Spider's Web

by Mike Omer

  “Let’s go,” he said. He pulled her by her arm, dragging her toward the edge.

  They reached the edge of the roof, and she could see the street below. Tiny, ant-like cars drove back and forth in the street. It was all so far down; she felt her dizziness return.

  “Look at me!” Jovan barked. She did not turn her head. He grabbed her hair and pulled, making her scream as he forced her face toward him. He looked at her. Stared into her eyes. And then he smiled.

  She kicked as hard as she could, hitting him in the knee. He screamed, his hand letting go, and she was free. She bolted away, stumbling back from the ledge, hearing Jovan curse behind her. She tried to formulate a plan as she ran toward the door. It was locked; there was no point trying to open it. There were some large pipes, more than three feet wide. Maybe she could hide behind one, kick Jovan again as he came for her. If she could manage to get the gun from him, or to incapacitate him somehow, she could—

  Something hit her hard in the back of her head, and she collapsed, nearly blacking out. She felt him lifting her, vaguely saw the gun in his hand. Had he shot her? No, he’d just hit her with his gun. And now he was dragging her back to the ledge. She was out of ideas; her body felt weak again, and useless. She could only struggle helplessly as the edge of the roof got closer.

  The man at the front desk hadn’t seen anyone go past him, definitely not a man carrying a woman. However, he added thoughtfully, someone could have gone through the back door to the service elevator…

  At which point Mitchell screamed at him like a madman, demanding to know the fastest route to the roof, shaking his badge in front of the man’s face. They took one of the elevators to the top floor. It took ages to get to the top.

  What if Stokes had decided to throw Tanessa from a window on one of the top floors instead of going to the roof? What if they were too late? What if they were at the wrong place? Mitchell’s mind was buzzing. Zoe was standing by his side, her face grim. Why was she with him? She wasn’t armed; she couldn’t really help him with Stokes. It was too risky.

  But it was too late to worry about that. She was here now. When the elevator finally stopped, Mitchell barged out of it, his heart feeling like an overblown balloon, ready to explode. He hurtled down the corridor, searching for the door to the roof. How would he be able to find it? There were doors everywhere. There were…

  Bloody footprints. There was a service elevator on the wall to his right, and two sets of bloody footprints trailed out of it, leading toward a big door. Mitchell ran to the door and tried the handle. It was locked.

  “Damn it!” He roared.

  “Move,” Zoe said behind him. She was holding a key.

  “Where…?” he asked, moving aside.

  “The man at the front desk. He said this door is always locked. He gave me the key while you were calling the elevator,” Zoe said, fiddling with the lock. Mitchell stared at her. He had a vague recollection of Zoe talking with the man, exchanging a blur of garbled words he couldn’t really grasp. Was he losing it? His mind wasn’t really working properly. When was the last time he’d slept?

  He heard the lock click, and he grabbed her hand before she could open the door.

  “Stay behind me,” he said. She obliged. He slowly turned the handle, and then kicked the door open.

  Time moved to a crawl as he took in the scene in front of him. A man held Tanessa by the roof’s edge as she struggled helplessly. He was pulling her arm, his other hand on her throat, tipping her toward the open air.

  “Stokes!” Mitchell hollered, his voice loud enough to be heard over the wind. “Get your hands up!” He pointed his gun at Stokes, his finger wavering on the trigger.

  Jovan Stokes whirled around, Tanessa’s neck trapped behind his forearm as he held her against his chest. He had a gun in his hand, and he pointed it at Tanessa’s head.

  “If you shoot, I’ll take your sister with me, Detective Lonnie!” Stokes said, a smile stretched on his face.

  “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you,” Mitchell snarled. Blood pounded in his head. Tanessa stared forward, her eyes unfocused, blood running down her temple. Mitchell breathed short, hard breaths. This was about to end badly, he knew. “The police and the FBI are surrounding the building as we speak,” he said, hoping it was true. “You have nowhere to go. There’s no point in delaying this.”

  Stokes laughed. “Delaying this is the entire point, you moron!” he shouted back, a deranged grin on his face. “Can you feel it? Can you feel the thrill? The anticipation?”

  “Is that what this was all about?” Mitchell heard Zoe ask loudly, from behind him. “Cheap thrills?”

  “There’s nothing cheap about them,” Stokes said. “Put that gun down or I blow her brains out.”

  Mitchell slowly bent to the floor, and laid his gun down.

