Authors: Stephanie Whitlock
As they crested the final hill, the cobblestone driveway came into view, complete with its large cast iron gate, but something was amiss. The gate was open. As Matt drew nearer, he found that gate was not open in the conventional sense, but broken, swung wide by force. The two large, heavy sides of the wrought iron shield were laid open, barely clinging to their hinges. Large dents and gnarled metal indicated that the gates had been charged, at some speed, by a heavy vehicle. “Moreano’s been here.” Her voice sounded distant and he was fairly certain she had been expecting this. “At least we know he’s close. Jack, I think you better call Bill. Get his people out here as fast as you can.”
“Already calling.” Matt glanced over his shoulder at the older detective in the back seat. Within seconds Jack was barking orders at the other end of the line as if he were speaking to one of his own subordinates. The thought would have made Matt smile on any other day, but not today. Panning back around, his gazed drifted over Elizabeth. She was looking at him, a soft plea etched on her face. Reaching out, he touched her cheek lightly, fleetingly, before he shifted back into drive and scrapped through the dangling gates.
The long winding drive gave way to the front of the manner house. It stood just as he remembered it, dark stone and ivy, looming on the hill top in the growing dark of the encroaching night. His comparison from a few days earlier came unbidden to his mind. Thoughts of how very like the setting of a horror film it looked were not comforting in the least. Neither was the police issue S.U.V., front end crumpled, that sat in front of the entrance.
“He’s here.” Matt could here his own voice and it unnerved him. It was gravel and rage. Until that moment he had been too concerned with all the damage the possible discoveries could do to Elizabeth to think about the effect it might have on him to actually find Moreano here. His blood ran thick and sour as the anger and hatred growing in his belly began to wash over his mind. He slammed the van in park and all but leapt from the driver’s seat, leaving the engine running and the door wide open. Pulling his gun, he hunkered low and took up a defensive position beside the battered S.U.V. Within seconds, Jack and Elizabeth were beside him, their guns drawn as well. “Elizabeth, you’re behind me. Jack, you watch our backs. Knowing Harvey, he’s waiting just inside the door. If you get a shot, take it. Don’t give him a chance to rattle you.” He gave one last look to the woman beside him, her hair shining red glory in the faint light. It made his chest clinch as he turned and made his way cautiously to the open door.
As he cleared the threshold, he found himself in the large vestibule that served as a barrier between the outside world and the grandeur of the home within. The room was small compared to the relative expanse of the house, but still held places where a trained killer could find cover. He moved quickly and took a position along the far wall, Elizabeth entered and posted herself along the opposite. They covered Jack as he raced across to the closed door centered in the far wall. Once he nodded that it was clear, they repeated their careful incursion technique, drawing up to flank the door between them.
As Matt eased open the carved mahogany barrier into the central hall, he found exactly what he had predicted. Moreano stood, poised in front of the grand stairs with Alex, bound and gagged, dragged up before him as a human shield. On the floor at their feet, lying face down in a growing pool of dark red liquid, was the tragically still frame of the older gentleman he knew as George. The soft gasp to his left told him that Elizabeth had cleared the door and found the scene before them just as disturbing.
“Ah, so my little Belle has come after all. I was hoping you would. Now that you have outed me, it was going to be very difficult for me to get close to you on my own, you clever little doll.” Matt tried to slink a little closer, sure that Harvey’s attention was focused solely on Elizabeth, until he heard a whimpering cry of pain escape Alex’s bound mouth. “Ah, ah, ah.” Moreano tisked him as he pulled back her head to reveal the long, formidable knife pressed against the soft flesh beneath her chin. A small trickle of blood had been released to give evidence of its impeccable sharpness. Matt studied the blade quickly. The crime scene photos of Elizabeth’s parents’ murder flashed in his mind, confirming what they had long suspected. He was using the same blade. “Any closer Barrow and she’ll be dead before she hits the floor.” As if to prove his point, he yanked her head back a little further and dug the blade in deeper. Alex’s eyes went wide as the blood trickle widened with greater flow.
“Let her go Harvey, it’s me you want, right? Well, I’m here now, so let her go. Let’s finish this. Just you and me.” Elizabeth was trying to creep closer as she spoke, Matt wondered if the tempting offer would be enough to make him drop the girl, but he seriously doubted it. Moreano was a trained negotiator and he knew that Alex was his only leverage.
