... Life really doesn't want me to stick with my Saturday schedule, huh? This week has been absolute chaos and today no different... but damn it if I won't upload this chapter today, especially now when we're closing in on the halfway point!
Thank you to all of you who have been with me so far! :)
Chapter 7
Saturday, 5.55 PM
Lance could put up with a lot of dumb things. His supposed partner storming into a caravan park hiding a killer without so much as an inkling of a plan? Not one of them.
Sure, he'd done plenty of stuff with only his improvisation skills as a guide, but this crossed a line even for him. He hadn't even had a chance to dry his hair properly! Not that that was incredibly important, but still, wet hair and cold wind? He was going to look like an absolute mess tomorrow.
Haggar better be here, or else Keith owed him a meal at least half as amazing as Hunk's would've been.
Sighing, Lance hurried up beside Keith as they continued through the caravan rows. Most of the windows were dark, keeping whatever habitants inside shrouded in shadow – if someone was peeking through the glass, watching their every step on the criss-crossing paths, Lance would never know. The muted crunch of their footsteps on the gravel felt too loud either way, only accompanied by the soft lapping of the ocean nearby and the distant bark of a dog.
As they turned into row 40-49, Lance glanced up at the signs marking each lot. 47… Pidge had said lot 47…
There.
A rackety old caravan, paint faded and hook resting on the ground, stood in the middle of the lot, the sea just visible over the fenced-off cliff behind it. But unlike the other caravans, light came from the windows.
"Texas plates," Keith muttered. "It has to be her."
Lance pulled out his phone, typing the license plate into the crime registry. "Yep," he replied in the same quiet tone, "stolen in Odessa a week ago." He crossed his arms. "So now what, genius? Because I think even you know we need a warrant to search it."
"No, we don't."
"Um, yes we do. I don't know if you've heard of it, but there's something called a law book–"
"We can search any vehicle with probable cause without a warrant. And the caravan has wheels."
"Okay that's–" The words died on Lance's lips as he thought it through. "That's actually a fair point."
Keith pulled out his gun. "I know. Now let's do this already."
Keeping low and out of sight of the windows, they crept across the open space, steps slow and deliberate on the gravel. Soon they were crouching at the front of the caravan. Lance glanced up towards the windows. No silhouettes. No movement.
"You stand ready by the door while I pick the lock. Then we'll take her by surprise. Okay?"
Keith sent him a look. "Since when do you know how to pick locks?"
"Since eight-year-old-me figured out picking the bathroom lock was a great way to annoy my sister Veronica when–" Lance made an impatient noise. "Does it matter? Just be ready."
To his surprise Keith simply nodded before making his way over to the door, shifting into a vigilant stance beside it. Apparently his ears did work sometimes, Lance thought to himself as he followed, crouching down in front of the lock. And apparently keeping a few hair pins with him in case of lock emergency (of both kinds) hadn't been a complete waste. Suck it, Pidge!
A quiet minute of tinkering followed. Then a soft click, and Lance allowed himself a smile before he rose, hand around his own gun. Keith let go of his with one hand and held up three fingers.
Two.
One.
Keith slammed the door open and they burst inside… to an empty caravan.
"Dammit!" Keith threw his arms down. "Where is she?"
"Not here, obviously. But on the bright side," Lance added at Keith's glare, "something in here might tell us where."
The two of them paused, taking in the room more fully this time. A hastily made bed in one corner. Several chests of drawers in another, clothes and first aid bandages hanging out from the half-closed ones. On Lance's right a table cluttered with all kinds of things and a narrow wardrobe. And furthest up front a kitchen sink next to the bathroom door, slightly open. The air felt stale, like nobody had opened a window in a month. Smelt like it too.
Man, this made his pre-school camping trip with his primos seem like heaven on Earth.
Keith took a step forward. "You take this side; I take the other."
Again with the orders. Did he get a kick out of bossing people around or something?
Shaking his head, Lance turned his attention to the nearby table. No point arguing when Mullet had a decent idea for once.
Upon closer inspection the table turned out to be not as cluttered as he'd thought. A stack of paper mugs, the plastic around them ripped open from use, stood next to a miniature radio, but otherwise most of the table was taken up by a beat-up notebook. And not the regular kind of beat-up, but rather the broken-spined, pages-spilling-everywhere kind.
Apparently people weren't the only things Haggar liked to murder.