  “It’s all about holding off a moment,” said Stokes. “About planning it, and thinking about it, and postponing it. The anticipation—”

  “Oh, please!” Zoe yelled back. “Give us a break. Planning? You nearly wrecked your car when you ran over that girl. Postponing? Lately you can’t go a few days without killing someone. You were so anxious to do it, you practically walked into our trap! You just enjoy killing women! Anticipation? Shmanticipation! You’re just a killer who—”

  “You don’t know anything!” Stokes screamed, his face suddenly red with rage, turning his gun toward them. “I’m the fucking God of anticipation!”

  He was distracted, and his arm was a bit loose. If only Tanessa could break free… but she seemed completely out of it, her eyelids shutting slowly. Mitchell’s mind whirred.

  “Put the gun down, Bill!” he shouted.

  Stokes stared at him. “Bill?” he asked, frowning, tilting his head a bit. “Who the hell is Bill. My name is—”

  “Bill Derringer,” Mitchell said loudly.

  Tanessa’s eyes opened. Would she get the reference? Would she know what to do? She had to, or she was lost.

  There was a moment of stillness as Stokes stared at Mitchell, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Tanessa seemed woozy, unsure. She wasn’t up to it, Mitchell thought in despair, measuring the distance to Stokes. Would he be able to charge the man? It was worth a shot…

  Then Tanessa dropped her head forward and smashed it back, hitting Stokes’s face—just as she’d done to Bill Derringer, all those years ago.

  Stokes screamed in pain, blood spurting from his nose, and Tanessa stumbled forward. Mitchell knelt, grabbed his gun, aimed, and fired three times.

  His aim was bad; he was dazed, his body pushed way beyond its capabilities. Two shots missed completely. The third clipped Stokes in the shoulder. He whirled, his legs buckling as he tipped backward into the void…

  And then his knees bent and he fell forward instead, crashing to the roof. Mitchell leaped forward, realizing he didn’t have handcuffs with him. He could just shoot Stokes, get this over with. He pointed his shaking gun at the fallen killer.

  “Mitchell, don’t!” Zoe shouted.

  “You’re under arrest,” he said, his own voice far away. “Put your hands over your head.”

  He knelt by Tanessa, who lay on her back, blinking.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she mumbled. “Thanks, Mitch.”

  “Sure,” he said, sitting down. Two cops barged through the door and onto the roof, shouting, one of them aiming his gun at Stokes. Zoe began talking quickly to both of them, explaining. Mitchell couldn’t really fathom what it was all about. He just held Tanessa’s head in his lap and shut his eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Tanessa was watching TV when Mitchell dropped by. She was immensely relieved to see him. Staying with Mom and Dad was taking its toll, and she was one “Why don’t you marry a nice young man” away from matricide. When her mother had asked her if she wanted to stay with them for a couple of days, she’d happily agreed. She hadn’t wanted to sleep in her bed, where Jovan had grabbed her
and stuck a needle into her neck. She hadn’t wanted to be alone at all, in fact.

  But now she recalled that her mother was not the nurturing kind of parent that Tanessa occasionally heard about. Her mother was the kind of parent who sucked out her children’s energy and joy, to teach them about the misery of life. On the plus side, sleeping alone in an apartment from which she had been kidnapped began to sound quite attractive.

  “Mitchell!” Tanessa heard her mother’s sing-song voice intone as she opened the door. “How lovely to see you. You’re here to see Tanessa? Of course. Why else would you come visit us?”

  Tanessa gnashed her teeth. Mitchell came there almost every weekend. You never could win with this woman.

  Mitchell entered the living room, smiling, sadness deep within his eyes. Real sadness, not the fake stuff he used in the interrogation room.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” He sat down. “What are you watching?”

  She shrugged and turned off the TV. “Nothing. How are you?”

  “They want me off duty for a few more days,” Mitchell said. “But I’m feeling much better.”

  “Ricky Nate called you a real American hero in her article,” Tanessa said.

  “That’s me. Definitely an American.” He looked at her. “What about you?”

  “Oh, the usual,” she said, smiling a thin smile. The usual. Nightmares, fits of crying, moments of intense anxiety. Just anyone’s usual day, really.

  “The feds are taking Jovan to stand trial in Boston,” Mitchell said. “Too high profile for Glenmore Park, I guess.”

  Tanessa nodded. She didn’t want to talk about Jovan Stokes.

