by Holly Hunt
"I don't want any visitors," she said to the nurses, ignoring Phil's words. "Please get him out of here."
One of the nurses tutted and bustled Phil out of the room, but not before Liz had a chance to muse on his words. It was just too much for her at the moment, so she gently leaned against the hospital bed, careful not to aggravate her burns, and asked for an extra dose of painkillers.
The nurses finished writing down vitals and left Liz to herself, in her single room without even another patient for company. She crept down on the bed, trying not to rip the scabs over her face, hands and side. She didn't even have the comfort of a blanket to snuggle into, because its weight on her burns would be excruciating.
Was it really Phil? she asked, in spite of herself. Did I really kill him? Or was I just dreaming? And what did he just say to me? 'Only the truth shall set you free'? What did he mean?
She waited for the painkillers to send her off to sleep, willing her head to shut up for a few minutes.
18
Another abducted child was reported while Liz was in the hospital, and she supposed it was only logical that Mark Windsor would be back on the prowl during all the major holidays, now that he'd admitted that he'd been hiding in plain sight. New Year's Eve was primetime for kidnapping, and she couldn't help but feel responsible. If she'd only shot the bastard in the warehouse when she had a chance, that little boy wouldn't be facing the Grim Reaper so soon.
By the time Liz was discharged, the boy's parents had found him hanging from the rafters of a small local church, like a twisted mockery of Jesus, his own intestines holding him up. The church had been left unlocked the night before in order to allow anyone who needed the respite, and the priest who found him was under observation for the heart attack he suffered upon discovery.
Liz's thoughts wandering more and more to the unsolved murder spree rampaging through her city. But she was surprised to receive a text from Lisa the morning she was discharged.
Liz,
We found some more evidence, but it's not enough to convict. Come to your house when you're ready, and I'll go through it with you; see what you can add.
Liz didn't really understand why she was being included in the investigation, but she realized that there wasn't really anyone who knew these crimes better than the original investigating officers—her and Lisa—and they would be in the best position to solve it. Liz figured that they could put aside their differences to solve this case, to save the kids this madman would get hold of if they didn't, and couldn't fault the woman for trying.
Bill was surprised when Liz told him she wanted to return to the house, but didn't really try to dissuade her. For that, Liz was grateful. The last thing she wanted to do was argue with the burly police officer while potential evidence lay at her fingertips.
He dropped Liz off at her house, after urging her to stay with him for a couple of days if she didn't feel comfortable after all.
The house was quiet, though it had been knocked into chaos by police dusting for prints, attempting to catch the prankster who'd broken in and rushed her. She set about absently cleaning up, keeping her eyes out for signs of the intruders. She didn't know when Lisa intended to show up, but she didn't want the house in complete disarray if they were going through files.
There was a glass on the drainer she didn't remember leaving out, so she left it there, noting the fingerprint—round and prominent—on the side of the glass. She cleaned her way up the stairs and toward the bedroom, finally taking a deep breath as she pushed open the bedroom door.
She stepped inside, then jumped when the door was slammed shut behind her. She barely had time to draw her gun before she was knocked to the ground, the gun flying into the corner. She blinked as the room went dark, but could see that two larger figures were dragging her toward her bed.
"It's really a shame, Liz," one figure said, taping her hands down around the bare wooden slats as the other held her feet. "This would have been the Holiday Killer's greatest artwork, but you came home early. So you'll have to join in the fun."
"What the hell are you talking about, Windsor?" Liz snapped, right before he shoved a sock in her mouthed and tied it in place with a dress tie.
"You'll be surprised, alright." The other figure at the foot of the bed tied her feet up, ignoring her attempts to kick him in the face. Then Mark—for that's who it was—let go of her feet, stepping back.
"I'm sorry, Liz, but you have to be put down. For the good of the cause."
Liz stopped struggling, staring at Lisa as the woman manifested out of the dark, wearing what looked like a doctor's outfit, but was a little different—a mortician, Liz realized. She was shocked and pained to see her former partner, along with her ex-husband—whom she couldn't understand surviving a shot to the brain—actively conspiring with the Holiday Killer.
But, most of all, she was pissed.
"Now, we'd love to do this quickly, but that's not part of the deal." Lisa smiled and grabbed a small knife, its blade undoubtedly sharp. "We had to wait for you to get out of hospital before we could do this. Now you have to wait until we're ready for you to die."
Liz struggled against the ties, but Windsor grabbed her hand, forced one of her fingers open, and held it steady. He took the knife from Lisa and cut through Liz's finger joint, sheering through cartilage and flesh in a single sweep.
Liz didn't feel it for a minute, the shock was so great, the blood pouring from her hand, but when the heat was applied to the cut, cauterizing the wound, the pain shot up her arm, making everything from her fingertips to her shoulder ache. She screamed through the gag, tears leaking from her eyes. She felt weak, fuzzy, and detached from what was happening.
"Don't faint on us," Windsor said, grabbing her face and splashing water on it. "We're not finished yet, not by far."
Pain dulled her senses and she saw darkness approaching. Then the throbbing shot up her hand again and she realized that Lisa had cut through the joint of another finger.
"Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies…"
Liz turned her head to look up at Phil, who was watching her with a dull look of disinterest. He pulled out a small knife and ran the blade up her leg, cutting her pants and the flesh underneath. Then Windsor tore the knife from Lisa's hand and cut off the top of Liz's pinky. More blood flowed over her hand and she screamed.
Phil reached up and tore the tie from her face, pulling out the gag.
"Why?" she croaked, choking on the dryness of her mouth.
Windsor smacked her in the face, breaking her nose and splitting her lip. "Shut up, Liz. We have a lot more to do before you get to speak."
Lisa grinned, taking the knife from Mark as Phil stepped back, watching. "You killed our brother, Liz."
"Wha—?" Liz choked on her blood as it dribbled down the back of her throat.
Lisa grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at the knife blade. "That man you killed in the alley? That was Rhys Malone, my half-brother. He changed his name when he realized the kind of work Mark was getting involved in, and we completely hid our connections to him. He just didn't understand that he would be drawn back into it."
Liz's brain was paralyzed by the pain in her hand and the cracks in her partially healed burns. Before she could work out what Lisa was talking about, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.
19
Mark threw down the knife in disgust, backing away from her body as Phil headed for the bathroom, looking for a weapon. "And people wonder why I go after kids. They don't collapse nearly so quickly."
She always keeps her razors under the sink… Hello, what do we have here? Phil thought, and smiled as he pulled the object out from under the counter.
Lisa picked up the knife, muttering to herself as she carefully began to flay the skin from Liz's forearm. She paused for a second, then looked around the room. "Where's Phil?"
Phil stepped from the bathroom, training a gun on them. He waited, watching them, as Lisa threw down her scalpel
and laughed at him. Behind her, Liz was waking up, pain glazing her eyes as she looked at her partially flayed arm.
It's alright, Liz. I'll get us out of here.
"What are you doing, you dumbass? There's no way you're trying to stop us," Mark crowed, stepping in front of Lisa.
That's the last time you call me that, Phil thought, aiming the gun at his head. "I don't have to," Phil said, his hands steady. "All I have to do is shoot you, and I get my life back." No more sneaking into houses at night, no more threats against my dad. I don't have to be your whipping boy anymore.
"We were giving you your life back, you dumb shit," Mark said, slowly approaching him. "You were free to do whatever you liked, to run free through the town. You were above the law, above everything!"
"All I ever wanted was to have my family safe!" Phil screamed and shot at him, but Mark knocked the gun out of his hand and smacked Phil hard in the jaw. Phil went down like a rock.
He looked at Liz, only to cringe as Lisa slammed into him, a tool from a nearby tray in her hand.
*
The gun skittered under the bed Liz was laying on, and the blood from her arm had leaked under the tape, making the binding lose its stickiness. She wiggled her arm, managing to pull it out from under the tape, and ignored the pain in her body as she felt around for the butt of the gun.
Meanwhile, Mark belted Phil in the face, making the man whimper in pain just as Liz found the gun. She lifted it, sighting with her ruined left hand, and squeezed the trigger with one of her two remaining fingers.
The shot hit Mark in the knee, forcing him down. He groaned in pain as he landed, and Lisa turned on Liz, who had lost her grip on her gun. The weapon bounced off the wall and under the bed.
"You fucking little bitch!" Lisa bellowed, coming at her with the scalpel.
Phil jumped on Lisa as she went to stab Liz, pulling her away from her victim. His face was swollen, his arm rebroken, but he still fought the woman for control of the knife.
With the digits she had left, Liz forced her other arm out from under the tape, the adrenaline pumping through her system diluting most of the pain. She spun around, the scabs on her side breaking, grabbed a knife off the table, and, screaming her pain and hatred, threw it at Lisa's back, hoping for a lucky shot.
The handle bounced off Lisa's back, though, and she turned with a laugh to look at Liz, who had collapsed back on the bed, in too much pain to do anything more. Mark groaned on the ground, but Lisa ignored him, heading for the bed again.
"Fuck you, Lisa."
Lisa grabbed her own chest, holding the skin near her heart. She turned to look at Phil standing right behind her, and Liz saw the handle of the knife protruding from below her shoulder blades, right where her heart was.
"You ... stabbed me."
And she dropped, a look of shock on her face. Suddenly Mark wrapped his hands around Phil's neck, yanking him to the ground.
"You—killed—my—sister!" he ground out, while Phil clawed at his throat.
"And you killed my son!" Phil squeaked, landing a kick on Mark's bad knee. The man let go out of reflex, giving Phil enough time to lay into his face just as the police stormed the room.
Phil lifted his hands, falling to his knees as an officer forced him down. He let them handcuff him, glancing at Liz, who was trying to reach her ruined hand out to him, trying to convey how sorry she was that she hadn't trusted him.
"Phil—"
"I love you, Liz, never forget that."
Liz opened her mouth to say something more, but the cops hauled him to his feet to get him out of the way of the stretcher, and he was lost in the melee as a pair of police pulled him out into the dying light. Liz collapsed.
*
"You know there's going to be a trial, right?" one of the policemen asked, leading him gently toward the car. "We have to know how many deaths you were involved in."
