by J. L. Drake
Chapter 32
Natalie spun around to face the man and her breath caught in her throat as she watched the figure all decked out in black come forward in the light. His face was not covered. He was not a common burglar no matter how he was dressed. She looked into cold dark eyes and shivered. She swore the devil looked back at her.
“Stepfathers haven’t a chance with you. You know dear old dad only came to apologise to you. I believe it’s all part of his twelve-step program and you had to kill him,” he scolded.
Natalie darted a look at the still figure. Blood gathered on his head where the bat had connected and tears spilled over onto her cheeks. Her body trembled and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
She knew tonight was the night she would die.
“Do you know who I am, Natalie?” he asked. His dark black stare bored into her.
She tried to look away, to look at anything but him, but those obsidian ovals kept her there. Natalie attempted to calm herself. She could feel the fearful sweat coat her skin and endeavoured to level her voice as her brain tried to deny what her eyes saw.
“Henry Rellet.”
The eyes and hair were different but she still recognised him. No wonder his honey hair had looked so off on him. He had obviously been wearing a wig—not to mention contacts—in her company.
Henry Rellet AKA the Butcher smiled coolly at her, as if she was some child who’d just answered a question correctly. He looked so far removed from the man who had sat in her office that for a second she wondered at him having a twin. Only then did she remember his transformation a few days before.
“And before that?”
Natalie trembled. She was going to die. She saw it all clearly now. That one piece of the puzzle she’d known she knew. That one damn piece that would make everything fall together neatly.
Henry screamed at her. “And. Before. That?”
Natalie could feel the tears threatening to spill out. She blinked them back, her voice quivering as she spoke.
“Harry Teller. Helen Teller’s son.” How had she missed that? She wondered. Rellet was the reverse of Teller. It was almost as if he was asking to be found, deliberately taunting her.
Harry Teller nodded enthusiastically. He was enjoying himself, enjoying tormenting her. Natalie pleaded with her feet to work as Harry looked about her kitchen, his gaze settling on her knife block. Natalie didn’t wait around for what would evidently come next. She took off running towards the door.
Harry moved quickly, as if he was a panther and she his prey he wanted to toy with before ultimately killing. He grabbed hold of her and jerked her back by her hair. Natalie screamed and struggled, her arms flailing about wildly as she tried to free herself. His hands tightened painfully around her.
She could see it so clearly now. How he would move around the country unnoticed like a nomad, stalking his victims before killing them. He’d be out of town before the body was discovered, except this time—this time was different and she shuddered thinking about why. Her thoughts suddenly left her as she was pushed back into the wall. Her head bounced off the drywall as she was unprepared for the shove and pain erupted in her head.
“No, Natalie. That ruins everything,” he admonished.
He produced a roll of duct tape from his clothes and taped her wrists together. She could feel the sticky residue tugging painfully at the small hairs it found there. He glared at her as he pushed her onto the stool in her kitchen. He made a show of revealing his knife, allowing the moonlight streaming through the window to flash across the stainless steel blade.
“Is it pissing you off that I’m not begging for my life?” she asked calmly.
He sneered and arrogantly said, “You think that’s going to work? I know you’re scared of me, Natalie. I can smell your fear from here.”
“Of course I’m scared. I’m bound defenceless while you have a knife,” she shivered at that. “But I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of hearing me beg. You know it’s not really sportsmanlike to bind my wrists. Are you that intimidated by me that you need to handicap me?”
That’s nice, Natalie, stroke the bear.
Pissing off the sadistic killer standing in your kitchen waving a knife about was not the way to ensure a long and healthy life. Harry smiled, flashing his blindingly white teeth and Natalie caught sight of his exceptionally long canines.
“I’m told your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. Do you see your life flashing before your eyes, Natalie?”
She resisted the urge to gulp. “A lot of things are flashing before my eyes. It’s hard to pinpoint a certain event.”
But she could see her life clearly. Splashing around the bathtub pretending to be a beautiful mermaid. Her beloved aunt and uncle. Her home. The office she had worked so hard to obtain. Matt’s green gaze smiling at her. Matt kissing her. A tear spilled over onto her cheek.
“Tell me, how does it feel knowing I could’ve ended your life at any time? During any one of those useless sessions? Did you even realise all those women I told you about were my many conquests?”
Natalie felt the blood leave her face. Her mind raced as it fought to remember every word he’d ever said. No wonder he never used names during their sessions and she thought about the hospital worker and her mind flashed on Marie Stanton. Then only days ago the blonde he was raving on about. She immediately knew that Linda Cavanaugh had been a blonde and she felt sick to her stomach.
“You killed your mother, didn’t you? Tortured her like you’ve done so many others, like you plan to do to me.”
“She was a horrible woman. She made me love her and gave nothing in return. I did everything she ever wanted but it was never good enough. I tired of being second fiddle to her work and her men.”
She felt his rage at his mother. It was palpable. Natalie wondered if when Harry looked at her if he was actually seeing her or Helen. She guessed he saw his beloved mother. The woman who had inadvertently brought about so many deaths. Natalie saw it in her mind. How it had been for little Harry Teller, the neglected boy longing for his mother’s love and approval? But eventually the hatred for his mother rose and grew into an adolescent revenge.
