B00IZ66CZ8 EBOK

by Unknown

  It read:

  No SIM Card

  Cutter must have removed it so that no one could trace Sun Good.

  Shane didn’t need to make a call. He only needed the Internet. However, he was going to require her SIM card to use the network. The house had been empty for years, so there was no Wi-Fi network set up.

  He reassessed the items on the countertop. There was no SIM card.

  Where would Agent Cutter have put it?

  Most likely Cutter had tossed the SIM card or he had it on him.

  Shane was wrong.

  He found it inside Sun’s wallet. Perhaps she had disconnected it herself. Maybe she had suspected something was wrong. Or she had a back-up for some reason. Maybe it was from an older phone and she kept it on her as a back-up. No matter. This was good news.

  Quickly, Shane reattached the card. He booted up the phone and waited for the signal.

  Once he had it, he opened the Internet browser and went to his email account. He went to his draft emails and found one with the subject line “Lost Dog.”

  This was the email that contained Ally’s findings about Cutter.

  As usual, Ally’s research was more than competent. She’d written a three-page report that highlighted all of the details of Agent Kirk Cutter’s past. The first thing that was listed was his home address in Virginia, just outside of D.C.

  Shane read on.

  Kirk Cutter lived north of Bethesda.

  If Shane left now, he could be there, and it would still be nighttime.

  Shane skimmed over the rest of the message and stopped when he came to part that read:

  “His wife was murdered in the bathtub in their house.”

  Shane read on and I followed. My interest was also piqued by this news.

  Ally had included a hyperlink in the message underneath a line that read “Click here for details.”

  The link led to an old story. It was from ten years ago. There was a color picture of a Jeffersonian style townhouse sandwiched between two others, with no more than an eight-foot gap between them. The house was surrounded by police tape.

  The article told the story of a happy couple. The husband was a successful FBI agent and the wife was a lawyer, just like Shane.

  One night the FBI agent had come home after catching a serial killer who was known as the ID Killer. He was called this because apparently he would assume his victims’ identities for days, weeks, or even months after killing them.

  As it turned out, the man that Cutter had arrested had killed himself in prison the very night that he was convicted.

  The article went on to say that there was doubt that he was the real ID Killer, but he had no family. And he was dead so no lawyers pushed any further for an appeal.

  Why would they? I thought.

  Then, law enforcement assumed that he was innocent because of what happened the night that he was convicted.

  The night that Carl Reagan had been convicted, the last night of his life, someone had broken into Agent Cutter’s home and murdered his wife in the bathtub.

  It was assumed that this murder was retaliation. The real ID Killer had broken into Cutter’s home and killed his wife as a message. It was a tragic and morbid message telling Cutter that he had failed and now his wife was dead.

  Kirk Cutter was removed from the case. He wasn’t reprimanded for arresting the wrong man. The Bureau let it go since he had lost his wife. There was tremendous public sympathy for him.

  The trail for the ID Killer had gone cold and no trace of him was ever found again.

  Now I understood Cutter’s motivation. He never found the ID Killer. And so he blamed himself for his wife’s death. Now he hunted other serial killers and murdered them instead of the ID Killer. He inflicted his revenge on others of his kind. He probably didn’t even realize that he was no better.

  In a way, I felt empathy for Cutter. He was like Frankenstein’s creature. Shane and I both felt compassion and even sympathy for the monster. But he was still a monster. It was time to put him down.

  Shane put the phone away. He had read enough. He walked back to the front door.

  He stopped at a closet at the edge of the hallway. He opened it and grabbed an old, dark blue poncho. He pulled it on and adjusted the hood over his head.

  Shane lifted an old set of keys that hung near the front door. He opened the front door and returned to the night.

  Outside Shane walked the length of the house toward the east. He went to the very edge of the driveway and stopped in front of a garage. Shane bent down, grabbed the handle, and lifted the door open. The metal door creaked on its hinges.

  As the door opened all the way, Shane released the handle and peered in.

  The garage was full of old boxes, tools, and a lawnmower that hadn’t been started in years.

  The only thing that Shane was interested in was a red 1956 Harley Davidson that rested in a back corner. It had been a pet project of his dead father.

  Shane just hoped that it would start. He had no idea the last time it had been started.

  Shane entered the key, slid his leg over the seat, and then pulled the bike’s handles away from the wall. He grabbed the key, closed his eyes, and turned the switch.

  At first the motorcycle did come to life, but then it didn’t start. It made a cranking sound.

  It sputtered and then died.

