The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  He was rewarded with a Ziploc freezer bag, the kind with the red pull tab, full of more photos. Wearing his latex gloves, he opened it up and flipped through the photos. They were all of the same woman, but they didn’t appear to be any different than the thousands of other photos covering Jerry’s walls. Andrew didn’t recognize the woman in the pictures. He wondered why Jerry would feel the need to hide these particular photos. They must have been significant or different somehow.

  He took the bag into the kitchen and deposited it on the table. Then he looked around and at all the photographs, all the stolen moments with these women that Jerry had shared. Andrew wondered how many of the women in the photos were still alive. He supposed that both he and Marcus should probably do a complete walk-through and scan all the photos. But as he looked around at the walls covered from floor to ceiling, he realized that even a cursory scan of each individual photo would take more time than Marcus would want to devote.

  He decided to hold off on the photos.

  He moved to the bedrooms with the intention of checking the closets. There would have to be clothes and personal items inside. There were no dressers or other furniture, and so the closets would have to hold Jerry’s work uniforms, at the very least.

  He checked the smaller of the bedrooms first. Not for any particular reason. Just because it was closer, and Andrew liked to attack things in an orderly, linear fashion. The room smelled strangely pleasant and floral, like Jerry had recently sprayed Febreze in there.

  The closet doors were solid-paneled and made from a wood the color of whiskey. Each side of the bi-fold panels had a small knob for a handle. Andrew took hold of the knob and went in hard, fast, and low with his Glock at the ready. The closet was clear. Not only was it clear of any attackers; it was clear of anything at all. It was completely empty. Not even more photo wallpaper.

  He made his way toward the master bedroom through the hallway of photos. He tried to ignore the faces of the women staring out at him from the walls and focus on the task at hand. It was important to keep a certain objective distance from the victims.

  He moved to the closet and repeated the same procedure, but this time the space wasn’t empty. Correctional officer uniforms and some civilian shirts and pants hung neatly in place. Shoes and belts littered the floor. The top shelf held some blue plastic totes, shoeboxes, and other miscellaneous items.

  He reached up to pull down one of the totes, figuring it would be the easiest to check first. The tote was taller than the opening, and he had to tilt it down in order to slide it between the shelf and the doorjamb.

  When he angled the plastic container toward himself, Andrew felt the weight shift inside of the tote. He felt something slide and something clink and something else roll forward. The sudden shift in weight within the box pushed him off balance and forced him to readjust his hold on it.

  And that was when he saw the barrel of the shotgun sliding out of the front of the tote as a hidden panel gave way. The shotgun rolled forward lazily, and he watched in shock and indecision as the weapon came toward his face.

  He saw the endless black of the barrel’s depths. He felt something hit him, and then he was falling. He saw the muzzle flash. He heard the shotgun blast, and then everything went dark.

  *

  Marcus climbed back onto the dumpster and up the fire escape. He had the plastic freezer bag in hand, but he hadn’t opened it yet. He had decided to do that in the light and privacy of the kitchen. Furthermore, if this bag contained what he thought it did, then he would have a theory to test inside the apartment anyway.

  He slipped in through the window. He didn’t see Andrew, and so he walked back toward the bedrooms. He didn’t see his partner in the smaller of the rooms and moved on to the master. He crossed the bedroom’s threshold just as Andrew was reaching up to grab a large tote made of blue plastic.

  As soon as Marcus heard the shifting of the tote’s contents, he knew what this was.

  He had seen something similar back in his homicide detective days. A drug dealer had used a shotgun and a box and a high shelf to protect his stash. The container was rigged so that a sawed-off shotgun would fire if the box was taken down improperly.

  It didn’t really surprise him that someone like Jerry Dunn would dream up something similar.

  Marcus instantly took a step forward, one long stride meant to close the distance as quickly as possible.

  By the time his right foot touched the carpet, Marcus had decided on his plan of attack. He had to knock Andrew clear of the blast. It was too late for a shouted warning. It was too late to divert the box. It was also too late to push Andrew out of the way.

  He took one last step and then did what was ingrained in him during high school football. He rolled his shoulder and head to the side and twisted his body and hit Andrew at the knees and drove his partner’s legs completely out from under him.

  The shotgun fired, and the booby-trapped box fell out of the closet on top of them.

  Marcus scrambled to push the tote out of the way.

  Andrew wasn’t moving. He felt for a pulse. It was there and thumping strongly. He was alive.

  Marcus checked Andrew’s head. There was a little blood, but it didn’t look too bad. Still, Marcus knew better than to allow someone who had sustained head trauma to sleep.

  He tapped Andrew lightly on the cheek with his open palm, but Andrew didn’t wake up.

  So Marcus slapped harder. Not hard enough to leave a welt, but just hard enough to make a noise.

  Andrew’s eyes fluttered open, and he said, “This can’t be heaven if you’re here.”

  As Marcus pulled himself off the floor, he said, “I saved your ass. Now get up. You’ve had enough nap time, and I have something to show you.”

