Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

“Any way to narrow that down, Doc?” Schroder asks.

Tracey shakes her head. “Too much of a mess,” she says. “Also, there are no hesitation marks. When the guy started cutting, there were no second thoughts. “My guess is a hacksaw, and as you guys know, there are thousands of them out there. Even if you brought the right one in I probably couldn’t match it to the wounds. Sorry.” She looks up at Landry. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he says. “So they suffered?”

Tracey nods, and suddenly he remembers her last name. It’s Walter. Tracey Walter. “Yes. A lot. There are fingernail impressions in their palms. They were balling their hands into fists so tight their fingernails actually cut through the skin.”

She spends another ten minutes going over her findings. She asks if the breast has been found and Schroder tells her it hasn’t been, to which she nods and says, “Of course. Otherwise it would have been brought in already.”

When they get outside they stand in the parking lot for a minute, having to yell to be heard over the sound of construction. They agree on Schroder going to talk to Benson Barlow-it will be the start of him trying to build up a profile.

“You might as well go back and revisit the crime scenes,” Schroder says, which might help or it might not, but either way Landry has to start somewhere.

The motel smells of bacon and eggs and coffee-at least for now. During the night it smelled of depraved acts she didn’t want to think about. The air is sticky and warm. The bathroom looks like it gets cleaned about as often as the place gets painted. The TV is still on, the movie that was on when Charlie left has finished, only to have been replaced by some kind of sequel that is still just as black and just as white, still with the wooden dialogue, still with the sets that look like they’ve been carved out of cardboard. She’s desperate to get away from here. More importantly she’s desperate to get away from Charlie.

Her back is sore. At some point she’s hurt it, and she isn’t sure if it’s from the fall, the struggle, or from being tied up. It’s not damage sore, but achy sore, the kind of sore you get when you’ve been to the gym for the first time in a year. The only good thing is that she’s no longer hungry.

More than feeling sore, more than feeling angry, she feels disappointed. She’s never felt that way in a person before. A little, perhaps, six months ago when Charlie hurt that guy at the bar, but despite all that there was something in that action that was understandable. Charlie had been defending her. Only he hadn’t been, not really, because it was a minute or more between the moment that guy put his hand up her dress and the moment that Charlie started hitting him. The problem was Charlie wouldn’t stop. He didn’t see the look in his eyes. The wild look, like that of a beast, like that of a beast that was enjoying the pain it was causing. Could she have given him another chance? She could have, and it’s something she’s thought about every day since they broke up, and something that had been on her mind a lot over the last few weeks. The irony is she was getting close to calling him and seeing if they could talk. There was still a future for them to be had.

Not now.

This side of Charlie is something altogether different. Much different from the man she knew, different from the man he became that night six months ago. This is a side she never thought could exist. He’s not going to let her go. He says he will, and she thinks he believes what he’s telling her, but his actions defy his words. In some ways it’s like dealing with a stranger. A stranger who she once loved, a man who has betrayed her and hurt her, and that’s why the anger and the fear are taking a backseat to the disappointment.

It’s also why as much as she wants to believe in him, she can’t, and that means she can’t believe him either. She doesn’t know what happened last night. All she knows is Charlie has something to do with the deaths of those two women and, really, she doesn’t even know if that is true either. The only thing she knows for sure is that she has to find a way to escape.

Convincing Charlie she wants to help was easier than she’d hoped, and she guesses that’s for a few reasons. First, he has a desire to believe her so he no longer has to be alone. Second, this Charlie isn’t as smart as the Charlie she was married to. That Charlie would have taken those two women to the police, despite what happened to that lawyer last year. If he had, those two women would still be alive. And all that aside, he should have gone to the police after he’d found them dead. That’s what any sane person would have done.

Ergo, Charlie is no longer sane.

And the proof is in his treatment of her. Something inside him has snapped. Which means escaping should be easy. All she has to do is gain his trust. She must take baby steps, she must build up his belief that they can be a team.

That’s what she needs to focus on. She needs to ignore her disappointment. She can’t think about how she used to love him. She can’t think about what their future might have been like if they had stayed together. Would he have killed her too?

Too?

Does she really think he killed those women? Is that what he is? A killer?

“We need to contact the police,” she says.

“Unbelievable. I’ve already said-”

She holds up her hand in a stopping gesture. He shuts up. “I didn’t say go to them. Now are you going to let me talk?”

“Get to the point.”

She tries hard not to wince when he says that. Get to the point. What a bastard.

“You know things about Cyris, important things that the police don’t know. You said they wouldn’t know about the pasture, well, you could tell them to search there. You could tell them everything you know by writing a letter and sending it anonymously.”

He thinks about her suggestion. She can see him working it out, seeing what the good points are and what the bad points are.

“It’s a good idea, Charlie.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“There might be some stationary in the bedside drawer,” she says, “though I guess it’s unlikely.”

He checks the drawers. Nothing. Not even a Bible.

“You put my handbag in the car, right?”

“Yeah. It’s in the backseat.”

“I have a pen and paper in there.”

“And you’re just going to sit there quietly while I go out and get it?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The car is only a few yards away, Charlie. If I was going to start screaming I’d have done it already. Same thing about trying to escape. I could have gone out the bathroom window, but I didn’t.” Of course the reason she didn’t was because the damn thing was painted shut, and even if it hadn’t been she’s not so sure she would have gotten through it.

“You promise to stay right there?”

She nods. She promises. He opens the door. Daylight floods in. She can see his car. She could get up and run for it, but could she outrun him? She isn’t sure. He would tackle her, and things could go bad. She could land wrong. She could hit her head on the ground. There’s no point in risking it. Just the fact he’s gone outside without tying her up shows the baby steps she’s taking are already working. At this rate she’ll have talked her way out of here within the next hour or two.

Charlie comes back inside. He hands her her bag. She goes through it.

“If you’re looking for your cell phone,” he says, “it’s at your house. I didn’t want the police to be able to trace us.”

“That’s not what I’m looking for,” she says, only it kind of was.

She finds the pad and it takes another half a minute to find a pen. When she gets out of this, she’s going to throw half of this stuff out. There are receipts and tissues that have been in here for months.