Killer Among Us (12 page)

“
Where do you think he took
her?” John asked.

“
He has a place here in the
city but it’s an apartment, somebody get me personnel on the
phone!” Kane yelled. His heart was pounding; all he could think
about was Sophie’s terrified face as she was dragged away. Please
don’t let him kill her, he thought, please don’t let him kill
her.

“
He used to have an
apartment in the city, now he has a house out in Queens,” one of
the other cops said. “He grew up in it. He moved out of the
apartment after his wife left. We never heard the whole story, just
that she was gone, to tell you the truth none of us ever saw her
anyway.”

“
She left?” John asked, his
gaze sharpening.

“
Well yeah, that’s when he
went all to hell you know. He used to be…”

“
A good cop, yeah we’ve
heard that.” Kane interjected.

“
Right but Morgan, that was
her name, she bailed, he came in one day and that is just what he
said—she bailed on him. I don’t think he wanted the
divorce.”

“
And nobody thought to ask
around about the wife?”

“
Hell she never came
around. She never hung out with the other wives or came to
barbecues because she was always doing something else. She hung out
with some whole artsy crowd.”

“
When did she
leave?”

“
About five years ago. In
fact it was exactly five years ago last month.”

“
That would have been the
trigger. I am willing to bet that she didn’t leave at all, I would
put money on him killing her.” John said to Kane, to the other cop
he said, “I need to know where the house is.”

***

“
You know I never meant to
hurt you Morgan. I just wanted you to stop packing, I have no idea
why you wanted to leave me. I took good care of you, gave you
everything you needed. Hell I even joined that damn swingers club
for you. Only you weren’t interested in swinging really, you were
interested in sleeping with as many other women as you could. You
found a bunch of other women who were looking for the same thing
and you all got together and laughed at me, didn’t you? You and
your girlfriends, you laughed at me. But I fixed them, I bet they
never laugh at anyone else ever again.”

Sophie had no idea what the man driving her
car was talking about but instinct told her not to say anything.
Her shoulder ached furiously and she was slightly dizzy. The car
crashed around corners, slinging her in turns against the door and
against his body. Revulsion filled her every time she came in
contact with him.

“
You met that damn Jenna
and she introduced you to the others. It was a nice little group of
women who liked women, no boys allowed. I bet you told them all how
I couldn’t perform with those other women when you made me swap for
the night. I hated those damn parties, my keys in a bowl and you
standing there looking like you wanted to jump every man in the
house. Any man but me. I was your husband!”

His fist smashed out, slamming into her jaw.
Dark spots danced in front of her eyes and she retched.

Susan had told her a story once, about a guy
that had dragged her into an alley and tried to rape her. She had
bitten him, bitten his hand until he bled. Desperate she did the
same thing Susan did. She choked when his oily flesh touched her
lips but she bit down anyway.

He screamed in pain and she grabbed the door
handle, intending to go out of it. He snatched her back, ripping
hair from her scalp. He slammed her head into the door, knocking
her unconscious.

***

“
We have to get there fast,
“Kane said as he shrugged into Kevlar. An entire team was already
dispatched, cops from Queens were on their way to the house but he
had a sinking feeling they would be too late. The helicopter was
waiting, it belonged to the news channel—the station had agreed to
loan it since it was far closer than anything they could have
gotten to.

“
We’re going to bring her
back.” John said softly, “Relax.”

“
I am relaxed.” Kane shot
back but his jaw was so tightly clenched the word came out
strangled and nearly muffled.

“
One mistake and she’s
dead. Put your emotions aside Kane. Think it all
through.”

Kane knew that John was giving him the best
advice there was and he forced himself to slow his breathing, to
concentrate as they climbed aboard the unwieldy chopper and began
to rise into the sky.

***

Sophie woke up to darkness. Her head ached
and her jaw felt swollen and numb. She touched fingers to her
forehead, they came away sticky and she knew that what she felt was
blood.

