Behind Closed Doors

by Carla Cassidy

  Raymond nodded. “Right here.” He patted his breast pocket.

  They’d managed to get a search warrant in record time once they’d established that the house where Dean Moore lived had been owned by Margaret Johnson, mother of Michael. The upkeep of the house was still being paid by Margaret Johnson’s estate. The link had been established and they now knew Dean Moore was Michael Johnson.

  Clay watched in his rearview mirror as one of the patrol cars left the parade and turned the corner. That particular car would go down the alley between the houses to the back of the Johnson residence. Clay pulled over to the curb to await the radio acknowledgement that they were in place.

  Tension swelled inside Clay. Let her be there. Let her be all right. Dear God, don’t let us be too late. He refused to admit that it very well might be too late, that Ann might already be another of Michael Johnson’s victims. He couldn’t let that thought take root, fill him with despair. He had to hang on to hope.

  He thought of the bouquet of flowers in the center of his kitchen table. Yellow blooms as big as his fists. Yellow. The color of hope.

  His radio crackled. “Unit three is in position.”

  “Ten-four. Don’t move until you hear my command. You copy unit two...unit three?” As they acknowledged him, Clay pulled away from the curb and headed the rest of the way toward the Johnson place.

  “I think it would be best if I just go to the front door and tell him I have a few more questions about Barry Namath,” Clay said. “Play it cool and hope he doesn’t get suspicious. Maybe I can get inside and perhaps get an idea of where he has Ann.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have her,” Bob said with a surge of optimism. “I mean, it’s only been a little over an hour since the officer missed her at the college. Maybe she decided to go shopping, or visit friends.”

  “No way,” Clay replied tersely. “If she’d gone anywhere other than my apartment, she would have called me. She, more than anyone, knows the stakes in this game, knows that a single careless mistake might cost her her life.”

  “If Michael Johnson has her, then the odds are she made a careless mistake,” Raymond said.

  Clay shot him a sharp look. “No, she didn’t make a careless mistake, we did. Dean Moore should have been on that list.” Raymond flushed. “I’m not blaming you, Raymond,” Clay continued. “We all missed him. I’d looked at that list a thousand times and didn’t see the omission.”

  He pulled into the driveway, his heart thudding an anxious rhythm. “Okay, everyone stay cool,” he said both into the radio and to his partners. “The last thing we want is to tip this guy before we find out Ann’s welfare.”

  As Clay walked to the front door, he tried not to think about Tina’s body...how in those first moments of seeing her he’d thought she was Ann. What he wanted to do was crash through the door with guns blazing and not give Michael Johnson a chance to defend himself.

  He drew a deep breath, steadying himself, gaining control of his rage, trying to ignore the terror that filled him as he thought of Ann.

  He knocked on the door, trying to school his features into a semblance of relaxed irritation. There was no telltale movement behind the curtains, no whisper of sound beyond the front door.

  Clay’s stomach knotted, his heart once again pounding anxiously. He knocked again, this time a loud, rapid tattoo. No answer. He leaned his head against the wood, trying to still his heartbeats, his breathing, so he could hear any noise, any sign of life behind the door.

  He froze. Was that a sound? A creaking of a floorboard beneath a foot? Why didn’t somebody answer the door? What was happening inside? Where in the hell was Ann?

  “Move in,” he yelled into his radio. He tried the doorknob and found it locked. Stiffening his shoulder, he rammed it into the door, the blow jarring his teeth.

  Bob and Raymond came running and together the three of them managed to break in the door. They entered, guns drawn. At the same time they heard the officers entering at the back of the house. “Check the bedrooms,” Clay said to Bob.

  “I’ll take the kitchen,” Raymond said.

  Clay nodded and moved to the door he assumed led to the basement. A cold calm descended on him as he opened the door and stared down the dark flight of stairs.

  He could smell evil. It permeated the walls, saturated the very air. Perspiration beads appeared on his forehead as he clicked on the light and started down the stairs, not knowing what he might find when he reached the bottom.