“As tempting as the offer is, little Belle, I will have to refuse. You see, you alone aren’t enough. I need the whole moment. I need the mom and dad, watching as I take what’s mine, you remember, don’t you? As you can see, I already have the dad.” He made a cruel nonchalant gesture to the motionless body of George bleeding out before their very eyes. “He’s not my first choice, but you already know that, too. Why else would your new mom and dad be in France right now. So very slippery of you little Belle. You make me proud.” The arousal in his dark, rasping voice turned Matt’s stomach into knotted lava.
“Let the girl go, Moreano, there’s no way out of this for you. If you surrender now, and we can save him, maybe the judge will show mercy and only put you away for the rest of your miserable life.” Matt knew he should hold his tongue, but he just couldn’t. In that moment his choices were either engage him verbally or simply start shooting and hope that he missed Alex. Given the latter was absurd, he growled his insulting offer instead.
“Ah, yes. Barrow, we come back to you. You were supposed to train my little Belle doll, not fuck her. I really thought she’d be able to see right through you. Tell me, did she cry the first time with you as well?” Matt went blind, red spots coating the world. Incensed beyond reason, he raised his gun higher, preparing to squeeze off a shot when Alex’s muffled scream echoed through the hall. “Drop your guns, or Belle’s best friend gets a new mouth.” Barrow’s mind swam with rage, but as he heard Elizabeth’s weapon clatter to the marble floor, he sighed through gritted teeth and tossed his down beside it. “What a good little boy you are. It really is too bad she already belonged to me. You two would have made such a perfect couple, so determined and devoted.” Matt’s pulse began to thunder and he could feel his entire body begin to quake. He had never felt anger like this, raw, pure, and overpowering. He began to fear what he might do, what the consequences would be if the tenuous control he was clinging to slipped from his fingertips.
“Matt is a wonderful man and you are a fucking monster. Ask yourself, which man did I see right through, Namoore?” Elizabeth’s voice was filled with ice and hatred as she spewed his birth name at him. It washed over Harvey’s face like acid, twisting each feature in turn. “That’s right, we figured you out.” Moreano shifted his feet, turning to more directly face Elizabeth. Matt, seeing the tiny shift and the distracting anger now etched on his face, took a tiny step forward that seemed to go unnoticed. With their guns on the floor, Moreano apparently found there to be nothing left to be cautious of. As Elizabeth continued her verbal assault, Matt continued to inch closer. “We know all about the other murders, too. How you faked a name, got onto the police force in a small town, and used the position to find talented girls for your morbid, sick little collection. How you knew their deaths would go unsolved because you were their investigating detective. You eliminated any clues that might lead them to you, then you left for another hunt.”
“I knew you were special. From the very first moment I saw you playing with your mother in the yard, all those years ago. I knew then you would be my most impressive piece. You’ve turned into quite the detective.” The rage in his dark tone was mixed again with arousal and it made Matt grind his jaw.
Keep him talking, Liz,
pulsed through his veins with every rapid beat of his heart. Another small step closer...
“Honestly, it didn’t take much. Using the same letters to create each alias, really? How mundane. The D.N.A. you left in my apartment was the final straw. Oh, you remember the mirror I managed to break over your head while I was bound and drugged, don’t you Harvey? Well, that little bit of blood gave us every one of your other murders. Matt and I figured you out in less than two hours this morning, from L.A. all the way to up state. It was easy to connect them together. I mean, those stupid rhymes you leave behind? So simple an idiot could have followed you.” She gave him a cold smirk. Matt feared for a moment that she might just prod him into killing Alex, but then he reasoned she was trying to make his grip on Alex go slack. If the tip of the knife were to come free of her chin, he could lunge from his new position and snag her right out of Moreano’s arms, but her goading did not have the effect they were hoping for. Moreano began to puff up with what could only be pride. An eerie, forced, smile pulled at his mouth as he stared at her.
“My, my. I’m so glad I didn’t kill you right away when I found you at the academy. At first I only let you live because you were no longer special. You had given up dancing and I no longer wanted you in my collection. I decided to torture you for your betrayal. That’s when I came up with the bait program. Imagine my surprise when you enjoyed it.” Her face pinched in disgust and his foul smile broadened. “Oh yes. You betrayed me, Belle. You lived. So, I had to make you pay for that, but you were so good at being prey turned predator, and the way you fight. Exquisite. I found a new reason to collect you, but I was having too much fun.”
