Tellings of the Time: Complete series

20. 19

A notification on my screen when I’m working in my office, showing me I’ve got a new email. My attention gets drawn to it when I see who sent it to me. It’s sent by wdridgefield, which is a little crazy. Why the hell would Wayne send me an email? Then again, what hasn’t he sent me already?

Alarm bells should probably go off, and having an office full of computer geniuses should have taught me better, but I open the email anyway. I’ll blame it on my rebellious side.

The subject of the email is ‘a little surprise’. The text in the email just says ‘To brighten your day’. There’s an attachment titled ‘double or nothing’, and my hand starts shaking when I click it.

It can’t be anything good.

I breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and hold for four again.

Then I open it.

A crying girl with the prettiest dark brown eyes with perfect, thick, black lashes looks at the screen. Her lashes are wet, her eyelids are red and tears pool her eyes. If she wasn’t looking as terrified as she does right now, she’d be gorgeous, even when she’s crying. Strands of her dark hair are taken out of her face by an obviously male hand.

Wayne.

He makes shushing sounds, turns the camera, and shows me his own face. He looks smug, his blue eyes shining brightly, his cheeks a very healthy pinkened color, even if there are dark circles beneath his eyes. At least I’m not the only one not getting enough sleep.

“My dearest Abby,” he says in that sickeningly sweet voice of his. “I thought long and hard about how to deliver this message and still make it special. Last time, having you on the phone felt really good, didn’t it?”

Muffled sounds come from the back. I’m pretty sure the girl is gagged like he has always gagged all the women he kills. It’s like he’s afraid for them to talk back, ruining his fantasy for him. I’m pretty sure Beckett has some kind of psychological explanation for it, but I’m also pretty sure I don’t want to fucking know.

“Quiet now,” he says, looking to his other side now. Is the girl still able to move? “We’re almost getting to the good part.”

He takes a deep breath before he continues.

“I thought about having you here when I killed them, but I couldn’t find a way to make that work. I feel like you’re not quite there yet. But this way, you do get to experience this with me.”

Them.

He said them.

My heart is racing like crazy, and the sound of my blood is coursing through my veins in my ears. I speed dial Chester, who picks up immediately and I summon him with a brazen ‘get here now’.

The camera shifts, and I’m now looking at a completely different girl. So alike, yet their complete own person. Yes, they both have dark hair and dark eyes, bound and gagged by the biggest monster I’ve ever encountered, and still, they’re their own person. Their hopes, their dreams, their loved ones. All reduced to falling into Wayne’s hands.

And for what?

“Ready?” Wayne asks the camera before showing me the first girl, who’s thrashing and kicking her legs, before he sets the camera on the floor, directing it at the second girl.

I’m gagging when Chester rushes into my office, hurrying to get behind my desk and look at my screens. He has his phone out and starts dialing, who I presume is Beckett and yells at him to get here now.

While Wayne straddles the girl and wraps his hands around her neck, Chester pushes me aside and starts working on my second screen. I have no idea what he’s doing. All I can see is the woman on the screen, fighting for her life. The little vessels in her eyes pop, and freckle-like bruises appear on her cheekbones. She’s desperately trying to get some air in but to no end. Her face keeps turning more red until the fight starts to leave her body.

What is the thing that makes me the sickest to see on that screen, though? That’s the gleeful look on Wayne’s face. His jaw is locked tight, his arms straining from the pressure he has to apply to her neck. His breathing is heavy, and when the woman’s body goes limp, he releases a long sigh.

He looks directly at the camera, eyes glazed over.

I count the breaths he takes before he moves again. It’s twelve.

“Now let’s up the stakes, double or nothing,” he says, his voice raspy as if there is thick slime stuck in his throat. He turns the camera around, showing me the other girl, who’s fighting with all her might to break free, fighting for her life. She stares into the camera, pleading for someone to help her, summoning us through it, but to no avail.

My hands hurt from balling my fists so hard, but all I can do is sit there and watch as Wayne climbs onto the woman. Jesus, she’s barely a woman. I’m certain she’s of age because that is important to that asshole, but she can’t be much older than eighteen. Barely a woman, more like a girl.

