Sarah grew silent and looked at Amanda. Amanda stood beside the kitchen table holding Mittens. She knew that if Conrad had truly shot Francis in his hand, and if Francis was wandering about in the snow wounded, the rules of the game would change. But she doubted that Francis was lost out in the snow babying a wounded hand. Surely the man had a safe location to go to. “Andrew, I'll call you back,” she said and quickly hung up the phone.
“What is it?” Amanda asked.
Sarah bit down on her lower lip and then ran over to the kitchen table, snatched up the black cell phone, and dialed Francis's number. Francis picked up on the fifth ring.
“You'll suffer for your actions, Detective!” he snarled into the phone when he answered it. Francis was holding his wounded hand under a stream of warm water running out of a bathroom faucet.
“You were nearly captured,” Sarah told Francis in a calm voice. “You have to be more careful, Francis. We still have to play your game.” Sarah picked up a brown coffee mug and took a sip of fresh coffee. “I've worked my way through square one and found the clue.”
Francis raised his eyes and studied the wooden logs that formed the bathroom walls of the cabin. The bathroom was roomy, cozy, fully furnished and stocked with every medical tool and medicine he needed to take care of his hand. “Oh?” he asked, grimacing in pain.
“Yes,” Sarah replied. “Well, to be honest, I believe I have located the first clue. I'm not arrogant enough to state for certain that I have.”
“What is the clue, Detective?” Francis demanded. He focused on a surgical kit. The surgical kit was sitting on a green bath towel he had placed over a wooden laundry hamper. Francis knew he had to remove the bullet from his hand and sew up his wound. He felt physically drained and unprepared to finish off the night, but he focused on the mental game with Sarah. “Answer me, Detective Garland.”
“Nathan Miles was killed on a Sunday. Today is Sunday,” Sarah tossed a weak but desperate idea into the air, hoping to pry information out of Francis. The truth of the matter was that she had no idea what clue to search for. The death of Nathan Miles branched off in so many directions that it would take a police squad years to re-investigate fully.
“Wrong,” Francis snapped at Sarah, feeling his body slowly defrosting. “I'm disappointed in you. Try again. You have until morning.”
“Why am I wrong?” Sarah pressed Francis. “You killed Nathan Miles and my ex-husband both on a Sunday. That's not a coincidence, Francis. You don't work off coincidences.”
Francis removed his hand from under the stream of water and wrapped a clean white pad of sterile gauze around it. “I admit that I killed your ex-husband on the same day as Miles as a message for you, Detective. But not the message you believe. The death of Miles and your ex-husband, both on the same day of the week, was my way of saying hello. I knew you would understand.”
Sarah heard Francis turn off the running water. “Did Conrad shoot you, Francis? Are you hurt?” she asked in a hopeful voice and then added: “Too bad he didn't end your worthless, miserable life.”
“Insults are weak,” Francis warned Sarah. “I would recommend you cease entertaining such petty things in your mind.”
“You're failing,” Sarah fired back. “You thought you were going to waltz into Snow Falls and terrorize every living person. Instead, you're facing stiff opposition. As a matter of fact, if it hadn't been for the error of one man, you would probably be dead right now. I seriously doubt Conrad would have taken you alive.”
“Detective Conrad Spencer is going to suffer heavily for daring to defy my orders and track me, Detective Garland. But, as I told him when I lay there in the snow: he is unfinished business that must be dealt with accordingly.”
Sarah heard fatigue grip Francis's voice. The man wasn't a spring chicken and being out in the storm had obviously taken a toll on him. She doubted Francis would venture back out into the snow anytime soon. “You're going to nurse your wounded hand and rest, Francis,” Sarah spoke in a calm voice. “You're not going to deal with anyone else tonight. Tomorrow you'll stay hidden and build up your strength. You'll come out of your snake hole when night arrives. You always kill at night, never in broad daylight.” Sarah decided to push at Francis. “I'll be ready for you tomorrow night.”
