“Hello?” I ask.
“I’m guessing you know all about the plan,” Lauren says. I feel all of the air leave my lungs.
“I do,” I say. “And I am angry, but right now we need to know where you are.”
Swanson’s whole body straightens up. He makes hand motions, telling me to put my phone on speaker, but I ignore him.
“I’m at a Hearty grocery store in Romulus,” she says. “I told him I was going to go to the bathroom, but there was a phone booth back here too, so…I called. But he’s right down the hall, so I need to go.”
“Stall him,” I say. “Tell him that you have feminine issues that you need to take care of or that you have stomach—”
“I have to go,” she says, her voice hurried. “I love you.”
She hangs up. Her words still echo in my ear. I didn’t get the chance to say it back. I love you.
“Where is she?” Swanson asks.
“Hearty grocery store in Romulus,” I say.
He dials on his cellphone and puts it up to his ear.
“This is Agent Swanson,” he says into his phone. “We need agents headed to Hearty grocery store in Romulus.”
He ends the call and bows his head as if he were praying. I grab my coat.
“What are you doing?” he asks without looking up.
“I’m going to help search for her,” I say.
“My agents will beat you there,” he says. “Let them do their job.”
“I already let your agents do your job,” I say. Besides, I lied about not seeing the killer’s face. I have the need to put a bullet in it for everything he has done.
~~~~~
One of the police officers that went with the FBI agents to the Hearty in Romulus uses the police radio to inform everyone that Lauren and the killer are not in the grocery store. They aren’t thinking straight. You never hit a target by aiming at where it is. You aim ahead of it, and I know where the killer is heading. I had to look it up on my computer, so if Swanson becomes suspicious, he will be able to look up what I searched for on my computer, but it will already be too late. I know what I have to do.
I see the sign proclaim Welcome to Monroe! I turn onto Main Street. I glance at my scribbled notes, trying to figure out if the address I wrote down says 6123 Greenwycke Lane or 6125 Greenwycke Lane. I type the first address into my cellphone’s GPS. When I drive up to the apartments, I notice only one difference between them. The 6125 Greenwycke Lane house has a fall wreath on it. 6123 Greenwycke Lane does not. I park in front of 6127 Greenwycke Lane. I don’t need the killer to be aware that I’m here yet. I put my gun in its holster and get out of the car. I walk up to 6123 Greenwycke. I try to turn the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge.
I move around the house. As I’m about to pass by one of the windows in the back, I see movement. I peek into the house to see Lauren with a baby on her hip as she jots something down on a notepad. The shock of seeing her with a child is dulled by the fact that I have a mission. I may only have one chance.
Before I move, Lauren glances out toward the window, as if she senses me. Her eyes capture me like they did the first time I saw her, but there is something there that hadn’t existed before. Loss of hope. Despair. Acceptance of the inevitable.
I point left and right, asking her silently where the killer is. She tilts her head to the right before focusing on the child again. I keep creeping around the house until I reach another window. The killer is burning something. I look up at his walls and see newspaper clippings of the PVP killer’s murders and antics intermixed with random photographs of Lauren—getting into her car, getting out of my car, leaving a coffee shop, undressing in her apartment.
I point my gun at the killer and pull the trigger.
~~~~~
Lauren
THE SOUND OF A gunshot and then shattering glass fills the house and the baby begins to scream. Three more gunshots go off in quick succession.
For a moment, I am frozen. I don’t know who shot. I don’t know if I should try to run with the baby or hide from more gunfire. The killer comes running out from his bedroom. His shoulder is bleeding.
He grabs me by the arm and yanks me in front of him. The baby is still in my arms, so I can’t do anything to defend myself.
“We need to reach my gun in the living room,” he says. “And you need to stay in front of me, so your crazy ex-boyfriend doesn’t kill me.”
I’m beginning to feel the warmth of his blood soaking into the back of my shoulder. He directs me to the living room, using me as a shield. He grabs his gun from a side table.
“For the record, this isn’t very loving,” I say. Two more gunshots ring through my ears. The back door swings open.
“He’s not going to shoot you,” he says. Tobias comes through the backdoor with his gun raised. He aims it straight at the killer.
“Let her go,” Tobias growls. There are cuts all over his face—I’m assuming from the shards of glass from when he shot the window. “I can’t believe that out of all of the criminals we’ve encountered in this investigation, it was you the whole time. Why? Why would you kill all of those people?”
“Survival of the fittest,” the killer says. “Do you know what that term means? A lot of people think it means that the strongest will survive, but that’s not what Darwin meant. He meant that those who can adapt the best will survive. And that’s what I do. I adapt. I’m not like you cops with your rules or like citizens with their laws. I see the world going to hell and I’m not going to be like a sheep led to slaughter. I’m going to show everyone that I am king—no one can beat someone that not even the cops and FBI can find.”
“I found you,” Tobias says, tightening his grip on his gun.
