John came in, “Have you seen Janelle?”
“No, not since I left you two last night. She’s very thorough, she’s likely gone back to one of the crime scenes.”
Forrester said, “I’m sure she’s hanging around somewhere,” in an angry tone that took Kane a little bit aback. He could see John was surprised by it too. Hostility toward the FBI from local officers was common, the flat out rage in Forrester’s words was a little over the top.
Kane watched Forrester walk away, “I’m sorry John. The guy, supposedly was once a good cop. Or at least that is what it seems everyone says when he pulls this shit. Personally I ma out of excuses for him.”
“No worries, let’s go back over the last killing.”
They opened the files and bent to work.
***
Sophie got out of the car. Sassy barked and wriggled inside her little tote as they mounted the stairs and she hushed her, saying, “I got you now, you give up.”
A man standing at the cart of the vendor next to the steps, buying a cup of coffee, gave her an odd and startled look, she didn’t see it.
It was her, she had seen him and she was going to go into the police station and tell everyone he was outside. The Creeper knew that was crazy, he had been disguised and she had not seen his face. But there she was, and she had just said she recognized him. He stood there, watching her walk up the steps for long seconds. His heart stuttered inside his chest and he walked off, the coffee forgotten. The vendor yelled at him but he ignored him, he was locked on her. She wore a red skirt and a plain white blouse. Her legs were long and tanned and her waist was trim. Her black hair hung in a cloud down her back and he had the oddest sensation…
“Morgan!” he yelled.
Sophie heard the shout but ignored it, someone was yelling for someone but she had no idea of who it was or why they were calling for them. She could see Kane, he was in conversation with another man. He lifted his head and she raised a hand to wave at him. An odd expression crossed his face, he got to his feet, running to the narrow metal railing that surrounded the area where he worked.
“Down!” he was yelling. “Get down!”
Something whined past her ear. She stopped, confused and suddenly afraid. Kane was running, running for the stairs and there was another popping sound, a pain in her shoulder and then people were screaming and running, someone pushed her. Her knees scraped against the cold linoleum floor as she went down. Sassy spilled out and Sophie forgot her own pain, terror hit her at the thought that her precious pet could be trampled by the running feet.
Fingers tangled in her hair and she was yanked to her feet. Sassy ran under a desk and she reached for her, her fingers straining. She could not comprehend was what was happening.
“Let her go!” Kane yelled. He held a gun, Sophie saw, a very big gun. The barrel looked immense and she began to cry, understanding seeping through her. She had somehow been taken hostage.
Kane could not believe the odd turn the day had taken. Sophie was shot and bleeding, he could see the red stain on the shoulder of her blouse. He knew it wasn’t a fatal wound, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t bleed out at some point. Forrester, Forrester, was behind her, his eyes blazing with madness.
“You lied on the police report,” Forrester said in her ear, making Sophie wince as his foul breath blew across her face, “You gave the wrong address. I came to kill you but you weren’t there. That’s a crime, you know, lying to the cops.”
“Let her go.” Kane said as he walked toward them, his eyes surveying all of the possible angles. Forrester had backed himself and his captive into a small area near the door. Other prisoners screamed and howled, cops stood about with guns drawn: their faces both confused and determined. Nobody really knew what to do, Forrester was one of them. Or was he? Nobody was certain of what was going on.
“It’s too late for that.” Forrester said. He yanked her arm and Sophie screamed in pain. From under the desk Sassy howled. He kept her in front of him until they cleared the doorway, then he yanked her around, shoving her out and down the stairs. People saw them coming and scattered, she had the confused glimpse of traffic and the buildings opposite before he shoved her against her car and demanded the keys.
She had forgotten she still held them; he yanked them from her hand, shoved her into the car and squealed out into traffic, hitting bumpers as he went.
Kane ran behind the car, he was afraid to try to shoot out the tires and terrified not to. Pedestrians crossing the street ran in fear as Forrester plowed through a red light and he holstered his weapon and ran back to the precinct.
“Where do you think he took her?” John asked.
“He has a place here in the city but it’s an apartment, somebody get me personnel on the phone!” Kane yelled. His heart was pounding; all he could think about was Sophie’s terrified face as she was dragged away. Please don’t let him kill her, he thought, please don’t let him kill her.
“He used to have an apartment in the city, now he has a house out in Queens,” one of the other cops said. “He grew up in it. He moved out of the apartment after his wife left. We never heard the whole story, just that she was gone, to tell you the truth none of us ever saw her anyway.”
“She left?” John asked, his gaze sharpening.
“Well yeah, that’s when he went all to hell you know. He used to be…”
“A good cop, yeah we’ve heard that.” Kane interjected.
“Right but Morgan, that was her name, she bailed, he came in one day and that is just what he said—she bailed on him. I don’t think he wanted the divorce.”
