by K. J. Dahlen
Cooper looked toward the wall behind her. His eyes glazed over as he told them the reason behind his murder spree. “When I was in Egypt I learned the secret of the mummies. The Pharaohs were preserved for all eternity and wrapped in oils and prepared for the afterlife because they were gods in their own right. I studied the methods and used them to prepare for the everlasting eternity by collecting the hearts and the heads of women that interested me. I choose only special women, women who would give me comfort in the afterlife. I wanted to surround myself with their beauty and grace.”
“And it didn’t matter to you that they didn’t want to join you?” India asked.
“Once I chose them no, it didn’t matter.” Cooper held his head high, as if to proclaim his superiority.
“You crazy sonofabithc!” India screamed as she went after him, her hands were outstretched and her fingers were going to dig his eyes out. “I hope you rot in hell. You will never reach any damn afterlife, you will be in hell!”
Briar caught her before she could get near him and he had to hold her tight.
“You took my mother away from me when I was ten years old. You murdered her, you fucking ghoul!”
She struggled in Briar’s arms but he refused to let her go. He flipped her around in his arms and held her close to his heart. India wept in his arms and after a few minutes, she calmed down. She turned her head and found herself looking at Flynn Hudson. “What kind of monster are you? You condoned what he was doing, hell for all we know you helped him. Why would you do that?”
His dark eyes looked at her from the top of her head to the soles of her shoes.
The scan made her feel dirty and she wanted to slap the hell out of him but she didn’t. He couldn’t hurt her unless she let him and she was tired of letting people hurt her. She pushed away from Briar and walked over to Flynn. Raising her hand, she slapped him hard.
Flynn’s head snapped around and when he turned it back to glare at her he growled, “Bitch.”
“No matter which hellhole they put you in I’m going to be there the day they shove the needle in your arm. I’m going to watch you fight the poison they put into you. And then when you’re dead, I’m going to be the one who’ll raise a glass of champagne in honor of your death.”
Flynn paled at the thought of dying. “The state won’t kill me. They don’t have the death penalty here.”
“You aren’t going to be charged by state laws,” Hank Parry told him. “We’ve got enough on you to turn you over to federal courts. Drug distribution, kidnapping, and murder charges, don’t worry you’ll face the death penalty.” He turned to Cooper, “Maybe you and your son can share a cell on death row.”
“They’ll have to make room for Mama too,” Cade said. “She’s as guilty as they are.”
India seethed as she tightened her fists. “Prison won’t be luxury either. And I hope you like being a bitch. I’ve read what goes on there. You will be a slave to others just to survive. No freedom, waiting to die and I hope all your victims haunt you forever! You will suffer and then die. The both of you useless fiends will suffer badly I can only hope. Thank god!”
T.K came and stood next to her. “Your reign of terror is finally over,” she spat out.
Chapter Fifteen
It’d been hours and they were still going through the basement of the barn. They had boxed up the jars containing the heads and the smaller jars containing the organs of the women Cooper murdered. They finally had to take Cooper and Flynn upstairs and chain them to a post in the barn. Cooper protested loudly at the removal of his possessions.
Gretchen had joined her boyfriend and son when the police began searching the house. Hank Parry had found a record of the people involved in the drug distribution network. The names and dates in the book would keep him busy for weeks.
While searching the basement of the barn they found several books detailing the mummification ritual Cooper used to preserve his victims. They also found a recipe book Flynn used to make the Egyptian Gold he had been making.
India was sitting on the sofa with T.K. when she happened to look over at Cade, Elliot and Briar. They were talking together and looking at her. She turned to T.K. “I think we’re going to be leaving soon.”
“Good,” T.K. told her. “This is going to take a long time and I’m tired. I want to get as far away from this place as possible.”
“I don’t want to leave my mother here.” India sighed. “I realize she’s part of the evidence but I can’t bear to leave her here any longer.”
T.K. stared at her friend and didn’t know what to say to her. She reached over and took her hand. “It was wrong of the police not to tell you what really happened but I guess I can see their point too. All they knew was she had been murdered. Why give you nightmares as to how she died when they didn’t need to? Telling you wasn’t going to bring her back or give you comfort. Maybe it was best this way. If you had known after what we saw it would have doubled your terror and you wouldn’t have turned out as strong as you are.”
“Maybe? I never thought of it that way. But it doesn’t help. I buried who I thought was my mother over fifteen years ago. Now to find out it was a lie is unbearable. It could be years until I can finally have closure.”
“Let’s hope they can find the families of all the women,” T.K. told her. “We only had eleven names and there was a few more than that.”
“I counted twenty three. He murdered twenty three women to give him comfort in the afterlife.” India shook her head. “What a sick monster. I do hope he rots in hell.”
“Too bad they can’t kill him twenty three times,” T.K. said. “I hope they both suffer like you said. It’s sounds vengeful, but I can’t help it.”
