Cut and Run 1 - Cut and Run

squishing sound, like a shoe stuck in the mud, and then a long scrape followed by several shorter ones. Ty couldn't quite identify it, but as he listened, he accepted with a sinking sensation that he was going to die.
    * * * *
    Sears brought Zane another glass of juice while he sat and flipped through the pages of the leather Poe anthology Ross had found. Ross sat with a pen and paper, making notes as Zane searched for similarities between the cases and the stories he read.
    " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ,” he said softly.
    "The ME,” Sears provided with a wince.
    "Right. In the story, one woman's head is practically cut off. The other was stuffed into the chimney.” Frowning, Zane shook his head.
    "The location is what's important there, right?” Ross asked as he made a note.
    Zane nodded and moved onto the next. “ Ligeia ,” he announced. “First thing, the wife in the story dies,” he said woodenly. He grimaced and kept reading. “The man in the story remarries, but he's convinced that his new wife is the old one, reincarnated or something, and he slowly poisons the second wife, who then dies as well. The second wife was described as raven-haired. The first wife was blonde,” he stated in clipped tones.
    "The dye-job roommates,” Ross said with a nod without looking up from his paper. “That wasn't location; it was body positioning."
    "And the wife thing explains the plastic wedding rings,” Zane supplied tiredly. “Hooked together to symbolize they were really one person, no doubt."
    "Jesus,” Sears murmured with a shake of her head. She was thumbing through the files that sat nearby, making notes. Henninger had pulled only the files of anyone who had lived in or around the Baltimore area in 2001, which included large areas like Washington, DC. The stack was huge.
    An odd feeling of dread settled into Zane as he looked at the files. It was like searching for one particular needle in a fucking needle factory. How would they know which file was relevant? Even Ty's file was in that stack, and Zane's fingers itched to search for it. Instead, he paged through the book and found another story, one he'd read over and over while in school. “ The Tell-Tale Heart ,” he announced.
    Both agents looked up from their notes. Zane didn't need to explain that one.
    * * * *
    "You've been a fine conversationalist, but it's almost time for me to leave.” The distorted voice was more muffled, and the light had grown very dim.
    It took a while, but Ty had finally decided that he knew what the sound was. In hindsight, it bothered him that it took him so long to figure it out. He had spent one summer when he was thirteen years old helping his father build a small outbuilding on their property. It had been nothing but cinderblock and beam, but they had still needed mortar and a trowel. He had grown to love the sound of laying the mortar that summer. He was trying to come to terms with the fact that that sound would be one of the last ones he heard.
    The fucker was bricking him in. He recognized The Cask of Amontillado now that his head had cleared and he knew what was happening. This had been the only Poe story Ty had read and actually enjoyed. Ironic that it would be what killed him.
    He turned his head in the darkness. He could see the outline of the man at the top of the wall he was building. When he spoke, his voice echoed off the cavernous walls of the catacomb and came back too distorted to even decipher an accent, much less if it was familiar.
    Again, Ty felt the cold dread creep over him. It was his worst nightmare, one he had never actually dreamed; knowing his lover was in danger and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. His wrists and ankles were bloody from his silent struggles with the shackles. He was shivering from the damp and cold. But he hadn't yet given up. He couldn't, not while knowing that the killer's next stop would be Zane.
    "He'll kill you,” he told the man who was in the process of murdering him. “He'll make it hurt."
    "I'll be disappointed if he doesn't try,” the man answered sincerely. “Well, three bricks left, Special Agent Grady. Time to say goodbye, if you like."
    Ty was silent as the man made some rustling sounds, as if he were crumpling a trash bag. Soon, a handful of white plastic was stuffed through the hole left in the brick wall. It was a plastic suit that had obviously been protecting the man's clothing from the mud and mortar. It fluttered to the ground and the