Hide My Memories: A Romantic Suspense Thriller Series (Hide Me Series Book 1) (14 page)

Katerina listened to West and the officer talk. She was glad West was here for several reasons. She was glad that he was here to do most of the talking for her – he seemed to have endless energy, while she felt more tired with every police officer she had to talk to. But most of all, she had no doubt in her mind that she would not have survived the attack if West had not been with her, in her bed. Her tired mind wanted to remember the delicious sensation of him climbing into bed with her when she asked him to, but something else was nagging at her.

She interrupted the officer. "How did he get in my apartment?"

The officer looked at her intently. "Your door was locked?"

"Yes, of course."

Officer Bruegger walked to her front door and examined the locks. "I don't see any signs of damage here, so either he picked the locks, or he bumped them."

"Bumped them?"

"It's a technique to get into most locks using a generic key, called a bump key. Then you hit it with a hammer or screwdriver, and the lock opens right up."

Katerina shivered.
Was it really that easy?

"I heard a noise," West said. "That's what woke me up."

The officer nodded. "Bumping a lock is noisy."

“We're done here," the officer said. "I'll have Detective Gagne get in touch with you as soon as possible."

A voice from behind him said, "Gagne sent me. I'm here."

The officer stepped back and Katerina saw Blaise behind him. His uniform looked rumpled and he had large black bags under his eyes.

"Blaise," West said. "Good to see you, man, but you are looking tired."

"I've been up all night. We’ve had a new development and Detective Gagne wanted me to talk to you before I finally headed home. I see you had some excitement over here."

Officer Bruegger said his goodbyes and disappeared down the stairs. Katerina invited Blaise into the apartment.

Blaise sat down on the couch and his weariness was apparent. He started talking immediately. "We linked two more bodies to this killer. They are a bit different than the first two bodies but we think they are connected."

Katerina sank into a chair across from Blaise.
Two more bodies? What a nightmare.

"They're different?" West asked.

Blaise pulled his notebook from his pocket and rifled through it until he found the page he wanted. "Yes, first difference, these bodies were found in Westwood Harbor, both in abandoned buildings. Second, neither of the women were raped. But there are two reasons we think they are connected. A paralytic was used - a different paralytic than the one found in the bodies in Tetam County, but it's very similar. It's called neosaxitoxin and it comes from shellfish, just like the other one. And second, the bodies were washed, just like the other ones."

"When were they found?" Katerina said.

"One was found five weeks ago, and the other one was found three weeks ago. It looks like both of the bodies sat for at least a week first."

"So you guys already knew about the paralytic?”

"Not exactly. The cases were cold. We don’t even know who the women are. Our medical examiner said that he got the idea to look for the paralytic in them when the medical examiner in Tetam County sent over samples of what they had found."

"Don't they look for that kind of stuff anyway?" Katerina asked.

"They run a toxicology screen, but I don't know if a paralytic would normally show up. I've been trying to ask the medical examiner that myself, but I always get his assistant, and his assistant hasn't been very helpful. Detective Gagne says he's going to track down the medical examiner today."

Blaise closed his notebook. "Look, I know that doesn't help you guys at all, I just thought you would want to know. I guess the real reason I came over here was because I heard about your intruder. And to tell you that I don't think you should go to work today." He looked pointedly at West. "It just seems that this guy is getting desperate, and he's already dangerous. Desperate and dangerous is a bad combination. He might do anything."

"I think you're right," West said, looking down.

As much as Katerina didn't want to admit it, they probably were right. Maybe she should just stay holed up at home until this guy was caught.

"I'll stay here Blaise, if you can tell me how to keep my lock from being bumped again."

A ghost of a smile crossed Blaise's face. "Sure, if you're going to be home, you can guarantee nobody will get in your door by using a portable door lock or a security bar. Go to a hardware store and ask for one of those. I recommend a portable door lock."

I’ll get both
, Katerina thought.

