The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) (22 page)

“You make it sound
like I’m a cold-blooded killer,” he interjected. “On the contrary, I’m just
trying to help you become immortal, and I need to carry out the procedure,
whether you like it or not.”

“Excuse me?” I narrowed
my eyes. “Plucking eyeballs out of me and putting your mother’s dead eyeballs
into my eye sockets makes me blind, not immortal.”

“But you don’t
wanna die, do you?”

“Of course not.” Not
now, at least.

“In that case,
making you immortal is the only solution for a win-win situation.” He grinned.

With the big grin
still pasted on his face, he stood up. “You’ll thank me later.”

Screaming “Lunatic
alert!” was tempting, but I bit my tongue to keep myself from that. Somehow,
doing that seemed to just aggravate the situation.

I looked up and
met his eyes; there was no joke, prank, or antic. He was seriously serious.

In his eyes was a
glittering confidence that I have seen before—the same absolute, downright
delirious belief, an obsession somewhat resembled to faith—long story short, he
had this 100% certainty that he’s right. I had seen the same striking credence
in the eyes of Warren Bernadoff Estevez.

Just like that.

In Warren’s world,
he had never been a fraud.

Incriminating
evidence was nothing but a conspiracy to screw him, to destroy him. He was
innocent in that little world where he was God Almighty in charge of setting up
the rules and keeping the order. No one, nothing, even law could knock senses
into him.

And it was the
first time that I had truly accepted the fact that no one could have saved my
ex from himself.

The Eureka moment.

Finally I realized
that the fiasco in the U.K. and the consequences had never been my problem.
That issue had become mine only because I had made it mine. Now finally, I had
come to terms with myself that I had had no feelings toward the ex-husband,
much less love, since a long, long time ago. It just took years for me to become
aware of my true feelings. My God, bothering to visit Belmarsh was a total
waste of time.

How pathetic was
that?

Oh my God, I’m
an idiot!

I felt like
punching myself, and crawling up in the corner and cry. If only my body and
hands were free.

Not to mention it
was not a good time to indulge myself in a full blown self-pity.

I asked. “So, that’s
why you poked the eyes out of other women? To make them immortal?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “I
did that to them with good intentions. But look at them, how they turned out to
be dead. It was devastatingly disappointing. Still, I’m keeping their eyeballs
to remember I had at least tried.”

“Maybe you could have
just given it up.”

“No, I couldn’t just
give it up!” he snapped. “Don’t you have an imagination? So I tried and tried,
just in vain. Each time, my anticipation got higher and higher, I got more and
more desperate. Please, please let me make it—wishing, praying to God, spirits,
devils and whatever to let me successfully bring my mother back to life, only
to fail. But now, I’ve got you. And I know you’ll turn into Mom and love me
unconditionally.”

“Oh…” a drop of
sweat trickled down my face. “Speaking of unconditional love…” I started,
though at this moment, I was running out of topics. “It seems like one of your
victims was so in love of this artist named Sam. Whatever had happened to Sam?”

Sue me, I was
still trying to buy time.

“Come on, Kelly.
Seriously,” he shook his head. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you’re
talking to him, Sam the artist?”

He continued. “Are
you babbling so to buy extra time? Unfortunately, your strategy won’t work, I’m
afraid.” He was chuckling. “Perhaps you’re hoping that your boss will be coming
in for your rescue any minute, but then again, he would be wasting time vainly
searching for the artist near West Virginia. Brilliant, just brilliant.”

“So tell me, Alan.
What’s the reason for making up this Sam character?” I asked, successfully buying
extra seconds.

“Well, Sam is the
name of the so-called artist, whom my mother had followed to Paris, after
abandoning me. So I made up this artist character with the assumed name Sam
with some help from articles left by the real Sam, including the old oil
painting named
Rhapsodie
. Even though I had corrected the spelling when I
named my little shop after that ugly pink painting, I had this gut instinct
that women being attracted to an artist bearing the same name and similar
painting style have a great potential to host Mom’s soul.”

