Aaron’s phone rang. He answered it on speaker phone and dialed Jaylon in for a conference call.
“How do you want to handle this?” Stedaman asked.
“We know this is where Kirk F came. That’s his grandmother’s Caddy in front of me. We’ll assume he’s inside this building somewhere.”
“Doesn’t look to be much security,” Jaylon said.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Carson said. “Remember this guy is smart and meticulous. Everything on the outside says Keep Out. So, I’d assume there’s some sort of electronic sensors or monitoring devices on the grounds.”
Up ahead headlights flashed as two cruisers pulled to the side of the road three car lengths beyond the caddy. Finally, the SWAT team’s van they’d used earlier also entered the perimeter. The leader climbed out and jogged down to Aaron’s car and climbed in back.
“Sorry to drag you out here again Lieutenant,” he said to the SWAT leader.
“Not a problem, Detective. Hope we get him this time.”
Aaron nodded, then held up the phone so they could all hear the conversation. “So, assuming this guy has a way to see us coming, stealth really isn’t an option. The longer it takes us to get inside, the more danger Kirk F is in.”
He gave the lieutenant a quick description of Kirk F and also filled him in on the idea that there may be a second hostage inside—if their knowledge of the killer’s modus operandi was correct the doctor might still be alive.
“I’ll deploy my men around the perimeter,” the SWAT leader said. “We’ll leave the patrol to secure the outer perimeter and your team can mix in with my people. We’ll go in from all sides on my call.”
“Sounds like the best option,” Stedaman said.
The plan set, the lieutenant headed back to fill in his team.
Aaron secured his vest once more and checked his weapon, trying to calm the raging anger and fear coursing through his veins. He wanted to shake Kirk F for pulling this crazy, dangerous stunt. At the same time, he prayed he’d find him before any real harm came to him. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t.
“You’ll find him,” Brianna said softly beside him.
Had he said that out loud? Or was she just so attune to what he was thinking and just as worried?
“I need you—” he started.
“To stay locked in this car until you give me the signal,” she finished for him. “Trust me, the last thing I want to be is a distraction. Saving Kirk F is the most important thing.” She leaned closer and cupped his face with one hand. Kissing him hard. “You go bring our friend home.”
37
You will need to stay warm for this next part,” Armbruster said, laying a thick out-of-the-dryer warm blanket over Kirk.
He wanted to sigh as the warmth eased some of his shivering. Not all of it would go away, since fear of what this jerk-off was going to do him next ratcheted up a few more notches.
A metal tray on wheels, similar to the one next to the old guy several feet away, rattled closer. On top of it was one of those thick plastic bags he’d seen in the blood banks he’d visited for Aaron. Along with tubing and some hospital needles.
Oh shit! The guy was going to drain his blood. He had to get out of here.
He tried to move his body against the straps. His muscles moved slightly, but not enough to burst through his bindings. His heart raced.
“There, there. You don’t need to get excited. You’ll be doing a great thing,” Armbruster said as lifted Kirk’s sweatshirt sleeve up his arm and began washing the inside part of his elbow with something very cold. His voice had gone soft in a weirdly soothing sort of sing-songy way like Nana’s did when he was a little boy and skinned his knees.
What the hell? Was that the drug he gave him making him think like this?
“Since you’re getting active, I guess we’d better be sure you can’t make any noise,” he said, fiddling with something just out of Kirk’s line of sight.
A ripping sound rent the stillness of the room.
Armbruster came closer and held something in his hand. A strip of duct tape.
Kirk tried to shake his head, but the band holding his head in place prevented him. He widened his eyes, begging the man not to silence him.
“It’s for your own good,” the monster said, sealing the tape over his mouth.
His heart sank. Even if Aaron found him, he couldn’t call for help.
I’m going to die.
* * *
Brianna held her phone in her hand and watched the group of police move around the fenced perimeter of the building like a swarm of ants cornering a big piece of bread at a picnic.
In the distance another set of headlights flashed. This time it was one of the neon yellow-green Emergency Medical Services trucks. Aaron had had her call for them while he’d driven like a madman through the streets to get here. His instructions were very specific.
“Tell them to wait ten minutes then send a squad. No lights. No sirens. They are to park behind the police cruisers and wait.”
When she’d asked why he said, “I don’t want to have to wait to get medical help for Kirk F or the doctor if they need it.”
She closed her eyes and prayed again that they wouldn’t need the medical help, that Kirk F was fine. That they were in time. That Armbruster was taking his time. That he was trying to drain Kirk F’s blood, which would take longer than the one hour he’d been missing.
Quickly, she snapped her eyes open.
She was praying the killer was starting his obsessive process on her friend so they could ultimately save his life? How sick was that?
With renewed faith in the police, and especially Aaron, she focused her attention back on the building now surrounded in an oblong circle, the men’s images looking like black silhouettes in the dim lights from the streetlamp.
She clutched the dashboard with one hand.
Suddenly, the police radio in the car sounded.
“Go! Go! Go!”
* * *
Alarms went off inside his workspace.
Another snoopy kid?
