He smiled at Lewis with a wide, fatherly grin and tender eyes. Lewis had become like a son to him. Foster’s family had been brutally murdered when he was only a teenager. Afterward, the Sheriff had taken him in. In the moment when Lewis needed someone to take his hand and help lift the crushing weight of the world, he had been there.
Now, the roles had been reversed, and the Sheriff was the one feeling the crushing weight pressing down on him. He had just learned of a game Ackerman had played at a local farmhouse and couldn’t help feeling responsible for what had transpired. And this was only the first report. He knew that more would follow, and he felt helpless to stop it.
“Please, promise me that you’ll be careful. I don’t think that I can stand any more death this evening.” The Sheriff shook his head and continued in a low tone. “Damn it, Lewis, I’m beginning to wonder whether any of this is truly worth it. I should have known better than to allow a monster like Ackerman out of my sight in the first place. How many more people are going to die before this ends? What price must we pay? It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. No innocent people were supposed to get hurt.”
“Sir, things may not have gone down exactly the way that we planned, but we’ll find Ackerman. We’ll stop him. We’ll set things right. But we have to stick to the plan. You said it best yourself when you told me, ‘Sometimes, the only way to get a person to open their eyes is to slap them in the face.’ You were right, sir. And we will succeed in opening someone’s eyes tomorrow. I guarantee you that. There’s no way you could have known that any of this would happen the way that it did. What’s done is done, but are we gonna let all who have fallen along the way die in vain, or are their deaths gonna mean something?”
The Sheriff nodded and said, “I think my good sense must be rubbing off on you. What’s done is done. Right now, we have to stay focused. We have to stay the course. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”
A humming filled the air, and the cell phone resting on the desk lit up. He reached out and picked up the phone. He checked the number and recognized it as coming from South Africa. At least, that’s where it appeared to originate. In actuality, the call had been bounced around the world to obscure its true origin—Washington, DC.
An image from long ago flashed in his mind as he took a second to ready himself for the call. He remembered sitting in his cell when the guards came and escorted him to an interrogation room. Then, a man entered and gave him a choice. Looking back, he supposed it wasn’t much of a decision. Go to prison for the rest of his life or accept the man’s offer. The path was clear. Whenever he thought back on it, though, he knew that he still would have chosen this path—even if a multitude of other options had been available to him.
The Sheriff flipped open the phone and pressed it to his ear. “Hello… Yes, sir. Everything is proceeding according to schedule.”
Adam Jameson…President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world.
“You’re tellin’ me that we’re up against the leader of the free world…and his death squad?” Marcus said.
Garrison shrugged. “It fits, but come on. It’s just crazy speculation. I have no proof that the President’s involved. The connection’s weak, at best.”
“But it’s possible, and until we know differently, we have to operate under the assumption that he is involved.”
They were silent for a long while. He felt the weight of an entire country’s worth of resources pressing down. Nothing seemed real anymore. The dark landscape rushed by, and his world spun. He felt like he was underwater.
“One thing I can’t figure,” Garrison said.
“One thing?”
“Well, a lot of things, but one thing about your story. I can’t figure out how the Sheriff and his men kept finding you everywhere you went.”
He had wondered the same thing but had dismissed it as paranoia.
“I get that he could have found you on the highway. After all, you didn’t know the resources he would put into your search, but he could have canvassed every road. So, I get that. But you said that you smashed the cop’s radio and cell phone before leaving him at the crash site, and the cop hadn’t called in his position. Granted, he probably had low-jack in the cruiser, and they could have traced that. But from the sound of it, they didn’t even know that there was a problem. So, number one, how did he find you so quickly? And number two, how was he so sure that you were in that house? Sure enough that he gunned down Allen Brubaker on his front lawn?”
He mulled over what Garrison had said. It made sense, but what was the answer? He searched his memory banks, and his eyes went wide. “My shoes. The Sheriff took my shoes at the Hill crime scene to make castings.”
