“You good?” she whispered so quietly that her voice could’ve been the breeze.
Peaches nodded and opened his eyes.
“Vertigo,” he replied.
Ellie felt her heart spike. “Can you handle yourself?”
Peaches nodded again and continued his descent. It was one of the few moments that Ellie wished she was with Detective Skinner. She didn’t trust the dog-faced detective, but she needed someone who could watch her back. That person might not be Detective Peaches. Nonetheless, he was the only person crazy enough to go into the horrible-smelling place with her.
The stink of death became intoxicating as they reached the bottom of the steps. The basement was large and square. Ellie sucked in air at the sight of dozens of men in black hoodies and fabric masks exactly how the portrait had shown. They were all slightly turned to her with their shoulders stiff and their arms by their side.
Peaches held his hand on the trigger with his eyes wide as he aimed his gun between them all. He was also holding his breath.
The showdown lasted a few seconds until Ellie and Peaches both realized that their dozens of adversaries were mannequins. They had to be by how still they were. Nonetheless, Ellie and Peaches approached with extreme caution. As they headed away from the stairs and walked deeper into the basement lined with hooded men, Ellie saw Troy.
He was suspended vertically via a rope binding his wrists. His feet were hovering and the tops of his toes rested on the concrete in a curled position. He wore jeans rolled up at the ankles and slipping at his waistline. His chest was bare and his head hung low. His lip was busted.
Ellie’s jaw fell open. It was like she was looking at her portrait with the only difference being the lack of a crude wound on Troy’s chest and the new appearance of dead crow on the floor by his husband’s feet. The bird's torso was slashed open just like the one that was nailed to the portrait. Bugs swarmed the laceration that had spilled out hardening black blood in a thick, drying pool around the spread feathers. The bird must’ve died last night, but Troy was left alive. He’d only do that if it was a trap. Ellie and Peaches exchanged looks. They both knew what they were getting into, but the reality was finally hitting them. They glanced at the dozens hooded figures standing around them and trusted none of them.
Peaches’s phone rang. The detective clicked off his flashlight, not needing it anymore, and withdrew his phone. It was Skinner calling. Peaches was about to answer when Ellie put her hand on the phone. They looked into each other’s eyes. Ellie shook her head. She remembered the message. Only bring the detective or Troy dies. With a heavy frown, Peaches muted his phone.
He started moving toward Troy. Ellie glanced up the steps, fearful that the door would lock and they’d be trapped within. This time, she didn’t have a fire to burn a way out for her. Screw it. She turned her attention back to her husband. She started that way. The stench grew so strong, she almost fainted. She looked at Troy’s sweaty body. His tapered blond hair fell over his face and hung in sweaty spikes on his brow. The basement was stuffy and hot. Was it the bird causing the stink or something else?
Ellie put her hand on Troy’s cheek. “Troy. Baby, can you hear me? Wake up.”
Her husband didn’t reply. His stomach rose and fell with his every breath.
Ellie fumbled with the knot binding his wrists but couldn’t undo it. She used the kitchen knife and started working the edge against the rope. The process proved to be more daunting than Ellie anticipated.
“Ellie,” Peaches called out.
Ellie glanced back at him hastily. The detective’s shirt covered his mouth. Clenching the mannequins’ cloth mask at his side, Peaches stood before a decaying corpse standing amidst the hooded men. Like the rest of the mannequins, the corpse wore a hoodie, cargo pants, and boots. A metal cross-shaped beam on the dead body’s back held him in place. Nails hammered the neck of the beam into the man’s spine. The arms of the beam were nailed into the back of his shoulders and the top was nailed into the skull to keep his head from falling slack. Despite the sunken cheeks and pale green skin, Ellie recognized the hollow eyes, receding hairline, and flat nose from the police database. The corpse was Michael Dillinger.
A weak voice said, “Ellie…”
Ellie twisted back to Troy. His eyelids were heavy and his speech was dry.
“Shh,” Ellie said and cut faster, watching the rope starting to fray.
