by Mary Stone
Jonah shrieked, thrashing against his restraints. The cloth fell from his mouth, allowing his words to reach the world. “No! Stop, please stop! You can’t do this, you can’t—”
His scream ricocheted off concrete walls when the blade sank deep into his flesh.
Satisfaction coiled in my loins, making me shiver in delight. The first cut was always so exquisite. A sensation to be savored, like slicing into the most tender piece of filet mignon. The secret was in the knife. High quality and perfectly sharpened only. Otherwise, a man could waste countless time and tax his wrist, sawing away as if a body part were a grisly, overcooked cut of sirloin.
With the man’s screams providing the soundtrack, I continued my work while blood splattered on the concrete floor. Each slice gave me a fresh thrill. There was a beauty to this work, an artistry that few were brave enough to comprehend. I paused, giving myself a chance to truly appreciate the scene before me.
On the fourth cut, his bone gave way. A couple of swipes later, and the man’s finger separated from his hand.
While Jonah sobbed, I wiggled the bloody appendage in front of the camera. “Guess he won’t be flipping anyone off anymore, at least not with that hand.”
To my utter delight, Gabe’s skin turned ashen, and he trembled like a child. “You’re sick in the head.”
I yawned. “Boring. And also, not the response I need to end the game. I guess that means you’d like to play another round.”
“What?” For a moment, I again thought the young man might pass out. “No, I don’t, I never said that! What do I need to say to end the game? Tell me, and I’ll do it.” Gabe started sobbing too.
“Three simple words. That’s all you need to say to end this game and to have me cease this poor man’s misery. Surely, you don’t want him to suffer for your reticence? Three words, then I promise, I’ll end his pain.” I paused before sharing my favorite phrase. “Die, bitch. Die.”
Gabe reared back like I’d reached through the screen and punched him. “I don’t…what? No! I can’t…you can’t expect me to…”
He shuddered and didn’t finish. Okay by me, because that meant we’d move on to round two.
“Your choice.” Ignoring Gabe’s protests, I turned back toward Jonah, who’d finally traded in his screams for a high-pitched keening noise instead. I circled him, tapping my chin as I walked. “Decisions, decisions. What should I try next? Ooh, I know.” After situating myself behind the man’s head, my hand snaked out and latched on to the fleshy part of his left ear. He yelped, thrashing his head from side to side.
I clicked my tongue at his commendable but rather vain effort to escape the inevitable. “Now, now, I’d sit still if I were you. Otherwise, I might miss your ear and send the blade straight into your brain instead.”
The man went still. The keening started up again.
“Wise choice.” I met Gabe’s eyes on the screen. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”
“Yes! I mean, no! Please, for the love of God, please…” He broke off with a moan, his gaze fixated on the knife.
I tsked my disappointment as I focused back on our sobbing guest. “What does it say about your beliefs if your God allows horrors like this to go unchecked? Silly boy. There is no God. Only power.”
Without warning, I raised the knife and swung. The man’s left ear dangled like a trophy from my hand before he knew what was happening. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I lifted my prize and his screams restarted. Blood spurted from the gaping hole I’d left behind, staining his shoulder and the floor a deep red.
The poetry. The artistry. The musical accompaniments.
I grew hard as I absorbed it all.
Eager for more, I wiped my blade clean on his cheek. First one side. Then the other. A rancid odor wafted up, making me wrinkle my nose. “I believe our guest has released his bowels.” I shook my head sadly. “Such abysmal manners these days, wouldn’t you agree?”
Without waiting for a reply, I stroked the metal across the man’s throat. “In a matter of seconds, we could end all of your pain and suffering. Don’t you want that?”
The man’s lips parted, but only a sob escaped.
Shrugging, I turned back to Gabe. “He seems a little ill-disposed at the moment, poor soul. What about you, dear boy? Don’t you want to end his suffering? Or is there a cruel streak in you after all?”
