by L E Fraser
With excruciating slowness, Reece began to stiffen and relax his muscles, starting with his deltoids and working down his arms. When he could wiggle his fingers, he tried to separate his wrists. Strong restraints cut into his flesh. Fighting off spasms of nausea, he tightened and loosened his abdominal muscles. The car bounced over a pothole. His right leg twitched. Concentrating, he flexed his foot. His abductor hadn’t restrained his ankles. Before they reached their destination, he had to gain control of his lower limbs. And he had to see his target. Reece didn’t need his drug-addled mind and failed memory to fill in the blanks. The Frozen Statue Killer had taken him.
Careful to remain silent, he rubbed his cheek against the seat and nudged the mask up. It caught on his chin but he wiggled until it lifted over his mouth. He pressed his feet on the door and raised his head. As he straightened his legs, his body moved an inch. Lowering his head, he pulled back, and the mask shifted above his nose. A little further and he’d free his eyes.
The car stopped. Reece rolled onto his back and prepared to strike, hoping his hearing would alert him to the right moment to kick.
Rather than opening the passenger side door, however, she came for him from the other side. She clutched his shoulders and dragged him out of the car headfirst. He fell in a heap. Ice scraped his bound hands and seeped down his neck.
“Stand,” she said.
The barrel of a gun pressed against his temple. Without his hands, Reece had to roll onto his belly and get his knees beneath him. He rose to a crouch and stood on wobbly legs. She shoved him in the small of his back.
“Walk.”
Snow covered his ankles as he shuffled through drifts. His pant legs rode up and ice melted in stinging needles against his naked calves.
She grabbed his shoulder and kicked the back of his knee.
“Climb. Three stairs.”
He stumbled up the stairs, tottered to keep his balance, and careened into a solid barrier. Keys tinkled. A door opened. She heaved him inside. A horrendous odour of sewage and decay caused Reece to retch. She tugged off his mask. It made no difference. There was no light.
“Walk.”
Completely blind, Reece took a few shuffling steps. She wrenched him in a different direction, pushing him after every step.
“Stop.”
A door opened.
“Down the stairs.”
Unable to see through the oppressive darkness or use his hands, Reece slid his right foot against the floor to locate the first stair. When his toe extended into air, he took a cautious step down. Using his feet to measure, he calculated the ratio of riser height and tread depth. The stairs were narrow and the slope was steep. Hoping to find a wall to guide him, he swung his foot. Nothing. He tried the other side with the same result. Reece envisioned a steep, freestanding staircase. Keeping to the middle of the stairs, he slowly descended three steps. Terrified to lose his balance, he leaned back and positioned his weight on his heel. He glided his right foot to the edge and took another hesitant step down.
She clouted his head.
Reece pitched forward. His feet flew out from under him and he plunged down the stairs. He twisted his body and pulled up his legs. His bound wrist struck the sharp edge of a step as he plummeted to the ground. There was an audible crack. Intense agony encased his hand and lower arm. His shoulder hit the ground with a sickening crunch. He tucked his head and rolled.
Reece lay winded and battered, his wrist a throbbing mass of burning pain, and his shoulder numb.
Bright fluorescent light flooded the room. Blinking, he got to his knees and lifted his head.
In front of the staircase was a metal cage. Inside the chain-link enclosure, Bart sat on the dirt floor. Slumped outside his cage was a body, but it was so beaten and ravaged that Reece couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
Four empty cages stood between Bart and another young man. He stood staring with wide blue eyes. Long blond hair curled around his narrow face. He threaded his fingers through the links but said nothing. His expression was dead and a thin line of saliva dripped from the corner of his gaping mouth.
“You bitch,” Aleksia growled, staring down at the body outside Bart’s cage.
“Don’t touch her.” Bart’s eyes lifted and his jaw dropped. “Reece,” he whispered.
