by David Carter
“Well I’m fresh out of ideas; you?”
They walked towards the administration block. Neither of them said a word. Just before they went inside, Blaze suddenly stopped. “Did you download Archer’s videos onto a memory stick like I asked?”
Franks looked left and right to make sure no one saw or hear their conversation. “Yeah I did. Got it right here in my pocket,” he said quietly, “your knife, too.”
Blaze’s face changed from serious to a devious grin. “Then we’re back in business, Frankie-boy.”
“What’s the new plan?”
“Do you trust me?”
“My new bank balance suggests I do.”
“Right. Give me the memory stick and I’ll pass it on to my sister. She is the one person I trust implicitly. The second part of the plan is a bit more complex. I need you to give me a contact number that I can reach you on.”
“Why?”
“Do you know where Archer lives?”
Franks wasn’t sure if he liked where Blaze was headed with his question, but even so, he said, “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”
Blaze reassured him by saying, “This is actually going to work out better than our original plan. I’m gonna call you to come pick me up one night as soon as I work out what the fuck is going on with this detective. I want you to take me to Archer’s place so I can sort out your little problem—up close and personal. And it doesn’t get more personal than having a knife held to your throat in your own fucking house.”
Franks began to sweat profusely. “You can’t possibly think he will let you just waltz into his house and threaten him, do you? His house is a fortress! Only a crazy person would try such a thing!”
“Yeah, well, I was born fucking crazy.”
Franks relented. “Okay, we will do it your way,” he said, then told him his phone number after Blaze assured him he would be able to remember it.
They walked through an electronic security door and into the visitation room. Blaze was led to a segregated table by Franks, where Ryan and Elizabeth were waiting for him. Blaze stopped dead in his tracks. “Get that fucking bitch outta here!” he shouted. “Or better still, take me back to my fucking cell!”
Ryan stood up, and walked over to Blaze. “Why don’t you just calm down, mate; I need to speak with you—urgently. Would you please just hear me out?”
“I don’t have to do shit!” said Blaze aggressively.
Franks pretended to use brute force on Blaze, pushing him to the floor and jumping on top of him, as if to restrain him, and discreetly whispered in his ear, “Just play along, man. Think about the plan. Don’t fuck it up for all of us. We’re depending on you.”
Blaze stopped struggling as Franks gave him a stern warning for all to hear. “One more outburst like that and I’ll throw you in solitary for three weeks. You got it, asshole?”
“Yeah, I got it,” he seethed.
Franks winked at him. Nice acting, mate.
Blaze got up and stood face to face with Ryan, looking up to his slightly taller counterpart. “I’ll talk to you, but not to her,” he motioned towards Elizabeth. “She doesn’t know the meaning of listening.”
“Fair enough. Just let me do all the talking.”
They sat down at the small table; Blaze on one side, Ryan and Elizabeth on the other. He introduced himself and filled him in on the murders, and how Elizabeth had discovered Duncan Walters this morning, and the Bible verses the Watcher had been leaving behind on his victims. He then asked Blaze, “Does the Bible verse, First-John, one, nine, mean anything to you?”
“Maybe...”
“Look, Bobby—”
“It’s Blaze, asshole.”
“All right then, Blaze, I’ve been told that particular verse may be of some significance to you. More specifically, twenty-three years ago, you were attacked in your dorm at the boarding school.”
“Yeah, and?”
Ryan eyed the words tattooed down Blaze’s forearm: CONFESSIONS & DAGGERS, and asked, “Care to explain how it ties in with that riddle on your arm?”
Blaze eyeballed Elizabeth angrily. “Did you tell him my favourite colour and fucking shoe size as well?”
“Hey! Show some bloody respect, will you?” said Ryan sternly.
Blaze stood up to leave. Franks slammed him back down in his chair. “Answer the man’s question.”
“Please, Blaze,” said Ryan, “tell me what happened that night.”