Gabe blanched. He shook his head as he mouthed a single word, over and over. No. He rose from his chair and stumbled back. First one step, followed by another.
I wagged my finger at the screen. “Ah ah ah. Remember what I said. If you try to escape my punishment, the consequences will be severe. You don’t want that to happen, do you, Gabe? Not after what already happened to your little friend? Such a pity.”
At the mention of his friend, Gabe stopped in his tracks. His chin dropped to his chest, and defeat bowed his posture as he shuffled back toward the camera.
His old man’s walk fed my revenge-starved soul. Oh, Gabe. Did you really think I’d let you off the hook that easily?
“No, please, no more. Let me go! I won’t tell. I swear I won’t tell. Please.”
I winced. Jonah’s incessant blubbering grated on my nerves. That and the stench wafting from his pants. “That’s not how this game works, didn’t you listen? And stop making that terrible racket before I cut out your tongue.”
Brightening, I clapped my hands together.
“Your tongue! Yes, I agree. That’s the logical next step. At least then I can carry on with my work in silence.” I twirled the knife, reinvigorated by my brilliant idea. “It’s always a bit more difficult. There’s the business of clamping off the nose to make a subject open their mouth and then busting out the teeth.” I ran the tip of the blade over the man’s lips. “But the payoff is worth the effort.”
So entranced by my plan, I didn’t notice Gabe yelling until I gripped the man’s chin in one hand and squeezed his nostrils shut with the other.
“Stop! Please. I’ll say it! I’ll say the words!”
Disappointment flooded me as I gazed into Jonah’s pain-glazed eyes, but I shook the feeling off. Fair was fair.
“Fine, but you have three seconds, after which our friend here will be rendered speechless by my brilliance. Literally.”
Beneath my mask, I snickered at my pun before launching into a countdown. “One, one thousand. Two, one thousand.”
“Die, bitch! Die!”
Like so many of my contestants, Gabe shouted the words. No matter how many times I heard them, they never grew old.
Die, bitch! Die!
So perfect. So sweet. My limbs filled with a languid warmth born of deep contentment. There was nothing quite like the satisfaction of provoking such a soft-spoken, gentle boy far beyond the boundaries of his moral convictions.
“A pity. I was quite looking forward to removing his tongue. Oh well, a deal is a deal.”
I expelled an exaggerated sigh, released Jonah’s nose, and stepped to the side, twisting his head toward his right shoulder and exposing his quivering throat to the camera. After all, where was the fun if Gabe didn’t have a clear view of our game’s climax?
“Gabe Fisher has sentenced you to death.”
Jonah flinched, but I didn’t give him time for more. The blade sank into his skin, severing his carotid artery with a single flick of my wrist. So simple, killing a human being this way.
Blood spurted from the severed artery in time with his dying heart. I counted down the beats as the life drained from his eyes.
One hundred beats later, the red stream had slowed to a trickle. The man’s gaze turned sightless, and his head drooped to the side. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was certainly beyond saving. Another game completed.
I slashed my finger across my throat, signaling Milos to stop recording. Once he tapped the screen, I sauntered closer to where the burner sat on the tripod, eager for a close-up of Gabe’s suffering.
Pleasure washed over me like a war
m drizzle at the sight. Tears streamed unchecked down his pretty cheeks, and he trembled all over, but his eyes, oh, his eyes! They were delicious in their agony. Twin, dark pools of fathomless horror framed by bloodshot whites.
I licked my lips as my fingers twitched in anticipation of the delights to come. “You’re next, dearest Gabe. See you very soon.”
The video chat ended when I pushed the button. I rolled my shoulders before tugging the mask off my head. Fresh air flooded my face and scalp, cooling my skin and filling my nose with a pungent mix of copper and feces. So rude of our guest to soil our room like that. Oh well. Milos would need to do a little extra cleaning tonight.
But first, we had another matter to address.
Grinning, I turned to face my new assistant.
“Milos, it’s time to make that second call to Charles Snyder.”
