The Hunter Inside (5 page)

They both agreed that they
wanted Sean and David to have great careers, and if the exhaustion they both
felt was the price, then it was just the price they had to pay. Their parental
instincts were strong.

It was only now, after six
months of feeling that she was going to collapse at the end of every day and a
virtually non-existent sex-life, that they were managing to get a foothold. Joe
had said recently that she’d soon be able to give up her job at the diner, and
if he were made the head of faculty at Jude Rassell then the raise in pay would
allow him to give up his evening tutoring.

Sandy was hoping that the
pieces of the jigsaw were starting to fall into place.

She was warmed by the
security that Joe strove to offer her and the children. It was this notion of
security that made her remember the envelope that she’d grabbed from the
mailbox earlier that morning. Grabbing her purse from behind the counter, she
quickly hunted through it until she found the envelope. It had slipped down the
inside of her purse – almost as if to hide itself from the person it was
addressed to.

The diner was so busy out
front that she could open the envelope without anybody watching her. She eased
open the seal on the letter, a tingling sensation rolling down her spine.

With hands that were
beginning to shake, Sandy removed the letter from the envelope. It consisted of
a single piece of paper that was folded once. Praying that it was not what she
thought it might be, she slowly eased open the piece of paper.

Sandy Myers couldn’t
believe her eyes. She thought these letters had stopped for good. But here was
another, with scrawled, child-like writing spelling out an ominous warning. At
the sight of this format Sandy was blinded by a flashback, an image of a young
Sandy Carson poring over dozens of letters. The contents of the letter soon
brought her attention back from the past and onto the page in front of her.

Your time will soon be
here. Say goodbye
.

Underneath was attached a
Polaroid photograph of a corpse.

She would later find out
that the corpse was one John Riley, a zookeeper from just outside New York, but
for now that didn’t matter. Everything around Sandy Myers had taken on a
slightly blurred complexion. As she looked around her, the dizziness that was
invading her senses grew unbearable. Blackness closed in all around her.

Sandy Myers fainted.

When she came round the
diner was empty. Mr. Reynolds, her boss, had cleared out all of the customers.
He was a man of about fifty years who did not have a single hair upon his head.
The diner was one of three businesses that he owned. It was also the most
profitable, and his decision to clear the customers was as much to do with a
fear of scaring them away as it was for the health of Sandy Myers.

Short-term pain for
long-term gain. That had always been the motto he prescribed to.

He was now hovering before
her, his features swimming in and out of focus as she came round. She had been
propped up on a chair.

‘You okay Sandy dear? You
took quite a tumble there.’ There was a note of genuine concern in his voice
that made Sandy feel as though she were about to burst into tears.

‘Yeah, I think so.’ Her
response came through clenched teeth as she tried to stand, only to feel the
lack of strength in her legs that was about to plop her right back down again.

‘Here, don’t try and get
up,’ Reynolds said, coaxing her back into the chair she had tried to vacate
using his right hand. She looked to him as though she had just seen a ghost.
Her face was white as marble, and he could see goose bumps covering her arms.
Reluctant to see another spectacular demonstration of the splits, he kept hold
of her until she was firmly seated.

‘You get some bad news in
that there letter dear?’ Reynolds gently coaxed her again as he saw the look of
shock on her face subsiding slightly, his normally loud New York accent toned
down into his most soothing voice.

Sandy quickly grabbed the
letter that had fallen face down on the table in front of her. ‘Err, no… I’m
just a little run down at the moment,’ she lied, and felt her own voice
reverberating around her head.

‘Well, we can’t have you
killing yourself on my account now, can we?’ Reynolds said cheerfully. He was a
sucker for a pretty face. ‘Come on Sandy. I’m taking you home. You really gotta
find some time in your life for resting too, you know?’

‘Thanks Mr. Reynolds,’ she
replied, and again her shaky voice rang inside her reeling head.

Reynolds smiled and turned
in the direction of his other waitress. ‘Moira, I’m going to run Sandy home.
Will you be okay alone for half an hour?’

Moira had worked at the
diner for ten years. She resented the special treatment that Sandy always
seemed to be getting, and hated being left alone to deal with the end of the
breakfast rush. She knew that it was youth and looks that made her Mr. Reynolds
favorite, and she had no sympathy for Sandy Myers – even at this moment. She
grunted a labored ‘yes’, and began to wipe down a table with her back turned to
the two.

Sandy was too emotionally
disturbed to notice her reaction, and quietly said, ‘Thank you Moira’, as
Reynolds put an arm around her waist to support her out of the door.

Ten minutes later she was
home, thanking Mr. Reynolds for driving her in her own car; an action which
meant he now had a bus ride, or a twenty-five minute walk, back to the diner.
She got rid of him as quickly as she was able. She knew she had a lot of
thinking to do.

The first thing she did was
to ring the mother of a friend of Sean and David and ask if she would be able
to pick up the kids, telling her she had an urgent item she must attend to. Her
relief was palpable when told it was no problem.

After replacing the
telephone, Sandy sat and began trying to rationalize through the fog of fear
that was tumbling around her and invading her mind. An hour passed as she
thought everything through, forgetting the outside world except for her husband
and children, and the thing that was now threatening not just hers, but all of
their safety.

Time passed and the fog
began to clear as she formulated a plan in her mind. She would have to wait
until Joe came home. Then she would tell him everything. She would tell him
about the night her parents were murdered. She would tell him about the
letters. She would tell him how she thought she had escaped the murderous
lunatic.

Sandy Myers was afraid for
her life. She feared that she would be killed, like her parents had been, and
like the man in the picture had been.

