The Keystroke Killer Read online

  Her eyes widened stupefied watching the wealthiest entrepreneur in the world consume liquor. “I can come back at a more convenient time.”

  Dr. Angela chugged the remaining bourbon in the shot glass. He savored the taste and put the bottle and the glass away in the drawer. “Unnecessary. This is what I do to celebrate. I made the Forbes list.”

  “Yes. That is why I’m here. I mean, that is why I am interviewing you.”

  The cameraman strategically placed a ten inch omnidirectional microphone with a small stand on the desk.

  “Then get on with it. I’m a very busy man.”

  “I’ll be certain not to waste your time. It will only take a few more minutes for my cameraman to set up.”

  Dr. Angela exhaled. “Please sit.” He pointed to the burgundy leather wing-back chair.

  Samantha sat and elegantly crossed her legs. Dr. Angela’s eyebrows lifted as if he approved of her posture. She placed her briefcase on her lap. Her hands trembled, and moisture beaded on her upper lip showcasing her ruby red lipstick. She retrieved her writing tools from her briefcase.

  The cameraman pressed the record button. “Samantha, the camera is rolling.”

  Dr. Angela repositioned his sitting position, more upright, and bold. “Let’s not waste precious time as you suggested.”

  “First question. You are one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer who created Dimension Global which revolutionized the way individuals and companies communicate with each other across the web. You created SO-LAR, the first synthetic artificial intelligent robot more human than not, you’re considered anti-competitive, unscrupulous and at the same time, resourceful.”

  “Is there a question in there or are you giving me a summary of my biography from Forbes magazine?” He made a fist and leaned back in the chair.

  “Yes. I mean no.”

  “Which is it? Yes or no?”

  “Yes sir. I have a question. Why did you create Project Dimension?”

  “You want a truthful answer or something you want to hear?”

  “The truth, sir. The world already knows what you have informed us. I want something propelling we haven’t heard.”

  “For selfish reasons.”

  “Selfish reasons?” Her response earnest waiting to write his answer.

  “It’s simple. If the world ended in twenty twelve as the Mayans predicted, I wanted to return to my wealth and glory.”

  “But, you shared your invention with the world.”

  “Correction. I sold my invention for a profit to those who could afford it and became rich because of it. I designed Project Dimension for a select few to communicate with their deceased loved ones.”

  By Samantha’s expression, she seemed spellbound. “But, it is more than that.”

  “That’s not a question Ms. Breland.” His tone abrasive cut to the core.

  Samantha pondered as if scolded by Dr. Angela’s forceful voice. She had difficulty forming a question although her notepad had a dozen pre-written questions. “Who helped you invent and develop Project Dimension?”

  “What makes you certain I had help?”

  “According to Dr. Judas Greenberg, he designed the prototype while under your employment.”

  “You’ve interviewed Dr. Greenberg?”

  “He approached me. He accused you of stealing his project. Did you?”

  “He and his wife were employees who signed a no compete contract. Anything he or she developed belonged to Dimension Global. Dr. Greenberg has an entitlement issue. This interview is over. You may leave Ms. Breland.”

  “How convenient for you.”

  His unyielding demeanor showed. “No. Only a convenient truth.”

  ***

  The industrial clock hung on the unpainted sheetrock wall in Judas’ garage showed 10:30 AM. The double car garage had one eight-foot workbench in the center. A nine by nine inch royal blue tesseract, a four-dimensional cube, rested on a stand in the center. Several specialized tools, a Global Dimension sky blue plasma orb and a laptop lay to the side.

  Judas covered the items with a large sheet of clear plastic. “That should keep you safe from the paint.” He placed a painter’s mask over his nose and mouth, grabbed an electric spray painter with a long nozzle and sprayed black paint across the garage door windows.

  Marge, Judas’ wife, entered carrying a po-boy, chips and a glass of iced tea on a black lacquered tray. She waited for Judas to notice.

  He continued to spray oblivious to her entrance. The spray nozzle clogged. “Shit! I don’t have time for this.” He powered down the machine.