  As his foot hit the last step, he looked around, dread roiling in his stomach. His breath whooshed out of him in relief. A basement. Nothing more. A bare lightbulb dangled from the center of the room, shining faintly on boxes, an old Christmas tree, a rocking chair with a broken rocker. No bodies, no tools of evil, no Ann. Just the remnants of a life. Clay checked the writing on the boxes, unsurprised to read Margaret Johnson’s name.

  He took the stairs two at a time back up to the main floor of the house, wondering what the others had found. He found them in the living room.

  “House is secured, there’s nobody here,” Raymond said. “No sign of Michael or Ann.”

  “But there is something you need to see,” Bob said.

  Again dread balled up in Clay’s chest as he followed Bob down the hallway and into a small bedroom. A single bed was shoved against one wall and a computer desk took up the space of another wall. Clay immediately spied what Bob had wanted him to see.

  The wall behind the computer desk held a bulletin board and tacked there were photos. About a dozen were of a woman Clay didn’t know. They showed her getting out of her car, walking down a busy street, going into a health spa. Snapshots of pieces of her life. “That’s Anntoinette Carson,” Bob said. The last picture of her had a large red X drawn across her face.

  The other dozen or so photos were pictures of Ann. They showed her getting out of her car in front of her condo, stepping off the curb at the entrance of the college, exiting a grocery store and standing in her doorway with Clay.

  “Son of a bitch,” Clay said beneath his breath as he realized how closely Michael had been watching her... watching them.

  His heart convulsed painfully in his chest as he saw the last picture on the board. Ann’s face...with a bold red X drawn through it.

  “Put out an APB on Michael Johnson,” he said, his voice hollow as he continued to stare at the picture of Ann. “I want every cop on every corner looking for him. We’re going to turn this city upside down. And we’re going to pray that it’s not too late.”

  Without waiting for any reply, too sick to say another word, Clay headed back up the hall, then out the front door. For a moment he drew in deep breaths of the hot summer air, trying to erase the stench of evil that had filled the house.

  What now? He looked up and down the street, wondering where in the hell Michael Johnson would be. Where would he take Ann? He knew in order to find the madman, he was going to have to think like a madman.

  The park. Englewood Park. Had he taken Ann there? Back to the scene...back to where she’d watched him dump a body?

  He turned to see Raymond hurrying toward him. “Bob is going back to the station with one of the other cars to man the phones and put out the APB.”

  Clay nodded and together he and his partner got into the car “Where are we headed?” Raymond asked as Clay peeled away from the curb and hit the siren.

  “Englewood Park. It’s a long shot, but that’s all I can think of.”

  Raymond smiled with a touch of admiration. “I wouldn’t have thought of it.” He hesitated a moment. “Clay...no matter what happens, no matter what the outcome of this, you’ve done your best. You’re one hell of a cop.”

  Clay looked at his partner in surprise. He and Raymond had often been at odds over the years, yet always there had been an unspoken respect and admiration for each other.

  Raymond smiled ruefully. “I figured I should say that once before you leave the department.”

  “Thanks.” Clay fro
wned and clenched the steering wheel tightly. “I just hope we’re good enough cops to get to Michael Johnson before anything happens to Ann.”

  It took them only minutes to get to the park. The playground equipment was decorated with children in brightly colored summer wear. An older couple sat on the bank by the lake, tossing bread to ducks that quacked their pleasure.

  Such an idyllic scene, yet Clay’s gut twisted as he scanned the small park, looking for something, anything that might point to Michael Johnson and Ann being in the area.

  Nothing. They knew he drove a navy van, but there were no vans in the parking area, no vans anywhere around. “Maybe we should check out the rest rooms?” Raymond suggested.

  Clay nodded, although his instincts told him Michael Johnson wasn’t here and hadn’t been here. He pulled up in front of the rest room structure and together he and Raymond checked the facilities. Nothing.