Lights snapped on and she looked up. Screams
of horror ripped from her mouth. The heads all stared at the door,
at the man standing next to it. He wore a long and ridiculously
frilly apron over his suit, and held a long machete in his right
hand.

Pity overtook horror and fear. The faces of
the women in the cold shelves of the refrigerator had been posed
behind the glass door so that the maniac who had killed them could
see them, so that they would have to see him.

One of the heads was noticeably more frozen,
ice crystals hung from the nostrils and black hair held shards of
glass and beads of condensation. Sophie knew that had to be the
Morgan he had been speaking to on the hellish drive to wherever he
had taken her.

Worse, one face she recognized, it was the
woman she had seen Kane talking to the day before on the corner.
How could he have done it? Icy tendrils of fear slid down her spine
as he came closer, his eyes focused on the faces of the women he
had murdered but the machete held tightly in his fist.

“
It all changed.” He said.
“All I ever wanted was to have a family; to raise a couple of kids
but you, you were never happy. You hated the neighborhood; you
wanted to live in the city so we moved. You were bored being a
cop’s wife so you took classes, and all they taught you was that
you were cut out for more than a life as a cop’s wife. You were
never happy, no matter what I did, no matter what I gave
you.”

Sophie flinched. Forrester’s voice began as
a self-pitying whine and grew into a rage filled shout. Glass
rained down on her face and she shut her eyes, her hands going
automatically to her face. Breaths of white vapor escaped the
glass-fronted freezer from the gaping hole his fist left in one
door. Sophie could not even think, she was certain she was about to
die.

The door caved in and she screamed as cops
swarmed in, Kane in the lead.

“
Let her go
Forrester.”

Forrester laughed; a singularly ugly sound
that bounced off of the white painted walls. “I don’t want to.”

“
You used to be a good
cop…you know you don’t have to do this.” Kane said in a calm tone,
trying his best to figure out a way around the crazed man and to
Sophie. He refused to let his eyes go to her, he had seen her
battered face very clearly when he had come through the door and he
couldn’t afford the emotions that would be sure to come up if he
saw it again. He could not afford to get pissed off; if he did it
would likely cost her life.

“
Spare me the spiel,”
Forrester said, “We both know there’s nowhere to go from here. They
aren’t going to hand me my retirement and just let me slip away to
Arizona or wherever it is us worn out old dinosaurs go these days.
It was Arizona, that was where we, Morgan and I, were going to
settle down after I retired. Scottsdale, it’s a nice place. Fuck
the snow, fuck the city.” He laughed then, a jagged little spike of
sound that held hysteria and insanity.

“
You can let her
go.”

“
She cheated on me with
those bitches. Well, not those ones. I don’t remember why I killed
them. Isn’t that a hoot? I don’t remember at all, maybe they just
showed up in their dancing shows at the wrong ball.” He hummed and
shuffled in place for a moment in a grotesque parody of dancing
with a partner.

“
That blonde haired FBI
bitch, I killed her just because she was uppity. She thought she
had it all figured out too, right up until the minute I killed
her.”

Kane said, “Sophie, come here,” in a dead
calm voice. He held out one hand, hoping the brief fugue would last
long enough for her to get clear. He wanted to kill Forrester. He
had seen Janelle’s head in the freezer and the shock of that,
coupled with the fact that Sophie was in very real danger from the
demented cop was wearing him down. He was holding back, trying to
keep the other man alive but it wasn’t going to happen, he could
sense that fact in the air.

“
Not so fast!” Forrester
squealed, grabbing her by her hair and hauling her to her feet.
Sophie could see the expression on Kane’s face when she was grabbed
and she managed to quiet her own fear for a moment to whisper,
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Kane felt a surge of pride at her courage,
but that didn’t stop him from fearing the worst. He knew he had to
do something, and do it soon.