The figure on the floor turned. Reece gasped. Blood caked Angel’s face. Her right eye was a swollen slit between puffy pockets of discoloured flesh. Her crushed nose angled to the side and blood caked the bridge. Clumps of matted hair clung to deep lacerations on her cheeks. Her lower lip was split open to her chin and dried yellow pus encrusted the flaps of tissue. A knob of blackened bone protruded from her lower leg, which was bloated and swollen to twice its size. The fabric of her torn jeans was stiff with blood. Yellow and green pus oozed from open wounds on the top of her foot. The toes were black with rot.
One eye gazed up at him. Angelina’s lips twitched into a grotesque grin. “Sarah promised you’d come,” she whispered.
Aleksia kicked her in the head. The cage rattled as Angel’s skull whipped back.
Reece roared and scrambled to his feet. With his hands still restrained behind his back, he charged. Aleksia turned and raised her gun. A deafening shot rang out and Reece fell beside Angel. There was no pain. A sense of warmth blanketed his chest. Bart’s screams faded to a dim echo. A second shot fired. Sticky warmth sprayed Reece’s face. His breath wheezed. The fluorescent lights blurred to a bubble of white. There were no regrets, just floating serenity.
A black dot materialized inside the white light. It grew until it surrounded him with silence and peace.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Sam
A FREEZING HAND slapped her. Sam’s cheek stung. She opened her eyes and blinked. Headlights illuminated a snowy winter wonderland and the hood of the loaner car crumpled around a tree trunk. She swatted the airbag away and brushed her aching temple. Blood coated her shaking fingers. Her chest hurt from the impact of the airbag.
“You are okay.” Eli’s voice was shrill, which didn’t instill confidence. “A bump on your head. That is all. You are okay.”
She rubbed her bloody fingers across her lips and swallowed. Reaching down, she pressed her seatbelt release but nothing happened.
Eli dug a knife from the front pocket of his jeans and leaned across her. He sawed through the webbing.
The belt snapped and she fell against the wheel. Cautiously, she moved her legs. It was tight but Eli could drag her out of the driver’s seat. Assuming he could quit marching in place and flapping his arms.
“Grab my shoulders and pull,” she said.
He grasped hold of her. She shoved her feet against the crushed footwell for leverage. They fell into a heap on the snow.
Eli stood and reached out his hand. She took it and he hauled her to her feet. Other than the bump on the side of her head, she was fine. Based on the smashed side window, she was lucky.
“Can you walk?” Eli asked.
She unholstered her gun. “Stay here.”
“No.” He plowed through the snow ahead of her, holding a flashlight she’d put in the glovebox.
They trudged through knee-deep snow until they hit the lane. It was easier to walk in the tire tracks and they quickened to a jog.
When they reached the clearing to the log house and saw Reece’s car, Sam grabbed Eli’s shoulder to stop him. “Stay in the treeline. There’s a camera on the porch,” she said. “Aleksia will be in the cellar. We can access the storm doors.”
They circled the house and found a white Freightliner Sprinter van. There were no side or back windows. Hannah’s speculation was right. The freezer van was how Aleksia administered the lethal gas and froze her statues.
Eli plodded through deep drifts to the cellar doors.
“They’re locked,” he said.
Sam tugged her gloves off and handed them to him. She holstered the Glock and removed her lock pick set from her pocket. Terrible memories of the las
t time she’d picked the same lock flooded over her. She couldn’t bear it if something had happened to Reece. She would not lose the love of her life in this damn cellar. Homicidal hate calmed her. With steady hands, she unlocked the deadbolt.
Eli clutched a handle on the door. Sam unholstered her gun and reached for the other handgrip. She nodded. Together they wrenched open the doors. No one lay in wait to pounce. Eli handed her the flashlight, and she led the way into the abyss.
A gunshot rang out, deafening in the rock-walled passage. Sam thumbed off the Glock’s safety. Holding the gun in her right hand and the flashlight in her left, she crossed her right wrist over her left forearm to keep the gun steady and the beam of light straight. At the first room, a ribbon of bright light poured from a narrow crevasse beneath the closed door. She paused. This wasn’t Incubus’s kill room. Aleksia should be in the other room, following the traditions of her murderous stepfather. A second gunshot blasted and Eli gasped. She wrapped her index finger around the gun’s trigger and kicked open the door.
