“Stay here,” she whispered, nodding that she intended to go across the hall and look into the first room they would pass. He nodded that he understood. “If anything happens, anything at all, you just run. Don't look back. Just run.”
Sarah checked her weapon for the fifth time since entering the house and took a step to put her back against the wall on the far side of the hallway. Sweat beads were bursting out on her forehead and her back and it made her feel uncomfortable. She edged closer to the door, stopped and listened carefully once more, scanning the rest of the house and back to the front door as she did so. Davis’ breathing was getting heavier, and she worried he might start hyperventilating soon if she didn’t get this sweep done fast.
Crouching to a low position, she leaned around the doorframe with her gun held close to her but pointing into the room. There was no sign of anything and she rose up to be sure of no blind spots before stepping inside for a full check. The room was empty.
After a quick visual check on Davis, Sarah moved on to the next door. This one was only slightly ajar, so she was not afforded any real view inside. She didn’t like it, it looked staged to her. Sarah motioned for Davis to hunker down on the ground, and when he got her meaning he nodded and did so. Sarah pushed in the door forcefully and stepped back to be out of sight of anyone who might be in there and waiting to start shooting. No noise came from the room save the chugging of the door over the thick cream carpet on the floor of the room.
She got a sense of blood, or perhaps a smell of it before she even looked inside properly. She held a hand out to Davis telling him to stay down as she steadied herself. She made the same basic move as before, starting by peering into the room low and then moving to a higher vantage. She stopped when she saw the blood on the carpet, footprints leading out of the room. She looked at the floor in the hallway where she stood, a different type of carpet, darker, but yes, if she looked carefully, she could see faint traces of blood leading back to the front door.
The killer looked to be gone.
She peered into the room once more, craning her neck to see past a dining table, and now she saw the body of who she assumed to be CJ Mortimer. How had the killer known to come here? Her mind flashed back to much earlier suspicions and somehow landed on Tyler once more. He was the only other person who knew about this, wasn’t he? He had a long head start on her and he could have come and gone before now, perhaps using his boss, Davis here, as some kind of alibi. She pushed these thoughts away; it wasn’t the time, there was work to be done.
“There’s somebody here on the floor,” she whispered to Davis without looking at him.
“OK,” he said, sounding guileless.
“I’m going to scan the room, and then check the body if it’s safe to do so. I don’t know if he’s dead or not.” She shouldn’t have called it a body.
A tense scan of the room revealed it to be empty and then she took a moment to look down at CJ Mortimer; it was him and he was dead. Blood had poured freely from his neck and coloured the cream carpet in a dull red wine hue for many feet around him.
“Come to the door here,” Sarah called softly to Davis, she wanted to be able to see him to be sure he was doing what she asked in keeping an eye out for them both at the rear.
“I don’t want to see a dead body,” he said nervously.
“You don’t have to,” she said reassuringly, “Just come to the doorway with your back to the room. I want you to be watching out for anything behind us while I check the body out.”
“OK,” he said, and there was no missing the reluctance in his voice as she heard him move across the hall. She looked at him as he took up his station in the doorway.
“Good,” she said like talking to a scared child, “Now you just keep looking out there and make sure to holler if you think you see or hear anything.”
Sarah looked down at the old man dead on the ground and she leaned over, careful not to tread on the bloody footsteps in the carpet. It was hard and her back was straining a little as she touched her fingers to Mortimer’s neck to confirm there was no pulse.
As she did this, something caught her eye, something she knew was not right, but her mind had put it down to the semi upside down angle she was viewing the world from at that moment. But she knew it was not right, and in an instant she let herself fall to the ground and spun and shot into the leg of Davis as he swung something heavy down that just missed the back of her skull.
He yelled out in pain, but he was quick enough to grab hold of her gun arm as she tried to scurry away and he fell down. She felt his strong hands paw and pull at her flesh as he tried to get a grip on something he could either tear or break. Sarah was terrified and she lashed out with her legs and free arm as she did her best to get away. He held her gun arm firm, not letting her level the weapon at him, and she didn’t know what she could do. Leaning her head forward a little, she bit into his fleshy forearm, feeling her teeth sink in until blood was flowing out, but he didn’t even react to this.
“I’ll kill you, bitch,” he said as he pounded her hard on the side with his other forearm. Sarah’s teeth loosened on him, and as she moved with the blow, she dropped her gun from the high hand to let it fall into her other hand. She caught it, terrified that she wouldn’t have, and shot into his chest. Davis recoiled and broke his grip on her, and Sarah was able to pull herself up and step away from him.
“You try to get up and I’ll put the next one in your head!” she shouted at him. Tears wanted to fall, but she wouldn’t let them. She was the one in control here. He clutched his chest and moaned, looking up at her with pale fury in his eyes.
“How did you know I was behind you? I was completely silent.” he asked, sounding hurt by being bested. Sarah glanced at the floor to see the lifesaving clue still clear on the carpet. She looked back to Davis.
“There were no bloodstained footprints coming into the room when I first looked,” she said, “But there was when I bent down to check on the body. The blood was still on your soles from when you killed Mr Mortimer here before I arrived. When I saw that, I knew what had happened.” He looked down at the stain and nodded ruefully.
