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PART 1: RED, RED WINE
LOS ANGELES. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2023
It wasn't just how gruesome the scene was, how the blood of the young woman had stained the wall with red splashes—almost as if it had been a commissioned Jackson Pollock painting. It wasn't that the trace of her actions revealed just how scared she had been moments before her death, the broken bottle of wine at the entry of her apartment, the vase of flowers that trailed in the direction of the hallway, the shattered mirror that had been struck with the force of a baseball bat, which the police later found perfectly resting on top of the sofa. The blow had been high, much higher than her reach, and from the way it had cracked, it had not been her who had wielded it, or the other thirteen times it had hit the walls.
It also wasn't that breeze that came in from the open terrace. Although it made the atmosphere more creepy as it blew the thin curtains inside making a fluttering noise.
What made the murder unusually chilling was that glass.
A single, perfect glass of wine, placed on the floor, right under where her body had been propped, wrapped in a white bed sheet hanging from the second floor as if it was a baby being cradled. And that noise, that constant and steady drip filling the glass with each drop of blood that was left on her tiny body.
"Do we know the identity of the victim?" Detective Kincaid asked. It wasn't usual for the LAPD to have these types of cases as of late. They had gotten used to the common murders, the crimes of passion, the altercations between people that in the heat of the moment turned deadly. But this, this had been staged. Almost poetically and, at the same time, it reeked of violence, of revenge. The murderer knew the victim and was clearly sending a message.
"The apartment belongs to a"—his young colleague looked through her notes—"Jing Lau."
"Lau? Why does that name sound so familiar?"
"Well, according to the building security guard, her family is really wealthy, and she was a popular influencer."
"Like a TikToker or something?"
"An Instagram travel blogger, and about her parents, Google says that she is the daughter of Petra and Henry Lau. They own Lau Central Pacific Holdings, a private equity firm, and have a lot of properties along the pacific coastline."
"So, she was famous and had a powerful family."
"It looks that way."
"At least we know one thing, this wasn't a murder for money, this was personal," the detective said as the CSI team finished letting loose the sheet nod from the chandelier and lowered the victim's body to a stretcher. "We need to find out if she had a boyfriend, a lover, a stalker. We must gather all details of this woman's life before the press gets ahead of us."
"Will do," the young cop nodded and began walking toward the front door. "I'll start with her neighbors."
He took a deep breath, glancing around the apartment. He had a bad feeling, especially now that the date was approaching. Halloween had a tendency to bring out the darker side of people, and a murder like that could only be a harbinger of more deaths.
"Detective," his partner called from a different room. Kincaid hurried to his side, receiving an empty envelope stained in blood. "Look at this."
"Seattle Fire Department 2023 Firefighter's Ball?"
"It looks like there was an invitation inside, but it's gone."
"Find out the date of this ball," Kincaid said, giving it back. "And dust it for prints, maybe we will get lucky."
"Yes, boss."
Seattle was far north from California, but if the killer had taken that invitation, if that's where he were headed, he could anticipate his next move.
For the next few days, Detective Kincaid theorized about the killer's intentions, on who he could be, about the connection to his victim, but she had no enemies, she didn't speak to her parents, and she had no relation with the daughter she had given birth to a few years ago. She had been adopted by a nice family of five.
So, what connection could she have to that Firefighters ball? As far as they knew, Jing-Jing Lau had not confirmed her attendance and they had found several plane tickets for The Valak's tour, a trip of abandoned convents of the 1950s starting in Italy, passing through France and ending in Romania at the exact date of that party.
"They found another body, boss," his partner informed him as he entered the detective's office with a series of printed photographs he tossed on his desk. "CCTV cameras caught a man wearing a Michael Myers mask leaving the crime scene, a rehab center in Portland. He is the same height and build of the man that the security cameras of Jing Lau's apartment building caught the day of the murder."
"Damn it, this is the fifth body. He is getting closer to Seattle."
"I notified the FBI again, but they don't believe the murders are connected and have their hands full with the investigation of the infestation at that faculty in Herrington, Ohio."
Mark Kincaid was patient, but this news turned his stomach.
