Next to Die: A gripping serial-killer thriller full of twists

by T. J. Brearton

  But I’m gonna kill him meant someone was alive.

  Her emergency call was still attempting to connect. The green icon flashed repeatedly: Calling… Calling… Calling…

  Trevor remained in the backyard; she could just make him out in the light of the windows. She searched the house. Several windows were lit, others dark.

  She could continue to push up the hill, keep away from Trevor. Wait for the police to come. It had to be soon. If they were coming.

  Her phone chirped three times. The screen said, Failed to connect.

  “Alright, Bobbi,” Trevor said. He sounded disappointed. “That’s fine. I’ll just go in and finish this thing up.”

  “Wait…”

  She spoke before coming to really decide on things, like part of her mind was going ahead without consensus.

  “Yeah?” He sounded hopeful, eerily childlike. “You coming down?”

  “Don’t hurt anyone.”

  She started down through the trees, her fingers numb, grasping at roots and tree branches as she lowered herself back down the embankment. “Don’t hurt anyone, Trevor, okay?”

  “Hey, no… You… Are you really coming out? Oh shit, there you are.”

  She braced for the rifle shot. If she lived to tell about anything, she would report how the moment she stepped out of the woods she had resigned herself to death. It was the oddest thing, she would say, if she got the chance. As if every other thing she had done in her life was a slight forgery, not quite real, and this was the only genuine thing she’d ever done.

  “Bobbaaayyy,” he intoned. “Good of you to rejoin us. Now, if you ever try that shit with me again, I’m going to put this thing in your mouth and pull the trigger. Okay?”

  All the introspection had passed through her mind in a second or two. “Okay,” she said. It sounded like someone else had spoken for her, like someone else controlling her movements as she walked crisply to the rear entrance of Anita’s house.

  She arrived there before Trevor did, and he told her first to slow down, and then he was just a voice floating behind her, and said, “Open up.”

  * * *

  The music was louder inside. The song had changed.

  “You like that?” Trevor asked. “That’s my man Jim. I plugged in my iPhone. Pretty sweet, huh?”

  He was behind her, but Bobbi wasn’t focused on him – as she walked in she was looking for signs of the children, or Anita.

  The rear entrance was off the kitchen. There was a light on over the stove, providing enough glow to see how neat and clean everything was.

  “Who’s in here, Trevor?”

  “Let’s go. Go on, I’ll show you. You know this house; you were here just a couple days ago. Go up the stairs.”

  She moved from the kitchen into the hallway. Living room to her left – she glanced into the darkness as she passed the doorway. Didn’t see anyone in there, just some toys scattered on the floor. Turned to her right and started up the stairs to the second floor. She heard his footsteps creaking up behind her. He was keeping a nice gap between them, not taking any chances. Her legs were shaking.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I followed you, you know. To Harriet’s house. To talk to her husband, or whatever you did. Why am I here? You mean this house? Yeah, Roy and I came to an understanding. He’s not a fan of what you people do.”

  “Roy let you in?”

  How did Trevor know Roy, Carrie Lafler’s drunken ex? But she figured it out: Trevor knew Roy from snooping around in the DSS files. The information she worked so hard to protect was ultimately vulnerable because someone like Trevor had access to their system. Roy and his kids were one of her first cases.

  “I made it my business to know him,” Trevor said, confirming it.

  “Where are Anita and the kids?” She reached the second floor.

  “Hold up, go slow, take it easy; he’s in the second bedroom there, on the left. Go ahead. Nice and slow.”

  “Trevor? Where are they?”

  “Don’t worry about it. She went to her sister’s or something. Took the kids. I wouldn’t hurt them – they’re who I want to help.”

  Thank God. The relief made Bobbi weak in the knees as she stopped in the doorway, looked into the bedroom. She thought it was the room Trevor had been shooting from. Her relief was short-lived.

  Lennox was in the corner, tied to a chair. His face was purple and swollen. He looked unconscious, his head down, chin to his chest, with a tendril of saliva hanging from his mouth.