India sighed heavily and reached into one of the boxes at her feet to pick up a book. The book held the ancient secrets used by the priests who mummified the Pharaohs. “I can’t believe he found this book. It looks very old. I wonder how he got it out of Egypt. I’m sure he didn’t just carry it out. It must be priceless to the Egyptian government.” She looked at the statues beside the sofa. They looked so real but she wasn’t a judge of Egyptian art. “Do you think he smuggled all of this out of the country?”
“Gosh, I never thought about that.” T.K. looked at the statues around her. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Cade came over to them and before he could say anything T.K. brought up the subject they had been talking about. “Do you think Cooper is a grave robber as well as a killer?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“India seems to think all this Egyptian stuff is the real deal.”
Cade frowned and looked around at the artifacts.
India held the book in her hand out to him. “I don’t think this book is something that you can buy on the streets of Cairo.”
He took it from her and began paging through it. It was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and while some of the texts had faded with time, the pages were yellowed with age. The book did look older than time itself. “We’ll have to check it out. If it’s true, Cooper will have more explaining to do.” He looked at India and said, “I think it might be a good idea for Briar to take you two into town for the night. You don’t have to be here and I think you need to rest. It’s been an emotional evening for everyone.”
India sighed deeply and agreed. She was so tired all of a sudden. She and T.K. stood up at the same time and she was about to take a step away from the sofa when her foot caught the foot of the seat. She stumbled into Cade and the sofa tipped over. The cushion slipped off the seat and another book fell out from a secret hiding place.
Cade reached down and picked up the book. Opening the cover, he hissed as he read the first page. He looked at India over the top of the book and asked, “Do you know what this is?”
India shook her head.
“You just found Cooper’s diary.”
T.K. bent down and picked up three more books that had fallen out of the seat. “Here are three more.”
>
Cade looked around and saw Hank Parry still sifting through the evidence. “Hank, we found something I think you should see.”
Hank joined them and was astonished at the find. “Whatever else he is he isn’t very smart.” He paged through the books and said, “We’re going to nail him with his own words, not only him but Mom and Dad as well.”
“The girls seem to think Cooper might have smuggled some if not all of the artifacts out of Egypt,” Cade added.
Hank looked around and nodded. “All we can do is send them an inquiry. They’ll let us know soon enough. We did find evidence of how Flynn got into the drug business.”
“Oh yeah, how was that?” Cade asked.
“Cooper got his hands on a book that gave them the recipe. Not only did it make Egyptian Gold but he was going to start another designer drug. Apparently, the ancient Egyptian’s liked to stimulate their bodies with more than just opiates.”
Hank turned and looked at India. “I understand one of his victims was your mother.”
India nodded.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could release what’s left of her to you but she’s part of the evidence, at least for now. I hope you understand.”
“I do understand. But I’d like to have her remains back as soon as possible. I was under the impression I buried her fifteen years ago.”
Hank nodded. Holding up the books he said, “Maybe now we can get all of the victims’ home.” He looked at Cade. “Larry and Bob want to get Flynn, Cooper and Gretchen into state custody. They are taking them to Northumberland. There is a federal facility there.”
Cade nodded. “It’s going to take us days to go through this place anyway.” He turned away but turned back, “In the morning, you’ll want to go into town and collect something.”
“What would that be?” Hank frowned.
“There is one of the organ jars sitting on a shelf at a small diner. The name of the diner is Maisie’s. A local girl caught Cooper’s fancy years back but when she rejected him, he killed her. We think she was his first victim.”
“How did the jar get to the diner?”
“Flynn’s mother used to work there when he was a kid. Flynn practically grew up there. In fact, the girl he killed worked there. Her name was Helen Leary. I don’t imagine he told anyone what was in the jar but the owner is an old woman named Maude. She’s so proud that Cooper would give her something he brought all the way back from Egypt. She’s going to be horrified to find out the truth.”
“I’ll take care not to tell her then.” Hank turned to leave then looked at Cade again and asked, “What about the local police? Did they have any idea what’s out here?”
“I spoke to a local cop named Jonathan Dillman. He knew he didn’t have the resources to take on the Hudsons. I think he’ll be happy enough to turn over the cleanup to the state boys, FBI and DEA. You might also want to know that most of the people around here aren’t going to be sorry to see the Hudsons leave, except possibly the men who worked for him. I think Flynn had every decent person under his thumb by the use of fear and force.”
“I think you could be correct in that thought.” Hank nodded. “I’ve had one of my men hanging around town for a while now, undercover and he told me the same thing. Once we shut down his drug route, these people can get on with their lives.”
“How can one family bring so much misery to so many people?” India asked.
“This is the third generation of the same family that have flaunted the law around here,” Cade explained. “Dillman was telling me some of the history of the Hudson family and it wasn’t anything to brag about. Flynn’s mother tried but I think she was so tired of all the bad stuff, she couldn’t beat it.”
“That’s so sad,” T.K. shook her head.
“We’ll be going home in the morning,” Cade told them. “Our part in this is over, now it will be up to the police, DEA and FBI to finish up.”
“Will they let us know when the trial starts?” T.K. asked.
