by Lane Hart
His severe gaze holds me hostage. I can’t will my lungs to work. I’m shackled to the edge of the hill by fear, shock. I’m terrified to move…because he’s holding a knife to Hudson’s throat.
Time lapses. Moments collide and suspend. The sky darkens, blotting Hudson from my view. The ache in my calves is fire as I climb the embankment and run. I chase the storm, begging the lightning to flash. I need to see Hudson alive. My breath won’t come. My chest aflame and desperate for air.
When the sky blinks again with the next crack of thunder, I’m kneeling beside Hudson. My hands stained red. I apply pressure to his neck, but I’m trembling with the reality that he’s gone. There’s no pulse pushing back against my palm.
Pain splinters my skull, sharp and acute, before the storm is gone. Hudson is gone. All that remains is the dark.
I shake the memory from my head, making it stop. It’s too suffocating to think about in this place. The air is too cold, too thin. I’m on the brink of hyperventilating.
I claw at the slab, grit and dirt embedding beneath my nails.
I discovered later, I sustained a blow to my head.
By the time I was revived and inside an ambulance, Hudson was missing. They searched the entire ravine area. They drug the stream for two days. They never found him. Dirty, suspicious looks trailed me. My report was mocked, and an investigation was opened on me.
Hudson and I were off the clock that night. The location never a part of any formal investigation. So why were we there that night? The truth was too salacious to be logged in my rebuttal report.
Cops work with facts. And the fact was: Hudson was missing. Forensics proved his blood was at the scene. I was the only witness to the account, and it was a deranged account of an ambush and a crazed man with blue eyes and a knife.
The rumors were more believable.
Detective Hudson and his partner were involved. It was a lover’s quarrel gone bad. Of course, there was no proof to that theory, either. But that made it even worse. Evidence could’ve set me free with the truth. Saved my tarnished reputation.
Instead, I suffered a month of ridicule and insults, even threats. My fellow officers targeted me, demanding to know what I did to Hudson. It became hostile. Cop killer was plastered across my car. I was ousted before I ever turned in my badge.
I breathe through the memory of it all. There were times I even questioned myself, wondering if I did snap. If I imagined the whole thing. Hudson and I…we had been having problems, but no. It wasn’t possible—I’m not that person who could do something so abhorrent.
I always came back to those ethereal eyes amid the storm. I saw him. I knew he was real. I had to believe in him…because the alternative was too gruesome to accept.
Luke Easton.
He has a name. He has an agenda.
And he has no idea who I am.
There’s an advantage to that.
I lean my back against the wall and stare up at the ceiling. The candlelight flickers. Large wood beams cross overhead. Something seems off about the structure…the beams not even in length, cut short where they abut the wall.
I look at the wall to my right. In the dim candlelight it’s hard to notice, but the wall is a newer addition to the cellar.
There are two rooms.
The chain prevents me from getting a closer inspection. That’s my first obstacle. I trace my fingers over the thick cuff that wraps my ankle. It stainless steel, shiny and new. A lock connects it to the chain, that is also new; no weakened rust damage.
My heart picks up pace as the options to escape become more limited.
“Think…”
My voice rebounds off the stone, and I glance around the darkness, wondering if he’s installed video or audio surveillance.
Why did he build this cellar?
What’s in the other room?
Why didn’t he kill me?
Twice he’s appeared during my investigation. Twice I’ve watched him murder in cold blood.
What does he do with the bodies?
This question is the most important.
The answer is everything. Freedom. Validation.
Atonement.
Being held hostage in a killer’s cellar isn’t an ideal situation to conduct an investigation, but I was a detective once. I’ve worked under extreme circumstances before. I almost laugh at the absurdity of that thought. The darkness and pure silence trigger a suffocating moment of panic—and I’m questioning if I’ve finally lost my mind. Am I really here, in this bizarre situation? Or am I in a padded room somewhere?
It doesn’t matter. I’ll have my answers soon.
I quiet my breathing, stilling my antsy nerves, and listen for the sound of footsteps, for the patter of rain, the boom of thunder—some indicator as to how far he’s taking me from the city and below the earth.
When lightning strikes, I know it—I feel the vibration roll through the concrete.
I close my eyes and place my palms to the cool slab, letting the rumbling quake comfort me. I hold my breath a beat, then I spring into action. I scrape my nails around the spike, trying to loosen it from the cement. I yank and pull and slam my booted foot against the iron stake.
I never once doubted what I saw that night. I’m not going to start now. Luke Easton is a killer, and I’m going to prove it. I’m going to get Hudson’s remains—the proof of my innocence—the proof that there was a monster there that night. Then I’m going to shove this spike through the monster’s head.
Chapter Five
Enemies
Luke Easton
I could be a cop. It’s not difficult. All you have to do is start at the scene and work your way backward to the perpetrator.
That’s what I’m doing now.
It didn’t take long to secure the scene, to make sure the blood was wiped clean on the Dumpster. Storms don’t frequent Seattle, but this year is a rarity. They’re calling it The Year of the Storm. And it makes for ideal counter forensic measures.