Skeptically, I
stared at the glass containing several eyeballs.

“You are not
convinced,” he followed my gaze and grinned. “Of course, things didn’t work
pretty well at first. Still yet, in retrospect, Mom had been helping me
throughout all these days. As much as my Sam role had allured candidate women, and
brought you to me. That has totally compensated for the malfunction with the
first candidate women. One greedy hooker and a rich divorcee, they came from
different backgrounds but they had one thing in common, they were desperate to
boost their luck and both women complimented my
Rhapsody
, saying the
painting seemed to be working for their happiness
.
Can you believe the
rich divorcee had even traded her very expensive pieces with my crappy
paintings? In a nutshell, they were both desperately craving for something they
didn’t have, overlooking what they already had. Looking at those women, I
realized maybe my mother had tried to abort me for the same reason. So, I had
my share of frustration but in a big picture, Sam role and the artwork was a
definite success, they had attracted this stupid, sick headcase of a musician.”

“You mean, Yves?” I
said.

“Yeah, a stupid whiner.”
He spat. “He whined and whined and whined about his past, relationship with his
mother and everything! I had female customers who whined and/or bragged about
the relationship but he was the worst, most annoying whiner ever. Still, I
listened to his whining. It was hard to fake earnestness, but I did so anyway, I
knew he was usable. Believe me, he was positively convinced he was the killer who
had poked eyeballs out of women, not even doubting that his worsening nightmares
had anything to do with me. He kept on whining how he’s not sleeping well, so I
kept on feeding with innocent-looking tea, saying it’s a remedy from Patagonia
which gives a dramatic help. Of course, it was laced with you know what and he
had been just hallucinating, but he didn’t even know where Patagonia is. When
he saw all those news feed about Eyeball Snatcher, he was sickly shocked. He
did just what I told him to do, like writing the suicide note and taking the
medicine I gave him. And the rest is history.”

“He might have
been sick, but you’re sicker than him,” I muttered.

“I’ll take it as a
compliment,” he shrugged. “Anyway, the encounter with him was necessary for me,
I guess, especially after I’d discovered you. I knew that you are the one and
only to reincarnate my mother and I had no time to waste on other women. But at
the same time, I needed a closure of all those Eyeball Snatcher fiasco to make
it easier to acquire you. And guess what? Sam character brought just about
everything I needed. Not just he had arranged a convenient closure of my
previous experiments, but also he brought you here before I went and get you.
Kelly, what do you think this turn of events mean?”

“That you’re
obsessive?” Despite the grim situation I tried to appear confident, but my
statement sounded more like a question.

“Whatever you say,
I’m positive Mom’s been helping me out, giving me assisting hands, favoring
with me, for the first time in my existence. Of course, I must return her the
favor.”

“By the way, I was
expecting to see Karen,” I said. Finally, my desperateness beat my cowardice.

“Karen? Oh, that
little bait girl? Good thing I kept the kid alive. There were moments I thought
recorded voices were good enough, but now I know I made the right decision
considering you asked her if she was pregnant. I wasn’t expecting that
question.” He chuckled and pointed to the ceiling. “She’s up there.” 

“You mean like, as
in the upstairs?”

“No, I mean like,
as in heaven.” That bastard replied mockingly.

“You killed her?
How could you do that!?” I shrieked.

He shrugged off my
accusation. “I didn’t, she hanged herself on a doorjamb while I was out and
picking you up. After making that phone call, she was muttering something about
conscience. Anyway, she took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it. Then again,
once I’ve got you, I need to get rid of her anyway, so she kinda saved me
trouble. ”

“Eat dirt and die!”
I spat.

“Don’t be so
upset. Suppose your soul gets out of the body for my mother’s sake, probably
you can meet the girl up there. Wherever that place might be. So Kelly, I
believe it’s time to say goodbye.”

