Murder Never Dies
Megan Held
Copyright 2012 by Megan Held
Smashwords Edition
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For my mom
Prologue
Blood; there was lots of it. It was everywhere. It was all over me and the floor beneath me. I looked around the room, trying to recognize where I was. I tried to move my head, but it would not respond to my command. Something was wrong beyond my ability to see or comprehend. My eyes were all I had to allow me to figure out where I was. The wall I was facing was dull, except for when the lights which flashed or highlighted it. The colours and patterns of the lights looked like those from emergency vehicles. Red, then white, then blue and it repeated. Not in a set pattern. I knew the pattern: officer down, in need of backup. Worse call to get and whenever the call came through it required the patrol cars full sirens and lights. I knew that call all too well and in this case, the officer was me.
I tried lifting myself off of the concrete floor. My mind seemed to not be able to send these thoughts of movements to my nerves in order to get my body to react. I looked at the ground in front of me and all I could see was blood. Is that all mine? It could not be. I was not alone in the room. There was someone else with me. Someone else that had been hurt or killed. I looked up as much as my eyes would let me without going blurry or crossed-eyed and saw the body of a man. He was not moving. He—too—was surrounded by blood; which I knew was his. His face seemed familiar to me. I looked at his features. The dark, empty eyes; the long black hair tied back in a ponytail, matted with blood, sticking to his cheeks. The expression on his face was not of sorrow or of pain, but of anger: pure hatred. Whoever he was, all I could get a sense of was that I had killed him. Shot him with a gun not belonging to me. My hands seemed to not want to work for me at the moment. The place became even lighter, like spot lights had been aimed at the building to see who was or was not inside it. To see the dead man or me would be hard, unless people were high enough up off the ground and that may not have been enough to see us on the floor.
“Brady Oakes. Come out with your hands up! Release Detective Walden!” a man with a megaphone said slowly, boldly, so that I could hear him with ease inside the building.
Brady Oakes? The name of
the dead man came slowly back to my memory. I had been investigating
murders and he had been the prime suspect. Had I come here to stop
him or had I been taken as his next victim? I looked at the dead
man or Brady Oakes as he was known as. Confusion set
in, my thoughts and memories were all a mess in my head. The noises
outside worried me because I could not remember what was going on or
what had transpired. All I could hear was the sounds of vehicles
running, no footsteps or voices. I wanted to cry out for help, but my
voice would not allow me. Am I dying?
“Detective Walden? Can you hear me?!” the man on the megaphone said.
I tried to yell ‘yes’ in response. It failed. Everything I had tried to do failed. There was a noise, which sounded like a door being broken into. Where? I was unable to see, or tell where it was coming from. The loud thud surprised me. I did not know if my body had reacted to it or if my mind was the only part of me that did.
“Get a paramedic in here! She’s still breathing!” an officer yelled out to the emergency personnel on the other side of the door when he had reached me.
I felt a presence of a small group of people near me. Something unnatural was happening. My body was reacting to the presence of one person in particular: a man. He had to have been out of my range of sight since his presence was barely felt.
“Detective Walden, can you hear me?” a paramedic said to me as he crouched down by my face.
I tried to tell him that I could hear him. Why can’t I respond to him? My mouth was moving to the response that I wanted to say to him. I wanted to tell him, but no sound was generated or moved from my vocal chords.
“She can’t talk! We need to get her to the hospital immediately!”
The paramedics, slowly and carefully, rolled me on to my back, placing a neck brace around my neck. They checked my vital signs and wounds as quick as they could. The total amount of noticeable wounds was seventy: a large and concerning number of wounds for any person to obtain and still be alive and breathing. “Let’s rush her! She’s lost a lot of blood and if she loses any more she won’t be conscious for much longer, let alone alive!” They lifted me onto the stretcher and rushed me out of the building.
“I will be there in a bit,” the man that had spoken on the megaphone informed the paramedics. “I’m all that she has!”
“I’ll let the nurses at the hospital know, Sergeant,” one of the paramedics said before he closed the ambulance doors, allowing my sight of the man to no longer exist.
Chapter 1: Two Years Later
“Walden,” my Sergeant yelled out from his office doorway the floor full of desks.
I tried to hide behind my computer. I did not feel like dealing with my sergeant at the moment. The jobs that had been assigned to me in the past year after I had returned from being injured were not that hard, but rather pointless and obvious. I had been placed at the bottom of the detective food chain. In other words, I was the one that got all the shit cases. I continued to type up my report on the last case I had solved. It had been an easy case. The husband had killed his wife and her lover after barging into the lover’s apartment. The husband was shocked to see that the lover was another woman and had killed them both out of disgust. The mistakes he had made allowed me to solve the case within forty-eight hours.
“Walden! I need to speak with you, right now!” He stood behind me, knowing that that would move my attention away from my work and to him.
I jolted at the sound of his deep voice. “Just let me finish this sentence and I will be right there,” I told him as I continued typing.
He reached around me and hit the CTRL and S button to save my document. “Your report can wait. This is top priority right now.”