"You are telling me that, the FBI actually believes that a new invertebrate species found in a football field is possessing people but not that a killer is loose leaving actual victims in his path?"
"I'm sorry, boss, but it looks that way."
"Fine then. I'm calling Gale Weathers and releasing all the information we have," the detective picked up his cellphone and looked for that dreaded contact. "Maybe her Instagram live show will get the FBI's attention or at least warn the killer's next victims."
"But, boss, Gale Weathers is a double-edged sword."
"I know, but like it or not, her groupies will help us find this man," Kinkaid made a turn in his seat as the phone rang, waiting to be answered. "Gale, hey," he greeted, listening to people talking all around her. "No, Sydney and the kids are just fine now, but…"—he hesitated to tell her for a second, she had destroyed many of his investigations turning them into books—"I have some information for you… It's happening again."
PART 2: PSYCHO KILLER
"Oh, my God…"
"What?" Maya replied to that surprised exclamation coming from her wife, who still remained in her bathrobe, sitting on their bed, looking at her phone.
"Oh, my God!"
"Carina, what is it?"
"OH-MY-GOD!" The Italian was still not answering her, looking more and more worried, as if a shark tornado had hit Seattle. "Gale just posted a new Story."
"Ugh, Jesus Christ, that woman," Maya complained. Lately it was all Carina talked about. True crime this, true crime that, Gale Weathers's All you never needed to know or whatever the name of that shitty show was called. It was exhausting.
"She just arrived in Seattle!"
Maya rolled her eyes, almost making a 360-degrees turn inside her head.
"Please, get ready. Everyone will be here soon, and the limo is not going to wait until you finish fangirling over that reporter."
"Bambina! I've been telling you for over two days. There is a killer on the loose and Gale thinks he is coming to Seattle. We need to think if it's safe for us to go to that ball."
"Carina, no one is coming, alright? It's Halloween. That psycho killer is just making up a story to promote her latest book—which I'm sure you already pre-ordered," Maya said, finishing to fix her blouse inside her pants. Carina moved her eyes from side to side wondering how Maya found out. She actually had purchased the ticket to see her at the Chicago Crime Convention. She had even paid extra for a photoshoot and an autograph but was telling Maya she was leaving for work that week. "We are going to this ball. Ben is getting his award and there will be food."
"I'm concerned, bambina. Gale said that there was a big party that the killer might be attending and—"
"And nothing, get ready, please. I'll protect you."
"Bambina, this is a real murderer, you are a firefighter—"
"Even a better reason to stick together," Maya insisted, interrupting her poor, concerned and influenced wife. "What if you stay here in the apartment and the killer comes for you," Maya made her way to the closet and pulled out Carina's dress. "Then I'll be the one asking, "What's in the box? What's in the box? In the middle of a desert and I really don't want to do that, okay? Get up, get dressed and lets go."
"Why don't we take off your clothes and I can show you what's in my box," Carina said with the sexiest of voices as she stood up and opened her robe, showing her wife what she was missing. She didn't want to go to that ball and maybe Maya would take the bait.
"Oh, oh, oh, oh… I know what's in your… box…" She replied walking backwards from Carina who had dropped the robe on the floor. Maya could never resist that beautifully tanned body.
But as it had been planned to ruin their fun, the doorbell started ringing.
"They are here, get dressed," Maya said, stepping out of their bedroom to welcome their friends. Carina got her gown and all she needed to dress up and locked herself in their bathroom.
"Oh, my God!"
All their guests heard from afar.
"Is your wife okay?" Vic asked Maya as she helped Jack open the bottle of red wine they had purchased on their way.
"She is obsessed with this murder thing."
"Oh! Everything you didn't know you wanted to know about crime?" Andy recognized, taking the wine glasses from the cabinet. "She showed me the other day. It looked fun."
"Fun?" Travis added, fixing the collar of his shirt as if it were tight around his neck. "Gale Weathers wouldn't know what fun is if it stabbed her in the heart." He unbuttoned his bowtie and continued moving his collar around. "Her books are sooo boring, just like this stupid suit."
"You look great," Vic insisted, she had been telling him that all the way from their home.
