Cold-Hearted Concept

by Whitley Gray

  Dawn had given the eastern sky a nimbus of pink. They spoke of trivial matters over coffee and hit the nitty-gritty after the food arrived.

  “That’s all he said?” Zach smeared a bite of ham in egg yolk. Van wasn’t the most pleasant conversation, but there was no way around it. They were racing the clock until the Follower took another one.

  “You heard the recording.” Beck sipped his coffee. “The narcotics kicked in again, and then he was snoring. If you want to show your FBI credential and try to get past Nurse Ratched to talk to him, be my guest. I don’t know that Van can tell us much more.”

  “And no security cameras.”

  “Nope. Van doesn’t spend a ton on housing. The building has indoor plumbing and locks on the doors. That’s about the extent of the amenities.”

  “You know his place pretty well?”

  Beck’s expression darkened. “Meaning what?”

  Whoa. What he’d been looking for was information that might shed light on the attack. “Meaning you might know how someone could get into position to attempt an abduction.”

  Shoulders relaxing infinitesimally, Beck said, “Van lives on the second floor. The kitchen window looks out over the rear parking area. From there, I think you could see movement inside the apartment. The back door of the building opens directly onto the parking lot, and the Dumpster is beyond that in the parking space closest to the alley.”

  “Any fence?”

  “No. The Dumpster is enclosed by a U-shaped cinder-block wall. Last I saw, the wall was turning to rubble.” Beck grazed Zach with those silvery eyes. “At night, there might be enough cover to ambush someone.”

  The server was tiny, with cropped lavender hair and a pierced eyebrow. She refilled their mugs and moved away.

  Zach asked, “How did he find out where Van lives?”

  Beck shook his head.

  The most obvious way was following him, but a cop would be aware of someone tailing him. Zach said, “Access to Denver PD files?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “What could he get from there?”

  “An address and phone number. Maybe access to payroll.” Beck wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Maybe work schedules.”

  “Okay. Does he have a cleaning lady?”

  “No way.”

  “Then how?”

  “I don’t know. But he found you, and you’re not Denver PD.”

  True. Downright scary.

  Van might have ended up with the word THREE carved into his skin. It could have been Beck. The thought sent Zach’s stomach churning.

  The Follower was considering making Zach the fifth in the numeric series. The third abduction had been thwarted, but that didn’t mean the clock wasn’t ticking. The words still made the hairs on his neck salute.

  Get in the game while three is still alive.

  Play now, Littman, or you’ll be my number five.

  I am in the game, you bastard. The victims had to be the key to the Follower’s grisly game; these were not random picks. “How is he choosing his victims? Before this, it looked like each victim might be connected with Perny: Annika, Perny himself, and then India all had potential links. JD 114 is a weak tie since we don’t know who she is. But Van? That’s not computing.”

  “The selection of Annika’s father to read the message on the air also fits with Perny as the common denominator,” Beck said. “I’d say the Follower chose Van because he’s on the task force. That can’t be coincidence.”

  “I agree. He leaves nothing at the scene that can identify him. The notes and poems are our main clues.”

  “Yeah. Weird poetry, and we can’t decipher most of it.” Beck slid to edge of the bench. “At the rate we’re going, we’ll need a heads-up from the guy to catch him.”

  Or another scene with workable clues and evidence. “The answer could be JD 114.”

  “Come on, Zach.” Beck sounded exasperated. “We don’t even have an ID on her.”

  With more optimism than he felt, Zach said, “Then let’s fix that problem.”

  * * * *

  Back at the house they traded off shaving and showering. Beck shrugged into a clean shirt and pulled on a pair of dress pants. It bothered him that cartons holding the majority of Zach’s stuff bordered the room like cardboard insulation. Hell, he’d persisted in using his travel dopp kit for toiletries—the stuff in the bathroom cabinets all belonged to Beck.

  It was almost as if Zach was ready to decamp at a moment’s notice.

  What if he decided to return to Minneapolis?

  Nah. Goofy as it sounded, they were in love. Love was a strong bond, right? The strongest. As long as they had that, everything would work out. Beck finished tying his shoes.

