The River Runs Dry (14 page)

He handed it to Jessie, their eyes and faces meeting with a smile, before he walked away to the other side of the bar, where the barmaid stood, awaiting his questions.

Chapter 16

It was night time, and dark, darker than normal.

Most nights the sky was clear, the light of the moon and bright stars unobscured. But on this night it was truly pitch black, a heavy band of cloud arching in from the coast and blotting out any light from above.

The air was heavy and sticky, clinging close to the skin as the incessant heat continued. A loud rumble of thunder broke the silence, a crackling and growling coming down from the heavens. It made Jessie jump as she lay in bed, not a hint of light in her room.

Then the rain came down, cascading heavily and suddenly from above. It hadn't rained in months, not like this anyway. This was a deluge, a sudden downpour as the floodgates opened and the water came flowing from the sky.

With it came flashes of lightning, preceding the thunder and illuminating her room. Shadows formed with each flash as she lay there, her eyes wide open in the darkness. They made unearthly shapes, her mind creating images of faces and bodies, misshapen and deformed.

She reached for her phone and its blue light spilled over the room. She moved it around, shadows changing shape as she did. She hovered it on the door, where a new lock had been installed. It was bolted shut and securely fastened.

She turned over in her bed and put her phone back down, plunging the room back into the black. The lightning continued, and the thunder, vibrating through the entire house as she lay there. It echoed up through the floor, up through her bed frame and mattress, and into her body, rattling in her head.

She felt afraid, more afraid than she ever had. She knew the whole town felt as she did, lying there, struggling to sleep, images and thoughts of torture and pain running through their minds.

There were hundreds of people in the town directly affected by the murders: families and friends and colleagues of the victims. They were struggling to deal with what was happening, struggling to move on and live their lives normally. Burgess used to be such a safe town, so safe you'd feel no fear of walking all the way through it at night, from one side to the other and back again.

But now, now a fear gripped it tight, the hand of the devil clasping at it and squeezing. The bars were losing custom, particularly at night. Restaurants were also failing, people too afraid to step outside of their doors. Fewer people were visiting the town and using it as a gateway into the National Park. Those who turned up, not knowing the situation, would quickly move one once they did.

It was a town that relied on tourism, half of its businesses hotels and restaurants and local tour guides. But now the town was suffering: emotionally and economically. People weren't only losing sleep at night, they were losing money in the day. The longer this went on, the harder people would find it to survive, to keep on going.

Burgess' fate was now tied in with that of it's Butcher, and it was down to Jack Slade to catch him.

…

Jessie woke from a troubled sleep, her eyes aching.

Light was spilling in now from the curtain outside, a pallid light, not the stark brightness she'd been used to recently. She stood, her body stiff, and walked to the window, opening the curtains and looking out on the street. It was drenched, puddles everywhere down the road, mixed with the dirt and sand of the desert to make red pools.

It almost looked like blood.

Jessie quickly dressed before sliding the lock across her door. It creaked as she turned the handle and pulled it open, the corridor dim beyond.

There was still a nervousness in her step as she placed her foot into the hallway, part of her half expecting the door to her mother's old room to open suddenly, a man to rush forward with a knife in his hand.

Jessie knew it was an irrational fear, though, stepping forward and moving down the steps into the kitchen. She opened the main blinds and the light came in, breathing life into the room and through the interconnected doorway into the living room beyond. The house was pristine right now, tidied up and always prepared for viewings. Trouble was, she wasn't getting any.

She'd spoken several more times with Mason and Sons, the realtors that were handling the sale of the property, but each time they had little in the way of positive news. A couple of young families had taken a look, but didn't seem overly impressed. Frankly Jessie wanted to slap them over their smug faces. This was her house, her mother's house, and they should pay it some respect.

She prepared a cup of coffee and, as per her morning ritual, ambled through into the living room to watch the morning news. She'd done so for years, but now there was an extra edge to it whenever she flicked on the set.