"I look like a penguin," he protested. "It's Halloween! I want to have fun! And I'm no longer a politician, so…"
"Bambina! Gale just made an announcement. She is disclosing the location of the party the killer might be attending." Carina came out of their room with her phone in her hand, at least she was ready.
"Well, take the Polaroid camera so you can take a picture with him if he shows up at our ball."
Carina tried making an angry face, but that was actually a good idea because, if that was the case, Gale would be there too.
"I can't! I-can't!" Travis took off his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt. "I can't go to the ball like this. No!"
"Bro, just chill," Jack said as he started passing the wine glasses to everyone present. "I'm sure Maya has something you can borrow."
"What? My clothes?"
"You are a little tomboyish, I'm sure you have something," Jack insisted, and as he was about to give Andy her glass he tripped with his own foot and spilled half of the wine over the floor.
"You better clean that up, instead of giving Travis dressing ideas with my clothes."
"Dress! I can wear a dress!"
"Oh! I think I have the perfect dress for you," Carina said, went to their closet and came back with the most beautiful, fluffy dress ever worn by a bridesmaid.
"Oh, my God! I love it! Tell me there is a hat that goes with it?"
Maya and Vic looked at it thinking it was atrocious.
"What is that from? The Little House On The Prairie?" Vic asked, making Andy almost choke with her wine. Maya and they laughed, but Carina and Travis didn't care and went back to their bedroom to get him ready.
"Now that is a horror show," Andy added and suddenly they all turned around when they heard a hollow thump. Jack had slipped on the wine he had spilled a few minutes ago and had hit his head on the floor… again.
"Bro, my head…"
"Jesus Jack, this is the third time you hit it, are you alright? How many fingers am I holding?" Maya showed him her hand.
"Just the middle one," Jack replied, getting up. He reached his hand to his head, feeling it wet, but it was only the wine.
"Three Jack, I was holding three fingers," Maya confirmed he wasn't okay. "You need to get your head checked."
"I'll take him to the hospital, and we will meet you at the ball later," Andy suggested, taking him by the arm and guiding him to the front door.
"I'm fine, I promise. Just a little dizzy."
"We better go just in case Carina and Gale are right and there is a killer going to our ball, because if you don't get checked, you will be the first one to die tonight," Andy insisted, pressing the button of the elevator as she listened to her friends compliment Travis who for sure looked awful in that dress.
"Let's go, the limo is waiting!"
PART 3: DISCO INFERNO
No one suspected what was to come that night. The date had been chosen with the idea of incorporating some mystery into the outfits of the guests, after all, a masquerade ball would make it more fun. At least for him, who watched in disguise from a corner as his victims arrived in black tie dresses, posing for pictures, delighting themselves with glasses of red wine, after all, white wine was not very halloweeny.
He smiled as he watched Theo arrive alone, that guy did not deserve Vic Hughs as a girlfriend, but soon he saw her coming into the building, meeting him at the entrance hall. She was impeccably gowned in a body-tight dress as red as the wine.
The drop of a glass on the floor broke his fixation in what appeared to be a fight between them, and he turned around, seeing a young pregnant waitress trying to get up after falling and making a bloody mess right next to him. His first instinct was to help her, but he got distracted when he saw Maya and Carina enter with a strange woman in a beige dress wearing a huge hat, but this was a night event, not a ferry boat party. Just for that, she had earned the fate of the rest of those present.
He waited until the guests took their pictures and celebrated one more year of that sacred institution that had taken his life away. What a joke. He had sacrificed everything to later be forgotten, thrown in an institution as if his legacy had meant nothing.
He took a final glance at the people finally entering the floor where dinner was going to be served. If they only knew that he had messed with the wine that was about to be served, adding a sedative to every bottle. Soon enough they all would be passed out at their tables, as the building burned.
He backed away with a smile that no one could see over that full-face mask. No one would even know he had been the one to bring down the Seattle Fire Department.
It didn't take him long to reach the basement and pass through the kitchen where everyone was busy setting every plate about to be served. Too busy to notice him going straight to the pantry, where he had hidden his weapons, a big rusty kitchen knife and a lighter. With the latter he would start the fire at the coat closet, it would burn directly below the dancing floor, reaching the dining room soon enough, and with the knife he would maim everyone that got in his way.
