Silencing Sapphire

by Mia Thompson

  It was only a flash drive. Plenty of people owned the same brand. It didn’t mean anything. Pure coincidence.

  “Are you okay?” Barry asked. “You look kind of pale.”

  “I’ll meet you at the station, Barry,” Aston said, holding his voice steady.

  “But…”

  “Go.”

  After a moment of disappointment, Barry exited.

  Feeling sick, Aston went back to the kitchen, snatched the flash drive, and was out of there before Mr. Dubois and Berta had turned their heads.

  Clenching the flash drive in his hand Aston’s eyes drew to the staircase. His throat felt dry and thick.

  Technically, he needed a warrant to go up to Sapphire’s room without permission. Technically, Aston didn’t give a shit. Berta and Mr. Dubois didn’t even know he was still there.

  He had to look at it now. He wanted to be proven wrong.

  He moved up the stairs, his eyes fixed on the goal. A speeding train of images raced up toward his consciousness. The evidence came in waves. With each heavy step he took, another image crashed into him.

  Step 1: The Serial Catcher was a woman. Step 2: It was someone who knew of Aston’s case. Step 3: Somebody who overheard him speak about the flash drive. Step 4: She’d bolted after watching the news this morning. Step 5: The beat up Volkswagen to stay undercover. Her trained body. Her odd behavior. The lying. The religious serial killer’s true reason for wanting her dead last year.

  Aston stopped in front of Sapphire’s door. He let his mind catch up.

  Barry’s words were the final step: “The Serial Catcher is probably the person we least expect.”

  An heiress.

  Aston walked over to her computer; the tiny gadget weighing a thousand pounds in his palm.

  He inserted the flash drive, staring down at the screen. His heart raced, pushing his blood pressure to a new high.

  The file popped up on the screen. A file that he recognized well because he himself had put it there. Aston’s air passage closed and he backed away from the computer.

  It was his stolen flash drive.

  His eyes landed on an opened attic flap above Sapphire’s bed.

  Aston had been in her room plenty of times. He’d never noticed an attic before.

  He wobbled over, feeling as if his legs had been stripped of their bones.

  Aston inhaled, taking a moment. He knew his world was about to change. He pulled himself up the flap and exhaled at the view.

  Sapphire Dubois was the Serial Catcher.

  Chapter 18

  Sapphire glanced at the loud grandfather clock again; it had only been twenty-eight minutes since she called the tow truck and he told her it’d be two hours.

  Under any other circumstances, twenty-eight minutes would be short. But this was twenty-eight minutes of Maggie’s endless stories about her son, Dancing with the Stars, and Alex Trebek.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some tea?” the old lady urged for the 135th time.

  They were in the living room, surrounded by trinkets, cat ceramics, and baby pictures of Maggie’s son.

  “No, thank you…again.” Maggie was as sweet as they come, but Sapphire no longer accepted drinks from strangers. Last time she did, her old MMA instructor hung her from a skyscraper.

  “Okay,” Maggie said. In two minutes, she would probably have asked again…twice.

  “That’s one fancy car you have out there,” Maggie said.

  “Mhmm,” Sapphire mumbled and got up in search of something to change the subject. She grabbed one of the photographs of Maggie’s son, around 8 years old. “Cute.”

  “Oh yes, back in the day when he still allowed me to take pictures of him. He’ll always look that way to me even though he’s going on 43 now.”

  “You must miss him.”

  “Not at all.”

  Sapphire turned and Maggie laughed at her surprise.

  “He still lives at home.”

  “Oh.” Sapphire glanced at the grandfather clock again. It had been a full minute since last time she checked. “Are you sure that clock isn’t broken?”

  “Works like a charm. Tea?”

  Sapphire closed her eyes and turned back to the shelf, noticing a college diploma made out to Paul Butler. “Paul, that’s your son? What did he major in?”

  “Yuck, he was away from home for four whole years. He wanted to be a chemist, but I felt it was much too dangerous for him. He works in the city, downtown, just a few nights a week. It’s not for the paycheck. His father passed and left us with enough money to live on.”