Peaches dropped the cloth mask and pulled out his cellphone. He snapped a picture, not seeing the hooded mannequin behind him start to move. In the same place where Ellie had found the address on the mural, the hooded man slipped through the two mannequins in the front row nearest the center of the room.
Against Ellie’s wishes, Peaches dialed Skinner. A shadow expanded between his feet. In a single motion, he dropped the phone, put both hands on his pistol, and twisted back to the true and living hooded man.
Peaches managed to fire off a single bullet. It zipped past the hooded man’s ear and hit a mannequin. At the same time, the hooded man grabbed Peaches’s bandaged forehead and squeezed the purple lump as if crushing a melon. The detective wailed. His gun slipped from his hand as he fell to his knees in agony. The hooded man’s gloved thumbs dug into the pulped wound.
Ellie turned back to see the detective collapse to his side, unconscious. The hooded man turned his shrouded face to her.
She cut faster, getting through a third of the rope now.
“No, no, no,” she pleaded as she cut. The knife’s handle slipped in her sweaty hand. Her wrist ached.
“Ellie…” Troy said with weak breath.
Ellie ignored him. She turned back to the hooded man. His boot crushed Peaches’s phone as he walked toward her.
“You took something that wasn’t yours,” said the hooded man.
Ellie twisted back to him, putting both hands on the knife’s handle. “Take one step forward and I will kill you.”
The thin, sheer cloth on the man’s face wrinkled as he smirked.
“I will,” Ellie threatened and took a step forward. Her mind tried to tell her body to stop shaking, but it didn’t listen. Her teeth chattered.
The man spoke in his soft voice. “Put down the knife. Don’t be like the rest. Embrace what you’ve done.”
“This is because I saved Andrew, isn’t it?” Ellie asked.
The hooded man tensed up.
Ellie knew she had him. “So you’re after vengeance.”
“Justice,” the hooded man replied.
“Sure,” said Ellie sarcastically. “That’s why you’re after me and my husband? Whatever Andrew, Michael, and the others did, it doesn’t justify your actions.”
The hooded man was quiet. Was he convicted or content? Ellie didn’t know. The man lowered himself to pick up Peaches’s gun.
Ellie charged at him as he knelt. She jabbed the point of the knife at him. He stumbled back. Using the side of her foot, Ellie kicked Peaches’s gun aside. It skidded between the mannequins’ legs and vanished into the dark edges of the basement. The hooded man drew out a knife of his own. It had an ivory hilt and a crude edge. Ellie went to stab again, but the hooded man dashed out of the way and sliced back.
Ellie felt the breeze of the serrated edge as it slashed the air centimeters from her face. Ellie slashed back, opening a tear in front of the man’s hoodie. He didn’t take that kindly and swung wildly at her. She stepped back clumsily and toppled into the mannequins. They fell like bowling pins, breaking some of their limbs. Ellie moved behind one and watched the hooded man stab it in the face. His knife got stuck. Ellie slashed down at his arm, but the hooded man was able to draw back the knife in time to avoid the slash.
Ellie retreated farther back into the mannequins
Face as red as a cherry, Troy thrashed in his bindings and spoke to Peaches. “Get up. Hey, pal. Come on. Wake up.”
The detective didn’t respond.
Ellie shoved mannequins into the hooded man’s way as she distanced herself
from him. The hooded man pushed the obstacles aside and kept swinging, slashing up his doppelgangers in his failed attempts to kill Ellie.
Waking up, Peaches rolled to his belly. He attempted to rise from the ground, but fell back to the concrete.
“The phone,” Troy yelled.
Peaches scanned the floor with half-shut eyes on his tear-soaked face. He groped weakly for the cracked cellphone. His fingers brushed against its edge. It was not enough to pull it close to him.
Ellie burst forth from the mannequins in front of Peaches and gave the phone a nudge with her foot as she ran for the other side of the room.
The hooded man followed after as Peaches dialed 911 on the shattered screen.
“911, state your emergency.”
One foot in the horde of mannequins and the other at the center of the room, the hooded man twisted back to Peaches. Elbows wobbling, the detective pushed against the ground to rise up.
