Jack (Secret Revenge #1)

by Robin Edwards

  Every night Julie, Kait, and Tommy would have a drink at the bar down the street and decompress from their day. Nothing seemed to bother Kait, and Tommy had taken over running the local bank when his father, the bank owner, decided it was time for him to retire. Tommy’s days were filled with someone fetching his coffee and bank tellers sucking up to him every time he turned the corner, a job that seemed more of a nightmare than Julies. But Tommy was comfortable, and Kait liked the idea that one day she could quit the morgue and raise a few children that would end up as clueless as the rest of the town.

  After drinks, like clockwork, Julie would walk back to her small Victorian style house on the breezy neighborhood streets right outside of downtown. In the summer she would ride her bike to work, and in the winter, unless conditions were unbearable, Julie would walk to work to give her a chance to clear her mind before and after a day at the morgue. Lydia’s house was right outside the town, and Julie put her head down as she walked passed hoping not to overhear the common arguments between Lydia and her mother, who she still took care of and lived with.

  Sometimes, when Julie would work late, she would go around the block to avoid Lydia’s house altogether. Julie never liked to see anyone upset and the last time she stopped to console a crying Lydia outside of her house, Lydia had screamed at Julie and ran inside. Lydia’s house was the dark spot on the walk with its run down shutters, dirt stained siding, and mound of junk in the front yard, yet the town left them alone knowing Lydia had been taking care of things her entire life.

  Recently, though, Lydia’s house had been quiet, and she had stayed away from the morgue, looking away when she did have to come down, and a body was sitting out. She never seemed to have an issue with gore before, but since the bodies were found on the outskirts of town, Lydia seemed to get squeamish every time she walked through the doors. Julie found it odd at first but just chalked it up to the fact that Lydia was a weird person anyways.

  The nights had begun to get chilly, and the endless clouds made the nights darker than usual in Bushwick. With the recent events and the pending holiday season, Julie was beginning to feel uncomfortable as she walked home, always feeling like someone was behind her. Either way, Julie knew she needed to figure out what happened to these girls even if it meant a hundred more late night walks back to her house.

  Julie was just glad that the horror hadn't traveled into her small town, even if she felt like it was everywhere. Halloween was in the air for everyone in the city except Julie, who felt like Halloween was just another creepy day in her always disturbing life.

  Chapter One

  The phone rang before the sun had breached the horizon and Julie jumped out of bed to answer it, knowing there could only be one reason for a call that early; another body had come into the morgue. Julie had started to get used to these calls at odd hours, but her knees were still wobbly from the extra shots she had taken at Murphy's Pub last night with Kait and Tommy, causing her to stumble across the room. She threw piles of clothes around searching for her phone and finally found it, answering the call breathlessly.

  “Yes, hello,” Julie said trying to keep her breathing under control.

  “Julie.” The voice of Sheriff Bartlett was quiet but divisive on the other end. “There is another body. I don’t have to tell you this is all secret information. Just get dressed and meet me at your office.”

  Before Julie could say anything, the Sheriff had hung up the phone, and an eerie feeling crawled over her skin like a shadow creeping through the streets. Another victim had been found and Julie, for the first time in her career, wasn’t sure if her stomach was steady enough for an early morning murder. She shook the thought from her mind and pulled a clean pair of scrubs from the drier. She usually changed at work to avoid walking home with human splatter all over her but she needed to get there quickly and finding clean clothes in the mess of her house wasn’t something she had the strength for.

  Julie was usually a relatively exact person but ever since June this case had taken up her life and all she did at home was throw her clothes off and fall into bed. She rushed through the house, grabbed her coffee mug, threw on a jacket, and began peddling the three blocks to work on her bicycle. Everything was quiet in the neighborhood, and even the city looked more like The Town That Dreaded Sundown than the average hopping little town she had grown accustomed to.

  She pulled her bike up to the side of the building and trotted in through the side doors. The morgue was cluttered with people, mostly investigators and evidence collectors. Julie wandered towards her office looking over through the glass walls that encased the preparation room where she caught a slight glimpse of the victim’s face before they pulled the sheet back over her. It was strange that they were doing so much work here since usually all the other evidence was collected at the scene.

  Just as Julie was turning her head back towards the office, the Sheriff stepped in front of her, causing her to jump from the surprise. He pulled his head back slightly taking a good look at Julie’s face since jumpiness wasn’t usually a trait that she showed. Sheriff Bartlett forced a smile and put his hand on Julie’s back, leading her to her office. He shut the door behind them, and Julie walked to her desk and set her bag on the floor.

  “A little jumpy this morning?” Bartlett asked. “It’s okay Julie, these murders have made us all take a second look over our shoulder when we are walking home for dinner. Here is the deal. The victim has been identified as 24 years old, Marissa Hagerty. Marissa was a graduate student, no children, no boyfriend, lived alone in her apartment about thirty miles outside of this town.”

