Still Heartless: The Thrilling Conclusion to Heartless (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 5)

by T Patrick Phelps

  “Keep talking,” Thomas said.

  “You want to know where you messed up? Seven ways. One, you told me your mother went off the deep end after your dad was killed. You told me she kept to herself, that you hadn’t seen her in a while and that she visited the graveyard where the faux Alexander and your dad are buried. You told me a friend lives on the same street as the graveyard and that he, I assume your imaginary friend was a ‘he,’ told you he’d seen her at the graveyard several times. I’m not good with technology but I can do an Internet search. Turns out, there’s a website called ‘Find a Grave.’ I stumbled across that site and did a search to see where your dad is buried. Once I knew the graveyard, I used Google Earth to take a look at the area. And guess what I didn’t see?”

  “No houses.”

  “There isn’t a house within six miles of the graveyard and certainly none on the same street.”

  “Excellent job,” Thomas said. “That was my first mistake. The others?”

  “I didn’t say that was your first mistake, just that is was one of your mistakes. I figure you killed your mother. That may be a stretch, but the way I see it, if someone wanted to stay off the grid and keep to herself, this cabin would be the perfect place to do just that. But you put the place up for sale a few weeks ago and since you didn’t list it with an agent, and priced it fifty percent higher than the comps in the area, I have to believe you aren’t at all interested in selling the place. You lowered the price quite a bit a couple of days ago, probably because you figured this whole thing with your brother would be over soon and you wouldn’t need this place anymore. I even bet you were deciding on which agent to list the house with.

  “Honestly, I wasn’t too sure about the whole ‘you killed your own mother’ thing till you called me last night. I was thinking you killed her so I asked if you had called her. The way you reacted let me know I was right. Now how am I doing?”

  “She was on his list,” Thomas said as he gestured towards Alexander.

  “You were on that list, too, if my memory serves,” I said. “The way I see it, you had no intentions of killing your mother, even though you knew your brother would have been fine crossing her name of his list first thing. But I’m thinking your brother contacted you, told you he needed your help. He may have went on about how sorry he was about everything that happened that night at Hilburn. And you, being the psychopath that you are, agreed to help him out, as long as some changes to the ‘Master Plan’ were made. You found where he was holed up, brought him back here and started planning.

  “The thing is, your mom, being more of a solitary person, probably showed up unannounced. She saw both her sons, maybe freaked out a bit and...I don’t know, threatened to go the police? You couldn’t allow that to happen, so, you had no choice but to kill her.”

  “Some edits were needed. Keep talking. What were my other mistakes?” Thomas was much too calm for my liking. I was certain he had some serious mental issues running around in his brain, but either I was completely wrong in my accusations or was so spot on that he was even more twisted than I could imagine.

  “I have to admit, the next mistake was a damn good one. You told me you got engaged to a violist from England. You told me her name was ‘Bri,’ which, thanks to an officer with Chief Fox’s department, is short for ‘Briallen’ which is the old English word for ‘rose.’ You spread rose petals around the Piseco Lake cabin, formed a heart with those petals and even found some old pictures of a little girl taken in Manchester. Brilliant. Honestly, that was brilliant. You made up the whole fiancée thing so when I came to believe she had been kidnapped, you figured I’d come running to save her. You carved a message into the wall at the cabin that could have referred to me or to you losing your fiancé. You even wrote a message on Ralph’s back to reinforce the whole ‘broken heart’ theme.

  “But your mistake was using such an unusual name. I have a friend who is good with computers and the whole Internet thing. He searched back six years for a professional violist from England who now lives in the States. Believe it or not, he couldn’t find one. He did find a violinist from England who moved the United States, but no violist named Briallen. Still, despite that oversight, it was clever.”

  “If it helps at all, I did have a bit of a fling with a girl named Briallen while I was attending university in England.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “To my credit, and to yours, my imaginary fiancée wasn’t really a mistake but more a testament to your detective skills.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Means a lot to me getting a compliment from a psychopath like yourself.”

  Thomas shot me a grin so twisted and evil, I knew my insult was spot on.

  “And, what else?” Thomas said. “Where else did I screw up? You said there were five mistakes I made.”

  “You had your brother call Chief Fox and me. It was pretty obvious, based on how weak and thin his voice was, that he wasn’t half the man he used to be. I remembered reading in Straus’s notes that Alexander’s voice grows weak before he needs sleep. And, based on how weak and thin his voice sounded, I figured he was about a year too late for a solid eight hours of shuteye to do much good. I suspected he was being helped and hearing his voice confirmed it.”

  “My strength failed me a few months ago,” Alexander said. “When I first made my way out of the morgue, I was weakened by both the events of the night and from the incision Elizabeth had made. I was forced to kill her, though doing so was far from pleasant. I began modifying the plan I had started years before. I still wanted, still want my revenge.”

  “There’s no one left from your list but your brother,” I stated.

  “I was persuaded to add some new names.”

  “So you added Michelle, Ralph and me based on, what? An agreement with Thomas?”

  “Adding you and Chief Fox were of no consequence,” Alexander replied. “Adding Michelle, however, that was challenging to accept.”

