Chapter Two

The crime rate in Edison slowly grew, proven by the number of cold cases piled on top of the desk in the mid-size office. Homicide had almost tripled in the last two years and rapes—the ones that were reported—along with assaults were through the roof. Edison was in trouble. The politicians kept on denying it but that didn’t change the truth. With a frown he rubbed his tired eyes and grabbed another folder. It seemed as though it never ended. Each time his crew solved a case, it seemed like a hundred more took its place – one foot forward, six back.

The sound floated down the corridor like a familiar spirit and everyone knew what was happening. Chief Chen was at it again. The man screamed into the phone until he got beet red in the face like he forgot he was human and needed to breathe. A few of the officers had bets going on when the chief would finally yell for so long he’d pass out. It was cruel but funny at the same time. Two officers with notepads stood off to the side peering into the office through the glass wall wondering who was going to win the bet.

Detective Luke Stanton shook his head and flipped the file shut before running a tired hand over his face. Sitting up straight, he stretched his aching back and could literally hear the bones cracking back into place. He moaned and rubbed his neck before tilting his head one way and then the next. He rubbed a hand over his cheeks and under his chin. He could feel his day old stubbles growing in and made a mental note to shave. He didn’t like shaving one bit, he would rather catch his pants on fire or run down Main Street naked but he had to shave in order to maintain a business-like demeanor. He wasn't a beat cop anymore but still they wanted him to look his best. With a tired sigh, he wondered why. It wasn't like he was going to see anyone from behind a desk or going door to door or mocking through a crime scene. He would end up getting muck on his good suits and ruin them.

He missed being on the beat; the chases through long, worn out alleys. Memories of tackling perps in mud after a downpour were enough to send Luke’s adrenaline pumping. Luke missed his stops over by the Black Magic Jamaican restaurant on the west side of Edison. Due to his new promotion to detective, he barely had enough time to breath much less going across town for delicious, mouth watering, eye-burning Jerk Chicken. His favorite order over at Black Magic was their fried fish and festival, a fried, sweet pastry. His stomach growled in disappointment from not eating the chicken, and festival or the fish. Luke moaned. What he wouldn’t give for some good-ole soul food from Jamaica. He made a mental note to stop by the restaurant one day soon but knew chances were slim.

Placing the folder on top of the pile he gathered of Edison City's cold cases, he glanced at the clock and flew out of his seat. He hadn’t realized it was so late. Grabbing his things, he reached for his leather jacket on his way out the door and rushed toward the locker room to pick up a few things before heading home.

Walking into the locker room still felt strange. Even after so many years on the force. He still hoped to see Riyu Kotsuke and Michel Toriano when he entered with their conversation “Who is hotter? Jessica Alba or Beil?”

He had to remember they were no longer in the academy. They graduated, with honors and stationed throughout Edison. Grown men who sometimes fell into the games of who would you do, or who is hotter, just to pass the time. They said boys will be boys and when Luke, Michel, Ryu and Luke’s brother Keegan got together, that statement couldn’t be truer.

But back in the academy it was worse. The games happened everyday. He would walk into the change room after a long day to Riyu and Michel going back and forth yelling, “Alba!”

“Beil!”

“Alba!”

During these arguments Ryu would be hauling on some kind of graphic t-shirt that said something inappropriate like “I’d hit that,” or have pictures of naked women silhouettes on it with one crossed out and below those images were the words “my to-do list.” The two would argue back and forth until Luke would jump in with a smirk saying, “They're both hot and I would do them both, alright!”

The other two friends would simply arch a brow and smile before heading to the showers.

But those were good times.

With a labored sigh, he reached into the locker and pulled out a t-shirt that said Edison City Police, and stuck it into his bag. He grabbed another with everything’s bigger in Texas and an arrow pointing downward on the front. Luke frowned at it. That wasn’t his at all – chances were it was Ryu’s.

How’d that get in here?

He shoved it back into the locker. He slipped his arms into his jacket before grabbing a plastic bag with clean socks. Shoving his gun into the holster around his shoulders, he re-attached his shield to this belt and pulled both sides of the jacket in to zip it up. It had been a long day and even though he couldn’t have a drink with his boys, he had one of them stopping by the house for a drink. He didn’t really feel like going out that night, but then again he never felt like hitting a club. He hated the club scene.

