by Mia Thompson
She looked down at the device in her hand, eager to get the party started.
Perhaps it would scare her into submission, perhaps it wouldn’t—Sapphire’s history proved her determination. If she chose not to stay away, she would pay the price.
The heiress was only a pale first edition and there was a new and improved version out. Sapphire was obsolete, and she was now the new Serial Catcher. No, the true Serial Catcher.
Yes, she liked it. She finally had a name.
The True Serial Catcher inhaled with satisfaction, then pressed the button. When she was done, she placed her gift five feet from the mansion’s entrance.
She pulled her cap down and hit the sidewalk as she glanced down at her cell phone. She’d been here a long time and the one at home could come back anytime now. It was a miracle she even got out today. She needed to get home before it was too late.
She didn’t notice the man on the sidewalk until she bumped into him.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
He wore a three-piece suit and moved with grace. His charming smile was trained, and made her feel comfortable, too at ease.
She walked in reverse for a few steps to keep an eye on him and he did the same. His eyes told a different story than his body language. He looked at her with part hunger, part restraint, then eyed the street to note the two men walking their Chinese Crested dog.
He turned his back to her, and she did the same.
Predator? She wondered as she made it to her car.
She grabbed the door and put her head down so she could give him a discreet glance.
He was already gone.
• • •
“Mom! Berta!” Sapphire pushed the doorbell again.
The night lay like a blanket over the silent mansion and Sapphire rubbed her tired eyes.
She’d had a long day—hell, she’d had a long summer—and all she wanted was to crawl into her familiar, lush bed and forget about the airport, jail, and today’s turmoil.
Sapphire had stood outside of the great stone walls long after Jack threw her out of the country club. She was ostracized from a place she had always disliked, but she’d spent so much of her life there that the isolation made her forlorn. She wanted to go somewhere and be an anonymous person in a crowd again: the Beverly Mall.
Big mistake, huge, as America’s favorite prostitute once said.
She’d been in the food court when the urge hit. While the two security guards stopped fighting about the paper and started arguing about whose turn it was to make a coffee run instead, Sapphire had slipped the paper into her purse. Only to catch up on the funnies, of course.
The craving swelled at the thought of the article in her purse, and the need grew like a tumor inside her. An invisible force pushed her to keep going, keep hunting.
Before she left the States, she found out why she had the need to hunt serial killers. She’d always subconsciously known her father was one. He was the one she’d been seeking all along. Nonetheless, to hunt would be foolish, reckless, and totally—
Screw it. She snagged the paper, and flipped it open. Obviously, Sapphire admitted, she had a problem.
She was in the middle of reading about the second disappearance when a series of bright flashes hit her. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“Are you looking for your next catch, Sapphire? Is your own cousin witnessing against you?” The woman snapped the pictures as rapidly as she fired the questions.
“Would you stop?!” Sapphire shielded her face from the flashes.
The woman snapped away as she handed her a card. “Nikki Pierce, L.A. Times. I’d love to lock in an exclusive with you.” Sapphire got up and Nikki followed. “Were you reading about the heiresses? That must make your Serial Catcher fingers itch, huh, huh, huh?” Snap. Snap. Snap.
“I was reading Zits. Feel free to print that.” Sapphire marched toward the elevator and pushed the button in synchrony to the camera’s clicks.
“Did you really kill your stepfather? Did he do something to you? Oh, it was a childhood molestation thing, wasn’t it?”
“What? Gross, no!” The elevator dinged open and Sapphire stepped in.
Nikki followed. “How old were you when you realized you wanted to be a vigilante? Thomas Broker, the serial killer, was found trapped in an abandoned warehouse about three years ago. He was your first, wasn’t he?”
Sapphire waited for the right moment, then slid out of the elevator and turned to wave at the journalist. Nikki’s eyes grew two sizes and she threw herself at the doors.
“Son of a—” the elevator closed.
Pride tingled in Sapphire’s chest. All those times of shaking Aston had made her a pro.