Garrison slammed on the brakes and whipped the big SUV to the side of the road. Marcus heard unknown items shift, fall, and clang in the back of the vehicle. “Take ‘em off,” Garrison said.
He complied, and Garrison examined them. “Look at this.”
He looked closer and noticed a small spot of new glue showing on the back of the shoe. Garrison removed a pocket knife and used it to pull back the heel. A tiny, hollowed-out area contained a small electronic device.
“Son of a…I shoulda thought of this earlier,” Marcus said.
Garrison shook his head. “How were you supposed to know that a local sheriff had access to this kind of technology?”
“What are we gonna do with it now? Attach it to some rabbit and let the Sheriff chase Bugs all the way to New Mexico?”
Garrison snickered. “No. That might work in the movies, but the Sheriff would track us down before we could ever hope to catch some animal.” Garrison stepped from the vehicle, removed the small tracking device, and threw it into a clump of bushes alongside the road.
They rode in silence for a few minutes longer before he realized that they were not just driving in a direction, but toward something. “So, Garrison, do we have a plan?”
“Andrew.”
“What?”
“My name. Call me Andrew. And the first thing we need to do is get my source within the organization to safety.”
“Who’s your source?”
“I guess at this point it doesn’t hurt to tell you. You know her…the Sheriff’s daughter, Maggie. She works for me at the real estate office, which is all just a cover.”
Marcus reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose. He had been afraid of that answer. In many ways, he was ecstatic at the thought of seeing her again. In many other ways, however, he wished that he could keep her as far away from himself as possible. The dream kept returning to him with increasing intensity. In the dream, he had failed her just like everyone else.
A sign read,
Asherton: 13 Miles.
He had often heard that animals could sense when a bad storm or other natural disaster like an earthquake or tornado was about to hit. That was the way he felt at that moment. It was like he could sense that a storm was on the horizon and that everything he had experienced so far was a prelude of what was to come. The kiss before turning out the lights.
He glanced over at the speedometer. An unexplainable sense of urgency had overtaken him. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that they were already too late.
Maggie walked across the cold tile floor of her apartment’s tiny kitchen. The coolness below her feet saturated her body and crept up her legs. She had hated the tile floor when she first came to the small apartment, but she had grown accustomed to it. In all honesty, she liked the cool, calming embrace that greeted her when she stepped out onto the kitchen floor. It made her feel alive and allowed her to forget everything else in the world beyond the sensation.
On that night, however, the chilled kiss of the tile wasn’t nearly potent enough to steal her thoughts from the events taking place around her. All of her preparations and work approached fruition. The die had been cast, and there was no turning back.
The moonlight shimmered in through the window over the kitchen sink. It cast a dim glow over the counter and the kitchen table but failed to penetrate the deeper shadows of the room’s corners. She crossed the kitchen and opened the door to the refrigerator. With the moonlight backdrop, the light from the fridge sent out a striking luminescence that lit her face with an angelic aura. Her smooth skin glowed, as if touched by a divine light, and her eyes shimmered like diamonds. Her loose-fitting t-shirt and baggy sweat pants hid her trim form. A pair of bobby pins held her hair, still damp from the shower, back in a ponytail. A few loose strands hung around her face.
From the fridge, she retrieved the supplies needed to accomplish her goal of the perfect sandwich. She always strove for perfection in every undertaking, and sandwich making was no exception. She always made her sandwiches the same way. She ran through the process in her mind, further adding to her hunger. She would begin with the mesquite, thinly sliced turkey breast, followed by two slices of provolone cheese and one piece of lettuce, for good measure—all enclosed by the coup de grais, the homemade Italian herb and cheese bread. There were no condiments placed on top, as they would only serve to offend the palate and convolute the flavor.
But it was the quantity of the ingredients that made Maggie’s techniques distinctive. She always made the sandwich the same way with the same precise amounts of turkey, cheese, lettuce, and bread. The Sheriff—or the Director, as some knew him—had taught her a great deal, but the thing that he stressed most to all of those around him was an acute attention to detail. “The devil is in the details,” he always said.
