Page 9 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

NINE

Liam

Present

Gabriel, you beautiful son of a bitch.

I could kiss you.

Maybe I want to kiss you, but I can guarantee you sure as fuck don’t want to kiss me.

“I need Gabriel’s laptop,” I announce as I charge out of his office.

“You don’t work here,” Sgt. Michaels protests like he has any fucking say.

“Where’s Gabriel’s laptop?” I ask before turning my eyes onto Robinson. Michaels might fire him, but I could destroy his entire life, and he knows it. He rushes off to retrieve it since it is likely being looked over for evidence.

I walk over to Michaels while I wait. “Michaels.”

“What?”

“I’m going to find Gabriel, and you’re going to look the other way unless you’d like your wife to know that you’re cheating on her,” I say quietly enough only the two of us can hear.

He freezes. “W-What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not. I will have you thrown?—”

I lean in close. “I will absolutely ruin you if you get in the way of my investigation, do you understand? Your wife will never look at you the same again. Your daughters will never look at you the same. Tell me that I’ve made myself clear.”

“Y-Yes,” he says through gritted teeth. He’s pissed, but he doesn’t want to see what I can do when I’m pissed.

“Good. Now let me find Gabriel,” I order as Robinson rushes onto the scene with Gabriel’s laptop.

“Thank you,” I tell him as I grab it and the cat before heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” Michaels asks.

“Gabriel’s place. I need to check something first,” I say before rushing to the elevator. It takes so fucking long to arrive that I get frustrated and jog down the stairs and out to my car. I put the cat in the back seat, then speed to Gabriel’s and hurry into his house before sliding the laptop on the table and running into his office. I start tearing the room apart while wondering if I should have brought Robinson to be my bullet shield.

“Where the fuck is it. Where the fuck is it?” I growl before I finally find the folder I know he keeps all of his cat’s shit in. I dig through it before I find a small card with the information I need.

The card lists the company that sold him the small GPS locator that’d been on his cat’s collar… the one that’s currently missing, torn from the split ring that hung on his cat’s neck. If he’d slipped it into his palm before Robinson had taped his hands together and the killer never untaped them… he could still have it.

I rush back to the computer, type the company name into the search engine, and click the first site that pops up. His login information is already saved, so I click it and see Lucille Pawl’s name displayed.

When I select it, a map comes up, and I grin when I see that the location is not the house I’m currently standing in.

No… it’s about ten miles from here, and while it’s not exact, it gives me a decent range and a good idea what house Gabriel might be in.

Hooking up the laptop to my hotspot, I rush back out to the car and quickly head to the location shown. I know I should call the police. I know I should have backup, but… they’re all so fucking useless. What if they fuck up? What if Gabriel gets hurt because of their inadequacies? What if they don’t believe me and insist on a search warrant? What if they waste valuable time?

I should call them. I should call them…

But if I do… I can’t kill this man for taking what doesn’t belong to him. I can’t destroy him.

I haven’t killed anyone in so long, all because of my promise to Gabriel. I’ve had to watch these despicable humans who don’t deserve to live strut around as they trample all over the lives they’ve ruined… all because of my promise to him.

How can a single man make me second-guess something that’s so fucking right? Why the hell should parasites like this killer, who feasts on the weak and destroys lives, be allowed to live? I understand that Gabriel has so much good in him that he believes the police could save everyone, but so many walk away with no more than a slap on the wrist.

Still… the promise Gabriel made me give rocks around in my mind. If I kill the man who has him… will Gabriel give me that look of devastation he wore the day he walked in on me? Will he make me feel guilt, even after everything he’s gone through?

Guilt is something foreign to me, but he sure can make me feel it.

I drive recklessly as rain starts to strike my windshield, my mind so caught up in Gabriel that I even forget about the cat who has finally decided to take up a life of silence, no doubt glowering at me like I’m the reason for all of her suffering.

When I near the location, I pull over and realize that my heart is racing. What the fuck is wrong with me? Am I ill?

I’ve never been anxious on a hunt… thrilled to get to it, but never anxious about it.

I take a deep breath.

I will simply look at the house and watch it before calling it in.

Simply… simply…

I take another deep breath and push those anxieties away. Instead, I get out of the car and open the trunk as the light rain dampens my clothes. I push the stiff carpet liner back and drag the spare tire to the side to reach the locked box inside. With a swift spin of the combination, I pull out my gun, which I place in a holster at my side, along with a knife, a flashlight, binoculars, and rope.

