by Jonas Saul
“I didn’t just arrest her, you imbecile.” Lyson sounded pissed now. “She shot a man. Then approached my officers with a weapon instead of being unarmed. She stays here with us.”
Sarah tried to remember the FBI agent’s name as he stepped up and stood less than a foot from Lyson.
“Sarah is coming with us and you and your army of monkeys will stay away from her for the remaining time she is in your city or I won’t just take your job, I’ll ruin your life. Forget you even know this girl is alive.” The agent moved closer. Sarah thought he was going to touch Lyson’s nose. “Are we clear?”
The other agent stood tense, his hands far to the side, watching the Toronto cops for a reaction. Sarah tensed, the air thick.
“Get out of my face,” Lyson whispered. “Sarah, you know what we’re up against. Help us if you can. We need you.”
She walked around to face Lyson. “That’s it? You give up? You’re going to release me into their custody?”
“I’ve got nothing on you and they know it.”
“So what was all that bullshit about the night in jail? Now you can see why I don’t trust cops.” She swung around and faced the FBI men. “That goes for you, too. Whatever it is you’ve got planned won’t work. The Sophia Project men tried. They’re all dead. I’m still free. So I’d be careful how close you get to me.”
“Is that a threat?”
Sarah walked past them and left the room. “No, it’s the truth. They are all dead.”
Chapter 20
He had finished with both of their tongues and made sure the bleeding had stopped, using the chloroform as often as needed to keep them asleep. The sun was rising, heralding his exit. The tracks dragged in the snow needed to be kicked out. Getting his vehicle out of the area was important to reduce its visibility until he came back again in the evening. Two more days of work and then he could stay with his mannequins until the end.
He would deliver the second letter with Alan Lyson’s name on it soon.
Then the game would come to an end, a day he looked forward to.
On his way upstairs and out of the warehouse, he shut as many doors as possible to keep the noise down if his dolls were to wake and start pounding on the metal or moaning too loud.
He opened the side door and peeked outside. The morning was crisp and clear, the air cold. Not a single cloud littered the blue sky. Traffic in the distance had picked up, but not too many people were in this area yet as it was just before seven. The sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet.
He hopped out the door and walked backwards, kicking at the snow as he did, his balls still aching from the squeeze Melanie had put on them. She was the only one who had a small ID packet with her cash in it under the rim of her panties. His original subject didn’t, but he already knew her name.
Today’s lunch was on Melanie. She’d had over five hundred dollars in her little purse.
His backside bumped the fence by the hole. After squeezing through backwards, he turned to walk to his Range Rover. He reflected on how lucky both of his subjects were. He had spent four years waiting for last night. His first night with another subject. And all he accomplished was the tongue removal. He didn’t get any pleasure from their bodies other than admiring them from afar. His member was too sore. If only Melanie hadn’t been there last night, everything would’ve worked out for the better.
But tonight would be different. After he had used them up and made them bleed, he would make Melanie pay for her interference in ways she had never dreamed of.
The price of his sore balls was little for the pleasure he would get making his mannequins pay a much steeper price.
The ultimate reset fixed their wrongs.
In the end, he was doing them a favor even if they didn’t realize it.
The truth was, he was doing the world a favor.
Chapter 21
Sarah led the way through the maze of halls and rooms on the second floor of the police station, heading for the exit. The FBI men trailed her like they had been doing for months.
At the door, before walking out into the cold, she turned to them. “What is it you want? Who in the FBI would task you two to stay on me? Are you protecting me, watching my back or hunting me for some reason?”
“Not here,” one of them said. “Across the street. The coffee shop. We’ll talk there.”
“Okay, but I leave within the hour. I have somewhere to go.”
“Fine. One hour. We’ll drive you where you have to go.”
They stepped outside and the one who did all the talking took his suit jacket off and wrapped it around Sarah’s shoulders. Her jacket was left at the massage parlor, ruined after being used as a tourniquet.
“Shit. My gun. I forgot to pick up my gun. They were going to give it back to me when I left.”
“We talk first. Then we’ll come back and get it for you. I promise.”
She thought about it for a moment. She couldn’t use it at the Toronto airport where she was supposed to help the thirteen-year old, so she agreed. Lyson probably wouldn’t release it to anyone but her anyway.
They took a table in the rear corner of the coffee shop. Sarah sat with her back to the wall so she could see the door and everything else in the small shop. The one who did the talking walked over to the counter and ordered for the three of them.
