The Coast-to-Coast Murders

by J. D. Barker

  Gunshots meant police.

  Gunshots meant help.

  “We’re up here!” I screamed out.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty

  Gimble

  Kepler stared at her.

  Gimble’s hand instinctively went to her shoulder holster.

  Empty.

  Her Glock was back behind her, next to Begley’s body.

  Her eyes jumped to Vela’s gun, lying on the ground at least eight feet out of reach.

  Kepler didn’t move.

  “I trusted you,” Gimble told him. “I brought you here.”

  She tried not to look at the gun in his hand; she focused on his face. “Where did you get that?”

  She already knew, though. She thought about the young agent she had left alone with him in the SUV.

  Kepler glanced down at Vela’s body on the floor behind Gimble, at the growing pool of blood around the man’s head. His eyes found Vela’s gun off to the side. He caught Gimble looking toward it too. He raised the gun in his own hand and pointed the weapon at her. “You killed him?”

  Gimble slowly raised her palms. “Put the gun down, Michael.”

  “We’re up here!” someone cried out. A female voice, echoing from somewhere up above.

  Kepler looked over his shoulder. “Megan!”

  Gimble dived for Vela’s gun. She hit the marble hard and slid across the floor. Her fingers found his Glock, gripped the butt, wrapped around the trigger. She rolled onto her back, sat up, and thrust the barrel toward Kepler.

  He was gone.

  “Shit!” She scrambled to her feet and ran down the hallway after him.

  She’d started up the staircase near the entrance when she heard gunfire from below.

  Distant.

  Buried.

  Dobbs.

  Had to be Dobbs.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One

  Dobbs

  Dobbs had heard gunfire upstairs, he was sure of it. He waved his hand, turning on the motion-sensing light.

  His own gun was still in the corner of the room where he’d dropped it. He picked it up in his left hand and pointed it at the ceiling. He squeezed the trigger and fired off three quick shots. Bits of plaster fell to the floor.

  He knew shouting was useless, but someone would hear the shots.

  “Do you really want to draw them down here, Detective?”

  Patchen sounded like he was right on the other side of the door.

  Heavy metal. No way a round would make it through. His weapon was loaded with hollow points, which were meant to shatter upon impact. They weren’t designed for penetration. If he shot at the door, he was more likely to injure himself with a ricochet or fragment than hit Patchen.

  “Shoot the door, and it might spark. Trust me, Detective, none of us want that right now.”

  The motion light blinked off.

  Dobbs waved again, turning the light back on. “What are you doing out there?”

  “Have you ever come to a crossroads? Reached a decisive moment in your life that called into question all you had ever done and presented you with two separate paths forward? Not necessarily a right path and a wrong path but each going in a different direction?”

  Dobbs didn’t respond. He had no idea what to say to that.

  Patchen went on. “I found myself standing at just such a crossroads of late—after I learned of Fitzgerald’s passing. Rose and I might have been privy to his research, his progress, but neither of us was ever under the illusion we could control his creation. Mitchell responded only to him. Feared only him. With Fitzgerald gone, the lion escaped from his cage. So I had this choice—should I attempt to cage the beast again and continue the research through some other means, or should I bring an end to the experiment? With Rose’s assistance, continuation might have been possible—there’s certainly more to learn. But without her…well, I’m willing to admit I’m not strong enough. When I turned on the news and saw her house burning, I knew she had made the decision for us.”

  “She didn’t die in the house. She jumped off the bridge at Cornell,” Dobbs told him, not because he had any interest in having a conversation with the man but because he knew that as long as Patchen was talking, he wasn’t doing something else. Dobbs needed to buy time.

  “She jumped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, she’s dead nonetheless,” Patchen said. “Both Fitzgeralds gone. Our funding…gone. With that, one particular path at that crossroads shone a little brighter than the other. I knew what I had to do. I’m meat for the lion, Detective. I knew he’d come for me, and it’s my duty to end him. I hired someone…I hoped he could…but…well, he failed. Now it’s on me. If Mitchell’s not here yet, he will be soon. Fire kills even the worst virus, Rose knew that much.”

  Dobbs could smell the gas coming from under the door. He was getting so weak. He didn’t realize he had fallen until his head cracked against the cold floor.

  He heard a loud click.

  All went dark again.

  “Lights out, Detective.”

  Dobbs forced his arm up, waved—nothing happened. Patchen must have flipped the breaker.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two

  Written Statement,

  Megan Fitzgerald

  I heard Michael yell my name from somewhere in the building, yet I was staring right at him.

  Mitchell cocked his head, smiled. “I told you, Meg.” He grinned at me, a twisted grin. “Call out again. Draw him up here. Bring him to us.”

  Nicole squirmed and writhed on the bed.

  Mitchell placed his hand on her chest and pressed down, held her still. The stained scissors glistened in his grip.

  “No…” I shuffled back until my legs pressed against the bed frame.

  “It’s okay, Meg. I won’t hurt him. I promise.”

  Oh, but I knew he would.

  The lights went out. All of them.

  The world went black.

