Chapter Five ~
Jackson pulled up in front of
Justy's house and Jude jumped out before he came to a complete stop. He ran up
the sidewalk, cold fear enveloping his heart. The front door was ajar, and he
knew something bad had happened.
Jackson came up behind him while Amy
sat in the car with the doors locked and a gun in her hand. He put a reassuring
hand on Jude's shoulder. "Okay pal, let's go in together."
Jude shoved the door open, already suspecting
what he would find. Justy lay on the long oriental carpet in the hallway, in a
pool of blood. He fell to his knees beside the body and pulled her hands into
his. They were still warm, and he unconsciously rubbed them between his own.
Amy rushed over and put a hand on
his shoulder, and this time there was no look of disapproval from Jackson, even
though he'd left her in the car with a gun and the explicit instructions not to
get out. He put a hand on Jude's other shoulder. "I am so sorry, mate. I don't know what else
to say."
A movement caught their attention. A
snake slithered out from under Justy's body and stared at them intently. Its
forked tongue moved in and out as if detecting its next meal. Suddenly, Justy
began to move her head from side to side.
"Jackson, she's moving! She
isn't dead, man!" Jude started to move closer. The snake caught the
movement and lunged toward him. With lightning-quick reflexes he grabbed the
snake and pulled it up and away from Justy. He got to a standing position while
the snake shook its tail angrily. He didn't know what to do. He knew it was a
rattler by the beads on its tail and the sound it was making. He wondered if it
had bitten her. "Someone call an ambulance and find out where the blood's
coming from."
Jackson walked over and grabbed just
under the head of the snake with one of Amy's mittens and pulled it from Jude's
death-like grasp. "You don't want to kill the snake. It isn't its
fault." He went to find a bedroom and came back a couple seconds later
with the snake safely tied inside a yellow pillowcase.
"It isn't coming from her and I
can’t find any wounds." Amy said as she gently maneuvered Justy back to
the floor after her inspection.
"Does Justy have any animals?"
Jackson asked.
"She said she had a cat she
could cuddle with when I asked her if there was somebody I could call,
why?" Jude asked, not catching on.
"Maybe the killer wanted to
scare us. Maybe the blood’s from her cat."
"That's possible, I guess. She
isn't awake enough to ask." Amy said. "Do you want me to look around
and see if I can find it?"
"No, just stay with us." Jude
crouched down and began to inspect Justy himself. After looking all over her
face and arms, he finally found what he was looking for. "Here it is."
"What?" Jackson asked. The
sound of sirens could finally be heard in the distance. He’d called for backup
when he'd seen the front door open and they were finally arriving.
"Needle marks, man. He drugged
her." Jude scowled, resisting the urge to vent his anger with words. This
guy was a monster, and he needed to be stopped.
"That's better than the
alternative, don't you think?" Jackson asked with a tight smile.
"Yes, I just hate that he’s
toying with us like this, and he used her to do it. He killed her parents
Jackson, and he could’ve killed her." He began to rub Justy's hands again
when he noticed she was awake and staring up at him. One huge gray eye was
raised in disbelief.
"What's going on? Jude, what
are you doing here?" She tried to rise, but was stopped by one of Jude's
beefy paws. She was left in a partial sitting position, and when she looked
around and saw she was sitting in a pool of blood, she lost it and screamed
bloody murder.
"Calm down, it's over. He's
gone." Jude patted her back awkwardly.
"Who's gone? You're not making
any sense. Why are you here? And why am I lying in a pool of blood?" One
of her hands came up and moved through her tangled chestnut hair, leaving a
bloody streak in its wake.
"We were coming to get you to
stay at our place." Amy began slowly, giving her time to take in the information.
"Amy said we should call you so
you'd have time to get ready." Jackson added.
"Only when I called you, it
wasn't you that answered, but the killer." Jude’s heart raced painfully at
the memory. "He said he told me he was gonna get you, and then hung up.
When we got here your front door was open so we came in, and you were lying in
a pool of blood." Jude finished.
"What do you mean? He told you he was gonna get me? When were
you gonna share this with me?"
"That's why we were coming to pick you up." He felt like a little boy
caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.
"Jude, did you see the security
detail you had posted outside her house?" Jackson asked as he peered out
the window.
"I didn't, but I wasn't looking
for them, either. I was too worried about Justy." He turned back and gave
her a loving look.
"They're not out there. There's
no sign of their car, either. Call it in, I'm gonna take a closer look."
He rushed out the door.
Jude called it in. Dispatch reported
they’d checked in about an hour ago.
***
Jackson ran around the outside of
the house, but they were nowhere in sight. He crossed the quiet residential
street, but saw nothing. He was getting ready to go back inside when he heard a
noise coming from the recycle bins sitting at the edge of the road. He walked
over and lifted one of the lids. There was an officer stuffed in the bottom
with gray tape across his mouth. His wrists and ankles were bound, and he was only
wearing a t-shirt and boxers. Jackson reached in and gave one quick yank on the
tape, and the man yelped. "Officer Branston?"
"No, I'm Overstreet. Branston's
in the next can." He rubbed his mouth with one hand. "I can't believe
we let some punk kid do this to us."