Strengthening his
grip of the knife, he cracked a sheepish grin.

The edge of the
knife blade glistened like morning dew.

I opened my mouth
to protest but words failed to come out.

Step by step, he
came closer and closer. With the mouth agape, I was watching the blade of the
knife like a total moron.

Before this
moment, I had my share of life-sucks moments. Still yet, getting myself killed
by a lunatic in such a brutal way and having the eyeballs poked out of me was
something I had never imagined, much less anticipated.

On top of all, it
sucked a big time that I’d let Karen die.

I sighed. I shut
my eyes as tightly as possible, determined not to make it easy for him to
conduct his sick ritual.

Then, I caught the
alarm start blasting.

So, it was a long journey. But
finally, I was almost there.

I have just met
the woman of my dreams, and I was about to rebuild my relationship with her.

One more step,
just one more step was what I had to take.

Finally, I had
her in my possession. With a nice restraint so that she couldn’t get away.

I was one step
from the magical moment.

Her eyes were
shut tightly but that was not a problem. If necessary, I could always slash
open the eyelids.

According to
the stupid media, I was an insane, soulless monster. Which was a completely unfounded
and false accusation. The fact that I’d been trying to reanimate my mother with
so much effort alone proved I have a heart and blood in my body.

I admired the
sharp blade of the knife reflecting the candle light.

She sighed, as
if all fight had vaporized out of her.

I was ready.

I took a step
toward her and then stopped. All of the sudden, I heard an earsplitting noise.

I frowned.

It was the
alarm system.

The alarm was
not connected to any security company. Its only purpose was to alert me that
somebody had broken in. Besides that, security programs didn’t seem to work in
my favor. So it was nice to have those people protect my house from potential
thieves and burglars, having those people snooping in my burglarized house for
damage inspection was just plain unacceptable. In that case, I would have to
kill them all in order to shut them up but it would not be an easy task. Especially,
when the security company starts wondering about the whereabouts of their
missing employees.

Getting rid of
occasional thieves was much easier; they usually come in alone. They are easy
to catch, not to mention playing with them is fun.

The purpose of
my DIY home security was more like keeping my captives from getting away than
keeping occasional petit thieves from coming in.

The alarm kept
on beeping.

Considering the
little bait girl had died on me, it seemed like I was having an intruder. How could
I have an intruder at such an inconvenient moment? I wondered.

I looked at Kelly
who was soon to become just a case to host my mother’s eyeballs. Neither Kelly
nor eyeballs was getting away from me.

“Better to go
look and see,” I said to her, and to myself. “Relax. Perhaps, it’s nothing.” I
added. She was tense.

Closing the
basement door behind my back, I hurried up the stairs leading to the ground
floor, hoping it was just a little malfunction of some devices. Or was it the
nerve messing my head? I had no intention of the nerve or a ghost stand in my
way.

I opened the
door to the first floor corridor. As I walked the corridor, all the hairs on
the back of my neck stood up. Obliterated by walls standing in an L-shape, I
couldn’t see the entrance from where I stood. But I wasn’t alone. I knew it.

“Hello there.”

Around the
corner stood my nightmare.

And he was
real.

The skirt
wearing creep whom my Kelly called her boss stood there. Except he was wearing
a pair of black cargo pants, a black windbreaker, and a pair of black work
boots instead of women’s clothes this time. Still, it was him unmistakably. With
the long auburn hair in a low ponytail, the former feds turned P.I. stood in my
way.

I didn’t like
it.

“What do you
think you’re doing? Breaking and entering?” I demanded. “I think I have to call
the police.”

“Go ahead,” he
shrugged. “That’s exactly what I was planning; calling the police to get you
red-handed, with the weapon, eyeballs taken from victims and everything.”

“I don’t know
what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Hey, let’s get
right to the point and get it over with. I’m politely asking you to return someone
who doesn’t belong here.” He looked straight into my eyes.