The Hunting of Malin

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  “Malin!” he said, lifting her off her feet and taking a heel to the groin for it. He lost his grip and she nearly slipped away but he took her to the ground, burying her face in the long grass. “Malin stop!” His weight forced her struggles to weaken, cologne wafting over her in sweet waves. “It’s okay,” he breathed into the back of her neck. “It’s over. I’ve got you.”

  She went limp in his strong arms as her walls collapsed around her. “Why is this happening?” she sobbed, weeds tickling her cheeks. “Why is this happening to these girls? They don’t deserve this.”

  “I don’t know but we’re going to find out and then we are going to stop him. I can promise you that.” Taking a look around the deserted block, he scanned the porches and driveways, seeing things that weren’t there. “Let’s get in the truck and go straight to the police station. I’ll call them on the way and everything will be fine.”

  Sucking in a long wheezing breath, words poured from her lips in a stream. “They’ll never believe me and I’ll get in trouble for taking the lighter and necklace and go to jail while that sick fucker walks to kill again!”

  “Listen to me.” He loosened his hold a little and rose to one knee, weighing her urge to flee. “Let me take care of everything. Trust me, I know Brolin and we have to get them on the same page,” he said, helping her up.

  Malin hesitated, unsure if that was the right thing to do or not. She wanted to run. The urge was overwhelming, but there was nowhere to outrun the memories and Holden was right…if she really wanted to stop this guy, she needed some help. She couldn’t do it alone. Consequences be damned. “Okay,” she muttered, smearing mascara across her cheeks.

  Letting go of her arm, Holden stayed nearby. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She nodded weakly as he took a nervous look around the murky street. If this was 1964, sleepy-eyed neighbors would’ve called the police by now but those people were nothing more than distant memories. Straightening the gun on his hip, he went around the Bronco and opened his door, keeping a close eye on Malin as she popped her side open. Her chest tightened like a vise, blocking the airflow and leaving her lightheaded. Moonlight glistened off the bloody boxcutter sealed inside a Ziploc, the one barely sticking out from under the passenger seat, and Malin now understood just how close she was to dying on this empty block with no one around to call for help. Looking up, she met Holden’s wicked green eyes.

  Shrugging his shoulders, he played innocent. “What’s wrong?”

  Spinning, Malin darted between two houses and ran like something was after her. Something named Holden. How could she have been so blind? Everything went by in a silver streak. Untrimmed trees and bushes lashed out at her cheeks. He was standing right in front of her this whole time and she didn’t see it, even with the visions. The feeling of betrayal was impossible to grasp, giving everything a dreamlike state that made breath difficult to draw. Jumping a chain-link fence, she hit the ground running, tearing across a grabby backyard while teetering on the brink of freedom…and victim number four.

  Chapter25

  Smoke seeped from Malin’s nose, rising into the air like spirits stretching after a long rest. She watched the empty street from the shadow of a decomposing front porch, absentmindedly conjuring up a smiling picture of herself in her head. Maybe the one Roxanna took of her in Vegas last summer. The one Luna might give the news outlets to plaster all over TV after her torn body was found in this God forsaken neighborhood she could not escape. A noise, like someone bumped a table, came from inside the house behind her. It was the second time she’d heard it and she didn’t think it was Holden, which provided little comfort. She thought she heard his truck drive away but that could’ve been some bored kids, leaving a derelict house after huffing paint and screwing their brains out. Pressing her face against a paned window, she peered into a family room with furniture draped in yellowed sheets. Panning from left to right, Malin noticed that everything sat positioned as it probably had when someone used to live and she couldn’t imagine what made them flee without their worldly possessions. Snapping her gaze back across the room, she squinted at a sheeted floor lamp that looked eerily closer than it had just a moment ago. She cupped her hands around her face and widened her stance to keep from shaking, breath fogging the glass. Standing in a stripe of moonlight, the lamp’s base was just visible beneath the hemline of the fabric, sending a shot of relief into her pumping bloodstream. Her imagination was up to its old tricks again and she just needed to get the hell out of here. It was like she’d gone back in time and everyone was gone. Like she was the last living thing on the entire planet.

