by James Hunt
Hurried footsteps thundered up the steps as she flung both legs out the open window, clutching the window frame with white knuckles. She lowered herself until she dangled, trying to lessen the distance between herself and the small patch of awning below.
“FBI! Don’t move!”
Though she couldn’t see them, their voices were close. Cooper released her grip and felt her stomach levitate in midair on the fall. Her feet smacked into the awning’s surface, and she buckled her knees to help absorb the shock of the landing, but when she landed on her ass, the struts keeping the awning in place were ripped from the wall, and she smacked into the earth below.
Pain rippled through her shoulder, and she sprinted toward the fence as the agents reached the window. Bullets peppered the closed gate as Cooper hobbled down another back alleyway and turned down another side street, sidewinding her escape from the agents scrambling to converge on her location. But they wouldn’t find her in this town, not with the ghost homes that lined the streets. There were too many places for her to hide and not enough manpower to search them all.
Night finally covered the sky, and in the darkness Cooper continued her run. With Quentin now in custody, she’d held up her end of the deal, and she knew the killer would hold up his. It was what he wanted. She thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out the soggy note he’d left for her at the motel. She flipped it over to where he’d written the address of her childhood home.
Chapter 11
The note was clutched between Cooper’s fingers, the ends flapping in the breeze, as she stared at the black and rusted upside-down numbers of 576 Westworth Way that clung to the side of the building with the aid of rusty nails. Old paint curled in long strips on the outside, the color faded.
The apartment complex was only four stories tall, but it dwarfed the surrounding structures in the neighborhood. Grey dirt, broken beer bottles, and trash occupied the front yard amid the graveyard of rusted playground toys, where she and her sister used to spend their time after school under the watchful eye of their mother. So much had changed since then, but a few things remained the same.
Poverty still plagued the neighborhood, and while it had been bad here when she was a child, the decades had done more harm than good. Most of the buildings that surrounded the old apartment complex were foreclosed, boarded up, and vandalized with gang markings and graffiti.
A siren wailed, and Cooper ducked behind the collapsing wooden fence that guarded the property. Her hips and knees popped from crouching low, and she peered through the cracks of the worn wood, where she saw two squad cars speed down the road. But judging from their trajectory, they were headed toward the drug shanties near the river.
Once the police were gone, Cooper returned her gaze to the steps of the complex. A quick flash of her mother watching her and Beth play struck like lightning in her memories. She would sit there and sew some of their old clothes, patching holes to make them last another year, or she’d be reading or studying for school after she decided to go back. You did so much, Mom.
Cooper crumpled the note in her hands and dropped it among the trash and litter of the yard. The ancient staircase to the front door groaned with each step. A foreclosure sign was plastered to the front door, but the planks meant to keep vagrants out had been pulled and cast aside in broken pieces.
Sunlight spilled into the main foyer as Cooper opened the door. Her shadow loomed over the floor and walls as she stepped inside, covering her mouth with her shirt against the rancid stench that greeted her entrance. She squinted into the darkness of the first floor hallway, where half the apartment doors were closed and the others open, inviting whatever animals had snuck inside to seek shelter.
But Cooper’s apartment was at the top. She drifted her eyes to the staircase, where they caught the faint shimmer of red letters. When she stepped closer, the words came into view, the fresh red crayon mocking her in the faded light of the foyer.
Does this place remind you of her, Detective?
An arrow pointed up the staircase, and Cooper removed her revolver from her waistband. She ascended the steps methodically, her senses heightened. She slipped on the last step before she reached the second floor, and when she looked down, she saw her footprint etched in a clump of dirt. Up ahead, a trail of soil wound up the staircase, where more crimson letters marked the wall.
Has the weight of your sister’s death crushed you?
The giggle of children echoed in Cooper’s mind, and on her ascent she watched the ghosts of both herself and Beth race up the steps toward their apartment on the top floor. Sweat beaded on her forehead, while one drop rolled down the bridge of her nose and dripped to the dirtied floor. The heat of the building and the lack of sleep were playing tricks on her mind. She’s not here. No one is here anymore.
Cooper kept the revolver aimed ahead of her, knowing it wouldn’t be ghosts she’d need to use it on. The ascension to the third floor was void of any more notes, but when she passed the third floor and started her way up to the fourth, the notes and scribbles became more frequent.
It should have been you that died.
The blood of family doesn’t wash off.
Do you remember when the two of you played in these halls?
Your mother pulled you out of here, and now I’ve brought you back.
The words were scribbled over and between graffiti that painted the inside of the building. Every step revealed new words and old memories. When she climbed the last few steps to the top floor, she saw the graffiti had been washed away, and a fresh coat of white paint had taken its place. And written over the freshly brushed paint were red letters that covered the walls from floor to ceiling.
Cooper lowered the revolver, her vision absorbing every word the killer had left behind. Some of the paint had dripped over the letters, hardening in thin streaks over the writing, giving the illusion that the wall itself bled, the white and red mixing together in a light pink. Cooper pressed her palm flush against one of the notes, her cheeks as white as the freshly painted walls that surrounded her.