Blaise stood up to go, but West had one more question to ask. "Blaise, do you think there would be any way for us to look at those bodies?"

Katerina's gaze snapped to West.

"Sure, I could set that up, but why?"

West looked at Katerina, and stayed silent.

Katerina dropped her head to her hands. "He thinks I should touch them."

Blaise didn't say anything for a few moments. He seemed to be considering and then rejecting several comments. Finally he spoke. "Do you think you could find anything out if you did that? Like the killer's name?"

Katerina barked a harsh laugh. "Wouldn’t that be great? I could just hand him to you on a silver platter.
His name is Robert Smith and he lives at 123 Fourth St. Go arrest him
."

Blaise blinked, not sure what to say to that.

"Sorry," Katerina said. "I have no idea if I could get anything off of them. But I guess I have to try, don't I?"

"No Katerina," West said. "You don't have to try. But if you want to, I'll be there with you."

Katerina hesitated only a second. She couldn't take anymore of this. "I want to do it."

Blaise glanced at the clock on the wall. 8:12 a.m. "Okay, hang on a second," he said. He took his phone out of his pocket and walked outside.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think we were running out of options," West said.

Katerina nodded wearily. She knew that. It was a good idea. She had to try it. She just wasn’t looking forward to it.

Blaise came back in the room. "The assistant medical examiner says he will meet you at the old morgue in an hour."

"The one on Fern Street?" West asked. "Why there?"

Blaise shrugged. "That's where the bodies go when they have too many. I guess they’ve been busy."

West nodded and looked to Katerina. "Is an hour okay?"

Katerina nodded, fear filling her chest. She didn't want to do this, but she didn't feel like she had a choice.

"Want me to go with you?" Blaise asked.

West shook his head. "You go home and get some sleep. We'll be fine."

Blaise looked relieved. "Okay, I'll check in with you as soon as I get a few hours."

West shook his hand and Katerina thanked him. West showed him out and then returned to Katerina.

"Let's get some breakfast, and then we can head over.”

Katerina went to the kitchen and started some eggs for both of them, trying not to think about what she was about to do.

“You said you had a gun,” West said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a concealed carry permit for it?”

Katerina shook her head no, trying not to let the fact that she needed a gun just to walk out her front door collapse on her.

“Do you mind if I bring it with us today? I don’t have a permit either, but I’ll take the blame if I get caught. I would feel safer with it.”

Katerina nodded, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. She tried to blink them away and not get any in the eggs. She felt overwhelmed and completely on edge. She didn’t want to have to carry a gun with her just to leave the house. She didn’t want to have to touch bodies of women who shouldn’t be dead. She didn’t want to stay home from work and possibly be fired for it. None of this was fair.

West brushed a lock of hair out of her face so he could see her. Then he gathered her into his arms. “Hey, it’s gonna be OK. I promise.”

She didn’t have the strength to argue.

***

Exactly one hour later, West and Katerina pulled up in the parking lot of the old morgue. Katerina had never been there before. In fact, she’d never known it was a morgue. It looked like an ordinary office building, except all the windows were mirrored and heavily tinted - you couldn’t see in from the outside. They got out of her car and walked to the front door. West grasped her hand and squeezed, lending her strength, then pulled open the door and motioned her inside.

The building seemed completely empty. Their steps echoed on the cool tile of the waiting room. A man’s voice called from another room, “I’ll be right there.”

“OK,” West said, looking around.

Katerina shivered violently. Fear filled her. The reality of what she was about to do sat heavily on her chest. Images started bouncing through her brain at random.
Already? s
he thought in dismay. But the images were muted, hard to make out. She was glad and did not try to see them any better. She would do this one time, and one time only. She would tell West what she saw and hope she never had to think of it again.

A man entered the room. Katerina recognized him as the assistant Medical Examiner she’d met before, when she identified Pam’s body. He didn’t look directly at her, but instead looked at her feet. “You’re here to see the bodies?” he asked, his voice surprisingly high for such a big man.

