by Jared Paul
Jon gave Abby another glance over. He couldn’t see what Travis saw in this pretty packaged brat, but then, Travis had a way of seeing people for who they really were and not for what they appeared to be.
He said, “We’ll take care of things, don’t worry. The most they can do to him right now is drill him full of stupid questions and try to make him admit or say something in their favor. The worst thing that Travis has against him is his reputation.”
“That’s why I’m here!” Abby emphasized her words waving her arms around like a lunatic.
Jon smiled as he rubbed his leg. There it was, a kernel of something interesting peeking through her exterior. Spunky, wasn’t she? He said, “Look, you can go in there, give them what you told me, but I don’t think they’ll let him go until I find someone to take his place. If it’s like you say and your father called in the auxiliary force for Collie, then he wants Travis to take the hit. They probably won’t listen to you.”
Louis broke in, “The best thing you can do for him is not make him worry about you. If your father is like you say he is, then he won’t be happy that you’re throwing yourself on the spikes for Travis. Everyone will know that you two have been together if you provide him with an alibi.”
Abby’s eyes watered but it was clear she was forcing herself not to cry in front of the two fully grown men she’d just met. She said, “So there’s nothing that I can do for him?”
Louis smiled softly, a smile that said he knew what she was thinking and that he felt sorry for her. It was a sign to Jon that there was something more going on with Travis and Abby than what met the eye.
Louis put a hand to Abby’s shoulder. “You can make things easier on him by not making him worry about you.” He paused a moment and then smirked. “You could spend some time with me, if you wanted to. I can take your mind off things.” He waggled his eyebrows for emphasis.
Abby hauled off and kicked Louis in the shin, so hard, that he had to hop around in a circle looking like a one-legged circus monkey.
“You’re lucky I didn’t aim that somewhere else.”
“I was joking!” Louis managed as he nursed his bruised shin.
********
“You’re taking too long to scrape that slide, Dr. Lance. Come over here and give me a hand with this other one. This woman must have weighed a ton before she was dead, I can’t imagine what she weighs now.”
Cory took a deep breath and put the note inside of a drawer where she‘d stashed the other note. Eventually she’d share the evidence with the others, there wouldn’t be a way around it, but the fear of someone possibly coming after her had her wanting to take things slowly. What if the killer was someone close to her? She wondered briefly, in a ditch effort to relieve her anxiety, if the notes were meant for her or for Dr. Willis, if she was a psychotic serial killer offing random women, Willis would be the first spot on her hit list.
She turned from the slide table and inspiration struck her like a club being wielded by an invisible hand. The first victim had been killed at Pete’s grocery and she’d been a counter clerk. Before she’d gone off to med school, right out of high school, she’d worked at Pete’s for a stint to have some cash at her disposal. For another coincidence, the location of where the other two were found, the very apartment where Heather and the nameless woman were found, was the same apartment her mother had rented while they were looking for a new home in her senior year of high school. In fact, Cory had remarked to Heather the first time she’d met her that the woman was a far better housekeeper than her mother had been.
Cory put a hand to her mouth, now certain that the killer, whoever they were, was someone who knew her and had known her for some timeat least as far back as high school.
“Now, Dr. Lance.”
Cory made herself move to where Dr. Willis was standing with the second victim. He’d already gone over the body with the woman on her back, and as he’d insensitively commented, the woman had been on the heavy side while she was alive. She wouldn’t have called the woman “fat” since that was not what she was. Thick, was a better word, and possibly the term ‘curvaceous” was more flattering, Cory didn’t know, but she did see that death had not been kind. With surgical gloves, she placed her hands to the woman’s shoulders and with Willis, they were able to lift her on her side.
As with Heather, this woman had died sitting up, the blood settling on the underside of her body. Cory had the image that both women had been lined up on the wall they’d died against and then were shot execution style. Again, as with Heather, and because Cory’s eyes were scouring the unidentified woman’s flesh as if she had laser scanners for eyes, there was the pencil eraser sized hole on her right shoulder.
“What is with these wounds?” Willis mused as he dug another plastic pill out of the victim’s flesh with tweezers. Willis handed the removed sample to Cory as she helped him set the woman once again down on her back.
“I am going to let you finish up here, think that you are equipped to handle that much?”
Cory nodded, not bothered at the moment by Willis’ sniping. She was more concerned with what the third message was going to say. Willis left the room his concern not directed at Cory or what she was going to do once she was gone but more with what he was going to do once he was at home.