  “It smells awful in here.” Marge curled her broad nose. “Where would you like for me to put this?”

  “On the floor.” He fiddled with the spray nozzle.

  “I will not do that when you have a workbench and a stool.” She placed the tray onto the workbench.

  “Why did you ask me since you put it where you wanted?” Judas grabbed a two-foot piece of thin wire and jammed it through the tiny holes of the spray nozzle. “I hate these things. I should invent something that works.” He tried the spray painter again.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Try buying me a sprayer that works.”

  “This is your third one. Maybe it’s the user and not the machine.”

  “Don’t go there with me.” He threw the nozzle to the floor and dropped the electrical spray painter. “I should have used duct tape. Do you see it?”

  “That’s your answer for everything. Duct tape this. Duct tape that.”

  “Not exactly.” He removed the plastic sheet from the workbench knocking his lunch to the ground. “Look at the Transcendence cube. You see any duct tape?”

  “There goes your lunch. Don’t expect me to clean it up.”

  “I’ll eat later. I want to show you the progress I’ve made.”

  “I can barely contain myself.” Her tone sarcastic caught Judas off guard.

  Judas and Marge ogled the cube. By typing in a command on the laptop, Judas powered the tesseract. A low hum saturated the air.

  Marge stepped backward. “This thing safe? It’s not how we designed it. That cube doesn’t even look correct if you ask me.”

  “Don’t let looks deceive you, darling. This cube, as you call it, will change the future of our world. It has already changed ours in ways you can’t imagine. And the design, I should have figured it out years ago that an orb wouldn’t work. Its simple physics and mathematics. A tesseract makes total sense. To reach the fourth dimension, it takes a fourth- dimensional apparatus. And this time, it’s mine.”

  Judas positioned both hands over his invention and held them in place as electrical currents ignited inside the cube. A strange skin-prickling bass whir filled the air as their hair lifted, tips up, from the static electricity.

  Loud bass ground loops from a subwoofer increased in intensity. Marge covered her ears. The floor vibrated; the windows rattled. An electrical current bolted inside the tesseract as if it were a jackhammer trying to break a barrier. Marge’s eyes bulged as she turned her head to the side and took two steps backward. “Turn that thing off!” The deep bass hum reverbed and filled the room even more. She touched her stomach as the deep hum vibrated throughout her body. “Turn it off. Now!”

  Judas removed his hands from the cube. The tesseract’s electrical current and hum faded, popped, cracked and fizzled.

  “What does that thing do?”

  “That my dear, is the surprise. It holds unlimited energy powered by laser and sonic sound beams that can transport your soul to somewhere beyond the limits of this universe. Just like Stephen Hawking predicted, traveling to distant places through sound beams is possible.”

  “Have you tested it?”

  “That’s my next stage as soon as I get my lab finished. I am on the verge of something more powerful than what we created when we worked for Dr. Angela.”

  “What makes you think he won’t claim this invention as
his? He already took Project Dimension from us.”

  “I patented it. Besides, if he tries, I’ll kill him before I ever allow him to steal another invention of mine.”

  Marge placed her hand on Judas’ tense shoulder. “You don’t have that in you.” Her words were soft and understanding; not challenging.

  “After thirty-five years of marriage you don’t know me very well. What I designed transcends everything you thought you knew about physics and what you, me and Dr. Faust created with Project Dimension. We’re no longer trapped in a circle. I’ve waited twenty years for this moment and won’t be denied again.”

  ***

  Perks, a D-Fi coffee shop, several blocks away from Loyola University provided the morning respite for the college students who inundated the café. Mag Freeman and Jenni Bullock, Blaze’s best friends, sat in their favorite corner booth – laptops opened. They looked more like Blaze’s sisters rather than friends. Each had a shade of brunette hair and blue-green eyes.

  Jenni glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s eleven o’clock. She’s going on thirty minutes late already.”

  Mag arched her back to stretch. “She’s always late. I keep telling you if you want her here at a certain time, tell her a time thirty minutes earlier. That way, she’s on time.”