That statement caught my attention. “Okay. Show me what is so important. I have nothing better to do right now.” I got up and followed my sergeant into his office. I heard the sound of the door being closed and knew that what he wanted to show me was, in fact, really important. I sat down on the opposite side of the desk from him and saw the large manila envelope on his desk. “Now, tell me, what is so important.”
“Actually, I am going to have to show you. I do not think you would believe me otherwise.” He opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers and pictures. He laid the pictures out in front of me, and watched my facial reactions.
The pictures were of a new body, but the body was marked and the victim was killed by the same methods as another case I had been working on earlier in my career. The very case that I had gotten injured working on. I felt myself go cold and knew that my face had gone pale. “It must be someone trying to be like him because I killed Brady Oakes.” I slid the pictures closer to me to look at the marks. The body had several slash marks on the arms, back and neck. Mine felt noticeable after looking at the pictures. “We never released any pictures of the body or details of what happened to the victims. And we had always thought that he had an accomplice.” I rubbed my upper arms, running my fingers along the scars Oakes had left me with. “Why me?”
“You killed him once already.” He could tell by my facial expressions that I was upset and was thinking things through in my mind. “The sergeant over there specifically asked for you.”
“What’s the Sergeant’s name?” Please tell me that it is not him.
“Pickard.”
“Shit!”
“Liz, they need your help.”
“You know about my history with him. You know that things went sour after I was attacked.”
“He asked for you, and just you.”
“I don’t know if I can go back there again.”
“Do you want this killer to remain on the loose?”
I sighed. He was correct. By knowing me well he was able to understand what to say and what to ask me. “No.” With that simple, one word answer, I had given him my decision on returning to the place that had caused me to suffer and almost die. “I will leave after work.”
My sergeant shook his head. The convincing was over, now all that was left was the push to get me to leave. “Liz, that is a four hour drive. Either wait till morning or leave right now.”
“Fine. I need to start this now. If not, he may get an advantage over us. It will be best if I leave now, thank you. Do you know where I will be staying?”
“I do not know. It is up to Pickard and you to decide that. I will call and let him know that you will be driving down there and be arriving sometime this evening.” He collected the pictures and pieces of paper and placed them all back inside the envelope. Once packaged, he placed the envelope on his desk and slid it across the desk towards me. “Finish the rest of that report and then get your ass out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” I picked up the envelope with trembling hands. I knew I could work this case, but the mental scars were still there and some of them were being reopened again. I stood up and left his office, returning to my desk. I could feel the looks from my fellow officers, but knew that they would mind their own business. I sat down at my desk, placing the envelope next to my computer. I had a little bit left to type up and then I would be out of this office. To finish typing the final report took me fifteen minutes, including the time it took to proof-read and print it off. The tedious work that needed to be done when submitting the report to the records office felt longer than usual. I would to go the records office on my way out, knowing that that would allow me to leave earlier than anticipated. I collected my purse, the manila envelope and my report from the printer on my office level, carrying all three down a flight of stairs. I opened the door to the records office and saw a female officer working, the only nice one. “Hi Sheryl. Here is my report,” I told her as I handed her the stack of papers. I accepted the clipboard she offered in return and filled out all the necessary sections. “Thank you.” I picked up the envelope and left the building after I returned her clipboard filled with the necessary information. I unlocked my car and got in it, placing my purse and envelope on the seat beside me. I glanced over at it. I started my car and sat in it, my hands squeezing the steering wheel, trying to regain some strength mentally. I put my car into gear and pulled out of my spot, leaving the parking lot, heading in the direction of my apartment. I had moved into the city right after I had gotten out of the hospital, unable to handle being at the country office any longer. I could not even stand looking at Pickard, ashamed of myself for being unable to make the relationship work. I pulled into my apartment building’s parking lot, parking in my usual spot: right underneath my bedroom window. I got out of the car, taking my purse and envelope with me inside the building. Walking up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, my hands shook as it unlocked my door. I opened the door just as my home phone began to ring. I kicked my door shut and ran to answer my phone. “Hello,” I said, taking a few deep breaths from my short sprint to grab the phone before it reached my answering machine.
“Hi Liz,” Sergeant Pickard said.
I stood still, the sound of his voice making me feel cold and hot at the same time. “Hi Hayden,” I said. I turned around and leaned my back against my countertop. Keep calm. You can do this. “How come you are calling me? I would have been there in about five hours.”
“That’s why I called. We no longer have the bed and breakfast. They closed down after Brady Oakes had been killed.”
Fuck him and mentioning that to me. “Where will I be staying then? I cannot drive four hours there and then another four hours back while working this case.”
“You’ll be staying at my house. No worries. It is a big house; you will have your own room and bathroom. I will leave you alone when we are not working.”
“I remember your house.” The memories of his house flooded into my mind. The first time I had stepped inside that place I ended up moving out of my room at the bed and breakfast and stayed at his place. “I will be there in about five hours.”
“All right. I will grab us some food.”
“No need Hayden.”
