He clucked his tongue.
“I mean, those people were butchered, Sara. Ripped apart. Who does things like that?
“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe you are directly responsible. But, I think you know who is...I think you know exactly who is and that maybe even it was the same guy tipping us off about you. Maybe trying to hang the whole thing on you.
“That’s not someone I’d want to protect if I were you, Sara. Not when you have so much to lose.
“So, take some time...take as much time as you need, in fact. If there’s one thing we’re not short of back here in the holding cells, it’s time. You can have all you need to come to the right decision.
“When you’re ready, you let someone know and I’ll get you out of here and into my office. The armchair is way more comfortable than that hard bench there and you can have a nice, hot cup of coffee while you tell me all about it.
“Ok?”
Sara kept her mouth closed. What she knew and what she could tell the officer would do her no good. The Journeyman had seen to that and left her with no way out.
The police officer lifted his shoulders then dropped them again, as if trying to say that he really thought it was a shame, her being there, but that did not stop him from turning away and slamming the heavy steel door closed again.
She decided that the ink on her hands had dried enough and that was good because suddenly she needed the paper towels tucked in her sleeve more than ever.
~~~
He had driven over an hour to get there. It had not taken long since he had let the siren scream the whole way while the rooftop lights had cleared a path for him out on the highway.
Of course, once in town, a lower profile was necessary, so even if he liked...no, loved...that screaming siren, he flicked the toggle switches to kill it and the lights both.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, watching people from where he was parked as they climbed up the steps to the city police headquarters. It was killing him, having to wait like this, but it was necessary.
And under his breath, he murmured in endless repetition, “Not ‘til dark, not ‘til dark, not ‘til dark...not ‘til dark.”
Jackson knew he had to wait. Someone had told him so. Friends would come to help once the sun went down. On the other hand, the thought of the dark made him uneasy. Very uneasy.
He glanced at his reflection in the car’s rearview mirror once again, then jerked away from what he saw there just as he had done earlier. He did not know why he kept hoping he had seen wrong.
Mumbling the same phrase over and over, he tried hard not to think about how half his face had fallen in sunken, drawn lines. How even his lips had tipped down on that side while the pupil of one eye gaped wide and black like a snake pit.
He wiped at the drooping corner of his mouth and his shirt sleeve came away wet. A trip to the doctor was going to be on the very near agenda, he knew.
“But, not yet, but not yet, but not yet...but not yet,” he mumbled.
It would have to wait. And that was because he would have lots to do soon.
“But, not ‘til dark, not ‘til dark....”
Despite the unease he felt as the skies slowly darkened around him, Jackson Woodard felt an erection growing behind his zippered standard issue pants.
A very thin, a very scary man, a man for whom Jackson Woodard had no recollection of his face, had promised him he would see her again and that he could do anything he wanted to once he had her.
He groaned as his hand went to his crotch, pushing at the ache there.
“But, not ‘til dark...not ‘til dark.”
The deputy sheriff grinned a horrible, lopsided smile and waited for the darkness to come.
~~~
Braze held the phone to his ear, but the words his lawyer was saying were not the ones he had hoped to hear.
“...no, no...they’ve got it all tied up, Mr. Abraxis. There’s no point in going down there.”
He heard real frustration in the man’s voice. Braze had promised him a handsome bonus to make short work of this. And it was understood by both of them the other side of that shiny coin meant that the lawyer and his entire firm would be cut loose from future dealings with the company if they did not meet expectations.
What he was saying to Braze did not sound like they had.
“Apparently, the Fresci woman has people in city hall. Family, actually. And highly placed.
“I’m just on my way back from trying to get in to see Miss Renardine, but the police won’t budge and they’ve got the backing from some judge who’s in the family’s pocket.”
Braze hammered his fist down upon his office desktop making everything on it jump.
He took a breath and let it out slowly, then said, “You realize that this is not the result I asked for..?”