Francis felt his cheeks turn red with fury. “You believe you're a chess champion, Detective, because you caught the world's smartest killer. You're not. You're a worthless lackey who happened to—”
“Set a trap for the killer who took the bait?” Sarah interrupted. “You're not as smart as you believe you are, Francis. I caught you once and I'm going to catch you again.”
“We'll see,” Francis hissed. “Tomorrow night the game resumes.”
“I'm looking forward to it,” Sarah replied. “In the meantime, you can’t stop me from driving to the hospital to check on Detective Spencer.”
“Go on,” Francis hissed at Sarah. “Go run to your fake hero and tell him his days are numbered! But I warn you: be back at your cabin by morning or else.”
“By morning,” Sarah said and ended the call.
Francis tossed the cell phone he was holding down onto the bathroom floor and then turned on a black box sitting on the counter and began listening to every word that had been spoken in Sarah's cabin from the moment he left.
Amanda watched as Sarah set the cell phone down on the counter with satisfaction. “Love, please explain to me why you called that monster,” Amanda asked.
“I needed to press a few buttons,” Sarah explained, “and to see if Conrad really did shoot him. From the sound of his voice, it seems that Francis is in a lot of pain. I believe he's hurt. He won't be coming back out into the storm tonight. We have time to go see Conrad at the hospital.”
“In this weather?” Amanda asked. “The roads will be impossible to—”
Sarah threw up a quick hand and shook her head. She motioned at the storm still raging outside the window with her hands. “I'm sure my jeep will get through.”
“If you say so, love,” Amanda replied and made a confused face. “I'll get my coat.”
Sarah put on her coat and gloves and gathered Mittens into her arms. “Come on, sweetie, we're going to take a ride.”
Sarah hurried outside into the night. Amanda followed close behind. “Love—” she began to speak as she closed the back door. Sarah grabbed her hand and pulled her into the front yard. In the fierce winds, Sarah had to lean close to Amanda’s ear to be heard.
“I figured out the first clue,” she said over the howling winds. “I figured out the clue while I was speaking to Francis.”
Amanda shielded her face from the wind and snow. “I'm all ears, love, as soon as we get inside someplace that's warm.” Amanda pointed at Sarah's jeep. “The roads are impassable and the hospital is a good ways from your cabin. Please don't tell me you're thinking about walking,” she begged.
“No,” Sarah said. “I just needed to have a reason to leave my cabin without Francis becoming suspicious. He’s listening to everything.” Sarah walked Amanda to her jeep and climbed into the driver seat, turned on the engine, and got the heat going.
Amanda hurried into the passenger seat and slammed the passenger door shut. “Okay, love, I'm all ears,” she said, pressing her gloved hands up against the heat vents. The inside of the jeep felt like an iceberg.
Sarah focused on the hideous snowman standing in her yard. “Francis plans on killing me the way the killer in my book wanted to kill the main character. I'm certain of that now. However, the killer in my book—”
“Plays games. I know, I've read every one of your books,” Amanda reminded Sarah. “You mind is a bit twisted, love.”
Sarah set Mittens down in her lap. Mittens whined but accepted being sat down. “Francis is playing out my first book. But not in an obvious manner. He's not mimicking the killer in my book,” Sarah pointed out, “but he did build that gruesome snowman as a statement. The killer in my book leaves snowmen in the yards of his
intended victims. Francis strikes in silence and—”
“Love, please forgive me for being so dumb, but what does anyone of this have to do with Nathan Miles?” Amanda gently interrupted.
“Francis is playing out the killer in my book...the Snowman Killer, but in reverse,” Sarah explained. “You see, the killer in my book killed his victims in a certain letter pattern, right?”
“Yes...very creepy,” Amanda admitted.
“Okay,” Sarah continued, “the first letter of each victim’s name combined to form a message.”
“A very scary message,” Amanda added.
“So what if Francis killed his victims in the opposite order?” Sarah struggled to explain. “I don't know why that thought occurred to me while I was speaking with Francis, but it did.” Sarah pulled Mittens close to her stomach. “Nathan Miles...first letter N...” she continued. “Francis's message doesn’t begin with the letter N. It ends with the letter N.” Sarah continued to pet Mittens. “But Nathan Miles’ middle name was Edward.”