The rain washed away the evidence of the altercation. After I moved the silver Skyline inside the warehouse, my face kept obscured, I got rid of the surveillance videos. They’ll be left to wonder what happened to Keller. But hey, they still have their imports.
I’m tempted to take the Skyline. It’s beautiful, and would make a great addition to my collection, but it’s also rare. Easily traceable.
And now, more than ever, I need to be invisible.
I would’ve been done a lot quicker, but I still had to clean up the cop’s mess. Makenna did follow Keller. I found a GPS tracker—the cheap kind PIs use—underneath his black Audie. I took the tracker and her car and drove to her apartment.
I’m buzzing as I ride the lift up. There’s an almost elated high orbiting my head. It’s right there, the answer—but I’ve learned to be cautious. Question everything. Besides, even if the lead doesn’t pan out, you want to know every detail about your enemy—even if she’s a tiny, smoldering-sexy private investigator who appears harmless. The truth is, she’s the most dangerous type. Completely unassuming until she sticks a knife in your jugular.
She could be one of them; another hired gun sent to take me out. I almost want to laugh, she’s so small—but that’s the point. I didn’t see her coming.
They’ve failed at that tactic once already. Keller missed the mark six months ago, and I had to lay low until I could pick up his trail again. I didn’t even discover Myer was a major player until the hit was put on him.
It could be a coincidence that the woman happened to be working for Myer’s wife and just happened to witness a murder. Her cop instincts led her to follow Keller and try to make an arrest herself…
But what I saw last night wasn’t proof of that.
She held her gun with purpose. She trembled not from the cold, sheeting rain—but from the choice she was making in that moment. She was intent to kill Keller.
The why is what I need to discover.
I pick her apartment door lock
and turn the knob. The space is open and bare. Cement and metal. A typical Seattle loft, with sparse furnishings. There’s a bed in one corner and a glass desk situated in front of a bank of windows. I start there.
I search the drawers, skimming over client files until I find Jennifer Myer. Within, there’s a standard background check and a list of automobiles. It seems clean. Legit. I don’t like it. Something’s missing.
I slap the file on the desk and start to pull out the next, and my gaze lands on a picture frame buried at the bottom of the drawer.
As I unearth the frame, a hot rush of fury sears the back of my neck. Makenna poses before the police precinct, a beautiful smile on her face, and next to her—with his arm draped around her slim shoulders—is Detective Royce Hudson.
My knuckles ache as my grip tightens on the frame. The bottom reads: Partners in crime.
“Son of a bitch.”
Makenna was a detective with Major Crimes in the Seattle PD (SPD). Not only that, she was his partner. I’ve heard the name before, I’ve read the name—Detective Makenna Davies—written in reports dictated by her partner, and yet I was too fucking jacked last night to make the damn connection.
That’s where I’ve seen her face.
I can visualize her now, kneeling over him, her dark hair drenched by rain, covered in mud, trying to save his life. I looked into her eyes that night…and that’s what I recognized in those dark pools, why I was so compelled by her.
I made a mistake.
I left her there. Alive.
A sharp pain fissures across my palm. I’m staring at the image, not really seeing it, until the glass cracks and slices my hand. I lay the frame down and calmly stalk to the kitchen area. I grab her limited cleaning supplies and make quick work of erasing any trace of myself. Then I pocket the frame.
Just the thought of Hudson stokes the fire.
The searing pain is never deeper than a scrape below—that raw torment. It’s pitted deep within my soul, if there is such a thing. Pain makes all this real. Without my agony, I’m a blank slate, waiting to be imprinted on.
Pain made me into the monster Makenna witness last night. Her voice rattles around my head, her revulsion stark, crystalline. I have the scars to prove her insult right.
And because of this, I make my next move with zero hesitancy.
I grab a trash bag and stuff all her files inside. I go through the loft with a fine-toothed comb, gathering every bit of Makenna’s investigation.
There’s a reason I didn’t kill her the night I tracked Hudson to the ravine.
I didn’t know why she aroused such a response from me then, or like she did last night. I still don’t want to analyze it too closely. It wasn’t sympathy. It wasn’t even remorse. Those emotions are long lost.
She’s useful.
A dark-eyed sprite of a woman comes charging into my world, a frenzied little storm all in herself, and I can try to rationalize why I left her alive…like there’s still some humanity buried within me…
Or I can use her.
Hudson’s partner is leverage.
An overcast sky darkens the desolate stretch of highway ahead. Rain beats my Chevy Impala in rapid-fire pellets, obscuring the road, as the windshield fogs and the worn-out wipers struggle to keep up.
I flip the radio to a local station and listen to a classic 80s tune, waiting to hear a news update. Some hint that all my preparation for Keller wasn’t completely botched.
The dead man in the trunk should be proof enough this is almost over. If he was the last, I would go down easy. Hold my hands in the air and let the officials cuff me and take me in.
Hell, I wouldn’t have the headache of Makenna in my cellar. Back in that alley, I would have looked her right in her dark eyes and put my forehead to the barrel of her gun. Pull the fucking trigger.
