Chapter 14
Aris
It totally escaped my mind that Tacy would want to talk to me. I obviously can’t speak to her. She’ll know who I am with just one word. I’ll have to remedy that with a voice changing device of some kind. For now, I’m getting her home safely and staking out the place until I know The Org isn’t watching her. But for how long? Will they just keep sending people to abduct her? Will they forget about the whole thing, or will they have someone try to kill her? She’s onto them…and they know it. They got word that she’s been looking into Duselizab. One of the poisons The Org is using to sterilize and kill young people. To put an end to procreation before it’s even begun. I knew my Tacy was smart, but I didn’t know she was a fucking genius. All it took was a simple browser history search on the computer. I’m able to tap into our devices at home with ease. I simply use the technology we have at the warehouse to monitor her research and online activity.
I pull into the neighborhood and inch up to a stop sign two blocks from the house. Then peer around the corner. There are no lights on at the house and no cars in the driveway. Which means, Tacy’s mother has our kids with her at her condominium downtown. What’s alarming is there are no cops. No crime scene. No tape. Has anyone even come by the house to check on things? I want to scratch my head but can’t. Still got the stupid fucking mask on. And I can’t take it off until Tacy’s far away from me. Even if she sees my hair or head, she’ll know it’s me.
“Power’s back on,” my beautiful girl mumbles from the back seat. “Streetlamps are on and looks like my neighbors Christmas lights are on. In September. Rednecks.”
I almost laugh but swallow to stifle it. She always hated those neighbors. They’re the kind that let their big dogs shit in your yard and don’t clean it up. And when they do clean it up, they throw it unbagged into your trash can. Real classy folks.
The door groans as it opens, and she slides out the back seat, still clutching the rag to the wound on her neck. “This is close enough,” she says. “I’ll be fine from here.”
I bite my tongue and wish I could say something to her. Tell her who I am. That I am still in love with her. That I’m not dead and never truly left her. I wish I could hold her to my chest and feel her skin against mine. Instead, I stare straight ahead and grip the steering wheel. I reach for the radio volume and turn it up. The song Broken Belief by Bob Moses blares through the speakers.
“Well, whenever you feel like revealing your actual identity, I’m here for it,” she says and pushes a bloody strand of hair out of her face.
I roll down my window as she passes by. She glances my way, and I point at the puncture wound on her neck. As if to say, are you going to be okay?
“Oh, this?” she says and forces a grin. “I’m a nurse, buddy. I can patch this one up myself, no problem.”
I nod. Then point downwards as if to say, I’m staying right here for the night.
“You know, most women would call the cops and tell them their stalker is watching them. I guess I’m not most women. And you’re not most stalkers. You saved my life tonight, and I’m forever indebted to you. Whoever you are.”
I smile under the mask, even though she can’t see it, and then I watch her walk down the sidewalk, barefooted, in a pair of bloody distressed jeans and a Poison t-shirt. My old T-shirt. My body and my heart yearn to be with her again.
Tacy
I call and report my kidnapping to the police, and once again, they file into my house. But this time they do actual police work, take pictures, and tape off the hallway, kitchen, and back porch. One detective yells at another to “keep the newbies off his crime scene”. I assume that means he doesn’t want cadets stomping through and disturbing any potential evidence. A female police officer throws a fuzzy orange blanket around my shoulders and leads me outside to talk.
She motions for me to sit on the rocking chair on the front porch. I oblige and collapse onto the fluffy cushion. She introduces herself, and I rock back and forth and try to answer her questions. I notice Sheriff Fred isn’t here this time.
“You say you were in the office, the back room, yesterday afternoon when you heard someone break in?”
“Yes. I was working in the office when the power went out. I got up to check the alarm in the hallway, and that’s when I heard something in my kitchen. Before I could check it out, a man was…he had forced me down to the ground and was binding my wrists together.”
She scribbles furiously on her iPad. “Okay, and then he put you in his vehicle and drove you out of the city?”
“I…I don’t know what happened after that. He knocked me out, and I don’t remember anything until I woke up in a basement.”
The female cop continues writing with her stylus, ignoring a call coming through on her walkie talkie.
“Right,” she says. “Do you know the man who kidnapped you? You know ninety percent of kidnappings involve someone the victim knows personally. Like a family friend or acquaintance.”