  “There we are,” Trevor said softly. “All together again. A little after-work party.”

  Bobbi rushed to Lennox, lifted his head, and he moaned. Still alive. The music thumped below, vibrating up through the floorboards. Jim Morrison was now singing about breaking on through to the other side.

  “Len,” she said. “Lennox. Can you hear me?”

  “He can hear you, he can hear you. Okay, I want you to sit right there on the bed.”

  Trevor loomed in the doorway. God, he was big. He seemed bigger in here – maybe the ceiling was low, the doorway smaller than normal. He had the rifle gripped so that the barrel was pointing toward the open window.

  “Come on. Move to the bed.”

  Since reaching the bedroom, Trevor’s voice had changed. The lamp from the bedside table illuminated his face – something was different in his expression, or maybe it was just the light.

  She moved cautiously toward him and he snapped the rifle at her. “Don’t. Do what I say and sit on the bed.”

  “How… Let’s talk about this. Okay?”

  “Stop stalling. Sit on the bed, Bobbi. You have only yourself to blame for this.”

  His voice now came over fully inhuman now. Like whatever in Trevor Garris that could be called his soul had stayed downstairs. This was just a shell. Synapses firing, nerves and cells grasping for their blast of chemicals.

  He wanted her to feel regret for something. Remorse. He wanted her to feel pain.

  “You’re going to watch,” he said. And he swung the rifle toward Lennox.

  * * *

  “All units, all units,” dispatch came over the radio. The dispatcher relayed Anita Richardson’s address; Mike was already on his way there – she lived between Lake Haven and Tupper Lake. He’d found out that Bobbi Noelle was paged, called to that location. It would take ten minutes. Maybe less, with the Impala doing over 100 miles an hour in the dark.

  His hands clutched the wheel. If a deer jumped out into the road, it was hamburger.

  * * *

  She didn’t scream.

  Trevor blocked the doorway. He pointed the rifle at Lennox. “You’re going to watch me kill this son of a bitch. You’re going to watch, you’re going to see what happens. When you interfere with people’s lives, there are consequences.”

  “Something happened to you,” she said.

  His finger moved against the trigger.

  “What happened to you, Trevor?”

  “Don’t try that bullshit.”

  “I want to know. What did he do to you? Tell me. Let me help.”

  His eyes came over blank, his lips cracked, and he lowered the rifle, just a hair. “All of you do it. That’s why after I kill him, I’m going to kill you, and you can never do it to anyone else. You can never take anyone away from their mother like they took me away from mine.”

  He jerked the rifle back into place, his eyes still drifty, and Bobbi ran toward him, grabbed the barrel, and shoved upward.

  As the tip arced toward the ceiling, she reached in and grabbed the gun stock. She pulled down toward her chest with everything she had and pried the weapon from his grip.

  She had it. She had the rifle in both hands.

  Self-defense had taught her how to disarm a shooter, but she wasn’t a shooter herself. In a moment of impulse, she threw it out the open window.

  Trevor lunged for her. She evaded his long reach just barely, ducked, and punched him in the crotch. As he howled and bent ov
er, she pushed past him and ran out of the bedroom.

  Down the stairs.

  Out the front door.

  To Mullins’ police car, and she grabbed the door handle. The door was locked, the engine running, all the bells and whistles lit up inside.

  Police left their cars running because of all the devices – one of those things on the console gave his radio broadcast power. When on a call, an officer wore their radio.

  She circled around to where the officer lay on his back, and she groped in the dark, yanked the radio from his belt, fumbled around with it.

  Wasting time – she thought Trevor was right and police would already be on their way because he hadn’t reported in. But she found the button she thought was the transmitter anyway, and pressed it.

  She tried to speak, found her vocal cords locked up again. “Hello,” she said at last. She gave her name and the address and said, “There’s a shooter – Trevor Garris – and there’s a victim, Lennox Palmer, and he’s alive. Send an ambulance.” She set the radio down. Time to get out of here. She considered getting the handgun out of Mullins’ holster, but she was just as unfamiliar with using a short firearm as she was with a rifle.

