Framed (3 page)

“Somebody better start fucking explaining why I just saw a report on the news describing how that woman's wounds look like they were inflicted by an animal,” Sean growled into his cell phone. “I don't care how preoccupied you've been. Are you forgetting your job? This should have been cleaned up right after it happened. Now we've got a royal clusterfuck on our hands.”

I could hear a man on the other end getting louder as he presumably tried to defend his ball dropping. Sean was having none of it.

“No, you listen to me. I don't care who's to blame. I just want it fixed. Now!” he continued, the anger rolling off of him in tsunami sized waves. “And, so help me, Jer, if this happens again, it'll be your ass.”

He hung up the phone and said nothing—he was fuming. We walked in silence as he tried to calm himself and I tried to slow my mind that raced frantically through scenes of the madman's attack on that innocent woman. It appeared that the stress and importance of Sean's job was wearing on him. What had become my daily norm was wearing on me. Our frustration had become our common bond.

“I'm so tired, Sean. I'm so tired of all of this,” I whispered.

Startling me, he grabbed my elbow in his hand from behind and jerked me into the opening of the nearest alley. My back was pressed uncomfortably against the brick facade only moments before he crammed his face in mine.

“I know you are, Ruby, but there is much at stake, and you need to put on those big girl panties that you love to talk about so much and deal—deal with it, deal with life, and deal with me. I know you're hurting. You think I like that? I don't, but if hurting you keeps you alive, I'll do it time and time again. You can hate me for that all you want; I'm tired of apologizing for the decisions I have to make, the job I have to do, and the past I can't escape. You're not the only one with problems, nor are you the only one less than pleased with the hand you've been dealt.”

He spoke low and in my ear, and the sound lulled me slightly, even though his message was jarring. When he pulled back to look me in the face, I felt sleepy and unstable, like the feeling you have when you jump off the table too quickly following a long massage. It took me a moment to sober up.

When I looked at his face, I saw his eyes had darkened as they always did when his emotions intensified, good or bad. I wanted to say something clever to get the last jab in, but I decided against it, thinking my lack of response would be far more poignant. I walked away instead.

Do you ever tire of running from your battles? I'm exhausted from watching you do it.

“Shut up,” I muttered under my breath.

“You can't run from everything in your life, Ruby. Eventually, you'll have to stand and fight.”

“What the fuck? Are you two in cahoots or something? What's with the sideline psychoanalysis?” I snarled. Being overly defensive was a reflex I hadn't reprogrammed. “I'm well aware of that Sean. I'm just choosing not to fight you.”

“Smart,” he replied quietly. “I'm not a fight you want, nor am I the enemy. You'd be wise to remember that.”

“Like I could forget if I wanted to, Sean,” I retorted. “You won't let me.”

We were nearly to my building, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Cooper could be a nag, but generally he knew when to lay off. Sean didn't.

“I don't want to fight either, Ruby,” he said with an air of exhaustion.

“Then we need to stay away from each other, because the sad reality of all of this, Sean, is that it's the only way to avoid it,” I told him, coming to a stop just feet before the entrance to my apartment. I wanted to make a point and looking Sean in the eyes generally worked. I rarely ever saw anyone do it.

“I can't,” he replied, his expression pained.

“Can't what?”

“Stay away.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can't.”

“Fine,” I sighed, walking over to unlock the door.

“Ruby,” he growled, whipping me around to face him. His eyes were as dark as I'd ever seen them. “I can't because Stavros is dead. They keep dying, and I can't do anything to stop it. If I can't keep them alive, I'm going to damn well keep you alive.”

“Another one...,” I whispered, the blood leeching from my face.

“Yes. I needed to know where you were,” he said, scratching the back of his head before pulling his hair in frustration. “Dammit! Why can't you just stay home. These holes in your alibi are making this impossible. They waste so much time focusing on your guilt that they aren't doing their jobs—then I spend all my time defending you. There are real killers out there, and they clearly have no intentions of stopping...FUCK!”

“I'm sorry...I didn't know,” I said quietly, resting my hand lightly on his arm.

“Well now you do.”

Tension and awkwardness surrounded us as we stood outside my door. It was par for the course with us.

“I'll try to do better,” I said, staring at my shoes. “I want you to catch whoever is doing this as much as you do, Sean.”

“For your own preservation, you should,” he replied, trying to take the harshness out of his tone. “I'll see you soon.”

He pulled away from me quickly before disappearing across the street and down an alley without another word. I took a cleansing breath and sighed heavily; I hated how we were, but didn't know how to effectively change it. I longed for lighter times of him showing up unannounced and me being obliviously taken by his charm, his wit, and his unparalleled looks. My new reality was tension filled interrogations polluted by his anger, his frustration, and his conflicted emotions.

I opened the main entrance and locked it behind me. I still wasn't batting one thousand at that, but I'd learned over the previous months that locking that door could be the difference between life and death. After I flipped on the light, I made my way upstairs. Just as I was about to step up onto the landing, a piercing pain shot through my head. I collapsed on the stairs, falling down to the bottom in a flaccid heap.

When I came to, Cooper was standing over me, shaking me.

“Are you okay? Jesus, Ruby...what's going on?” he shouted, looking panicked.

“It's happening again. We have to find her,” I said, sounding distant and detached.

“Find who? What are you talking about?” he asked. “Did you hit your head?”

“He's going to kill her too, Cooper. We have to stop him.”

He stopped for a moment to really look at me. He saw that I didn't have a head injury, but that I was scared to death of something. He eventually put two and two together.

