The Preditorial Page

by Lee, Amanda M.

  “Not if he wasn’t at the commission meeting,” Eliot said.

  “He was, though,” Jake said.

  “No he wasn’t.”

  “He was,” Jake said. “He was in that side little conference room watching the meeting on the television in there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because that’s the door I went in through,” Jake said. “He said he was sitting in there because big crowds unnerve him. He was worried about funding being cut at the health department.”

  “Still,” I hedged. “There’s no way.”

  Jake and Eliot had turned their attention from me and were now focused on each other.

  “We need to check him out,” Jake said, “even if it’s just to eliminate him.”

  “I’ll take her back to my place and follow him for the rest of the day,” Eliot said. “Call me on my cellphone if you find out anything.”

  “Why not just ask him?” I was ignoring this whole talking about me like I wasn’t here thing -- for now.

  “It’s not like he’s going to admit it,” Jake said. “And if I accuse him and he’s innocent, then that’s going to make working with him a little difficult. Besides, odds are it’s probably not him.”

  “I’ll just go with Eliot on his stakeout,” I offered.

  “No you won’t,” Eliot said. “You’re going to be in my apartment where I know you’re safe.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Think of this way,” Eliot said. “I brought that video game system from your house for a reason. Now you have a whole day to play without me making fun of you for being a teenage boy.”

  Huh. That did sound better than sitting in his car all day.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I’m only doing this to appease you.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Eliot said. “You’re doing it because you’re going to be obsessed with that game until you beat it. I know you.”

  I swear, I get no respect sometimes.

  Thirty-Two

  “I can’t believe you’re really going to leave me here all day by myself while you’re out playing Rambo.”

  Eliot had changed his clothes and was doing his best to ignore me as he pulled on his boots. I was sitting on the couch like a petulant child -- hey, I know my own faults -- watching him.

  “You’re safer here.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to let me out of your sight,” I pressed. “What if the killer comes here?”

  “He won’t. No one would dare approach you here,” Eliot countered. “You’re safe here.”

  “Only if I stay here.” It was probably a mistake to taunt him, but the more I thought about his attitude the angrier I got.

  “You better stay here,” Eliot ordered. “If you don’t, we’re going to have a big problem.”

  “You don’t really think Dr. Riley is a killer, do you?”

  “The man cuts up bodies for a living,” Eliot said. “Normal people can’t be drawn into that line of work.”

  “What about doctors?”

  Eliot glared at me. “Play your video game.”

  I sighed dramatically. “Fine. I’m doing this under duress, though. You’re going to owe me.”

  Eliot rolled his eyes. “What did you have in mind?”

  “First? You have to play DC Lego with me for a whole hour.”

  “Fine.”

  That was too easy. “I also want a massage.”

  “Fine.”

  “And not a naked massage,” I added. “A real massage.”

  “Fine.”

  “And I want to pick where we eat for a week.”

  “Fine,” Eliot growled.

  “Are you going to agree to everything I say to keep me in this apartment today?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’ll make a list.”

  Eliot got to his feet and moved over to me, dropping a kiss on my forehead before moving his mouth to mine. When he pulled away, his smile was small and lazy. “I’ll call you later.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  PLAYING video games for an entire day might sound heavenly to some -- it does to me on a normal day -- but it’s a lot less fun when you don’t have anything else to do. Yeah, video games are simply more entertaining when you should be doing something else.

  I was relieved when my cellphone rang. I recognized the number for the newspaper and answered. “What’s up, bonehead?”

  “How did you know it was me?” Marvin asked.

  “Because you’re the only one who works Sunday nights other than Terry and Jason,” I answered. “And I didn’t write anything Friday that they might have a question about.”

  “I thought maybe you were suddenly psychic.”

  “That would be cool, but no. So, what’s up?”

  “My computer is going crazy.”

  Marvin is technologically challenged, which is putting it mildly. He’s actually technologically stupid.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My screen is frozen.”

  “Did you try rebooting?”

  “It won’t do it.”

  “It won’t reboot? Are you sure?”

  “Why would I make this up?” His voice was unnaturally shrill. Not only is he technologically stupid, he’s also a bit of a whiner when his computer doesn’t cooperate.

  “Fine,” I blew out a sigh. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m at Eliot’s.”

  I considered texting Eliot to tell him I was going to run up to The Monitor to help Marvin. I knew he would be pissed off if he came back and I wasn’t here. Since it was only a little after 8 p.m., though, I figured I would have plenty of time to beat him back and he wouldn’t ever have to find out.

  What? I’m not a liar. I’m just someone who likes to think strategically. That is too a legitimate thing.

  I didn’t bother to change out of my cotton yoga pants and “I Did It All For The Wookie” shirt. It was just Marvin, after all. I pulled my new Incredible Hulk Vans tennis shoes on, grabbed my keys and purse, and headed out the door.

  At The Monitor, I parked directly in front of the building and passed my security key fob over the scanner. The security is fairly tight at the office - you have to pass through two locked doors with an assigned key fob to gain access to the inner sanctum. That’s on top of the security cameras in the parking lot.