  Except, of course, for the deranged killer searching for her now.

  Headlights swept across the window, startling her poor heart into another frenzy. Ducking down, the vehicle came closer and a bitter sweet mixture was quick to follow. Sweet relief to see Roscoe’s car, bitter shame for thinking he was the killer when, clearly, he wasn’t. Holden was right about that part because Holden was the killer. Her gut had deceived her and she would never forgive it. Limping down the front steps with smoke trailing from the cigarette clutched between her fingers, it was all so clear now. Holden’s release from the police department triggered something inside. Something that not only wanted to embarrass the force, but something he clearly enjoyed as well.

  Murder.

  Apparently, he was also having difficulty making friends with the opposite sex after his messy divorce. The bloody box-cutter in his truck was proof of that and Malin had to get to Brolin before he struck again.

  Roscoe slowed to a stop in the street and she flicked the cigarette into the weeds before sliding inside the car. Adrenaline subsiding, pain flared in her leg with the movement, forcing her teeth to clamp shut.

  “Jesus, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she lied, closing the door and killing the dome light.

  “You’re limping.”

  “I scraped my leg,” she replied, hitting the locks. “Can we just go?”

  Roscoe stared at her leg, like he could see anything in the dark.

  “Ross!”

  Flinching, he shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb. Malin took one last look at the house behind them, fearful she might turn to stone if she did. Her heart somersaulted into the bottom of her wet stomach. She blinked, clearing a grimy film of dismay from her wide eyes. The draped lamp stood in the window, stoically watching the Grand Am speed off toward the interstate with a breeze ruffling its sheet and the impossible pooling at its feet.

  ☚ ☛

  Detective Brolin leaned back and folded his tattooed arms over the silver badge hanging from his neck, his sleep-deprived eyes blank holes to not-believing-a-word-of-this-shit. He looked like he’d been pulled from an all-nighter with the boys and his mood matched. The air-conditioner hummed in Malin’s ears, rising and falling like a swarm of far-off cicadas. She could feel someone watching them through the one-way glass to the left and it was so damn quiet in the tiny room, Malin could hear herself swallow. The urge to run was overwhelming, but the room’s only door was undoubtedly locked from the outside, sealing her fate.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Brolin finally spoke, his voice heavy with lack of sleep. “About these visions.”

  Stirring in the plastic chair next to her, Roscoe opened his mouth to answer but Malin cut him off.

  “Because I knew you’d be looking at me like you are right now.” Filling her lungs, she composed herself and set a splayed hand on the table. “Listen, I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy. Everything we just told you is the truth. All of it.”

  “I didn’t say you were crazy, but come on.” Exhaling an irritable breath, he clasped his hands on the table between them and stared at Amber Rowe’s bloodstained necklace. “But Holden? A killer?” His lips curled down at the corners. “Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’ve known him for years and he’s one of the good guys.”

  “Then why’d he get fired?”


  “That’s none of your business but I can tell you it wasn’t due to any type of inappropriate behavior, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Malin set her jaw. “I told you, I saw the box-cutter in his truck. It was covered in blood, like he just used it to kill Brandy.”

  “The same box-cutter you saw in your visions?”

  “It looked like it.”

  Brolin leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “How do you know you weren’t having another vision when you saw the one in his truck tonight?”

  “It wasn’t a vision.” Malin traded a sideways look with Roscoe, twisting her rings. “It was real.”

  “At this point,” Roscoe added, looking at Brolin, “you might as well check it out because she’s three for three on finding dead bodies. The scoreboard does not lie. Trust her instincts and she could help you catch this maniac.”