There are houses near, so a silenced gunshot might still be heard this late at night. It’d be best if I subdued him and took him somewhere else to kill…

No… I’m checking the area. The gun and knife are simply in case I need them while the police show up and the rope is to bind him since I no longer have issued handcuffs.

That’s what this is. That’s all this is.

Using the darkness to shade me, I move through a neighbor’s yard, along their tall fence, and make my way into the field of tall unkempt grass behind the house the GPS has located.

I move quietly, staying low as I reach the back of the house. Such a simple-looking house. One story with a well-kept yard. The landscaping is nice, and there’s a swing set in the back with children’s toys scattered around.

Could I be wrong?

No… no, he wants me to think I’m wrong.

The curtains are all drawn except for one toward the edge of the house, though at this angle, I can’t see inside.

But I have to know… is my Gabriel inside? Is he hurt?

Is he dead?

I take a step forward and hesitate as I notice that on the very edge of the grass, there’s something glinting in the glow of my flashlight.

A camera.

I’ve fucked up.

The killer knows I’m here. How far back did he have cameras set up? Was this the first one that caught me? Or does he have them sprinkled around the field as well, checking all areas for someone who might get too nosy?

But all I know is that the hunt is on.

And I’m going to destroy him.

I don’t want to give him time to hurt Gabriel. It’s reckless, but my mind is on one thing and one thing only as I strut across the yard without hesitation. He’s played his game, but now it’s time for me to play mine.

I reach the door, but the doorknob is locked, so I pull out my lockpicking kit. Pushing in close, I slide the first lockpick in before inserting the second. While he likely has an alarm to alert him of entry, he won’t have anything that makes noise or notifies the police. But there’s a chance he doesn’t even live here. There’s a chance he’d have to drive here to reach me, but I can’t count on that. I have to move like he could be waiting around every corner.

And I hope he is. I hope he’s inside so I can make him pay for what he’s done.

The door unlocks, and I push it open before listening carefully, but I can’t hear any noise. That doesn’t mean he’s not inside. The man is clearly a professional. He’s not going to fuck up, but neither will I.

The inside is decorated as if a family is living inside—toys scattered, a kitchen cupboard cracked open. Does the house belong to a family? Or is it all a stage and I’m the audience?

Or maybe I’m the villain.

I sure as fuck don’t want to be the hero.

Moving quietly, I venture farther into the house, making sure that no matter where I go, I won’t get boxed in. I’m not the prey, he is. He just doesn’t know it yet.

The house isn’t large. A sweep of it tells me he’s not home, but it also doesn’t lead me to Gabriel or the other detective. There’s no second floor, so that means the only way left is down. And with no door leading to a basement, it becomes clear that there must be some kind of trapdoor in the floor, probably for a cellar.

The kitchen is linoleum with no seams, so I find myself checking the edge of the carpet in the living room before moving on to the master bedroom. Upon first glance there’s nothing out of place, but the smallest indent in the carpet next to the bed’s frame tells me it’s been moved recently. The window is blocked, but there’s a camera watching me. I tear it off the wall and chuck it before grabbing the edge of the bed and dragging it away from the wall. The carpet looks normal, but when I pick at the edge, I find it’s finished but not tacked down. And when I drag it back, it reveals a trapdoor. I unhook the latch, drawing it up, and examine the narrow steps leading down. I shine my flashlight down into the darkness, but all I see is another wall with a door that’s padlocked shut.

Now the question is… do I wait for him to arrive? Or do I go down and collect my prize?

A part of me wants to wait. I feel like Gabriel, if he’s still alive, is safest behind a locked door. But what if I fuck up? What if I don’t succeed, and he’s forever locked down below?

Or… what if he’s not even alive?

I push the bed so it catches against the trapdoor in the floor. It wouldn’t be hard to move, but it’d give me time to shoot the man if he tried locking me down here.

Then I hurry down the steps, immediately met by the smell of blood and death. A sweep of my flashlight shows me the macabre display waiting for me in the form of a human head stationed on top of a table. What if it’s my precious Gabriel? What if I was good, I stayed away, I stayed quiet for an entire year only for him to meet his end at the hand of a monster?

