There was a sudden tightness in her forehead, and she knew that her brow hadn’t so much furrowed as it had folded.
“What do you mean? I said, I don’t want to call him a serial killer.”
“Right,” Rhodes snapped. “But you said the words—what world do you live in, Adams? No one has time to watch a five-minute press conference. Those words coming from your mouth will be made into a sound-bite and will be played over and over again. Shit, I’m surprised that the Deputy Inspector hasn’t heard it already. Serial killer, serial killer, serial fucking killer.”
Chase swore under her breath. The man was right, but that wasn’t what bothered her. What bothered her was that she hadn’t even thought of the consequence before opening her mouth. An image of Drake’s brick of a cell phone suddenly came to mind.
Maybe he is wearing off on me… maybe his plague stench is clinging to my clothes, my brain.
Sergeant Rhodes sighed and leaned forward even further, his chair creaking like an old woman’s death croon.
“Do you know why you are heading this case, Chase Adams?” he asked, his lips parting into a lecherous grin. He looked like a skull with spectacles now.
“No,” she said, steeling herself for what came next.
“The reason why I put you on this case, is because no one else would team up with Damien Drake. After what happened with his last partner, after what he did, no one wants to even go near him. But you… you were just so damn gung-ho, so eager, that you didn’t even stop to ask who Damien Drake was, just like you didn’t think about using the words ‘serial killer’ in front of the nation!”
Chase let Rhodes ramble on, not bothering to correct him.
The fact was, she knew exactly who Damien Drake was before coming to New York.
Chase had done her research.
She also knew that by teaming up with Drake she would be made the lead on their cases. Besides, Drake was a good detective. Despite what happened to Clay, Drake could still do good work and was a valuable asset.
If he kept his drinking under control, that was.
Rhodes finished his diatribe and waited. Chase knew that the man was baiting her, but seeing as he hadn’t actually posed a question she didn’t feel compelled to say anything.
Keep your ego out of it, her mind warned. And she took heed.
Instead of replying, Detective Chase Adams just sat there and waited. She waited until things transcended uncomfortable and teetered into awkward.
At long last, she said.
“Can I go?”
Rhodes scowled. He had been looking for a fight, that much was clear, and the fact that she hadn’t engaged clearly disappointed him.
“Yes,” he said curtly. “But this is your last chance. No more slip ups, or I’m making Detective Simmons lead on this one.”
Chase nodded, again just slipping the bait. She stood and exited the man’s office.
“Close the door behind you!” he hollered, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to slam it.
Outside the room, she started toward her office, trying to calm her pounding heart, slow the release of adrenaline into her system.
Her hand had just grabbed the door handle to her office, when a male voice from behind said, “Detective Adams?”
She spun, her jaw clenched.
“What?”
The young uniformed officer lowered his gaze. Outside the station he had looked intimidating, his thick arms crossed over his chest in a no-nonsense kind of way. In here, however, he looked like a little boy playing cops and robbers.
“Sorry, I just wanted to let you know that I found out who the reporter was.”
Chase squinted at him.
“What?” she repeated, reserving some, but not all, of the venom on her tongue.
“The reporter? The one asking questions about the housekeeper and call girl?”
Chase relaxed.
“Yeah? What’s his name?”
“Ivan Meitzer of the New York Times.”
Chase racked her brain, trying to remember where she had heard or seen the name before.
The man recognized the concentration on her face and continued.
“He was the one who wrote the article about the Butterfly Killer? Also did a whole series on the Skeleton King about six months ago.”
Chase remembered her conversation with the detectives when the Butterfly Killer article had first surfaced. About how she would take whoever was responsible for the leak off the case immediately.
“Thanks,” she said. “That will be all.”
The man nodded and then left Chase alone with her thoughts.
Chapter 45
Drake sat in the booth at Patty’s that was starting to feel like his second home.
Broomhilda was back, surly as ever, and it took him nearly ten minutes to get a cup of coffee. He didn’t even bother with the Key lime pie.
The place was busier now, which was something that made him uncomfortable. Usually, he preferred to meet later at night, preferably in the early morning hours, but that simply wasn’t possible given his impending date with Chase.
Drake wasn’t happy about being seen here while the sun was still out, and neither did his contact.
The bell above the door chimed, and a man strode over to him, this time keeping his dark hood on. He slid into the booth across from Drake and then quickly reached into his jacket.
“Wait,” Drake said, and the man stayed his hand. “Not this time. This time I need something else.”
The man frowned, which accentuated the deep grooves around his mouth.
“Drake, we had an arrangement.”
“I know, I know. Did you get the shot of Raul?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now, I know you aren’t going to like this—” Drake began, but was cut off momentarily by a groan. “—but, but, I need you to do some digging for me.”
“What kind of digging?”
“I need you to find an article… a newspaper article,” Drake began, trying not to be deliberately obtuse. “One that was never published.”
