You Can't Run

by Hope E. Davis

  Atlas quickly typed in Alia and watched as the screen filled with names and pictures of over a hundred Alia’s.

  “How does he search through this? Especially with a name like Julia, which I’m sure there are millions of?” He quickly typed in ‘Shanice’ and over two hundred people named Shanice popped up. Above the search bar where he had been typing names was an invite tab. He clicked on it and saw you could invite people via SMS or Email.

  “I mean with their last initial, that could help.” Naya suggested. Atlas quickly typed in Julia C. and angled Naya the screen even though she had already been watching.

  “No way, there are three hundred, or more, Julia C’s here. This guy must be finding them another way.”

  Naya considered that as she watched as Atlas clicked around her app a bit more, looking for a way you could get more information. He opened her running history and let out a low whistle.

  “Damn, you’re fast.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But look here, each of your runs comes with a little map, see? If you had any friend’s, they would be able to see where you ran. And the routes all clearly start and end in your neighborhood.” He pointed out.

  “You’re right. Which is why I don’t. Even if you don’t post your runs until after you’re done, someone can get an idea of where I live, the times I run, and the general directions I like to run in, even if I switch it up…” She agreed. “So, what, is this guy was just randomly friending a bunch of people via SMS or email? And the girls that took the bait and accepted became his victims?”

  “Maybe.” Atlas scratched his neck. “Maybe what these women have in common is that they agreed to be friends with the killer on RunTracker.”

  “Since it’s only a person’s first name and last initial, if they had a friend with that same first name they may say yes even if they weren’t sure it was them. I mean, most people don’t have pictures on here.” Naya showed him the same screen he had typed the women’s names in, and sure enough, only about every tenth account had a photo.

  “That means our killer uses a fairly common name.” He mused, turning to write ‘Common name’ on the board under the suspect profile.

  “That would explain why he abducts from everywhere rather than sticking to a comfort-zone, like most killers do. He actually is opportunistic.” Naya glanced down at her phone and saw it was almost five.

  “Exactly.”

  They were both silent for a moment, thinking about the reality of what they just discovered. Naya who broke the silence. “Let’s release this information to the press. Tell women not to add anyone they don’t know to their RunTracker.”

  “I’ll go talk to Captain Brody now.” Atlas put down the dry erase marker and walked towards the door. Naya stood and followed.

  “I’m going to head out Atlas, but I’ll be in tomorrow. Even if we don’t have the information we requested, I have some ideas I want to check out.”

  “Fair enough.” He agreed, taking the time to glance at his own watch. “I actually think I’ll call it an early night myself. I’ve spent entirely too much time in this building this week. And that’s saying a lot for me.”

  “It is.” Naya smiled as she turned and headed to clock out. “See you tomorrow!” She called over her shoulder as she exited the door and walked towards her car. She felt relieved, she finally felt like they were getting somewhere with this case besides chasing their tails.

  The drive home was quicker than she expected for five on a Friday, and when she pulled up in front of her house she noticed there were quite a few cars out front. It made her wonder if her family was having a party.

  When she walked in the door, she heard voices in the living room and decided to poke her head in really quick before going to change for her date. She noticed that her parents were actually not there for once, but Vance was on the couch watching as Trevor, Kevin, and Sebastian played some sort of shooting game. It was early, so Derek was still there as well, a controller in his hands. There was also another man she had never seen before, but he was dressed in scrubs, so she assumed it was Elliot. It was a bit weird that both aides were there at the same time.

  “Is there some sort of party I missed the invite for?”

  Vance looked over his shoulder to see her, his face eerily pale like it usually was after a day of chemotherapy. “Oh, you’re here, now we can start.” He joked feebly. Naya could tell he felt weak.

  The man she didn’t recognize quickly crossed the room and held out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Elliot from Home Health Care. I don’t believe we’ve met, but I assume you’re Naya, Vance’s sister?”

  “You are correct.” She replied as she shook his hand. Elliot looked to be quite a bit younger than the rest of them, but like Derek, clearly had the muscles required to lift a full-grown man if needed. “Nice to meet you.”

  He quickly volunteered the information she had wondered about. “Derek had me come in today to learn the chemotherapy routine, so that way if we ever needed to switch days, or if Vance had his appointments switched, we would both be trained.”

  “That’s smart.” She smiled, glancing over her shoulder to see Kevin looking at her. “Well, if you men don’t need me for anything, I’m going to go change.”

  The entire group smiled, giving ‘no thank you’s over their shoulders while focused on their game and Elliot went and sat back down.

  Naya went up the stairs and changed into an oversized sweater with leggings. She wished she had something a little dressier, but she simply didn’t. Besides, he knew it had been a long week, cute and comfortable would have to do.

  She was about to walk down the stairs when she noticed a new urgent email had come through on her phone. She opened it up to find the report on the house fire for Dave Smith’s home. She skimmed through it, being thoroughly disappointed by how short it was. And she was more disappointed still when she reached the end to read that the fire chief was pretty sure it had just been a shorted wire. Crazy timing for a wire to short out, but there were no signs of an accelerant to lead them to consider it as arson.

