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“Detective Hoffman. Are you listening?”
“Mark. Hello?”
They were staring at him.
His new nocturnal schedule was not such an easy thing to adapt to. Mark tiredly looked up at Rigg and Kerry’s twin glares boring into him with bated concern in their eyes. There were certain topics they wouldn’t, or didn’t want to, broach with him anymore.
He almost wished that he was drinking again.
“Sorry. So you’ve found another body.”
Kerry shot Rigg a look that almost seemed to say he’s out of it before continuing. “Yes. He has been identified as Paul Leahy. Long-term alcoholic judging by the state of his liver damage and clearly had issues with self-harm. Could that have been why Jigsaw chose him?”
“Potentially.”
Mark glanced over their heads at the clock on the wall. A game would be starting soon, one that Kramer insisted on overseeing himself. The precious little information he’d left Mark with was clearly intended to keep his curiosity sated, but not allow him to draw any conclusions.
The old man could keep his secrets, as long as they didn’t wander out into Mark’s life.
There had been a time in his life where those at work had been his friends. People he’d considered to be worthwhile. And though he was aware that for the sake of appearances he ought to keep them close, Mark couldn’t find it in himself to do so.
When Kramer had come to him, he hadn’t known what he was doing. He’d been drunk in that chair, shotgun strapped to his body, and while he could’ve argued that he hadn’t been in his right mind, Mark knew deep down that Kramer had understood him completely in a way that he hadn’t known was possible.
The world had been so empty to him for the longest time, and while he knew that Kramer’s certainty was poison, he couldn’t help but drink it regardless. What was it the file said? Jigsaw had a way with words.
Sue him. It’s how he’d coped for a very long time.
He bids goodbye to both Rigg and Kerry and apologizes for being unable to join them for billiards night. A Mark of long ago might’ve gone with. Had his fun with those who were supposed to be his peers and gone home to his cramped apartment.
No such luck this evening.
The road is empty as he winds his way into the industrial district. Fingers tapping incessantly on the wheel, Hoffman pulls into the lot as a woman, gore dripping from her cheek, rushes out of the building.
Mascara streaming down her face, eyes wide, blood and drool spilling from her lips. She survived. Whatever Kramer had put her through, for whatever reason he’d chosen her, she’d passed
There’s a brief moment when Mark wonders if he should say something. Ask Kramer what he was supposed to do. He had been aware that the old man had been on the market for another apprentice, but this delinquent?
Gaunt and frail, with a terminal cancer prognosis, Kramer was on his last legs and Mark suspected that he really didn’t need to be doing all the run-around to avoid discovery at the precinct considering the Jigsaw killer may just croak of his own accord.
Pulling into the lot, he weighed his options. There was to be another game, that he knew of, but not one he was explicitly intended to be a part of. Heroin-Chic over there looked like she was an emotional wreck who couldn’t handle herself. Doubtful that she’d done something to Kramer.
The weight of a humid summer dusk was beginning to settle around him. Not for the first time that day, Mark thought about getting a drink.
Before he’d met Kramer, there had always been a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his glove compartment. He’d sneak sips of it whenever he could throughout his day, timing it so he’d never be intoxicated enough to raise suspicion. His goddamn bartender knew more about him than all of his coworkers combined.
Gloved fingers drumming idly on his steering wheel, Mark grinds his teeth. He starts his car again, screeching out of the parking lot and onto the main road. He flicks through every radio station, too impatient to pay any single one mind.
He ought to go back. Kramer might need him. Fuck Kramer.
It didn’t even occur to him that he should return to his apartment. Mark didn’t sleep much anymore and falling asleep on the couch while clutching a bottle of Everclear and watching late-night reruns of the Simpsons wasn’t going to cut it.
He runs a red light, turning back around to the industrial district. The girl is long gone by the time he gets back to the vacant lot. Good. Let her lick her wounds in whatever shithole she crawled out of.