Shining my flashlight this way and that, I finally find a light switch that I turn on, and when I look back, I find that the head the killer had left out belongs to the other detective. The man called Rick Hughes. And next to it is a set of keys.

Picking them up, I hurry over to the padlock, but none of the keys are right for it. Swiftly, I start picking the lock, finding it harder than the door to the house but still not hard enough to keep me out. And when it clicks free, I pull it off and slip it into my pocket so it can’t be placed on the door if he manages to come down here without me knowing.

I swing open the door and watch as the silhouette right inside draws in tight, like he can disappear into the floor. I don’t even have to be able to see his face to know who it is. He could be coated in shadows, and I would still recognize that frame anywhere. Do I know anyone else as well as I know him?

It’s like my body is possessed as I drift over to him and drop to my knees in front of him. I cup his cheek, so very pleased that I’ve finally found him.

At the movement, Gabriel’s eyes snap open, and there’s a moment where he’s afraid before relief floods through him. He’s happy to see me. He’s thrilled to see me, even after telling me he never wanted to see me again.

“L-Liam?” he asks, the words coming out like a whisper. Like he’s afraid that if he speaks too loudly, he’ll find that it was all a dream.

“I really think you could have found a more comfortable place to take a nap, couldn’t you?”

“I—Liam, is this a time for jokes?” he asks.

What is he talking about? I’m on cloud nine. I feel like I’m floating. I’ve found him and he’s whole and he’s mine…

He’s not mine… he told me he never wants to see me again.

But we’ll just brush that thought off.

I pull the knife out and cut through the tape on his legs before finding that one of the keys works for the shackles around his ankles. I reach for the handcuffs but Gabriel tenses before pressing his bound hands against my mouth. “Shh… he’s here. That creak. That’s him. That’s him.”

“Come on,” I urge as I tug him.

“No, there’s another man down here,” he says, forever the hero. Forever the innocent angel. I’m prepared to drag him after me and care about the other man at a later time, but Gabriel shakes his head.

“Fine,” I grumble as I cut the tape off his hands before putting the gun in them.

“Why would you give me your gun?”

“Because if this man even looks at you, you’re going to empty it into him,” I say, wanting him to be as safe as he can be, and putting a gun in his hand is the safest I can make him. I don’t know where the man will be coming from or how he’ll be entering the house. I could wait down here and shoot him, but he could easily close the door and set the house on fire before the police show up. The best thing for me to do is to lure him away and let Gabriel get himself and the other guy out, after ensuring he’s protected while he does it.

Gabriel seems hesitant but nods until I start toward the door.

“Liam, where the fuck are you going?”

“Where am I going? I’m going to fucking kill him,” I say.

“No! Stay with me. We’ll… you don’t understand. This man is… he’s not like the other killers we’ve dealt with. Liam, he could kill you.”

“I’d like to watch him try,” I say as I let go of him and step through the door. I hurry up the stairs and out the trapdoor then wait, hoping to give Gabriel time to get his handcuffs off and free the other guy.

The killer might not have a gun. Or if he does, it won’t be his first impulse to use it. Not when he could draw the attention of a neighbor. Even a silenced gun wouldn’t go unnoticed in such a quiet area.

“Did someone come out to play?” a voice asks, sounding thrilled for a hunt.

The problem is… he doesn’t realize I’m “It.”

He steps into the bedroom doorway, likely expecting to find me frantically untying Gabriel or trying to get him out of the house instead of waiting for him. “I would love to play,” I tell him.

He cocks his head, white mask firmly in place, but doesn’t he realize how much masks hinder you? “Oh?”

“You took something that belongs to me and I really fucking hate sharing,” I say as I start toward him.

A laugh escapes him. “Oh? Did I now? And what exactly was that?” he asks, standing his ground.

“As you breathe your final breath, I’ll let you know,” I retort as I rush him. He jerks back out of the doorway, knowing the tight space hinders his movement. The moment I’m through it, he tries stabbing me in the gut, prepared to disembowel me, but I knock his hand away.

“I really want to see what you look like when you bleed,” he says. “I’m going to make you hurt. It’s the young one you like, isn’t it? Gabriel, right? I like him. I really like him.” His voice is taunting as he backs into the open area of the kitchen. I’m aware he’s leading me here for a reason, but I’m too fixated on my prey to care.

“He’s mine.”

