Little Belle Gone (34 page)

“Not without me you don’t.” Winking slightly, he pulled ahead of her on the stairs as they crested the final landing. Guns still drawn, they announced their presence one last time, but only silence greeted them. Three closed doors lay ahead of them, one in the center of each wall encasing the stairs’ landing. Heading to the center door, directly ahead of her, Elizabeth took a position along the side. Matt flanked the door and Arrons hunkered down in the stairs. Matt turned the knob and swung the door open. A tense pause followed before Arrons shook his head. Elizabeth glanced into what was a large, ordinary bathroom. Moving to the next door, they took up similar stances and repeated their technique. This time, Arrons’ face looked pallid as he gave them the all clear nod. Matt, not seeing the pained look on his face, and not bothering to look into the room they had just opened, moved as if to go on to the third door. Finding Moreano was his number one priority right now, not searching the fiend’s home, but Elizabeth ventured a look before joining him. She wanted to know what had left Jack so disturbed.

“Oh god...” Her voice was little more than a croak. What, in any other condo, would have been a guest room or a nursery, was a trophy room. It wasn’t taxidermied animals or golden goblets and plaques that he collected over the years from sports and hobbies, however; it wasn’t that sort of trophy room. The walls were lines with photographs and pages from autopsy reports. Entire sections were devoted to each of his victims, all five scenes spread out for him to appreciate. In the center of the wall directly ahead of the door was a map of the United States, not very unlike the one they had hung next to their board a couple of hours earlier. In true police fashion, a pin was placed at each crime scene, but there was something different about this map. Instead of each state being a different color, like theirs, entire sections were shaded.

“Regions.” She mumbled.

“What?” Jack was right behind her.

“Each of us came from a different region. Angelica from the West, Phoenix from the South West, Danielle from the Mid West, me from the South East, and Patricia from the North East. His collection. He was gathering pieces of the country like most people collect refrigerator magnets, shot glasses, or those stupid little spoons.” As she spoke, her eyes drifted over each the sections flanking the map. In the center of each sickening montage was a section of bare wall where he had recreated the phrase, the twisted nursery rhyme, that had marred each girl’s home forever. Images of the girl’s faces, twisted in fear, hung below the phrases.
He must have photographed them before he took them
, she thought coldly as she lowered her weapon and entered farther into the horrific shrine.

Next to the photos of the victims were images of his own torso. He had granted each of his girls, his dolls, a portion of his own flesh. Into his own body he had carved their rhyme, the phrase that he associated with each case. What was worse was that in each case, separated by years, a full decade in one instance, the carvings all looked fresh, as if they were no more than a few hours old.
That explains the smell of blood
, she thought harshly. He maintained his wounds, kept them open and bleeding. As if as long as he bled for them they were still bleeding for him.

“His own blood...”She had only been thinking out loud, but Jack, still close behind her, responded quickly.

“What? His own blood? You mean on his office wall?” She nodded slightly as she moved farther into the space.

“Blood means something to him.” As she spoke, she noticed a box, simple and unassuming, sitting on the lone desk in the center of the eerie shrine. As she reached for the lid, a hand descended on hers, stopping her progress. The hand was not Matt’s, but Arrons’. He had followed her mesmerized entrance into this room of horrors and had apparently read her intentions in their short exchange. But he couldn’t just let her wander into this house of terrors alone. Matt, who only now was realizing that they were no longer behind them, rushed to the door. He had been in the middle of calling her name, when she heard his voice give way to a curse.

Freeing her hand lightly from Arrons’ grip, she continued her quest to open the box. She could feel Jack tense beside her, heard Matt rushing to her aid, but she didn’t care. Sliding the lid off, she peered inside. No body parts or jars of preserved pieces were hidden within it, much to her relief, but it did contain large file folders. Four to be exact. The case files. The original case files of the other four murders lay neatly cataloged and painfully official before her.
All but mine
, she thought coldly as she reached in and pulled the most recent from up-state New York from the stack. “Matt, this is why he wanted my case file. He didn’t have it. The one piece of his collection that eluded him. There wasn’t something in it he didn’t want me to see, but something he wanted to have. He needed it, the missing piece of my
provenance
.” The word spilled from her mouth like venom as she dropped the file in her hands back into the box.