The man leaned back, and pulled his hand out of his jacket, the yellow envelope still tucked somewhere deep inside.
“Like on an Internet site? Drake, I’m—”
Drake shook his head.
“No, this is from a long time ago. Something that may or may not exist.”
If his contact could frown further, his lips would have slid right off his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Before I tell you, you must promise that whatever you find, you won’t publish it.”
The man shifted uncomfortably.
“Drake, what the hell is this? We had an agreement. After the Skeleton King, you said in exchange for information about specific cases, I would pay you cash. That was it. That was our agreement.”
Drake took a sip of his coffee. It tasted like charred tar.
“I know. But this is different. This is something I don’t even know exists. But I need you to look in places that I can’t. If you do this, I’ll promise you the exclusive for the entire Butterfly Killer’s case when we catch the bastard.” He cringed at his own use of the moniker, but it had been intentional.
And it worked: the man’s expression transitioned from disgusted to interested with just those two words. And then, as Drake had predicted, he nodded.
“What do you need?”
“I need you to use your contacts at the Times and any other media outlets that you might have access to. I’m looking for anything from about twenty years ago—anything from, say, nineteen ninety to ninety-six—from New York City that involves the victims Neil, Chris, or Thomas. I’m also interested in newsworthy reports regarding Deer Valley Academy, the students or their parents, including Kenneth Smith. And butterflies. Seriously, I—”
“Woah,” the man interrupted, “anything about butterflies? Anything?”
“Yes, anything. But here’s the rub: I don’t want articles t
hat have been published. I already have a guy on that, and it looks to be a dead end. I want things that weren’t published. Do you catch my drift?”
“Like articles that have been redacted? Military memos? FBI? Because there’s—”
Drake shook his head.
“No, not military or FBI, nothing like that. We’re not talking Area 51 shit, just news articles that for some reason an old crusty editor decided at the last minute that, hey, we’re going with something else instead. Just like that, out of the blue. Maybe he wants the draft copies and the reporter notes, too. And maybe, just maybe, this editor starts pulling into the parking lot in a newer model car, or is suddenly obsessed with checking the time on his new Rolex, if you catch my drift.”
The man was nodding now, and Drake was glad that he didn’t have to spell it out for him.
“Twenty years ago? That’s going to be all paper. It’s going to take time, Drake. Some real grunt work.”
Drake sipped his coffee.
“So what? Get someone else to help you out. Two or three people, maybe. Interns. But this has to stay—” what did Simmons say? DL? —”on the DL.” The word seemed even stranger coming out of his mouth than Butterfly Killer.
The contact considered this and then stood with such suddenness that Drake instinctively pulled back.
“I’ll do it,” he said as he slid out of the booth. “But only this once, Drake. And it better be worth it.”
“It will,” Drake promised as the man turned and headed toward the door. “Trust me, it will.”
“I’ll send you an email when—if—I find something.”
Then the door chimed and he was gone.
Less than a second later, as if on cue, Broomhilda arrived at his side.
“Whiskey?” she asked.
Drake thought about this for a moment, before deciding against it.
“No, not this time. Just the bill.”
He wanted a drink. My god, did he ever. But he couldn’t.
He still had work to do tonight.
PART III - Butterfly
Chapter 46
The interior of the house was dark and the air was thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, the brooding aroma of sweat and urine.
“NYPD! Peter Kellington, step forward with your hands up!”
There was a staircase extending to their right and a narrow hallway on the left-hand side. Just inside the front entrance, and to Clay’s immediate right, was a closed door.
Clay turned to Drake and then indicated the closed door with the barrel of his service revolver.
“Watch my six.”
Drake nodded back and moved a handful of steps into the house.
He heard Clay take several deep breaths, then he threw the door open, sweeping the gun from his left to his right. As his partner stepped into the room and started to clear it, Drake turned around, covering Clay’s now exposed back.
He pointed his gun halfway between the hallway and the stairs and listened closely. Clay’s breathing was still audible despite being well inside the front room now, and Drake thought he heard something like a grandfather clock ticking somewhere deeper in the house. Other than that, he heard nothing.
There’s nobody here, he thought with an air of smugness. I told Clay this was a waste of time.
Drake was about to say as much to Clay when something clattered across the floor. Roughly the size of a marble, it came from the direction of the front door and rolled awkwardly between his legs and down the hallway.
As he spun toward the front door, he caught sight of something small and white in his periphery, like an over-sized tooth, but he resisted the urge to focus on it.
Drake leveled his gun, lowering to one knee as he did.
“Drake?” Clay called.
He ignored his partner and scanned the doorway, and then the porch.
A flicker of opaque movement among the thinness of night and rain bounded down the porch steps and fled into the street.
“Hey!” Drake shouted, “Stop!”
But the man was quick and lithe, and after he leaped onto the patio stone walk, he seamlessly broke into a run.