He scowled, then blurted out, “I was raped in my bed by a man who held a dagger to my throat and had that Bible verse tattooed to his chest. I fought him off by stabbing him with my pencil. You fucking happy now?”
Ryan looked at Elizabeth, whose heart started breaking after finally hearing the truth about what happened to her son that night. “My theory about the Watcher was right,” he said.
“What theory?” demanded Blaze.
“You said you fought him off, which means he didn’t achieve what he set out to do that night.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I think he wants to finish what he started.”
“You mean he still wants to finish raping me? Ha ha! Fucking good luck to him!” he scoffed.
“No, he wants to finish you off just like the rest of his victims.”
“You mean he wants to kill me?”
Ryan told him the story of George Walker, and mentioned a number of cold case murders he could only assume were the Watcher’s doing. “That’s why he wants me to spring you from prison,” he explained. “It’s the only plausible explanation.”
“How do you know he wants me sprung from prison?”
Ryan handed him the note the Watcher had left under his windscreen wiper-blade, and explained the meaning. “He wants an exchange; Trinity’s life for your immediate release.”
“You’re just gonna walk in here and let me go free so I can help you track this fucker down?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve wanted from the beginning?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’m a detective. It’s my job to know these things.”
“Please, Bobby. I know you are angry at me, but this is Trinity’s life we are talking about,” pleaded Elizabeth.
“You can just stay the fuck out of this.”
Ryan reached across the table and grabbed Blaze by the scruff of the neck. “You don’t speak to a lady like that! You hear me? Especially your own mother. Now apologise, you arrogant little shit!”
“Go fuck yourself,” he said. “I ain’t giving her jack shit.”
“Please, detective, it’s okay. He has every right to be angry with me,” said Elizabeth.
Ryan let him go. “We can deal with your relationship issues later. Right now, I need you to agree to come with me, and help me find and bring this asshole to justice.”
“And if I say no?”
“But you won’t.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“You save your sister’s life! Isn’t that enough?”
“If you’re so fucking clued up, why haven’t you found her yourself?”
Ryan exhaled heavily through his nose. “All right then, Blaze, here’s my best offer.”
“It’s about fucking time.”
“I’ll have your sentence reduced as much as possible.”
“And?”
“Shit, what else do you want? You do realise you committed a serious crime by burning down the school, right? You could’ve killed someone!”
“I did it on Christmas Eve for a reason; school holidays—and it caused a shit-load of chaos.”
“You know, you’re a lot smarter than you look.” Ryan grinned. Then he said, “Go on, tell me what it is that you want.”
Blaze would have saved his sister for nothing, but this was his opportunity to capitalise on his situation. “I want my sentence reduced to nothing and wiped from the records, and I want to destroy that piece of shit who raped me without any repercussions from the authorities,
” he said.
“You mean, kill him, right?”
“I think that’s pretty fucking obvious...”
“I’ll do my best to make that happen.”
“Then we’re good to go.”
“Not so fast. I want to ask you something else.”
“What?”
“Did you burn down the school to get the Watcher’s attention?”
“Yeah, that was the main reason.”
“Then perhaps you owe Elizabeth an apology after all then.”
He stared into her eyes coldly as he said, “Nope, I also did it to pay her back for being a shitty mother.”
She held his gaze, and remorsefully said, “I’m sorry, Bobby—for everything. I want to make things right with you. I just need you to give me a chance.”
He was taken aback, and looked down at the table, unsure of what to say. For once he said nothing.
“Do we have a deal?” Ryan asked him.
“Can you absolutely guarantee I’ll get to have my revenge without any legal issues? Because I’m going to make him beg me to kill him.”
“Yes, I think I can make that happen, but only on one condition...”
He paused, “Name it.”
“You need to sort your shit out with Elizabeth. If we are going to do this, we all need to be on the same team. If you can promise to get over yourself and show some common courtesy, I’ll guarantee your freedom and you can tear him apart. Hell, I’ll even help you.