“Do you know what she’d do to me if I was less than perfect? She’d beat me, burn me and lock me away in the cupboard. She used me as a prop, so others would think how wonderful, how maternal she was.”
Natalie understood him all too well and it made her sick. She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. She had experienced an almost identical childhood to Harry. How close had she been to losing her path as he had done? Had it been the fact that her father had been there for a time to give her love and later her aunt and uncle? It was scary to think that she could have easily shared the same fate as Harry. It was scary what changed a person so completely that they turned into cold-blooded psychopaths.
Harry had been so isolated from love and she felt for the boy. She didn’t want to be sympathetic but her heart ached for him. The child. She didn’t feel anything but anger to the man.
“Did Ian know?”
Harry’s dark glower bored into hers and she refused to show any emotion. His mouth twisted in amusement. “She couldn’t hide it. It was her nature to seek and destroy me until she once again needed me.”
Natalie closed her eyes for a moment. She knew Ian hadn’t said anything. Reports of abuse would have arose during the murder investigation. She shuddered. The pregnancy. Hallie. Ian and Missy raising her together. Helen had bought Ian’s silence with their baby. Harry had suffered because Ian had wanted to protect his daughter. Harry had killed his mother because she was incapable of loving him. He had resented the fact that she chose work over him and probably projected her failings as a mother onto all those unfortunate woman—on her.
Natalie watched as Harry paced the floor in front of her. She let her gaze drift about the room looking for a weapon or something to help her remove the duct tape. She hated the thought that she was ab
out to die because Harry saw her as an unfeeling, career driven woman. She wasn’t.
“You killed Ian because he knew the truth and had done nothing to help you, didn’t you? You punished his daughter, your half-sister, for something she had no control over.”
Natalie remembered the reports she had read about the Walkers, how they were such a loving family. The perfect unit, Hallie had everything Harry always wanted: someone to love him. It must have eaten away at him for years seeing his little sister in the newspaper surrounded by such happiness.
Eventually the abuse and lack of emotion in his household had led to murder. The crime scene photos flashed before Natalie’s eyes and her breathing stuttered. She could see the bloody and mutilated body of Helen Teller lying on the floor. The blood that had seeped out of her body dried on the wood, marring the boards. She watched as the murder played out before her eyes as if a movie. A thirteen-year-old Harry stabbing his mother with a kitchen knife again and again before moving the blade to her throat. At the power he found, the lust of the kill.
Harry grabbed her shoulders hard and she could feel his fingers digging into her skin. She bit her lip so not to give him any pleasure at hearing her pain.
“When I’m done with you, I’m going to her,” he promised. He must’ve seen her sceptical look because he moved closer to her until their heads were almost touching. “Don’t believe me? I’ve seen her sleeping at night. She looks so much like Ian, don’t you think? I plan on taking my time with her. You’re nothing compared to her. An entrée to the main course and I plan on ripping out her heart.”
She shivered at his tone. He was anticipating the meeting with sick interest. Natalie thought about Hallie and how truly defenceless she was in there. Hallie thought she was safe. She wasn’t. She was vulnerable. Natalie felt the anger rise in her, the need to protect Hallie stronger than her fear.
“You will never get to her,” she vowed.
Chapter 33
Matt felt useless. He tried calling Natalie’s number again only for it to go straight to voicemail. His entire body was ice cold and he couldn’t help seeing the murdered body of Linda Cavanaugh and then before his eyes she wasn’t Linda anymore but Natalie. Her perfect skin marred by stab wounds, her throat slit ear from ear.
He couldn’t shake the fear that thought brought him. He pressed down harder on the accelerator, the Commodore running through the red light narrowly missing a car turning. The idiot had the nerve to honk his horn at him and Matt resisted the urge to flip him the bird. Did the guy not understand that a life was on the line? People these days just didn’t care unless of course it was happening to them. That was the one thing he hated about being a cop. So many people were in it for themselves and everybody else be damned. It was the reason the human race was going down the shitter.
His lights were flashing almost psychotically as he drove. He had refrained from using the siren since he didn’t want to alert Harry Teller to his presence before he was ready. He’d seen enough hostage situations go belly-up because the cops had rushed in without taking their time to assess their options. Without doing recon he could be signing Natalie’s death warrant—if she wasn’t dead already. He prayed he would make it in time. He’d lost his father because of a two-bit punk. He wasn’t prepared to lose Natalie. Especially now that he’d only just found her.
I love her.
The thought appeared in his head out of nowhere. Matt knew it to be true. There was no way he could deny it, even if he so desired which he realised he didn’t. He loved her and didn’t care who knew. He’d never met a woman who could turn him on with just a look. One who could make him laugh and exasperate him to the point that he was about to lose his sanity. One who was not just beautiful but smart as well. He needed her.
He had known that when he found the right woman he would fall hard and here he was about to lose her. With him only now realising the depths of his feelings. He should’ve realised that first day in her office that she would become important to him. Maybe he’d loved her from the moment she had looked up at him and become breathless. She was a part of him and if he lost her, he doubted that his heart would ever recover. Not that he would want it to. Not without Natalie to fill it with love.