  “What place?” Sapphire turned to Maggie, her stomach tightening in anticipation.

  “Golden Nugget? No, the Golden Mirage? Yes, that’s it. Tea?”

  Sapphire turned back to the shelf, knowing her face was one of alarm. This sweet old lady was unaware of what a monster she gave birth to.

  Poor Maggie, Sapphire thought, studying the diploma. She realized she should leave, car or no car. She didn’t want to risk exposing herself to Paul Butler before she could trap him at work. She just had one more question.

  “So,” Sapphire said, turning, “what does Paul do at the—”

  A sharp pain exploded from the back of her head. Sapphire’s eyes blurred and her knees buckled under her. Dazed, she touched her head. When she pulled her hand back, it was covered in blood.

  Maggie stepped into her field of vision, which was shrinking with each passing second. In the palm of Maggie’s hand was a blood stained candlestick.

  “You should’ve had the tea.”

  Before the world turned black, Sapphire knew one thing: this sweet old lady wasn’t so sweet after all.

  * * * * *

  Pictures, drawings, red strings connecting one thing to the other and newspaper clippings caked the attic wall. A small bag with wigs and clothes that would drive most men crazy lay in the corner. The answering machine that Sapphire had in her purse contained a voice of an unidentified man confessing to wanting to murder women.

  There were the files: Tomas Broker; Richard Martin; Harold Marlow; George Rath. Each of them assigned a number in the order in which they’d been captured. Each one a dangerous serial killer twice Sapphire’s size. Except for Rath, who was closer to four times her size.

  Last year, when he first met Sapphire at the police charity ball and brought her home to his bed, he thought she was the typical Beverly Hills chick: spoiled, dimwitted, clueless. As it turned out, Aston was the thick one.

  He sat in the middle of the dusty wooden floor, surrounded by evidence. Her wall was breathtaking but bordered on mental illness.

  Clearly, Sapphire had kept this secret for years and probably began plotting years before that. Which would make her what, fifteen, sixteen? What sane teenager would spend her life doing such a thing? Or which Beverly Hills heiress, for that matter?

  Sapphire denied knowledge of the Batman ring attached to Shelly McCormick’s dismembered finger. Now Aston knew she had lied.

  Who was the millionaire Bruce Wayne, if not a man who chose to leave his rich and comfortable life at night to go catch bad guys? It sounded pretty damn familiar.

  Was that it? Had she started all of this inspired by an unrealistic work of fiction?

  Aston felt like an idiot when he spotted the content in the middle of the wall: articles on murders connected to the Golden Mirage. Had Aston’s mind not been so set on the Serial Catcher and failed to notice news and headlines, he might have connected the dots as soon as he saw her at the strip club.

  It was obvious now. Sapphire had gone undercover, working her way from the inside like a cop would. Not that he ever believed her screenwriting lie, but this never crossed his mind.

  “Jesus,” Aston sighed, lighting a cigarette. He felt overwhelmed. It was a big change; he usually moseyed around feeling underwhelmed.

  What the hell was he going to do? It was Sapphire. His Sapphire. He couldn’t just drag her into the station, toss her on the floor, and say, “Tah
-dah!”

  The person who he’d hunted for so long was someone he knew. Someone he had slept with. Someone he wanted nothing more than to protect from harm. Someone he…loved.

  This was fucked up; a sick joke from the universe. Detective Aston Ridder, the cop, was in love with the Serial Catcher.

  He couldn’t arrest her, could he? He needed time. He needed to get his shit together. Nobody else could know.

  He started to put everything back where he found it. Sapphire was the most important person to keep it from. If she figured out someone had been here, she might take off.

  Correction. Sapphire was the second most important person to keep it from. Aston fumbled for his phone.

  “Barry, where are you?” He hurried, ripping the evidence off the wall, loading it into a bag.

  “Just walked into the station.”

