The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) (23 page)

Eyes tightly shut, I was choking
with the nerve. Under the current situation I was about to say goodbye to my
dear eyeballs and consequently, my dear life as a human being. It looked like the
worst case scenario was inevitable.

Here’s the problem:
I wasn’t ready for that. For crissake!  

In the darkness behind
the closed eyelids, I listened to my heartbeat which was booming like a bunch
of meth-crazed baboons having a rave. I was positive there was the sound of Alan
taking steps toward me, only muffled by the beat of partying apes in my heart.

I also heard something
beeping but I didn’t dare to open my eyes. I was afraid it was only my brain
beeping an emergency alarm just out of seer panic and desperation.

I spent split seconds
that felt like an eternity in the deafening sounds of jumping baboons, blazing alarms,
and the imaginary ticking of a time bomb ready to blow up. Then I heard these
magical six words from my capturer:
Better to go look and see
.

Then I heard the
sound of the killer walking away from me. The basement door opened, and closed.
Then came a silence.

Yes. A sweet,
sweet silence.

I opened my eyes. I
was alone in this room. Yay-yeah!

I felt like
starting happy dance except my body was tightly secured to the heavy wrought
iron chair. Considering I was being held merely six feet from that door, being
unable to run away was very unpleasant.

I took a glance at
the knife on the table. If I could somehow reach the knife, I might be able to
cut me loose. I thought about swinging the heavy chair and banging it to the
table to move the knife, but thought better of it. In case this chair swinging went
wrong, I might end up having a great fall, banging my head on the hard concrete
floor, and cracking my head like Humpty Dumpty. Albeit busting my head sounded somewhat
lovely, on the account it would have helped me out of the misery of getting my
eyeballs poked out, I liked to keep my brain inside of my skull. Basically, it
was the same logic as the one about keeping my gourmet sauce where it belongs.

After the initial endorphin
surge, the grim reality started to resurface. I sighed. So my eyeballs may be
out of reach from his menacing hands right now, but that didn’t mean I’d be
safe for good. So whatever caused the beeping might turn out just a delivery
guy, a malfunctioning alarm, and it might not take much time until Eyeball
Snatcher slash Alan slash Sam to return.

So anyway, my
life expectancy is pretty much limited…

As a
disappointment kicked in, I felt lethargic.

Special moments of my entire life flashed before my eyes like some kind
of a sitcom rerun. Regrets I’ve had a few…perhaps much more than a few. Undoubtedly,
my regrets count was not too few to mention, so I started counting my unblessings
chronologically before I said
adios muchachos
to this cruel world:

My biological
father had run away with a Vegas stripper;

My favorite
faux-dad who had almost adopted me as his step-daughter was killed in a plane
crash just before initiating the adoption process;

When I was nine
years old, I tried to take a close look at the carps, fell into the pond, and
drowned myself;

When I was fifteen
I was hospitalized with a bad case of pneumonia, and instead of losing lots of
weight like a very sick girl, I gained an extra 16lbs;

My first ever boyfriend
had decided after all, he was meant to be a gay’s gay;

I failed my
college entrance exams;

My first husband
turned out to be a pathological liar and a fraud;

I hadn’t had a
chance to have a child;

I was called
Vicious Bitch;

Everybody in the
UK still hated me;

My current
employer thought I was an idiot (and perhaps, he was right);

I failed to save Karen…

So, I could have
lived with most of those unblessings if only Karen hadn’t died at such a tender
age of eight.

If it was not for
the restraint, I would have banged my head until my head had exploded like a
rotten grapefruit. I recalled the miraculous joy and faith-like excitement when
Karen called me. Just a while ago, she was alive and all I wanted to do was to
meet her and tell her how much we were all worried sick about her.

Now look what had happened.

Karen was dead,
and I was about to join her in the world of death.

I was a complete
failure. This time, I was positively flabbergasted by my idiocy. I should have
immediately called Archangel, purge what little information I had and assisted
him with taking down Alan.

Archangel would
be so pissed…
I thought.