Matt turned the corner fast and he was glad for the tactical driving course he’d been required to take, manoeuvring his car like it was Bathurst 1000. He would be at Natalie’s house soon. Perspiration coated his forehead as he fought to keep control of the vehicle at the high speed. Only another five, maybe ten minutes to go.
Please let her be okay.
Chapter 34
Harry gave her a cruel smile. One that sent chills racing down her back. Natalie kept her back straight, her gaze unwavering as she tried to act more confident than she felt. She may have promised to keep him away from Hallie, but what hope did she have? She was bound and defenceless and he was sure to tire of her soon and kill her. That gives Hallie a few hours, she thought. She had read the police reports. Stab wounds in the double digits. That took time. She tried not to imagine how much that was going to hurt.
Natalie wished she’d caught the signs earlier. If only she had remembered to follow up on the behavioural change of ‘Henry’ when she had the chance. She blamed herself. Had she been paying closer attention she should’ve been able to see what lurked beneath that forgettable exterior. If she had, tonight certainly would’ve gone different. Instead of being held captive, she could’ve wiled away the time waiting for Matt to call.
Matt. They had come so close last night to figuring it all out. She had no doubt that given time he would get to the same conclusion she had. He was a brilliant detective. He would work her murder. She just had to figure out how to ensure there was enough evidence to lead him straight to Harry. She trusted him to see that she got justice and that Harry burned in Hell for his crimes. She only hoped it was before he got to Hallie.
They had to protect Hallie.
Natalie felt the cool blade tease against her arm. She froze, her breath catching in her throat making it hard for her to breathe. Tears rolled down her cheek, Natalie no longer able to hold them back.
“I can see your fear now. You know what’s coming, don’t you? The pain. The begging. You’re going to be thankful when I cut your throat.”
The image was sharp in her mind, just as he had planned. Years of training and patience went out the window. She could no longer be understanding and non-judgmental. She was going to die and the last thing she would see was Harry Teller, her murderer. Natalie felt the fear the other women must’ve known and felt a kinship with them. They hadn’t deserved to die, just as she didn’t.
She lashed out. “You’re nothing but a sick demented fuck who should’ve been institutionalised at birth. I bet your mother was glad when you ended her life. You freed her from your paltry presence.”
Abruptly, Harry moved and in a blink of an eye his knife was against her throat. She could feel the cold steel of the blade biting into her flesh and the warm trickle of blood running down from the point of the knife. She cried out, fear temporarily paralysing her.
“Will you be as glad when I remove you from this earth?” he snarled.
Natalie quickly assessed the situation. Her training told her to continue to anger him. To push him over the edge. He got off on fear and she was feeding him. She struggled to mask it.
“If it means not having to deal with your pathetic life any longer, then yes. Do it, Harry. Kill me.”
She would rather a quick death than a slow and drawn out one.
Harry’s mouth curled in distaste. She knew the night was not going according to his plan and she smiled. She felt oddly disjointed from the world. The knowledge of death creeping closer was surreal. She felt the odd need to laugh. Hysteria—she knew the symptoms immediately.
She didn’t fear death. The only thing she thought about was Matt. She was thankful she had the chance to meet him. She was glad she had overcome her fear and allowed him into her life. The time sh
e had spent with him was worth every moment of pain she had ever experienced. She loved him with her entire heart and felt another tear fall, just one. The last one. A tear for Matt.
She loved him. Why hadn’t she realised that before and why now when she was about to die did her heart decide to tell her? In a flash, she knew. Her knee came up and rammed into Harry’s groin. He cried out in pain and dropped to his knees to clutch at the family jewels. Natalie shot up off the stool. Her feet barely touched the ground before he grabbed her ankle hard. His hand, like a manacle, sent her hurtling towards the floor. Her knees and elbows connected with the wood panelling, bringing about a numb tingle in her joints as they absorbed the shock. Harry moved over her. Pain was etched on his features. There was lust in his eyes and rage emanated from his pours.
He reached for his knife, once again moving it towards her. He raised it, preparing to plunge the blade into her body. Natalie started to shake uncontrollably. She bucked beneath him, hoping to knock him off balance.
A sound of wood cracking had them both looking up towards the kitchen door that led to her back garden and the world spun as she was hoisted to her feet by Harry’s easy strength. As her vision cleared, her gaze found Matt standing in the ruin of her doorway. His service weapon, a Glock 23, was aimed straight at Harry. The look on his face left no doubt whether he would shoot to kill.
Dazed, she realised her new position. She stood between Matt and Harry, acting as Harry’s shield. Her back was against his chest and his knife at her neck. Harry spoke first, his voice cold and commanding.
“Drop it, Detective. Drop it or I drop her.”
Matt held his hands up in surrender and dropped the gun on the floor. He kicked it away. “Let her go.”
“No,” Harry screamed. “I’ll never let her go. She’s mine.” He turned his body to the side and faced her, she assumed so he could look into her eyes as she died.