The Warning

by Michelle E Lowe

  Knox subconsciously rubbed the scar just below his ribs.

  During the raid, Knox had saved Osborn’s life by taking a bullet for him. The police discovered tons of crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin. The drugs had been confiscated before they’d had a chance to bleed into the city.

  Mayor Sho himself had awarded Knox the medals.

  “All right, enough with the small talk,” Osborn barked. “Knox, get your ass in here. Shaw get yours out.”

  Both men looked at each other and shrugged. Shaw left, closing the door behind him, while Knox took a seat.

  “What’s so important that I had to drop my investigation at the bank?”

  “The mayor’s daughter has been murdered.”

  Knox’s mouth opened before any words escaped. “What? When?”

  “This evening. We caught the killer, but he escaped.”

  “Escaped?”

  “Two officers were bringing him here when their car crashed. A blowout tire. The officer lost control and the prisoner managed to escape.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about it on the news.”

  “That’s because we were trying to keep it quiet for a while. But as we speak, your friend Sakura is interviewing one of the officers involved in the crash.”

  “Who’s the alleged killer?”

  Osborn slid a file over to him. Knox flipped it open to an old mug shot of Nikolai Crowe.

  “This him?”

  “Yeah. That’s his latest mug shot. His appearance hasn’t changed much, though. His name is Nikolai Zola Crowe. As you can see, he’s had his fair share of run-ins with the law.”

  “Unique name,” Knox commented. He slipped the photo out and looked at Crowe’s police record. “Some of his arrests have been expunged after doing community service. This is kid’s stuff. He was only a teenager when he did all this.”

  “Jesus, Knox, you sound like his lawyer. The kid did it. We have footage of him going to the victim’s apartment at the time of her death.”

  “How’d he do it?”

  “Stabbed her in the back. The murder weapon was found in the apartment. Stupid kid just left it there like he wanted to get caught.”

  “He was smart enough to escape,” Knox pointed out, keeping his focus on the file.

  Osborn started grinding his teeth. His part of the plan had only just begun and things were already falling apart. Knox’s little comment only deepened the wound of having lost Crowe.

  “What’s his motive?”

  “That we don’t know yet,” he answered, staying in character. “The bastard wouldn’t confess to the crime. We do know that he and the victim were an item.”

  “They were going out?”

  “For a little over a year.”

  “Did the mayor ever meet him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mayor Hiroshi Sho had only one child, and the two were hardly close. Sho had a stepson, Aaron, who was openly gay and engaged to marry his life partner. When politicians attacked the gay community by trying to outlaw same-sex marriage, Aaron’s wedding plans were postponed. Sho had been up for election that year and sided with his colleagues to gain support. His daughter had argued over the way he’d turned his back on his family. In rebellion, she went on television to speak against the attack, pointing out that this subject only came up during elections to bait conservative voters in a certain candidate’s direction. It didn’t matter. Sho had won in a landslide victory. Shortly thereafter, his daughter had left for California.

  “We need to find this kid,” he said earnestly. “He’s dangerous, and the mayor isn’t happy that we lost him. This is a big case.”

  “I’ll need to review that footage,” Knox said, closing the file. “And the report about the victim’s murder.”

  “It’s already on your desk. Just find him and bring him in. As for the bank, Alfonso can handle it.”

  Knox nodded and stood. “Sounds good. I’ll let you know something as soon as I can.”

  When he’d left, Osborn leaned back in his chair and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve.

  This has already gone too far.

  Nikolai’s back throbbed as he lowered himself into a chair. His leg also hurt, and he kept it stretched to ease some of the pain. He tilted his chin up at the Replica and studied him. “Why don’t you guys have any hair?”

  Seven turned to him from the window. “Pardon?”

  “In my high school history class, our teacher showed old news footage about your kind after the President was caught sending you to war. Not one of you had any hair. Why?”

