Drop Dead Perfect (An Ellen Harper Psycho-Thriller) (11 page)

Repeating that act, the killing of counterfeit beauty, didn’t happen again until nine years later. He’d deemed it necessary to eliminate a bitch of a boss who could have been Susan’s twin sister. Same auburn hair and wide, lovely eyes. Same result when they’d talked in the parking garage that hot, summer night. He’d snapped her neck, his journey to full self-awareness another step closer to completion. Then four times more in the last eight years—twice while traveling for his job and twice because women had laughed at his brother, at his imperfections. They had no right.

In each instant
, he had initially only wanted to see if the women were right for him: Miss Perfects. They weren’t. But the process brought him closer to his goal: finding the ultimate woman in every way. Drop-dead perfect was obtainable; he just knew it. She had to be.

Taking one last look out the picture window framing the gentle blue waves of Lake Michigan, he turned toward the door and his day off.

He had women to see, especially Joannie Carmen.

CHAPTER-18

The SUV sped through the red light, avoided the roadblock, and diverted toward the long, rectangular dirt pile that served as a makeshift ramp. They were airborne. As they hurtled over the narrow stream that, for some reason, ran right through downtown Chicago and dissected Michigan Avenue, Ellen looked at Oscar. He broke into a wide grin, wider than any clown’s face could depict.

“Some ride, huh
, Ellie?”

His mouth grew wider yet.

“What are we doing, Oscar? What does this have to do with getting to the lab?”

“Everything, my Queen, everything,” he said as he cackled wildly and glanced in the rearview mirror. His eyes grew larger, and the countenance on his distorted face evolved into a ludicrous expression of fear.

“They’re right behind us, Ellie, my Queen, right there. I can’t let them catch us. They’ll do terrible things. Unthinkable acts. They might even make me eat red meat. Good God in Heaven, red meat, Ellie!”

Studying the outside passenger mirror, Ellen saw nothing, just skyscrapers and blue sky. Except it wasn’t daylight. When she turned her gaze to the windshield, she saw the city lights of Chicago . . . and the stars, there were so many stars.

“Oscar. I don’t see anything. There’s no one following us.”

“Oh
, there is. There is. They can hide from you. They can make themselves invisible. I mean, it’s what they do. It’s part of who they are. Then they get you. Do you understand? Then they get you. But make no mistake, they’re right on our asses. I can feel them. Oh, shit. I can feel them.”

“That’s insane. You can’t ‘feel’ them. If you can’t measure it or see it, it’s not . . . there
.”

But he was right. She could feel them too. Even though she believed only in the impeccable virtues of science, not this extrasensory crap
, he was right.

Whoever, or whatever, was chasing them held a malignant persona that seemed to excrete evil from the very core of its existence, representing everything that was latently horrible in humans. All of the wrongness. The perversion of all that was good.

The subtle secrets that a husband chose not to tell his wife. The woman cheating on her husband, her faithful husband. The people who went to church on Sunday and then, on Monday, blatantly chose the illicit affair or to steal from the company that provided their livelihood.

Hating. Stealing. Coveting. Killing.

There were those things, but something more. Darker, sinister.

The vehicle jerked suddenly to the right, then careened wildly back to the left as Oscar laughed uncontrollably.

“These bastards will never get what they’re after. Never. I know what they want, and they can’t have it. No way in eternity will they get it. I can’t let them realize what they want, ever.”

He sped through another red light before Ellen could
respond to his ranting. Ranting that still held some semblance of coherency. Somehow.

She braced for the impact of the unavoidable crash that would certainly take what was left of her shattered life. Hell, maybe that was for the best. Except it didn’t happen. In fact, for the first time, she realized that there were no other vehicles on Michigan Avenue, coming or going. Only them and the Chasers. Those hideous, Godforsaken Chasers.

She turned to Oscar, his face more distorted than ever. She wondered if his mouth might even curl around to his ears.

“What’s going on, O? Tell me what we’re running from. What are you running from?”