Mark experiences a moment of pure panic when he pats down his pockets and realized that the keys for the warehouse weren’t in them. He finally discovers them on the backseat, shoved under a file and assorted garbage he’d been too lazy to throw out.
A feeling of embarrassment needles at him as he makes sure no one else is in the area and he approaches the door. He’d almost felt like a little kid again, terrified of being called out for a stupid mistake and resentful for being caught out in the first place.
Even when he wasn’t around Kramer always seemed to know when you made a mistake and always, always he judged.
Mark unlocked the door and stepped into the dark hallway. The air is stale and there are no lights.
Somewhere Kramer sits alone in the dark.
He goes to work.
~~~~
John is kind. Amanda doesn’t think that many people realize this.
If her life had been hell before, she had now been drawn into a weird sort of purgatory. Going cold turkey had been hell for the first while, easily some of the worst physical pain she’d felt in her life.
Now if there was pain, she could funnel it into her work. John had always told her that the pain within her could make her strong. And besides, when Amanda crumbled, there was now someone there for her.
She knew she was difficult. That was something everyone had made apparent. But while Hoffman sneered at her and forced out condescending civility, John took time for her.
He didn’t have much time left and their work was more important than ever. When she’d tried to get clean in the past, Amanda had found that her inability to sleep hampered any real recovery. Now she saw it as an opportunity to be with John.
Though he never said it aloud, she knew that the tumor must be causing him pain. When he finally called it in for the night, they often sat together. Words weren’t needed. She liked to think that John understood.
Observing the bathroom trap forced her to realize that John’s kindness coexisted with something very small and mean. He let them linger there for hours, the doctor and the stray, before finally acknowledging the end of the game.
Kidnapping Faulkner-Stanheight had been difficult for her. John, of course, had known about her experiences with her father but had insisted at the nighttime kidnap regardless.
“You need to confront what haunts you Amanda,” he’d said in his humorless rasp and for a brief moment, Amanda had hated him.
She’d heard that trite horseshit over and over at various AA meetings she’d been shunted to over the years and she’d told John as much. He chuckled and hadn’t spoken for the rest of the night, leaving her feeling wrongfooted.
Amanda felt the same emotion as she crept down the hallway. She’d always been a quiet child, priding herself on her ability to make sure she was neither seen nor heard. Quietness was powerful, it was a way to survive and she clutched the silence close to her.
Sliding the door open, she crept slowly in. The air was humid, rancid with the smell of human sweat and misery. She could hear him softly crying in the background, weak gagging sobs echoing in the dark.
She padded across the floor, careful to avoid knocking into anything, shuffling along with hearing and touch alone when a sound pierced the air that stopped her in her tracks.
“I’m sorry. Really. I can change, please just give me a chance and let me prove that I can change.”
It was like the whine of a chastened child. She’d watched Adam from afar, all those long days, and Amanda knew that he didn’t deserve whatever was to come. He was soft and lost and misguided, with a chronic aimlessness that was beyond fixing.
How close had she come to being the same?
“Larry? Did you really come back?”
She slipped the bag over his head.
Later that evening she lay curled on her bed, tears shaking her body, she clutched her box of memories close and tried to force herself to remember why this was all worthwhile.
“Are you going to cut yourself again?”
She rolled over and sat up to see John sitting silent in his wheelchair, while Hoffman smirked at her, obviously thinking himself clever for that line. “Leave us, Mark.”
John stood up and walked stiffly towards her, seating himself gingerly on the bed next to her. They sat quietly for a moment until he took her hand in his.
“I know it’s challenging. He was cleansed Mandy, and that’s what’s important.”
“I know.”
John peered at her out of the corner of his eye like he was gauging her reaction and she forced herself not to cry. “I sympathize with your plight, Amanda, truly I do. You care so deeply both for those we test and for what we do here. But some distance is needed.”
