“I just don’t see how he could have done it. I’m scared to death about the DNA results. Do you really think they will have it by tomorrow?”
“Yea, they are putting a rush on it because of the sensitivity of the case that it may affect, but I don’t think it will be longer than tomorrow.”
“I’m so scared. I’m afraid that it will come back positive. I’m afraid that John will go to jail for a long time. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Well, John is an evil man. He is abusive to you and controls every aspect of your life. I think you will be much better off,” Alex said.
“I don’t know how I can get by without him,” Heather said. “I need him.”
“No, that is just what he has brainwashed you into believing. You have been controlled by John for so long that his grip is still felt over you. You will have to break through that, even if it does take a bit of time.”
Heather began to cry, the tears streaming down her beautiful face. Alex grabbed a few tissues off the coffee table and handed them to her. She dabbed at her eyes. Alex moved to sit beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him. Her sweet softness felt amazing.
“I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to continue on this way,” Heather said.
“You will do fine. Just keep your head up. I know you will be ok.”
“I wish I had your faith in me. I’m just so scared that the person who keeps calling me will kill me if I disobey their wishes.”
“What wishes? What are they asking you to do?”
“They have basically said they are going to kill John in prison if I don’t do what they say.”
“What? Who is going to kill John? What are they talking about?” Alex asked.
“Well, the phone calls have been harassing me all hours and if I ignore the phone then they resort to text messages and they keep calling and calling. When I turned my phone off they started pounding on my doors. They call all hours and they won’t let me sleep.”
“Have you called the police?”
“After everything that is going on with John being the possible new suspect in several murders they won’t listen to me.”
“They have to know that you might be a target. That is just the way it goes. There are going to be people who are easily swayed by what they see portrayed in the media and they are going to use this to try to scare you.”
“Well, it’s working. I’m scared out of my mind. I don’t know what I will do.”
“It’s ok,” Alex said. “We can go to the police tomorrow if you like. You are not responsible for what your husband has done. The people of this town need to find another hobby besides jumping to conclusions and harassing people.”
“Thank you so much. It feels good to just have someone to talk to,” Heather said.
“No problem. I’m always here if you ever need someone to chat with,” Alex replied.
Heather finished her drink. She smiled at Alex and asked him for another.
He returned to the mini bar to refill her drink. After doing so he turned around and noticed that she was standing right behind him. She startled him for a second and he almost dropped the drink.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t know you were that close to me,” Alex said. “Did you need something else?”
Heather grabbed his face in hers and planted a strong, hard, passionate kiss on his mouth. Her lips were sweet and soft. He could taste the scotch on her breath. It mingled together in such a way that it tasted equal parts her and equal parts Scotch. It was delicious. He sat the drink down on the counter behind him while not daring to remove his lips from hers.
He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her in deeper. Ever since he had laid eyes on her he’d been thinking of this moment in the back of his head. John Myers damn sure did not deserve a wonderful woman like this. It deeply saddened Alex to think about the years she had wasted with that pig and the years of abuse and brainwashing she’d had to deal with. He wondered if she would ever fully recover from it.
Heather pulled back from him and looked at him sweetly, her eyes locking with his. She smiled slightly, if a little bit embarrassed by the passion that had just erupted between them.
“I’ve been wondering what that would feel like,” Alex said.
Heather giggled slightly and looked down at the floor. Then she glanced back up at him and her demeanor was different. Before Alex could open his mouth he felt the knife going into his back deeply.
His body lurched away from Heather and he tried to run but his legs refused to work. He felt himself falling to the floor before he could stop what was happening. He needed to get out of here. She was going to kill him. That’s why she was here. But why would she want to kill him? It didn’t make any sense.
The pain shooting out of his back was more severe than anything he had ever felt before. The pain shot out from the wound in bloody spasms. He could feel the wetness growing beneath him as he tried to will his body to move away from this scene as fast as it could. He was not moving at all.
Heather had tears streaming down her face. She was obviously very grief-stricken. She did not want to do this. Something was forcing her. Heather did not want to kill him. What was forcing her hand?
“Why…” Alex tried to speak but he found his voice box was feeling partially paralyzed.
“They are making me. The person who called me told me that I had to do this or they would kill John inside jail. They said that they have people on the inside that will have it done. And then they said they would kill me too. I didn’t have a choice,” Heather explained.
Her hands were shaking as she raised the bloody knife again over top of Alex. He was pretty sure that if she left him there he would die anyway. He would bleed out in no time and he was not sure the ambulance could have gotten there in time.
He could not believe that this was the way that he was going to die. The killer was going to finish what they had started in the parking garage, only instead of using a van this time they were using Heather. They were using another surrogate because they were too afraid to face him alone. Why? Was it someone that he knew? Was the killer not John Myers or was he just playing a trick, on his obviously disturbed wife?