Dear Detective,
My time with your sister was well spent. I learned so much about who you were as a child, your fears and insecurities. I filled pages and pages of notebooks from our conversations together. She was so willing to tell me about you just to stay alive. But while Beth may be gone, know that she still lives within both of us. She will always hold a special place in our hearts. And this is my gift to you, a retelling of your childhood and the path that led you to me.
Cooper felt her heart crack in half, and she dropped the revolver as she stumbled forward, her eyes reddening as she read the most intimate moments of her life. She touched the words written by a stranger, memories now tainted by his hand and written selfishly in the gutted remains of her childhood home.
Tears streamed down her face as she relived the time she ran away and her mother found her on the swing in the park and brought her home, where she fell asleep between Beth and their mother. The time when she was in middle school and got sick from the cigarettes she’d smoked with a friend. The long night she and Beth stayed up talking about her first date, reliving all of the nerves and anxiousness together. The virulent and wicked words she spat at her mother as a teenager when the anger about her father boiled over and she needed a punching bag on which to release her rage.
The killer had taken her stories, her memories, and twisted them into something evil and deformed. The invasion of privacy tainted her soul, and the killer’s sick fantasies had cast storm clouds over what moments in her life she’d treasured. Nothing was sacred anymore. He’d truly taken everything now.
The hall of memories ended at the door to their old apartment, and in thick bold letters the killer had written “enter” across the front. With her cheeks still shiny and wet with tears, Cooper pushed the door open, the soil on the floor that trailed inside thickening into deeper layers the farther she walked.
Inside, the apartment had decayed like the rest
of the building, but the killer had left it how it had been. No paint. No messages. Cooper ran her hands over the fading wallpaper and the rotting drywall as she followed the trail of dirt into the living room, passing the kitchen, where she watched a rat scurry across the barren counters, dodging the fallen cabinet doors that exposed empty shelves and the droppings of whatever other creatures lived inside.
A few pieces of furniture remained, but the fabric of the couch and chair had been frayed and torn. The window in the living room was dirty, filtering the moonlight through layers of dust, casting the room in a grey tinge. Cooper looked down to the trail of dirt and followed it to the closed door of the bedroom she and Beth had shared.
Cooper trembled when she placed her hand on the door knob, the piece of brass loose and one hard yank from crumbling into nothing but dust. She gritted her teeth and twisted the handle, her palm tightening over the hot brass.
The door clanked against the adjacent wall, and Cooper lingered in the doorway, her eyes following the trail of dirt to an old, worn mattress supported on tarnished brass posts. A pale hand hung from the side of the bed, and Cooper collapsed to her knees upon the sight of Beth’s corpse resting on a snow-white comforter, her eyes open but void of any life. The bastard had dug her sister from her grave, waking the dead to torment her one last time. And on the wall at the head of the bed, written in large red lettering, was another message.
Now you’re both home together, one last time.
Cooper crawled forward on her hands and knees. Snot and tears poured from her nose and eyes as she reached for Beth’s lifeless fingers. She clutched her sister’s hand like a buoy at sea, her skin cold and joints stiff. Even in death, the killer had defiled whatever was left sacred of her sister’s memory. He meant for her to rot with the building around her, to fester and act as fodder for the rats that roamed the innards of the complex.
All of the rage, all of the pain, every ounce of grief and terror and regret that plagued Cooper’s mind and poisoned her heart released with the blood-curdling scream that reddened her face and set her body afire. Tears burned up on her cheeks, and her bloodshot eyes stung from the sweat and stench until all that remained was hate.
Cooper clung to that feeling, letting the moment consume her, fuel her, giving her the needed push over the edge. The laws of men were no longer of consequence. There would be no trial, no judgment, only execution. With her sister’s death she had been given the black mask and scythe to end the lives too wicked and vile to continue. And now the killer had given her the strength to wield them.
She reached for Beth’s hand and held it tightly. She rested her forehead on the soft comforter on which she lay and let the grief run through her. When she looked at her sister’s left hand, though, she saw that it was balled into a fist, holding something.
Cooper walked to the other side and pulled Beth’s fingers back, the joints stiff and unyielding. In her sister’s palm rested a crumpled piece of paper. When she unfurled the edges, the red crayon written on the wrinkled page revealed the killer’s next message. It was another address. It was Hart’s house.
***
Blood from the two dead police officers pooled in the driveway and rolled into the street. No doubt guards sent to keep an eye on Hart’s wife. Cooper stepped around the carnage, surveying the rest of the area carefully, making sure she didn’t miss anything else. When she arrived at the side door, she saw the lock was broken. She inched the door open and stepped lightly through the dark kitchen and crept down the hallway to the bedroom.
The bedroom door creaked when she pushed it open, but Katie remained motionless on the bed, her large belly prominent as she lay on her back. Cooper approached quietly but the closer she moved to the edge of the bed, the more she realized something was wrong.
Duct tape covered Katie’s mouth, and her wrists and ankles were bound and tied to the bedposts, keeping her immobilized. She turned her head, and the moment she saw Cooper in the darkness, she moaned through the seal of the tape. Cooper ripped the tape from Katie’s mouth and untied the first piece of knotted rope around her right wrist. “What happened?”