Distance. As if he didn’t set up the traps so that he would always be watching, like some ominous gargoyle. To think he’d looked down upon Adam for his voyeurism when John always insisted on staring down every last detail.
“Now. You must pull yourself together. There is another game upcoming. I have recruited someone to help with the kidnappings besides Hoffman, but you will be inserted in to the game to make sure that they follow the rules.”
“Why?”
John’s eyes widened slightly. Obviously didn’t like it when people questioned his judgement or his decisions.
“You’ll see. I need you Amanda. You are vitally important to the success of the game.”
The hairs stood up on Amanda’s neck and she fought to keep her breathing under control. Still and silent, that was how you survived.
“Now, there is a detective that caused you some problems in the past. He will be tested most direly. And after this, there will be quite a special game coming up.”
He clutched her hand tightly, bringing her back down to earth. “You are central to all of this Amanda; your presence is needed like never before. Can you do this?”
“Of course, John.”
~~~~
Eric Matthews was a pig. She didn’t feel bad when she killed him.
Dragging herself back to the hideout, her whole body ached with stinging, raw pain. She needed to tend to her wounds before they became infected. That would be hellish.
“You look like shit.”
Hoffman stood outside of the warehouse, smoking a cigarette. Out of his work clothes, he looked even more like a sleazy male actor gone to seed. He extended the box towards her and she tentatively took one. Hoff was pretty stupid. It was unlikely that they were poisoned.
They stood there in queasy silence. Amanda had read Hoffman’s report that John had compiled before he’d recruited him. Left to fend for himself by neglectful parents, who dumped the role of parenting his younger sister on his doorstep one morning.
Fights with other students that he’d always managed to get swept away. No long-term partner. No real friends to speak of.
“Eric’s dead, huh?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Hoffman had worked with Eric for years.
“Good riddance.”
A wave of relief washed through her body as John wheeled himself over to them. “Amanda. You know what is coming next.”
Lynn Denlon.
A pretty, pretentious, yuppie doctor. With sleek, black hair and deep brown eyes, Lynn looked like the kind of woman who’d had life handed to her on a platter. Except, of course, for the fact that one of her children had been killed.
The next day, Amanda sneaks into her house. Despite it being the middle of summer, the air in the house is cold. Lifeless. Dylan had been dead for several years but his room was still maintained like a mausoleum.
Corbett may be their living daughter, but it appeared that she only existed on the borderline. Neither parent was aware of her and Amanda suspected that neither of them wanted to be.
No trace of Lynn was found.
Now the rooms she shared with her lover told a different story. When Amanda had briefly considered a relationship, she’d imagined that the rooms would feel like this. There was warmth here, personalized touches that spoke to both parties.
She slipped out of her shoes, padding slowly across the floor. The vanity had several perfume bottles on it, gold jewelry carelessly tossed across the free space. Rich people never bothered to look after their things.
Amanda opened one of the perfume bottles and inhaled deeply. It was like liquid heat dropped into the pit of her stomach and settled there. For a brief moment, she gained a clear image of the woman she was hunting without ever having met her in person.
She could see her for an instance, the sun caught in her hair, the afternoon light highlighting her eyes in burnished gold. For a moment, that grey house and those cold rooms weren’t there and Amanda knew what she was like before.
Taking a miniscule amount of perfume from the bottle so that she didn’t arouse suspicion, Amanda rubbed the smell of this woman into her skin. A secret stain of her indiscretion, albeit a smaller one.
That was her real secret.
Her first rigged trap, she almost hadn’t been able to live with the guilt. The enormity of her decision to break with John’s teachings had shaken her to her core! But Kerry?
Alison Kerry had always believed that Eric Matthews could be saved. That there was a spark of good inside of him.
The man who had beat her in that hallway and had lied and ruined her fucking life didn’t want to change. But her and Hoffman had found a way to make him suffer.
Hoffman had followed up on his side of the deal with his game with Matthews. But he’d asked her to help him in turn.