But he wasn't expecting her to be there, dancing to the loud salsa music playing upstairs—which carried all over the building. She had opened a bag of Doritos and was double dipping in a jar of spicy salsa.
"Aaah!" Andy yelled when she gave a turn—hip first—and bumped into him. "You scared me to death!" She inhaled a few times, normalizing her breathing as he stared at the knife on the shelf right behind her. "Ay, mi Dios," she continued holding her chest with one hand and the salsa dip in the other, now laughing at the scare. "Are they serving dinner already? I'm starving."
The killer said nothing, she was supposed to be upstairs, she was messing his timing, and his plan could be compromised.
"Hello? Mi gente, ¿me estás escuchando?"
He growled, taking one step toward her, making her step back until she hit her head.
"What are you doing? Let me out!"
"No more salsa for you, Herrera," he said pushing himself just one more inch. She opened her eyes wide. She recognized that voice, she hadn't heard it in a while, but she had it imprinted in her brain.
"Oh, my God! It's you! Gale Weathers… Carina—"
She couldn't make another sound as he lifted her up by the neck, took the knife from behind her and pressed it in her gut.
The jar of salsa fell from her hand, breaking into a thousand pieces and splashing that intense red color all over the floor and then, a few seconds later, she fell right on top of it.
"I said no more salsa."
The killer fixed his mask and left the pantry, locking the door so no one would find her before he finished putting his plan in motion. He hurried to the coat closet and walked right to the back. It was best to start the fire there, it would reach the walls faster, making the building collapse in a matter of hours.
He took out the lighter of this jacket pocket when he heard the smacking. He wasn't alone in that room. He turned around and saw them making out. They startled when he protested.
"I'm sorry, I know we shouldn't be here, man. But don't worry, we were just leaving."
It was that pathetic excuse for an interim captain that Ross had selected over Bishop.
"Theo Ruiz."
"Hey, man! Who are you dressed as? I didn't recognize you," Theo said. He still hadn't, but he thought it was funny that that man was wearing a mask that in a way resembled a hockey one and that his voice was deep and raspy. He looked like Jason, from the Friday the 13th movies.
Theo died with that smile in his face—as if he was the joker—because the strike of the kitchen knife on his neck was so fast he didn't imagine those were going to be his last words.
"Aaah! Aaah!" Kate started yelling when she realized her old friend and current lover's head had rolled to her feet. And then a thump quieted her down as her head fell right on top of his. Their bodies slowly accommodated with the force of gravity over the rag of coats, looking like a tripod as the killer finally lit the fire, right under them.
He had taken revenge on that man, the sixth on his list—although it had been his seventh kill because of Andy—and made his way to the door.
"Burn, baby, burn," he exclaimed, laughing on his way down the hall. But when he was about to turn the corner, he bumped elbows with the hottest couple in the Seattle Fire department. The ones that were in every single firefighter's mouth with the heated gossip of their sexual encounter that had been made public by Chief Ross herself.
"Why the rush, bro!" Sulli complained as he almost made Natasha fall. "Hey!"
"Let him go, Sulli, I want to talk about—" Ross interrupted herself as they reached the basement, looking for some privacy to talk about their relationship. "Can you feel that heat?"
"Come on, Natasha, let's stop this. I have done all you've asked, downloaded that ridiculous dating app, traveled hours to spend a couple of days with you, just to be treated as if I was your subordinate."
"No, Sulli, I mean it. Can you feel that heatwave coming from there?"
"Oh, I'm not in the mood for sexy games, Delilah," he responded, annoyed, thinking she wanted to take him to the coat room to make up. But he felt humiliated for the rumors she had confirmed to the heads of the union, to just have sex. He drank the last of his wine and started making his way back upstairs when he felt what his girlfriend was saying. A wave of heat hit his face. "What was that?"
"I don't know." She finished her wine and went on in search of the source. Sullivan followed her, but soon he felt dizzy, and his vision got blurry.
"Natasha? Natasha?" he called her, realizing he was now surrounded by smoke. "Natasha, where are you?"
She didn't answer, as she had fainted seconds before and was lying on the floor, right in front of the coat closet.
