Chapter 13: Lingering Questions
As the door shut, with a click which seemed to echo around the empty house, Steve turned and looked at the stairs in front of him. In his present, weakened, state it felt like he was looking down from the summit of Mount Everest. Gritting his teeth and holding onto the rail all the way down, Steve took his time and finally reached base camp, the first storey landing. His features were contorted in agony, sweat ran in rivulets down his torso and he had to lean against the wall to wait for the whole house to stop swimming. When his vision finally cleared, Steve looked around and saw four doors facing him. Making his way towards one of them, Steve hoped against hope that he was heading for the right one as he didn't think he had the strength for a prolonged search.
For the first time in what seemed like months luck was on Steve's side and the door he opened not only was the bathroom, but the door had a lock and a bolt on the inside. Turning the key in the lock and sliding the bolt as far across as it would go, Steve then took the time to take in his new surroundings. The bathroom was very small, with room only for a bath, toilet, hand basin and a glass fronted cabinet on the wall. Staring into the mirror, Steve was shocked at his appearance. His face was pale, his eyes had sunk back into their sockets and lines of pain had appeared on either side of his mouth. Reaching out he opened the cabinet door and was surprised, not to mention pleased, to find a full aspirin container on the bottom shelf. Tipping two out into the palm of his shaking hand, Steve threw them to the back of his mouth and washed them down with a handful of water from the tap. He was just about to close the door when he caught sight of a glint of silver in the bottom left hand corner. Reaching out, he picked up a pair of plain nail scissors. Turning them over in his hand, Steve looked at them and for the first time in a while felt a glimmer of hope. A small pair of nail scissors was not the best weapon in the world but, if the element of surprise were big enough, they had the potential to inflict an incapacitating blow. Deciding that he ought to conserve whatever strength he had left, Steve sat carefully down on the floor making sure that his shoulder, by now a screaming mass of hot needles, didn't touch anything. Leaning his head against the cool porcelain of the toilet, he shut his eyes barely hearing the explosions in the near distance.
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Jack closed the door quietly behind him and moved into the shadows from where he took a moment to get his bearings. A small grin flitted across his features as he looked around, the area was very familiar to him. In fact, he could almost navigate the streets in his sleep as a previous girlfriend had lived not far from where he now stood and he had spent many happy, not to mention exhausting, nights here. Like Steve, Jack felt an elevation in his spirits, maybe they had been given the edge over Williams that they badly needed, and he moved off with renewed purpose. He hadn't travelled very far when two, almost simultaneous, blasts ripped through the silence of the night, causing Jack to jump violently. He immediately wished that he hadn't as it caused a sharp pain to pierce his head and he momentarily had to lean against the wall until the throbbing subsided. When he could move again, Jack looked up and saw two plumes of smoke rising high into the sky a few blocks from where he stood. Realising that, in a very short space of time, the area would be filled with police; Jack decided to make his way there. Pushing himself off from the wall Jack started to walk in the direction of the smoke.
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Away from the flashing light and pooling water a figure stood in the shadows watching, the action and the flames reflecting in his eyes giving them an almost fiendish expression. Tucked deeply into the pocket of his jacket was the package that he had taken from the unconscious Saul Elliot. Williams was feeling totally relaxed, the ritual was back on track. Somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, Williams heard his father's voice calling out in desperation for his medication. He shuddered a little, but not even the memory of his father with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead could dim the fervour that he was feeling now. The official verdict into his father's death had been suicide due to severe depression, but Simon knew they were wrong. He knew that the reason his father had killed himself was because of the tablets he had taken, tablets that he had access to only because of that damn medical courier service. If they hadn't been so accessible, his father would have had to snap out of it and get better himself, at least that was what his mother had told him. Next to his body, the police had found an almost empty pill box. Only six tablets remained from the full container which had been delivered that morning. Obviously his father hadn't wanted to take any chances.
Thrusting the memory to the back of his mind, Williams moved quietly through the crowd back towards the house. He was very confident in what he was doing and it didn't occur to him that his prisoners would think about, or be capable of, escaping so he didn't notice a figure duck into a doorway as he walked towards him.
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By the time Jack reached the site of the first explosion the area was, as he had suspected, filled with police cars not to mention fire trucks and paramedic vehicles. The adrenaline which had filled his body since his exit from the house was finally ebbing away and he was beginning to feel ill. Fervently hoping that someone would listen to him, Jack moved forward when, to his horror, he saw a familiar figure striding towards him. He ducked back into a doorway until Williams had passed by and then walked towards the tape barrier. With Steve's prospective murderer on his way back to the house, it was imperative that he talk to someone.
