“If I was in her shoes and I found out,” Jack said, “I would be annoyed. I agree with Harry. We’ll just say we heard the music and came up to the roof to see what was happening.”
I went downstairs to collect Lea and bring her up to the roof to meet Jack and Bernie. There were still a couple of hours of daylight left to continue to watch the parking lot.
I knocked three times on the door and a voice came from behind it saying, “Hello, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, my name’s Harry. Come on up to the roof where the other two are. We thought we should keep an eye on what was happening in the parking lot. You’ll be safe.”
I led the way up to the roof and she silently followed. When we arrived at the top, Jack and Bernie both stood up. I introduced them and they each shook Lea’s hand.
“Sorry about your friend over there,” Jack said, and held his arm out in the direction of the parking lot.
Lea walked over to the edge of the roof and looked at the parking lot; she sat down with her back against the wall and put her head in her hands. Jack, Bernie, and I, looked at each other uncomfortably.
“How long were you watching?” Lea said.
“Watching what?” Bernie replied.
“Watching down there,” she shouted, “where do you think? Did you put that music on?”
I could see the tears welling up in her eyes again. This was going to be hard work.
“We heard the music and came up here to try and see what was happening,” Jack said. “By the time we saw you, it was too late.”
She was eyeing us all with suspicion.
“Lea, we’ll all go downstairs in an hour or so and we can talk about our experiences from the last few days then,” I said. “But for now, we want to keep watching the parking lot to see if anybody else gets drawn in.”
“Drawn in?” she replied.
“Somebody has created a lot of noise down there. It’s attracting attention. So we want to watch to see if we can learn anything else about the way the killers work, or if we could possibly try the same thing in the future to draw killers to each other,” I answered.
“We honestly would have warned you if we could,” Bernie piped up earnestly.
“You call them killers?” Lea asked.
“Yes, why? Do you have a better name?” I answered.
“We didn’t have a name for them,” Lea replied. “It’s just been awful since I landed at Newark; I never expected any of this.”
I shook my head in agreement with her and gave an empty, “Yeah, I know.”
I was thinking about how to tell our story to Lea when we got downstairs and wondered what she had gone through. Comparing notes was going to be interesting.
“Look! Down there by the trees again, in the same place we saw the first one,” Jack said.
Lea jumped up and stared at Jack, anger etched across her face.
“The first one? What you mean ‘the first one’?” she snapped.
“Err… I mean the first killer we saw from up here… the one with the pipe that came to attack you and Harry,” Jack stuttered.
“So where was the second one, if he was the first?”
“There wasn’t a second one; all we saw was one killer. So he was the first. This one is the second,” Bernie replied unconvincingly.
“Why was it too late when you saw us at the parking lot?” She pointed at Jack and shouted, “How did you know it was too late?”
Seeing us all stunned and unable to answer, she spun her accusing hand towards Bernie. “He said he couldn’t warn us. That means you knew there was something to warn us about.”
I was starting to feel ashamed, but stuck to our lie.
“We were speaking with the benefit of hindsight. We couldn’t warn you because we didn’t know anyone was there. The first time we knew a killer was there was when we saw the shooting. The first time any of us actually saw him was when I came down to the parking lot.”
“He’s approaching the parking lot,” Bernie said.
Strangely, having the distraction of a killer below, came as a welcome relief from our rooftop interrogation.
The killer was a woman who had made her way up to the car and was inspecting all of the bodies. She picked up the pistol that Lea’s friend had been carrying and disappeared behind the Honda, the CD was still playing.
“See, Lea, we couldn’t see the position of the killer that attacked your friend,” Jack said. “This is the view we had when we came onto the roof. You were just approaching the car.”
I wished that Jack hadn’t added the extra coating of sugar onto our bullshit. It was starting to sound as if we were trying too hard. Lea didn’t seem stupid, and I was sure she would see straight through us if this went any further.
“Can we just forget it now, please?” I replied.
“Easy for you to say, I’ve been to hell and back,” Lea hissed.
“Yes, it is easy for us to say,” Jack said with an irritated edge to his voice. “We’ve had a picnic since getting off the plane. It was especially fun when Bernie’s wife was killed right in front of us with a machete.”
Bernie stared down at his shoes, Lea looked surprised. It wasn’t the most subtle thing Jack could have said, but at least it shut everyone up again. We all went back watching the ground below us.
There wasn’t much conversation during the next hour. I didn’t want to get into any more question and answer sessions with Lea, and guessed Jack and Bernie thought the same.
The killer didn’t move from behind the car.
“Here’s another one. Do you think they’ll try to bluff each other or just go straight for it?” I said as I saw a man sneaking through the cars towards the parking lot.
“How do we know either of them are actually killers?” Bernie said.
“Do you want to go down and ask them politely?” Lea responded.
I let out a snigger. I looked at Jack and he was smiling as well. Bernie sighed.
The man walked towards the Honda, but stopped about 10 yards short of it. He had one hand behind his back, and it looked like he was carrying a knife. The woman behind the car suddenly stepped out and shot at him. The impact knocked the man sideways, but he was still on his feet. He rushed towards the woman who looked like she was struggling with her weapon. Before she managed to resolve whatever issue she had with the gun, the man plunged his knife into her midriff. She fell backwards; he crouched on her chest, repeatedly stabbing her for around thirty seconds. He picked up her weapon and started fiddling with it himself. He was clearly more competent, as in a matter of seconds; he shot himself in the head.
“She probably had a stoppage in the chamber,” Jack murmured.
“So what do you make of that then?” Bernie said, looking at us all.
“What do we make of what?” Lea replied. “I knew what was going to happen, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we—”
“Are you surprised by what you saw? Did you expect anything else?” Lea replied.
“No, not really, but we’ve learned a few things about the killers in the last couple of days. The more information we can get on them, the better. I’ll explain it all downstairs,” I said.
At least, we’d explain most things.
I turned to Bernie. “Come on, let’s get back to your apartment and get those candles out before its pitch black and we can’t see what we are lighting.”
Chapter 6 – Both sides
Now that there was no electricity, any building with bright lighting would be easy for killers to spot. The candles suited our needs.
“Would anybody like half a can of cold chili, a glass of vodka, and a cigarette?” Jack said.
A few days ago, Jack’s offer would have seemed laughable and a bit odd, considering he was a guest here too. Now it sounded welcoming and nobody refused.