  Seven turned back to the window and gazed down at the activity room below. “The steroids caused our hair follicles to die. Hair is unnecessary anyhow. It ceased to be of any use since the day Homo sapiens began wearing clothes.”

  “Like your pinkie,” Nikolai added.

  “The pinkie?” Seven echoed, turning back to him.

  “Yeah, your pinkie finger is the most useless part of your body. My sister told me that.”

  Seven’s expression was as blank as an unmarked paper.

  “She’s a doctor,” he explained.

  Seven returned his gaze to the window.

  “How were you made?”

  “We’re not made,” Seven answered shortly. “We’re born just like any mammal.”

  “Really? From an actual mother?”

  “No. Linden wanted to avoid any miscarriages, short life expectancies, or any other birth defects caused by ‘large offspring syndrome’, which often occurs in clones born from surrogate mothers. So he devised a solution for the problem and built incubators.”

  “Incubators?”

  “Yes. He started with only one and bribed a young pharmacist to donate her eggs. Linden cloned the eggs and added his own adult cells to insert into the artificial womb he created. He was able to grow artificial embryos inside artificial wombs instead of inside a female.”

  “And that worked?”

  “Not at first, but eventually, yes.”

  “How did he get busted?”

  “Busted?”

  “Yeah, arrested for cloning?”

  “The pharmacist. She turned him in to save herself after she was arrested for selling prescription drugs illegally over the Internet. She dropped names to earn her leniency and to keep her name out of the news.”

  “What about your age?”

  “What about it?”

  “I mean, how is it that you’re not old? What’s the secret?”

  “It was Linden’s lab partner who learned how to manipulate the aging process. To control aging, he first had to speed up and slow down the billions of cells that constantly divided and replicated.”

  “Ah,” Nikolai said dumbfounded. It was like being in science class all over again.

  Seven went on explaining. “By doing so, he experimented with an aging serum on cloned newborn rats, killing cells in seconds, rather than days or months. It sped up the aging process. To create the opposite effect, the rats were given another injection to prolong the life of cells for several months, which slowed the body’s aging. He called the serums Early Cell Retirement, or ECR, to speed aging along, and Anti-Cell Senescence, or ACS, to slow it down.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Nikolai praised. “I mean, the guy just created the Fountain of Youth. He can make millions.”

  Seven’s expression was disheartening. “The procedure is extremely dangerous, even for Replica fetuses. It causes heart failure and severe nerve damage. No natural born human can survive it.”

  “Oh. Never mind then.”

  A brief silence fell in the room. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “Name?” Seven asked without turning around.

  “Yeah, do you get one?”

  Seven lowered his head and shook it. “No. We get numbers instead of names.”

  “Numbers, huh?” He rubbed his back. “I can give you a name—if you want.”

  “You would give me a name?
”

  “It’s no big deal. It’s better than Eight.”

  “Seven,” the Replica corrected. “I don’t know what happened to Eight.”

  “In any case, I’ll give you a name.” He rubbed his chin with his free hand. “Let me see, what name fits someone who has no personality, a sharp temper, and has no sense of humor?” Nikolai thought a little longer. “I got it!” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’ll call you Ebenezer.”

  “Ebenezer?”

  “Yeah, it’s perfect. I’ll call you Eb for short.” Seven just stared at him with the same blank face. “What?” Nikolai said, throwing up his hands. “You don’t like it?”

  “No. Ebenezer, or Eb, is fine.”

  Nikolai gave him a nod. “Good. Glad we crossed that bridge.” He turned around in his chair, rested his elbows on the steel countertop, and buried his face in his hands. He had no more questions for the Replica, leaving him to think about more dreaded issues.

  “What is it?” Ebenezer asked.

  Nikolai slid his hands over the sides of his head and away from his face. “Detective Shrub, or Shaw, or whatever his name is, told me the girl who was killed was Jade. I don’t believe him.” He craned his neck around to Eb but quickly turned away. “I saw footage, but it … it couldn’t have been her. It had to be someone else.” He felt his chest tightening. “Anyway, who would want to hurt her? She’s so much fun to be around. She’s so full of life and so goddamn beautiful.”

