by Roger Hayden
“Hey,” he said, waving his arms. “Where are you?”
Ten feet from the van, he heard footsteps rush behind him, and before he could even turn around, a long blade lodged itself into his back. Cooper froze in immense pain, having no clue of what had just happened. His attacker lodged the knife in deeper and pushed Cooper to the ground. He fell on his knees, kicking up dust and gagging as the knife left his back. He felt paralyzed and unable to breathe. Sunlight glared in his face as he screamed out for help. A gloved hand quickly covered his mouth as the knife swept across his throat without warning.
* * *
Sterling returned to the Erickson’s’ neighborhood to engage in some quick surveillance. She wasn’t happy about leaving in the first place, and wanted to make sure that everything was okay. Most importantly, she wanted to survey the area of any suspicious activity. If they were going to watch the house throughout the night, it made no sense to her to leave it unguarded during the day. Her calls to Dobson’s phone had gone unanswered. Officially, they were supposed to meet up at the station within the hour, and she had planned to watch the house until then. From behind the wheel of her Jeep Cherokee, she steadily approached the Erickson home to see no cars in the driveway. She slowed and parked in front of the house, keeping a watchful eye of her surroundings. No one appeared to be home. Many of the other homes around it were just as quiet. She waited, with the engine idling, and glanced at her cell phone. She had a missed call from her mother two hours ago. Her attention left her phone upon hearing a school bus. Sterling looked up and watched as the big yellow bus slowed to a halt at the end of street far ahead. Its doors opened and children began to pile out. She couldn’t believe that it was already so late in the afternoon.
She waited as children dispersed in different directions. Among them, she recognized the two Erickson kids walking down the street and toward the house. Not wanting to frighten them, she turned off the ignition and stepped out of the jeep, waiting on them. They were still about three houses down, and she could already see their curious expressions. She waved to them as they cautiously approached. Her visit to the house wasn’t official and no one else in the department knew she was there. Was she already breaking the rules?
The school bus drove past the children and then Sterling, leaving a trail of exhaust. Sterling rubbed her eyes as the Erickson children continued toward her, within an ear shot.
“Alex and Brianne, right?” she said with a friendly smile. “I’m Detective Sterling. I was just checking on you.”
Both kids nodded but remained suspicious as Sterling’s attention switched to an approaching minivan far behind them. It looked like their mother’s van. Perfect timing, she thought. But the driver was hard to see. Its speed increased at a startling rate as the unseen driver stepped on the gas. Something wasn’t’ right, and as the van got closer, she could not Janet, but a driver through the windshield, wearing a ski mask.
“Get out of the road, children!” Sterling shouted.
Alex and Brianne turned around, paralyzed by fear as the van drifted to their side of the road aimed directly for them. Sterling sprinted on instinct toward them as fast as her legs would take her. The van closed in on them, accelerating at breakneck speed. Sterling didn’t think that she was going to make it. The madman at the wheel was driving far too fast.
“Move!” she cried out, inches from the children. She rushed forward and tackled them into the neighbor’s lawn, just as the van blew past them, tires squealing. They tumbled onto the ground, rolling over one another. Brianna screamed. Alex cried out for help. Sterling held them against the grass, acting as a protective shield with fresh exhaust lingering in the air. The van had just missed them. Sterling rose from her knelt position and watched as the van took a sharp right at the other end of the street. She jumped up and held her hands out toward the two frightened and stunned children below her.
“It’s okay now. Come on.”
They grabbed her hands as she pulled them up, dusting the grass from their clothes. “I’m sorry about that, but I need you both to go inside and lock the door, okay?”
Brianne looked at Sterling, confused. “That was my mom’s van.”
“Why was she driving like that?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Sterling said, nudging them toward their home. “Just go inside and don’t come out until I get you.”
Dazed, both children nodded and moved quickly across the neighbor’s lawn and toward their house. She waited and watched as Brianne unlocked the door and they ran inside.
With the kids safe, Sterling turned and rushed to her Jeep, eager to chase their culprit down. She jumped inside and turned on the ignition, frantic. Pulling the car around, she floored the gas and raced down the street with adrenaline pumping through her veins. Way ahead, the van took a sharp turn into the forest and crashed into a tree. She pulled up behind the van and ran out, pistol drawn and ready to fire. As she reached the smashed front-end of the van, no one was there.
Stunned, she circled it, looking past the trees around her and shouting for the man to come out, though she knew it was useless. As she backed into the van, two gloved hands suddenly covered her face, gagging her with a cloth. She couldn’t breathe. She panicked and thrashed in the air, trying to scream, but consciousness was fading fast. The pistol dropped from her hand as her head bobbed down and everything went black.
Secret Letter: Book 2
Prisoner
Leesburg, South Carolina
Darkness consumed the room. Sterling couldn’t remember how she had gotten there or if she was even alive, though she was breathing, and that meant something. She lay on her side on the thin, musty mattress with her hands tied behind her back and her ankles tied together. Any movement was met with resistance. She felt an intense throbbing in her head. Dried blood had crusted to her face from a cut on her forehead.
