“I...sure, yes, okay,” Sarah promised. “I'll send Pete...alone,” she said in a trembling voice to convince Francis she was telling the truth.
“Oh, human emotion is so crippling, isn't it, Detective? I'm holding you captive because you care about a worthless life.”
“Mrs. Raillings is a person who did nothing to deserve this kind of foul, evil torture,” Sarah told Francis deliberately making her voice shaky. “I'll...send Pete. Please, just don't hurt Mrs. Railings.”
“Good,” Francis said, spotting a nurse counting pills at a medicine cabinet. He put her to sleep and then wandered up to a nurse walking out of a patient’s room and put her to sleep. “The element of surprise,” he grinned and peeked his head into the patient's room and spotted an old man sawing logs. “Pete has one hour.”
“One hour,” Sarah replied.
“I know Pete is going to try and pull a trick out of his hat,” Francis told Sarah. “But warn him that if he attempts to be a hero, I will kill Detective Spencer.”
“I'll warn him...but I can't promise that he'll play by your rules, Francis.”
“Oh, he will,” Francis grinned and ended the call.
Sarah threw the ugly cell phone down onto the table and ran to the phone hanging beside the refrigerator, yanked it up, and called Andrew's cell phone. “Andrew, Francis is at the hospital. Get all the men you can find and start making your way to that location.”
“Are you sure?” Andrew asked, climbing onto a neon orange snowmobile. “Sarah, are you sure?” he yelled over the howling winds and falling snow.
“Yes!” Sarah hollered into the phone. “Francis is at the hospital. Go!”
Sarah slammed down the phone, turned to the refrigerator, and snatched up a photo of her and Brad standing on a warm beach that had hung from a magnet for as long as she had owned the cabin. She flipped the photo over and pulled off a round, black, listening device, dropped it to the floor, and stomped on it, crushing it under her heel with the full force of her fury and panic. “We have to move. Francis has Conrad,” she told Amanda and Pete.
Pete jumped to his feet. “Kid, the snowmobile only rides two,” he said and looked at Amanda. “You're going to have to stay behind.”
“In your dreams,” Amanda said and stood up. “I'll ride on your shoulders if I have to.”
“I'm not leaving Amanda alone, Pete,” Sarah said and grabbed her coat off the coat rack beside the kitchen door. “We have to hurry.”
Pete shoved his cigar into the pocket of his coat and snatched up the piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table and read the message: “‘HATE LIVE…’”
“HATE LIVES,” Sarah finished for Pete putting on her coat. “I was going to be Francis's last victim. The S in my first name would have completed his message.”
Pete stared at the message. “He doesn’t seem the type to stop with one message.”
“No way,” Amanda agreed and retrieved her coat and began putting it on. “That monster would have continued killing in Los Angeles if Sarah hadn’t put an end to his killing spree.”
Sarah slid on her gloves, checked on Mittens, and then pulled on her warmest hat. “Francis had lots of room to play when he was in Los Angeles. Snow Falls in a small town. His field of play has been drastically reduced. His weapon of choice is control, intimidation and threats. He knows if he can keep everyone in line by using those as weapons, he can maneuver about freely. Right now, he has no idea that Mrs. Railings’ cat saved the day and that Andrew located the rental cabin he's hiding in. We have the element of surprise.” Sarah wrapped a white scarf around her neck.
“We have to play smart, kid. Even if this creep is cornered he's still dangerous,” Pete warned Sarah and gulped down his coffee and winced. “You still make awful coffee.”
“Complain about my coffee later,” Sarah told Pete and yanked open the back door. “Conrad's life is in danger.”
Amanda walked to the back door and studied the storm. “So...we're just going to play John Wayne and rush into the hospital with our guns blaring?” she asked in a nervous voice.
“No,” Sarah said and grabbed Amanda's hand. “I have a plan,” she promised. “But I can't act until Andrew arrives at the hospital.”
Pete smiled proudly as they walked to the snowmobile. “Detective Garland is about to outsmart a clever fox,” he told Amanda. “Just like last time, huh, kid?”
“How did you manage to catch Francis Clark?” Amanda asked Sarah, shielding her face from the icy winds.