“You don’t know? You don’t get it?”

She shook her head, and her auburn hair whipped past her eyes. Her hair was now much longer than she usually wore it.

“I don’t. . . I don’t understand.”

“It’s all about special, My Queen. Special. They want that. They want—”

Before he could finish, Oscar was interrupted by the stomach-turning, terrifying sound of rapid gunfire. The rear window exploded into a million fragments. Safety glass hailed through the unit. Then came the smell. The rancid, unforgettable odor of decaying flesh—and death. But whose?

The next moment, she was on the ground outside of the overturned SUV, holding Oscar tightly, repeating his name ever so quietly. Ellen was clueless to how she’d gotten there and cared even less.

His hand touched her arm. “I have to tell you, so you know.”

“No, Oscar. Just hang on.”

“Ellie,” he said with a steady, strong voice, “those Chasers weren’t after me. They want you. They want you to be with them, to forsake everything else. I couldn’t let them get to you, to that side of you. You think you can ignore it, but it’s what makes you who you are.”

“What are you talking about? Why? Who in hell are they?”

Oscar’s eyes began to glaze, but he smiled. “They are THE FACTS, my Queen. THE FACTS. All the lab reveals as truth. The DNA, the fingerprints, the fibers, the insects, the wounds, the ballistics. Everything that makes up the measurable. They’re truth, but they lack soul, understanding, intuition. Oh how they crave intuition. Especially yours. Don’t give it away, Ellie. Don’t let your world revolve around what you can see, taste, touch. THE FACTS are cold, unfeeling. You’re not. That’s what anger can do. Send you scurrying away from who you are and into a world that won’t give you the time it takes to die. Don’t—”

There were more shots. They sounded distant, far away. She looked at Oscar, only he was gone. In his place was a forensic file. She flipped it open and scanned the reports that had been part of her for the last five years. Paper and print. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just THE FACTS.

Three more shots and Ellen’s eyes flew open. After a brief moment of disorientation, she found herself staring into a face . . . the face of her gray tiger cat, Mulder, as he sat on her chest, his breath reeking of tuna, his expression asking what the hell was going on.

Great question, cat.

Everything came rushing back. Everything. Oscar’s murder. The other crime scenes, her conversation with Big Harv, the missing evidence bags. The ruining of her boots on the side of the black-and-white. She loved those boots.

She sat up on the couch and exhaled, realizing that the dream hadn’t evaporated entirely. The idea of Oscar’s words rang in her head. She understood what her subconscious was, and had been, preaching to her. But it was a dirty trick to use her dead partner as its mouthpiece. Nevertheless, the point had been made. Ellen Harper needed to change her MO and start to trust again, although it seemed like a goofy time to consider that prospect. And besides, it was just a dumb-ass dream. Right? Then again . . .

Oscar’s face jumped to the forefront of her mind, and she smiled, despite the situation. He’d be proud that she was at least listening to a different camp than the one she’d been living in.

She rose and stretched her back. Brice and her dad had been right, insisting she get some sleep before they tackled the investigations, all of them. She
had finally relented to being dropped off at her apartment instead of going directly to the lab. In the end, she was grateful for their persistence. She had never even made it to her bed. She’d kicked off her boots and tossed her jacket, fed Mulder, grabbed the red comforter, and flopped down on the couch, still in her jeans and blouse.

Thoughts of holding Oscar in her arms and images of Holly Seabrook’s posed body couldn’t keep sleep away from her. Exhaustion, emotional and physical, worked that way.

She started for the kitchen, and the shots rang out again. Stopping in her tracks, she grabbed her piece from the antique cherry table and listened. Were the shots part of the dream? They weren’t.

Someone was knocking on her door.

She could count on three fingers the people who had visited her over the last six months. She racked the slide of her modified Beretta 92G, thanks to Kate, and cleared her thoughts. Any fatigue hangover from the grueling previous day was a distant memory. Her dad had taught her to never let down her guard. Cops didn’t have that luxury.