What Paul Wayans now recognized as his
worst nightmare was coming true. He was driven for about twenty minutes, with
the dire Pat Forsby in close attendance. Forsby sat next to him, trying to
question him in a tone that mimicked conversation. It was obvious to Paul that
he was being questioned, and he had a pain in the ass right then.

‘So, Paul, you must have a
great job. Flash car, picturesque view and all.’ His nasally voice irritated
Paul, and he was reluctant to speak to this loathsome man.

‘I don’t have a job.’ He
said, knowing he was letting himself in for further probing and telling himself
to keep his cool. Forsby’s inquisitiveness grew and he dropped the act. ‘So
what do you do? Sell crack cocaine or something?’

‘Is that how I look? Like a
crack dealer? Well, thanks very much, you’re really kind.’ Wayans could not be
bothered with this man, preferring to deflect his questions while he wondered
what the future held, both short-term and long-term. As he’d finished his
sentence he had thrown Forsby a look that could have melted gold, and he was
relieved when he quieted and switched his attention to the scenery whizzing
past the window of the speeding car.

Forsby had decided to leave
the questioning to Sam O’Neill. He thought that was probably the wisest option.
So he sat back, for the rest of the ride in silence, content in the knowledge
that O’Neill
always
got what he wanted.

They eventually came to a
stop at a helicopter-landing pad about twenty miles away from Wayans’ house.
Before he had a chance to argue, he was being bundled into the helicopter that
waited with its huge propellers spinning around.

‘Where are you taking me?’
Paul shouted at Forsby, struggling to hear his own voice over the noise of the
propellers as they lifted off into the sky.

‘You’re going to see the
boss in Atlantic Beach,’ Forsby shouted back at him. Paul Wayans felt spittle
from Forsby’s mouth hit his face as he screamed his reply.

‘I can’t believe this is
happening,’ he mumbled, as his ears popped and the noise lessened.

‘Start believing,’ came the
reply from Special Agent Forsby. ‘When we arrive in Atlantic Beach, you will be
taken to a police station where you will be met by Special Agent Sam O’Neill.
He’s the boss. From there we’ll leave you. He’ll look after you.’ He smirked as
he said this and Paul feared he knew exactly what this meant.

‘Yeah, I bet he will.’

He was now feeling
another kind of fear. The only comforting thought he had was that he was safe
from whoever had killed the man in the picture while he was in the custody of
the police. And that could only be a comforting thought for him, despite the
new fear and dread that gnawed at his stomach.

It took twenty minutes for
the helicopter to travel the distance A to B. Most of the journey was spent in
silence, Paul looking out of the window on one side, while Forsby looked out
the other. Special Agent Ryan had left them before the chopper had taken off.

The only conversation that
ensued came from the irritating and irritated Pat Forsby, who repeatedly asked
how much longer the journey would take. Paul thought maybe he had an aversion
to flying. He was like a child that wanted candy, harassing its poor mother
every two seconds. Well, now Pat Forsby was the sugar-hungry child and the
pilot (whose name Paul had not and did not find out) was the mother who was
constantly one second away from beating the irritating child. And boy was he
irritating?!

By the time they arrived at
Atlantic Beach, Forsby looked like a glass of milk and Paul wanted to hit the
bastard himself. He thought he’d better not, or they might think he
was
a
violent madman, capable of a murder like the one he had received the photo of.
What were they going to think when he told them about the other twenty-nine
letters that he had discarded?

He was bundled unceremoniously
into the back of a large black van marked ‘FBI’. There were seats running down
either side of the van, and the metal door that was slammed behind him looked
impenetrable. He tried to brace himself for what he knew would be a long and
difficult explanation.

What would happen to him?
Would they believe his story? He knew that he might be in more trouble than he
first imagined, and tried to solace himself with the knowledge that he was at
least safe from his demented stalker for now. He told himself this repeatedly
in an effort to calm down, wondering how O’Neill would react when he told him
about the correspondence. He was already well aware from the treatment of
Forsby and the high-speed, high security transportation that he was considered
the prime suspect, certainly in Forsby’s eyes – who had scrutinized him with a
certain element of fear that was visible through his smug demeanor.

He must be careful
how he answered the questions that were put to him. He didn’t want to appear
imbalanced or guilty in any way, as he wanted this ordeal to be over quickly,
despite whatever was waiting for him in the future.

But what evidence do they
have?
Okay, so he had the picture. But that wasn’t enough to pursue a
case
against him. There would be no forensic evidence at the scene linking him to
the scene, because he had not been there. He could not be charged with anything
on circumstantial evidence.

It was 12:30 by the time they reached
the police station in Atlantic Beach. Special Agent Forsby took Paul into a
small room containing a table, three chairs and a door. It soon became clear to
Paul that helicopter rides were not the only thing that Pat Forsby was afraid
of. He was a little claustrophobic too. All he seemed able to do was pace up
and down a room that only took three paces to cross.

‘What are we waiting for?’
Paul asked in a voice that reflected how much Forsby irritated him.

‘We’re waiting for Special
Agent O’Neill. I told you - you will meet Special Agent O’Neill.’

‘Yeah, we ‘met’ on the
phone earlier,’ the unenthusiastic Paul Wayans said in the most sarcastic tone
he could muster. He was not relishing the moment when he was to come face to
face with somebody else that he knew he was not going to like. He had worked
out that much earlier in the day. Paul Wayans was not in the habit of liking
people who implied that he was a murderer without even meeting him, and he was
trying to shake off the niggling feeling that he was to have a lot of talking
to do.

Special Agent Forsby looked
towards the door of the room. Paul listened closely and heard the distant sound
of footsteps coming down the long hall that he himself had walked down ten
minutes earlier. As the sound got louder he felt his heart rate quicken, and he
wondered at the fear he was feeling despite his innocence.