“Assuming Francis was a cop or somehow tied to law enforcement, and that he wanted me to understand his message, I took a wild guess and hoped he was monitoring all the police communications. I sent out a message to dispatch.”
“Sarah told dispatch she was going to talk to Betty Tucker, a friend of one of Francis Clark's victims. Francis took the bait and went to Betty's house, expecting to arrive before Sarah, but Sarah was already waiting for him,” Pete told Amanda. “Betty Tucker had placed her life in jeopardy by claiming she saw Francis kill her friend. Her testimony was a lie, of course, and we were worried Francis might try and strike at her.”
“A lie and the element of surprise,” Sarah told Amanda, “caught Francis Clark. This time, raw courage and a bitter ex-wife will have to achieve the same results. Let's move.”
Amanda ran through the storm with Sarah. The gruesome snowman was now coated in an icy layer of wind-whipped snow, but it still leered at them over his candy cane, one stick arm outstretched in a clawing gesture. Amanda averted her eyes and shivered, focusing on the snowmobile awaiting them.
Chapter Eight
Francis spotted Andrew racing into the staff parking lot on a snowmobile that was a hideous shade of bright orange. He counted seven other men following Andrew—men with rifles strapped to their backs. He gritted his teeth and locked the automatic doors leading into the emergency room. “You broke the rules,” he howled at Sarah and pulled out his cell phone to call her. Sarah picked up on the first ring. “Detective Spencer will die for this!”
Sarah spotted the hospital in the distance. “Rather one death than many,” she said, holding onto Pete's waist with her left arm and the phone with her right hand. She prayed that Francis’ words were empty threats, as usual. Amanda was sitting in her lap holding on for dear life. “The hospital is surrounded, Francis. You're trapped,” Sarah yelled over the winds. “We know you set fake explosives in Mrs. Railings’ cabin. We know the location of the cabin Brad rented for you. ‘Hate’ no longer ‘lives,’ Francis. Today, hate dies. I decoded your message. I found the clues.”
Francis yelled and kicked over a tan colored vinyl chair in the waiting room. “Good for you! But you and your idiot backwoods cop friends will get no further! Coming to the hospital was a mistake, and you will all pay, you filthy, lying peasants.”
Pete drove his snowmobile into the staff parking lot and slid to a stop. Andrew ran up to him. “Station your men at every entrance,” Pete yelled at Andrew. “Hurry!”
Andrew nodded his head and started barking orders. “Okay, Matt, take Will and cover the front entrance. Henry, you and Charlie cover the emergency room entrance. Andy, Ken and John, you guys go cover the exits. Hurry!”
Pete watched Andrew's men bravely charge at the hospital. He climbed off the snowmobile and helped Amanda off Sarah's lap. Amanda felt like a twisted pretzel. “My back,” she moaned, fighting through the snowdrifts to stand upright.
Sarah remained in her seat clutching the phone to her ear. “Francis, the hospital is surrounded. There's no way out.”
“If anyone attempts to break inside I'll kill the hostages I have shoved down in the morgue,” Francis warned Sarah. “I have a nice little pile of bodies to—”
“Better a few than many,” Sarah informed Francis. “You can kill every hostage you have, but you will never leave the hospital alive and kill anyone else outside of Snow Falls. Today ‘hate’ dies, you disgusting monster. Today the good guys win.”
“
You're bluffing,” Francis yelled at Sarah. “You're not going to willingly sacrifice innocent lives.” Francis spotted two men appear outside the Emergency Room door and quickly ducked down behind a desk. “Call the dogs off or I start killing.”
“Francis,” Sarah said staring at the main entrance of the hospital, “we're going to play a little game.” Her mind went back to the night she stood in the front lobby with Conrad as a very disturbed young man pounded the glass doors of the hospital with snowballs. The hospital had been the same that night – dark, gray and creepy, a snow-covered, frozen scream that would never end.
“A game?” Francis asked. He paused.
“Yes, a game,” Sarah said. “You see, I'm no longer a cop. I'm retired. Of course, you know that,” Sarah explained and finally climbed down from the snowmobile. “We're not going to play by your rules, Francis. We're going to play by my rules.”
