Tainted Pictures (19 page)

           “Sure, that sounds like a better idea anyways, very green thinking, little girl. I will pull up probably about half past six, okay? I will leave now so I will try not to be late, I know you hate it when I am late.  I promise.”  Lenny chuckled and then he and Kate said their goodbyes and hung up the phone.  She walked back to her bedroom and placed the phone on the charger on top of her dresser since it was almost out of power.

           She picked up the box that she had just packed full of clothes and walked it out to the main entryway where she was stacking them in preparation for the moving truck.  She placed it on the ground a few feet away from the door and then paused.  She heard a sound from her bedroom and the hairs stood on the back of her neck.  She looked around for her cat, wondering if maybe she was the cause of the noise but then remembered that Boo had been living at Derrick’s for a few days now.  

           She slowly walked towards the bedroom, taking care not to make any sounds with each step that she took. As she peered around the corner into her room, she didn’t see anyone.  It looked just as she had left it.  She knew that she was probably being paranoid for no reason, fear sometimes still got to her.  Just in case, she opened her closet which was now emptied of clothes but nothing was there. She exhaled and let herself relax knowing that she was fine.  Still, something didn’t feel quite right.  

           She walked to the center of her bedroom and looked around for what was disturbing her that she couldn’t seem to pinpoint.  It only took a moment or two before she saw it.  

           On her window sill was a photograph of her and Derrick posing in front of the boat’s lifesaver from their date the other night.  It was a souvenir photograph and she had put it in a frame and sat it there yesterday.  It was facing a different direction now then when she had first placed it there.  

           She walked over to her window and glanced out, seeing nothing of particular concern.  She picked up the framed photograph and examined it more closely, touching Derrick’s face and smiling at him.  She suddenly realized that it wasn’t just the frame that had been pointing in the wrong direction, it was the picture.  When she and Derrick had posed for this photograph, they had been staring straight at the camera.  The photograph she was holding was at an angle, slightly to the side.  

           She put it back on the windowsill and stepped away from it, her heart pounding and her chest heaving as she began to hyperventilate.  This couldn’t be happening again.  There couldn’t be another damn photograph.  She never wanted to see another photograph as long as she lived.  Had The Photographer been there?  Had he been standing right in front of her, taking a picture of her, and she hadn’t noticed?  Was that possible?

           Kate let herself sit on the edge of her bed for a moment trying to catch her breath but then stood up and went to grab the photograph again.  She held it up close to her and squinted at it, examining every detail.  She wanted to know where he had been, what he was looking at.  She searched her memory for people she had seen on the boat or before the boat, but she had been so focused on Derrick that she couldn’t recall a single person’s face.  

           They were standing in front of the boat in the photograph and Kate realized that there was a reflection in the glass windows that they were in front of.  She saw a figure, but couldn’t totally make it out.  She ran over to her desk drawer and shoved things around until she found a small magnifying glass that her uncle had given her over a decade ago.  She had always kept it but never used it, never even needed it until now.  She brought the photograph over to the desk and opened the frame, taking the picture out and laying it under her desk lamp.  She held the magnifying glass over it and looked carefully, moving it to adjust the visual better.  

           “Holy shit!”  Kate gasped.  She knew who it was.  She knew The Photographer.  There he was, plain as day.  All this time, seeing him almost daily and it had never occurred to her.  Not even once had it crossed her mind.  He was The Photographer.  

           Kate jumped up and grabbed the photograph heading towards her front door.  She yanked her jacket on quickly and pulled her shoes on, then grabbed her purse. She had to go straight to the precinct and tell Liz or Detective McCraig.  She had to show them this photograph.  She had proof!

           Ironically, the tool he used to torture people was going to be the tool she used to bring him down.  She smiled at herself thinking about it.  She wasn’t afraid anymore, her monster had a face.  She swung open her front door and stepped out into the hall and looked straight into his face.  Her monster’s face.

           “Where do you think you are going?”  He said to her, a sinister smile on his face.  His fist moved so fast that she didn’t have time to react.  Everything went black.  

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

           Liz had barely slept, maybe a few hours at best.  She was on a cot in the police precinct in a small room designed for officers to sleep when they were working long hours.  She yawned and stretched, climbing out of the uncomfortable position she had scrunched into trying to fit her legs into the short metal framed bed.  Mike was still snoring on another side of the room, towel over his face to keep the light out.  She didn’t bother to wake him because she wanted to make the coffee first.  Mike was not a friendly man without his coffee, which is saying a lot since Mike at his best still would never win a congeniality contest.  

           She fiddled with the machine out in the open room of the precinct and banged on it to make it work.  She heard a stir coming from the front door where the desk sergeant would be and figured she would go satisfy her curiosity while she was waiting for the coffee to brew.  She walked up front and through the doors that led to the front lobby, then stopped in her tracks as she recognized the duo arguing at the counter.

           “Derrick?  Annie?”  Liz asked, immediately recognizing Annie from having met her at the hospital two months ago after the attack.  She walked over to them, glancing down at her watch.  It was almost eight in the morning on a Saturday so she wasn’t sure why they would be there.  

           “Detective Snow!  Thank you!  We were just telling this
guy
here to let us see you and he said you weren’t here and only worked the day shift.  See, she is right there!”  Annie obstinately said to the sergeant who put his hands up in defense.