“So you just sat back and watched me for a year? What? Was I just entertainment for you?” Her voice was raw, as if she had been screaming for hour. Matt inched a bit closer, trying desperately to focus on Alex. The direction the conversation was turning was far to dangerous for him to listen intently. His anger was only barely restrained as it was.
“The most wondrous kind, little Belle. It pleased me to know that you had never taken another man into your bed, until now.” Matt froze. He felt the cold stare flick to him. He had manged to slink nearly three feet closer during their brief, terse exchange, and if Moreano noticed he would surely have done with poor Alex, but he didn’t. His black eyes lingered on Matt for a moment, as if measuring him against an invisible standard, then he snorted and turned back to Elizabeth. “Oh, but the things you would do when you thought you were alone. Such naughty things, little Belle. You brought me so much pleasure, I forgot about my collection and just enjoyed you. Then it ended.” His smile did not fade, but he shifted again.
Matt had been so intent on concealing his own motion, he had not noticed Elizabeth’s. While Moreano had been engaging her, she had managed to move laterally around the room, away from Matt. As her motions got her no closer to Moreano, or his victim, he did not seem to care that she had shifted nearly six feet to her left. As he shifted around to better face her, Matt found himself flanking the heavy set older man, only inches from being hidden entirely in his blind spot.
Wonderful Mara, just a little more
, he thought as hard as he could, hoping against reason she could hear him, sense it on the air between them.
“Ended? How? I was consumed by the bait program. I would have stayed in it if you hadn’t reassigned me. You did that! Not me!” The shrillness of her voice seemed to disturb Harvey, but Matt had heard it before. He stifled the chuckle that surged up his throat. She was using her rather impressive interrogation technique and Moreano was falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
“Calm down Belle, darling. It was only a matter of time. You were graduating from the academy and I knew that your scores would be too good to keep you in such a pedestrian assignment as the bait program for much longer. All good things must come to an end. I knew our tenth anniversary was coming up, so I decided to make it memorable. I designed a little show, just for you. The doorman and desk clerk, the Lyski’s, and the Kirds, which I must say, I was rather disappointed you found them early. It threw off my whole plan, but you can’t fault the dog, I suppose. I will admit that coming for the file was a mistake. I should have just waited until after it was done and taken it from the evidence collected at your apartment, but it was the only piece of who you used to be that I was missing. Call me sentimental.” Elizabeth almost growled. The lighter Moreano’s musings became the darker Elizabeth’s voice sounded.
“You never would have found my cameras if I hadn’t been so impulsive. Oh well. You’re here now and our reunion is almost complete.” He made a motion as if he were about to slit open Alex’s throat.
“Wait!” Elizabeth lurched forward, surprised by the sound of her own voice. Frantically, she tried to piece together what she could say next, what would stall him just a bit longer. “You can’t slit her throat, that’s all wrong. You stabbed them in the back, remember.” She motioned to George lying on the ground. For a brief moment she wondered if he were even still alive, but the thought nearly tore her heart out. Unable to give in to her emotions, she forced the question from her mind and tried to focus on the event unfolding around her. “If this is how it ends, you should at least do me the courtesy of doing it correctly. You owe me that much.” It worked. Moreano seemed thoroughly pleased at the change in her.
“So, you’ve accepted it, have you?” She tried not to flinch at the idea, tried to remain frozen under the appraising gaze he washed slowly over her body. As she watched his eyes travel along her curves, her stomach tensed, revulsion mixing with rage to create a potent mixture of hatred and impending violence, but she did her best to contain it. When his eyes returned to hers, his smile broadened. “Good, then we can begin.” Much to Elizabeth’s amazement, and relief, Moreano seemed to have forgotten all about Matt, not to mention Jack. He was still entirely concealed in the entry way when they had first engaged Moreano and, to his credit, he had kept his presence hidden throughout the entire exchange. Their ace in the hole if things went south. Moreano removed the knife from Alex’s chin, causing her to whimper loudly. As his weaponed hand lowered to her shoulder, he shifted his feet, preparing to force her onto the ground, but he would never get the chance. Elizabeth watched as Matt dove from his flanking position, scooping Alex into his arms and out of the reach of a stunned Moreano. As the pair hit the ground, sliding a few feet away, Elizabeth launched herself at the monstrous man. Lashing out with a sharp kick. Her blow struck his right shoulder. The impact sent a shock wave down his burly arm and cause his hand to involuntarily release the large blade he had been only seconds from plunging into Alex’s back.