“Is he? Well then, you’re going to love it when I take you downstairs and make you watch as I cut a piece off of him every day. I’ll let you have the pieces. How does that sound? Maybe a finger… maybe a hand. Maybe just a chunk of flesh. And I’ll let you have them since I won’t have any need for them. Maybe you can reassemble him when I’m done?”

Anger tears through me unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I rush him and he flings a chair at me. I bat it back with my arm and pain bites into me, but I’m like a feral dog that has only one thing on its mind.

The masked man laughs at how reckless I’m being. I don’t care because I’m not going to be sated until I taste his blood.

He rushes in, swinging his knife through the air in an attempt to swipe at me. I dodge the hit, driving in deeper as I catch the edge of his white jacket with my knife. It tears through the cloth with ease, but it’s not enough. He turns fast, his leg catching onto the open cupboard, and that small stagger is all I need to drive the knife up between his ribs.

Pain flashes into my side; I’ve put myself within his range, but the wound I’ve inflicted on him is deeper than the cut he’s made on me.

He shoves me back and my foot catches onto the chair he’d thrown, and I stumble. He comes at me with a roar but I’m ruthless. He can dice me apart and I won’t fucking care as long as I get to look down at him drenched in his own blood at the end of it.

At this moment, nothing in my life matters as much as Gabriel does.

He’s bleeding heavily, red dyeing his white jacket as he realizes that maybe he’s fucked up.

He’s used to hunting innocents.

I’m used to hunting men like him.

The table is between us and the door is to his back. Behind the mask, I see his eyes flicker over to the bedroom and when he turns toward it, I rush to the side to block him from reaching what I must protect. It’s not until I’ve put myself farther from him that I realize I’ve allowed my emotions to get the best of me because he wasn’t going for Gabriel. What would he have to gain by placing himself in a situation with no way out?

No, he wanted to put more distance between us, which allows him to dash out the door with a growl. He’s pissed I’ve ruined his sacred hunting grounds. I’ve taken what he’s claimed for himself and made them my own, but he’s smart enough to know that he’s in over his head.

But he can’t possibly think he’d win that easily, can he? I dart out the door after him but don’t notice he hadn’t jumped off the porch; instead, he’d tucked himself against the house, allowing him to slam into me. I kick him back and we both crash into the porch railing that’s crushed beneath our weight. We hit the wet ground as I take my knife and slice it across the back of his leg when he rises to his feet. It was too high and not deep enough to put him down, but the man doesn’t even cry out. Instead, he bolts into the rain that’s now coming down even harder.

“Where the fuck are you going?” I snarl. “I thought you wanted to play a game. I’m ready to play.”

He’s in over his head. His specialty is slicing and dicing people who are bound and begging. And now it appears to be running.

I wish I had my gun, but if I failed, in Gabriel’s hands was the best place for it. If the killer had killed me, I wanted Gabriel to be safe no matter what. But now… now that I’ve driven him away… I sure wish I had it to shoot him to the ground and watch him try to crawl away. I’d let him crawl for a long while before I ever put that final bullet in place.

The whistle of a train cuts through the sound of the rain, snagging my attention.

He glances to the right where the train is coming from as I race after him. I’m gaining on him, but the train is relentlessly gaining on us. He’s judging it and he knows if he doesn’t make it across those tracks, I’m going to catch him and I’m going to kill him.

“Why the fuck are you running?” I growl. “I thought you had big plans for me?”

I’m so close… yet not close enough. He’s not going to stop. He’s going to cross the tracks, aware he’s going to die if he stops and knowing he might die if he crosses, but if he makes it and I don’t, there’s no doubt he’ll get away. There’s a road right there that he could easily grab a car from. He’ll get away and he’ll be free to continue to hunt what is mine.

The air horn sounds, the conductor likely seeing him as he steps onto the tracks and I near them, but just as my foot touches the edge of the tracks, I feel strong arms slide around my sides, wrapping me up and tearing me back. The train whistles on by, so close that the wind and rain being kicked up from it makes me tilt my head away as I’m ripped back and thrown onto the ground.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Gabriel screams. “Were you just going to kill yourself? There’s no fucking way you would have made it across! What the fuck were you doing?” He sounds panicked and anxious… was he really afraid for my life?

“He’s going to get away. He’s going to get away,” I say as I stand and look around wildly, but the train never seems to end. There’s no way the killer hasn’t stopped a car by now and stolen it.

