by Jason Wood
Mystery:
Distance Hours:
Every Action
Jason Wood
3
Copyright © 2016 Jason Wood
All rights reserved.
Table Of Content
Copyright
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter3
Free Book
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Copyright 2016
All Right Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Summary
Every action
Michaela Rhodes had her eyes on having a normal life. She liked the idea of being married and having the white picket fence that everybody dreams of when they are child. That’s not exactly who she was and she had a therapist that was doing everything that she could to make sure that the other side didn’t emerge at the most inopportune moments. Unfortunately, she had to call upon some of those instincts that she had forsaken. Someone has decided to play a game to get her to show her true colors. Who is ultimately responsible and why have they taken this interest in her? Does this have anything to do with the Maestro?
Chapter one
I was wrong about getting sleep that night. I was exactly like Neil. We were both pretty much tossing and turning until the wee hours of the morning. We slept, but it was very little and I had a lot on my mind. I could still see the face of Wilson staring at me and almost begging me to help him and Rebecca to find some kind of justice. I’d never had this problem before, but then again I’d never had the ability to touch on my humanity.
“Michaela, I’m sorry that you had to see something like that and that’s not for a lady. I hope that you didn’t find my reaction to be something less than manly.” Neil was worried about his ego, but I had no time or effort to stroke it. “I would stand in front of a bullet for you and not even think twice about it.” He did say that now, but he had no idea what he would do if he was actually put into that kind of position. I didn’t want him to find out and I had been in situations like that before. Family members were ready to throw each other under the bus for the chance at survival.
“If you’re worried that I see you any differently, then you don’t have to. I didn’t get into this relationship because I thought that you were this bad ass that would rise up against oppression. I got into this because I thought that you were sweet, caring and you had this sexy disposition that had me pretty much hooked from the very beginning. I really don’t know how we are supposed to deal with something like this. It might be a good idea to go to one of those group meetings.” I didn’t like the words coming out of my mouth. They seemed foreign and not at all who I used to be.
“That might be a good idea. I don’t think any couple should have to see something like that together. It can’t be healthy and I know that I don’t think that I will ever be able to get that image out of my head.” What he didn’t realize was there was no safe place and that the world was full of all sorts of dangers that could strike at a moment’s notice. People did the only thing that they could in times of stress and hard times. They would call upon that angel, but there was no way that I was going to get down on my knees and believe in something that didn’t really have any substance.
“I won’t give up, as long as you don’t give up. I thought that I knew what life had to offer but that scene last night was not exactly for the faint of heart. I honestly don’t know how police officers and paramedics do it every day. They have to face that and then go back home to their family’s and see them and not say a word of what they have been going through. I never knew that it could be that hard and we only got a small glimpse of what they go through every day. I don’t think that I could do it on a normal everyday kind of basis. You would lose a piece of yourself that you wouldn’t be able to get back.” He was getting an idea of what I went through, but it was even more profound now that I was breaking free of those old habits.
“Neil, it’s almost 6:00 AM and I think that I’m just going to go for a run to clear my head. I know that you’re not much into those kinds of things, but maybe you can meditate. I showed you a bit of that last night by having you do those breathing exercises. Getting in touch with yourself and not have anything sexual is a good way for you to finally come to terms with all this. Life is unpredictable and you never know what’s waiting for you around each corner.” I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom.
It was kind of amazing that we could actually sleep in the same bed together and not do anything about the heat that was obvious between us. The only thing on my mind was what I was going to find in the park. If I were to put myself into the shoes of the person that was doing this, I would have to assume that they had other things in mind. They weren’t just going to make this easy and I knew that because I wouldn’t. It was pretty apparent that whoever was doing this was a serial killer like me. I’d walked away from that life. The maestro wasn’t very happy by my decision and I was going to have to reach out to see if this was some kind of backlash.
“I do have to say that I did enjoy that sense of calm that came over me. I think that I would like to duplicate that and maybe from this moment on, I will make that part of my daily routine.” Being with a man that has OCD was a little hard to handle, but nothing that was even close to what I was back in the day. He would’ve gone screaming into the night had he learned the truth and that was the main purpose for keeping him in the dark.
“I’ve learned through hard lessons that things happen for no good reason. I understand what the police officer was trying to tell us, but mostly it was false platitudes. I want to believe that people can change, but there are too many incidents in my life that has shown me that it’s not possible. Most are born and bred the way that they are and very rarely do they have the opportunity or circumstance that would make them want to change their ways.” I might have been wrong, because I was changing and for the better.