“Oh?” Francis asked.
“You've read my books, Francis, right?” Sarah steadied her mind. “After all, you've been mimicking the Snowman Killer, now haven't you?” Francis didn't answer. “Maybe you didn't mimic the Snowman Killer in every detail, but your style was the same.”
“Shut up!”
“You didn't begin your killings until after my first book was released, back when I was just starting out as a writer in Los Angeles. I never wanted to admit that the Back Alley Killer was a product of my book,” Sarah continued. “But I had to finally admit that horrible fact to myself when I saw the snowman you built in my front yard here. At first, I thought you left the snowman as a message.” Sarah blocked her eyes from the winds. “Maybe you were telling me that I was going to be killed in the same manner the Snowman Killer wanted to kill my main character? But then I finally had to admit the obvious...Francis, I created you.”
“Don’t be absurd, I—"
“You killed your first victim and stashed him in an alley within my jurisdiction. You knew I would be assigned to the case. You began the game,” Sarah informed Francis. “Now, I finished it, and we're going to play a new game, Francis.”
“I'm going to destroy you,” Francis promised Sarah.
“You thought you were brilliant, didn't you? You created a master plan but it blew up in your face. And now you're trapped. Your end has come, Francis. And I'm going to be the one to put you in checkmate.”
“Anytime, Detective,” Francis challenged Sarah, feeling the madness consume his mind. His eyes grew dark and feverish with rage. “Anytime you want to begin your game, I'm ready.”
“Go unlock the far back exit door and then hide,” Sarah informed Francis. “I'm going wait five minutes and then I'm coming in after you.”
“Five minutes,” Francis hissed and threw his cell phone up against a wall. “Five minutes to play,” he whispered and stalked away into the bowels of the hospital.
Sarah tossed the black cell phone in her hand to Pete. “I'm going in,” she said and pulled out her gun. “Give me half an hour. If I'm not out...you know what to do.”
“Why play this game, love?” Sarah begged. “We have that monster trapped and—”
“If we all rush in at once, Francis will kill his hostages,” Sarah explained. She hugged Amanda's neck. “I have to be the one to end this.”
Amanda felt tears sting her eyes. “I...” she tried to speak but couldn't. Instead, she hugged Sarah as tight as she could and backed away.
“Half an hour, kid,” Pete said and put his arm around Amanda.
Sarah checked her gun and walked off through the gusting winds of the snowstorm. She made way through the deep snow one difficult step at a time and arrived at the back of the hospital. “Henry,” she told a tall, thin man wearing a camouflage hunting suit, “shoot anyone who tries to exit through this door,” she ordered.
“Are you going inside?” Henry asked, holding his rifle.
“Yes,” Sarah told Henry. She walked up to the exit door, found it unlocked, pulled it open, and walked into a short service hallway. The winds pushed the door shut behind her and it was suddenly quiet. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath, “it's time to play.”
Sarah examined the hallways. To her left was a door leading down to the basement. To her right, she saw a door leading into a laundry room. She heard dryers running in the laundry room. “Where are you?” Sarah whispered and forced her mind to review the first book she had written. “In my first book the Snowman Killer hid in a high school and—” Sarah stopped speaking when she heard the door at the end of the hallway open. Francis appeared holding a black box with a red button. “Francis!”
“The explosives I planted at the old lady's house were fake,” Francis called down to Sarah, “but the explosives I have attached to the oxygen tanks in the morgue are not. Put down your gun or this hospital is going to go boom!”
Sarah stared down the hallway at Francis. She didn't see a human being—she only saw a monster. He had draped himself in a white hospital sheet, but she could see his eyes among the messy folds, and they were bloodshot and crazed. “You're bluffing!”
“Shall we find out the truth?” Francis asked and began to press the red button.
“Wait!” Sarah yelled. “I...” Sarah kept her eyes on the black box. She had expected Francis to play out the role of the Snowman Killer. Instead, her gamble had gone horribly wrong. He had managed to put her in checkmate after all.