“You don’t..have …to…” Alex gasped out. The pain was so intense he felt himself starting to black out. The sudden loss of blood was leaving his body feeling so cold. He was shivering like mad which was making the blood loss that much worse. He was going into shock. He was going to be dead soon. There was no denying that.
“I do. I have to protect my family. I have to save John and I have to save myself. I know not a lot of people understand our love and even I have wanted to leave, but I have to face reality and realize that I am nothing without John and I have no reason to exist if he is not with me. I don’t expect anyone else to understand that though.”
Heather closed her eyes and brought the knife down on Alex’s chest. He felt the blade enter his chest sending pain and trauma throughout the region as blood spurted upward in the air, some of it splashing Heather in the face. Her sexy outfit was completely covered in blood now and she looked demonic.
Alex had to find a way to reason with her, but she was out of her mind. She wanted to kill him and she was not going to stop. Her mind had been made up and she was thoroughly convinced that this was the right thing to do here. He had to stop her or he was going to die. He knew this. Stopping her might mean killing her and he was going to have to be ok with that. When it was self-defense all of the rules went out the window. He wasn’t sure if he had enough strength to do anything though.
Looking around while he waited for Heather to regain her composure enough to stab him one more time which might finish him off, Alex spotted the glass of Scotch he had spilled on the floor. He had knocked it off the table when he had sprawled in recoil when she stabbed him. He had not even noticed it until now. The Scotch glass had broken and a big piece of glass had been knocked out of it.
There was a sharp jagged edge on the main piece. It was right beside her foot. If he could just get her off balance he could use the broken glass to cut her. It was the only thing he had going for him at the moment. He had to act fast.
With every ounce of strength he had Alex pushed at Heather with his feet. She was startled by the sudden kick to the shins and she stumbled back as he had expected. Using the moment from the kick he jerked his body to where the broken glass was. He grabbed it from the base of the glass and swung it hard slicing open a big gash across Heather’s Achilles tendon.
She screamed in pain and fell to the ground clutching her wound. Her voice was loud and shrill. Alex could see that she still held onto the knife. If he let her recover from her wound at all she was going to kill him. He had to continue with the plan. He hated to think of what he had to do next, but there was no choice to be made.
Alex rolled his body on top of Heather and before she knew what was happening and could get into positon with the knife he sliced cleanly across her throat. The slit opened up just as her arm was moving forward in a stabbing motion with the knife.
A thin line of blood began to trickle out of her throat, but it quickly turned into a river of blood gushing in all directions. Heather’s eyes grew wide with terror, pain, and shock—he could clearly see all three emotions and he didn’t give a damn right then.
Alex felt total relief for just a few seconds. He had to get help. He felt his energy fading fast and his body giving up. He was losing the battle. He was so cold. His energy was gone. He could barely do more than just curl up in a little ball and wait to die.
He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.
Then he passed out cold.
Chapter 10: New Game
Joe was numb. He was sitting in a hospital room watching his best friend broken and beaten down, almost near death in a hospital bed.
He could not believe what was happening when he received the phone call that Alex had been attacked. The room had started to spin and he thought he was going to pass out. Luckily Kirsten was there and she had offered to drive him. The hospital was usually only a ten minute drive but the ride there felt like it was at least thirty.
How could this have happened? Heather Myers of all people? She had tried to kill Alex? Why? Why was this happening? What did this mean? Was she the one behind the failed attempt to kill Alex earlier? Why did she want to kill him? What possible motive did she have? Alex had helped put her husband in jail. Surely that couldn’t have been the trigger. The man was a menace who abused her. She had remarked several times to Tracy about how she could not wait to leave him. Heather had been terrified.
Maybe John had used that fear to get to her. Maybe someone had put the screws to her and forced her hand on this. That had to be it. There was no other logical reason why she would do this. John had probably threatened her to have Alex killed because he blamed Alex for exposing him as Tracy’s murderer. He knew the results of the DNA were going to come back today and he had orchestrated this to punish Alex. Joe now knew that the DNA had to be a match for John.
It had taken two hours of emergency surgery to patch Alex back up. Now he was just waiting and recuperating with fluids and rest. The doctor told Joe that Alex was very lucky that the knife had not hit any major organs. It had missed his heart by a few centimeters. Any more to the left and he would have been dead. No question about it.
And Alex had fought like a tiger. Heather was dead on the scene. Joe could have told Heather that when you try to kill a guy who was as resourceful as Alex was you were going to have a rough time of it. The man was like a ninja and MacGyver all rolled into one.
“Are you ok, dad?” Kirsten asked.
Joe looked up from the book he was reading on his phone. He kept several joke books on his phone that he looked at from time to time when he was feeling kind of down. For the past couple of years Joe had been fighting a bit of depression and he decided that this would be a good idea. It was Alex’s idea and it worked to perk him up whenever nothing else would do. He would take a half hour and read some of the jokes in one of the books that he had downloaded on his phone and it would instantly brighten his day.
