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

His mother used to like to say that he was a strange child because not once did he come crawling into their bed at night. She would remark to anybody for a time that he was just such a good baby because he was never startled and didn’t have any problem walking right up to a hornets’ nest and pushing at it. For a while she thought her son was fearless and brave. Then, over the years, she started to shift that narrative until she was calling him impulsive and reckless.

There in the corner, there is her face. The portrait is the same as the one that used to hang on his father’s side of the bed in their farmhouse. Crane hasn’t bothered to think about his mother for some time … and he certainly doesn’t like thinking about her now.

Crane is so focused on the faces in front of him that he misses the body on the bed behind him starting to sit upright and pull the covers from his face.

It isn’t the body he is expecting and Thomas Crane is in for a shock when he slowly turns around the room. He doesn’t notice right away that he isn’t alone like he thought that he was and that the man on the bed isn’t at all somebody who won’t put up a fight. Nathan Doe is every bit the killer that Crane is, but Nathan Doe only kills when no other justice will possibly be served in the situation. His career is a unique one and one that he doesn’t mind doing. It’s what he’s conditioned for, and he likes to ensure that his victims truly suffer for their crimes.

The surprise on Crane’s face when he spins around is priceless.

“We need to have a little talk, Sheriff Crane.” Nathan’s deep voice is softer now, quieter, because he knows that even though Crane likely has taken precautions not to be caught, he doesn’t want to risk it.

“You?”

Nathan nods. He likes that he has played his role well enough to have caught him off guard.

“But you’re a reporter!”

Nathan shakes his head no slowly, though his answer doesn’t seem to really matter to Crane as Crane then tries to launch himself over the bed and toward where Nathan is now standing on the other side with a surprising amount of agility. Nathan is ready for him. A small needle filled with a powerful sedative has been at the ready in his hand. He ducks to the side of Crane’s angry form and jams the needle straight into the meat of Crane’s thigh, eliciting a hiss of pain before the sheriff crashes down onto the plastic-wrapped mattress in an effort to get the intrusion out of his leg.

The sedative works quickly, the darkened room quickly blinking out of Crane’s field of vision until he is consumed by nothingness.

***

Sometime later, Thomas Crane wakes to find himself seated in a wheelchair. He cannot feel the lower parts of his body. He cannot lift his arms even so much as to struggle against the bonds that secure him in place. All he can do is sit and stare at the man who has finally bested him as he sits gagged and secured to this chair. Crane almost wishes he had known about the real purpose of the interview when he had met this bastard in his office; he would have handled this issue then. He should have looked into him as a person more, he should have connected the dots, and now he needs to find a way to get out of this. “Who are you? Let me go right now, you cannot detain an officer!” Crane is nearly shouting.

“Well, you’re so much more than an officer, aren’t you?”

“Let me loose!”

The man says nothing for a long time before finally pointing to a face on the wall. “This lady had seven children. Seven. Can you imagine that?” The man laughs. “No, I don’t suppose you can because you can’t think of anything beyond yourself.” The man chuckles to himself, clearly not needing a response from Crane whatsoever. The man pulls a mask up over the lower half of his face and Crane can’t help but wonder why the man would bother, he already knows what he looks like. Then it dawns on him that perhaps it doesn’t matter that he knows what this man looks like because this man doesn’t intend to let him leave.

“What did you inject me with?”

“A fast-acting sedative; the faster your heart beats the better it works, so the fact that you’re frightened right now is really working well for me.”

“I’m not scared of you!”

The man doesn’t answer, simply walks over to where Crane is seated and places two fingers against the jugular vein in his neck and measures his pulse.

“It appears that you are, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wet yourself soon. You won’t be able to control it; you won’t ever be moving any of your disgusting limbs ever again.”

Crane can’t accept that, he cannot accept that as a possibility and mentally his body is thrashing around against his bonds, but physically he’s hardly moving his mouth well enough to form his words properly. “You won’t get away with this.”

The man smiles under his mask, Crane can see the crinkling around the corners of his eyes. “I don’t have to get away with anything. You’re the only person who will be in here. Emma will have paperwork showing that a facility transfer was processed for her father today and he has been moved safely, which will clear her. You, however, will be found in this room come morning, alive but fully lobotomized, surrounded by your victims. A journal is going to be found at your house detailing each and every one of your crimes as well as the location for every body you have buried out