He flipped through the pages at random, all of them coming up blank. Whatever she'd written she must've torn out. Lance pursed his lips. Maybe her writing had left indentations on the page behind it and if so, Matt and Pidge might be able to get something from it. Worth a shot he figured, carefully scooping and rolling the notebook up and putting it in a zip bag.
While he was putting it in his inner pocket, he happened to glance Keith's way. "Hey, whatcha got there?"
"Photograph," Keith muttered, closing a drawer with his other hand.
"Huh. Looks like… some kinda family photo?" Lance frowned as he came over, studying the five faces looking back at them. Haggar, three other adults with similar haggard (ha, he'd have to remember that pun) looks and a child with a cute red-sleeved and black shirt. "Besides the murdered husband, I didn't know she had a family."
"She doesn't." Keith paused. "At least not on record."
"Well, sucks to be related to her. Imagine family dinner: 'So Haggar, what you up to these days?' 'You know, the usual. Shooting people off skyscrapers and stuff.' 'Oh, that's lovely, dear. More salad?'"
A smile – An actual smile! At one of his jokes! – crossed Keith's lips. Even though it disappeared a second later, Lance still counted it as a win. "Might be one of her gangs. She's been in a few."
"Whatever the story, probably worth hanging on to."
"Yeah." Keith tucked it in his back pocket before turning his attention back to the drawers. Well. Guess that was Lance's cue to keep looking too.
The next few minutes passed in silence as they continued to search. Canned food on the shelves, spare ammunition in a drawer, a bunch of what Lance hoped were sour-smelling socks in a bucket-turned-washing basket… but nothing else of interest. Nothing that stood out. Nothing to tell where Haggar was now. And by the force Keith used to search one of the chests of drawers, he wasn't finding anything either.
Lance sighed, setting his eyes on the final thing left to search on his side: the wardrobe. He had been avoiding it for a while now, because based on the state of the caravan it would be an absolute mess and take ages to go through.
A loud thump followed by a string of curses made him turn around.
"What are you doing?"
Crouched in front of the open cupboard underneath the sink, Keith moodily rubbed the back of his head. "Shut up."
"What? I didn't say anything." Lance tried and failed to keep his face in check, even as he thought about the still tender spot on the back of his own head from Haggar and the irony of Keith suffering a similar injury from Haggar's sink cupboard. "I mean, maybe Haggar's totally the person to hide her top-secret things under a leaky sink, who knows? You should check again just to be sure."
Keith's only response was an even more grumpy face, which he apparently didn't know looked hilarious. Full-on smiling now, Lance opened the wardrobe door… and froze.
Ho.
Ly.
Shit.
"Uh, Keith?"
"What?" came the sharp reply.
"You… might wanna take a look at this."
Shuffling sounds, followed by footsteps. Then Keith came up beside him.
"What the fuck."
Lance's gaze roamed over the back wardrobe wall. Over the photographs, the newspaper clippings, the concert flyers. Over the detailed road maps and circled interview lines.
Over the countless versions of Bandor's face staring back at them.
"Okay," his laugh sounded forced even to his own ears, "talk about having skeletons in the closet. Or more like creepy freaking shrines in the wardrobe."
Keith frowned, gesturing towards one of the newspaper articles. "Look. Dates back twelve years. This isn't a new thing."
"So Haggar's a stalker. Lovely." The sarcastic words felt bitter in his mouth as his gaze flicked from one image to another. All this on a teenage girl's wall? Maybe a little overkill, but nothing to worry about. The same obsession from a woman twice Bandor's age, who also happened to be a serial killer? Not lovely. Not lovely at all.
Then the realization hit.
"Keith. You know what this means, right?"
A glance his way. "What?"
"No one hired Haggar. She's here for no one but herself. And him."
"Sendak leaked those pictures of him," Keith said, eyes widening. "And the hacker helped. She's attacking people who've wronged him somehow."
"Yeah. Like some kind of rabid superfan. Except she skipped the hate comment step and went straight to the shotgun."
"But… Why Bandor?"
Lance let out another half-laugh. "Why not? He's young. Hot. Somewhat talented. Some people are just that creepy."
"But it doesn't make sense."
"What about this," Lance waved his arm towards the shrine, "doesn't make sense? The evidence is pretty clear, buddy."