  Naya checked to see that Atlas received the same email, laughing when a text came in from him just as she did so. Apparently he had been reading the email too.

  Atlas: Back to square one I guess

  The text also had a shrugging emoji which made Naya giggle. For some reason she hadn’t figured Atlas as the emoji type of person. She quickly sent an emoji she thought looked annoyed back to him and slid her phone into her pocket.

  With a small sigh and a last check in her mirror, she walked back down the stairs to find Kevin standing by the door dangling her keys.

  “Shall we?”

  “We shall.” She responded with a smile.

  CHAPTER 20

  MARK

  He was in the detective’s house. Well, not that this was a new thing, after all, he’d been here before. But it seemed more special now that he had decided that she would be perfect for his project.

  He wanted to go and look at her room, but he wasn’t sure how to do that without drawing attention to himself. He looked around the room, all the other men seemed to be involved in the Call of Duty bracket they had going on, but he couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t afford to have any suspicion on him at this point in his plan.

  He would just have to come back another time and do some snooping then.

  The doorbell rang as the pizza they had ordered was delivered.

  “I got it.” Smiling as he headed for the door.

  He found a pimple faced teenager on the stoop with the pizzas. “Thanks.” He said politely as he took the pizzas from him and closed the door. He hadn’t done the ordering, but he was surprised to feel how heavy the four pizzas were.

  “What did you get on these things?” He asked as he walked back in, lifting them up and down a couple times.

  Vance laughed weakly. “I think I got extra meat on all of them.”

  All the men in the room started laughing.
It was quite funny that Vance had been the one to order such heavy pizzas when he barely ate.

  Mark headed for the kitchen, setting the pizzas down on the counter and grabbing the paper plates from the cupboard where he knew they would be. He had already had time to snoop around down here. But of course, that was much less suspicious than snooping in Detective Largusa’s bedroom.

  He loaded up two of the hefty slices onto his plate, and placed a single slice on a plate for Vance. He turned to find the other guys had paused the game and they, except for Vance, had followed him to load up their own plates with piping hot greasy pizza.

  He returned to the living room and handed Vance his plate before sitting on the floor and digging in to his. The others returned and soon they were all eating pizza and throwing jabs at each other about who was going to win the bracket.

  This was all so mundane to him, he only played video games because the other guys did. It had never been his thing.

  He was briefly reminded of his wife, and his old life, where he had also pretended to be someone he was not. At least here the lies were fewer and less significant. Well except for the wig. He couldn’t wait to kill the detective so he could ditch the itchy mass of fake hair on his head.

  Soon, he told himself as the other men finished eating their pizza and returned to the game.

  Very soon.

  He glanced at Vance out of the corner of his eye. He was probably going to get in the way at some point. And that was unfortunate.

  He would need to be taken care of.

  And fate was on his side…

  CHAPTER 21

  NAYA

  Kevin had taken her out for Thai food at a place she had never heard of, but that wasn’t a surprise since she hadn’t been living here long. Naya was surprised at how well she had settled in here. It felt right somehow, like she was supposed to be here.

  They had chatted while they ate their dinners, and afterwards Kevin had driven them out towards the mountains. Now they were sitting in the bed of his truck on some pillows and blankets he had brought taking in the view. Naya was curled into Kevin’s side, her head on his shoulder and he was absentmindedly running his hand through her hair. They were both looking up at the stars which were exponentially more numerous away from the light pollution of the city.

  “What are you thinking?” Kevin breathed in her ear, breaking the comfortable silence.

  “Just how right it feels to be here.” She realized after that she hadn’t specified what she meant, but maybe that was a good thing.

  “Here in Denver, or here with me?” He asked, reading her mind, again.

  She thought for a moment. “I guess I would say both.”

  They settled into a silence again, until Naya remembered what she had been meaning to ask earlier. “My parents weren’t there when we left, how did you ask them about tonight?”

  He let out a low chuckle. “I have your mom’s number. Vance wanted to hang out at home today, and they were excited about the city, so I think your parents were going out for an evening by themselves and giving your brother some space for the night.”

  “He doesn’t want them to see him after chemotherapy.” She deduced instantaneously.

  “Yeah, Vance doesn’t have much control in his life left. But he does want your parents to think he is managing. I think you’ll need to send them away soon though.”

  Naya looked up at Kevin’s face. “What do you mean?”

  Kevin stopped touching her hair and moved his hand to the side of her neck. Naya leaned into his touch. “He doesn’t want them here when things get worse. You know that as well as I do.”

  “But—” she snapped her mouth shut. Naya wanted to argue but realized she had nothing to say. If Vance felt he was getting worse, there was nothing she could do. It was his life not hers; he would know better than she.

  “You should talk to him before you do anything though, make sure I’m not assuming incorrectly.”