  *

  Andrew had a towel pressed to his bleeding forehead, but he was in a hell of a lot better shape than he might have been. A shotgun blast to the face would have definitely put a damper on his day. He was still pretty shaken up about the whole thing, hands trembling and heart pounding, and Marcus had given him no opportunity to process the fact that he had nearly died. He supposed that might have been for the best.

  Andrew stared at the wall of photos and said, “I don’t see it.”

  Marcus said, “You have to look at the big picture. Let your eyes blur and look at the wall like one big photo.”

  Andrew squinted at the photos and tried to see something. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what I see. Just tell me.”

  “When you step back and look at the wall as a whole, you can see that all of the photos have a similar color, contrast, even the shine of the paper. But then there are some that just look a little different. So I pulled off a few of those, and I was right. The dead spots I noticed had been printed on a different type of paper. Probably on a different printer. And those pictures were all of Debra Costello.”

  “Maybe he just bought a new printer. Maybe the old one quit on him, and they no longer make that particular model.”

  “Sure. But then there’s this.”

  Marcus held up a plastic freezer bag. It appeared to have some torn pieces of more photographs inside. Marcus unzipped the bag and, wearing a latex glove, laid the Ziploc’s contents out onto Jerry’s kitchen table.

  As he smoothed out each crumpled item, Marcus said, “These photos match up with the majority of our wallpaper. And I’d be willing to bet that, if you counted up the number of Debra’s photos, the count would match the number of photos in this sack.”

  Andrew handed Marcus the sack he had found. “Maybe when you add these.” He went on to explain how he had discovered the bag of pictures.

  Marcus laid out the photos from Andrew’s bag in a separate grouping. He stood back and looked at the two sets of photos. They weren’t all of the same woman. Marcus said, “This is very strange. Why have two Ziploc bags disposed of or hidden in two different spots?”

  Andrew said, “No clue. Are we thinking that someone came in here, pulled down
Jerry’s real photos, and then replaced them with their own photos of Debra. And then tried to dispose of the photos? Why do that? Why make it look like Jerry was obsessed with Debra and killed her?”

  “And does this suggest that Jerry is not our mastermind. Is he just a scapegoat? Or is this just more noise to confuse us? Here’s what I’m thinking. Lash wants out and saw an opportunity with Foxbury. He saw a way that he could not only escape prison, but also create a distraction that would give him time to escape the country.”

  Andrew added, “Okay, so he hired someone to set it up for him. This Judas. Our mastermind. Then Judas decides to use Jerry Dunn as his fall guy. Some random crazy bastard he’s come across who would fit the mold and play the part. So who’s Demon? A partner? Someone Judas hired?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s not part of this. Or at least, he wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Demon took a lot of risk using the sheriff. With the kind of access Judas has, there would have been other, safer ways of getting into Foxbury. That suggests to me that Demon knows what’s going on, but he wants to be inside Foxbury without Judas knowing it. Now why in the world would he need to do that?”

  Andrew waited, but Marcus didn’t answer his own question. A couple of breaths passed in silence before he realized what Marcus was doing. His partner already had a theory. But Marcus was waiting for him to give an opinion first, and Marcus didn’t want his own theory to bias Andrew’s suppositions.

  Andrew hated when Marcus put him on the spot like this. He rubbed at his temples. His head was still pounding from the earlier blow. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to untangle this perfect storm of narcissism and insecurity back to its source. He really just wanted to go to bed. How long had it been since he’d slept?

  Marcus said, “Any theories?”

  He tried to think over the pounding in his skull. Why would Demon be separate from and secretive toward Judas?

  Andrew said, “Powell’s daughter, Debra. That one was personal.”

  “Exactly. Debra is our inciting incident. She hurt Judas somehow, and he killed her for it.”

  Andrew took a second to process that and carry out the train of thought. Then he said, “The number one rule as a homicide detective with a female victim.”

  Marcus smiled. “Do you have a contact person down at the sheriff’s station?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let him know we’re on our way and why we’re coming.”

  Andrew pulled out his phone and dialed the stored number for the county impound garage where Bradley Reese’s car had been transferred. As he listened to the phone ring, he considered the number one unwritten rule of homicide detectives everywhere: if you have a female victim, find the guy who was sleeping with her, because he’s also the one who killed her.

  *

  Demon waited for them to be alone before dealing with the young fool. He was nothing if not patient. But the second he was alone with Jerry inside the conference room of Control Center East, he struck the young man in the gut with a blow made all the more painful by the speed and surprise of it.

  Demon said, “When I give an order, you obey. You disrespected me in front of our enemies. The Legion demands restitution. Give me your hand.”

  Jerry caught his breath and met Demon’s gaze. Then the young man held out his hand. He had no other choice. Demon had established dominance with Jerry early on, as he did with all his employees.

  Dominance and respect were crucial when training wild animals.

  From there, Demon was deliberately slow in removing a homemade prison shank the size of a bowie knife and placing it on the conference room table. It was a sharp and sturdy weapon. The evidence of that fact was slowly decaying atop the conference room table.