  Julie’s head snapped up, and the look on her face caused the Sheriff to stop speaking and wait for her response. Julie cleared her throat and replied:

  “Sheriff, I know you probably have noticed, but these victims place of origin are getting closer and closer to our town.”

  “Yes,” the Sheriff said without delay. “We are keeping a close monitor on it. This victim was found in the library by Officer Brown who was called there for a possible break-in. By the time he got there, the body was dumped, and the assailant was nowhere to be found. It’s strange; it is as they disappear into thin air. Luckily Kait happened to be walking home from her fiancé’s house and was able to keep the situation hidden from any other onlookers.”

  “Oh,” Julie said with sympathy. “Is she okay?”

  “She seems to be fine,” Sheriff Bartlett replied. “In fact, I offered her the day off, but she insisted she was okay. I was going to send Lydia to help for the day, but she was ill today, and Kait gave off the impression that that wouldn’t be the best idea.”

  Julie snorted and rolled her eyes. The Sheriff looked carefully at Julie slightly surprised by her disposition towards Lydia. He took a deep breath reminiscent of Julie’s dad’s motions right before a lecture.

  “Julie,” he began. “Cut Lydia a little slack. She is not as bad as she seems. Anyways, I’ll get all these people out so you can get to work. I’d like your report by this afternoon.”

  Julie shook her head in understanding and watched as Sheriff Bartlett walked out of the office and began ushering people to the door. She flipped over the folder on her desk and read the information on the latest victim. There was nothing more than what the Sheriff had told her but she couldn’t help but wonder why all these bodies ended up in town and why the killer seemed to be getting closer and closer to ground zero.

  After the last detective left Julie grabbed her iPod, popped her earphones in, and shut herself in the room with the victim. She combed the victim over thoroughly but found only the same etchings in the victim's skin as all of the other girls, and all were made post mortem. Julie pulled her scalpel out and prepared to make the first incision, understanding that this victim most likely died from the same embolism that all the other girls had. As the knife touched the victim's skin, a hand fell on Julie’s shoulder, and she jumped back from the body and whirled around.

  “Gosh,” Kait
said smiling. “This stuff is really getting to you.”

  “God Kait,” Julie said pulling the earbuds from her ears. “I could have stabbed you.”

  “And what?” Kait chuckled. “Given me a half inch wound?”

  “Well,” Julie said wiping her hands and lifting her face shield. “I am glad you are feeling okay. I was worried last night would've scared you.”

  “Nah,” Kait said glancing down at the body. “I work in a scary movie every day; it takes a lot to scare me.”

  “Good,” Julie replied preparing to continue. “Murphey’s tonight? I'm going to need a drink after this one.”

  “Sure thing boss,” Kait said as she walked out of the room and to her desk by the front doors.

  Julie was surprised at Kait’s calmness; she never was quite fit for this job, but she assumed the years of bodies on the table had desensitized her. Julie went back to work and continued examination until just after eleven. When she was done, she took the time to carefully close the body back up and wash the victim off, a sign of respect in Julie’s eyes. She stood staring at the beautiful young face whose life had been brutally taken from her way to early and it gave Julie a sense of sadness.

  She shook the feeling from her knowing that she had to keep her personal feelings out of this or she would start seeing a murderer in every face she passed. Julie went to her office and started her report, wanting to get it done before she took lunch so she could swing by Bartlett’s office before grabbing lunch with Kait. The words spilled out on paper almost automatically since this report was the same as every other one she had written over the last five months. Five bodies in five months meant Halloween was sure to be an exciting night.

  Julie finished her report at half past noon and signaled to Kait to lock the doors. She swung through the Sheriff’s office and left the report on his desk since he seemed to be bogged down in the pit with the detectives. Kait and Julie ran down the street to grab Chinese food for lunch and ate there since Kait still couldn’t get used to eating in the room with all the dead people.

  “So,” Kait began. “I have gotten us three tickets to the Halloween Masquerade Ball, and I won’t take no for an answer. It is really cool this year. You must dress in masquerade fashion, wear your mask all night, and you are not allowed to reveal your identity to anyone.”

  “Ugh,” Julie contested. “Like I need more people in my life that I don’t know who they are. I hate Halloween Kait; you know that.”

  “Yes,” Kait said. “Well suck it up. Besides you never want to meet people, so this is perfect. You can make friends, and they will never know who you are in real life. You can be a human for one night and then turn back into morbid Cinderella at two AM.”

  “Fine,” Julie said reluctantly. “But you have to take care of the costumes. I just want you to show up at my house, and I put on clothes.”

  “It’s a deal,” Kait said excitedly.