Maybe I’ll see what Keegan is doing tonight--

Drunken women hitting on him was not Luke's idea of a good time. It annoyed him as he tried to figure out why a woman would do something like that to herself when they knew all the dangers that lurked in the dark corners of a club. Perhaps it was the cop in him showing its face again but it worried him that no one taught these women that you just didn’t pick up some random guy and take him home. Didn’t their parents teach them not to talk to strangers?

Other officers around him in the locker-room talked in hushed tones because it seemed as though he was the only veteran there. All the others in the room were rookies. That wasn’t something that bothered him but he still wished there were more than a handful of seasoned cops left at Edison. All the others retired early to go on to other things like the army or SWAT. Luke shook his head at the thought of the ones in the army getting deployed to Iraq and his heart sank.

Grabbing his gear, he bid the others good night and left the precinct. When the door opened, the cool air greeted him and the sounds of a busy highway called out to him. The sounds of vehicles whizzing by lulled him like a sweet lullaby. Then again lately he wasn’t getting much sleep.

The same feeling kept grabbing his insides and twisting it into a knot and he didn’t know why. One of his close friends, Detective Riyu Kotsuke, had only laughed while weightlifting and told Luke he was being paranoid. Luke didn’t think it was paranoia, something wasn’t right.

“See? That’s the thing about you, Luke,” Riyu explained. “You get the feeling and half the time you’re right. Which is starting to creep the hell out of me.”

Michel put down the weights he was wielding and began strapping a pair of boxing gloves to his hands. “Riyu's right. Instead of sitting around here going X-Files on our asses, go out and look around see what you can find. Even though you don’t know what it is yet. Who knows? You might crash into something.”

“I don’t know, bro. That’s like looking for trouble,” Luke pointed out. “I don’t want trouble I just want this feeling gone.”

Dumping some files onto the passenger seat along with his bag, he got into the late model SUV and pulled out of the parking lot. The drive back home didn’t take long; Luke knew the short cuts to get around the traffic.

After scoping up the mail that had been shoved through the mail slot in his front door, he set his cell phone to charge and rifled through the envelopes as he made his way for the living room and his voice mail.

“Junk, junk, junk,” he muttered as he tossed envelope after envelope into the garbage but stopped at one. “Would you like to enlarge your—” Luke frowned and crumpled that one in a fist for even suggesting he needed help in that department. He tossed it into the garbage and returned to the others. “Bills, bills,” those he chucked onto the counter while wishing he could trash them.

Turning his attention to the voice mail and the flashing red light, he pressed play and began rummaging through his bag. Five of the calls were different companies wanting to know if he wanted to change his long distance plan and he growled. How many times did he have to tell them to take him off their lists because he didn’t want what they were selling. Deleting the annoying messages, he stopped at a message from Riyu saying he would try to show up at the get together later that night but he wasn’t sure. Finally, there was a message from his brother Keegan asking what was happening that night and if he was invited.

Chuckling, Luke reached for the phone to call his brother.

“It’s a party, son,” Luke laughed when his brother finally answered the phone. “You want in?”

“I am going crazy, bro,” Keegan complained. “Taking time off work is a pain in the ass. There is nothing to do around this dump.”

Luke smiled at Keegan referring to his house as a dump. In fact, Keegan’s house is no dump with five bedrooms, a swimming pool, and professionally decorated. The house is beautiful. The hot tub is large enough to hold an entire football team’s defensive line.

“Let me guess, you would rather be on the job, busting down some doors playing G.I Joe for the day?” It was a rhetorical question and Luke got a grunt for an answer so he chuckled. “That’s why I don’t have to deal with that crap. I don’t take time off.”

“You don’t have a life.”

Luke ran a hand over his cleanly shaven head and frowned. Living inside the real world was hard enough without sex and relationships complicating it. “I have a life…it just doesn’t include a sexual one.”

“You said it, not me.” Keegan laughed. “So what’s up with tonight?”

“Just me and Michel getting together for a few beers. Riyu may not make it. Just stop by when you’re ready.”

“Aight,” Keegan jargoned. “I’ll be there.”