The other one sat across from her.
“Do you talk?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Sounds like it.”
“I talk. But Special Agent Kierian runs this operation.”
“Oh, this is an operation now?”
“He’ll tell you all about it.”
“I can’t wait.” She clapped her hands together and rubbed them in mock anticipation.
Kierian joined them with fresh coffee and muffins. Sarah grabbed the whole wheat one and devoured it, washing it down with the coffee, not realizing just how hungry she had been. Nor how much coffee she’d been drinking today.
“I said an hour,” she started. “You are down to forty-five minutes. If you’ve got something to say, talk fast.”
“Why are those cops harassing you?”
“I could ask you the same thing. What’s with shadowing me?”
“I’m Special Agent Penn Kierian. This is Special Agent Tower Clint. Nice to meet you, Sarah Roberts.”
She nodded.
“It is Sarah Roberts, right?” Kierian asked.
Sarah gripped her coffee cup and looked at Clint. “Is Kierian for real? You have to ask me that after five months. By now, I’d expect you to know the kind of toothpaste I use.”
Clint stayed silent.
Kierian said, “I mean, the Sarah Roberts.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” she asked.
“Because it doesn’t impress me much.”
She let go of her cup and leaned back in her chair, her leg tapping to the soft music coming out of the speakers above.
“I’m not trying to impress anybody.”
“Then how come the Toronto cops have such an interest in you?”
“I shot a guy before lunch.”
Kierian whistled through his teeth. “You shot a guy before lunch? What’s happening before dinner?”
“Stay tuned. Don’t change the station.”
“You’re not going to tell me why Alan Lyson has such an interest in you, are you?”
“I just did.”
“Is it the Leap Year Killer?”
Sarah didn’t flinch. “You’re down to thirty-five minutes of that hour. Please don’t tell me you’re here to talk about Lyson and the Toronto Police Department. If you want to know what they want with me, ask them.”
Kierian and Clint both sipped from their coffees at the same time. Kierian set his down and wrapped an arm over the backrest of his chair.
He was getting ready for the serious part of the conversation. There was something about him that she liked. He had discipline. Anyone could tell that by looking at his flat stom
ach and lean face. When he smiled, she could almost see the dozen plus muscles in his face, each moving to form that smile. He never frowned and wrinkles hadn’t set in yet. He didn’t smoke and age hadn’t bothered with him either.
“You’re in the papers from time to time,” Kierian said. “The media loves you.”
“That’s their problem. I don’t ask for that shit. I’d prefer they leave me out of it.”
“Everyone whispers your name. It sounds like they’re talking about a Hollywood star, a celebrity.”
“I didn’t ask for that, either. When I started out, I stayed off the radar for as long as I could.”
“But now you’re all grown up.” He took the first bite of his muffin and chased it with coffee. After he swallowed, he said, “Tell me something. Do you believe in the Other Side?”
“Are you for real? You use considerable influence to yank me from police custody to have a discussion on spirituality?”
“No. It’s just, I don’t believe in it. At least not in how you claim to operate.”
“Good. Next question. Next.” She stopped tapping her leg. She wasn’t nervous, just getting angry now.
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“What you believe is none of my concern. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not because he believes in you. We’re all his children and we all go home in the end. That’s it. But I think God has stopped keeping score. We’re born, we die. Just not in the way you think. It’s the other way around.”
“How so?”
“The real death is coming here.”
He raised his eyebrows and snuck a glance at Clint to make sure he was listening.
Sarah continued. “We leave our home,” she pointed upwards, “and come here. When we’re done down here in the swamp of humanity, whatever you want to call it, we go home. To our real home. We all do. No choice. Whether you believe it or not. That’s why I have no problem sending a bad guy on his way. Just trying to make life for the rest of us stuck here for the next few decades easier.”
“Is that what you would tell an atheist like me?”
“How come I feel you’re wasting my time?”
“I’m leading up to something.”
“Stop leading. Just get there.”
“Impatient?”
“No. You’re trying my patience. I don’t play games and I don’t bluff. I say it how it is. Life is easier that way. If someone doesn’t like what I have to say then that’s something they have to deal with. It isn’t my problem. Be more confident in who you are and what you believe.”
“Okay, then I’ll just say it. I don’t believe in you.”
“No one asked you to.”
“No, I’m serious. I believe you had a sister that you lost, but there’s no way she sends you messages from the Other Side. Impossible. It’s all a lie.”