She twisted around, regaining consciousness, and tried to escape from whatever nightmare she was trapped in. Gradually, however, it became clear that the dank isolation she had found herself in was very much real. There was nothing covering her eyes; no blindfold to shield her surroundings, but there was darkness nonetheless.
She felt no sense of air circulating through the room. Everything felt stuffy and confined. She opened her mouth to speak. Her throat was dry and scratchy. She pulled at her bound hands and cried out in frustration as panic took hold.
A frantic call for help was met with no response. A dank mildew smell filled the air. She rolled off the mattress and onto a dusty, unforgiving hardwood floor, trying to push herself up. She grunted with each jerk against the rope around her wrist but could not wrestle herself free. She lowered her head inches from the ground and tried to assess the situation. Panic would only make things worse.
Someone had brought her there—the person she had chased. The person she believed to be the chain letter killer. The memory suddenly rushed back to her. He had tried to run down two children in their mother’s own minivan. She recalled pushing them out of the way, but her memory of the event was hazy. She had pursued him alone and somehow ended up here.
“Hello?” she asked, hot breath against the floor.
A chair squeaked from ahead in the darkness.
“Who’s there?” she asked, frantic.
In response, a bright spotlight clicked on, blinding her. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away in discomfort, finding the earlier darkness now preferable to the intensity of blaring lights in her path.
A man’s scratchy voice quietly came from behind the light. “You’re awake.” His quiet, gregarious tone was one of pride and hubris. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Please turn off the light,” she said, squinting.
A low, calm chuckle followed. “Too bright for ya’?”
“I want to go,” she said.
The spotlight slowly dimmed as she opened her eyes amidst the spots in her vision.
“How’s that? Better?” he asked from behind t
he light. “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”
Sterling jerked her bound arms. “I have a partner. He’ll be looking for me.”
“Detective Dobson?” the man said with a chuckle. “He’s a bit past his prime, don’t you think?”
“He’ll find you,” Sterling said. “I guarantee it.”
For a moment, the man said nothing. His chair squeaked as he sat down, concealed by the dimmed spotlight in front of him. “You know, I met your partner a few months back.” He paused for Sterling’s response, and when she gave none, he continued. “Yes, it’s true. I had traveled to his lovely town to seek out my next victims, Betsy Wade being one of them. Your partner saw me at the station. I was in disguise at the time when he kindly directed me to the Records department upon my asking.”
“So what,” Sterling said, turning onto her side.
“I’m sure you’re aware of how he helped free Randall Morris after your department attempted to frame Morris for the murder of that Bailey bitch.”
“He was right to do so,” Sterling said, exhausted and head pounding. “Morris was innocent.”
The man laughed as though he was enjoying every moment of it. “And what of all the three people killed by Morris soon after he was let go?”
Sterling rolled onto a thin mattress covered in plastic on the floor next to her. She grunted and tried to pull herself free as her chest tightened with increasing panic. “What do you want from me? I’m no one special. I’m… I’m just a probationary detective. I don’t know anything about this case or you.”
She adjusted her vision in the faint light and could see a bare wall with a piece of plywood nailed in the center as though blocking a window. She frantically looked for a way out as her situation became more apparent.
She was trapped in a boarded-up room, seemingly empty, with a mattress in the corner and a plastic bucket to her side. A small, rusty air vent was visible at the ceiling, far from reach. He hadn’t tied her ankles together. She could move her legs, but the knot at her wrist was impossible. The rope was dry and scratchy. Her arms ached with discomfort from behind her back. Her captor leaned forward in his chair, waiting for a response to which she gave none.
“Just think,” he continued. “Had Dobson simply allowed Randall Morris to take the fall for the Bailey murder, those three people at the Cash N’ Save would still be alive today.”
Uninterested in his argument, Sterling offered a fair warning. “He’s close to figuring out who you are. Class of 1991, right? There are only so many possibilities.”
“Close doesn’t exactly cut it now, does it?” he said.
“No. It doesn’t,” she admitted.
Sterling rolled to one side and pushed herself up against the wall. Now seated with a clearer mind, she assessed the situation. She had been taken hostage, which meant that her captor was keeping her around for a reason. She was most likely going to be used as a bartering tool for whatever negotiations he had in mind—if such negotiations were even possible.
She would remain neutral to his plans and try to stay out of his way. Escape was all that mattered. She knew what he did to his victims, how he had decapitated Betsy Wade in her own home. He was not someone whose mercy she could appeal to. His vendetta was personal, and this gave Sterling a fragile sense of safety. She had no connection to his past. She didn’t even know who he was.
“Why did you chase after me?” he asked bluntly. “That was a foolish thing to do.”
Sterling swallowed. “I didn’t know who you were. I only saw a vehicle try to run over two children.”
