Closer by Morning

by Thom Collins

  Every word caused his flesh to crawl, but Matt didn’t show it. He had too much experience, fronting things out in court, to betray his fear to a madman like Clint. Except he was frightened. Terrified.

  They reached the turn in the stairs. Ten more steps to the top. Time was running out.

  Think, Matt. Come on man, think.

  What could he use as a defense up here? He hadn’t set foot in the house until tonight. It wasn’t enough time to get to know the place.

  There was an en suite bathroom off from the bedroom. If he was quick enough he could lock himself in there. But then what? There was no phone. No way of raising the alarm. He would be safe, for now at least, but leave Dale to the mercy of Clint and his knife. That was not an option. Clint could do what he wanted to him if it would spare Dale.

  Clint had already told them he wasn’t going to kill Matt tonight. Whatever happened, he still had hope of saving Dale. Hope was all he needed.

  They entered the bedroom.

  “Nice,” Clint said, regarding the rumpled sheets.

  Less than an hour before they had been in ecstasy upon that bed. Their own little heaven. Now it was a living hell.

  “Is that why you stood me up?” Clint asked. “So you could be with him, in there?”

  “Clint,” Matt said, turning to face him, open arms, his expression wide. “I didn’t know you wanted me in that way. How could I? You never gave any indication that you…liked me, until tonight.”

  It was a long shot trying to reason with a psycho, as if it were nothing more serious than a co-worker with an inappropriate crush.

  Clint’s knuckles whitened around the handle of the knife. Matt took a careful step backward, closer to the bedside cabinet.

  “Don’t try stalling me with that crap,” Clint said. “I’m the Durham Strangler, remember. Not one of your no-hope clients. I don’t want to buy you dinner and roses. You’re my fucking dinner.”

  In two long steps, Clint covered the room and was upon him. Adrenaline took over.

  Clint’s arms came around his torso.

  Snake-fast, Matt’s arm went behind his back, his hand gripped the neck of the empty champagne bottle. Whipping back around, he smacked the bottle over the crown of Clint’s head. He heard a sickening thunk and the force caused the bottle to shatter.

  Fragments of glass rained over both of them. Matt backed into the cabinet.

  Clint staggered. Stunned. His face was blank for a second, until he shook the pieces of glass from his head. His eyes came back into hateful focus.

  “Boy, you’re gonna regret that in every way.”

  He came at Matt with the force of a crazed bull.

  ****

  Dale attempted to move. The plastic cable ties cut deep and had drawn blood from all four limbs, but there was no give in any of them. Clint had chosen well.

  That bastard. Dale’s rage threatened to consume him but he had to keep a lid on it. Blind fury would not get him out of this.

  He had to get upstairs. God knows what that sick fuck was doing. He’d heard the broken glass moments before, then a heavy thud. Matt. Poor Matt, what is he doing to you?

  He’d never felt so useless. Incompetent. Unable to protect the man he loved. This was the worst feeling in the world.

  Try again. Try harder.

  Deep breath. Willing his entire body to relax, go soft. Devoid of tension, he tried the wrist straps again. Easing back, using minimal force, he tried to wriggle free. Nothing. It was useless.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  That evil bastard had killed Aaron and all those other men, now he was upstairs with Matt and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Dale let loose a primal scream of anger. Tears and blood ran down his face.

  “Be quiet,” the voice was a whisper, close to his ear.

  He snapped his head around.

  Keeley Rank held a finger to her lips. “Be quiet, for God’s sake.” She tugged at the restraints on his wrist. “Scissors?”

  He didn’t know where she had come from, or why she was there, but in that moment she was a gift from heaven.

  “Top drawer, left of the sink,” he whispered.

  There was another heavy thud from above. The ceiling shook and the contents of the cupboards rattled. Keeley froze, looking upward.

  “Get me loose,” Dale urged. “Hurry.”

