Chapter 3 - The Blood-Stained Apron
The Stockyard Meatworks on 43rd Street was a terrifying relic of Chicago’s industrial past. Huge, rusted iron beams arched over decaying brick walls, surrounded by overgrown weeds and abandoned railroad tracks. Inside, the air was cold, damp, and thick with the metallic smell of rusted iron and dried cattle blood.
Cole led me through a maze of hanging plastic curtains into the main processing hall. Rows of massive steel meat hooks hung from automated overhead tracks, swinging gently in the drafty air. Huge industrial spotlights hung from the ceiling, casting harsh, dramatic beams of yellow light onto the concrete floor.
"Over here," Cole said, pushing open a heavy, insulated steel door that led into a massive walk-in freezer unit.
Inside, three fresh hog carcasses hung from heavy chains. Cole walked over to a stainless-steel table, grabbed a gallon bucket of fresh swine blood from the cold locker, and began splashing it across the concrete floor near the back of the freezer, creating a gruesome, horrific scene that looked identical to a violent hit-and-run aftermath.
He took my bright yellow scarf—the one I had worn on Ashland—ripped it down the middle, soaked it in the blood, and threw it into the center of the crimson pool on the floor. Beside it, he dropped my smashed leather handbag, which he had run over with his truck tire earlier.
"If anyone looks in this room under dim light," Cole said, wiping his hands on a rag, "they'll swear someone was torn to pieces in here."
"Where do I stand?" I asked.
Cole pointed toward a raised, dark observation booth overlooking the freezer floor—an old control room with thick, one-way mirrored glass windows where plant managers used to monitor the butcher lines. "Up there. You can see everything down here, hear everything through the PA intercom system, but nobody down here can see you."
"Perfect," I said.
I climbed the rusted iron spiral staircase leading up to the control room. The room was dusty, filled with old analogue soundboards and microphone switches. I sat in a leather chair behind the dark glass, looking down at the gruesome set below.
At 10:25 a.m., the heavy iron double doors at the front of the slaughterhouse groaned open.
Footsteps echoed off the concrete walls—expensive leather dress shoes clicking nervously against dirt and dried rust.
Two figures walked into the harsh spotlight of the main processing hall.
Vivian Whitmore walked first, wearing her white silk blouse beneath a black fur coat, holding an expensive leather handbag tightly against her waist. She looked around the filthy, dripping slaughterhouse with intense disgust, holding a scented handkerchief to her nose.
Behind her dragged Lucas Whitmore.
My husband looked like a ghost. His eyes were wide with unadulterated terror, his face pale green, his expensive suit rumpled. He was shaking so violently his knees knocked together.
"Mom... please," Lucas whimpered, his voice echoing frantically through the cavernous hall. "We shouldn't be here. This is wrong. If the police find out—"
"Shut up, Lucas!" Vivian snapped, turning on him with eyes full of venom. "Control yourself! You are a Whitmore! We are finalizing a business transaction, nothing more!"
"She was my wife, Mom!" Lucas choked out, tears finally breaking past his eyes. "You said... you said Cole was just going to pay her to leave town! You said she was going to sign divorce papers!"
Vivian let out a sharp, cruel laugh that made my skin crawl behind the one-way glass. "Did you really think a low-class farm girl from Iowa would take a few hundred thousand dollars and walk away quietly, Lucas? She knew too much about our corporate taxes! She was a threat to your career, to our family! I did what you were too soft to do!"
Lucas fell to his knees on the filthy concrete, grabbing his head in his hands. "Oh God... Emily... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"Get up, you sniveling coward!" Vivian hissed, kicking his leg with her expensive heel. "Stand up and act like a man! She is gone! The problem is solved! After today, you marry Senator Vance's daughter, we secure the ten-million-dollar waterfront grant, and we forget Emily ever existed!"
Sitting in the dark observation room, watching my husband weep not out of love for me, but out of sheer, pathetic terror for his own skin, the last remaining thread of affection I had ever harbored for Lucas Whitmore snapped like a dry twig.
Suddenly, the heavy steel freezer door swung open with a loud, metallic clatter.
Cole Briggs stepped out from the darkness, wearing a heavy leather butcher's apron covered in fresh, wet crimson blood. In his right hand, he held a massive meat cleaver, its blade gleaming under the harsh industrial spotlights.
Vivian flinched slightly, but quickly composed herself, stepping over her weeping son to face the giant man before her.
"Mr. Briggs," Vivian said coldly. "I assume the matter is concluded?"
Cole didn't answer immediately. He slowly wiped the blood-stained blade of his cleaver with a greasy rag, his icy blue eyes fixed on Vivian's throat.
"The money first, lady," Cole growled.
Vivian reached into her handbag and pulled out a thick, heavy paper envelope filled with bands of hundred-dollar bills. She threw it onto a nearby stainless-steel table. "Two hundred thousand in unrecorded cash. Now show me the proof."
Cole picked up the envelope, flicked through the bills with his thumb, and nodded once.
He walked over to the open freezer door and pointed inside with his blood-covered cleaver.
"In there," Cole said softly. "See for yourself."
Vivian took a deep, arrogant breath, smoothed her black fur coat, and stepped into the freezing air of the cold storage room. Lucas, trembling uncontrollably, dragged himself up from the floor and followed two steps behind his mother, terrified of being left alone in the dark.
They walked to the center of the freezer room, stopping right in front of the massive, dark crimson pool of blood glistening under the dim overhead bulbs.
Vivian’s eyes fell upon the blood-soaked, torn yellow scarf lying in the center of the floor. Beside it lay my crushed leather handbag, split open, its contents scattered across the gory concrete.
Lucas gasped, dropping to his knees right into the pool of blood, his hands hovering over the shredded yellow scarf. "Emily... oh God, Emily..."
Vivian stared down at the gore, her face totally devoid of remorse. In fact, a slow, triumphant, sickening smile spread across her lips.
"Magnificent," Vivian whispered, her voice laced with dark, evil pleasure. "Messy, but effective. She really is gone."
She turned back toward Cole, who stood blocking the exit frame of the freezer door.
"You did good work, Mr. Briggs," Vivian said smoothly. "Now close this place down, dispose of the bag, and never contact my family again."
Cole stood perfectly still in the doorway, his massive frame completely blocking the light from the outer hall.
"There's just one problem, Mrs. Whitmore," Cole said quietly.
Vivian frowned, her eyebrows knitting together. "What problem?"
Cole reached over to the wall outside the freezer, picked up a dark microphone handset connected to the old plant intercom system, and hit the master switch.
"The target isn't in the blood," Cole said into the microphone.
His voice boomed through the speakers mounted inside the freezer, vibrating against the steel walls.
May you like
Then, Cole stepped aside.
And from the shadows of the observation booth above, the heavy iron spiral stairs began to groan as boots descended slowly, deliberately, into the cold light.