The hooded man turned away from Ellie and slammed the steel toe of his boot against the Peaches’s forehead. The detective rolled on his back, his eyes shut and his neck rolling limply to the side. A red bloom formed on his bandage.
“Help!” Troy screamed at the phone. “We’re trapped in his basement! He has my wife! Hurry!”
The hooded man stomped on the phone until it was a pile of broken plastic. Clenching the knife tightly, he turned to Troy.
9
IN BLOOD
The Hooded Man marched to Troy. Bound, Troy tried to pull away from the man but was limited by the length of the rope.
“Stay back!” Troy commanded. His chest was glistening with sweat. The blade’s crude and serrated edge reflected in Troy’s bloodshot brown eyes. He thrashed about, trying to tear the rope at the point where Ellie had cut. His attempts failed.
The hooded man moved in for the kill. Troy sucked air and braced himself for the inevitable.
Ellie raced out from the darkness and sent the point of the blade at the hooded man’s neck. He reacted in time to block it with the edge of his knife. The unexpected deflection caused both assailants to lose their grip on their weapons. Their knives clacked on the concrete. Ellie’s heart skipped a beat. There was a split-second delay where neither one of them did anything. Then, the hooded man went to scoop up his knife. Ellie grabbed the back of his hood, pulling back his cowl and the thin, skin-tight black cloth mask covering the entirety of his head.
Taking hold of his crude knife, the man turned his exposed, hideous face back to Ellie. His skin was a sickly pale hue and scarred with a half-dozen slashes across his cheeks, nose, lips, and forehead. He had one green eye and one silver. By his bone structure, there was a chance that he had been handsome before his disfigurement. He glared at Ellie with crinkled brows.
He shoved his open hand at Ellie’s throat and slammed her against the squishy body of Michael Dillinger. She pushed against him, but the man stood firm. He pressed the knife’s point at just below Ellie’s chin as he choked her.
“No one touches me,” he threatened, his soft voice turned to rough anger.
A tear raced down Ellie’s cheek as a bead of blood trickled down the knife’s crude edge. If she spoke, the blade would only cut deeper. She turned her eyes to Troy as the air left her lungs. Troy’s face had gone stark white and his jaw was slightly agape. He no longer fought his binds. The horror paralyzed him.
Seeing where Ellie’s attention had gone, the killer turned to Troy as well. “You should’ve kept a better eye on your wife.”
Ellie locked her teeth to keep them from chattering. Darkness and flickering specks swarmed the edges of her vision. She struggled for breath, but the man only squeezed her neck tighter.
Troy’s dread turned to desperation. “Take me. Not her.”
The man thought on it for a moment. “She can watch, just as my sister had to watch.”
He slammed Ellie into the corpse and then tossed her to the floor. She landed on her hands and knees and gasped for air.
“Troy!” She called out with a cracked voice as the ugly man marched to her husband.
Troy kept his eyes on his wife. “Run, Ellie.”
As faint as whispers, sirens sounded far away…
All three looked at the steps.
Ellie felt a brief glimmer of hope.
Troy’s scream stole it away.
Knife dripping crimson, the hooded man twisted back to Ellie. Behind him, Troy thrashed in his binds. Blood spilled out from the vertical slash on his torso. In the corner of her eye, Ellie saw Peaches’s pistol. The hooded man rushed at her. Ellie darted for the pistol. She swiped up the weapon, rolled to her back, and took aim. The hooded man wasn’t behind her as she expected. His shadow raced up the wall nearest the stairs.
She looked between her husband and the killer. It was one or the other. She quickly got up and ran to Troy.
The sirens grew louder.
Slam!
The upstairs door shut, killing the faint sounds of the police approaching.
Ellie shoved the gun into the back of her pants and scooped up her knife on the way to her husband.
Just as was shown in the mural, Troy’s torso was slashed open from sternum to belly button. Ellie wanted to vomit, cry, and scream, but she kept her will strong as she started to cut the bindings with a hasty sawing motion.
“Ellie,” Troy said as he grimaced in pain.
“Quiet,” Ellie said as she worked the blade. She kept her gaze away from the horrible wounds.