There was no joy in Kerry’s death. There was nothing but a numbness that spread out from Amanda’s core. The worst part was that she suspected John knew.
Something had changed in how he looked at her and Amanda couldn’t stand it. To lose his approval, to lose his constant care, she didn’t know if she could live with herself.
Amanda flopped down on the bed Lynn shared with her lover. She could feel anxiety brewing at the base of her skull, a feverish buzz in her head and a thrill at the prospect of being caught.
What side did Lynn lie on?
Twisting her head into the pillow, Amanda could faintly catch her perfume even there. Lynn was here with her now.
It was a shame that she was likely going to die soon.
Suddenly, she could hear footsteps approaching the door and Amanda slipped out of the window and onto the fire escape.
Amanda paused for a moment. Lynn’s home life seemed terrible, who was she to judge that she wanted someone else in her world that cared for her?
She would kill to have someone around like that, someone who bought her nice things and asked about her day.
Amanda slipped away.
~~~~
John was cruel. Amanda supposed that it was appropriate that she finally accepted this while she was dying as a result of one of his games.
She reached for him. There was kindness still there.
The moment passed, a well between them that couldn’t be filled.
“Game over.”
~~~~
Mark hadn’t slept well since Angelina’s death, but he’d at least averaged a couple hours a night. Now that John and Amanda were out of the picture, and Strahm was dead, he was lucky if he got any rest.
With no more need to keep appearances in front of Kramer, he’d gone back to sleeping with a bottle under his pillow. If he was worried about his health, he wouldn’t be doing this to begin with.
When he closed his eyes, he could hear Strahm’s bones breaking. When he walked around the precinct, it was almost like he could catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye. His voice whispered to him in his ear, that final desperate plea “tell me how to open it.”
Mark wasn’t sure if what he felt was guilt, but he was damn sure paranoia was playing a role in it. Worst of all, Perez survived. That was the proverbial nail in his coffin.
Erickson was going senile. If anyone was capable of carrying on Strahm’s work it was her.
He rolled onto his side, pressing his hands over his ears, digging his fingers into his scalp. God, it was never-ending! No way out and no satisfaction, something had changed and he couldn’t take it back.
Kramer’s voice, that horrid dry rasp, pushing him forward and reminding him that emotion could never be involved, damn him! He made him this way.
Seth Baxter could’ve been his one and only. The thought of murdering him was the only thing that had kept Mark alive all those years. Now that Baxter was gone, it was only Kramer that motivated him and the goal that they shared.
Judge as I judge. Save as I save.
But those bastards weren’t really worth saving were they? They could just rot.
Oh, he’d deliberated a bit about Rigg. Daniel had been a good man in the early days of the force, but he was edging far too close to Mark. He’d had to go.
Eric Matthews and his snot-nosed son had always been a thorn in his side. Matthews Junior could’ve turned out okay if it wasn’t for his shitstain of a father. Always flaunting his corruption for everyone to see, Eric was quite possibly even more than a disgrace than he was.
Letting him suffer in that bathroom was a form of justice nearly as sweet as what he’d doled out to Baxter. That it had endeared Amanda to him was just an added bonus.
Kramer with his all-seeing eyes was blind when it came to the woman closest to him. Mark did not consider himself particularly clever but his one true strength was practicality. Amanda was desperate and willing to do anything to keep her position. She also had a rage inside her that couldn’t be stilled.
She’d always been wary of him, right until the end, but he’d helped her make a damn mess of things for herself and that was good enough.
Strahm, however, had been a work of art.
The water cube would have been excellent had Strahm not shown a surprising desire to live. He’d assumed that Strahm was your usual dead inside official until he’d been wheeled out of that warehouse and into the ambulance.
Then, in the hospital, when he’d confronted Strahm in his room, Mark had felt a secret thrill curl down his spine. Strahm had wanted so desperately to know, to see him as he really was. It was the first time someone had wished to challenge him as Jigsaw and he relished in it.