  “What’re you frowning about?” Zach came out of the bathroom, rubbing his hair with a towel.

  No way was he discussing the hot-button issue of the boxes. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  “Yeah. Probably a massive caffeine-infusion day. You think Ivan is set up on the plaza?” Butterscotch wandered in and wove around Zach’s ankles.

  “He probably has a cup of coffee waiting with your name on it.”

  Eyebrows raised, Zach threw the towel over a chair. “Am I that predictable?”

  Beck snorted. “Yeah, when it comes to coffee.”

  Zach’s expression was part scowl, part surprise. “I don’t always buy it from Ivan.”

  “You do if you can get it there.” Denial over the java habit? Too funny. It was reassuring that a shrink could still have a few blind spots.

  Zach pulled on khakis and stepped into the walk-in.

  Three, two, one—

  Looking sheepish, Zach poked his head out of the closet. “Can I borrow a dress shirt?”

  “Sure.” Was lending a shirt aiding and abetting the unpacking problem? Probably. But the guy couldn’t go to work half-dressed.

  “I’ll drop off laundry today.”

  “It’s a deal.” Beck kept his tone light. Tonight they’d talk about the giant cardboard elephant in the room.

  * * * *

  Beetle couldn’t get the face right.

  The villain sported broad shoulders and an impossibly small waist, all sheathed in dark clothes. Pale hair, dark eyes. All of this looked good, but damned if he could get the expression right. There had to be malevolence there, yet tempered with intelligence.

  With a kneaded eraser, Beetle made a correction. A little reduction in the brooding brows…

  No, not right. Maybe a touch of color on the graphite-gray sketch?

  No. NO. He launched the pencil across the room. Why was this happening? Someone had finally said yes, had used descriptors like “promising” and “daring” and “refreshing,” and the lovely phrases were like anathema to his creativity.

  It wasn’t the words. It was last night. Somehow he’d lost control of the situation and ended up with nothing.

  “You’re a damn failure. That’s your curse, boy. You’ll never amount to anything.”

  “No.” The syllable came out too loud. No, no, no. His father wasn’t here, but Beetle had to ward off his essence. Patriarchal words didn’t define him. What he needed was a change of venue, and today he worked locally. There would be no conversation with the mentor, of course, but it was good to get out in the world.

  It was a clear, bright day. From outside came the growl of a lawn mower. Beetle went to the window. There was a nest cradled in the tree outside; three sky-blue eggs nestled among twigs and mud, sheltered by dense leaves. They’d hatch soon. With luck he’d get to see the change. Not a true metamorphosis, but still—a rebirth of sorts, egg to chick.

  Work awaited.

  With care he stowed the drawings and pencils and locked the box before shoving it under his bed. Now for clothing… He looked through the rainbow assortment in his closet. It was sunny, which made it kind of a yellow day, but no. Too carefree. Purple? Today purple seemed less like the color of royalty and more like the hue of bruises and fail
ure. It wouldn’t do, not until he’d banished the negativity. He continued sorting, and there it was.

  The perfect outfit.

  Blue. Of course. Blue was the color of birds’ eggs. Blue was the color of disposable towels. Blue was the color favored by most of his coworkers.

  Blue was the color of blending in, and there was work to be done.

  Grinning, Beetle hugged the crisply pressed cotton and dressed for work.

  * * * *

  Beck couldn’t believe his badge hadn’t gotten him into ICU to see Van. “Not on the list,” the nurse had said. “Talk to the doctor.”

  Not on the list, my ass.

  Denver Health was a level-one trauma center—the hospital of choice for Denver PD. Because of the proximity to downtown, suspects requiring medical treatment were brought there. Cops frequented the emergency department to investigate gunshot wounds, knife wounds, and assaults. Injured cops were brought there.

  No matter how careful you were, shit could happen. Shit had happened, worse than assault in an alley or a shattered shoulder. Life-ending shit.

  “Detective Stryker?” The doctor was young, bespectacled, and bore a striking resemblance to a teenage Clark Kent. His coat said Dr. Uhrig. “Detective Gates isn’t up to having visitors.”