Then I imagined
what would happen when Alan came back. Without doubt, he would pluck my
eyeballs out and end up killing me. Then what? Would he dump my body somewhere?
Probably, my body would be discovered by somebody and then follows the
procedure: police officers, forensics team, and autopsy by the coroner perhaps.
I found myself wondering if Archangel would attend my autopsy and seriously wished
I could vanish like smoke.

I totally,
completely, desperately hated to the possibility of Michael Archangel seeing my
remains being dissected. Just imagining the situation was… excruciatingly mortifying!
So I was a little bit on the chubby side and he knew it. But hey, isn’t it just
too embarrassing to let him see my dead body getting cut open before showing
him myself naked in person when I was still alive? Dying was one thing,
postmortem humiliation was a totally different story.

Would he grieve
over me? Would he miss me?—I kept on wondering.

“Ow, gawd…” I
muttered. My brain had just started playing
Enter Sandman
. Not that I
hated Metallica, but I wanted my brain to play something more calming, more
serene on my exit from this world. …Such as
Ave Maria
.

“Ave Maria Gratia
plena—” I started singing to the tune of Schubert with Latin lyrics. Thanks to having
an Opera singer faux-dad in the past, I knew the song.

“Ave, ave dominus.
Dominus tecum—”

I wanted to say to
Mom ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’.

For unknown
reasons, I truly, desperately missed Michael Archangel.

“I want my assistant back.” He
looked straight into my eyes.

“Excuse me? I’m
not quite following.” I tilted my head to one side. The alarm was still beeping
loudly.

“Come on, Alan.
I know my assistant is trapped here against her will. If you’re 100% sure that
my accusation is unfounded, why don’t you call the police?”

Why he knew my
name, I didn’t know.

Before I got a
chance to reply, he pressed on. “I’ll tell you what. You’re not calling the
police because having police officers over here is not your best interest.”

Disabling my
alarm by yanking the plug out of the wall socket, he continued. “Isn’t it
funny? Even your alarm system is not designated to alert third parties such as
a security firm and/or the police.”

With the alarm
killed, a disturbing silence filled the space.  

He continued. “Once
law enforcement people come in, they might find incriminating evidence, put two
and two together, piece by piece and start wondering if they’d accused the
wrong guy and let the true culprit go running loose. Is that correct, Alan?”

“Stop treating me
like a serial killer! Besides that, the so-called Eyeball Snatcher cases are
already closed, with the killer, Yves the musician, killing himself and
everything. Don’t you have no common sense?”

I made my point,
and he grinned. I felt cold sweat running down my back.

“That’s
interesting,” he chuckled.

“What’s interesting?”
I asked innocently, though I knew my last words should have been unsaid.

“It’s
interesting that you mentioned Eyeball Snatcher. Especially that I haven’t even
uttered the word ‘eyeball’ or ‘killing’ in the first place. Isn’t it ironic,
the nature of human mind, huh? The more you try to conceal something, the more
your mind works on concealing, and as a result, making you focus on the
thought. That’s why you mentioned Eyeball Snatcher.”

“That’s a
groundless accusation,” I said firmly. “I have nothing to do with the victims. Much
less killing.”

“Oh yeah? Then
why do the crappy art pieces Alice Sinclair had in her room have your finger prints
all over?” He tilted his head to one side. Besides that, did you notice that
this fact contradicts your comment as having nothing to do with the victims?”

“I’m an artist
so my creations have my finger prints. Besides that, my artwork is not crappy. Shame
on you.” I felt like killing him right then.

“So, you’re
Sam. Hey, we were looking for you.” He beamed.

Maybe I should
have denied ‘Sam’ being me, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to waste my time
anymore with him. “That’s my artist name and just because one of homicide
victims had possessed my work wouldn’t qualify as a justifiable reason to
accuse me of killing. Oh, have I mentioned I don’t have your assistant here? You
have no reason to accuse me of snatching her. How could you say…?”

“Cut the crap,
Alan.” He butted in before I had finished the sentence. “It’s over.”

His confidence
made me uneasy. Now his words made it clear that I needed to kill him right at
the place ASAP.

