Authors: Michelle Love
Isaac stood and shook the hand of QuinnCorp’s new client, showed her out then called in at his brother’s office. ‘Hey.’
Saul smiled. ‘How’d it go?’
‘In the bag. Look, I’m done for the day. You going soon?’
Saul pulled his tie down. ‘Hell, yes. Maika’s mom has the kids for the weekend.’
Isaac grinned. ‘Damn.’
Saul laughed. ‘Yeah, we’ve been married a long time, Iss, our idea of a sexy-time is watching crap t.v. in bed and eating ourselves into a carb coma. Wait till you and Sarah are married as long, you’ll see.’
‘I gotta say,’ Isaac dropped into the chair opposite his brother, ‘I think Sarah would go for that now.’
Saul snorted. ‘I knew I liked that girl for a reason. How is she?’
‘Better. She’s meeting with the lawyer from New Orleans today. Maybe he can tell us something we can use.’
‘You didn’t want to go with her?’
Isaac smiled wryly. ‘I was forbidden.’
‘Whipped.’
‘And happy with it. Anyhoo, I’m going, have a good weekend.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
***
Sarah stepped out of the restaurant into
a world
that was altered. She remembered feeling like this once after she, Finn and Molly had seen a violent movie when they were teenagers – a film crew becoming entangled with a serial killer – they’d left the
theater
eyeing everybody suspiciously and raced back home, feeling foolish and giggling to themselves.
But this wasn’t a movie. Outside, despite the sultry weather, she felt chilled to the core. She walked slowly along the waterfront, wanting to scream, to cry, to anything.
Anything but this
, she thought to herself.
This numbness.
She let Flynn and Jay, following her at a discreet distance, steer her back to the car. Sitting in the backseat, she hugged her arms around her, trying to get some warmth back into her bones. Her thoughts were like scatter-shot in her brain, nothing coherent, but each one like a spike of terror stabbing at her.
She didn’t even
realize
she was crying until Jay asked her if she was okay.
At seven Molly left the Varsity in Nancy’s hands and wandered over to the police station. Steve, the deputy who had saved her from the attacker, smiled at her. ‘Hey you, what’s going on?’
She half-smiled. ‘Have you see Finn?’
Steve looked blank. ‘Is he at work today?’
Dread started to tighten her chest. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since yesterday.’
Steve looked confused. ‘Hang on…’
She watched Steve with frightened eyes as he punched out some numbers on the office phone.
Molly tugged out her cell and tried to call Finn. Finn’s voicemail clicked in.
‘Finn…please….’ Molly’s voice broke. ‘Call me as soon as you get this. Where are you, honey? We’re worried.’
She hung up then looked at Steve. ‘I’m going to check his apartment.’
Steve, phone pressed to his ear, nodded. ‘I’m calling in help. We’ll find him, Mols, don’t worry.’
***
William Corcoran walked slowly, his brow furrowed. His intention had been to walk to the Space Needle, take the glass lift to see the city at night. His hotel wasn’t more than a few blocks from Seattle’s most famous attraction and, a once-keen photographer, he couldn’t resist the chance to capture the city’s beauty from on high. He bought his ticket and rode up to the viewing platform, only half listening to the guide’s oft-repeated speech about the ’62 World Fair.
The view didn’t disappoint. The water, Puget Sound, Elliott Bay Lake Washington, glistening with the lights from the city, the Downtown rising like the turrets of a castle. The hills, Queen
Anne,
and Capitol; in the distance he could see the planes taking off from Sea-Tac Airport and there, just to the left, the snow-capped Mt. Rainier rising like a dream from the violet twilight.
Corcoran sighed. So much beauty. He thought of Sarah – his heart had broken for her, for the fear and sadness in her eyes. He had warmed to the young woman, her
grace,
and femininity and felt only remorse and sorrow for the horror that had entered her life. That he, William Corcoran, had brought to her life. He berated himself – why,
why
, hadn’t he warned someone about Dan when he’d seen him reappear two years ago? And now this lovely young woman…Corcoran felt, with every bone in his body, that Sarah Quinn was in terrible, terrible danger. Would his telling her about Dan help her? He couldn’t answer that.
