I nodded; all of what Doctor King said made perfect sense, and didn’t sound like it was coming from a serial killer at all. I wanted to kick myself inwardly for having fallen like that. This was going to take weeks to heal, I knew that all too well. How could I have been so stupid?
“Make sure to keep your wrist elevated when possible, ice it frequently, and take some over-the-counter painkillers like ibuprofen when needed for pain.”
I nodded, barely listening. I knew all of this, of course. I had never introduced myself to Doctor King as an almost-doctor, though, so there was no way for him to know that I knew exactly how to take care of what was one of the most common bone breaks in the human body.
A few minutes later, he left, and Khalim came back to splint my arm.
By the time Violet and I left the hospital, it was almost one in the afternoon.
“Well, this is a lot more annoying than I had expected,” I said to Violet, waving my newly-splinted arm at her. “Who knew that I was going to actually need an emergency room visit today?”
“All the same, it is convenient. A broken wrist means there is no way Doctor King could suspect anything from our visit, and it makes you a better target for him, as you are now weaker.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” I replied sarcastically. “What do I do now?”
Violet checked her watch. “While you were in with the technician getting the X-ray done, I went back to the front reception area and was able to glean that the good doctor’s shift ends in twenty minutes. I will leave, but I would like you to stay out here for that long, at least. The easier we make it for him to track you, the better.”
“The more this goes on, the more I wish you were the bait.”
“I do not make good bait,” Violet replied. “It must be someone close to me. Do not worry. No matter what happens, I will not be far.”
I sighed as Violet got into a cab and drove off. I couldn’t help but think as the car sped away that she was definitely further away than I was happy with.
Still, I had to trust her. Innocent lives were at stake. Wasn’t this what a doctor did? They did whatever they could to save their patients. Right now, everyone in the city of London was my patient. The difference was, most doctors didn’t put their lives at stake to save people.
I had to convince myself that this was the right thing to do, because to be totally honest, a part of me felt like running away screaming as far away from Violet as I could possibly get.
Instead, I sat on a concrete pillar and checked the time. I texted Brianne, who was working, but her shift ended in an hour. I figured if anyone deserved Chipotle right now, it was me.
“What happened to you?” Brianne asked in horror when I walked into Chipotle forty minutes later. I had waited longer than the twenty minutes, just to be on the safe side, then walked over to Brianne’s job, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder every two seconds.
“I tripped and fell,” I said miserably. “And also, Violet sliced my head open with a knife this morning to help find a serial killer, so this has definitely not been a ten out of ten day.”
“Well, if I’ve ever heard a reason to give someone free guac, this is it,” Brianne said with a sympathetic shake of her head.
I laughed. “That makes it all worth it.”
“I knew the promise of guacamole would make you feel better,” Brianne grinned as she assembled my burrito bowl. She knew my order off by heart, there was no need for me to tell her what I wanted.
“I’ll wait for you to get off shift,” I said. “You have no idea the day I’ve had.”
“I definitely need to hear all about it,” Brianne said.
I ate my burrito bowl, wondering if between the splint and the dried blood on my hair I didn’t look like way too much of a crazy person to be out in public, and Brianne eventually sat down in front of me, her work clothes gone.
“Be honest, on a scale from one to ten, how much of a crazy person do I look like right now?”
“Probably a three,” Brianne replied after studying me for a moment. “There’s a bit of blood in your hair, and you wouldn’t suffer from running a brush through it, but apart from that you look fine.”
“Thank goodness for small mercies,” I muttered.
“For sure, but now you have to tell me everything,” Brianne drawled, leaning forward on the table. I looked around to make sure none of the nearby spots were occupied. Confident that we weren’t about to be overheard, I told Brianne everything that had happened that day, including the fact that we had figured out who the killer was. I wasn’t afraid of her leaking the name or anything like that. Brianne was as trustworthy as they came.
Her eyes got so wide by the time I got to the end of the story I thought there was a very real risk they were going to pop out of her head.
“That’s insane,” she finally said when I finished, her voice barely more than a whisper. “You are insane. What is wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You’ve literally just put yourself in the path of a serial killer in the hopes that he’ll target you to be his next victim. Do you not understand how completely insane that is?”
“Of course I do. But, if I don’t do it, someone else is going to be killed before we can prove that Doctor King is the killer.”
“So? This way has a really high chance of you dying. I mean, I’m all for adventures and trying to solve crimes and all that sort of thing, but you have to think about yourself. You’re putting yourself in serious danger here, Cassie, and I’d hate to think that anything bad could ever happen to you.”
I had to admit, I was pretty touched by Brianne’s words. Still, I knew that despite the fact that what she said did make some sense, I had to keep going anyway. I had to do this, because it was the only way to stop a killer before he struck again.
“That’s the problem though,” I said. “If there’s a chance that I can do something, even if it means putting myself in danger, I have to do it. I would never be able to live with myself if I had said no and someone else was killed. Besides, Violet knows where I am, and she knows to keep track of me. I’ve got to be the safest piece of bait in all of London.”
