BURN IN BELL

by Jeremy Waldron

  I was looking forward to it, was excited to get to know Avery better, thrilled to be pulled deeper into King’s life. We moved to the table and King made me coffee. When our eyes met, there was a serious look in his that gave me pause.

  He asked, “You remember the Pillow Strangler?”

  I did. “Orville Boyd,” I said, recalling who the police’s primary suspect was. “Is that who killed Peggy?”

  King’s eyelids hooded over his irises and I was afraid of what he might say next.

  Then my entire day’s plans changed when he said, “We think he’s back.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The Shadow Stalker ironed his hand down the front of his cotton shirt—the touch suddenly transporting him back to last night. His shirt had a similar feel to the pillow he used to smother Mrs. Peggy Hill, and it was the same incredible sense of euphoria he longed to feel again.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and spun around in a complete rotation. He smiled into the ceiling, expressing the feeling of joy he had when knowing he took someone else’s life. Because of it, he felt empowered, reawakened—like he’d been given a second chance at life.

  Suddenly, he slammed his feet to the ground and stopped his chair from spinning. Turning his head toward the softly playing radio, he paused to listen to the morning’s newsflash.

  He’d been waiting all night to hear his name being called, had ensured that he’d make the morning news cycle by making an anonymous call to send the inspector to Peggy Hill’s house last night. He wanted to be recognized as the best, wanted the inspector’s friends to know who he was. Yet as he listened to the news, he couldn’t believe there wasn’t one mention of his kill.

  “How could this be?” His words fluttered softly over wet lips. “It was the perfect attack. What did I do wrong?” His call. His anonymous call wasn’t urgent enough. It had kept the media away.

  Grumbling, the Shadow Stalker felt more than inadequate. If he couldn’t even get the attention of local media outlets, how could he ever expect to gain the attention of Inspector Alex King?

  Tucking his chin, he lowered his brow reminding himself to be both patient and persistent.

  It was important he remembered this was only the beginning of his journey. There was still time. If his first kill didn’t produce the desired outcome, another certainly would.

  “The world needs to see that I exist,” he said.

  As soon as the news was over and the radio switched back to playing music, the Shadow Stalker leaned back into his chair and forced his shoulders to relax. A minute later, the room darkened and he was oblivious to his surroundings.

  Living in a constant state of daydream, his thoughts soon shifted to the old woman Peggy Hill. He thought how devastated her daughter must be to learn that she was dead.

  A part of him wished it wasn’t necessary to affect so many lives only to satisfy his own selfish need to get close to Alex King. But it was impossible to do anything without the ripples of consequence fanning across the waters of life.

  His hands ironed down his thick thighs, his fingers curling over his kneecaps.

  As the walls surrounding him grew quieter, it was impossible for his thoughts not to scramble their way back to the inspector. The Shadow Stalker wondered how long it would take for Alex King to learn he was behind the murder. He thought his clues were obvious, but perhaps not.

  Then he thought about Angelina Hill and smiled. “If only I could have seen both your faces during your time of reunion.”

  Spinning in his chair, he laughed when imagining the old feelings Alex and Angelina once shared resurface again. Memories like what they shared were impossible to erase. The Shadow Stalker planned to use that to his advantage.

  He closed his eyes and imagined fireworks lighting up the night’s sky. The vivid image of Alex and Angelina being together once again was powerful enough to elicit a joyous celebration. The foolish part of him expected to receive a thank you card in the mail—perhaps even an invitation to their future wedding.

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself.” He laughed, as he often did.

  But he was having a great deal of fun imagining the future he wanted to share with the inspector. “Oh, the wave it will cause in your current relationship with Samantha.” He smirked.

  A knock on his door. He swiveled around to see who it was.

  “I thought you’d be interested in this,” the face at the door said.

  The Shadow Stalker rolled his chair across the floor and took the flier to Sunday’s marathon into his hands. His face was bright with possibility. “Thank you.”

  If it wasn’t obvious enough he was coming after King, then perhaps his next kill would be more precise. After all, patience was the key to a successful reunion and friendships took time to build as he slowly worked his way into King’s inner circle.

  There was still so much work to do. He could hardly wait to get started.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Once back at the car, I dropped into the driver’s seat with Erin staring at me like I had a hole in my head. Her painted fingernails tapped on the center console in an even rhythm of annoyance.

  “Sorry it took so long,” I said.

  I knew we were on a deadline—hadn’t forgotten about our arrangement to have Walker shadow us for the day—but my relationship with King always came first. No matter what.

  “You want to talk about it?” she asked, turning her attention to her cellphone.

  Sliding the key into the ignition, I just wanted to get going. I hadn’t meant to stay so long; just wanted to know King was alive and well. Angelina had changed everything.

  “He’s working a new case we might be interested in looking into.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Erin rolled her eyes to me and quirked a brow.

  I stared into her shimmering irises with question marks practically flashing across her gaze.

  “I’m talking about the gorgeous woman I saw leave the house.”