  “Dammit.” Clay banged his palm on the steering wheel. He’d been so sure. It had felt right, that Michael would take Ann back to the scene of his crime, back to the place where she had watched him dispose of a body.

  With every minute that ticked by, the odds of them finding Ann alive diminished. For all he knew, she might already be dead.

  Surely not, he thought. Surely if she were already dead he’d feel a void deep in his heart, at the core of his soul. As dear as she’d become to him, he felt certain that he would instinctively know if she’d drawn her last breath.

  Where are they? Where would Michael have taken her? Hold on, Ann. Be strong. Don’t give up. He concentrated on the words, hoping somehow she’d hear them wherever she was. She’d survived so much already. Was she strong enough, smart enough to survive Michael Johnson?

  His heart jumped as a new thought blossomed. Of course Michael wouldn’t bring her back to his home. And he wouldn’t have taken her to the park, either. The park wasn’t the scene of the initial crime, it had only been the final dumping ground.

  “Raymond, call the station and see if you can find out where Michael Johnson killed his girlfriend years ago. If I remember right it was somewhere on the west side of town. Get the name and location.”

  Raymond picked up the radio as Clay pulled over and parked at the curb. As Raymond waited for the information, Clay impatiently clicked his fingers against the steering wheel.

  He had to be right. Time had become the enemy. Every minute wasted was a gamble with Ann’s life. And as he thought of those yellow flowers in the center of his kitchen table, he wanted to weep.

  “The Night Sky Motel,” Raymond said. “It’s on Kimble Street.”

  Clay nodded and hit the siren as he pulled back on the road. “Pray I’m right,” he said as he maneuvered the patrol car through the late evening traffic.

  “I am,” Raymond answered softly. “And I’m praying we’re in time.”

  The light in the room flicked on and Ann stared into the face of her monster. Dean. Dean standing upright, without a wheelchair, a pleasant smile curving his lips. “Hello, Ann.”

  For a moment, past mingled with present, creating confusion in Ann’s mind. The confusion cleared and she realized she wasn’t six years old, and her mother was never going to come to save her.

  The man standing before her wasn’t one of the monsters from her past, but he was a monster nevertheless.

  “Dean?” With the light on she realized she was in a motel room. She didn’t move from her position on the bed, afraid that any sudden movement would set off the insanity that gleamed from Dean’s eyes. No...Michael’s eyes. But she felt that salvation rested in playing dumb...buying time. “Dean, why am I here? What happened?”

  His smile grew, like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. “I hit you over the head and brought you here. God, you made it so easy for me, walking with me to the van, bending over to get those papers.”

  “But why?” Her pulse raced, pounding loudly in her temples.

  “Ann, you know why. And we don’t have to play games here. You know my name is Michael Johnson. I told you years ago that we’d see each other again. Surely you haven’t forgotten.” He leaned against the door, a smile of amusement still playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “Michael, you have the wrong person,” Ann said, dropping any pretense. “I’m not the person you’re after.”

  “Shut up.” The smile died and anger snapped in his eyes. “I know it’s you. You can’t lie to me. I know you’re that girl. I knew it the minute I saw you.” He pulled himself away from the door and started to pace. “You think I don’t remember? You think your image didn’t play in my mind every minute of every day that I was in that stinkin’ hole of a prison? I remember the dress you were wearing the day you testified against me, I remember the pink bows that sat on top of your pigtails. I remember everything like it was yesterday.”

  Ann said nothing, afraid the mere sound of her voice would set him off on a rampage of death. And yet his words confirmed what she hadn’t been sure of; she now knew with a certainty she was not the Ann Carson he sought. But she also knew it didn’t matter anymore.

  He stopped pacing and sank down on the edge of the bed, the smile once again lifting his mouth. “I could have killed you in the van while you were unconscious. One draw of my knife across your throat and it would have all been over. Revenge sated. But it seemed right that I bring you here. Sort of poetic justice.”

  “Where’s here?” Ann whispered.

