Deadly Illusions Read online

  DEADLY ILLUSIONS

  By

  Robert Brown

  © Robert Brown 2017 All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction, any names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are purely from the imagination of the author or used for fictitious and entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real people living or dead and actual events is purely coincidental.

  No parts of this book may be reproduced. Reviewers may quote small passages in the book for reviewing purposes.

  1

  She remembered applying for the job. She remembered meeting the strange man in the middle of the London streets, and she even remembered what he looked like, despite the mask that now concealed his face.

  What she didn’t remember was how she had gotten here.

  In her field of work, it was rare to come across malevolence. It was one of the truest art forms still alive. Her industry was full of genuine, creative performers with a rare passion for their work. The only downside was that their flair for theatrics often spilled over into their everyday personas.

  But this wasn’t theatrics – something sinister was unfolding before her. She remembered sitting in a chair in the middle of his rehearsal space. Then, suddenly, she felt a small prick against the back of her neck, as he told her she would.

  And then everything was gone. In her line of work, she often heard the term “a deep sleep” but such lines were never accurate. Very few people, if anyone, could cause people to fall into “a deep sleep” on command, and the participants who did succumb to such instructions were simply playing along.

  But she wasn’t playing along. This was real terror.

  In the confines of a gigantic wooden box, her torso had been strapped down to its base. Her arms and legs had been stretched as far as her joints could withstand. She felt as though they might tear from their sockets at any minute.

  Despite her wriggling, nothing came free. Her hands, feet and head all sprouted through purposely-cut holes in her place of imprisonment.

  And then her tormenter returned. He ran his hands gently over her feet. She began to jerk her body with as much force as she could muster but her tight restraints kept her glued in place.

  “Do you know what comes next?” he asked.

  It was an absurd question. She certainly knew what came next. In all other cases, the hands and feet sprouting outside the box would be fake, giving her the freedom to move around while maintaining a simple-but-effective illusion.

  However, something told her this wouldn’t be the case now.

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she burst into tears. Asking why he was doing this would be of no benefit to her. Even with the grotesque black rubber mask he wore over his head, she knew this man possessed the eyes of a psychopath.

  The masked man leaned toward the center of the box. From above, he pulled down a saw blade. The woman screamed in horror.

  To her surprise, the masked man removed the blade from the saw. However, her moment of relief quickly vanished when the blade he removed hit the ground. It barely made a sound. The blade was made of plastic.

  The woman’s eyes widened when the masked man pulled something from below her box-coffin. It was an almost exact replica of the one he’d just removed but something was slightly different.

  It was solid. It was heavy. When he placed it on top of her box, he did so with a thunderous clang.

  The blade was real.

  Thick, reinforced steel. He pulled the saw mechanism closer to himself and loaded the metal blade inside it. With his dead eyes resting on the woman’s squirming body, he backed away from her.

  “No, please,” she said through tears. “I can help you.”

  No words came in response. Instead, he moved out of sight.

  All she could see was a gigantic steel blade about 10 feet above her torso. It was perfectly placed above her mid-section. Usually, now would be the time when she would be safely out of harm’s way, preparing to give her audience the impression that she’d been horribly mutilated.

  The blade above her swiftly dropped. A deafening scream filled the air inside the man’s lair. It was the kind of scream that couldn’t be faked.

  2

  Epping Forest was an area of scenic, beautiful woodlands on the outskirts of London. Its sprawling, vast greenery made it one of the most captivating areas in the city. On a normal spring afternoon, any number of families, lovers and friends could be seen trailing the dirt-ridden tracks through its labyrinthine pathways.

  It was closing in on 5:00 p.m., and it seemed that David Richard’s family was the only one left in there.

  “Don’t run off too far. We have to go soon,” shouted David.

  His son Tommy ignored him while his daughter Misa shouted back with feigned enthusiasm.

  “What’s the betting we don’t see them for another hour?” asked Chloe, David’s wife.

  “Pretty high, I’d say.”

  “Well, you made them,” said Chloe. “You did the crime, you do the time.”

  “The older they get, the more I’m convinced you had an affair with the devil.”

  “That wasn’t the devil. That was the postman,” joked Chloe.

  “Very funny. Now what do we do for the next hour?”

  “Well, we could be respectable parents and make sure our children don’t stumble upon any dead bodies,” said Chloe.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “It’s our job. But the question is – who gets who?” asked Chloe.

  David pulled out his wallet. He took out a coin and balanced it on the tip of his thumb. “Loser gets Jake?” he said.

  “You read my mind. Call it.”

  David flipped the 50-pence coin into the air, caught it on his palm and turned it over into his hand. “Tails never fails,” he said.

  It was heads.

  “A-ha!” said Chloe.

  “Damn it. What age do they go to university again?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “I’m going to petition to lower it to 10.”

  “Hush. Find your son.”