“Yes,” West answered.

“Can I see some identification?”

Katerina dug in her pocket for her driver’s license. That and her keys was all she was carrying. She held it out to the man and West did the same. The man barely glanced at the IDs and then motioned for them to follow him. They walked down a slight decline, then through a door to an office. The man walked on, without a word, to the other side of the office, then opened and walked through a door on the far end. West held the door open for Katerina. Her dread grew larger with every step she took.

Now they were in a large, open room, with stainless steel tables placed every four feet or so. The lights were low, giving the room a gloomy feel. “Wait here please, I need to procure some paperwork.” He hurried out of the room, propping the door open.

Katerina’s throat felt constricted, like she was trying to swallow an orange. She tried to relax. West took her hand and squeezed it again. “Almost done. You’re doing great,” he said.

Images kept flipping through Katerina’s brain, faster and faster. Katerina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was the first time that being with West hadn’t made them go away. She felt like she was forgetting something. Or like they were trying to tell her something. She tried to focus, seeing the images as almost-friendly for the first time.

She told them to slow down. She could almost see what was in her mind, like a movie she was trying to watch behind a hanging sheet. She pulled her hand out of West’s and took a step away from him. The images gained a bit of focus, but when West stepped close to her again, they lost it.

“Stay here for a sec, I want to … I want to see something, but you … you distract me,” she told him, not wanting to take the time to explain anymore. She stepped past one of the tables and walked to the other side of it, leaving West a few feet behind her. And now she could see. It
was
like a movie. A movie of the killer’s life. A jumble of things that made no sense to her. Until that one. She gasped and tried to stop the image from flitting past - tried to freeze it in her mind. It was a morgue. A room covered in stainless steel just like the one she was in. There was a feeling attached to the image, a sense of
knowing
. If she could just interpret what it meant … She reached for it, opened herself to it …

Everything fell into place in an instant. She had willingly walked right into the spider’s web.

Katerina whirled back to West, a shout on her lips.

The assistant Medical Examiner was already behind him, holding something she couldn’t immediately place in both of his hands - something long and shiny. Needles. She didn’t recognize them right away because they were the biggest needles she had ever seen. Disgustingly big. Terrifyingly big.

The man who thought of himself as
The Collector
was poised behind West, his hands already thrusting violently forward. Before she could say or do a thing, the needles pierced West’s upper thighs. His face contorted in pain and he bent backwards, his hands flying behind him.

“No!” Katerina screamed, her voice echoing off of the fixtures of the room. She ran for West but one look past him stopped her. The monster had another needle. Another needle so long it looked
wrong
. She could see the huge hole at the end it from where she stood, a drop of liquid shimmering wetly at the tip. She still didn’t know his name. But he knew theirs.

Katerina took a tentative step backwards, wanting desperately to help West, but knowing a step forward meant death. One of West’s hands came forward, even as he crumpled to the ground. In it was a syringe, but the needle was not attached. As he fell forward, Katerina could see the metal of the needle extending past the hole in his jeans where the man had jabbed him.

“Go, Katerina, run, get out of here,” West said, his voice weak and slurred already. What had the man injected him with? Adrenaline cast Katerina’s mind in a thousand different directions. Panic beat at her throat. The man took a step towards her, not even sparing West a glance, as if he were now inconsequential. Katerina looked at West though, she knew he had her gun in a holster at the small of his back. If only she could get to it. West’s fingers scrabbled weakly at his shirt, but he couldn’t seem to pull it out of his jeans.

“Come now Ginger. Or is it Katerina? The police reports say Ginger, but your friends call you Katerina. I want to be your friend. I want to call you Katerina. Or maybe Katie. If you don’t fight me, I won’t stick you with this. And then we will be on our way to being friends. Am I right?”