  “Not funny. At this rate, we must go straight to class and won’t have time for girl talk.”

  Jenni pushed her laptop toward Mag. “Look, the police found Phyllis Cantrell dead this morning. I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. Do you notice anything familiar about her?”

  Mag studied the image. “Yes, she is definitely our sorority sister.”

  “That weirdo is killing girls who pledged to Alpha Sigma Kappa. We pledged last year.”

  “I remember the same thing happening five years ago when we were seniors in high school. Remember the Co-Ed serial killer?”

  “Yep. But it’s not him. Thank you, Jesus. He’s in the slammer and will never get out.”

  Blaze entered Perks on a mission. She strode fast toward the booth.

  Jenni took a deep breath. “Yea! Blaze is here.”

  Blaze, while talking on her cell phone, looked around the cafe. She recognized most patrons as they attended Loyola University. “That’s great news Lorenzo. Only a couple more days and you’re a free man.” Relieved, she pushed through the crowded café putting her phone back into her purse. She slid into the bench beside Jenni.

  Roth, a lanky blue-eyed red haired male looked over his shoulder and noticed Blaze which put a dazzling smile across his sun kissed freckled face. He completed taking the order from his current table, turned and stood at the end of the girl’s booth.

  “Good morning, Blaze. Glad to see you today. You want your usual?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She brushed his kindness aside.

  Roth stared like a love-sick puppy toward Blaze as if he expected more to the order. Blaze looked at him as she lifted her eyebrows wrinkling her forehead. “Go. Go get my coffee.”

  The waiter puckered his lips and stormed away. They better watch it.

  “That was rude.” Jenni typed something in the D-Global search bar. “Hey, look Blaze. A bigger apartment was just listed in your building.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard today. Where’s Roth with my coffee?”

  Mag darted her eyes toward Blaze. “Maybe if you hadn’t been rude, he would have already brought it.”

  “Rude? It’s rude of him to stand there and stare at me like that. Maybe next time I should charge him.”

  “Well then. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”

  The girls laughed.

  Blaze studied the area. “It’s strange. He’s always here. Johnny on the spot. Maybe he lives upstairs.”

  Jenni’s eyes darted toward the ceiling. “Who cares?”

  Blaze pondered Jenni’s last remark. “Where’s my damn coffee?”

  “Your morning run didn’t go so well I take it? FYI. There was another murder last night.”

  Blaze pulled the laptop for a better view. “Let me see.” She focused on the article. “She’s from our sorority. We were with her at that frat party last weekend.”

  Mag shifted her position to view the screen. “No shit, Sherlock. Don’t look now; but guess who’s heading our way.”

  Both Blaze and Jenni looked over their shoulders.

  “I told you not to look.”

  “You can’t say a thing like that and expect us not too.” Blaze’s words were barely audible.

  Mag frowned. “And, she’s here.”

  The three girls looked up at Frances Cook, another green eyed brunette sorority sister.

  “Can I borrow your notes from last week?” Frances’ eyes sparkled with malicious intent. “Umm. My dog ate mine.”

  The three girls frowned. “Our dogs did too.” The girls giggled because they answered at the same time.

  Frances puckered her lips and stormed off.

  Blaze twisted her lips into a straight line. “With any luck, maybe she’ll be next.”

  Roth within earshot listened to Blaze and nodded with a sly grin of indulgent amusement. Now she’s talking my language.

  Jenni’s eye’s widened. “Cancel that thought. We don’t want to send that out into the universe.” She glanced at her watch. “We’ve got to go. Time for class.”

  Blaze slammed her fist on the table. “Damn it. I never got my coffee.”

  The girls packed up their belongings. Jenni tapped Blaze on her shoulder. “Don’t forget to go look at that apartment after class today.”

  CHAPTER 3

  There’s No Place Like Home

  Angola State Penitentiary - a maximum-security prison in Angola, Louisiana – considered home for death row inmates who awaited their judgment day. Located out in the middle of a bayou swamp, other residents included the alligators and snakes who lived in the murky water of the bayou. To escape this clink by design and location proved impossible.