14
From the spot where she’d taken up residence in the basement, Ellie glared at the evidence and photos strewn across the table, willing them to reveal any secrets to Danielle Snyder’s case that she’d somehow missed. Nothing happened. Unsurprising, given that Ellie had already attempted this technique multiple times before without success.
“Are you doing that thing again, where you try to browbeat the case into solving itself?”
Jillian’s blonde head stayed buried nose-deep in Ellie’s notes when she asked the question, leaving Ellie to shake her own head in wonder. Her friend’s ability to read her was downright creepy sometimes.
“So what if I am? It’s not like anything else has worked so far.” After one last glare for good measure, Ellie began tidying her space. “Find anything I might have missed yet?”
Jillian held a finger up while she finished reading the last page. When she got to the end, she straightened and pursed her red lips. “Not a darn thing.”
Ellie had figured as much. Jillian didn’t possess much of a filter, so if her friend had found a lead, she would have blurted out the idea. Immediately.
“There has to be something I’m missing.” But what? Ellie had been through this file too many times to count. Her gaze swept the entirety of Dani’s investigation so far, and her shoulders drooped at the scant offering. Even the interviews with Dani’s parents hadn’t produced any new leads. The avenues she’d ventured down so far had all resulted in dead ends.
She cupped her chin in her palm, brooding. There wasn’t much in this world more frustrating than a stalled case. Constantly reviewing evidence and facts that went nowhere felt a lot like banging her head against the wall and produced the same results: a killer headache. The light at the end of the tunnel was the knowledge that if she pushed through, Ellie could give families the relief of knowing what happened to their loved ones.
Ellie lived for that rush of solving a case, which was why she threw her shoulders back, shifted her hips into a more comfortable sitting position, and slid Dani’s file closer so that she could start again. From the beginning.
Before she flipped open the first page, music blared from Ellie’s phone. She tapped the screen to accept the call, her attention still fixed on the case. “Detective Ellie Kline.”
“Detective Kline, it’s Charles Snyder. Do you remember?”
As if she could possibly forget. Ellie opened her mouth to tell him as much, but Charles Snyder jumped back in before she could even gather her breath.
“I’m Dani Snyder’s dad. You came to my house the other day and asked me a bunch of questions about my missing daughter? I’m sorry to bother you so soon, but something’s happened, and I don’t know what to do. This is all so much. Please, I need your help. I can’t…”
He broke off his frantic babble with an audible gasp, so Ellie seized the opportunity to reassure him. “Shhh, it’s okay. Please don’t apologize. Of course I remember you. Now, can you tell me what’s going on?” She sprang to her feet as her muscles flooded with sudden energy.
“She called! Dani called again, or someone did, and this time she gave me an address of where she is! What do I do now?”
“Okay, Mr. Snyder, here’s what I need you to do.” When Ellie uttered the name, Jillian gasped. Ellie turned away. She needed to focus. “I appreciate that this is all very confusing and exciting, but the first thing I need you to do is take a couple of deep breaths and slow down.” The way the older man was working himself up, Ellie wouldn’t be surprised if he triggered a heart attack.
“Okay, I’ll try.” The hiss of his inhalations followed. Five slow breaths in total. “Okay, I feel a little better now.”
“Good, that’s good. Now, to answer your question, you already completed the task you needed to do. You called me. The next step is for you to tell me exactly what the caller said.”
“Right. Okay.” While Mr. Snyder paused, Ellie pulled out her notepad and flipped to an empty page. “She said that she was okay but trapped. A man is holding her hostage. She was able to grab his phone when he wasn’t looking, but she can’t escape, and she needs someone to come right away because she’s convinced he’s going to kill her tonight.”
His voice trembled at the end, so Ellie reminded him to breathe. She asked him to repeat the message while she finished taking notes. “Okay, I’ve got it. Now, what address did she give?”