After hanging up, Luke stripped out of his shirt and folded it over the back of his chair. If his mother saw that she would scold him and tell him a gentleman does not strip in his living room. To which Luke would respond no one ever accused him of being a gentleman. Luke smiled thinking about it and glanced at the calendar. His parents were on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean and would be returning in a few days. He moaned because even at his age and even though she wasn’t really there for him as a child, he still missed his mother. After-all, she had been trying to get closer to her sons—maybe it was because she was getting older, closer to the grave.

Death, what a powerful motivator.

The Stanton family wasn’t really a close knit one. The brothers, Keegan and Luke were close but Marcia and Fredrick, their parents, were too busy with their careers and therefore Keegan ended up raising himself and his younger brother Luke. Sometimes Luke felt the absence of his mother caused his awkwardness toward women and the way he felt around them. He loved women but he could never find the right thing to say around them. When they cried he felt as though he should be doing something to make them better. He would try to talk but his mouth got dry, his heart hammered inside his chest and his voice escaped him. When they were angry he would promptly tell them off and storm out.

That was not the way to do it.

Growing up in Edison all his life, Luke spent most of it with his older brother playing street hockey after school or football at Edison High. Other than that there was nothing else to do but movies and underage drinking. After all, they were teenagers and left to their own devices. The other kids their ages had to rush home because of curfews but the Stanton brothers were left hanging out under the only bridge in Edison or staying up until morning. Then they would skip school to sleep. The school didn’t bother complaining because they knew nothing would be done about it. Somehow though, both brothers managed to keep great grades and graduated with honors.

He spent the rest of the time, before his brother arrived, going over cold case files, working out and paying bills. It was pretty much a wasted evening but Luke felt relaxed and rested by the time it got really dark out. He glanced out the window before running into the shower. If he hurried he could get a quick shower out of the way.

By the time he finished his shower, it was an hour later and the outside lights came on automatically. He sat down in his living room, lost in his thoughts again.

He had a terrible feeling something was wrong.

“Yo, Luke!”

Luke looked up to see his brother tapping on the front window of the house and wondered what Keegan was doing. Pulling the door opened he arched a brow.

“Door bell not working?” he questioned.

“It’s working fine,” Keegan stepped past his younger brother with a box of beer in his hands. “You just tuned out for a bit; I kept ringing but you just sat there.”

Luke frowned and followed Keegan into the kitchen and watched as his brother stocked the fridge with beer. “Something you want to talk about?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Come off it, bro. I just stood outside your door ringing your doorbell over and over like a bloody stalker and you didn’t even hear it.”

A sigh left Luke’s lips and he sat down. “I don’t know, man. Lately I’ve been having this…this feeling.”

That got Keegan’s attention and the older Stanton brother stopped what he was doing to face Luke. “You working on a new case?”

“Nothing like…” he was cut off by the front door opening. Looking up, Michel walked in with another box of beer and Luke laughed and shook his head.

“Hey, boys,” Michel shared their mirth and placed the box on the counter before gently touching his fist to Luke’s and then to Keegan’s. “This is going to be one party.”

“Not that much for me,” Keegan grinned. “Got duty tomorrow. I don’t really have to go back yet but I think I’m gonna go nuts just sitting around doing nothing but the gym every day.”

Luke and Michel laughed. “Going nuts? I think you made that trip years ago!”

Keegan smirked and chugged from his beer.

Luke’s head went back to the strange feelings he had inside. He had been having them for weeks but every time he brought it up, they all told him the same thing; relax and breathe. Being a cop for so long meant he had developed a form of gut feeling and each time he got it, something cropped up that just made him want to cringe or hurt someone.

This time, the feeling was doubled and he ran a hand over his cleanly shaven head.

“You’ve been quiet,” Michel spoke up.

Luke turned to his friend and smiled. “Sorry, bro.” He walked out to the balcony but Michel followed him.

“Still getting that feeling?” Michel wanted to know as he lowered his muscular frame into a nearby chair and rested his beer on the glass table.

Luke nodded and sat down with his friend on the other side of the table. “Maybe Keegan and Riyu are right. Maybe it’s just morbid paranoia. Maybe it’s nothing at all and I’m just having one of those months.”

That got a chuckle from Michel. “Right. Nothing cropping up around the house?”

“Nah. The station is quiet. Maybe that’s why I am feeling this way, man. It’s been almost too quiet around that place. Normally there is something. I don’t know why I feel bored. I’ve got cold cases up to here.”

“You humans,” Michel grinned. “It's either too much noise or too quiet.”