  “And what about your brother?” I asked. “You no longer care about him stealing your heart? Stealing your life?”

  “Certain accommodations needed to be made.”

  “And now you’re dying. Probably a slow, painless death, but dying nonetheless. And your brother will walk away, with everyone dead who could have turned him into the police. Where do you think he’ll bury you, Alexander? Next to your mother? Or will he just toss your body in the lake after weighting it down with rocks?”

  “Enough!” Thomas screamed. “Tell me where else I screwed up.”

  “You planning on doing something like this again?” I asked. “You looking to learn from your mistakes so you don’t repeat them next time?”

  Thomas isn’t a big man, not nearly the size Alexander was before whatever was killing him had ravaged his body. So when he reared back and punched me across my chin, I didn’t lose consciousness or even show any signs of injury.

  I think that pissed him off.

  “Your sixth mistake,” I continued without skipping a beat, “was the grunting noise you made when you whacked Ralph in the head. Not only that, but when I told you about the deep grunting noise Ralph heard, you had plenty of alternate explanations besides it being your brother who attacked Ralph.”

  “So, from a grunting noise, you deduced Alexander wasn’t working alone? That’s a bit of a stretch for me to accept.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “Actually, your alternate explanations made plenty of sense. You actually had me almost convinced one of your explanations was more feasible than it being your brother.”

  “Then why did you include it in your list of my mistakes?”

  “Honestly, I just added it because I needed to buy some time for you to make your seventh mistake.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “What are you talking about? What seventh mistake? What do you mean you had to buy time?”

  “Your seventh mistake, Thomas, was your worst mistake of all. It’s the mistake that might just kill you.”<
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  He hauled off and punched me again. His anger (and probable fear) gave him a bit more strength. Add an already sore jaw to his added strength and the result is the second punch knocked me for a loop. He grabbed me by my shirt, started shaking me, and screamed, “Tell me, you son of a bitch; what the hell are you talking about?”

  I regained my senses but still took a few extra seconds to make sure everything was ready. I figured I was going to have to act quickly once I told Thomas about his final—and probably fatal—mistake.

  “Your seventh mistake, Thomas. You want me to tell you your seventh mistake?”

  He leveled the gun directly at my head. That’s exactly what I’d hoped he’d do.

  “Your seventh mistake was leaving the front door opened.”

  Thomas screwed up his face, giving me the look of someone utterly confused. But his confusion passed quickly and was replaced by terror. He turned his head towards the front door of the cabin, only to see Ralph Fox standing ten feet away, pointing his Colt .45 directly at his head.

  “You can either drop your weapon or see if you can outrun a bullet.”

  I knocked Thomas’s gun away from my face, dove at Alexander, hitting him squarely in the jaw with my elbow. I heard a sickening cracking sound and wasn’t sure if I had broken his jaw or his neck.

  Ralph was still pointing his Colt directly at Thomas, who was now holding his gun down to his side. I had hoped I had hit his arm hard enough to knock the gun away. Turned out, Thomas probably wished I had hit him a bit harder.

  “You gonna shoot me, Chief Fox? You gonna shoot me dead right here and now?”

  I grabbed the gun which was still loosely gripped in Alexander’s hand and held it with a shooter’s grip: Firm, but relaxed. I took a good look at Alexander and wondered if my elbow blow had killed him. There was really no good way to tell if he was dead or just knocked out. Since Alexander was certainly the world champion at playing possum, the only way I would find out if he was dead or alive was to wait and see.

  “Well,” Ralph said, “I’d prefer to not shoot you dead, but, you hold the cards when it comes to that possibility. If you drop your revolver, then I will be hard pressed to pull my trigger.”

  “I forgot to mention your eighth mistake, Thomas,” I said. “You neglected to secure your brother’s gun. Anyone could have seen taking it away from him would have been easy as hell. Now, I don’t care who you are or where you come from, that is a serious mistake.” I held the Walther PK .380 up to my sights, and pointed it directly at Thomas’s head. “Don’t do anything stupid, Thomas. Drop the gun, step back and got on your knees.”

  “Don’t shoot him,” Michelle said. Her voice was sweet and revealed her being witness to too much pain in her life.

  Still aiming the PK at Thomas, I reached down and worked the knots loose in the rope that was holding her to the chair. When the rope dropped, she stood and walked behind me, rubbing her wrists in an effort to get her blood flowing again.

  “Michelle, take the phone out of my back pocket, and dial 911. We’re not going to shoot him but we are going to send him away for a very, very long time.”

  ________________________

  The events that occurred after Michelle pulled my iPhone out of my pocket happened too fast for me to recount with absolute accuracy. What I know happened, is I was reminded of something in the lost file I had found in Straus’s desk drawer. It was hand written in the margin of one page.

  “Displaying weakness, even when manufactured, is often a sign of a greater strength.”

  Alexander wasn’t dead, wasn’t knocked out and hadn’t lost as much of his strength as I believed. My focus was still on Thomas so I didn’t see him bolt out of the chair. I did, however, feel the tremendous impact when he slammed his shoulder directly into my chest. I must have flown a few feet across the room before hitting the hardwood floor in an awkward position.

