xxxxxx

Chapter 14

xxxxxx

Dwight frowned as he made his way back across the waiting room and sat down next to Michael. They'd both accompanied Angela to the hospital after talking to the police, and it looked like the doctors were going to keep her here overnight, probably because the strangler had hit her pretty hard this time and they were worried she could have a concussion.

Whatever the doctors were doing was seeming to take forever. Dwight and Michael had been waiting for quite some time now, long enough for Dwight to take two separate trips to the gift shop, during which he purchased two separate gifts - a small vase of flowers and a tiny little statue of a cat. He had the flowers delivered directly to her room. The cat figurine rested in his pocket. He wasn't sure if he'd even end up giving it to her. Maybe she didn't want gifts from him. She was probably pretty pissed at him for almost getting her killed. Maybe she'd be offended if he tried to offer her small gifts as repayment for nearly causing her death.

"I can't believe that worked," Michael noted in a low voice as Dwight handed him a cup of coffee. "Dwight, what we just did was really, really cool... But really dangerous too. It's a good thing we had the camera in the office. I just can't get over it. We caught a serial killer!"

Dwight nodded. He didn't need Michael to tell him that their plot had been reckless. He was well aware of how dangerous their plan had been, and he felt absolutely terrible about it. There were so many tiny factors that could have made this whole thing turn out much more grim. If Dwight hadn't been in possession of the spare key, if the elevator had taken a minute or two longer, if Michael hadn't noticed the strangler on the monitor right away, if the strangler had gone straight for Angela instead of lingering in the kitchen... If any of that had been different, Angela would be dead. Dwight's poor planning could have easily gotten her killed.

Catching a notorious local serial murderer was a big deal. Anyone would have considered this success impressive, but it was hard to feel proud considering how close they'd come to failing.

Dwight looked toward the door as a familiar face entered the waiting area. It was the police officer he'd been in contact with, Ken. "May I talk to you two in private?" he requested.

"No one else is here." Dwight scowled at him. "Talk to us here."

Ken exhaled and sat down across from them, scooting his chair closer and speaking in a low voice. "What you did was very reckless," he started. "It's good that you caught the killer and that he's off the streets, but there's a reason we don't use surviving victims as traps and there's a reason we don't condone vigilante justice. You could have gotten your friend killed. You almost did. You could have gotten yourselves killed."

Michael frowned and looked down at his coffee in his hands. He clearly felt bad.

Dwight felt bad too, but Ken didn't need to know that, and Ken needed to also feel bad, because while Dwight had kind of been reckless, Ken had been too passive. Dwight could have gotten someone killed, but Ken's failure to act did get people killed - lots of them.

"It's funny that you're questioning my methods, Ken," Dwight started as he stared at the man with narrowed eyes.

"Is it?" Ken frowned at him. "It's funny to you that you used your friend to prove a point and nearly got her killed? This is why this stuff is best left up to professionals, Dwight. You didn't know what you were doing. It's only based on luck that this worked out how it did."

"You might use luck to catch criminals." Dwight scowled at him. "That would explain why you've been going after this guy for a year and never caught him, and why I went after him for what... three days? Must be pretty embarrassing to be working on a case for a year, to have seven people die on your watch, and an eighth almost die... and still be nowhere near success. I wouldn't know how that feels. I've been on the case since Tuesday, and I solved it."

"Well, anyone could have solved it if they endangered lives like you did," Ken growled.

"No, your way was much better." Dwight's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Must feel good to watch the guy you're trying to catch kill seven people while you sit back and play it safe. Good thing you didn't try anything dangerous, huh? You wouldn't want to risk anything while he just picks off random people one by one."

Ken shook his head. "You were reckless, Dwight. I don't want you trying to catch criminals like this. It happened to work out this time, but you can't be doing things like this - setting up people as bait, attacking murderers all on your own. What if he had a weapon?"

"He didn't." Dwight shrugged.

"It was a huge risk." Ken frowned.

"It was, Ken," Dwight agreed. "But so was not doing anything. I did your job for you. Since you wouldn't do anything, I had to. Maybe you need to not question my methods considering what I know about yours." He stared with narrowed eyes at Ken, silently implying that he still had dirt on the man - even more so now that he'd given Dwight classified files.

"Fair enough." Ken shook his head and stood. "I'm glad your friend is alright. Maybe you would have actually learned a lesson otherwise, but I'm honestly glad she's okay. I just hope you don't get anyone else killed doing this kind of thing in the future," he added and walked out of the room.