"na-ta-S…"
In a moment, the red intense flames propagated through the walls and started consuming everything in their way upstairs, just as the killer had planned. Both lovers were wrapped in the incandescent inferno that was brewing, without even knowing that they were never going to get hotter than that.
Still, in the dining room, our group remained untouched in one of the tables. The chef had decided to serve a glass of rosé before the very exquisite red wine an anonymous donor had gifted the fire department. Only a few glasses had been taken from the bar, including those of Ross and Sullivan.
"Hey, do you smell something weird?" Travis asked.
"Maybe it is the mold in your dress," Maya replied, lifting her glass as a toast. He dismissed her with a mocking smile.
"Oh, my God!"
"What now?" Vic asked, glancing at the screen of Carina's phone.
"Gale just revealed the identities of the five previous victims!"
"We didn't know this already?" Vic added, it seemed ridiculous that if the murders started on Friday the 13th, the public wouldn't know who the victims were eighteen days later.
"That woman never reveals everything at once, she likes having her followers attached to her stupid show," Maya protested.
"I have to let Amelia and Teddy know so they are on the lookout," Carina said and got up, making the call to her friends who had the night shift at the hospital.
"Ask how Jack is doing!" Vic requested as her friend walked away, looking for a quieter place to talk. "Andy is not picking up my calls."
"That's weird, she should be here by now. She left Gibson at the hospital since Amelia wanted to do an MRI," Maya commented on the message she had gotten over forty minutes ago.
"I guess Carina will tell us when she gets back."
But she wasn't going to. Right at the entrance of the ballroom she was approached by Detective Kincaid, who had just arrived with the local police department, with the mission of evacuating the building. They had discovered the identity of the killer and were sure he wanted to take revenge on all Seattle firefighters, especially the ones of Station 19.
"I have to get my wife and her friends! They don't follow Gale!" She pleaded as she was dragged to the sidewalk by a couple of armed police men.
"Don't worry ma'am, we are getting them all out."
"Don't call me ma'am! Stupidi uomini, mia moglie è dentro con un assassino a piede libero!"
Of course they didn't anticipate that the flames had already consumed a big part of the right wing and that it was rapidly spreading throughout the floors.
"Oh, my God, there is a fire!" Vic pointed at the stage curtains being burned in their entirety from one second to the next. A flash went right by her eyes. That's how her dear teacher and director had died in that play. Burnt on stage. This could not be her faith.
"Come on Vic! We have to go!" Travis said, pulling her by the arm as everyone at the ball started tripping into each other on their way to the front entrance.
"Where is Carina?" Maya yelled. She climbed on the table and started looking around but couldn't locate her.
"Miss, get down! Go to the exit!" Detective Kincaid screamed as he helped some people find their way out.
"My wife is out here, I need to find her."
"What does she look like?"
"Tall, brunette, gorgeous, Italian—"
"Italian? Obsessed with Gale Weathers?" He pointed out.
"Yes! That's her!"
"She is already outside! Come on!"
Kincaid helped Maya step down and both ran holding hands as the wooden pillars started to fall down on them in what seemed a slow camera effect.
"Oh… my God… that was… close!" she said, coughing in between words. "Where is Carina?"
"She is not here," Travis told her as Vic nodded. They managed to get outside but hadn't seen her since she left the table to make her call.
"You said she was out!"
"She was! I left her here!" Kincaid insisted. "Right here!"
"Hey, isn't that a Polaroid picture?" Travis said, pointing at the foot of the detective who picked it up.
"Oh, no," he said, alarming all present. "She has been taken by the killer."
And that's when Jack got a call, one that he wasn't in the position to answer.
PART 4: ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
It wasn't news that doctors at the Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital always had sex in any room they could find. But inside the MRI machine, and not as part of Carina's orgasm study? It was not the usual.
"I thought you wanted to do an MRI on me," Jack said to Amelia as he pulled his pants back into place. "Not me on the MRI," he laughed Looking at how flustered Amelia was.
"You are fine, Jack," she replied, also putting back her scrubs. "And I don't only mean medically."
Jack laughed again, this time a little nervous. He hadn't been with anyone since Ava and that was a year ago. He definitely felt out of the loop.