Considering the
trouble of getting rid of his body, killing this guy had initially seemed
burdensome. But hey, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

Quietly I took
a deep breath and said firmly. “Stop playing with the words. I said I have
nothing to do with the serial murder, and I don’t even know your assistant.
It’s tragic that one of my customers had fallen victim to the serial murders,
but it’s only a coincidence.”

“Oh, speaking
of a coincidence, is that a coincidence that the presumed time of death of your
mother happens to overlap with the dates you stayed in London? I don’t think
so. Your biological mother Kelly Dowson was found dead in London about a month
ago. She died from liver cirrhosis and the time of death was estimated to be a
few days before her body was found. It was quite tragic that she died alone,
but that could have processed as just a death of natural causes. Except that her
eyeballs were poked out and missing. So in a way, your mother was the first
victim of Eyeball Snatcher.”

“I have never
met my biological mother,” I said icily.

“That’s right,
not while she was alive. By the way, Alan, let’s face it; plucking eyeballs out
of women and swapping them with your mother’s eyeballs is useless.” He crossed
his arms. “That kind of sick ritual only kills the wounded women instead of bringing
your mother back to life.”

I didn’t say
anything. Now that he knew everything, denial didn’t seem to work.

He continued. “I
can tell that you haven’t started your sick ritual on her yet. You’re not
reeking of blood. That’s good. Sparing the life of a victim tends to give the
jury a good impression, Prosecutors might give you a deal.”

“You think so?”
I slumped my shoulders. “If that’s the case, I’ll take you to where she is.” I
reached one hand to him as if attempting a handshake, with a concealed
lightweight stun-gun in my palm. I was ready to zap him in the outstretched
hand.

But before I
could zap him, he pulled away his hand. On top of that, he kicked the hidden stun-gun
out of my hand.

The next thing I
knew, I heard a click of a zip tie securing my hands behind my back while I was
physically being pinned to the floor.

He was strong.

“I was trying
my best to play it nice. Don’t forget that you’re the one who screwed it up.”

He stood up, stomped
on the stun-gun with one chunky sole of the boots, crushing the device into
bits. Then he started walking.

Away from the
entrance, to the direction of the stairs to the basement.

I gazed after
him in a total disbelief. I was unable to accept my current situation.

“Ave, aaave dominus, dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus…”

I went on singing.
As if I was channeling with late Maria Callas. Except my version of Maria came
with lousy tunes, missed keys and shaky pronunciation.  

Perhaps, I was
desperate to cleanse my soul before coming face-to-face with my final moment in
this world. Not that I was terribly afraid of dying, but getting killed by
having my eyeballs poked out was totally freaking me out. After all, I have
never anticipated my life to be ended in this kind of a brutal way. Nor had I
ever imagined dying before turning 30.

I was scared of the
pain, and just thinking about losing my eyeballs totally freaked me out. But
what scared me the most was the fear and devastation I imagined I was going to
feel.

I closed my eyes
again. I didn’t want to see the killer return to off me for good.

“Nunc et in hora
mortis. In hora mortis nostrae. In hora morrrrrtiiisss nooostraeee!”

Half choking with
emotion, I was screaming the public domain Latin lyrics at the top of my lungs.

“Kelly, I’m sorry
to disturb you in the middle of your very emotional moment. But you know what?
I like you better when you’re not screaming.”

A familiar voice
seemed to have butted in my yowling but I kept on singing. I was determined to
let no one ruin my final moment. If the voice wants to insult my singing style,
just let it dis me.

“In horrrra
morrrtiiiiissss nostrae!”

“Um Kelly,” the
voice cleared its throat and said. “Will you stop that? And don’t tell me
you’re singing. You need to work on the keys and tunes and everything.” 
This time, with a much stronger clarity and persistence.

I opened a slit of
one eye, opened it wider, then opened the other eye, and the next thing I knew,
I started screaming like Janet Leigh from the movie
Psycho
.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkk!!!
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGAWD! I’m seeing Karen’s ghost! Oh Karen, I understand you’re
not satisfied with my failed attempt to save you but, please do not possess me
right now. I’m having enough trouble without getting hexed.”