Mulder trotted past her leg and headed for her bedroom, his favorite hangout when he was anxious. She took a step toward the door, then stopped, listening closer. She only heard the beating of her heart reverberating in her ears.

Three new, loud, purposeful knocks caused the door frame to vibrate. Ellen jumped, but never took her eye from the doorknob. She wanted to look through the peephole, but her training, and her paranoia, told her to take her time and make sure it was safe. Whatever that meant.

Fifteen seconds later, she stood to the side as much as possible and risked a glance through the hole—and swore. Then she accepted the relief that came with recognizing a familiar face.

She unlocked both deadbolts. The chain rattled against the door as she swung it open.

“About damn time, Sleeping Beauty. It’s damn near seven thirty. You think it
’s easy on this old girl to be waitin’ out here like this? I was worryin’ my fat ass off,” said Kate Mortimore.

“Hell of day and night, Kate. I’m sorry.”

Her friend nodded, her face telling Ellen what was going on in her heart.

“I heard. I liked your boy Oscar, even if he didn’t know a good meal from a hand on his ass.”

Without another word, her gun-toting best friend smothered her in a bear hug that could have been hell, but it was Heaven. There was nothing like one of those. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed one.

For her sake, Kate
had
known.

CHAPTER-19

Closing the small wooden flap against the air vent leading to
The Room
, he stepped back, then scrambled away from the opening as fast as he could, away from what he saw, away from the woman in the chair who saw him. He tried to calm his breathing, like his brother had taught him, except it wasn’t working. He tried again, closing his eyes, seeing his happy place, his safe fortress. After a few moments, it began to work.

Every time. Every damn time. What the hell is wrong with me?

The thought of a woman eyeing him made his knees weak. Especially someone who looked like her. Each time he felt a woman’s eyes rest on him, focus on him, or do the dreaded
double take, it caused his stomach to react like a tumbler in a circus show, and never mind how his heart would pound in his chest.

“You got to get this right. You got to step up to the plate, or you’re going to live a very lonely life,” he whispered.

Nothing new there with the lonely part. It had been that way pretty much since he’d turned seven . . . the incident had changed him for the rest of his life. Not just him, but his family too. His brother had accepted the role of unofficial guardian, and his mother. . . well, mother had always been mother, just worse in the aftermath.

Wiping the sweat from his face, he reached for the small door again, hesitated, and then clutched his hands together, wringing them methodically.

What if she saw him again? What would she do if she got a good look and saw the real him?

He’d learned that the windows to the soul, the eyes, were also the windows
from
the soul. It was impossible for people to hide their thoughts from him. He’d become an expert out of necessity.

The small cover that separated him from Joannie Carmen seemed to grow smaller as he felt anger replace his hesitancy. What did he have to fear? His brother had been preaching that sermon for a few years now, and it hadn’t truly registered until the last few weeks. His brother had told him that power came from turning fear into a resource, an asset. He’d said, over and over, that we make our own world, no matter what hand we are dealt, and if the world wouldn’t give you what you wanted, you took it. Plain and simple. At first, he thought his older brother was harsh, uncaring, self-absorbed. In the end, however, his brother was right. People don’t give a rat’s ass about anything but what they want. He had tried the conventional wisdom and methods, all meeting with total denunciation. Each rejection, professional and personal, had added one more black, disdainful mark to the ledger.

Pulling the slat open with force, he eyed the woman in the chair. She’d seemed to have forgotten about him for the moment and was working at the tape around her wrists. He studied her, the curve of her calves, leading to strong thighs and a flat stomach. He moved to the firm, ample breasts and a perfect neck, then up to her hair, exactly the length he loved. Her face was the kind you could see on those chick magazines that gave advice to the modern woman.
Beautiful
hardly captured this one. The others were special, and he’d been happy with them. He would have learned to love them, but they weren’t like her. He was already head over heels for her. She was perfect.