Hunted: A Suspense Collection

by J. L. Drake

  Natalie watched Hallie trip and land on the mouldy forest floor and her heart broke. She stepped closer into Hallie’s line of sight, the desire to intercede becoming more insistent.

  “Hallie,” she whispered and her hand reached out towards the frightened girl. Hallie looked up. Her eyes wide. Her red hair danced about in the breeze. Her small body quivered in the night. She reminded Natalie of a hunted animal, which as she thought about it, she was.

  Natalie looked in Hallie’s liquid gold eyes and she felt cold. The girls face was as white as a geisha’s. Her chest rose and fell with each tired breath. But Hallie showed no sign she saw Natalie, the girl looking straight through Natalie as if she wasn’t there. Natalie frowned. She was after all a psychologist and it certainly didn’t require one to decipher her dreams. It was clear she wanted to save Hallie, save her from the Butcher—from the life that would follow her from this moment on. She wondered why she couldn’t.

  Frustrated, she didn’t notice Hallie skittering away from her. A moment later the air around her crackled and for the second time that night the hairs of her arms stood at attention. She struggled to listen and for the first time noticed the lack of sound. She could no longer hear the river or the sound of Hallie’s scared footsteps or even her own movements, as if she had gone deaf.

  Her heart began to pound as panic took over. Her nails dug into her palm, leaving little half-moon shaped marks in her skin as her senses were assaulted with the scent of rotten food, long forgotten. Natalie clutched at her stomach as an overwhelming sense of flight or fight came over her. She spun around and came face to face with the Butcher.

  The Butcher stood before her, close enough should she reach out she would be able to touch him. He looked towards her, their eyes meeting across the short distance and her heart stopped. He took a step closer, his entire focus on her. Unlike Hallie, he appeared to see her. All of her. His dark eyes drilled into her own. His mouth morphed into a smirk as if he could read the emotional scars inside of her and she desperately wanted to flee but her feet remained firmly planted on the ground.

  Her brain moved a mile a minute, processing everything around her. Under normal circumstances, she thought, the man could be quite handsome. He was young, maybe in his early to mid-twenties. He was of slim build with dark hair and she felt a niggling feeling inside her brain that she had seen him before. Her mind raced like a computer to match the appearance with the name. He seemed so familiar, someone she should know well. Unfortunately his appearance matched around fifty percent of the population and at least five men Natalie knew personally. None of which were this man.

  “I-I know you,” she stammered.

  “Do you?” was his gruff reply.

  Natalie felt the same recognition as she had before. She was so busy studying his face, searching for what she desired the most, that she didn’t see his hand thrust out until too late. A bright flash blinded her as the knife blade moved with deadly precision. A sharp burning pain pierced her stomach and she cried out. She clutched her stomach as blood poured from her wound. Tears glistered in her eyes as she looked up at the man who had taken her life. His eyes mocked her and his lips moved, an annoying shrill echoing as it left his mouth. She almost laughed. It looked so ridiculous, such a sound coming from his mouth. Her dazed mind clawed to make sense of what was happening. None of this made any sense. She was dreaming, wasn’t she?

  Natalie jerked as the phone beside her continued to ring. Her eyes widened in shock. The sound of her phone matched the Butcher’s last taunt perfectly. Fantastic. She had just given herself a nightmare. A very realistic nightmare, she thought, as she ran her hands over her stomach. Nothing. She let out a relieved breath. Not that she expected there to be any injuries but after playing Alice in Wonderland she wanted to make sure.

  Natalie looked down at the sketch of the Butcher and shook her head. She had been so certain in her dream that she knew the man. Of course she had recognised him. She had been staring at his picture right before she conked out.

  Natalie leaned over the bench to the relentless ringing phone and answered it. Whoever was calling her didn’t appear to be giving up any time soon. She might as well get it over with so she could go to bed. It had been a long and busy day and she wanted to be fresh for her meeting with her new patient in the morning.

  “Hello?” her voice sounded weird even to her. Natalie reached up to her neck and began massaging out the knots. She was scared, she admitted to herself. There was a reason she never watched scary movies. Her subconscious fitting herself into the storyline while she slept, determined to fight the bad guys and win. She knew the reason she did this. Repression wasn’t working as well as it used to. A part of her deep down wanted to confront the bogeyman. Even though the idea had her scared. She knew she would never be free until she did.

  Logic and emotion never went hand in hand. She may be scared but she was angry too—had been for most of her life. At those who were supposed to protect and hadn’t. She had no tolerance for any abuse and often donated her time and money to violence against women and children charities.

  “Hey gorgeous, what’re you doing?” An exuberant male voice came onto the line.

  Natalie bit back a grimace. Derek Butler—her sometimes date. He was good company and self-appointed himself as her entertainer yet she felt absolutely nothing for him. It was a shame. He seemed to be a nice enough man as far as she could tell but unfortunately he didn’t entice her.

  “Reading case files.” Or she had been before she had been sucked into the very realistic nightmare. Even now her heartbeat had yet to return to its regular rhythm. Natalie took a deep sip of her wine to fortify herself.