"It was a kid?" Jackson
asked incredulously.
"It was. You can look on the
dash cam. He walked right up to us. That's why we didn't think anything of it.
He was just a teenager."
"It would be kind of hard to
look at the cam because your car's gone." Jack walked to the next can and ripped
the tape off the second officer and turned back to Overstreet.
"Man, we are in so much trouble." Officer Branston
whined childishly. "We'll be lucky if we don't lose our jobs over this."
"Calm down." Jackson said.
"You're lucky he didn't kill you. He killed two elderly people early this
morning...Well, yesterday morning now, it's after midnight." He glanced at
his watch.
"You're kidding me,
right?" The whiny cop asked. "You mean he could’ve killed us?"
"Are you talking about Justy's
parents?" Officer Overstreet asked.
"Yes, do you know her?"
Jack asked.
"I do. We dated for a few months. I went to school with her."
Jackson immediately began looking at
the officer in a new light. Of course any person who went to school with Justy
and Jude would be a person of interest. He pulled out a small green notepad and
clicked his pen open. "Can you tell me anything about the family I may not
know?"
“I was serious about her, but she was
in love with some idiot that didn’t know she existed.”
Jackson
wrote something on his notepad, said, “Thank you,” and walked back to the
house.
***
"What
did you find out?" Jude asked. He'd watched Jackson help the two men out
of the recycle bins and had seen them talking but they were too far away for
him to read lips.
"They said some punk kid walked
right up to their car. One of them told me all I had to do was look on his dash
cam, but the car’s gone. They didn't know much else. I'm guessing the killer
probably drugged them with whatever he used on Justy. How is she, by the
way?" Jack asked as Amy walked out the front door.
"They're going to take her to
the hospital to get checked out just to be sure, but they think she'll be fine.
They think he used that date-rape drug that goes through the system really
fast. If he did, it'll probably be untraceable except for the needle
mark." Jude pushed a hand through his blond hair and sighed in frustration.
"We'll get him. He's already
making mistakes. I think he was here to kill her, but your call interrupted him
before he got the chance. The fact he answered the phone tells me he's eager to
thumb his nose at you. He's not worried about being caught. He'll make a
mistake, and when he does, we'll be right there to catch him." Jackson
said.
"I'm just glad he did answer the phone." Jude said.
“Otherwise, she might be dead.” Jude walked back inside.
"I am too, my friend. I am
too." Jack said as he followed him in the door. "Where did Amy
go?" He'd seen her come out the front door, but hadn't seen where she
went.
"I don't know. I saw her come
out the front door, but to tell the truth I've been so pre-occupied I didn't
pay attention to what she was doing." Jude answered apologetically.
"I'm right here." Amy said
as she came in the door behind them. "I guess it's a good thing I'm not
that snake, or you'd have been bitten." She said with a small grin.
"Under the circumstances, I guess I'll forgive you. I walked outside
because I couldn't get any service on my phone in the house and I wanted to
check on the kids and tell Chester and Matilda what was going on."
"Good thinking.” Jackson said.
"They need to know where we
are, especially since they're the ones watching the kids. Let's go back to the
house and make sure Justy has a suite ready. I went in and packed her a bag.
We're bringing her cat with us, too." She said with a hopeful inflection
in her voice. She'd caught the feline skulking around out back and enticed it back
inside with a piece of cheese.
"Why are we bringing a cat with
us?" Jackson’s voice rose with each word until he had everyone in the room
staring at him.
"We're afraid the killer will
kill the cat?" Amy asked sheepishly.
Justy
looked up at him from the gurney with a cajoling look, and then smiled weakly.
“Jude,
help me out here, mate.” The paramedics wheeled Justy out and into the waiting
ambulance while the others went to the car.
"I
actually like cats. They're cuddly little beasts. I know I told you I had a
cat, Jackson..." Jude said with a snicker as he slid in the back seat.
"I don't think you did, mate.
I'm sure we never could've been friends if I'd known..." He teased.
Jude reached up and playfully
punched him in the arm. They had escaped another bad situation together, and he
was thankful. He threw a prayer of thanks up to God. A niggling feeling of
guilt poked his conscious for a moment, but he forced it away. He would tell him, just not yet. He didn't
want his friend mad at him before he could sort it out in his own mind.
"I heard one of the CSU techies
say it wasn't human blood on the rug. Do they know what it came from?"
Jude heard Amy ask when he came back to the present. She was scooting into the
passenger seat of the car.
"You know, I 'm pretty sure I
told you to stay in the car when we got here." Jackson said to Amy as he
pulled out in the road.
"I did, for a second." She
pouted cutely. "I wanted to help. Did you really expect me to stay
put?"
Jackson said, "No, not really."
Jude laughed from the back seat.
They would send a car for Justy in the morning. The paramedics had assured him
they’d given her a sedative and she wouldn’t wake until morning.
He was
going to call and make sure she got to the hospital. He remembered an incident
with Amy not too long ago where she'd never made it because she'd been
kidnapped. He sighed deeply and laid his head on the cool metal door frame, and
was out before they hit the first stoplight.