  Warden Stronghold, a tobacco chewing tall man of above average height, commanded a tight ship. Because of the thirteen death row inmates imprisoned under his supervision, the Warden mandated deadbolt security measures. The two most famous – Milo Evans the Co-Ed serial killer and Red Lettenberg the Mind’s Eye serial killer housed in the Red Hat building adjacent to the Execution building comprised his targeted concern. Each inmate possessed unique human abilities which made them extremely dangerous.

  There was no splendor in the prison’s design; only wicked efficiency. The historical gray brick structure surrounded by a thirty-foot electrical fence topped by razor-sharp poisonous barbed wire and three sniper thirty-foot guard towers sent a strong message - anyone who dared to escape died. Anything enclosed within the prison suffocated. That which resided outside the gate, sneered sardonically.

  A dozen armed men in dark uniforms paraded back and forth like preying lions in front of the inmates who marched in place to a cadence led by a relentless Sergeant-of-Arms.

  Lorenzo Garcia, a twenty-eight Hispanic muscular and fit male, taller than most of the other inmates marched in the front line. Sweat rolled down his face as his eyes rolled back. He collapsed to the ground. The moisture on his upper lip beaded and shined under the boiling sun.

  The Sergeant-of-Arms glared at Lorenzo. His nostrils flared like a bull ready to charge a Matador. “Did you ladies hear me?”

  “Yes sir!” The prisoners reacted as if part of a boot camp training exercise and not incarcerated behind electrical fences and brick walls. The prisoners continued their cadence in perfect step as Lorenzo lay motionless.

  The Sergeant-of-Arms thrust back his right foot, clad in a black military boot, and kicked dust from the scorching ground as he approached the lifeless Lorenzo. “I don’t think you heard me you piece of shit!” His face turned beet red as he glowered over him. The Sergeant-of-Arms kicked Lorenzo in his chest. “Get up you piece of shit. You get out in three days. Until then, you’re still mine.”r />
  Lorenzo thrust his arm forward and clutched the Sergeant-of-Arms by the left ankle using nothing more than the strength of his fingers. “If you want to live to see another day, don’t kick me again.” His eyes lit indignantly.

  A gust of wind brought a dust storm caused by the Ford Taurus passing along the road parallel to the prison yard. Lorenzo squinted as he stood and wiped the dirt and sweat from his eyes.

  The car slowed as Matthew looked to see if he recognized any of the inmates. The longer he looked, the more tension built on his face. He tightened his square jaw and banged his fist onto the middle of the steering wheel accidentally blowing the car’s horn. Everyone in the compound heard the obnoxious sound announcing his arrival. After a few seconds, Matthew took his foot from the brake pedal and pressed the accelerator inching closer to the prison’s gated entrance. Matthew focused his hatred thoughts on one inmate. I’m coming for you.

  The aged prison gate stood fourteen feet high, a brooding gray mass of steel beams and concrete. As Matthew’s car approached, an electric motor hummed as the monstrous metal gate slid open on its tracks. Matthew waited as it crawled at a snail’s pace. One of the security guards, lean and long-limbed, motioned him forward. Matthew rolled the car window midway as the car advanced. A robust prison guard stepped forward and looked inside the interior while the third conducted a bomb search waving a mirrored device beneath the car.

  “Who are you here to see?”

  “Milo Evans, sir.” Matthew’s tone conflicted reminded him his sister. “The man who murdered my sister.”

  The guard checked his clipboard. “Name?”

  “Matthew Raymond.”

  “You’re Matthew Raymond?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need to see your visitation authorization and identification.”

  “Yes, sir.” Matthew retrieved his documents and handed them to the guard. He looked at the sniper in the tower, took a deep breath and engaged the security guard. “I hope he knows I’m a friend and not a foe.” Matthew tried to keep his voice jocular.

  Not amused, the guard leered toward Matthew. “He has one and only one duty - shoot to kill on the Warden’s orders.”