In a split second, the scene inside the room registered.
Reece lay in a pool of blood. Beside him was a dead woman. One accusing brown eye gazed lifelessly up at Sam. Bart was sobbing inside a metal cage. A thin young man stood in silent shock in a second cage.
And in front of a vacant pen, a tall woman with long dark hair, porcelain skin, and stone-cold eyes was raising a gun. Sam shot her in the arm. Aleksia’s gun clattered to the floor. She smiled, as if inviting an honoured guest to a party.
Eli rushed over and grabbed the gun, handing it to Sam. He went to Reece and knelt.
“I cannot find a pulse,” he yelled. He tore off his jacket and used both hands to press it on Reece’s bloody chest. “He is not breathing. I need help.”
Aleksia dangled a set of keys enticingly. “Come and get them.”
Keeping the Glock trained on her head, Sam snatched the keys and threw them to Eli. She never shifted her eyes but heard Eli scrambling and a cage rattling. Aleksia politely stepped aside, giving Sam a sightline to Reece. The girl’s emotionless eyes reminded Sam of the black stones Aleksia put in her frozen statues.
Eli straddled Reece and began CPR. “Keep pressure on the wound,” he shouted at Bart.
“It’s pointless. He’s dead,” Aleksia said pleasantly. “You take from me, I take from you.”
Sam was cold and empty, but one hot ember of hate burned in her heart. Reece’s long black lashes lay against his blood-spattered face. His body jerked every time Eli pounded his chest.
“This isn’t how I imagined it ending,” Aleksia said. “I needed a tad more time. His blue eyes would have been fabulous for my collection.”
Sam stared at the creature. There was no fear in Aleksia’s face. If anything, she was smug.
As if she could read her mind, Aleksia said, “We aren’t quite done here. I assume the cavalry is coming. What do you think will happen to me?” She laughed. “After all, you’re the budding psychologist. Go ahead—take a guess.”
Sam said nothing. Her finger twitched against the Glock’s trigger.
“I’ll never see the inside of a prison cell. I was an innocent child, the product of a psychopath’s twisted influence.” She batted her eyelashes and said in a childish voice, “I didn’t want to hurt those boys. My stepfather made me. He used to do terrible things to me. Please help me.”
“No,” Sam said. “I can prove you worked with Incubus.”
“Did I?” Aleksia asked with wide eyes. “Did I listen to your sister scream as her life drained from between her legs?” She laughed. “I have a secret,” she sang. “Well, it was your sister who had the secret.”
“There’s a pulse,” Eli exclaimed.
Above them was the roar of a helicopter.
“When we tore out her insides, guess what we found? Come on, take a guess.” Aleksia laughed.
Let’s just say we’re hoping to have a baby, Joyce had told her that night at her mother’s house. Her sister had winked and giggled.
“No,” Sam moaned.
“Hush little baby, don’t you cry,” Aleksia sang.
Heavy footfalls crashed on the floor above them. The air around Sam grew still. White noise roared in her head.
“Stop,” Reece whimpered, his voice gurgling with blood. “It’s what he wants.”
A baby. Her sister had been pregnant.
Powerless to stop herself, Sam fired. She felt a warm, almost dreamy surge of intense pleasure and satisfaction as the weapon recoiled and the bullet slammed into Aleksia’s head. In slow motion, she dropped Aleksia’s gun beside her dead hand. The cellar door crashed open. SWAT officers bounded down the stairs. Sam placed her gun on the ground and knelt. She laced her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. Only then did she remember Incubus’s final words at the prison.
You believe you’re nothing like me, Samantha. But all humans have the capacity to kill for pleasure. One only needs to break them.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Two months later
Sam
SAM PARKED IN the gravel lot outside the Walshes’ two-storey colonial farmhouse in Uthisca. She sat in her Grand Am, inhaling the scent of fresh leather from the burgundy car seats. It had taken nine weeks, but her mechanic had restored every original feature of her classic car. If only it was that easy to fix broken relationships.
