The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(84)

*

Had Natalie left the door unlocked?

Ryan frowned, black brows drawing together in an angry line. At a time when women were living in fear of attack, and knowing there was a man out there killing women just like her, she had no right to be so reckless.

He pushed the door open, preparing to deliver a few choice words about home safety, and froze in the doorway. Fear hit him like a wall.

Blood rushed in his ears as he moved slowly forward to see what rested on a small white tray on a table in the hallway. Three greying human fingers had been arranged into a teepee, propping up a card bearing the message, ‘CATCH ME IF YOU CAN’.

His stomach performed a series of somersaults and his teeth began to chatter, but he reverted to training. His eyes scanned every corner of the room, searching every crevice for signs of Edwards but there was nothing. Nobody.

His hands fumbled to find his phone and he pressed speed-dial for Phillips’ number.

“Pick up. For God’s sake, pick up.”

But the man was driving.

Ryan put a call through to the Control Room, requesting immediate assistance, and slid the phone back into his pocket. He moved carefully from room to room towards his bedroom and the authorised firearm he kept in a locked box on the top shelf of his wardrobe.

He never made it that far.

He pushed open the door to his spare bedroom and saw that his sister was seated on a chair in the centre of the room, so he would see her as soon as he came in. The central lights blazed overhead, illuminating the sickly colour of her skin. Her head slumped forward, and her body was unmoving, tied into place by long strands of surgical tape.

He didn’t know if she was still alive.

Exhaustion and training forgotten, Ryan surged forward to check her pulse and release her from the ties. Panic and love swamped him in equal measure, overtaking self-preservation.

The man who watched him judged it the perfect moment to strike.

Edwards lunged from behind and Ryan turned too late, seeing a flash of movement as a pressure syringe plunged into the side of his neck. He tried to fight, to pull it from his skin, but his body was already shutting down as he fell to his knees and into the oblivion he had wished for.





CHAPTER 41


Ryan opened his eyes to a blistering headache.

He was in the living area of his apartment and, remarkably, his arms and legs had not been tied. They didn’t need to be, he realised.

They would not move.

Across the room, he saw the monster hovering beside his sister and he tried to leap up from his chair, but the drugs prevented his body from responding to the frantic order.

Edwards glanced behind him to where Ryan now lay in a heap on the floor, struggling to drag himself up.

“Sedative,” he offered. “It’s obviously working well.”

The bastard was right, Ryan thought. He couldn’t feel a thing in his legs as he lay beached on the floor, but there was movement in his arms. With silent, subtle movements he reached behind to the pocket of his jeans, feeling around for his mobile phone.

It wasn’t there.

He looked across to the dining table and spotted the contents of his pockets sitting on the top.

“What do you want?” he managed, not recognising the sound of his own voice.

“For one thing, I’d like this ridiculous game of cat and mouse to end,” Edwards replied. “It’s been fun. Don’t think I haven’t enjoyed knowing you were always a few steps behind me, plodding along in your interminable way, but I’d like to regain my freedom.”

“Get out!”

“Tut, tut. After all the time you’ve spent trying to find me, I’d have thought you’d be a bit more welcoming. If I hadn’t invited myself over, who knows when you might have found me, if at all?”

Ryan used his hands to grip the carpet and drag himself along, inch by painstaking inch. Unperturbed, Edwards strolled across to one of the dining chairs and dragged it across to where he had placed Natalie, in the centre of the room like a showpiece. He seated himself beside her, crossing one elegant, suit-clad leg over the other. Ryan thought he recognised the suit as one of his own.

“Get away from her!”

He tried to heave himself upwards, crying out in frustration when his body would not cooperate.

Edwards trailed a finger over Natalie’s unconscious cheek.

“She should be coming around any time now. We’ll have a nice little chat, the three of us.”

“Not her,” Ryan begged. “Please, not her.”

Edwards raised an eyebrow.

“I bet that hurt your pride, just a little. The mighty DCI Ryan reduced to begging. On his knees, no less.”

“If you want me to beg, that’s what I’ll do. I’m begging you now. Please don’t kill her. Don’t kill my sister.”

Edwards smiled.

“You don’t understand, do you? Didn’t you ever think that I might be following your movements, just as closely as you were following mine? Having her here in your home, you placed her in front of me like an offering. A challenge to the brave. You must have known I wouldn’t be able to resist her.”

He trailed another finger across Natalie’s bare thigh, dressed in the short pyjamas she’d worn for bed.

“She’s a real beauty, this one.”

Ryan felt bile rise in his throat.