  Carefully, Keeley opened the drawer and located the scissors. She crept back to Dale and snipped the plastic ties. The relief was instant. Dale flexed his fingers to restore the circulation.

  “Let’s get out,” Keeley urged, helping him to his feet.

  “He’s got Matt upstairs.”

  “I’ve already called the police,” she said, taking his elbow and urging him toward the door. “Let them handle this.”

  Dale stood firm. “No. He’s insane. The second he hears the sirens he’ll go berserk, like a cornered rat. Matt will be dead.”

  “You don’t know that. C’mon, let’s get out. The cops can handle him. They’re the experts.”

  He shrugged her away and started opening drawers. What could he use for a weapon? Shit! If he was in the States, he’d have a gun on the property and could blow that fucker’s brains out.

  Knives were the only option. And the element of surprise. Clint thought he was still trussed to the chair. If he could get up there undetected, he’d have surprise on his side. It was better than the alternative—nothing.

  Dale grabbed a carving knife and a large chopping knife, the biggest two in the block. He’d never had to wield one of these for real but all those horror movies had taught him a thing or two about handling them.

  “Dale, don’t do this,” Keeley urged.

  “He’ll kill Matt if I don’t.”

  “He’ll kill you too,” she said. “Would Matt want that?”

  “I don’t mind dying to save him. Go outside,” he said. “Wait for the cops. When they arrive, tell them exactly what’s gone down. Tell them to turn right at the top of the stairs. It’s the bedroom at the front. Tell them not to wait, to come straight up.”

  “Fuck,” she said, heading for the back door.

  When his mind was set, that was it for Dale. There was no going back. Fear would not put him off.

  A loud cry from upstairs. Matt.

  Dale took the stairs on the balls of his feet, the light tread of a cat. He was alert for the sound of sirens outside. Nothing yet. The moment Clint heard them coming, it would be over.

  Matt let out another cry.

  Killing was too good for this bastard, but right now Dale would do what he had to. Matt had suffered enough.

  This ended now.

  With his back to the wall, he crept along the landing.

  Clint’s confidence and lust had done him the biggest favor. So hungry to get to Matt, he’d left the bedroom door open.

  They were on the floor beside the bed. Dale edged into the doorway for a better view.

  Clint had Matt pinned down. He was on top, pants around his ankles, hairy ass thrusting.

  “Let me in, cunt.”

  Matt cried in pain.

  Finally blinded by rage, Dale surrendered to his violent impulses.

  He crossed the room, both knives raised. He brought his right hand down with sudden force. The blade slid over Clint’s shoulder blade before slipping into a space between his rib. Dale came in fast with the second knife, jabbing into the soft tissue of Clint’s waist. The blade went in to the hilt.

  Clint reared with a scream, clutching his back. He fell to the side of Matt, writhing in agony. He stared at Dale, a look of question and disbelief on his face, until Dale’s knee impacted, full force, with his nose.

  Matt pushed up onto his hands and knees. Dale was there, putting arms around him. He hauled the sheets off the bed to cov
er him.

  As he led him from the room, Dale heard the police sirens distantly on the hill.

  The nightmare was over.

  Epilogue

  Twelve months later

  “The award for leading actress in a television series goes to…Roxanne Maxwell for Blood Falls on Stone.”

  The announcement met with a rapturous cheer from the audience at the Theater Royal Drury Lane. For those watching the live broadcast at home, the moment was just as sweet. Blood Falls on Stone had won in every category it had been nominated for so far—Best Drama, Best Supporting Actor for Adrian Nelson and now Best Actress for Roxanne Maxwell. The crime show that had been so reviled by the press just a year earlier, had risen to the top of the heap at the British Academy Television Awards. It was an unrivaled reversal of fortune.

  “She looks beautiful,” Conrad O’Brien said, raising a glass in honor of the woman on his TV screen.

