Black Death (A Sam Rader Thriller Book 4)

by Simon King

  As the afternoon continued to churn on towards evening, Grace looked up on a few occasions, hoping for Burns to show his face. She knew from the posts that he still liked his drink and would often walk the two blocks to the supermarket for a fresh bottle to see him through the night.

  Grace checked the time, then thumbed the cell back into life, continuing to scroll. Once she had enough, she switched sites, logging into one of her other favored hangouts. To her surprise, a message was waiting for her. She clicked on it and immediately recognized the name, MuffinMaker reaching out a second time.

  “I don’t want your money,” Grace whispered as she clicked on the message, recalling their previous exchange. But to her surprise, it wasn’t about money. Instead, she needed help, a friend of hers in dire need.

  Grace sat up a little as she read the message, something about the words reaching out to her. It was about a young mum that had lost the father of her twins to cancer and her new boyfriend was a crackhead with a taste for violence. He raped and beat the family daily, forcing the mum to hand over her paycheck whenever she brought one home. The mum had been to the hospital on several occasions and MuffinMaker had a real fear that he would kill her during a drug-fueled episode.

  The tears stung her eyes as she wiped at them, reading how the girls would be orphans if anything happened to their mum. Grace knew the danger the girls were in and understood the consequences if she didn’t act fast enough.

  To try and get her thoughts straight, Grace temporarily shut the cell, held it in her lap and stared out through the windshield. There was movement ahead and she watched as Paul Burns half stumbled from the door of his parent’s home, turned down the sidewalk and slowly walked towards where she was parked.

  Thoughts were screaming around her brain like stock cars ‘round a racetrack. Visions of herself and Lucy, coming home to find their own mum murdered in the bathroom. Of the man that had killed her and what he had put them through during his time with them. How much their lives changed once they were left orphaned.

  Burns was nearing her car and Grace felt the rage intensify as she stared at him. He looked down, saw her watch him and snarled, “What the fuck are you lookin’ at, Bitch?” That was when she knew she needed to act.

  Grace opened her car door, jumped out and ran at Burns, the man barely a dozen yards from her. She didn’t slow, lowering her head in the final second and grabbing him by the scruff. Burns lost balance, dropped to one knee and tried to look up at the shadow that somehow knocked him over.

  But before he could speak, Grace brought her boot heel down on his fingers as they looked to support him on the concrete. He screamed in agony as two of them snapped. He fell down, clutching his hand close to his chest as Grace kneeled down and grabbed him by his shirt. To get her point across, she pulled out the blade she kept in her boot and pointed it at his eyeball.

  “Listen up, Paul Burns,” she whispered, her face barely an inch from his as the blade stared threateningly into his eye. “I’m going to tell you his once, you piece of shit. Get off the booze, go and get the help you need and then get the fuck out of your parents home. Do you understand?” He nodded intensely, shaking his head as if his life depended on it.

  “I swear I will.”

  “Are you even listening?” She brought the blade closer and he begged for his life.

  “I swear, yes, I will.” Grace leaned in a little closer as a car door slammed somewhere further up.

  “If you don’t, I will come back and end you, do you hear me?” To emphasize her point, Grace shot the point of the blade forward, scraped the skin beside his eye lid and watched a thin trail of blood start falling to the pavement.

  “Ahhh, please no,” he shouted as footsteps came running towards them. Grace looked up and saw an old man halt as he saw the blade. He held his hands up and began to retreat, a wise move on his part. She looked back down in time to see the urine flow from Burns, running towards the curb and down into the gutter.

  “You’re gonna lose more than a trickle of piss if I have to come back.”

  Without looking back, Grace rose, returned to her car and jumped in. She twisted the key, floored the gas pedal and got the hell out of there while she could, trying her best to regain control over her anger.

  After swapping the plates on her car as a precaution, Grace ran up the stairs to her bedroom, paced back and forth several times, then picked up a pillow. She screamed into it, paused, then screamed again. The rage pumping through her veins hadn’t subsided during the drive home and she feared losing complete control.

  The message from Clara had completely blindsided her and she wasn’t sure how to regain her composure. Reading about the twin girls had ripped open familiar wounds, wounds she had never allowed to fully heal. All she could think about was racing over to that home and saving the children.

  She dropped the pillow and sat on the edge of the bed. After pulling the cell from her pocket, she opened the message again and re-read it for the third time. If she was going to learn to control the rage that fueled her, then she would need to confront the pain living in her own soul, the kind she knew she could never fully heal.

  The words felt like trying to swallow barbed wire, scratching the shit out of her as they ran through her mind. So many emotions came with them and although they fueled her for the job at hand, they also held her back by reminding Grace of what could happen if she lost control.

  Only when she was positive she could do it, did she send a reply, one that had been anxiously awaited at the other end. Once she realized she had committed, Grace dropped the cellphone next to her on the bed, laid back and grabbed the pillow. As she lay in a fetal position, holding the pillow close to her chest, she began to cry. The sobs soon turned into a crying fit she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, time she had spent without her best friend.