She retrieved a plate from the cabinet and organized the ingredients in front of her. She unsealed the loaf of bread and took in its aroma. It smelled wonderful. It was the best bread that she had ever had, and it came from right below her feet at The Magnolia Bakery.
Alexai, the baker, would often make extra portions solely for delivery to her doorstep. She had only lived there for a short time, but in that span, she had often joined him in the bakery and watched as he prepared a barrage of culinary delights for the early morning coffee and pastry crowd.
Beyond the list of products to appease those with a sweet tooth, Alexai also had an extensive catalog of gourmet bread that he prepared fresh every day in the early morning hours. He would arrive around ten o’clock and work until the shop opened at five-thirty. His son would then take over for him mid-morning. She knew that he was hard at work downstairs even as she prepared her own plat du jour.
She laid the loaf on the counter. Without looking, she reached to the knife block. She felt around for the bread knife, but she noticed an anomaly. The carving knife was missing.
And she never forgot to put things back in their places.
She checked the counter and surrounding area but to no avail. She looked in the sink and dishwasher, but it wasn’t there either.
She let the sensation of fear wash over her. It had been in the back of her mind since she noticed the knife’s absence, but now, it was in the forefront, undeniable. Someone else could have the knife. Someone waiting in the shadows with a dark, malicious purpose.
Her breathing became shallow and erratic. Her mind spun with different possibilities and scenarios.
A thump resonated from the vicinity of her bedroom.
Is there someone in the apartment?
She pushed the fear aside. She wasn’t about to let herself be frightened by a misplaced knife and a noise that occurred often enough due to every day occurrences like the creaking of the building or Alexai banging around downstairs.
She reached behind her back and retrieved a compact Glock 19 pistol from the waistband of her sweat pants. The Sheriff had insisted on her being armed, and under the circumstances, she had elected to keep the weapon close.
Another thump, but she couldn’t be sure from where it originated.
Something had caused the noise, and it wasn’t an overactive imagination. She needed help. If Ackerman was the source of the noise, she would not be able to stand against him alone. She had heard the horror stories. They said that he was a ghost and couldn’t be killed. They said that he had made a deal with the devil. They were just tall tales. But no one had been able to stop him yet, so there must have been some truth to the killer’s abilities.
She thought about Alexai working downstairs. They would fair better together, strength in numbers. She needed to get to him and then hold out until Andrew and Marcus arrived. They couldn’t have been too far away.
Keeping a close eye on the bedroom, she darted across the kitchen and the living room, muscles tightened. She saw no movement, but she felt a presence.
She moved to the front door of her apartment. In fear of awaking any sleeping giants, she tried to make no sound. Yet, the quieter she tried to be, the more every sound seemed amplified. Her footsteps sounded like the crashing of thunder to her heightened perception.
She opened the door and glanced around the hall.
All clear
. She looked back to the bedroom. Still no movement. She stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her.
Maybe it was all just her imagination. Either way, it was better to be safe than sorry.
A foreboding darkness seemed to occupy the hallway, but she tried to shut out such irrationalities. The hallway hadn’t changed. The situation had merely altered her perception of it. It was the same poorly lit corridor that she always walked.
She headed for the stairs, sticking close to the wall. She held her gun with a two-handed grip and carried herself with a steady professionalism. She kept an eye on the path behind her to guard against a sneak attack, but she pressed forward and down the stairs to the landing at the bottom.
The door in front of her led outside, and the door to her right led into the bakery. She watched the stairs for a moment. She saw no pursuers and entered the door leading into the bakery.
The main lights of the dining area were dark as they always were at that time of night, but in the part of the bakery where the magic happened, the lights burned brightly. The light filled her with as much warmth as the sun on a summer day. She would feel much safer by simply not being alone.