Tommy cringed at the information. Kelly had called her to fill her in. He said blood and skin extracted from under the police officer’s fingernails was being rushed to national DNA databases to try to find a match.
“This guy may have made his last mistake,” Kelly said.
Tommy thought about it for a second and then asked, “What about his windpipe?”
“Nothing. But it’s got to be the same guy. This is the first time he’s killed in a public place instead of in a wooded area off the river. I’m sure he didn’t have time to leave his signature mark.”
Kelly was very quiet for a moment.
“But he did leave a signature.” It was said so quietly, Tommy almost imagined she had heard it.
“What?”
“You’re going to need to take the fifth on this one. Not a word, right?”
“Fine,” Tommy said quickly.
“No, really. You can’t be a reporter right now. Take that hat off and put on your detective’s girlfriend/target of a serial killer hat. Now.”
“Done.” Tommy didn’t hesitate. This was no longer about a story.
“He left some weird ass stamp on the back of Erk’s neck.”
“A stamp? What do you mean?” Tommy was confused.
“Like you use with a stamp and ink pad, right? That kind of a stamp,” Kelly said. “It was a skull-and-crossbones. Like what would be on a pirate’s flag.”
Jack Sparrow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HIS NAME WAS NOT JACK Sparrow. Not in real life. But as he sat and played the Pirates of the Caribbean movie on repeat in his dark basement apartment, he began to feel like he was the swarthy swashbuckler who made every woman from sixteen to sixty swoon.
He took a black eyeliner pencil and expertly lined his eyes without having to look into a mirror. He grabbed his ratty, tangled wig and plopped it on. And then carefully pasted the thin costume moustache and goatee.
He donned the pirate costume and got into his bed. He carefully extracted a small box that contained his treasures: Small labeled vials of blood from each one of his victims. He used the needle not only to inject his victims with undetectable poison, but he used the needle to extract the victim’s blood. Each vial was carefully preserved in the velvet-lined box for his ritual.
With one hand down his pants, he opened up each vial, one at a time and took a small sip of blood, careful not to take too much. He needed the blood to last. It was the most precious thing he owned.
In his excitement, he caught a glance of himself in the long mirror opposite his bed and the sight of his blood-stained lips brought him to his final climax.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“PUT ON YOUR DANCING shoes.”
“What are you talking about?” Parker said. “I’m in my pajamas. I’m watching the Twins. They are down two. Bottom of the ninth.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” she said. “Want to catch a killer or not? Put on something that a frat boy would wear. We’re going to a frat party.”
“You’ve got to be kidding?”
She was not.
Within the hour, they had pulled up in front of a large house with Greek letters hanging over the wrap-around front porch. Several guys lounged in ripped chairs clutching beer cans. A beat-up leather couch was the guest of honor in the middle of the front lawn and several girls and guys were sprawled on it.
Tommy looked behind Parker’s car. The young, redheaded cop who was supposed to be tailing her now that Erks was dead was nowhere to be seen. She hoped this new assignment wasn’t his death sentence. If he was out there, he was an expert because she didn’t see a sign of him the entire drive over.
Slamming the car door, she looked back and didn’t see any figures in any of the parked cars on this street. Yeah, if he was there, he was damn good. Thank God. It would help keep him alive.
Parker wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap pulled low. Tommy had worn her most stylish jeans, high-heeled sandals and a gold silk floaty camisole. She’d pulled her red hair back in a messy ponytail and slicked on some bubble gum colored lipstick. She looked 23, five years less than her real age.
This might actually work.
She’d explained her plan to Parker on the way over. They were going to try to infiltrate the frat boy scene and make friends. The latest victim, Cody Johnson, had been a frat boy at this particular house. He’d been drinking and wandered away from the party. He was found dead in the Mississippi River the next day. Her plan was to get into the house and once they had a few of the dead boy’s friends alone, they would grill them for information that might help lead to the killer.
It was a far-fetched idea, but they didn’t have a whole lot else to go on.
And the cops seemingly had no leads.
As they approached the house, Tommy couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder trying to spot the cop tailing them. Kelly was working the night shift tonight. He had specifically told her not to leave her apartment, but she couldn’t sit and do nothing.
Guilt over Erk’s death drove her to get out of her warm comfy pajamas. Now, she wondered if she’d made a big mistake. Maybe there wasn’t a cop tailing her. Maybe someone else was following her. This thought sent a chill through her. What if the killer was somewhere in the shadows right now, watching her? She was freaking herself out. Knock it off. She squared her shoulders and stepped inside.
Inside the party, Parker put his arm around Tommy in a possessive manner.
“Just work with me here. That way we’ll run off all the guys hitting on you and get to the meat of the story.”
“Whatever.” Tommy thought it was just an excuse, but let it go. For now.
The house was packed: shoulder-to-shoulder people. Loud music blared from an unidentified source and people danced and laughed. Tommy and Parker wove their way through the crowd to the kitchen where the keg was. Tommy grabbed a red cup and when nobody was looking, filled it with water from the tap. She had no desire to be drinking with a bunch of college age kids. Plus, she wanted her wits as sharp as possible.
