Predestined

Chapter 19

Sarah

October 2020..... Chicago...

My search for the 11-95 killer seems to be getting closer. I've managed to get close enough to his communication media, so I get details about his targets. I've come to figure out that he's just a gun for hire. Which clears up the issue of trying to find a link between the victims. It's as random as the random number of people who hire him. But what I'm yet to figure out is through which medium he gets his information out. Is there an assassin for hire portfolio out there? Do they have a bad guy advertisement board? Those were the big questions that I needed answers to.

Today, the target is a notorious drug dealer who also happens to be one of the biggest drug dealers in town. The department has never been able to get anything on him to warrant an arrest. He's never even been charged. This guy uses proxies; even his proxies have proxies. So it had always been difficult to get him linked with anything. He's been linked with over a dozen homicides, money laundering, racketeering amongst others, but none has ever been proven, plus he has the money to hire top lawyers, so he always seems to beat the system. Although part of me is glad to see his name come up and I want the 11-95 killer to get this target, it's still my job to stop it, so Paul and I went to him with the hope of trying to convince him to let us help him - which quite frankly, we knew was a long shot.

"How can I help you good officers today?" He asked with a look on his face that just portrayed arrogance.

"Good afternoon sir, we received some information that there might be a threat to your life and we're here to try to help," Paul said in his usual commanding tone.

"This is Chicago, detective, there's always a threat to everyone's life. What makes me so special that I get a visit right from the boys in blue? Isn't my guardian angel supposed to be picking up the slack?" He said, trying to appear comical with his goons behind him chuckling at his idea of comic relief.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I cut in: "I know in your line of work, you expect people to always be after you, so you prepare for anything, but this is someone you can't prepare for. He's one of the best at doing what he does, so if you want to live, I'd suggest you come with us to make our job and your life easier."

Listen sweetheart, normally I would gladly follow you anywhere because you look like the kind of broad that I would love protecting me all day and all night long. But as you can see, I'm quite busy so I can't go anywhere with you." He said, looking at me from head to toe in a creepy way that I think only he could. "But you can come with me inside, I have a wonderful couch that's very good for your kind of protection."

With that very crude comment, I lunged at him in fury only for Paul to hold me back as if he expected it from me.

"Get your partner in order, detective. Wouldn't want her to do something she might regret." He said with a smirk on his face.

"Is that a threat?" Paul asked.

"No sir. It's simply an advice. Now, if you would excuse me, as I said, I'm a busy man and I would love to get back to it. Goodbye Detectives, thank you for your concern." He says as he walks away.

I just stood there, fuming as Paul held me back trying to prevent me from losing my job.

"You need to get better control of your emotions. I get that you're a woman and men can be insensitive and rude to women, but your constant outbursts doesn't make it better for you or all the women trying to prove that they are not being led by their emotions. You need to tone it down or go for counselling or some shit." He says in an attempt to calm me down and although his words hold truth to it, I still just couldn't calm myself down fast enough. I guess it's easy for him to say, he's a man; how would he know how to handle himself if put in my shoes? He doesnt constantly have to prove himself over incompetent fools daily simply because they have a p***s.

As the internal battle waged on, I got temporarily distracted when I saw the drug dealer's goons exit the building but without their boss and that seemed to me like a stupid move considering we had just told him that there was someone coming after him and he decided to send his guards away, so I turned to Paul.

"I think the big boss has so much confidence in himself. So much that he allows his guards to leave him after we just told him there's someone after him." I say jokingly

"He must think we're joking about him or he considers himself a warrior enough to fight off whatever threat he faces. Either way, he made it clear that he didn't need our help, so we should go."

"Not yet. I want to get up close and see vantage points an assassin could operate from." I said, going towards the building.

"But we don't have a warrant. We could get thrown off the case." He protested.

"Don't worry, it's just a peek. We're not hurting anyone." I say as I enter the building and just as we enter the building, we hear glass shatter, a loud groan with a lot of commotion. We rush to the scene to meet the drug dealer lying on the floor with blood trailing. Seems like he tried to escape and almost made it out the door before he was shot. Just as I proceeded to call it in on my radio, I heard him groan, so I got closer and noticed he was alive.

"You should have taken our help when we offered." I started.

"I'll call for an ambulance." Paul said.

"Not yet." I cut in. "If he tried to run, then he might have seen the shooter and maybe he could finally help us ID him."