“Liz, just accept it. I will see in you in less than five hours.” He hung up, no final good-bye to end the conversation. To him there was no need when he was to see me in several hours.
I put the phone back in its charger as I walked out of my kitchen and into my bedroom. I wanted to cover my scars up since they felt more noticeable now. I picked up a light sweater from off my bedroom floor and put it on. I pulled my suit case out from under my bed and placed it on top of my bed. I had to pack, not knowing how long I would there for made it difficult to know how much and what to bring. The majority of my wardrobe fit into the suitcase, all I had to do was pack some shoes and a few other things and I would be ready to leave. I quickly packed up what I needed and left my apartment, managing to bring everything down to my car in one trip. I drove down the street to a cafe I frequented and picked up a latte and one of their cookies. I drove onto the highway that lead towards the country, knowing that I had four hours of driving ahead and all I could do was think about the case at hand and having to see Hayden again. I was not prepared to see him again, still. I knew that the four hours of constant driving would be full of thought regarding the past and him. Both were unnerving and one was deadly.
Chapter 2
I pulled into Hayden’s driveway, parking beside his car. I turned off my car, just sitting in it, looking at his house. Getting of my car seemed to be difficult. I noticed Hayden walking out of his house and over to my car. He looked the same as he did when I left. He was tall, had brown hair, which had grown out a little so it was about an inch long, and he was still as muscular as before. I noticed his hazel eyes looking at me and stopped breathing. Shit. Before my lack of taking a few breaths affected me I got out of my car and began walking towards him before he could reach me. “Hi. Your place still looks nice,” I said.
The comment stopped him in his tracks. “Thanks. I thought I would come and help you with your bags,” he said. He looked over at me and noticed that I had changed. Not in an entirely bad way, but in a way that gave off an aura of strength.
My hair was still long and blonde. I was thinner from losing weight after my last case and being in the hospital for two weeks. I looked up at him with my greyish-blue eyes. “Thanks.” I popped the trunk and grabbed my purse and laptop bag containing the manila envelope he had sent to my current office to entice me to come back to work with him. “Sorry if I packed too much, I just did not know how long I would be down here for.”
Hayden grabbed my bags from my trunk and closed it for me. “Come in. Dinner is almost ready.” He carried my bags into his place.
I locked my car and followed him inside. I felt my stomach tighten when the door closed behind me. There was a sense of familiarity and that bothered me.
“I have you in the first floor bedroom. It will be less awkward that way.”
“Thanks for making it awkward.”
“You knew it was going to be awkward.” He walked into the open kitchen and finished preparing dinner. “Just please sit down and eat dinner with me. That’s all I ask.”
“I can do that.” I sat down at the dinner table across from him. “How come you wanted me to come down here? You worked the case as well.”
He set a plate with chicken, vegetables and rice down in front of me. “I wanted you to come back because you were the only person to catch him.”
“You caught him as well.”
“I know, but you figured out who he was and where he was hiding. I don’t want this one to be out long like Brady had been.”
I ate some of the food, which was delicious, but my stomach was still tight. “This is good. Thank you.”
“I remembered that this was one of your favourite dishes.”
I blushed. Why am I blushing? His place was warm compared to the cool weather outside. I could hear thunder and knew that the expected severe thunderstorms had finally made its way here. “Do you still have the old case records?”
He nodded, still chewing his food. He swallowed so he could talk without being rude. “Yes, and I brought them from the office to be here with us and be readily available.” He already knew what I was thinking and he knew that he was going to be up for a long time trying to figure out the case. “I put it in the living-room since that is the largest area of carpet for us to lay everything out on.”
I looked at him, shocked that he had remembered a lot more of what I liked than I expected. “Thank you. I owe you for letting me stay in your place.”
“No, you don’t. You really had no other choice.” He got up and collected my empty plate with his. “You remember where the living-room is. I have a copy of the recent murder down there too.” He rinsed off the plates and placed them in the dishwasher. He watched me walk away and down the three steps into the living-room. He followed me down the steps and turned the television on to a movie, but turned down the volume so it would not distract us.
“Check the weather.”
He changed the channel and checked to see how severe the weather was. “Severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch.” He put the television back to the movie, not concerned about the weather because he was used to it living out in the country. “I have candles and flashlights ready since the power will more than likely go out.”
I nodded, opening the boxes of Brady Oakes’ murders. I pulled out the pictures of the bodies and laid them out according to the order of the murders. They all looked the same, but some of them were different. Brady Oakes would add a deep cut somewhere different on each body, thinking it would make it seem like it was done by different people. “Where was the deep cut on the recent body?”
Hayden opened the folder and pulled out the pictures of the body. “On the back of her thigh.”
“Just like the first murder.” I picked up the pictures of that case and crawled over to Hayden on my knees. “Did you compare how alike they were at all?”
“No, I was waiting for you. You tend to know this stuff a little better.” He laid his out on the floor next to the old case’s pictures I had brought over. “Okay. What we need to do here is to look for the similarities between the two. Did you talk to the coroner yet about which way the knife was cutting?”
