Kitabı oku: «Before he Kills», sayfa 14

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

The fence was old and rusted just like everything else on this godforsaken street. She felt the rust cutting into the padding of her finger but at least, because of the rust, the chain-link material made almost no noise as she scaled it. The fence was seven or eight feet tall and soon she reached the top.

She threw one leg over, steadied herself, and then brought the other over.

With a single push away from the fence, she leaped from the top and landed in the yard with a soft thud.

She instantly withdrew her Glock from its holster and crept toward the shed in a crouching position. She made her way to the door and rose up on her legs a bit, trying to find the warped area in the frame that kept the door from shutting all the way. She found it three quarters of the way up the door and peered inside.

She saw the pole right away, standing directly in the center of the shed. A scurrying shadow flew across it, followed by the object that had cast it. She saw the woman first, her legs kicking at the air, and then the man that was holding her from behind. The woman was naked except for a gag around her mouth. A series of muffled cries were coming from behind it as she fought to get away.

The man was wrestling her toward the pole. A strand of rope was wrapped around his shoulder like a limp snake.

Mackenzie, heart slamming so hard she could barely hear, had seen enough. She knew she’d have to act fast; she had to pull the door open and get inside with her gun raised before the creep had any idea what was happening.

This is where it would be easier with help, she thought to herself, suddenly regretting that she had ventured out here alone.

She extended her hand to the door’s rusty handle. When she grasped it, a sickening thought filled her head. What if it’s locked from the inside somehow?

That answer was simple enough. Now that she was inches away from the killer, she was willing to take more risks. If that’s the case, she thought, I’ll shoot through the fucking door.

She gripped the handle and took a deep breath. She held it in and didn’t exhale until she had pulled the door open.

She leaped forward, bringing the Glock up.

“Police! Put the weapon down and your hands – ”

She knew she’d made a mistake the moment she stepped inside. Something under her feet felt odd. And there came a noise, something that made no sense.

Mackenzie looked down for a split second, her eyes leaving the shape of the man in front of her, and saw the plastic sheeting that covered the floor. She was standing on it. And although it took less than a second for her to process what she was seeing, it was a second too much.

The murky figure in front of her dropped immediately to his haunches, grabbed the plastic sheeting in his hands, and yanked with all he had.

Mackenzie felt the ground move. The plastic she was standing on was yanked toward him and she lost her footing and went airborne.

The man then shoved the naked woman in her direction, and she landed on top of her.

Mackenzie, dazed, reached up and shoved the frantic woman off her, but by the time she did, the man was already lunging for her, bringing his fist down. She was halfway up when it struck Mackenzie directly between the eyes and sent her back to the ground.

As she fell to the ground, Mackenzie got her first glimpse of the killer. He was in his forties and partially bald. His eyes were electric blue and had the look of a crazed animal that has been penned up for far too long and has a pretty good idea of what freedom must be like. He was short but had a stocky look to him. Mackenzie had a pretty good idea that there was more muscle under his shirt than his appearance made it seem. The punch he’d delivered to her was another indication of this.

He was coming in for her now, moving with a quickness that the small space of the shed seemed incapable of containing. He had something in his hand that seemed to slither through the darkness. By the time he had raised his arm, Mackenzie realized what it was. She saw the splintered end sailing toward her.

Mackenzie rolled out of the way just in time.

The whip cracked less than two inches from Mackenzie’s right ear. The sound was deafening.

The killer brought the whip back again, this time aiming it directly for Mackenzie.

This time, she reached back, raised her gun, steadied her hands, and fired.

The motion he made as he brought the whip down skewed her aim and the bullet hit him high in the left shoulder rather than his heart.

He dropped the whip and stumbled forward, looking to Mackenzie as if the very idea of a gun was absurd to him.

Still, he was undaunted. He dove for her, going for her gun. Mackenzie fired again, this one grazing his right arm as he came down.

He slammed his full weight on top of her and the jolt of it sent a blast of pain through her body. Her hands opened reflexively and the Glock went to the floor.