Suddenly her fighting stops. She turns her head back from the camera, and makes eye contact with Wayne. Her chest is heaving, but her look is one of defiance. She will not cower. She will not go in fear.

For just a second, Wayne seemed confused; his body was frozen, as if she had put a spell on him.

My heart skips a beat.

Is this enough to make him back off?

Then, he slowly raises his hands, puts them on her neck and starts strangling her. Still, she keeps staring at him. Her body does not fight him. She does not give him that satisfaction. She fights him the only way she can - by withholding her fear.

It’s the single most bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and my heart breaks in pieces.

I’m an unwilling member of a very select audience who gets to witness her last moments, and as the seconds turn to minutes and her body starts to go limp, tears are streaking down my face.

I only notice Beckett is with us in my office when the life has left her and the fight in her has died down. He lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. My mind can’t wrap itself around the tremendous waste of human life I’ve just witnessed.

Wayne picks up his phone. The hazy look in his eyes he had after killing the first woman has disappeared. Instead of being turned on, he looks kind of spooked. Then he plasters a smile on his face and addresses me directly.

“Thank you for being here with me, Abigail.”

And then the video ends.

I have no idea how to feel about this, but I’m so full I’m about to burst. What comes to the front right now is an overwhelming feeling of pride. She looked death in the eye and she stared back. I don’t think my balls would be that big. It solidifies my resolve that we’re getting Wayne and that we’re making this stop. We owe it to her. We owe it to every woman he ever laid hands upon.

“Got an address,” Chester says, making me snap out of my thoughts and bringing me back to reality. He’s rapidly typing away on my keyboard. “The video was sent using a phone. He didn’t bother trying to mask the location. The phone is still at the address, but I’m pretty sure Wayne will be gone by the time anyone arrives.”

“Let’s go have a look, call ahead, ask if local police can go check it out before we get there. Can you check local feeds around the address and see if we can get a visual trail on him?” Beckett steps in. For once, I’m more than okay with him taking the lead.

Chester nods, locking my computer and almost running down to his own desk. Beckett catches my eye. He looks tired and lost, and it perfectly mirrors the way I feel. I wholeheartedly believe that people can handle a lot more than they assume. Just look at Chester and his past, or me and my parents for instance. Nobody thinks they’re tough enough to handle the shitty hands we’re dealt, but the funny thing is that most of the time, we do so anyway. Partially because we don’t have a choice but also because we’re stronger than we tend to think about ourselves.

There just comes a time when someone is carrying so much that they snap – the weight of the world crushing their resilience.

We’re both on the brink of being crushed, standing at the edge of the abyss, about to be pushed.

He grabs my hand, squeezing my fingers, offering me some kind of comfort, sharing his strength. I blink once, twice, and gather all of myself back together again. Beckett visibly swallows, the column of his neck bobbing as his Adam’s apple goes down and back up again.

Whatever happens, whatever this freaking shitshow of a world might throw at us, whatever gets added to our burdens, we’ll carry it together, all of us, even if it manages to crush us in the end. We’ll go down together.

“Let’s go.”

The address turned out to be a three-story brownstone. By the time the police got there, it was abandoned except for the two women who just had their lives stolen from them. By the time we arrived, the building was a secured crime scene, with with no trace of Wayne to be found.

Clinging to the last piece of his ritual, he took them to the basement to kill them, like he would have done if he’d been at home.

Beckett steps through the door leading down first, and I take a deep breath before I follow him. The normalcy of the basement hits me the most. There are some stock shelves, a washer and a dryer. Some boxes with God knows what. The two women lying on the floor are the only thing out of the ordinary.

Chester has been working like crazy ever since we left. He found out the brownstone is registered to one Monica Hadley. Single, attorney, three cats, no kids. I’m willing to bet she’s one of the women down here. He found the timestamp on the video, and it was taken minutes before it was sent to me. We got here within an hour of them being murdered.

Their bodies are still warm.

I get off the last step, the floor beneath my feet steadying me a little.

The girl he murdered last is closest to me, but still it takes me gathering all of my strength to step towards her and look at her. She stared Wayne down when she was dying, the least I can do is really look at her. See her.

God, how I wish that horrible monster’s face wasn’t the last thing she ever saw.