“It was in the report I sent. But, yes, I did talk to him. They were going left to right. The killer is right-handed, same as Brady Oakes.”
“And a large percentage of the world’s population. If Brady Oakes was not dead and six feet under the ground, I swear, this murderer would be him.” I felt a shiver go up my spine. I remember that feeling. That was when Brady Oakes had begun to attack me. The touch of his hand on my shoulder when he had abducted me came back to my memory. Forget about that Liz. “Okay, let’s take a look here.” I went on to my fours, hovering above the two cases pictures and began to compare them. Every cut, every gunshot, the way the body was positioned. Everything was precise in the murders. Oakes had been particular about how he had wanted things to be done. Both bodies were positioned the same, the cuts were in the same area according to the women’s body structures. He attacked only women, blonde, successful and young. All the victims were in their mid to late twenties. “Everything is a match to Oakes’ style. Not one thing is out of place.”
“No, there must be something different about them. They cannot be that similar.”
I sat back, my legs tucked under me. “Take a look for yourself. Everything is a match.” I rubbed my upper arms over my scars Brady had left me with. I felt warm, almost hot and knew that I would have to take off my sweater in order to cool down. No one at my station questioned me about my scars, mainly because they were afraid of my reaction to that question. I took off the light sweater, my lacy tank top exposing the scars on my arms and across the parts of my chest that were showing and shoulders. My back was just as marked as my front. I was fortunate enough to have received fewer cuts than the victim because I had stopped him before he could continue doing it. The scars seemed to be more prominent since the case had reopened. It was primarily my imagination making them appear more than they probably were.
Hayden looked at the scars on my body. They were faint, yet noticeable. He felt my eyes on him. “Sorry. I just remember when you got those.” The power went out right after he had said that. It allowed for the awkward moment to disappear. “I’ll be back with some light.”
“Okay. Do you want to stop working on the case because of the power going out?”
“And do what? Sit near you and talk about our lives? I wanted you here to solve this case, nothing else. I want this murderer out of my town.”
“Your town now?”
“You know what I mean.” He got up and walked off to find the candles and flashlights he kept just in case the power went out.
I sat alone on the floor in the dark, surrounded by pictures of murdered women. The lightning quickly lit up the room every time a flash went across the sky, allowing the pictures to become visible for a brief second before fading back into the darkness at the sound of thunder. The loud crack of the thunder caused me to jump. It was close to Hayden’s house. Lightning must have been striking in a field just down the street from him or on the property behind his house. I sat in the room, mesmerized by the storm. The strong wind was blowing the trees outside the house; the lightning crossing the sky; the loud thunder sounding like gunshots. I closed my eyes, trying to push out the memories, but found something else pertinent to the case in my mind. When I had worked on the case the last time, I somehow gained a connection with Oakes. It allowed me to sense when he was near and what he was feeling at times. My body shuddered at the thought of that feeling returning. I felt sick. This feeling was something I thought would never return. I felt a hand touch my shoulder, causing me to jump and let out a small scream.
“Are you okay?” Hayden asked.
“Fuck! You scared me!” My heart was racing due to being scared. I watched him intently as he lit several candles around us, providing us with minimal working light.
“Sorry about the lack of light. This was all I could find. I try not to stock up on candles. No need for me to do that with just me living here.” He looked over at me and noticed how pale I looked in the candle light. “Are you all right?” He pulled a blanket off the couch behind him and wrapped it around me. “What’s wrong?”
I looked up at his face, my eyes locking with his. I did not know what to say to him, or how to even act. My body felt paralyzed like it had been after I was attacked. I felt his hands on my upper arm.
“Liz, can you hear me?”
I managed to nod my head in response to his question. I wanted to have him hold me and bring me back to reality, but I could barely handle his hands touching me.
Hayden watched me and how I was acting. There was another time he had seen this and that was when I had been attacked. “Liz, listen to me. You can break free of this. Hold on to yourself. Look at me and do not look away.” He held my head in his hands and made sure that I could not look away from him. “Whatever it is, you can break free from it. Just look at me. This is all a memory, not what is happening now.”
I felt his hands on my face now, his eyes bringing my back to reality. I leaned forward and rested my forehead on his right shoulder. I did not want to touch him in any way, but I needed that sense of feeling close to someone who I knew I could trust. I felt exhausted now, like all my energy was drained out of me from that moment of paralysis.
“Were you paralyzed again?” He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me closer to him.
“It felt like it. It felt like I had let the memories and fear take hold of me again.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, enjoying the closeness to him. The fact that what I did not want to do and knowing that I had done some of them was what bothered me the most. I pulled away from him, regaining my composure. “So, you will show me the crime scene tomorrow?” I said to him, changing the subject.
Hayden knew that what just happened would not happen again, if I had the power or the will to stop it. “If it’s not all washed away by now, but, yes, I can take you to it.”
“Okay. Well, I am going to try and read over the report with as much light as I can at the moment.”
“All right. Would you like anything to drink?”
