On The Run

  The Silencer Series

  BY: B.P Stevens

  Copyright © [2023] [B.P Stevens] – All rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Free Gift!

  Sign up for my mailing list to receive this FREE exclusive copy of

  ( Bleeding Carpets ) as well as to be notified of any new

  releases, giveaways, contests, cover reveals and so much more

  Click here to sign up for my newsletter

  Description

  With the clock running out, can Emma Pepper prove she’s being framed, or will she go down for a crime she didn’t commit?

  As her entire life in the NYPD comes to a screeching halt, Emma finds herself in the center of this small town thriller. After someone breaks into her home, leaving a single rose in their wake, Emma finds herself utterly alone with only twenty four hours to discover evidence to prove her innocence.

  As Emma scrambles to figure out the truth, she begins to uncover a deeper cover up than ever before. How far does this go? Who else is involved? And even worse, to what lengths would the people involved go to ensure that their secrets stay buried? In this police procedural thriller, Emma races against the clock and finds herself drawing ever nearer to finding out who the Silencer is…

  Before they silence her.

  Tables of Content

  Chapter One

  Emma was frozen in place.

  For the first time in her life, in the moment of action, she was slammed with absolute fear and indecision.

  She clung to her dog and felt the beginnings of a panic attack coming. As an officer, it had been so easy to compartmentalize cases and not think too much about them; but this was different. The Silencer had always been different for Emma, but it didn’t mean that she took the facts of the case home with her. She knew that she had to leave the things that troubled her at work exactly where they were meant to be left - at work.

  But he had broken into her home now.

  This was no longer a simple situation anymore. No longer was it about the realities of Emma being in one bubble and the Silencer, whoever he was, being in a different world. He had been in her place of rest. Her safe haven. He had broken in and ransacked everything, taking her desktop with him as well.

  He must have been looking for the flash drive. Emma remembered literally the night before grabbing the drive and debating backing it up to the desktop, and now she was incredibly grateful that she didn’t. The Silencer would have had his hands on it now, but whoever they were, narrowly missed the opportunity to get their murdering hands on the secrets of the NYPD because of one choice Emma made.

  For what felt like the first time in a long time, Emma finally felt like she was the one in charge.

  Thinking thoughts like that made her feel stronger, made her feel more in charge, and more capable. It allowed her to control her breathing, and it allowed her to finally assess the situation through the eyes of a detective instead of a victim.

  The death grip she had on her dog wasn’t going to loosen, though. That was a fact.

  This wasn’t something that she could handle herself. She would have to call the cops and file a report, hoping and praying that if the piece of crap went through all the trouble of breaking into her house and trashing it, that he at least left behind a shred of DNA to use.

  But where would she stay until CSU was done with her place? Where would she live? How would she work while they handled everything?

  Everyone at the precinct hated her. Normally, Emma would have called up Brooke and crashed at her place. Brooke loved Muffin - Emma’s dog - and would certainly have welcomed the company.

  Now, Emma imagined that if she called Brooke, she would be laughed at.

  She tried to focus on her breathing, thinking more about the things she could do now instead of thinking about the things she couldn’t do. Sure, she couldn’t call Brooke to stay at her place, but she could get a hotel. She had plenty of savings, and she could easily find a pet-friendly one that would accept her and Muffin.

  She packed some clothes - the essentials - before she left, but she almost felt dirty imagining putting on anything that was in the same house as the Silencer. There was never a sexual component to any of his crimes, but Emma would always wonder what he did to her clothes. To her drawers of undergarments, if he even did anything. Of course, assuming that he did something was a little brazen, and Emma had to remind herself that she was safe.

  But was she?

  What if he was still here, watching her? What if he was hiding somewhere?

  A part of Emma itched for this to be true. She wished and prayed that he was hiding in a closet somewhere so that when he jumped out, she could shoot him point-blank and end it all. She loosened her hold on Muffin only to grab her gun again.

  She’d cleared the house and found no one, but that didn’t matter. He could still be hiding. He could be watching. He was a serial killer. Heck, Emma could only assume that the son of a gun was a ‘he’ anyway. What if it was a woman? Did it even matter?

  Emma again forced herself to breathe. She talked to herself; to breathe in and out over and over again until the room stopped spinning and she put her gun to the side. She rested her chin on Muffin’s head as the confused dog began to whimper. Her distress was enough to make the dog unsettled.

  That and considering the fact that her poor baby had been tied up and left in the bathroom while the Silencer tore through her home. Emma wondered why they left her dog alive after all of this. Not to say that she wasn’t grateful, because of course she was, but she was surprised. The more she thought about it, the more she figured that it really wasn’t in his M.O. to keep the dog alive. She wondered more and more about it until she remembered the rose.

  She studied it from the pile of distress and disarray where her desktop used to be. It looked out of place there, sitting up on top of a bunch of thrown-down documents and other broken pieces of her room that were discarded as if they meant nothing. But the rose… the rose was fine.