"Lady, I'll tell you anything. Just get me to the hospital." He managed to yell.

"Good. You can talk. Let's begin." I added. Just before we could start, Paul pulled me to the side.

"What are you doing? He's bleeding out. We should get him to the hospital first and then question him later." He said.

"Are you going to trust that a drug dealer would honour his word and talk to the police after we've helped him? Or do you want to take the chance of him being killed in the hospital like what happened before? This way, we have him to ourselves and we have leverage on him." I say, trying to prove my point, and he reluctantly agrees.

"Sorry about the wait, we were deliberating on helping you after you rejected our help before. The state department isn't one to offer help to people who don't need it. We leave such work to their guardian angels. Now, I don't care what goes on here; that's not what I'm here for. I just want you to describe the guy who shot you on my recording device. The sooner you do that, the sooner we call you an ambulance, so if I were you, I would muster all my energy and speak as quickly as possible. You don't have a lot of time to waste," I said.

He turned to Paul as if to plead his case: "Are you going to let her do that? You're a cop. You're supposed to save lives. This is torture."

"Don't look at him. If you remember correctly, you rejected our help. We're breaking a few laws just by being in here without a warrant, so I suggest you start talking." I said as a smile creeped up my face. And after much strain, he starts the description as I record.

After a while of recording, which he didn't finish because he went into shock, so we had to call an ambulance anyway. By the time the ambulance came, they said he had already lost too much blood and saving him would be impossible, so I left them with a sense of accomplishment as I had gotten most of what I came for. I forwarded the voice recording to our sketch artist so he could try to render an image so we could finally get an idea of what he looked like.

Just as I did that, I noticed Paul walking towards me with a worrying look on his face. So I ask

"What's your problem? Why do you look so sour?"

"What happened to you?" He began; "You just let a man almost bleed to death just so you could get information. And you did it with a smile on your face. Your obsession with this case has changed you completely. You ignore protocol, you break rules and now you might have just let a man die all in your bid to solve this case. It's like you're doing it to prove that you could be better than the men in the department. Time and time again, I've had to cover for you in regards to your outbursts, your ego and/or your stubbornness to do anything anyone's way but yours. You weren't like that when I first asked to be your partner," he said, and then stormed off.

Was he right? Was I becoming someone else just to catch this guy? The thought of it brought fear and dread to my heart as I started to think about how much I had changed.

..... What have I become?........

Later that day......

After the talk I had with Paul, I found myself not being able to face him, so I just went to the only place I felt safe, as I didn't want to be in my apartment alone. Thankfully, I raided his fridge and saw that he had wine. That should take the guilt and thoughts away temporarily. So I took a glass, turned up the music and tried to rejoice in the fact that I finally got a lead that should get me closer to closing the case once and for all, so I could get back to myself.

After a while of dancing with myself, Matt came in and the look on his face when he saw me dancing really got me excited because I knew he had never seen this side of me before, so I just tried to put it all on him because I was sure it would take a while before he would get to see me in this mood. Quite frankly, it will be a while before I see myself in this mood. This part of me is one I'm even surprised I have. The more I danced, the more I could tell he was getting aroused. It was so obvious, I could see it on his face, the way he shifted up and down the couch, trying to make his erection less visible. Strangely enough, the thought that I had this great an effect on him filled me with some sense of confidence that made me dance even more while maintaining eye contact just to let him know that I knew what I was doing to him and I wanted to keep doing it.

After a while, I got tired of watching him suffer, coupled with the fact that looking at him struggle turned me on probably more than he was turned on. I got on the sofa with him and we had a kind of s*x that I can only describe as appropriate for the kind of day I had - hard and at the same time sensual. It felt like he knew I needed it or he went through the same kind of day I had.