Armbruster opened the clamp on the blood tubing and swiveled around in his chair. He hurried over to his monitoring system and caught the glimpse of bodies moving in all the cameras.
“No! No! No!” he shouted, running back towards his two newest patients.
He stopped at the instrument table and grabbed the scalpel he planned to leave with the surgeon. Now he would use it to finish his work!
Suddenly windows crashed. Plywood boards flew into the space.
A door crashed open.
Something flew inside.
Bang!
A flash of blinding bright light.
He held his hands out in front of him as he tried to get to his mannequins.
“Police! Get your hands up!” one of the barbarians interrupting his work shouted.
“No! No, you mustn’t come in here! You’ll contaminate everything!”
Before he could rescue the bags of precious life force he had salvaged from the decaying human carcasses, someone grabbed him and forced him to the floor. The scalpel clattered on the concrete. His hands were brought together at the small of his back and metal cuffs snapped around his wrists.
“You’re ruining it!”
* * *
“Kirk F?” Aaron hurried to his young friend’s side. Like his mother used to do to band aids on a cut, he ripped the duct tape off his mouth in one quick move. “Come on kid, talk to me.”
“Fuck, that hurt,” Kirk F mumbled, his speech sounding a little slurred.
Aaron didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he loosened the strap over his friend’s head. “Geeze, kid, you had us scared to death.
“Me, too. Other guy?” he asked, turning his head to the left.
“Carson’s got him,” Aaron answered as he shut off the clamp on the blood tubing in Kirk F’s arm, then hurried to get the straps undone.
“Armbruster?”
�
��SWAT team’s got him in custody. Can you sit up?” he asked once all the leather belted straps were off his body.
“Think so. He gave me something.”
“Probably some kind of paralytic mixed with a narcotic. Kept you still and compliant.” Gripping him by the shoulders, Aaron helped him sit up on the gurney, but kept one hand on him to keep him steady as they watched a pair of uniformed police take custody of Armbruster and march him toward the exit, with Captain Stedaman right behind him.
“Better get the medics in here,” Carson yelled. “This guy’s down a few pints.”
“I’ve got them on the horn. Told them we have two patients,” Jaylon said. He and Matt were helping Carson disconnect the straps on the man. “I’ve clamped off the blood tubing, but maybe we should leave the IV in for the medics to use?” he said to them, as well as the phone pressed against his ear. “They say yes. Leave it in.”
Not two minutes later, in flew the medic team carrying tackle boxes. Another set of patrolmen came in behind pushing gurneys. One paramedic hurried to the man on the far stretcher, the other stopped in front of Kirk F, who waved him off.
“Go help him. I’m okay,” he said, his voice sounding less slurred.
“You’re sure?” the older man asked.
“I’m good. He needs you more.”
“Okay, but let me get this out of your first,” he said, pulling on gloves, then opening his kit. He removed the IV needle from Kirk F’s arm, slapped the four by four of gauze over it, then wrapped blue tape, the equivalent to medical duct tape all around his elbow to hold it in place. Then he pulled out an evidence bag from his kit and put the needle, blood tubing and the nearly empty blood bag inside. “You stay here, I’ll be back in a few to check on you.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Aaron said, leaning one hip against the metal gurney and locking his gaze on the younger man who nodded his compliance.
“Don’t think my legs will hold me if I tried to run, anyway,” Kirk F said with a lop-sided grin.
“Oh, my God!”
They both turned to see Brianna hurrying through the chaos straight for them.
“Ma’am, you can’t come in here.” One of the patrol officers tried to stop her.
“It’s okay, Headley. She’s with us,” Aaron said, waving the cop off.
Brianna thanked her, then hurried over to them, pausing to look Kirk F over from head to toe, before pulling him into a hug.
“Thank God, you’re okay,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks when she loosened her hold and stepped back. “You are okay, right?”
“Yes, Boss lady. Except for feeling like a fool, a little wobbly from whatever asshole gave me and the sore elbow,” he nodded down to his now bandaged arm, “I’m okay.”
“Good, because I have someone who wants to talk to you,” she said and hit the dial button on her phone. “Yes, ma’am, he’s right here and in one piece.”
She handed the phone to Kirk F, who rolled his eyes and made a you-just-threw-me-under-the-bus expression as he took it.
“Hey, Nana,” he said. “No, I’m good…yes, I was stupid…no, it wasn’t Detective Jeffers’ idea…yes, you raised me better…”
Brianna stepped to the other side of Aaron, leaning against the gurney, her shoulder touching his.
“You’re mean,” he said, trying not to chuckle at their young friend’s lecture, even if he did deserve it.
“I figure she needed to hear his voice and he needed to get his butt chewed out by her before we start in on him.” She nodded to where the medics were working on the man on the stretcher. “Is he going to survive?”
“Don’t know. Medics are working on him. He was breathing when we got here. Kirk F was drugged and I didn’t want to leave him alone to go find out about the other guy.”
“I can stay with Kirk F now,” she said. “If you need to do police-y things.”
He arched one brow at her. “Police-y?”