She jotted down the address that Mr. Snyder recited. “Perfect. Here comes the hard part. What I need you to do now is sit tight. I’ll round up my team, and we’ll head out to that address right away. In order to do our jobs safely, though, I need your word that you’ll stay in your house and wait for me to call. Can you do that?”
A pause. “Yes. Yes, I can do that. But please, hurry. In case—”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Snyder. I promise that I’ll be assembling my team the second I hang up this line.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
Ellie hung up with Mr. Snyder and then called Jacob.
He answered on the second ring. “Everything okay?”
“Just got a call from Charles Snyder. The person claiming to be Dani called again, with an address this time. Can you and Duke be ready to go in five?”
“Meet you in the lobby.”
With that call complete, Ellie dialed her boss next.
“This better be good, Kline. I’m buried up to my nose hairs in paperwork here.”
Without mincing words, Ellie repeated the information about the call with Mr. Snyder. “Jacob and Duke are meeting me downstairs in five. Can you commandeer a few more bodies for me?” If this call turned out to be a trap, Ellie might need more officers on hand to deal with the threat.
“You realize that caller has more holes in her story than Swiss cheese?”
“I’m aware.”
Fortis grunted. “All right. Whoever I can rustle up will be down there. I’ll run a search on that address too and text you the details.”
“Thanks.”
Ellie lowered her phone to the table, her mind reeling. What were the odds that the caller was Dani? Low, but not zero. Never zero. She turned to Jillian and caught her friend bouncing behind her desk like a blonde pogo stick.
“So, this is it? This address could lead you right to Dani?”
Ellie plugged the address into her maps app. “Or straight into a trap. I’ve got to hustle upstairs. Jacob and Duke are probably already waiting.”
She moved toward the door, surprised when Jillian darted in front of her. “Hey. Promise to be careful, okay? You and Jacob both.” Her eyes began to water. “And Duke.”
Ellie’s skin prickled at the interruption, but her impatience subsided when she noted her roommate’s haunted expression. She reached out and grasped Jillian’s hands, stilling their restless motion. “I promise we’ll be careful.”
After a last reassuring squeeze, Ellie released her friend and headed for the hallway. She took the stairs two at a time, bursting into the lobby to find three officers waiting in a loose huddle, with Jacob and Duke standing off to the side. Picking up on his partner’s cues, the shepherd’s entire body quivered
as he shifted his weight from paw to paw.
She nodded at her crew. Todd and Lou, she recognized from her stint as a beat cop, and the unfamiliar face introduced himself as Colby. “Thanks for helping me out here. I’m sure Fortis already filled you in on the basics, but let me know if you have any questions? Time might be a factor, so the quicker we get on the road, the better.”
Colby cleared his throat. “We got a name to go with this address?”
Ellie’s phone dinged. “Hang on. Hopefully, this is Fortis with that information now.” She checked her phone and nodded. “The name associated with that address is John Garrett. Any other questions?” No one answered so she motioned to the front door. “Good, let’s roll.”
Energy radiated off the beat cops in waves as she led the four men and a dog to her Ford Explorer. Not that Ellie faulted them. Heading to an unknown location to potentially rescue a decade-old kidnapping victim wasn’t a call-out most cops ever experienced. “Jacob, you ride with me. The rest of you follow behind.”
Doors opened and slammed. Once she was sure everyone was ready, Ellie threw the SUV into reverse and headed out to the road. Two black and whites fell in behind her.
Duke whined as she followed the GPS directions onto the highway, conveying the jitters they all felt. “You and me both, boy.”
The coordinates led Ellie north of downtown, into a run-down section of Charleston, where houses turned into shacks, and in some areas, shacks into trailers. Rusted cars on blocks decorated more than one dirt yard. They passed a dilapidated house where laundry flapped in the breeze from a clothesline, then a yard where a brawny pit bull snapped and snarled at them from the end of a thick chain staked into the earth.
The deeper into the area they drove, the more Ellie’s gut shrieked a red alert. “Am I the only one getting a bad feeling about this?”