  Shane closed his eyes and tried it again. Nothing happened.

  He tried a third time. The bike sputtered and died again.

  He stood up in the seat and began rocking the bike back and forth. He tried to move the gas around in the tank. It probably had all evaporated or eaten through the tank from being in the engine over the years. We both hoped that neither had been the case, but certainly the former would be better.

  Shane waited a brief moment then and turned the key again.

  This time the motorcycle roared to life. Shane revved it and then let it sit idle.

  At first, the engine sputtered and coughed, but then it started to hum normally. The bike was ready to go, even after years of resting in the garage.

  Shane checked the gas gauge. The needle slowly rose just enough to make it to a gas station. What kind of gas to put in it? That was a whole other question. We guessed just regular unleaded.

  He sat back and reached over and grabbed a motorcycle helmet from a nearby counter.

  He paid no attention to the tribal designs that were painted across the helmet. He slipped it on.

  Shane revved the motorcycle again and drove out of the garage.

  At the end of the driveway, he lowered the helmet’s visor over his eyes to keep the rain out.

  Common sense warned Shane not to ride the bike in the pouring rain. It was very dangerous. The roads were slick. Some of these back country roads were even flooded.

  Shane didn’t care. He had an advantage over most riders. He had me.

  |||||

  Special Agent Kirk Cutter felt satisfied. He pulled his FBI car to the street in front of his house. He parked it and walked up his walkway and entered his house.

  He carried his Mossberg under his arm. The stock was nestled inside his armpit. The barrel rested over the top of his right forearm. The gun was black and it blended in with his coat.

  Even if one of his neighbors had seen the gun, they wouldn’t think anything of it. After all, he was an FBI agent. He carried guns in and out of his house every day.

  He locked the door behind him and hung up his coat.

  The rain had slowed, but he could still hear the drops pounding on the rooftop and the windows.

  Cutter went into his kitchen and turned on the stovetop. The gas ignited and a blue flame burned to the bottom of the grill.

  Cutter returned to the hallway. He opened the door to a closet and kicked off his shoes. They landed on the floor—crooked, but he didn’t care. He left them that way and closed the door.

  Cutter walked down the hallway to his study. This room had originally been intende
d to be a downstairs bedroom. Since he lived alone, he’d decided to turn it into a study.

  There was a small bookshelf, a desk with a MacBook on it, some furniture, and a locked gun case.

  Cutter opened the case and put his shotgun into the empty slot between a hunting rifle with a scope and an AR-15 assault rifle.

  He unclipped his sidearm holster with the Glock still in it. He placed it on the floorboard of the gun case, next to a snub-nose revolver.

  As a measure of safety, he kept all of his guns unloaded, except for the Glock.

  Then he pulled a large hunting knife from the gun case.

  He returned to the kitchen and slid the sharp blade of the knife into the rack of the burning grill. He let it rest there for a while.

  He went back to the study and locked the gun case. He put the key in his pocket and sat at the MacBook. He turned it on and spent the next several minutes checking through his email.

  Cutter rose from his desk and walked back to the kitchen. Then he pulled off his shirt and stood over the stove, bare-chested.

  His upper body was covered in scars. Each was a self-inflicted singular swipe from a knife blade. There were dozens.

  Cutter pulled the large hunting knife from the blue flame and inspected it. It was white hot.

  He proceeded to slash his chest. He cut himself, leaving two long gashes.

  He smiled and said, “One for each of you.”

  Cutter was a self-mutilator.

  Serial killers kept trophies. Kirk Cutter kept these scars to remind himself of his victims.

  Cutter tossed the knife into the sink and left it there, still bloody from his wounds.

  Shirtless, he walked up the stairs and through the master bedroom. He entered his bathroom. He bent over the tub and plugged the drain. Then he began running the water.

  After the whole mess with Shane Lasher, the only thing that he wanted to do now was soak in a bath and then drift off to sleep.

  When he turned to leave the bathroom, he stopped cold in his tracks. He looked down at the floor. There were wet shoeprints everywhere. He looked over at the sink. It took a second to register, but he finally noticed that his first aid kit had been robbed of medical wrap.

  A bottle of his painkillers was open and lying on his counter.

  Cutter’s face remained expressionless.

  He walked out of his bedroom and quickly down the stairs. He went to his study and pulled out his keys. He opened his gun case and grabbed his Glock.

  He pulled the slide back and chambered a bullet. Then he slowly began to search the house for the intruder.

  He walked from the study into the living room. There was no sign of anyone. Then he searched the kitchen. Still he saw no one.