Meanwhile, Parker was chatting up the kid manning the keg. Tommy couldn’t hear what they were saying, but saw the kid point above his head and mouth the word “upstairs.”
Parker jutted his chin at her. Let’s go.
They maneuvered through cute girls in tiny tops sitting on the stairs smoking and made their way to the second floor. It was quieter there.
Parker turned to Tommy and leaned in to whisper in her ear, which was totally unnecessary. His mouth pressed against her skin sent goosebumps racing down her spine.
“Kid told me Cody Johnson’s friends like to hang out in a bedroom down the hall. They’re into some role-playing game or something.”
Tommy shrugged and squirmed away from his warm breath. She pictured Kelly’s face and the zip of desire she’d felt immediately ebbed.
Role playing? Did that mean Dungeons and Dragons or something?
Parker grabbed her hand, entwining his fingers in hers and led the way down the darker hallway. A poster on the front of the door showed some fantastical fantasy world with trolls and other mythical creatures Tommy couldn’t even begin to identify.
Thank God, she had never dated a boy into that stuff.
Parker gave a sharp rap on the door. Nothing. They waited a few seconds. Still nothing. Parker tried the handle. It was locked. He rapped again and put his mouth to the doorjamb. “Hey, I need to talk to you guys about Cody.”
Slowly, the door opened a crack.
“Who are you?” A nerdy looking skinny guy with glasses and a bad cowlick poked his head out.
“We’re with the Twin Cities News,” Parker said. “We want to help catch the bastard who did that to your friend. But we’re going to need your help.”
The kid blinked and his eyes narrowed. “We already talked to the cops.”
“Well, the cops haven’t caught the guy yet have they? Maybe they need a little help?”
The boy scoffed.
“From you?” But he opened the door and stood aside.
Inside the room, red candles covered every available flat surface. A giant wooden table was pulled to the center of the room and what looked like a game board with different figures took center stage.
“We were playing the game that night,” said the boy, who said his name was Daniel.
Parker and Daniel leaned over the board and discussed the various strategies for playing.
Tommy was more interested in walking around the room, looking for signs that Cody Johnson had lived there.
She interrupted the talk about the game. “Is anything of Cody’s still here.”
“His folks came and got everything,” one boy with long hair in a ponytail said, pointing to an empty corner with a bare mattress and empty shelves. “That used to be his bed.”
Tommy walked over. She didn’t know what she was looking for. A scratch on the wall naming his killer? Of course, there was nothing there. She stood by the window and looked out at the night sky. In the distance, she could see the Mississippi River. It would only be a short hike down to the river from this frat house.
She was vaguely listening to the boy’s voices, when something in Parker’s tone made her turn. He sounded excited.
Parker smiled. “He was caching.”
Huh? Tommy stopped and stared.
“He just got the last clue and discovered it was right in our backyard,” the ponytailed boy said. “Really weird, huh? We told him to just go to bed, but he said he would just run down and come back. But he never came back.”
“So, he was off looking for this geocache?”
The ponytailed boy nodded.
“How come the cops said he was drinking and wandered off?”
The boys at the table shrugged. “Maybe because we always drink on Friday nights, but Cody wasn’t drunk. He always handled his alcohol really well.”
Daniel answered. “Yeah, there was no way he was so drunk that he stumbled and fell into the Mississippi. We knew that was bullshit. We weren’t surprised when you guys wrote that he was murdered and it wasn’t an accident.”
Caching? Tommy didn’t know what they were talking about. Something to do with that game?
Parker was biting his lip and looking off into the distance, which Tommy knew meant he was formulating a plan.
“Any of you know the clues that Cody had when he set off for the geocache?” he asked.
“We’ve been trying to put them together,” the ponytailed boy said. “In fact, we think we found the last clue right before you knocked.”
Parker didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HIKING DOWN THE STEEP muddy banks of the Mississippi made Tommy curse her cute, high-heeled sandals.
“Now, what are we doing again?” Tommy asked Parker once she caught up to him near the shore. The river was only feet away. The frat boys were tromping through the bushes with flashlights.
“It’s kind of like this whole secret society thing,” Parker said. Tommy couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness. Across the river and upstream, a tall bridge made an eerie spider web silhouette. Past that, the tips of the Minneapolis skyline rose into the night sky.
Parker explained how geocaching—called caching—was a bit like a treasure hunt. It revolved around containers that were hidden or buried. People would put together clues and sometimes using a GPS system, find the hidden containers. Inside, the person who first hid the container, kept a tiny notebook. People who participated in geocaching often would sign their name into the notebook. Lately it had become popular for people to carry their own personal stamp—or signature—to show they’d found the cache. They would either sign or stamp a page and then re-bury or re-hide the container for the next person to find.
“What’s the point of it again?” Tommy couldn’t quite see the appeal.