"I think your friends exaggerate a bit with your falls," Amelia confirmed that the latest blow had not caused permanent damage. "But… if you need to be under… observation…"
They were about to restart whatever had happened before, when Teddy stormed into the room and forced them to separate.
"Something happened to Carina!"
"What?" Amelia asked, without really having processed the words her friend had said.
"Carina! She called me to tell me that Gale Weathers had identified the killer's victims and the killer was at the firefighters ball, and…"
"What? At our ball?" Jack interjected.
"Yes! Yes! I've been trying to get a hold of Miranda and Ben, but nothing in the news is saying that Carina got kidnapped by the killer!"
"What!" Jack and Amelia said in unison.
"But you were speaking with Carina, right?" Amelia wanted to backtrack a few steps and figure out what had really happened.
"Yes, she told me about the victim's names and told me to be on the alert because the police were looking for the killer at the ball, and then she hung up, because she wanted to have her camera ready if Gale Weathers showed up at the ball as well."
"So, you didn't see her get taken?" Amelia concluded.
"No, but right now I saw it on Gale's live stream. She said that Carina had been taken by the killer and they have no idea of where he took her."
By then Jack had taken out his phone and realized that he had a lost call that had gone to voicemail.
Hellooo, Jack! Remember me… bruh…
The voice started, leaving the poor firefighter completely frozen.
You should've answered the call, because now I'm even more pissed than before, and I have poor Carina DeLuca with me!
"Oh, shit," Jack said, turning the audio to speaker.
I wanted to kill you all tonight so you could feel a little bit of my pain! But no, you all had to get away with it… Well… not aaall of you.
The voice laughed. And right in the back you could hear Carina's voice complaining.
So, now, you will help me out. You will call all of your friends, tell them to meet you at the station in thirty minutes, and I mean everyone, Jack! You too. And don't mention a word about me or Carina DeLuca dies!
I will fillet her, cut her into small pieces and serve her as fish food in the river. You got it?
You have half an hour, Jack. One way or another, I'm going to meet ya.
Don't disappoint me… again.
Jack was so nervous after hearing that message that he dropped his phone on the floor, and it shattered, making it impossible to hear the message again.
"What should we do?" Amelia asked, not yet able to understand what had just happened.
"If we call the police, Carina could die!" Teddy said, trying to ideate a plan. She was a military major after all. "We need to do what he asks," she concluded.
"And put everyone else in danger?" Amelia wasn't sure that was the greatest idea.
"We have no other choice."
"I think she is right. I need you to contact Ben. I'll go to the Station and I can try to dissuade him."
"How? He has Carina!" Teddy asked.
"Because I know him," Jack said. He had recognized his voice, just like Andy had before she died. "Just find Ben, tell them to go to the station and… call Gale Weathers."
"What? Why call her, we should call the police."
"Because the police are busy with all the mess at the ball, and they will not be there in a half hour. Gale will… at least according to Carina," he remembered his friend mentioning a couple of times how that reporter was so efficient at her job.
"I'm going to the station," he said, taking his jacket and putting it on as he hurried outside.
"Wait, Jack! Who is the killer?" Amelia screamed as he ran down the hall. He did not reply, he just kept running until he reached the street and stopped a cab. He opened the door, made the attempt to jump in quickly and—as if he hadn't had enough already—he hit his head again on the roof of the car.
"Take me to Station 19 and hurry! The life of the best Italian I have known depends on me."
PART 5: TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART
Detective Kincaid knew that it would be easier for him to have all the potential victims of the killer staying at the same place under the custody and protection of the police department until they could figure out where he had taken Carina DeLuca, especially because the most likely scenario was for her to be already dead and, with how gruesome the other murders had been, he didn't want her wife to be witness the cruelty a human being is capable to display. And, for all of them, the best place to group was the station since shift C—who was on duty that night—was at the scene of the fire.
Little did they know that our killer and the true crime obsessed Italian were already in the premises, waiting for Jack to fulfill his duty.
"The police said that they are going to guard every entrance and that we should try to stay in groups of three," Ben told all his remaining colleagues.