Her face is still showing the defiance I saw on the video, her eyes open in a stare that will never see anything again. Never wake up again, excited for the day to come. Never hug anyone anymore. Never laugh, never fight, argue passionately, never drink a first cup of coffee in the morning. Fuck, I wonder if she’s ever made love. She’s so young. What if she never experienced that? Has she ever danced in the rain? Or gazed at the stars?

A tidal wave of sadness threatens to take me over. What a waste. What a fucking waste.

It bothers me that Wayne can do this without us finding him while he’s doing it. We figured he knew how to get away without being noticed, but all the time? Every time? How the fuck is he outsmarting us? It’s infuriating.

And just like that, I see red and my sadness makes way for anger. But at least I’m still sound of mind enough to not lose it all together at an active crime scene. Without saying a word, I storm up the stairs again and rush outside, passing crime scene people who are taking forensics. I don’t register the looks they give us.

Once I step outside, I inhale so deeply that my lungs feel full for the first time again. People are swarming everywhere, and when somebody accidentally steps into me and shoves my shoulder, I realize I’m in the way. I step aside, fall with my back against the wall, and slide down until I’m sitting on the ground. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I let my head fall down, closing my eyes. All I see is the look of defiance on that girl’s face, burned on the inside of my eyelids.

“You okay?” Beckett eventually asks while he sits down next to me.

“How does he do this?” I ask, ignoring his question.

“Do what?”

“Get here unnoticed. Get away unnoticed. How does he keep evading us?”

He sighs. “He’s smart.”

“Not smarter than Chester.”

“That’s true. But Chester is just one person and can’t have eyes everywhere. Wayne? He doesn’t need to worry about anybody but himself. He’s got it easy.”

I scoff.

Easy.

Motherfucker has it easy.

Easy, my ass.

“I hate him,” I settle on saying.

Beckett hums in agreement.

“When we finally catch him, I want to make him suffer. For the first time in my life, I don’t think our judicial system is enough. I need him to hurt, and I want to be the one who does it. He brings out the very worst in me.”

Beckett lays an arm around my shoulder.

“You and me both, gorgeous.”

“Do you want to be found?” Chester says when he pokes his head over the roof of the little shed. It’s late, it’s dark and I’m outside all alone. I needed a moment to gather my thoughts, but they’re still shattered, and I don’t think I’m going to find any answers tonight.

It’s peaceful here.

“You can always find me,” I answer. The area is quiet, with nothing but the light bristling of the dried fall leaves. It’s a clear night, the sky shining with endless little white specks. It reminds me that my internal struggles are only small in the grand scheme.

He climbs up on the shed”s roof and sits beside me. Without saying anything, he reaches around and pulls off his Nirvana hoodie, holding it out towards me. I raise an eyebrow, not taking it from him.

“You’re cold,” he says.

“You’ll get cold if I take that from you.”

He shrugs. “It’ll take a while before I reach that point. Take it, I insist.”

He hands it over. This time, I accept. “I was stupid enough to go outside without dressing properly.”

I slip it over my head, sniffing that distinct Chester smell while I put it on by inhaling extra deep, making me grin like a teenager in love. He rearranges himself, sitting behind me, one of his legs on either side of me, his arms wrapped around my middle.

“I’ve been rebelling against anything proper for most of my adult life, so I should be rooting for you for going outside in a thin shirt.”

“Well, it was an accidental rebellion at most. I just had to go out and found myself sitting here.”

He kisses the side of my head, just above my ear and rests his head against mine after that. Every now and then the wind picks up, creating a howling sound. When it dies down, I can hear the water hit the cliffs or wildlife in the forest surrounding the premises.

Despite the calmness surrounding me, including the one Chester is exuding, I keep feeling inner turmoil.

I start to fret - feeling like there’s a ticking bomb implanted beneath my skin, ready to explode at any given second. Chester moves his head, his lips against my ear.

“You know I love you, right?” he says, his voice husky.

I open my mouth to tell him I know and love him too, but he interrupts me before I can.

“Don’t answer. I know you know I love you, even without you telling me. Just like I know you love me. You tell me all the damn time, showing it with all you do, all you are. We say it often enough but don’t always need the words. Only this time, I need you to listen to me, really listen, and hear what I’m saying.”

