“I must have something better than you, because he chose me.” I check on her zip ties. “So why not kill me? Why not put a bullet in my head and use me as an incubator? You could have raised my baby with Kace. You could have given Tyler a chance to live.” Tears swell in my eyes. “Why him and not me?”
“Those weren’t my orders.”
“Your orders?” I swipe at the rapidly falling tears. “What the fuck does that mean?”
She huffs and glances around as if waiting for someone, which makes me nervous. “The abortion Kace made me have? Ended up taking place at the Pregnancy Center. In the waiting room, one of the women dropped a couple of kilos of cocaine when she slipped on the wet floor. I pulled out my badge and wanted to call Kace to arrest her. It would have propelled his career, but the doctor, the same one you went to, offered me a better deal.”
Dirty cops? I thought those were myths. “What kind of deal?”
“A lot of money and an opportunity to have my baby. Well, not the baby he had killed and discarded as medical waste, but a new one. Within a year, he froze my eggs, and we came to an understanding: I fed him information, he paid me very well, and offered to implant me for free. No paper trails.”
“So at some point helping Kace in his career didn’t matter?”
“I help him every day!” she shouts. “When we got partnered together, things were different and then you came along … The Pregnancy Center tip couldn’t have come at a better time. All I needed was to bring him the semen. It took a while to get him—”
“Oh, my God.” I rub the furrow in my brow. “Kace went there to be a sperm donor and case the center before I went.” It must have been about a week or two before they called me in, and Stefanie had come up with the idea. “You tricked him.”
She nods, a wide grin plastered on her face as she studies me. “I had my eggs frozen at the center. Fresh sperm is always the best for implanting embryos.”
This is twisted. “What was the plan?” I didn’t even need to ask. The messages. “You wanted Kace to sleep with you, so you can say you were pregnant? And what, you thought he’d leave Tyler and me?”
“You getting involved sped up the process. I would’ve happily killed you and kept your baby. It was your own fault Tyler died.”
“My fault?” I glance at the gun in my hands. “Did you use this gun?”
“Yes,” she said proudly. No wonder the Bullet Man traced the bullet back to the precinct but couldn’t pinpoint the killer. We all have the same gun, and we get the bullets from inventory. “How? We sign them out in batches. The bullet would have been traced back to you.”
Another creepy, uneven smile. “I’m pretty smart, Eleanor. You don’t need a gun to buy bullets. Or in my case, to have them given to you. They were supplied by a different inventory. I made sure to wear gloves, so there were no fingerprints.”
Bullet. Fingerprints.
Tank. Evidence.
Smart. Doctor.
Parallel lines. The photographs on the wall that all looked the same. I’ve seen those before. Black and white images of bullet striations. Ballistic fingerprinting.
The bullet didn’t match the stock used at the precinct, but the markings on the ammunition could be traced to the weapon it was discharged from. Ballistic fingerprinting led him to the precinct.
Oh shit. Body language flashes before me, followed by thoughts—lots of thoughts.
Evidence bag on his desk. Government-funded project.
He knew my due date. He knew about the case. Letter to the Bullet Man.
I told him everything.
All this time, I had been talking to the Bullet Man, thinking he was my therapist.
“Nolan Mills,” I whisper, distracting her.
“Who the hell is Nolan Mills?”
“He’s the Bullet Man. The one who figured out you shot me.” I’m reminded of my plan, and I switch the conversation, using the gift he gave me. “Why did you wait for me to get off the second bus stop?”
“It was the busiest. And from the alley, no one would see me. So Kace met you first, and I volunteered for the second spot.”
“It was you who called it in?”
“I waited a little bit, hoping you’d die, but I didn’t have a choice. When I told the doctor you were there to investigate, he was not happy with you or me. He specifically ordered you to remain alive, so he can teach people a lesson.”
“You included?” It doesn’t change anything for me, but I ask. “He would’ve killed you if you didn’t?”
“Probably, but I’ve been plotting your death for a while. I’ve only had two objectives: kill, after you had the baby, of course, and get pregnant.”
“That’s deranged.” I hold the gun to her as she rattles the chair, cradling herself back and forth like some demented demon being exorcised. “So why haven’t you killed me? You could’ve put me out of my misery.”
She cradles harder, trying to free herself. “Maybe I like to see you suffer.”
The diamond on her finger pulls my mental trigger. I aim for her chest and step forward, bringing her closer to death. “You haven’t had the opportunity.”
She smirks and stops trying to free herself.
My brow curves inward as I study her movements. I look around the room, wondering if her doctor would be showing up, but then she distracts me.
“One out of two isn’t bad.”
My mouth falls open. No amount of training could’ve kept my shock contained. “You’re pregnant?”
“Guess who’s the daddy?”
The sound of wood cracking echoes in the room, distracting me. A body crashes into mine and topples me over, slamming my head into the ground. In the rush of the moment, my vision blurs and I cling to the gun as the person tries to wrestle it out of my hand.
My finger is still on the trigger.
And Stefanie is still here.
The sound of a bullet being expulsed from the barrel pierces through the muddled confusion, before I hear her scream.
