by PJ Fernor
“We have work to do, Allie Down,” Ben said.
He started to turn and I grabbed his hand. “Ben. I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
When he slipped away, I left the house to take a minute to myself.
It was sad to see his father that way. One second he was joking about Ben’s high school crush on me and the next second he thought I was named someone Barb and he was going to paint the bedroom.
I walked down the steps and suddenly felt chills climbing up my back to my neck.
I looked around and my mind forgot about everything that had just happened.
My eyes moved left to right, studying, focusing as the chills continued to move up and down my back and throughout my body.
I had the strange feeling someone was watching me.
Chapter Forty-Two
He puts the gun under the man’s chin.
“Say it,” he whispers.
“We’re all his… yours. We’re all yours.”
He moves the gun and steps back.
“Get him out of here,” he orders.
Two bodyguards pick up the man and carry him out of the office.
The guy is lucky to be alive.
It’s only because he has bigger things to worry about tonight.
He hasn’t sleep right in days. Maybe longer.
Each time he feels like taking a step closer to that small town he has to pull back.
It just feels too risky at the moment.
Even with so much in place, it just feels…
Not. Yet.
There’s more work to do.
That’s the thing most people can’t do in their life.
Stop and think. And wait. And be patient.
It’s now a society of give it to me now. Even for those willing to work, they still want it now. They never stop to think about what comes next.
For example… the kid who wants a puppy. The father feels a sting of guilt and gets the puppy. Why? Why do that? Or better yet, the father puts it in a box and puts it under a Christmas tree.
Santa brings the puppy.
The father wants to be a good father.
What does that do though?
The puppy is going to cost money. Destroy items. Become a burden. That puppy is going to make messes everywhere. And even once trained, that puppy is going to make messes in the yard that someone is going to have to clean up.
The father creates a bond with the puppy and his son.
And what’s the end result?
The puppy is going to become a dog and the dog is going to die.
All that for what?
Nothing.
He knows he can storm into that little town and make his move. But there are so many other moves that need to happen first.
Detective Allie Down is too smart. She’s cunning. She’s instinctual.
In fact, she’s the only one who is coming for him.
That’s still one too many… which will be figured out soon enough.
The office door opens.
“He’s here,” a bodyguard says.
“Perfect,” he says.
He stands behind his desk and watches the man come into the office.
The man looks scared.
The man should be scared.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks.
The man shakes his head. “No.”
“I know who you are. You are a murderer.”
The man begins to weep.
Instantly.
That makes him very happy to see.
He loves when people can be broken so quickly.
“You have killed two people so far,” he says. “You cut their hands off. You kept their hands. Is that right?”
The man doesn’t respond.
“Please don’t make me hurt you.”
The man still doesn’t respond.
He nods and one of the bodyguards punches the man in the ribs.
The man screams and falls to his knees.
“If I kill you now, everything gets messed up worse than it is,” he says to the man. “So stand up and answer me. Tell me you did it…”
“I did it,” the man says. “I killed them both. The woman first. Then the man. Okay? Who are you? Are you the police? Undercover detectives?”
“Nope,” he says. “I’m going to call you Handy from now on. Okay?”
The man nods. “Okay.”
“See, Handy, you and I are in different worlds, but we share a little of the same atmosphere,” he says. “I’m going to use you. And for that, I will keep you alive. I will let you continue your mission. You have reasons why you’re collecting hands. I don’t care about those reasons. I just care about controlling you and what you do next. Do you understand?”
Handy nods. “Yes. Sure. Of course.”
“I’m going to give you a name,” he says. “You’re going to take care of that name for me. Proof that you can be loyal to me. If you listen, you live. You kill. You feel amazing. If you don’t listen, then I’ll cut your hands off myself. Just to see what the fun is all about.”
“Okay,” Handy says. “Anything you want…”
“We have a saying around here,” he says. “It goes…” He snaps his fingers.
His bodyguards in unison say, “We’re all his.”
“You try it,” he says to Handy.
“We’re all his,” Handy says.
He slaps Handy’s face and grabs the back of his neck. “Now that’s what I like to hear. Are you ready for your next kill?”
Handy nods.
Then Handy smiles.
Chapter Forty-Three
He stands at Leighland’s desk and waits.
He’s been waiting for five minutes now.
All he pictures is Leighland being told about the hands. And now the police are here, sifting through his stuff, looking for the hands.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.
He fears that guy sold him out.
What was he called again?
The One.
That guy was terrifying.
He has no idea how The One found him. Or knew about the hands.