  “When aren’t you reading files?” She heard the exasperation and underlining frustration in his tone when he asked, “What are you doing Friday night?”

  Natalie found herself mentally reviewing her diary and sighed when she saw she had nothing booked out. When she tried to think of an appropriate lie none seemed forthcoming and she was at a loss. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. It was that she would rather stay home and work on her many cases. Especially now that Hallie Walker’s case had fallen into her hands.

  She had been dating Derek—using the term dating rather loosely—for the past few months. While she enjoyed his company and found that they had many things in common she was still holding back. She was also uneasy about taking their relationship to the next level. Or any level. Trust had always been an issue for Natalie, in the sense that she didn’t trust anyone.

  She knew Derek was getting impatient and she could sense the tension in him and force of will it took to keep his passions in check. She knew he was a virile man and would soon want to become physical with her and that particular thought wasn’t at all appealing to her. He should be appealing to her. Derek was almost six-foot with dark hair and eyes and was the epitome of a handsome man. The type of man women of all ages drooled over, except her.

  She felt nothing. No desire, no interest whatsoever. He just wasn’t what she was looking for. But then what was she looking for? Natalie wondered briefly at that question. She really had no idea but believed she would know it when she found it.

  One thing she was sure of was that Derek was not the man for her and she needed to stop being a coward and tell him that before he did the unthinkable and fell in love with her. She could not have that on her conscience.

  The psychologist in her told her to take risks, to live life to the fullest no matter what happened and not to let anything get her down. Easier said than done. No matter the situation she found herself in, her mind was always analysing, studying the human psyche of the people around her so much that she never relaxed. Some people she read like books and could see straight to their souls, others, like Derek were harder. It made her wonder what they were hiding beneath their easy smiles and laughing eyes.

  “Working I guess,” she said, her mind nagging at her to just end it with him. “I just took on a new client today and need
to establish a rapport with her. She’s a delicate case.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Derek asked, thinly disguising his frustration. “You work all week. You should let go on the weekend. There’s an event I’ve been invited to, black tie. Please be my date, even just to save me from going stag.”

  Natalie frowned. She didn’t like being pressured. “Like you’d remain alone for more than a millisecond. Women unconsciously flock towards you.”

  Derek chuckled and she immediately flashed to earlier in the day when another man had laughed in her presence and how that little sound had affected her. She reflected on the lack of feeling his chuckle created in her, adding it to the list of things against him. “There’s only one woman I want.”

  Natalie heard the intimate quality of his voice and wasn’t about to pretend she didn’t understand the meaning behind his words.

  “That may be but this woman is very busy.”

  Derek exhaled loudly. “You need a break, baby. This case can surely wait a few days. After all, you aren’t a surgeon or anything. No one is going to die without you.”

  Natalie stood. Her bottom numb from sitting on the kitchen stool. She felt the desire to call him a jerk. Little did he know or understand the pressures of her job. Sure she didn’t need to operate on anyone with appendicitis or heart complications but diagnosing her patient’s mental health was just as important. A few times she had been too late to save them. Not all her patients were like Billy. More than a few were bonafide nut-cases.

  Derek must have sensed her seething anger. “Is there anything I can do to persuade you? Whatever you want, baby, it’s yours. All you have to do is ask.”

  Natalie collected her recycling and trudged outside where she deposited in the large green bin. She didn’t want anything from Derek but he had been good to her. He had been kind and patient and accepted her many flaws. He deserved more than the brush off from her.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said reluctantly.

  “Thanks, babe. You know this means a lot to me. I’ll get you a dress. It’s a real fancy affair and I doubt you’ll have anything suitable in your closet.”

  So why are you dating me?

  The question lingered in her head. Derek was all suits and martinis whereas she was cotton pyjamas and microwave dinners. They couldn’t have been more different from each other, yet something about her had him coming back to her. She had no idea what that was.

  “I’ll see you around eight. Love you, babe.”

  Natalie cringed. It wasn’t the first time Derek had used the L word and she hadn’t returned the favour. She hadn’t been in love before, but she knew she wasn’t in love with Derek and in her heart she didn’t believe he was in love with her. After all, how can you truly love someone you know nothing about? She said goodbye to him in her usual manner, the one that left no doubt as to her lack of loving feelings and hung up.

  Natalie immediately put Derek and the approaching Friday evening out of her mind as she looked back at the gruesome photos laid out on her granite kitchen bench top one last time before she tucked them inside the manila folder. Her gaze fell upon the drawings Matt had mentioned earlier. Each picture depicted the night of her parents’ murder and had been painstakingly drawn in black crayon, the detail so fine it could easily be mistaken for a crime scene sketch.

  Natalie frowned as she came across another drawing. This one was unlike the others. She found herself staring at a cemetery. The picture had exquisite detail, each mark of the crayon so meticulously made Natalie could’ve been looking at a photograph. Whatever the significance of the drawing, it was clearly very important to Hallie. At first Natalie thought it had something to do with her parents but the main focus was of one particular grave. The stone was carved into a peculiar shape, one not common on gravestones. The etching was clear in the black crayon, it read:

  Here lies the body of Helen Teller.

