Chapter Five #2
“Don’t underestimate Detective Garrick,” he said, an odd tilt to his tone. “He’s better than you could ever imagine. Take my life, I don’t care, but they’ll be taking yours in return.”
I stepped forward. “Let them try.”
The bullet entered his head between his eyes, cracking the window behind him. The sound had been loud, louder than I had thought it would be. My ears were still ringing, but I had no time to spare.
I put the gun in the safe behind the artwork in the office and set about pulling his body through my house.
I wrapped his head with a scarf to stop the bleeding and hauled him down into the basement.
I laid out some plastic wrap I had left over from when the house was being painted and rolled him into the center of it before I wrapped him up and tied it together, shoving him into the corner of the darkened basement to be dealt with later.
I moved upstairs to clean the rest of the office before I headed back to town.
The window was going to be a pain, there was a goddamn bullet hole in it.
I tidied the desk up, and made sure I had everything cleaned up before I turned the lights off and headed back down the hallway to the door.
I stopped in my tracks when I heard the door knob rattling.
The shape of a man through the frosted glass panes told me I wasn’t alone anymore.
Shit.
I could tell it was him.
Detective Garrick was here.
Fuck.
I slowly edged back down the darkened hall and back into my office, hiding in the darkened recess of where my bookshelf had been before I’d turned it into a bar and I waited.
Kane
I knew the door was locked, but I could feel how weak the lock really was.
I’d been in a house with a door like this before and I knew if you leaned on it enough at the same time as jiggling it, you’d be good.
I did just that and felt the lock give way, allowing me access to the house.
Everything was dark, and something felt off about it all.
I pulled my gun from its holster and headed down the hall, noting her handbag on the side bureau.
She was here.
My heart was leaping at the prospect of her catching me unaware, blood rushing through my ears as I moved down the hall. Just like her other properties, nothing personal was in this house. For all intents and purposes it was just a place she came to stay.
Who was this woman?
This woman who haunted my dreams both terrified and intrigued me, and that was never a good mix.
I approached an open door and looked in to see the darkened room appeared to be an office. If Stanley were to be anywhere, it would be here. I did a cursory look around the room but no one appeared to be here.
Putting my gun to my side, I looked over the desk. Nothing was out of character.
Was I wrong? Did he go home and not break in?
I’d come all this way for nothing. I looked down at the name that she used for all her properties on the paperwork in front of me. It was dark in this room, but the daylight from outside allowed me to read it.
It was a contract for the house, and the signature was for this Camille person. Who the hell was Camille, and what was her connection to Maurelle?
I heard the telltale sound of footsteps behind me and my heart rate quickened. I knew for sure she would have a weapon trained on me and she’d have every right to. I had broken into her home without announcing myself.
“Damn, you’re good.”
That’s all I could muster as I leaned into the fact that she was probably going to kill me and no one would ever find me again. She was going to get away with it. I hadn’t told anyone about where I was going or who I was pursuing. No one knew about the case I was building against her.
“As are you,” her voice rang out around the room. “And I think we both know, I can’t have that.”
The sound of something breaking was loud in my ears, before I felt something hard hit me from the back and my knees gave out underneath me. Darkness claimed me soon after as I saw her face come into view just as I felt the abyss take me.
Wind lashed at my face, the bitter cold stinging my cheeks.
My eyes were warm from unshed tears as I looked over at her.
Standing there, her profile was distinguished.
It was the only way I could describe it, even at my young age.
She was looking off into the distance. As I turned my head to see what she was seeing, I was taken by the beauty of the mountains.
I’d always known we lived close to the mountains, but I’d never truly seen them like this before.
I’d never been allowed to come up this hill before, father didn’t approve of us leaving the town center.
I looked back at her, and she was now looking over at me, her eyes watery.
I knew this was goodbye.
Somehow, I knew.
She dropped her suitcase and came to me. Her arms outstretched. I ran into them, feeling her warm embrace and trying to remember how it felt. She dropped to her knees, to look me in the eye. Her hand on my cheek, warming me.