  I lunged at Mitchell. Leading with my shoulders, I caught him right in the belly. He was a lot bigger than me, but I took him by surprise and I heard the air leave his lungs and slip from his lips with a wet gasp. The scissors clattered to the floor, and I dropped down to my knees, searched the grimy wood. When my fingers found them, I grabbed the handle and thrust them forward. He wasn’t there, though.

  I heard him to my right, swung that way.

  Nothing.

  With my other hand, I reached out blindly. My fingers raked the air. I didn’t find him. Instead, my hand hit the wall, slipped across the peeling wallpaper soaked with gasoline.

  “Maybe you should light a match, Meg. Better to see by.”

  A light bloomed. A ferociously bright light in the otherwise dark room. Mitchell stood about five feet from me, a match flickering between his thumb and forefinger. He grinned and pinched it out.

  I pushed off the floor, moving toward the light, his voice, leading with the scissors.

  I missed again.

  A shadow skirted across the edge of my vision, a swift phantom.

  “You remember those scissors, don’t you, Meg? Bet it feels good. Like the touch of an old friend. Makes you feel strong, like you’re in control.”

  Something shuffled to my left, then sliced across the palm of my hand. I screamed and scuttled back, cradled my arm close. Warm blood flooded between my fingers.

  “I brought a knife of my own,” Mitchell said in a low whisper. “The dark room was always more interesting when everyone had skin in the game, don’t you think? I never played with three people, though. Dr. Bart always preferred two.”

  He moved again, and Nicole Milligan jumped with enough force to bang the bed frame against the wall. She cried out from behind the duct tape.

  He cut her again.

  “I wish we had more time,” he said, now somehow on the opposite side of the room.

  I dropped to the floor and crawled toward the bed. Gasoline soaked through my jeans and burned where he cut me. I choked back a
scream. My heart beat so hard, I felt it in my throat.

  I thumped against the metal frame again and went still.

  I listened.

  Mitchell wasn’t moving.

  Nicole Milligan twisted.

  The frame squeaked.

  The room was stiflingly dark, pitch-black.

  I reached up, found Nicole’s foot, and cut away the zip tie.

  The blade of Mitchell’s knife swooped down through the air with a whistle, missed my hand by less than an inch, and clinked against my scissors. I kicked out, caught him in the leg, and quickly shuffled to the head of the bed. I cut the zip tie on her hand and rolled under the bed before he had a chance to take another swipe at me. I came up on the other side, cut her left hand free too.

  I heard him run. Heavy steps on the hardwood.

  I slipped back under the bed and quickly pulled myself along the frame to the bottom. Above me, I heard Nicole sit up.

  Mitchell’s blade came down hard, right where she’d been. He must have buried the knife to the hilt in the mattress, because when he yanked it back out, the entire mattress jumped with it.

  I pushed out from beneath.

  Got to my feet.

  I sliced away the last zip tie, this one from her left foot, and pulled her toward me and off the bed. The two of us crashed down to the floor, her on top of me, as Mitchell sliced again, three quick strikes into the fabric.

  “Run,” I whispered into Nicole’s ear. I rolled, forced her off me, and sat back up with the scissors ready, listening for him in the dark room.

  Mitchell didn’t move.

  The only sound came from Nicole scrambling across the floor toward the door. Although I couldn’t see her, she must have tried to stand because she let out a muffled scream, and I thought of the cuts on her feet, the gasoline on the floor—the burn. She fell back to her knees and crawled toward the door, the hallway.

  “Let her go, Mitchell,” I said.

  My eyes adjusted to the gloom just enough to make him out—he was pressed into the far corner, leaning against the wall. I caught the slightest shimmer of the blade in his hand, the whites of his eyes. He was looking directly at me.

  At first, he only smiled. Then he leaned forward. “I’m thinking of a number between one and five, Meg.”

  Another match hissed to life in his hand.

  I jumped to my feet and shot for the door. I grabbed Nicole’s arm and threw it around my shoulder, forcing her to stand. She flailed, punched me, tried to pull away. I yanked her hair, tugged her forward, looked back for a moment.

  Behind us, Mitchell said softly, “Three. It was three.”

  He tossed the match into the air and started after us.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three

  Gimble

  Everything went dark.

  Gimble froze on the stairs.

  She heard Michael’s footsteps somewhere up above. They grew distant, quickly faded away.

  Below, the echo of the gunshots died too.

  She stood there in utter blackness. Silence.

  Her phone was in her back pocket. Gimble took it out and switched on the flashlight. The narrow beam rolled over the walls, the steps, first up, then down. The thin scent of gasoline wafted down from the second floor.

  Kepler up.

  Dobbs down.

  She glanced at the display on her phone—no signal.

  Her fingers twitched.

  Without another thought, Gimble turned and raced down the stairs to the lower level, the flashlight beam bobbing. At the bottom, she came upon a metal fire door. Leading with her gun, she pushed through and found herself in a long hallway with doors lining both sides. All closed. All metal.

  She considered shouting for him but didn’t. He had shot at something or someone, and at this point, all she had on her side was surprise.

  The first three doors were locked.

  The fourth was a storage closet filled with cleaning supplies—chemicals, mops, brooms, paper towels. She closed the door, tried the next one.

