by Mark Lukens
“Steve! I’m Detective Perry with the Tampa Bay Police Department. If you’re in there, then show yourself! I don’t want anyone to get hurt here!”
There was no answer from the gloomy apartment. No sound at all from inside.
Perry’s heavy-lidded eyes met Jackson’s eyes. Perry nodded and he entered first, his gun aimed in front of him, his arm steady, his eyes scanning the room quickly. Jackson and two other police officers filed in after Perry.
Jackson nodded to the bedrooms off of a small hallway and the police officers hurried to check them out.
Perry and Jackson moved through the living room and into a dining area. The vertical blinds in front of the sliding glass doors were pulled back and they allowed the early morning light to brighten the dark apartment.
Perry entered the kitchen and stared down at the mess on the floor, the old food on the counter, the frying pans on the stove top. This didn’t look right to him. It was supposed to look like someone had been abducted here, but when he studied the scene more closely he didn’t see the signs of struggle that he would normally see: no blood, no damaged furniture or walls, no torn curtains or blinds.
It looked staged to him.
Perry moved quickly through the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. Hardly any food. A leftover fast food meal and a jug of drinking water.
He opened the cabinets, one by one. Nothing in the cabinets except a few boxes of food and a can of soup. Most of the food was on the counter or on the floor.
The two police officers entered the dining area which didn’t have a dining room table. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the whole place.
“All clear back there,” one of the officers said. “There’s nothing back there but a sleeping bag on the floor, an alarm clock, and a pile of books.”
Perry was only half-listening. Something was bothering him about this place. Mel, the manager of this apartment complex, had told them that Steve had moved in about a week ago. But there wasn’t any furniture and only a few kitchen utensils and dishes had been unpacked. The man slept on a sleeping bag.
Like all of this was temporary.
He stared at the stacks of boxes lined up against the living room wall. There was something about those boxes.
Perry approached the boxes, reading the words scrawled on the boxes as he walked towards them: kitchen stuff; bedroom; bathroom; books.
He grabbed one of the boxes labeled books. It was one of the smaller boxes, but he expected it to be heavy with books. But it was light as a feather.
It was empty.
And so was the next box. And the next box. They were all empty. All props to show that he was moving in. He wanted to be right next to Tara so he could keep an eye on her. So he could watch her every move.
Perry felt a tingling in his belly, like he was too many steps behind and something terrible was about to happen that he wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Let’s get next door to Tara’s place,” Perry said and rushed out of the apartment.
Mel opened the door to Tara’s place and backed out of the way. Perry and Jackson entered. They instructed the other two police officers to wait outside.
Perry spotted the drawings laid out on the coffee table. He stared down at them as Jackson checked out the rest of the apartment.
Tara wasn’t there. Jackson came back out from Tara’s bedroom and found Perry in the same spot, staring down at the drawings on the coffee table.
“What do you got?” Jackson asked Perry as he approached him.
“Holy shit,” Perry whispered. He looked at Jackson. “She saw everything. She drew it all. Details no one else could’ve seen. All of the murders. Even Miss Helen.”
Jackson pulled a blue nitrite glove out of his jacket pocket and slid his big hand into it. He picked up the first drawing and studied it. “What’s with all of these words and numbers?”
Perry shook his head no; he didn’t answer, but he was beginning to get an idea of what they might be.
2.
Woods dressed in a white button-down shirt and black slacks that he’d gotten from his suitcase in the car. Then they rushed out to the car and sped towards the airport.
Tara prayed that her aunt was okay. She dialed her number again and again, but all she got was her voicemail.
Tara and Woods got to the hotel and rushed up to the third floor. They entered her Aunt Katie’s room – Katie had given Tara an extra keycard so she could let herself back in when she returned. They searched through the room and bathroom quickly.
Aunt Katie wasn’t there.
She hadn’t checked out. Her suitcase and clothes were still in the room. Her cell phone was still on the little writing table.
Tara checked her aunt’s phone and listened to the last messages, all from Tara. She felt a knot in her stomach twisting tighter and tighter. Jeremy had found Aunt Katie. He had taken her. There was no proof that Jeremey had abducted her, but Tara knew it was true.
“He got her,” Tara said as she looked at Woods, and she couldn’t help the tears that slipped from her eyes. “He took her and it’s all my fault. I told him where she was going to be.”
“What do you mean?” Woods asked her.
Tara explained quickly about telling Steve (Jeremy) when she was leaving that she was going to stay in a hotel room with her aunt near the airport.
“You didn’t know,” Woods told her. He grabbed her upper arms like he was steadying her and he stared into her blue eyes with his dark eyes. “He won’t kill her. He’s using her for bait. He wants you, not her.”
Woods turned away, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I want to question the manager and desk clerk.”
3.
