Chapter Eleven
Kane
Days later
The persistent buzzing in my ear was driving me up the wall. I've done three back to back shifts over the last couple of days. Today was my well deserved day off.
They could fuck right off.
Picking up the phone, I grabbed it to throw it across the room when I saw Mimi’s name. What the fuck?
I’d told her the other day she had to stop coming by, that we were divorced, and she needed to be happy with Kemp. Obviously, I hadn’t told her a serial killer would come after her but did I really need to threaten that?
I slid the answer button over.
“What is it?” I grunted.
The sound of sniffling woke me up.
“Kane…” her voice sounded as if she had been crying for hours, my name came out strangled and twisted.
“Mimi can’t come to the phone right now,” the familiar voice that haunted my dreams came through the ear piece. She chuckled, as if she thought the situation was funny. “She really does cry a lot. I can see why you divorced her.”
“Maurelle,” I said. “Don’t do anything to her, she’s not a part of this.”
“Kane, you have precisely two hours to find me and them, before I start doing what I do best, you understand?”
“Maurelle, please tell me where I can find you.”
Fear raced through me, pushing me out of bed as if every bone in my body didn’t hurt.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
There was an edge to her voice that scared me. I hadn’t heard that hardness since the day she’d strapped me to the web board in her basement.
“Two hours.”
She hung up.
I immediately called the phone but it went straight to voicemail. Shit, shit, shit.
I called Petra.
“Aren’t you supposed to have the da-”“Petra, trace my ex-wife’s phone,” I said, cutting her off.
Her playfulness was gone immediately and I heard her tapping away.
“It’s not pinging, Garrick.”
“Where was the last ping?”
Putting the phone on speaker, I got dressed as quickly as I could.
“Last ping was an address downtown, near your old house.”
Of course. She would take Mimi to a place that meant something to me, to punish me.
“Thank you.”
“Do you need backup?” she asked. “I can put the call out.”
“No, I just have a hunch,” I said. “I’ll call back soon and let you know what to do.”
“Okay, be safe.”
I hung up and raced down the stairs to my car on the street. I didn’t think she would ever do it, that’s why I pushed them away. She must have been following me since she returned.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I sped down the highway toward my old neighborhood and the house I’d lived in with Mimi. The house hadn’t been touched since we both moved out, and I still owned it, but it was too hard to live there, in those same halls where we had been happy.
It was poetic that she would take Mimi back there, but why? What was her endgame? It couldn’t be me. It couldn’t be that he would take us all out so I couldn’t arrest her.
It had to be personal.
Whatever it was…I had to be ready.
Maurelle
I watched as the woman who had once been Mrs. Kane Garrick squirmed in her chair, against her bindings. Her face was red, mascara running down her cheeks as she sobbed in terror. I couldn’t help but wonder how someone like her had pulled Kane into a marriage. She seemed so sad…so boring.
“Would you stop your incessant sobbing?” I asked her, annoyed by the sound of her nose dripping down to her lip.
I flipped the page of her photo album that appeared to be of her marriage to Kane, even though she was now married to the piece of shit next to her.
“So…let me get this straight,” I said, pointing to the photo of the new husband standing next to Kane at the altar. “You were the best man and now you’re the new husband?”
He didn’t speak, I could see how angry he was at being tied up and by a woman no less.
“Are you Kane’s best friend? Did you betray him?”
Suddenly, I felt myself becoming very angry knowing they’d both betrayed him. He was a good man, just as Camille had told me, and they’d used and abused him.
I wanted to kill them just for that. Uncertain as to why I was so possessive and protective over him, when I knew he would be my demise, but I knew I felt something for him.
There was a big part of me that wanted to act on it, to let him save me, and then there was that tiny vengeful spirit sitting on my shoulder telling me I’d done it for so long, there was no way he could save me now.
“Please,” the woman sobbed. “Please, let us go.”
“Silence,” I held up my hand to stop her. “I don’t want to hear your sobbing anymore.”
She closed her mouth and tried to muffle the sound coming out of her, but it was still annoying. I looked back down at the photos, seeing how happy Kane was on the day. He must have thought his life was going to be good, that he was marrying a woman who would treat him right.