“That was stupid,” he said, “I changed everything else except the shoes. I only wiped them as I was in too much of a hurry.” He was panting now and Sarah knew he needed an ambulance right away.
“Do you have a cell phone on you?” she asked him.
“Inside pocket,” he said, nodding to his jacket. Sarah wasn’t going to fall for that.
“Can you take it out?”
“I think so,” he said, his face getting whiter by the moment. His hands moved slowly to it and it fell to the ground bouncing away from him.
“I’m going to call you an ambulance,” Sarah said, picking it up, “If you move an inch, you won’t need it when gets here, you understand?” Davis smiled a sickly smile and nodded slowly before groaning in pain once more.
Chapter 57
“Are we just going to keep driving like this?” Tyler asked Danny when they had been off the freeway for a while.
“You worried about the gas level?” Danny asked, seeming disinterested.
“No, that hadn’t crossed my mind, but it’s getting boring driving around like this.” Tyler glanced down at the phone on the floor. More than anything he wanted it to be in his hand to call for backup for Sarah. How was he going to get to it? Leaning down was out of the question, and he doubted he could try to shunt it up using his foot without Danny seeing at once what he was up to. He thought about slamming on the brakes and throwing Danny forward, but there was as much chance of causing the knife to be plunged into his own throat as there was of it flying out of his hand and turning the whole situation on its head.
“Turn left here,” Danny said. His tone, so haughty and superior now, grated on Tyler and it made his decision to try something risky. He picked up some speed as they approached the corner, not alarmingly, and then took the corner in a long arc that caused both Danny and he to sw
ay a little to the right and the pressure of the blade lessened only barely perceptibly. Through the turn Tyler gathered up some seat belt slack with his left hand and at the moment of arc in the turn he let go of the steering wheel with his right hand.
Danny didn’t have any time to react; Tyler’s right hand shot up and grabbed his wrist holding the knife and pulled it away from his neck, and then Tyler lunged at Danny and using his left hand pushed hard against Danny’s face and smacked his head hard into the passenger side window. Danny tried to react, but he was constrained suddenly by his own seatbelt - something Tyler had foreseen, and Tyler slid out of his own belt to the waist and pummelled the young intern hard in the face a few times while also pulling at the arm with the knife to make him let it go.
It was clear that Danny didn’t expect Tyler to be so skilled in fighting and the knife dropped to the floor behind the driver's seat. With that threat gone, Tyler grabbed both sides of Danny’s head with his hands and slammed it hard against the window three times, smashing through the glass on the third time. Danny slumped in his seat, not unconscious but very dazed. The car left the road and Tyler grabbed the wheel just as it collided with a tree, and he was thrown forward, the belt across his waist burning into his flesh and his head cracking hard on the dashboard. Danny’s seat belt stopped any further harm coming to him.
Tyler groaned and rubbed his head, but he knew he didn’t have the luxury of feeling pain right now. He reached down quickly for the phone that was on the floor somewhere. Finally his hands grasped it and he lifted it to see the screen. To his dismay the screen was smashed, and when he pressed some buttons no backlight came on and no sounds emitted from it either. Frantically, he tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. It was beyond use.
“Shit!” he said, banging the shell of the phone down on the dash and then letting it fall back to the ground. He looked around. What was he going to do now? Then he thought Danny must have a phone on him. He started rifling through his former intern’s pockets with one hand while keeping the other poised to strike Danny if he had to. To both his surprise and anger, Tyler didn’t find anything on him. Had he thrown his own out the window too in anticipation of Tyler’s overpowering him being a possibility? Probably. Either way, the result was the same - no phone to call for help with.
The engine wasn’t making any noise just then, so Tyler tried the ignition key, but nothing happened at all, not even a croak of life from under the hood. Now what was he supposed to do? He glanced at the still dazed and moaning Danny. Tyler needed to get running to find a house, and he knew Danny wouldn’t come along willingly, and at the same time he didn’t want to give the intern the opportunity to escape. He unbuckled his belt fully and pushed the door open. Going around to the trunk, he opened it, keeping an eye on Danny all the time and looked inside. There was some cord rope in there, but he couldn’t see it right now, he leaned in and rummaged around until he felt the coils and pulled it.
The sound of the car door flopping open alarmed Tyler and he jumped back from the car in case Danny was about to lunge at him from the side of it. Nothing came at him and Tyler slammed down the trunk and saw Danny was no longer in the car. He looked around but didn't see him running away. Where was he?
Tyler backed in an arc away from the car and around to where he would be able to see the passenger side. It wasn’t long before he found Danny. The young man, still feeling the terrible effects of the numerous blows to his head, was trying to crawl away, looking weak as a kitten. Still, Tyler had already seen this man’s cunning and couldn't be sure he wasn’t faking this and would run as soon as Tyler dropped his guard.