“Stop!” Drake shouted again. He rose to his feet and started after him. In a second, he was outside, the rain pounding down on him. It ran down his forehead, blurring his vision. He swiped at it, trying to locate the shadow.
There.
The figure was already forty yards away, heading in the opposite direction of the oncoming sirens.
“Stop!” he screamed. He had taken two steps onto the porch when he heard a sound that would haunt him forever.
The crack of a single gunshot belched from the inside of the house like a thunderclap trapped in a cardboard box.
Drake whipped around, eyes wide, heart racing.
“Clay!” he cried, sprinting back inside.
There was a man standing halfway down the stairs, holding a still smoking pistol out in front of him.
Even in the darkness, Drake could see the man’s pale face liquid with shock.
Drake strode forward, aimed, and then fired.
The first bullet missed, the rain in Drake’s eyes blurring his vision. There was a dull thunk as the bullet embedded in the cheap plaster wall inches from the man’s left shoulder.
The sound of plaster exploding onto the stairs seemed to animate Peter Kellington, and he dropped the gun and swiveled.
He took a single step and then Drake fired again.
And again.
And again.
The seasoned Detective had missed with his first shot, but the next three hit their mark.
The first struck Peter in the torso, just above his left hip. The man grunted and spun in with the impact just as the second bullet shattered his left shoulder blade. The man started to fall backward down the stairs when the third bullet hit.
This final shot tore through the bottom of his skull where it met his spine, severing his brain stem and blowing out the front of his throat.
Peter Kellington’s body immediately went slack and he landed on his back and proceeded to slide down the stairs.
Drake didn’t need to look at him to know that he was dead. Only a dead body reacted this way.
Instead, he ran to the room, all the while shouting Clay’s name over and over again.
He found his partner lying on his back half in, half out of the room that he had been in the process of clearing when Peter had fired his only shot. Clay’s eyes were open, but they were vacant, cloudy. His breath was coming in short bursts, and there was a slight hiss and sizzle accompanying each one.
Drake dropped to his knees.
“Clay!” he screamed. “Please, God, no!”
He located a single bullet hole three or four inches below his collarbone on the left-hand side. Blood was bubbling out like some sort of volcanic spring.
“No! Stay with me, Clay! Stay with me!”
He put pressure on the wound, but he knew that it was too late. The bullet had clipped one of his arteries, and his life was slowly simmering out of him.
Once again Drake’s vision was blurred, only this time it was from tears and not from the rain.
“No,” he moaned. “Pleeeease.”
He looked up at Clay’s face. The man coughed once, the saliva and blood that came forth coating his thick beard, then he went still.
Drake began to sob.
Without thinking about what he was doing, he threw his gun to one side, then reached down and tucked one arm under the man’s neck and the other under his legs. With a grunt, he picked his friend up and started toward the open door.
The rain was illuminated in a prism of red and blue, and the sound of police cars screeching to a halt filled the night air.
“No!” Drake screamed. “No!”
And then he fell onto one knee, lowering Clay’s dead body as he did, a single thought running through his mind.
It should have been me… it should have been me… it should have been me…
&nbs
p; Chapter 47
“Wake up,” a voice said. “Drake, wake up.”
Drake grunted and opened his eyes. Startled, he looked at his arms, half expecting to see Clay’s bearded face nested in them, a caterpillar wriggling out of his slack mouth. But his arms were empty, his palms upturned as if summoning himself from sleep.
When he recognized the cream-colored seat, he slunk back down and stifled a groan.
“What’s with you and sleeping in my car all the time?” Chase asked in an obvious attempt to keep things light.
Drake worked his way deeper into the soft leather.
“It’s more comfortable than my couch,” he grumbled. He cleared his throat and said, “Was I talking again?”
“No,” Chase said. Her voice was even, but Drake got the impression that she was lying anyway.
He decided to leave it alone. No good could come from calling her on it, and it might even lead to her asking questions, and Drake had had enough of questions for one lifetime.
Drake turned his attention to the house across the street from where they had parked, which was nestled between seven or eight identical townhouses. It was completely dark. Even the light above the front door—motion sensor, he thought—was off.
Dark like Peter Kellington’s house had been.
He shuddered.
“Any movement?”
Chase shook her head.
“No. According to Detective Gainsford, Tim Jenkins arrived home at eight, turned the lights on in the kitchen then in what he assumed was the family room to watch TV. At half-past nine all lights went out.”
Drake nodded.
He reached onto the dash and grabbed the two stapled pieces of paper. As he scanned the first page, he said, “You really think that this is our guy? That Tim Jenkins is the killer?”
Chase shrugged.
“Don’t know. But he’s involved somehow, I can just feel it.”
Drake cocked his head at this, remembering the certainty by which Clay and the rest of the department had proclaimed that Peter Kellington, a half-wit janitor with three priors for peeking into the high school girl’s locker room, had been the Skeleton King.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 20