The man’s voice echoed sickly in her mind. She could hear it attached to the images for the first time. His voice. His chuckle. His sigh. It made her skin itch and crawl all over her body. She could suddenly
see
his thoughts, his feelings, like flies crawling sluggishly over sewage. They had colors, sick, dark, pulsing colors that didn’t belong associated with anyone human. They had strength, and lives of their own, these thoughts. He was controlled by them. He was insane. It had been there in her mind all the time, but she hadn’t recognized it until now.

Katerina felt her breakfast rebel in her stomach. The man took a step forward, and she took an unconscious step back. He took another step forward, reaching a conciliatory hand out to her. With a stifled shriek of terror, Katerina turned and ran. She knew if he touched her, knew if she got one more dose of his abhorrent personality, she would not survive.

There was a door at the far end of the room, and Katerina ran for it, not wanting to contemplate if it was locked or not. It wasn’t. She burst through it, not daring to look over her shoulder to see if he was coming for her. Some part of her knew that was stupid. He could have gone another way - he could already be in front of her. But she couldn’t do any different. Hysteria had taken over. She had to find help.

The door opened on a hallway and Katerina ran as fast as she could down it. Behind her, she heard the door open and close again. She strained to hear more over the sound of her own ragged breathing. At the very end of the hallway, she saw an exit sign over two heavy-looking, double doors, but she could already see the exit doors were chained shut. From the sounds behind her, she could tell the man was closer already.
If only she could get back to the front door.
She turned left quickly, as the hallway t-boned that way. She bounced off the far wall but barely felt it. Even the needle didn’t scare her as much as that man touching her.

She could see a desk opposite the far end of the hallway. And windows. The front door? She tried to put on a burst of speed, willing her feet to go just a little faster. As she exited the hallway, she skirted the desk and saw she was indeed back in the waiting area where they had come in, but these doors were now chained shut too. Katerina didn’t know what to do. She looked left, then right, but saw nothing that could help her. She had no choice but to keep running.

The man caught up to her and barreled into her from the back, knocking her flying across the room. She lost her balance and went down, and the man fell heavily on top of her. Katerina knew she couldn’t fight him. He was twice her size. Instead, she concentrated on blocking him out. On keeping his foulness from contaminating her, killing her. She squeezed her arms close across her chest, and her eyes closed tight. She put up a mental wall between them as best she could. Even the needle would be better than having his being on open display in her mind again. Especially now that she was better at interpreting what came to her.

Nothing happened for a moment as he caught his breath above her. She briefly considered screaming, but that would mean she would have to open her mouth. No way. Uh uh. She wasn’t doing that. She was shut down, and she was staying that way.

When he finally spoke, his voice was grossly intimate, like they were old friends. Katerina’s breakfast lurched again at the sound.

“Katerina. It seems you don’t want to be my friend. But perhaps I can convince you. I’d like to get to know you better. I’d like to know exactly how you discovered my secrets.”

The man grasped her by her upper arms and flipped her over like she were no more than a toy doll. She ducked her face into her shoulder and kept her eyes frantically shut.

He leaned forward until his face was inches from hers, until she could smell his breath. It was surprisingly minty, like he’d been chewing gum, or had just gargled with mouthwash. “The police report says you saw the bodies of my women in your mind when you touched me. But that can’t possibly be true, can it?”

She didn’t answer and he shook her. “Can it? You need to answer me Katerina. You don’t seem to understand the situation you are in. No one will be coming to save you. By the time your police officer friend misses you, it will be too late for you. Your boyfriend can’t help you. His heart and lungs are freezing in place. Soon they will stop and he will be dead. He might be dead already. And you, well, your immediate fate rests in whether you talk to me or not.” He shook her one last time then screamed in her face, “So talk!”

Katerina pulled in closer on herself. All she could think of was West. West dying. West dead. And it was her fault.

“You drugged me didn’t you,” the man hissed at her. “You put something on my skin that made me feel tired. But why? Was it my brother? Did he send you to check on me?”