“My darling,” she said, her voice broken with emotion. “This is harder than you’ll ever know. One day, you’ll understand.”
“Why do you have to go?” I asked, my tears now tumbling down onto my cheeks.
“It’s not something you’ll understand now, my love. One day, you’ll understand and maybe then you can forgive me.”
“Take me with you,” I begged her. She placed a kiss on my forehead, lingering there for longer than normal, before she stood again.
“I can’t. Your father needs you.”
“No, I need you,” I cried out, my sobs echoing throughout the hills.
I tried to hold onto her but she was out of my grasp.
I fell to my knees, the pain of the dirt grinding into my skin as I looked up at her walking away from me as my knees bled.
She took one last look at me, her mouth opening for a brief moment as if she wanted to say something, before it closed again and she picked up her suitcase and walked away from me.
I screamed out, I cried for her. My wailing echoing all around me as I felt my chest tear in two.
“Mama!” I screamed again, as I felt arms on me, pulling me away. I screamed out again, “Margaux!”
I awoke with a start, my arms feeling tight as I came to.
I looked around the unfamiliar room, only to see I was in a basement.
My memory of what happened slowly seeps back into my consciousness.
My arms were restrained, as were my legs.
I looked down to see I was strapped to something, the darkness of the room was making it hard to see.
I tried to shuffle free, but the leather straps on my wrists and ankles were making it hard to move.
Out of my periphery, I saw movement and I twisted my head to see what it was.
It was her.
Maurelle.
“There’s no need for a show, you could just kill me and get it over with.”
She cocked her head to the side, assessing me, as if she were trying to figure out something.
“Who is Margaux?”
The name startled me, no one knew who she was, I’d kept her hidden from everyone, including my ex-wives. Had I called out her name in my dream?
“She’s nobody.”
“Come now, detective, a grown man doesn’t cry out like that in a dream for no reason.”
I hated that she heard that, or that I had that dream while I was strapped to whatever contraption this was.
“She was my mother.”
“What happened to her?” she asked. “You say her name with anger, or perhaps it is disgust.”
“She left me when I was a child.”
“And it had a lasting effect on you, did it not?”
“Of course it did,” I spat. “What of it?”
“Do you know why she left?”
“Does any man know why a woman does something?” I countered.
The smile on her face was genuine, but it felt as if she didn’t do that a lot.
“You speak as if she were in the wrong. Maybe she left for a reason, to keep you safe.”
“I guess I’ll never know,” I told her.
“Is she why you became a cop?”
She was moving around me like a shark circling its prey. I was catching whiffs of her perfume, a floral scent that reminded me of my youth.
“Maybe.”
I didn’t want to admit that she was, that I had become a cop so I could look her up and try and find answers as to why she left me with my father.
“Did you ever see her again?”
“Yes,” I admitted. Why the hell was I answering her?
“And you didn’t like what you saw?”
“She was an addict and a prostitute,” I told her. “So no, I didn’t. She left a loving family to become that, so of course, I am angry at her.”
“You pass judgment before you find the truth often?”
“You’re a serial killer,” I spat at her. “You can’t tell me I’m the wrong one here.”
“I never knew my mother, not really,” She said.
“You see, the past you will never find is one I’ve hidden for a reason.
My mother was sold into sex slavery by her own parents.
She was twelve. A year later, I was born.
She never raised me. No child was ever raised in that hellhole.
We were fed, bathed and taught that a man’s pleasure comes above all else.
I was twelve myself when I was put on show for men.
I’d seen my mother once or twice in those years, and not once did she embrace me, so I am curious as to why you care so much for your mother leaving and what she became.
It certainly didn’t stop you from becoming successful in your chosen line of work. ”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said, meaning every word of it and choosing to ignore the conversation about my mother.
She was silent, assessing what I’d said. I didn’t think she heard those words often. “It is what it is. There’s no point in crying over it.”
“You’re different to those who wronged you, including your own mother,” I said, choosing now to unleash a fact that would rattle her. “You care for your own daughter, don’t you?”
She stepped back as if I’d struck her. Surprise etched all over her face.