  Almost two hours after pressing send on the message, the reply came through. It was a single emoji, a black rose, just like the one sent the first time.

  “What does that mean?” Clara asked as she stared at it. “Is she coming here now? I have to get out of here. If she comes and I’m here and she knows what I-“

  “QUIET!” Tim snapped out of frustration. He understood the woman’s fears, but wasn’t helping herself by repeatedly muttering doom and gloom.

  Clara snapped her mouth shut and looked up at Tim, her face appearing as if he’d slapped her rather than spoke.

  “You and Sam will head back to the hotel and I’ll stay here.”

  “What? You can’t stay here alone, she’ll kill you,” Clara whispered.

  “I doubt that,” Tim replied, then nodded at Sam.

  Samantha took the cue and waved for Clara to follow her. Once outside, she briefly turned back to Tim, looked into his eyes and tried to read his thoughts, but found him completely closed off. He was already in hunting mode, his cannibalistic instincts awakening, just as they did for her when she knew the kill was close.

  “Please be careful,” she finally wished and turned away.

  Tim watched them climb into the car, gave a final wave as they pulled away and closed the door. The thought of taking on this SK wasn’t what bothered him so much. He had far superior senses and knew how to use them to his full advantage, But what he faced was an unknown entity that still presented a problem. As long as Clara was out there, she could still undo everything.

  He turned back to the home, grabbed his bag and set it down on kitchen table. Inside, he found the little bits and pieces he brought to help him in this situation. Several cameras, wi-fi extenders and motion sensors. Once active, they would feed back to the master control room, where Mumma would help him monitor the home in its entirety. Just as always, it was she that was the ace up his sleeve.

  Five cameras and half a dozen detectors he placed upstairs, while the rest he scattered downstairs. He planned to keep the television running for most of the night, complete with a near-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the table beside the couch. It was
a ruse he hoped would be enough to coax the woman indoors and once he had her inside, could quickly end her spree.

  It didn’t take long for night to fall over the suburbs once the sun set. Tim stood in the back door as he watched the final few remnants of daylight disappear from view. He knew that it wouldn’t take long for the killer to take the bait, possibly already on her way over to scope the place out.

  The breeze turned chilly as quickly as dusk had vanished and with just a t-shirt on, Tim returned back inside, ensuring the door remained unlocked. He didn’t want to make it too difficult for her to gain entry and if he could manipulate where she came inside as well, would simplify his job.

  “Sam?” The earpiece was still in and he wanted to check in.

  “Yah, everything OK?”

  “All’s quiet here. How’s our passenger?”

  “She’s fallen asleep on the couch. Snores almost as loud as you.” He chuckled a little at that.

  “I don’t snore.”

  “Aha, you keep telling yourself that. Are you all set?”

  “Think so. Mumma’s got the house covered mostly. Just need to sit back and wait and see what happens. Listen, if Clara sleeps, try and get a few minutes of shut eye. Just be sure to keep her cell well away from her. If nothing happens tonight, one of us will need to be refreshed enough to watch her .” He sounded confident with getting a result and Sam felt thankful she didn’t have to make the call. There were just too many emotions she couldn’t quite read with this situation.

  “I will. I don’t think Clara’ll do anything rash. Really think she’ll show?” Sam asked.

  “I certainly hope so. No reason why she wouldn’t. She did acknowledge the message, so who knows.”

  Tim sat on the couch as he listened to her voice, wishing she was with him in the room. They were a good team and he considered her the best partner he’d ever worked with. While he always knew she would be a great addition to Pogrom, he never realized just how good she would be.

  “Please keep in touch. And let me know if you hear anything.”

  “I will,” he promised, breaking a little smile at her maternal instinct. “I will.”

  Grace woke to a darkened room, still clutching the pillow she had cried into. Night had fallen at some point and for the first few moments, felt disorientated. It took her a moment to remember the hut she was in, having rented the out-of-the-way block of land just a week before. It served her purpose well, keeping her away from the jungle of the cityscape she struggled to be around.

  The job which she had worked for almost five years, had a perfect rostering system, giving her four days off in ever nine. Whilst she worked long hours during her shifts, she found that she worked even longer shifts during her time away.

  She pushed the pillow away, sat up and reached for her cellphone. It was still lying beside her on the mattress and when she checked the time, was surprised to find it well after midnight. The cause of her grief suddenly flooded back as she recalled the message sent by Nancy’s sister. There was another family she needed to save, one far more important than any of the others she had intervened in. Because this one had reminded her of something much closer to home and a life stolen from her and her sister.

  Clara sensed where she was the moment the world began to return to her. She had been sleeping on a couch in a hotel room with people she didn’t know, but was aware they wanted to hurt the person who helped free Nancy.

  She opened her eyes the tiniest crack, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  The only sound was coming from the television, the volume turned down to almost zero as an episode of Dr Phil played out. She always hated the man, believing him to be the worst piece of garbage for gaining fame through other people’s misery.

