by James Hunt
Laughter echoed back at her. “You really think they’re going to cut me a deal after the things I’ve done? No, no, no, Detective. There will be no deals. For either of us.”
“The FBI is tracking you,” Cooper said, the desperation in her voice rising. “It’s only a matter of time before—”
“The FBI is no closer to finding me than Jimmy Hoffa. And neither are you.”
Cooper waited for him to speak more, afraid to ask the only question that mattered. She swallowed. “Is she still alive?” The weakness in her voice surprised her, and the long pause that followed dissolved what remained of her strength.
“For now.”
Cooper collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes. After a while she thought the killer had hung up, but when she listened closely she heard the faint pant of breathing. She looked to the wall, the red crayon that he’d scribbled the day Beth was taken staring back at her. “Why me?”
“Haven’t you grown tired, Detective?” the killer asked. “It’s the same wheel you run every day. And no matter how fast you go, you stay exactly where you are, never moving, never gaining any ground. It’s just motion. Aimless, purposeless motion.”
“And killing helps you fill that purpose?”
“In a way. But it doesn’t satisfy me the way it used to. I’ve become numb to it, I suppose. After all, I’ve spilled more than my fair share of blood in this city.” Cooper clenched her fist tighter with every word, and she heard the smile on his face as he continued. “That makes you so angry, doesn’t it, Detective? Perhaps even more so than the abduction of your sister. You hate how I’ve been able to walk freely down the streets after the heinous crimes I’ve committed. It drives you mad that no one has been able to catch me. And it sickens you that I’ve been sitting right under your nose, in your city, in your neighborhood. How many unsolved case files have you looked at since you realized what you were dealing with, wondering if it was me? Quite a few, I’m sure. Well, the good news is, most of them probably aren’t mine. In the early days I used to practice on the homeless. They were never missed, and it allowed me to better understand the human psyche.”
“Why the notes? Some sick fetish of yours?” Cooper looked to the large red letters mocking her in her own home.
“Do you know the story of Heracles and his twelve labors, Detective?”
The killer’s voice sounded as though he were a professor at a university, addressing a student. “It’s Greek mythology.”
“Very good, Adila. When Heracles was born to a mortal woman and fathered by Zeus, Hera, Zeus’s wife, grew wild with jealousy and on multiple occasions tried to kill the infant. But after failed attempts she waited until Heracles was a young adult and married with children of his own. Hera bewitched Heracles and drove him mad enough to kill his own wife and children. When he awoke from his madness Heracles was distraught with grief and prayed to the sun god Apollo for penance. Apollo, knowing it was Hera’s madness behind Heracles’s crimes, instructed him to perform twelve impossible labors that once completed would earn his forgiveness and immortality. And do you know how the story ends, Detective?”
A pause lingered, and Cooper’s grip tightened on the phone. “How?”
“Hercales completed all twelve of his grueling labors and secured his place in history as one of the greatest warriors to have ever walked this earth. Upon his death he was carried by Athena in her chariot to Olympus, where he lived in eternity with the gods.”
“There will be no Olympus for you, no chariots, no immortality.” Cooper spit the words through the phone’s microphone, every last syllable dripping with rage. “You’ll wither in a cell for the rest of your life. People will loathe you. Condemn you. No one will care who you are. I’ll bury you before that happens.”
The killer paused. “I have heard of your labors, Adila.” His words were slow, softer than before, as quiet as a whisper. “Beth has told me so much. The struggles of your mother as a single parent. Growing up without a father. Putting yourself through college… the miscarriage.”
“Let her go!” Cooper’s voice thundered throughout the apartment, and she noticed the screaming from her upstairs neighbors had stopped. “I swear to God I’m going to find you. I’m going to find you and gut you like the—”
“Addy?”
Cooper’s knees buckled and smacked against the floor as she collapsed. She squeezed the phone tight against her ear. “Beth? Are you all right?” Her sister cried, and Cooper clawed the floorboard, breaking one of her nails. “Beth, where are you?”
