Robert Walker - Final Edge

"First she stalks us at the convent, leaving the finger there, and now the courthouse."

"But she didn't leave anything at the courthouse, did she?"

"No, but then I was hardly in a position to notice if she had. I was stopped from pursuing her by the security guards, and next thing I know, I'm handcuffed and pushed into the rear of a police cruiser."

"Did you see Priestly leave the lot?"

She hesitated, saying nothing.

"Did you see him drive off? Did he wave bye-bye?"

"No…no, I didn't. Byron…"

"She can't kill you." He stepped off from her, pacing about the office. "She has more tidbits and items she wants to show you…she wants us to discover."

"I don't like where this is going, Lucas."

"First the abduction and mutilation of Mira Lourdes, the planting of clues to lead us to the convent, the funeral home, the courthouse."

"What're you driving at? That we missed something at these locations?"

"We know she's sick, and we know she's got a sick sense of humor. She must have placed something at Morte de Arthur's and-"

"— and the courthouse?"

"With her twisted sister act, with her sick take on things, yes. Revelations yet in store, Mere. She has yet to show it all to us."

"What are we going to do?"

"Call in help." Lucas got on the phone and arranged for two police raids, one on the funeral home, the other on the courthouse. Both required no warrants, as Lucas cagily called each in to Stan Kelton as an Imminent Threat Response Team circumstance. One push of a button sent these search-and-seizure emergency-response units out to a location. The teams responded to terrorist and biohazard threats, bomb scares, and hostage situations. These teams included armed men with tactical training, a CSI unit for gathering evidence, and a public relations team to stave off the press. The teams went into instant action when ordered out, but the go-order must be based on hard evidence. On his say-so, his responsibility, Lucas Stonecoat meant to lock down a place of business and a county courthouse annex building. He felt a flutter in his heart at the power of it all, and the uncertainty of what would happen. It'd be hell to pay with Captain Lincoln if they found nothing.

He made a second call, informing Jana North that he needed her to coordinate the effort at Morte de Arthur's, and she immediately agreed to oversee the raid there.

"Come on, let's get over to the courthouse," he said to Meredyth when he got off the phone. "Maybe we'll find the rest of Mira Lourdes."

They rushed for Lucas's car and the courthouse. Along the way, over the sound of the siren, Meredyth bitterly said, "A finger here, a finger there. This could go on indefinitely-for as long as they have body parts to scatter."

"You perhaps should stay here in the car. Let me handle this part myself."

"No…no, I'll stay with you, if you don't mind."

"Are you sure?"

"Lucas, this little bitch isn't going to get to me."

"That's the spirit." He'd placed his strobe light on top of his unmarked car. The police-band radio was alive with the activity of the simultaneous raids. Lucas imagined the mortification and distress his order would create in Giorgio and Carlotta's funeral parlor, and the curiosity and fear they would soon arouse at the courthouse.

"This disturbed, distorted, screwed-up take she has on her being abandoned, put up for adoption, pawned off to foster homes as she sees it, Lucas, it all provides her a sick motive to seek out a twisted revenge for all the wrongs she perceives people have done her. And me? I am the last of those women involved who placed her at the orphanage."

"You, Orleans, her mother, all three of you are on this record," Lucas said, holding up the document Lauralie had duplicated for them.

"And Lourdes? What was she to Lauralie?"

"A mere pawn in her game," mused Lucas.

"She wants to kill me slowly, slower than she did her mother or Sara Orleans. They died too easily and quickly for her liking. For me she has a different plan, an appalling purpose, as if she's mailing pieces of herself."

"The team's here, waiting for orders to move in," he said as they pulled around to the rear of the courthouse, the entrance to the low-lying wing housing the county clerk's department and Child and Family Services, and below these offices, the archival records.

A man in full body protection and an ITRT patch on his arm and back-head of the Imminent Threat Response Team-introduced himself as Elliot Andrews. "Lietuenant, these the two we're looking for? Armed and dangerous?" Andrews held up photos of Lauralie Blodgett and the man known only as the Ripper.

"That's right, but I want your team ready for anything, and I want every nook and cranny searched."

"You suspect a bomb?"

"Anything's possible."

"We've got a canine unit. They can sniff out just about anything."

'Trained on cadavers? We might find body parts left by the suspects."

"Oh, I see. This has some connection to the Post-it guy, right!" Andrews immediately responded, getting on his radio and ordering the dogs to be guided into the building ahead of the men. He repeated Lucas's search orders to his men. Lucas wondered how Jana North's team at the funeral parlor was managing. He trusted that she had a capable man like Andrews and a strong CSI team at her location.

Lucas and Andrews, with Meredyth tentatively following, paced themselves to remain behind the men leading the dogs into the courthouse annex.

The dogs, large German shepherds, and their handlers, split off, one guided into the archives downstairs, the other taking the main floor. There were two floors overhead yet to secure. Andrews had the security guard named Roy on hand to point out all exits and entrances to the annex, including a service elevator only maintenance and security had access to, the one he'd escorted Meredyth onto earlier today. A second exit that opened on the main concourse of the courthouse itself. The lockdown meant no one could go in or out. Already people were clamoring to get past the exits, cell phones aflutter. Others jammed in hallways. People plastered to windows, looking out over the lot at the police activity. Loved ones had already begun showing up, jamming the courthouse parking lot, vehicles circling buzzard-fashion in search of parking, anxious to see their relatives unharmed. A police perimeter pushed them back, along with the news media.

Inside, the sound of the dog in the basement, sending up a barrage of agitated barks and howls, sent Lucas, Andrews, and Meredyth racing down toward the archives. The dog had alerted on something.

At the foot of the stairs, along this corridor to the archives, the dog stood, ears erect, agitatedly dancing about, yipping excitedly. His handler fed him a beef jerky cube from his hand as a reward, and they pulled back, allowing Elliot Andrews in. Lucas and Andrews, guns drawn, nodded at one another. Andrews so forcefully tore open the dark oak-wood door that it swung into the marbled wall, creating a reverberating blast down the corridor and up the stairs, and this, combined with the stench of blood let free, gave Lucas the feeling of a fleeting soul that'd been trapped inside where the body of an unrecognizable man lay in a pool of blood, his thrown-away tie, trousers, and half-tom-away white shirt stained with blood.

The walls-flecked with blood-told the story of multiple stab wounds.

"Dear God," muttered Andrews, turning his head away from the mutilated facial features after Lucas, crouching, lifted the chin and turned the eyes upward from the heap of clothing and flesh at their feet. "Who is he?"

Meredyth looked past Andrews now and screamed. "It's Byron! My God, it's Byron!"

Lucas made out the features and nodded to Andrews. He also held up Byron Priestly's wallet, his license and credit cards intact. He rifled for his keys and found them in the bloody pants.