  Just go now.

  She flung her door open and stared – no keys in the ignition. Trevor had taken them.

  Mullin’s radio crackled nearby but she didn’t hear the response – she was now focused on Trevor’s heavy footfalls coming down the stairs in the house.

  He appeared in the front doorway, the hulking shape of him. The music drifted out the open front door.

  Trevor had a knife in his hand.

  He weighed over 200 pounds, easily. He was over six feet tall. He was strong. She’d taken him by surprise – twice – but now he would be ready.

  Bobbi saw where the rifle lay in the gravel. She sprinted for it and Trevor got moving. She snatched it up as she ran, looking for somewhere to throw it he’d have a hard time retrieving it from. He was right behind her and chased her around the house. She was fast but he had longer strides and was closing in behind her. She threw the rifle into the woods as hard as she could, heard it knock against a tree and come to rest in the underbrush.

  She changed course, headed for Anita’s garden, and hurdled the chicken-wire fence. She heard Trevor attempt to do the same and get caught up, fall over. He blurted a few curse words but she didn’t look back. She jumped the fence on the other side and fled into the darkness.

  The hill. The kids played on a hill and she found their little playhouse just beyond. Now she dared to look back – didn’t see Trevor; the hill blocked her view. She opened the door to the playhouse and slipped inside.

  She gripped herself around the legs. Buried her face, tried to slow her rapid breathing.

  How much time was left until help arrived? She just needed to stay alive for another five minutes. Ten at the most.

  She listened.

  Heard him scratching around in the garden, still muttering curses. The chicken wire rattled. His legs swished through the high grass.

  “Bobbi…”

  She peered out one of the tiny windows. Saw him; just a shape. He was like a giant.

  “Bobbi, you in there?”

  Bad move, coming in here. She kicked open the door, jumped to her feet, and ran. She was fast, but he had those longer strides and caught her before she could crest the hill, grabbing a handful of the back of her shirt. She wrenched free and dropped to the ground, started to crawl back up the hill. He took a hold of her foot and dragged her. Her fingernails dug furrows of earth. Then he grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her in the air while she kicked with her feet; kicked at nothing.

  She felt the blade cut across her left shoulder, slice through her chest above her breast.

  She screamed then threw her head back and connected – maybe with his chin – but he didn’t let go. She saw the flash of the knife as he twisted it in the air, coming in for another blow, this time to stab her. She writhed and thrashed and flipped her head back again, missing him entirely. She crossed her arms in front of her and the knife hit her forearm, glided along, peeling her skin back like an orange.

  Panic.

  Flashes of memories: sparring with her sensei, the snap of their gis as the loose fabric tautened with a quick punch.

  Connor, Jolyon; the little boy wrapping his arms around her legs in a hug.

  Harriet, sitting in her car – her last thoughts. Probably her family. Her desire to live.

  But this was something she wasn’t able to overcome. Trevor was too big. Too strong. Training was different than real life. Training was—

  More memories: fighting with her foster brothers. Brad, particularly aggressive, always clutching at her, reaching his arm around her—

  Mike Nelson, touching her shoulder—

  Bobbi grabbed Trevor’s wrist. She used her knuckles to dig into a pressure point and twisted. It was one of the first things she’d ever learned, when she was just a girl.

  Trevor said something unintelligible as he expelled air in pain and surprise. He dropped the knife. She thought maybe he’d drop her, too, but he held on with his other arm, which slid up under her chin, started to cut off her windpipe.

  No.

  Gagging, unable to breathe, she jabbed with her elbows and this time connected, getting him in the ribs, the sternum. She didn’t stop until he let go, and she fell to her feet. Stayed up. Twisted around and struck with the heel of her palm, snapping his jaw shut with an audible click.

