by Mark Edwards
M A R K E D W A R D S
Tell
LAURA
I'm Back
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A Novel By Mark Edwards 2017 (c)
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This fictional novel contains the names of characters, places, events and a storyline that exists only in the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, persons alive or not is a coincidence.
This publication is intended for readers who are twenty one years of age or older and was created only for entertainment.
All Rights Reserved. Reproduction, duplication or copying of any part of this publication in any form or by whatever means is strictly prohibited unless consent is given by the author. The images, texts and illustrations remain the intellectual property of the author.
Copyright 2017©
PROLOGUE
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Dawn had just pitched its light on the dark of night. I could never be too tired of hearing the playful twitters of the early morning forest birds, no wonder I would take my early morning jogs, leaving my i-Pod behind. It's real therapy, the type you can't pay for. I stopped to take two, listening to the whir of my lungs between racing breaths. I pushed my dark hair behind my shoulder after wiping the sweat from off my forehead. I really needed to continue running if I was going to shed the extra pounds I had gotten on my tummy from the wedding I went to in Orlando – My sister's, Jen. Paul seemed to be a nice bloke. Hope he doesn't change over time. Men, such unpredictable creatures.
Darkness just seemed to linger longer than usual. It was about 6:35 in the morn but daylight barely peered through the canopy of the pines. Morning seemed somewhat reluctant, the daylight saving time crap, I suppose.
I suddenly caught on to the whiff of something, or someone, probably; it could be mind over matter. But then I knew I glanced a shadow, about two or three pine trees behind me.
Maybe it's my overly reactive mind, I figured.
Nah way, I pondered. Not when I hear the rustling of leaves behind.
"Never usually have company in the woods at this time of the morning," I whispered. "Maybe it's best I turn back." And this I did, pacing myself towards the direction of the Class A main road, which was about a half mile eastwards.
I flashed my mid-length dark bob hair behind me, taking glances over my shoulders while I continued making my strides towards the exit of the forest. The constant rustling of leaves behind was more than warning of how alone I wasn't even though I really couldn't see anything or anyone. I was followed, by whomever or whatever; I had to step my pace up and so I started running. Within seconds I slowed down, walking once more, holding my right side - just below my stomach. I had sudden sharp pains, stitches.
I stopped and then I looked over my shoulder, seeing only the tall pines that I had just left behind. My heart immediately started working faster. The crick-crack sounding of the leaves only meant they were trampled upon, by anonymous feet.
"No!"
I turned around.
I breathed relief, even though my heart throbbed violently against my chest walls.
It was only this baby deer. He looked me over then he ran off, on his merry way.
"The poor thing's probably scared of me," I giggled.
"No! I have more company." I had just seen the rusty brown boots. That's all I managed to see, only a glimpse. The only morning I've decided to leave my mobile phone home, this was happening. I could have easily dialed Chase. Sharp pains still antagonized my lower right side; I still wasn't able to run but I continued walking, moving as fast as I could, towards the exit of the dark tract of trees. This was the route I've been jogging every morning, for the past 2 years since Chase and I moved down to Ohio, but reaching the exit of the forest just seemed never-ending. Someone was obviously playing a game.
"Howly crap!" I shrieked, curling my left toes up in my trainers. "Damn, ouch." A large prick had found its way through the bottom of my sneakers, putting a bloody hole in my toe. Now I had to be hopping away, desperately.
"I suppose you need some help, Detective Laura." I heard this giggle. "Let me remove that silly prick from your toe."
"Who are you?"
Morning had finally broken; darkness moved away. He looked me over, zipping his gray coat up. "You Damn well know who I am Detective Laura," he reminded, clearing his throat.
Yes, I know damn well who you are, bitch, I said in my mind, looking him over from head to boots. It couldn't have been him, Hoag. How the heck could it be? I looked on in awe and stupefaction at this heartless serial killer that I had ended a year and a half ago.
"I know, detective, I know," he jeered. "You ended me with a single bullet in the chest, so what am I doing here? Good job, actually, detective Laura."
I kept his every movement in sight. I knew he must have had at least a dozen weapons strapped to his body. He was the walking killer machine.
"I mean, I made all the male cops fall over like a pack of animal dominoes and when I thought I was done, then, pop," he thrust towards me making me shuffle backward, "a bullet in the chest from you, Detective, the only female of the silly lot. Good job, Detective, but being taken down by a girl?" He looked me over while scratching his middle-parted chestnut hair. "This makes any serial killer angry, you know."
"Hoag, why are you here?" I mumbled, arms folded. I kept peering over my shoulders, nervously.
"Why am I here? I've got a backlog of dirty jobs, Detective Laura. Got to work overtime." He ran his hand through his few days growth of beard.
Within the wink of an eye, my vision became totally blurred, the way he forced his silver pistol too close between my eyes.
My heart labored painfully. I saw my life flashing before me. I thought about Chase and how I had promised him I'd take some time off work just to make up for the times we've lost together. After all, Chase was a good man but our relationship was falling apart.