  David ran in the direction into which Jake, his 10-year-old soccer-loving son had scuttled off. Usually, the sound of a football ricocheting off trees acted as a constant indicator as to where Jake was. However, there was very little in the way of such sounds. Nothing at all, in fact.

  “Jake?” David shouted. “Where have you gone?” The words you little shit were spoken at a slightly lower volume.

  Nothing. He couldn’t have gone far. It wasn’t the first time he’d ran out of the radius that David deemed to be a comfortable proximity to him and Chloe.

  “Jake?” he shouted again.

  About 50 feet away, through overgrown trees and weeds, Chloe had found Misa without issue. Misa had picked some flowers and put them in her doll’s hat, then sat in a cardboard box and pretended it was a boat. They had returned and followed the direction David had gone, eventually noticing David alone at the edge of a small lake.

  “Have you found him?” shouted Chloe.

  “No.”

  “Don’t mess around.”

  “I’m not lying. I don’t know where he’s gone.”

  “Oh God,” said Chloe. “Jake?” she shouted. “It’s time to go home.”

  David and Chloe stood in silence as they awaited any kind of response from their son. They could see about 100 feet in every direction. Jake was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh my God. David, what do we do?”

  “Don’t panic. Get looking. All of us. He can’t have gone far.”

  A million thoughts, theories and possibilities ran through both parents’ heads. Losing a child was perhaps the most horrific feeling in the world. No one ever thought it would hap
pen to them but when that fear became a terrifying reality, the gut-wrenching bile in the parents’ stomachs was like nothing else.

  After five minutes of searching, David and Chloe reunited on the edge of a path overlooking a steep, rocky hill. Below was a murky, green-tinted lake surrounded by rocks, jagged pathways and a fence to keep away the general public.

  David and Chloe looked down into it.

  “That’s it. I’m calling the police,” said Chloe.

  “No,” said David.

  “No?”

  “Wait. Can’t you hear that?”

  From a distance, a faint voice carried through the air. It sounded like Mom, Dad.

  “Jake? Can you hear me?” shouted David.

  Again, as faint as the spring afternoon wind, a voice responded. “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  They waited a moment. It felt like hours.

  “Down here.”

  Peering over the rocks, David noticed a football lying against the lake’s fence. A wave of relief washed over him.

  “You scared us to death, you little shit.” This time, he didn’t disguise the volume of his voice. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I think you need to come and see this,” Jake replied.

  After five minutes of walking, David, Chloe and Misa followed the official path that led down to the lake where Jake had found himself. David had planned on immediately scolding him the second Jake came into sight but he found he couldn’t.

  Something else grabbed his attention and didn’t let go.

  Hidden beneath a rock formation on the edge of the lake, an unnatural monstrosity presented itself. The four members of the Richards family stared at it in silence.

  There, displayed as though she were a puppet whose owner had dismembered it, was the upper half of a woman’s body. Her head, shoulders, arms and midsection were all intact but then everything stopped. Along the concrete floor, her entrails dangled from her as though she were a tentacle sea creature. Blood dripped from her torso and made its way into the lake, which had garnered the attention of all manner of aquatic animals.

  Jake backed away to his family’s embrace. However, before he did, he pulled his football beneath his feet. In an act of curiosity in which his parents were too enthralled to intervene, Jake propelled the football directly toward the woman’s body.

  “Jake, no!” David screamed but was too late. The ball hit her chest. It pushed her over, displaying her mutilated innards to the world.

  Fifteen minutes earlier, David’s wife had told him it was his job to protect his son from stumbling across dead bodies. It seemed he’d failed at his task.

  3

  Notoriety was somewhat of a paradox for a private detective. In the same way a successful blues musician no longer has the blues, when a private detective loses his anonymity, his job becomes more difficult.

  Being in the presence of someone who didn’t know his real identity was a small blessing that gave him satisfaction. With every successful case to his name, this blessing became rarer.

  “You know, in China sometimes the man orders for the woman,” said Cael.

  The woman sitting across from him was a brunette in her mid-thirties. Her waist-length hair accentuated her incredible figure. They had met in the London College Library about a week before.

  She raised an eyebrow in Cael’s direction. “You know, in England sometimes the woman kicks the man in the shins for being impatient with his date.”

  “Touché,” said Cael, picking up his tumbler of whiskey. “Can I get you another drink?”

  “Slow down, cowboy. Some of us have work in the morning.”

  “What’s that like?” Cael asked.

  “Painful. Soul-destroying.”

  “Let me guess,” said Cael. “Teacher?”

  “What gave it away?”

  “Most people would be happy to be hung over at work. But being around kids is bad enough without a screeching headache to go with it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Do I have to call you Miss Owen?” Cael asked.

  “Kelly will do. Unless you try and order my food for me.”

  “Feisty.”

  “You’ll see. What do you do? Let me guess – teacher as well?”