Woods used his fake FBI I.D. badge to bully the hotel employees into telling them as much as they knew. The bartender and bar back were getting the hotel bar ready which would open at eleven. They hadn’t been working last night, but they called a man named Ray and woke him up with their phone call. Ray confirmed seeing Katie at the bar. She’d eaten a dinner by herself and drank two beers. And then she sat at the bar and really started drinking. He said she was talking to a guy. The guy was younger than she was, and he was a good-looking guy with bleach-blond hair. They seemed to be hitting it off and then they got up and went out for a smoke.
Tara stood by herself, away from Woods as he talked to the bartenders. She stared at the bar and she could almost see her aunt sitting there on one of the stools, sipping her margaritas or martinis or whatever she was drinking. She could almost feel her aunt. Katie had been lonely, cooped up in her hotel room too long. She’d come down here to be around other people. It was probably just supposed to be a quick dinner and a few bottles of beer, but then she started drinking.
And then she would’ve wanted a cigarette.
Woods walked over to Tara after he was done questioning the bartender.
“They said she was here last night,” he told her. “They said she was knocking a few drinks back, getting a little buzzed.”
Woods hesitated for a moment, and then continued. “The bartender said she was talking to a guy at the bar. He was young and had blond hair.”
Tara’s heart sank. “Did she pay her tab?”
“No, the bartender said she never returned. He said they’ll just put the bill on the credit card she used for the room.”
Tara stared at the front doors of the hotel – fancy glass doors framed in fake gold. The doors opened out to the parking area.
“She went out for a smoke,” Tara said, still staring at the doors like she could see it happening before her eyes, a ghostly reanimation.
Woods nodded. “Yeah,” he answered. “That’s what the bartender thought; they went out for a cigarette. No smoking in the bar.”
“She smokes sometimes,” Tara said slowly, still staring at the front doors of the hotel. “She’s tried to quit hundreds of times, and she does stop for a while. But every once in a while, especia
lly when she’s nervous or upset, she caves in.”
“And that’s when he got her,” Woods finished.
“When she got outside with him, she finally recognized him. But it was too late.”
Woods just stood beside Tara for a moment like he didn’t know what to say. He could only nod.
“And then he took her,” Tara whispered. “But where?”
Woods shook his head no. He wished he had an answer for her.
Tara looked at Woods like something had suddenly clicked in her mind, like pieces of a puzzle had just locked into place revealing a picture. “The drawings I did in my sleep …”
“Yeah?”
“I think I might know what those numbers and words mean now.”
Just then Tara’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen to see who it was, hoping to see her aunt’s name calling from her room. But it wasn’t her aunt – it was Lorie.
Tara answered the phone, breathing out her friend’s name in relief: “Lorie …”
And then Tara’s face fell in horror.
“What’s wrong?” Woods asked.
“It’s Jeremy,” Tara whispered. “He’s got Lorie’s phone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1.
Lorie snapped awake in Mike’s bedroom. He wasn’t in bed beside her. She glanced at the alarm clock. It was almost ten o’clock. Mike had let her sleep in too long.
She looked around the bedroom. Mike had slipped out of bed without waking her. He didn’t want to disturb her. She smiled. Mike was the most considerate man she’d ever met. And he had the body of a Greek god. And he was filthy rich.
A dream man. Her dream man.
She sat up as a strange feeling tingled over her skin. She heard a low thump from somewhere downstairs.
“Mike?” Lorie called out as she sat very still in bed.
No answer from Mike. She looked across the large bedroom to the bathroom door; it was slightly ajar with the light turned off. Maybe he was in the bathroom, but she didn’t think so, the noise had come from downstairs – she was sure of it.
She got out of bed and stood there for a moment. She wore only a flimsy satin night gown that hugged the curves of her body. And for the first time in a long time she felt a little exposed and she had a sudden urge to cover up.
It’s a little chilly this morning, she said to herself, justifying this compulsion to get dressed.
Lorie grabbed her jeans and sweater from the back of the chair near the bed and she slipped into them. She even shoved her bare feet into her sneakers. And she did feel a little better now, not as vulnerable, not as afraid.
Afraid?
What was wrong with her? She wasn’t afraid of anything. She was starting to act like Tara with her foreboding feelings of doom. Maybe Tara was rubbing off on her a little. But perhaps that made sense after everything that had happened in the last week.
But it was more than that. Something felt strange in this house.
Lorie hugged her arms as a shiver wormed its way through her body.
She marched across the room and checked the master bathroom which was so large it was almost the size of the bedroom. Mike wasn’t in there.
She left the bathroom and walked across the bedroom. She stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the second floor. She hesitated for a moment.
“Mike?” she called down the stairs.
He didn’t answer her.
“Mike, if you’re down there, then answer me. This isn’t funny.”
Still no answer. But she thought she heard another noise. So faint, she wondered if it was just her imagination. She exhaled a breath and went down the stairs, her sneakers thumping down the carpeted steps.
She entered the kitchen and looked at the sliding glass doors that led out to the wraparound porch. The door was shut, but the vertical blinds were all the way open, letting the early morning sunlight into the room.
She went to the sliding glass door and slid it open.
“Mike? You out here?”
No answer.