He, Vic and Travis sat down in the living room turning the TV on, as Miranda prepared something to eat and Maya kept watching Gale Weathers special report from the outsides of the ball to see if any information that woman had could tell her where her wife was.
"You stay here, Chiquitita, and don't make any noises," the killer said as he finished wrapping her body with a series of medical robes he found in the Aid Car.
"Chiquitita is Spanish, I'm Italian." Were Carina's last words…
Because the killer taped her mouth shut.
"I said don't make any noises, sweet Caroline, or I'll split Maya in two with her own ax, comprende?"
"Mm's Mmmmmm mmm M'm mmmmmm!"
The killer stepped out of the Aid Car, shutting the door behind him, leaving Carina in total darkness, and hid right in the back as he heard someone entering the barn.
"Where's that damn Ibuprofen?" Ben asked aloud, turning on the light of the dispense, revealing the shadow of the man that had been dreaming of this moment for over a year.
"Ben Warren."
Back upstairs Miranda finished making dinner, she had been too nervous to focus on anything else, but now that she was done with it, she needed to have a serious conversation with her husband. This had been enough! This firefighter's dream was over or they were, because she was about to have another heart attack and she couldn't deal with it anymore. She went downstairs to look for Ben who had gone to the barn to look for medication for his neck pain that hadn't subsided since his fall.
"Ben," Miranda called him. "Ben?"
She stepped to the back, that still had the light on and saw him on the floor.
"Ben! Oh, no!" She went down to check his pulse and it was when she noticed that his neck was broken… he was gone. "Ben, no!"
The killer would've enjoyed looking at that scene for a little while longer, but Miranda was making too much noise and he thought he needed to be done with it, there were other people at the station he needed to get to. Took a few steps, standing behind her. He would just suffocate her, but suddenly, she turned around, surprising him and he—who had the ax in his hands—struck her right in the chest with such force that her eyes went completely blank.
"Oh… well, I guess you shouldn't have turned around, bright eyes," he mocked, pulling the ax from her chest, which surprisingly came out with her whole heart attached to it. He slid it over the edge and dropped it on the floor, right in the middle of both, it looked almost poetic.
"I'm hungry," Travis complained upstairs. "I'm going to see what Miranda and Ben are up to."
"Where are you going?" Vic told him, he wasn't only breaking the rule of three people in each room, but the stairs were on the other side.
"I'll just use the pole, it's faster," little did he know that with that action, he was avoiding the killer that was on his way up the stairs.
"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed with the scene he just stumbled upon, tripping with the fluff of his dress as he hurried some steps back. He could've sworn that the heart was still beating.
At that exact moment, Jack came out of the taxi, easily making his way inside, since the police had decided to go for a burger around the block from the station and had left one single very sleeping cop monitoring the group.
"Oh, I'm late! No, bro!" His hands went straight to his head, which hurt at the touch. All his falls had him dazed and confused.
"Bro they are dead!"
"Bruh!"
"Bro!"
"No, Travis! It's our Bruh!"
"Our Bra?" Travis replied, not getting what Jack was going about. "No, I'm wearing Carina's bra!"
And, at the mention of her name, Carina started making all the noise she could.
"What's that? Is it the killer? Is he hiding in that truck?"
"No! It's not the killer! It's our Bruh, bro!"
"Our bra?" Travis still didn't understand. "I'm telling you it's not my bra, it's Carina's!"
But before that conversation circled once again, they heard the sirens of over twenty cop cars surrounding the station. Jack and Travis put their hands in the air out of instinct, and Carina went quiet. Who knew if she made more noise they would open fire on the truck. She had seen that in one of Gale's reports. Better to play dead than to be really dead.
"What the hell is going on?" Vic said, approaching the window. Maya started having the worst of feelings. Maybe they were coming with bad news about her wife. But only a few seconds later they saw the detective they encountered at the ball come out of one of the cars with a megaphone in his hand.
"Dean Miller! We know you are in there. Please, come out, don't make us go in for you."
"Dean?" Travis asked downstairs.
"I'm telling you! The killer is our bruh! He is not dead and he wants to kill us all!"
"Oh, God damn it, Jack. You could've said his name!"
"Oh… you are right," he agreed.