And then the screaming stops.
15
The Shed
Dr. Nolan Mills
She strains against me, fighting underneath my grasp. She’s strong, but not strong enough to subdue me. I take the needle from my pocket and pierce the skin on her neck, injecting the sedative.
“Frank?” she asks, panting and out of breath. She’s pinned beneath my thighs, her neck is in my hands, while she strains to catch a glimpse of the blood staining the tile grout.
“You shot her,” I confirm as Elle’s eyelids grow heavier. The effect of the benzo is fast-acting, and she’ll be out in a few moments.
What are you doing?” she asks breathily.
“Taking you with me.”
Before she can ask where, her muscles give out and she stops struggling against my force. Her eyelids grow heavy, and she repeatedly blinks, struggling to stay awake. Her lips move, but no words come out.
She’s talked quite enough today. Honestly, I found the exchange between them fascinating. Dominance transferred between both of them frequently, and had the pregnancy bomb not been dropped, I would’ve called Eleanor the victor with her back-handed manipulations.
I’m glad I stuck around this time, or I wouldn’t have heard Eleanor declare me as the Bullet Man. She was quite clever, my little cop. My curiosity with Eleanor Devero and Kace Dalton started the second my eyes landed on her file. Having both of them come to me gave me a unique perspective on the influence of love on revenge.
Their job positions also influence my attachment. To be honest, I liked the thrill of talking to them, knowing they were searching for me. If not for them being grief-stricken, broken, and bound by love, I wondered how they would react to meeting me in a legal setting.
Perhaps that’s why I stuck around for the aftermath.
Usually, I never see if my revenge seeker kills or doesn’t kill. The kill is usually on the news within the week, and I check them off as positive. If negative, I confirm t
he person’s viability at least once a week for the first month, and then mark them as negative.
Then again, I also never delivered a bullet without an actual name on it, so my curiosity got the best of me.
I hoist Eleanor over my shoulder and take the back door, cutting across the backyard to the parked car. Her neighbors are at work, and the backyards are completely devoid of human life, allowing me to go unperceived.
I lie her down on the back seat and shut the door to my car before heading to my mom’s old farm home in Vineland. They’d look for me here in the city and in my office, but I also owned two properties: one in Atlantic City and one in Monmouth. I purposely bought isolated homes with plenty of acres, in case I was ever caught, but my escape route lay in the backyard of my old home.
The family home had been sold fifteen years ago to my mom’s best friend, who I no longer speak to. After the state turned down her petition to foster me because of her disability, she distanced herself from the situation.
Years ago, right before college, I ran into the elderly woman. She informed she had kept the shed exactly how it was, in case I ever wanted to go home. Sometime later, I went to visit and ended up leaving with a key.
My mind sucks me back in time to the age eleven. More specifically, the last time I saw my mother alive. I often play out that Halloween morning in my head, but today I can’t shake the anxiousness.
Maybe because I wasn’t driving alone. I glance at the woman in my back seat and recall the stupid argument I had with my mom.
Because of writing all day and trying to meet a deadline for her publisher, Mom forgot to pick up my costume, which meant I’d have to go as a dork in a super-hero costume or some stupid leftover mass costume, instead of the custom-made outfit I bragged about at school. Mom joked about me being Clark Kent, but my new glasses were social suicide. Fitting in was hard, and the kids from school were only coming to my party for the bribe bags.
Which need to have gift cards.
“I don’t care if we don’t eat for a whole week, Mom!” I nag as she flicks her head over to me. “They hate me here, and I had to convince them to come. I said we’d have the coolest gift bags.”
Mom sighs and steers with one hand while pinching the bridge of her nose with the other. I had spent the last twenty minutes berating her for her lack of attention, and I was prepared to guilt-trip her into buying me anything I wanted. “You neglect me all the time.”
“Nolan!” she scolds, almost on the verge of tears.
“You barely talk to me. Some people call that psychological abuse.” Making her feel like shit means I get my way.
To compensate, she agrees to hefty bribe bags and stops at the gas station to pick up the gift cards.
“Just this one time!” she growls as she opens the door. “Stay here and don’t move until I get back.”
I watch her walk off alone, but then I think about the gift card amount. “Five dollars barely buys a pack of paper to wipe my shit.” I throw my nerd glasses on the driver’s seat and bolt out of the car inside the store.
As soon as I walk in the door, I know something isn’t right. People are on the floor with their hands crossed behind their heads. A robber with tattoos had a gun to my mother’s head while the cashier popped the money into the paper bag.
Mom gasps when she sees me, catching the attention of her assailant, who immediately points the gun in my direction.
Terrified, to the point where I pee myself, my voice trembles. “Mom…” My throat burns with fear, stammer the words, excessively repeating it to myself until the man’s gravelly voice startles me into silence.
“Lie the fuck down!” he commands. “On your stomach. Eyes to the floor, and shut the fuck up.”
In tears, my mom replies, “Do what he says, Nolan. Everything is going to be all right; just get down and close your eyes, baby.”
I do.
Seconds pass.
