Page 96 of Breathe Me In

“Ellis and Adams, head that way,” Cap ordered.

Hayne felt me approach and rolled his eyes as I came up next to him.

“Where’s Bree?” I blurted.

His face dropped, and he licked his lips like he was holding back what he really wanted to say. “Come on, Brad, you’re killing this for me.”

“Hayne, I’m here undercover, and I need to know where she is.”

He cursed, then shook his head, annoyed. “Inside—” I barely heard the rest as I raced around the front. The suspect had already gone inside. I pushed through the small lineup and flashed my badge.

“This ride’s closed until I clear it,” I instructed the guy at the door.

“Okay.” He shrugged.

I lifted the radio and spoke quietly. “I’m in the fun house. I’ve shut it down. No sign of him yet.”

“Copy that. I’m moving your way,” Kennedy replied.

“This is unlike any fun house you’ve been in before.” The recording started as I entered the first room. “These are the rooms you dream about at night. The doors to all your fears have been left open.”

I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark room. It looked like it had been bombed several times. Dirt and fake broken cement blocks were everywhere, and the floor was slippery as I tried to hurry my way through. I imagined he would be a few minutes ahead of me. I hoped he’d be affected by the stuff inside the house enough to slow him down a bit. I stepped into the hall and was forced to take a sharp left. The music helped muffle my steps but also muffled his. I ducked when something shot out at me, but it stopped just inches from me. A swinging sandbag seemed to come from nowhere and almost hit my side. I knew they were just full of stuffing so they wouldn’t hurt if they were to reach you. They were just to make you jump.

“Ahhh!” someone screamed up ahead, and I picked up my pace but stopped when I saw the girl. A boy laughed at what had just made her scream. Strings of marbles were used to skew the lighting. I reached up and pulled some off and tossed some in their direction.

“Hey,” I mouthed as quietly as I could, then put my finger to my mouth as I showed my badge. Both kids froze. “Go back out the way you came.” They didn’t even question me, and the boy grabbed her hand, and they dashed back toward the front entrance. I tucked the marbles I still held into my pocket in case anyone else was up ahead.

I stepped into the next room and caught sight of his jacket just as the door slammed shut. “Welcome to your worst nightmare, where not everyone is as innocent as they seem. Can you spot them?” The recording gave a spooky laugh, then a strange smell was pumped in from somewhere.

“What the hell?” I scanned the fake dead bodies thrown together everywhere and thought how sick people were to use these kinds of ideas. I was all for scary stuff, but whoever the creator was of this house had clearly re-created a mass murder. It was gross. They had crossed the line from being fun and scary to disgusting and inappropriate. There was enough bad stuff like this on the news every day, and people didn’t need more.

I put a hand on my weapon when the light went off, and a black light clicked on. Five letters lit up in neon pink. IYKYK. It stood for if you know you know. I hated that we lived in a world of acronyms. The lights flickered, making it harder to see. It wasn’t hard to figure that the object of the game was to solve the puzzle. I studied the scene, then moved around each victim until I spotted a young shooter. I pulled the replica of a gun from his hands, and it shot up in the air, attached to some sort of retractable cord. Once it disappeared, the door behind me slid open.

“Gross.” I felt like I needed a shower. That delay had caused me to lose my visual on the suspect. I only hoped he’d struggled with it longer than I had. The floor sloped at a steep angle, and I had to hold the wall to keep from—

Suddenly my feet were kicked out from behind me. I hit the floor and plummeted down a metal slide. The moment I hit a mat in the dark room, I quickly rolled to the side, then jumped to my feet and pulled my weapon at the same time. I heard someone behind me.

“So, you figured it out.” The voice had come from somewhere beside me. I turned and aimed at the sound as I blinked to get my eyes adjusted. My heart sank at the sound of his voice. Even though I knew the truth, it still brought pain. That I had been so wrong about the man I thought he was weighed heavily on me. But then the lifeless young faces of Maggie and Shelly came to me, and I felt a whole new level of anger. How was this man capable of being so heartless?

“I did. I know it’s you, Hank,” I yelled and used my voice to muffle the sound when I clicked on the radio. I wanted the others to hear us. “Give yourself up, because you’ve got nowhere to go.” I was able to make out his silhouette as he moved and tracked him with the muzzle of my gun. The only light was a tiny red hue in the far corner of the room.

“Have you enjoyed my performance?”

“Performance?” I mocked. “I’ve seen better.”

“I guess I should step up my game.” He sounded amused. “Maybe we start with what I didn’t finish at the lake.”

“Funny, because right before Timothy Ford died, he took credit for nearly killing Bree.”

“I suppose that’s true.” I heard him race off, and I followed but tripped over something on the floor. I fell but used the momentum to roll back up onto my feet. The next room was all mirrors. They were angled to disorient you, but at least there was better lighting, and I caught sight of him. I quickly jerked in his direction only to come face-to-face with a dead end. Shit. I had to think like this house of horrors. What appeared left wasn’t left at all. The floor shifted under my feet, and I was turned in a different direction. “Why the fair?” I spun on my heel and saw that when the floor shifted, so did the mirrors.

“Why not?” His voice seemed to come from behind me. I slowly turned. “What better place than this for such a performance?” He laughed. It wasn’t lost on me that he used the word performance. I wondered what else he had planned.

“Why, Hank?” I called as the lights spun. “I’ve known you for years, so why do it?”

“She’s quite pretty, isn’t she?” He spoke from somewhere different from before. I was thankful that he was still there and hadn’t given me the slip. “I understand the infatuation.”

“Were you doing this for someone else, Hank? I can’t believe you really wanted to kill those poor girls. Or was it something from way back, maybe because of your friend? The one that died in the greenhouse when you were a kid?” I wanted to keep him talking. Then I quietly spoke into my radio. “I’ve got him with me in the mirror room,” I said, filling the team in.