Was it too much to ask for everybody to leave me alone and let sleeping dogs lie. It was tempting me back into this life, but I was seeing who I once was. I was fighting to stop that inner demon from coming back to life. I had avoided all things that would be considered harmful to my mental well being. I didn’t think it was a bad thing to fall in love, but it did make me more aware of people’s feelings. Killing wouldn’t be so easy, even though I still think that it would be pleasurable in a way that would appall others.
People make promises all the time that they break them without even meaning to. He could be that guy that was good for me. I was going to have to keep repeating that until I believed it. I was looking around and starting to see that my dreams might have a way to materialize. This was just one little hiccup on a road to recovery. If I were to fall off the wagon, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find my way back to a form of sobriety. If I were an alcoholic, then this person was offering me a drink and expecting me to take it out of his hands. I didn’t want that for myself or for Neil.
“I might be late this evening and the boss wants me to make sure that the inventory is ready for shipping tomorrow morning. I hate to leave you alone, especially with what has transpired, but there’s really no way around it. You are stronger than others have seen. You try to hide it, but it’s almost like you have walked into hell and back.” I came out to find that he was already dressed and I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to look at his body. I was looking f
orward to our workout sessions in the weekend. We always wore practically nothing. It was more of a tease to make us refrain from doing anything that would be considered too physical.
I grabbed my jacket, a yellowed leather one that I found to call me from the store. I found my keys on the hook by the door and this was the normalcy that I was looking for. To Neil, I would look like I was like anybody else, but that wasn’t even close to the truth. This person who had taken Rebecca and killed Wilson and the others were only using that as bait. They were dangling it in the water and hoping that I was going to be stupid enough to come after it without investigating further.
I dropped the keys, knowing that I wasn’t going to need them on my run. I took off from the house. I glanced one last time at Neal in the window with his cup of coffee and smiling and knowing how lucky I really was. I should’ve known that something would happen to make me revert to my old ways. I was not the type that should enjoy any type of happiness without paying the price for past misdeeds.
Chapter two
It was exactly 7:00 AM and I was sitting at that bench looking around at the many people that were living their lives oblivious to what was going on around them. The worry lines around their eyes told me that financial difficulties had weighed heavily on their shoulders. Money was the root of all evil and everybody seemed to think that having more was better than having less. I’d seen how the IRS worked and the more that you made was more for them to take. I thought that that was unfair and there were those will tax breaks that were making millions on the backs of the little guy.
A young man in a pair of yellow shorts was coming towards me and I thought for sure that he might be something to worry about. I waited for him to get closer and I had my hand in my jacket were Lucy was waiting for me. Lucy was my stiletto knife and she had been my friend ever since that I laid eyes on her in Germany. It was made for my hand and it had become an extension of my body.
“I don’t suppose your name is… Michelle… Michael’s… Michaela?” There was somebody behind me and I stayed still and waited for the other shoe to drop. “I’m sorry that I’m bothering you, but I really do need to know if you’re Michaela.” I nodded my head, but instead of saying anything, I allowed my action to speak for me. “I think that this might be for you. I found it over on the other bench and somebody had drawn an arrow in pink chalk on the pavement in front of the bench.” I turned to see that he was holding a knapsack. There was nothing particularly interesting about the knapsack. It was a plain black one with no discernible marks to determine where it came from.
It was kind of interesting that this person was trying to lure me in and I was allowing it for the sake of protecting another. I would’ve never done that in the past. I’m that they were slightly disappointed that I had even considered coming here. “I’ll take that off your hands. Was there anyone around? Was there anyone that whispered to you or gave you some kind of payment?” He shook his head in the negative and I knew that he was just a pawn. He probably didn’t even know the scope of what was going on.
I opened the bag and I stared intently at the black foreboding gun wrapped up in tissue paper. There was a photo of a young woman with purple hair and red streaks down the middle. There was no name attached to the photo, but I think I got the gist of what they wanted me to do. I saw that woman in the photo not too far away from where I was sitting.
She had her white sneaker on the bench and she was tying her shoe. She had one hand up to her throat to calculate the beat of her pulse. There was no mandate or any kind of directions, but the gun and the photo made it very clear. They wanted me to kill her and they didn’t want me to make it look like an accident. I really wasn’t sure if I could do that. I got up with the knapsack over my shoulder and the gun now concealed under the sleeve of my jacket. I moved at a steady pace to catch up to her. There were way too many witnesses and I think that was precisely the reason why they wanted me to do it here. They wanted this broad daylight kind of spectacle that would make me into number one with a bullet. I wouldn’t be able to hide from those that carried their cell phones like it was part of their anatomy.
There were always variables and it took some planning to make sure that the blow back from the kill would not land on my doorstep. I was very good at making sure that I was hidden from view. I always vanished like some specter in the night. This was wrong, but I had to wait for the right moment to strike and hope that I could do it without any unwanted eyes watching.