“Oh, no you won’t. He’s all mine.”
“Whatever makes you happy. So, we’re good then?”
He stopped to consider the fact he had to make peace with Elizabeth. He wasn’t ready to let her off the hook so easily, but for the moment, to get what he wanted, he decided to play along. “Yeah, we’re all good. We’re all one big happy family, aren’t we, Mother?”
Chapter 38
“How do you like your lamb chops, medium-rare?” the Watcher asked Trinity as she sat at his dining table, her arms and legs bound to a wooden armchair. Her long, thin legs were starting to cramp from sitting in the same position for hours on end as the lip of the seat dug into them. The thin brown rope wrapped around her lower body, tied to the legs of the chair, left pressure marks across her pale skin just beneath the hemline of her short pair of blue denim shorts, and around her ankles. Her upper body was also restrained: her arms bound to the armrests of the chair, with rope digging into her breasts as it wrapped around her bright pink T-shirt and around her slim waistline, tied off to the backrest of the sturdy chair. A dense cloth blindfold was tied tightly around her head, snagging a few strands of her straight, shoulder length, black hair, causing a constant gnawing pain in her scalp.
As she sat inert, in constant discomfort, and more petrified than any other moment in her life, she summoned all the courage she had, and stubbornly answered, “I’m not hungry, so you know where you can stick your lamb chops...”
The Watcher grinned. “You know, you’re so much like your brother,” he said, amused, “just without the potty mouth.”
“I wish he were here right now,” she said, “he’d make mincemeat out of you without even trying!”
“Come on, Trinity,” he said softly, “have something to eat. I brought these chops especially for you, as I know how much you like them.”
“How could you possibly know that about me?” she asked with ferocity in her voice.
“I know many things about you and your family, but more specifically: I have a particular interest in your recently incarcerated brother.”
“If you are so interested in him why on earth do you have me tied to a chair?”
“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity,” he replied in a soft, condescending tone. “You are merely the bait in the trap my dear girl. Do not concern yourself with my reasoning. I’m sure the detective who went to the prison today will be able to negotiate Bobby’s release so he can take your place assuming he loves you enough to do so. Do you think he will sacrifice his pathetic excuse of a life in prison for yours?”
Trinity had always been a good sister to Blaze. She accepted him for who he was. He was always protective of her, and loved her more than anyone in their family even if he’d never admitted it. He had sent her a package every year on her birthday, and always called her on Christmas Eve with the most recent one being the exception. She knew him well enough to know he would come to her aid. She said, “He would literally kill for me. I know that for a fact.”
The Watcher flipped the chops in the frying pan. The sound of sizzling, juicy meat and the tantalizing aroma of cooked lamb was starting to arouse her senses.
“That, my dear Trinity, is exactly why I admire your brother so much. It’s such a rare occurrence to come across somebody so bold to do whatever is necessary regardless of the consequences in this day and age. Everything is so politically correct, and common sense has been thrown out the window for technology and pen pushing desk jockeys who sit behind their computer screens dreaming up ways to bubble wrap society justifying their over-paid and under-worked job descriptions!”
Trinity noticed the volume and frustration levels rising in his voice as he got to the end of his rant, then said, “Believe it or not: I actually agree with you on that one.”
Trinity hadn’t eaten in almost eighteen hours. The Watcher had kidnapped her during the early hours of the previous night, and had gone out earlier this morning. He’d offered her breakfast before he left, but she’d refused it. When he returned home briefly, he offered to hand feed her a jam sandwich, which she declined, before he ducked out again. He’d left her all alone with nothing but the sound of old religious songs playing on his antique gramophone. She could hear the soft crackle of static in the background of the prehistoric recordings, along with the voice of Jim Reeves as he sang:
Give me that old time religion,
give me that old time religion.
Give me that old time religion,
it’s good enough for me.