I was craving to have a hot cup of tea at the moment, but with the power being out I knew that it would be hard to make a cup.
“I can make you tea, if you would like. I know how much you liked your green tea.”
“I do not want to be a hassle.” The lightning lit up the entire room, almost blinding me for a few seconds. “Hayden, that one was really close. Do you think we may have to take some cover?” The storm was making me uneasy. It did not help that the case that had almost cost me my life was back and with a new killer.
Hayden walked over to the window, looking outside. He loved the storms out in the country. It was one of the reasons he wanted to stay out here. “We should be okay. If you feel unsafe, go into your room.”
“I will be fine here. Could you pass me the report?” With him being near I knew that I was safe from the storm and any memory that haunted me.
Hayden picked it up and handed it to me. “Go right ahead. Not much of what you will expect to find in there is not in there. It will seem like déjà vu to you. It did for me.”
Chapter 3
“There is not much left of the crime scene,” Detective Landy told Hayden and me. “The storm seemed to have washed most of it away.”
I walked around the crime scene, looking for the indentation in the grass where the body had been placed. I stood in the indentation and turned myself around in a circle, taking in the sights around me. There was an open field in one direction and a wooded area in the other. Where were you hiding? I crouched down, close to the ground and put my right hand on the ground, trying to get a sense from the scene. Why are you back? Why her? I closed my eyes. It felt too much like Oakes’ murders to be a copycat. The hand that touched my shoulder caused me to tense up. I opened my eyes, turning my head to look up at Hayden. “What?” I said. I had been getting a sense of the murderer and he had interrupted me.
“You’re pale,” he told me.
“I feel fine.” I stood up and looked right at his face. “Thanks for fucking up what I just had there.”
“I was more worried about your health.”
“And I am more worried about catching Oakes.”
“Liz, you already caught him.”
“I swear I did, but this is too much like his work. Nothing is out of place. The sense of him is even here.”
“He’s dead though, Liz! You killed him!”
“Don’t you think I know that? Every goddamn day I know he is dead!
He did not know what to say in return to that comment. He had already rid himself of that demon named Oakes, a long time ago. No scars on his body were there to remind him of that torment. Just looking at me, he saw the strength and the fear, both battling with each other. “Okay, what do you want to do now? Do you want to stay around here again and get a sense of him? Or would you rather go to the hospital and take a look at the victim? I am just doing what you want here. You know more about him than anyone else.”
I stood still, trying to see if I could get a feel for him once again. There was no sense of him anymore; he had distanced himself from me. Playing a game again, aren’t we Brady? In my mind, the killer was still Oakes. “Let’s go to the morgue. He is too far away for me to pick up a sense of him. He wants to play games with me. If this is a copycat he is skilled and we are screwed.” I took his hand to help me out of the muddy area and back to his car. I tried to hide the awkwardness of the gesture and the fact that I had wanted him to hold my hand. I got in the passengers’ seat and buckled up. The shiver that ran up my spine stopped me from breathing normally. It seemed to have paralyzed me for the moment. Oakes had distanced himself from the crime scene, but was close to the side of the road where Hayden had parked. I can feel you again Brady. I killed you two years ago, how could you still be here? The chances of him hearing my thoughts or me hearing his were none existent, but two years ago he had managed to get inside my head and made me hear him. Any thought of it being him in my head was a memory of the past. “He’s close,” I stated, not caring if Hayden heard me. The temporary paralysis had to be broken and speaking aloud would do it.
Hayden drove back on to the road, glancing over at me after I had stated that. “Who is close?” he said to me. The random statement had him worried. If there was still a connection between Oakes and me it could damage me further and he did not want to see me go through that again.
Turning my head, I looked at his face and looked into his eyes. “Brady. He had been close to us when we were sitting the car back at the crime scene. Don’t worry, that connection ended the day I killed him. Whatever is left is a memory.”
The look on my face made him even more concerned and angry. He wanted this to be done and over with. It happened two years ago and it took him enough time to get over that case the first time. A second time could ruin him. He reached his right hand out and grasped my left hand. The temperature of my hand sent a chill through him. My hand was ice cold, like no heat had ever touched my body in the past several hours. “Are you sure?” He wanted to feel close to me. He needed it for himself and did not care if it bothered me.
“I’m positive. I just need to find out where he is hiding. I find out that and the case is solved. He won’t have anywhere to hide that we do not already know about.”
Hayden nodded, pulling into a parking space behind the small hospital. “Don’s still working here. I let him know that you were coming out this way to help us again.” He got out of his car and waited for me to get out before he locked the doors. The look of the hospital would scare off anyone from a large city. It was old, most of the brick chipping off the sides, the paint was a lime green colour in the hallways, and with sections were painted white to cover stains. It was tacky, but the hospital was in functional. He walked beside me into the hospital and down a flight of stairs to the basement. The door he knocked on was of a lighter green than the wall colour and was made of steel. “Don! You in there?” He heard laughter coming from behind him, where I had been standing. He turned around, was shocked and a little jealous about the sight.