The man laughed. “I was just messing with them. Gave ‘em a good scare, don’t you think?”
Sterling felt a rush of anger toward his callousness. “They had nothing to do with… whatever this is—this game of yours. You should be ashamed.”
He instantly rose from his chair and took a step toward her. “The fuck did you just say?”
Sterling relented as his shadow fell across her. “I’m sure you did what you felt necessary, but even you can see the difference, right?”
“Difference in what?” he demanded. From his left hand, she could see the long blade of a knife.
“Children are innocent,” she continued.
The man took a step back, providing her a moment of relief as he crossed his arms. “What about Cooper Erickson? Was he innocent when he was a child? How about Betsy Wade?”
Sterling thought to herself, trying to produce the right answer. “I don’t know.”
“Answer the question!” he shouted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said back, exasperated.
“Of course you don’t,” he said, shifting back in his chair. “But you soon will.”
His comment intrigued and frightened her. “Detective Dobson and I have nothing to do with your… pursuits. There’s no reason for me to be here.”
“Come now, Detective Sterling. You must be smarter than that. You were trying to stop me. You’ve officially gotten in the way.”
“We were only doing our jobs,” she said.
“As the hangman does his,” the man said, getting up again. He seemed fidgety and unable to stay in place for very long. He stepped into the light, boots clicking along the hardwood floor, and then crouched down halfway as a silhouette still holding a knife.
“I want to make a few things clear. One…” he began, holding up a finger. “You are my prisoner.” He then held up another finger. “Two… while your presence is unexpected, I can tell you that there is no escape.” His knees cracked as he shot up into the air without warning. “I spent years planning this, from the murders in Connecticut, Maine, and now here in South Carolina. All this is but a precursor of my deeply glorious act of retribution.”
He paused, licking his lips with a sound that made Sterling’s skin crawl. “I suppose you’d like to know more about me.”
“I’d rather not,” Sterling said.
He paused and rose over her, with his features still shadowed by the light. “Relax, Detective. I’m not going to kill you. Consider this a temporary stay. With your partner pulling together all his resources to find you, I can unleash the final stages of my plan with relative ease.”
“Detective Dobson solved the Bailey murder, along with dozens of other cases,” Sterling said in a brief act of defiance. “Even if it put a criminal back on the street, he found those responsible, and he’ll find you.”
“You better hope that he doesn’t,” the man said. “Because if he comes within fifty feet of this place, I’ll slash your throat like a piece of cantaloupe.”
A sliver of panic flowed down her spine the moment he held up a large hunting knife, with its blade flashing in the light. “I could cut you from head to toe in new and fascinating ways.”
Sterling winced and nodded. “You could… but then you wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.”
“What do you mean?” he said, lowering the knife in confusion.
“There’s no one else here, right?”
He lowered his head in laughter. She could smell the dirt caked under the toe of his boots a few feet from her mattress. “I see that you’re putting that criminal justice degree to work. You’ve think you’ve got me figured out?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I just want to understand—a”
“Understand what?” he shouted, startling her as he swooped down and held the knife to her throat. She held her breath and closed her eyes, prepared for the worse.
“Do you know what it’s like to gasp for air while choking on your blood at the same time?” he continued. “Your eyes roll back with every short, painful breath as your oxygen-deprived brain soon ceases to function.” She held her eyes closed, frozen, as he pushed the blade into her skin. “That’s right, Detective. That’s exactly what I thought. You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” she whispered as her lips trembled and tears welled under her closed eyelids.
; “You don’t know what I’ve been through, how I’ve suffered, and everything I’ve lost.”
She nodded her head after the sting of the blade pressed further against her neck had her gasping in panic. He suddenly moved the knife away and then ran the tip of the blade gently across the T-shirt over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll skin you alive. What do you think about that? Huh?”
He stopped and poked her near the kidneys as she found herself too petrified to answer.
“What do you say we leave your partner a nice surprise?”
“Please…” she said, voice shaky. “We’ll stay out of your way, I promise.”
Suddenly, he pulled the knife away, ending the pain in her lower side where the tip of the blade had been pushed, just breaking the skin. “You better hope so,” he said, rising quickly to his feet. “Because if I don’t get my way, I’ll send him your scalp in a box. Got it?”
Sterling gritted her teeth, sobbing and nodded.
Satisfied, he walked away from her and back behind the continual disorientation of the mysterious spotlight. His footsteps echoed through the room and then halted as she heard him turn around. “The amenities here are, as you can see, limited. With earned trust comes the possibility that for your routine sustenance. I might even untie you. For now, that’s all you need to know.” He then switched off the light and turned away.
“Wait!” Sterling called out. She heard him pause and continued. “Don’t leave me in here like this.” She shifted around helplessly on the mattress, trying to go after him.
“I’m sorry, but it’s necessary,” he said.
She tried to think of something to say, something that would make him reconsider, but there was little convincing a mind as deviant as his.