“You what, Detective?” Francis asked, cackling crazily. “I set a timer to the explosives, Detective. You have five minutes to put down your gun or we're both going to go boom.”
“I can shoot you and disarm the explosives!”
“You can try,” Francis grinned. He held up his wounded hand. “I have nothing to lose and you have everything to lose.”
Sarah felt snow fall off the winter cap she was wearing and the melting ice slid down her cold face. Desperation began torturing her mind. If she put down her gun, Francis would surely kill her. If she didn't, he would detonate the explosives he had set in the morgue—assuming the explosives were real. Conrad's face whispered into her mind. She saw Conrad tied up in the basement, surrounded by innocent people. Was she willing to risk sacrificing their lives on the hope that Francis was lying about the explosives? “Okay, Francis,” she said and dropped her gun.
“You're so weak,” Francis yelled at Sarah. He stuffed the black box under the white sheet draped over and around his body and pulled out the tranquilizer gun and slowly began walking toward Sarah. “I knew you were expecting me to play the part of the Snowman Killer, Detective. The element of surprise is always the best weapon.”
Sarah watched Francis walking toward her. She glanced to her left and saw the door leading down into the basement. “Yes, it is,” she exclaimed and charged at the door, yanked it open, and ran down the stairs, barely missing being hit by a tranquilizer dart. “Come on,” she begged her legs as she climbed down the stairs faster than she ever had before in her life.
Francis burst through the door, spotted Sarah running down the stairs, and tried to strike her with a second tranquilizer dart. The dart missed. “You're dead!” he yelled and threw down the tranquilizer gun and pulled out an ugly handgun with a silencer attached to the barrel.
Sarah ignored Francis and made her way to the bottom of the staircase. She pulled open a gray metal door and rushed out into a cold hallway. “Okay,” she said breathing hard, focusing her eyes on the boiler room.
Francis slowly walked down the staircase. He knew the basement area housed the morgue, the boiler room, two bathrooms and a small administrative office. He would hunt Sarah down like a wild animal and make her suffer. The time for playing games was over. His game had failed. Sarah's game had failed. No more games. Now it was time to do things the old-fashioned way and just shoot his target dead on sight and go down fighting in a blaze of bullets. “Time to die,” he said stepping out into the hallway. The hallway was silent. Only the sound of snow melting into water filled the air. “Ah,” Francis said spotting snowy boot tracks
leading toward the boiler room. “Of course.”
Francis checked his gun and stalked toward the boiler room. When he reached the door, he grinned. “One way in, one way out,” he said, opened the door, and stepped into a dark room filled with machinery, pipes dripping with steam, generators, fuse boxes—the perfect setting for a final showdown. “Let's play,” he said, locking the door behind him and flipping on a single light. The light cast an eerie orange glow down onto a concrete floor soaked with grease stains and small puddles of water. The light also outlined a pair of wet, snow-covered boots sitting in the middle of the floor. “What?” Francis growled and ran to the boots.
Outside in the hallway, Sarah crept out of a bathroom, sneaked back up the stairs, retrieved her gun from the floor, and then crept back downstairs into the basement, stationing herself right in front of the boiler room door. When the door burst open and Francis appeared, his white sheet dripping, she fired her gun. Only...her gun wouldn't fire. Sarah squeezed the trigger over and over but the gun refused to fire. Francis shook his head. “Detective Garland, your time to die has come,” he said in a dark tone. He aimed the gun he was holding at Sarah. “To the morgue, if you please,” he ordered Sarah. “Drop the gun. No more games.”
Sarah dropped her gun. She had almost ended the nightmare. Disappointment and grief consumed her heart. “You're a monster,” she told Francis in a furious voice.
“You're absolutely right,” Francis agreed, resisting the urge to shoot Sarah on the spot. “You were very clever removing your boots. You nearly won, Detective. But as it stands, luck was not on your side today.”
“Let me see your face!”
Francis lifted his wounded hand and removed the sheet covering his body. The face of a madman with no soul appeared. “Take a good look, Detective,” Francis hissed at her. “Because my face is going to be the last nightmare you see before you die. Now, get moving.”
Snowy Misery (Alaska Cozy Mystery Book 7) Page 12