She stepped out, wiped a speck of dust off the shiny black hood, and strolled over to where Eli was holding court. Harry Walsh had his hands on his hips, shaking his head with a bemused expression. Danny’s black hair was short now, with wispy bangs and auburn highlights. The new style suited her round face. Rather than her usual attire of baggy pants and loose sweatshirts, she wore fitted jeans and a teal sweater. She was smiling at Bart, an expression Sam had never seen on the grumpy girl’s face.
“Do you know what this kid did?” Harry pointed at Eli.
“He bought Bueton Sanctuary and is starting a horse ranch for kids with Asperger syndrome,” she said.
“Yes, but he tore down all the buildings.” Harry blew out his breath in an exaggerated sigh. “He claims I told him to.”
“Dad made a joke about a fresh start.” Margaret kissed Eli’s cheek. “My baby took it literally.”
Eli blushed and put his arm around Margaret’s shoulder.
Sam turned to Bart. “How are you?”
He shrugged. “I quit school and moved home. I’m working with Eli’s contractor.” He waved at the chaos across the street. “Being outside is easier,” he said. “Talking to Danny is helping. She was a victim of a violent crime, too, and went through hell in her childhood.”
“Have you heard from Gavin?” Sam asked.
“He moved home to Halifax but he invited us to a launch party for his band’s new EP. It’s at a club in Toronto,” Bart said. “Eli and Margaret want to go. I don’t know. Seeing him again will be hard.”
She squeezed his hand. “Did you go to Angelina’s funeral?”
Bart shook his head. “Her parents had a private ceremony. They aren’t doing well.” He glanced at the backdoor. “Reece is inside. I hope you guys work things out.”
Since the hospital had discharged him, Reece had lived in Uthisca with the Walsh family. Sam understood his anger and disappointment. But eight weeks of intense therapy had taught her to confront her fears. The first step had been talking to police. Facing Reece was the second. She was saving the hardest task for last.
She climbed the stairs to the wrap-around porch, took a calming breath, and opened the screen door to the kitchen.
Reece glanced up from a paperback novel. “Hi.”
Her heart skipped when she saw him but she couldn’t tell from his blank expression if he was pleased to see her.
“The cast is off,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
Reece rotated his wrist. “It’s coming along.” He patted his chest. “It’s easier to breathe.”
The low-calibre bullet had hit a rib, passed
through the top of Reece’s right lung, and lodged in his shoulder muscle. The EMS team had kept Reece alive until the MedEvac chopper reached the hospital. In the waiting room, Sam had sat shaking and terrified, reading everything she could find online about stapled pulmonary tractotomy. When the cardiothoracic surgeon had told her that Reece was doing well in recovery, she’d finally given herself permission to cry.
As he’d healed, and the two of them had begun to talk about what had happened, Reece had made clear to Sam that he couldn’t reconcile the choice she had made in the cellar. She had murdered an unarmed suspect in cold blood. Her vigilante actions went against his core values. And so he’d left her.
She twisted the diamond engagement ring around her finger. “May I sit?”
He nodded.
“I met with Gretchen Dumont and Bryce Mansfield this morning at police headquarters,” she said. “I confessed everything.”
“What’s going to happen?”
She shrugged. “Undecided. Bryce feels there are extraordinary circumstances and duress. Gretchen wants to speak with the Attorney General before deciding whether to prosecute. Part of the issue is the sworn testimony Gavin, Bart, and Eli gave. My confession calls their veracity into question. They stated unequivocally that Aleksia had the gun when I killed her.”
Reece sighed. “What a mess.”
“Bart and Gavin have suffered so much,” she said. “If the justice system rolls over them because of me…” she trailed off.
“It’s not black and white. I understand that now.” He reached his hand across the table. “But the truth is always the right road. I’m proud of you.”
“I want you to come home,” she said.
He dropped her hand. “Incubus won’t stop coming after you.”
“I know, and someone is still helping him on the outside. I received a dozen white lilies two days ago.” She sighed. “But my fixation with the lily wasn’t about the flower’s symbolism to Incubus,” she said. “It represented my own guilt over Joyce’s death. To be free of Incubus, I have to let my sister go. I can do that now.”