"But why would he kill us?" Travis said, pointing at Miranda and Ben with his head. "Them I get, they had Pru, but us?"
"I don't know, bro… I don't know!"
"You two, come with us," a police officer said, taking them still with their hands in the air.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Maya and Vic continued looking out of the window at what was going on. They had no idea why they would call their dead friend's name. They had been at his funeral, it made no sense.
"Dean Miller, you have two minutes to come down."
"I'm going to go talk to this fool," Vic said, with so much anger that she did not get scared at the sight of that shadow by the door. "No… it can't be… no…"
The killer dropped the ax on the floor and took the mask off, confirming that what the detective was saying was true.
"Holy shit! What did you do with my wife?" Maya launched at him, hitting him in the chest. "Damn you Dean! Where is Carina?"
He, surprisingly, let her get all her punches out before saying, "She is inside the Aid Car." And let her go.
"Dean Miller, we are going in."
"How could you be alive?" Vic asked, confused by feelings of happiness to see him and disgust of all that he had done. "Why are you here? What do you want?! Do you want to kill me? Did you kill Andy? Sullivan? Because we couldn't find them. Are they dead? Say something!"
But he stayed quiet, looking at her, at her wonderful face, listening to her voice, because even when angry it was the most beautiful he had seen. In time, the police made his way to him and overpowered him, cuffing him and taking him with them.
"Tell me!" Vic continued crying, following the officers to the street.
"Carina! Carina!" Maya screamed as she slid down the pole, quickly opening the Aid Car, which turned on the lights and revealed her wife wrapped like a baby on the floor. She hurried to take the tape off her mouth and to lose the ties around her body, setting her free. "Oh, my love. You are okay!"
"Bambina! I got kidnapped!"
"I know, I'm sorry, we should've stayed at home like you said and had lots of sex!"
"No, bambina! I got kidnapped! By a real-life murderer and lived! I'm sure now I'll be in one of Gale's books, comprende?"
"Ugh…" Maya protested, but looking at her excited wife made her smile. "God only knows what I'd be without you."
"Kenny 3, hurry up, film me here, right where we can see the fire trucks," Gale instructed his camera man and fixed her hair before going in the air.
"Oh, my God, bambina! That's Gale, she is here!" Carina said, sure that they were being filmed as they walked out of the barn. And, as Maya covered her face not to be on the video, Carina started waving and smiling.
"Hi, this is Gale Weathers, with an exclusive wrap of this amazing breaking story. The killer has been identified as Dean Miller, a firefighter presumed to be killed years ago while on duty, but who was actually committed by his family to a psychiatric hospital in Haddonfield, Illinois after suffering irreversible lesions in his brain. His condition would've never allowed him to lead a normal life, which is why his parents decided to fake his death and give the custody of his daughter to his colleague Ben Warren and his wife, who surprisingly knew about the entire situation and had promised never to come clean if they retained custody of the little girl." She continued telling the story as a policeman closed the barn door to examine the scene. "Miller leaves a trail of bodies, starting with the mother of his child J.J. Lau in L.A., following with his sister and parents in San Francisco, his former captain Sean Beckett in Portland and many others at the firefighters ball in Seattle tonight. His motives, a psychotic break? Pure revenge? Maybe we will never know…"
"Bambina, I'm going to stay here, okay? I want to see this live!" Carina said very excited, and even though Maya didn't want to leave her wife alone, she really didn't want to be part of the show.
"Wait, if I'm not mistaken… You are Carina DeLuca, right?" Gale said, approaching her. "You were kidnapped tonight! How did you feel? Can you tell us about the killer?"
"Oh, Gale… first of all, I'm a big fan," Carina said in the most serious tone she could put on. "And yes, I was so scared. I was grabbed at the sidewalk. He made me drop my camera and dragged me to where he had an old car and brought us here…"
Maya kept walking toward her friends who waited for them across the street.
"Do you think we will ever get over this?" Travis asked Vic and Maya.
"I don't know, but I hope that they don't have your character in that awful dress in the movie."
A few huffs were heard, they had no energy or mood for laughs.
"Mister Sandman"—Vic sang—"bring me a dream, make him the cutest that I've ever seen…"
🎃
THE END.