We rounded a corner and went into the deeper part of the park. Not many would venture this far this early in the morning. They would be wary of strangers and rightfully so. There were too many attacks. I was sure that she had some kind of protection to make sure that she got home to her loved ones.
Not only was I going to have to shoot her, but I was going to have to do it in the back like a coward. I couldn’t give her a chance to pull the mace some kind of taser from within her possession. I kept back a bit and then I pulled the concealed gun and lifted it to arm level. I had it pointing with my finger on the trigger. I thought for sure that I was going to be able to handle one more kill. It wasn’t like I wasn’t going to hell anyway and doing something like this was not going to change anything.
My eyes narrowed and I could’ve easily brought her down with one bullet to the back of the head. It would’ve been so easy and yet I found that it was almost too hard to actually pull the trigger. I was disgusted with myself for even thinking that I could do this, but there was another side that was disgusted that I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe that I had actually quit the lifestyle. I was starting to think that my mind had been rewired into somebody else’s ideal mate.
My hand began to shake like a leaf being blown around in a windstorm. I did my best to pull the trigger, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I thought about Rebecca and I put myself in her shoes and what she would want me to do and still I wasn’t able to. I felt like I was a man that couldn’t get one out of the chamber. I’d become mentally impotent from killing and I think that I had Emily to thank for that. Right at that moment, I want to kill Emily, but I knew that that was just a knee jerk reaction to what I was feeling deep down inside.
She ran ahead and I stayed behind slapping my own face and making people look at me like I was some kinda crazy person. I was trying to psych myself into it, but there was absolutely nothing that I could do to bring back that killer instinct. It was like that somebody was with me and looking out for my best interest. I never thought that I had a conscience, but apparently it was right there on my shoulder whispering into my ear. I was under the spell of the new me that I had become and there was no breaking free.
I wanted to scream to the heavens that I was better than this, but I knew deep down that things had changed. My need for that kind of outlet had been extinguished by the electrodes being attached to my forehead once a week. I was actually amazed that something like this could happen and that it all revolved around how my mind was wired incorrectly. I had no love lost for anybody, but now I was starting to see that people deserved to live their lives in relative harmony without me breathing down their neck.
A phone began to ring and I reached for mine, only to realize that it wasn’t coming from there. It was localized within that knapsack and I had to dig through to find it at the bottom. I knew that I was in trouble and that whoever was doing this was probably smacking his forehead against the wall in frustration. They wanted me to be caught red handed, or at the very least be revealed as a killer.
I looked at the phone and knew that it was the burner type that you could find in any electronics store. I pressed the button to receive the call and it sent this dread through my bones to hear that childlike innocence.
“Michaela… Michaela…has lost her way. You disappoint me that you don’t want to play. I have to say that walking away is never going to go your way. Your friend will pay because you didn’t play. I hope that you can live with what happens next. I’ll be in touch with your next ver
y profound text. You have only just begun and you should be wary of the setting sun.” The phone went dead and when I tried to call out there was nothing, but a dial tone. It was for use one time and after that it became pretty much a doorstop, unless of course you were to pour more money into it.
I didn’t like any of this, but I thought that I would know what to do when the time came. I was frozen and moving through time like that of a snail. I couldn’t move and my mind conjured up all sorts of images of what they would do to make Rebecca pay for my insolence. I didn’t want to believe that somebody could hurt someone like that, but I was in the unique position of knowing how easy it could be.
I couldn’t throw away the new person that I had become to step into the shoes of the one that I had left behind. Imagine my surprise that I could be cured by a slight jolt of electricity into my cranium. It was only one of many things that Emily had tried. I thought that she was barking up the wrong tree. I really did believe that I was destined to be this way for the rest of my life, but somehow she was able to find that one thing that made the difference.
Chapter three
I wandered around for some time, until I bumped into an old friend. I didn’t know that she lived out this way, but somehow we had found each other. Victoria was one of my prize pupils in our class. She had an insight into the human mind that made her see what was bothering somebody at the time. It was almost like she was an empath. She translated that feeling onto the pages. I’d missed her during class the last few days and I was wondering what would keep her from showing her talent to the world.
“I know that I might have some explaining to do, Michaela. I think what you need to remember is that it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. I’ve tried to keep that door closed to my inner demons, but that paintbrush has always been my one outlet to let it out. I can see in the eyes of those that I pass every day what kind of pain they are feeling. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it’s almost like they are all my twin brothers and sisters from the same womb.” It was interesting to hear her talk about this ailment, when all I could see was that she had this gift that she was squandering.