Brianne shook her head. “You’re insane, you know that? If it wasn’t for the fact that I have to do a bunch of stuff in the hospital tonight, I would 100% not be leaving your side.”
“You just finished telling me about how dangerous what I’m doing is and how I absolutely shouldn’t do it,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me.
“Yeah, because it’s you. I don’t think you should do it, but I have no problem putting myself in harm’s way either.”
“You are absolutely ridiculous,” I said with a smile as I took a big swig from my container of Coke. “Only you would tell me not to do something and then bemoan the fact that you can’t do it yourself.”
“I’m not good bait, anyway,” Brianne said with a sigh. “For as much as I hate what you’re doing right now, Violet is definitely right. It has to be you who’s the bait so that the killer can get close to her.”
“Right, I vote we stop talking about this completely, because I really don’t like being spoken about like a worm on a hook for a fish.”
“And when I’m at your funeral I don’t want this to be the last conversation we had,” Brianne replied.
“That’s not helping.”
“It’s not supposed to help, I still think this is a terrible idea and I think you should back out now.”
“Well, I’m not going to. I need to do this, because we don’t have any other choice. This guy’s going to kill someone again, and probably soon. If he doesn’t come after me, he’s going to come after someone else, and I just can’t have that.”
“Well, if you’re not dead, come stop by my hospital in a few days and I’ll put your cast on you,” Brianne said. “I’m working in radiology for the next few weeks, so I’ll give you the nice bright pink one that we keep for little girls. It’s actually super cute and looks way be
tter than the plain white most adults get.”
“Deal,” I grinned. I wasn’t an especially girly girl, but if I was going to have to keep a cast on for a few weeks, I was totally on board with getting something that stood out a little bit instead of being just plain white.
“Okay,” Brianne said. “I’ve got to get going, but if you get into any trouble at all, I want you to call me. I will 100% answer my phone no matter what, even if I’m in the middle of giving someone CPR to save their life.”
I burst out laughing at the mental image. “I think they might not give you your medical license if you let somebody die so you could answer a phone call.”
“It would be worth it, though, if it meant saving your life,” Brianne replied. “I mean it. Call me anytime.”
“Thanks,” I said to her with a smile. “You’re a great friend, you know that?”
“I do,” Brianne replied, not a hint of modesty in her body. “But I don’t have a lot of friends, which is why I want to keep the ones I have. Try not to die tonight.”
“I’ll do my best,” I replied earnestly.
Brianne got up and left the shop, making her way up the street where I knew she was going to catch the tube to get to the hospital. I leaned back in my seat and sighed. I didn’t want to admit it, but Brianne’s words had gotten to me. I also realized that I hadn’t told Jake yet what Violet and I were doing. Didn’t I owe it to him to let him know? After all, he loved me. He really loved me. I owed him this much, at least.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed his number but it went through to voicemail. This wasn’t the sort of thing you could tell someone in a message.
I hung up, frowning at the phone. A part of me figured maybe I should go see him in person, but then that was pretty far from this area, which seemed to be where Doctor King did his hunting for victims. Maybe I could just call him again in a few minutes, instead.
Eventually, I sighed and decided it was time to get going. I picked up my tray and went to bus it, but as I passed the chair where Brianne had been sitting, I noticed her keys sitting on the chair. They must have fallen out of her pocket without her noticing.
I grabbed her keys, pulled out my phone, and sent her a text.
Hey dummy, you left your keys here at Chipotle. Want me to come by the hospital and drop them off?
Sure, going to the hospital where Brianne worked was definitely going to be a little bit further out of the way than I wanted to go, but it was only going to be for a few minutes, and then I could come back here under the guise of revisiting the crime scene at the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Brianne needed her keys, after all.
But when a few minutes had passed, and Brianne hadn’t answered my text, I began to wonder what was going on.
Chapter 18
What happened to answering my phone calls immediately?
I added a tongue poking out emoji and sent the text. I wasn’t exactly worried; Brianne was probably just walking along and hadn’t heard her phone.
When a couple of minutes later, however, she still hadn’t answered that text either, I frowned. I should call her, just in case I could catch her before she got on the train. It would save me a trip to the hospital, after all.
Dialing her number, she answered a minute later.
“Oh, hey Cassie,” she said.
“Well, I guess you did promise only answer the phone, and not my texts,” I joked. “You left your keys at the restaurant, are you on the train yet?”
“Uh, yeah,” Brianne said. “That was silly of me. I’m on the train now, but don’t worry about the keys. I can come by your place later and pick them up.”
“Oh don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll come by the hospital and drop them off.”
“Okay, cool, thanks. If you just leave them with one of the nurses at reception that would be great; I’m going to be stuck in the oncology ward all night. It’s too bad, I wanted to show you the cool blue cast I’m going to put on your arm when that swelling goes down.”