I swerve to miss a fallen limb on the road, and pain lances my ribs. I cough and palm my side. Damn, her steel-toe boots were hell on my ribs. She was willing to fight, that’s for sure.
We have that in common.
“How does your neck feel, Keller?” I shout toward the trunk. “Hope you have a motherfucking splitting headache in hell.”
That quick and painless death was too good for him. But Makenna’s interruption required improvising. I wasn’t letting him get away again. Better a dead hitman than an informed hitman. One that saw my face.
The storm tapers off as I round the bend, heading deeper into the forest. The hills ahead stretch across the forest preserve, seaming the gray-blue sky like dark mountains. I’m almost there.
My thoughts keep returning to the woman in my cellar. She deprived me of the gratification of my kill, and now she’s depriving me of this, too. One mistake could jeopardize three years of planning. Painstaking hours of research and drudging through the most vile information the dark web contains.
You can’t come back from that.
Maybe that’s why I hesitated back there, not once but twice. All the dark and ugly things I’ve seen, that I’ve done—she was an interruption to that channel. Something striking and beautiful, something that doesn’t belong. She probably thinks she’s all hard and rough edges, but she’s soft, delicate; the most pure thing I’ve laid eyes on in years.
Which is perfect.
I’ve never killed a woman before. It goes against everything I vowed.
I’ll need the practice.
Every kill takes a toll on me. Mentally. Physically. The scars on the outside are starting to match the disfigured man inside. By the time this is over, I won’t even be human anymore.
That’s a strange comfort. It means less feeling. If what I suspect proves true, if it leads me to the final destination…the final player…then what I have to do will eviscerate every shred of humanity I have left. I might as well swear my soul to damnation now.
I tuck the confounding thought away as I pull off the road and enter a gap in the brush. The break in the forest isn’t large enough to spot unless you’re looking for it. Roots and underbrush scrape the bottom of my car as I head deeper, until I reach the clearing.
The earth is scorched here. Black smudge turned into a tarlike terrain from the ever-present rain. A testament to the filth sacrificed here. The darkest of souls offered to the gods of fire and torment.
I pop the trunk and lug Keller out, dropping his deadweight body to the ground. I drag him toward the makeshift cover of branches and forest floor I designed atop a brown tarp. It conceals the burn barrel beneath.
The cremation of a body is symbolic, respectful even, in some cultures. Sending loved ones back to the ash whence they came, or some shit like that. For me, it’s a counter forensic measure.
No body. No crime.
And I’m an artist when it comes to this method.
You can’t burn a newly deceased body. Well, you can, but it makes a smoldering, fatty mess. And it’s damn hard to burn away a rib cage. There’s a science to body disposal.
I grunt as I deposit Keller on the corner of the tarp and use it to drag his body to the edge of the hole. “I wish you could feel this,” I say, as I kick his backside. He falls headfirst into the barrel, legs hanging out at an awkward angle.
I jump down into the pit and force his limbs inside the barrel. The sound of bones snapping out of rigor echos against the trees. A flock of birds take flight. I wait for the sounds of the forest to go still again before I cover the barrel with the lid, then place the tarp back in place.
I set my watch on a timer. It takes two days for a body to dry out enough to burn down. I typically give it three, just to make the last steps easier, but she’s in my cellar. I want this done quickly.
At this point, I usually drink myself into a coma to numb the anguish. Their deaths never bring peace. I’m not hunting them for fucking peace.
It’s pure vengeance.
But today is different. Because today, she’s in my cellar.
Hudson’s partner.
Chapter Six
Darkness
Calls
Makenna Davies
My senses are going haywire.
The candle burned out what I think was an hour ago, and deprived of light and sound, I’m starting to imagine things.
At first, it started as a hollow thud. A faint bump sounding against the wall. Then, after I convinced myself I imagined it, my mind filling the void with something familiar to stave off the crazy, the noise came again. A loud bang that made my heart jump.
I tell myself it’s him. Walking around above me, doing what psychotic killers do in the early morning hours. Drinking the blood of his victims swirled in his coffee with French vanilla creamer.
I cup my head in my hands, dig my fingers against my scalp. I strain to hear the sound…
And it plinks against the concrete.
I’m not crazy.
I’m not alone.
Too many emotions rush me, and I talk myself down. “Okay. Okay. Think.” I look at the lock on the cuff circling my ankle, then I slide off my shoulder harness. I hold the sleeve of my shirt and pull my arm inside. I do the same with the other arm, tugging the torn shirt over my head.
I reach behind my back and unclasp my bra. Luckily, I forwent comfort and got the most uncomfortable bra with plenty of support. I run my fingers over the underwire beneath the cup, then push it through the small opening in the material.
The plastic support piece isn’t the most sturdy, but it might work. It could work.
If only I knew how to pick a lock.
Shit.
Memories assault me, and in the bitter darkness, they’re clear and vibrant. Hudson walking me through how criminals pick their handcuffs, him showing me what to look for and confiscate on their person when making an arrest.
Then later…the reason why I learned none of it…my attention so acutely focused on his lips, the way they looked as he said my name, his voice breathy and gruff, right before his lips captured mine.