  “She certainly deserves it,” Danny Frost said, clinking glasses with his lover, carefully watching Conrad for any signs of forced bravado. When Blood Falls on Stone had finally made its tortured way to television in January that year, Danny wasn’t sure Conrad should even watch it. The show was much too close to the ordeal Conrad had suffered for him to benefit from seeing it.

  “Your best friend’s boyfriend is basically playing the guy who attacked you,” Danny said at the time.

  “Rubbish,” Conrad told him. “Dale is not playing Clint Dexter. He was a victim of the man himself. What Clint did to me has nothing to do with this show. He was killing before this program was even thought of.”

  “Even so—”

  “Even nothing. If Matt can watch the man he loves play a killer after everything they went through, so can I. I want to see this. I need to.”

  Conrad had been right. As dark and disturbing as the series was, especially the central performance from Dale Zachary, it was nothing compared to the horror he’d lived through.

  After Jamie had discovered him on the floor of Dexter’s gym, Conrad had spent three days in a coma. Months of physical and psychological recuperation had followed. He’d never told Danny exactly what had happened to him and Danny hadn’t ask. He didn’t need to know. He had been there to pick up the pieces and that was what mattered most.

  Roxanne Maxwell paid tributes to the victims of Clint Dexter in her acceptance speech. Conrad’s eyes prickled with tears as he listened.

  Danny moved closer on the sofa and put an arm around his shoulders. “Okay?”

  Conrad sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He nodded. “I’m alive. Those other men weren’t so lucky.”

  Danny nodded and placed a soft kiss on the side of his head. Things weren’t perfect. They might never be again. But they were getting better.

  For now, that was as good as anything.

  ****

  Jamie Dench watched Roxanne collect her award on the TV in the staff room of Durham Police Station. Ordinarily he never watched award shows like this but tonight was different. He didn’t know why, other than he was looking for some kind of resolution.

  Everyone was keen to point out that the murders committed by Dexter had nothing to do with Blood Falls on Stone. Except they did. It was bullshit to claim otherwise. Dexter had murdered one of the crew and planned to kill the leading man. How could anyone say there was no connection? It was willful ignorance.

  Jamie watched the crime drama when it came out, and despite his reservations, he had enjoyed it. The show deserved all the praise it was getting now. And he didn’t hate Dale Zachary. Not anymore. How could he? After everything Dale had been through. And saving Matt’s life.

  No, the only one Jamie had to hate was Clint. What he had found in that gym would haunt him forever. The things that bastard had done to Conrad. No wonder the poor guy blanked out so much of it.

  It could easily have been Matt. God knew what Dexter would have done to him if Dale hadn’t come through.

  Jamie carried the burden of guilt too.

  If he had gotten to the gym an hour earlier, he could have prevented everything that had happened that damned night. Conrad, Matt—Jamie had to live with that. He could have stopped all of it if he’d only been quicker.

  Nevertheless, his career was flourishing. He’d been promoted to Detective Sergeant and given a permanent position in MIT. It was what he’d always wanted. In the aftermath of that night, he became a bigger workaholic than before, putting in more hours and working harder than any other member of the team

  He had to. For the sake of future victims of crime. For his own sanity. He was always trying to make up for the hours he had lost tracing Dexter’s gym.

  He had a long career ahead of him.

  Maybe that would be time enough.

  ****

  In the space of a year, Keeley Rank had gone from journalist to a full-blown celebrity herself. Backstage at the television awards, she drank champagne and quietly toasted her own success. The landslide victory of Blood Falls on Stone would only boost sales of her book, Track-down—Hunt for the Durham Strangler, which was already a bestseller. With the publication of the paperback version set for next week, once again Keeley found herself in the right place at the right time.

  While everyone involved in the show went out of their way to distance it from the crimes of Clint Dexter, Keeley was keen to play up the comparisons. Some badly researched interviewers even made out that the show was based on her book. A tiny fact she neglected to correct. Why should she?