  But where was Sam? She opened her eyes a little more, trying to find the woman tasked with watching her. Shortly after returning to the room, Sam had asked for her cellphone, in case Clara felt like using it to warn somebody.

  But now where was she? The chairs around the table were empty and Clara moved her head ever so slightly to try and see a little further. Could she be sitting behind her? Not from that angle. If the television was turned down, yet, on, then there was every chance Sam had been watching it. She would need to be somewhere by her feet.

  Clara lifted her head a little, but the more she saw of the room, the more she realized her guard was gone, or at least no longer watching her. She sat up a little more and peered into the open doors of both the adjoining rooms and there, lying on the bed, were Sam’s bare feet. She must have figured that with her subject asleep, she could get a few minutes of shut eye.

  Sitting up a little more, Clara looked around for her cell. It was nowhere to be seen and figured it was probably in the room with Sam. She carefully slid her feet onto the floor, then pushed herself up, standing as the shadows from the television continued to dance on the floor.

  Grace looked at the address again and figured it would take a little over an hour to reach it. Just as she decided that now was as good a time as any to get going, she wanted to see the face of the man that could cause so much pain and suffering. She typed his name into Google and hit search.

  Kit Ellington didn’t have the kind of face she was expecting, but his eyes seemed to hide the horror he was capable of. There was a photo of him and his family in one of the articles that Grace clicked on, the story about how he had been suspected for sexually assaulting a co-worker a few months prior. Another article showed him facing charges of battery.

  It didn’t take her long to feel the anger return, especially once she saw the twins. They were gorgeous, dressed in identical summer dresses that highlighted their green eyes. Grace snapped the phone shut, jumped up and began to get dressed.

  “It took a bit of time, but I think I managed to superimpose your face onto several thousand webpages, using the name Kit Ellington,” Mumma said as she helped Tim stay awake. “I also have the monitoring linked in to your cell, so you’ll feel it through the vibration, should anything enter the home.”

  “Just admit it, lady. You’re a magician. You were born with a higher power.” That always made her laugh and Tim enjoyed hearing the sound.

  “Thank you, my friend. Just be sure to keep yourself safe. This one’s got me worried. I don’t know why. She just feels-“

  “Different. I know what you mean,” he finished for her. “Believe me. I’ll do everything I can to come home to you.” She laughed again, always a sucker for Tim’s humor.

  The drive out to Lincoln Park didn’t take as long as Grace had assumed, pulling into the tree-lined street a little over forty minutes after leaving her hideout. With no moon in the sky, the darkness took on a new level, with this street holding barely any streetlights. There was just a single one at either end, with one in the middle. On a road that looked more than five hundred yards long, that left a lot of space in the dark.

  She parked near the top of the street and decided to walk the rest of the way. Although most of her other victims had been dealt with away from the family home, she felt this one couldn’t wait. This one needed to be finished immediately.

  She stole her way along the street, counting the houses down until she stood in front of her mark. It was quite large, two floors and the kind of home that conveyed happy family to those watching from outside.

  “Bullshit,” she whispered to herself as she crossed the threshold and stepped onto the lawn.

  There was a light coming through one of the bottom windows and from the way it kept flickering between light and dark, Grace knew the television was on in the downstairs living area. She took a final look behind her and around the street, then made a beeline for the flickering shadows, to try and get a peak inside.

  There was a small garden directly underneath that window and lush bushes of flowers were growing there, each as high as her hips. Grace carefully stepped between them and crept closer to the window. Once she was close enough, she peered inside.

  It was th
e living room and just as she assumed, the television was silently playing some old western. She could see the couch, but it sat empty, a bottle of JD sitting on the table beside it that appeared to have been mostly dealt with. That was when she saw her way in. The back sliding door stood partly open, giving her free access inside. Chances were high that Kit Ellington had given up on the bourbon and headed for an early night. According to the message, the rest of the family had gone for the weekend, leaving the man of the house home alone to face his music.

  Grace pulled herself back and quietly made her way around the side of the house. There was no car in the driveway and thus could see her way through the carport with relative ease. There was a side gate, but surely that would be unlocked.

  She was right, the gate opening without a hitch. For some reason, she felt a lot more nervous this time around, sensing her heart beating much more pronounced as she stepped into the backyard. The air felt a lot cooler too, as a light sweat broke across her brow. Something suddenly shuffled off to her right and when she spun in that direction, watched as a shape scurried through the carport and into the bushes. The cat moved like lightning and disappeared just a bare second after first appearing.

  “Fuck,” Grace whispered, feeling the adrenalin coarse through her body. She took a deep breath, looked towards the door and swallowed hard. It was time to save a family.

  The door led straight into the living room and as Grace stood beside it, listened for any sound. The silence was almost screaming at her, willing the assassin to run in and finish the job. It could all be over in a matter of minutes if she stopped pausing every few seconds.

  “Damn it, get going,” she mouthed to herself and prepared for action.