Cutting Room

by T. S. Worthington

  Doubtful. They had to keep their eyes on the motel anyway. Emily was bound to leave eventually, especially with the light growing dim in the sky. Max wondered what her next move was. What did she want to do next? Was she ready to toy with him some more or was she bored and ready to just kill both him and Jay so she could go back home, satisfied that her inner turmoil had just been purged from her system.

  Max had a disturbing thought just then.

  “So, when you asked me to tag along on that skype call with Emily were you hoping that my presence might slip her up somehow? I mean, if she is the one who is doing all of this I’d think that my presence would have been a little weird for her, right?”

  “Perceptive,” Gellar asked. “Yes, I did have an ulterior motive in asking you to join the call.”

  “Interesting. I just thought you found me handsome and charming. My bad,” Max joked glancing sideways. He thought he saw the tiniest blush from Gellar. It was endearing to see her a bit vulnerable.

  “You need to focus on the task at hand,” Gellar said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I have a tendency to get off track of things. It drove the film crew nuts,” Max said.

  “So what’s it like seeing a movie from actually filming it all the way to watching it with an audience. That has to be the biggest trip,” Gellar said.

  “Oh, it is. There is nothing like it and it was even ten times better than I thought it could be.”

  “Wow, that sounds pretty intense.”

  “Yea, it is. And you know I’m almost afraid to do another movie because I’m afraid that that rush will be much less the second time around. I don’t want to lose that magic.”

  Gellar smiled at him warmly. “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “No?”

  “No, I imagine it is like having kids. I mean I think the excitement is still the same whether you are having your first kid or your fifth, right?”

  Max thought about her words for a moment. He liked the way she put things into perspective sometimes.

  “You’re right. You know, for a cop you are incredibly insightful,” Max said.

  “I know; it’s a gift,” Gellar joked.

  “I’m not sure I can do another movie anytime soon. I don’t even really have an idea,” Max said. “I’m afraid of writer's block; it has always been a shadow looming over my head since forever. I was blocked when Jay brought me the script for The Ripper. And he didn’t even write it. What if I won’t have the opportunity to make another movie because I can’t get another good script together?”

  “Well, aren’t there writers who just write scripts and don’t direct?” Gellar asked.

  “Of course, but I don’t really want to work with outsiders. Jay is the only person I’ve ever really trusted with my own artistic vision. We have an odd, intrinsic thing between us in the way we work. If you bring someone else in, even in a writing role, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. The only reason it worked this time it turns out is the person who wrote the script is dead.”

  “Well, hang in there slick. I’m sure something will click for you. I mean after all, you’ve lived through enough horrors. Surely there is something that can be drudged up there.”

  “I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I could really use my real life tragedies as inspiration for a movie script,” Max said.

  “I thought artists always did stuff like that?” Gellar asked.

  “Well, they do, but it is still weird. At least for me. I just don’t think I could.”

  “Well, you could always ditch the movie thing and become a cop,” Gellar joked.

  Max glance at her with a sarcastic look which made her laugh harder.

  “Now, you are just being weird,” Max said. “There is no way that I am cut out to be a cop.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that; you have pretty good instincts,” Gellar said.

  “Thanks for saying that, but I’m actually a huge chicken. That’s probably why I love horror movies so much; they aren’t real and I feel like I can exorcise my fears without ever being in real danger.”

  “I can get that,” Gellar said. “But don’t sell yourself so short. You are a lot braver than you think.”

  Max felt his heart warm a bit. He wasn’t really used to someone telling him how great he was. Lori had done that a lot and he realized then that was one of the reasons he loved her so much. She never let him feel weak or inferior against a big bad world that was out to get him. But he could see Gellar’s point. With everything that had happened and everything he’d been through he had stepped up to the plate and faced a lot of fears. He felt scared and vulnerable all the time, but lately he did notice that he was feeling like he could handle whatever was being thrown at him. It was a nice feeling for once.

  “There she is,” Gellar said.

  Max shot his head towards the motel just in time to see Emily walking out of her room and locking the door behind her. It was surreal to see her really standing there walking across the parking lot, wearing a hoodie and carrying a duffel bag. The expression on her face was not the same sweet expression that they’d seen on the skype call. Her whole demeanor was different. The vibe she was putting off, intentional or not, was the vibe of someone who you did not want messed with. Max felt himself getting a bit antsy as he watched her walking to an old Chevy Blazer. The car looked like it’d seen better days, but even serial killers are poor when they are college kids he suspected.

  She tossed her bag in the back seat and climbed behind the wheel. A few seconds later she peeled out of the parking lot and took off towards downtown.

  “Come on, let’s roll!” Max said. He was barely able to contain his excitement. Gellar rolled her eyes at him and he immediately felt silly for being so excited. He couldn’t help it; the whole cop thing was really starting to get under his skin. Maybe the next film he did would be some sort of a cop horror type of thing. He didn’t want to do a crazed cop type of thing because that had been done several times. He thought maybe something to do with the paranormal and a sexy, female cop who gets mixed up in it.