“You know, stick your nose into things, ask questions, stand with your arms folded while you throw out scenarios,” she said, and then grinned. “Police-y things. Like Jaylon, Matt and Carson are doing over there.”
Just as she finished teasing him, Jaylon opened the metal door on the far side of the room. He turned suddenly, locking his gaze on Aaron. “You’re gonna want to come see this.”
“Go,” Brianna gave him a little push, all humor gone from her face. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what’s inside there.”
38
Once they determined that the cold locker on the inside of the old meat packing plant was Armbruster’s actual “treasure room”, Aaron had called Anita Ramos’ team to the site to begin processing all the body parts they’d discovered inside the macabre room. The paramedics had stabilized Dr. Greenly, the older man and a former neurosurgeon they’d found on the second gurney and were ready to transport him. Aaron asked them to take a quick look at Kirk F. They did and determined that he really didn’t need to go to the hospital, but he was to contact a doctor if he felt bad in any way in the next twenty-four hours.
Satisfied Kirk F was okay to travel, Aaron had asked Brianna to drive him home.
“Nana won’t rest until she sets her eyes on him,” he said quietly as they watched the paramedics leave with their patient. “I’ll come get you when we’re done here, if that’s okay?”
She hadn’t wanted to see what Armbruster had inside that cold room, so she agreed. Besides, she’d be more help to Kirk and his grandmother than anyone at the kill spot.
Nana greeted them with hugs, warm mugs of hot chocolate and a second lecture on common sense and worrying people you loved by making bad decisions. Brianna had finally curled up on her overstuffed sofa beneath a knitted afghan Nana had made while she tucked her grandson in bed and shuffled off to her own room, clearly more at peace than when she’d called Brianna’s phone hours earlier.
Brianna took the time to call Katie and Paula, letting them know Kirk was safe and Matt would be home later. After seeing the inside of the cold room, he’d decided another set of hands wouldn’t hurt and he’d stayed to help at the crime scene,
Unable to really rest, all the things that happened in the past five days rattled around in Brianna’s head. What would’ve happened to Paula if they hadn’t gone searching for her that first evening? How many more people would Armbruster have gruesomely killed and displayed before they caught him if they hadn’t stumbled onto Art in that old factory? Would Mia have lived if she’d managed to keep in touch and help her more once she left the shelter?
And what about these new changes in her relationship with Aaron? Was it a temporary thing for him? Was it for her? What if he wanted more? What if she did and he didn’t?
Just as she was able to close her eyes and doze off, her phone dinged a message.
I’m outside.
She smiled. Either he didn’t want to wake Nana or he didn’t want to get his butt chewed out like she and Kirk had. After what he’d probably had to deal with inside that meat locker, she’d cut him some slack.
Be right out, she texted back. She grabbed her bag and folded up the afghan. As she opened the door, she heard a sound behind her. Nana stood in the doorway in her robe and slippers.
“You tell that boy thank you for bringing my grandson home,” she said, tears in her old eyes.
Brianna hurried over and hugged the elderly woman tight. “We’re all glad we found him safe and sound.”
“Get on out of here,” Nana said, waving her out the door. “I’ll lock up.”
Aaron looked haggard when she climbed into the SUV.
She leaned in closer and kissed him softly. He cradled her head and indulged in the comfort she was offering. Then he pulled back and stared into her eyes in the pinkish-grey light of early dawn.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I will be now,” he said and released her.
She sat back and buckled in. “How bad was it?”
He didn’t answ
er and for a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her question. Then he let out a heavy sigh. “There were eight complete corpses in different stages of decomp. Then there were other body parts. Ramos says she thinks he may have buried them a long time ago and then tried to dig them up once he bought the building.”
“Dear God,” Brianna whispered, a sick feeling clawing at her stomach. She laid her hand on his. He turned his over and they twined their fingers together. “Why?”
“Carson says it’s part of his psyche. He wants to relive his kills. Some keep trinkets from their victims. Our guy actually kept the bodies. Except for the ones he decided to put on display.”
“How many?”
“Ramos isn’t sure. She said she thinks there are at least ten more.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence. The gravity of all those lost souls. Dead. No one knowing they were even gone. No one knowing that a predator had been hunting them, killing them.
He parked in front. “I’ll let you out here and head home.”
“Why?” Her heart hurt at the dull tone in his voice. Now that the case was over, was he done being close to her? Had their time together meant more to her than him?
“We both need sleep and I think mine is going to be filled with the gruesome shit I just saw. I don’t want to scare you.”
Suddenly her heart hurt for a different reason. This man, even in his grief and despair over another man’s inhumanity was concerned for her welfare. Concerned for her.
“Pull in the garage, Aaron,” she said, squeezing his hand. “The last thing you need is to be alone right now.”
“You’re sure?”
She stared at him with all the love in her heart. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
They took turns showering. Aaron first. By the time she’d finished and slipped on her favorite night shirt, he was asleep on his back, one arm flopped over his head.
She stood in the doorway for a few minutes just staring at him. So peaceful there, you wouldn’t know this man had the weight of nearly two dozen souls weighing on his shoulders. That his care for them would eat at him for weeks or even months.
DRAINED Page 30