It was intoxicating.
He could almost feel Strahm with him now, and if this was a haunting, it is one that Mark welcomes. Jigsaw was a lonely role and in some moments, he could almost understand why Kramer had always wanted to keep court with his so-called apprentices. The old man had always wanted to be understood.
Well, Mark didn’t need to be worshipped. But he’d loved the challenge that Strahm had offered him, the push and pull that had ensued. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say he missed the man.
Alcohol swirling warm in the pit of his stomach, Mark let himself dream. Memories flooded his mind, the first moment he’d seen Strahm and Perez and known that this was a man he could not bully into doing his bidding.
When he’d seen him in the hospital room, voice raw and rough from the tracheotomy and he’d looked up at Mark in suspicion and fury and Mark couldn’t help but feel pure, uninhibited triumph at the sight of him brought low.
Who was there who could stand up to him the way Strahm had? It wasn’t like Jill Tuck was going to lose her cowardice anytime soon.
Kramer had held love for his ex-wife long after she’d let go of him, but Mark had always suspected that she still had a soft spot for him. Angie had been the same way about her boyfriends.
He supposed that had been her downfall in the end, as much as it was Jill’s.
There was no need to fear Jill.
Warm weight pulled him down, forcing him into an uneasy slumber.
Tomorrow his real work would begin, uninhibited.
~~~~
When Lawrence had been young, one of his most vivid memories of loss had been when his father had shot the family dog because it had gotten rabies.
He’d been unconsolable, crying big sobbing tears until he’d been sick. His father had told him to stop being so foolish, that there had been no way to help his beloved pet.
That when an animal caught rabies, it needed to be put down. It was both a saving grace and a mercy.
Looking at Hoffman, eyes wide with fury and stale blood dried on his face, he finally understood completely what his father had been talking about. Here was someone who couldn’t be saved. John’s greatest failure in the flesh, and what a miserable thug he was.
Lawrence had not been willing at first to agree to be an apprentice.
Leaving Adam in that bathroom was one of the greatest regrets of his life. There wasn’t a day that past when he did not consider how things may have been different.
But John had had other plans for him, and when it became clear that Alison would fight tooth and nail to keep Diana as far from him as possible, Lawrence had seen no other real option for his life.
Jill was crucial, but she was equally also a liability. John needed a man on the outside with a veneer of respectability and Lawrence was happy to oblige. He had no intention of socializing with any of the other so-called apprentices any more than necessary.
He’d met Amanda a few times. A lost soul if he’d ever seen one. When he’d first seen John’s recording of the bathroom, he’d experienced a bright burst fury when he realized she’d killed Adam.
Then, a wave of incurable guilt. He’d survived so long in there, bleeding and broken in the dark, convinced he’d been abandoned at the end of his life.
He had failed at a standard of care in every aspect of his life. How could he sit there and judge Amanda, a woman simply trying to make do with the brutal tools she’d been given?
Lawrence had no pity for Hoffman.
The thing that perhaps offended him the most about the man was the fact that Hoffman was in fact capable of selflessness. Of loving another person completely. By all accounts, Angelina Acomb had adored her stepbrother and they’d been there for one another throughout their lives.
He wondered what Angelina would think if she could see her brother now. Would she even recognize the snarling, twisted face of the man who writhed on the tiled floor?
Tossing the bonesaw away, Lawrence felt a coldness spreading throughout his body. At last, it was finished for him. There was no more need to keep up appearances. No more need to protect Jill from John’s cruel machinations.
Finally, he could follow John’s teachings to the fullest, and get on with his life.
“Game over.”
Hoffman’s howl of rage split the air. Lawrence wondered if Adam had screamed for his life as well.
There you go Adam; I fulfilled my promise at long last. I’ve brought someone back for you.
I can rest now.