by Sandra Brown
And as he struggled to get a solid grasp, he felt something again. Something. As if someone were there, pushing him up the wall.
Tony. Tony had gotten it together and followed.
“Thanks!” he said huskily, and looked back as he gained the top of the brick. But no one was there. No one. No one had touched him.
He was cracking under the strain.
His feet hit the asphalt of the parking lot and he ran to the rear door of the effects studio. It was locked. He stood back, pulled his gun and shot out the lock. He burst through into the shadowed realm of zombies, bugs, gnomes and superheroes.
* * *
Ali ran back through the prop storage, knocking down a wall of helmets and a carton of costume-grade vampire teeth. As she neared the werewolf, she let out a terrified scream; a massive spiderweb—actually, excellent nylon webbing that she’d designed herself—fell upon her. Screaming, she tore at the netting.
And she heard the shuffling sound of his footsteps.
“Victor, you bastard! Where do you think this will get you? Let me go, you ass! Stop this!” she cried.
“Ali!”
She heard her name shouted. It came from far away; it had to be her imagination. It wasn’t. It was Greg.
“Greg!”
She didn’t hear the shuffling sound anymore. Instead, she heard a chuckle. “He’s coming, Ali. How sweet. The script is complete. The detective is coming to save the maiden in distress. Ah, but not all horror movies have happy endings these days!”
“Greg, no!” she cried. “No…!”
* * *
Ali! He’d heard her; she was on the second floor. He raced past the shelves of props toward the stairs. There was something coming down for him. Big, enormous…coming out of the shadows.
“Stop!” he roared.
The thing kept coming. He shot.
It fell.
He raced up the stairs to it.
Laughter seemed to sound all around him. “Congratulations, cop. You just killed a dead werewolf. Watch out—the zombies are coming next.”
Greg stepped over the fallen beast. The bastard, Brill, had gotten on to some kind of a microphone. His voice would sound as if it was coming from everywhere, no matter where the guy was. He eased down the hall and looked into a conference room. Nothing there but a bunch of models for fairies in little glass domes. He hurried on, past one conference room, then another, and another… .
He looked in the last conference room. Even in his panic, he paused. There was a life-size statue or mannequin of Blake Richards. He was affable-looking, a smiling and white-haired man with kind brown eyes.
“For the love of God, help me!” Greg pleaded.
He hurried out of the conference room and to the last door. The door to the storage room.
“Ali!” he shouted her name.
“No, Greg!”
He shoved the door open, and there she was. His Ali. She was tied up in a cocoon of white, and at her side was a skeleton with a raised knife. A knife that dripped blood. The blood of the man who had so recently perished in the graveyard.
Greg took aim at the skeleton. “Get the hell away from her!” he ordered.
The skeleton just started to laugh. And, as Greg stepped into the room, both hands on his gun in regulatory stance, Ali screamed.
A second web came crashing down, entangling him instantly. The fall of the web wrenched the gun from his hand, knocking it down near his knee. Tension and fury filled him; he refrained from instantly reaching for the gun.
If he wasn’t careful, it would fall through the mesh… .
“Oh, Greg, I’m so sorry!” Ali said.
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I love you,” he told her. “I always have.”
“This is so sweet! So, so sweet!” Victor said. “Do go on.”
“Victor is the Slasher,” Ali said.
“Yeah, well, we’ve been trying to catch him, night and day, for a year,” Greg said.
“Of course. And you would have gotten him. You’re a great cop, Greg. Dedicated—to everyone. A little late, but I’m seeing that now.” He could hear the regret in her voice; she was looking at him through all the mesh that tangled them both. Ali was beautiful. Even now, there was strength and pride in her eyes.
“Yes, but… .”
“Greg, forgive me. My timing sucks on this, but…we may die. I love you. I was wrong,” she said.
“No, no, I just…there was a kid. I couldn’t turn my back on a child.”
“Oh, such drama, I love it. But enough,” Victor said. “I’d only imagined the pleasure of slicing up my dear coworker, the beloved Ali! But, now, I get to cut her up in front of you. A cop! A big old cop who fell right into my trap.”
“Well,” Greg said, trying to maintain calm; it was their only chance. He had to reach the gun. “You are an ass, Victor—as well as being a true psychopath, of course. I understand that this place may have a lot of soundproofing, but you must have heard some of the sirens tonight. The place is crawling with cops. Every psycho eventually makes a mistake. You made yours tonight.”
“I don’t think so. By the time the cops actually get here, I’ll be tangled in mesh, too. And they’ll think I’m the victim who survived when they scared away the real perp!” Victor said.
“You worked with this idiot, for real?” Greg asked Ali. Slowly, slowly, he stretched his fingers toward the gun. The nylon strained, tearing into his flesh.
“Good jobs are not easy to come by in the film industry, even in special effects,” Ali told him.
“Ali, precious Ali! Oh, yeah, everyone loves Ali. Old Blake Richards loved you. You were a suck-up. Always with the blond hair falling over your eyes. And you dressed to be provocative, trying to seduce the old bastard!” Victor accused her.
