by Terry Keys
Tears poured down Julie’s face. Matthew was crying too. He couldn’t possibly understand everything that was happening, but he had to sense it wasn’t good.
“Tom, can you hear me?”
“Julie! Yes, I can hear you. I love you, baby, and I’m so sorry. I’m going to take care of this; don’t you worry.”
“Tom, who are these people? Please come and get us, Tom. We’re both so scared.”
Caleb turned off Julie’s mic.
“Julie, you were given your instructions back in the locker room, remember? If I see Tom’s car anywhere close to FM 518 and Pearland, both of you lose. You first. So Tom can watch, of course.”
Julie cried out. Tom couldn’t hear her because her line was still muted.
“Okay, now that we’re all playing nicely again, both of you get one last chance. Oh, silly me. I forgot to turn the split screen on your monitors so you two crazy kids can see each another. There.”
Tom stared at the screen in horror. There in the middle of his living room sat his wife and son. He knew it was all his fault.
“They want me to talk. They want me to tell you how bad of a husband and father I’ve been. I mean, none of it’s true, but I’ll say what they want to hear. You believe me, right, honey?”
“Tom, listen to me. Look at your son. For whatever reason, these people have gone through a lot of trouble. They have to believe you’ve done something. Why would they think that if it isn’t true?”
“Ding. Ding. Ding. Score one for Julie,” Caleb interrupted. “Tom we’ve followed you for a week. We’ve read your police files—even the unofficial files on you. The best pattern to have is what? Say it Tom?”
Tears poured down Tom’s face. “No pattern.”
“That’s right. No pattern. But I’m guessing you’ve been doing this for so long you felt invincible. Anyway, I’m talking too much. This isn’t about me. You have about ten minutes left, Tom. You should really use your time wisely.”
Julie and Matthew sobbed; Tom did too. None of them said a word. Tom finally composed himself enough and spoke up. “Julie, I need you to listen to me.”
Caleb leapt from his seat. “Stop the presses! Tom, right now you are traveling seventy-two miles per hour on Interstate 610. You are about to pass Reliant Stadium. Don’t forget what I said. Do not get on 288 South. Anywhere near Pearland and boom. Don’t screw with me, Tom. I mean it.”
“Okay! I got it. Just don’t hurt them. Please. I’ll tell them everything. Just promise me you won’t hurt them.”
“Tom, I always keep my word. If you talk, I won’t lay a finger on them. I won’t need to hurt them. You are about to do that for me.”
Tom had already decided he wasn’t going to give in to these assholes. Not like this. Not like they wanted.
“Matthew? Hey, little buddy. Look at Daddy. I love you, son. Julie, don’t believe all the bad things they say about me. Know that I love you. Twenty-five years of my life I have loved you. Good-bye, my love.”
“Tom, no!” Julie screamed.
Tom slammed his computer shut. Caleb and Marci were still tracking him via GPS, and the audio feed was still being sent to them and to Julie and Matthew.
Tom removed his service weapon from his side and fired one shot into his skull. His patrol car spun out of control and crashed into the barricades on the freeway. Then it exploded.
Julie screamed her husband’s name as Matthew wailed beside her.
“God, that sounded terrible,” Marci said.
“Julie, I’m sorry you guys had to listen to that. It’s not how I planned it to happen. Protect and Serve—that’s what they sign up to do. But some of these assholes find every way possible to abuse their power. It’s really, really sad.”
“No, you are really, really sad. I hope you burn in hell for this. Not every cop is bad, you know. You killed a good man. You are the real piece of shit, whoever you are.”
“Julie. Most police officers do a fine job, a really fine job. And guess what? I’m not after them. I am hunting men like Tom who lie, cheat, and steal.”
“Well, who made you the goddamn judge? Why not let him have his day in court?”
“NO. NO. NO. He had his day in court. It was today, in fact. The judge found him guilty on all counts, and he was sentenced to die.”
“You are a sick bastard!”
Caleb cut the audio transmission from Julie’s mic.
“Julie, listen to me, dear. Your mic is off. After Tom is identified, officers will be at your house to inform you of your husband’s death. Remember the rules of the game. Please don’t make me turn on those canisters, because I will. There will be a lot of officers there, a lot more people for me to kill. And if you change your mind, say, in a week or so, I’ll come and visit you and Matthew then too. Hey, look on the bright side. You’re still young, still got your looks. If you remarry, please don’t pick another asshole. Ta-ta. Oh, and have a very merry Christmas.”
Caleb killed his mic as well. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Marci held up a finger. “First we have to spin the wheel.”
They’d created a wheel with the numbers one through fifty marked on it. Each number had a corresponding location, number of victims—one or two—and gender. They believed that by using the wheel, the murders would be so random no pattern could ever be established.
Caleb spun the wheel, and they both watched in anticipation as it slowly landed on the number seven. Marci took out their handwritten list to find out where the next murder would be.
“Let’s see . . . seven. Here goes. Hawaii, one single female victim. That should be fun,” Marci said.
“Never been to Hawaii.”
“Makes two of us. It looks like we’ll both be headed there soon enough. But for now we have a murder to plan.”