  “You asked about the guy in the elevator…” Mitchell hesitated.

  “Yeah?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “He died yesterday. They couldn’t save him.”

  Tanessa stared at the floor.

  “This job, Tanessa… It takes a toll, you know?”

  “I know,” she said sharply. Damn it, she knew. She’d gone through a very intense education spree lately, just to learn this fact.

  “But for what it’s worth… you’re really good at it,” Mitchell said.

  She lifted her eyes in surprise, meeting his stare. He wasn’t smiling; his face was dead serious.

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  She leaned forward and hugged him. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Zoe sat patiently on one of the two chairs in the bare room. In front of her was a white table, and beyond it another chair. The room was lit by a bright, bare bulb. It was dirty, the walls gray. Everything pulsed with hopelessness and boredom, which was only to be expected in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution.

  Finally, a guard walked him in and sat him in front of her. He wore the gray scrubs that all the prisoners there wore. He was unshaven, his eyes red. She was happy to see that prison life did not seem to agree with him.

  “It’s you,” Jovan Stokes said.

  “It’s me,” Zoe nodded.

  “What do you want?”

  She shrugged. “Just to talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” he sneered.

  “We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Zoe Bentley, and I’m a forensic psychologist,” she said. “I was hoping that we could have a couple of conversations.”

  “Why?” Jovan asked. “So you can use me as your study material? Fuck off.”

  Zoe nodded. She’d expected this. She knew how to handle it. She stood up. “Just one question,” she said. “How do you think it ends for you?”

  He smiled and said nothing.

  “We’re in Massachusetts,” she said. “There is no death penalty. You’re about to receive life without parole, and you’ll spend the rest of your days in this prison with nothing to live for, nothing to wait for, nothing to…” She drew out the sentence, half grinning. “…Anticipate.”

  The smile disappeared from his face.

  “Maybe you think you’ll be able to kill yourself. Let me promise you one thing: I’ll have you put on suicide watch. You won’t get a chance, Jovan, not one chance. You can’t even anticipate that moment. No. The only thing you can anticipate are my short visits. If you behave, I’ll even bring something nice to eat with me.”

  She could see the horror in his eyes as she obliterated his fantasy world.

  “Goodbye, Jovan,” she said, and turned to the door.

  “Wait!” he said.

  She opened the door and left, closing the door behind her.

  “Wait!” she heard him shout. “Please!”

  She smiled as she left the prison. She had the opportunity of a lifetime. And she planned to take full advantage of it.

  She already felt the anticipation for her next visit.

  Enjoyed this book? The sequel Deadly Web, out on June 24th, is already available for preorder at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4AL7V0

  Subscribe to Mike Omer’s newsletter to get a discounted release price on every book he publishes: http://strangerealm.com/mikeomer/newsletter/

  About the Author

  Mike Omer is the author of the Glenmore Park Mystery Series. He has been in the past a journalist, a game developer and the CEO of the company Loadingames. He is married to a woman who diligently forces him to live his dream, and the father of an angel, a pixie and a gremlin. He has two voracious hounds that wag their tail quite menacingly at anyone who comes near his home.

  Mike loves to write about true people who are perpetrators or victims of crimes. He also likes writing funny stuff. He mixes these two loves quite passionately into his mystery books.

  You can contact Mike by sending him an e-mail to mike@strangerealm.com

  Acknowledgments

  Like every piece of drivel I manage to write on paper, this would never have become a novel without my wife, Liora. She is my developmental editor, my cheerleader, my most avid reader, my brainstorm partner. How do other writers write books without her? I must assume they have cloned her. Please stop cloning my wife.

  Thanks to Christine Mancuso for providing invaluable comments which helped shape this novel into something coherent and engaging.

  Thanks to Axel Blackwell and my dad for their extremely helpful beta reading input.

  Thanks to Richard Stockford who answered all of my questions with the patience and diligence of a saint.

  Thanks to Tammi Labrecque for editing this novel. Without her, half the words of this novel would have been that or was, and that would have been a confusing thing to read.

  Thanks to all of the authors in Author’s Corner, for being there every step of the way, giving me endless much needed advice, cheering me on, and helping me when I needed them the most.

  Thanks to Shai Pilosof and Gil Wizen for figuring out with me what happens when a body is buried in a park for several weeks.

  Thanks to my parents for both their invaluable advice and their endless support.