  As he turned back to the living room, the lights in the house began to flicker on and off.

  The fuse box was in the closet of the master bedroom. So he knew that the intruder must be there. Then the lights went off completely.

  The house was in pitch blackness. The rain outside began to pick up. The wind howled and the lightning splintered.

  One large bolt cracked across the sky and hit a nearby transformer.

  Cutter heard a boom. It came from a couple streets over. Then all of the lights on his street went out. Next the houses across from him went dark. And finally, his house lost power. The entire neighborhood blacked out.

  Cutter walked back to his study. There was still a dim light emitting from the screensaver on his MacBook.

  Cutter opened the drawer on his desk and grabbed a small flashlight from it. He switched the light on and searched around the room.

  The study was empty.

  He heard a creak from upstairs. It sounded like it was on the tiles in his bathroom. He had one tile in particular that was loose.

  Cutter slowly made his way back up the stairs.

  “I know you’re there,” he said into the darkness above him.

  “Show yourself!” he shouted.

  Nothing happened.

  “I am an FBI agent! Now show yourself!”

  Still the darkness was silent.

  Cutter ascended the staircase and pointed the light down the upstairs hallway.

  He saw that the attic ladder was down. Then he heard another creak from above him. There was someone in the attic.

  With the Glock pointed up into the attic’s opening, he climbed the ladder.

  Once he reached the top, he poked his head in. He looked around the dark room. He saw no sign of anyone. No intruder.

  Then he put the butt of the flashlight into his mouth. He grabbed the opening by his free hand and used all of his strength to quickly catapult himself into the attic. In one breath, he landed on his feet and had both hands around the Glock.

  He pointed it in every direction, but he saw no one. No movement. Nothing. There was still just blackness.

  He relaxed a little and returned the flashlight to his hand.

  Then suddenly, he heard a dark voice. It spoke low. It sounded more like an echo from a ghost.

  Then the voice whispered again. It said, “You unsealed my files. So I unsealed yours.”

  Nervously, Cutter searched around the attic. Still, he saw no one.

  “I know who you really are,” the voice whispered.

  “Shane? Is that you? How did you get out?” he asked.

  Silence.

  Then the voice said, “I know who you are. Your first victim was not a killer at all. It was your own wife.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Ten years ago you were in an unhappy marriage. You were tired of pretending to be normal. You had spent your life studying and hunting killers, but you were really a killer yourself.”

  “Come out!” Cutter screamed.

  “You couldn’t catch the ID Killer. So you decided to kill your wife and pin it on him.

  “Did he even exist? Was there ever really an ID Killer?

  “I looked into it. The evidence that any of his murders are even related is circumstantial.

  “You created him. Didn’t you?

  “A mysterious phantom killer that never existed,” the dark voice said.

  Cutter moved from one corner of the attic to the next. He hunched over to avoid the low ceiling.

  He moved slowly, making sure that he stepped on the beams. The attic was full of boxes. There were many hiding places.

  “I think that Carl Reagan was innocent. And you knew it. You actually planted enough evidence on him to make it look like he was the ID Killer.

  “Of course, you made up the ID Killer. And you knew that eventually someone would look closely at the evidence. Someone, his lawyer, a distant relative, a journalist, would look closer at his case. Someone would believe him at some point. Eventually he’d get a retrial.

  “So you had him killed. You had some guys make it look like he’d killed himself.

  “No Carl Reagan alive and who was going to ever prove whether he was guilty or not?

  “I think that you did this just so you could kill your wife,” the voice said.

  Cutter moved toward the sound of the voice. He knew where it was coming from now. It was from the far northeast corner of the attic.

  Cutter pointed the Glock at the corner and crept toward it. Still he was careful to not miss the beams.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” he shouted.

  “She was your wife and you drowned her in the tub.”

  As Cutter reached the corner of the attic, he focused his eyes on the horrific sight that sat in front of him.

  He followed the beam of his flashlight to it. He followed the sound of Shane’s dark voice. All of this was only to find himself staring at a baby monitor.

  |||||

  The baby monitor rested in an old, plastic baby crib. The crib was covered in cobwebs.

  My dark voice pierced through the speakers and into Cutter’s ears.

  He heard a loud noise below him on the second floor.

  He turned and r
an. He leapt from beam to beam without missing a single one. Then he half slid down the ladder and landed in the hallway.

  Frantically, he searched the second floor of his townhouse. He found muddy shoeprints throughout the hallway. They led into the master bedroom.