“Jack? It’s Dr. Harold.
Nicole.” Dr. Harold said in an urgent voice when he answered the call. Jack turned away from Lilly, giving his attention to the Doctor. Why was she calling him anyway? Had she discovered something else about the newest victim? The woman had been identified as Rita Gallenger. She had been a prostitute that had had three previous arrests for solicitation. Still, she had not deserved to die in the brutal, inhumane way she had, Jack thought angrily. Rita’s body was due to be given over to her family in the morning. Dr. Harold’s examinations should have already been complete. In fact, she had already given him her report, as insane and impossible as that report had been. Nicole Harold was indeed a whack-job, Jack thought impatiently, and he turned back to the table just in time to see that Lilly was no longer there.
“What do you need, Dr. Harold?” Jack asked in agitation as he looked toward the glass door leading outside just in time to see Lilly exit through it. “Damn it.” He cursed, and he hurried back to the table to find her note. It was written in beautiful han
dwriting on a white, coffee house napkin.
“Jack, i
f you ever get over your phobia give me a call.” It read. It was signed, “Lilly” and she had left a local phone number. Jack frowned at his loss. He carefully folded the napkin, and put it in his coat pocket as he halfway listened to Dr. Harold going on and on about the undead and other such nonsense.
“Don’t you see, Jack. She has risen.” Nicole said excitedly.
“What? Risen? What the hell are you talking about?” Jack tossed a ten down on the table and headed out the front door. He looked both ways, but saw no sign of Lillian Saint Rose. She was gone and because he had reacted like an idiot to the fact that she came from money! Lillian Saint Rose was a beautiful woman and she seemed to be interested in him. He should count himself lucky and forget about his stupid hang-ups where money was concerned, he scolded himself as he remembered her beautiful smile. He could certainly do worse! Idiot!
“Haven’t you been listening to me, Jack?” Nicole demanded hotly over the phone and Jack nearly groaned out loud. He thought to confess that no, he hadn’t been listening at all, and that yes, she was a mad woman with insane thoughts and theories, but instead, he told her to tell him again why she had called.
“The body is gone, Jack. It’s as if Rita Gallenger got up and walked out of here. One minute she was there and the next she was gone.” Nicole told him, her voice sounding all spooky like some bad B movie.
“Gone?” Jack repeated in disbelief. “Where were you?”
“I don’t sit in the locker and guard them, Jack.” Nicole groaned defensively. “I didn’t know she would rise.”
“Rise!” Jack scoffed. “It’s obvious the body has been stolen. Now, the question is, who took it and why?” he rubbed his chin, deep in thought as he hurried to his car and climbed behind the wheel. He would go to the morgue and check the matter out, he decided. The killer had slipped up this time. There was a security camera at the morgue aimed right at the front door. There was a good chance, Jack thought, as he sped away, that the killer had just gotten himself on tape!
Cha
pter six
“You killed him, Bobby!” The kid yelled in shocked disbelief. “You weren’t supposed
to
kill him.” The boy was no more than fifteen, a black youth growing up in the wrong neighborhood where gangs prevailed, and the weak either moved away or died.
Bobby, an older, black male with the face of a movie star, that at the moment was covered
in splatters of deep, red blood flashed a white toothed smile over at the younger boy.
“That’s what we came here for, Tyrone.” Bobby grinned, as he aggressively shoved a bloody, ten inch, metal pipe from one big, brown hand to the other. “That’s how you get into Hell’s Disciples.”
“But you killed him.” Tyrone was shaking and badly. There was blood on his hands, blood he had helped to spill, but he hadn’t meant to kill anyone. “I thought we were just supposed to beat him up a little. I ain’t never killed nobody before.” Tyrone choked back a sob. “My mama. Oh God, my mama! This is gonna break her heart.” Tears slid down his light brown cheeks to spill over his full, fleshy lips and dribble down his chin.