The moment she heard the gun hit the floor, the killer rose up and drew his fist back. Before he could bring it down, Mackenzie punched him squarely in the gut. From the floor on her back, she did not get her full force into it, and it only diverted his blow. Yet when he brought it down and his fist only bounced from her shoulder, Mackenzie spun and clubbed him hard in the side of the jaw with her elbow.

He went sliding off of her and she instantly went for the Glock.

The killer ran as Mackenzie’s hand found the gun. She brought it up and aimed at the door just as he made his exit. She nearly fired, but the naked woman was in the way.

Mackenzie jumped to her feet and looked over at the naked woman, shaking, still bound.

“Stay here,” Mackenzie said. “I’ll come back for you.”

The woman nodded and Mackenzie saw something broken in the woman’s eyes. The events of this night, no matter how they turned out, would traumatize this poor young woman for the rest of her life.

With that haunting thought pushing her, Mackenzie sprinted out of the shed just in time to see the back door to the house closing. Mackenzie gave instant chase, fully expecting the back door to be locked.

When she turned the knob, it did so freely. The back door opened, revealing a small entryway and a darkened kitchen beyond.

He did that on purpose, she thought. He wants me to follow him inside.

She gave only a moment’s thought before she stepped inside and raised her gun, plunging into darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Mackenzie stepped into the kitchen and could tell right away that this man did not care much for the way he lived. She smelled spoiled food coming from somewhere, mingled with the smells of dust and old body odor. She felt her palms sweating on her gun as her heart slammed, knowing she could full well die in this house, and she tried to steady them.

Mackenzie crept across the kitchen floor, listening for movement elsewhere in the house. Now that they were inside, she knew that there was no telling what the killer might have access to. At this very instant, he could be getting his own gun.

Mackenzie reached the edge of the kitchen where a dark hallway waited. Halfway down the small hallway, a flight of wooden stairs led to a second floor. The killer had the advantage here and she knew it. It would be foolish to go venturing down that hall. She looked to the right and saw a living room, illuminated by a small lamp on an end table. Another Bible sat on the end table. A bookmark stuck out of it and a pen and pad of paper sat beside it.

From upstairs, the slightest creak of a floorboard sounded out, giving away the killer’s position. Mackenzie acted quickly, wanting to get the jump on him.

Now or never, she thought.

She ran down the hallway and halfway up the stairs in less than three seconds. She paused there, staring into the darkness above her. Her eyes were beginning to adjust and when she thought it was safe to do so, she started up the stairs.

She was in mid-step when she heard footsteps in the kitchen. Confused, Mackenzie looked back down the stairs just in time to see the would-be victim coming toward the stairs. Her eyes looked half-tinged with lunacy and something about seeing such an attractive woman in her underwear in the midst of such a tense scene was abstract in a way that befuddled Mackenzie just enough.

“Please,” the woman said. “You have to call the police. I can’t – ”

But she didn’t get a chance to finish. She screamed, her eyes now trailing just above Mackenzie. Mackenzie turned just in time to see the killer’s shape coming at her, racing down the stairs so quickly that Mackenzie barely had time to raise her gun.

Crack!

He whipped her, and a fierce stinging sensation erupted on her right hand right across the knuckles – followed by a blinding pain that raced along her left cheek as he whipped again.

She felt blood flowing instantly, racing down her fingers and face. She saw him coming at her, diving from the top step. She fired blindly, knowing that the pain in her hand affected her shot.

Still, she heard him cry out in pain, as the shot took him low in the stomach.

Amazingly, the shot only slowed his progress. Once again, his full weight slammed into her and she went falling backwards down the stairs.

She grabbed for the wall, again dropping her gun, but it did no good. They both went falling down the stairs and when Mackenzie’s back hit, it exploded in pain and the wind went rushing out of her.

They tumbled down the remainder of the stairs in a bundle of arms and legs. When they finally hit the floor, Mackenzie’s back was a spasm of pain and the blood from her face was coating her neck and soaking into her shirt.

The killer was getting to his knees now, drawing back the same whip he had attacked her with on the stairs. He turned and whipped the original object of his madness, the woman in the pink bra, who was standing and gaping, frozen in fear. It slapped her across the shoulder, bringing up a red whelp right away, her blood splashing against the hallway wall.