“Yea, honey. I’m just still in a bit of shock. I’m relieved that the doctor says Alex will be ok. But of course you still feel your heart gripping tightly in your chest until you see it actually happen. So I’ll be a little on edge until I see the guy waking up and cracking jokes.”
“I think that is pretty normal. It’s tough to not be apprehensive in this situation.”
“I appreciate you being here, sweetie. I’m glad I had you there to drive me. I was not in any emotional state to be behind the wheel. You would have been visiting me in the hospital.”
“Well, maybe you and Alex would have been roommates,” Kirsten joked.
Joe was glad to see that Alex had the room to himself. It was always so awkward to see someone in a hospital room when another family and another patient were on the other side of the curtain. It was awful. He was able to thank God for small favors today.
It was about another hour before Alex stirred in the bed. He seemed a bit confused and he was definitely too sore to move a muscle, as he found out the hard way when he tried to adjust himself in the bed. Joe hated seeing his best friend in so much pain. He wanted to kill John Myers so fucking badly. That man needed to be put down.
“Hey, buddy. Welcome back,” Joe said. He tried to keep the tears out of his eyes. Alex would have just called him a pussy anyway.
“Yea, thanks. I thought my ticket was being punched.”
“Well, I guess you get some more free rides after all.”
Alex explained what happened to him basically confirming what Joe had suspected all along; Heather had been forced to do this.
“That is so sad and tragic. It’s just horrible man. I can’t believe that someone could have that much mind control over someone else.”
“I don’t hold any ill will towards her, man. It wasn’t her fault. She was conditioned over years of systematic abuse to do whatever he said. If he scared her bad enough then she was basically powerless to resist.”
“Well, you are a better man then I am then,” Joe said.
“And you brought the little one with you,” Alex said.
Kirsten smiled as she stepped forward with a blush. Alex had always called her the little one since she was a kid. It was a little nickname from her unofficial uncle.
“Hey, Alex. We are glad that you are back with us. You had us freaked out there for a bit,” Kirsten said. She stroked Alex’s hand gingerly for a moment.
“I’m ok. It takes a lot more than some psychotic broad with a really big, sharp, knife to get me down. Where is Elena?”
“She went out last night. I texted her what happened and where we are, but she could be hiking in the middle of the Grand Canyon for all we know. She will turn up when she does.”
Joe shook his head. He hoped that his little faux pas with his attempt at a breakthrough between them was not going to cause problems between him and Elena now. It had been stupid of him to try that. He had thought he was doing something good, but when he saw it was backfiring he should have just backed off. He had been kicking himself in the nuts since then.
Joe had to admire Alex’s strength. Even in as much pain as he was in and with as much fear as he must have felt with the whole situation he was still cracking jokes and not allowing his humor or his personality to suffer. Joe was not sure that he would have been that strong in that position.
“When will your forensics friend know about the test results?” Joe asked. He felt weird asking the question at a time like this, but he felt that he had to do it to keep himself from crying right then. He was starting to feel like a giant wussy, but there was just too much carnage in his life recently for him to get a solid grip on anything. He had been walking on ice and egg shells for over a week now. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his
wife’s sweet, but strange face. It was devoid of life and it didn’t even remotely look like her anymore. He felt somewhat nauseous almost all of the time and he didn’t know what he could do to take that feeling away. The only thing that helped at all was spending time with his family and his best friend. That was one of the things about searching for justice for Tracy that he had enjoyed most; he was able to spend time with his best friend. And his girls had come home. But still he would not have traded twenty lifetimes of that for a second without Tracy being here. He missed her deeply every single second of every day.
“Sheila said that she would call me as soon as she found out. I can text her if you like. I just got to find my phone,” Alex said. He started to try to move but Kirsten stopped him immediately.
“No, you stay still. We will find your phone. I think it’s over here.”
She opened up the drawer and handed him his cell phone.
“It’s ok, you don’t’ have to worry about that now,” Joe said. “It was dumb of me to even suggest that.”
“Are you kidding? All of this has something to do with those results today,” Alex replied.
The doctor came in just then and gave Alex a quick check over. He looked in Alex’s eyes and his wounds. Then he asked Alex some basic cognitive questions about the day it was and what his full name was. Satisfied with the answer the doctor started to leave the room, but not before telling Kirsten and Joe that they had to wrap it up because Alex needed intense rest to recover properly.
They said their goodbyes and left the hospital. Alex said he would text or call as soon as he heard from the lab.
****
Joe was asleep in his study when the phone rang and woke him up. He had been dreaming about his wedding day with Tracy. She had looked so amazing walking down the aisle to greet him. He remembered every detail so vividly that it was permanently entrenched in his mind. She was there and she was with him. She loved him. And that love… that amazing woman was walking towards him with the most angelic smile that he had ever seen. She was so beautiful. He just wanted to hold her and protect her forever.
Rising Darkness Page 8
