Serial Escape
Автор
Melinda Di Lorenzo
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Chapter 1
The thump of Detective Lucien Match’s rubberized soles against the equally rubberized treadmill belt somehow rode a line between cathartic and jarring.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
The rhythm didn’t change.
It didn’t get faster or slower.
He never missed a beat, not even when his cell phone buzzed on the little tray in front of him. He cast a glance down at the slim device and saw that it was his boss, who knew damn well that Lucien was on vacation, because he was the one who’d ordered the break in the first place.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
He always kept up his steady, five-kilometer-per-hour pace for the full sixty minutes. It wasn’t easy, and he didn’t consider himself a natural runner. His body wasn’t leanly built, and in all honesty, he probably would’ve been better suited to weight lifting. But he’d learned as a rookie that being able to run for an extended period of time came in handy when chasing criminals through the streets of Vancouver, BC. Far handier than being able to bench one-eighty. In spite of the way it looked on TV, there weren’t a ton of unreasonably fit petty thieves and drug dealers lurking around, just waiting to lead cops on wild, citywide runs. In fact, most gave up after a block or two because they had no choice. Zero cardio endurance. Plus—even if he’d felt inclined to—adding any kind of weight system to the already cramped condo was a laughable idea. Lucien would’ve had to give up something important to make the space. Like maybe the bed.
He chuckled to himself at the thought, then grabbed his water bottle from the holder and took a hearty sip, still without a pause.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
His eyes flicked idly around the area as he continued to run. He had the treadmill set up in the middle of the living room. The spot between the couch and the wall was just the right width to accommodate, and when Lucien wasn’t actively running, he folded up the behemoth of a machine and tucked it into a corner. It was a bit crowded, but the lack of space wasn’t a burden. It was a good thing, actually. No lawn maintenance. Little housework. Executive living, they’d called it when he moved in.
The condo had come mostly furnished, too. It’d been outfitted with the same couch that sat there now, and the coffee table and lamp were also standard. The kitchen was a stocked with cutlery and dishes, and a very plain, two-person table-and-chairs set took up the corner opposite the small fridge. In the bedroom were a wide dresser and a sturdy bed frame. Lucien had provided his own mattress, as well as the wall-mounted television set which was currently playing some old action flick in silence, and also the treadmill beneath his feet.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
His phone buzzed again, this time with an incoming text, and Lucien aimed his gaze toward it a second time.
PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE, read the message under his boss’s name.
He looked from his cell to the timer on the display. There were still eighteen minutes left in his sixty.
“You can wait that long,” he muttered, his voice just barely tinged with exertion.
Grudgingly, he acknowledged that a part of his unwillingness to answer was just childish spite. This past Friday, Lucien had been called into HR, where he’d been lambasted for not taking any of his accrued time off for the last three years in a row. The official policy was a use-it-or-lose-it one, and supposedly, not a single other person had ever lost it. Apparently, working too hard set a bad example. At least as far as human resources and Sergeant Gray were concerned.
What the hell Lucien was going to do with the mandated week off was a still a mystery, and it was only the first Tuesday. So far, he’d used all his newly freed time to run, eat and repeat. Not at all productive. That didn’t mean he was going to let his boss turn it around. The older man could suffer for a bit. Or at least for another sixteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap.
The phone went off yet again, and this time, Lucien pretended not to notice. Still jogging, he grabbed the TV remote from its spot beside the phone, and tried to push the volume button. The sweat on his palm made his finger slip, though, and instead of just turning it up, he accidentally changed the channel, too. The local news blared to life, a serious-sounding anchor speaking over a flashing red bulletin.
“You’re hearing it here, on Choice News for the first time,” said the unseen woman. “For those who’ve just tuned in, we’re talking about serial killer Georges Hanes, dubbed the Kitsilano Killer because his victims were living or raised in the upscale Vancouver neighborhood. Most people are familiar with the man, who murdered four families over the course of just a single year. Only one victim out of the sixteen targeted individuals survived.”
