Monster (14 page)

-Annie-

Watching Quinn walked out of my house, out of my life was fucking miserable. I knew it was the right thing to do, I'd sent a dozen men away before and only ever regretted the times I'd let them kick me out instead.

The sight of that man stalking out like a long-caged panther, just released and looking for something to kill, filled me with something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Doubt.

I mean, sure, I'd felt a little bit of doubt plenty of times.

It'd been years since I doubted my decision to stay single forever, though. Maybe I should have let Quinn say whatever he was going to first. Maybe I should've kept my mouth shut, let us keep going down that path.

The pain I was feeling would only have gotten worse. That's what I tried to remind myself.

It was okay to protect myself. I did the right thing.

I'd carefully avoided Quinn, leaving the house only after he darted going to work. Urso had his walk in the middle of the day, which didn't hurt his feelings any. It was warmer, anyway, for me.

I should have been happy with that.

All I felt was lonely.

I missed Quinn.

I missed his laughter, his strong hands on my body. Without him, my apartment felt cold and alone. The cheerful quilts weren't enough to keep out the gloom of the solitude anymore.

I drank two glasses of wine before bed the night after kicking Quinn out.

Maybe that's why I didn't hear anything until it was too late.

I slept too deeply.

It almost killed me.

I woke up to a hand over my mouth and the shining barrel of a gun against my head.

My first impulse was to fight him, but the sight of the gun, the click of the hammer, brought me up short.

The man stepped back a few paces, keeping the gun on me.

He was wearing a black ski mask and sunglasses, all I could see of him were his lips in the murky darkness. It gave him a strange, alien appearance.

Like he'd come to earth just to torment me.

"Do you see the gun?" he asked, in a strange voice. He spoke in an almost comically low pitch, his hand over his mouth to muffle it further.

I nodded.

"Stand up."

My legs obeyed before I'd reached a conscious decision. Apparently my body was very much all for self-preservation.

Something was wrong. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something wasn't right in my house. Something more than the intruder. If I could make my brain focus, I could figure out what it was.

“Do you know me?” he asked.

“You're the Blue Ridge Killer,” I said.

There was something familiar about him. For one moment of sick terror, I thought it was Quinn, ready to kill me for dumping him.

It wasn't, though. I'd seen Quinn stand in my bedroom a dozen times. He was taller, broader than this man.

The guy looked like he might be fit, but not to the degree Quinn was.

I wanted to laugh at myself.

The killer I'd feared was standing in my room, and I couldn't keep my mind on him.

I was going to die thinking about Quinn.

A sharp stab of regret went through me, bringing tears to my eyes.

The killer smiled, and I realized he thought I was crying from fear. Such a sick motherfucker, for that to make him happy.

I could use it, though.

Every moment I lived was a chance for someone to find me.

“You know I'll kill you if you don't listen,” he said.

I nodded.

He'd kill me either way, but until I knew more, I was going to play his game. My eyes darted to my phone before I could help them.

It was gone.

I looked back at the killer and saw him smirk.

“I moved it,” he said.

“Clever,” I said. Quinn had said that the asshole had a giant ego. Maybe stroking it would lull him into a false sense of security, make him slip up.

One mistake and I'd be gone.

“I'm going to give you instructions,” he said. “If you disobey, I'll punish you. I will shoot you in the head and then I will shoot your dog and then I will be gone before the cops show up.”

“Goddamnit,” I whispered.

Urso.

That was what was so wrong.

Was he already dead?

“I fed him treats,” the man said. “He's asleep, but if you fuck with me, he dies.”

I nodded.

Like a robot, I let him bind my hands in front of me with a black rope. The touch of his gloved hands against mine made me feel helpless and alone.

He put a ball gag in my mouth and taped over it.

There went my chance to scream. No way I could make myself heard. I whimpered and nothing came out. Fuck, why did such a monster have to be so good at planning?

“You're going to walk down the stairs ahead of me,” he said.

Damn. No chance to push him.

I nodded.

“You're going to walk into the middle of the living room and stand there with your hands over your head.”

I nodded.

“Remember, if you don't, I'll kill your dog,” he said.

This man made me feel so slimy. His voice was calm, flat. No emotion, except the smirks and flashes of sick pleasure.

I was no more than an insect to him.

Carefully, one foot in front of the other, he sent me to the stairs.

As I inched my way down them, my mind was racing.

If I fought him, Urso would die.

If I didn't, I would die – and the killer would get away. The man who killed Kelly would escape justice and be free to kill again.

He would. He didn't seem to be able to help it.

I would do almost anything for Urso, but I couldn't let his life be more important than protecting the teenagers this man preyed on.

I bit almost through my lip as I made the decision.

No matter what happened now, I was going to die. Alone, like I'd thought I'd wanted. The only thing keeping me from trying to alert Quinn on the other side of the wall was Urso's life.

I had to think about the girls, though.

With one step left to go, I made up my mind and took a deep breath, before slamming myself against the wall.

I only got to do it once before the killer was on me, shoving me against the floor and pinning me against it with his body.

He might not have been as big as Quinn, but he was big enough to overpower me.