  My lungs squeezed out a wheezy breath that immediately gave away my insecurities. I held her gaze and listened to the local morning talk show play in the background as the host discussed mayor Noah Goldberg’s police body cam measures, arguing if it was actually making the city safer or doing the opposite.

  Finally, I gave in. “Her name is Angelina Hill.”

  Erin gave me a look that suggested she thought my man was wandering off the reservation. There was no way I could mention King’s past engagement now—didn’t want to inflate the potential for added drama—so instead, I glanced to Erin’s phone and said, “Mrs. Peggy Hill, Angelina’s mother, was murdered last night.”

  Erin’s face tightened—I could see her already getting to work. “Any suspects?”

  “King has a theory the killer might be someone they couldn’t convict six years ago.” I shared the name Orville Boyd and continued, “Same MO—targeting older women in their sleep, suffocating them with their own pillows.”

  Thinking six years back, struggling through my own depression with the loss of Gavin, I remembered how this particular case destroyed King’s confidence in his ability to do good police work. The press, including the Times, had called the police incompetent with how they were handling the investigation, unable to make an arrest. Then Erin asked something I wished she didn’t.

  “So why bring a material witness to his house? Shouldn’t he have conducted the interview at the station?”

  I put my foot on the brake and the car into gear. “It’s a long story.”

  “Is it one we can share with Walker? I’d like to show him just how good we are.”

  I was afraid of damaging King’s case before it had a chance of getting off the ground—if there even was an investigation underway. But mostly I was terrified that if the Pillow Strangler was indeed back, we’d scare him into hiding before King had a chance to catch him, redeeming himself for past failures.

  “Let’s just keep this between us until King says
otherwise.” I eased my foot off the brake and set the wheels in motion.

  Erin rubbed her forehead and reluctantly agreed. “But mark my words Sam, as soon as we find ourselves even just a little bit involved, we’re diving in headfirst.”

  If only she knew how involved I already was.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Walter Walker’s office was in the Denver Tech Center, a business and economic trading hub home to several major businesses and corporations in the southeastern corner of the city. This part of town was always busy and traffic was ruthless but we made it there with minutes to spare.

  “You can at least pretend to want to be here,” Erin said to me as we boarded the elevator on our way up to meet Walker.

  I was staring at the floor, thinking how Walker was already a hindrance to our job. But maybe my distraction was really about Angelina. I couldn’t stop seeing the ring or hearing King say he would call her to tell her what she had forgotten. I regretted the decision to not do it myself, but it was really none of my business.

  I asked Erin, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Erin had a nice inheritance from the death of her father, and though I didn’t know the details to that story, I assumed by Erin’s willingness to accept outside investment was because what she had didn’t come close to what Walker was willing to offer us.

  “No.”

  Her answer surprised me. “Then why are we here?”

  “Think of it like this—” She stepped closer, wanting me to look her straight in the eye. “We’re dating. Feeling him out to see if we’re a good fit. And if we are,” she smiled, “why not allow him to help us fulfill our dreams?”

  Keeping my eyes locked with hers, I knew Erin could see that I was scared of getting what I wanted. Maybe she was too, though she never said it in those terms.

  The elevator ride up to Walker’s office floor was quick. Once we slowed to a stop, Gemma Love was standing at the doors, greeting us by our first names.

  She was welcoming and cordial but I couldn’t help but notice that her smile never hit her eyes. Once again, I felt my walls of protection go up around me. Gemma had a knack for making me feel like I was the subject of her own private investigation. I couldn’t explain it, or why Erin didn’t seem to feel the same.

  We moved down the hall and Erin chatted up Gemma as we were led deeper into the bowels of Walter Walker’s headquarters. She felt right at home—her business sense shining bright—where I naturally slinked back into my role as a journalist, looking for someone to interview in an attempt to uncover the dirt hidden inside these walls.

  Keeping one ear on what they were saying, I made note of everything I saw.

  Walker portrayed narcissism at every corner I turned. There were portraits of himself, him photographed shaking hands with other famous and prominent people. Glitter, glamour, and gold. Walker was everything that I was not.

  I would never date this guy, I thought, thinking about Erin’s dating analogy.

  We couldn’t be more opposite. This guy had more money than I could ever imagine and he wanted to work with us. Why? Did something happen to him that made him want to seek justice for others? Or did he inflict some kind of pain and suffering on others and now wanted to cancel out his wrongs? I didn’t know, but maybe I’d just found my first clue.

  Halfway down the hall, I stopped to stare at a Sherlock Holmes watercolor painting. It was marvelously done, but the meaning couldn’t have been more glaringly obvious.

  “It’s just the two of us most of the time.” Gemma turned back to look at me, as if to say it was just she and Holmes working together when Walker was jet-setting across the globe.

  Erin followed Gemma as they both floated toward me. Erin asked, “Is Mr. Walker currently exploring other investments?”

  Gemma smirked. “When it comes to business, Walter is a consulting detective who has a knack for sniffing out the winners.”