  Naya dipped her head. “No, you’re probably right. You notice these things so easily, it’s uncanny. I guess the reason I was about to say something was because I truly want to believe Vance is getting better. But I suppose at some point I just have to—” Her voice broke. “To do what Vance wants me to do…for him.” She would need to accept it, there was nothing to gain by avoiding it any longer.

  Kevin was empathetic. “It won’t be easy. But I can tell Vance is glad it’s you here and no one else.”

  A silence fell over them once again, as they stared into each other’s eyes, this one heavier than the last. After what seemed like ages, Kevin leaned in and captured her lips with his. She felt her body responding and began to kiss him back. The hand that wasn’t on her neck came to rest on the small of her back and pulled her closer. Naya brought her hand up to rest on Kevin’s shoulder while her other hand twisted in his hair.

  They kissed for what felt like forever, until one of them, Naya wasn’t sure which, pulled back and both took a moment to breathe. Naya laid her head on Kevin’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.

  “How would you feel about coming back to my place tonight?” He asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Naya thought for a moment but didn’t respond. Could she leave Vance on his own for the night? Would he be okay? He’d had chemo earlier that day—

  “Trevor and Sebastian both volunteered to sleep on the couch if need be.”

  “Are you sure?” It seemed so weird that Vance’s friends were always so willing to help, maybe it was just because she wasn’t used to having friends the way Vance did.

  “I’m sure. I think Sebastian brought about a hundred beers over. My guess is they won’t be driving anyway.” His hand moved up from her lower back and began rubbing her shoulders. “I can give you another back rub.”

  “Are you trying to bribe me?” She asked playfully.

  “Maybe.”

  “You know bribing a cop is illegal right?” She looked at him and lifted one eyebrow.

  “You won’t tell on me, will you?” He plastered a pleading puppy-dog look on his face.

  “Just this once.” She joked, hoping the smirk on her face looked flirty and not weird.

  “Shall we?” He asked for the second time that night, pointing towards the east where they had come from.

  She bit her lip and nodded as Kevin stood and jumped out of the truck bed. Then he turned around and held out his hands to lift her down. She was still frequently amazed by how strong he was.

  The minute her feet hit the ground she lifted her chin to look him in the eyes and he leaned down to kiss her again.

  Before they could get carried away, she pressed a hand to his chest and leaned away. “I think we better get going if you know what I mean.”

  “You’re right let’s go.” He laughed as he walked around the car to open the passenger door for her before walking back and climbing in the driver’s side.

  Naya couldn’t believe how nervous she was, it was like going back in time. She had never felt this way about any of the guys she had dated in La Junta, it was a weird feeling. Before she knew it, they had pulled up in front of a small house which looked to be a similar style to the one she and Vance shared, they must’ve been built during the same time period. She could tell from the outside that Kevin’s house was a tiny bit larger than theirs though, probably a two-bedroom instead of a one.

  She opened the truck door and stepped out, to find her legs were shaky from her nerves. Or maybe anticipation, she couldn’t be sure.

  She followed Kevin up the walk and stood awkwardly by while he unlocked the door. But as soon as they were inside, they picked up right where they had left off and began making out in the entry way.

  It was Kevin who pulled back this time. “I was going to give you the grand tour but…want to just skip straight to the part where I show you the bedroom?” He smiled shyly and Naya couldn’t help but marvel at how cute he looked with his hair tousled, as he invited her to his bedroom.

  “Sounds fair.” She
whispered, surprised by how husky her voice sounded.

  Kevin’s smile grew more confident and mischievous, and he grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs.

  It was her alarm that awoke them the next morning. Naya groaned and rolled over, putting a pillow over her head.

  Kevin just chuckled. “Late night?” He asked, knowing the answer. He rolled out of bed and crossed the room to where her phone had been tossed the night before, shutting off her alarm.

  “I blame you.” she grumbled from beneath the pillow, knowing very well that she needed to get up and go home to change before she could go to work.

  “I have a spare toothbrush here if you want to brush your teeth.”

  She lifted the pillow. “So, you have guests often then?” She was joking, but also a little curious.

  “No, but my mother taught me to always be prepared. I honestly think I bought the toothbrush I’m offering you almost three years ago. And at the time I even bought a five-pack, just so I wouldn’t have to restock.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed.” She stretched her arms over her head, trying to convince her tense muscles that they had to get up and be active, even though they were clearly pissed they didn’t get enough sleep. She groaned exaggeratedly, annoyed at having to be a responsible adult.

  “Should I call Atlas and tell him you’re sick?” Kevin cocked an eyebrow, a playful smile rising on his face.

  Naya chucked the pillow she had hid under at him.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Just checking.” Kevin stepped over to the closet and began pulling on a pair of jeans. “Well, come on, the Kevin Express pulls out of the station in fifteen minutes.”

  “Will refreshments be served?” She climbed out of bed and began putting on her clothes from the night before.

  “Yep, I have coffee on the auto-timer, so I believe it’ll be ready when we walk down the stairs.”