Lilly's Gone

Obsession kept the monsters closer in her mind at night than they were during the day. She tossed and turned, sleep allusive as ever. The storm raged outside, thunder and lightning, the tree’s branches crashed against the side of the house, shaking the windows with feverish intensity. She listened to the wind howl, to the rain beat on top of the tin roof. Every blink of her eyes felt like sandpaper as the headache throbbed against her temples. Slow breaths, conscious of her heart rate, Harlow Bremer tried to forget about the monsters long enough to exhale the negative energy and get some sleep… her cell phone rang. She laughed, then sighed. A phone call at two a.m. meant only one thing. She would see more death this night. Another victim. Another monster.

“Bremer?”

“It’s a bad one.” Brock skipped the pleasantries.

“Aren’t they all?” She climbed out of bed. “Send me the address.” She hit end.

He didn’t waste any time and neither did she. Before walking out of her modest one-story house, she popped two aspirin and made an extra-strong coffee, not relying on anything being open this hour, or taking her time to stop anywhere. She reversed her SUV out of the garage just in time to answer her cell a second time. A smile spread across her face.

“You realise the time, right?” She answered.

“You get a call out and I’m gonna call,” he paused. “You didn’t sleep at all did you?”

She snorted. “Sometimes I think you have a crystal ball tucked away there somewhere.”

“Better believe it.”

She flicked her blinker left and turned. “Brock said it’s a bad one, so chances are I’ll be on it for the next 48 straight.”

“I’ll clear my schedule then.” Cole was one of the good ones.

“What are you doing?” She could hear the rustling of paper in the background, her ears already straining beyond the furious swipes of her wipers as the rain pelted her windscreen.

He laughed. “Trust you to talk me into adopting Hulk, he ripped up all my newspaper from the bin.”

She snorted. “Who even reads newspapers?”

“Evidently not me anymore.”

“I don’t know what’s waiting for me yet.” She turned, her wheel hitting a pothole full of water. “I’ll see if we can use you or not.”

“I’m getting dressed and pouring a coffee, send me the address.”

“You think I’m going to need you?” Police lights distorted from the rain came into her line of sight.

“I think if Brock says it’s bad, then it’s bad.”

She sighed. “Fine. Drive carefully, the roads are horrible. I love you.”

He smiled. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“And emasculate me, you wouldn’t dare!” She rolled her eyes.

The laugh, low and incredibly masculine, the only thing that keeps the shadows from her turbulent green eyes when he's around. “I love you, too.” He hung up.

Lightning flashed in the peripheral and the thunder‘s low grumbles echoed in the distance. The rain started to ease but the sombre and eery tone to the early hours of the morning had already been set. Harlow found a spot to park, the industrial district usually well into full swing at any time of the night and day, now an active crime scene. Yellow tape and uniform officers mixed with shitty weather. Bystanders, crime junkies, reporters were all out by the dozen, some with blankets wrapped around their soaked bodies, trying as hard as they could to find as much information about what was going on inside.

Brock’s voice echoed inside her mind as she checked her weapon and reached for her badge. Inhale, exhale. “It’s going to be a bad one,” she muttered, before stepping out into the rain.

Everything about Harlow screamed control. Commanding. She walked through the crowd, ignoring the reporter’s pleas for a comment. Unlike some of her colleagues, they at least turned around, gave a smile, and mumbled their way through. ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘no comment’, they would say. Harlow, on the other hand, didn’t give the reporters an inch, not a smile, just a stern look in her eye as she mentally prepared to face what death was coming next. Reporters and their stories were the least of her worries. Grabbing gloves and booties from the officers under the tent, she nodded her thanks.

The young, college face kid with dimples, cleared his throat. “Detective Stone said he’d be waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” She put the booties and the gloves in her pocket as she started making her way toward the warehouse. She turned around, her eyes darting to the officer’s name badge. “Officer Tate?” His smile brightened at her use of his name. “Dr Cole King is on his way, make sure he’s allowed access.”

His head shook up and down, reminding her of a bobblehead for the car dash. He was a people pleaser, she thought, or a Detective Harlow Bremer pleaser? She shook it off. She hoped not. She had a gut full of fans and crazies who romanticised not only her job but her role within it. Strong, infallible, Harlow Bremer. Cold-hearted, calculating and comfortable with the monsters. That’s how the media frequently portrayed her, and the public lapped it up, stories of her busting down doors and ignoring the chain of command to rescue a little girl from the locked chest of an abusive parent’s lounge room. Shooting first and dealing with internal affairs later, especially when dealing with someone who just tried to shoot an innocent baby to death. The public wants her to do the job, they just never understand the great personal consequence of it. The headlines frequently read – Harlow Bremer, the cities very own monster slayer… and she hated it.

Opening the heavy steel door, silence greeted her, all except the flashes of the crime scene photographer just up ahead. She approached and could see the body hanging from chains attached to her wrists. She closed the distance, stretching the gloves over her hands and stopping only to put the booties over her shoes.