She went into the kitchen and then stopped cold. There were breakfast preparations laid out on the countertop and a frying pan on the stovetop. Something had been fried in the pan; there was an odor in the air of fried meat that turned her stomach.
On the counter next to the stove was a carton of eggs, a bag of shredded cheese, a package of bacon that hadn’t been opened yet, an onion, a green pepper, and a carton of fresh mushrooms. Right next to a plastic cutting board was a large kitchen knife coated in blood.
Lorie’s heart jumped and she rushed to the counter. She saw splashes of blood on the vegetables.
It looked like there might have been an accident.
Maybe Mike had cut his finger while chopping vegetables.
She looked at the frying pan and stifled a scream. There was a human finger in the pan; it had been fried in oil.
A noise came from somewhere else in the house – but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It sounded like someone was moaning, maybe trying to cry out, but the sound was muffled, any words indiscernible, like someone had a hand over someone’s mouth, or a piece of tape or a gag.
Lorie turned and ran in a blind panic towards the kitchen door that led outside to the wraparound porch.
She heard a noise right behind her and turned to see …
…a man standing a few feet away from her. He was dressed in motorcycle boots, old jeans, and a flannel shirt stained with blood. His shirt was wide open, revealing a muscular torso. Covering his entire head was some kind of mask made of patches of skin – human skin. The mask was adorned with body parts taken from victims over the last few months: ears, fingers, teeth. A leather string hung around his neck with even more body parts dangling from it.
The masked man grabbed the blood-stained kitchen knife from the cutting board.
Lorie screamed again.
2.
After an hour and a half of searching both apartments, Detective Jackson drove Perry back to the station house. Perry had his cell phone up to his ear, listening to the ringing, and then to his niece’s voicemail message. He had called her four times already and she wasn’t calling him back.
“Lorie,” he said into the phone after it beeped. “This is your uncle Ronald. I need to get a hold of you. Where are you? Where’s Tara? You need to call me as soon as you get this.”
Perry hung the phone up and tossed it into the center console.
“Shit. She’s in trouble, I know it. She said she was going up to her boyfriend’s house for the weekend.”
“You got his number?” Jackson asked.
“No. I don’t know anything about him except that his name’s Mike and that Lorie sold him a house somewhere up in Pasco County. I don’t even know his address.”
Perry picked up Tara’s drawings again and leafed through them. He stared at the sketches of Jen, the first victim they’d found. He could see the fear in her eyes. And each drawing seemed to be from the killer’s point-of-view, almost like Tara had been looking through his eyes.
Steve’s eyes. Steve was the killer, that’s what Tara had said.
Perry played it over and over in his mind. Steve comes to Tampa and murders several people, collecting things: blood, skin, and whatever he took from Miss Helen’s – all for a ritual in which Tara is obviously the integral part. But why move in next door to her? Why not kill her right away? Why wait?
And Tara saw the killer coming, she saw him kill the first four people in her dreams, she even drew what she’d seen. But she never came to him for help.
Perry felt a twinge of guilt.
Of course she wouldn’t have come to him after the way he had treated her the last time she tried to help.
He hadn’t believed in her ability, and he’d dismissed it before he even gave her a chance to talk. But now he was beginning to believe that Tara’s psychic ability was real.
Perry studied the words and numbers at the edges of each drawing and h
e was beginning to see their connection now.
One of the words on the drawings jumped out at Perry: Trinity.
Pasco County.
Wasn’t there a town or a place in Pasco County called Trinity? A rural place, he thought; a place where wealthy people lived.
And Lorie had mentioned how wealthy Mike was quite a few times.
Jackson glanced at Perry who held one of the drawings in his hand. Perry’s body was motionless as he stared out the windshield like he was in a trance, staring at something only he could see in his mind.
“Perry?”
“Trinity,” Perry whispered and he looked at Jackson. Perry was back now. He’d made some kind of connection in his mind, Jackson could tell.
“What about it?”
“I think I know what it means. I think Trinity is a place and these numbers and words add up to an address. We need to put them into the computer, see what kind of address we come up with.”
“I’ll get Dale on it when we get to the station,” Jackson said. “He’s the best with computers.”
Jackson stomped his foot down on the gas pedal and the unmarked cop car roared with power. He hoped he was scaring Perry a little like Perry had scared him with his driving.
But he wasn’t.
Perry wasn’t even paying attention. He had his small notebook out and he was already beginning to write down combinations of addresses.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1.
It took Woods and Tara over an hour to drive from Tampa up to Pasco County, and now they drove down a narrow back road shaded by a canopy of ancient oaks – only minutes away from Mike’s house.
They had made a few stops on the way so Woods could complete the instructions on the paper that Tara had scribbled down in her sleep.
They stopped at a Wal-Mart and Woods went into the store with the crumpled-up paper in his hand.
While Woods was inside, Tara looked at her drawings stored on her cell phone. How come she hadn’t seen it before? The words and numbers added up to an address and all she had to do was dig through her purse and find one of Lorie’s real estate business cards – the one that she’d written Mike’s address down on.