I had my arms wrapped around Don’s neck as he had his arms wrapped around my middle, lifting me off the ground. I was laughing as he held me up off the ground. I gave him a light kiss on the lips. “I have missed you Don,” I said.
Don put my feet back on the ground, but still kept his arm around my back. “I have missed you too, my dear,” Don said with his thick British accent he has not been able to be rid of since he came back from England four years ago from a teaching job. Most words were no longer said with the accent while other words still had the accent. “I see that you have agreed to come down here to help out. I am glad that you did. Come now, I will brew you a cup of tea before we go and look at the victim. Much of what you will see you have already seen before.” Don led me into his office, where he plugged in his kettle after filling it up with water from the bathroom sink tap. “Would you like anything to drink Hayden?”
“No, thanks. I am not much of a tea type person,” Hayden replied, sitting down on the chair next to me. The look he gave me showed me that he was still a little protective over me even though he trusted Don.
Once the kettle clicked off, Don poured water into my mug, removing the teabag after it had steeped for a little bit. He handed me my mug as he walked over to his desk and sat down. “Now, what would you two like to talk about?”
The tea he handed me was green tea and was hot. I took a couple small sips, not wanting to burn my tongue. “The cut marks,” I told him. “I want to know more about them in relation to Oakes’ other victims.”
Don nodded while he took a sip of his tea. He had been expecting that to be one of the topics to be brought up during the visit. “What more about them would you like to know? They were, in fact, made by the same style of hunting knife that had been used by Brady Oakes.”
“Where were they placed? Were they similar? Exact? Anything and everything, Don, I need to know it.”
“From what my memory recalls, yes, the locations were his old M.O. and the cut marks were similar. Exactness, I did not have any other body or bodies to compare them to. I only had pictures, which can be deceiving to the eye when tired or focused too hard.”
I felt Hayden’s eyes on me, reading my face, my actions and reactions. He was trying to tell what I was thinking. A hard task for him now since I kept trying to not let him read me. “Once in the morgue, you can use mine to compare.”
“You do not need to do that. I do not wish to make you uncomfortable in any way possible.” Don knew what Hayden was thinking. That time, two years ago, was something they did not want me to go through again. As friends they relied on each other to help cope with the loss of me.
“I’m fine guys. If it’s to stop him all over again I can handle being used as a way to guarantee we have the same killer. And you two better stop making those faces.” I looked at them over the rim of my mug as I took a few sips trying to finish the teas as quickly as possible so that we could get to work. “I have a couple more sips left. Once I finish that we can go look at the victim.” I drank the rest of my tea in one large gulp, placed the mug on Don’s desk and stood up. The warmth of the tea flowing down my oesophagus and into my stomach made me feel warmer than normal. “Let’s go.” I took off my sweater, leaving it hanging over the back of the chair I had been sitting on. The shirt I had on underneath was a simple plain black tank top. The scars on my arms were showing and I could feel their eyes on them. I left them in Don’s office and walked into the morgue. The victim’s body was covered by the typical sterile, white sheet, her face showing being the only part of her body showing. She had been a beautiful woman and still was, for what was left of her. I walked around the autopsy table that she had been on, the familiarity of the scene rushing back into my mind.
I looked down at the young, fair-haired woman. Blood was all over her, left on the steel, sterile table for all to see. This was her in his image of glory. Her body slashed, the cuts were deep; deep enough to see muscle. “Who in their right mind would do this anyone?” I said to Hayden.
Hayden’s eyes were on me, the heat they sent out was more than what was needed. He continued to look at me, trying to read my face. “Someone insane. I never heard of a case like this before,” Hayden said. He walked over to stand beside me so he could look at the victim from my angle. “What are you thinking about?”
Chapter 4
“What are you thinking about?” Hayden asked me, standing close behind me. He saw the flinch I made when his voice broke me out of my recollection of a memory. He stepped closer, his body nearly touching mine. He remembered my stance and face from the old case being the same as it was now.
“Hmm?” I turned my head; his face was close to mine. I looked up at him. “Oh, sorry. I was in a different world there.” I stepped away from him; being too close to him bothered me. It brought back too many feelings I did not want to deal with yet. “I was just remembering the first victim and what she had looked like.”
Don came out of his office with gloves and gown on. He was going to do most of the work and did not want to damage his outfit. “Let’s take a look see of our victim here. What do you want to focus on first Liz?” he said to me as he pulled the sheet off the victim’s body and placed it at her feet. The victim lay bare; the Y-incision was prominent to the eye. Whatever pride she had in her body no longer existed, she was now an object.
“Her cut marks. Those are the most important. If they are not accurate we will know that we have a copycat on our hands.” I leaned forward over the table, looking at her right arm. Some people would just think that the marks were random, but they were not detectives or pathologists. Her arm was cut and I knew that it would be similar to what my arm looked like, even though my cuts had healed. I outstretched my arm next to hers. “One of you come over here and compare her marks with mine. This is the only way that we will be able to tell if it is the same killer.”