  “This is the motel where I killed my girlfriend twenty-one years ago. Don’t you remember? It was her body you saw me dumping at the park. She was going to leave me, had decided she didn’t love me anymore. I slit her throat right there on the bed.”

  Despair swept through Ann like the bleak winds of winter. It blew any lingering hope away, leaving behind only a deep, abiding weariness. She felt as if she’d been fighting the war of survival all of her life, and at the moment, she had no strength left to fight.

  Michael stood up and began to pace once again, telling her the details of the night he’d killed his girlfriend, as if wanting to inspire terror. What he didn’t know, couldn’t know was that she was beyond terror. She was beyond caring. She closed her eyes, simply wanting it over and done.

  With her eyes shut, a mental image formed in her head. Clay. His warm brown eyes radiated admiration, respect and love. “Your strength awes me,” wasn’t that what he’d told her? The night she’d bared the secrets of her haunting past, he’d held her, told her she was a survivor.

  Yes, a survivor, and now this monster wanted to take her life, steal the breath from her body. Her heart banged against her ribs as anger surged within her. How dare he?

  She’d been a victim as a child, helpless to cope with the dysfunctional adults surrounding her. She was no longer a child, and she would never be a victim again. She wasn’t about to give up without a fight. She wasn’t dead yet.

  As if to prove that fact to herself, she raised a hand and placed it against her chest. Her heart beat fast, but strong. As she dropped her hand, it encountered the strap of her purse.

  “Look at me,” Michael demanded. Her eyes flew open. He smiled in satisfaction. “I want to see the terror in your eyes.”

  The gun. If he would just look away...give her half a minute, she would be able to get it out of her purse.

  “The game is over, Ann.” He pulled a knife from his pocket. “Finally...finally I’ll have my revenge.”

  Chapter 17

  Clay heard the gunshot as he pulled up in front of the Night Sky Motel. The explosion rent the relative silence of the night and blasted fear through Clay’s veins.

  “It came from over there,” Raymond said as he pointed to the motel units just ahead.

  As they started to leave the patrol car, one of the unit doors opened and Ann staggered out. Blood covered her. She took several steps, then sank to her knees.

  “Ann!” Clay ran toward her, his heart thudding painfully. All that blood. “Call for an ambulance,” he yelled back at Ray
mond, then crouched down next to her.

  “It’s too late for an ambulance,” she said softly.

  A cold chill of horror ripped through him. “Don’t give up, Ann.” He wanted to hold her, but didn’t know where she was hurt, was afraid of inflicting more damage. He kept one eye on the door to the motel unit, knowing Michael Johnson was still inside.

  She raised her pale face to him. “He was going to cut my throat. He didn’t give me a choice. I had to shoot him.”

  “You shot him?” Some of Clay’s fear ebbed away. “You aren’t hurt?”

  She shook her head and looked down at the blood that saturated her clothing. “It’s his blood. I’m all right.” She smiled faintly.

  In that moment, Clay recognized the depth of his love for this woman. But he knew now was not the time to explore his sudden insight.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” Raymond said as he joined Clay and Ann. “Johnson still inside?”

  Clay nodded. “Ann says she shot him.”

  Raymond drew his gun. “We’d better check it out.”

  Clay stood up and pulled his gun. “Ann, go get in my patrol car. We’ll be out as soon as we check out the situation.”

  They waited until she’d gotten into the back of the patrol car, then together Clay and Raymond advanced on the room.

  The first area they entered was a small sitting room. A sofa, television and an old kitchen table with two chairs was the only furniture. A doorway straight ahead led to the bedroom.

  They listened for a moment, trying to hear any sound that would indicate life. Nothing. The scent of fear lingered, along with the coppery smell of spilled blood mingled with the burnt odor of spent gunpowder.

  Clay and Raymond exchanged glances, and Clay knew his partner wondered the same thing he did...was Johnson dead? Or was he lying in the bedroom waiting for them to come through the door?