The guys laughed.

They went silent for a bit just staring out over Edison at night. It was a beautiful sight from the second floor balcony on the hill. The city was nothing but lights and color at nights and Luke loved sitting in the dark on the balcony and just watch the city below him.

How quickly people moved about their ways.

“Then open a cold case,” Michel recommended. “Nothing big because you really need something major to officially crack open a cold case. But read over some files and see. You never know, you might find something the first cops missed, fresh eyes and all. “

Taking a swallow from his beer, Luke nodded. “Fresh eyes.”

Luke thought about what Michel said and the more he thought about it the better he felt, but then a thought cropped into his head. The rising crime rate in Edison just wouldn't go away and he knew it was because the city was getting bigger each year. Either that or people were just getting angrier or as Riyu had joked, “Divorces are getting worse.”

* * * *

Something moved between the trees of the large house over on Talmack drive; a dark figure peeled itself from the shadows and seemed to move with the grace and fluidity of a dancer and a predator; a lethal combination.

The dark figure moved soundlessly across the front lawn and tested each door.

Locked.

“There are so many people in this world and yet they don't trust each other,” the figure muttered before trying the door another time as though he expected it to magically unlock. “Why is that?”

Looking both ways, the figure went down on one knee and dug something from his pocket that glowed in the soft moonlight of the night. Sticking the long object into the lock, there was a slight click sound with just a flick of a wrist and the door slowly crept open.

Maneuvering through the large house was no trouble at all. He had broken into the house many times before and had a floor-plan drawn up to make this job go as smooth as butter. A smile creased the figure’s face as he removed his mask and stuffed it into his pocket.

Climbing the stairs, he was careful not to step on certain parts because he knew which one creaked and which ones didn’t.

Quickly enough, he was on the second floor and peering into the bedroom where the lone blond slept. A smile that lit up his face from ear to ear passed over his face and just as quickly as it came, it was gone. His heart beat steady as though he was meditating.

This was his meditation.

Slowly, he screwed on the silencer to the gun and moved into the room. He moved like a shadow over the floor, creeping silently up to the bed with a smile on his face and his gun raised ready for the kill.

He was close enough when his feet smashed into something on the ground and he yelped in pain. The blond flew off the bed and screamed.

Without even thinking, the man flew at her and slammed his fist into the woman’s neck to silence her then watched as her body slumped to the floor. That wasn’t the way he had planned it.

No.

She would pay for interrupting his pleasure. Picking her up, he carried her to the far side of the room and propped her up against the wall. He went to work as he hummed to himself, tying her hands and feet apart to the hook above the far window and gagging her. He sat back against the bed waiting for her to wake up.

What seemed like hours later, her eyes fluttered opened and when she lifted her head she tried to struggle. He loved the look of fear in her eyes as he slowly applied her lipstick to his lips. Her trepidation to him caused adrenaline to begin pumping through his body like a drug. Sweet euphoria flowed through him as he prepared for her. His eyes rolled back in his head as though he was on a high. A smile crept onto his face causing the sides of his lips to tug upward like a clown.

When he was finished, he cut the tip of the lipstick off and dropped it into his pocket before placing the lipstick softly on the dresser.

“You know,” the man spoke calmly as he worked. He placed his little bag down and removed a hunting knife. “They say that there is a test that can show the last thing that a person sees before dying. Do you think that’s true? I don’t know. Sounds a little farfetched to me, like something a crazy nut would make up to scare people.”

He looked back at her but she only shook her head.

“How rude of me. You cannot talk with your mouth full.” He proceeded to sit down on the bed while toying with the point of the knife. “See, just in case that’s true, I need to make it easy for the cops.”

The woman whimpered at the sound of his words and he chuckled. “Don’t fear, my pretty. You won’t feel a thing. I may be a killer but I’m not completely without feelings.”

He got up and placed the knife down on the bed and reclaimed his gun from where it was. Walking over to her, he kissed her softly against the forehead leaving an imprint of the lipstick there as she sobbed against the cloth gagging her.

“You can tell my mother when you see her in hell, that this is all her fault.” He stepped back, lifting the gun, aimed…and fired.

He felt something against his back and turned slowly. He saw across the way a woman by her window with her hand clamped over her mouth, binoculars to her eyes and fear written all over her face.

She has to die too.