It was one of the uniformed officers detailed to keep an eye on the ever growing crowd that spotted him first. A tall, dark haired young man was walking slowly towards him, stumbling occasionally, making him seem like he was a little drunk. Officer Gray took a step forward, his hand automatically reaching for his gun in anticipation of any problem.
"Keep back from the line, Sir," he said, politely but firmly, as Jack came to a halt right in front of him.
"I need to speak to whoever is in charge," Jack answered.
"And why would that be?" Gray returned, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"I have important information," Jack replied.
"Everyone is a little busy at the moment," Gray replied, ever the master of the understatement, "Perhaps you would like to attend a police station later."
"Later will be too late," Jack snapped, "By that time Steve Sloan may well be dead."
Martin Gray had begun to turn away but, at Jack's final words, he turned back.
"What did you say?" he exclaimed.
"I said that if you don't take me to someone in charge, Steve Sloan WILL die," Jack responded, his tone a little firmer knowing that he was being taken seriously.
Lifting one of the barriers out of Jack's way, Martin Gray allowed the young man to precede him. He ushered him along the sidewalk to where Captain Blackwell stood with Mark Sloan. As the two men drew near, Jack heard Mark saying, "Who gave Williams a Prozac prescription for Steve?"
"I did, Mark," Jack answered quietly.
"Jack!" Mark exclaimed, "How did you get here?"
"Williams." Jack was succinct, "He snatched me from your place and brought me to where he has Steve."
Grabbing hold of Jack by the shoulders and almost shaking him in his eagerness to find out the answer to his next questions, "Did you see Steve? Is he alright?"
Gently disengaging himself from his friend's grip, Jack answered, "He's alive, but he has lost a lot of blood. He didn't feel strong enough, so he made me leave whilst he found some place to hide in the house."
"Then we'd better get to him," Mark said firmly, "Show me where he is."
"Take it easy, Dr. Sloan," Captain Blackwell tried to calm Mark down, "We need to get organised."
"You'd better be quick. I just saw Williams on his way back to the house. He passed by me just before I saw this guy here." Jack said, jerking a finger in the direction of Officer Gray.
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Striding confidently along the sidewalk, Simon Williams made his way back to his rented house. Occasionally he dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and curled his fingers around the package there. For a while, after he had been forced to shoot Lieutenant Sloan, he had worried that the ritual had been thrown irrevocably off course. Now though, the situation was back on track and he felt a sense of calmness, like everything was going to be okay.
Opening the front door, Williams stepped inside and looked around him. Instinctively he felt that something was wrong and, without even taking his jacket off, he ran up the stairs towards the attic. Despite his eagerness to get them both out of the their incarceration, Jack had had the forethought to shut the door behind them, so Williams had to dig the key from out of his trouser pocket before he was able to open the door.
The door swung open on noiseless hinges to reveal an empty room. Swearing profusely, Williams turned and ran back up the stairs to the entrance hall and looked around him, trying to decide what to do. Taking a deep breath, Williams attempted to calm his racing mind and make himself think. Reasoning, accurately, that Sloan would not have the physical energy to leave the house even if his friend had, Williams turned to look at the only other route open to the injured man………the stairs.
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It was the click of the front door closing that brought Steve back to full wakefulness. Without thinking he shifted position and immediately wished he hadn't as the pain, which the medication had reduced in intensity, came back to full power with a vengeance. Hoping that the groan which was wrenched from him hadn't been audible downstairs, Steve slowly rose to his feet and moved to stand behind the door, holding the scissors in his left hand.
Listening to the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs, Steve hoped that Jack had found someone to listen to him and was on his way back with help. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and Steve heard them move towards one door, then another. Finally, the sound stopped outside the bathroom and the handle was rattled.
"Not very intelligent, Sloan," Williams said, "It won't take me long to break this door down. The best thing you can do is to come out."
Steve gave no answer, figuring that every minute he could hold Williams at bay was a minute closer to rescue. At least, he thought to himself, that was what he hoped.
"Come out, Sloan!" bellowed Williams, his earlier mood of confidence disappearing in a flash.