  I still held the PK in my hand but I was more concerned about getting air back into my lungs than firing off a round or two.

  But a few rounds were fired.

  According to what Ralph told me, Alexander’s sudden attack surprised Thomas as much as it did me. Thomas whirled around, raised the gun reflexively to his sights and fired off a round towards me and his brother. His shot missed but it splintered the wood, sending hundreds of tiny slivers into my exposed arm.

  The next shot came from Ralph’s Colt. He was ten feet away from Thomas and was a damn good shooter. The .45 caliber bullet entered through Thomas’s left temple and exited out his right. He dropped in sudden and instant death.

  Before Ralph could set his aim on a new target, Alexander leaped to his feet and lurched behind Michelle. When my wits returned along with my ability to draw a breath, Alexander was standing behind Michelle and had his right arm wrapped firmly around her neck.

  “I would have preferred to have crossed my brother off my list myself,” Alexander whispered. “But, sometimes, edits are needed and plan accommodations must be made.”

  There was no way Alexander had planned his brother’s death to happen in the manner which it did. Though it was clear he held no emotion other than hate for Thomas, it was impossible for him to have arranged this scene and directed the action to deliver the results it had.

  “Alexander,” I said while aiming the PK towards him, “you need to let Michelle go. She never did anything to you and was never on your list to begin with.”

  “Edits and accommodations need to be made.” He started backing up, towards the open rear door. Michelle’s face was turning red from the pressure of his hold around her neck. Tears began streaming down her face. “I know you will feel compelled to follow me, however, I must advise against doing so. While I’d rather not end her life, I am more than willing and capable of doing so.”

  “You planning on crawling off into some hole and dying, are you, Alex old boy?” Ralph was a bit too forceful for my comfort level. Though I had only met Michelle Mix one time before, there was something about her that drew me to her. Not in any romantic way, but out of deep respect and admiration. Seeing her in Alexander’s choke hold made my stomach turn and commanded my thoughts back to the day my life was held in a similar way. Back then, Lucy’s face was pressed against the plate glass window at the bank. This time, Michelle’s face was turning an alarming shade of red and the cabin’s lights played haphazardly against her tear streamed cheeks. Back then, I did nothing to stop the madman’s actions. This time, I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Michelle.

  I raised the PK to my sights, lined up the front sight of the gun to Alexander’s face. The way he was moving, however, made getting off a clean shot nearly impossible. If I pulled the trigger, I risked missing completely or, worse, hitting Michelle.

  “Alexander,” I screamed. “I will follow you and I will kill you. Leave Lucy alone and I’ll let you walk out of here.”

  “Lucy?” Alexander said. “Having a flashback are we, Derek Cole? Perhaps the messages I left for you in that folder had as much of an impact as I wished. Perhaps, more so.”

  “Let Michelle free,” I snapped back.

  “I think not.” He pulled Michelle back through the door then disappeared into the dark night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  He had much more strength remaining than I would have guessed based on his appearance. After he dragged Michelle out of the cabin, Ralph and I looked at one another, nodded, then moved to the door. By the time we were both outside, all that could be seen of Alexander Black was him running towards the lake. He had picked up Michelle and was carrying her in one arm.

  “He’s going to the lake,” I said. “There must be a boat he’s heading for.”

  “You’re faster than I am,” Ralph said. “Go!”

  I took off in a sprint.

  The Straus’s had cleared a path through the woods which lead from the cabin to the waterfront, a few hundred yards away. Despite running at my top speed, I couldn’t make up the distance between me and Alexander
. Either he was expending his last bits of strength or had pulled off an incredible illusion. Less than a minute earlier, I was looking at him, wondering if he was about to die as he sat in his chair. Now, he was carrying Michelle in one arm and sprinting faster than I could have ever run.

  I saw Alexander bolt up a long, wooden dock. He tossed Michelle into a twenty foot or so boat, jumped in, removed the ropes that had moored the boat to the dock, and then I heard the engines sparking to life. I charged down the dock just as the engine turned triumphantly. Alexander turned towards me, and smiled his disgustingly vacant smile. He was under the mistaken belief that he had seen the last of me, but I had no intentions of letting him sail off into an unknown distance. Instead of slowing my pace as I was reaching the end of the dock, I dropped my head and forced my legs to move even faster. When there was no more dock in front of me, I leaped towards the boat, landing harshly on top of the outboard motor. I bounced off the Mercury, and, thankfully, was carried into the boat by my momentum.

  I was in the boat with Alexander and Michelle, but the PK semi wasn’t.

  ________________________

  Alexander was damn strong. Before I could get to my feet, I felt his iron grip grab me by the back of my hair, lift me off the ground. Then I felt his fist slamming into my forehead. I was more than dazed but still conscious as he tossed me like a rag doll into the boat’s open bow. I landed on my ass as my head snapped back, sending my head crashing into the, thankfully, cushioned, wrap-around bench seats.

  Michelle was lying next to me.

  She was holding her shoulder and in a high degree of obvious pain. I mouthed, “You okay?” She nodded tentatively.