“The man from your dream...”

“He'll never stop, Cooper. I can feel it. He'll never stop until he gets his revenge.”

“How do we find him?”

Scarlet growled deep within me.

Let me out and I'll show you the way...

“Bad idea,” I said aloud, reflexively staring down at my naked ring finger.

“What's a bad idea?” Cooper asked, sounding more confused than ever.

“Scarlet. She wants me to let her out...she says she can find him.”

“No, no, no. You know what Sean said about that. You'll be taken out with no questions asked if one of them sees you.”

Then the girl dies...

“I know, I know...,” I yelled, answering both of them at once. I grabbed my head in my hands and pulled at my hair in frustration. The catch twenty-two I was in had fatal consequences any way you turned. I looked out the windowed door to the street to avoid Cooper's questioning gaze. Across the road stood the answer to the conundrum. For a brief moment, standing directly under the streetlamp was my not-so-dreamy man, caked in blood. He smiled at me and mouthed “Hello, Ruby” as a red drop spilled down his chin—then he vanished.

“It's too late,” I whispered, staring blankly out the window. “She's dead.”

A grim and sobering reality availed itself to me that night. My visions weren't premonitions or warnings at all. They were captive audience, front row seats to watch the actions of a serial killer live and in living color.

And I couldn't do a thing about it.

2

The body count was rising. Three women dead, and another PC brother murdered; it had only been a week. Overall, it was a tie: three boys and three girls, if you counted the two previous PC members who'd been taken out a couple of weeks earlier. Accusing PC fingers continued to point my way, at least for the murders of the men. They hadn't tried to tag the women on me yet, but I was certain that would only be a matter of time.

For each woman that was murdered, I had a similar graphic vision of what was happening, but with each incidence they intensified. I could hear the attacker's thoughts more clearly, feel his emotions more succinctly, but never could tell exactly what he was after, or why he chose those victims. “Revenge” was the only thing he ever said. With all the connection I seemed to have to him, the only thing that was clear to me was that he wasn't playing with a full bag of marbles.

“Did you read the paper?” Cooper asked hesitantly.

“No point...I already know what the front page news is,” I replied, trying to keep the sourness out of my voice. “Do they have any leads?”

“Doesn't say. You'd probably have to know someone on the force to get information like that though, and I don't think you need to go around looking too interested in these murders. The PC is already starting to think you look good for them, you don't need the humans on your ass too.”

“You been talking to Sean again?”

He shrugged and dropped his gaze back to the article he was reading about the most recent murder. I really didn't need to read it; it was already playing on a loop in my mind.

She was an out-of-towner, meeting a friend for dinner; she never made it. He'd found her parked in an isolated area downtown, scrolling through websites on her iPhone to get directions to where she was going. She begged for her life, pleading on behalf of her two small children and her husband back in Maine. It fell on deaf ears. The mention of family only seemed to enrage him further.

He ended his torture more quickly than he had for the others. Perhaps her failed attempt at saving herself still earned her a mercy of sorts in the end; that was how I chose to look at it. Cheryl James was the name I saw on her driver's license. She was thirty-nine. I caught a glimpse of it as he ransacked her purse, looking for something after he'd eviscerated her atop her car.

I brought my attention back to Cooper, who was staring at me while I replayed the vision from the previous night over in my head. He reached across the island and wiped the tear that had sprung loose and rolled down my cheek.

“They're getting worse, aren't they?” he asked solemnly. I nodded silently. “Is it time to tell Sean about it?”

“Not until I figure some things out first,” I replied. “I want to know why I'm having them...why I have this bizarre connection to this guy. I've never seen him before in my life, Coop. Why is he tormenting me?”

“I don't know, Ruby,” he said softly. “But I don't like it. Something is wrong about this. Very, very wrong. Sean may have some answers about—”

“Sean
may
tell me I'm the spawn of the devil and then
BAM
…off with my head,” I snapped with more hostility than necessary. “Confiding in him only makes so many things worse, Cooper. He's in a tight enough spot as it is with the brothers being murdered. If I throw this at him, he may find something out that he can't overlook this time. He's always maintained that he'd kill me if he had to. I have no doubt about the veracity of that promise.”

“Nor do I, Ruby, but the reality is that he knows things and we don't. You're not the one killing these women, and he'll believe you. I think you need to tell him.”

I cringed at the thought.

“I will,” I sighed. “
If
it comes to that. Why don't problems like this just disappear as quickly as they came?”

“Because it's a nightmare, not a fairy tale you're living” he said soberingly.

“Don't I know it.”

I was jarred out of my acknowledgment by my front door. Knocking would have been the polite term for the violently, reverberating noise it was making. Neither of us was expecting anyone that early in the morning, which I knew immediately was not a good sign. The fact that I was almost certain I'd locked the door behind me the night before didn't bode well either.

“Coming!” I yelled at the mysterious thumper. I was completely surprised when I opened the door to see Ronnie standing there. I
wasn't
surprised to see the expression on her face.

“I need you to talk to Peyta,” she said sternly. I felt like I was her kid too, given the tone of her voice.

“About what?”

“Working for you.”

“Why? She said you were okay with it. I asked her at least ten times to be sure.”

“I
did
tell her that, which is why I need you to figure out a way to undo it.”

I looked at her completely befuddled, trying to make sense out of her request.

“You told her she could work for me so you'd be the good guy, and now you want me to figure out a way to get rid of her so that I'm the bad guy. Is that the gist of it?”