With the woman falling to the ground and wailing, Mackenzie tried to launch her own attack but her back didn’t seem to want to work for a moment. She felt paralyzed and wondered if she had snapped her spine on the way down the stairs.

The killer turned his attention to her and drew back the whip. The smile on his face was a thing of madness, a smile that belonged in asylums and nightmares.

“I will raise a city in your name,” he said as he readied himself to bring the whip down on her.

Mackenzie could only flinch, waiting for the whip to come down on her flesh with that sick cracking noise, its barbed end to pierce her flesh and disfigure her for good. She wondered what she would look like when he was done – if she survived at all.

Suddenly, there came a booming noise in the kitchen. Mackenzie didn’t understand what it was until she saw a body appear in the hallway. It came racing down the hall and leapt for the killer.

The killer, caught in mid-turn, was tackled to the ground. It wasn’t until the two bodies started fighting for position on the ground that Mackenzie saw, to her shock, who the other person was.

Porter.

It made no sense. A part of Mackenzie wondered if she had hit her head on the way down the stairs and was seeing things.

But as her back finally started to loosen up, she groggily got to her knees and saw what was happening before her. Porter had saved her. He was now fighting with the killer, positioned on top of him and delivering a deft right hand to the face.

With black dots racing in her vision, Mackenzie looked around for her gun. The floor felt like it was swaying beneath her and she could actually smell her own blood now. It was coming out of her cheek in what felt like a river and —

Suddenly, she saw her gun. It was inches from the killer’s hand and he was clearly reaching for it.

“Porter,” she croaked, still finding her back untrusting and her legs wobbly.

She tried to run forward but her back locked up and she went to her knees in a grimace of pain. She could only look on helplessly as the killer grabbed her Glock.

Porter noticed it just in time, reaching out to stop the killer from getting the gun into position to fire.

But Porter lost his balance atop the killer as he did this and the killer took advantage, rolling away, sending Porter to the floor, and grabbing the gun.

The killer stood and fired.

The gunshot was deafening and the roar of pain from Porter was far too brief. Mackenzie’s heart fell, hoping it didn’t mean what she thought it did.

Mackenzie pushed past the flaring pain in her back and stumbled forward. The killer stood there, his face now also bloodied from Porter’s attack, and Mackenzie attacked him from behind, driving an elbow hard into the space between his shoulder blades.

He went falling to the floor, the gun flying from his grasp.

Mackenzie cried out from the pain in her back as she followed up by driving her knee into the center of the man’s back. She could practically feel the air rush out of him and she took advantage of this right away.

She grabbed him by both sides of his head, her right hand nothing more than a glove of blood from his whip attack, and raised it several inches from the ground. Then, with a scream that was a sublime mixture of pain, frustration, and victory, she slammed his head into the wooden floor.

He groaned and gasped.

She did it again, in a quick machine-like motion. Up, then down.

This time, he made no noise.

She rolled off of his back and leaned against the wall. She slid over to Porter and her heart swelled when she saw that he was moving. There was blood coating the left side of his head and he was holding his ear like a frightened child.

“Porter?”

He didn’t respond. He did, however, roll over and look at her.

“White?”

He looked worried, wiping blood away from his face.

“The damned gun went off right by my ear,” he said, his voice loud. “I can’t hear a thing.”

She nodded, arching her back and trying to stretch out the pain. But the pain was there to stay, or so it seemed. She reached over to the killer and placed her hand to his neck. It was hard to tell through her own surging adrenaline and heartbeat, but she was fairly certain there was a pulse there.

Mackenzie lay on the floor next to Porter and slowly pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket. When she scrolled for Nelson’s number, she left bloody streaks all over the phone.

As the phone started to ring in her ear, she reached out with her free hand and found Porter’s. She gave it a squeeze and despite the sticky blood coating her fingers, Porter squeezed back.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Three days after the Scarecrow Killer had been taken into custody, Mackenzie returned to the same hospital she had left just two days previous with fourteen stitches in her cheek and five along the top of her right hand. She went to the third floor and entered a room that was being occupied by Porter. Seeing him in a hospital bed broke her heart, especially considering how he had ended up there.