  Trevor took a step back, off-balance on the hill, and she came at him. She landed a heel on his knee cap and he howled. She kicked him square in the balls and he doubled over. Grabbed his hair and tore out a handful.

  He screamed like a child and scrabbled at her, tried to get her off him. He swung at her and missed. Swung at her again; she blocked it. Swung at her a third time; connected. Bobbi saw stars and dropped to the ground.

  Her eyelids fluttered. She’d landed on her back. Tried to flip onto her feet. Something was wrong, though. She wasn’t able to get up. He had her in some kind of a hold, like a wrestler.

  She was losing air. Losing blood. Her body felt crushed.

  Lots of fights went to the ground. Karate classes were one thing, street-fighting was something else. But she was little, she was able to reach, get a hold of his arm, pull it back the wrong way.

  She heard him exhale through gritted teeth – and then he let go.

  For a moment, she didn’t know where he was. After their noisy struggle, the silence seemed to jump out of the ground. She could smell soap.

  Then Trevor loomed over her. He had the knife again. He raised it up.

  “Don’t…” she said.

  There was a loud, sharp snap in the air, and Trevor fell away, a mist of his warm blood spraying against her skin, the last thing Bobbi felt.

  * * *

  Mike picked her up.

  He carried Bobbi away from Trevor Garris, who was unmoving on the ground. He stumbled a little as he walked but didn’t drop her. Got her over beside his car and laid her gently down.

  He stood, saw that his arms were slicked with her blood, then he knelt beside her and put his head against her chest.

  Her heart was beating. He took her pulse. Weak, but there. He ripped off his shirt and used it as a compress – her forearm wasn’t cut deep, but she had a bad gash across her shoulder and another on her upper breast.

  Mike heard the ambulance siren under the noise of the music pouring out of the house. Bobbi had radioed that Lennox was inside. But he stayed with her, keeping the pressure on her wound, talking to her, though he didn’t really think about what he was saying.

  “You did good, Bobbi. You did real good. You’re good people, Bobbi… Hang in there, come on…”

  He was still there when the first trooper pulled in, the ambulance a half a minute after. Trooper Farrington took out his firearm and cleared the house. He came back out as the EMTs went in, looked at Mike, who pointed toward the g
arden. Farrington slipped away into darkness.

  More vehicles arrived, everything crunching in the gravel, tires and running feet. Two more EMTs dropped down beside Mike and Bobbi. They had to gently but forcibly pull him away. They went to work on her, put her on a stretcher; Mike watched them carry her off.

  Farrington wandered back out of the gloom.

  Mike waited.

  “He’s gone,” Farrington said.

  “Gone?”

  “He’s dead, Mike.”

  “We need to look around for anyone else. The woman – Richardson. Two kids. Hailey and Mason.”

  Farrington nodded, joined up with two other troopers in the driveway, gave directions. They fanned out.

  * * *

  The EMTs brought Lennox Palmer out through the front door. He looked bad, but alive. They packed him in with Bobbi and closed the doors. Mike stood back as the ambulance surged out of the driveway, hit the road, and tore off toward Lake Haven, lights blaring and siren wailing.

  “Somebody shut that music off!”

  He walked to the house, went inside, and had a look at everything. Saw a clock radio smashed on the floor, found an iPhone plugged into the stereo and yanked it out. The music continued to play – he recognized The Doors – but small now, tinny, just coming from the phone.

  He needed to get crime scene people here. The troopers were clomping around, looking for anyone else, trampling evidence. His phone was buzzing.

  Lena.

  “Mike? Are you… What happened? Mike?”

  He sat down on the stairs going up to the next floor, ran a hand through his hair. Two troopers were talking in the kitchen. One yelled from upstairs, “Clear on the top floor!”

  “Mike,” Lena said. “Talk to me. Is she… Was there anyone else there?”

  “No. No one else here.”

  “Okay, thank God. I’m going to try to locate them. Then I’m on my way.”

  “It was bad, Lena.” He pulled his hand away, slightly shaking, covered in blood. “It was bad.”