Most days they'd be nothing, no news of interest across the county. But sometimes she'd be greeted with a different story, images of cops outside a house, a reporter, their expression grave, providing the public with yet more disturbing news.

Today, unfortunately, was one of those days.

…

The news came to Jack's ears that night, the storm still raging outside. He'd been pulling an all nighter, sitting at his desk, his mind consumed with finding the Butcher.

His phone rang at his desk and he answered it quickly. He hadn't expected to get a call at this time, the night still dark outside.

“Detective Slade, there's been a shooting over in the north of town, Mountain's Way Road,” came the voice. It was the cop on reception, Chloe.

Jack pounced up from his desk and quickly ran through the office towards the main entrance, where Chloe sat, the phone still in her hand.

“Who called it in?” Jack asked, his face stern.

“A neighbor. Says he heard a gunshot in the house next door.”

“What number?”

“The caller or where the gunshot came from?”

“God damn it Chloe, both!” Jack shouted, his body itching to spring out to his car.

“Number 6 called it, says it came from next door, number 8.”

As she spoke her last syllable Jack flew from the office and out into the pouring rain. It was pitch black, but for the intermittent flashes of lightning that exploded in the sky, illuminating the heavy clouds above. They rolled in from the west, fat with rain and roaring with anger.

Jack ran to his car, parked just down the street, and jumped inside. He was drenched already, his white shirt hugging his body as the car sprung to life and lurched forwards down the road.

His mind ran as he drove.
Was it the killer? Had he been shot breaking into someone's house?

The windshield wipers zipped to the left and right, throwing the oncoming rain to the sides and clearing his vision as the car shot down the streets, twisting to the right towards the north of the town.

Within a few minutes he was there, the headlamps of his car shining on a sign that said Mountain's Way Road.

The car pulled quickly to a halt in a puddle, it's tires splashing through the red dirt and grinding to a halt. He jumped out, his hand immediately clasping to the pistol on his hip and pulling it from its holster.

He looked up to see the door to number 6 open, a man standing in the doorway with a bathrobe on. He had a worried look in his eye as Jack jogged quickly up towards him.

“You heard a gunshot?” Jack asked, shouting over the latest crack of thunder and the heavy sound of rain cascading to the floor.

The man nodded. “Only a few minutes ago.”

“Who lives there?” asked Jack quickly.

“A family, parents and a son and daughter. But the parents are away on vacation,” he said quickly.”

“The daughter,” Jack asked quickly. “How old is she?”

“About 23.”

Jack's heart-rate shot up. “Brunette? Blue eyes?”

The man nodded, a realization growing on his face, as Jack ran through his front garden, jumped the dividing fence, and quickly moved up towards the front door of number 8.

He stopped in the doorway, the arch overhead shielding him from the rain, and reached for the handle. He turned it, slowly, and pushed, but it was locked.

There was no time for anything else. He stepped back, aimed his foot at the lock, and kicked as hard as he could. Immediately the lock splintered and the door swung open, the house inside silent and dark.

“Police,” he shouted, creeping into the dark, his firearm gripped tight in front of him.

He listened, but heard nothing, no movement, no reply.

His hand slid to his pocket and he swung up a small flashlight, moving it around the space ahead. There was a staircase directly in front of him, a corridor to its right with doors leading off it. To the left was an open door, leading into what looked to be a living room.

Jack stepped forwards, the sound of thunder once more rumbling around him, and quickly moved to the left. His light lit up the sofas, the television, the paintings and mirrors on the walls, but there as no one there. No body, no blood.

He stepped back through the doorway and moved towards the staircase, stepping carefully up, one step at a time.

He kept his breathing low now, listening for anything, any sounds at all.

Then he heard it, a whimpering, the sound of quick breaths and sniffs in the room to the left at the top of the landing. He crept further forward and the sound intensified in his ears as they zeroed in on it.

“Police,” he said again, reaching the top. “Your neighbor heard a gunshot. I'm coming round the corner. Don't shoot.” His voice was clear in the quiet of the house, his instructions cutting the air.