"Just… Why would she break out of jail for him? Why now? And why…" He trailed off, but his gaze betrayed the turmoil inside him.
"Dios, I don't know. Maybe she saw the leaked pictures and got mad? Maybe she's been planning to come after him for a while and waited for the perfect time? Maybe she woke up and literally chose violence? Coran's the psychoanalyst, not me. Now, you wanna take a pic of this… thing, or should–" The words died on his lips.
Because as he talked, he glanced towards Keith… and saw the caravan door quietly opening behind him.
"Keith!" was all he had time to yell before Haggar lunged forward. Saw the danger register in Keith's eyes a second too late before Haggar was on him, pressing her gun against his back.
"Such deja vu," she said, the fingers of her free hand digging into his shoulder, "isn't it? It's as if you want me to kill you." Her false cheery mood evaporated as she met Lance's gaze. "Drop the gun."
He hadn't even registered pulling the weapon, the movement instinctual after hours and hours of training. But he felt it now, every muscle, every ridge on the cold metal as he slowly lowered it, even as Keith, jaw clenched, mouthed to him to "Do it. Shoot."
Dropping it, giving her an even bigger upper hand, wasn't an option. But shooting wasn't either. Not with Keith between them.
"You know, I'm feeling pretty nostalgic too," he said, hoping his smirk didn't betray the way his heart was hammering, "I had such a huge crush on Bandor when he first hit the charts, you have no idea."
Haggar tensed, her composure completely falling for a moment. "What did you say?"
"I know, right?" Lance ignored the What the hell are you doing? glare Keith was sending his way, shaking his head with a laugh. "I definitely didn't expect to have the same taste in men as a serial killer! Then again, everyone with eyes would find Bandor hot so I guess I get a pass. But aren't you a bit too," he pretended to search for the right word, "old for him? And with the whole 'judge, jury but mostly executioner' schtick you got going… not exactly a girl to bring home to mom."
On the upside, the distraction was working. Haggar wasn't looking at his gun at all, only at his face. On a bigger downside however, those eyes screamed murder. More murder than usual.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," she ground out, pressing the muzzle harder in between Keith's shoulder blades.
"You mean this set-up in here," nodding towards the wardrobe, Lance tried not to think about the wince that flickered across Keith's face, "isn't a creepy shrine to your one true love? I'm sorry, my bad."
"Shut up."
"I mean, it was an honest mistake. The photos, news articles, interviews… All that's missing are hearts around his face, pictures of his mansion… Maybe even those leaked nudes to really bring it to Creeptown."
"Shut. Up."
"Ooh, you should have his song, 'Defender', playing when you open the doors. You know, because you're his defender, lovingly killing his haters in the shadows. How's it go? 'I did what I had to,' something-something, emo guitar riff, 'but you were my defendeeer~'"
"I said SHUT UP!"
Haggar shoved Keith to the side, gun swiveling towards his face. A split second of an opening. But that was all Lance needed.
He raised his own gun, lined up the shot… just as Keith drove his elbow back into Haggar's face.
With a howl she staggered backwards, tumbling out through the open door onto the grass, gun knocked out of her hand and disappearing in the dark. But she was on her feet again in an instant. Her furious eyes the last thing he saw before she slammed the door shut.
No. No no no–
Keith joined him at the door, both shoving at it with all their might, but it wouldn't budge; she must've jammed it somehow which meant–
They were stuck.
The same idea seemed to have dawned on Keith, a frustrated growl escaping him as he punched the metal one last time and rounded on Lance. "What the hell was that?"
"What do you– What the hell were you doing?" Lance threw back. "I had a clear shot!"
"Yeah, after you stood there talking bullshit for half an hour!"
Lance blinked. "Bullshit? I was distracting her, you idiot! And it would've worked if you hadn't decided to go all Rambo–"
"I wouldn't have had to if you had just taken the damn shot–"
"Barging in here was YOUR dumb plan, you don't get to–"
"Wait. Shh."
"Don't freaking shush me–"
"Lance." The sudden seriousness in Keith's voice made Lance pause his tirade. "Do you hear that?"
A squeaky noise, like an old spring uncoiling, came from the front. Followed by a soft thump as something hit the grass and the caravan vibrated.
What was Haggar doing?
The answer came immediately as Lance looked out the front window and saw the cliff. The cliff with the frail security fence. With the Pacific churning far below it.
The cliff they were now rolling towards.