He smiled at her when she came in. There was heavy padding and bandaging along the left side of his head but she was relieved to see that all of the IVs had been removed since she last saw him.

“There she is,” Porter said.

She smiled, marveling at how much their relationship had changed.

“How are you, Porter?”

“Well, the good news is that I can hear you, which is something the doctors weren’t too sure about two days ago. The bad news is that I can’t hear you very well. The worse news is that my right ear is never going to look the same again. It seems the bullet actually tore off part of the top.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Porter asked, a little ill-tempered. “Your FBI buddy calls me and tells me that you’re planning on trying to find this guy’s lair all alone. I had to help.”

She shook her head and squeezed his hand.

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“I may have broken into your house,” Porter said with a sly smile. “I saw the map you made, pinpointing the location at the center of the cities. Then when I reached the area, I heard gunshots – I guess that’s from when you got the jump on him in the shed. So I just followed the commotion.”

“Porter, thank you so much. I would have died – ”

He shook his head, his jaw set.

“Hell no,” he said. “You would have gotten him somehow.”

Mackenzie nodded, touched by the compliment, but wasn’t so sure. She could still see the killer’s face when she closed her eyes, raising that whip, preparing to kill her. She had awakened the last two nights in a panic attack, sweating, alone in bed, and wondered if she would ever stop seeing it.

She found herself getting lost in reverie, and wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Porter spoke again.

“So, how’s your back?” he asked, quickly changing the subject, probably sensing what was happening to her.

She smiled, forcing herself to snap out of it, forcing herself to stay upbeat. After all, she’d come here to comfort Porter, and she owed him at least that much.

“I had my final X-ray this morning,” she said. “Everything checks out. No spinal injuries, just a bad sprain. I was lucky.”

“To look at the stitches in your face and my mangled ear, I’m not so sure lucky is the word I would use.”

Mackenzie went to the visitor’s chair by the head of the bed and looked at him with as much sincerity as she could muster.

“I came by to thank you,” she said. “And to say goodbye.”

He looked alarmed.

“Goodbye?”

She braced herself.

“Yes. Nelson had to make a hard decision. When things got out that I caught the killer after he had taken me off the case, it got ugly.”

“He actually fired you?”

“No. He suspended me for six months. And after he did that, I quit.”

Porter sat up in bed, grimacing but still managing to sneer at Mackenzie.

“Why the hell would you do that?”

She looked to the floor, unsure how to explain it.

“Because,” she said, “I spent too much time trying to prove that I wasn’t just some young naïve girl that was looking to out-work a mostly older male police force. Now, if you add to that a renegade who openly disregards the chief’s rules, that’s just something else for me to live down.”

He frowned, silent for a long time.

“What do you plan on doing now?” he asked. “You’re too good of a detective to be anything else.”

She smiled and said: “I’m considering other opportunities.”

He grinned at her for a moment and then chuckled.

“You’re going to the FBI, aren’t you?”

She was sure she did a poor job of hiding her shock. She returned his smile as he reached out and took her hand. It reminded her of their final coherent moments in the killer’s house and she found herself wanting to tell him what she had in mind for her future. She left it quiet, though. Now wasn’t the time.

He’d hit the nail on the head and it had surprised her. Had he always been so perceptive? Had he been hiding some sort of genuine care for her beneath the snark and impatience all this time?

“You are,” he said. “And good for you. Let’s be honest here – that’s where you belong. You were always too good for this place. I know that and you damn well better know it. I always rode you so hard because I wanted you to be better. I wanted you to get the hell out. And it looks like I did a fine job.”

She had expected a reprimand, and she was so touched and relieved by his warmth and his genuine happiness for her.

For the first time in a very long time, she felt tears of gratitude. She managed to keep them in, though, letting the silence speak for them as their hands remained clasped together in a solemn gesture of a friendship that had developed far too late.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

It hadn’t taken her long to pack. She managed to fit about half of her clothes into two suitcases and put the other half in a cardboard box which she labelled PLEASE DONATE using a Sharpie. Another box contained assorted items such as several paperback books, an old iPad, and a record player she’d once wanted to repair but never got around to. It was labelled the same way.