“You only found me because you saw me,” he says. “And you made the correct assumption that I would return to my old apartment. It was a mixture of chance and luck.”
“You think you’re a survivor?” Tobias asks. “You’re not. You’re a tick—annoying, blood-sucking, and full of disease. Now let her go!”
“You should let us go free,” the killer says. The baby’s screaming has quieted to a hushed crying. I stroke the back of his head. “I mean, you may manage to shoot me, but in all likelihood either you, Lauren, or the baby is going to get hurt.”
I feel him beginning to lean against me. The blood loss must be starting to get to him.
“I’m not letting you go,” Tobias says. “But you should know you weren’t that smart. I figured it all out on the drive over here.”
“Oh?” the killer asks.
“Yeah, George,” Tobias says. “The first clue was the fact that you lived across from Timothy. You could have easily blackmailed him and you would have known the most about him. You would have known he was weak enough to blackmail without him causing much trouble. And you would have seen his fiancée bringing over the wedding dress. You broke the photograph frame of him and his mother. You don’t like your mother much, do you? We met her. She’s not the most tolerant woman—”
“You shut up about my mother!” George shouts. “You have no business talking about her.”
“And then you gave us that sketch…the sketch that led to no one,” Tobias continues, ignoring George’s outburst. “We thought that you must have seen the photographer wrong or that the sketch wasn’t detailed enough for anyone to recognize. But it was all made up, wasn’t it? I looked you up, George. You’re a cashier at Gamers Unite. We spent all of this time looking for people who bought video games when we should have been looking at who worked there.”
“Yes, but you didn’t,” George says, smirking. He pulls me tighter against him. “I thought when you came to the house that maybe you had figured it out by some miracle. Maybe I had left some minuscule detail behind. But no. You were just as stupid as I thought you were. Now I’m going to escape with your ex-girlfriend and we’re going to be a family. It’s more than you could ever dream of, Tobias. I imagine that’s what you wanted with Anna, but no woman seems to
want to stay with you. It’s pathetic.”
I only hear the crack of the gun. A lamp behind us explodes from the bullet hitting it. George flinches, but he keeps a tight hold of me. The baby screams and tries to wriggle out of my arms. Tobias aims the gun at George’s head again.
“The next one goes into your skull,” Tobias says.
“Listen to yourself,” George says. “You’re just as violent as me. All I need to do is pull the right strings and everyone turns into a feral animal. No matter who leaves here dead or alive…I win.”
“You had to be quite intelligent to not be caught for so long,” Tobias says. “But for some reason you can’t seem to understand that this is not a game. The people you killed were not pawns and you are not some boss level that I need to beat.”
“Maybe this is the boss level,” George says. “You’ve lost two lives and you only have one left. Tick-tock, tick-tock, Tobias. The world is depending on you. Are you going to slay the evil dragon or are you going to fail just like you have failed at everything else?”
The baby is mostly quiet again. He nuzzles his face against my chest.
“George,” I say. “We need to go. I’m sure the cops and the FBI are coming soon, and they will have an easier time shooting you than one cop does.”
This snaps him back to reality. He puts his hand around my arm again and pulls me toward the door, keeping me between Tobias and him. Tobias’ forehead is furrowed, confused by my sudden decision to help George. When we reach the front door, George turns the doorknob and opens it. As he focuses on getting us both out the door and not tripping down the three stone steps outside, I shift the baby into my left arm and jab my right elbow into the door. The door rams shut onto George’s fingers. I hear a strangled cry.
Tobias runs toward the door. He kicks it back open. I hear a gunshot. Tobias’ whole body jerks back as the bullet hits him and he drops his gun. Blood begins to soak through Tobias’ shirt on the right side of his chest. George walks back into the house with his gun pointed at Tobias. He picks up Tobias’ gun.
“George!” I yell, clutching the baby. His gaze shifts over to me. “Don’t do this.”
“You betrayed me,” he spits out. “We were supposed to live the rest of our lives together.”
“Just let him go,” I say. “You have the gun. We can escape now.”
“Why would I want to escape with you?” he asks.
“I was confused,” I say. “He got into my head for a moment. But now…I remember why I came here with you. Why I never want to leave you again. Nobody understands me the way that you do. Nobody else sees how the world is hurling itself into its own Armageddon. But you do. And we can fix it together. I love you. I love you, George.”
I see his whole body soften. I set the baby down on the floor and reach up to him. George sets the two guns down near the door entrance. He helps me to my feet and I kiss him. I feel his hot breath in my lungs and his fingers in my hair. I feel the sharpened pencil in my pocket that I had been writing a grocery list with before Tobias arrived. I pull it out and lean away from George. As his eyes are still dazed with desire, I jab the pencil into his throat, right through his carotid artery.
I pull the pencil back out. He stumbles back, clutching at his neck as blood spouts out. His fingers curl up as if he were grasping for me before he stumbles to the floor. I watch him twitch on the floor for a few seconds before he goes still.