“It’s a mystery, a puzzle,” Parker explained. “To find the geocache, they have to solve the puzzle. I don’t know what the original puzzle was in this one, but apparently, our kid, Cody, was very excited to discover the cache was practically right outside his window. He couldn’t wait until morning either because this one’s a night cache. That means that you have to use a flashlight and reflectors hidden in the woods will lead you to the cache.”
Parker went on to explain to Tommy that the geocaches often contained treasures that finders can keep, called geoswag. For instance, this particular geocache was supposed to contain geocoins—specific coins that geocachers collect.
When Parker said this, Tommy froze.
“The coins. I never told you about the coins.”
“What?”
They were interrupted by the shouts of the frat boys. “Over here! We found it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THEY WERE SO CLOSE. The thrill of nearly being caught overcame him. He sunk to his knees and grabbed himself. Not much longer and he would claim his pirate’s booty in the form of a ravishing redheaded photographer.
She was the one.
All those boys who had scoffed at him would reel back in disbelief when they learned who he was. He would be more famous now than all of them put together.
They dared scorned him. He could have shared his expertise with them, but they chose to ignore his brilliance. They would see now. They would see how brilliant and terrifying he truly was. And they would never forget him. He would go down in history. They thought they were so great? They would fade into obscurity. Not him. Not now. He had done it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE PONYTAILED BOY sat on the curb with his head between his legs. When he did occasionally look up, usually to lean over and vomit, his pale face was streaked with the red and blue strobe lights of the police, fire, and ambulance vehicles nearby.
The boys had found the geocache all right. It was a large ten-by-ten ammo box sealed in a plastic bag. When they opened the box, a horrific smell greeted them. When they jerked away, ten bloody fingertips tumbled onto the ground.
Tommy didn’t understand. But later, waiting for the police to wrap up the crime scene, Kelly told her that it was one of the details the coroner’s report had left out. A detail that only a killer would have known.
In addition, the notebook log where people either signed in or left their stamp, had one stamp on the last page. A skull-and-crossbones stamp that looked like it’d been dipped in blood.
“It looks like the killer wants to be caught and wants to be tied to the other slayings,” Parker said. “I think he got sick of getting away with it. The other deaths appeared to be accidental and that must have irritated him to no end. That’s why he made this one so obvious. And still, nobody found this until now.”
Tommy listened, nodding. Parker was on to something.
Kelly was on his way, but he’d already shared information about the geocache link and detectives were working to see if the other dead boys had that connection.
Tommy looked around, searching the crowd for the arrival of Kelly. For once, Tommy was on the inside of the crime scene tape. People three deep stood against the yellow tape staring at her and the emergency personnel. Many talked among themselves like it was a neighborhood party. Most were college kids pumped up on the illicit thrill of the gruesome discovery in their own backyard. A few were older people who lived in the neighborhood. The redheaded cop was talking to the other detectives. He gave Tommy a barely perceptible nod.
Parker was telling her some story about geocaching. Tommy was barely paying attention when her phone rang. The screen said unidentified caller.
“St. James.”
There was a second of silence that should have warned Tommy, but the hair on her arms didn’t stand up until she heard the high-pitched voice.
“You look very lovely in that gold blouse. Much like a randy wench who wants to go below deck with the handsome pirate.”
Tommy whirled back around to the crowd, searching for anyone who met her eyes. Any movement. Anyone with a phone to his or her ear.
She heard a small sound and knew he had disconnected the call. She searched the crowd, but most of the faces were in the dark. Then, toward the back, she saw a figure slipping way into the darkness. She grabbed her bag and ran.
She was only a few feet away when Parker tried to grab her arm, but she struggled free.
“Tommy? Who was that? Who was on the phone?”
She’d just made it to the police tape, startling the people standing there.
“Move! He’s getting away!”
Her words had the opposite effect from what she had intended. The crowd drew closer and became fluid as people began to panic.
“Who?”
“Who is she talking about?”
“The killer? He’s here?”
She struggled to duck under the tape when she felt a strong grip on her elbow.
“Let me go Parker.”
She turned. It was Kelly.
She was filled with relief. She held up her phone. “He just called me. He’s here. He was watching me. We have to go get him. I just saw someone leaving.”
Kelly put his palm up.
“Tommy, you can’t go after him by yourself. And look, there’s nobody there.”
She turned to face the darkness and saw an empty sidewalk.
“He got away!”
“He’s gone.”
“He was right there.”
Kelly called over a few officers. They took off at a run. Tommy watched them dejectedly.
Kelly took off his blazer and hung it over her shoulders.
“You’re shaking.”
“What?” Tommy hadn’t even realized the tremors running through her body. She did notice Parker eyeing her with Kelly, though.
“Doctor, so glad you could make it out,” Kelly said turning to the forensic pathologist ducking under the crime scene tape. “I thought it was important for you to handle this one from the get go. Make sure we don’t tromp all over the crime scene or miss something.”
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