Missing - Adam Nicholls (ready player one ebook txt) 📗
- Author: Adam Nicholls
- Performer: -
Book online «Missing - Adam Nicholls (ready player one ebook txt) 📗». Author Adam Nicholls
“Everything.”
“Look, man, the guy comes, pays ahead, and asks for privacy. We don’t speak.”
Mason shrugged him off and looked at the room number. “Evie, room seven.”
“Now, wait a minute.” The clerk rose, standing only for Mason to shove him back down again. “You can’t just waltz in here like you own the place. I’ll need to see—”
But Mason didn’t want to hear it. He slid the key for room seven off the hook and marched outside, Evie a few steps ahead of him. The clerk was hobbling behind, protesting his guest’s right to privacy.
“Over here,” Evie said, stopping outside the room.
“If you go in there, I’m calling the police,” the clerk said, folding his arms.
“Go ahead,” Mason told him. “Ask for Detective Bill Harvey.” He slid the key into the door and jerked it. It put up a little resistance but finally clicked and creaked open. He was expecting to be faced with the infamous Lullaby Killer but instead found something far worse.
Evie stood beside him and squinted into the dark room, their jaws both dropping at once.
What they saw was enough to give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.
“Hurry up with that police call,” Mason yelled at the clerk. “Request an ambulance, too!”
The smell was unreal: sweat, blood and something musty. As dark as it was inside, it was clear enough to see the boy, beaten black and blue and sprawled out across the bed. He looked dead, and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t live much longer.
“Wait here,” he told Evie, stepping inside and grabbing the lamp off the cabinet. He wrapped the cord around his fist and gripped the lamp, moving to the adjoining room with his back to the wall. Anyone could be in here, he knew, and he would have to clear it before he could tend to the boy.
Steeling himself, Mason pushed open the door to what was a clean bathroom. The lights were on, but nobody was inside. He tried not to touch too much—this was a crime scene, and he didn’t want to contaminate it any more than he’d have to.
The next door was only a closet, with nothing inside but spare linen. Assured now they were alone, Mason dropped the lamp and ran to the boy, looking down at his body. There was blood on his shirt, right around the belly.
Mason checked for a pulse but felt nothing.
“Ugh!” The boy gasped, one last desperate ounce of life returning to him.
Mason ripped the pillowcase off a nearby pillow, scrunched it up, and pressed it to the boy’s wound. It looked like a knife tear. “Ryan Carter? You need to hang in there, okay? We’re going to get you to a hospital.” It may have been falling on deaf ears, but he imagined this was his own daughter, and nothing would stop him from trying.
“Stand back,” he called to Evie, lifting the kid in his arms and taking him outside. He needed air, space, and to get away from the crime scene. Lowering Ryan onto the ground, he held up his head.
“My God. What happened?” Evie asked, stunned.
“He’s been stabbed. He’s dehydrated, too. Where’s that ambulance?”
Evie disappeared to a nearby wall and opened up the ice dispenser.
The clerk returned with a phone in his hand. “I called them. It’s on its way. Hey, is that little boy gonna be okay?”
“He’d fucking well better be!” Mason was losing it. He couldn’t let the Lullaby Killer win. Not at the cost of this young boy, nor any other.
Evie returned with a bottle of water, trickling it between the boy’s lips.
“Easy. Don’t choke him,” Mason said.
“I wasn’t going to. Hey, look.” Evie pointed at the boy’s hand, where a reddened bandage barely covered the absence of his pinkie finger.
That son of a bitch, Mason thought.
Little Ryan Carter groaned, rolled his head to one side, and stopped breathing.
“No,” Mason said, his energy failing him. “Please, no.” And as he held the dying boy in his arms, all he could imagine was the face of Owen Carter as he told him he’d failed to save his son.
The Lullaby Killer had been scoping out a new victim. He’d named this activity the School Run, and there’d been plenty to choose from. With that in mind, he’d even considered moving to the other side of San Francisco to carry out his work.
Stay unpredictable.
With the Carter twin put down once and for all, he now had the time to think about a new lullaby. It was a nice touch, he thought as he pulled onto the empty stretch of road. These little enigmas kept the police guessing—kept Mason Black guessing—for a number of years. And while they’d wasted their time trying to find some sort of a hint within the madness of his signatures, he’d simply run off into the sunset.
Wendell even liked the name; the Lullaby Killer had a nice ring to it.
The RV was a bitch to drive, but it got the job done. He continued up the road to collect the twin’s body so he could keep it concealed until the ransom was paid.
The thought of the money excited him. He could go anywhere. Do anything. All of the greatest killers in America’s history had moved around the map—some of whom had never been caught. He could become one of them. One of the greats.
“Oh, no,” he said aloud as he saw what was in the distance. “Oh. Fucking. No.”
Ahead of him, a host of police cars surrounded Romero’s Motel.
Wendell tried to tell himself they hadn’t found the body, but of course they had. Why else would they be there? He slowed down just enough to see the commotion without drawing attention upon himself.
You again. His blood began to boil at the very sight of him. Mason Black. Every time there was a bump in the road, this guy was right there. Why can’t you just leave it alone, huh?
Registering the ambulance as he drove past, and seeing the Carter kid being lifted into it, he pictured his million dollars disappearing down a deep well. With his escape gone and a new plan in mind, he carried straight on down the road.
You’re on thin ice, Mr. Black.
The ambulance arrived in record time, but Bill and Owen had taken longer.
“We think he’s going to be fine,” the paramedic said. “We’ll just get him to the hospital and have him all patched up.”
Bill thanked the EMTs and sent them on their way, while forensics and police officers fluttered around them to examine the crime scene. “You did good, Mason.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “The killer’s still out there. We may have spilled the glass, but the bottle is still poisoned.” He turned back to the room where Ryan Carter had been bleeding out only a few minutes ago. He thought about how close he’d been to losing another child and shivered.
“Mr. Black,” Owen called, stepping away from the ambulance and hopping over the puddles. “I have to follow them back to the hospital, but I wanted to come and thank you.” He held out a hand and shook with Mason. “Please contact me about your fee. That million I was going to pay up, it’s yours if you want it.”
Evie had stood quietly until now. “Take it.”
Mason shook his head. “You’re just light-headed from seeing your boy again. Keep the money and scratch the bill. This has never been about the payday.”
Owen’s expression turned serious, as did Bill’s and Evie’s. “Both of my kids were abducted, and they were both returned to me alive. I’m the luckiest man on the planet.” All smiles, he headed back to his car and followed the ambulance.
“That’s some seriously good
Comments (0)