He gave a frustrated grunt, startling an elderly woman next to him. Her little jump brought him back to the present.
The evening was cooling, a breeze started to whip around the viewing platform and he joined the queue of people heading back down. In the gift shop, he treated himself to a tiny pewter replica of the attraction and while the clerk was counting out his change, he asked him how to get down to the waterfront. The clerk gave him directions.
‘My advice
is to walk
down, sure, but take a cab back, buddy. Those hills are a killer.’
Isaac opened the door, his face set and stressed. Jay had called him from the car to warn him that Sarah was, in his words, ‘out of it.’ He saw her face now and knew that whatever the lawyer, Corcoran, had told her, it was bad.
Sarah finally focused on his face after he’d shut the door and taken her into his arms. For a long time, he held her, saying nothing. She didn’t cry, she didn’t shake. She was just still, rigid in his arms.
Finally,
he looked down at her. ‘Is it bad?’
Sarah looked back at him with eyes that were full of horror and defeat. She opened her mouth to speak but all she could do was
nod
. Her body slumped and then her legs gave way and they were falling to the floor. Sarah dragged air into her lungs whilst Isaac, shaken to his core, whispered over and over to her.
‘
Don’t give up, please, don’t give up…
’
Molly skittered back to the Varsity and told Nancy what was happening. Then she ran up the stairs to the apartments above the Varsity. The door to Finn’s apartment was closed but unlocked and Molly walked in, calling her brother’s name. No answer. Nothing was out of place, it was even tidy – she grinned to herself. So unlike her scruffy brother. She checked the bedroom, the bathroom, nothing. She gave a frustrated huff and stepped back into the hallway. The apartment opposite Finn’s had stood empty for years – Sarah had sold it a few years ago but no-one had ever lived in it and Molly only gave it a passing glance now.
Then she froze. A shadow moved across the strip of light under the door. The new owner? She hadn’t seen anyone move in. She stepped closer to the door, pressed her ear against it. From within she could hear low mumbling, a man’s voice maybe, or a radio? She chewed her lip, considered for a moment then knocked. The murmuring stopped. The breath caught in her throat. She knocked again.
‘Hello?’
Nothing happened. She waited but couldn’t hear anything else. Feeling slightly embarrassed she dropped to her knees and peered under the door. She couldn’t see anything. No one there. She pushed the door…and it opened.
***
William found himself at a parking lot of a hotel on a pier. He studied the map the hotel concierge had given him and saw he was at the far end, away from most of the nightlife. A seafood place was the nearest restaurant and he hesitated, deciding to look around before eating. He wandered over to the water’s edge and looked across the bay. Even at night, the ferries continued to sail and he toyed with the idea of taking a ride for the hell of it. It looked like a peaceful way to spend an evening.
He heard the step behind him a fraction of a second too late. A strong hand gripped the back of his neck and he felt the hot breath of his assailant on his face.
‘
Hello,
William.’
Dan. Corcoran struggled against the big man’s grip to no avail. With a swift merciless movement, Dan smashed William’s head against the corner of the hotel’s wall. A blinding explosion of pain ripped through the elderly man and Dan jerked the lawyer’s head back against him and jammed his mouth against his ear.
‘Telling tales out of school.’ Smash. Blood pouring into his eyes.
‘You should think yourself lucky, William.’ Smash. Pain screaming through him.
‘For you, this will be quick.’ Smash. The synapses in his brain began to misfire – he saw Amelia, she smiled at him, held out her hand to him.
The dying man felt Dan pull him even closer, heard him breathing in the metallic smell of his blood.
