Payback

by T. S. Worthington

  Brian felt his heart skip a beat and he almost responded properly but he caught himself before he even opened his mouth or batted an eye. He had been trained, albeit a long time ago, to never divulge any information about himself that was accurate during an interview or an interrogation. Trapp was trying to turn this around to further control things and prove his superiority.

  “We aren’t going to talk about me or ask me personal questions. I will refuse to answer them in any way,” Brian said.

  “Oh, but its ok for you to ask me anything under the sun?”

  “Well, I’m not the one who is going to be on trial as a serial killer.”

  “Neither am I,” Trapp said.

  “How long do you think you can try to maintain your innocence in this matter?” Brian asked.

  “As long as it takes.” Trapp paused a moment before continuing. “The reason I asked if you have children goes back to your comment about people who crave power. Being a parent is the ultimate power trip. Think about it. You have this little thing that depends on you for everything in life and you can tell it to do whatever you want and it has to obey you or suffer your wrath and punishment. That is why people want to be parents. That is why they pretend to love. They pretend to love each other and they pretend to love the kid, when in reality it is just about power.”

  “Is that the way you felt about your parents growing up? Did they abuse you and treat you like you were an object for their wrath?” Brian asked.

  Trapp threw back his head and laughed. “Wow, that pop psychology thing you do is really bad and obvious. You need to work on that,” Trapp said.

  Brian smiled. Trapp was thinking that his interrogation technique was shit and that was exactly what he wanted him to think. He had to make sure that Trapp felt like he was smarter and better. He had to keep Trapp feeling in control so that he would let things slip later.

  “I’ll do that. I appreciate the insight. So, tell me when did you know that you wanted to kill people?”

  Trapp looked at him squarely right then and his entire demeanor changed.

  “I am not the man you are looking for. I’ll admit I tried to kill Darla Fields, but this whole thing is so much bigger than me.”

  Brian was a bit put off by the statement. It wasn’t like Trapp and his massive ego to ever say that anything was bigger than him. What was he thinking? What was his game plan here? Brian did not know exactly how to proceed, so he decided to just tread cautiously and to just go with the flow.

  “What do you mean, Mike?”

  “There is not just one of us,” Trapp said.

  “Are you saying you have a partner? The two of you are working together?”

  Trapp sighed heavily as if he was bored out of his mind trying to explain the complexities to a simpleton like Brian. It was amusing to watch.

  “No, I don’t have a partner exactly. It is more of a team. And it has existed for a long time.”

  Brian stared at Trapp for a few moments trying to determine if this guy was completely full of shit or just partially. He had to admit he was intrigued and he was being a bit entertained by Trapp’s responses. What was the end game he was trying to achieve? Was he really just trying to throw him off guard or to mess with his head? Was he just enjoying story hour here? What was the man’s deal?

  Brian had spoken to a dozen or so psychos in his time, but he was having a hard time with Trapp. He didn’t think it was just because Trapp had tried to kill several of his friends but it was more along the lines of the fact that Trapp was going off script so to speak. In every interrogation that Brian had ever done he had for the most part went right along with the formula, or script, that he had been taught. That was the way it had always been done and that was the way it had always worked. And when he operated according to the script he had seen without exception the subject of the interrogation moving right along as expected to reach a desired outcome.

  Trapp kept sidestepping everything that Brian was throwing at him and it was keeping him a bit off balance. He was going to have to slow down and reevaluate how this was going down before he could really get a handle on Trapp and what he was all about. The man had to have an end game. There had to be something that he now wanted since he was no longer going to be free to commit multiple murders and workout his inner turmoil in what he considered to be a constructive manner.

  “Let me get this straight,” Brian said. He realized that there was an element of sarcasm in his voice, which he was trying to exaggerate a bit for effect. He wanted Trapp right now to feel like Brian thought he was full of shit. This was not hard to accomplish.

  “Are you trying to tell me that there is a cult at work here? You expect me to believe that?” Brian said.

  “I don’t expect anything of you. I’m surprised that you are following along so nicely, though.”

  Brian smiled at the insult. “So, how long has this cult been at work?”

  “They do not think of themselves as a cult. It is a high order.”

  “A high order? And what is their mission? What are they about? They just worship skin or something?”

  “You are too focused on the method of execution and have no idea the why behind it.”

  “Well, I’m trying to understand here. You are being kind of vague. You got to remember we are just dumb cops. We aren’t as smart as you are. You have to talk down to us a bit and squat to our level,” Brian said. He realized that he was laying it on a bit thick, but the sarcasm seemed to be lost on Trapp because he really felt that the cops were all so far beneath him that it pleased him to have them acknowledge their shortcomings, even if he knew they did not feel this way. It became an inside joke that only he knew about. The guy was such a damn pig.

  “Ian Jeffries was the first instrument. He failed,” Trapp said.

  “Instrument? What kind of instrument exactly?”

  “Instrument of justice.”

  “Oh, so you think these murders are about justice? All of the people you killed and attacked were completely innocent. They never did anything to you. You killed them in cold blood. That is on you.”