  Beck put on his most charming smile and used his good-cop voice. “I’m not a visitor. I’m a detective.”

  “Visitors include law enforcement.” Superman Jr. shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat.

  Beck wanted to get out his handcuffs and run the guy in for obstruction. “Look. I’m the investigating officer on Detective Gates’s assault complaint. It’s vital I speak with him.”

  The doctor seemed to weigh this. “I’ll see if he’s feeling up to it.” He lifted the receiver next to the ICU ingress.

  The door swung outward. A white-coated tech carrying a phlebotomy tray exited, gave Beck a once-over and a flirty grin, and headed away. The door locked with an electronic click.

  The physician hung up and turned to Beck. “He’s asleep. You might want to check back later.”

  What could Beck say? A murder investigation hinged on what Gates knew? “Fine.”

  There was no way he could go through a bunch of access crap if it were Zach lying hurt in there. They better work on getting on each other’s lists.

  * * * *

  Heart tapping in an exhilarated dance, Beetle stepped into the service elevator and hit the button for LL. The doors closed like silver wings, and he descended to the lower level. Thank God he’d worn blue. It had brought him luck.

  He’d seen two of the team: the dark man, Gates, and Littman’s bulldog. And neither one had suspected a thing.

  Blood was a poor substitute for possessing the entire corpus; it wasn’t as good as bone, either. But it was accessible, and it would have to suffice for now.

  The elevator opened, and he made his way to chemistry. White lights bathed the space. He enjoyed the smell of saline, rubber, and the vinegary tang of acetic acid. A battalion of analyzers hummed as they processed aliquots of blood and spit out reports. It was as familiar as home. It was the essential nerve center of the plan.

  A quarter of the Denver metro-area population obtained care through Denver Health. It was the biggest health-care entity in the state. The interconnected computer system assured rapid identification of patients and transmission of medical data to the hospital floors, the associated clinics, and the satellite programs. Everything was in the system: demographics like name, birth date, address, and phone number; insurance carrier; social security number; attending physician; and next of kin. And of course, medical records. All available at the touch of a key.

  If you had access.

  It made identification of tributes easy. Beetle plucked the red-topped tube labeled Gates, Van E, ICU rm. 9 out of the rack and held it up. It was a lustrous shade of burgundy, as full-bodied as any wine. The bouquet would be coppery, the taste would be salty, and the feel would be slippery. Above the cells in the glass container, a rim of straw-yellow serum had started to separate.

  The analyzer dinged as it finished the STAT chemistry panel for the patient in ICU room 4. The potassium level was critically low; the doctor would order IV potassium to correct the problem. Without it, the heart might get irritable and have abnormal beats.

  On the other hand, giving a large replacement dose of IV potassium to someone with a normal blood potassium could lead to heart-rhythm disturbances of a different kind.

  Someone like Detective Gates, for instance.

  Beetle knew all this from reading. The hospital had an excellent medical library. He twisted the tube, studying the slide of the solids suspended in the plasma. It would be easy to use an aliquot of room 4’s blood to produce a false result for Gates. Decisions, decisions…

  Having the power to influence the course of a man’s life was incredible. Gates had escaped, but he was on Beetle’s turf now. Beetle took Gates’s blood sample and set it in the centrifuge.

  The secretary poked her head in the door. “Can you do a pediatric draw?”

  “Where’s Brenda?” There was always someone assigned for the difficult draws that came in from peds.

  “They called her to neonatal ICU.”

  He glanced at the centrifuge. Five minutes. “Okay.”

  Beetle studied the order, grabbed a phlebotomy tray, a picture, and headed for the draw room.

  A kindergarten-sized boy with dark hair and eyes sat in the chair, holding a toy T. rex. A redheaded woman sat next to him.

  Smiling, Beetle walked over. “Cool dinosaur. Are you Peter?”

  “I’m Pete.” The boy clutched the toy. “Are you going to stab me with a needle?”

  “I have to draw some blood for your doctor.” Beetle soaked a cotton ball with the topical anesthetic. “This is cold but won’t hurt, okay?”