For a second, Lucien tuned out the announcer’s voice. The Kitsilano Killer’s story was notorious. As highly publicized as it was gruesome. And there were few who knew the story as well as Lucien did. He’d been on the inside of it, and had even testified in Georges Hanes’s trial. Helping to put the man behind bars was one of the most satisfying moments of his seventeen-year career. He doubted—and hoped—that he would never experience another case like that one.
It wasn’t all of that, though, that made Lucien need a moment. It was the living victim, whom he knew even better than he knew the case.
Lucien breathed out. Then in. Then forced his eyes back up to the TV. The screen now housed a familiar mug shot.
Georges Hanes.
Average height, average build. Light brown hair, light blue eyes. No one would look twice if they passed him in the street. Yet there was still something in his face that made Lucien grit his teeth together uncomfortably. Maybe it was his cop gut, or maybe it was just knowing what he knew. Either way, his hands tightened into fists as he focused once more on the newscaster’s ongoing chatter.
“Today marks the three-year anniversary of Georges Hanes’s guilty verdict,” she was saying now. “So his escape early this morning during a routine drill is an even bigger blow.”
The statement finally broke Lucien’s rhythm.
Tap-bounce, tap-bounce. Bounce-tap. Stumble, thump.
His big body went flying, and so did everything else. At the same moment his elbow smashed the bottom edge of the treadmill, his water bottle hit the ground, spraying liquid from its abruptly popped top. The TV remote smacked against the fast-moving rubber three times, then sailed off and disappeared under the couch. His cell phone, which had just started to buzz another time, came out of nowhere and thudded against his forehead. Snarling under his breath at the debacle, Lucien snatched the cell up and tapped the answer icon with entirely more force than necessary.
“Where is she?” he demanded without preamble.
His boss replied with equally little pretense at small talk. “Damn well wish I knew. Why the hell haven’t you been answering your phone, Match?”
“Busy with vacation,” Lucien snapped. “Did you send anyone to her place?”
There was the briefest pause. “She moved, Lucien, and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
Worry hit him like a baseball to the gut. “How long ago? Weren’t we keeping tabs on her?”
“We were. Minimally.”
“What does that mean?”
“That six months ago, our family liaison officer checked in on her and everything seemed copasetic.”
“So why would she suddenly—” He cut himself off, knowing it was a waste of time to ask rhetorical questions. It was far better to come at the situation like a police officer than like a man. He switched to a curt, professional tone. “What about the neighbors? Friends? Place of employment? Someone will have a hint.”
“Don’t go all detective on me, Match. I wrote the damned book on it while you were still playing cops and robbers. You know the uniforms are already out canvassing her old neighborhood, and we’re trying to track down where she’s working at the moment, but it seems a bit like she might’ve gone AWOL on purpose.” There was another pause, and then his boss spoke again, sounding far less irritated. “I figured you, of all people, would have the best idea about where she was.”
“Yeah, well...you figured wrong.” His own tone was almost bitter, and barely scraped by with not being childish, too.
“Okay,” his boss replied. “Guess this was just a courtesy call, then. I know you’ll want to be looped in, so if you feel a need to come down to the station...”
“I’ll be there.” He said it quickly, then closed his eyes and added, “Sergeant?”
“Yes, Detective?”
“How the hell did he get out?”
“Not entirely clear on that yet.”
It wasn’t even close to a good enough answer, and he had to loosen his jaw to answer. “All right. I’m on my way.”
The stone-heavy feeling in Lucien’s gut intensified as he hung up, and he cursed himself for the fact that he hadn’t kept proper tabs on her. Three years ago, she’d been his responsibility. For two months straight, he’d been directly in charge of her safety, more bodyguard than cop at that point.
Maybe because you would’ve liked it to be more than that?
As quickly as the question came, he shoved it off. Not because it wasn’t true. It definitely was. Not a day had gone by over the last three years that Lucien hadn’t thought of her. Even when he was trying to avoid it, his mind would always slip in a little bit of Raven right before he fell asleep. The soft, dark waves of her hair. Those deep blue eyes that looked almost indigo in the dark. The rare sound of her laugh, or the clean, soapy scent that hung in the air when she stood close enough. Yeah, there was no denying that Lucien would’ve chosen something more.