But The One knows enough that now he’s going to make sure nothing is said.
This entire ordeal is becoming stressful.
This was supposed to be calming. Therapeutic in a sense.
The first hand was.
That small, slender hand of that woman.
Even the second one…
Walking the park just at sunset, forming a plan.
Hearing the crunch of sticks and seeing some old man wandering through the woods with binoculars attached to his face.
The old man was such an easy target.
The old man had no idea he was being followed.
He kept behind him, stayed in step, found a rock and waited to attack.
One good smack to the head and the old man went down.
Once the old man’s mouth was stuffed up to keep him from screaming too loud, he went to work cutting the hand off.
The feel of the knife. The jagged teeth cutting skin. Getting down into the veins and the muscles and tendons… then to his bones.
The old man was far easier to handle than the woman.
It really didn’t take much time.
It was just so-
“Are you okay?”
He looks back and sees Leighland. “Yes. Fine.”
“You looked like you were sleeping.”
“No. Just waiting.”
“Sorry about that,” Leighland says, smacking him on the back. “I wanted to tell you I’m impressed with these reports. This is top notch stuff. Whatever you’ve been doing the last little while outside of the office, keep it up. Your work has always been good. It’s now great.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Between you and me, they’re talking about adding an assistant position here. You’d get the office next to mine. A nice bump in salary. Keep it up. I’m watching you.”
Leighland winks.<
br />
Then the phone rings.
He sees himself out and passes by the empty office that could be his.
Truthfully, this is a great moment to stop.
No more kills. No more hands.
Let the other two cases fade into nothing.
No evidence. No connection.
But The One…
He cringes.
He can’t stop killing yet if he does listen to The One…
The workday moves by fast and soon day turns into night.
He has the name and location of where to be, and what time to be there.
He gets home, eats, showers, and opens his leather bag to look at the two hands in there.
The woman’s hand is starting to rot and smell no matter what he does with it.
The only option now is to freeze it.
Just to be safe, he puts both hands into the freezer and then covers them up with some microwave dinners.
After that, he gets his favorite knife and leaves.
There’s going to be a man waiting near a lake.
The man will be there because the man thinks someone will show up about a job.
The man doesn’t work a normal nine-to-five job either.
In other words, the man is dangerous.
As he slowly drives to the location, he plays out all the possibilities in his mind. What can go right and what can go wrong.
The goal is to get another hand.
Three hands… now we’re on to something here…
He arrives after dark.
He quietly parks the car where it can’t be seen.
Wearing all black, his knife in his hand, he makes his way down a hill.
He blends into the night.
The man is waiting at the lake.
The man is smoking a cigarette, looking annoyed that nobody else is here.
I’m here, but you can’t know about that.
He smiles as he approaches.
The closer he gets, the more confidence he has.
The plan becomes more and more simple.
Leighland once told him to use the resources around him.
And that’s what he’s going to do.
There’s a man. And a lake.
He needs the man dead.
He needs the man’s hand.
The lake is now his best friend and a weapon.
Chapter Forty-Four
My alarm went off and there was a text message waiting from one minute prior.
It was from Ben.
Good morning Allie Down.
I smiled when I read the text.
I slowly sat up in bed and began my morning ritual of stretching everything out that hurt. Which was basically every part of my body anymore. I was no longer young. Which was pretty obvious considering my career and that I had a sixteen year old niece that I was raising.
At this point I was happy to just not have gray hair.
Going from being alone and on the job twenty-four-seven to balancing the job and taking care of Lo was a tough feat.
But well worth it.
As I sat on the edge of my bed, I yawned and sent Ben a text back.
Good morning Ben Welloski. Any breaking news overnight?
I stood up and shuffled my feet across the floor.
My zombie walk was the same each morning.
This morning I stayed in the kitchen and hovered over the coffeemaker as it began to spit and groan.
I had gotten home a little late the night before and forgot to set the coffee to turn on automatically.
Ben and I had hit a brick wall with the case of Jessica and Harold.
Yesterday we spent the entire day basically verifying everything Johnny had told us about Harold. Not that we didn’t trust Johnny… but, you know, it was Johnny Barby.
At the end of the long day there was zero connection between Jessica and Harold. Except that both were murdered and were each missing a hand.
I even went as far as to dig into their family histories, hoping to find some kind of cross between the two and IY Green.
There was none.
Harold had a very small family, and most were dead.
As Johnny said, he never married and never had kids.
We were told there was a mark on the back of his head, which left me assuming he was attacked from behind.