"Wow..." Michael stared at Dwight. "What a jerk. We totally solved his case... He doesn't even know Angela, so what does he care?"

"So ungrateful," Dwight agreed as he shook his head. "You do a guy's job for him, and he gets all nit-picky."

"Mr. Schrute?" a nurse spoke as he made his way over toward them. "You can come back and see her now."

Dwight stood, as did Michael.

"One at a time, please. We'll come back in a few minutes, sir," the nurse nodded toward Michael.

Michael frowned and sat back down.

Dwight exhaled as he followed the nurse back to Angela's room. He wondered if she was going to be angry with him. He hadn't really gotten the opportunity to talk to her yet. Before they had gone through with their plan, he had promised her that the strangler wouldn't come near her - that Dwight would stop him before he could try anything... But that's not how it had gone down. He promised her she'd be safe. He had believed it too. He thought that the only person in any real danger would have been himself, when he psychically attacked the murderer and risked being attacked back. Angela was never supposed to be in any real danger, but here they were, with her in a hospital bed, with more bruises and possibly a concussion...

Angela looked up at Dwight as he entered her room.

"Hey," Dwight spoke in an uncertain voice as he stayed near the door. He put his hands in his pockets, feeling the little cat figurine he had nearly forgotten was there. He wouldn't be at all surprised if she was pretty upset with him right now. Not knowing what else to say, he awkwardly began making small-talk. "I didn't know you could only have one visitor at a time."

"I could have had you both visit together." She shrugged. "I asked them to have you come back alone."

"Oh..." Dwight hesitated and rubbed his fingers slightly over the cat statue in his pocket. Maybe she wanted to yell at him without an audience. "Are you feeling better? Everything alright?" he asked nervously. She seemed to have a bit of a bruise and a small cut on her forehead where the strangler had hit her, and of course her neck and wrists were still bruised, and probably even more bruised than before.

"Yeah. I'm okay. It's not a big deal. They just want to keep me overnight just in case." Angela shrugged.

"Okay..." Dwight nervously nodded. He still couldn't tell if she was upset with him. He wanted to go over and hug her and never let her go, but he also feared if he made any gesture like that, she might shove him away and tell him she hated him for what he'd done. He had put her into a lot of danger tonight, and had almost gotten her killed, after promising her she'd be safe. He wouldn't blame her for being absolutely pissed at him.

"Come sit down," Angela offered, patting her hand on the side of her bed.

Dwight did as she asked. "You mad at me, Monkey?" He frowned as he gently gripped her hand and looked down at the hospital sheets covering her legs.

Angela shook her head and squeezed his hand. "No," she answered.

"You sure?" Dwight wondered. He kind of felt like she should be. "What I did was really reckless. He could have killed you..."

She shook her head. "It was a good plan. It worked. Maybe not perfectly, but it worked."

"Yeah." Dwight frowned. "It worked too well... We taunted him with the idea of being able to come back for you, and he sure fell for it..."

Angela laughed softly. "Yeah. He did."

"I shouldn't have used you like that." Dwight moved his thumb carefully over her wrist as he held onto her hand. "I cared so much about stopping him that I let it take priority over keeping you safe. I don't know what I would do if he'd killed you, Angela... and I want to hurt him so bad for what he did."

"I think you did hurt him pretty bad, Dwight." Angela smiled. "I really enjoyed seeing you smack him across the face with that fire extinguisher over and over again."

"You did?" Dwight smirked. "I didn't even think about it... I guess I only really needed to hit him the one time."

"I like that you hit him more than once," Angela noted. "He didn't feel bad when he hurt me, so I didn't feel bad when you hurt him."

"He deserved it," Dwight agreed.

Angela exhaled and closed her eyes. "Yeah. He did deserve it," she said in a tired voice. Opening her eyes, she frowned and carefully swallowed before looking up at him. "I recognized him, Dwight. When you took the ski mask off of him, I realized that I had seen him before somewhere. I couldn't think of where, but I remember now."

"Really?" Dwight frowned. He hadn't recognized the guy at all. "Who was it? Where did you know him from?"

"I don't know him," Angela explained as she ran her fingertips over his palm. "I just saw him before. Last week. He was at the grocery store in the cat food isle. He offered to help me get a bag of cat food off the top shelf and made some stupid joke about how me climbing around on the shelf to reach it reminded him of a cat or something. That was it. He seemed nice. He wasn't staring at me like a creep or making fun of me really... Just making a joke and trying to be helpful. It was so normal and disarming that I totally forgot the entire encounter until tonight. I didn't see him again. We didn't say anything else to each other... I went home and forgot he existed."

