Final Cut (13 page)

All this time. Right under his nose. But why? How? How could his best friend since childhood be a vicious killer?

“What are you saying?” Teri asked.

“It’s Buzz. Buzz is the killer…” Bill said. He was not consciously aware of how much sense this did not make to Teri.

“What? Buzz killed what?” Teri asked. He could hear the fear in her voice, shaking and scared. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Buzz killed Daisy Fox. He killed her,” Bill said. His voice was quiet. He could barely hear himself speak.

The idea that his best friend was capable of murder, let alone the kind of brutal murder that Bill had been forced to watch too many times, was just completely out of the scope of his understanding at that moment. There had to be a logical explanation. It could not be Buzz.

But that burn was exactly the same. There was no other person it could have been He saw that burn on the hand of the killer on that video. His eyes did not deceive him.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Teri asked. She was clearly being freaked out and Bill’s first instinct was to pull her close and hold her, but he was too lost in his own head.

“He has the same burn scar. I saw that burn scar on the video of the murder. He killed Daisy Fox.”

Teri’s jaw gaped open. She stood up and walked behind him pacing back and forth. Bill knew that he was not explaining a lot of what that meant but apparently she had picked up all of the right words out of it to catch his drift. She was starting to realize that her brother was a murderer.

A sharp pain to the back of Bill’s skull turned the world completely black. He saw nothing before or after.

***

Bill’s eyes flew open. He was suddenly aware of everything that had just happened and most of what was going on now. The blow to his head had put him in a good daze, but it had not knocked him out completely cold. During the haze he could hear voices even though they sounded muffled and he could vaguely make out what they were saying, but not enough for it to really make sense.

“Well, look who is awake,” Buzz said. They were standing in Bill’s kitchen and he was now tied securely to a kitchen chair with several lengths of rope. Bill tried to move but it was no use. He was stuck, completely at the mercy of Buzz.

“Good. I was afraid I’d hit him too hard,” Teri said walking into the kitchen. She gave Bill a wicked smile that did not even look like the girl he’d fallen in love with. Her demeanor was cold and a bit goofy which made for an unstable combo.

There they both were, right in front of him. He had been too blind to see that he was being played like a violin the whole time. Bill felt disgusting and sick to his stomach. He could not even bear to look at Teri.

“Aww, I think he is mad at me,” Teri joked.

“Yea, you really did a number on him little sis,” Buzz said.

“Why?” Bill asked. “Why did you kill Daisy Fox? And why were you playing games with me? Shits and giggles?”

Buzz laughed heartily. “Well, yea it was fun. Don’t get me wrong, but it was so much more important than that. You see I spied that little peach Daisy one day when I was driving through Cutler on my way back from hanging with my cousin Jordan. She was so perfect. I had to have her. And I did. I had her several times, but apparently I had her a little too much. Turns out the slut was
pregnant with my kid. I offered to pay for the abortion, but she wouldn’t take it. She was going to keep the kid and she was going to tell everyone I was the father. It would have ruined everything I’ve worked so hard for all these years. So I wasn’t left with a whole lot of options here, Bill.”

“You are disgusting,” Bill replied.

“Watch, what you say about my brother,” Teri said leaning in close to Bill’s face. Her face wore an expression of utter hatred and impunity.

“So, you were just along for the ride?” Bill asked.

“Well, I love my big bro and I wasn’t about to let some little gutter trash like Daisy Fox sink her teeth into him. So I became the bait and we took care of her the way we do.”

Teri and Buzz slapped a high five.

“That’s touching. But what about me? What the hell did any of this have to do with me?”

“Well, you were our insurance policy,” Buzz said. “You see there is always a chance of getting caught with something like this and I don’t like to leave things up to chance. I mean we are pretty sure we erased every bit of traceable evidence, but that’s what everyone thinks until they are sent to the gas chamber. So when you had your little accident then we decided that would be the perfect cover and everyone would gradually come to find out that Mr. Russell was not so perfect. But then the craziest thing happened—you survived!”

“Sorry to spoil your plans,” Bill said.

“Well, I guess it will still work out for the best. You see you are going to kill yourself because you can’t live with the guilt of what you’ve done. See our plan still works just the same way, with only a minor delay.”

Bill struggled tightly against the ropes trying like mad to get at least a hand or even a damn finger free to begin working on the rope. He could feel the panic beginning to set in on his mind and his body felt sluggish and heavy. He had to remain calm and breathe. Panic was the very thing that would get him killed here.

Buzz and Teri both looked at him laughing their asses off, which only served to infuriate Bill more as he struggled harder against the tight ropes.

“I think he is trying to make a break for it,” Teri said.

“Well, I wouldn’t like the guy if he didn’t have spunk,” Buzz said. “But it is annoying.”

Buzz pulled the revolver out of his belt and reared back to deliver a heavy blow to Bill’s head.

BANG!

At first Bill thought he was dead. He’d been shot. He was a goner. His life was over. There was no doubt about it.

But when he saw Buzz fall to the floor with the wound in his chest he realized that he was not the recipient after all.

Teri swung towards the door swinging her own pistol at whoever had fired that first shot. Before she could get halfway she was filled full of holes and crashed to the ground beside her brother bleeding all over Bill’s kitchen floor.

A second later Frank appeared beside Bill and began undoing the ropes.

“Frank? How did you know?”

“We had no idea what we would find here, but that shrink called us and said she felt that you were planning to do some harm to yourself or somebody else. Looks like she was wrong on both accounts.”

“I told you that shit was a waste,” Bill smiled

Bill could not bring himself to even look at Teri, lying there on the floor. Even after he knew who she really was and what she was capable of there was a part of him that still loved the Teri he had grown to know and cherish. But that girl was gone. In fact she had never existed.

In the weeks that followed Bill continued to see Dr. Wild. It was nice to have someone to just talk to about everything and he found after a while that it was really starting to help him cope with all of his demons.

But he was done with looking for love for a bit. He thought he had a good thing going and then disaster struck twice.

It just goes to show you that beneath every rose is a thorn ready to strike.

The End

Other books available by T.S. Worthington on Kindle, paperback and audio:

Darker Still

Payback

Rising Darkness

Grip of Night