I walked to my bedroom to change. When I pulled open the closet door to grab a new suit, something in my safe caught my eye. My safe door stood open, and I stared inside. The other officers and I had gone through my safe to make sure all of my firearms were accounted for. They were, but I hadn’t noticed that the manila envelope containing my divorce papers looked as though it had been gone through. I pulled it from the shelf in my safe and opened it.
I had looked over the documents a thousand times. Our divorce hadn’t been quite as clean as I would’ve liked, and my father had always stressed that I should never sign anything I didn’t understand. I went over the entire bundle of documents so many times that I had memorized them. Samantha wasn’t going to get anything more than she deserved, especially after cheating on me. I couldn’t imagine why the detectives would have gone through it. I dug through the sheets of paper. Everything was there.
A thought of what Cross had meant by his note on the fridge bubbled up in my head. “My next will be the best yet. At least for you.”
The “at least for you” part bothered me. He might have had Samantha’s name and address. As much as I hated it, I needed to call and check on her. I found the last number I had for her and dialed. It went to voicemail. I needed to find a phone number for Samantha’s house. If I could get her on the phone, it would at least put my mind at ease. I didn’t have a phone book, and didn’t feel like turning on my computer and running a search. The quickest way to get her number was to call my sister. She picked up right away.
“Hey, Carl. We’re just getting up. What’s going on?”
“Hey, I need a number for Samantha. It’s work related.”
“Work related, huh? Don’t give me that. What do you want to talk to her for? You remember that she’s remarried, right?”
“I don’t have time for this. Just give me her damn number.”
“Geez. Whatever. Bite my head off.”
“Mel, what’s her number?”
“Hold on.”
She got it and rattled it off in a snotty tone. It was the same number I already had.
“What’s the phone number for her house?”
“You can’t call their house. What are you, crazy?”
I’d had enough arguing with my sister. If I told her the real reason why I wanted to get a hold of Samantha, she would freak out.
“Forget it. I’m sure he’s in the phone book. Don’t worry about it.”
I hung up.
Whether Sam was in any kind of danger or not, I didn’t know. However, if I told my sister my reason for wanting to contact her, she would be planning a funeral within a day. I fired up my computer and searched for their house phone number. Martin Bridgeman’s home phone number came up right away. I tried the number twice but got no answer.
I looked at my watch. I had enough time to get out to their house and be back to the station before my shift started. Though I’d remembered the general area of Samantha’s new house, I wrote the address down in my notepad to be sure. I finished getting dressed, grabbed my keys, and headed downstairs.
Around seven thirty, I pulled into their neighborhood, a twenty-year-old subdivision filled with upper-class homes. At the top of the market, the homes in the neighborhood were worth a million dollars each.
I squinted at the numbers on the mailboxes and houses. I caught a house number over a garage and continued up the street. I stuffed my notepad back into my pocket. “Four more.”
I’d been to Doctor Bridgeman’s house once in the past. Samantha insisted we go and eat dinner with the dentist and his wife. Little did I—or his wife—realize they were already sleeping together. Another half a block up, I found the address. I slowed as I passed, hunching down to get a better view of the house through the passenger side window. The driveway was empty. Everything looked normal.
The home was smaller than I remembered. It was a tan two story with a terracotta tile roof and expansive landscaping. A pair of king palms took center stage along the sidewalk leading up to the front door. A two-car garage stood to the right, as well as another for one car—three cars total.
I pulled to the curb and walked up to the house. I stopped outside their front door. A carved wooden sign sat in the landscaping to the side. It read, “The Bridgemans”.
I shook my head in disgust and knocked on the front door. I prepared myself for the most awkward greeting imaginable. No one came. I tried the doorbell. No response. I continued waiting for another minute or two and checked my watch—just after seven thirty. They could still be sleeping.
I walked to the edge of the house and turned at the garage. Two first floor windows sat on the side. The location of the one closest to me told me it belonged to the garage, and the other sat toward the back of the house. I walked to the first window and tried to peek inside. The thick blinds did a great job of preventing me from making anything out in the garage. I tried the next window at the back. Again, blinds blocked my view inside.
I walked back to my car to head out. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. They weren’t home, were asleep, or had seen me and didn’t want to answer. I decided to keep trying to call her throughout the day—maybe even to call Marty’s dental office to see if it was open later. That was all I could do.
I pulled up to the station a few minutes after eight o’clock. Just as the day before, the media had taken up permanent residence in front of the building. As I pulled around the station, I spotted the television crews recording from the sidewalk. I pulled in and parked. As I walked toward the door of the station, Officer Johnson greeted me.
“Morning, Lieutenant.” He opened the door to let me in.
“Johnson.” I nodded. “You take a job as the doorman here?”
He smiled. “Looks like it. We had reporters sneaking into the employee parking and trying to get interviews. Sergeant Timmons put me out here to shoo them off.”
“For how long?”
He shrugged. “Whole shift, I guess. Until I’m told otherwise.”