The man leaned so close to Katerina that his lips were almost touching her face. Katerina couldn’t see him, but she could feel his hot breath on her cheek. She squirmed in revulsion. The man let go of one of her arms and tried to pry her right eye open. “Look at me Katerina. Look at me and say something. Or my brother will get you back in pieces. Or is that what he wants?”

Katerina heard confusion in the man’s voice. She tried to focus on it. Tried to think of something that could get her out of this. Should she talk to him? Play along? Deny everything? Tell the truth? The very nearness of him scrambled her neurons and jumbled her ability to think. She couldn’t give up. But she wanted to. She wanted him to just kill her already. Then the nightmare would be over.

“Unless you really are psychic. How does one become psychic? Can you learn it? Are you born that way? Can you teach me? Could I become psychic? Perhaps if I eat you …”

Katerina felt something wet and awful on her cheek. His tongue. He was licking her.
Tasting
her. The thought broke her paralysis and she acted, frantically, frenetically, doing the only thing in her power to do.

She grabbed his meaty upper arm with her free hand and opened herself to him. She opened herself and asked for him. She opened herself and drew him in. Everything she could take. His essence rushed into her, not only through the conduit of her hand on him, but also from his hand on her. It came fast and hard and she couldn’t stand it. It was mud-brown. Shit-brown. It tasted and smelled and sounded like madness and death. It looked like abuse, destruction, obliteration. It poured into her as fast as she could pull it, and when she could hold no more she opened her mouth and screamed. She felt some of it shoot out through her mouth and leave her for good. She screamed and pushed as much of it out that way as she could, until her lungs were forced empty and he collapsed on top of her with a groan.

Katerina ripped her arm from his grip and let go of him. She sucked in cool, clean air, then mentally tried to block off the bits of him that were left inside her. She kicked with her feet and tried to roll his now dead-weight off of her. She had no idea how long she had until he was fully functioning again. For all she knew he only felt a bit tired and would be up and at her again in an instant. She pulled her body out from underneath him and scrambled upright, running the way he had led her and West when they came in.

She swiftly came upon West’s body, her mind stuttering in fear at how still he was. She dropped to her knees and skidded to a stop next to him, positioning herself so she could see the way she had just come from. She needed the gun. But first … she grabbed the horrible needle protruding from his left leg and pulled it completely out, casting it aside. She looked up and saw no one. She moved on to the right leg, where the broken needle was barely poking out of West’s flesh. No time for gentleness, she pushed hard around the wound, holding the flesh down, then squeezed the metal between her fingers. She drew it out also and threw it hard. It clattered across the room and under a cabinet. Her fingers crept to his neck, terrified of what she wouldn’t find there. But before she could fit them in the groove where his pulse should be, a movement caught her eye. The man, the monster, the assistant medical examiner, was shambling towards her, moving slowly and looking smaller and somehow more faded than he had before, but still very much a threat to her.

Katerina yanked West’s shirt upwards and unbuttoned the strap to the holster he was wearing. She expertly drew out her gun and stood up, taking the stance she had been taught, so many years ago. With her thumb, she flipped off the safety. She already knew a round was in the chamber. She looked down the sights of the gun, settling them over the man’s heart. “Stop, or I’ll shoot you,” she said, dismayed to hear how weak she sounded.

He didn’t hear, or understand, or care. He kept coming, halving the distance between them. Katerina waited until he was twelve feet away, then fired, squeezing the trigger slowly and carefully, just as she had practiced a thousand times.

A red hole opened in his chest, slightly to the right of where she had been aiming. He staggered backwards and fell over, the only sound coming when his body thumped on the floor.

Katerina thumbed the safety back on and knelt down slowly, never taking her eyes off the man she had just shot. A coldness had fallen over her. She was a killer now.

Her fingers found West and sought his neck again. She pressed them in the groove and waited, jaw clenched. Alive or dead? Chance or none? And if there was no heartbeat? Would she press this gun against her temple and squeeze the trigger? Perhaps. Because that was what killers did. They killed.

A turgid beat thumped against her fingers. Alive. Chance.

She would take it.