Then he leaned, slowly, round the corner at the top of the stairs, his flashlight and gun pointing forwards. It lit up the space in front of him, and his eyes quickly scanned the scene.

Ahead of him, through the door, was a bed, a girl sat up in it, a gun gripped in her hand. She was shaking with fear, her chin buried into her neck as she stared straight down, unwilling to look up.

In the doorway lay a figure, slumped to the floor. It was the figure of a man, his hair dark and flopped over his head. There was blood seeping from a wound in his chest, right in his heart. It stained the cream carpet red, covering his clothes.

Jack's heart-rate soared further as he stepped quickly forward, kneeling down into the blood-soaked carpet and feeling for the man's pulse. He turned the body, pulling the head towards him as he did, and the face came into view.

It was a boy, not a man.

He must have been only in his late teens, his skin unblemished and youthful. Jack looked quickly up to the girl on the bed, still covering and crying, as he desperately sought the boy's pulse, his spare hand now pressed hard against his chest.

But there was no pulse, and the blood had stopped pouring. There was no heart to pump it. The bullet had ripped straight through him, robbing the boy of life, ending it in a tragic misunderstanding.

Jack knew, right in that moment, what had happened. A sister had killed a brother, mistaking him for the killer. It was yet another tragedy, another blow that would rock the foundations of the town.

The killer, indirectly, had struck again.

…

It was still dark and raining lightly when Jack stood outside the house, Bill standing next to him under an umbrella and heavy raincoat.

They watched together in silence as the stretcher was carried out towards the ambulance, parked with its lights flashing up on the curb. On the stretcher was a body bag and inside it, the boy. He had only been 17.

Jack and Bill stood with their heads ducked low, watching the stretcher move past them. Bill knew the boy himself, as he knew the family. They'd lived in Burgess their entire lives, as many other families had. This would cause yet another shockwave through the town as soon as the story broke.

When Bill spoke, his words were weary and lacking in energy. Not because of the early wake up call Jack had given him, but because of the weight of what he was witnessing. It was his lowest ebb, his darkest hour, as it was the town's.

“Tell me Jack, tell me what happened.”

Jack knew that Bill must have worked it out for himself. He looked at him, a suffering in his eyes, and knew that he was in just as much pain as everyone else. Jack had only just moved here. His emotions were not tied to the case. He knew, as he looked in Bill's eyes, however, that the same couldn't be said for his chief.

“A mistake, sir, a tragic mistake. I don't know whether the boy was playing a prank on his sister, trying to scare her, but it looks like she shot him, thinking he was the killer.”

Bill was shaking his head, his eyes still locked on the body being placed inside the ambulance.

“It's no great surprise really sir. People are scared, they're keeping guns by their beds, they're not sleeping...”

“He's killing through others now,” Bill said. “He doesn't even need to hold the knife any more.”

“What shall we do with the girl, sir? Carla's up there now, trying to comfort her. Do we take her in?”

Bill exhaled, his face torn. “We have no choice. We have to.”

“Yes sir.”

Bill turned now to Jack, his face stern. “Be gentle Jack, no hard questions. You know what happened here, let her confirm it, but no more.”

Jack nodded and said again: “yes sir.”

“And don't put her in a cell. Take her to your office, make sure she's comfortable, OK. The poor girl's been through enough.”

“I will sir. I'll have Carla take care of her, she's good at that. I've been trying to get hold of the parents, but they're not picking up....”

“No, no,” said Bill quickly. “Leave that to me. I know them, I'll take care of it. Where are they?”

“The neighbor told me they're on vacation sir. Hawaii, he told me.”

“OK, I'll call them when the day breaks. Just take care of their daughter Jack. She's a victim here too.”

And with that, Bill turned and walked away, his movements slow, his eyes downcast. The man was seeing his town suffer, watching a fear seeping into his people, a fear that had now caused a tragic accident. Jack felt a twinge of sorrow at the sight, but he had to keep his head together. He was distanced from all of this, he couldn't let his emotions get in the way of the job.