  Spreading his palms, Brolin cocked his head to one side. “Okay, let’s say Holden did do it; he’s way too smart to leave a bloody murder weapon lying around in his car like some kind of ten cent crook. He was a cop, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I told you, it was sealed inside a Ziploc, and, obviously, he didn’t have time to hide it yet.”

  “He would make time!”

  “Obviously, I caught him off guard showing up at his place in the middle of the night.”

  Brolin pressed his lips together and traded a glance with the one-way glass. “After the vision of Brandy?”

  “Yes, after the vision of Brandy!”

  “So why didn’t he kill you?”

  “Because I ran. Remember?”

  “Okay then, why didn’t he kill you out at the lake when he had the chance? You said the two of you were all alone, yet he gave you a pass. Why? Because you don’t have blond hair? Come on, man!”

  Malin dropped her face into her hands, a painful reflection of their entwined bodies flashing against her palms. She gave herself to a killer and it curdled her blood. He was so sweet and kind and it hurt like hell to find out the miserable truth. Goddammit! Her track record with men left little to be desired and – if she had a smidgeon of what her mother has – she should have seen this coming. Pulling her face from her hands, she looked up and met Brolin’s eyes. “Because he likes me.”

  The detective swapped a puzzled look with Roscoe. “He likes you?”

  “We were…intimate.”

  Roscoe’s jaw hit the table. “What! When?”

  “A few nights ago.”

  “You mean when I made him give you a ride home from the bar?” Roscoe rolled his head in disgust. “Oh, my God, I threw your drunk ass right into the hands of a serial killer!” Turning to Brolin, his face sobered dramatically. “Can I get in trouble for that?”

  Brolin leaned back and grinned, folding his arms across his muscular chest. “I’ll tell you what you can get in trouble for Roscoe: tampering with evidence, withholding evidence, and perjury. Just to rattle off a few quick headlines for ya.”

  Turning away, Malin met her bleak stare in the mirror. Her reflection’s lips tightened, making her cheekbones pop out. She looked ten pounds lighter, eyes receding into her skull, voice as faint and weak as the rest of her. “I just want to help.”

  “Okay, so then help.”

  A fly landed on the table in the glass but when she turned to the table in front of her, it was gone. Her eyes swung back to the mirror, where the insect was stuttering around the brim of Brolin’s paper coffee cup. Looking down to the real cup, the fly was nowhere to be seen. Following her gaze, Brolin picked the coffee up and took a slow drink. His eyes thinned at her over the rim and it got so bone chillingly quiet, she could hear him gulping the brew down like a dog. Malin turned back to the glass and shivered when she saw the fly crawling on the tip of her reflection’s nose.

  “Malin?” Brolin said, leaning over to intercept her faraway eyes.

  Looking at him, she resisted the urge to scratch the end of her nose like some two-bit junkie. But she wanted to. More than anything.

  He offered up a warm smile, a truce of some kind perhaps. “If you want to help, just help. That’s all you gotta do.”

  Her eyes fell back to the cup. The fly wasn’t there but she knew that if she looked into that glass again, she could see it. Maybe it was laying eggs in her nasal passage at this very moment. “Look,” she said, clearing her throat and trying on a louder voice. “I know what I saw tonight. I saw a dead girl in a basement and a bloody boxcutter in Holden’s truck.”

  “So, let’s get this straight…he murdered these girls to pay the department back for letting him go – a way to embarrass us by taking his anger out on anyone who, coincidentally enough, resembles his ex-wife.” Detective Brolin’s eyebrows went up. “That your theory?”

  Malin didn’t like the way his pitch rose on the word theory – like it would when a skeptic says the word ghost. “Does his ex-wife have blond hair?”

  “As a matter of fact, she does.”

  “Then yes,” Malin calmly replied, rubbing the tip of her nose. “That’s my theory. Now, how much more of your job do you want me to do for you, Detective?”

  Brolin set his jaw, flexing a tendon in his neck. “Maybe you could conjure up another vision and locate the killer. Or, if that’s too much to ask, maybe the wedding ring I lost two days ago.”