The sound of a gun firing scares me to my feet. I open my eyes through all the fear, to see the man coming toward me. Faint sounds of sirens hum in the background, but they are drowned out by the second shot.
Mom collapses and lands on the ground with a thud.
By the time I look up to face her murderer, he was gone.
Sirens break through my thoughts. Through the rearview mirror, I spot two squad cars heading in the opposite direction. To Eleanor and Dalton’s home.
I step on the accelerator, needing to get away from the bloody scene. Originally, I had thought of both of us helping each other out, but I’m going to help her build a new life.
And her new life all starts back at my mother’s writing shed.
Once I’m out of the city, the rest of the drive is peaceful. I take the old, rarely-used backroads in my childhood town and ditch the car between some overgrown trees between the neighbor’s house and my old home. The shed is about a ten-minute walk from here, so I pick Eleanor up in my arms and carry her through the yard.
The shed stands about a quarter-mile from the main house, and in the middle of a two-acre piece of land that has been long forgotten. The clear path’s contaminated with poison ivy and overgrown wild plants, which tangle around my ankles as I stomp through it.
Every time I come here, I take a different path to avoid creating a passageway. Despite my efforts to avoid them, low branches hit Eleanor, scratching her skin, and small pieces of dried leaves stick to her hair.
When we reach the writing shed, the place I engrave all my bullets, I set Eleanor down on an old weather-worn bench right outside the door, and fish through my pockets for the key. The top of the house and windows are covered with ivy vines and dust, providing privacy. The door creaks open, light trickles in from the outside, hitting the desk and couch.
The place looks like my mother left it, minus a few things. The books on the shelves have been kept in the exact same order, the lower shelf still houses her outlines and bibles, stored in black, somewhat faded binders, labeled by title, and organized by genre.
Her inspiration jar, which I gave her when I was six, sat on the windowsill above her desk. And her desk had my metal engraving tools. The first drawer had my bullets.
To avoid being traced, I switched up the ammunition and bought it from different places across the state on distinct dates.
“Nolan,” Elle mumbles incoherently. Her head slumps to her right, and she’s attempting to balance it, but it’s too heavy. The drugs are wearing off, so I help her stand on her feet. With her eyes still closed, she asks, “Where … where are you taking me?”
“We’re here already.” I motion her toward the front door and help her cross the threshold before plopping her down on the couch. Dust flecks float up and glisten in the thin beams of sunlight while I help her spread out across the sofa.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
She’s out again, but I lock her in the shed before heading back to my car. I always have a case of water bottles in my trunk and some energy bars. When I get back, she’s standing in the center of the room, rubbing her forehead and resting her elbow against the bookshelf, lining the wall.
“You okay?” I ask, shutting the door behind me.
She lowers her hand to her necklace and slides the charm along the chain as she stares at me. “Do you ask all your victims how they feel?”
“You’re not my victim,” I confirm and hand her one of the water bottles. “Your mouth must be dry.”
She reaches for the bottle and checks the seal before unscrewing the cap and drinking about half of it. With the back of her hand, she wipes her mouth and recaps it. “So, you just kidnapped me?”
“I’m not planning on asking for a ransom.”
She cocks her head to the side and studies me. The detector she boasted about in our sessions has officially been turned back on. “You can read me all you want, Eleanor. I don’t plan on lying to you.”
She smirks. “Then what am I doing here?”
“You know who I am,” I confirm, taking a
seat on the table, near my material, and open my top drawer. “What I do.” Metal shavings cover my desk from engraving her message yesterday.
“Yes,” she also tells the truth. “Is this your lair?”
“I’m not a serial killer,” I remind her of our previous conversation.
She shakes her head. “All this time, I had been wishing to find you, and you were there listening to everything.”
“Therapy provides intimacy with my test subjects.”
“Test subject?” Her eyes narrow on me, asking for clarification. “This is an experiment?”
“A psychological study, if you will.” I pluck one of the bullets out and hold it in my hand. “The Bullet Theory.”
She reaches for it and holds it in her palm, abandoning the water bottle on the shelf. “I don’t understand.”
“A bullet and a tortured heart.”
“Is that why you chose me? Because I was shot?”
“I chose you for very specific reasons. This isn’t a murder spree; this is a controlled experiment. To get conclusive results, I have to establish a baseline for my test subjects. Finding survivors of vicious crimes, who have been denied closure by the police, is easier than you’d think. Way too many people get away with murder.”
“So, you target grieving people?”
“I don’t target. Grief is one of the qualifications to participate.” I wave my finger in the air and close the drawer. “Not all grieving people are right for the study. They have to classify as a candidate.”
“Lucky to be chosen?”
“I find your sarcasm refreshing.” I reach into my pocket and grab her folded scorecard. “But this is a serious matter. This one is your qualifying mathematics.”
“You’re obsessed with numbers and lines.” She hesitates to take it but does anyway. “The images in the office? The ones that all look the same.”
“Close up images of the markings left on casings after being fired sequentially, ten times. Minor differences until you hit the sixth shot, then if you look carefully, there’s a bit more to it.”
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 147
