Chapter Thirteen

*I know! It has been a long time since I updated, and I greatly apologize. I have been working on this chapter for a while now, and I want it to seem perfect. It was originally going to be one long chapter, but it grew to be over eight pages long. So now it will be multiple in order to save your sanity. :)

She had lost her. It was horrible to think, and undoubtedly more horrific to speak, but Rebecca had managed to lose Vivian yet again. This time, the elevator was to blame. She had seen Vivian step inside, and it start to go up, but Rebecca had no clear inking of what floor she was making her way towards. And she couldn't have gotten on the elevator with her. That was sort of a death wish.

So here she was, now on floor seven of the twelve. As she peered cautiously around the corner from the stairwell, there was no sign of Vivian, but a door was open about halfway down the hall. Gun in hand, Rebecca made her way to it, and gently pushed it open wider. Inside was a sight more horrific than she had seen in a while.

There were two bodies on the floor of the living room, both with the Vivian trademark of a knife to the chest. Both of them were obviously killed in a hasty fashion, and there was muffled crying coming from a closet in the entry hall. The window was open, broken but with no traces of glass, with the splattered white curtains billowing in the wind. Rebecca turned to a side wall. Written on it with smears of red blood was 'come and get me'. She turned to the closet and pulled the sliding door open. Inside was a child, curled up in a towel streaked with tears.

"Did you see who did this?"

The child nodded.

"Did you see where she went?"

"The window. She went out the window." The girl whispered.

"Is there anything else about her that you wish to tell me?" Rebecca asked the girl gently.

"She told me to wait in the closet. She also told me to tell you something."

"What did she want you to tell me?"

The girl shifted uncomfortably. She fidgeted with the edge of the towel, and mumbled something inaudible.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Could you say it again for me?"

The girl nodded.

"She said to tell you that she knows. And that your time is running out. Tick tock, tick tock." She said cryptically.

"Thank you. More help will be here shortly. Stay where you are."

Rebecca quickly ran to the window and looked up just in time to see a foot slip over the railing of the roof. It had to be Vivian. Rebecca thought. No one else is crazy enough to climb up a building. Rebecca turned away from the window and ran out of the apartment. She pulled out her phone and dialed Hauser.

Besides when Rebecca had fled the vehicle earlier that afternoon, Hauser had been having an uneventful day. He had just been sitting in the SUV with Soto and watching the building when all of a sudden he saw something weird. What appeared to be a young woman in a pink dress was climbing out of a window around the sixth floor. She was wearing what also appeared to be white opera length gloves that were very red, mostly around the hands, with a large black bag slung over her shoulder. And to make things even more weird, she was starting to climb the building. Even worse, upon closer inspection it seemed to be the very sixty-three they were after.

"What the Hell is going on in there?" Hauser practically yelled after slamming his hand on the dashboard.

"Are you seeing this?" He hollered at Soto, who was leaning over and watching Vivian's spider like progress up the building.

"Yeah sir. Pretty impressive actually. One of the most interesting getaways I have witnessed so far."

"She's crazy, we know. But I want to know what in Dante's Inferno Rebecca is doing and why the Hell our criminal is scaling a building." Hauser fumbled around in his pockets and the various compartments of the car looking for his phone when it rang. It was Rebecca.

"Yes." He said, trying not to sound angry.

"She's already killed two. There's a child hiding in the closet of room 612, where the bodies are. I saw Vivian go up on the roof. She climbed the damn building."

"That part I can see. I just saw her go over."

"I'm going to need back up. Not quite now, but later definitely. I have no idea what other crazy stunt she is going to pull."

"Neither do I." There was a slight pause. "I am going to go get back up. It might be a bit, so hang on."

"Can't you just call it in?"

"Not this time. Hold tight." He pushed end, ending the call. He had an idea, a crazy one, but an idea none the less. Hauser reached to turn on the car, when a conversation from outside his open window caught his attention.

"What do you think of the book so far?" A girl asked.

"God forbid. I don't get like any of the symbolism. What does a pair of spectacles with eyes allude to? She's crazy if she thinks we are going to understand any of this crap."

Hauser heard their voices start to get farther away. Thinking on a whim, he opened the door and jumped out.

"Wait!" He called after a pair of two teenagers walking down the street. He jogged a bit to catch up with them.

"What book are you reading?"

"The Great Gatsby," The girl said slowly. "Now get away you pedophile. Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Well, yes. But I have one more question."

"Spit it out old man. We have things to do."

"Yeah whatever. What do you mean by the spectacles?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, duh. Haven't you read the book? Just look it up." The two of them started walking away again.

"Thank you. And I'm a cop by the way!" He called after them.

"Whatever." He heard her say.

Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. It had been a long, long time since he had read that book, and a lot, a lot of events had happened to make any trace of it slip his mind. He jogged back to the car. This back up might take a while.