Cade nodded. “You both will be key witnesses for the prosecution. You’ll have to testify what you saw the night Cooper killed Jenna.”
India took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Maybe when the case is over and they are all convicted, the nightmares will finally be over.”
“I spoke to Hank and Larry and we’ve come to the agreement that we’re going to keep as much of this case out of the papers as possible,” Cade informed them. “That means we’ll keeping the details and the witness list as quiet as we can. When the case comes to trial, you may find your lives turned upside down and inside out. The reporters are going to turn this trial into a circus and that’s the last thing we want. The nightmare isn’t over yet.”
“I know,” India agreed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“We might have to put you two in seclusion for a while, for your own protection,” Cade told them. “But for now I think you’ll be okay.”
“Let’s hope so. I don’t doubt for a moment Flynn and Cooper have friends out there somewhere.” India shivered.
“That’s another thing that has me worried,” Cade admitted. “Hank found enough Egyptian Gold in the warehouse that he thinks Flynn’s contacts in New York and Florida were going to pick it up soon. I don’t want our group to be anywhere near here when they get here.”
Briar came over to where they were standing and said, “Are you girls ready to go?”
India and T.K. nodded.
Briar stared at his brother. “How long are the rest of you going to be here?”
“We’ll be a couple of hours yet. Kanan and Elliot are getting a set of pictures for our own files. Hank has promised a copy of everything they find.”
“OK, we’re at the Sunset Motel, just this side of town. I don’t really want anyone to know where the girls are.” Briar nodded.
“I’ve been explaining to them sort of what they can expect when the media gets their hands on the story,” Cade said.
“Yeah, well until they do, I’m going to take them out of here,” Briar said.
“I for one can’t wait to get out of this place.” T.K. shuddered as she looked pale. “I think I’ve had enough of Cooper Hudson and his weird obsession with death.”
Cade watched them leave. Then he looked around the basement of the barn. He had to agree with T.K. Cooper had turned this place into his own morbid obsession with death. The only question is why? He shrugged. “Why does anyone do the things that they do?” Cade sighed and went back to work.
~* * * *~
A few hours later, India sat beside the motel window and watched the sun rise over the eastern horizon. Glancing over her shoulders, she saw T.K. sleeping peacefully on one of the beds in the room while Briar slept on the other. She should have been beside T.K. oblivious to the world around her but something T.K. said last night was bothering her.
T.K. had remarked on Cooper’s obsession with death. She knew a little about Egyptian folklore and they too were obsessed with death and the afterlife. Cooper himself admitted he murdered to surround himself with beautiful women in his afterlife, but was that the only reason for what he’d done? There was so much of his story that didn’t make sense to her and that’s what was keeping her awake when she should have been sleeping.
Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to go back to North Carolina. After her mother died, her only solace had been reading. She could and had spent hours in the library. She had turned her love of reading into a job as a law researcher. But law wasn’t the only thing she loved, she had read anything and everything she could get her young hands on.
She had read quite a bit about the Ancient world of Egypt as well when she was a kid. She’d been enthralled by the glamour and the glory of the Pharaohs. She had even gone to see the Tut exhibit when it was at the Smithsonian Museum but that wasn’t what was keeping her awake now.
She had a feeling there was something Cooper hadn’t told anyone about. The real reason he became a killer, and she didn’t think it had anything to d
o with his afterlife. She needed to get her hands on a computer and begin her own research on the matter.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” a voice whispered, breaking the silence of the room.
India jumped and turned her head toward the beds. She found Briar awake and staring at her. “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I guess so much has happened in the last few days I have so much on my mind, my body hasn’t caught up to it all yet.”
“Come over here.”
She got up and went over to where he was laying. He pulled her down to the bed and into his arms. Grabbing the other pillow, he laid her head on it and wrapped his arms around her. His touch was non sexual but as they laid there together, India got the feeling she wasn’t alone anymore. She felt safe and warm. She closed her eyes and sleep finally found her.
A few hours later, she opened her eyes and she was alone in the bed. She sat up in bed and looked around the room. Briar had taken her place by the window and T.K. was still sleeping on the other bed. She looked at Briar and sheepishly smiled. “Good morning.”
“Well its morning, I don’t know how good it is yet. At least you got some sleep.” He turned to her. “Which is a good thing because my brothers just got here and if I know Cade, he’ll want to get going right away.”
“Doesn’t that man ever rest?” The comment came from T.K. as she rolled over to look at them.
Briar just smiled as he got up and went to open the door.
Cade and the others came in the room. They all looked tired and drained. Cade looked at his younger brother. “Did you get any sleep?”
Briar nodded. “I got enough to get us home.”
“Good, let’s get going then.” He looked at everyone and motioned for them to get moving.
As they got into the vehicle to go to the airport India turned to Briar. “What did you mean back there? Enough sleep to get us home?”
“Elliot can’t fly the plane back to North Carolina with no sleep. Cade sent me to the motel with you two to get some sleep, so I could fly us home.”