From inside the bathroom, Steve heard Williams take a step backwards and the next second the door shuddered as Williams kicked out at it. Fortunately, whilst Williams had a clever mind, his physique was nowhere near as well defined as Steve's and the door remained intact. Steve knew though, that whatever shape Williams was in, it would not remain that way forever and decided to move away from behind the door, and retreated a little. Again and again the door rattled on its hinges as Williams did his best to gain entry. Steve watched anxiously, as the hinges began to loosen and the door started to quiver ominously.
"Come on, Jack." Steve whispered breathlessly to himself, "Where the hell are you?"
Just as Steve finished his sentence the hinges finally succumbed to the constant pressure that they were being put under and the door whipped open to reveal Williams standing, breathing heavily, in the doorway. It was obvious he was in a towering rage causing Steve, despite his best efforts not to, to retreat a little at the same time as taking a tighter hold on the nail scissors.
Moving quickly forward, Williams reached out to grab hold of Steve's injured shoulder and as he did so, Steve brought his left hand round and stabbed him, as hard as he could, in the groin which was the only place he could reach. Williams jerked back in pain and, for the moment, forgot that Steve was there. Taking the opportunity and, mustering all the strength that he had left in him, Steve made for the door. He was half way across the landing when Williams caught up with him. The injury had slowed him down a little, but the glancing blow he managed to deal Steve was enough to push him off balance and send him tumbling down the stairs. The edge of the third stair caught his wound and the scream that was wrenched from him was the last sound he heard.
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He tried to ignore the insistent voice in his ear and turned his head away from the sound, but the voice still kept on talking.
"Go 'way," he muttered.
"Steve?" the tone of the voice changed, becoming tinged with hope.
Struggling, Steve opened his eyes and looked around him. Contrary to his expectations he wasn't back in the attic but was lying in a hospital bed and the first face that he saw belonged to the voice in his ear, his dad.
"Dad?" was the only word he managed to utter before blackness overcame him once more, only this time he slept.
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Several days later, Steve was able to sit up in bed and insisting on some answers.
"Okay, Steve," Mark said, after another argument with his son.
"What happened?" Steve asked, "I am assuming that you reached me in time but that is all."
"Jack managed to get to us," Mark answered, flinging a grateful smile at his young protégée, "and led us to where Williams was keeping you."
"And………….?" Steve prompted.
"They found you lying in a heap at the base of the staircase bleeding profusely. There was no sign of Williams and they assumed that he had heard them coming and made a run for it." Mark continued.
"Have they captured him yet?" Steve asked.
"In a manner of speaking," Jack responded, from the far side of the bed.
"I'm not up to riddles, Jack," Steve retorted, "have they caught Williams or not?"
"He's dead, Steve," Mark replied.
"Dead!" exclaimed Steve, "I take it he wouldn't give himself up voluntarily."
"He didn't have that opportunity," Mark said, then asked, "Did you manage to injure him at all?"
"I caught him once with a small pair of nail scissors," Steve answered, "but surely that wouldn't have been enough to kill him?"
"Ordinarily, no," Amanda explained, entering the room in time to hear Steve's question, "but somehow you managed to nick his femoral artery with them and he bled to death. The police found his car crashed a few miles up PCH. I don't think he realised how serious his injury was."
"Hang on," Steve asked, "surely a femoral artery injury spurts. He can't have failed to notice that."
"If it had been caught with a larger blade, you are right," Mark answered, "but those nail scissors were only small and it would have taken longer for him to bleed out."
Steve sighed, "So we will never know why he killed all those people."
"No, we won't," Mark agreed, "but at least we know he won't be killing any more."
"Very true," Steve answered.
"And we did help, didn't we?" Jack put in eagerly.
Slowly turning his head to look at his friend, Steve replied, "I suppose so."
"Suppose so!" Jack said in tones of mock injury, "I get kidnapped by a serial killer, tend to your wounds, escape, bring back life saving help and all you can say is that you suppose so!"
"Jack," Steve's voice was quiet and Jack looked down at his friend in sudden concern, "Thank you. I know that without your help I probably would be dead by now. I am truly grateful."
Jack's eyes gleamed with what both Mark and Steve took to be unshed tears, until he spoke, "So that means we can help you on another case, huh?"
Mark's shout of laughter echoed down the hall. He knew that, whatever Steve said, that they had become a team, a team which would work together many times in the future.
THE END………………………or is it just the beginning?