HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) Read online

  * * *

  The air was stagnant, thick with heat and humidity despite the late hour. The temperature usually cooled this late at night. It hadn’t tonight.

  The rank stench from the canal hung in the air, competing with the horrid smell of decomposing flesh. Detective Sarah Voss found it revolting to both breathe and examine the body.

  She had been out here for hours; having been called here due to some kind shooting that resulted from a raid on the sugar factory. Cops had discovered a body, shot, they had said, point blank straight to the chest. All she had been told over the phone was that it hadn’t been a kid and didn’t appear to be gang related, which put the case at a cut above the rest. Most street crimes went unsolved, lost in a sea of kids trying to cover for each other until the cat’s cradle of misinformation and half truths sank the trail into unreachable depths, otherwise known as the unsolved murders shelf at the back of the evidence room. This one would be different. It was an adult who had been killed, and he was from out of state.

  The lights that were shining down, angled directly over the body, were blindingly bright, but Sarah was more interested in illuminating the canal. The lights over the water there weren’t so bright or helpful. They seemed to reflect against the water’s surface, making it impossible to see into the depths. If the unis couldn’t spot something, like the murder weapon, she would request a diver. She had only been holding off on the request because her partner had been against her hunch that the gun was in the canal. He reasoned that since there were no prints on the railing there was no indication the murderer had thrown the weapon into the water. Sarah thought otherwise.

  “There are a mountain of cigarette butts over there by the doors, and not one at the railing here over the canal, none floating in the water,” she argued. “If kids were hanging out at the railing there would be butts scattered there, syringes, evidence of why a person would be standing there. There’s nothing. There aren’t multiple sets of prints, overlapping from months of various hands grasping hold. There are no prints.”

  “Because no one was standing there.”

  “We knew that they were based on how the body fell. Would you touch a railing if you’d just tossed a gun into the water? Would you forget to wipe your prints if you had?”

  “Every inch of this place has one set of prints, here and there, Voss,” said her partner, irritated mostly because he had been fast asleep when they got the call, but also because irritation was his primary mode of functioning. Detective Charlie Linden had built his entire career on being irritable, mostly as a ploy to get people to leave him alone, and Sarah was starting to resent it. Recently he’d only been getting in her way.

  “Call in the request,” she barked at the closest uni. “I need a diver down there. We haven’t got all night.”

  Linden stared at her, mouth gaping. Seriously? she thought. He was that surprised she undermined him?

  Sarah paced back towards the body, distancing herself from Linden. She was sick of staring at his bloated face and aging sympathetic eyes, the combination of which inspired pity in her mostly, but also annoyance. She couldn’t get mad at someone she pitied, and yet she was constantly annoyed at his incompetence. He needed to retire, but in a lot of ways, so did she. At forty-eight the job had done more than take its toll. Sarah was tired, exhausted by the futility of trying to make a difference and failing daily. The crimes on these streets too often went unsolved. Most of the time, she didn’t even know what she was doing out here, what purpose she was serving, until she looked at Linden. He reminded her of what she wasn’t doing, sitting on her ass and waiting for her pension to kick in. Retirement wasn’t an option. She knew herself. She would work until the day she died.

  Detective Sarah Voss kneeled down beside the body, studying it in attempts to catch anything she may have missed prior.

  The body, identified as Dale Williams, a man from central New Hampshire, otherwise known as the lake’s region, lay on the ground at an awkward angle. Whoever had shot him had their back to the canal railing..

  The unis had collected shell casings and the lab was able to identify the make of the gun that killed him. Now they just needed to find it.

  Sarah stared at the man’s face as disgust emerged from the pit of her stomach, spreading through every cell in her body. She got the overwhelming feeling that this man deserved it, not that she would ever share that instinct with Linden. Linden had been thinking she was going a little coo-coo for months now. He made it no secret.

  The feeling that the dead man had deserved his death was strong in Sarah’s gut. Once it gripped hold of her, she couldn’t shake it.

  “New Hampshire man,” said Linden, hovering over her, reviewing the body as well. “What was he doing down here? Why was he at the sugar factory when there was nothing going on here but runaways selling smack?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes, not that he could see. His sophomoric detective skills made her want to laugh and cry in a torrent of frustration.

  “Did the unis find any kids that may have talked to him?” She asked.

  “No,” he said, “but the diver is here.”

  Sarah lifted her gaze. The diver lowered from the railing into the water at just that moment.

  “If it turns out to be a gang gun,” said Linden, “it’ll send us on a wild goose chase.”

  Sarah knew it would be a gang gun. She was counting on it. A gang would easily give up the name and description of the person they had sold the weapon to. She knew that because she knew the shooter had not been from any gang. The story behind this killing had nothing to do with the sugar factory it had taken place behind. It had nothing to do with Brooklyn. In her gut, Detective Sarah Voss knew that the story behind this killing was much larger than either of them could ever imagine.

  “We got the weapon!” shouted a uni from the railing.

  Linden sauntered over, as though he was in no rush.

  Sarah’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket as she followed, trailing slowly behind Linden.

  “Voss,” she said.