  Gemma stood beside me and gave me a knowing look.

  I turned back to Holmes, who was also a consulting detective, though fictitious, and admittedly had trouble trusting women. Did Walker share the same trait? It would have been quite the contradiction if he did, considering his assistant was female and he was actively recruiting us. Nonetheless, I made a mental note of it and filed it away to reference for later.

  “Mr. Walker has associates around the globe, but I’ll let him tell you about his other ventures if he so desires.” Gemma wagged her head, anxious to move the train forward. “Come. Walter will meet us in the fishbowl shortly.”

  I took one last glance at Holmes before turning upstream. Gemma’s hips swayed like the waves of an ocean as she drifted confidently into the conference room where bottles of water and a platter of fruit and bagels were waiting.

  There were two folders, one with each of our names on it. I asked about them as soon as I saw them.

  “Those are meant for inspiration,” Gemma said, gently pushing Erin’s toward her.

  Gemma’s eyes lit up but her tone was patronizing and peppered with superiority. Again, more traits of Holmes I couldn’t ignore.

  Brushing Gemma’s tone off, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to open my folder. Inside was a list of unsolved cases. I thumbed through them. Some were in Denver, others throughout the state of Colorado. There were also a few in other states, but there was enough evidence to highlight one glaring fact I couldn’t ignore. All of the cases in Denver were one’s I knew King had been assigned to work himself—and all of them were still considered open and unsolved.

  Was that what this was about? Did Walker want to expose me to King’s flaws? Or was I reading too much into his intention?

  When Erin lowered herself into a chair, I swept my gaze across the room and found myself staring at a corkboard tacked with crime scene images. Then a headline I recognized caught my attention—ARE DENVER DETECTIVES TO BLAME?

  My heartrate kicked up a notch when Gemma distracted my thoughts.

  “Walter is beyond excited to be joining you two today.”

  “What we do,” I turned to look Gemma in the eye, “it’s really not that exciting.”

  Gemma smirked and sharpened her gaze. “Working with Walter, it’s always exciting.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I was standing at the corkboard, attempting to dull my senses when glossing over the graphic images of a slaughtered woman who had been brutally murdered at the hands of her captor, when Walter Walker entered the room.

  Between the graphic images was the headline to the article I’d written.

  It was like entering the war room to an active investigation—reliving the horrible nightmare as if it happened yesterday.

  I heard Walker greet Erin behind me as I was trying to wrap my brain around what exactly Walker was attempting to connect to a case that happened so many years ago.

  My eyes traveled over the woman whose breasts had been cut off. I asked myself if this was an unsolved case or just something Walker found interesting. The victim’s skin was scarred with cigarette burns and it had zero connection to my article Walker displayed with it.

  I flicked my attention to a photograph of a beautiful young woman staring brightly into the camera, so full of life. Naturally, my heart ached for her loss. But I couldn’t find any explanation to why my article was linked to her death.

  I sidestepped and re-read what I had written four years prior. A woman was brutally sexually assaulted and left for dead in a ravine. There was an outcry from the public and, though there was plenty of evidence to suggest the police should have made an arrest in the case, they hadn’t. Instead, I had uncovered how the investigators working the case drastically mishandled key evidence, all but ruining any chances of finding out who was responsible for the woman’s death.

  Remembering it as if it was yesterday, I blamed myself for not keeping the pressure on the police department to pursue the person responsible. It was my responsibility and I’d failed. The leads and evidence drying up an
d with the lack of interest by my senior editors. Not long after, she was all but forgotten…until now.

  Walker eased his way closer and I heard his light footsteps approaching just before he filled the empty space to my right. We both stared at the board in silence for a solid minute before he said, “I keep thinking that one day the answer will just click.”

  I wondered how many hours he had worked on this case himself. Collectively, the case had thousands of hours already attached to it with nothing to show for the effort.

  “You have an interesting infatuation for cold cases,” I said, still feeling reserved about working with him.

  I didn’t like how he pushed his way into our world. He had Erin by the pigtails and she was already seeing us dancing on the national stage. But not me. I planned to pick Walker apart and do proper vetting without Erin swaying my opinion before I had time to decide myself whether or not I wanted to work with Walker.

  Walker turned to me and said, “It’s not much different than your own, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I wouldn’t say. We’re nothing alike.”

  Walker smirked and turned back to face the board.

  Who was this guy? What did he truly hope to achieve by bringing us into his circle? It certainly wasn’t about money. He had plenty of that. Fame? He had that, too. What then? The truth? The truth to what?

  “Did you look at the folder I prepared for you?”

  I nodded.

  He gave an arched look. “And?”

  I stepped one foot back and turned to face him. “Have you ever thought that maybe some cases are meant to be left unsolved?”

  He barely reacted. “I don’t believe you mean that.”

  I asked, “You want to know the truth?”

  “I do.”

  I glanced to Erin who was busy discussing something with Gemma. “The truth is, Erin wants this more than I do.”

  “And what is holding you back?”