  In fact, it was sitting straight up somehow. Something was holding it up, or it was just that good. She would have doubted that before, but now? Now, she had absolutely no idea what to believe.

  She walked closer to all of the trash on the ground that used to hang on her walls or sit on her desk. The photo of her being sworn in as a police officer. Her promotion to detective. The baby photos of Muffin. She didn’t have any family photos, but she had one of the entire squad at a Valentine’s party that made her heart ache when she saw it laying next to the rose.

  It wasn’t propped up next to it, so there was a chance that the photo fell there as a coincidence. But even Emma had to admit that it was a pretty crazy coincidence.

  Considering that she was dealing with the Silencer, she wondered if there was even such a thing as coincidences.

  She pulled some rubber gloves from her coat and pulled them on with shaking hands. For the first time in a long time, she was glad that she was a detective if only because the job required her to carry evidence-ready gloves at seemingly all times. Swallowing the fear in her throat, she lifted up the photo from the pile.

  The glass frame was shattered, leaving just the photo itself for Emma to look at. She smiled despite herself, feeling her stomach twist. Matt was pretending to be a T-Rex and stuffing his face with cupcakes. Brooke was laughing at something Ken was saying, and he was giving her bunny ears. Audrey stuck her tongue at the camera and held up a peace sign while Emma stood in the center of the room with dumb heart ears on, smiling.

  She wondered what that picture would look like now, with everything going on. On the one hand, she could imagine Jill probably smiling sweetly at the camera. Harper would certainly be sulking somewhere. It would be hard to imagine what Leroy would be doing considering that he was such a quiet old man. She could feel her eyes watering up as she looked on at the photo. She wanted this life back. She wanted to be back with her friends. She deserved to be back with her friends. She hadn’t done anything wrong - she deserved peace.

  She grabbed her phone and called Harper.

  Chapter Two

  Harper picked up on the second ring. Emma hated to admit that it shocked her - she didn’t think Harper was going to pick up. So, when Harper said her greetings, Emma was silent for a moment.

  “Hello!?” Harper barked again, clearly frustrated.

  “Sorry,” Emma cleared her throat. “Sorry. Harper, it’s me.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that from your caller ID,” Harper answered flatly.

  Emma swallowed. She sniffled a little bit and tried to fight the tears forming in the corner of her eye.

  “I… um…” She coughed. “Listen, I need your help.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes,” Emma whispered. “The Silencer broke into my house. Everything is a mess, he stole the desktop…” The tears were coming now. All the stress of this case and trying to please her friends came off of her shoulders in waves. “I’m sorry,” She cried. “I just… I just…” She cried again.

  “Take your time,” Harper offered.

  Emma took a few deep breaths before wiping her nose on her arm and moving the phone away from her. She didn’t like the idea of breaking down to

Harper - even over the phone.

  She felt alone. Isolated. Clearly, this is just what the Silencer wanted. Maybe they were singling her out to target her for some sort of torture. Who else would send her a flower at work? A flower in her home? What was she to them? Why did they care? What did the Silencer want with her, or any of their victims?

  “I came home,” Emma whispered, trying to find her courage again to start talking about what happened. “Everything in my apartment was a complete and total mess. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t - I feel like I can’t call the police because you’re all busy,” she hiccupped through her tears and crossed her arms.

  “Busy,” Harper paused. She chuckled quietly on the other line. “Interesting way of saying that you exposed us and made us find a way to cover our butts.”

  Emma inhaled sharply. She shook her head, confused. “I’m sorry,” Emma whispered, “But I didn’t… We’ve been over this, Harper. It doesn’t matter, either!” She cried. “He literally broke into my home!”

  “I know,” Harper offered.

  Emma felt a chill run down her spine. Was she overanalyzing it, or did Harper not care about what was happening?

  “I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Emma hissed. “You’re not even…”

  Emma paused. Harper was on the list. So was Jill.

  But why!?

  They were new detectives. They worked for a totally different jurisdiction, so whoever made that list knew the secrets of all kinds of cops. But how?

  “You’re not even what, Emma?” Harper asked.

  Emma shook her head. “I’m sorry,” She admitted.

  “For what?” Harper asked flatly. “For spilling our secrets, or lying about it?”

  Emma sat down on her couch, forgetting for a small moment that she was sitting in evidence. She pressed her lips together and put her hand that wasn’t holding the phone underneath her chin.

  “Are you just not listening to me?” Emma demanded. “You act like you don’t care at all that my house was broken into!”

  “ No, I do care,” Harper offered in a softer tone. “I’m just a little… oh, what did you say? Busy?”

  “With what?” Emma demanded. She was getting tired of Harper’s games, and she also needed to know what was going on with the precinct. Why didn’t they care that she was in trouble? Was the entire precinct there?

  “I’m just looking at the new DNA report we got back,” Harper offered. “We checked on the fingerprints for Clay Johnson’s body.”