The problem was that he couldn’t acknowledge any of that to his boss. Even if he’d been the type to regularly expound upon his feelings, there was zero chance he’d just come out and say, Sorry, Sergeant. I didn’t follow up on her life because it was what I actually wanted to do, and that sure as hell wasn’t okay.
“Backfired in the worse way possible, didn’t it?” he muttered, finally opening his eyes again. “How am I going to find her, if she doesn’t want to be found?”
As the words left his mouth, the TV caught his eye once more, and he realized he didn’t even need an answer to the questions. The three-year anniversary date told him exactly where Raven Elliot would be, regardless as to her current address.
The morning breeze had the tiniest bit of a chill. It ruffled Raven Elliot’s long ponytail, reminding her that even though she had her jacket tied around her waist as she jogged through the streets, it wasn’t quite spring. Her step counter had buzzed a while back, telling her she’d hit the seven-kilometer mark. It was her target, four days a week. But today was different. She wasn’t out for exercise. She wasn’t out for fresh air. She wasn’t really even out to clear her head, though the clarity offered by the rush of oxygen was a bonus. But no. Today wasn’t about that. It was about a destination. And remembering.
One thousand and ninety-five, Raven thought as she hit a corner, then bounced on the spot as she waited for a car to go by before crossing.
That was how many days had passed since the bars slid shut on the man who’d destroyed her life by taking away everyone who mattered. And of those days, Raven had spent one thousand and—give or take—avoiding thinking about it. The solitary weeks after had been the hardest. She’d spent too much time thinking about it. Every waking second, it’d felt like. And there were still moments when she couldn’t help but let it overwhelm in. Birthdays. Holidays. Dates that should’ve been celebratory, but were instead nothing but tragic. But as soon as the thoughts reared up, she stuffed them back down again.
It wasn’t a particularly healthy coping mechanism. As a grief counselor, she knew that better than most. But it was her only coping mechanism. And if she was being honest, it worked better than any of the techniques she taught to her clients. Temporarily, anyway.
One day, she told herself. One day I’ll figure out how to confront it.
But for now, avoidance was what she stuck with. Except today, on the anniversary of Georges Hanes’s incarceration. It was the only time she consciously mulled things over. She thought about her parents and her brother, and she cursed the man who killed them. She remembered his complete lack of remorse and his final official statement, where he at last confessed, then admitted that if he were set free, he’d do it all over again. Raven also let herself consider whether or not there was anything she could’ve done differently, while it was happening. Some clue. Some missed hint. A move that would’ve saved a life. And on top of all of that, she thought about Detective Lucien Match—which was slightly more self-centered than the rest—and she let herself be painfully sad.
What’s he doing now? Raven wondered.
It was Tuesday, so probably working. She could easily picture his large frame straining against the crisp white shirt he preferred to wear while on official police business. His fingers would be tugging at his tie, perpetually loosening and tightening it until the very second his shift ended. Then he’d take it off, toss it aside and let out a dramatic sigh he wasn’t even conscious of. Raven, on the other hand, was conscious of every move he made. It was an unavoidable consequence of spending twenty-four hours a day together for two months straight.
She knew that when he was having a hard time expressing himself, he tugged on his right ear.
She knew that he laughed out loud when he read the comics in the newspaper, which he did every morning as a way of easing some of the pressure of his very nonfunny job.
She knew that when he got a cold, he snored, and that it embarrassed him, and that he bought funny little nasal strips to combat the issue.
In short, she knew him as well as a wife knew a husband—the good, the bad, the meaningless and the meaningful details of his existence—and there was a time when she’d thought that would become a reality.
Transference.
It was the word she repeated to herself each time she woke up from a dream full of brown eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. The concept she clung to, in order to excuse the way she felt about Lucien. She didn’t love him. She just thought she did. But the fact that he hadn’t felt the same still made her eyes sting, even three years later. Her chest ached longingly anyway. The time and the space between them had done nothing to ease the way she wanted him. It was like fresh heartbreak, every time his face crept up on her.