  I headed straight for the sound of a keyboard hitting a desk when I got into the newsroom. From the sound of it, Marvin’s computer problems hadn’t magically remedied themselves over the past ten minutes.

  “Stop doing that,” I ordered.

  “I’m on deadline.”

  “Get up,” I waved my hands impatiently. “I can’t fix it with you sitting there.”

  “Just tell me what to do,” Marvin said. “I’ll fix it myself.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” I pointed out. “I can’t tell you how to fix a problem when I don’t know what that problem is.”

  “Shit,” Marvin swore, but he got up and exited the cubicle so I could sit down.

  I grabbed the mouse and tried to click in the open document on the screen. It looked as though whatever story he was working on had been frozen in mid-sentence. “I don’t suppose you saved this?”

  “I don’t save it until I’m done. Duh.”

  Of course not, that would be too easy. “Where is everyone else, by the way? The newsroom was empty when I came in.”

  “They went to pick up their dinner.”

  “Together?”

  “It was some pizza deal and they both wanted to go. I think they were sick of me yelling at the computer.”

  I’ll bet.

  I managed to minimize the text document. What was behind that window shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was still a little jarring. “Busty Beauties of the Midwest?” I turned to Marvin, disgust all over my face.

  “What? I didn’t open that.”

  “At work, Marvin? Really? How stupid are you?”

&nbs
p; “Why is this a problem?”

  “You don’t do stuff like this at work,” I explained. “You do it on your computer at home.”

  “My dial-up is too slow,” Marvin argued. “I don’t do it all the time anyway. I just bring up a picture I like, do some work, and then I occasionally check in to make sure my girl isn’t lonely.”

  I ignored the bulk of his comment. “I didn’t even know they still made dial-up,” I said. “Pay the extra twenty bucks a month and upgrade to wireless, for crying out loud.”

  “Just fix it and stop judging me,” Marvin grumbled.

  “You’re probably going to lose the story,” I said. “I have to force a reboot.”

  “Just do it.”

  “And, there’s no guarantee when it boots back up that you haven’t picked up some nasty little virus or malware from this site.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because that’s pretty typical with porn sites.”

  “Well, they don’t advertise that,” Marvin grumbled.

  “You know, if you do have a virus, the tech guy is going to know exactly where you got it.”

  “Can’t you hide that?”

  “No.”

  “Crap, that guy is mean to me. He yelled at me two days ago for downloading iTunes on my work computer.”

  “That would also be a home activity,” I said.

  I pressed the power button on Marvin’s PC, leaving it compressed for almost fifteen seconds before the telltale ding signified that it was shutting down. At the precise moment that his screen blinked off, a loud crash emanated from the other side of the row of cubicles. It sounded as though something large had been thrown through the window, a window that was only a few feet away, but still out of sight.

  “What the hell was that?” Marvin moved toward the sound.

  I was on my feet and following him before I realized what I was doing. When we rounded the corner, I saw a large brick had been heaved through the window -- leaving a messy pile of broken glass and chipped concrete -- in the middle of the sports department.

  “Who would do that?” Marvin asked, bending over to look at the brick on the floor.

  Since The Monitor is located in a relatively rough area -- a white trash flea market on one side and a low-income housing ghetto on the other -- it could be practically anyone. Maybe someone had just gotten drunk and bored? I moved closer to the window and peered outside.

  A dark figure was standing only two feet from the shattered window -- and it was moving forward. I couldn’t see the face, but I recognized the silhouette from the visit at my house a few nights before. This time, though, the figure was armed with a knife – a really big knife.

  Holy shit!

  I reached down and grabbed Marvin’s arm, attempting to drag him from the mess on the floor.

  “What should we do? Should we call maintenance? What are you doing? Let me go!”

  I grabbed Marvin’s shirt and pulled him toward me, forcing him to stand so he could see the serious expression on my face. “Run, you idiot.”

  “What?”

  “RUN!”

  Thirty-Three

  Marvin didn’t have to be told twice. The tone of my voice was proof enough to convince him. We raced toward the back of the building -- away from the broken window -- as fast as we could.

  The newsroom feeds into the back shop -- basically another room full of computers where the pages are ultimately assembled -- before offering three different destination points. I pushed Marvin into the nearest one, the photographer’s den. “Go in the dark room,” I ordered.

  “What? No way. I’ll be trapped.”

  The back of the photographer’s area has a light-proof revolving door that allows you to step in and swing around to reveal another small room. The door and the small room were holdovers from the days of developing film before digital photography. Now the room simply served as a spot where the chief photographer could nap without the big editor finding out.

  “He won’t be following you,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Marvin’s eyes widened in alarm. “No way. You are not going out there alone.”

  “I won’t be alone,” I said. “You’re going to call the police while I lead him back out of the building.”

  “Where are you going to go?” Marvin hissed. “All that’s back there is the circulation building.”

  “That’s not all that’s back there,” I replied, my tone grim.