The killer must have crept up on Harold in the woods and hit him in the head with an object and knocked him out. That hit itself might have been enough to make Harold’s heart give out. If that didn’t do it, then the trauma of having his hand sawed off was.
No new news yet. Just wanted to say good morning to you. Hope to do it in person someday soon.
I smiled and the coffeemaker gave its last few spits before being finished.
I didn’t reply back to that message from Ben.
It wasn’t the first time we both made passing comments about being together like that.
Me waking up in Ben’s bed. Ben waking up in mine.
And not just once in a while either.
It was something that had been on my mind.
He and I… living together.
That was a big thing for me to think about.
Probability wasn’t on our side.
Lo and I had a good thing in the apartment. And I also owned Alex’s house. Which was Lo’s childhood home. If I moved, it was going to be there.
Now, could Ben move into the house?
Of course he could, if he wanted to.
The only thing was his father.
There was no way his father could be moved at his age and state of mind. A new house and environment would probably have the poor guy slip even more.
And even then, would it be fair to put Lo through that? To have her see Ben’s father fading like that because of Alzheimer’s? Lo had seen enough death and sadness to last her a lifetime.
In other words, Ben and I had too much baggage to move in together.
Which felt very ironic.
Here we were, taking years to find each other and express our true feelings, and when it finally happened, we were unable to have what we really wanted.
“Morning, Allie.”
I turned my head and saw Lo.
Her hair was all over the place and I smiled at her.
“Morning, Lo.”
I poured her a cup of coffee and she sat at the table and yawned.
“Late night?” I asked.
“Studying,” she said.
“Studying, huh? Is that the truth or were you texting Trevor?”
“I can do two things at once,” Lo said.
“You’d get better grades if you focused on one thing,” I said.
Lo looked at me. “So talking to Trevor will get me good grades?”
“Funny,” I said.
“To be fair, I’m rocking those B’s like crazy,” she said.
I let out a hmm sound. “I hope you’re not the kind to settle, Lo.”
“I’m not,” she said.
Breakfast was waffles from the toaster with too much butter and syrup.
I made the dumb mistake of asking what Lo had been studying. She rambled some math equation off at me and I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or not.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about,” she said as she stood up and carried her plate to the sink.
“I took the same classes,” I said.
“And do you use that math in real life?”
“In my job, no.”
“Exactly,” Lo said.
“Oh, are you going to become a detective too?”
“No,” she said. “I’m thinking psychology.”
I stood up and smiled. “That would be perfect for you.”
“Why? Because I’m messed up so much now?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I’m kidding,” Lo said. “I have to take a shower. Thanks for breakfast.”
The caffeine kicked in hard on Lo and she danced to the bathroom.
Miss
Kesslier came over while I washed the breakfast plates.
“You look troubled,” she said to me.
“Just a tough case.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like liars.”
I dried my hands and slipped my phone into my back pocket. I touched Miss Kesslier’s shoulders. “Nothing you need to worry about. Just life.”
“Life has a way of making you think,” she said.
“Always,” I said.
“I’m always eager to hear about your cases. Anything good?”
“Two murders. Two different people. Same style. And the people have nothing in common.”
“Let me think on that,” Miss Kesslier said.
“You do that. I was just about-”
My phone started to ring.
I took it out of my back pocket and saw Ben’s name on the screen.
“Good morning, Ben Welloski,” I said.
“Allie,” he said. “Did you leave yet?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m texting you a location. Meet me there.”
“Why?”
“There’s been another murder.”
Chapter Forty-Five
I met Ben in a dirt parking lot that was surrounded by emergency vehicles.
He jumped out of his car and came rushing toward me.
When he hugged me, I wasn’t expecting it.
By the time I started to hug him back, he moved away.
“I guess your breaking news text came in a minute too early,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Chucky called me to say something was going on over here. This is Effler’s Lake. It’s a small, private area. Not sure if you know the Effler family or not but they own all the garbage contracts for the county and beyond. Not to mention they own half the mountain out here.”
“And a lake,” I said.
“Yes. And a lake.”
“Is that where the body is?” I asked.
“That’s what Chucky said. Face down in the lake.”
“And we’re getting the call about it?” I asked.
“He was in a hurry and said to call you and get over here. Let’s go find him.”
Ben and I walked to the edge of the dirt parking lot.
We flashed our badges at two officers guarding the top of the hill.
When we stepped beyond them, I looked around.
It was actually a nice view.
The hill had a sharp drop to it, but manageable.