  Demon pressed Jerry’s hand down onto the table. He felt Jerry tense up. Not to pull his arm away or attack, just bracing himself for the pain.

  At this point, Demon could show mercy to his supplicant, as he often did. He considered this as the Legion of demons screamed all around him. He was so tired of the screaming, of the burning, the blood. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, a nasty creature that was more teeth and flesh than anything else stood beside him. It was nothing that could have possibly survived in reality. Demon knew that. But there was something about this creature. Something different. And then he realized. The unholy abomination was speaking in Jerry Dunn’s voice.

  It said, “Sir, I beg for your forgiveness. It will never happen again. Please show mercy.”

  From its words, Demon was about ninety percent sure this thing wasn’t merely speaking with Dunn’s voice, but, rather, it was Jerry Dunn. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and looked again. Dunn was back to normal, and Demon was glad for that. He didn’t think he could have carried on a normal conversation with such a creature.

  He considered Jerry’s request. Mercy. Should he bestow his grace on Jerry, his forgiveness?

  Demon released his grip on the younger man’s arm but, at the same time, he snatched up his blade and slashed it across Dunn’s throat.

  But the weapon’s edge barely touched Dunn’s skin. Only deep enough of a cut to draw a few drops of blood.

  Demon looked into the young man’s eyes and said, “Don’t ever forget who and what I am.”

  He noticed for the first time that there were tears in Jerry’s eyes.

  He stifled a laugh.

  Jerry thought he had been shown mercy and grace. In reality, Demon decided against taking the finger because doing so didn’t help his goals. Demon was here for Judas, not this moron whom they had planned to use as a scapegoat from the start. And Jerry still had his role to play. Something as small as having a finger cut off could totally distract some people as weak as Jerry. Retribution against a patsy who didn’t even have much longer to live wasn’t worth jeopardizing a mission.

  Demon said, “Where’s Judas?”

  “He said that plans changed.”

  “Did he now? When and where are you meeting him?”

  “I didn’t know you planned to be here yourself, sir.”

  “Plans changed.”

  Jerry said, “Does this have to do with my last mission?”

  “I told you earlier. I’m not here for you.”

  “So you’re here because of Judas?”

  Demon narrowed his eyes at Jerry. Perhaps the Legion would get their blood after all.

  The young man quickly added, “I don’t mean to pry into your business, sir. I just wanted to know if I should consider him an enemy.”

  “You just worry about your mission. I’ll worry about the Judas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you understand everything that needs to be done? Every detail.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll keep them chasing their own tails in a standoff here and then follow you through the escape route. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Demon checked the time. They were already behind schedule. He said, “I’m going to escort Lash and his crew to the exfiltration point and go out with him. You make me proud here, kid. You keep them off our backs, and we’ll see you on payday. Don’t make me regret all the second chances I’ve given you.”

  “You won’t, sir. I promise.”

  Demon started toward the door, but he stopped dead in his tracks when Jerry said, “Sir, one more thing. The federal agent. The woman. I would like to have her. With your permission, of course. And I’ll make sure she is still breathing and still works as a hostage when I’m done.”

  Demon looked out the window of the conference room at his two hostages who claimed to be federal agents. With the new security system online, the man with no fear would be able to do little to stop Jerry from defiling his “little sister.”

  Demon smiled. It would be a bit of a parting gift for the fearless from the soulless.

  “Fine. She’s all yours. Just don’t let pleasure interfere with business.”

  *


  Ackerman had been reading Demon’s lips as much as possible during the argument in the conference room. From his angle, he could barely see their faces through the room’s window, but he read enough key words and facial expressions to sift out a few nuggets of valuable intelligence. And he didn’t like any of the things he had learned.

  Demon stepped down the stairs from the conference room and had a brief exchange with Lash. Then the ULF leader and his lieutenants packed up their things and headed toward the elevators. As Demon moved to follow, he matched gazes with Ackerman. The two conversed with their eyes for a moment, and then Demon pulled a business card and a pen from his pocket. He used the pen to write something on the back of the card. No more than a sentence.

  Then Demon said, “Just in case,” and he laid the card atop one of the control room’s workstations. With a wink, Demon headed toward the exit and didn’t look back.

  Lash had left four of his foot soldiers behind as guards, and Jerry Dunn still stood in the conference room doorway. Ackerman could tell that Jerry’s eyes and thoughts were on Maggie. Something about that made Ackerman want to jam hot knives through Jerry’s eye sockets.

  After a few more long and hungry glances, Jerry retreated into the conference room. No doubt plotting and planning for his impending conquest.

  Ackerman heard his father’s voice in his head.

  Cut out his eyes.

  From her position kneeling beside him, Maggie said, “If you’re waiting for me to give you the go-ahead, then you have it. Do your thing. Hulk smash. Go get ’em.”

  “I find those references and your tone to be very offensive. I don’t know what you expect me to do. We are restrained by their security system now. I can’t act out against any of these men without being pacified from above.”

  She said, “You always have something up your sleeve. There’s always an angle or weakness you exploit. So I’m telling you, now’s the time.”