As the Sense weakened, Rachel’s pulse quickened. She is getting away. Rachel twisted back to the other bedroom door. She tried the knob. Locked. Shaking her head, she gave it two good kicks. Failure. She rammed her shoulder into the door, feeling her arm go numb as she stumbled inside and aimed her weapon. No one in the corners. No one by the bed. Rachel pulled open one of the closet doors. Empty. She felt a breeze seeping through the one-inch gap of the window. Rachel pulled it open all the way. She aimed at the woods beyond as her Sense faded internally.
She rubbed her sore shoulder, keeping an eye out. Gone. Rachel returned to Peak behind Hodges’ duplex. Garrett Hodges sat cross-legged on the grass with handcuffs binding his wrists. The little girl stood nearby. She was confused and scared. Peak looked to Rachel, expecting a response. Rachel shook her head.
They looked out into the woods and listened to the barking dogs until a squad car came to take Hodges away. A small search party combed through the wilderness behind the duplex. The officers were experiencing an emotional high from the confession of Lexi Heavens, but they kept their search vigilant. No trace of anyone was discovered.
There was discord back at the station. One half of the station wanted to convict Lexi and the other half believed the real killer was out there. To complicate matters, Garrett Hodges refused to talk until he saw his daughter. Child Safety Services took away his daughter and was holding her in a safe house until further notice. Rachel pitied the father from the observation booth. Pulling a gun on Peak and her might’ve cost Hodges his daughter. Rachel was conflicted on how she would write the report.
“We tell the truth, and nothing but,” Peak said. “If I drew a gun on an officer that close to my daughter, I’d expect the officer to do no less for me.”
Sighing, Rachel agreed.
Lieutenant McConnell called Peak and Rachel into his office. He stood behind his desk, stroking his chin as they told him what had happened.
“To clarify, you didn’t actually see anyone in the house?” McConnell asked.
Rachel kept her mouth closed as a battle waged on inside her. If she wanted to get Albert out of her life, she needed to hunt and kill Jennifer herself. If she confessed that Jennifer was in the house, she could easily get a small squad to search the treehouse and “discover” the damning evidence. However, that might lead to the apprehension of Jennifer, not her death. Therefore, Albert stayed.
No matter what the choice, the Porcelain Killer was going down. It just depended on if Rachel was the culprit or someone else.
“I didn’t exactly see anyone in the house, but the open window in the back suggested that someone was inside,” Rachel said the truth and hated every word of it.
“So no Jennifer?” McConnell asked with one brow raised.
“It could’ve been anyone, really,” Rachel replied.
McConnell directed his attention to Peak. “Anything you want to add?”
“Hodges was practically peeing himself. He was glancing over at the neighbor's duplex frequently.”
“I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate, but did you actually see anyone in that house?”
Peak stepped in. “No, sir, but if Harroway claims there was someone there, I’d trust her judgement.”
“The officers you requested for backup reported to me a number of narcotics discovered in Hodges’ apartment. There is a possibility that he was nervous because of such substances.”
Rachel shifted in her seat. She knew at once Hodges was done. Perhaps that was a good thing. Lexi still had a chance, though. Rachel wondered if she’d suffer endless torment from Albert’s prostitute, who was probably a lackluster mother and selfish human being. The detective gnashed her teeth and felt her stomach churn. She thought of her big, hollow, empty house, her family legacy that would end with her, and her already endless quest to help the dead go home. Lastly, she thought of Lexi’s daughter. The girl’s childhood trauma started early. Why make it worse?
“I visited the residence of Jennifer’s late grandfather’s house,” Rachel’s mouth went dry as she saw the Roper standing behind McConnell. Dark eyes watched her through the burlap sack.
McConnell waited for Rachel to finish while Peak looked at nothing in particular, listening intently.
Rachel took a deep breath. “There was a treehouse there. Jennifer’s, I believe.”
The Roper tightened his gloved hand around the limp hemp noose.
