I checked every room in the dormitory, on both of its levels, before feeling confident no one was with me in the cabin. No one, except, Ralph Fox.
I retraced my steps, down the stairs to the first floor and crossed the hallway towards the main part of the cabin. As I passed Alexander’s room, I paused and gave the room another look. I saw that inside the rose petal heart-shaped pattern on the floor, were a few items I hadn’t looked at closely before. I saw a picture frame and some scattered photographs. I had no doubts Alexander had left me another message, but I needed to get back to check on Ralph. I needed to get him help and prayed the time I had spent clearing the cabin hadn’t eaten away time I should have spent getting emergency medical care on scene.
When I walked into the front room, Ralph was beginning to stir. His head, still hanging low, was starting to bounce slightly, his fleshy chin dragging against his chest in short, spastic twitches. I walked close to Ralph and inspected him for any wounds or bruising my initial scan of him may have missed. Seeing nothing, I ripped off the pale green bed sheet that had been covering a leather couch in the front room and used it to cover Ralph’s body. Ralph was a proud man and I feared he would be more disturbed by the intensely vulnerable position I had found him in than he would be having been attacked.
Once he was covered, I pulled out my multi-tool and cut the thin ropes binding his hands and ankles to the chair’s legs. My movements and the slight sound the cut rope made as they dropped to the hardwood floor, were enough to call Ralph back into the world of the living. He mumbled a few inaudible words before he waved his arms in a reflexive, defensive manner. Twice I needed to hold him back against the chair’s back when he, still drifting towards consciousness, tried to stand.
It took several minutes before Ralph was able to string thoughts into understandable words. Once he seemed stable, I helped him stand and move over to the couch. He sat in a heavy thump into the couch cushions.
“I’m going to call 911 and get an ambulance here for you,” I said.
“You ain’t gonna do any such thing,” Ralph snapped back. “You call 911, and my deputies and every state trooper within a hundred miles will be racing this way within seconds.”
“Ralph, you were attacked. Probably have at least a concussion. You need to be checked out.”
“Now, I ain’t disagreeing with you; I most certainly was attacked and most likely have a brain-bruise. And, to your point, getting professional medical attention would be the most logical and appropriate course of action to take. And I do intend on speaking to someone with a fancy diploma hanging on a wall in their office, but not till after we accomplish a few things.”
I wasn’t at all happy about putting my phone back into my pocket, but Ralph didn’t show any signs he was about to crash into a bad place. “All right, Ralph,” I said. “As long as you see a doctor soon, what ‘things’ do we need to accomplish?”
Ralph’s face took on a deep look of embarrassment. I don’t know when he realized he was naked beneath the sheet, but it was obvious he wasn’t enamored with his current attire. “First, I would appreciate you locating my clothing then, giving me some privacy to change into them.”
I told Ralph I had cleared every room in the house and hadn’t seen his clothes in any of them.
“I don’t suppose Alexander would have left them in any room. If I were him, and, may I just express how deeply grateful that I am not him, I would probably leave that bundle of clothes in a place of meaning.”
I may have been jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, but I figured Alexander knew I would be arriving at the cabin and had staged everything for my benefit. If my assumptions were correct, I knew exactly where to look for Ralph’s clothes. I made my way outside and walked around to the back of the cabin. I switched on my flashlight, dropped to the ground and scanned the area beneath the dormitory. The last time I was in the same position was when I discovered the trap-door leading from Alexander’s bedroom to beneath the dormitory. Back then, things were still very much a mystery. Alexander was unknown to me, still more of a concept than a real person. But as I began to crawl towards the trap-door, having spotted a bag sitting on the ground directly beneath it, I realized Alexander was even more of mystery despite having come face to face with him.
As I crawled towards the bag, which I knew would contain Ralph’s clothes as well as some cryptic message, I strained my mind to understand Alexander. Putting his heartless medical condition aside (not an easy task) I wondered what was driving him. Having completed my fair share of investigations, I was well aware of the importance of understanding the intentions and motivations of the person I was investigating or searching for, was an important key. Believing Alexander was driven solely out of his desire for revenge may have been accurate when he was picking off doctors left and right, but now that all of the players involved in his birth and in hiding him away at Hilburn, where he would spend his first twenty years as a lab rat, a desire to exact his revenge couldn’t be his driving force. There had to be something else; something compelling enough for him to not only continue seeking out those he feels responsible for his life-condition, but also to take the risks he had already assumed.
He emailed me, called Ralph, then lured him to Straus’s cabin and assaulted him. He left messages behind, which, while I hadn’t yet had the time to investigate, must be clues to his next steps. Most criminals who feel compelled to taunt their pursuers, have the confidence to leave a trail of clues behind their steps. But they also make sure they eliminate any clue or person that can put an end to their actions. Ralph stopped Alexander once down in Ward C at Hilburn with a jolt from a taser. Reason alone would demand that Ralph be eliminated from the equation at the first opportunity. But Ralph was sitting in the front den of the lodge, wrapped in a bed sheet, with nothing more serious than a possible concussion and a few lumps and bruises.