Alarm bells went off in my head. Brianne had just finished telling me that she was going to be working in radiology, not oncology, and she wanted to give me a pink cast, not a blue one. Straight away, my mind focused on what I should do next. I could hear sounds in the background, and sirens somewhere. Brianne was talking to me on speakerphone, which meant that if someone had her, they were listening in to this conversation too.
That was when I realized who it was.
Doctor King. It had to be. He wasn’t going to use me as his next victim, he was going after Brianne.
My heart sunk in my chest as the realization dawned upon me. If she was on speakerphone, there was nothing I could say that he wouldn’t overhear. How on earth was I going to get a message to her without him realizing I’d figured it out?
I probably wasn’t going to be able to. She was just going to have to trust that I understood her message and that I was going to come after her. Because if one thing was for certain, it was that I wasn’t going to let one of my best friends become this serial killer’s next victim.
“Sounds good,” I said to her. “I’ll drop them off as soon as I can. After all, what are friends for? I got you.”
“You’re the best,” Brianne said.
“Talk to you soon, promise,” I said.
“Bye.”
As the line went dead when Brianne hung up, I couldn’t help but feel an intense amount of guilt and fear. How on earth were we going to find Brianne? And how long do we have before Doctor King killed her?
Straight away, I went into Doctor mode. This was an emergency. Sure, it was an emergency that included one of my best friends, but it was an emergency all the same. I had to put aside all of my emotions and focus on doing what I had to to get her back as quickly as possible.
I dialed Violet’s number straight away.
“Yes?”
“He has Brianne,” I said.
“You are certain?”
“Absolutely. I think she’s in a car with him. How are we going to find her?”
“Brianne has an iPhone,” Violet said. “You would not by chance know her password, would you?”
“No,” I replied breathlessly. “Why?”
“The fastest way to track her will be by using ‘find your iPhone,’ especially if we know she still has it on her. Let me see if I can get into her account quickly. I will call you back shortly. Cassie, she will be alright. We will find her.”
Violet hung up the phone and I found myself pacing in front of the Chipotle on Baker Street, feeling completely useless.
Brianne was out there, having been taken by a serial killer, and it was all my fault. There was no doubt about that. Doctor King had almost certainly followed me from the hospital, and then seen me speaking with Brianne, and decided that it was probably safer to take her than to take me.
And after warning me that what I was doing was stupid and far too dangerous, too.
Wracked with guilt, I tried to figure out what could have happened. Brianne had been gone for fewer than five minutes when I called her, so there was a very limited period of time in which something bad could’ve happened.
In fact, she wouldn’t even have had time to walk up to Baker Street station. And the sounds on the phone were not those of someone who was in the underground. Besides, I didn’t think Doctor King would have kidnapped her there. The London Underground was covered in CCTV cameras, and up until now, we had had zero luck in finding him on tape. He obviously knew to stay away from the cameras, which meant that he would absolutely stay away from public transport.
That meant he had to have a car. That would make sense; it had seemed pretty quiet in the background when I was on the phone with Brianne, not at all like I would expect in the London Underground. But it did fit with a car.
I made my way up the street, looking around, trying to find somebody who might’ve noticed something. As I looked towards a bakery with a woman in the window kneading away at some dough, I smiled. Jackpot. Hopefully, she had
seen something.
I made my way into the bakery, where a different woman smiled at me.
“Hi there, what can I get for you today?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m wondering if either one of you happened to see a woman getting into a car near here maybe ten minutes ago?”
“A redhead?” The woman by the window asked and I nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes, her. What can you tell me? Please, it’s very important.”
“Well, a car pulled up next to her a few minutes ago. She didn’t look like she knew the driver, but he spoke to her for a minute, and then she got into the passenger seat.”
“What kind of car was it?” I asked.
“It was a late-model BMW five series, silver,” the woman replied. “That’s basically my dream car, which is why I noticed exactly what type it was.”
“Do you have any idea which way it went? And you didn’t catch the license plate number by any chance, did you?”
“Sorry,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have a clue. I didn’t think there was anything untoward about it, so the car just drove off. It did turn right on Marylebone, though,” she added.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” I said, rushing out of the shop as my phone began to ring. It was Violet.
“Do you have anything?”
“I have managed to access Brianne’s phone account. I have her phone. It was thrown out of the car she was in next to Great Portland Street station, with Doctor King most likely hoping that someone would pick it up and continue to use it.”
“I’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” I said, rushing out to the intersection and flagging down a cab.
“There’s an extra twenty in it for you if you get me to Great Portland Street station in two minutes,” I said to the cabbie. If it wasn’t for the fact that one of my best friends was in trouble, I would’ve felt totally cool using one of those classic moving lines. Rush hour was starting now, and this section of London was notorious for having bad traffic at the best of times, but my cabbie was definitely motivated to get me to Violet as quickly as possible. At one point he even went into the oncoming traffic lane in order to pass an exceptionally slow-moving delivery van.
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