Nikki was right, of course. Thomas Broker was the killer who popped her cherry. Not that cherry; the-son-of-a-bitch-formerly-named-Aston, did that. Broker was her first catch.
Sapphire had just turned twenty when she transferred from USC to UCLA in order to find the man responsible for the five girls that had gone missing over the past eight semesters. The same amount of time Thomas Broker, and three other professors, had been employed. He taught Psychology, Linguistics, and Graphology. He’d published several groundbreaking papers on the subjects, even after Sapphire put him in prison.
She took his class for half a semester, along with the other professors’, before he finally took the bait and invited her to a “private discussion group” a.k.a: slaughter fest. She’d even bleached her hair the same blonde as the victims to lure him to her. At twenty, she was yet to realize she could just buy a wig.
Sapphire turned away from the elevator, half chuckling at the memory. Her joy dropped and she came to a stop. The Beverly Mall, its customers and clerks, went into slow-motion as Sapphire stared at the rushing girl in her early teens.
“Miriam!” Mrs. McCormick called. “We have to wait for your sister!”
It was Miriam McCormick, Shelly McCormick’s little sister. What the hell were they doing in Beverly Hills? The McCormicks were from San Diego.
“Shelly!” Miriam shouted into the store, then turned to her mother. “She’s the one who wanted to go all the way to Beverly Hills to see the movie, and now we’re going to miss it.”
Sapphire glimpsed Shelly’s hair, and turned around quickly. She pushed the elevator button again, burying her face in the steel. She’d rather deal with Nikki than Shelly McCormick. To face her was to face the guilt Sapphire had carried around for nearly a year. She couldn’t bear to see the stump where Shelly’s hand should be or that face of absolute pain again.
Please don’t recognize me. Please. Please.
Shelly McCormick had been taken by the serial killer Vincent Parlov last year, solely because she looked like Sapphire. If they stood side by side, people might think they were sisters.
Vincent was a religious freak who wanted to punish Sapphire for trapping God’s angels—meaning serial killers. And for preventing them from killing promiscuous ho bags—meaning innocent women. He held Shelly captive in the basement of an abandoned church for days. He’d cut off her finger, then her hand, and sent them to Sapphire as gifts.
Had Sapphire not been the Serial Catcher, the maniac would’ve never chosen Shelly to use as a message. When Aston and Sapphire found Shelly in the basement of the old church, she was nearly dead. There wasn’t a day when the image of the malnourished Shelly—tied to a chair, covered in her own urine and blood—didn’t pop up in Sapphire’s head.
“Come on, Shelly,” Miriam moaned.
“I’m walking, aren’t I?” Shelly’s reply was sharp.
Sapphire stopped breathing as Shelly McCormick passed behind her. She didn’t even dare to look at the steel in case she’d catch a reflection.
The last time she’d seen Shelly’s face was a while after she got saved. Sapphire had driven by the McCormicks’ house foolishly expecting to see Shelly back to the happy young woman she used to be. Instead she saw an empty shell of a person, someone whose body was alive, but whose soul had died i
n that basement. That face haunted Sapphire.
Soon the McCormicks’ voices faded to mumbles and Sapphire exhaled just as the elevator dinged opened.
“Bitch,” Nikki finished, and brought her camera back up.
Sapphire managed to shake Nikki a second time, then walked from the Beverly Mall to the mansion. Sapphire wasn’t out of shape, but she’d missed her Range Rover when hiking up a steep hill in 109 degrees, and that was after sunset. All she’d envisioned was cool central air and her wonderful bed.
Now that she made it, it seemed she was out of luck. She cupped her hands to the door. “Berta!”
Berta, the housekeeper who replaced Julia, was usually always home at this time. Sapphire stepped back, hoping a light had come on in one of the mansion’s dark windows.
Crack. Sapphire lifted her foot, and stared at an item with an attached handwritten note. She lifted it off the ground and read the words.