Why didn’t Alexander kill Ralph when he had the chance? And, while I was thinking about things I didn’t understand, why hadn’t Alexander ambushed me in the cabin? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t wishing things had turned out differently, but I don’t like it when things don’t make any sense.
I reached the bag, opened it up and took a look inside. As expected, Ralph’s clothes were folded neatly into a pile inside the bag. Atop his clothes, was a white envelope. I took a second to shine my light onto the envelope, and read to whom Alexander had addressed the letter the envelope contained.
“The Cowardly Widower of Lucy Cole”
That pissed me off.
CHAPTER NINE
I sat beneath the trap door for a few minutes, struggling between ripping open the envelope and reading whatever Alexander wrote for me and just getting the hell back inside, checking on Ralph and letting him get dressed. I shoved the envelope back into the plastic bag, got into a crouched position and pushed my back hard agains the trap door. It pushed open after some effort.
I didn’t spend any time checking Alexander’s old room for clues but made my way out of the suite, down the hallway and back into the den.
“What the hell took you so long?” Ralph asked when I handed him the bag of his clothes. “Got to thinking the heartless bastard ambushed you.”
I told Ralph where I had found his clothes as well as the envelope addressed to me.
“While I would never be as presumptuous enough to invite myself to read anything not addressed to me,” Ralph said, “I feel compelled to see what’s inside that envelope.”
“I didn’t think for a second of reading this alone,” I told him.
“Good to hear,” he said. His face turned a shade of red I hadn’t seen him wear before. He lowered his head, seemingly embarrassed about being seen in the vulnerable position I had found him in.
“I saw something in Alexander’s reading room I want to check out. How about you get yourself prettied up and join me when you’re ready?”
Ralph just nodded his head, shades of anger and embarrassment flashing across his face.
He joined me in Alexander’s reading room fifteen minutes later. I was standing, staring at the heart-shaped design of rose petals on the floor. Inside the heart, were a damaged photo frame and a few loose and scattered pictures. From the corner of my eye, I saw another heart shape made of rose petals on the floor, close to the barred window. I walked over to the smaller heart shaped design.
“Think this is a message?” I asked Ralph when he drew up beside me.
“Now, I’m wondering which one of us took a sharp blow to the head after hearing you ask me that question.”
“Not the rose petal path and heart shape,” I said, “but the fact the heart shape is empty. Void, kind of like Alexander.”
“That would be quite profound, my freelancing friend. Profound indeed.”
I glanced over at Ralph. I wanted to give him the quick once-over to see how he looked and whether or not I should be demanding we call the paramedics and some of his officers. He looked a bit pale and his eyes still held a glaze about them, but, all in all, Ralph looked like Ralph. “How about you and I go back to the den, sit down, read whatever letter or note Alexander wrote for me? I need to get caught up to speed on everything that happened since I spoke with you on the phone this morning right up to me finding you knocked out, tied to that chair.”
“Usually I would argue that the time for talking should come after a thorough investigation, but, considering the thumping going on inside my head right now, I think sitting a spell sounds like a fine idea.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Ralph cut me off with a raised hand. “And before you get back on the topic of calling in some of my officers and a few boys with medical training, I’ll remind you of my promise that I will seek medical attention when I deem appropriate.”
We sat on the sheet-covered couch in the den, Ralph sipping on a bottle of water as I stared at the carved message on the wall.
“What do you think Alexander is trying to tell us with that message? ‘A Broken Heart is a Sign of Life. It is a Longing.’ Think that message refers to him or someone else?”
“Can’t rightly say,” Ralph replied, his eyes then fixed on the defiled wall. “But there’s more than one message in this cabin. I imagine they all blend into a theme. A sort of master message.”
I pulled out my Moleskine Notebook and a pen, flipped to a blank page, and copied the message onto the top of the page. “So, this message, the path of rose petals and the heart-shaped pattern of petals on the floor in Alexander’s old reading room, the picture frame and photographs left inside the heart-shaped pattern. Anything else I’m missing you feel is part of this ‘master message’ of yours?”
Ralph caressed the back of his head. His eyes were showing signs of clearing up and his pallor was returning to his normal ruddy complexion. “If you only see two messages here,” he said, “then your freelancing skills are suffering a tad. The way I see it, this whole cabin is a message.”
“Start at the beginning,” I said. “From when Alexander called you, to when you found out the call came from this cabin, to me finding you knocked out on the floor.”
“Now you’re thinking with that freelancing mind of yours.”
Ralph explained the call he received from Alexander came through to his desk phone at the police station. “I cannot tell you why it is, but every call that pours into the station is immediately traced. As long as the caller holds the line open for a bit over a minute, our systems can figure out where the hell the call came from. I didn’t think old Alexander’s call lasted much more than ten-seconds, but apparently he never hung up his side of the call. The officer who came to check out the place said one of the telephone receivers was left out of the cradle; sitting on the desk in Straus’s old office.”