"Wow... Really makes your skin crawl, huh? It was just a normal conversation to you, but he clearly didn't feel that way. Something about it made him decide to strangle you to death," Dwight noted and then shook his head. "That's messed up... You can't even talk to a guy in the cat food isle these days."

"I had been wondering ever since he first attacked me if the strangler had chosen me because I was mean to him, but I wasn't. I wasn't mean to this guy. I'm mean to so many people, Dwight. So many people just get on my nerves and I usually let them know it, but the one guy I wasn't even mean to is the one who tried to kill me." She stuck her lower lip out in a pout.

"You can't think of it like that... It sounds like you were trying to rationalize what this guy did to you. Just because he wanted to kill you doesn't mean he's got any kind of excuse. If you're looking for a reason for why he did this, don't look at yourself. Look at him. He's a serial killer. He's just a psycho. Not because you were mean... None of his victims messed up and did something to deserve what happened to them," he explained.

"I guess it would have been comforting to have a reason behind all this," Angela noted with a frown and a tired exhale. "It's terrifying to know that someone could just decide to murder you for no reason. At least if I had said something rude to him, I could learn from it. How do I learn from this? There was no reason..."

"This guy's just a complete creep bastard... He didn't attack you because you did anything wrong... I know that can be even scarier than someone who hurts you because they hate you... But that's who he is - just a serial murderer. You can't make sense of it. Besides, even if you were mean, you and I both know the person on the receiving end of your harsh words would have deserved it. You're only mean to stupid people," Dwight reminded her.

Angela laughed, even though she had tears in her eyes. "I am only mean to stupid people," she agreed. "And you're right. It's his fault and his fault alone that he decided to become a serial killer."

"That's right." Dwight nodded as he ran his fingers over the figurine in his pocket. "Hey, I got you something," he remembered.

"I know. The nurse brought them in earlier," Angela said and nodded toward the vase of flowers on the table next to her bed. "Thank you, Dwight."

"Oh... No, I got you something else," Dwight told her. "I was out there waiting for a long time... I made two trips to the gift shop... I think you'll like this more than the flowers."

"Really?" Angela looked back up at him and pulled herself up a bit more in the bed. "What is it?" She smiled and her eyes brightened.

Dwight couldn't help but to smile back. He loved seeing happiness on Angela's face. Sometimes she was so hard to please, which made each and every second of her smiles mean so much more. He put his hand carefully on her chin and leaned forward, kissing her very softly as he pulled the little cat statue from his pocket. Angela closed her eyes and kissed him back before he leaned away and moved his hand between them, showing her the gift.

Angela reached out and touched the statue with her fingertips and glanced up into Dwight's eyes. "I love it!" She smiled and wrapped her arms around him.

He put his arms around her as well and rested his chin on the top of her head, enjoying the feeling of her soft hair tickling his neck. "I thought of you when I saw it. It looks like Sprinkles," he noted. Dwight couldn't give a damn about her cats, but he knew she cared about them a great deal and figured she'd like that he chose a statue that resembled the one which seemed to be her favorite.

"It does look like Sprinkles," Angela noted as she pulled back out of their embrace and took the statue from him. She turned it over in her hands. "Thank you, Dwight."

"No problem." Dwight smiled down at her. "Sorry I almost got you killed..."

"That's okay, Dwight. Just don't do it again. We might try a different approach the next time a serial killer comes after me," she laughed.

"Yeah," Dwight agreed. "I'm so glad you're okay, Monkey." He said in a whisper as he gripped her hand again and stared into her eyes. "That was a close call... again."

"Well, you saved me again, Dwight," Angela noted. "Sure, you kind of saved me from your own plan this time, but you did save me... Two times now, just this week. No other man has ever rescued me form a serial killer before. That's impressive." She wrapped her arms around him and he did the same as they pulled each other close.

"I'll save you from as many serial killers as I need to," Dwight promised her. "I love you, Angela."

She leaned her head against his chest and smiled. "I love you too, Dwight."

xxxxxx

THE END

xxxxxx

I hope you all liked it - specifically the few people who have been reviewing, since you're the only ones I know for sure were excited by this plot pretty much the whole time I was publishing it. I hope I took this story in the direction you hoped for and didn't conclude it too soon. I suppose I could have added more in the middle... but I didn't. I think it ended up okay and I hope you enjoyed it too. Thanks for reading. :)