  “Are you always this big of a dick?”

  “Only when I’m being fed a line of bullshit!” He pounded the table, spilling some of his coffee and making Roscoe jump. His mouth opened to say something else, something undeniably snooty, but stopped short instead. Lifting the cup with a pair of jacks on it, he washed it down his throat with a quick drink, another jack hiding beneath. Grimacing, he pulled something from the tip of his tongue and set it on the table.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, wiping his hand on his jeans. “When it rains, it pours.”

  Malin stared in disbelief at the wet fly. It looked dead and shortened her breath. She turned to the mirror and the fly wasn’t there, making her head swim.

  Pushing the cup aside, Brolin softened his tone. “Look, my wife just gave birth to twin girls last month and I haven’t slept in God knows how many days. Nobody wants to get out of here more than I do, believe me.” His eyes jerked to Roscoe, who instantly began to squirm in the chair. “Now, you dated Brandy for how long again?”

  He groaned. “I told you, man, we only went out that one time. We weren’t dating.”

  “What about Holden?” Malin interrupted.

  The young detective tented his hands. “No sign of him at the scene and he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Then send someone to his house before he gets rid of the boxcutter!”

  “We’re going to need a little more than your fascinating story before sending officers to the residence of a man I’ve known and respected for the last seven years.”

  “Oh really? Like what? Another body?”

  “Like some hard evidence, sweetheart!” He pounded the table again. “Not fucking fairytales.” He swept a hand out over Roscoe. “Hell, two hours ago you thought your best friend here was the killer. That’s how all over the place you are on this.”

  Twisting in the chair, Roscoe shot her an icy glare that cut like dragon glass. “I can’t believe you thought I was a serial killer. How could you?”

  A disturbing image of him standing outside Colt’s bedroom window sliced through her mind. That’s how. She wanted to bring it up. Use his disturbing behavior to help bolster her own sanity, but couldn’t bring herself to throw him under the bus again. “Detective,” she said in a fairly calm voice, “I told you, Holden must’ve planted Roscoe’s Zippo at the lake to make it look like Ross was the killer. Holden is playing us like fools and it all makes perfect sense now.”

  Brolin hung his head and laughed a little before exhaling a longwinded breath. “Look, I’ll track Holden down and contact you after I do. For now, go home, and get some sleep; you look like you could use it.”

  Malin pushed
the chair back, making a terrible screeching sound against the floor. A female officer opened the metal door before she got there, stepping aside and flashing a tightlipped smile. Malin stopped and turned in the doorway, eyes burning blue flames. “Oh, and by the way, Detective…”

  Brolin looked up from his notes.

  “Your ring is under the workbench in the garage.”

  Her stared at her with his mouth agape, watching Malin spin around and push past the female cop.

  Roscoe’s silence on the way to Malin’s apartment was indicative of his mood and made her fidget. She felt horrible and wouldn’t blame him if he never talked to her again. She’d known him since grade school and took him for a serial killer over a Zippo lighter and some loosely based assumptions revolving around the hair color of his ex-girlfriend. Squeezing her eyes shut until she saw stars, Malin prayed the Grand Am would be at her apartment by the time she opened them because she couldn’t think and this was the longest drive of her life. Courageously peeling her eyelids apart, her hope plummeted. Streetlights flickered past and they still had a ways to go.

  Swallowing her wounded pride, Malin sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Ross.”

  “I just don’t get it.” He stared straight ahead as he drove, refusing to give her the satisfaction of making eye contact. “How could you seriously think I was a serial killer? What the fuck?”

  Her gut twisted into ropy knots and the more she thought about it, the more it all made sense. Holden obviously stole the lighter from Roscoe at work before planting it out at the lake but he never counted on Malin finding it. No, he counted on the cops finding it and that was one bet he lost.

  Mercifully whipping into her lot, Roscoe brought the car to a jerky halt and stared straight ahead.