Skip to main content

Pandora's Children - Part 23

"What about the rest of you?" I asked.

They shook their heads.

"Take them out to the "Why not?" I asked.

"Dana told her you were coming," Aurora said, her behavior more #effervescent than before. "Hope was incensed and killed them all for letting you get that close. She sent everyone away hours ago. They're probably all over the country by now."

"Shit."

***

"We'd better call the captain," I said. "Have the CSIs go through this place with fine tooth comb. Collect everything."

You don't really think that's going to be a #panacea, do you? What do you expect to find? Hope probably stripped this place before we had the warrant."

***

"I'm not giving up. We'll find them," I said and then slapped my forehead. "Get Aurora back here. Now!"

"What?" Jaci asked.

"I'm going to have a #sapid talk with her. She knows more than she's letting on."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Trust me. She's very important."

***

Aurora was dragged back in, surly now. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to congratulate you on your masterful misdirection...Hope."

Her expression changed for a microsecond, but I caught it. Jaci gasped.

"I'm going to take pleasure when I #inure your jail sentence."

***

"How did you know?" She asked.

"You thought you were smarter than us, and you had to stay to give everyone else time to escape. You also knew too much for someone who hadn't become a full member yet."

"Victory is such sweet #ambrosia," Jaci said. "You're under arrest."

***

Hope smiled thinly. "You'll never find them. You'll never catch them. You'll never find the #penetralia they each chose. I win."

"You're going to get the needle for this. And I will track down every last one of your killer cult members and put them behind bars. We win."

***

Two days later, the house had been processed, everyone was in jail or dead, and I was sitting at my #carrel in the bullpen.

"The FBI is going to take over because they'll probably cross state lines," the captain told me. "You solved a lot of cases. You should be proud."

***

"I am, but I'm exhausted. I've seen so much the last few days. I just need time to unwind."

"Take some leave, you have enough built up. Go home. Don't think about the job."

"I think I will, thanks."

Outside, a #zephyr ruffled my hair. I headed home for a long break.

END

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Atlas Missing - Part 1

I came out to the lake once a week, sat on the edge, and stared. We'd recovered a lot of bodies during the case to stop Pandora's Children, a cult of serial killers, almost a year ago, but the rest had become #benthos, fodder for the bottom feeding life under the water. *** When we learned that the cult members had escaped, the captain tried to #constellate a task force, but the FBI took over, claiming that the killer cultists would cross state lines. Turns out they were right. Special Agents across the country are trying to track them down. *** I took a leave of absence to clear my head, but found myself trying to #ingurgitate as much as I could about cult culture, to learn the dynamics, and what drove them. The cult leader may have been dead, and her daughter in jail, but I knew someone would take over. *** I remembered one of the cultists had claimed the Indigenous term "Orenda" as a religion, and I almost thought about getting a #periapt to protect myself, but I d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome To 2020

Welcome to my new blog, fresh for 2020. This will be primarily used, at least for now, for my Twitter #vss365 murder mystery entitled Pandora's Children. I plan to put other stories up on here as well, short stories and vignettes. Anything I write until I decide to publish it elsewhere. See you soon. Marc
Post a Comment
Read more

Atlas Missing - Part 4

When I got home I pulled up yesterday's newspaper's headlines. I scrolled through and stopped when I saw one particular article. A young man had been found in a shallow grave. They didn't say how he died but I knew who was responsible. LaShonda Marcus was #anathema to me. *** I'd been reading about an increase in serial murders all over the country and I was pretty sure that the majority of them were being committed by the former cult members of Pandora's Children. It was becoming a #pandemic the likes of which law enforcement had never seen. *** At least I knew where I was going to be sent. Thinking about that made me think about leaving the Fort Worth Police Department. I hadn't been smart about it and kind of forced them to #ostracize me. I'd been mad at the time, but life was too short, and I'd made amends. *** I'd apologized to the captain and the rest of the detectives on the team because I have #empathy and I could tell I'd wronged them. I...
Post a Comment
Read more