  Realization washed over Marvin’s face. “You’re going to go to the sewage treatment plant? You’ll be boxed in. There are fences cutting you off on two different walls back there.”

  “There are plenty of places back there to hide,” I countered. “Just do as I say. Call the sheriff’s department directly. Make them connect you with Jake personally.”

  “Avery I … be careful.”

  “Be quiet,” I warned, before turning back to the back shop and moving beyond the cubicle wall that hid the open door of the photography department.

  I now had a straight line of sight into the newsroom. If I looked to my left, I could see out into the long hallway beyond -- just in case he thought he could try to cut me off if I tried to use one of the two back exits on that side of the building. I still had the upper hand, though. I knew about another exit that he probably wasn’t aware of -- and it was safely behind me, through the doors into the warehouse.

  I debated strategies. If I fled out the back door now, I could probably make it to the sewage treatment plant without incident. I could hide there until the police arrived or until someone came looking for me.

  But the police might never come if the killer searched the building and stumbled upon Marvin before he had a chance to tell Jake what was going on.

  Despite the fear and adrenalin running through me, I remained where I stood.

  I didn’t have to wait long. The dark figure, the one I couldn’t quite place because it was a man in jeans and a drawn hoodie, finally appeared at the far end of the newsroom. He was between the two sets of cubicles, the knife was still gripped in his right hand.

  I’m not good at distances, but I estimated he was a good fifty feet away -- and he wasn’t moving.

  “Who are you?”

  The figure didn’t answer.

  “Are you afraid to show me your real face?”

  Still nothing.

  “You must be,” I pressed. “Only a coward would hide in the shadows.”

  The only hint of movement was the heaving of his chest. That’s all I could be sure of right now. It was definitely a man, although that had never really been in doubt.

  “Only a coward would stab women and dump them like garbage. Well, a coward or a eunuch.”

  The figure was moving now -- moving straight toward me. I didn’t hesitate. I swung around and fled into the warehouse. I cut to the left, winding through the high shelving stacks and followed the aisle to the east side of the room. I paused at the door long enough to make sure he was still following and then threw it open and ran.

  I knew where I was going, so I didn’t stop to look over my shoulder again. I cut across the grass, slick with moisture thanks to a gathering mist, and headed toward the gates of the sewage plant.

  I suppose it made sense for a utility to lock its gates. The sewage plant never does, though. In fact, when we’re trying to get to certain parts of Mount Clemens without doing the dreaded turnaround -- or being caught in the city roundabout -- we cut through the sewage plant to get to our destination. I’m not familiar with every outbuilding and nook and cranny back there, but I wagered I’m still more familiar with the terrain than my pursuer.

  The sewage plant is devoid of outdoor lights. I’m not afraid of the dark, but empty buildings and long shadows cast by streetlights give me the creeps. I’m better off in the dark.

  Once I cleared the gate, I swerved to my right and headed toward the series of storage buildings outside the main building. The big building was straight ahead, but it was square, offering no
place to hide. The outbuildings had a bevy of door cubbies and small corners that could hide me until help came. At least that’s what I hoped.

  I settled into one of the narrow aisles between two of the buildings to get my bearings. My breath was coming in short gasps and, because of the cold night air, in hazy clouds. I tried to quiet myself so I wouldn’t draw attention. I stayed close to the metal building -- but not so close that I might inadvertently bang against it and give away my presence. Hey, I’ve seen enough horror movies to survive every type of apocalypse thrown at me. I’m just waiting for the zombies to descend. I plan to shoot Duncan in the leg to distract the zombies while I make my escape. He would probably give them indigestion, which would serve as an added benefit.

  Saying the area is devoid of all light is a misnomer. It’s dark - and there are no streetlights -- but the ambient light from the adjacent apartment complex allowed at least a limited field of vision.

  I peered around the corner looking for a hint of movement. All I saw, though, was a whole lot of nothing.

  I wracked my brain to determine how much time had elapsed since I left Marvin in the former darkroom. Five minutes? Ten? It felt more like a hundred. It was probably closer to five, though.

  How long would it take Jake to get here? That depended on where he was when he got the call. If he was at the sheriff’s department, he could already be here. If he was someplace else, though, he might not make it in time.

  I ran through my other options? Run into the woods behind the sewage plant? That didn’t sound promising. The last time I had been in the woods with a killer I had almost died. I didn’t particularly want a repeat of that experience. Plus, I’m fairly certain there’s a homeless camp back there. Bringing trouble to them wasn’t my first inclination. They might have whiskey, though, and a shot of whiskey sounded great right now.

  I could sit here and wait. Sure, my heart is hammering so hard I think it might explode, but it’s probably the safest option.

  The night sky above me suddenly erupted with a streak of lightning, followed closely by the resonant boom of thunder. No freaking way! Again? It’s like someone somewhere hates me, I swear.

  Another bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the area for a few quick pulses. It gave me the opportunity for a better look at the surrounding buildings I had already safely passed. I didn’t see anyone hiding in the shadows. That, at least, was something.