“Told you it was bad.” Brock’s voice bounced off the walls with no buffer. No furniture, or carpet, just walls and open space. That and the girl hanging from her wrists with blood dripping down her gold sparkly dress.

“Give me a chance to look at her.” Harlow’s brows furrowed as she came closer. He was right. Her face was a mess of pulverized meat. “His fist?” She guessed.

“Hard to tell.” Brock shrugged his stocky shoulders. “Hope so, we might get some DNA and catch the prick before he can do it to someone else.”

Harlow walked around the body, her detached eye on every detail. The woman, her bare feet dangling, looked well put together. “Her toes are pedicured.”

“Yep,” Brock agreed.

“She’s either a party girl given the sparkly dress, or a high-end escort?”

Brock nodded. “Or he dressed her like that,” he added.

Harlow noted her skull intact, so all this guy’s rage had been contained to her face. “There’re markings around her neck?”

“Yeah, he strangled her with something.”

“Because it’s not enough to bash her face in?” She muttered, almost to herself.

Moving her attention to her wrists, her fingers, how the chains secured her to the rafter up above. It wasn’t high. Still, eye level for them to inspect the body. Was he conscious of that? Harlow thought to herself. Yeah, he knew. He wanted them to be able to see her as he displayed her. She told Brock as much.

“Dr Cole King is rubbing off on you,” Brock observed.

She smirked. “Maybe.”

“No ring finger. He cut it off!” Something looked wrong about it, she noted. “A scorned lover? Rage? Cutting the marriage finger off?”

Brock ran a hand over his freshly shaved head. “It takes a lot of rage to do this shit.”

“Dr. King will work up a preliminary profile when he gets here,” she smiled.

“You called him?”

“He called me. He already knew I had a call out. I thought you called him.” Harlow frowned.

Brock matched her expression, they were a good match for their partnership, his stone to her stern. Ex-navy seal he had his fair share of demons to contend with.

“We found something up here.” Hetty Young, the senior crime scene tech yelled .

“What is it?” Brock yelled back. Hetty was in her fifties, but you wouldn’t know it. All curls, nails and thickness. And she knew it.

“A suspicious package wrapped in brown paper addressed to Detective Harlow Bremer."

Brock narrowed his eyes at Harlow. “You know what the protocol is.”

Harlow glared. “We don’t have time for protocols, Brock.”

“And if you get blown up?”

“Have a drink for me at my funeral.” Harlow walked towards the stairs.

Brock closed his eyes. “This is why I shaved my damn hair. I found grey this morning… because of you.” He accused, following close on her heels until they were both standing in front of this brown package.

Harlow leaned in, ear close to the side.

“I already did that.” Hetty frowned. “I don’t think it’s a bomb. I even shook it a little.”

Harlow’s brows climbed her forehead. “See, she doesn’t follow protocols, where’s all the grey hair you’re growing for her?”

Brock rolled his eyes.

Harlow didn’t want to open it. She chewed the side of her lip as the shadows leapt in her mind as if waiting for another memory shrouded in darkness to join them. Deep breath. She tore open the paper, lifted the lid, the words Let’s Play scrawled beautifully in crafted handwriting. In the box, the girl's finger. The tattoo on the finger is what stole Harlow’s breath - a Lilly.

“No,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong?” Brock asked.

He heard the whisper and instantly knew it was bad, worse, it was the colour visibly draining from her face that scared him more than combat.

“Lilly,” she said.

“What?” Brock asked again, confusion obvious. “Lilly?”

Harlow ran, her shoes jumping the steps as if hurtles were a thing at a downward angle. Her head full of rejection, refusing to believe what her heart already knew to be true. Lilly King. Seventeen-year-old, sweet, Lilly King, who rebelled against her mother five months ago and got three tattoos. Harlow should know, she’d taken her to the biker joint and asked an old friend named Trucker to fix her up. After that, Lilly became Harlow’s biggest ally in the King family and the closest thing to a little sister Harlow ever had. Cole and Harlow had their first big fight because of those tattoos, but then he came around and realized Lilly really was rebelling and rebelling hard and he’d rather Harlow’s ex-outlaw friend do them than some sleazeball somewhere who could give her God knows what from dirty needles. A sob caught in Harlow’s throat. Those tattoos were now going to help identify her body. Standing on her tiptoes, she swept the blood-soaked hair from her neck to find an infinity sign. A tear rolled down her face. She untangled her right wrist from the chains. Three entwined hearts. It signified, a brother, a sister, a friend for life, she’d told her. She couldn’t stop the tears. The sobs wracking her body. She felt Brock’s arms and she collapsed in them. It’s when she realized the phone call. “The killer called Cole.” She sniffed. “He wanted him here.”

“What have we got.” Cole’s voice filled the warehouse.

Harlow turned out of Brock’s arms, and everything felt like slow motion. Cole knew something wasn’t right.

Lilly’s Gone, she couldn’t say the words.