The f**ker was bricking him in. He recognized The Cask of Amontillado now that his head had cleared and he knew what was happening.
This had been the only Poe story Ty had read and actually enjoyed. Ironic that it would be what killed him.
He turned his head in the darkness. He could see the outline of the man at the top of the wall he was building. When he spoke, his voice echoed off the cavernous walls of the catacomb and came back too distorted to even decipher an accent, much less if it was familiar.
Again, Ty felt the cold dread creep over him. It was his worst nightmare, one he had never actually dreamed; knowing his lover was in danger and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. His wrists and ankles were bloody from his silent struggles with the shackles. He was shivering from the damp and cold. But he hadn’t yet given up. He couldn’t, not while knowing that the killer’s next stop would be Zane.
“He’ll kill you,” he told the man who was in the process of murdering him. “He’ll make it hurt.”
“I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t try,” the man answered sincerely.
“Well, three bricks left, Special Agent Grady. Time to say goodbye, if you like.”
Ty was silent as the man made some rustling sounds, as if he were crumpling a trash bag. Soon, a handful of white plastic was stuffed through the hole left in the brick wall. It was a plastic suit that had obviously been protecting the man’s clothing from the mud and mortar. It fluttered to the ground and the candle flickered threateningly. As soon as it landed, the plastic caught the flame and flared, bathing the little room in a burst of light. It illuminated the tiny space, making the water dripping down the old brick walls shimmer.
Ty could see the heavy drilled brackets that bound him to the bricks with thick chains, and the solid wall of brick a couple feet in front of him that closed in the tiny alcove. He knew instantly that no one would find him here.
Not in time.
He glanced up at the face in the hole in the brick wall and swallowed past his shock as he finally saw the man’s face.
“Congratulations,” he managed to utter to the face looking down at him.
“Why, thank you, Ty. That’s very kind of you. By the way, don’t worry about the kid. He needs to be alive enough to pass on the news about you disappearing. But I’m afraid I can’t make the same promise about your partner.”
Three bricks left.
Ty fought back the panic that bubbled up. Even the glimpse of the man’s face didn’t make a dent in the cold curtain of fear that had fallen. What good did it do to finally know who they had been hunting if he was going to die here?
Two bricks.
The candle flickered as the wall was nearly finished. A soft gust of cool, damp air flushed through the small hole remaining. Then there was a thump, a wet plop, a long scrape, and a quiet slide of sticky mortar.
The last brick.
Ty swallowed as the outside world was shut out. He looked down at the candle, the flame unwavering but weak. When it ran out, so would he.
“WE have five more victims to explain,” Ross told Zane as he scribbled quickly.
“Berenice,” Zane answered as his entire right side burned with throbbing, incessant pain. “The woman whose teeth were all yanked and she was wrapped up in a shroud and dumped at the cemetery. Then we have The Oval Portrait, the woman who was painted with her own blood and stuck up on a canvas.”
“God, it’s so easy to see now,” Sears groaned.
“A few more and we have them all. All except the agents who got too close.” Zane was shaking as he continued to turn through the book.
“Jesus, it was right there all this time,” Ross whispered.
“You told the Assistant Director about this, right?” Sears asked suddenly.
“Henninger was supposed to relay it,” Zane answered with a sigh.
“Better make sure,” Ross mumbled as he pulled out his cell phone and started punching buttons while Sears took his notepad from him.
Zane turned to the front of the book to look at the index as Ross swore at the phone and moved to the window. “Let’s see,” he murmured as he scanned over the names of the stories he remembered reading years ago. “The Fall of the House of Usher,” he announced to Sears as she wrote quickly.
“The character is suffering from extreme hypersensitivity. That’s got to be the first guy, the meth overdose.”
Sears nodded without looking up from her writing.
Zane paged through some more with his good hand. “There’s one.
William Wilson,” he said. “A man kills his double. That explains the twins.”
He continued to scan and passed on story after story. “There’s a classic,” he murmured to himself. “The Raven,” he mused. He made to turn the page to go to the next page of the index.
“Wait,” Sears said as she reached out and took Zane’s hand. “Bird flu,” she whispered.
Ross paused in his pacing, still messing with his phone, and he looked over at them sardonically. “Well, that’s sort of clever,” he commented before tossing his phone onto the couch and pulling Sears’ off the strap of her purse.
Zane’s face was grim. “That’s all of them. There’s got to be twenty more stories in here that he can play with.”
“Now what? So we’ve figured out the pattern, but it doesn’t get us closer to him,” Sears protested in disgust.
“It helps us understand how he thinks,” Zane pointed out.
“Until your profiling buddy comes back, that doesn’t do us much good,” Ross pointed out as he paced and waited for the call to go through.
“We still know next to nothing about him,” Sears pointed out. “Even if we did, we can’t leave you alone here to go do anything about it.”
“Yes, you most certainly f**king can,” Zane insisted. “I don’t need a babysitter, and Grady and Henninger are going to need backup. Call for someone.”
“We can’t call anyone from here. Something in the building’s blocking cell service,” Ross informed them in frustration as he waved the useless cell phone.
“Use Henninger’s phone,” Sears suggested logically.
Except Henninger didn’t have a landline.
“I’m going down to the garage and then up to the front of the building, okay? I’ll be back,” Ross declared, and he was out the door.
Zane nodded and pushed himself out of the chair to grab one of the personnel files. “Christ. There’s got to be some way to find this ass**le,” he muttered.