           “They are all yours, Snow.” He told her and walked away, clearly irritated.  

           “I usually only work days but stayed the night because we are really working very hard on your sister’s case.  Do you guys want to come on back to my desk?”  She asked them, motioning to the doors she had just come from.  

           “No, Liz, you don’t understand.  Kate is missing.”  Derrick spoke up, his voice clearly fraught with worry.  Liz immediately perked up.

           “What do you mean?”  Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened as she looked at the two.

           “I mean that she and Uncle Lenny were supposed to meet us at Union Station this morning to pick us up.”  Annie explained, dramatically flailing her arms.

           “Yeah, I was in New York for a business meeting yesterday and Annie is visiting for the weekend so I escorted her down.  All four of us were going to have breakfast together but Kate and Lenny never showed.”  Derrick chimed in.

           “We called both of their phones a million times and even Lenny’s assistant, Frank. Nothing, no answer!”  Annie said, hysterically.

           “Wait, Lenny has an assistant named Frank?  Your uncle does?”  Liz interrupted them, her detective brain immediately going on high alert.  

           “Yes, but none of them answered the phone and we went to Kate’s apartment and there was no answer on the door and neither of us have a key because she is moving out.”  Annie was rambling now.  

           “Okay, okay.  Let me go grab my partner and we will go to Kate’s apartment and figure this out, okay?  I will put out a missing persons report and we will find them in no time, okay?  Let’s just everybody calm down.  Now why don’t you wait on those chairs while I get Detective McCraig and I will be right back.”  Liz motioned to a row of chairs against the wall of the lobby.  The duo walked over there, clearly both still panicking.  

           Liz walked briskly towards the doors, not too fast to cause them alarm.  The moment she was on the other side she broke into a run and dashed over to the room Mike was sleeping in, and slammed on the lights causing several officers to groan in complaints.

           “Mike! Mike! Get the fuck up!”  She grabbed him and shook him.  He bounced out of bed so fast, immediately alert, that you would never have guessed he was just sleeping.  

           “It’s Frank!  Francis is Frank!  Remember Craig said he had a girl’s name or a saint, Francis!  Lenny, Kate’s uncle, has an assistant named Frank!  All of them are missing now!  Let’s go!”  Liz said, throwing her jacket on and heading out the door.  He was quick behind her.

           “What do you mean they are all missing?”  Mike bellowed, shocked.

           “I mean Kate, Lenny, and Frank.  They are missing!  We need to go check Kate’s apartment now.  We can radio in the missing persons report while we are driving.  Let’s go!” Liz shouted, several steps ahead of him.  

~~~~

           The squad car screeched to a halt in front of Kate’s building and four frenzied people clamored out.  Derrick and Annie were less than a step behind the detectives as everyone climbed up the front steps.  The car wasn’t even properly parked and the front wheel was halfway up on the curb.  

           They all ran to the top of the stairs and Mike hit every single buzzer until finally someone in the apartment unlocked the front door for them.  It was a mad dash up three flights of stairs until they finally reached Kate’s floor and ran down the hall.  Mike pounded on Kate’s door.

           “Police! Open up!”  He shouted, pounding a few more times.  When there was no answer, he motioned for everyone to move to the side.  He backed up a few steps and then ran at the door, raising one foot at the last minute. His foot hit it hard and the door lurched open with a deafening crack, falling off it’s hinges.  McCraig didn’t even stop to admire his strength, even though the rest of the group was clearly impressed.  He jumped over the fallen door and rushed into the apartment, looking around.  He entered the living room and came to a dead stop.  

           Liz was the first one to catch up to him and she suddenly felt like all the wind had been knocked out of her.  Mike just stared at the scene in front of him while Liz turned and rested her weight against her partner, holding onto him for support.  She felt nauseous and was afraid that she was going to throw up.  She was so consumed with what she was looking at that she forgot that Derrick and Annie were right behind them.

           “No!  No!”  A blood curling scream came from Annie as she flew past both detectives straight into the graphic scene before them.  Derrick tried to grab her but she shook him off and went right to the body laying on the ground covered in blood.  Derrick couldn’t move.  His feet were suddenly lead and everything around him was becoming hazy.  He felt like he couldn’t breathe.  He had never seen a dead body before.

           Mike walked over to Annie slowly and put his hand on her shoulder.  Annie was crying hysterically, sobbing so loud that it echoed throughout the entire apartment.  She had the bloody head in her lap, her hands cradling her loved one, as she sobbed.  

           “Annie.  Annie.  Come on.  You can’t touch the body.  Everything has to go into evidence.  There is nothing left we can do, Annie.”  He told her gently as he grabbed her shoulders and helped her stand up.  She was still crying, almost screaming, as she turned and buried her face in Mike’s chest.  She was covered in blood and now it was all over Mike, but he didn’t stop her.  He knew that she needed somebody right now and this was part of the job.  

           Derrick watched them and then looked back at the body on the ground.  He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say.  Everything was foggy and numb.  He felt nothing and everything.  He couldn’t breathe but he was seeing red.  Not just the dark red of the bloody scene before him, but anger red.  The Photographer had been found.  Frank’s mask had been removed but he was clearly not going down without a fight.  Now they knew who he was, but this was far from over.  

~~~~

THE END

For more about Kate & Derrick’s story, stay tuned for the release of the final book in The Photographer Trilogy.  
 

STAY TUNED
 

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