“It looked unsafe to climb, but I have a hunch that it might give us insight into Jennifer’s past.” Rachel nearly cringed at her own words. She forced a straight face and tried to ignore the serial killer glaring at her.
“I’m all about hunches, but I would’ve preferred if you told me about this while you were visiting the property,” McConnell said.
“If we can find evidence that her grandfather’s doll signature is MB, that will be enough to connect Jennifer to the rest of the killings,” Rachel explained. Her hands tightened around the ball of the armrest. She braced herself for Albert’s attack. The Roper only stared at her.
Was I wrong about him? That was a foolish thought. The twenty-four hours were not over yet. Rachel guessed that Albert would wait until time ran out.
After gathering a small group of officers and grabbing a ladder, they were ready to roll out. As they headed for the car, Rachel felt Peak’s eyes on her. She ignored them.
“You lied,” Peak whispered.
“No,” Rachel quietly protested.
“Right…” Peak got into his car.
Rachel walked around the front bumper and got into the passenger seat. “What makes you think I lied?”
Peak turned the ignition. “We’ve worked together for over half a decade. And you won’t be pursuing Jennifer this intently if you didn’t have something noteworthy.”
Rachel slouched in her seat. The pain forced her to quickly sit back up. “Albert Jacobson wants me to kill Jennifer.”
It felt like the day when she’d spilled every dark secret. Peak chewed the inside of his cheek. The veins in his already veiny hands bulged as his bony fingers constricted the steering wheel. “Tell him to go to hell.”
Rachel chuckled depressingly. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then drink whatever that smelly concoction that makes him leave.”
“I wish I could, but Albert won’t leave even if I drink it.”
Peak shook his head, disbelieving. “That makes no sense.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, but if Jennifer escapes or lives, then Albert’s going to kill me over and over again.”
Peak turned to her wide-eyed. “The Orphans can’t interact with the outside world.”
“That’s true, but they can interact with me as much as they please,” Rachel explained.
Peak mulled it over for a moment. The revelation hit him. “No one will ever know he’s hurting you. They’ll all think you’re crazy.”
“See the issue?” Rachel sighed.
Peak inhaled deeply through his nose. His coal eyes watched the winding road through the wild and untamed mountain pass. “That’s hell. What do you want to do?” His voice was calm, but Rachel could sense his fear. It seemed to hang in the air as his question suggested several possibilities.
“I don’t know what I want to do,” Rachel replied honestly. “The police are going to find evidence against Jennifer in that treehouse.”
“You’ve already been inside the treehouse,” Peak said.
Rachel nodded.
“Why tell McConnell?”
Rachel thought about it. “I lie a lot. It’s an occupational hazard with the Gift. Nevertheless, I’m still an officer of the law. That means protect and serve. In this case, it’s Lexi and her daughter. They have something to lose. I don’t.”
Peak turned to her. “That’s not true. You have the Gift, and you have me.”
Rachel smiled sadly. “My table is set. It's time to eat.”
The other police cruiser bounced across the off-kilter dirt trail
and slowed to a stop in front of the burnt remnants of a house. Rachel, Peak, and the other officers waded through the tall grass as the sun fell away and stars spotted the finally clear sky. Flashlight beams illuminated the soggy ground and sloping hill beyond the house. They could see the water-warped wood walls of the treehouse beneath swaying branches. One of the officers pointed to the gaping hole on the side wall. Rachel’s back hurt more.
The officers carefully descended down the slippery hillside. Officer Jones slipped. He caught himself, but the flashlight went rolling in a twirling tumble of light. They walked over mud where Rachel’s footprints had been but only saw tufts of loose grass scattering the ground. Her concealment held. In a legal battle where Jennifer’s lawyer would say that Rachel arrived at the crime scene and planted the evidence, it would be much harder to prove.
A lightning bolt of terror struck Rachel as she remembered touching the shoeboxes inside. Her fingerprints were on them. She kept her worry hidden and reached the base of the fat tree trunk.