Phil shook his head. "I didn't know Lisa was in on it until she begged me to help her with the latest one. She didn't tell me who it was. When I saw it was Liz, I called you guys in. You'll find a gun in the corner somewhere near Liz—the one that took out Mark's knee."
The cops looked at each other, then helped him get in the car with a little more tenderness than would otherwise have been offered.
"Do me a favor," Phil said. Then he spied his father striding across the grounds toward them. "Actually, two. Keep Dad away, and make sure Liz gets to the hospital. She's lost a lot of blood, and she wasn't in the best shape, last I saw her."
The cops nodded, closing the door. The car was warm and Phil relished it after the chill of the snow. He laid his head back and fell asleep—the best sleep he'd had in three years.
20
Liz opened her eyes and groaned. "I hate hospitals."
"Then maybe you should stop landing yourself in one."
Liz's eyes flicked open and she looked at her guest, unsure whether to smile or scream. "Phil?"
"Hey, Liz." The man was handcuffed to the bed, but he was smiling at her.
"What's going on? I thought you were part of the group killing me. Why are you here without protection?"
Phil sat back as far as the cuffs would let him, smiling sadly at her. "A lot of things went down after you fainted, Liz. I think you saw the end of it."
"You stabbed Lisa and injured Mark."
"I was the one who called the police, Liz. They have Lisa's body, and they have Mark here under armed guard—to protect him, as much as the rest of us."
"You know his lawyers will just get him off, right? And you'll be at the top of his shit list for revenge when he does get out?"
"I talked to some lawyers. Mark won't be getting out, ever again. I know enough from what Lisa said to drag his ass into the lowest cesspool of Hell."
"Then why are you handcuffed?" Liz asked, sitting up gently and noticing her heavily bandaged right hand.
The memories in her head were foggy, but she remembered Phil striding out of the bathroom, gun in hand. She remembered him saying something about being free of the others, but she couldn't remember more than the gist of what he said.
"You were being forced to help them."
"They threatened you, my dad, me, if I didn't do what they wanted. I couldn't let them hurt you." Phil nodded. "They're trying me as an accessory, Liz. I might have ratted Mark and Lisa—and the plot to use Rhys as a scapegoat for Mark—out to the police, but I knew about more than your kidnapping. At least, I guessed."
"What do you mean?" A thought crossed her mind and she went pale. "Jamie?"
"No, not Jamie." Phil shook his head. "If I had have known it was them that far back, I would have shot the lot of them as soon as I found out."
"Then who did you know about?"
"The boy that was taken while you were in here—Harry. I didn't know about it at the time, but they brought me in to help with the body. I stayed quiet about it, hoping to gather some evidence and plant it or something to get them arrested, but the next murder they planned was yours. They didn't have the manpower they needed anymore, and demanded I join them after you shot Steven. My cousin, who looks surprisingly like me. I introduced you to him, many years ago, but I hadn't seen him for … oh, fifteen years when you killed him. I don't think you recognized him."
Liz watched him. He had his head bowed, showing all the signs her police-trained mind knew indicated that he was telling the truth. But would it be enough to convince her of his innocence? She didn't think so. "You know they'll hang you for that, right? You've involved yourself in these brutal murders, whether for good or bad, and the public will crucify you for it. They went after kids, Phil, and you joined in for the ride! Surely you learned better than that in the time we were married!"
"You think I don't know that?" Phil snapped. "The prosecutors will paint me with the same brush as Mark and Lisa—as a child killer. Even if they manage to screw up enough to have me declared not guilty, the public will hunt me down and slaughter me."
Liz stared at
him, not knowing what to say. He smiled sadly at her, then looked to the door. The police officer standing there came in and released his handcuffs, doing them up behind his back again once he stood.
"I'll see you around, Liz."
Phil leaned down and kissed Liz on the lips, careful of her facial burns, and allowed himself to be dragged away.
Liz lifted her bandaged hand and touched her lips, a tear leaking out of her eye.
Two years later
The psychologist waited, hooked on her words. She sat, silent, staring out the window, rubbing her mangled hand. Only her ring finger and thumb had survived the episode unscathed, though she retained the first knuckles on her other fingers.
"Did you see Phil again?" he finally asked, calling her out of her memories.
"Only once, in the courtroom. I was there to see the trial of Mark Windsor for the murders of all those children, and he was testifying against the man. He was bundled out of the courtroom before I could talk to him and enrolled in witness protection a few hours later. I haven't seen him since, which isn't surprising."
"What would you say if you saw him again, Liz?"
Liz was silent for a while, staring out the window again. The psychiatrist opened his mouth to bring her back to reality, but she beat him to it.
"Honestly, I don't know what I'd say. He played a part in my kidnapping and mutilation, but at the same time, he saved me and countless children by bringing the killers to justice—one of them, at least. I guess I'd ask him how he was doing, coping with having Lisa's blood on his hands, and I might ask him… I'd ask him why he didn't tell me what was going on, why he gave me those cryptic clues in the hospital. But I guess I know the answer. We were together for twenty years before Jamie was killed, so I like to think I know him very well. He didn't want to put me in more danger than I already was."