I pick up the baby, kissing his soft head, and then rush over to Tobias. His eyelids are heavy, but he smiles when he sees me.
“You did it. You saved us,” he says. Police and ambulance sirens shriek down the road.
“I wouldn’t have been able to if you weren’t here,” I say. I grab his hand and squeeze it. I kiss him. “Why weren’t you wearing Kevlar?”
“I was in a hurry,” he says. “I didn’t have time to change.”
I shake my head. “Do you forgive me for not telling you about my whole plan of being arrested?”
“It might take some time,” he says. “And kisses.”
I kiss him.
“Mmm. That will help your debt,” he says. “But there’s some interest included.”
The police cars pull into the house.
“Did you call them?” I ask.
“You know the fastest way to get a policeman to a house?” he mumbles.
“What?”
“Gunshots,” he says. He smiles at his own joke.
“You’re an asshole,” I say. He caresses my cheek.
“You love it.”
I smile.
“I love you,” I say. He kisses my fingers as two EMTs rush into the house.
“I love you too,” he says. “But I think we should keep pencils away from you.”
One of the EMTs leave to get a stretcher. I kneel down next to Tobias. I kiss him until they take him away in the stretcher. A police officer comes in and barrages me with questions, but I can’t make sense of them. It feels like the end of a very long day, and all I want to do is fall asleep next to Tobias.
~~~~~
“George Kellerman, twenty-five years old,” Tobias says, reading from the file that the FBI compiled. “His mother had been arrested for prostitution several times before and after he was born—I suppose that shows why he was drawn toward Jasmine…he really did have an Oedipus complex. His father is unknown. His IQ was tested when he was sixteen years old and he scored 158, which puts him at very superior on most IQ classifications. His murders began after he moved in with his mother, who has lung cancer.”
“It’s likely how he dealt with her impending death,” I say, rearranging the peripheral IV line, so it’s not twisted around his arm. “He convinced himself that death was similar to the way it is in video games.”
Tobias tries to lift himself up to a sitting position on the gurney, grimacing. I give him my arm for support and he manages to sit straight.
“How much longer do I have to be in here?” he asks.
“You don’t like it?” I tease. I gesture over to the numerous bouquets in the room. “You’ve created fans out of people who didn’t even know your name before. Even from a few that hated you—there’s a few from the FBI agents and newscasters.”
“It makes the room look like a jungle,” he says. “Or a cemetery. I don’t care about any of those people.”
“It’s possible you saved their lives,” I say. “Who knows who else George would have killed if you hadn’t come to save me?”
“Yes, I tried to save you, and then I got shot,” he says. “And you saved us both.”
I shrug. He reads something on my face and he grasps my hand.
“You had to do it,” he says. “He would have killed us both if you hadn’t. You didn’t have a choice. The FBI isn’t giving you trouble about it, are they?”
I shake my head. “They know it was self-defense. I just never wanted to take someone’s life again. It’s…I don’t know how serial killers do it. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s like I can feel every single moment of their past and future leave their bodies.”
I shake my head again and take the file from him.
“His autopsy showed that he burned off his fingertips, so that’s why he never left any at the crime scenes, though it looked like he also wore gloves as a precaution,” I say. “His cousin also told ‘Detroit News’ that their uncle taught his nephews to shoot an assault rifle because his uncle believed that a secret society was tracking his family down.”
“So…insanity runs in the family,” Tobias says.
“Possibly.”
“What happened to the baby?” he asks.
“He was returned to his mother,” I say. “She was so relieved to see him.”
“You were a good mother to him,” he says.
I smile. “I’ll miss him, but at least he’s safe now.”
“Has anyone talked to George’s mother yet?” he asks. I grin. “What?”
“Well, the FBI tried to talk to her…she threatened to sue, d
ismember, and kill them. Then, she told Swanson that he was the devil and he only wanted to come into her house to take her soul into Hell.”
“Well, I’m glad that she didn’t hate just us,” Tobias says. “I imagine that growing up with a woman like that would be difficult. It’s still no excuse though.”
I grimace. “He would have a distorted view of love. It turns out that the engagement ring he hung up in my living room was stolen from a funeral home…and he used me as his own bulletproof vest against you.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” Tobias says. “I was only trying to intimidate him.”
“You should have taken the shot right then,” I say.
“I wouldn’t risk your life like that.”
I lean over and kiss him. “You’re crazy.”
“That seems to be going around these days.”
He cups one side of my face with his hand and presses his lips against mine. All of the anxiety of the last month washes away and for the first time since my parents died, I surrender myself to my overwhelming emotions. The buoyancy of them makes me feel weightless. I feel loved.
~~~~~
Thank You
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About the Author
Charlotte Raine is the author of several romantic suspense books with more on the way. She worked in marketing and advertising for 15 years before focusing on her true passion, telling great stories. Charlotte gets inspiration for her writing from the scenic but serene mountains around her home in Vail, Colorado.
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 14