“So there are two possibilities?” Amanda asked.
Sarah nodded her head. “Yes, there are.” She looked at Amanda. “There's a notepad and pen in the glove compartment. Grab them for me.”
Amanda opened the glove compartment and retrieved a blue notepad and a gray pen. “Okay, love, I'm ready to get to work.”
“We have to write down the first letter in each victim’s name...and then we'll write down the first letter to their middle name,” Sarah explained. “I don't know why this didn't occur to me in Los Angeles,” she scolded herself.
Amanda tossed her thumb at the snowman perched in the front yard chewing on a peppermint candy cane. “Maybe you needed a visual effect to spark a fire in your mind, love,” she said and fought back a powerful shiver. “Only a deranged person could build such an evil snowman.”
Sarah allowed her eyes to look in the direction of the snowman. The snowman stood in the storm wearing its leather jacket, its candy cane sticking out of its mouth, standing as a deadly guard in the yard of a terrified, broken woman. “Maybe,” she whispered. “Okay, let's get to work.”
For the next two hours, Sarah and Amanda sat in the jeep writing down the names of Francis Clark's victims and then attempting to decode a message using the first letters of their first and middle names.
At first, they drew blanks, but then Amanda suggested they crisscross the letters. “We'll use the first letter of the name belonging to the last victim and then use the first letter of the middle name belonging to the second to the last victim,” she explained. “It’s like the names braid together.” Sarah agreed and together they wrote the names of each victim down again and followed Amanda's pattern. When Amanda wrote the last letter down, her eyes grew wide and white. “Uh...love...do you see what I see?” she asked.
“I see,” Sarah replied, barely able to speak. “I can't believe my eyes.”
“Me neither,” Amanda said, soaking in the message. “We're missing one last letter, though.”
“An S or a T...my first and middle initials,” Sarah told Amanda. “I guess...I was going to be Francis Clark's last victim. But I captured him before he could kill me. Now he's come to finish his message.” Sarah closed her eyes and saw Francis's sinister face appear in her tormented mind. “To catch a killer, go back to square one,” she whispered.
Amanda placed the notepad down on the seat and folded her arms. “Love, we're dealing with a monster,” she said in a shaky voice filled with fear. “We have to kill him or he's going to continue to kill. If we don't stop him...” Amanda couldn't finish her sentence.
“I know,” Sarah told Amanda in a weak voice. She opened her eyes and looked in the direction of the snowman. The snowman seemed to mock her from the middle of the snow-filled yard.
Far away in a rental cabin, Francis began removing a bullet from his hand. When he finished, he looked out the bathroom window and hissed in pain and frustration at how badly Sarah was managing to botch the game. He would not let her do so any longer.
Outside, the storm continued to scream and howl. When daylight arrived, the storm dug itself in stronger and continued to punish the little town of Snow Falls.
Chapter Seven
Sarah woke up feeling as if her mind was being tossed in a washing machine. It took her eyes a few minutes to recognize the bedroom she was resting in. For a minute, Sarah actually believed she was back home in Los Angeles sleeping in her old bed. In her mind, she saw warm, bright, Southern California sunlight breaking through the bedroom window, sunlight that wasn't harmed by the corrupt ways of man. The sunlight was pure, welcoming, kind and gentle—an old friend that had accompanied her through the streets of Los Angeles. “Brad, is the coffee ready?” she mumbled, half asleep. “Brad...Brad honey, go make the coffee...” Sarah mumbled again and slowly rose up to her left elbow and studied the bedroom. Suddenly the warm sunlight turned gray and icy; the silence was broken by screaming winds—the day filled with frozen snow instead of blue skies.
“I'll make the coffee,” a sleepy voice promised.
Sarah jerked and turned to her right. She spotted Amanda asleep next to her, wrapped up in a warm sleeping bag. As she looked at Amanda, her memory opened and she began to remember the nightmare Francis Clark had poisoned her heart with. “It's...okay, June Bug...I'll make the coffee,” she said and wiped her eyes.
