Chapter 48
SAVANNAH
Wincing at the drumline that has taken up residence in my head, my consciousness swims through the dark fog holding me down. My eyelids are weighed down with exhaustion, but I manage to force them open. A loud clap causes me to grimace.
“Ah, good. You’re awake,” someone says all too loudly.
Finally able to concentrate, I take in the situation. My hands are tied behind my back with coarse rope, and my torso is tied to a chair that creaks when I try to move.
The room I’m trapped in looks like it’s falling apart. The paint is peeling from the walls, dust and dirt lie on every surface, and bars cover the windows. There’s even a hole in the floor on the far side of the room.
A familiar face comes into focus.
Jeremy Milton. John’s lawyer. He’s leaning against the grimy wall, wearing dark clothing and holding a gun in his hand.
Then I recall everything that happened before I passed out. I ran into Slicer when I left the penthouse. Jeremy shot Slicer, then Jeremy took me.
He kidnapped me.
The clarity of understanding settles in my mind.
Jeremy is the copycat.
“What’s going on?” My mouth is dry, making it difficult to speak.
Jeremy snorts. “You can’t be that dumb.”
My retort is sardonic. “I’m not.”
“Good. I’d hate to have underestimated you.” He beams his charming smile in my direction, and a chill races up my spine.
“Why?” I croak.
He frowns, but a playful spark emanates from him. “You mean, why not?”
“No. I meant what I said,” I reply sharply.
It isn’t a good idea to provoke the man with the gun, but if this is how I’m going out, I’m not going to take it lying down.
Jeremy pushes off the wall, stalking toward me. “Feisty. Just how I like them.” He stops right in front of me, leveling the barrel between my eyes. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”
He whirls away and heads for a dark lump of something in the corner. I hear the sound of a zipper, then some rustling.
With his back to me, I take the opportunity to pat my pants, searching for a knife.
I always have more than one on me, and I’m mentally crossing my fingers in hopes that he didn’t take them all.
I find my slim folding knife in my front right pocket.
With my eyes on Jeremy’s back, I squirm and wiggle as quickly and quietly as I can until I have the knife in my hands.
The metal is warm from my body heat. As I move my hands behind me, Jeremy gives me his attention again.
He stalks toward me with a few items in his hands. He places them on a small table that I didn’t notice before.
A whip, a can of gas, a lighter, pliers, a hammer, shears, and a box cutter.
Behind my back, I slowly open the blade. I begin a slow, measured up-and-down motion with the knife, cutting through the rope.
This is going to take a while.
Scrutinizing the items, I say, “You’re nothing like John the Baptist.”
“Oh, right.” He changes his voice, so it sounds like he’s giving a sermon, “Damn, you harlot. Repent now. How dare you…” He trails off, laughing manically. “Yeah, I can’t even fake it. I don’t give a shit whether or not you have a virgin pussy.”
I gaze at him quizzically. “Then why the whole charade? Why leave the notes and the gifts?”
Jeremy chortles. “Ha. Yeah. Your dad insisted on the notes when he chose me to be your ‘shepherd.’”
This doesn’t make any sense. John would want a true disciple to carry on his work. He’s always been convinced that he was doing God’s will. Jeremy doesn’t even seem to believe in God.
Staring blankly at Jeremy, I struggle to comprehend. “I don’t understand.”
Jeremy rolls his eyes. “John wanted an apprentice so that he could feel important, and I needed another method.”
I don’t like where this is going…
“Method?”
“Of killing,” Jeremy answers in a tone that says I should’ve understood. “The police were getting too close to catching me in Albany.”
My face flushes as a tingle races across my skin. “You’re the Ripper of Albany.”
“I don’t like labels,” he bites.
There’s something I still don’t understand…
“Why?”
Throwing his hands up, he scoffs. “Do I need a reason?”
I dramatically tilt my head and patronize, “When someone kills, they usually have a reason.”
Jeremy’s fists clench as his breathing turns sharp.
“What’re you looking for? Want to hear about how my mom beat me?
” He changes his voice as if he’s talking to a child.
“Poor little Jeremy with bruises and welts.” Jeremy jumps excitedly yet sarcastically.
“Ooo! Or do you want to hear about how I was bullied in school?”
“I get it. Classic environment to create a psychopath.” I smile at him disingenuously in a way that ensures he notices.