“And nobody thought to ask around about the wife?”
“Hell she never came around. She never hung out with the other wives or came to barbecues because she was always doing something else. She hung out with some whole artsy crowd.”
“When did she leave?”
“About five years ago. In fact it was exactly five years ago last month.”
“That would have been the trigger. I am willing to bet that she didn’t leave at all, I would put money on him killing her.” John said to Kane, to the other cop he said, “I need to know where the house is.”
***
“You know I never meant to hurt you Morgan. I just wanted you to stop packing, I have no idea why you wanted to leave me. I took good care of you, gave you everything you needed. Hell I even joined that damn swingers club for you. Only you weren’t interested in swinging really, you were interested in sleeping with as many other women as you could. You found a bunch of other women who were looking for the same thing and you all got together and laughed at me, didn’t you? You and your girlfriends, you laughed at me. But I fixed them, I bet they never laugh at anyone else ever again.”
Sophie had no idea what the man driving her car was talking about but instinct told her not to say anything. Her shoulder ached furiously and she was slightly dizzy. The car crashed around corners, slinging her in turns against the door and against his body. Revulsion filled her every time she came in contact with him.
“You met that damn Jenna and she introduced you to the others. It was a nice little group of women who liked women, no boys allowed. I bet you told them all how I couldn’t perform with those other women when you made me swap for the night. I hated those damn parties, my keys in a bowl and you standing there looking like you wanted to jump every man in the house. Any man but me. I was your husband!”
His fist smashed out, slamming into her jaw. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes and she retched.
Susan had told her a story once, about a guy that had dragged her into an alley and tried to rape her. She had bitten him, bitten his hand until he bled. Desperate she did the same thing Susan did. She choked when his oily flesh touched her lips but she bit down anyway.
He screamed in pain and she grabbed the door handle, intending to go out of it. He snatched her back, ripping hair from her scalp. He slammed her head into the door, knocking her unconscious.
***
“We have to get there fast, “Kane said as he shrugged into Kevlar. An entire team was already dispatched, cops from Queens were on their way to the house but he had a sinking feeling they would be too late. The helicopter was waiting, it belonged to the news channel—the station had agreed to loan it since it was far closer than anything they could have gotten to.
“We’re going to bring her back.” John said softly, “Relax.”
“I am relaxed.” Kane shot back but his jaw was so tightly clenched the word came out strangled and nearly muffled.
“One mistake and she’s dead. Put your emotions aside Kane. Think it all through.”
Kane knew that John was giving him the best advice there was and he forced himself to slow his breathing, to concentrate as they climbed aboard the unwieldy chopper and began to rise into the sky.
***
Sophie woke up to darkness. Her head ached and her jaw felt swollen and numb. She touched fingers to her forehead, they came away sticky and she knew that what she felt was blood.
Lights snapped on and she looked up. Screams of horror ripped from her mouth. The heads all stared at the door, at the man standing next to it. He wore a long and ridiculously frilly apron over his suit, and held a long machete in his right hand.
Pity overtook horror and fear. The faces of the women in the cold shelves of the refrigerator had been posed behind the glass door so that the maniac who had killed them could see them, so that they would have to see him.
One of the heads was noticeably more frozen, ice crystals hung from the nostrils and black hair held shards of glass and beads of condensation. Sophie knew that had to be the Morgan he had been speaking to on the hellish drive to wherever he had taken her.
Worse, one face she recognized, it was the woman she had seen Kane talking to the day before on the corner. How could he have done it? Icy tendrils of fear slid down her spine as he came closer, his eyes focused on the faces of the women he had murdered but the machete held tightly in his fist.
“It all changed.” He said. “All I ever wanted was to have a family; to raise a couple of kids but you, you were never happy. You hated the neighborhood; you wanted to live in the city so we moved. You were bored being a cop’s wife so you took classes, and all they taught you was that you were cut out for more than a life as a cop’s wife. You were never happy, no matter what I did, no matter what I gave you.”
Sophie flinched. Forrester’s voice began as a self-pitying whine and grew into a rage filled shout. Glass rained down on her face and she shut her eyes, her hands going automatically to her face. Breaths of white vapor escaped the glass-fronted freezer from the gaping hole his fist left in one door. Sophie could not even think, she was certain she was about to die.
The door caved in and she screamed as cops swarmed in, Kane in the lead.
“Let her go Forrester.”
Forrester laughed; a singularly ugly sound that bounced off of the white painted walls. “I don’t want to.”
“You used to be a good cop…you know you don’t have to do this.” Kane said in a calm tone, trying his best to figure out a way around the crazed man and to Sophie. He refused to let his eyes go to her, he had seen her battered face very clearly when he had come through the door and he couldn’t afford the emotions that would be sure to come up if he saw it again. He could not afford to get pissed off; if he did it would likely cost her life.