“Didn't we just fall asleep?” Amanda fussed. “We talked until the sun came up.”
Sarah threw a thick blue blanket off her body and tossed her legs over the side of a comfortable bed with log frames. Feeling like a stranger in her own bedroom and a shadow in the gray light, she slowly stood up and brushed a few wrinkles out of the dress she had worn the day before. “I'm a mess,” she whispered and felt her hair. “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
Amanda grumbled something and tried to go back to sleep. But when the black cell phone on the nightstand beside the bed began to ring, her eyes shot open. “It's him,” she said in a panicked voice.
“It's okay,” Sarah promised.
“The message we discovered isn't okay,” Amanda reminded Sarah in a very low whisper and then pulled the sleeping bag over her head.
Sarah closed her eyes, listened to the winds howl and scream outside, and then slowly answered the incoming call. “I'm here, Francis.”
“Good,” Francis told Sarah, standing in a comfortable kitchen cooking himself an egg breakfast. “Here are the rules for today, Detective Garland, so listen very carefully.”
“I'm listening,” Sarah assured Francis as she fought back a yawn.
“Before I tell you the rules for today, I want to know if your pathetic mind somehow discovered the first clue?”
Sarah bit down on her lip. “I...need more time,” she said in a convincing voice that sounded like a plea. “You haven't given me enough time, Francis. Please, be fair.”
Sarah's answered pleased Francis. The storm had grown stronger and he wasn't strong enough to face the day until he allowed his body to rest for a few more hours. He wanted to eat and then go back to bed. Besides, a man standing in a kitchen wearing a white bathrobe wasn't exactly fit to run out into the snow and begin killing, now was he? “You're not as smart as I had hoped,” Francis taunted Sarah. “You have until the sun sets to find the clue or people will begin dying.”
“I'll—”
“You'll stay inside your cabin until the sun sets,” Francis interrupted Sarah. “You were right, Detective, about me planting a bug in your house. I've been listening to every word you've spoken.” Francis flipped a frying egg with a black spatula and focused his eyes on the window in the kitchen. The white nightmare raging outside no longer agreed with him. The storm had betrayed him. “If I hear a single door or window open in your cabin, Detective, I will detonate the explosives I have set in poor old Mrs. Raillings’ home. Are we clear?”
“We're clear.”
“Good,” Francis grinned, feeling confident that Sarah would obey
him. He needed to ensure the woman was locked inside her cabin with Amanda while he rested. “Tell your friend from London that she had better sit tight, too. If she doesn't, maybe I will make her husband suffer the consequence of you disobeying me?”
“We'll stay in the cabin until you call,” Sarah snapped.
“Watch your tone,” Francis hissed. “Detective Garland, there may have been minor setbacks yesterday, but I assure you that Francis Clark has regained his full potential and will be equipped to strike when the sun sets.”
“You're a diseased snake!” Sarah fired at Francis and quickly caught her tongue. “Oh, why do I bother to condemn you? You only understand two things.”
“Oh, and what are those two things?” Francis asked.
“Prison bars or a bullet,” Sarah informed Francis in a tough voice. “I prefer the bullet.”
Francis felt his temper rising. “Tonight, Detective Garland, you are going to die...after our game, of course. You're very important to me. You're the crown jewel and I will crown you with a splendid death,” Francis told Sarah, gripping his temper and keeping the full force of his fury at bay.
“I'll be waiting,” Sarah promised, fully understanding Francis's riddle.
“I know you will be,” Francis grinned. “When I'm finished with you, I'll begin a new quest, beginning with Detective Conrad Spencer. By the way, how is he?”
“He'll live.”
“Was your visit with him last night pleasant?” Francis actually laughed. “Oh, to be so close to capturing the famous Back Alley Killer. Please thank the Chief of the Police for me. After all, he did save me from being killed.”
Snowy Misery (Alaska Cozy Mystery Book 7) Page 10