by David Beers
Callie went quiet and turned back to the television.
The truth was a bit different. Ted had tied up Christy and put her in his trunk. They’d spent all day talking, while Callie was at school, but she’d had to go back in the trunk once school was over. Christy wasn’t ready to see Callie yet; she was still ranting and raving, saying that Ted would be locked up in jail. Crazy talk. Everything was going to be just fine.
There was still the problem of the women in his basement, of course, but now that he was with his wife and daughter … it seemed like much less of a problem. He couldn’t go home and clean everything up quite yet; he needed Christy to come around first, but he thought by Thursday she’d see things his way.
“The people on this show are crazy,” Ted said. “Always fighting over nothing.”
Callie only nodded.
LUKE ACTUALLY CHUCKLED as he pulled up to Christy Mackenrow’s house. So many people looking for Ted Hinson and he was the only one here. His car was sitting in the driveway.
Unbelievable.
Luke was in the rental car, having kept it a few more days. He couldn’t drive his Tesla around right now, unfortunately. He stepped out of the rental and dropped the keys into his pocket. He had parked on the curb a few houses down, not wanting to unnecessarily alert Hinson.
Luke stopped midway up the driveway.
He heard someone breathing. His eyes went to the car next to him—Dr. Hinson’s car.
Oh, goodness, Luke thought. You have snapped.
He walked over to the trunk of the car, where the smallest sound of breath escaped. He tapped his knuckles twice on it.
Someone screamed and banged against the inside. The scream was heavily muffled, and Luke imagined Dr. Hinson had used something very similar to what Luke used on Alice. He tapped again and heard the same response. Luke smiled and then continued walking to the front door.
How far gone are you? Luke wondered as he reached the stoop. He would pick the lock if necessary, but he thought Mr. Hinson probably hadn’t locked the door. Why lock it when everything was going so well?
He turned the knob, and sure enough, it twisted easily beneath his hand.
Luke carefully opened the door; the house was silent, but he’d expected as much given that the lights were off. It was good to see Dr. Hinson and his daughter were keeping regular sleep hours. No sense in letting a little murder get in the way of rest; that’s how Luke saw it anyway.
Luke stepped inside without a sound and slowly shut the door. He did lock it.
Luke let his senses take over, grabbing onto everything that his eyes couldn’t tell him. He smelled the little girl—the shampoo she used was different. Cheaper. He could still smell the ex-wife, though she was fainter, meaning Ms. Mackenrow had been in that trunk for a little while.
Luke smelled Hinson, too. He was wearing the same cologne as the night in D.C.. Always wanting to look his best—admirable.
Luke stepped into the living room, his eyes fully adjusted to the house’s darkness. Hallways led from the left and right of the living room; Hinson’s cologne took Luke left and he walked in silence, reaching the master bedroom quickly; the door was open and Dr. Hinson lying on the bed, covers pulled up to his neck.
Luke walked further in and stood above the sleeping man.
“I told you I knew your name,” Luke said, his voice carrying the perfect pitch to wake Hinson from his slumber.
The man’s eyes opened slowly, and Luke watched him blink as he struggled to understand what was happening. He finally zeroed in on the person above him, blocking out the window’s moonlight and casting a shadow across his own face.
“Whaah?” he tried to say.
Luke smothered his face with a chloroform drenched rag before Hinson could say anything else. The house was silent once again.
CHRISTIAN AND TOMMY stepped out of the vehicle, their hands already gloved. The night air was cool, but Christian didn’t button his jacket. He left it loose, wanting easy access to his weapon.
“You ready?” Tommy asked.
“I was ready last night.”
“Shut up,” Tommy said and started walking. Christian matched his pace and they went from the street to the driveway. Neither paused to look around and see if some nosey neighbor was watching. It was midnight and the previous crew left their post thirty minutes ago. Tommy and Christian had waited the half hour, ensuring nothing else came up. The driveway remained empty the entire time, and the there had been absolutely no movement all day. Earlier, Tommy instructed two other agents to wait outside the university, in case Hinson went there. No luck.
Christian wasn’t concerned about luck anymore, now that he had Tommy on his side. This would end soon. If not tonight, then within the next twenty-four hours.
The two headed around the back of the house, deciding that was the safest entry point. Tommy tried the backdoor, but it was locked.
“Now we commit a crime,” Tommy said. “Let’s hope you’re right about the alarm system.”
“I am,” Christian said from Tommy’s right. Ted Hinson didn’t have an alarm system—anyone who took women and held them in their house wouldn’t want any chance that the police might arrive unannounced. An alarm system could accidentally call, or if one of the women tried escaping, it wouldn’t be hard for them to press the ‘alert’ button.
Tommy moved to the left, to what looked to be a living room window. Christian handed him the black towel he’d brought. Tommy wrapped it around his hand, tight, creating a barrier between him and the window. He positioned his fist about six inches from the pane glass and punched. The glass shattered, filling the night with brief noise as it broke and fell to the floor inside.
Tommy used his wrapped hand to push out the few remaining shards. Then he removed the towel and stuck his arm in, all the way up to his shoulder, and reached for the inside doorknob to his left.