“P-Please, Addy.” Another shudder of gasping cries flooded the phone’s earpiece. “Help me.”
“Beth, I will, but you have to tell me something. Anything, are you—”
The bloodcurdling scream caused Cooper’s heart to stop. And as she listened to the sobs and cries, her muscles seized up, paralyzing herself. Once Beth’s scream had ended there was silence, and then breathing. And then he spoke.
“Your sister has shared so many stories with me, Detective. But I fear her tale has almost ended. And once I’m done with her I can’t wait to hear more stories from you.”
The call clicked dead, and Cooper remained on the floor, the phone still glued to her ear, and she stared at the words the killer had written in red crayon on her wall. She balled her hands into fists, and her body shook with rage.
Chapter 9
Cooper cut through the precinct, knocking down anyone that stepped in her path, and didn’t stop until she made it to her office. She flung the door open hard, and its gust of wind blew down a few of the pictures on the wall. She retraced all the notes, all the evidence they’d been able to find. Murder weapons, DNA samples, fingerprints, pictures, placing them side by side. She reread every note over and over, looking for similarities, any hidden meanings, but every translation she tried was meaningless. “Fuck!” Papers exploded off her desk as she slammed her palm down in frustration.
Hart walked in during the middle of the outburst and paused in the doorway until Cooper noticed him. “Hey, you all right?”
“Where the hell is Hemsworth?” Cooper asked, pacing back and forth in short lengths, quickly. “He was supposed to have the forensics reports from Westminster completed by now.”
Hart looked back down the hallway in both directions. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since this morning.”
Cooper kicked the desk, knocking the case files to the floor. She stomped toward the door, her body hunched over like a Neanderthal on the hunt. Hart’s body suddenly veered in her path and blocked the door. “Get out of my way, Hart.”
“You’re heated right now, and the last thing you need to do is walk out this door. Now, you want some advice, partner? Go back home. Sleep. I doubt you’ve gotten any of it since this whole thing started.”
The rage had boiled out the fatigue that had plagued her over the past few days. She stepped forward, her ominous tone growing the closer she inched to Hart. “My sister is missing. She’s hurt. She’s scared, and she doesn’t know if she’s going to make it out of this alive.” She felt her cheeks grow hot. “I don’t know if she’s going to make it out of this alive. Every minute of rest I get is one more taken away from her. I’m not going to stop, Hart. I told you that from the beginning. Help, or get the fuck out of my way. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”
Hart remained silent for a moment. Then, silently, he stepped aside. He walked to the desk and started picking up the case files that had fallen. Cooper paused in the doorway. She opened her mouth, but hesitated. Without a word she left, heading straight toward Farnes’s office.
The captain was behind his desk, looking over some papers, when she burst through the door. Farnes paid little attention to the disruption, only glancing up for a moment before returning to his business. “If you’ve come to talk about your impromptu press conference from this morning, you’re wasting your breath. The chief thinks you were out of line. If you’re not able to bring this guy in, then you won’t have a choi
ce but to resign.”
“Where’s Hemsworth?”
“I’m not his handler. Now, get out of my office.”
“You think that if I get fired that I still won’t be able to come after you?” Cooper asked, stepping closer to Farnes’s desk. “You think that will deter me from trying to bring you down?” She flattened her palms over the top of the papers he was reading, invading the bubble he enjoyed keeping around himself. “If you think I’m a pain in the ass with a badge, just wait until I don’t have any rules holding me back.”
The dismissive demeanor vanished from Farnes’s face and was replaced by the red tint of anger in his cheeks. “You’re on your last leg, bitch. Just a little while longer and I can put you down for good.” Farnes whispered the threat, his loose neck wiggling in rage before he collapsed back into his chair. “Get the fuck out of my office.”