I take a deep breath, feeling the way his words move air next to my ear and making me shudder.

“I love you. And it’s all going to be okay. This is going to end, and everything that is worrying you right now will be over.”

He moves his hands, sticking them in the front pocket of my hoodie. Even through the clothes, his hands felt extremely cold on my stomach. I let my head fall back on his shoulder, looking straight up at the dark star-filled sky.

“Got any answers as to when that will be?”

“Ah, no, I’m sorry, fortune telling wasn’t offered in college.”

I snort. “That’s kind of a bummer. What use is having a genius around me if he can’t even tell the future?”

“I can reach the stuff on the high shelves,” he deadpans.

I chuckle, letting the silence return while the wind picks up and lifts both of our hair off our shoulders. It’s like his blond and my black hair are dancing mid-air to a tune none of us can hear until the wind dies down again.

“Teach me something new about what’s up there,” I say, pointing my chin up.

“See that big one over there?” he says, pushing my head to the left with his head. “That one’s called the moon.”

I can’t help but laugh out loud, punching him in the knee with my fist for the bad joke. I can feel his smile against my head.

“Did you ever think we’d end up here?” I ask.

“Here on the roof of the shed?”

“No, here, together, in life. As partners. As lovers. In our own version of a relationship.”

He starts spinning his thumb ring inside the front pocket of his hoodie. I can feel it on my stomach.

“I’ve always thought that we’d be in each other’s life. Ever since we started sharing a room at boarding school you’ve been stuck with me. Everything that happened to me as a child has probably given me some commitment issues, so since I imprinted on you it’s been a given that we’ll be stuck together for the rest of our lives. But this? No. I never thought we’d be here.”

He pulls me even closer to him. Not that there was much room left to begin with, but it’s like he wants to melt himself to me on a molecular level now.

“I never thought I was going to love someone like this and be loved in return.”

“You’ve always been worthy of love,” I whisper.

“That’s what I know now. Because of you. Because of Remy. Even in his own way because of Beckett. But no, happiness was never a realistic destination.”

“That’s sad,” I say.

He hums. “It’s all better now.”

“Not everything is better.”

“No, some shit is still severely fucked. But we’re going to fix it all.”

“When did you become Mister Positivity?”

He snorts. “Never.”

We sit in silence a little while longer, and my mind goes in many directions, but mainly I think about all the shit Chester and I have been through together. From him trying to explain my math homework to me to me starting to take him to functions to get donations. I remember the early days when we tried to make FIX Foundation work and he scared away everyone he hired. I remember the day we brought Elaine home vividly – it was such a huge success. We were doing something good, we were doing it together, and we were going to make it work.

The thought that we didn’t keep Elaine safe is one I shove so deep down that I can’t even see it anymore.

“Was it worth the hassle?” I end up asking.

He leaves a trail of kisses up my neck and brings his mouth to my ear. “It was the best leap I’ve ever taken.”

I squeeze his knee, feeling warm, and full. “Same.”

“So what’s going to happen in the future?”

I take a moment to think about it. “I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“That’s thrilling, right?”

He laughs. “About as exciting as a root canal.”

“You like things to be predictable.”

He doesn’t answer. He just kisses my shoulder.

“I like some things to be predictable. I like knowing where I’m going in the morning, when my day starts and when it ends. I love knowing I’ll see you here and at work. But some stuff can not be predicted, like when we’re getting a hit or when some new bad guy is gonna pop up. And that’s okay. As long as my basics are the same. You know, the sun rising in the morning, Remy cheering me up and dancing through his day, Beckett being grumpy and you making everything lighter. That’s all I need. So if that’s what the future holds, I’m okay.”

“I’m pretty sure I can commit to the sun rising in the morning.”

He laughs, his forehead falling against my shoulder.

“Let’s get inside,” he finally says, “I’m freezing my balls off.”

“Told you it was cold. Should’ve listened to me.”

“Well, you should care. We like my balls.”

“That’s quite the ego you have.”

“No, those are quite the balls.”

He gets up, holding out both hands to help me up even though he’s shivering, and while climbing off the shed’s roof I realize that he managed to make me smile again. It’s like magic.