people had been advanced, kind and intelligent, and very much like human beings. A war with a nearby hostile planet had kept them away, and a shift in the galaxies had closed the wormhole they had used to reach Earth. But archeologist and mathematician Riley Maxwell had been with an expedition that had found a tablet, and the tablet had told them about the “newcomers,” the “gods,” who had come down from space and taught them building and water usage. Soon after her discovery, she was visited by a newcomer to their group, Hank McMillan, and he had been just as anxious to destroy all that she had discovered. And as they worked together and came under attack by a group with strange and devastating weapons, she’d begun to fall in love...all the while discovering Hank was an ancient alien, trying to close all the doors before the still hostile and warlike tribe arrived to devastate Earth...

  Of course, they solved it all and lived happily ever after. Her outline was complete!

  At eleven thirty, she left her apartment, smiling as she headed toward Broadway to walk down to Finnegan’s.

  Her steps were light.

  She forgot all about the fact that New Yorkers supposedly didn’t make eye contact.

  She smiled and, yes, people smiled back.

  It was a beautiful day, chilly, but with a bright sun high in the sky.

  She was surprised when a police car pulled up by the corner ahead of her. She heard her name being called and, frowning, she hurried forward.

  Happiness could be its own enemy. She was immediately afraid something had happened to Tyler. Or that something was wrong somewhere. Davey! Her aunt!

  She rushed over to the car. Alex Morrison was at the wheel, and he was smiling.

  “Hey, I’m glad I found you so easily!”

  “You were looking for me? You could have called.”

  “Well, this just all came about. Hop in. I’ll take you to Tyler.”

  “Oh. Is he all right?” she asked anxiously.

  “He’s fine, he’s fine. We’re working on putting some pieces together. With other events, you know?” he said somberly. “Anyway, come on, I’ll get you to him and Craig.”

  “I have a lunch date with Kieran. I’ll just give her a call.”

  “No need. We’ll pick up Tyler and Craig and head to Finnegan’s.” He grimaced. “I can park anywhere with this car, you know.”

  “Sure. Okay.” She walked around and slid into the passenger’s seat and grinned at Alex. “You know, I’ve never ridden in a patrol car!” she said. “I’ll give Tyler a call and then let Kieran know that we might be a few minutes late.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary!” he said, reaching over. She thought he was going for the radio.

  He wasn’t.

  He made a sudden movement and backhanded her so hard that her head spun, then crashed into the door frame. Stars went reeling before her eyes.

  Shadows and darkness descended over her, but she fought it.

  Not now. Even as she felt her consciousness slipping away, she struck out.

  “Damn you, tough girl, huh!”

  Before he could hit her again, she scratched him. Hard. And as the darkness claimed her from his second blow, she knew that, at the very least, she’d drawn blood.

  * * *

  TYLER WAS BACK in Craig’s office at the FBI. The Bureau’s analysts had pulled up a number of murders, facts and figures, and they were still going over them. Victims had families. And, Tyler had discovered, not knowing what had happened to a loved one was torture for most families. “Closure” was almost a cliché. And yet it was something very real and necessary.

  He was frowning when Craig asked him, “What? What now? There’s something you don’t like.”

  “There’s something niggling me about that damned poem. I wanted to take Knowlton alive.”

  “Yeah, well, better that you’re alive,” Craig reminded him. “But...I do see what you mean. Knowlton claimed Hannah. She was dumped in the river.”

  “And Suzie Cornwall was left in a park.”

  “He could have been working on his methods. What he did wasn’t easy—getting himself and a body over the fence. Setting the body up. The head—in a swing.”

  “Have they found any kin for her?” Tyler asked.

  “No, but she had friends. Only, her friends didn’t really seem to have much of anything. No one has offered a burial. Instead of the potter’s field on this one, I thought the four of us might want to chip in quietly and bury her.”

  “Works for me,” Tyler said.

  He was quiet again. Then he quoted, “‘But now they pay the price today...six little children. One of them dead. Soon the rest will be covered in red.’”

  “I admit it bothers me, too.”

  “But I shot and killed him. So we’ll never know.”

  “Is it possible for us to look through the photographs again?”

  “Of course.”