“Kelly,
puhleeeeze.” Karen, or rather, Karen’s phantom sighed, tapping the floor with one
foot. “Has it ever occurred to you that I may be a person instead of a dissatisfied
ghost?”

“Are you?” I
squinted my eyes. Trying to grasp the situation better.

“Of course.” She
nodded.

She took the knife
Alan the Eyeball Snatcher had left on the table, hurried to my behind, and cut
the duct tape off my hands and legs with an unbelievable efficiency for a phantom,
or an eight-year-old.

“OHMYGOD, you’re
alive!” I clung to her in a bear hug.

“Assuming I won’t
die from choking right here, right now,” she replied with a gasp.

“Sorry,” I let her
go. “So, what happened?” I asked, maybe demanded was the more appropriate term.

“It’s a long story.”
She shrugged.

“Make it short,
will you?” I said, thinking my upbringing’s not all that bad considering I
didn’t forget to say
will-you?
at an emergency like this.

“Long story cut
short, I happen to see visions,” she said.

“As in?”

“As in I have extrasensory
perception, a.k.a. ESP which enables me to see something that is not happening
in front of my eyes but that is definitely bound to happen or have happened in
the past.”

“That
is…unbelievable.” I muttered. But her explanation sort of made a sense.

“I know. That’s a
part of my ridiculously excellent academic performance. I tend to get high
scores on tests ‘coz I’m seeing the correct answers in my mind’s eye. OK, so
there were times I wondered if my test taking style counts as cheating, but I
can’t help it. Still, even with ESP, not everyone can perform multiplications
and divisions before turning two. In a nutshell, it’s a gift and a curse. When
I was younger I often felt sad at times when I knew a frenemy before even
meeting that person. But I’m trying to take it positive, like my visions help
me keeping myself away from troubles and frenemies.

“Nowadays I’d been
seeing visions after visions and that totally drove me crazy. Anyway, so I came
to meet Alan following my vision, and foolishly I got caught and when I woke up,
I was at the musician dude’s studio. At the moment, the musician dude Yves was
already dead and Alan was determined to kill me as well and abandon my body
with that of Yves’s, to make it look like Yves had killed me before killing
himself. So I had no choice but to offer the killer to use me as a bait to
allure you. And boy, it worked and here I am.”

“But, what about the
blood detected from the sock at Yves’s place?” I pointed out. The blood made us
believe she had fallen a victim to violence.

“I had a
nosebleed. Got a little bit too panicky when I saw Yves’s dead body. It was the
first time for me to see a dead body. And when I get freaked out, I tend to get
nosebleeds, so the blood dropped on one of my socks, my bad.” She said
matter-of-factly. “I persuaded Alan to keep me nice and alive so that he can
allure you
after
closing Eyeball Snatcher case to lower the alert level from
both law enforcement and the social perspectives. Even though the amount of
blood was not large enough, the bloody sock made a good evidence indicating
that something terrible had happened to me. In fact, you thought I was dead,
right?”

My jaw dropped. I
was at a complete loss for words. After a couple of seconds, I managed to say.
“You’re impossible, Karen. You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“I know. That’s
why I had staged my own death,” she shrugged. “Now that he’s got you and
everything, it was just a matter of time that he decided to kill me. You know
what? That guy is a psycho. So I dangled myself from the doorjamb with a scarf,
and I lost my pulse.”

“Excuse me? How
can you lose your pulse?” I asked in a total awe. Now I wasn’t all that sure
whichever of them—Karen or Alan, was scarier.

“Yup, anybody can
lose their pulse with a little trick, you know. Buy two soft tennis balls, put one
ball under each of your armpits and squeeze tight. Voila, you’ve got cold,
pulseless arms due to compromised circulation. I was a bit scared if he
searched for pulse in my neck, because I can’t lose my pulse in the neck.
Anyway, I went on with my plan. I knew I wasn’t going to die because I saw a
vision of me walking out of this house escorted by police officers.”

Then she grinned
ear to ear. “So, now that you’ve arranged a police raid and everything. We’re
safe and we’ve got the killer, ready to have justice to be served.”

“Police raid?” I blinked,
“What police raid?”

Jeez Louise,
something was not quite right.