“What are you doing, Danny?” he asked, walking closer to him but still keeping his distance. Danny’s body reacted to his name, but he didn’t stop or turn around or answer. Tyler walked a few more steps until he was now in Danny’s path and eye line. “I said, what are you doing?” Now their eyes met and the younger man’s were filled with hatred and anger. Blood was running from his head and his mouth, and he dribbled heavily to the ground before he spoke,
“This won’t make any difference,” he said, “The Monster is still in control of everything!” Tyler looked around and saw there was a house a couple of hundred yards up the road—a gateway to one anyway. He didn’t have time to be exchanging insults with Danny right now. Stepping forward, Tyler put his full weight to a kick to the side of Danny’s face that snapped his head sideways and sent him dropping suddenly into unconsciousness. Tyler hadn’t heard the neck break or anything like that, but at this moment he wouldn't have cared if he did.
Bending down to be sure there was a pulse and that he was limp, Tyler quickly hog-tied Danny and then set off running towards the house. The pain from where the seat belt had scorched into his lower abdomen grew in fierce intensity as he ran, but he had to keep going. He could feel the blood thumping in his temples and the heat it was spreading around his head and he started seeing black spots as he ran, his vision faltering some as he thought he was going to pass out.
At last, after what felt like five minutes, he arrived at the gate. It was locked, but there was an intercom system and he buzzed it.
“Hello?” a nervous woman’s voice answered. Tyler head a whirring noise and realised there was a camera here too now trained on him. He looked into it and said,
“My name is Tyler Ford, I’m a reporter with ‘The Baltimore Echo.’ I need you to call the police and tell them someone is in danger over at Marburg Lake!”
“What? You need the police?” the woman asked.
“Yes, I need the police to get to the house of CJ Mortimer on the shore of Marburg Lake. I think someone is going to be murdered there. Can you please call the police now!” Tyler was frantic, his heart beating wildly. Was this woman understanding anything he was saying?
There was a loud metallic bang and the gates began to open.
“You better come up to the house and call yourself,” she said, “I won't know what to say when they start asking me questions.”
“Thank you,” Tyler said into the intercom and he gave the camera a thumbs up for good measure. As soon as there was a gap large enough to accommodate him with a sucked-in stomach, he slipped through and set off running for the house. Thankfully it wasn’t too far and he was on the phone in the hall of the house in two minutes.
The woman stood there looking him up and down, seeing the blood and wounds on him, and she listened with amazement as he spoke to the police requesting backup for Sarah in Marburg, but also for police and ambulance to come here to arrest Danny and make sure he was going to be alive for his trial.
“You should let me look at those cuts before you run off!” the woman said to Tyler as he thanked her and made to leave the house.
“Sorry, I gotta go back and make sure this guy down the street is still there for when the police come to arrest him. But thank you so much, you'll be in my story for sure!”
Danny didn’t wake up before the police arrived but was stirring when the ambulance pulled up. In the meantime, Tyler had asked the officer to see if he could find out anything about Sarah, and he was delighted when the answer came back over the radio that the FBI Agent was fine and ‘John the Baptist’ was under arrest and armed guard on his way to the hospital for multiple shot wounds. Tyler sighed with relief and then he saw Danny was looking at him from his new bound position on a stretcher.
“Don’t be too happy,” Danny said, “Her being alive is a temporary thing. And take my advice Tyler, if you want to live stay as far away from Sarah Brightwater as you can.” Tyler walked over to him with a smile on his face.
“You’re going to jail, Danny, and Sarah and I are going to take the Monster down. It’s you who chose the wrong side in this fight!” Danny grinned,
“He can’t be taken down,” he said, “You can never win.” The paramedic at the head of the trolley said,
“We need to take him now.” Tyler nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Danny was clearly under a powerful i
nfluence and there was no use talking to him until later. The stretcher clattered up into the back of the ambulance and one of the policemen got in with Danny.
“You need a ride into town?” the other officer asked Tyler.
“I do as it happens,” he said, looking at his smashed-up car. They got into the patrol car and followed the ambulance towards town. Tyler rested his head and closed his eyes. It was over, for now at least. The police would be a long time picking apart what Davis had done and why, and it would soon become very obvious to them that the Stanver/Roche murder had nothing at all to do with this. That was a whole other kettle of fish for the FBI to wrestle with. For now, all Tyler wanted to do was rest.
Chapter 58
Sarah was forced to take a week off after catching Derek Davis and ending his spree as ‘John the Baptist.’ It wasn’t her choice, but SAIC Bobrick had insisted she take either a short leave of absence or some holiday leave. She chose the holiday leave, and he made her hand in her ID card so she couldn't access the building while she was off. The head of her division had been glowing in his commendations and congratulations for her, but he also had some harsh words to say about how she had conducted the case. Sarah couldn't argue much, and she could only be happy that her boss didn’t know the full extent of Tyler’s involvement in the investigation. She took her praise and then her medicine and then her time off.
She used the week to gather as much information about the ongoing case with Spalding as she could. It had still somehow not reached the papers yet, but Sarah scoured the internet for missing persons and murders in the areas known to be affected looking for some kind of pattern or type of victim. Nothing was coming to her this time.
Near the end of the week she met Tyler in the bar close to her house. It felt strange to be meeting him now that the case they’d worked on was officially over for them. He looked well despite his healing face, and it was good to finally see him after what had happened at Mortimer's.
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