Don and Hayden both looked at each other. They did not want to do this because of how sensitive the subject was. Hayden took a deep breath and walked over to me. “Her arm is about the same length as yours. What would you like me to do now?” Hayden said to me.
“Just look closely and see if her cuts are in the same place as mine. I do not care if you have to move my arm a little to get a better comparison.” They were not the only ones who were awkward with this. I was all they had to use as a comparison to the new victim.
Hayden touched my arm, turning it slightly now and then. The marks were very close, if not, a match. “They are all the same, if not, a couple millimetres off. I would say that we have a match.”
“This cannot be right,” Don said. Don walked over to where Hayden and I were and looked at the victim’s arm and then mine. He closely looked at both of our arms, examining each wound. “This cannot be right. No one is this accurate unless it is the original killer. A copycat could not get the same precision unless they have been practicing. No other type of murders has occurred between the last case and this new victim.”
I stood up, rubbing my right arm over my scars on my left arm. “I killed him though. Unless he had a partner like we suspected who aided in the murders, otherwise we have no idea who we are dealing with that had that much access to the previous case. The case never went to trial so the records were never released to the public.”
“We all know that he did not have a partner,” Hayden said. He quickly walked into Don’s office and returned with my sweater in his hand. He handed it to me, wanting me to stop rubbing my arm. It was making my arm go red because each time I rubbed my arm I applied more pressure. That continuous motion and the fact that he knew what was going through my mind, was reason enough for him to grab my sweater. “But, if this is in fact, Brady Oakes, then who was the man that Liz killed two years ago?”
“It was Brady!” I stated with my teeth clenched. It had to be him. The location, the attack, his looks, it had to be him. The image had become so clear in my mind in the past few hours that I could guarantee it was Brady. The smile on Brady’s face, the knife gleaming in the light of the passing cars. Each time he was moving closer to me and every time I took a step back. The knife was a clear image; it was a six inch long hunting knife. The skill to handle one was great and he seemed to possess the ability to yield it however he wanted to. Flashes of what the place looked like appeared in my mind. Quick bursts of images. Graffiti covered the walls. A teenager’s haven for the ones that rebelled, that wanted to stand out. That window in the warehouse and Brady stood out to me. Every distance he covered as he advanced towards me allowed me to see his face. It was the most evil face I had ever seen. He reminded me of a scary clown. Every time I backed up, I was getting closer to a wall. The coolness of the grimy wall soon reached my fingers. It felt like steel and cold. I looked up, locking eyes with Hayden. He looked confused. “What?” I said to him.
“Maybe you should take her back to your place and let her work from there,” Don suggested.
“I think I may. I have all the old case files at home. She can work from there in peace and hopefully this will not happen again,” Hayden said.
“What won’t happen again? I just used my arm to compare the marks,” I stated. Reading both of their facial expressions, I knew that something else was wrong. “Guys, what happened? I can tell that something is wrong.”
“You do not remember what just happened?”
“I know I kind of spaced out right there.”
“You were yelling at me!”
I looked at him, shocked. “I was?” I must have thought Hayden was Brady Oakes. I wanted to go lie down, think over everything and maybe get some sleep. I had not slept at all last night. “Okay, maybe I should go back and lie down.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Don said to me. The doctor side of him was beginning to show. He grabbed my hand, noticing the temperature of my body. I was cool to the touch, which he knew that I should not be in this weather. “You need to go and lie down for a bit.”
“I’m fine guys.” I looked over at Hayden. “Is there anything else that I should see?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did he have anything else that he did or leave behind? Anything in particular?”
“Not that I know of. What is done to the body is the main part of what we found. The crime scene was clean, the body too. Not a single fingerprint was found on her body.”
The feeling of knowing that I was not in control over what my flashbacks were showing me and doing to me bothered me. My willpower to catch Brady was stronger now than it had been the last time.
“Come on. We’ll go back to my place and look over all the cases. You can lie down, even if it is for a little while.”
“Fine, I am not going to argue with you two.” I hugged Don and left the morgue. I was furious. No one could tell me what to do, especially if it was Hayden or Don. I stood outside, taking a few deep breaths. That last flashback had taken a lot of energy out of me. I felt cold, tired and frightened. Brady had managed to catch me off guard and had nearly killed me two years ago. I was not one for letting my guard down. The fight between Brady and me was long, violent and exhausting. The pain to my body was excruciating. Tears had been streaming down my face as my arms bled from all the cuts he had made with the hunting knife he held in his hand. His hand and the knife had been dripping with my blood. I had not noticed now that I was rubbing my arms again till Hayden placed his hands over mine, stopping me.
Hayden pulled my back against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “Stop rubbing your arms. It won’t make you feel any better and I can tell that you are nervous,” he said into my left ear. The holding of me was not something he should have done, but even after two years he still felt that it was his place to protect me; to keep me close to him and not lose me again. That was what he felt like doing since the moment he had seen me again. “Are you okay Liz?”
I let my head fall back against his chest and closed my eyes. “I am tired, but I am fine.” The feeling of being held felt good since I had not been held like this since I had been with Hayden last.