‘But when I kill
her
…’ Smash. The very edge of consciousness, of life. Through a throat full of blood, gathering all of his remaining strength, William Corcoran choked out his final words.
‘Leave her alone.’ A gurgled plea. Dan laughed.
‘When I kill her,’ he repeated, ‘when I murder my beautiful ex-wife….’ his voice dropped to a sensual whisper, ‘I’m gonna do it very, very slowly.’
Smash.
Skin, bone, muscle connected with the unyielding concrete, and with a final, bright white burst of pain, William Corcoran’s head split open.
The window to the apartment was wide open, the cotton drapes blowing out into the room. But Molly wasn’t looking at the window. Her attention was riveted on the floor of the apartment. Plastic sheeting, or at least a corner of it, sticking out from a trunk set in the center of the floor. And on it, blood. There was more blood, seeping out between the slats
of
the wood. The smell of blood and death was everywhere. Molly
gagged,
her entire body ice.
Slowly, carefully, she tucked her fingers under the lid of the trunk and opened it. ‘Oh, god, god, no, no, no…’ She fell to her knees.
Finn’s abdomen had been almost completely hollowed out, his face stretched in an agonized, eternal scream. His skin, his teeth, his clothes were stained, his hair sodden with congealed blood.
Molly reeled away from her brother’s body, screaming.
Dear God, please help me, please help me…
She almost fell down the stairs, delirium in her head, incoherent now as she staggered over to her home and burst into the kitchen, where her husband and their children were eating at the table. She was gibbering with grief and mania as Mike dashed to her side and her children started to scream…
Saul arrived just after three a.m., a scared-looking Maika beside him. Isaac hugged them both.
‘Where is she?’ Maika asked softly. Isaac nodded towards the bedroom and Maika, squeezing his arm, went into the darkened room.
Saul steered Isaac to an armchair and poured him a scotch. ‘What happened?’
Isaac could barely make sense of it. Finn Jewell was dead. Murdered. When Mike had called Sarah an hour ago, she had dropped the phone and curled up on the floor. Isaac had rushed to her side but she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t respond to his touch. He’d picked up the phone and Mike had told him that Finn was dead, and Molly was in the
hospital
. She’d found her beloved brother’s body.
‘We’ll come,’ Isaac said immediately but Mike had refused his help.
‘Keep Sarah away from the island. Molly’s being transferred to Seattle. I don’t want anyone I love in this fucking hell hole.’ Mike sounded angry, beyond angry. ‘If the cops don’t find Dan Bailey first, I’m gonna kill that son-of-a-bitch.’
Finn was dead. Isaac couldn’t process that information. Even though he’d known the blonde haired cop was in love with Sarah, he’d still liked him, respected him, knew how important he was to Sarah. And Molly…god. Sudden rage flooded through him and he grabbed his phone, calling his head of security.
‘Hire every detective you can find. Find this asshole.’ He barked off instructions as ideas came to him but the message was crystal clear: find Dan Bailey and when they did, put a bullet in his brain.
Saul watched his younger brother, a growing dread inside him. When he got off the phone, Saul got up and put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. ‘Calm down.’
Isaac rounded on his brother. ‘Don’t tell me to calm down! He’s killing people I care about…he wants to kill the woman I love. He wants to gut her like he did to George Madrigal, to Finn Jewell, to countless women.’ He stopped, was silent for a moment, looking over to the closed bedroom door, checking to see that Sarah couldn’t hear him. ‘I can’t lose her,’ he whispered, his voice cracking. ‘If he kills her…oh God.’ The pain bent him double.
Saul didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to comfort him. He wanted to tell him that everything would be okay but he couldn’t lie.
Maika came out of Sarah’s bedroom then and Isaac stood. Maika tried to smile.
‘She’s asleep.’
Isaac nodded. ‘Listen, thanks for coming over, you guys, I just didn’t know how to…what to…’
‘Of course. Look, I think you should get some sleep. We’ll stay in the guest room.’