Play me, Sapphire Dubois.
Sapphire’s nerves jumped to attention. It was reminiscent of what she went through with Shelly McCormick and the images flooded her mind for the second time today.
The digital recorder lay in her palm. Her step had cracked the top, but she could still make out the screen and the brand. It was the same one Sapphire used to capture confessions.
She pushed play, and the deep, modified voice catapulted out into the hot air.
“Hello, Sapphire Dubois. I am the True Serial Catcher. While you’ve been away, I took it upon myself to proceed with your work. Though I certainly found your methods inspiring, I do not agree that you have spent years letting these monsters—men who’ve murdered fellow women—live. Your position has been filled. Should you try to return to the job, well, let’s just say: stay away, they’re mine. Or else…”
Sapphire looked around the darkness, feeling exposed. She took her shirt off, balled it up, then went to the kitchen entrance and smashed the window to the door. She hurried in to key in the alarm code before it started blaring. Except, the alarm never sounded.
Sapphire put her shirt back on and stopped in front of the box on the wall. She frowned, touching the severed cords that hung from the bottom. Someone had already disarmed it.
Sapphire flipped on the light to the kitchen and turned. “What the…”
White sheets covered the counters and the furniture. The more Sapphire looked, the more evident it became that Vivienne and Berta hadn’t lived here all summer. The fridge was cleaned out, the sheets covered in dust, and the water came out orange with rust.
Where the hell was her mother?
A sound cut through the mansion’s silence and Sapphire flinched. She pulled white sheets down until she found the knife set and grabbed the butcher knife.
“Who’s there?” she yelled, though she knew it was the line every girl in every horror movie said before they got slashed.
Sapphire peered into the dark living room, hearing the faint sound of someone else’s breath. She clenched the knife so hard the pulse in her hand pounded against it.
The lamp by Charles’s old lazy chair turned on and the man in it looked at her. For a second she could’ve sworn it was Charles sitting there. Of course it wasn’t. The dead didn’t come back to life, no matter how hard one wished.
Then the recognition set in. Sapphire’s pulse jumped, her breath sped, and her eyes widened.
• • •
“Do you know who I am?” William Dubois studied her.
He’d watched her from afar plenty, but he hadn’t been this close in almost twenty years. His gene pool was more evident in her dark brown hair and eyes, but the few features she got from Viv made her face softer than his.
“Yes, I know who you are.” The shock was prominent in her tone.
He nodded. “I know what you did, Sapphire. I know what you are, and you’re not alone.”
Sapphire stared at him, her face blank. “What do you mean?”
William revealed his perfect set of pearly whites. “You’re what I am. I’m what you are. We’re the same.”
“Brunettes?” Her sarcasm fell flat.
“Killers, my daughter.” He stayed in his seat to not spook her.
Sapphire’s face twisted. “I’m not a killer. I’m… what are you doing here? What do you want?”
Had someone called William out after his first “incident” he would’ve run. It took him a while to accept what he was. He’d felt alone, even guilty after his first kill. The last thing he wanted was for his daughter to feel the same way.
“I’m here to save you from this circus. The witch hunt, the trial. I’ve got a car packed with everything you need. New IDs, clothes, boxes of hair color, contacts.”
“W-what?” Sapphire shook her head in confusion. “What exactly are you expecting us to do?”
“Live, Sapphire.” William felt it was obvious. “I can show you a life of absolute freedom. A life where you can live wherever you want, and kill whomever you want.”
“Darling! Are you here? I heard you got out!” The ceiling light to the living room turned on and his ex-wife stood in the doorway. “There you are. Welcome hom—” Her eyes drew from Sapphire to William and her expression fell to shock.
He couldn’t help but admire her beauty.
“W…W…Will?” Vivienne’s eyes crossed, then rolled to the back of her head. Her body hit the floor with a thump.
William turned back to Sapphire. “It’s probably best we don’t bring your mother with us, with her weak stomach for blood and all.”