She had called Zack, fully aware that he was at work and would not be able to take her call. She left him a message that she now regretted as she wheeled her suitcases to the front door. It had been brief and even now, as she looked around at the house, unnaturally empty and cleaned, she wondered if she’d owed him more of an explanation.

That was ridiculous, though. If she owed anyone an explanation, it was herself, for staying stuck in this lifestyle as long as she’d had.

“I’m heading out of town for good,” she’d said. “The house is paid for up until the end of next month. It’s yours if you want it. If not, the lease will expire and become available. All of your stuff is still here, so come get it whenever you want. You can have the furniture, TV, and anything else we went halves on. I’m starting a new chapter in my life and it’s clear that you aren’t in it. Please respect my wishes and don’t bother calling. Take care, Zack.”

The bit about a new chapter was clichéd, but true. It was why she could so easily leave behind thousands of dollar worth of furniture and appliances. It simply wasn’t worth the arguments she’d have with Zack over them. It was also why she was leaving half of her clothes. She could buy new clothes – clothes that she’d always wanted to wear but had hesitated to because of what Zack might think, or how Porter or Nelson might react.

This new life she was walking towards offered a new vision of herself that she had only dared to dream of before now. What was the alternative? Was she supposed to stay here and suck up her suspension, then return to work with one more mark against her in a sea of aging men that saw her as an empty threat?

No thanks.

The house had never been so quiet. It was nearly as serene and still as murder scenes she’d seen – almost as stoic as that first cornfield where they’d discovered the first victim. Anything of hers that remained in this house was dead. She felt that with certainty as she reached for the doorknob.

When Mackenzie opened the door and stepped outside, she felt an unseen weight dissolve from her. It only increased as she rolled her suitcases across the small yard and to her car. She put the suitcases in the trunk, slammed it closed, and got behind the wheel.

When she backed out towards the street, she didn’t give the house a second look. Her future was in the other direction. All the house represented was a past that she could already feel sliding from her shoulders, a burden she had carried for far longer than she should have.

*

The papers had finally gotten tired of the story. Mackenzie had read it five different ways and no matter how it was told, she still felt as if she were reading about someone else. She had not granted interviews, allowing lazy reporters to assume things. She’d even gone online to the Oblong Journal to see if Ellis Pope had written anything about it.

He did not disappoint. He told a story about a violent young woman who thought she was the Punisher, going against her chief’s wishes and nabbing the bad guy anyway. While the article had been scathing and hateful, the comments section tore Pope down, heralding Mackenzie as a bad-ass and, according to a few posters, a hottie.

She was reading that particular story on her iPad in the airport when her flight was announced. She grabbed her bags and thought about the call she’d had earlier in the morning with Ellington. It still felt like she had dreamed it all, even as she started towards the gate.

“I wanted to call to let you know that they’ve asked me to be a part of your initial meeting,” he’d said. “Is that going to be okay with you?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“You excited?”

“I am. But I’m nervous more than anything else.”

“No need to be. Everyone here is psyched that you’re coming. And now it’s more than just my praises. The news has been exceptionally kind to you lately. And the fact that you’ve been humble about it – that speaks volumes.”

“Thanks again, by the way,” Mackenzie said.

He’d chuckled then and said: “Special Agent White. That sound good to you yet?”

She began to board the ramp to her flight, and stopped to look back at the airport one last time. She expected to take it all in, one last look at her home – but instead, to her horror, she saw the moment she had slammed the killer’s head into the floor again and again. She recalled how savage it had made her feel – how absolutely untamed and unpredictable. It had scared her in the days that had followed, but she also knew that it was a part of her now – a part she’d known existed ever since she’d found her father’s body.

Now that she had let that part of her out and accepted it as her own, how would that alter the way she worked from now on?

She supposed there was no better way to tell than with a new job where no one knew her. While she wasn’t naïve enough to think that it could be a true fresh start, she did, for the first time, believe that she was capable.

She shook away the image and walked down the concourse. A plane was waiting for her.

And so was a new future.