  “You ran them again?” Emma asked. “I thought when we did that the first time they came back inconclusive.”

  “Oh, they did the first time,” Harper offered. “But I think you need to understand the kind of things we found. See… when we ran them again, we found a partial print on the body.”

  “A partial on the body afterward?” Emma sighed. “That’s not going to be helpful. Any defense attorney worth their salt is going to see right through that.”

  “Of course,” Harper laughed. “But see, Emma, what I don’t understand is why the partial print is a direct match to you.”

  Emma scoffed. “I found the dead body.”

  “Yes, I remember that,” Harper offered up. “But you know what I don’t remember?”

  Emma didn’t answer.

  “I don’t remember you finding the dead body and wrapping your hands around its neck,” Harper hissed. “Do you?”

  Emma felt dizzy. “You found my prints on the victim's neck?”

  “Yes,” Harper admitted. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you, but here I am. Do you have anything you want to tell me, Emma?”

  Chapter Three

  “Someone is framing me,” Emma cried. “You have to believe me. They’re framing me, I promise.”

  “Mhm,” Harper sighed on the end of the phone. “Right. They’re framing you, and in doing so, they somehow found a way to plant your fingerprints on the dead body. They also managed to spill all the details from a flash drive that only you had access to, and they knew a lot of things about this case.”

  Emma wasn’t sure what her coworker was implying. For a second, Emma couldn’t comprehend the level of accusations that Harper was bringing to her. She didn’t seem to understand the things that Harper was saying. Her mind was putting up a wall, almost like it was trying to protect her from the things that she was hearing.

  Was Harper seriously accusing her of something as heinous as this?

  “What are you saying?” Emma whispered. “What… what are you saying to me right now?”

  “I’m saying that I’m not an idiot,” Harper barked. “I’m saying that the fact that you think that everyone would have believed you just because you’re in the unit is a bit sad, Emma. You’re better than this. At least, I thought you were.”

  “I don’t understand,” Emma whimpered.

  “Oh, I know you understand,” Harper argued. “You’re not an idiot either, Emma. I know that you know what I’m implying. And if you are who I think you are, it’s better to turn yourself in right now before we come to find you.”

  Emma felt sick to her stomach. The world was spinning, and she nearly fell over from where she was sitting. Harper was really accusing Emma of being the Silencer.

  “I don’t know how you think I could do this,” Emma felt her voice shake. “I could never. I know it looks like it, and I know you’re a seasoned detective with great skills. I know what it looks like, I promise, but…” Emma swallowed the ball in her throat and rolled her shoulders. “Just give me time to prove myself. Give me time to prove that I am innocent. Please.”

  Harper was silent for some time. Emma wondered if Harper had possibly hung up the phone or stopped listening. Emma wasn’t sure if she should say anything or not. She was about to hang up and give up on trying to convince Harper that she was innocent when Harper finally jumped back on the line.

  “You’ve got twenty-four hours,” She hissed. “That is all.”

  She hung up.

  Emma held her phone with trembling hands. The time read seven o’clock PM. She had a day from now to prove the truth.

  She was being framed, and it was a good framing.

  The twenty-four hours that Harper was giving her were a courtesy, and she understood that. Harper must have understood that Emma was a good person or a detective. For whatever reason, a tiny piece of Harper must believe that Emma was innocent.

  Emma had a chance to make this go away, and although it wasn’t exactly a great chance, it was something. Emma didn’t plan on wasting it.

  She pocketed her phone and put her mental breakdown on hold. She’d have plenty of time to cry in prison if she was committed. She had to wait to lose it until her twenty-four hours were up.

  She grabbed a change of clothes, her wallet, and keys. She put Muffin in a leash and harness, grabbed her notes and files, and her keycard. Then, without looking back at her destroyed apartment that was in disarray, she climbed into her car and walked towards the front door.

  She drove in silence, tapping her thumb against her wheel. She kept her eyes glued to the road as Muffin curled into a ball in the seat. Emma needed to find somewhere for her to think everything through, and somewhere to sleep. This was New York after all, there was no way she could stay in her car. So instead, she pulled into the parking lot of a pet-friendly hotel and checked in.

  Once she had paid, she and Muffin walked into the room and locked it. She sat down on the end of her nearly folded bed, pressed her hands to her lips, and thought.

  Harper had been right about so much. The Silencer knew what he was doing in more ways than one. He framed Emma because he was smart. Somehow, he knew that tensions were high at work. She recalled the rose being sent to work and began to wonder if he had been watching.

  Or worse, was he in the precinct?

  Harper was implying that Emma was the Silencer, and she was wrong, but the idea was interesting. What if the Silencer was, indeed, someone in the precinct? Someone working the case who knew all the ins and outs of the Silencer’s M.O.? Someone who had no problem taking advantage of the situation towards Emma - maybe someone who purposely didn’t put Emma’s secrets on a file to turn everyone against her and make her the fall guy.

 

1 2 3 4 5