Reluctantly, Cooper left, and on her stampede through the halls she felt the urge to pick a fight with anyone who looked at her the wrong way. She knew what all of them thought of her. She knew how much they loathed her. A bitch, traitor, turncoat, rat. That’s all they see me as. That’s all their little minds can comprehend.
“Hey!” Hart stepped in her path, grabbing her shoulder. “I just got a call from the hospital. Our girl’s finally awake.”
It was the first piece of good news she’d received since this whole thing started. The ride over to Baltimore General was a quiet one. Neither said a word or even exchanged a glance. Cooper kept her wall up. She needed it up. It was the last piece of defense she had, and once it crumbled she was exposed.
It was Cooper who stepped into the room first, but the doctor inside quickly cut her off. “I’m sorry, but Dalia needs rest. You’ll have to come back another time.”
Cooper sidestepped the doctor, and Hart kept him from pursuing. She approached the woman’s bedside calmly, trying to hide the eagerness in her voice. “Dalia, I’m Detective Cooper with the Baltimore Police Department. I wanted to ask you a few questions.” She placed a gentle hand on Dalia’s wrist, but the woman quickly removed her hand.
“I don’t… remember anything.” Dalia’s voice was weak and just above the volume of a whisper.
Cooper shuddered, the disappointment and frustration growing harder to hide. “You were attacked. Do you remember what you were doing before you were here in the hospital?”
Dalia scrunched up her face, her voice shaky. “Not really.” She shifted uncomfortably in the bed and winced. “I just remember walking to my car.”
Cooper bowed her head, and her knuckles popped from the tight grip on the railing. When she lifted her head, a few strands of hair broke loose from her bangs, which she brushed away hastily. “Did you hear a voice, see anything? Even the smallest detail could help.” Cooper stretched out her hand and clutched the woman’s arm, blind to the pressure she gave. “You have to remember.” She felt the panic and despair from the sleepless nights and empty whiskey bottles take control. Cooper shook the woman’s arm hard enough to rock the bed. “You have to remember!”
Hart quickly stepped in and removed Cooper’s hands, using his size and strength to subdue her and slammed her against the wall. “Cooper, that’s enough!” She struggled at first, but with her arms pinned she was left immobile. Cooper relaxed, and Hart loosened his hold. The tile felt cool when she slid to the floor, and a numbness washed over her. The killer could do whatever he wanted, and right now she was nothing more than one of his puppets. One of his stories.
“God, it hurts.” Dalia reached for her side and moaned. The machine monitoring her heart rate beeped wildly, each sound quicker than the one before. “It feels so sharp.”
The doctor grabbed the woman’s wrist as sweat formed on her cheek. “Where are you feeling the pain?”
Dalia took in a sharp breath and clutched her left side. “It feels like one of my ribs is broken.” The moment the doctor glided his hand up and down the point of the pain’s origin she screamed. “Jesus Christ!”
Still in a daze, Cooper looked to the woman on the cot, watching her writhe in pain. That’s what he does to everyone he touches. That’s what he’s doing to Beth. That’s what he’s doing to me. The woman screamed again, this time a shrieking cry that snapped Cooper from the apathetic haze she wandered through. She pushed herself from the floor, a thought coming to mind. “You need to get her x-rayed, run tests for poison. Look for anything that could be wrong with her. If she’s in pain it’s because the killer did something to her. You need to find out what it is.”
The doctor pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Detective, it can take weeks to run a battery of tests and get the results back. And I’ll need more information to go off of than ‘something’s wrong.’” He examined the left side of Dalia’s ribs at a closer angle. “I’m going to lift up your gown and get a better look.” Dalia’s breath grew sharp as the doctor exposed a cluster of cuts and scrapes along her ribs.
Cooper stepped closer to get a better look. “Were those there before?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, she had some light bruising. Most likely from when your suspect moved her into the box.” The woman let out another cry as the doctor continued to prod a gloved hand over the wounds. “I don’t see anyth— Wait.” He leaned closer, examining a cluster of scrapes, then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket, illuminating one of the cuts.