Turning to face him, her eyes drifted over the wall to her right, the one she had not seen as she had entered the room. Before she could reach the security of Matt’s eyes, she found her own staring back at her. There, below the phrase that haunted her dreams, was her own face staring in terror. She couldn’t move. Her body betrayed her as she began to sway, her knees turning to jelly under the weight of a memory she had long since blocked out. Until that moment, she had forgotten about the pictures he had taken. Forgotten how he told her to smile as she sat, bound, between her parents, pleading for their lives, and her own. The stormy gray of her tear soaked eyes opened a flood gate that threatened to consume her as she sank to the floor, Matt trying desperately to catch her.

“Elizabeth, what’s wrong?” His voice was frantic, but she could not assuage him. She was simply too frightened and lost to try.

“Matt, get her out of here.” Arrons command was beyond insistent, almost tragic. Matt turned his head to see what had her so terrified and almost joined her in despair. His color left him as she sank into his arms, his shoulders still trying valiantly to support her weight, began to shake. “I said get her out of here!” Arrons soon joined Matt, freeing him from the oblivion he was teetering on the verge of, and together they carried her out into the stairwell. “You take her back down stairs. I’ll check the last room, but it’s pretty clear to me he’s not here. I’ll get the lab guys in here as fast as I can, but you need to get her into protective custody. Now!”

Elizabeth struggled to clear her mind. The memory of those snapshots had left her reeling, but as Jack’s voice drifted through the cloudy darkness of her thoughts, she began to come around. He was removing her from the case, ordering her into a cage. A helpless canary while they hunted for the elusive cat. Her spirit railed against the offense of it all.
No
, she was not going to hide away while someone else attained her closure for her. Yet again, she had been taken to the brink of madness and managed to return emboldened as she straightened in their arms. Matt, familiar with her strength, lessened his grasp on her, his hands becoming a gentle caress against her flesh. She could feel the wave of pride that ran through him as he realized she was back, his warrior.

“That won’t be necessary, Jack. I’m quite alright now. Let’s finish this. I’m not going anywhere.” He seemed truly stunned by her quick recovery and refused to release her arm. It wasn’t until she turned to look him in the eye that he seemed to understand that she meant every word she said. Smiling fondly, he released her arm and looked across at Matt.

“I think I understand now.”

Matt’s brow lifted in confusion. “Understand what?”

“Why you love her so much.” Turning back to Elizabeth, he said, “My dear you are truly remarkable. I have never met someone who could come face to face with horrors like these, especially when they themselves lived them, and still stand so strong. If you say you can continue, I will believe you, but be warned, the last room is most likely his bedroom.” His tone carried a sincere warning that seemed to imply he knew something she didn’t. Her forehead pinched as she cocked her head questioningly. Sensing her query, he continued, “Well, my dear, that room had only pictures of your original crime scene, and the scenes of the other four girls. He has committed three new double murders since then, not to mention that surveillance he has been conducting on you since, well, I think its probably fair to assume, since he found you alive and well at the academy. It is most likely that he has a shrine similar to what we just left, for his latest spree, and since the bedroom is the only room we haven’t seen so far, its also a safe bet that’s where we will find it. I hope you’re ready.” Matt’s gentle touch became firm. He tightened around her defensively as they moved together to the third door. Still ever the efficient cop, Matt drew his weapon before he swung the door open.

