Justice Unserved by Nadia Siddiqui (7 ebook reader TXT) 📗

been trying to organize a local group that will look privately into the recent crime sprees or raise money to hire a private investigator. They have all failed of course, personally sabotaged by himself. He doesn’t like having people poking around in his private affairs. The rest of the community is happy to be scared from a distance but not her, not Emma. Sheriff Crane is going to put a stop to this tonight. He will put a stop to Emma personally if he has to, but he would much rather hit her where he knows it will hurt her the most. He will have to take her father. He’s a little earlier into the stages of dementia than Crane normally likes, the only ones he lets live are the ones who have to remember the horror in flashes but never be able to properly retell it. Those are his favorites.

He gets a notification over the radio that Emma has returned home and he knows that’s when he’s supposed to make his big move. That’s when he’s supposed to head down to the hospice center. He arrives only minutes later, dressed all in black. He’s wearing a comfortable sweater and soft, quiet shoes. There're only a couple of night guards and usually they take these later hours to sleep or compete with one another on their small video games. Last he heard it was some sort of boxing match where the two of them held even chances at the title and therefore were very unlikely to care if somebody were to slip their attention and sneak into the building. The cameras are all so far out of date that they have physical tapes that he will pick up on his way out of the building. This particular building he has hit a handful of times. Three murders, one accidental death and a string of Alzheimer’s patients in their early nineties. Crane has even taken the time to have his own copies made of the keys to all of the parts of this building. He might as well be invisible.

He doesn’t even have to guess as to the path to the room holding Emma’s father. He knows this place like the back of his hand. He can already feel the excitement starting to build inside of him. He can already feel that itching in his fingers as he adjusts the fit of the beige latex gloves covering his hands. He cannot wait to drink in the fear in that old bastard’s eyes as he wakes him by dragging him out of his warm, comfortable bed. He cannot wait to see all of the pieces slowly start to fit together. Crane wonders which version of Emma’s father he’s going to get. Is he even going to remember who he is? Is he going to know where he is or even what’s happening to him? He likes it best when they are mentally aware in that moment, thinking that they are a younger version of themselves perhaps and yet their old, frail bodies can do nothing at all to stop what’s going to happen to them. He likes the rush of it. He likes knowing that he holds their life in his hands.

He pushes open the heavy hospital door slowly, savoring the medicated smell of the air in the room. He moves in slowly, armed with nothing but his bare hands and a heavy dose of bloodlust. This will scare little Emma to her core, she will be so heartbroken. He cannot wait to drive to her house tomorrow to deliver the news and play the dutiful sheriff delivering bad news as he watches her fall to pieces knowing the truth. He cannot wait to see her broken and falling into his arms.

The door clicks shut behind him softly and it is the first indication that something has gone wrong.

The door isn’t supposed to make any noise at all behind him. It’s supposed to shut whisper soft and leave him alone in this otherwise silent room with just the beeping of monitor that keeps his sleep apnea in check. Instead there is nothing. Crane looks at the mass on the bed and it appears to be in place.

Then he starts to register the walls. They aren’t plain like they normally are. They don’t have the same family portraits framed in bulky bits of wood like they normally did when he passed. The large cross that’s hanging standard in all of the rooms is covered by something else. Curiosity gets the better of Crane and he moves closer to inspect what appears to be printed glossy photographs hanging all over the walls.

As he gets closer he can see that they are portraits. Some are autopsy photographs and some are pictures of them from eulogies, but each picture is a face that he recognizes. Unsettling is that it’s not only his eldest round of victims. The walls are covered ceiling to floor with picture after picture as if it was makeshift wallpaper. Each body that he has buried or burned is decorating the walls. Who could have done this? Not Emma, she lacks the brains to pull this off. She couldn’t have hired somebody without his knowing. This is too specific for just anybody to have done it.

Crane’s mind snaps to the only new addition to the town in weeks. The reporter, but how? What would he stand to gain from putting this together? He can’t possibly know. How could this have happened? The people on this wall shouldn’t have been able to be traced back to him no matter how hard they looked. It was the basic rules, if there isn’t a body then there is no crime. If you have no evidence then there can’t be a crime and Crane has made sure to handle every aspect like this that he possibly could. He knows this.

He can’t remember the last time he felt frightened.