“Shut up, boy! Your mama ain’t got to know nothing.” Bobby raised the pipe above his head in a threatening manner as if he were about to come after the younger, smaller boy now. “And you better not go shooting your mouth off to no one neither!” Bobby marched forward, snatching the younger male
up by the collar of his striped t-shirt. “You got me?” he put his face right in Tyrone’s, and all Tyrone could do was nod his head and cry, cry because he had helped to kill an innocent kid, cry because he was going to go to jail, and because his mama was going to cry, and hard, when he did. His fingerprints had to be everywhere, Tyrone thought on a panic. Tyrone’s wide, brown gaze fell to the skinny boy that lay face down in a puddle of his own blood. Small, black eyes were wide open as if in shock. The face was a bloody, bumpy mess from where Bobby had slung the pipe against the boy’s face and head again and again. Tyrone had begged Bobby to stop, shouting that he was taking things too far. He had even grabbed Bobby by the arm and had finally managed to pull him back, but it had been too late, and now their rival, or so Bobby had called the boy, was dead, beaten to death by his hands and by Bobby’s hands. The tears in Tyrone’s eyes swelled bigger and bigger. A sob escaped his throat.
“I’m a murd
erer.” he sobbed out in shock because of what he had done, and Bobby promptly slapped him hard across the face. It stung, causing his head to snap back, but it was nothing compared to the pain and fear bubbling up inside of him.
“You’re an idiot!” Bobby snapped, and he tossed Tyrone’s long, wiry body to the ground. Tyrone landed with a thud on his backside. Bobby was mad now, real mad
, and he had the pipe held in his big fist still. He was going to kill him now too, Tyrone thought in alarm, but in sudden calm, he accepted his fate. It would be better if Bobby killed him now, then he wouldn’t have to go to prison. He wouldn’t have to face his Mama either, and he wouldn’t have to live with the fact that he had helped to murder some boy!
Tyrone threw up his arms to block the first blow of the metal pipe as Bobby slung downwards at him, but the blow never came. His heart seemed to have come to a halt. After a few seconds of waiting, Tyrone cracked open one eye and looked. Nothing, but blackness and shadows
, and then he heard the sound of his own heartbeat drumming away in his ears. Terror streaked through him as he stared into the blackness where Bobby had been standing only a seconds before. Where had Bobby gone? His heart beating away from him, Tyrone opened the other eye and lowered his arms just as he heard a muffled scream of agony. In the distance, he could see something moving, thrashing about. Scared out of his wits, Tyrone managed to make it to his feet. First, he thought of turning tail and running home, but when the muffled scream came again, followed by a loud thumping noise, Tyrone found himself creeping toward the origin of the sounds. As he neared the large, thrashing object he could make out that it was a pair of booted feet kicking out into thin air and a pair of dark brown hands reaching out as if to grab him. Tyrone almost screamed, but then he realized the hands weren’t reaching for him; they were clawing at the back of a tall, slender figure cloaked in black. The figure was holding the man off the ground with such ease that Tyrone rubbed his eyes in shocked disbelief and looked again. Then suddenly the hands shot out again as if to grab him, but fell slack and so did the feet. Tyrone crept closer with his heart large in his throat. He could make out the long, pale blonde hair lifting gently in the wind, and the long, slender torso of a finely cut woman just before the woman pivoted, and with strength that could not be human, tossed the dead body of Bobby Wilshire through the air. Tyrone screamed out as the body hit him full on in the chest and they both went down. Terror-struck, afraid that the creature would come after him next, Tyrone fought to free himself from the heavy, offending body of his now dead friend.
Scratching, clawin
g noises filled the air, and just as Tyrone managed to push the body off of him, he looked up to see the creature scaling the stone wall before him as if it were nothing, as if it had scaled that wall a thousand times before, and knew every foot and hand hold. He watched in panicked horror as it took one last leap when it neared the top of the five story building, landed on its feet on the ledge with the grace of a cat, and then disappeared into the night. Tyrone’s heart slammed hard against his ribs, feeling as if it would burst through the bones, as if it would shatter those bones to escape the fear building inside of him.