Sarah’s smile widened. This whole time, the other agent remained quiet. He turned to watch the door and glance at some of the other patrons as if he wasn’t listening, but he was.
“What is your point?” Sarah asked. “Trying to stir self-doubt in me?”
“All I’m saying is, Vivian isn’t real.”
“Then tell me bright boy, where do the prophecies come from?”
“You, and only you. Just like Esmerelda Hall. You remember her? The psychic woman from the psychic fair all those years ago? What about Dolan Ryan? These are people like you who are actually able to feel or see something. But the future psychic stuff, that’s you. That’s your forte. The fact that you get detailed analyses of crimes and accidents makes your gift even better. Sounds to me like a hidden desire to be a cop. Maybe that’s why you hate them so much? Are you jealous you can’t be one?”
Some of what he was saying filtered in. She wondered if it could be true. Could she be the psychic one, using Vivian as the crutch?
“Look at it like this,” she said. “You’ve got two options whether you believe in God or not. Say you don’t believe and there really is life after death. Then you’re fucked. But let’s say you believe. If you’re wrong and there’s nothing but dirt on your corpse, then you’re just as fucked. The only other option is to believe in God and if you’re right, then paradise awaits you. That’s the organized religion analysis. As far as I’m concerned, we all go home whether you believe or not because a God of love would never offer ultimatums about believing in him or burning in a lake of fire. That’s all bullshit. There is no Lucifer, no devil. He’s manmade to scare children into doing the right thing before the times of a civil society.” Sweat trickled down her back. Heat rose to her face as she spoke, her words laced with emotion and belief. “The only devil is the beast inside us all that hurts others. Madmen, murderers, rapists, those are Lucifers. That’s why I love hurting or killing them. I’m doing the world a favor. Next time, don’t judge me. Next time just say thank you and walk away. Now, are we done here?”
“Okay, nice speech. If we had more time, I’m sure you could sell me on that. But I still don’t believe in Vivian.”
“Then don’t. Means little to me.” Sarah looked past Kierian’s shoulder as two rough-looking men entered the coffee shop and stopped at the door, searching the tables. Their eyes landed on her. They glared for a prolonged second, then looked away and walked to the counter.
“You okay?” Kierian asked.
“Those two guys who just walked in seemed interested in us.”
Kierian and Clint looked at the same time.
“They look like AOV,” Kierian said.
“AOV? What’s that?”
Kierian turned back to her. “Angels of Violence.”
“How can you tell from just looking at them?” Sarah asked.
“Because of those tattoos. AOV are famous for covering their bodies in tattoos, especially their faces. They almost always have the AOV across their forehead, their cheeks or just under their chin on the neck. Somewhere visible so on the street they’re easily recognizable.”
“That sounds stupid. Aren’t there anti-gang laws now? Openly labeling yourself as one would bring the authorities down on you fast.”
“That’s the problem with AOV. They’re not called the Angels of Violence for nothing. There are over seventy different street gangs on the streets of Toronto alone but these guys stand out because they revel in violence, live by it, and initiate themselves into the gang with it. Their respect for authority is void. Police who arrest them are targeted. Lawyers who fail them, judges who judge them. It doesn’t matter how high-ranking the authority is in the justice system, no one is safe from these guys. To them, we’re all the enemy.”
“Wow, how do you two know so much about Toronto’s gang population if you’re FBI from the States?”
“Watching you for five months has been boring. We’ve had time on our hands to read about the city we’re stationed in, from the local papers to researching the criminal element.”
“Fair enough. It sounds like the Angels of Violence need to be taken off the streets completely.”
“We wish. In 2005, the FBI helped create the National Gang Intelligence Center so we could all better understand them, catalogue them and make arrests that stick, keeping as many off the streets for as long as we could.”
The AOV men bought coffees and turned to find a table near the door. Only once did the taller one look back at her again.
“Why are they paying attention to us then?” Sarah asked. “They know you two?”
“We don’t know them, but they can probably tell we’re cops or something like it. We’re right across the street from the Toronto Police building. Actually, that’s probably why they’re here. Visiting a member in jail or something. Anyway, back to our discussion.” Kierian downed the last of his coffee. “I was saying that Vivian isn’t real. Would you agree with that?”
“Absolutely not. Vivian told me her name before I even knew I had a sister. My parents sheltered me from her death when I was young. When I asked them about her, they came clean.”
Sarah leaned forward, violated by this conversation. “How the hell do you know so much about me?”