Transference, she repeated silently.
It would’ve been a little pathetic if it were anything but that.
She hit another corner, tossed a glance back and forth, then darted across the road. She was getting closer now. And instead of being slowed by reluctance, she pushed on a little harder, a little faster. Her feet smacked the pavement, sending a roughly pleasant vibration through her feet and up her calves. The motion made her feel more powerful than she did in day-to-day life, and she liked it.
She picked up the pace again. The houses gave way to trees, which blurred by in a green-and-brown haze. A slight hill loomed ahead, and Raven’s lungs already burned in anticipation. She dropped her body a little lower, made her stride a little shorter and pushed on.
Halfway up, she thought her legs might give out. Her thighs and calves burned simultaneously, protesting against the effort. Raven would pay for it, when the day was over. She’d probably be sore for a week, actually. But even if she’d been thinking about that ahead of time—and had factored in the extra three kilometers added because of her relocation, five months earlier—she still wouldn’t have altered her plan.
The burn was good. Earned. Needed. And when she reached the top of the hill, she was smiling through the pain. She had a crazy urge to lift both her hands over her head and let out a self-directed cheer. But a dark-colored car passed her on the road just then, and through its window she could see the driver. He wore a dark hood and sunglasses, and his mouth was set in a down-turned line. It solidly reminded her that this wasn’t the place for a celebration.
Breathing heavily, Raven lifted her gaze and found the familiar wrought iron fence. Its rose accents and curling letters were taken straight from the how-to-decorate-a-cemetery handbook. Black. Pretty. But not what could be accurately described as inviting.
Pushing off an unreasonable prickle of the hairs on the back of her neck, Raven rolled her shoulders, then stepped forward. She made her way through the gate and followed the winding road down the other side of the hill. At the bottom, she could see a row of small but ornate buildings. They were all old mausoleums, and were still used as such. But one building stood apart from the rest, and even though its exterior was much the same as the others, it was actually home to the resident caretaker and his wife. Jim and Juanita Rickson. The kindly couple—who were roughly the same age as Raven’s parents had been, and whom Raven had come to know quite well in those first, hard months by herself—would be expecting her today, so she aimed herself in that direction first.
But when she got to the door and gave it a light tap, there was no answer. It was a little unusual for neither of them to be there. Obviously, there were outside things to be done. Lawns and pruning. Plots to be maintained or prepared. Still. One or the other usually stuck around in case visitors had questions, or in case the phone rang.
“Jim!” Raven called, knocking again just in case. “Juanita?”
She waited for another few moments, then decided to try a second time after her visit to her family. Brushing off another tickle of unease, she headed back up the path away from the buildings, then rerouted to the main part of the cemetery. It was a few minutes’ walk to the spot where she was headed, and the temperature seemed to be dropping and the cool breeze was fast becoming an actual win. It felt extra cold on Raven’s sweat-drenched skin. But it wasn’t the declining weather that made her shiver as her family’s three headstones came into view. It was what sat at their bases.
Flowers.
A mistake, maybe? But what were the chances that some person had come by with three identical bouquets and placed them against the wrong stones without noticing? They were bright and fresh, too. No wilting whatsoever. Like they hadn’t been there long at all. And the closer Raven got, the more warning bells went off in her head.
She stole a surreptitious look back and fore, trying to subtly search for who might’ve left them. She took another few steps forward because she was afraid that if she stopped, it would draw attention to the fact that she’d noticed the oddity. Then a branch cracked from somewhere behind her, and her resolve to look normal evaporated.
She spun and crouched at the same time. Her plan was to launch herself into a run. To take off as fast and hard as she could. But she only made it as far as the turn before she crashed straight into a terrifyingly solid, undeniably male form. And all she could do to save herself as a set of too-strong arms closed around her shoulders was let out a bloodcurdling scream, aim her knee at her assailant’s groin and pray for the best.