Before I knew it, I was blindfolded and bound at my ankles and he'd picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder, carrying me out of the house and shutting the front door quietly behind him.

Fuck.

I was hoping I could keep him from taking me away.

The killer tossed me into the trunk of his car and drove away. Calmly.

Everything he did was calm, methodical. No wonder he hadn't been caught. This wasn't a crime of passion, this was a hunt. This was for fun.

My hopes that he would make a mistake were dying.

All I could do now is hope that Quinn would have woken up to the thump I made, and come to look.

If we were still in and out of each other's apartments, he would have.

Maybe I wouldn't be on my way to die now if I hadn't sent him away, if I was still under his protection as well as Urso's.

Not being able to see anything was terrifying.

I had to take deep breaths, try to keep my wits around me, so I didn't fall into hysterics.

He'd probably like that.

I thought about Quinn instead. His emerald eyes glittered in my imagination, bright and shining and full of fun.

Maybe we would have broken up when he found out I couldn't have kids, but maybe not. Maybe he would have been the one to stay.

I should have given him a chance.

I should have explained it.

I wished I could change so much.

-Quinn-

I sat bolt upright in bed.

Something was wrong. I could feel it.

There was something I should be hearing right now.

Why had I woken up?

I had a dim memory of a thump, of the noise something heavy might make falling or landing.

Had a branch fallen on the house?

I was wearing boxers to bed, fortunately, so I stood up and headed to the front door to check the roof. Grabbed my bathrobe on the way. It was summer, so that's all I needed to be outside.

As I opened the front door, I saw a black sedan pulling away from in front of the old farmhouse.

Checking my watch, it was almost three o'clock in the morning. 2:54. Why would someone be leaving?

I rubbed my watch strap with a thumb. I'd gotten into the habit of sleeping with it on, and some habits die hard.

There were a lot of reasons that someone might be visiting Annie late at night, but I didn't like any of them. I try to remind myself that the car could've been there for another house, we had plenty of neighbors, but there was enough parking on the street - why would they have had to park in front of someone else's house?

There were too many questions.

I found myself awake, unwillingly.

I didn't like this.

I was afraid that something terrible had happened to the woman I loved.

The realization brought me up short.

Fuck.

I did love her, and even if it made her hate me, I had to check up on her. It wouldn't be like when I ran shouting to find Cynthia in bed with another man.

It was damn sure that Annie didn't owe me anything, that I couldn't say a word if she slept with anyone else.

We'd never even been dating.

Still, though, I had to check.

Hopefully Annie would never know. Hopefully I would be being stupid, a heartsick man with nothing better to do anymore.

All the feelings went through me like lightning.

Fear. Doubt.

Love.

I could still see the light of the car as it was turning right at the end of the block as I stepped out of my apartment onto the porch I shared with Annie.

I was cursing myself for not being able to spot a license plate. Not that I could've run it either way.

It wasn't like I was a cop anymore.

When I opened her screen door, I was certain something was fucking wrong. Her front door was hanging open.

I grabbed my cell phone from the pocket of my bathrobe and called 911.

Soon as the connection was made, I gave our address clearly, repeating it twice. I had talked to dispatch enough to know that they didn't really care what your emergency was, nine times out of ten they only wanted your address.

"Black sedan heading west away from the house, reason to suspect it's been involved in a break-in."

Maybe they would be able to pull over the car before it got much farther, but I doubted it.

"-the nature of your emergency?" the woman on the other end was saying.

“I think my neighbor's apartment was just broken into,” I said.

Sometimes not being a cop any more was handy. Instead of thinking about the rules of evidence, I simply pushed the door gently, and it swung open.

“Stay on the line, please,” the woman said. “I'll send a car over as soon as possible. Is your neighbor incapacitated or elderly?”

The unspoken question – why didn't your neighbor call themselves? - rang between us.

“No,” I said, tersely. “I'm going to check on her.”

I went to Urso first. His kennel was on the way to the back of the house, the private spaces. Sometimes he slept upstairs with Annie, but tonight he was lying in the closed crate.

He was breathing, but shallowly. Strangely.

I was up the stairs in a few long steps, the cell phone pressed to my ear as if Annie would be lost if I missed a single word.

“She's not in her bed,” I said to dispatch. “I think the Blue Ridge Killer took her.”

I pulled my mouth away from the phone.

“Annie,” I called. “Annie, come out!”

“Sir, please calm down,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “Do you have any reason to expect her to be there?”

“Her car's still there and her dog is sick, she wouldn't have left on her own,” I said. “Send as many fucking cars as you have. I want three vehicles and a sergeant here in five minutes.”

“I've sent who I can,” she said, her voice still calm.

“Bullshit,” I said. “This is fucking important. Don't send a rookie over to shut me up.”

As she was assuring me that she wasn't doing that, I cut her off, speaking over her loudly and clearly. “Annie Watson was the search-and-rescue handler who found Kelly Morris's body three days ago. She's young and pretty. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Just disappeared from her home. If it was the killer, we might be able to catch him.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“I'm sending additional units to your location,” she said.

“Get an APB out on a black sedan, too,” I said.