  When meeting women for the first time, Cael tried his best to conceal his true profession. Instead, he had a plethora of stories to use in case he couldn’t avoid the question. Tonight he was a magician.

  “Afraid not. My coffee breath isn’t bad enough to be a teacher.”

  Kelly laughed as her eyes scanned the menu for the nth time. Why do some people find it so difficult to choose something? Cael thought. “I’m a magician,” he lied.

  Suddenly, Kelly’s eyes averted from her menu. She looked directly at him.

  “No way. Get out of here,” she said.

  “I know what you’re thinking – too good looking to be a magician, right?”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Kelly. Cael had already anticipated her next comment. “Show me a trick,” she said.

  “Alright,” said Cael, pulling out his phone. It glared 1 UNREAD MESSAGE but he avoided it for now. He opened his Notepad app and typed something. “When you’ve chosen your meal, let me know and I’ll show you something.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ve decided.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  Cael slid his phone across to Kelly. She looked down at what he’d written.

  He’d typed: CHICKEN PARMESAN WITH ZUCCHINI PASTA. Kelly looked at him in astonishment. She burst out laughing.

  “Ha-ha. How did you know?”

  “A real magician never reveals his secrets.”

  “Oh, come on. Please. I’m one of those people who will keep pestering you until you tell me,” said Kelly.

  Cael sat back in his chair and took a sip of his whiskey, prolonging the cruelty. “That’s fine. Pester all you like. Neediness is very attractive in a woman.”

  “Well, do you respond to physical threats?” asked Kelly.

  “When I’m being threatened by a lady with your figure – hell yes.”

  Kelly laughed. “Oh God, a pervert magician. You’re an interesting one. Where do I meet you people?”

  “The library, if memory serves me correctly. You were in the single-woman reading section.”

  “It was the trashy romance section, I do believe.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, at least the staff room conversation will be interesting tomorrow.”

  “It would be a lot less interesting if you knew the secret.”

  “If you tell me, I’ll pay for dinner,” said Kelly, giving it one final shot.

  “Fine,” agreed Cael. “The entire time you were scanning the menu, your eyes were looking away. When a person scans a food menu and subconsciously decides what they want, they bring that part of the menu to their front-and-center. That item dominates their direct field of vision and everything else around it is scenery. In your case, the chicken parmesan was directly in front of you, meaning you subconsciously wanted that. However, I think you’ve had it before, so you were facing an internal struggle over whether to experiment or stick with what you know. You chose the latter.”

  Kelly sat in silence for a few seconds, impressed. “That’s quite amazing,” she said. “And here’s me just thinking you were a pervert.”

  “Well, don’t discount that part of me just yet. Also, you don’t really have to pay for dinner. What kind of gentleman would that make me?”

  Suddenly, Cael’s phone began to vibrate on the table. Kelly looked down.

  “Someone named Tyler wants you. Is that one of your other women?”

  “I wish,” said Cael. “That’s my, err, assistant.” He let the call go through to voicemail. Almost immediately, another message came through. Cael pulled his phone back to his side of the table.

  2 NEW MESSAGES.

  “I think that might be important,” sa
id Kelly.

  “He can wait. So, tell me-” Cael began before the messages on his screen grabbed his attention. He had accidentally opened them when he took the phone back.

  The first message simply said: Get to Epping Forest. You’re going to want to see this.

  The second was something else entirely. It was a photograph of a woman’s mutilated body, cut up like nothing Cael had seen in his life.

  “Do you need to go?” asked Kelly.

  Cael hesitated for a second. “I’m sorry. I do need to go. Can we perhaps rearrange?”

  “Sure. You’re quite a character. Same time next week maybe?”

  “Yes. Again, my apologies. This is something that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Emergency magic show?” she asked.

  “Something like that,” Cael said, finishing his glass of whiskey. He pulled on his black leather jacket, stood up and thanked Kelly for taking the time to meet with him. She returned the gesture and suddenly, like a true magician, Cael disappeared into the night.

  4

  The journey to Epping Forest was a 40-minute trip that Cael covered in twenty. Reckless driving was an art form that had been lost to the ages, although the Sunday-evening desolate roads made for a simple journey.

  At the entrance to Epping Forest, yellow crime scene tape prevented anyone from entering or leaving the area. The tape had garnered the attention of curious onlookers, most of whom had their mobile phones above their heads, seeking grim imagery. Fortunately, the abnormal visuals were deeper inside the forest.

  Cael parked his Ford at the forest entrance. He was greeted by a large man in a police jacket who had been tasked with keeping the public at bay.

  “Cael Adler,” he said to the gentleman. “I’m here by request of Tyler Easton of the London Metropolitan Police.”

  The gentleman motioned to someone out of sight. He waved his hand for Cael to enter the area. As he Cael did, a police officer came running toward him.

  “Cael, welcome to hell,” said the officer.