Do I tell her that I know Orion Starkey? Knew Orion Starkey? That he manipulated me into joining his sick cult as a teenager, abused and used me for everything I was worth? Stole my money, sodomized me, and forced me to have sex with the other members of the cult? No, that would be too much for anyone to swallow. And if they knew that I knew Orion Starkey, wouldn’t that expose the deeds I did in the past? Just keep that shit to yourself.
I shake my head, “No. No I don’t know him.”
“And you say he nearly killed you and another man saved your life by shooting him?”
I nod. And rock nervously.
“Who is the man who saved you? Where is he now?”
I sigh and grip the arms of the rocking chair. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“I don’t know who he is or where he is now. I’m sorry. He wore a mask the entire time.”
“Well, what did he say? He didn’t tell you anything about who he was or why he was there in the first place?”
And now’s the time for me to tell her I have a stalker, and that this man who saved my life is my stalker. And the only reason he was there is because he had followed the man who had kidnapped me, and therefore followed me, in the first place. Why wouldn’t I have placed a restraining order against him by now? Because I’m sick. And I love the idea of someone watching me. Admiring me from the shadows.
“He never spoke. Not a single word.”
“Hmm. That’s odd. So, he obviously doesn’t want you to know who he is,” she says and uses the tip of the stylus to scratch her hair. The clip gets stuck in her bun briefly, and she awkwardly reaches up to free it.
“Have you ever seen him before? The masked man?”
I shake my head, “Nope.”
“Well, Tacy, that’s all for now, but you’ll have to go to the hospital to get checked out, have your injuries documented. That sort of thing.”
Fuck me. Not the hospital…again. I don’t need my job finding out about this and worrying about me. I’ve already fainted twice this month. Them knowing I was kidnapped and held at knifepoint will be the icing on the shit-frosted cake. They’ll put me on permanent leave. I need my job to stay sane. And to feed my kids.
I check in with mom, who is elated to hear my voice. Even if it is three o’ clock in the morning. I ask her why she never came by the house or called the police. She explains the school called to have her pick up the kids, and that there was a note left at the front desk that I had to go somewhere for an emergency, and I’d be home late that night. That I needed her to watch the kids for me, but that everything would be okay. Very fucking weird. I left no notes. I didn’t know I was going to be pummeled and dragged from my home, so how would I have known to ask my mother to pick up the kids? Unless it was…
“I see the cops are there,” my stalker texts me.
I pull the stool over to the bay window, climb it, and stand on tiptoes to see over the stop sign down the street. His gray ford is still sitting there. That comforts me. Even with these cops in my house, I wouldn’t feel safe if it weren’t for my stalker sitting two blocks away.
“Yes,” I type back. “They’ll be here awhile. I have to go to the hospital, apparently.”
“I’ll follow you there.”
“You don’t have to do that. You’ve done enough.”
“Tacy, the guy that kidnapped you yesterday was just a go-guy. A grunt, if you will. He works for someone else. Someone in a big position who wants to bring you in. Maybe even wants you dead.”
“It fucking figures. But why? And would you know that?”
“You’re poking around in places where monsters hide.”
The medication. Who found out I’ve been researching Duselizab? I didn’t tell anyone…except for Declan. That sleezy son of a bitch. He didn’t file a report, he snitched on me. To whoever is the higher up who wants to keep this fucking toxin on the market.
“How do you know all of this?”
He types then erases. Then starts typing again, as if he’s not sure what to tell me. Or how much to tell me.
Then finally…
“Because I’m in the middle of this shit storm and can’t get out of it. It’s not too late for you. But I’m in way over my head.”
I’m beyond confused. What is he talking about? Is this truly all connected…my stalker, my kidnapping, the medication at the hospital that’s killing my patients? Declan Harvey…the governor and my supposed friend? I’m beginning to feel like I need a couple cork boards, thumb tacks, and some red string to keep track of all of this.
“So…do you prefer the devil mask or the slasher mask?”
I smirk and answer with, “I’d prefer to see your face. Your real face.”
“Knowing me will only put you in more danger. I can’t have that. I would die before I’d put you in harm’s way.”
“You could’ve died rescuing me.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’ll reveal myself to you when the time is right.”