"Hoag?" I breathed, feeling almost too frail to stand on my own legs, the way my heart throbbed, without even a pause, against my chest plate.
He tilted his straight face up, slowly. And then he focused his gray eyes down at me. "You not asking me to make you live now, are you, Detective Laura?" he breathed, nose turned up while pointing the weapon, close-range, between my flinching dark eyes. Time ticked but only slowly onwards. His protruding Adam's apple moved slowly and so did his finger, towards the trigger that hung patiently right below the double barrels of his hell weapon.
"Hoag, how did you not die, or did you?" I murmured, buying time. That was all I could do; it simply made no sense asking this killer for mercy. Asking him to spear me would be so much harder than asking a prostitute to walk into a cathedral.
"Ha, ha, ha. Touch me, Detective Laura and you'll know if I'm alive or not. You're the one who took me out, right? " He swallowed. "Let's see if you did a good job, Detective."
I moved my shaky hand over, towards his chest even with his impending weapon, centimeters away from my nose bridge, which has started its umpteenth round of palpitations by now. Anticipation is worst than the actual, they say.
"So, what, you think I'm real or not, Detective?"
I nodded my head; my teeth knocked at each other; I tasted my own salty perspiration on my lips. The way pride spilled off his nasty face when he looked down in my watery eyes I knew he was pleasantly entertained.
The bastard then clung to his trigger but not before I raked my nails across his eyes.
BANG!
The gun went off. I sensed the whiff of its bullet, just above my head. I then made my dash for it, my life.
"You not going anywhere, Detective Laura!"
"Hoag, no!" I wailed, covering the back of my hea
d with both hands.
I made the leap.
"Noooo, Hoag!"
BANG, BANG, BANG , BANG.
ONE
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"No, Hoag. Nooo!"
"Laura?"
"Hoag, no!"
"Laura, what's happening to you? Wake the heck up, Laura."
"Chase, Chase, he's going to kill..." I leaped from off the bed.
"Who?" Chase pressed. He held me still, trying to make me stop the panting. "Relax, Laura."
"I looked around, wildly. Everything seemed real. I rubbed my hands in the back of my head, making my hair so untamed, feeling if I was hit or not. Was he really back or not? I wondered. I rubbed my eyes and then I yawned. Chase wrapped his white towel around his bare waist.
"Must have been some nightmare," I trembled.
"Someone trying to kill you, in your dream, right?" Chase hugged. He then buried his hawk-shaped nose in my shoulder-length dark hair, at the tip of my nape.
"Yes," I shrugged. "This serial murderer whom I've ended about a year and a half ago." By now my excessive breathing was controlled. I looked over to the top drawer of the white vanity in our suite, hoping to heck that my revolver was still lying inside there.
"Oh, please, such a silly dream, Laura. You probably spend too much time in the force, you know."
"Maybe," I scoffed, arms folded, covering my bare cleavage.
"Hey, we not going to make The Bahamas go to waste, are we? It's day 4 of our 2 week-long vacation," he reminded, running his hand through his dark curly hair.
“Right,” I agreed, moving over to the white bathroom of our suite. My purple undies fell on the white bathroom tiles as I raised a leg to enter the bathtub. I took a glance at the large human-sized mirrors on the lightly painted walls, just checking if I had lost the extra pounds I had grown on my tummy, after attending the wedding in Orlando. Couldn't see anything though; the mirrors were foggy, and the floors wet. Chase must have had a bath shortly before.
I sat there in the bubbled bathtub, a leg raised, wrapped with Jasmine scented foam wash, up to my neck. Chase must have prepared it for me, us. A green-eyed bastard of a boyfriend he is. I then covered my hair with a shower cap to avoid messing it up. That was when I started thinking about that weird dream once more. I felt the back of my head, no bullet holes but I was feeling slight pains there. Maybe it was just a headache, which I used to have a lot of. Gosh, everything seemed so real, that brute, Hoag. Westervill became a peaceful place to live since I had ended him, putting that state bullet in his chest of course. Hoag was one of the deadliest murderers. He did it for fun. I could only imagine how relieved the residents must have been, a serial killer off the streets. I mean, I got the top cop award, and the wealthiest bloke in Ohio even offered me a house. Well, I couldn't accept that. There would have been other strings attached and I had been trying to make things work with Chase, my banker boyfriend. Our relationship had really been on the rocks. It was the whole work thingie. I know taking ruthless killers off the streets did make me a workaholic but that didn't give Chase the right to screw around with Lisa. Now I'm thinking about it, I should have put a hole in her head. Then again, you can't blame me for putting away the bad guys, not when I've lost a special friend, years ago, to one of them. The flashback of the whole incident started to remind me how sorry, I shouldn't feel for ending Hoag. I hope he rots in hell by now.
Chase walked into the room, holding the neck of his bottle of Camparri, white towel still wrapped around his torso, making him kind of look like a package. Not sure if I did love Chase but there was this likeness between us; it was damn so strong. I supposed everyone expected a female sleuth like me to end up with an army officer or something of the sort.