  The rest of Julie’s day was spent in meetings at the station explaining her findings over and over again to several different people in the precinct. She looked over the crime scene photos several times but couldn’t pinpoint anything unusual, besides the mutilated body dumped in the romance section of the library. Julie shook her head as she viewed the pictures unable to come to any other conclusion than the body had been hastily dumped.

  Around seven in the evening Kait popped her head into Julie’s office to tell her she couldn’t go to Murphy’s that night; apparently, Tommy was having some sort of epic meltdown over his boss. It was all for the better since Julie couldn’t get the latest victim from her head. She promised Kait she wouldn’t stay too late and locked the morgue doors behind her as Kait left.

  Julie went back in and began going over the latest victim's body again, thinking she may have missed something. She stood perplexed at the accuracy of etchings identical to the last body and the ones before it. As Julie went to pull the cover over the body, she noticed something in the palm of the victim’s hand. She unraveled the cold, stark grasp and found a number etched into the skin that read 43. How could she have missed that?

  She went back to her office and dialed the Sheriff’s home number knowing he had already left for the day. He sounded irritated when he answered and told Julie to document it and he would deal with it at the opening of the next day. He then ordered her to go home for the night and relax.

  Julie sighed but agreed, wrote up the report, and neatly tucked the body back into the chilled holding area. She flipped lights off as she left and walked towards the front door, turning around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She heard a creak in the darkness and her eyes widened. She reached in her purse slowly knowing she had pepper spray somewhere in there when a hand tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and whirled around breathing heavily.

  “Whoa crazy,” Lydia said putting her hands up. “The doors were unlocked, so I wanted to make sure everything was okay in here, sheesh.”

  “I locked the doors when Kait left,” Julie said breathlessly as she dropped the spray back in her purse. “I thought you took a sick day.”

  “Well,” Lydia replied as she turned and walked towards the doors. “I took a half day. I’ll send the maintenance guy over to check the locks tomorrow. And go get some sleep or have a drink, you're even more uptight than usual, which is record setting for a human.”

  “Haha,” Julie said as Lydia shut the door behind her. She took a second to collect her nerves and locked the doors as she left the morgue. They seemed to be locked just fine, weird.

  The bike ride home was quick since Julie’s nerves were unhinged and she quickly locked herself inside her house, setting the alarm before she took her coat off. She was pretty sure she was the only one in town with an alarm system, but she was grateful for it especially with the recent events. Julie made her way up to her room, took a shower, threw her scrubs in the wash, and laid down, falling asleep much faster than she thought she would.

  Her dreams were full of the faces of the five women brutally murdered, and Julie tossed and turned. Daylight came quickly, and Julie was relieved to see the sun pierce the darkness. She needed a vacation, but with what was going on, Julie knew she’d never outrun it.

  Chapter Two

  Several weeks had passed since the fifth victim had been found. Julie was a week away from Halloween, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the murder mystery no one seemed able to solve. After they had found the number on the first body, they went back through all the pictures of the other four bodies and found numbers on each of their hands. They were so random, though, not a single detective could figure out what they were pointing to:

  76, 12,37,23,43

  Julie was even allowed to help comb back through the boxes of evidence they had taken from the scene. It is customary for them to pick up any trash etc. within ten feet of the body in case any of it leant clue to the murder. The only place without a box was the most recent victim, Marisa, since taking every book from the library was a little obsessive. After twelve hours of scraps of paper and old shoes, they came up with nothing that connected those numbers to anything but random. The Sheriff put it out there that the figures may just be a distraction to keep them off the killer’s trail, but Julie knew there had to be something, the killer was so meticulous in every aspect of these murders, they wouldn’t get sloppy at the last second, it didn’t fit their profile.

  The only thing strange that day they went through the evidence was Lydia, who started out helping but ended up leaving the room thinking no one had noticed. While Julie was stacking evidence back in a box, she caught Lydia and the Sheriff in the hall, and they looked like they were talking in secret. He was scolding Lydia, and she just had her head down nodding, something Julie had never seen Lydia do, she usually fought everything. Julie shrugged it off as Lydia probably getting caught stealing or something stupid she used to do in high school. The Sheriff had always seemed to have a soft spot for her and took her in as a father figure.

  For the
next week, after coming up empty from the evidence search, Julie would scour the internet hoping to find some clue in other towns or states of this serial killer. Her search always ended up the same way, with absolutely nothing. Her frustration and lack of sleep were starting to wear on her, but every time she closed her eyes at night all she would see were these women, and Tommy had been acting weird lately, so there was no alcohol to help relax her brain after work.

  It was Wednesday, exactly one week from Halloween, and not far from when Julie should expect another early morning phone call. Her desk was covered in sticky notes, and the only time she wasn’t thinking about the murders was when a random heart attack or car accident would land in the morgue. Julie had her headphones in trying to do some research on what the numbers could mean. She had gone through bible verses, pages of different books, astrology, and just about anything else she could think of and nothing matched up, she was starting to get frustrated.