“Shit.” Tyrone cursed as he jumped to his feet, feeling the shakes come over him until his knees felt like they were going to buckle. What the hell had just happened, he asked himself? He didn’t want to wait around to find out, he thought wildly, so he turned and he ran, forgetting the dead boy, and even his now dead friend. Screw this! He was out of there, and he wasn’t looking back. Hell no! He sure wasn’t going to tell nobody what he had seen there tonight either. They would think he was insane for sure! And so he ran, ran as if the creature had turned back, as if it were coming after him now.
Detective Ton
y Bordello lounged at a double sided, iron desk across from Detective Jack Stone at the police department. The guy was looking pretty bored, Jack thought. It was getting late in the day and Jack, not used to working with a partner, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to take the lead and send the guy home, or what? As it was, Jack was getting tired of looking at the guy. Bordello was always there it seemed. Jack could barely book time to take a leak to escape him. This isn’t how I work, Jack thought in frustration. I work alone. I’m better that way, he thought as his light amber eyes washed over Bordello’s thick form across from him. Jack frowned. He hated this, hated being saddled with a partner, hated having to drag some unfamiliar, unwanted man along with him everywhere he went! Tapping a pen on his computer keyboard, Jack mulled over what little information they had gathered on the three slayings that had occurred within the city in the last month. None of the evidence taken from the crime scenes made any sense, and the only explanation Jack could come up with at the moment was the same explanation that the crazed city was saying behind closed hands: serial killer.
Jack did his best to concentrate, but Lillian Saint Rose’s beautiful face kept popping into his mind. While he tr
ied to read over the case files the words from the note she had left him at the coffee house trailed across his mind, “Call me if you ever get over your phobia.”
Jack’s pen began to tap relentlessly. Phobia? Was he a snob? So the woman came from money? What should that matter? Why did it matter? Jack’s frown intensified. When he looked up, Tony’s dark gaze was narrowed on him suspiciously.
“Sorry.” Jack grinned sheepishly.
“Uh huh. Who
is she? Is she hot? Tony pried.
“She?” Jack cocked a brow curiously.
“The girl you’ve been thinking on?” Tony’s Bronx accent dripped out.
“Oh.” Jack mused. “Incredibly hot.” he breathed out. “But it’s more than that. I don’t know.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I can’t stop thinking about her.” he confessed.
“Should I call the church?” Tony joked.
“Ha. Ha.” Jack threw his pen at the guy, and Tony skillfully caught it mid-air.
“Nine to five, man. Work the case nine to five. Think on the hot girl later.” Tony glanced at the plain-faced, round clock on the wall behind Jack’s blonde head. Jack looked back at the clock as well. It was nearing on four-thirty.
“Right.” Jack breathed out. “
Like we ever punch a time clock.” No, there was no time clock in this line of business, he thought. A cop lived and breathed his work. It was never done, never over, and even if they did manage to solve a case, there were always six hundred or more to take up after.
“You want t
o go grab a burger? I’m starved.” Jack stood to his tall height, shrugging into his jacket, and watched as Tony, a slightly bigger man, did the same.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to knock off early, surprise my wife. If you need me, you got my number.” Tony whipped on his jacket, a sleek, black leather coat, and nodded his farewells to Jack. Jack returned the sentiment.
Sitting in the f
ront seat of his car with his cell in his hand, Jack stared at the seven numbers he had already punched into the phone. All that was left to do now was to push the call button, he thought, feeling like a nervous teenager with his first crush. Did he really want to do that, he asked himself? Sure Lillian Saint Rose was an incredibly beautiful woman, but he was up to his neck in work. The families of the victims and Jack’s supervisors were on his back to wrap this case up, and quick, but these things took time, Jack reminded himself. It wouldn’t be a quick solve by any means. Sometimes cases took months or even tens of years, and worse yet, some cases went unsolved. There was nothing worse than giving up on something you had put your blood, sweat, and tears into for weeks, months, or even years, but Jack had been forced to do just that on more than one occasion. The sad reality of life was sometimes heartbreaking.