Opposites attract, they say. It's just that being around Chase brings out my tender side. I'm all woman when I was around him. And, truth be told, none of these tough- guy cops that I've messed around with knew the tricks to blowing a woman's mind like my banker beau, Chase.
"Drinks?" he smiled, behind the after-shower mist that lingered in the bathroom. His towel fell to the ground, making him totally unwrapped. By now, I had a finger between my red lips, a leg, which had suds running down it, in the air, waiting anxiously for Chase's unplugged performance.
TWO
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Westervill, OH.
Him
"Nice to be back once more," he giggled. He took another sip of his gin, his boots resting on the foyer table. He sat there, in this couch laid-back, after throwing the keys to the red 1984 300D station wagon he stole about an hour ago, on the table.
"I can only imagine how pissed that old woman is, coming back from the shoes store, only to see a blank space where her red station wagon existed. I can only imagine how much she's hating the culprit, hoping the cops will bring her piece of antique idol back. Dream on, lady, I've already switched the registration plates. Got to be one step ahead," he chuckled. "And it's mighty fast for its age; it's German, they say." He looked around at the pictures that hung on the wall, bearing images of happy people, supposedly a couple.
"I think you guys are lovely," he giggled. He got up from the chair and then moved over to the images of the, supposedly owners of the house, where he needed to rest for the night. He needed the rest for sure; the following day would be too busy for him. He needed to take out at least 5, without being caught, of course. He gently glided his fingers along each of the large 12x18 portraits on the white walls of the mansion.
"Nice pair," he jeered, looking on at the blond haired lady in the portrait who's basking in the embrace of the red-haired bloke.
“Icelandic, I suppose. You look an army lieutenant.” He threw some of the beverage he was having, at the portrait, staining the image of the male. "You know, a lieutenant almost killed me, a couple years back? Yeah," he smirked, watching the liquid dripping off the image of the bloke on the portrait. "I mean, he tried to intervene, rescuing that corrupt Thai escort. And of course, he shouldn't have. Now, he's regretting it. Ha, ha, ha," he giggled creepily.
"And you, yes you," he pointed, at the image of the blond haired woman in the portrait on the wall. “Your lips are as red as maraschino. You look so much like Ava; she broke my heart once, you know.”
He wiped the pint of eye water from his cheek.
"Why do you women do stuff like this?" He walked his ruthless fingers along the crimson lips of the unassuming woman in the portrait. "I despise cheaters, WOMAN!"
He popped this cigarette lighter from the side of his coat, flicking the dark yellow flames on, gracing the dark hallway with just a little bit of illumination.
He then heard this click; He swiftly looked behind, putting out the shivering flames of his cigarette lighter. It was the knob of the front door of the house, where he had planned on staying over for the night. It clunked while it rattled; someone was actually turning it open from outside, wanting to make their way inside, the owners perhaps.
"Oh, oh," he giggled. "Oh-Oh."
Then the door opened up. This man stepped inside, pulling off his coat. He flicked the switch on the wall beside the front door, casting white light in the hall room of the house. He took his spectacles off and dropped his briefcase to the floor.
"Such a long Mutha fricking day. I mean, the Carbies are such a pain in the arse, " he breathed, using his hands to cover his pale eyes.
"And it's going to be a long night," the intruder waited.
The man pulled his tie, threw it to the floor and moved over to the fridge, popping this bottle of white wine out. He jolted a bit at the busting popping sound of the bottle cork. He then moved over to the settee, the one in which the intruder rested, only minutes before.
"Where's the Damn remote?" he searched, feeling for the small device, his right hand combing the cushions of the brown leather couch.
"Looking for this?"
"Wait! Who are you?" he jolted after turning around, frightened as hell, eyes wide ope
ned and heart pounding so hard against his chest.
"Just needed to borrow your house for the night. Hope you don't mind, Pal."
The man alighted from his settee, panting with fear and with surprise; his pale eyes reddened. "What the heck are you doing in my house? Who are you?" he ranted, stepping back from the intruder. He shuffled stealthily towards the cabinet on his left.
"Don't you even think about it, Mister," he giggled, dragging a piece of electrical wire between his hands.
The poor man's entire being jolted at the slapping sound the piece of electrical cord made between the killer's hand, when he swiftly pulled both hands apart. He then raced towards the cabinet, swiftly pulling his beretta out and started firing madly at the brown haired intruder.
"Never wanted to hurt you, Mister; just needed somewhere to relax my head for the night. How unkind of a Samaritan are you?" the intruder frowned, after coming out of hiding, from behind the couch and the table he had flipped over, using them as a shield. He wrapped the electrical cord around his hand, swiftly, and moved over to the poor man who stood there with the emptied gun.
"Sir, what do you want?" the reddish-haired man stuttered. "Maybe we can work this out, Sir. Are you sleeping with my wife?" he stuttered.
"Enough of this begging and moping. Hate it. Really hate it. Hate it. Hate it!”
“No. Nooo. Help! Someone, please help! This Psycho is trying to strangle...”
THREE
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