Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

Near one wall a large number of high-quality color photos had been strewn across the floor. They showed a young woman, late teens, and had clearly been taken from a distance with a good zoom lens without her knowing. He recognized her as Jennifer Miller, the victim’s girlfriend, who was in the hospital recovering from a concussion. The photos formed a haphazard chronicle of various everyday activities in her life. There were full-body photos, multiple headshots, and enlargements of her eyes and mouth. He left them in place and snapped individual photos of each on his phone.

One ESU officer remained––a man called Tim Marks. They had been on several raids together. Like many in the ESU team, Marks was an ex-Marine, but Williams considered him less of a Jarhead and more what he termed ‘the reasonable man in the room’––someone who he could get an objective opinion from. “What’s your take on all this, Marks?” he asked.

“Take a look at these,” Marks said, pointing to a pile of photos in a trash bin in the corner of the room. Williams used his pen to move the photos around in the bin. They all pictured Jennifer with a young man whose face had been cut from each photo.

“It looks like he definitely had it in for this young man.”

Williams considered that if the missing boy’s face was that of John Logan, then this seemed to be very compelling evidence that Hardwell was the attacker, yet something still didn’t feel right. Williams had seen the wound on the victim’s body. It wasn’t an amateurish attempt— it was clean, quick and deep. Almost professional. Everything about this suspect was a mess. Nothing seemed to add up.

Looking over the room again, Williams noticed some marks to the headboard of the bed in the corner. Because it was yet another piece of battered, junkyard furniture in the apartment, the marks in its worn varnish didn’t initially register as unusual. But as he looked closer, he could see slivers of wood had been gouged out to form crudely fashioned letters, repeatedly spelling out the name J-E-S-S-I-C-A, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. The color of the exposed raw wood in one set of letters appeared much fresher than the rest. As he thought, they had been carved recently. Perhaps with the same knife used to stab John Logan, he pondered. But if it had been Hardwell making the marks, why spell out ‘Jessica’? The name of the girl in the photos and the victim of the attack was most definitely ‘Jennifer.’

Williams looked at his watch. It was just after five in the morning. He confirmed that Marks could leave as soon as CSU arrived to process the apartment.

Seven

Next morning, Jennifer was still adamant about John needing to rest, and with his wound still reddened and sore, he couldn’t argue. She left him in her room and took an Uber to meet her father at the 109th precinct in Queens. During the ride, her attention was held by the orange hue of a vast number of spirits co-habiting the city, and in particular by the acrobatics of a number of surfing and car-hopping spirits, just like the ones John had described. She walked straight past a crowd of spirits outside the precinct, careful to avoid any acknowledgement of their presence. The only followers she had were on social media, and she intended to keep it that way.

Inside, in the lobby, Jennifer saw a couple more spirits hanging by the reception desk. She gave them a cursory look as she approached the desk sergeant. They were young women with skirts that were unashamedly too short, tops that were too tight and cut too low.

As the desk sergeant took her details, she overheard one of the female spirits size her up and comment that with a bit of work, she could make some decent coin turning tricks. It took nearly all her restraint not to say anything.

She was asked to take a seat, and ten minutes later she was approached by a man who introduced himself as Detective Williams and explained that he was in charge of the case. He escorted her to an observation room, which looked onto an interview room. Her father was already waiting. So was another man, and she guessed from the badge hanging from his neck that he was another detective.

The room had subdued lighting, which further emphasized the view through the one-way window onto the brightly lit interview room. David gently grasped his daughter by her arms and calmly told her not to worry.

Detective Williams introduced his colleague as Sergeant Adam Clarke. “The man we are about to bring in is Vernon Hardwell and he will be represented by his lawyer, Robert Devereux.”

“Devereux?” David Miller asked.

“Yes, you know him?”

“He left the legal clinic where I work about three weeks ago to start up on his own.”

At that moment, the door to the interview room opened. In walked a uniformed police officer, followed by a man, medium-height, with his head lowered and hands cuffed in front of him, his elbows bent to accommodate a sizeable paunch. The height and build seemed right to Jennifer. Not many people were taller than John.

Jennifer watched as the detainee was pushed by the officer to sit in a chair on the side of the table facing the mirror. He kept his head lowered as one of his hands was uncuffed and the spare bracelet clamped around a thick, U-shaped steel bar, both ends of which were buried into the steel table. She felt relief that he wasn't going anywhere but agonized over still not being able to see his face. She didn’t want to see it––but she needed to for this all to be over.

Detective Williams entered the interview room and sat down opposite Hardwell. His head obscured Jennifer’s view of the suspect. Sergeant Clarke, who had remained in the viewing room, saw her moving sideways to get a better