After only a second, Matt realized two things, that the master bedroom was devoid of life, and that Arrons was correct on all points. The room across the landing had been disturbing, but this was out right revolting. The walls behind and to the sides were papered in images of the victims and scenes of the three double murders. To the left was the Kird murder. Images of them walking a small dog down a palm tree lined sidewalk, and having dinner through what was clearly their front window, were paired with images of them crying, bound and terrified in what he recognized too easily as the house on Sanders Avenue in the Hamptons. The right wall bore images of Pam and Carl, bound in their apartment. Of how he seemed to chronicle every day of their torturous ordeal, culminating in images of their chests, bare and carved while their faces were twisted in agony. Behind him, he had seen a few photos of the desk clerk and doorman, their faces distorted by pain, much the same as the the Lyski’s. But that wall only held his attention for the fraction of a second the other two had, seeing it only when he had scanned the room upon entry. The fourth wall was consuming his soul, eating away at his will to live. The last wall, directly across from the door and in full view of poor Elizabeth, who stood frozen beside him, was covered in images of her. Photos of her at the academy, in the park, in her apartment, even in the grocery store, stared back at him from around the full bed that seemed dwarfed by the mural of her life behind it.
He
had surrounded himself with images of her, of what she did in her most private moments.

Surprisingly enough, Elizabeth was not the source of the plea that rang out, but he, himself. She stood stoic and controlled beside him as he shattered inside. His eyes hung on the images of them at their desks, working away, beside the images of her relaxing on her sofa watching a movie. Unable to keep from scanning every photo, his eyes moved over the grotesque wallpaper until they collided with something he had prayed he would not find. A series of images of Liz, in her bed, indulging in the habit she had only recently admitted to him. As his eyes moved over the look of pleasure etched on her frozen face, and his stomach writhed within him. The prints themselves were placed right by the bed, eye level with the side baring the indent of repeated use. Unbidden flashes of the vile man looking at the pictures as he eased his own tension were more than Matt could bare. Rage coursed through his veins as his knees began to shake. He had seen war, seen crime scenes that were more fitting of a butcher shop window, seen murdered children, but this was more than his constitution could manage to withstand.

Turning, still holding her beside him, he rushed from the room. “Arrons, some of those pictures ... is there anyway they can get
lost
? If they were to ever go public, Elizabeth’s life would be...well let’s just say it would make things worse.” He could barely speak, the anger coursing through him made his throat so tight that it hurt to breath. Elizabeth did not pull away, or make any move to resist him, as he lead her to the stairwell.

“You got it. Where are you two going?” Arrons was following reluctantly as he fumbled to remove his phone. Matt mused inwardly that the only one who seemed clam after opening the bedroom was Elizabeth. She had hardened her heart against the horrors she knew were coming, but they had been too preoccupied with worrying over her to do the same.

“The
three
of us are going to my apartment. If he isn’t here, he might be there.” Matt felt Elizabeth shift in his arms. She hadn’t thought of that. It stung him to think it. It had become the one place she felt at home and he wanted, more than anything, for it to remain that way, but he couldn’t pretend that Moreano was a fool. After he realized that she had collected a D.N.A. sample from him, he surely realized that everything she had said in his office was a lie. From there it seemed a short leap to the truth of their relationship. That would lead
him
right to their door.

“Why would he go to your apartment? Why not to the home of whomever Elizabeth has been staying with?” It was Liz’s voice that answered Jack’s questions. She chimed in before Matt could manage to. The tone of her voice, proud and confident, sent a ripple of pleasure through his strangled heart.

“Because that’s where I’ve been staying. I moved in with Matt when my apartment was defiled.
His
apartment is now
our
apartment and if Moreano is really looking to find me, that’s probably where he will head next.” Matt’s arm around her tightened.

“Alright, then that’s where we’re headed. Let me get the techs to meet us there with an electronics detector. If he isn’t there, those cameras might be. They should be here any minute, too. I’ll tell Sharon, my lead tech, to process the bedroom. She will remove the compromising images of Elizabeth for us. I trust her.” As Matt and Elizabeth descended the stairs, he looked over his shoulder at his friend.

“Thanks, Jack. You’ve been surprisingly understanding about all this, Liz and me, I mean. Most people would have taken it badly.” Matt meant every word. Most detectives didn’t care who you dated, so long as they didn’t feel like they were party to helping you cover it up. If you wanted to date a colleague so be it, but you didn’t let others know because they might be asked about it later. It would force them to choose between your friendship and their job. It was an awkward choice, but one that usually ended in a destroyed friendship.