Officer Jones knelt next to the broken planks of the wall that was flat on the dirt. He studied the hole on the side of the treehouse. “Harroway?”
“Hmm?” Rachel approached. The painkillers were wearing off, and she could tell that she was walking with a lopsided posture.
Jones sniffled. His blond mustache bounced on one side. “Is it me, or does this look like someone fell through?”
Rachel pretended to ponder the question. “It’s possible.”
Another officer shined the light at the broken lock. “It looks like someone broke in here.”
Peak gave her a look. Rachel didn’t have anything to say. The first officer checked the firmness of the ladder, nodded to himself, and started climbing up into the treehouse. Rachel got next in line. Every rung she climbed, her back screamed. She bit her lip to hide the pain. Halfway up, she could taste blood in her mouth.
She understood how the investigation would play out. Once the first officer saw the boxes, he’d call the forensic unit immediately to start pulling prints. Jennifer was in the system, so she wouldn’t be too hard to find. Rachel’s fingerprints would pop up, too, and if no one touched the boxes between the time the first officer discovered them and the time the forensic unit arrived, they’d figure out that Rachel had previously been in the treehouse. Worse, they would put together that she was home alone during Maxine’s murder and for Parkman’s murder. Albert’s death she’d be innocent of since she was in the hospital. Ironically, it was through her involvement in his death that allowed him to keep haunting her.
In summary, the discovery of her arrival at the treehouse would raise a lot of questions. Was this the beginning of Albert’s plan to make her life a living hell? Was that why he scared her into falling through the treehouse’s wall? Rachel didn’t want to give the thought any more fuel. She needed to solve the question at hand. I’ll need to touch the boxes in front of the other officers. Then they cannot connect me to my previous visit. Rachel groaned on the inside, wishing that her compassion and good nature didn’t lead to her impulsive decision to tell Lieutenant McConnell about her so called “hunch.”
“Be careful,” the officer said from the treehouse above her. “This place is very unstable.”
His boots thumped against the thin floorboards. Rachel climbed fast and raised her head through the open hatch. The same breeze from her ladder climb followed her through the hole in the wall. Grimacing, she pushed herself into the treehouse. The pain made her sweat and tremble. It reminded her that she wasn’t twenty-five anymore. Using the tree jutting through the floor and ceiling, Rachel steadied herself. The floor seemed to sway underfoot. Rachel couldn’t tell if it was the treehouse or herself. She cautiously approached the gaping hole and looked down at the place where she had fallen. It was too far for her liking. Feeling vertigo, she stepped away and turned to the rest of the small tree-nestled hut.
Something was wrong.
The underwear and soccer jersey were missing. Keeping her head low, she traveled around the trunk and turned to where the shoeboxes had been.
Gone. All of them.
Rachel’s heart sank.
The doll had vanished too.
There was no evidence here.
The only thing that remained was the engraved heart capturing the initials “A + J.”
Rachel felt a strong tugging feeling. The Roper appeared beside her, laughing hysterically.
The officer scratched his head at the lackluster find. “There’s one bright side. No one can say we didn’t look.”
Was the evidence all in her mind? Did Albert create this illusion? Impossible. Orphans could only use the objects in their surroundings. The evidence was there, it was real, but that meant… The revelation struck her like a bullet.
Rachel raced down the ladder. Hand in his back pockets, Peak awaited a response.
Rachel pulled him aside. “Jennifer was following me.”
“What?” Peak exclaimed as loud as one could when whispering.
“Everything I saw in there this afternoon is gone,” Rachel replied. She closed her mouth and let an officer stroll by. The man scanned the ground with his flashlight.
Peak leaned in close. “If Jennifer knew about your discovery, she would’ve guessed that you’d turn in the information immediately. Making the police think Lexi Heavens was the Porcelain Killer would’ve been a waste of time. But since you didn’t voice it, she was able to pressure Hodges.” Peak cursed. “She wears disguises. She might’ve been nearby the whole time.”