  Maybe Gellar was right and he was going to be able to use all of this in a movie one day. He was starting to think that he might have to keep her around to be his own personal bodyguard. He smiled at the thought as Gellar drove out of the lot of the motel, careful to keep enough distance so that Emily could not get suspicious.

  “This should be interesting,” Max said.

  “She might be going on a burger run for all we know,” Gellar said. “Don’t go getting your panties in an uproar.”

  “Ouch, that hurt,” Max said. “I don’t wear panties; I’m boxers all the way baby.”

  Gellar chuckled. Max wondered if she was now thinking about his boxers because he thought he saw a tiny bit of a blush along with it. He loved the idea that he might be putting naughty thoughts in her head. Yep, he definitely wanted to explore this with her later. But right now they did have a job to do.

  “So, have you been on a lot of stakeouts?” Max asked.

  “Not really. Most of the crime around here is drug related and it’s usually pretty easy to get a junkie to roll over on her dealer or associates. The stakeout is not usually necessary; they will typically spill the beans and give us the info we need to quickly obtain the proof.”

  “That’s interesting,” Max said.

  They followed Emily down Emerson until she came to Grand St. and then she turned left, away from the business district of town. “Well, she is not going for a burger run after all,” Max said.

  Gellar smiled at him. “I’m just trying to let you know that bad people don’t do bad things all the time. Sometimes they are just doing normal stuff and you just have wade through all of that until they do something that is useful. Most cop work is boring as can be.”

  “Then why do you love it so much?”

  “Because the payoff is so rewarding. And I’m not talking about the money; the money sucks ass.
But the reward of taking horrible people off the street is well worth it all.”

  As Max watched the SUV in front of them drive along he couldn’t help thinking about how lost this poor girl must be. It was really sad.

  “I can’t believe it,” Max said.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t make sense that a girl like that with so much going for her would lose her mind and kill people because we stole Henry’s script. And I didn’t even know anything about it.”

  “Well, if she is the one doing this and that sent her over the edge then maybe she didn’t have as much going for her as we thought,” Gellar said.

  “I guess not. But I guess she really loved Henry and he thought she didn’t care. There is so much tragic about this whole thing, that at times I feel bad for hating her so much. But then I instantly remember all the horrible things she’d done and the lives she has destroyed and I want to see her head on a damn stick.”

  “You have every right to feel that way, but you need to learn how to compartmentalize your feelings. Emotions get in the way when you are doing police work. They cloud your judgment and they make you react to things based on a purely emotional level. That’s the wrong way to be here.”

  Max knew she was right, but it was so hard. He just wanted it to be over so he could go about picking up the pieces of his life and try to mourn the passing of loved ones. With all the shit he’d been through he had not even had the peace and quiet to grieve quietly. But he had to wait until they had irrefutable proof. It was wrong to just assume. Emily might be completely innocent in all of this.

  Emily turned onto Pike Street right then and suddenly Max knew where she was going. Was she really doing this? He was struggling with his feelings and trying to give her the benefit of the doubt as much as he could, but she was really about to do something crazy right in front of them wasn’t she? They had to stop her.

  “This is Jay’s street,” Max said.

  “What? Shit,” Gellar replied.

  “You still think I’m overreacting?” Max said trying to rub his initial instincts in her face.

  “Yes,” Gellar replied. She might be going through here by coincidence.”

  Max looked at her incredulously. Was she really still keeping that same state of mind? He wanted to shake her and tell her to admit that she might be wrong here, but for some reason he didn’t. There was no point arguing about whose instincts were right here and who was wrong; Jay’s life might be at stake.

  But they still could not do anything until she made a move.

  Jay lived in a ranch style house at the end of the block. It was fairly well segregated from the rest of his street, which he kind of liked since sometimes he had some loud parties. The house kind of loomed over the rest of the neighborhood at the end of a dead end road, surrounded by woods. The other side of the woods came out by the railroad tracks, eerie enough not far from where Henry’s body was found.

  Emily pulled the Blazer up to a spot about halfway down the street. The street was dark, but still lit up by streetlights enough to create an odd shadow of her as she stepped out of the car and grabbed her bag from the back. Her hood was now pulled up over her head, shielding her face.

  Gellar turned off the lights on her own car as she entered the last section of the street. Emily probably had not seen them, at least that was the plan. Max could feel every single nuance of his being urging him to leap from the car and run after Emily, tackling her to the ground and telling her that they knew and she was going to jail. That would have been so sweet.

  “Now we have to see what she does,” Gellar said as she pulled out a pair of binoculars. Max noticed they looked a bit different. On closer inspection he realized that they were night vision.

  “Wow, don’t think I’ve ever seen those before,” Max said in a whisper. He highly doubted that Emily could hear them, but he did not want to take any chances. His body just felt like she could.

  “They come in pretty handy at times,” Gellar replied.