Christian heard the lock click as Tommy turned it.
They opened the door and stepped in, not bothering to close it. They both stopped in the living room and listened. Neither spoke, nor heard anything from the house.
Tommy pulled out his flashlight with one hand and his weapon with the other. He leveled the gun to shoulder height, placing the flashlight over the top. Christian unholstered his weapon as well, and they started their search.
They moved through the entire house, checking each room.
Only one door wouldn’t open.
“Who puts a padlock inside their house?” Christian asked, gazing at the locked door.
Tommy said nothing. He put the flashlight’s end in his mouth and yanked on the padlock; it only jiggled against the clasp.
“I’m going to call,” he said, not looking at Christian.
“Go ahead.”
“HELLO!” he shouted at the door.
SARAH HEARD the shout and cowered against the wall. Her body started shaking all over. Her mouth didn’t make a single sound, though. She couldn’t tell if it was Ted shouting from above or someone else. She couldn’t tell anything anymore. Four dead bodies lay in the basement with her, and had for quite sometime. Her throat was like a desert, sand running up and down her esophagus instead of saliva. She had urinated in her pants, though the lack of food kept her from soiling herself.
Sarah kept her eyes shut, squeezing them tightly so that nothing could get in.
“THIS IS THE FBI! IS ANYONE DOWN THERE!”
Sarah shook her head. It wasn’t the FBI. It was Ted, testing her. Trying to see if she meant what she’d told him. If she shouted back, begging for help, he would come down and do the same to her as he had the other women. He would bash her brains in with a rubber mallet.
She kept shaking her head, refusing to make a sound. Ted hadn’t been here in a long time and now he was trying to trick her. He wanted her to make a mistake and then it would all be over.
“IF ANYONE’S DOWN THERE, THIS IS THE FBI!”
Sarah put her hands to her ears, trying to block out the lying voi
ce from above.
“WE CAN BREAK IN,” Christian said.
Tommy looked at the padlock, his flashlight shining on it. “We don’t have the tools.”
“Think you can kick it in?”
Tommy had already considered it. The padlock was placed up high, maybe six inches from the top of the door, meaning that he couldn’t break the frame where the lock actually rested. Kicking the door would dent it, perhaps he’d even kick through it, but that would only leave a hole, with one of his legs inside it.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then we go get tools.”
“Okay, slow down. I need to think for a second.”
He walked away from the door, not waiting to see if Christian followed. He sat down on the living room couch. Christian came and stood in front of him.
“If she’s down there, even if her mouth is taped shut, we would have heard her. So, she’s either down there and knocked out or ….” He looked up at Christian, darkness shrouding much of his facial features. Tommy couldn’t finish the sentence, but knew he didn’t need to. “So, if we break into that room and find nothing, when Hinson returns, it’s over. Completely. He’ll see we were here and kill her immediately.”
“We could wait here for him to show up.” The kid paused for a second. “I … I need some time to think if you want any better ideas.”
“Let me call Luke,” Tommy said.
LUKE LOOKED at Tommy’s name on his phone. He hit answer and put it to his ear.
“Any progress?” he said as he looked down at the frightened Dr. Hinson. The man sat on the couch, completely unbound. Instead of using duct tape and a sock, Luke simply stuck the barrel of his pistol in Hinson’s mouth. It was keeping him very quiet.
“No,” Tommy said. “He’s not here, though there’s a door with a padlock on it. No sounds from below and I can’t kick it in.”
“Bolt cutters?” Luke asked.
“We’ve thought about it, but if nothing is there, when Hinson returns, he’ll kill Alice once he sees we’ve been there.”
“He’s not going to see that already? With the glass broken?”
“That’ll be less obvious. We’ll clean up the glass and lock the door. He won’t notice it immediately.”
Luke watched Hinson try to adjust his mouth around the barrel, his teeth grinding against the metal. “Your shift is over at four?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s meet at the office and figure out what options we have.”
“Luke ….” Tommy’s voice broke on the last word, and Luke heard the raw emotion wanting to rush forward. A second passed before Tommy continued. “Do you have any ideas? Anything you can think of that might help?”
“I may,” Luke said. “Stay on the house and we’ll meet back at the office shortly, okay?”
“Okay,” Tommy said, clearly still struggling to keep his emotions in check.
“Tommy?” Luke said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her. I promise.”
“Okay, Luke. Okay. Thanks.”
Luke hung his phone up and placed it back in his pocket. He removed the gun from Hinson’s mouth slowly, not wanting to chip any teeth.
“Okay, that should give us a few hours.” Luke sat down in the chair opposite Hinson. “How are you feeling?”
Hinson said nothing, though his lower lip quivered.
“Well, I have a few things I need to clean up before I head back to the office, so I don’t have a lot of time right now, Dr. Hinson. It’s important that you listen to me, so that we can both be on the same page.”
Sweat dripped from Hinson’s brow to his eye, causing him to blink. He reached up and wiped the salty water away, but still remained silent.
“Your daughter, Callie, she’s still asleep which is good. Whatever we do, we don’t want to wake her yet, okay? What time does she normally get up?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” the man managed to get out.