  The greater the buzz she could generate about the book the better. She was the hero of the story, after all.

  In reality, she’d been spying through Dale’s windows in the hope of adding some spice to the outing story she planned to write on him. It was pure chance that Clint decided to target Dale and Matt at the same time. Her lucky star was shining bright. Right place, right time again.

  Track-down told a slightly enhanced version of those events. Ingenuity and courage had led her to Dale’s house that night. So what. It was a little artistic license. Dale and his boyfriend would be dead if it wasn’t for her. Not that you would know it—those ungrateful bastards. They wouldn’t even give her a quote for the front of the book.

  “Hey, Keeley, great result tonight. Can we get a picture?”

  “Sure,” she replied, posing happily for the eager photographers. Since becoming a celebrity, she’d undergone a dramatic transformation. Twenty pounds lighter with a sleek new hairstyle and expensive wardrobe, she looked better than most of these TV bitches.

  “Keeley, is it true you’re doing Celebrity Big Brother?” asked one of the hacks.

  “Oh, I’m hardly a celebrity,” she said coyly. “I’m just a writer.”

  Her agent was negotiating hard to get her the Big Brother gig but the producers had yet to come up with a satisfactory fee to secure the deal. She wasn’t one of the desperate has-beens or two-bit bimbos who usually populated the show. If they wanted Keeley Rank, they would have to pay. Big.

  She was the woman who caught the Durham Strangler, for fuck’s sake. That had to be worth something.

  She was already working on a follow-up book about Clint Dexter. Her first was knocked out in a hurry—understandably so. Every true crime hack and misery merchant rushed out their chronicles in the wake of the murders. But it was her title, with its unique selling point—the woman who caught the killer—that had risen to the top of that steaming pile.

  The publishers were still processing the enormous demand they had for pre-orders when they commissioned a second, more in-depth book. This was to dig deeper into Dexter’s history—a real mud-raking scandal piece on the notorious killer. The sort of thing she excelled at.

  What a pity the fucker had to get himself killed.

  Lousy bastard.

  Clint survived the attack by Dale in the bedroom. Both of the knives he dr
ove into him missed vital organs by millimeters. When he had been well enough to be discharged from hospital and face police questioning he had refused to cooperate. He made ‘no comment’ replies to every question put to him and when they took him before the court he had entered a ‘not guilty’ plea on all counts.

  Keeley had been delighted.

  The evidence against him had been overwhelming and he would go to prison for life but a ‘not guilty’ plea meant the case would go to trial. A guilty verdict was certain but the trial would keep the story alive for weeks, months. Witnesses, survivors, relatives—all would be called upon to give evidence against him. She would even take the stand herself to give an account of that bloody night.

  Key witness in a brutal murder trial.

  You couldn’t buy that kind of publicity.

  It would also make a great prologue to her second book.

  She was certain Clint had an ulterior motive for taking the case to court. He was never going to get away with it. He wasn’t insane enough to think he would. No, Clint had a different aim—one she couldn’t wait to write about. He was obsessed with Matt Blyth. The only way he could ever see him again was when he gave evidence across a courtroom.

  That was the real reason he had held out.

  Only it wasn’t to be. Remanded in Durham Prison, Clint Dexter was The Man—the Durham Stranger—he could do whatever the hell he wanted. But there were bigger men than Clint in prison. Men who didn’t appreciate his bullish ways.

  Clint had been found dead in his cell a month before the trial was listed to start. He had multiple stab wounds to his neck and chest. No one among the staff and prisoners saw a thing.

  So a piece of shit died in prison. The world still turned and Keeley still had her book deal.

  “Any chance you could hang around?” one of the photographers asked. “We’d love to get one of you together with Dale and Matt.”

  Keeley moved on, pretending she hadn’t heard.

  She had saved their lives but the guys had been pretty vocal in damning her book.

  It was a reunion none of them was in a hurry to see. Especially not tonight.