“Well, have fun.”
“Tons.”
I walked inside and made my way to my office. I could see the captain and Major Danes talking in the captain’s office next door. The captain saw me walking past and waved me in.
“Major. Cap.”
“Morning, Lieutenant. I hear you had a break-in. Cross?” Major Danes asked.
“Appears so.”
“You didn’t find anything missing, though?”
“No, nothing missing, but…”
“But?” Bostok asked.
“I didn’t notice it until this morning. My divorce documents had been gone through.”
“Do you think it was Cross?” the major asked.
I shrugged. “I guess there’s no way of actually knowing if it was Cross or not. It could have been one of the detectives.”
The captain appeared to be kicking something around in his head. “Call your ex-wife,” he said.
“Tried. No answer. I even tried stopping there, but they could’ve been asleep or out of town for all I know. I haven’t talked to my ex-wife in almost a year.”
“Did anything look off when you went to the house?” the captain asked.
“Not that I saw.”
“How hard did you look?” Major Danes asked.
“Not that hard, I guess. I rang the doorbell, knocked, and took a quick look into a couple windows. I left within a few minutes.”
“Any signs of a forced entry?”
“If there had been on the front door, I think I would have noticed it. I never went around back.”
The major set his jaw. “Go back over there and have a better look around. Take an extra officer from patrol with you.”
His words came across more like an order than a suggestion. I nodded.
“Okay. Kane, before you head out,” the captain cleared his throat, “I called and enlisted the help of the Bureau this morning. They are going to send us over two agents later this afternoon. In the meantime, they have
put alerts out on Bob Cross’s credit cards and bank account. If he accesses either, we’ll have his location. I want you to have a meeting with the agents when they arrive.”
“That’s fine. Anything else?” I asked.
“That’s it.”
“Any word on how Donner is doing?” I asked.
“They kept him overnight and sent him home this morning. He’s fine.”
“Good.”
Chapter 39
Roaches scattered across the worn carpet when he flipped on the lamp. A coughing attack had woken him from his sleep. His hand was covered in blood from his lungs. He wiped it on the edge of the chair he sat on. Samantha lay bound to the bed. She wore the familiar green lingerie. Bob looked back at the digital clock that sat on the nightstand—8:16 a.m. He’d woken up a few times in the last hour from Samantha making noise. She was coming around. He needed to give her another dose of the tranquilizer. In the middle of the night, a couple in a drugged stupor had rented the next room. He didn’t want Samantha coming to enough to realize the situation she was in and scream. He went to her side.
Her eyes rolled around in her head before coming straight and focusing. She fumbled her words. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a motel room.”
“Why?”
“Because this is where we’ll have to work.”
“Wha… Who are you?”
“I’m Bob Cross. The press has been calling me the Psycho Surgeon, though.”
She squinted and shook her head. “What?”
“Psycho Surgeon.”
“Where am I?”
“I just told you. You’re in a motel room.”
“For what?” She started to fade back into unconsciousness.
“I’m going to cut into your brain.” Bob got up and walked to the small desk. He grabbed a vial of the Xylazine and loaded up a syringe. “I’ve had enough small talk.” He walked back over to her and stuck the needle into the side of her neck. He pushed the tranquilizer in—silence.
“It’s time to brand you,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
Chapter 40
Johnson got relieved from his door duty to make the trip with me over to my ex-wife’s house. I tried calling her phone a few more times on the way, but the calls still went straight to voicemail. I pulled up to the house and parked at the curb. Johnson pulled his marked cruiser in behind me and got out.
“This is us here.” I pointed to the house.
We walked up the driveway and went to the front door. I reached out to the bell and pressed it in hard. It dinged inside the house. I heard no one rummaging around inside, no footsteps, and no voices.
We waited another minute. No one came to the door.
“Johnson, you’re in uniform. Why don’t you check around back?”
“No problem.”
I stood at the front door and rang the bell again. I waited. Johnson came around the other side of the house.
He shook his head as he approached. “Everything looks normal.”
I knelt down and inspected the front door opening, searching for any kind of pry marks or anything of the sort. The door and sill looked normal. I twisted the knob—locked.
“You check the garage?” he asked.
“I tried earlier. You can’t see inside.”
“Let me have a look.”
Officer Johnson walked to the side of the garage, and I followed. We got to the window. Johnson started contorting himself, trying to see in. He cocked his head one way, crouched, and then stood on his tiptoes. His final method was to look through the tiny slits that the string that operated the blinds passed through.
“Are you seeing anything?” I asked.
“Not really.”
A thud came from inside the garage. Then another. Then more.
“You hear that?” I asked.
Johnson nodded his head, “Yeah. It’s coming from inside.”
I turned my head and stuck my ear against the garage window. The thuds grew louder, and then I caught something else. Someone shouted, “Help!”
“Call it in.” I motioned for Johnson to stand back and put my elbow through the window. I cleared away the glass and pulled myself through. The thuds came from the trunk of a black Acura—parked next to it was a yellow taxi. I pulled my weapon.