  Visions of her face flooded his mind. The times they’d spent together flickered through his head. He could smell her sweet lily fragrance and feel the softness of her body when they’d made love. He could even taste her in his mouth.

  “It couldn’t have been her.”

  “I went to the body before you came,” Ebenezer admitted.

  “You did?”

  Ebenezer nodded. “We move very fast. If we don’t want to be seen, then we’re not.”

  “Why did you go to the body?”

  “I wanted to see if she needed help. I knew a body was placed under the bridge, but I did not know if she was alive or dead. Once the men drove away, I went to investigate.”

  Nikolai swallowed thickly. It was getting harder to breathe. “What did you find?”

  “I knelt beside her and checked her pulse. There was none. As I did, I discovered something around her wrist. A marking.”

  “Like a tattoo?”

  Ebenezer shrugged. “I suppose. It was two thin lines wrapped around her wrist, at least an inch apart, with a repeating design between them.”

  Nikolai shot up from his seat. When he did, his back exploded with pain. “I need a pen.”

  Ebenezer reached into his plastic bag, “Here,” he said, handing him a Sharpie.

  The ink was nearly dry, but he managed to draw a couple of lines and a simple curve between them on the glass wall. “Did it look like this?”

  Ebenezer studied it. “Yes. Only it was in red.”

  Nikolai dropped the marker. “That’s the tattoo Jade had around her wrist. She drew it herself. No one else would have it.”

  The woman he’d found dead under Greywacke Arch was Jade. The anguish consumed his heart and soul. He began walking to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to be alone for awhile.”

  “It isn’t safe for you to go out on your own,” Ebenezer warned, grabbing him by the shoulder. He barely felt his hand on him.

  “Look,” he said, “I need a few minutes alone. I’m begging you, please; let me go.”

  The hand slid off his shoulder. He left with the flashlight, going out to the prison yard where he could think in peace. He ran his hand through his hair.

  It was really her. Jade, who would want you dead?

  His hand slid behind his head where a clump in his hair touched his fingers. He felt it for a moment before realizing it was dried blood. Her blood—left behind after placing his hands behind his head when Mason had ordered him to.

  Jade was dead, truly dead.

  His legs no longer supported him and he collapsed to his knees. His wall of denial crumbed around him. A lead ball filled his stomach. He clutched it and screamed while streams of tears slid down his face. He felt sick and alone.

  The love of his life was dead—murdered; and worse, in her final moments, she must have believed he was the one who’d delivered her to her violent and brutal end.

  Chapter 7

  Knox sat in his office, looking over the footage on his computer. He watched the look-alike enter the apartment building and leave with the sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. He pressed pause to read over the file again. For a moment, he studied Crowe’s old mug shot.

  I’m missing something—but what?

  When he’d left Osborn’s office, he’d caught up to Shaw in the parking lot and had asked him a few questions about the interrogation.

  “Why do you think he killed her?”

  “I don’t know,” Shaw had said, pressing his thumb on the car remote. The door unlocked when the miniature scanner recognized his thumbprint. “But they did just break up. In fact, he told me she called it off on him. Personally, I think the kid couldn’t hack being dumped and went over to talk to her. Things must have gotten out of hand. If you need any help, you’ve got my number.”

  Shaw sped away, leaving him standing alone in the parking lot to think about what he’d said.

  Would Crowe kill his girlfriend because she wouldn’t take him back? He looked like he could easily land another girl. He had looks that belonged on the big screen rather than behind a computer. Shaw’s opinion about the motive was something to mull over, but he wondered about another thing. He thought about what Crowe had taken from the scene and what he’d left behind.