“I’ll take you home and you can sleep some more. We will look over the case some more.” He kissed the back of my head. He took his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car. The drive back to his place seemed to be long, even for how short it actually was. Every so often he would glance over at me during those fifteen minutes and noticed my eyes slowly closing. “Almost home.”
I nodded. I let my eyes close. The flashbacks and retracing my previous steps from the last case drained all my energy. He was the only person I had ever had dealt with that took energy out of the detectives. I felt Hayden’s car stop and turn off.
“Come on. You can rest.” Hayden hated having to wake me up in front of his house and watch me stumble to his front door. He unlocked the door and let me go in first. “Go lie down on your bed. You need some sleep.” He brought all of our belongings into the kitchen, placed them on the kitchen counter and noticed that I was leaning against the counter, watching him. “I thought I told you to go and get some rest.”
“I know you did. I just feel bad for having to stop working and needing to sleep.”
Hayden walked over and pulled me into his arms. “You worked all last night completing a similarity list. You deserve some rest.”
I wrapped my arms around his middle and closed my eyes. Sleep was scarce for me and had been since I had gotten out of the hospital. “I do not need sleep.”
“You need sleep.”
It was tough admitting to someone that you did not want to close your eyes and fall asleep because of what your dreams may be about. “I have not gotten much sleep in years. I just rest when I am tired.”
“Well, rest you shall.” He let go of me and walked down the few steps and into the living-room. He closed the blinds on the windows and the long curtain over the sliding glass door. “At least lie down on the couch and close your eyes for a bit.”
I followed him into the living-room and sat down on his larger couch. “I can do that.” I lied down, still watching him move about the room awkwardly. We had both done things today that had caused this uncomfortable atmosphere between us. Some of our old habits had come back rather quickly and could not be ignored. I still wanted him to do things that he had done in the past, but I knew that that would not be a wise thing to do at the moment. I finally closed my eyes, hoping that if I were to see anything, which it would not be of what had happened in the past. Too many nights I had lost sleep to dreams about Brady.
Hayden walked over and sat down on the floor in front of me, turning on the television. He knew that I could sleep while he looked over his report again. Every so often he would look back at me to see if I was okay. He would stroke my cheek, wanting me to be calm and rest. The dreams still haunted him, but he knew that the dreams I had to deal with were worse than he could ever imagine. Just watching me today had caused him to want to hold me and protect me again. There had been fear, pain and strength in my eyes, my face and my demeanour.
“Mmm...This is unlike you. What’s wrong?” I said with my eyes remaining closed.
“Nothing. Just remembering some things from the past. Try to rest some more.”
“I am. I just do not want to sleep. Too many dreams.” I rolled on to my side, trying to get more comfortable. I did not push away his hand; I wanted the comfort because it would help fight off the dreams. “I just have a question.”
“If you ask me that one question you have to promise to get some rest.”
“I do not promise anything. All I want to know is who found her.”
“A truck driver. He had made a pit stop to take a piss and saw her in the distance. Went to see if she needed help and realized she was dead.”
“Did you interview him?”
“No, he made the call from his cell phone on the road to his destination. We never got his number.”
“Shit.” That did not cause my mind to relax; it caused it to stir more.
“You said you would rest now. We can talk about this later.” He knew what I was doing. Everything was being run through my mind while I was supposed to rest. He was tired too. The case was tough to deal with and having me in the house—a past lover—had caused more problems than he expected it to. He could hear my breathing pattern change and knew that I was asleep, no longer resting with my eyes closed. The fact that I had fallen asleep allowed him to get some sleep too. He lied down on the floor, pushing his back against the couch I was sleeping on. The place was still cool. He knew that I was used to sleeping in the cold like he was.
“No sleeping on the floor. I can take the smaller couch,” I said in a quiet tone.
“I am fine down here. Go back to sleep.” Since I had woken up like I just did he knew that my dreams had turned to horrible things from the past.
“I am just going to go back to resting now. No more sleep.” The dreams were coming back; as was the memory of the connection I had had with Brady. The case was running through my mind; each and every detail.
“Stop thinking of the case and rest some more. We will discuss this over dinner.” The fact that the dreams returned so quickly meant that the case was all that I was going to think about and cause a lack of sleep for him. He rolled on to his back and looked up at me. “What are you thinking about?” He knew that if he did not ask I would just lie there and wait for him to ask me so I could discuss whatever was on my mind.
“The fact that we have all of our previous case information and yet, there is no way to find him.” Last time, we had spent over six months trying to locate him. It took such a long time because he never stayed in one place or left a fingerprint anywhere, including the victims’ bodies.
“I guess I will start to make dinner.” He sat up and stayed that way for a couple minutes. His mind was now full of thoughts over what I had just said. Brady was hard to track down, let alone catch. He was not looking forward to reliving all of it again and going through the hassle of doing everything twice with a slimmer chance of catching whoever was doing the killing. “What do you feel like for dinner?” He needed his mind to be clear, to not be swarming with ‘what ifs’.