I looked over at the weeping mess of a woman who continued to plague his kind heart and I felt a newfound rage sweep through my chest. Putting the photo album down, I looked back over at the two of them who had been entirely too easy to tie up.
Blood seeped from the husband’s eyebrow down into his eye.
It was painful, I knew that first hand, but he barely blinked it away.
“So…bestie,” I said, moving over to him. He tried to move away from my hand, but he could barely move an inch. “Why did you betray him?”
“Why are you doing this?” the wench sobbed again. I held the knife to her throat, her muffled sobbing making her throat bob up and down quickly.
“I’m doing this because I want to.”
“Why us?” he asked me.
“Ah, Judas finally speaks,” I said, moving back over to him. “Does it bother you that your beloved wife still has a photo album filled with happy snaps of their wedding day?”
“No,” he said, but I saw the tic in his jaw.
“Oh…what about her visiting him, crying and wanting his affection?”
It did bug him, I could see it in the way he turned his head to the side to avoid my gaze.
“Did I hit a soft spot?” I asked him, grabbing his head with my hand and pulling his face back to look at me. “Is it because you know she could never love you like she loves him?”
“Stop it,” Mimi screamed at me. “We haven’t done anything to you.”
I let go of the husband’s face and stood back next to her. “This is true, you are innocent bystanders in this altercation, but Detective Garrick has done something no other cop has and I don’t like it. I’m using you to get back at him.”
Her sobbing got worse as she realized she may not get out of this alive.
Personally I didn’t know why I’d come here, or why I decided to go down this route.
It was so unlike me, but this woman enraged me.
When I’d seen her run up to Kane at his apartment, thwarting my own chance at going to see him, I could barely control my anger. It was startling to say the least.
Especially to me.
The chair under the husband creaked and I turned my head to see him trying to get free. His bindings were loose, I realized as I watched him launch up at me from the chair. I wheeled out of his way and chased him toward the door where he was running to.
Hitting him with the butt of my knife, he went down like a sack of potatoes. Grunting, I grabbed his ankles and pulled him back across the carpet, leaving a bloody stain from where his head was bleeding and dropped him at her feet. She screamed, not sure if he was alive or not.
“So you do care about him,” I said, breathlessly.
“Of course I do,” she screamed at me. “He’s my husband.”
“So was Kane.”
Confusion knitted across her forehead as she looked at me for longer than I wanted her to. “Do you like him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I spat in response.
“Why else would you target us?” she asked me. “He has another ex-wife, but you came after me.”
“Because it is you who stays in his life,” I said.
“He’ll find you,” she said with confidence. “He’ll find you and put you behind bars.”
I straightened, knowing it to be true, and yet I didn’t run. I wanted him to come here and see what I’d done, that I was the monster he thought me to be when we first met.
“We’ll see, little lamb,” I said, moving back behind her, trailing the knife over her skin. She shuddered at the sensation of cool steel on her as I felt the power wash over me.
I couldn’t wait to see what his reaction was going to be.
Maybe now…I could finally be free of this feeling if he hated me.
I moved throughout the living area, taking in the different photos she kept on display. I’d never understood that, displaying your loved ones on shelves for you to look at all day long. Wasn’t the purpose that you remembered them? Camille was the same, she loved having her photos on display too.
The sound of the car engine stopping outside alerted me to his appearance. I moved back to Mimi, holding the knife to her throat so she couldn’t speak. She gulped against it, I could feel her throat pushing against the knife as she tried not to cry.
It was showtime.
Kane
I pulled my gun free, unsure of what I was about to walk into, approaching the door. I could see it was open slightly, allowing me to peek into the foyer. No movement.
Mimi was sobbing, and trying to stop herself from losing her shit.
It pulled at my chest knowing she was in this situation because of me.
I never expected Maurelle to go after them, the threat was always there, but she didn’t go after women, so I didn’t think she would attack Mimi.
She was a black widow. She only killed men on her list.
I nudged my gun into the open area of the door and pushed the door open, looking for her. She was standing behind Mimi, a knife at her throat. Kemp was on the floor, blood over the carpets and on his face.
I couldn’t tell if he was dead or just knocked out. Looking up at Maurelle’s face, I could see the anger there. Mimi was looking at me to save her.
“Maurelle, put the knife down,” I asked her. “Let’s talk about this.”