  The drawing of the grave disturbed Natalie. For a brief moment she felt an unconscious pull to the picture. Who was Helen Teller? Why was she important to Hallie Walker? Natalie stared at the drawing for a full minute before she decided she was making too much of the grave. She was always looking to make sense out of things that made none. Not everything in this world fitted perfectly together with another like a jigsaw puzzle. Helen Teller was probably one of Hallie’s doctors, or a nurse at Paradise Valley. She could even be a fellow inmate whom Hallie disliked. Natalie made a mental note to ask the attending nurse if she had ever heard of the woman.

  Natalie put the drawings back in the file and picked up the only two photos in the file that weren’t of dead bodies or of the crime scene. Both were of Hallie. The first was twelve-year-old Hallie, the second as she was now—a seventeen-year-old. In both pictures her red-brown hair was untamed and framed her oval face. The younger photo showed a happy well-nurtured child of loving parents. The other showed serious amber eyes and a solemn expression that broke Natalie’s heart. She wore a light blue shirt with Paradise Valley Rehabilitation Centre emblazoned across the right breast. Here was the orphaned daughter of two murder victims.

  Natalie felt the tears burning behind her eyes. She put the photos down and decided she had enough for the night. She had more than enough information for the interview tomorrow. She got up and went to bed, only to wake up every few hours, her tired mind hearing phantom sounds echoing throughout her house. In her head she kept seeing the photos of Ian and Missy’s murdered bodies, the black and white drawings and the photo of the sad-faced girl standing all alone.

  Chapter 4

  Matt found himself staring down at the mutilated corpse of Marie Stanton. It reminded him of the Jack the Ripper cases in Victorian England. He only hoped they found the bastard soon. Her body had been stripped and washed, revealing the deep stab wounds marring her stomach and chest. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent.

  Matt had never liked being present for an autopsy. The whole thing brought death so much closer to reality for him, which he knew to be ironic since he was faced with death every day. He assumed he never thought of it that way before since when he was at a crime scene he was in cop mode, seeing everything from a detective’s point of view rather than from a man’s. When he was working a case, the people became victims, the facts of the case evidence and that was how he coped.

  Seeing poor Marie on the cold stainless steel table made it so much more real. He could smell the formaldehyde lingering in the air, the solution so strong he almost choked on it. He thought about her family and how they would try to make sense out of the tragedy. He wished them the best. God knows, his family never could understand how one simple trip to the liquor store had cost them their father and husband’s life. Over the years Matt had learned there were no reasons or explanations, just dumb luck at being at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

  Matt looked up from Marie’s body to look at the coroner, a man in his late fifties who had the poor fortune to resemble Colonel Sanders of KFC fame. His hair and beard was white and his thick framed glasses made his eyes bulge. The entire LAC called him Colonel or Sanders behind his back but to the man’s face he was always, respectfully, Doctor Neil Stone.

  Doctor Stone reiterated the facts to Matt, which he already knew since Darryl had given him a brief explanation. Matt was more interested to find out if there had been any fabric fibres or DNA found that had been handed over to forensics with the hope of shedding some light on the whereabouts of the perpetrator. There hadn’t been any, of course. The Butcher had been at this a long time. Long enough to know it wasn’t wise to leave calling cards for the police. That, or he had been watching more than his fair share of CSI.

  Matt felt the disappointment down to his toes. They really needed a break in the case. Something to give them a new perspective to explore. He hadn’t been lying to Doctor Miller when he said the case had gone cold. Try frozen. Even the tip line they had set up was yielding little results.

  The Butcher was still a ghost. There was
nothing the body could tell them that they didn’t know already. Marie had been murdered in a parking garage on her way to her car late at night. There was no video footage. The city was too cheap to put up CCTV cameras in the dark structure. Although Matt knew that would all change now. It always seemed to take an unfortunate incident to make the purse strings open. Not that it would do any good now that the damage had been done.

  Matt left Doctor Stone and Marie and made his way to the showers. The horrid scent of decaying flesh and death lingering in his nostrils made him want to gag. He nodded to a few colleagues as he walked past—some giving him a wide berth in the hallway, which only fortified his resolve to scrub down his skin with lemon juice. They all knew he had been given a shit of a case. They all knew the legend of the Butcher and Matt could see the relief in his fellow officers’ eyes when he had been the one to take the lead. No one wanted this case on their record. But for Matt he didn’t care because one day he would find the son-of-a-bitch and take him down.

  He didn’t care if it took the rest of his life to close the case so long as he closed it. He wasn’t one to be concerned about his record. He wasn’t keeping a tally or making bets to beat the quickest closure. He did his job. He closed cases, sometimes fast, sometimes after they’d long been cold. Matt was in it for the victims. For the families left behind and to put the scum who had hurt them behind bars. He wasn’t looking for media coverage or shiny medals and commendations. He wasn’t an ambitious man, completely content to stay exactly where he was for the rest of his life. He felt he was doing more as a detective than he ever could as Superintendent or Commissioner. Besides, he didn’t think he could stomach the duties.