  The boy’s eyebrows drew together as Beetle gently applied the numbing compound and laid out a syringe and a butterfly needle. “What’s that?”

  “My special dragonfly.” Beetle wound the rubber tourniquet around Pete’s upper arm.

  “I don’t like this, Mom.” His lower lip wobbled, and his eyes brimmed.

  “We have to get it done, sweetie. It’ll just take a minute.” The woman looked at Beetle for reassurance.

  “Yep. Quick as a snap.” Beetle exchanged the cotton ball for an alcohol pad.

  “Nooo.” Pete pulled his arm to his chest.

  “See the dragonfly?” Beetle showed Pete the winged needle with the long tubing. “She helps kids get well. It only pinches for a second, I promise. You want to touch the wings?”

  Pete reached out a finger and stroked the green plastic. “It’s like a pterodactyl.”

  “Do you have a pterodactyl at home?”

  As Pete chattered about his dinosaur collection, Beetle uncapped the needle and slid it into the boy’s vein.

  Pete’s eyes widened. “It bit me!”

  “Almost done.” Beetle watched as the blood snaked through the tubing and into the syringe. “Annnd…done.” He pressed a clean cotton ball against the site and withdrew the needle. “Push on that for a minute, Pete.”

  “It was a tiny pinch.” The boy grinned, showing a missing tooth. “I did it.”

  “You did.” Beetle filled blood tubes from the syringe, labeled them, and turned to the woman. “Can you initial these, Mrs. Halliday?”

  While she signed the tubes, Beetle got out the special camo bandage wrap and took a turn around Pete’s arm. “Leave that on for a couple of hours. No peeking under the camo.”

  Solemnly, he nodded.

  Now for the reward. Beetle held out one of his original drawings, signed with a smiley face. “Here’s a picture for you.”

  “Cool! A triceratops.” He hopped out of the chair. “Look, Mom.”

  She smiled at Beetle. “Thank you for being so kind.”

  “My pleasure.”

  In the lab, the centrifuge had finished its run. Be
etle set the pediatric tubes on a rocker.

  Time to concoct some lab results for Detective Gates.

  Call me eidolon, ghost, specter, spirit. I am the one.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Van’s doing okay?” SJ said, leaning back on her desk. The captain’s office smelled fresh with the floral note of SJ’s perfume.

  “They wouldn’t let me in to see him. Not even with a badge.” Beck scowled.

  Zach kept his expression neutral. HIPAA could be a real bitch to get past.

  “Much as I hate that Van was attacked, this could be our chance for some forensic evidence,” SJ said.

  “He was assaulted on my watch,” Beck said. “We weren’t vigilant enough.”

  It was a tough break, and Zach sympathized. Beck had taken the attempt personally—his first time leading a major task force and a fellow cop had landed in the hospital. At least SJ was calm and sympathetic; Sands would have had an apoplexy, spouting profanity like an angry volcano.

  No, not a great morning for Beck as the task force leader. And now Zach was going to add to the stress by suggesting they release the doctored photo of JD 114 to the public.

  From the corner of his eye, Zach could see the tension in Beck’s posture as he grimly stared at the corner of SJ’s desk. Zach had seen more relaxed people passing kidney stones.

  “Beck? Thoughts?” SJ asked.

  “None.” Beck’s hands curled into fists. They sat in silence. The moment stretched out filament thin.

  “Nothing at all?” SJ asked.

  Zach jumped in. “The attack could be something unrelated to the Follower, of course. But in light of what happened, I think we need to consider where someone could get Van’s address. Is there any way to see who might have accessed his personnel file over the past month?”

  SJ crossed her arms, crumpling her shirt. Her gold badge winked from the waistband of dark pants. “You think someone here gave out that information?”

  “It’s one way someone could get Van’s address,” Zach said. “That kind of access would also have allowed someone to find Beck’s address and deliver the paper heart. I’m not saying there’s a bad actor among the ranks, but to be thorough, a check is in order.”

  “Agreed. I’ll give Ernie the okay to get started on a list of anyone who accessed it. What else?”