Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

Another moment’s hesitation and then she pushed them over her hips and down her legs, stepping out of them, and then they joined her blouse on the floor and Cait Connelly was standing in front of her assailant—her brother!— in just her matching black panties and bra and socks.

She reached behind her back to unhook her bra and to her surprise, Milo shook his head. “That’s enough,” he said, his voice husky, “at least for now.”

Cait let her hands drop to her sides and the two of them faced each other and Cait waited for the next awful instruction from this awful man and suddenly she felt it again—that little push she had first noticed when she was kneeling over Kevin’s body trying to stanch the bleeding while the lunatic with the knife was preoccupied with carving up the police officer.

The little push was familiar. It was the sensation of an image being forced into her brain without any effort on her part to accomplish it. Cait had tried to describe the sensation to Kevin once and had likened it to an inflation needle being inserted into a basketball—the air that was already inside the ball stayed there, but once the needle forced its way inside, more air could be pushed into the ball.

There was one very significant difference, though. She had never been able to stop a Flicker. Once that little push started, the Flicker was coming and there was not a damned thing she could do about it. But when she had experienced what she believed to be the onset of a Flicker a few minutes ago—twice—while occupied with trying to stop Kevin’s bleeding, she had managed to successfully block it out.

At the time she had not given it too much thought; things were happening fast and she was in a panic and there were other, more critical issues to consider. Now, though, as she felt the relentless push in her brain, she wondered if she could do it again. It was absolutely imperative that she keep her wits about her. The last thing she wanted was to disappear insider her mind under the influence of a Flicker and allow this maniac even more control over her than he already enjoyed.

Kevin needed her, he was dying because he had tried to protect her, and she represented his only chance at survival. She willed herself to ward off the Flicker, concentrating with everything she had, rejecting the push. The lunatic with the knife—her brother—was talking to her, he was saying something, she could hear him and knew she should answer him, but her concentration was focused entirely on rejecting the Flicker and so for the second time in just a few minutes she risked everything by ignoring him.

And it worked.

After a few seconds the push eased off, started pulling away, made a last-ditch final effort to invade her mind and then was gone. Cait felt a trickle of sweat roll down her cheek and brushed it away with her hand. She was exhausted but thankful she had been able to repel the ill-timed Flicker. She glanced at Kevin—he was still unconscious and seemed to have gotten even paler—and noticed her mother staring at her with a look of intense concentration, she seemed almost to be pleading with her expressive eyes.

Then she shrugged her shoulders and returned her attention to the crazy man named Milo. She waited to see what was coming next.

Everett Police Captain Lynn Talmadge punched the flashing yellow button on the ancient console phone taking up an almost comically large portion of her desk. An audible clunk told her she was now connected with the outside caller, Lieutenant Bruce Miller of the Boston Police Department. Miller had insisted to the dispatcher that he be connected immediately with the watch commander at the Everett station, that he had critical information to pass along regarding potentially a life-and-death situation. “This is Talmadge. How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

“Hello, Captain. Thanks for taking my call.”

“Well, you made it sound pretty important. What’s going on?”

“We’re investigating a homicide here, a very bad one. Another ‘Mr. Midnight’ killing. The victim has been dead just a few hours. It’s a young woman, probably a prostitute. She was stabbed, slashed, had her fingers broken and…”

Miller hesitated on the other end of the line and Talmadge prompted him. “Yes?”

The lieutenant took a deep breath and it sounded like he was working to keep a tremble out of his voice, but that seemed absurdly unlikely. The Boston Police Department investigated murders routinely. Bruce Miller had probably seen hundreds of victims during his career and had undoubtedly become detached and clinical when investigating murders years ago.

Finally he continued, his voice subdued: “…and she had entire sections of skin stripped off her body. She was literally peeled like an apple. Someone’s into some seriously weird shit with a knife.”

“Oh, God,” Talmadge muttered, not saying what she was thinking—that she was glad the nutcase had chosen Boston to go off in rather than Everett.

“You and me both,” Miller agreed, a little more vigor returning to his voice. “But there’s more.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“You should be. The suspect’s in the wind and our lead homicide investigator uncovered evidence that may indicate he isn’t finished yet.”

“And?”

“And he’s possibly headed in your direction.”

Talmadge sighed and closed her eyes. “What sort of evidence?”

“It’s a hastily written note that looks as though it may have been jotted down by our killer. It was found next to the body.”

“And what does the note say?” Talmadge asked, a trace of frustration creeping into her voice. This Miller character couldn’t just come out with it, he had to string her along, make her ask a million questions. Officious prick.

“It doesn’t really say anything. There’s just an address jotted down on the back of a piece of scrap paper—Seven Granite Circle.”

“Ooookay…” Talmadge hesitated. Why did that street name sound familiar? She shrugged and continued, “I guess the obvious question would be, why did ‘Seven Granite Circle’ make you think of Everett and not somewhere else?”

“Because there are only two communities in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts containing Granite streets, and—”

“—and one of them is Everett,” Talmadge finished. She felt her stomach tighten as she suddenly remembered why the Granite Circle address rang a bell. One of her officers had been dispatched to that address a short while ago. A report from a neighbor concerned about a possible break-in.

At 7 Granite Circle.

Suddenly it became very important to get Lieutenant Miller off the phone and talk to dispatch. Her officer had walked straight into a nightmare.

Milo frowned in frustration. What the hell was it with this bitch? She should have been nearly out of her mind with fear, crying and blubbering and begging for her life. He had had extensive experience torturing pretty young women—there weren’t many things in this life he was good at, but torture was definitely one of them—and the cycle of emotions undergone by his playthings was virtually always the same.

First would come surprise. More like shock, really, as the realization struck them that this man was not the harmless person they thought he was. Surprise would be followed immediately by fear. It wasn’t quite terror; that would come later. Rather, it was more of a realization that things were spinning out of control and they knew everything was going wrong but did not yet realize just how wrong.

After that would come resistance and a stubborn belief that if they worked hard enough at convincing him to let them go, he might change his plans and target a different girl. This was always the most entertaining part of the whole experience for Milo until the actual torture started. Some of the girls would beg and plead, others would act tough, putting up a brave front, displaying a belligerence they could not possibly feel. Some would sweet-talk him, coming on to him like a lover, as if maybe he was too stupid to see through the obvious ruse. He hated that, being treated like an idiot by a common streetwalker.