The shouting for help continued from the trunk of the car, followed by repeated thumping. Someone was kicking from inside.
I rapped on the top of the trunk lid. “Be quiet. We’ll get you out of there in a second.”
I motioned for Johnson to come in. He climbed through the window and drew his service weapon. I spoke just above a whisper. “We need to see if anyone is in the house.”
He nodded.
I went to the door leading inside and slowly twisted the knob. Johnson and I entered the house. It was quiet—no footsteps of anyone running, no cries for help. We moved room to room and cleared the lower level. No one was there. We moved upstairs—no children, no Samantha, and no Bob Cross. We headed back for the garage.
I gave the lid a rap with my knuckles. “Who’s in there?”
“Martin Bridgeman. I live here. Get me out.”
I opened the car and searched for a trunk-release button. The button was recessed at the left bottom of the dash. I thumbed it down—nothing. I went back to the trunk. “Where are the keys?”
“They are in here with me. I’m tied up. Find something to break in. There are tools up on the work benches.”
“You don’t have a spare set of keys?”
“I don’t know where they are. Just break in.”
I pulled a crowbar from the bench and jammed it down into the gap between the trunk and rear bumper. I pressed down with all my strength, but the trunk didn’t budge.
“Johnson, give me a hand with this.”
He came over, and we both put all our weight into it. The metal of the car’s trunk lid bent, popped free, and flew up. Inside was my ex-wife’s husband, hogtied in his boxer shorts. I looked at him lying there in his urine-soaked underwear. He was pathetic. He was out of shape and balding and had some stupid-looking mustache sitting on his lip. This is what Samantha left me for? This is the guy she cheated on me with? I made a scissors sign with my fingers toward Johnson, and he brought over a set of snips from one of the workbenches. I cut the wire that bound Marty. We got him to his feet.
Marty sat on the rear bumper of his car. “Carl, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Trying to find Samantha. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Who the hell tied me up and locked me in my trunk? Why is there a taxi in my garage?”
“Tell me what happened. Do it quick,” I said.
He pointed to his boxer shorts. “I wet my damn underwear. Can I go change first?”
I stuck my finger in his face again. “Tell me where she is. Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. We went to sleep like normal. When I woke up, I was hogtied in a trunk.”
“Were your kids here?” I asked.
“No, this is their mother’s weekend.”
“You don’t know who did this to you?”
“No. The last thing I remember was going to sleep last night.” He looked around the garage. “Samantha isn’t here?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here and why there’s a damn taxi cab in my wife’s parking spot?”
“What does Samantha drive?”
“A black Lexus IS.”
“What’s the tag number?”
He gave it to me and I called it in as stolen. I pointed at the door leading into the house and gave Bridgeman a shove. “Inside.”
He stumbled forward. “Fine.”
We went back into the house. The smell of the place brought back bad memories. Samantha had often come home with that exact odor stuck on her. It wasn’t a bad smell, but at the moment, it made me want to hog-tie Bridgeman again and st
uff him back into the trunk. My feelings for him needed to be pushed aside. The only thing that mattered was finding her.
I sent Johnson with Marty to his bedroom. I instructed him to give it a quick search while Bridgeman cleaned himself up. Johnson came back out a few minutes later, holding a syringe on a piece of paper.
“Cab, syringe—had to be the Psycho Surgeon, right?” he asked.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “It’s Bob Cross. Leave the Psycho Surgeon crap for the media.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant, Bob Cross. Why would he leave evidence? He never did before.”
“Because he doesn’t care. We know who he is. And now he has my ex-wife. He left the cab here so he can move around without being spotted.” I rubbed my eyes.
I had to tell Bridgeman what was going on. A serial killer had taken Samantha because of me. Bridgeman shouted profanities and put on a show. He flailed his hands in the air and called me every name in the book. He stormed halfway across the kitchen at me but stopped dead in his tracks when I cocked a fist. I still owed him for sleeping with her when she had still been my wife. He retreated and took a seat at the kitchen table.
We needed to go through the house room by room and look for anything Cross could have left behind—any little scrap or clue that could tell us where he’d taken her. We needed to dig through the taxi and see if we could find anything there. I dialed the captain. He said he’d send Rick, Jones, and Hank out. Johnson and I were to sit tight until everyone arrived.
I sat down at the kitchen table. After a few minutes of waiting, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The caller ID said it was an unknown caller. I clicked Talk.
“This is Lieutenant Kane.”
“Hey, Carl.”
“Who the hell is… Cross? Where is Samantha?”
“I may have overestimated you. I gave you fair warning that I was going to take her.”
“If you touch one hair on…”
Cross interrupted with a laugh. “Please. Cliché threats, Lieutenant? You can do better than that. Tell me, what’s it like sitting in the house with your replacement? Does it stir bad feelings? Are you sitting with your rival now? Oh, you did find him in the trunk, didn’t you?”
Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) Page 18