“Probably sit on his lonely ass and stare at a wall until he slips into a coma if I’m lucky,” Cory mumbled to herself as she again returned to the slide table. The snarky sarcasm she realized, was the effects of the effort her mind was attempting to keep her from coming unraveled.
“Is there something I can help you with, Dr. Lance?”
Cory set the plastic cylinder on the table and wheeled around at the sound of Drew’s voice. She was looking around the room as if she’d walked in on a display at the zoo. Something about the expression on her face was creepy to Cory, but not completely un-Drew-like.
“I think I have a handle on it.”
Drew smiled, her white teeth glinting underneath her pale lips. “I know you’ll solve it, Dr. Lance. Who else could do better than you?”
Cory watched Drew for a second, wondering why she was keeping that smile on her face. She was dressed as she normally was, drab khaki pants with a patterned flower blouse, a white coat draped over her like a superhero’s cape. Drew didn’t look out of place, she didn’t leave an impression. She was like a tree in a park or a piece of crumpled paper on a sidewalk. A thing that went with the picture. The smile though, was eerie.
“Drew? Is there something I’m missing?”
The smile left Drew’s face and it went back to the non-expression it was normally plastered with. “Oh, no. I’m sure I’ll have enough to do later, so I should get going.”
The second Cory was alone again, in a room with two dead women, she let the truth of reality hit her. It was time to let someone else in on what was going on.
CHAPTER 7
………………………………..
Old Gary’s face looked like it had been set out in the sun and dried so that it could be sold as an exotic raisin. As Jon studied him, he waited for Louis to find the patience to raise his voice high enough so that communication between the three of them could take place. So far, in the near half hour that they had been trying to find out what the old man knew, the only thing Jon had for his troubles was a bunch of huhs and what’s that sonnys.
Louis said loudly, “Just give us the security tape from the day before yesterday.” At this point, the man was almost miming.
Jon took a step back away from the counter where it was obvious Louis was now going to have to barter for the information that they needed, and he let his eyes roam around the room. It was a small shop, almost like a garage with shelves lined with bits of junk someone might need if they were in a bind for nails.
His feet took him off down a short aisle, where there were several types of wire for sale. Most of the wire was sturdy enough to kill someone with, especially the ones made with metal alloythos
e were the ones with the tensile strength to really get the job done.
His cell phone rang and he answered it in an automatic sort of way, as if he’d been expecting it.
“Hello.”
“Jon.”
Jon’s face described his reaction to the sound of Cory’s voice on the other end of the line. It was definitely a switch from just a day ago, where he could have imagined jumping through the phone and strangling her for her emotional stubbornness. The sound in her voice was something that, at least while they had been close, had never been present before. It was fear.
“What’s going on Cory, are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay. Just come to the office as soon as you can. Please.”
The line clicked and Jon was left standing in the middle of the hardware store staring at his cell phone until the screen light dimmed off. Cory never said please unless she had to or unless, it was something she really wanted and saying please was the only way she thought she would get it.
Jon moved from the aisle, pocketing his cell as he went, and as Louis was still engaged with Gary, he decided not to interrupt. Why ruin all the progress Louis was making with a mostly deaf old man? If he interjected any new information, the process would have to start all over again. Jon made a mental note that he would let Louis in on the deal later.
********
Cory was standing outside in front of the medical building when Jon was dropped off in a taxi cab. After she watched him pay for his ride, she took a seat on the curb that ran along the front of the parking lot. She felt too weary to stand.
Jon took a seat next to Cory, an arm going around her like it used to whenever he knew there was something that bothered her. During the days of David’s worst bouts of illness, when watching what he was going through had been too much to handle, they would sit like this, his arm gently around her and it would be enough to let her know that he was there and that he loved her. Even now, with a divorce between them, it was still the same.
“I think the killer knows me.”
Jon’s brows knitted a quilt. Whatever he thought she was going to say to him, that was definitely not what he had been expecting. “What on Earth makes you think that? Do you know who it is?”
Cory shook her head. If she knew that, she’d have called him and told him where to find the person as fast as her neurons could give the order. She replied, “I found these little messages stuffed inside of the victim’s bodies. So far, I think I’m the only one who knows about them, but I have a feeling Drew knows. I also think that this killer has known me since high school.
“Jon, the last two victims were found in my mother’s old apartment, you remember, the one we stayed in during my senior year?”
Jon smiled. How could he forget? Once the ball had gotten in gear with them physically, they’d found all sorts of places to make out inamong other physical explorations.