Troy’s face started to lose color. “I love you.”
More tears raced down Ellie’s face. “Please don’t talk.”
“I’m sorry,” Troy said weakly. “I should’ve… I should’ve been… better. More supportive.”
Ellie got half of the rope frayed and kept sawing. She didn’t know how much time Troy had left or what she’d do after she got him down.
Troy kept on talking. “I love you, Ellie. If I don’t always show it...”
His words felt like a knife twisted in Ellie’s heart. “Don’t talk like that. We’re getting out of here.”
“Ellie…”
“Don’t Ellie me.” More tears rolled down Ellie’s cheek. She traded hands and kept sawing. “We’re going to get you down and go on that vacation. Just like we talked about.”
Troy shut his eyes. “The cabin?”
“Yeah,” Ellie declared. “Somewhere far away from the world. It will be the two of us, cheap wine, and all the cheesy romance movies we’ll ever need.”
“I’d like that,” Troy replied. His voice was no longer filled with pain.
Ellie felt blisters forming on her hand as she worked at the final third of the rope. “Troy, listen to me. You are not going to die. Not--”
Her voice cut out. The knife stopped sawing and fell to the floor.
Troy forced open his heavy eyes. “Ellie?”
His wife took a step away from him. Her eyes were rolled into the back of her eyes. Her shoulders slumped.
Troy wiggled in his binds and gasped in pain as more blood spilled at the feet of his indifferent wife. “Ellie, wake up.”
Ellie extended her hand and brushed her fingers through the blood surrounding Troy’s massive wound. Troy cried in pain. “Wake up! Ellie! Please!”
Ellie took a knee and started to brush her blood-dipped fingers on the concrete floor. When she’d used it all, Ellie stood and took more from Troy’s wound.
Troy twisted in place, his voice failing him. “Wake up.”
Ellie didn’t hear his words. She knelt and continued to brush her fingers on the floor, creating the outlines of people. She collected more “paint,” and added detail to the people’s faces. They were familiar. They were family.
Troy didn’t move any longer. His breaths were faint. His voice was a whisper in the wind. “Wake up, Ellie. Please, wake up.”
Eyes still rolled back and wide open, Ellie painted her mural with Troy’s blood. For the first time, there were multiple victims in the portrait, an
d Ellie was among them.
THE PAINTING MURDERS: BOOK 2
1
APRIL 21, 1995
Cory Barksdale burst forth from the shallow grave, spitting dirt down his bare and bloodied chest. A pain ached in his right side. Broken rib, probably. With eyes swollen shut, he scanned the dark woods. The soft spring wind shimmied the trees’ spring leaves. Cory called out, though only a dry rattle escaped his mouth full of broken teeth. Not even the air replied. It was as though nature herself had forsaken him.
Cory sank back to the loose dirt, agitating the dozens of bruises and lacerations across his pale flesh. Despite the persistent agony, he couldn’t bring himself to rise again. The stars above spun in a whirl of speckled light. Blackness swept over his vision.
THE SETTING SUN streamed through the window of the doublewide trailer. Cory Barksdale lay belly down on the same twin bed he’d slept in all eighteen years of his life. He pressed the top of the eraser-less pencil against his forehead as he looked over the sketch of the woman clad in a Victorian dress with a flintlock pistol hanging in the holster on her out-of-place leather belt. It was another one of his nerdy creations that he had spent hours creating instead of socializing with real people. Cory pressed the pencil top deeper into his brow. The shading on the woman’s face was off. Her nose was too sloped. There were a dozen other imperfections that tempted him to ball up the drawing and add it to his overflowing trash bin.
Hearing laughter, he glanced up at the open bedroom door. Down the hall, his mother leaned on the kitchen countertop. She wore a skimpy dress and had way too much makeup on her aging face. She twirled her finger through one of her slinky brown curls as she chatted on the phone with one of her many boyfriends.
She glanced at Cory with an annoyed expression. He averted his eyes quickly.
Someone knocked on the front door.
Stolen Secrets: A Collection Of Riveting Mysteries Page 22