  “Run to my office. And not in that girly way you run, I mean really fucking haul ass. I need you to do something, no questions asked.”

  “What?” Barry panted from the sudden sprint.

  “Delete the photograph. The whole file.”

  “But…yes, sir.”

  He was learning.

  “Listen to me very carefully, Barry. Capelli cannot know under any circumstances, do you understand me?”

  Barry’s panting stopped and a long silence followed.

  “Too late.”

  * * * * *

  “Where were you? Why didn’t you wear the shirt I put out for you? Why is your jacket so dirty? Did you remember to wipe your boots off?”

  “Yes, Mother.” Paul wasn’t even over the threshold yet. His mother took his jacket and hung it up the only proper way, her way.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she said.

  “Meatloaf?” He moved to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

  “No,” his mother said. She took his glass away from the faucet and poured milk into it instead. He didn’t want milk. “You know how I don’t like you having to go out there to do your thing when you could be here with me. I’ve finally found a solution to our problem.”

  She handed him the glass of milk as Paul stared at her.

  It wasn’t their problem. It was her problem. He loved going out in the world to find his next.

  “W-what do you mean?”

  “Today, I ran into this lovely girl whose car had run off the road. And I thought, why on God’s green earth is Paul having to leave everyday when he can do it all right here. At home.”

  “At…at…”

  “Yes.” She put a bendy straw in his milk. “We’ll spend tourist season grabbing the college girls that do illegal camping by the lake and bring them to the basement. When you’re done doing your thing, you can burn them in the woods. You’ll never have to leave me now. Isn’t that great?”

  Paul stared at his mother, repeating her words in his mind.

  He’d never leave. Going out to find his next was his only freedom, his air. Without it, his mother would suffocate him. He’d end up hanging himself like his father had.

  “Paul…Paulie. Paul! Say something.”

  “It’s great…”

  “Oh, I knew you’d love it!” She kissed him on the lips, too long, like always. “Do you want some pie with that milk?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  She took the milk and replaced it with a fork and a slice of key lime pie. He hated key lime pie.

  “And now for the rest of your surprise.”

  “There’s more?” He wasn’t sure he could take more.

  “Of course there’s more,” his mother beamed and led him toward the basement door.

  This was not how he saw his life when he finally told his mother what he did. He’d expected her to kick him out. To his disappointment, she didn’t. She’d held on tighter.

  “Okay, Paulie. Open the door.”

  With pie still in his hand, Paul peeked down the basement and shut the door quickly. “There’s a girl down there.”

  “Yes, you can enjoy yourself while I start dinner.”

  “You picked…a girl…for me?” He couldn’t grasp it.

  “You’ll love her. She’s so sweet.”

  Sweet. Sweet?!

  Paul didn’t do sweet. He was the only one who picked his next. He loved killing over-demanding, hyper-controlling women. Killing them gave him his manhood back. The manhood his mother always stole from him. Sweet did not do the trick.

  “Oh, and here, give her six or seven of these. It’ll overdose her.” His mother held up her jar of sedatives. “It’s better, less messy. She completely ruined Grandma’s candlestick before.”

  Paul stared at the sedatives. The same pills she’d dropped into his tea when he was an unruly child.

  It was the last straw. She wanted him to kill people with sedatives.

  The basement was a plan. Everything about it would be calculated to the smallest detail. A routine. His kills would become like his mother: sensible and boring. Paul Butler didn’t do plans. He loved the spur of the moment kill. He lived for the adrenaline, the excitement.

  He had to say no to his mother. He could not live under these conditions.

  “Mother…” Paul pushed.

  “What?” She gave him the authoritarian look, knowing he was going to argue.

  Paul’s lips moved but no words came out. He sighed. “Nothing.”

  Out in the world, he was assertive, cool, and well-spoken. The minute he walk through these doors he became a child again. He wasn’t able to say no to his mother. Not then. Not now. Not ever. That would never change, unless…

  “Good,” his mother said. “Dinner will be ready in—”

  Paul jammed the pie fork into her eye. She fell onto the ground, and he watched her body twitch until it remained still. Her eye with the fork in it stared at his boots.