Cooper tried to see what the doctor had found, but he clicked the light off before she could see. “What is it?”
“Ma’am, have you had any recent surgeries, been to the hospital at all?” the doctor asked.
“No.” Dalia’s tone was panicked, but still in pain.
The doctor pulled both Cooper and Hart out of earshot from Dalia. He leaned in close, the three huddling together. “Someone made an incision between her rib cage and then stitched it up.”
“He put something inside of her.” Cooper smacked Hart on the shoulder, pulling his attention away from Dalia’s painful moans. “Get Hemsworth on the line and tell him to have a team ready. Whatever he put in there won’t be good.”
While Hart phoned the FBI and the doctor wheeled the woman into surgery, Cooper found herself wrestling with the one task that drove her mad: waiting. She bounced her knee nervously as staff members and visitors passed. The adrenaline withdrawals triggered her hands to shake, which she constantly flexed to hide the tremors.
“I found Hemsworth,” Hart said, taking a seat next to Cooper and putting his phone down. “He’s back at the station. He said he’ll have a team ready in less than an hour.”
“Good.” Despite the communication Cooper kept her wall up, though she felt herself lowering the height, one brick at a time. In silence the pair wallowed in awkward spasms and nervous habits. Cooper watched Hart twirl the wedding band around his finger again, spinning it faster and faster while she bounced her leg. Finally, taking a chance, Cooper ended the standoff. “He called me.”
With the olive branch extended Hart stopped twirling his wedding ring and ended his staring contest with the floor. “Who?”
Cooper sighed, leaning back into her chair and folding her arms across her chest as she slouched. “The killer. When I got back to my apartment. He called me.”
Hart swiveled quickly, his eyes wide. “Christ, Cooper, why didn’t you say anything? Did you tell Farnes? Or Hemsworth? Did you—”
“The number was blocked.” Cooper waved away the thoughts racing through Hart’s mind, the ones she’d already dispelled in the seconds after the call had ended. “He’s gone to too much trouble to get caught by us tracking a cell number.”
“Maybe Hemsworth has some way he can track it. He might have some resources that we don’t.”
“No,” Cooper answered. “He wanted to fuck with my head. He wants me to find him, and he wants me to have to work for it.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know why he wants me to find him.”
“You said it yourself, he’s a psychopath. They all want to get caught in the
act sooner or later.”
Cold laughter echoed through Cooper’s mind at the remembrance of their conversation, along with her sister’s screams. She flinched involuntarily but tried to hide it by shifting in her seat. “This is different. He went out of his way to find me. Everything has been elaborate, over the top.” She buried her face in her hands then brushed her hair back, running her fingernails harshly over her scalp.
“We’ll find him, Cooper.” Hart rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to get your sister back.”
“Yeah.” And while Cooper agreed, she felt the hollowness of her own words. She thought of all of the case files on her desk, all of the murders yet to be solved. How many kinds of people like him were out there in the world? How many times had someone like him done this and walked away a free man? “He wants to watch me burn, Hart.” The revelation developed slowly in her mind. “He knows that my last connection I have is with my sister.”
“Hey.” Hart turned her head toward his, and for the first time since she was a little girl she felt the weightlessness of helplessness. “We’ll find her.”
“Detective?” The doctor pulled the surgical mask from over his mouth, his white coat flowing behind him. “You’ll want to see this.”
Cooper and Hart followed the doctor back to the x-ray room, where Dalia was still inside the MRI scanner. The doctor pointed to a few of the images of her body. “If you look here, you can see the bones of the ribcage.” He took a pen and pointed between the upper two ribs. “And this is right around where the incision was made on the patient.”
Hart squinted to get a better look. “What is that?”
Cooper leaned forward, noticing the small sliver of an object. “The note.” She turned to the doctor. “Is it close to any organs? Can you get it out without hurting her?”