  Locked.

  She walked a couple feet down the hallway to two more doors. Like most of the others, the door on the right was locked. The one on her left opened up to another staircase, this one going deeper into the building. The scent of rotten eggs rushed at her, thick and stale, the unmistakable odor of the mercaptan added to natural gas.

  The flashlight beam played over the staircase. The walls were painted a muted gray. Black rubber treads covered each step; there was a metal handrail on the wall. Nothing down below but darkness.

  Water dripped.

  She heard a muffled thud, like someone banging on a thick wall. This was followed by a shout—barely audible, distant.

  Dobbs.

  Gimble switched off the flashlight.

  Total darkness.

  She had a decision to make.

  She could descend with the light on, which would give away her position, or she could go down without it, but either way, whoever waited down there had the advantage and she knew it. She couldn’t turn back, not knowing he needed help.

  Gimble began walking down the stairs, slowly, methodically, allowing her eyes to attempt to adjust. She kept her gun ahead of her in her right hand. Her left was below the gun clutching the phone, one finger on the flashlight button.

  With each step she took, the scent of gas grew stronger. This was mixed with the musty mildew smell of a damp basement. She reached the bottom and left the mouth of the stairwell at a low crouch. She could make out rudimentary shapes, nothing more—something stacked against the opposite wall, large equipment, maybe a boiler or air conditioner.

  She heard something shuffling to her left, near the corner behind some large boxes, and she spun toward it.

  “If you shoot and strike something metal, the spark will ignite the gas.” The voice was low, barely audible. “Please do. I dare you.”

  Gimble thumbed the flashlight.

  The beam cut through the dark. She’d hoped the light would blind whoever was there, but if it did, she couldn’t tell. She found herself staring at a man in his sixties with thinning hair and a rumpled suit, a crooked tie, and dusty loafers. He ran toward her, face contorted. That’s when she saw the hatchet in his hand, swinging toward her, cutting the air with a whistle.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four

  Written Statement,

  Megan Fitzgerald

  The match flew from Mitchell’s fingers and sailed through the air as if in slow motion, a spark of light. It bounced off the door frame and landed in the gasoline pooled in the hallway. For a second, I thought it went out. I thought maybe it had been extinguished by the force of air generated by his throw. Or maybe the liquid itself put it out. For that one moment, the flame dimmed, but then it roared to life with a swoosh, first the puddle, then the trail down the hallway. Then up the walls, the wallpaper, everywhere gasoline had been splashed.

  I yanked Nicole into a room at our right just as a blue flame rushed past the open doorway where we had just stood. The two of us fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

  “Megan!”

  The shout of my name didn’t come from the room we had been in or even from that direction; it came from the opposite end of the hallway.

  “Michael!” I screamed back. “It’s Mitchell! He’s real! He’s got a knife! He’s trying to kill us!”

  Nicole twisted beneath me, tried to get up. She was hysterical. I’d dropped the scissors near the door, and she grabbed for them, but they were out of reach. I grappled with her, got hold of both her arms, pinned her down on her back.

  “Where are you?” Michael shouted back.

  “In here!” Which was exactly zero help. There were too many rooms; he couldn’t see us.

  Nicole brought her knee up, caught me in the belly, and knocked the wind out of me. I rolled off, coughing. She scrambled across the floor. I grabbed her hair and yanked her back. She flipped over. Her hand shot forward, her long nails scratching the air, reachin
g for my eyes. I balled my fist and hit her as hard as I could in the side of her head. This stunned her but didn’t slow her down. Somehow she got the scissors; she swung them at me, grazing my shoulder, then twisted toward the door. I punched her in the back of her head. I didn’t want to, but there was no reasoning with her. I couldn’t let her run out there—her feet, her knees, her legs, her whole body was soaked in gasoline.

  She dropped. Her face smashed hard against the floor.

  She went still.

  I shook her, but she didn’t move. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Black smoke gathered at the ceiling in a cloud. We had to get out of here. I couldn’t carry her. I snatched the scissors from her hand and went to the doorway. “Michael!” I shouted again.

  With my next gasp, my lungs filled with smoke. I dropped low and coughed it out. My eyes burned. I’d read that in a fire, it’s the smoke that kills you, not the flames. That seems pretty unlikely until you start choking on the stuff.

  I saw him then, about ten feet down the hall. He had a gun in one hand and held the collar of his shirt up over his mouth with the other. He squinted, saw me, and started toward me, carefully avoiding the flames.

  From the opposite end of the hallway, Mitchell screamed, a horrible, guttural shriek. Michael appeared stunned at the sight of him. He froze. By the time he recovered and attempted to raise the gun, it was too late. Mitchell had shot past me, dived through the air, and caught Michael around his waist. The gun fell away. I lost track of the knife. They both dropped to the floor, the fire lapping at the air around them.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five

  Gimble

  Gimble dived to her left and crashed into a stack of metal folding chairs piled against the wall. Her phone skittered across the floor, came to a stop near the HVAC unit. The hatchet swung past her face; there was a swoosh of air as he brought it back around to strike again.