After the mind-blowing s*x, we went to bed and slept off almost instantly, only for me to be woken up about an hour later. It was the sketch artist sending me the result of his sketch plus an accompanying message that the drug dealer died in the ambulance from severe blood loss. I had a mini-guilt session, but I was too excited to finally put a face to the person who has been haunting my days for so long. As soon as I opened the message, my heart nearly stopped, my head felt like it was on fire, my chest tensed up like it had a ton of weight dropped on it. It can't be! The sketch bore a remarkable resemblance to the man lying in bed next to me. This has got to be some kind of joke. This can't be happening. Has he been with me all this time just to get information about me or is this just a wild form of coincidence? The coincidence option didn't seem too far fetched for someone with my luck. Everything always seemed to work against me, but I really thought life was giving me a break for once. I thought I had this one piece of goodness in my life only for the most unimaginable scenario to occur. But when I think of it, it all seems to add up. How we met, the places I met him, how his moods seemed to go low and high after he had killed someone. At that point, I just couldn't hold it together. I broke down in tears. And almost as soon as I start crying, he wakes up and sees me crying and, instead of asking me what's wrong, he just holds me close and strokes my hair like he always does. Of course, he wouldn't ask me what's wrong when he already knows. I'm sure he knew right from the start. Just then, a thought came to my head about how to beat him at his own game.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying after the night we just had." I started.

"It doesn't matter." He replied. "Sometimes the emotions hit us when we least expect them."

"It's just about work." I continued, determined to lay a trap for him. "A drug dealer was shot today, one of the biggest cases in our department. I was hoping to get some time off to spend with you, but now I received a text that we're supposed to be at work tomorrow to fill in for the officers that are going to question him when he wakes up tomorrow."

"Wait, the drug dealer survived?" He asked with intensity in his voice. It seemed like my plan was working.

"Yeah, he did. He lost a lot of blood, but the doctors managed to save him. He's in the hospital now and tomorrow, they're going to question him. Ruining the plans I had made for us."

"Don't worry about it, we have a lot more time to spend with each other. Just rest up so you can have enough strength to deal with the day tomorrow. I'm sure there will just be more paperwork for you. You need your rest. Let's go to bed." He said, motioning me to sleep in his arms. I graciously accepted his offer.

..... By tomorrow, It'll all be over.....

The next day.......

As soon as I got to work the next day, I moved to enact the next page of my plan. I couldn't involve the whole of the department because some part of me didn't want to believe it was him. Maybe it's a look alike, or a mistake by the sketch artist. But being who I am and all I've been through, I have to assume the worst is possible. So I only plan to include Paul in my plan. I know the 11-95 killer is formidable, but between Paul and I, we can handle it. He's one of the most competent officers in the department and I trust him more than anyone in the department. As soon as I get to the desk, he welcomes me with the disappointing news of I told you so.

"I guess you heard that the drug dealer from yesterday died?" He started before whispering "Because someone refused to call him an ambulance on time."

"He's not dead to us, at least not yet." I cut in.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

So I filled him in on my plan to leak the information that he survived to attract the killer to come finish him off and, since we know what he looks like, it wouldn't be difficult to spot him and he seemed to like the idea although stating that it was a long shot.

So we got on with our plan, choosing a hospital that didn't have enough digital services so they couldn't be hacked, had very few staff whom we informed of the situation, so they could evacuate the building in case a gun fight broke out and a room with no windows facing outside in a way that to get any view of the bed, he would have to enter the room. After a while of waiting in the shadows, sure enough, he walked into our trap and Paul and I stood up with both our guns pointed at him.

"Drop your weapon you son of a b***h!" I said, almost yelling. That seemed to startle him because he turned around looking at me with surprise written all over his face.

"Sarah, What is this?" He asked. "Why are you here?"

"Don't ask questions like you didn't know I was the lead detective on the case before you approached me." I said, tackling him to the ground. All he could say was "What?" as I put the handcuffs on him and read him his Miranda rights.

"Do you guys know each other?" Paul asked.

"It's a long story, I'll tell you about it later." I said and just as we walked into the corridor, we ran into a group of armed men waiting for us outside the room.

"We heard you're the b***h of a cop who let my brother and our boss bleed out yesterday and we've come to collect your head as payment for his." One of the men in the group spoke.

"I'm going to ask you guys to walk away, this is official police business and I'm sure you don't want to be part of killing a cop." Paul cut in.

"We don't care if she's a cop. A cop wouldn't let a man bleed out. Blood must have blood. We have no quarrel with either of you, so you could take your suspect and get out of our way or you both die together." He added, with them all readying their weapons.

Before I could speak, Matt got in front of me and said, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that..... I won't."

Those words sounded familiar, I've heard them before, in that way, that same tone. Drowning everything else out of my mind, only one name came up....

"EFE?"

Just as I said it, Matt turned around as if it struck a chord with him as it did me and he asked

"How do you know that name?"

...... What in the unearthly coincidence is happening?!........