“There was a man,” Katie said, stammering through quick breaths. “He came in and tied me up, told me that he had Jason. He said you would come.”
Cooper flung the pieces of rope to the floor and helped Katie sit on the edge of the bed. With her hands free, Katie instinctively covered her womb, and Cooper placed her hand over Katie’s. “Did he tell you where he was going? Did he give you anything?”
Katie motioned over to the nightstand. “I saw him write something down over there.”
Cooper snatched the note and held it up to the moonlight in the window. The distinctive red shimmer of the crayon glimmered, and Cooper read the killer’s final note silently to herself.
Calburry Books.
“Cooper, what’s going on?” Katie had turned around to watch her, keeping her hands over her stomach.
Cooper looked to Katie’s stomach, unable to take her eyes off Hart’s unborn daughter that rested inside. She picked up the cell phone on the nightstand and pulled up the store’s location on GPS. The address was too far away for her to get to on foot without being seen, and with dawn close, it would only further complicate the way there.
“Katie, listen to me.” She walked over and clutched the woman’s hands in her own, the dirt and grit from Beth’s body still on her fingers. “I can get Jason back, but I need your help.” She showed her the paper. “I need you to take me here. Just drive me there, and the moment I get out, you head to the nearest police station and you tell them where I’m at. Got it?”
Tears streamed down Katie’s face as she rocked from side to side. “It was him, wasn’t it? The killer? He has Jason.” A soft moan escaped her lips, and her shoulders trembled.
“I’ll get him back.” But the reassuring squeeze and words did little to stem the flood of grief. Cooper let it run its course, sitting on the edge of the bed with her until it was over. It could have been the fact that she’d just seen her sister’s body or that Katie was pregnant, but for some reason the moment made Cooper think of what would have happened if she’d gone down a different road in her life. She’d clutched so tightly to the bitterness a fatherless childhood cultivated that it had seeped its way into nearly every facet of her life. But the what-ifs and the could-have-beens were worthless now. She’d chosen her path. And there was only one direction left to go.
“Katie, we need to go now.”
Katie sniffled, closed her eyes, and drew in a breath. “Where?”
Cooper showed her the address and then helped her put on her slippers and robe. She led Katie out to her car, shielding her from the dead officers in the driveway. Cooper crawled into the back seat and remained low in case another patrol showed up.
“What happens when we get there?” Katie kept her hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road.
“You just drop me and go. That’s all you have to worry about. Tell the cops exactly what happened, and then make sure you call Agent Hemsworth.” Cooper snatched a stray piece of paper in the back seat and then reached into Katie’s purse, pulling out a pen. “This is his number. If there’s anyone that I’d trust, it’s him.” She passed the note between the gap in the front seats and rested her head on the soft brown leather.
“What’s going to happen to you?” Katie asked, glancing in the rearview mirror, which only revealed the seat backs. “What happens when I leave?”
Cooper remained silent for a second, hoping to come up with something that would comfort Katie and maybe even herself, but the longer she thought about it only blank answers echoed back. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
Chapter 12
The neighborhood was worn down. But a few stores remained open, owned by the stubborn residents who refused to vacate even with the plummeting property prices and growing crime rates. Katie pulled up to a small store, the windows dirtied from the long absence of use. The bookstore’s marquee still h
ad a few letters left from when it had been open, and even with many letters missing, Cooper could fill in the blanks.
“Adila, wait until I can get help.”
Cooper opened the back door and got out. “Just make sure you call Hemsworth when you get to the station, and do not stop until you get there, for anything, understand?” Reluctantly, Katie nodded. “When you get to the station, and you tell them what’s happening here, make sure you have them send a unit over to 576 Westworth Way. There’s a body there they need to pick up.”
Again Katie nodded, her face a ghost white. Cooper watched the taillights of the car fade in the glowing grey sky, which had lightened from the encroaching sunrise. She turned back to the store and removed the revolver from her waistband, aiming it at the door that read “Calburry Books” in faded letters.
The bell on the door chimed when Cooper opened it, and she was met with the musty smell of aged paper and books. It was dark, but the outlines of bookcases crammed full of literature that stretched all the way to the ceiling could be seen. In the back of the store, she saw light break through the outline of a hidden trapdoor in the floor. Cooper approached cautiously and clutched the revolver tight. Light flooded the inside of the store when she lifted the handle and revealed the staircase to take her below.
“Ah, Detective!” The killer’s voice was faint, but it grew louder when he poked his head around the bottom corner of the staircase. “I’m so glad you could make it!” He smiled and waved her downward then disappeared.
Cooper’s heart caught in her throat, but she took her first step downstairs, the wooden planks groaning with the same anxiousness that she kept bottled inside. The smell in the basement contained a heavier moisture but retained the same musty smell of books as the rest of the store.
The light grew brighter, and when she reached the bottom, she had to squint against the harsh florescent lighting that had been wired into the ceiling. The walls were bare save for a bookcase on the opposite side. It stretched from floor to ceiling, with fifteen rows of neatly organized books. All of them with the same color spine. She raised the revolver and aimed it between the killer’s beady eyes. “Where is he?”