  “No, you do not see things the way they truly are. It is funny, but when someone who appears to be innocent is murdered in a brutal fashion then it is seen as a tragedy, but if you knew that the person was not innocent at all then it is seen as justice. The system fails people. It fails people every day. The Order was created as a balance to that.”

  “I’m still not really following you here. You are saying that The Order is responsible for who knows how many murders? That you are all working for the same guy?”

  “No, there is no guy. There is no real group that any of the instruments have ever seen. There are a select group of people who are operating on this. They are orchestrating every single thing. And they have been doing it for years.”

  Brian looked up at the camera as if to ask if anyone was buying into any of this. This interview had taken a twisted turn that he had never seen coming. What if there was any truth to this notion? What if there was a group of mad men who recruited psychos to help them fulfill their mission of bloodlust?

  “So, how did you come to be in the position to be recruited by this group?” Brian asked.

  “They found me. Ever since I was a child I have been different. I have had these urges that I did not know how to deal with.”

  “What kind of urges? Like voices or something?” Brian asked.

  “No, no voices. It was just a desire to kill things. I have never been able to explain where it came from, but when I discovered The Order I believe that they made me that way. Their reach is vast and far surpasses the laws of man.”

  Brian finished the last of the bad coffee and swore that he was going to teach these people around here how to make some decent brew before he left, and he stared deeply into Trapp’s eyes. As he spoke about The Order it was really the first time that he had shown any emotions that appeared to be real in any way. Brian was actua
lly starting to believe the man about some of this. Even if it was total horse shit Trapp believed every word of it. Brian had no doubt about that.

  “So, what happened? How did they find you?”

  “They were studying me for a long time and they knew about my urges. I have no idea how they knew or what they did to me to make me have those sick urges that I could not control, but they showed me how to make the pain go away. They groomed me to work for them since I was very young. The mission was simple. They showed me where to look for the right kinds of victims and they told me that the method I wanted to use to kill them was up to me. I did not know what I wanted so I decided to use the Carver’s motive. There was something about it that spoke to me.”

  “So, now that you have failed in your mission is there going to be someone taking your place?”

  “Oh, not for a while. This was an experiment and they are actually using two different men to go about fulfilling the needs of this project at this time.”

  “What do you mean? There is another guy out there who is skinning people? We don’t have any reports, except for the murders that you did. Unless you are saying you didn’t do all these?” Brian had to admit he was getting a bit nervous and a bit confused here. This story that Trapp had concocted was messing with him. He could not decide if it was real or not.

  “The other man who is operating, he is much more secretive. You were right detective; I did crave the spotlight. That was why I left my victims out in the open and one of the reasons I loved to skin people. It is such a shocking thing to find for most people and it is a great way to instill fear into the hearts of the public.”

  “Who is this other guy?”

  “I don’t know his name. I just know what he does. He is good. He has been doing this for a while.”

  “What is his motive? How does he operate? We need to know some of this if we are going to catch him. You said you know where he is and what he does? Does that mean you know who he is going to kill next?”

  “Yes, I know,” Trapp said. His voice had become very soft and meek. It sounded like he wanted to cry but frankly had no clue how to do it.

  “Who? Tell me who it is?”

  “Let me tell you about this man’s motive. You asked that question first. The man is what we refer to as the Cleaner. He does not like messes. To him what constitutes a mess is someone who should be dead but lives on. So he abducts and kills women who have escaped from murderers before. Poor Darla Fields will not know what is coming.”

  “Darla Fields is next?”

  “No, not yet. She has far too many people watching over her these days. The Cleaner will wait until she is primed for the picking. Sometimes he waits years for the perfect time. He likes for the fear of the past to be so far behind them that it does not even bother them anymore. That way they are almost fresh, but when the thought that someone else is trying to kill them appears before them the fear is twice as intense because they are reliving the first experience along with a brand new form of terror. It’s beautiful. The man is an artist.”

  “Ok, so Darla is not the victim, then who is?” Brian demanded.

  Trapp paused for a moment before he looked right into Brian’s eyes and smiled.

  “Your wife.”

  Chapter 12: Final Countdown

  Brian ran out of the room as fast as he could. He picked up the radio and ordered the dispatcher to punch him into the officer who was watching over his wife and family. It took almost five minutes to reach him, and during those minutes Brian felt his heart almost stop in his chest. He was having a full blown panic breakdown. Of course it could be that Trapp was making all of this up, but he wasn’t about to take that chance. He urgently wanted to get his wife out of the house, but he knew that the officer there would be able to keep them safer if they all stayed inside and locked the door.

  “Officer Travers,” the voice said on the radio.

  “Hey, this is detective Graff.”

  “Hey, detective. What can I do for you?”

  “Is my family ok?”

  The officer seemed alarmed and a bit confused. “Yea, they are fine. Why? What is going ---“

  The line was cut dead as Brian clearly heard Travers choke on his last word.

  “Travers! Travers pick up!” Brian yelled.