  Craig left the office. Reports lay on the desk. Tyler started going over them again.

  DNA.

  The little vertebra Knowlton had sent to the FBI with his poem had proved to belong to Hannah Levine, not Suzie Cornwall.

  That bothered Tyler as much as the poem. If the bone had just belonged to Suzie Cornwall...

  He started reading the autopsy reports again. So much was so similar. Except...

  Hannah had alcohol and drugs in her system. Suzie...

  She’d had her medication. Dr. Langley believed her throat had been slit, prior to her head being removed.

  Hannah...

  Hard to tell, with the way her head and torso had been found, washed up from the river.

  He drummed his fingers on the table. No usable forensics had been found at the park. It was almost as if whoever had done the crime had studied books on how the police found killers, on what little bits of blood and biological trace could give them away.

  Craig walked back into his office. “I got what I could. I called over to Detective Green, asking if Morrison could make sure we had everything, but Alex Morrison called in sick today. He’s not there to help me get everything, but at this point, I do think I have it all.”

  Tyler looked at Craig, listening to the words. And suddenly, he was up and on his feet, not even sure why, thoughts jumbling in his mind.

  Alex Morrison had been at the theme park the night Archibald Lemming had killed so many in Cemetery Mansion.

  He’d started out in the academy and had gone into forensics.

  He knew what was going on with the police—and the FBI.

  “We need to find him,” Tyler said. “We need to find Alex Morrison.”

  * * *

  SARAH CAME TO very slowly.

  She wasn’t at all sure of where she was. Somewhere deep and dank... It had a smell of mold and age and...earth.

  She tried to move; she was tied up, she realized. Fixed to a chair. Her ankles were bound, her arms had been pulled behind her and her wrists secured.

  Her head pounded. Her arms hurt. She ached all over. The world was horribly askew. She had to blink and blink.

  Reality overwhelmed her. She was a prisoner. And it was perfectly clear. Knowlton hadn’t committed all the murders. They had known something wasn’t right. Alex Morrison had been a living, breathing, functioning psychopath all the time. So helpful! So helpful as he used everything they had learned, so helpful as he ever so subtly turned them toward Perry Knowlton.

  A functioning psychopath? Maybe Kieran could explain such a thing...

  She tried to move.

  She realized she could struggle, but the best she could ever do would be tip the chair over.

  Panic seized her. There was barely any lig
ht. She heard a strange droning sound, like a piece of machinery moving...

  She grew accustomed to the dim light. Blinking, she saw that, ten feet from her, Alex Morrison was busy at some kind of a machine. She realized, nearly passing out again, it was some kind of a knife sharpener. Battery operated, certainly, but...

  Did it matter how the hell it was operated? He was sharpening his knife. To slit her throat, and then decapitate her.

  This was where he had killed Suzie Cornwall. He’d made the mistake—not Knowlton. He’d killed her here, then he’d used a patrol car to dump her body. Easy enough. People seldom questioned a patrol car in a neighborhood, or an officer checking out a fence, or a park, or—

  He turned.

  “Ah, awake, I see! Oh, Sarah. I could have been nice and seen to it that I dispatched you before...well, you know. Before. But then again, your kind deserves to feel some pain!”

  “My kind?”

  She wished Kieran was with her. Kieran might know how to talk to such a man. A functioning psychopath.

  But Kieran wasn’t here. Sarah had to think as her friend might—as any desperate person might think! Think to talk, think to survive—until help could come!

  But how and why would help come? No one knew where she was. Everyone thought all the danger was over. No one knew...

  There was no chance of help!

  And still she had to hang on. While there was breath, she had once heard, there was hope.

  And everything suddenly lay before her. Tyler, their future life together that they had managed to deny one another years ago...

  “What is my kind, Alex?” she asked again.

  He looked at her, leaning against the shoddy portable picnic table that held his knife sharpener.

  “Cheerleader!” he said.

  “What?”

  “Cheerleader. You know your kind!”

  “Oh, my God, Alex. I haven’t been a cheerleader in over a decade.”

  “You were a cheerleader then.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, come on, Sarah, give me a break! That night...at Cemetery Mansion. You were a cheerleader. Oh, yes. You had your football-playing hunk with you and your retard cousin.”