Sapphire stared at him and shook her head. “I… I’m not what you think I am. I’m nothing like you, and I’m not going anywhere with a man who hasn’t even given me a birthday card since I was what, four?”
She stepped over her mother, then turned back to him with a viperous confidence. “I’m going upstairs, and if I don’t hear that front door close in two minutes, I’m calling the cops.”
The sound of her steps diminished. He was disappointed that it hadn’t gone as planned, but felt proud as well. His daughter had just experienced shock, yet she’d bounced back within seconds. She had a knack for controlling her emotions. She wasn’t as good as William. Then again, she was only twenty-three.
He walked over to Viv and watched her. She looked beautiful, passed out on the floor. He carried her to the couch and tucked her into the white sheet that covered it. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Sweet dreams, my dear.”
When William obliged his daughter’s request and walked toward the door, The Hunger moaned in him. We’ve waited all summer for her, just to walk away?
William grabbed the door handle. “But she’s afraid.”
Fear calls for convincing.
“Convincing?” William pondered.
Sometimes we have to hurt people to make them see.
William slammed the door and simpered as the devious voice filled his head with images of what was to come.
• • •
Sapphire lay under her plush cover and stared out the window, feeling absorbed by the sunrise’s orange light.
She’d been so overwhelmed by everything that all she could do was crawl in bed and pull the covers over her head. She didn’t sleep; she just laid there in a haze. The Copycat’s warning and her father’s visit left her feeling like she was drowning in a whirlpool so violent, she couldn’t tell which way was up or down anymore. On top of everything she had her first day of court in a few hours.
Why now? she wondered. After nineteen years of absence he’d just dropped by Beverly Hills and offered her a way out of the mess she was in.
Sapphire used to have no memories before the age of five when she and Vivienne moved from Oregon and into Charles’s mansion. Then Dr. Rues hypnotized her and she found out she had witnessed her father kill when she was four. Her brain’s way of protecting itself was to suppress all images associated with him. All she was left with was an urge to hunt serial killers. Despite that she knew what he was, a part of Sapphire felt joy when she
saw him in the chair. He was her father, a man she’d subconsciously searched for. Then he called her a killer. The tender feeling vanished and an arctic cold spread through her veins. She was nothing like him.
Right, a thought sneered. Very convincing.
A soft knock came on her bedroom door, then it opened.
“Welcome home,” her mother’s voice was uncharacteristically silky. “I’m terribly sorry I didn’t make it to your hearing, I wasn’t ready yet. But I am now.” Vivienne walked around the bed and placed a breakfast tray over Sapphire’s stomach. “How was jail?”
“Great. Like summer camp, but with murderers and hookers.” Sapphire scooted up and looked at the food. Vivienne and Sapphire did not have a nourishing breakfast-in-bed relationship. Since Julia left and stopped making her famous food, the only breakfasts Sapphire remembered having with her mother were accidental. Like, her mother lay on the floor below the stool, passed out drunk from the night before, and some of Sapphire’s cereal fell off her spoon and landed in Vivienne’s mouth. It counted.
“Berta made us breakfast?”
“No, Berta quit.” Vivienne poured the coffee.
“Why?”
“People do that when you stop paying them. I made it.”
Sapphire grimaced at the black substance and looked down at the food. The eggs were still raw, the toast burnt, and the pancakes were balls of lard.
“So…” she pushed the plate away. “I don’t suppose you paid my bail?”
“Oh those silly allegations…”
Right. Silly would be the word to use after witnessing your daughter stick a knife in someone, drunk or not. Sapphire wanted to blow a trumpet and yell: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Vivienne Dubois, the reigning Queen of Denial.”
Vivienne shook her head and continued. “No. Charles froze his will until all family members were present, and I had some unexpected expenses. I couldn’t even afford the ten percent to get you out. I only have about eighty grand left until I inherit all his money.”
Sapphire had no idea her absence had stopped the will.