  Freedom rushed through him. Finally, he’d killed the right bitch.

  He opened the basement door. The girl was unconscious and cuffed to a pipe. They were the same cuffs Paul’s mother used on him when he was a child. They’d kept him inside when all he wanted was to go out and play with the other kids.

  He gazed down at her face, swallowed by the basement’s darkness. He would let the fire take care of her. He had no want to kill her himself. She wasn’t his next. She had been his mother’s.

  He doused his mother’s house in gasoline and stepped outside before he dropped the match. He watched the fire grow, his nostrils filling with the intoxicating smoke.

  Paul turned his back on his childhood home with a smile. Soon he would start his new life as an adult. The only voice that controlled him from here on out was his own. But before he left, he would end his old life with a bang and do something grand.

  He would kill them all.

  * * * * *

  Sapphire’s eyes stung and her lungs squealed with every breath. She coughed and opened her eyes to find more darkness.

  She should have played more Clue and less Uno with Julia when she was a kid. Had she, perhaps she would have foreseen it: Mrs. Butler, in the lounge, with the candlestick.

  Sapphire moaned and reached to touch the back of her head. Her muscles were anemic and she had to fight for every movement.

  Her hand snapped back. It was cuffed to a metal pipe behind her. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she saw it. Thick, gray smoke came through the bottom of the basement door. The smell of fire burned her nostrils.

  Sapphire shot up at full attention, her head pounding.

  The house was about to go up in flames, and she was cuffed to it. She yanked on the pipe, a sharp pain spreading from the back of her head to her cheek bones.

  If only Sapphire would have worn her hair up with pins today, she could have picked the cuff. Instead, she had chosen a ponytail. A stupid, fatal ponytail.

  She dug into her boot and fished out her phone.

  “Text Father O’Riley with coordinates and help.”

  “You have…no service.”

  Sapphire roared, feeling the
panic devour her. She had to find a way to escape.

  She shoved the phone back in her boot and looked around the basement for something useful. She tried to squeeze her hand out of the cuff, knowing it wouldn’t work. Her thumb was in the way. Her stupid, fatal thumb.

  Sapphire’s adrenaline raced when the idea hit her. She peered down at her thumb and swallowed. She needed to do it before she lost her nerve.

  Close to tears, Sapphire prepared herself. It was the only way to get out.

  She braced herself with quick exhales through the nose, squeezed her eyes shut, then bit down on her thumb, overriding her mouth’s reservations.

  Chapter 19

  “I can’t believe it, man,” Capelli said as he rang the Dubois’ doorbell. “An heiress.” He shook his head. “And she was right under your nose. Have yah heard of something called cop instincts?”

  “I dunno, Capelli, it sounds pretty unlikely,” Aston said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Trust me, I never forget a face. This was the girl in the photo.” Capelli scratched his head. “Yo, when you see the photo, don’t show anyone else at the station before we’ve nailed her. We don’t want them to get to the media before us.”

  Aston nodded, pretending to agree.

  He’d tried everything to delay bringing Sapphire in for questioning, but there wasn’t an excuse in the world that would keep Capelli from the Serial Catcher. He’d left the mansion, met up with Capelli, and pretended he’d been at home, just to go right back to the mansion.

  “How did you say you knew her again?” Capelli asked, ringing the bell again.

  Berta ripped the door open.

  This time she didn’t scream in German, and instead looked at Capelli’s body, her eyelashes flapping like bats out of hell.

  “Hello,” she smiled, revealing teeth of varying shades.

  “We’re here…” Aston started.

  “Suush!” Berta quieted Aston, gestured for Capelli to continue. “Yeees?”

  “We’re here for Sapphire Dubois,” Capelli said.

  “Again?”

  “Not again,” Aston jumped in. “Just this one time.” He turned to Capelli and lowered his voice. “Foreigners.”