“In T-shirts and sweats?” Ali asked. “He thought of me as a daughter, Victor.”
“Well, you can go and join your old man, then,” Victor said. His voice sounded unreal, like the evil whisper of a—a movie picture.
Victor started slashing the webbing that held Ali. He was coming closer and closer to her. Desperate, Greg strained harder to reach the gun.
Slash. Slash. He could hear the nylon ripping away with each dreadful fall of the knife.
No, God, no! The gun was just out of reach. Greg screamed in fear that the blade would touch flesh at any minute. Real flesh. Ali’s flesh.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
And then, miraculously, it seemed that although he couldn’t reach any farther, the gun was moving—on its own—toward his hand.
His fingers twined around the grip. He ignored the pain of the tensing nylon, twisted and took aim.
He started to give fair warning.
But the knife was over Ali’s trapped form, right over her throat… .
“Die, you bastard!” Greg roared.
He fired.
For a moment, skeletal and eerie, Victor Brill still stood, the knife aimed toward Ali’s throat.
And then…
He stumbled backward.
The room was suddenly riddled with shots.
Greg twisted around. Good old Tony. He’d followed, and he’d finished off the Slasher.
* * *
Naturally, soon the whole building was abuzz with police. Ali still couldn’t believe that she was alive. She couldn’t believe that Greg had come. It had all happened so quickly, except, of course, for the terrifying moments when she had been in the net—strong, unbreakable threaded nylon. Hey, she was good at her work.
But now it was over. And though she had been a victim and a witness, and long through with what the police needed from her, she waited in the conference room for Greg to tie up all the loose ends that a detective had to tie up.
At last, he came back. She was seated at the conference table, next to the superb figure of Blake Richards. For a moment, he paused in the doorway, looking at her. He was impossibly wonderful, she thought. His dark hair was in total disarray over
his forehead; his eyes fell upon her with naked longing. He was ever strong and steady.
And he had saved her life.
He hurried from the door to fall on a knee before her. He caught her face between his hands—studying her as if he had to reassure himself over and over again that she was all right, studying her as if she were his world.
“Ali,” he whispered, and his voice choked. “The things you said—”
“Were real.”
He swallowed and nodded. She touched his dark hair, wanting to find the right words. “Let’s go home,” was all she could manage, and her words were thick.
He nodded. Then he smiled crookedly. “Yours or mine?”
“Yours—and I’d like it to be mine again,” she said softly.
He stood and looked back. Tony was in the room. “I got it, Greg. I’m on the crime scene unit, the M.E., you name it. You get out of here.”
Greg nodded. He took Ali’s hand and drew her to her feet. She was still shaky. She leaned against him. She loved the feel of him and the smell of him, and she trembled, thinking how lucky she was; she had almost died to find out that pride and fear were ridiculous.
And that monsters were real.
“Home,” Greg whispered to her. He clapped a hand on Tony’s shoulder giving him a gruff, “Thank you.”
He looked back into the room for a minute. She realized that he was looking at the wax figure of Blake Richards.
“He was a wonderful man,” Ali said. “I almost feel as if he was watching over me tonight.”
“A great man,” Greg agreed. He was still staring at the wax figure. He smiled. She thought he winked.
She blinked hard herself. She could have sworn that, for just a minute, the wax figure was alive, that Blake Richards smiled in return.
And winked.
“Home,” Greg said.
Ali nodded. And still, she wondered, had Blake Richards helped save her life that night?
Yes, quite possibly, because Greg spoke up then, after clearing his throat.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you,” he said quietly.
Yes, she thought. Yes, he had helped save her.
Her life. And her love. The way that Greg had looked at the wax figure…
“Thank you!” she whispered. A foolish thing to do? She’d probably never know.
She turned, her hand tightly held in Greg’s, and they left.
They were going home.
* * * * *
WITHOUT MERCY
Mariah Stewart
This story is as real and emotionally gripping as a current headline. Surely nothing strikes more fear in us than the report of a missing child. ~SB
Mallory Russo stood and eased the kinks from her back. She’d spent most of the afternoon sitting in the same spot, reading résumés that had flooded in to her employer, the Mercy Street Foundation. Ever since her boss, megamogul Robert Magellan, announced that he was funding an organization to investigate unsolved missing persons cases and needed to hire the best law enforcement personnel he could find, the flow of résumés had been nonstop.
The foundation was a private investigative firm with a unique twist: once a case was selected, their services were free. So now, they needed staff to handle the number of cases that were coming in. Mallory was wavering between two hopefuls—a retired detective from Miami and an FBI profiler who was looking for some new challenges—when the phone in her pocket rang.
“Hey, Charlie.” She swiveled her chair around to look out the window. It was already dark. She stole a glance at her watch. It was almost seven. “Are you already home?”
Charlie Wanamaker, the detective who’d been hired by the local police force to replace Mallory when she left the job two years ago was also her fiancé. “I’m on my way. Thought I’d stop and pick up something for dinner. You call it—Chinese or Italian.”
“What kind of detective asks a girl whose last name is Russo if she wants Chinese or Italian?”
He laughed softly. “Lasagna or ravioli?”