  It was the station calling. They had gotten an anonymous call, and dispatch thought to patch it through, routing the call all the way to Voss.

  “Now’s not the best time,” she said.

  “He won’t come into the station, Detective. Says he wants to remain anonymous, but he knows who shot your man behind the sugar factory,” said the mousy receptionist on the other end.

  Sarah sighed, “This better not be another crackpot tip, Miranda.”

  “Hey, no guarantees,” said the receptionist. “I’ll patch him through.”

  Sarah waited, listening to a series of clicks, as she watched forensics turn the gun over in a tray, searching for its serial number.

  After the last click, she heard the line open up, and announced herself.

  “This is Detective Sarah Voss.”

  “I have an address,” said a man on the other end. His voice was low, gruff, gravelly. It gave away his age. She was talking to someone not much older than herself. “If you go there, you’ll find the shooter.”

  “And how will I know that?” she asked, immediately pegging this guy as full of shit.

  “Fingerprints. They’ll be the same as whatever you’re finding back there at the canal.”

  Sarah paused. It would have been a fair point if they had any prints, but the man sounded confident enough.

  “There are only two types of people that make a call like this,” she began. “People who are bat-shit crazy and people who committed the crime in the first place. If anything you’re telling me pans out, I’m going to think you had something to do with this.”

  Sarah heard nothing on the other end. She waited.

  Finally the man verbalized an address. It wasn’t too far from here. It was worth checking out. No sooner than she had written it down, the man hung up.

  Sarah returned her cell to her pocket.

  Something in her gut told her she ought to check this one out alone.

/>   She headed for her car and was gone before Linden turned and realized his partner was nowhere in sight.

  * * *

  Hunter came-to. Her vision was filled with the knife in her hands, as though it was magnified, as though it was all she could see. The blade glistened bright red. Panic sliced through her. It was blood. Why was she holding a bloody knife?

  She looked down at her lap, searching in a panic of confusion, and saw three large blood droplets across her jeans.

  In a jolt, she dropped the knife. It clanged against the hardwood floor. She grabbed her head with her hands and began pulling at her hair as her mouth twisted into a frown of remorse.

  What had happened? Where had she gone? And most importantly, where was Ash?

  Hunter jumped, startled by the sound of something in the bathroom. Something heavy, hard had fallen there.

  Hunter scrambled to her feet, turning towards the bathroom.

  She nearly screamed a sigh of relief.

  There stood Ash. He was in front of the sink, examining his neck in the mirror. A bottle of rubbing alcohol and iodine had fallen into the sink and on the ground.

  She stared at him with wide eyes as she slowly approached. She was so afraid she had done that, cut him. She remembered her father had been here. He had left the knife. She had slipped away, hadn’t she?

  Ash removed the cotton ball he had been using to blot alcohol against the cut, and began covering the laceration with a large band-aid.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  He sounded upset.

  “I’m just like him, Ash. I’m a monster,” she said. “I’m his daughter. His blood runs through my veins. I’m a monster just like he is, and I’m only going to get worse. I almost killed you. How did he get so far in my head? How did he get control over me?”

  Ash turned to her. He looked so tired, and yet the lines of his face, the arch of his cheekbones and curves of his mouth smoldered with affection for her. She wanted him. She wanted for things to be like how they used to be when they had first met. It felt like a million years ago, but had only been last week. Hunter craved his touch. She couldn’t stand that he would be mad at her. She couldn’t stand that she had attacked him. She didn’t know who to trust. She never had, but she knew she wanted to be with Ash.

  “You’re not a monster, Hunter. No more than I am,” he said, as he glanced into her big brown eyes. “You didn’t hurt me. I got through to you. You came back.”

  “What happened?”

  “You slipped away,” he said. “It’s not uncommon.”

  “I cut you?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “It was like a dream,” she said.

  “Hunter, I think your father trained you to be a killer. I think he did something to you, I think he tortured you into going into a haze of slipping away before you kill. He did something, said something to trigger you before he left. I just don’t know what.”

  Hunter looked confused, yet her expression also seemed to reveal that his words were making sense.

  “Why didn’t I kill you then?” She asked.

  “I reminded you of Blair,” he said.

  Suddenly it all came flooding back to Hunter. Her little sister. The threat on her life. The snuff films Grizzly was planning on making.

  “We have to stop him,” she said.

  “I know,” said Ash.

  Hunter paused, her long face lifting into a slight smile.

  “You really were on my side the whole time, weren’t you?” she asked.

  A wave of relief washed through Ash, swirling into a surge of warmth, compelling him to reach out for her. His hands brushed up her slender arms, landing on the feminine angles of her shoulders. Her skin felt damp, as though she had been in a cold sweat for hours. It matted the hair that lay against the back of her neck. Ash pulled her brown hair back so he could caress the length of her.

  His steel blue eyes held so much darkness within. They were like mirrors to her own soul. His hands on her body were so incredibly relaxing, Hunter wished they could lie down on her bed and rest forever.

  Ash scooped her into his arms and held her tight. His hard chest pressed firmly against hers, his hips aligned to her waist, warming her deep inside with the possibility of his body uniting with hers.