“Not the best father, I see. Okay, we’re going to play it safe and say six. That means everything we have to do needs to be finished by then. I promise you, Dr. Hinson, if she interrupts our endeavors, I will kill her immediately. She is less than inconsequential to me. Do you understand?”
Hinson nodded.
“You love her, don’t you?”
Another nod.
“And your ex-wife?”
Another nod.
“I actually believe you,” Luke said. “Your love is a desperate kind, though, and sometimes that causes pain for others. That’s okay. We’ll fix it all by tomorrow. Sound good?”
Hinson nodded once again, being led along like a small puppy following someone holding a treat.
“If you want to live, Dr. Hinson, you’ll need to do everything I say, and exactly as I say it. I’m going outside to get your wife. Where are your keys?”
A shaking hand pointed toward the kitchen counter, though Luke didn’t look away from Hinson’s eyes.
“I’m going outside to get your wife out of the trunk. I know you’re scared right now, and that you realize I’m a deadly person. However, when I walk out, some of that realization may dissipate and you might forget how dangerous I am. You need to know, in your soul, that I’m more lethal than you can imagine, and if you move so much as an inch from this spot in the two minutes I’m gone, I will take your face off and then feed it to you.”
Hinson swallowed. “Oh-oh-kay. I won’t.”
“Won’t what?”
“Wuh-wuh-won’t move.”
“Good,” Luke said. “You’re stuttering like someone else I used to know. Let’s hope your end is better than hers. I’ll be back.”
Luke went to the counter, the keys lying where Hinson had pointed. He took them and walked outside. He went to the trunk and opened it, the trunk’s light temporarily blinding the woman inside. She fought through the pain quickly, though, her eyes squinting and finding Luke. She screamed through the tape around her mouth.
“Hi, Ms. Mackenrow. We’re going to go inside now.”
The woman screamed again and Luke nodded.
“I know you’ll want to make some noise, so forgive me for this.” Luke leaned forward and slammed his palm directly on her forehead. She slumped back down to the trunk’s bottom. Luke looked at the red mark for a few seconds before deciding it wouldn’t leave a bruise. He then reached in and picked the woman up like a bride. He closed the trunk with his elbow and carried the unconscious woman back into the house.
Once inside, his eyes flashed to the couch; Hinson had kept his word. More sweat was falling from his forehead, but he was in the same spot. Luke actually didn’t think he’d moved at all, not even a finger.
Luke laid the woman down on the floor at the living room’s entry. “Okay, Dr. Hinson, your whole family is here now. How many people have you killed?”
“Whuh-What?”
“People. How many have you killed since you started this?”
Luke saw the man trying to think, trying to decide if his fear of admitting was greater than his fear of Luke. He finally realized Luke was much more dangerous than sharing information. “Fuh-Five.”
“Let’s see if we can add to that body count.”
CHAPTER 4
C hristian and Tommy walked onto their floor at the FBI building.
Christian was exhausted, and although Tommy hadn’t said anything, he knew his partner felt the same.
“I’m going to start making calls,” Tommy said. “See what everyone else found. Let me know when Luke gets here, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Christian said. The two split up, Tommy going to his office and leaving Christian alone. They had turned the lights on as they entered, illuminating the floor, but no one else was there.
Christian walked to his own office and collapsed in his chair.
He leaned his head back. He needed a nap. A short one. Ten minutes. His mind was struggling to keep up with the demands he was forcing on it, and if it didn�
�t get some rest—even just a bit—he would be useless to Tommy.
Christian set an alarm on his phone and closed his eyes.
CHRISTIAN DREAMED. He knew it almost immediately, seeing that he stood in his mansion. It wasn’t the mansion that gave it away, per se, but because Luke was in front of him; despite the other’s presence in this place, there had never been anyone else. Luke couldn’t gain entry, not unless this was a dream.
“It is,” Luke said. “A dream.”
Christian nodded, not knowing what else to do. A sharp sense of unease ran through him, or rather, through this place—as if it was in the air, and when he breathed, it filled him as well.
“Why am I dreaming inside here?” Christian heard himself ask, though he wasn’t in control.
Aren’t I supposed to be in charge when lucid dreaming? he wondered.
“Not this one,” Luke said. “Your mind didn’t have any other way to reach out, I suppose. It hasn’t been able to slow you down. You’ve been neglecting for so long what it’s been building, that it finally reached out and grabbed you. Consider this another one of your movies, Christian.”
Luke turned around and started walking across the foyer, heading to the double staircase that split and wrapped around the opposite sides of the circular walls. Christian followed, his legs controlled by something other than him. His mind, perhaps, but not the conscious part.
Neither spoke as they climbed the stairs, and Christian saw that the staircase went up higher than he remembered.
Not remembered, he thought. These things are higher than you built them.
“They are,” Luke said. “There’s a new floor at the top.”
The two kept climbing. Neither grew winded, though the climb was high. Time was different, as it always was in dreams, and Christian couldn’t tell how long they went up. He could see the distance, though. The last floor had cut off two stories ago, but still the staircases wrapped upwards. They were now simply following a vertical tunnel. Paintings sat on the walls, huge, life-size ones.