“Surprise me.”
“I’ll see you at home.”
The reports and résumés lost their appeal. They would still be there in the morning. Mallory tucked the files into neat stacks, piled them onto the corner of her desk and left for the night.
* * *
“Mal, does the name Karen Ralston ring any bells?” Charlie reached into the cupboard for wineglasses.
“Ralston.” Mallory paused, a serving spoon in one hand. “There was an old case of the chief’s, must be ten or so years old by now. Thirteen-year-old girl went missing on her way home from school. Her mother used to stop at the station to see if there’d been any developments, but there never were.” She walked to the table and spooned ravioli onto Charlie’s plate. “Donna Ralston, the mother, was a waitress at the Conroy Diner. Joe wasn’t chief when the girl first disappeared, so he handled the case from day one. He always had time for Donna whenever she stopped in, no matter how busy he was.”
Mallory served dinner in silence, then asked, “Has Donna Ralston called the department?”
Charlie nodded. “She called this morning. I let Joe know when he checked in. He asked if you’d be willing to give the woman a few minutes, just as a favor.”
He poured wine into both their glasses. “You don’t have to, of course. You don’t work for the department anymore.”
“Of course I’ll call her, if that’s what Joe wants.”
Joe Drabyak had been more than Mallory’s chief: he’d been her mentor, her friend and the father she’d never had. She’d never refuse a request of his.
“Joe thought you might want to look through the file,” Charlie said, nodding toward the folder he’d placed on the counter. “He was hoping you’d stop in at the diner and just have a word with her, if you weren’t too busy.”
“Oh. Sure.” Mallory nodded. “I’ll just let Robert know I’ll be a little late tomorrow…”
* * *
It was just before eight the next morning when Mallory walked into the Blue Moon Diner and scanned the counter for Donna Ralston. She found the waitress at the far end, where she was handing a check to a diner who had already risen to leave. Mallory walked to the end and took the seat that had just been vacated.
“Hey, Detective.” The waitress’s weary face brightened a bit when she recognized Mallory. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
“It has been a while,” Mallory agreed. “But I’m not a detective anymore, remember?”
“You’ll always be Detective Russo to me.” Donna finished clearing the place for Mallory, then leaned on the counter. “The guy I spoke with yesterday said the chief was in an accident but he was going to be okay.”
“He has some mending to do, but he’ll be fine.”
“Good, good.” Donna reached behind her for a white porcelain mug. “Coffee?”
“Please.” Mallory waited until the mug was filled before asking, “Was there something you wanted to tell Joe? Something about Karen?”
“I don’t know if it means squat, but the chief always said to let him know anything I heard, even if it seemed unimportant.” She glanced at the clock. “I’m on break in ten minutes. Do you have a little time?”
“Of course,” Mallory assured her.
Ten minutes later, Donna was back to refill Mallory’s mug, then led the way toward an empty booth.
Donna took a thin leather case from the pocket of her apron and opened it flat onto the table. “This is Karen when she was a toddler. And here she is the year she disappeared.”
Mallory picked up the photos and studied them, even though she’d seen them in the file. As a three-year-old, Karen had been the picture of innocence. She wore her blond hair in ponytails. Her yellow dress had a green collar and her hands clutched a stuffed animal. As a young teen, Karen’s hair hung straight past her shoulders in soft curls, and she wore a pink cardigan sweater over a sundress. She’d matured in the ten-year span between the pictures, but the smile had n
ever changed.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” Mallory asked.
“Over the weekend, a couple came in, used to live here. Virginia and Don Greeley. They were back last week for a family reunion and stopped in for breakfast on their way out of town. Virginia was saying how she thought about my Karen from time to time, that sort of thing, but later, it hit me that something she said seemed off.”
“What was that?”
“She said, ‘I can still see Karen walking past my house with the Tripp girl on their way across that cornfield sometimes after school.’”
“What was strange about that?” Mal asked.
“Far as I knew, Karen hadn’t been friendly with anyone named Tripp. And there’s no cornfield she’d have to walk through on her way from school to our house. So I asked Virginia what cornfield was that, and she said the one out on County Line Road.”
“Any chance she and this girl were friends and you just weren’t aware of it? Maybe they studied together at the other girl’s house.”
“The rule was straight home from school unless she needed to stop at the library if she had homework. She wasn’t supposed to go to anyone else’s house after school. That was the rule.”
“Donna, even really good kids stretch the rules every chance they get.”
“I suppose. She just never said…” Donna sighed heavily. “Anyway, here I am, eleven years later, just finding out she had a friend I didn’t even know about.”
“Why do you think this is significant?”
“I just can’t help but wonder, maybe that girl knew something. Maybe there was someone who tried to pick them up on their way home, or maybe followed them.” Donna was close to tears. “After Karen disappeared, Joe asked me to give him a list of all of Karen’s friends, everyone she hung out with, talked on the phone with, walked home from school with, so he could talk to them all.” She looked at Mallory from across the table. “I don’t know if the Tripp girl knew anything about the day Karen disappeared, but I do know that her name wasn’t on that list because I created the list, and I didn’t know they were friends.”