  Max was barely able to make Emily out anymore as she walked from the SUV and towards Jay’s house. He knew that Jay was home. He had been too afraid to leave his house recently and had tried to hang with Max as much as possible, but Max told him what he was going to do that day and Jay made up his mind not to be involved. It seemed like even looking at someone who might have been the killer was too much for Jay to handle. He was always trying to look like someone who was in control, but Jay was very clearly not in control of himself much anymore.

  He had texted Max earlier to let him know if they were going to hang. If they did hang they usually did it at Max’s place. Max told him he would let him know when he got done. He needed to text Jay to let him know what was going on. He had to know he was in danger.

  Max pulled out his phone.

  “What are you doing?” Gellar said grabbing the phone from his hand.

  “What the hell? We have to warn Jay!”

  “No, we can’t. We need to catch her in the act!”

  “Wait, so we are using Jay as bait now? What if we are too late and he gets killed? We can’t do that to him.”

  “We will follow her inside; we won’t be too late. You just have to trust me on this. If we overreact now then the whole thing will be blown.”

  Max grabbed his phone back from Gellar angrily. He looked at it for a moment. He wanted to warn his friend what was about to happen, but what if she was right? She was the detective here, not him. She knew what she was doing far better than he did. But it was still an impossible situation to be in when it was your friend’s life on the line.

  Max relented and put the phone back in his pocket.

  “She’s sneaking around the back of the house,” Max said.

  “Let’s go!” Gellar replied.

  She quickly jumped out of the car, her gun held ready to fire at anyone who got in her way. She quickly ran down the street and into Jay’s front yard. Max struggled to keep up. He was a fast runner and he had great endurance, although not as much as when he ran cross country, but Gellar was in extreme shape. He could never catch her in a real race. But to be fair he had been in the hospital just that morning and he almost died the night before.

  As they reached the back of the house Gellar stopped suddenly, holding her hand up to Max. He tried to make his footsteps as soft as possible as he moved closer to her. He was still amazed that she didn’t demand that he stay in the car, but with his best friend being involved that was not going to happen. She wisely decided not to argue with him when time was of the essence.

  Gellar was peering around the corner of the house. Max stepped close enough to see around her and see what she was looking at. There was Emily pulling a kit out of her bag. The back of the house was mostly dark, which was going to work out well for Emily. There was a light over the back door and stoop, but Jay hardly ever remembered to put it on. Emily was taking advantage of the darkness as she went to work on picking the door lock with the lock kit she had in one hand and a small flashlight in the other hand.

  Max wondered how far they were going to let this go to. What was the plan? Did Gellar even really have a plan or was she flying by the seat of her pants so desperate to get a conviction on this bitch that she was willing to put Jay in direct danger to do so?

  Max looked at her as if asking the question with his eyes. Gellar simply shook her head softly “no”.

  The door popped open just then. Emily released it slowly, but it still creaked slightly. Maybe Jay would hear it and realize that something bad was going down. Max wondered if he could still text Jay without Gellar finding out and warn him. He felt like he was allowing his friend to be murdered just so that it would make closing this case easier for Gellar.

  He felt like a total cretin.

  Emily packed the lock picking kit back in the bag and stepped inside closing the door behind her.

  “We have to go now!” Max whispered to Gellar.

  “NO! We hav
e to be patient. We have to give her a few minutes to get inside. Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” Gellar replied in a hushed whisper scream.

  “I don’t believe this. My friend’s blood is going to be on your hands.”

  “It will be ok. You have to believe me on this.”

  The next minute was perhaps the longest minute in Max’s life. He could not stop pacing back and forth as they waited until the time that Gellar decided was long enough so that they would not be discovered. Max had to fight the urge to yell for Jay and let him know the hell that was coming for him. Tears began to well up in his eyes. Jay was like a brother to him and he didn’t know if he would be able to get over it if something really happened to his best friend. Max would feel totally alone. Gellar did not know what sort of a dangerous game she was playing here with this psycho.

  “Ok,” Gellar said as she jogged to the door.

  She opened the door carefully. Max could not stop jogging in place; his adrenaline was racing so hard. He had never been this nervous and scared all at once. He really thought his chest might explode at any moment, the pressure was so severe. Was he having a heart attack?

  Max followed her inside, stepping carefully trying to match her pace and presence.

  Gellar shut the door quietly behind them.

  The house was dark for the most part as they stepped into the back half of the living room. The only light that was on was the light in the kitchen above the sink, which illuminated the entire living room in a weird glow. But at least they could see.

  Max did not see any sign of Emily or Jay. Where the hell were they? Was Jay home? Maybe he’d got lucky and he was not home to come face to face with this psychopathic killer.

  But then he heard the voices.

  They were coming from down the hallway. Jay’s bedroom. The voices were muffled through the walls and the space between rooms, but Max could definitely pick out Jay’s voice.

  As he got closer, following Gellar closely behind Max could hear the fear and terror in Jay’s voice as he begged Emily not to do this. Emily was ranting about something, her voice low and menacing. She didn’t even sound like the girl they’d talked to on skype.