  A new voice came on the line just then. “Game over,” it said before disconnecting the frequency.

  “Shit! Order several patrol cars to my house now! Anyone in the area!”

  Brian ran out the door as fast as he could, hopped into his car and fled away.

  The entire trip lasted him about eight minutes when it was usually closer to twenty. He fired up the siren and urged other cars to get out of his way. He kept trying to call Amber on her cell but she was not answering. She had to be there unless she was taking a nap. She did that sometimes in the afternoons. She had not been sleeping too well lately worrying about the Copycat murders, when in actuality she had another murderer to worry about all together. The man had taken out the officer that he had assigned to protect his wife. If he was able to do that so easily then he was more dangerous than Brian had even realized.

  Brian arrived on the scene with several back up cars in tow pulling up the rear. He ordered half of them to go around back and the others to come with him. He was not sure exactly how he wanted to proceed, but he decided to just walk in the front door. His wife could very well be dead. There had been plenty of time for the killer to get to her.

  Brian kept seeing images of her flashing in his mind, dead, mangled, not breathing. He started to get choked up and forced it back down. Now was not the time to be Brian Graff husband; he had to put his game face on if he had any chance of saving his wife at all. He could not allow himself to become emotionally attached here or it would be a lost cause and he would cause more harm than good. He sniffed in deeply and cleared his mind of everything but the focus that he needed.

  He opened the door slowly. The house was dark and silent. He knew that his kids were spending the day at friends’ houses. They had both been spending the summer anywhere but at home it seemed like and for the first time Brian was grateful that they were not home. They would be out of harm’s way.

  His first instinct was to call out for Amber but the Cleaner could be anywhere. He was bound to have heard them arrive outside, if he was still here. Maybe he had already killed Amber and now was halfway on his way to Tahiti. Brian groaned silently as his footsteps creaked on the floor. He had never really noticed before just how loud the floors in his house were.

  Brian motioned for a few of the guys to stay downstairs while he went upstairs to check things out. He had one officer coming with him. Together they made their way slowly up the stairs. The stairs met the middle of the hallway which had the master bedroom and bathroom on side of the hall and the kids’ bedrooms and the study on the other side. Brian decided to check out the master bedroom first. If Amber was going to hide or if she were taking a nap that would be the place that she would be found.

  A bullet whirred past his face and struck the officer behind him square between his eyes. The cop never knew what hit him as he fell to the ground and rolled down the steps all the way to the bottom. His lifeless body crumpled at the bottom of the steps.

  A few officers started up the steps.

  “No! Stay back!” Brian said as he ducked down on the top two steps hiding behind the heavy bannister.

  “That’s a good idea,” came the voice from the bedroom. It was a heavy, thick voice that sounded almost familiar. Brian wanted to rush in to the room and see what was going on. Was the man with his wife? Was she alive or dead?”

  “Who are you?” Brian asked.

  “It doesn’t matter to you right now,” came the reply.

  “Where is my wife?” Brian asked.

  “She is safe, for now,” the voice replied.

  “How do I know that? Am I just supposed to trust you?”

  A second later Am
ber’s voice filled the air. “Brian, I’m ok. Just do what he says.”

  It felt so good to hear his wife’s sweet voice again. Brian felt the biggest weight just lifting off of his chest at that second. He could breathe again. The dizziness he had been dealing with threatening to cause him to pass out was starting to subside as well.

  “Amber, it’s going to be ok. I will get you out of this, honey,” Brian said.

  “Brian Graff, I want you to come into the bedroom,” the man’s voice came.

  Brian hesitated.

  “How do I know you won’t just shoot me?”

  “You don’t. But if you don’t follow my orders then I’m going to cut one of your wife’s fingers off for every ten seconds you waste getting in here. Starting now. Ten seconds. Move your ass.”

  Brian did not hesitate. He risked it all and ran up the steps and into the bedroom, while telling the other officers to stay put.

  He entered the bedroom quickly, his gun raised.

  “Stay where you are,” the voice commanded. “And drop the gun.”

  Brian sat the gun down on the floor carefully.

  The scene was like something out of his own personalized nightmare of a horror movie. Amber was tied to the bed posts by her wrists and her ankles. The look on her face was full of terror. He could see the fear that was eating her alive, but she was being so strong trying to hold on. He was so proud of her. Brian did not tell her that enough. He instantly felt bad for all the times that he had been stressed out or upset about work and he was cranky and took his mood out on her by being less than pleasant. He felt so guilty about it all right now. He swore to himself right then that if they made it out alive from this then he was going to be a much better husband and father. He was getting out of this line of work. It had now put his family in danger.

  The voice was coming from a tall man sitting in the corner of the room with a nine millimeter beretta. It took him a second to recognize that the gun was police issue. It was just like his. This man was a cop. This man who had killed who would ever know how many innocent people and he was a cop. The thought made Brian feel absolutely sick all over. He wanted to lie down as the waves of nausea and the faint feelings ran through his mind. This bastard was a disgrace to the badge.