“You would have fucking died,” Gabriel yells as he shoves me hard enough that it snaps my attention back to him. He must have gotten the handcuffs off because his arms are free, his eyes are wild, and his breath is coming in pants.

I wrap a protective arm around him, shielding him as the train finishes going past and we’re greeted with nothing. The killer is gone and I know I have to face that.

“Call the police. Get them here,” Gabriel says, but he doesn’t understand that I want to hunt him.

He grabs my face in his hands. “Liam!”

I look away, almost feeling ashamed, and it’s such a weird feeling. “Right,” I say as I take my phone out and make the call to Michaels while Gabriel sinks to sit in front of me, shaking. He looks hollow, tired, hurt… I want to wrap him up and take him home to protect. I don’t ever want to let anyone else look at him again.

I tell Michaels the address and hang up before he can ask me any of his stupid questions. I kneel down, just wanting a moment when I can have Gabriel to myself because I don’t know how long this moment will last.

“You’re hurt,” he says as he reaches for me, but I drop my knife so I can catch his hands before they can touch my side. I feel them all over, I check every inch of them before I run the tips of my fingers over the tips of his.

“I thought I was going to die,” Gabriel whispers as his head crashes against my shoulder. “I knew you’d be the only one to figure out the fucking cat collar. Oh fuck. I thought I was going to die.”

“I’ll kill him,” I assure him as I realize I’m wasting time kneeling here. I start to pull from him, but his hold tightens.

“Liam, stop! You’re hurt. I’m hurt. There’s another officer in there who’s hurt… we need you here.”

“Do you want him to get away so he can come back for you?”

Gabriel gives me such an innocent look. “Of course not, but I don’t need you to fucking die, do you understand? He’s gone. There’s no fucking way he isn’t already in a car speeding out of the city.”

“You still care about me?” I ask.

He hesitates, eyes searching mine before looking away. “Of course I do.”

I want to ask him why he told me to go away, then.

“Where’s the gun? Why didn’t you shoot him when he was running?” I ask.

“I… the other officer couldn’t move—I’m afraid something might be broken—so I left it with him in case the killer came back. I fucked up.”

“No, I fucked up,” I say as I hear the sirens coming. “I fucked up and if I hadn’t, he’d be lying dead at my feet right now. If I hadn’t, I would have made him hurt for every minute he hurt you.”

“Liam… stop, please?”

I glance away from him, not understanding, but I doubt I ever will.

Instead, I help him to his feet and grab my knife as the sound of the sirens gets louder. I wrap an arm around his waist, loving the feel of it and knowing that it’s the last time I’ll get to experience it.

“I fucked up,” I say. “I fucked up.”

“You didn’t fuck up.”

“All of it. I fucked up. If I’d been more careful, you’d never have caught me back at the barn.”

“That’s what you think the fuckup was?” he asks, looking upset. “Not the fact that you killed someone but because you weren’t careful enough not to get caught?”

I feel like I’m walking down death row instead of toward the flashing lights. The faster I walk, the faster he’ll step away from me forever.

“Liam…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I growl, and it hurts to pretend to be mad at him when I’m just mad at myself.

“I was just… I was going to say that maybe you need to hide your knife… so it’s not taken in for evidence. It looks like the same one… the same one you killed Jon Davies with, and the rain seems to have washed away all of the blood on it. You could swab it yourself and bring the swab in to avoid taking the knife in, but I doubt they’ll get anything off it.”

“Thanks,” I say, not bothering to tell him that of course I’m not using the same knife, and as the team swarms onto the scene, I let him go.

He seems to stagger without my arm wrapped around him, exhaustion taking over his body as he looks right at me, but that expression is absolutely unreadable. And as the others descend on him, cutting his eyes off from me, I disappear into the chaos. I get in my car, and I drive home as my hands tremble.

Why the fuck do they tremble?

I saved Gabriel, and while I didn’t kill the man who hurt him, I will. I’ll find him and I’ll kill him. I’ll destroy him.

It isn’t until I’m pulling in my driveway that I remember I have his cat. But ah well, it’s not like he’ll be allowed to go home tonight. I’ll set her up in my bathroom until I find time to drop her off at the department tomorrow, along with his laptop. Then I’ll write up a report about what happened and all the vital information they need. Maybe I’ll fix up my side… but don’t I deserve the pain for fucking up like I did?