“Meaning Alexander wanted the call to be traced. He knew you’d figure out where the call was made from.”
“That does seem likely,” Ralph said. “The officer called me on my cell and told me about the message up there on that wall,” he said as he gestured towards the carved words, “as well as the rose petals. He called for backup and waited outside per my instructions till another officer showed up on-scene, then the two did a clean sweep of the cabin and the grounds. They saw what you and I saw and nothing else.”
“When did you arrive?”
“I showed up pretty near thirty minutes after the officer called me and told me what he had found. I showed up, stood right in this very room, and called you. I sent the officers back to the station. As you know, I do like to be alone when it comes time to solving some mystery. I must have stood, staring at the message for a good five minutes. I walked through the place, looking for any other messages. I didn’t do what the young fellas call a ‘deep dive,’ but I got the lay of the place. Kind of, re-familiarized my brain with the layout of the cabin. I walked back into this den, staring looking back up at the message, then I heard it.”
“Heard what?” I asked.
Ralph scratched his head and twisted his face. I couldn’t tell if pain was erupting across his head or he was struggling to tell me what sound he had heard.
“It was quick and, for the life of me, I cannot say with absolute certainty that what I believe I heard was actually what I heard.”
“What did you hear, Ralph?”
“Now that is a more difficult question to answer than you might believe.”
Getting some answers out of Ralph are more difficult than my normally patient demeanor accommodates for. “Ralph, I’m just asking what sound you heard. Was it a voice, a groan, the sound a carousel makes when it needs greasing? What?”
He looked at me from the corners of his eyes, smiled, then said, “Sometimes blurting out an answer doesn’t give the topic justice. So, let me ask you a question or two. When you met face to face with the heartless wonder, did you have an opportunity to engage in any conversation with him?”
“Yes,” I said through an intentionally exaggerated sigh.
“And his voice,” Ralph continued, “was it strong or weak?”
“You know Alexander speaks in whispers.”
“So, your answer is?”
“Weak, Ralph. His voice was weak. Shallow and a bit higher in pitch than most whispers I’ve heard.”
“Almost like a squeal at times?”
“Sure, I guess. Are you saying you heard a squeal right before you got bashed on your head?”
“Nope, not at all, actually.”
“Then what? What the hell did you hear?”
“A deep, guttural growl. Sort of reminded me of the sound a wild hog makes when attacking. Resonating, almost vibrating. The sound I heard came from deep inside someone’s chest.”
My mouth fell open. The potential consequences were a bit overwhelming for me to process. “Based on the medical notes I read and from my own experience, I don’t think Alexander is capable of making deep throated sounds. Are you sure that’s what you heard?”
“I’ve always hated when people ask me if I am sure about what I said. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have said it, now, would I?”
“That means one of two things,” I said.
“And those two options would be?”
“Either Alexander has learned some new skills...”
“Or?” Ralph prodded.
“Or once again, Alexander isn’t working alone.”
CHAPTER TEN
A Black:
The medical examiner was kind, though I am far from confident she would have complied with my wishes had she not been under the duress I was forced to administer. Her scalpel woke me from whatever slumbering condition Ralph Fox’s stun-gun caused. The examiner’s hand was much quicker than was my return to awareness, so by the time I grabbed her throat, she had completed the top arms of the eventual “Y” shaped incision my torso was destined to display. My body had been placed on an arched rubber block, giving my arms a shorter reach to her throat. She called for assistance when my eyes opened and my body recoiled from the pain. Fortunately fo
r me, and rather unfortunately for her, my awareness returned in an eruption, and my body, thankfully, responded.
I pinched her vocal chords together using two fingers, halting any additional calls for help. I had no intentions of harming her; I needed her to complete a task for me and her calls for help would have prevented her from doing so. Of that I was certain.
As she worked her hooked needle and thick thread through my skin, closing the wounds she had made, more clarity came to me. With each passing moment, my cognition became more precise, more readily available. I knew what I needed to do. What I wanted to do.
Make no mistake, lying on that table, warmed only by the rubber arch which formed my body into a slightly convex shape, I experienced pain. Intense pain and more than once my thoughts drifted to the relief I might have expected had I simply released my hold of her throat, closed my eyes and let the examiner dance her scalpel wherever she desired. But, each time that surrendering thought appeared, I only needed to glance to my left. There, on a table quite similar to mine, lay Doctor Straus.
He was quite dead, I had made sure of that, but having him spurring me on in absentia proved a powerful enough elixir to carry me through the process. Strange in a way, isn’t it? That Doctor Straus, the man who had stolen my life, had tried to end it with his impotent, though somewhat brilliant “Plan C,” was now providing me the motivation and determination to live.
When the medical examiner glanced a look into my eyes, suggesting she had completed her duty, I nodded towards the scalpel still wrapped in her thin fingers. She dropped it to the floor.
Still Heartless: The Thrilling Conclusion to Heartless (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 5) Page 4