The machete came up and every cop stepped
forward but there was nothing they could do, he was too close to
her. Kane let his finger rest easily on the trigger of his gun.

“
Do you remember when I
said trust was what you had to have? That you had to believe that
when I told you to do something it was for your own
good?”

“
Yes.”

Forrester snorted out a laugh and the sharp
blade grazed her throat, sending a thin trickle of blood down the
creamy white column of that delicate flesh.

“
Stand still sweetie. Stand
very still no matter what.”

“
You won’t shoot!”
Forrester yelled, “He’ll hit you! He will hit you and not
me!”

“
I trust you.” Sophie
whispered and Kane took a long breath.

Forrester raised the machete high, Kane
fired. Sophie closed her eyes, unable to look. There was a puff of
air across her right cheek and then a long and rattling exhale of
air from behind her. Forrester slumped against her, knocking her
nearly off of her feet. She came close to being impaled but Kane
grabbed her, yanking her upright before she could fall on the
gleaming steel of the machete that was still clutched in the fallen
man’s hands.

“
I don’t think I will be
losing any more pajamas any time soon,” she said in a bright voice
then she collapsed in his arms, sobs wracking her slender
frame.

***

Kane went to the hospital with her. John
stayed at the house to help clean up the evidence. Janelle’s head
had been in the trophy case but her body had been wedged into a
small crawlspace under the house. Forrester had lured her in
somehow, the best guess they had was that he had told her he would
give her a ride to a site, or he had simply kidnapped her Given
Janelle’s high physical condition Kane was willing to bet he had
promised her a ride. He knew the other man would have to deal with
the loss in his own way and he hoped it would end well. John Hamm
had lost several partners over the years, some people did and his
was a high-risk job.

Sitting by her bedside he laughed, as Sophie
demanded, repeatedly, that the nurse let Sassy into her room.
Finally the woman gave up and allowed the little mutt in. Sassy
jumped right out of the hands of the cop who bore her in and landed
in the bed with a loud woof and happy snort.

Sophie’s wounds weren’t serious and she got
to go home the next morning, Kane went with her and stayed with her
for the next few days. Eventually life returned to normal.

***

Sophie left her class with a grin on her
face. She ran into the shop where Geoff and Kane were both waiting
and caroled out, “Guess who got an A on her first test?”

“
You did,” both men said in
unison.

“
I did!” She hugged them
both and asked, “Are you on lunch?”

“
Nope,” Kane said smugly.
“I begged your boss to let you have a day off. I have a surprise
for you.”

Sassy wriggled out from under a desk and
Sophie asked, “How did she get here?”

“
I’m going to babysit her.”
Geoff said. “I plan on reading Charlotte’s Web to her.”

Kane hustled her out and into his car. The
streets were alive with people and color, autumn had come and the
windows of the stores were filled with sweaters and boots and
coats. They drove past the congestion that was Midtown and
eventually got out of the city. Sophie stared at the tall trees and
passing scenery until they pulled into a long driveway that ended
in front of a restored white house.

“
Welcome to
Steepletop,”Kane said as he opened her door.

“
This is Edna St. Vincent’s
Millay’s house!” Sophie cried as she stepped out into the just
chilled air. Leaves drifted from trees in shades of brilliant reds
and faded greens. “Why are we here?”

Kane grinned and pulled out a small black
box. Inside it was a thin golden collar and a gorgeous ring with a
small diamond. “Sophie, I want you to be my submissive for life,”
he said, “And my wife.”

“
Yes!” Sophie yelled and he
laughed, hugging her tightly.

Sophie closed her eyes, happiness exploding
inside her. She opened them again and for a moment she thought she
saw Susan standing near an old oak tree but when she blinked she
vanished. Kane had her kneel and she did, her face lifted to his as
he held the collar out and said, “I collar you. I claim you. You
are mine.” He placed the collar around her neck and the ring around
her finger. She sighed, happily and laid her head on his knee,
finally at peace.