“After this, no more travel. I want to stay here in Houston. More than enough real estate to cover from Katy to Freeport and every shithole in between.”
Chapter 1
It had been several weeks since I’d hit the gym. And because of it, I’d already planned on using slightly less weight than I was used to. I sat down on the bench, looked around and then up at the clock. It was a little after midnight, but I always figured better late than never. My calendar had today penned in as my start back to the gym, and I wasn’t going to let the day pass without putting my work in.
My years of playing high school football, then college coupled with my service time, exercise at least some form of it would always be in-grained in me. Not to mention I believed the added muscle made some bad guys think twice before lunging at me. Less fights – less broken bones.
I couldn’t get my mind off of the call I’d gotten from the Jamaican cop Dixon, and the news he’d dropped on me. Not to mention the fact that the news ruined my double date with Miranda, Paul and DeLuca. And essentially left me no choice but to break the promise I’d made to Miranda about leaving work behind. Even if it was only for one night. It had saved my old friend Paul from another night at losing to me in bowling.
As I lay back, I checked the weight on the bar one last time—two twenty-five, ten reps. Let’s get it, Porter. I pushed my earbuds into my ears and cranked up Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice as high as I could stand it. My blood was flowing; my heart was racing. Nothing beat the pump and adrenaline rush that lifting weights offered me. After my set, I sat up and looked around. I was the only officer in the gym, so I tossed the earbuds. I walked over to the stereo system and plugged in my iPod. After my four sets of bench presses, I headed for the squat rack. As I got older, I stayed away from many of the smaller muscle groups and focused on the big three, mostly due to time but also as a way to reduce my risk of injury. Like most lifters, I had a love-hate relationship with the squat. While I understand the overall benefit of the exercise, the brutality of hoisting three hundred pounds on your back for forty or fifty reps hurt.
I loaded the bar and waited for the next track, UGK’s Diamonds and Wood, to resonate th
rough the gym. I set the bar back onto the squat rack as I heard the music fade.
“What the hell are you still doing here, Porter?” Officer Ryder asked with a puzzled look on his face.
I wiped the sweat from my face and pointed to the squat rack. “Trying to get a workout in,” I said, trying my best to fight back a wisecrack.
“Yeah, well, I see that, but it’s midnight.”
“Two for two, Ryder. Look at you go.”
He laughed. “Okay, wiseguy. So why are you here at midnight working out instead of at home?”
“First thirty-minute slot I had available today. No rest for the weary. It was either now or probably the same time tomorrow night, so why not now?”
Dr. Dre’s Chronic had just started playing, which meant I’d missed at least one set. I pointed to the squat rack.
“Oh, don’t let me stop you, Porter. You sure that’s not too much weight for you, old man? And I just love this musical selection.”
“Weight is fine. Probably a little on the light side, to be honest. And what, you don’t like the music? What would you prefer, The Beach Boys? Elvis? Led Zeppelin?”
“Just giving you shit. I like Jay-Z,” he said, pointing up as he walked away.
I shook my head and waited for the radio to get cranked back up. I didn’t bother correcting his Jay-Z assertion. I laughed to myself. It was obvious they all sounded alike to him.
I’d already decided I would forgo deadlifting and opt for some low back rows and finish off my workout with a little core work.
It was nearing one a.m. and I still needed to eat a little something before I went to sleep. It felt good to get a workout in and burn off some of my stress.
I went into the locker room and grabbed my keys and duffel bag. December in Houston usually seesawed from day to day, even hour to hour, from seventy-five degrees to fifty degrees and everything in between. Right now it was a cool fifty-five, according to my dashboard display. But despite my cold nature, it felt good to me. No doubt a result of my gym session.
I left the radio off and let my mind wander. I’d started writing my next book, Inside the Mind of a Killer, a few years ago, and I had my mind set on finishing it. I’d even given a submission date to my editor, Susan Hughes. It was a way of creating a deadline that I probably would have ignored otherwise. I wanted to brainstorm some ideas and start cranking out chapters, but my mind was numb. The rollercoaster ride of losing Miranda and then Karen left me pretty empty and utterly focused on doing one thing and one thing only. Caleb was still out there—waiting, watching. No matter how good he thought he was, I intended to catch him.
I pulled into the driveway, turned off my truck, and stared out into my yard. It was quiet and everything still. I slipped into the house and set my cell down on the counter. I grabbed a banana and poured a cup of milk. I could feel soreness creeping in already. I opened the cabinet, looking for the bottle of BCAAs. I finally found them and swallowed a few.
I plopped down on the couch, food in tow. I lay staring up at the ceiling into the pitch blackness of the room. It was nearing two a.m. and I needed sleep. I walked over and grabbed my cell phone just as it rang. Who the hell was calling at two o’clock in the morning? I looked down at the screen—Detective DeLuca. I right-swiped, declining the call, and started constructing a text. When the phone rang again, I answered.
“Detective?” I said.
“Chief Hill wanted me to call you right away. It’s—”
“It’s what?” I asked, more than a little agitated.
“It’s Willie Jones,” DeLuca said.