  A bloody knife inside a clear evidence bag sat on his desk. He picked it up. It had already been scanned by a fingerprint detector. Both Crowe’s and Sho’s prints had been on the handle. It was an ordinary everyday chef’s knife. The handle was made of wood and the blade was eight inches of razor-sharp stainless steel.

  It was strange that Crowe had left the knife in the apartment, yet took the chance of being seen carrying a body. Why hadn’t he taken it with him when he’d left? Had he simply forgotten it? It was a possibility; however, the weapon couldn’t have been too far from the victim. How could he have missed it?

  Stupid kid just left it there like he wanted to get caught, Osborn had said.

  Crowe would have had to go into the kitchen to get the knife, but she was killed between the kitchen doorway and the foyer. How would he have had time to go into the kitchen to get the knife and reach her before she ran out the door? Were they both in the kitchen, talking, then he’d grabbed the knife and chased her out?

  If what Shaw suggested was true, and it was nothing more than a lover’s spat gone awry, then Crowe had only gone there to talk. Before he knew it, she was dead. He’d dealt with cases like those before.

  Temporary insanity.

  In his mind, though, something still didn’t add up.

  He took the case file, flopped it down on Crowe’s criminal record, and opened it. Three photos of the victim’s body had been taken by the coroner at the crime scene. All three depicted different angles of her on the ground, with blood smeared on her sweater. Although it hadn’t been determined yet just how the knife had killed her, it was written in the report that she’d suffered a single wound through the spinal cord. The knife could have penetrated the heart, killing her instantly. A hard, direct hit was needed to penetrate straight through the spinal cord to cause such a death.

  If Jade Sho had felt threatened, why would she have turned her back on him? Maybe she’d tried to run. Even if he’d grabbed her and held on, it would have taken sheer luck to land the blow there.

  He was missing something. He needed to look harder to find what it was. He went back into Crowe’s file and read the information. Eyes: Blue. Hair: Brown. Race: Caucasian. Height: five-eight. Weight: one hundred and
fifty-three pounds. Birth Date: August 6, 2000. Age: twenty-seven years old.

  Crowe had a jagged past, but nothing he’d done as a kid compared to murder. There was no evidence that he suffered any mental problems, either.

  As he read on, he discovered that Crowe had an older sister working as a doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital.

  He stood and snatched his coat from where it hung on the back of his chair, grabbed his cell from its charger, and placed it in his pocket. He needed to first pay a visit to the mayor at his home before going to the victim’s apartment. Afterwards, he would go to the hospital and ask Doctor Jean Crowe some questions.

  “Jean!” a male nurse called to a tall, bronze-skinned woman as she headed for the cafeteria.

  “What is it?” she groaned. “I’m tired and hungry.”

  “You need to take a look at this,” he said, holding out his phone.

  “Did I mention that I’m tired and hungry?”

  “Just watch.”

  She lowered her eyes to the small screen. Sakura Yoko stood in front of a wrecked police car, speaking to an officer about the crash.

  “… and when we came to, the suspect had escaped,” the officer said.

  “Officer, tell us who the suspect is.”

  The officer fell silent for a moment before he looked directly at the camera and said, “A suspect by the name of Nikolai Crowe.”

  Jean went legs numb. Her body flushed with heat. “It can’t be.”

  “Wait,” the nurse prompted. “There’s more.”

  “And what has he allegedly done?” Sakura asked, her voice in the midst of shock and excitement.

  “He’s accused of murdering the mayor’s daughter, Jade Sho.”

  Jean gasped and placed a hand over her mouth. Nikolai couldn’t hurt anyone he loved, much less kill them.

  “No,” she said, pushing the phone away. “They’re talking about someone else.”

  The nurse studied the screen before turning it around for her to see. “Does this look like someone else?”

  Again, she focused on the screen that showed Nikolai’s mug shot.

  Nikolai calmed himself enough to rejoin Ebenezer in the circular room. As he neared the doorway, he heard voices coming from inside. With caution, he peeked in with the flashlight. To his surprise, Eb was watching television.