Jeremy smirks as he checks that all his tools are in working order. “Is that an official diagnosis, doctor?”
Heat simmers under my skin as I make a controlled effort to regulate my breathing, and my knife cuts through a few more fibers.
“How’s this for a diagnosis?” I hiss, “You’re fucking insane!”
Jeremy sets his gun on the table, exchanging it for the box cutter. He approaches, using the tip of the box cutter to draw invisible patterns on my arm. “Now, now. That’s no way to speak to your host.”
My jaw clenches. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
Another couple of fibers severed.
My palm gets nicked, and blood pools in my hand.
“Tsk tsk. I thought you’d put up more of a fight. What a disappointment you must be to Daddy Dearest,” Jeremy criticizes.
“I wear that as a badge of honor,” I snark back.
“We’ll see,” he challenges. Without warning, Jeremy slices the box cutter down the length of my thigh.
The scream that unleashes from my soul scratches my throat as it echoes in the empty room. The pain causes me to pant. Blood seeps from my wound, dampening the fabric of my pants.
“Perfect,” Jeremy coos. The man is practically salivating.
He’s getting off on this. He likes seeing me in pain.
“I can’t wait to see how far I can push you,” he claims as he brushes the back of his hand down my cheek.
Jeremy raises the box cutter again, and my body tenses, bracing for more agony.
There’s a crash outside the room as someone explodes, “Milton!”
Jeremy turns as someone enters the space. “John?”
John stands just inside the threshold, wearing what appears to be a guard uniform, with a tense glare. The gun in his hand is directed at Jeremy, and his finger rests on the trigger, ready to fire. “Get away from my daughter!”
Jeremy lurches for his discarded gun as John pulls the trigger, but his bullet misses. Jeremy gets a hold of his weapon, aiming it at John, but John gets off another shot before Jeremy can return fire. Jeremy’s body moves with the impact and slumps to the floor.
My eyes pinball between Jeremy’s dead body and John. My shoulders relax a fraction, but my breaths are rapid as I realize I’ve only traded one maniac for another.
John strolls forward, his gun still trained on Jeremy’s prone form. “I should’ve chosen my apprentice more carefully.”
“I doubt you had much of a pool to pick from,” I respond absentmindedly.
John gets defensive. “You need to learn some respect. In my absence, you’ve become insubordinate.”
Indignantly, I respond, “What’re you doing out of prison, John?”
More fibers cut. More cuts in my hand.
“Enough with that ‘John’ nonsense,” he snarls. “I’m your father.” John moves about wildly, his distress climbing.
Shaking my head at him, I grate, “Sharing DNA doesn’t give you the right to be my father.”
“I raised you!” he cries.
“You robbed me!” I thunder back. “You took my mother from me!”
Spittle flies from John’s mouth. “She was a whore!”
“She was my mother!” I scream, and a sob jumps out of my throat. Tears stream from my eyes.
“Angela was leaving me,” John confesses. “She kicked me out. We just hadn’t told you yet.”
Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for him? It doesn’t. People get divorced all the time.
“I would come by for dinner and leave after you went to bed,” he explains.
Understanding floods my mind. “That’s when she started—”
“Whoring herself? Yes.” John’s eyes take on a crazed glimmer.
Some more fibers gone. Some more blood drips from my skin.
Exhaling sharply, derisive humor fills my smile. “She was a grown woman, John. No one gets to tell a woman what to do with her body, especially when she’s not hurting anyone.”
John’s lip curls. “The world has corrupted you.”
More fibers broken.
Leaning forward, I make sure my words hit the mark. “The world has allowed me to see the truth. Women don’t have to live a submissive life, I don’t have to marry a man who scares me, and I don’t have to pray ten times a day to be considered a good person.”
John’s shoulders rise and fall with his rapid breathing. “You are past feeling.”
My eyes turn cold as heat builds behind my ribs. “I feel plenty. You don’t like that I’m not the same fearful girl I was when you went to prison.”
John’s mouth crimps. “There’s no saving you.”
Fire slowly creeps up my spine. “I don’t need to be saved.”
John trains his gun on me. “Your soul belongs in hell with all the other heretics and apostates.”
A final cut.
The rope around my torso drops, and my vision tunnels.
“As does yours.”
I lurch forward out of the chair toward John.
And the gun goes off.