Inside I was secretly beaming with joy that DeLuca and my oldest friend Paul, were now an item. Her small frame, dark brown eyes and brunette hair had Paul doomed from the word go. When Captain Wilcrest read me the file on Elena DeLuca, I had to admit that I wasn’t too impressed. But she had grown on me over the last year or so. Sometimes in life you meet people that feel like they’d been lifetime friends. DeLuca for me was one of those people.
I stared outside into the night, one hand on my hip. “What about Willie?” DeLuca didn’t respond. “Am I talking to myself here?”
“He was murdered earlier tonight, David. I’m sorry.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. “What are you talking about? What the hell happened? I mean, what do we know? How long ago did this happen?”
“They found him a few hours ago. He was strangled to death. Looks like it happened fast. It doesn’t look like he would have suffered much.”
“Damn. Ol’ Mr. Willie. This is unbelievable. I mean, who the hell would want to hurt that old man? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. And why didn’t someone call me sooner?”
Again there was silence on the line.
“It was Caleb, David. It was Caleb. He left a note. You’ve been through enough. Everyone knows that. Chief decided to take care of it and spare you as much as he could.”
Spare me? I wasn’t some little kid who needed sparing. I’m a goddamn detective. If anything, they needed me to look at the scene. I decided I’d deal with Hill later.
“You there?” DeLuca asked.
I set the phone down and pounded my fist into my other hand. I took a few steps back and forth then I reached down and picked up the phone again. “What did the note say?”
Just then, my phone chimed. She’d taken a picture of it and texted it to me. It was one line, no punctuation, and had obviously been cut and pasted from a newspaper or magazine, letter by letter. The words read:
DNA is funny I take lives you try and save them I’m winning
Point made. I let his note sink in a minute. That little—
“David, you okay? Talk to me.”
“As okay as I can be. My dad is going to be crushed, ya know. He and Willie served together. He did a lot of good things for this country. Purple Heart recipient . . . doesn’t matter now, I guess.”
“Yes, I know. You told me. I’m really sorry, David.”
“Thanks for the call. See you in a few hours.”
I disconnected with her and slammed my phone down on the table.
Mr. Willie had fallen on hard times. Like many war veterans, he had found it difficult to get the help he needed. He was homeless and, among other things, was battling diabetes. All he had in this world were the clothes on his back and the shopping cart he pushed around. He was too proud to ask for help or accept much of it if offered. I’d drive by whenever I could and take him something warm to eat. Even that got rejected from time to time.
As men, we sometimes bite off way more than we can chew. I was going to make damn sure Caleb knew that, for him, this was one of those times. He was going to pay for killing Tom, and he’d pay dearly for killing Mr. Willie.
Chapter 2
I climbed in bed, my body weary, but I was unable to quiet my mind. Memories flooded my brain and threatened once again to drown me as I thought about everything that had happened to me and my family over the last two years. It was amazing that any of us had survived it all. Christmas was right around the corner, and I had so much to be thankful for. My mind still kept flashing back to earlier in the evening. I could hear the thud of the bowling ball crashing by my feet. Dixon’s voice rang out and boomed in my mind over and over.
To top it all off, if the letter Officer Dixon read to me was true, the killer was my own son. And now he’d already killed again. He wanted my attention, and he knew how to get it. This had to be a first—a cop hunting his own murderous, serial-killer son. A first that I was not thrilled to be a part of, not by a long shot. How long had he known about me? I had so many questions, and I wasn’t holding my breath about getting any of them answered. Even after I captured Caleb, I doubted he would talk to me. Could we have a relationship after all of this? Was that even possible? And if it was possible, did I even want such a relationship? If he had indeed killed someone, time would still have to be served. The demons from your past don’t give you a green light to commit future crimes. An explanatio
n, maybe, but certainly not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
I wish more perps understood that. Even more, I wished our criminal justice system involved some type of rehabilitation, especially for the more violent offenders. Stuffing a man in a hole for thirty years of his life is no way to cure the demons inside of him. Had those thirty years in prison strangled that evil out or merely put it on hold? Or even worse, had the time away nurtured the demons instead of taming them? For some, I was willing to bet it had. How many rapists get out only to rape again within the next year? How much blame should the judicial system take for the second and third victims? I often thought our punishment for major crimes was much too lenient. If things had been different, I could have easily been sitting in a cell somewhere for a crime I hadn’t even committed.
My arm was laying on Miranda. She moved it and snuggled up close to me. “You don’t always have to save the world, you know? Did I hear you on the phone? Awful late call. Everything okay?”
She sure knew how to hit a man in the gut when she wanted to.
I sighed. “I don’t know . . . maybe I do have to save the world. It sure as hell feels like it sometimes. It was DeLuca. Someone killed Willie Jones. So, no, I’m not okay.”
She rubbed on my chest. “You don’t have to solve it all. You don’t have to have all the answers. If you aren’t careful, in a few years I’ll be burying my early-forty-something husband due to heart failure. Or worse, you won’t even make it to forty.”
I looked away, tears burning in my eyes. Miranda reached over and turned my head toward her. “I’m sorry about Willie. I know how much he meant to you and your family. You have to find a way to be good at what you do and somehow release the stress and tension too. You of all people know what stress does to the body.”