  Hunter closed her eyes, allowing herself to be carried into the sensation. Though it only lasted a moment, it was a much needed escape from the harsh reality that threatened her sanity.

  “I have a bad feeling, Hunter,” he whispered into her ear. “We can’t stay here.”

  Hunter allowed her eyes to float open. The scent of his skin, the softness of his neck made her yearn to be alone with him in peace. Would they ever get that chance?

  Ash gazed deeply into her eyes, dark and brooding, wild and scared all at once.

  “I love you,” he said in a hushed tone.

  She believed him. At long last, she trusted those words.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  Then the bad feeling that had seized Ash gripped Hunter as well.

  Someone was coming.

  * * *

  It was two o’clock in the dead of night by the time Twitch arrived at the corner of Hoyt and 4th Street.

  He had been waiting in the alley all damn night for Ash, for Hunter, for anyone. He would’ve been a lot more annoyed except that he knew something was wrong. And whatever it was, it had to have taken place in or around Hunter’s apartment.

  Stacks upon stacks of black garbage bags lined Hoyt Street, dominating the sidewalks. In a few short hours the street cleaning trucks would roll through, followed by the garbage collectors. No cars were supposed to be parked there because of it, but one was. From where Twitch was approaching, it looked to him like a government issued vehicle, boxy, safe, and exempt from all ticketing laws.

  Suddenly its headlights went dark and the idling engine died. Twitch paused, watching from the shadows. A woman stepped out of the driver’s door. She looked older, maybe forty, maybe fifty, it was hard to tell. Her dark, frizzy hair was pulled up in a strange mess, and her long taupe trench coat seemed crumpled. If this was a detective, she looked haggard, spent, faded, or at least that’s how she appeared from where Twitch was standing.

  That might be a good thing if she was an old exhausted woman, he thought. It gave him a fighting chance of beating her upstairs.

  He yanked his loose jeans up and headed off, running towards the back alley.

  If he could get up the fire escape in the back, then he could climb up all the way to Hunter’s apartment on the fifth floor or hop through the second floor landing and take the stairs. Either way, he would keep up his pace and beat her to them. The last thing any of them needed was to get arrested. Twitch was determined not to let that happen.

  * * *

  Inside the apartment, Ash quickly moved towards the window. He lifted it, opening it as wide as it would go, but just as he was about to step out onto the fire escape, he realized Hunter was no longer directly behind him.

  He turned.

  Hunter was standing paralyzed in the center of her apartment.

  “Come on,” he whispered.

  “We’re leaving my apartment with two bodies,” she whispered back. “We have Dale’s car. We’re never going to outrun this, Ash.”

  “We have to try,” he said. “Think about your sister. We have to help her.”

  Suddenly a memory claimed Hunter’s thoughts, giving her pause. It was of her sister, Blair.

  Hunter had had no understanding of how it happened. She remembered how her father had taken her that day, in broad daylight, right out of the front basket of her mother’s shopping cart. That had been the last time she had seen her mother, but she had not understood how her father had gotten Blair. One day when Hunter had been nine and long since accustomed to life at the farmhouse, her father had brought Blair home. Blair had been four years old. The last time Hunt
er had seen her was with her mother before she had been taken. Blair had been a mere infant, a smiling lump of warmth. Her father had deposited the four year-old girl into Hunter’s arms and told her to teach her little sister how to live here. It had been one of the saddest moments of Hunter’s life, sad because it had been mixed with so much joy. She had loved her sister, and yet knew the horrors that would befall her now that she was there. The years together had become more and more heartbreaking, until eventually Hunter learned to turn her back on Blair. It had been too painful to admit she had a sister.

  She should have taken Blair with her that night when she had escaped the farmhouse. Hunter had been too far gone to think about anyone but herself. Now was Hunter’s chance to make it up to Blair.

  She hated that her father was manipulating her once again, forcing her to return to the farmhouse to save her sister. He must have known that would be the only reason she would ever go back. Part of her wished she could say to hell with it and let her sister be killed up there. It had been difficult, but possible to leave Blair behind in the first place. But that had been because Hunter had been in a mode of strict survival. She wasn’t in that mode anymore. She was able to think clearly, to live, to breathe. She would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t at least try to save her younger sister.

  Ever since this whole thing had started, ever since she had come home to her apartment and discovered Thomas standing in the middle of her studio, Hunter had wanted to return to the farmhouse and kill all of the men who had a hand in torturing her for all those years.

  Now was the time, but did they have a fighting chance?

  “Hunter!” shouted Ash, though he only meant to whisper.

  “I’m coming,” she said.

  And just as she was about to cross to the window and join him, there was a loud bang on the apartment door.

  Hunter froze. She looked at Ash, her eyes growing ever wider.

  Again, someone on the other side pounded against the door.

  Hunter looked at the dead body of Travis on the other side of the room, the old bloodstain from Thomas’ death, Molly’s lifeless body slumped in the bathtub. If whoever was on the other side of that door saw this scene, Hunter and Ash would be arrested without a moment’s hesitation.