He said, “Who do we know from high school that still lives here in Collie? The girls you were close with have all moved away. There’s Victoria, but she married that guy from Hadley last month and she’s living there with him.”
Jon noticed that Cory was hugging her knees, a thing she’d done whenever she was anxious or sad about something. The arm he had around her shoulders, which he was pleased hadn’t been asked to be removed yet, tightened. He asked, “What else is there, Cory?”
Cory stiffened, but then relaxed into the side of Jon’s body. He had a way of silently comforting her, or letting her feel like she was the safest person on the planet. She said, “One, one of the messages said that he was going to come for me. I don’t know what that means, but then none of this really makes that much sense. Why is this person doing this?”
Jon removed his arm so that he could look at Cory’s face by twisting the upper half of his torso and placing his hand behind her. He replied, “I don’t know why they’re doing it, but I do know that when a homicidal maniac gives you an expressed guarantee that he’s going to do you in, then he probably will. At least, he’ll try.” He cocked his head to the side. “What was the third message?”
Cory answered in a near monotone, “Number three, can you catch me?”
Jon swallowed, stared directly into Cory’s eyes and then said, letting his tone drift into his don’t-argue-with-me voice, “You’re going home with me.”
There was only one way that he would be able to protect Cory long enough to catch the killer, and that was having her right underneath his nose.
Cory stopped on the doorstep of Jon’s house, formerly their house, and waited for the feeling crawling around on her skin to stop. She had argued with him in the car, gave him a million reasons why she was able to take care of herself, but in the end, and she should have remembered this, Jon got his way. She just didn’t have the reserves to counter each one of his bazillion valid points.
“You coming inside, or do I have to drag you in?”
She actually didn’t know if she was going to come in. The idea of being inside of the house where David used to run around and play, the house where Jon had carried her over the threshold the night they were married. The memories were swirling around in her head and threatening to knock her over. Finally, and because she started feeling foolish just standing there, she walked inside.
The interior of the house was as she remembered it, right down to the curtains she’d picked out. The couch and loveseat were the same, just as the rug that said, “Welcome to our Family” was still sitting just inside the front door. It was like a museum dedicated to their life as it once had been.
“Want something to drink? I think I have a few beers in the fridge.”
Cory watched Jon move across the living room and into the kitchen and when he turned his head back at her for her answer, she shook her head. She could use a drink, but beer was not one of her indulgences. The stuff tasted like soap.
She walked over to the sofa and sat down, not knowing what to do with herself. It was uncomfortable here, regardless of the benefits to her safety, and she knew that this idea wasn’t going to work for long.
Jon caught Cory’s shift in mood as if it had been telegraphed to his brain. She wasn’t happy to be reminded of what their life had been like, shooting his hopes that she would realize how much she missed him and come back to him right out of the damn sky. He popped a tab to the beer he’d pulled from the fridge and joined Cory on the couch.
Jon wanted to talk about their encounter the night before, but as so many things he’d ruined by asking about them, he was hesitant to taint the memory with what she might say about it. For another thing, it probably wasn’t the best time. Cory had more than enough on her mind.
Cory was glad that Jon took the other side of the couch, because if he’d sat next to her, she might have another attack of hormones or whatever they were, and she’d jump him againnot that she was ashamed of their limbs tangling with one another in the least.
She flinched as she felt the weight added to the couch shift in her direction. She assumed, since she wasn’t looking at him, that he’d gotten comfortable on his side, but if he thought to have a repeat performance of the heated event the night before she was going to have to stop him. Else that, or give in again and dig the emotions rumbling around in her stressed head an even deeper hole to live in. She risked a glance and saw that Jon had gotten up and was standing toward the edge of the couch headed back toward the kitchen.
Cory, to keep her mind off thinking anything, took her cell phone out of her coat pocket, which she’d just noticed she was still wearing, and checked her messages. Few people bothered to text her, since they knew she had little time to bother texting back, but nevertheless, there were people who left her little reminders of things she had to take care of.
The message staring up at her was not that of a person she recognized, and it was far from a friendly reminder.
Meet me at your place. I have another present for you!
Cory read over the message a few times, thinking each time
that it might say something different or hold within it a little less darkness, but each time she let her eyes roam over the words, it told her that whoever this person was, their time was running shorter and shorter. Before long, the killer was going to get tired of the game they were playing and end it.
“Whatchareading”
A second before Jon would have seen the message Cory moved her finger over the power button at the top of her phone and the screen went black. She could hear Jon make a sound underneath his breath that sounded like a half-attempt at a swear and he moved back over to the side of the couch he’d regulated himself to.