Her stomach started to grumble. The Watcher heard the churning and groaning as her stomach begged for nourishment, and said, “Now listen to me, young lady; you have my word that no harm will come to you during your stay here as long as you do as you’re told. So right now, I am telling you to be grateful for my hospitality, and eat the dinner I have prepared for you. I will even untie your arms so you can feed yourself. But if you so much as think about removing your blindfold, I’ll be waiting right here to stab both of your eyes out without a second thought. Do we have an understanding?”
She nodded profusely, and greedily scoffed down her lamb chops, mashed potatoes, creamy mushrooms, and steamed green beans with butter. With a full belly and the promise of not being harmed, she asked, “What will become of me if, God forbid, Bobby is unable to be released by noon tomorrow?”
He considered her question carefully, then said, “It’s probably best you don’t know the answer to that.”
“Oh, come on; I’m a big girl. You can’t cook me a meal and expect me to be impressed without some stimulating, after dinner chitchat, do you? That’s not very charming of you now, is it?”
The Watcher considered himself a gentleman, and fell for Trinity’s words as the way he was entertaining a lady was being questioned. He cracked open the safe of diabolical secrets in his mind, and said, “If Bobby should fail to be in Glendale by noon tomorrow, I’ll be giving you a tour of my basement.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
He smiled devilishly. “It’s not the basement itself you should fear; it’s what lies beyond that’ll make you squeamish. I have more than enough ways to dismantle a human being while still alive down there, and I’ve been dying to perform a few medical procedures I’ve been studying up on. Perhaps I will get the chance if things turn pear shaped for you.”
Trinity wanted to vomit as she heard the inner workings of a madman. She took several deep breaths to hold down her surprisingly satisfying dinner, before she bravely smiled, and said, “Let us
pray it doesn’t come to that.”
He reapplied the bindings to her arms as he said, “Yes, my dear Trinity. You had better pray it doesn’t.”
Chapter 39
Franks escorted Blaze outside with Elizabeth and Ryan. He told them all to wait in the car park until he returned with Blaze’s personal effects. As the three of them stood silently together, and Ryan could feel an awkward tension brewing between them. Fortunately, Franks returned promptly, and handed Blaze a large, transparent plastic bag with numerous items inside. Blaze pulled out his outfit from the night of the fire: a black T-shirt, a pair of black denim jeans with a black leather belt studded with shiny silver spikes, and a reasonably new pair of black steel-toed boots. Ryan and Elizabeth turned away as he stripped off in the middle of the car park and donned his much-preferred clothing, leaving his prison attire in a crumpled pile on the asphalt. He then retrieved his cell phone and slipped it into his pocket, along with his black leather wallet, before clipping the end of the long silver chain attached to it on one of his belt loops. He pulled out his chain necklace, clipping it together behind his neck. There were two rings. One was silver with a small skull as the centrepiece and the other was a plain silver band with the name: ZOE engraved on it. He put them on his middle finger and thumb respectively on his right hand.
He rummaged around the bottom of the bag, getting extremely agitated. He marched up to Franks. “Where the fuck is my knife, asshole?”
Franks motioned his eyes towards Ryan. “I think I’ll let the detective handle this one,” he replied.
Blaze stared at Ryan with such burning intensity that Ryan felt a little uneasy. He raised his hands up in surrender as he said, “Just hear me out before you tear my head off, all right? The Department of Corrections have given me the go-ahead to release you from custody on a temporary basis provided we all follow the strict, provisional conditions they have generously set in place—”
“Hooray for the fun-police,” Blaze interrupted.
“They have stated that if you should succeed in the capture or demise of the Watcher, you will have earned your freedom. However, if this all turns out to be some extremely well-thought-out-plan of yours to spring you from prison and there isn’t any sign of your sister within twenty-four hours, starting noon tomorrow, you will be returned to this facility to complete your full sentence—without parole.”