Albert joined their secret circle. He wrapped an arm around Peak and one around Rachel, mimicking a football huddle. “You’re wasting time, Detective Harroway. You only have until tomorrow to put a bullet in Jennifer or you’re mine.”
The Orphan vanished.
Rachel felt her world crumbling. She pulled away from Peak and took a pain pill. It worsened her headache but lessened the agony of her body. “I was ready to end this, Peak.”
Her partner put his hand on her shoulder. Rachel tensed up at the warm gesture but then welcomed it.
“There is a silver lining to this whole ordeal,” Jenson Peak said.
Rachel turned back to him, unsure what he could mean.
Peak gazed up to the stars. “Now we can find Jennifer with the police off our backs.”
10
FADED PHOTOGRAPHS
Lexi Heavens would be sent to a temporary holding penitentiary until her court date. Garrett Hodges would follow for aiming his firearm at an officer of the law. They weren’t the greatest people in the world, but Rachel could relate to the dysfunction. She’d made it her life’s goal to save the dead. It was time to save the living. She checked the full magazine of .40 caliber bullets and shoved it back into the Glock 22.
Peak stood by Rachel. Nine-millimeter rounds stood in a line across Rachel’s dining room table. Peak’s bony fingers slid one bullet at a time into the magazine of his Glock 19. Under the dim lights of Hadley House, the shadow from his heavy brow made his dark eyes appear black.
Hands on the tabletop, Rachel turned to a nearby wall. The small framed picture displayed a woman with sultry eyes resting her chin on the ball of her hand. Her fingertips gently touched her lip. On the monochromatic piece of art, crimson blood leaked from a flay of flesh across the fictional woman’s throat. Rachel lowered the weapon. She remembered drawing it on her first day in Highlands, when she saw the Hadley House for the first time. That was before she had experienced the horrors of real gore. It all started with the Barnes family; they were Rachel’s first Orphans. A confusing time, but the battle was much easier then. Killers were bad. Victims were good. This case was far from that. Victims, killers, it seemed they were all bad guys, and Rachel was on her way to her first murder.
“Jenson,” Rachel turned to her partner. “You don’t have to come with me.”
Peak loaded his pistol and slid it into the holster strapped on the side of his ribs. “It was my idea,” he said.
“What happened to upholding the law?” Rachel argued, not wanting to drag him into her problems.
“You saved me from Albert’s noose. It’s time I did the same. If that means putting a serial killer six feet under, then so be it.”
Rachel put her weapon aside and rubbed her forehead. Her head ached. Her body ached worse. “Let’s repeat the plan. Get Jennifer into the car, blackmail her into leading us to where she stored the evidence, and…” The words lodged in Rachel’s throat. “God, I wish we could arrest her.”
“We have barely anything on her,” Peak said seriously. “She’ll fade into obscurity soon enough, and more will die. The one thing keeping her around is our suspicions, but the evidence that would’ve condemned her is gone. Right?”
Rachel nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. In the dream scenario, I would tell the police about my findings, get a warrant to search Jennifer’s place, and turn the place upside down,” Rachel said.
“Two issues,” Peak held up his fingers. “One: there’s a good chance that Jennifer would be smart enough not to store the evidence in her house. And two: explaining to the police how you knew about this evidence hours earlier but didn’t come forward would be suspicious as hell. As I said before, the town needs someone to burn for these crimes. They chose Lexi. Case closed. It’s up to us to pick up those pieces.”
Rachel didn’t disagree. If Peak was convinced of it, she had to be too. Peak’s career went from detective to undercover cop for the Aryan Nation and back to detective. Rachel couldn’t even imagine the type of stuff he had to do in his past life.
“Answer me this before we go any farther.” Peak looked at her intently in the eyes. “Are you one hundred percent sure that Jennifer is the Porcelain Killer?”
“I’d bet my life on it,” Rachel replied.
Peak nodded to himself. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
He slung on an old windbreaker to conceal his gun.
The Haunting of Rachel Harroway- Book 2 Page 10