“Books—Melissa was an avid reader, and Tanya’s room was filled with them. All types of novels.”
Drake felt dizzy and put a hand on the wooden stall to keep from falling. Chase was on him in an instant, putting an arm on his shoulders, bracing him.
“Drake? You okay?”
He shook his head, and found that he was unable to speak. The burn on his cheek itched horribly, but he couldn’t even muster the strength to scratch it.
“Drake?”
With considerable effort, he managed to straighten himself.
“Books? You sure?”
“No, not sure. Just a hunch. But I bet that Charlotte here liked to read as well.”
He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the e-reader.
“There’s something you need to see,” he said quietly. “Something you need to read.”
~
“I managed to pull up Melissa Green’s library records—the woman took out a lot of books. I’ve also acquired Tanya Farthing’s bank records, and have singled out her purchases at book stores and online. Problem is, there’s so much data that it’s going to take a while to process,” Agent Stitts said.
Drake looked around the conference room, feeling more comfortable than he figured he deserved. There were five of them in the room: himself, Chase, Agent Stitts, Detective Yasiv, who had since stationed two uniformed officers at the barn, and Officer Dunbar.
“I’ll have a go at that. I have a program that can look for similarities in purchases. Shouldn’t take that long.”
Chase nodded.
“Good. I’ll go with Agent Stitts to speak to Charlotte’s family, see if we can see if there is a connection there, confirm that she was also a reader.”
Drake looked at the e-reader that had been placed in the center of the table like some sort of modern golem.
“And the book? What about the book?”
Officer Dunbar cleared his throat.
“I already downloaded all the data I could from it. So far as I can tell, the IP that sent the books to the reader was scrambled. Pinged all over the Middle East, then Asia. I’ll keep plugging away, but I doubt I’ll get any hits.”
Drake nodded. Screech had already told him as much.
“And the book itself?” Detective Yasiv asked. “Where’d it come from?”
“Screech looked into it. Said it was written by a pen name, untraceable. Right now, it’s hidden in the ranks, even though it’s available online at most retailers. Should we ask them to pull it?”
Drake bit his tongue, stopping himself from asking the next question that was on his mind.
Why the hell was it sent to me?
Chase chewed the inside of her cheek.
“No, not now. All we need is someone book selling gunslinger to let something leak, and we’ll have a media shitstorm on our hands. For now, have Screech see if he could dig deeper into the bigger retailers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, see if he can find out any connections between Also Boughts, tweets, Facebook posts, etc. We have to find out who wrote the damn thing.”
When she paused to take a breath, Detective Yasiv spoke up.
“What about the media in general? I mean, it wasn’t hard to keep them out given the remote location of the crime scene, but now with a third victim… if even one friend of family member of the deceased goes to the press…”
“For now, we keep it under wraps,” Chase replied. “Nobody’s to speak to the press.”
Silence fell over the room, and their eyes skipped across the images of the three women on the board at the head of the room.
“On second thought, I’m going to set up a press conference. Nothing specific, just to remind women between the ages of twenty to fifty not to accept rides or help from…” She let her sentence trail off, then turned to Stitts. “Agent Stitts, can you help us out here? What sort of profile are we looking at?”
Stitts flipped through a pad of paper before stopping on a page full of notes.
“I’ve generated a preliminary profile, given the ages of the victims and their cause of death. That being said, it’s only a loose profile given the differences in the vics’s socio-economic backgrounds.”
“Shoot,” Chase said.
Agent Stitts cleared his throat and then started to read.
“Based on historical precedence, we are looking for a male between the ages of thirty-five and fifty—just a few years older than the first two victims. Has to be in pretty good shape to have carried the bodies through the woods, and judging by the lack of hurriedness of the first two kills, this is likely someone who has no conscience whatsoever. They are doing this as a means to an end, not necessary just to extract pleasure from the act. The killer likely keeps a low profile, is a middle to high income earner who, if he had previous encounters with the law, would only have been convicted of some minor crimes. Given the violence of the kills, and the prolonged period of capture for the first two victims, the man is trying to exercise control; he was likely emasculated in his youth, abused by a mother figure, perhaps. A nurse, a nun, something like that. We’ll know more after we speak to Charlotte’s family, but knowing that at least Tanya appears to have been abducted in broad daylight, the man would be physically unassuming and is likely friendly, handsome, or in the very least charismatic.”
The FBI Agent’s speech left Drake unimpressed. He wasn’t so naive or old-school to believe that FBI profiles had no value, but this one held about as much truth as a horoscope: it was ambiguous to the point of nearly being impossible to be proven wrong, but on the same token, it wasn’t all that useful either.
“You’re right,” he said with a scowl. “It isn’t much to go on.”
“Still, it’s something,” Chase said, eying him suspiciously. “When I speak to the press, I’ll advise women to stay away from men who approach them outside of malls, grocery stores, and, most importantly, book stores. We are going to be bombarded by calls, but we can’t have another murder on our hands while we just sit on them.”
Drake nodded.
“I still have a contact or two in the publishing world I can approach, see if they can find out who this author—this L. Wiley—might be. It’s a stretch, but…”
“Anything might help,” Chase said, reaching across and grabbing the e-reader. She held it out to Drake, who didn’t immediately take it. “Hold on to it, Drake—the killer might send you another story. For whatever reason, he’s taken a liking to you. If he does send something else, maybe you can learn from it.”
Drake reluctantly took the e-reader. It felt warm in his hands, but he wasn’t sure if it was running hot or if it was just his mind playing tricks on him.
“Oh,” Officer Dunbar interjected. “Almost forgot; I sent the entire file to our forensic document examiner. Although he specializes in analyzing hand writing, he might have some insight into the background of the author based on word choices, etc.” He shrugged. “Not an exact science, but you never know.”
Chase stood, and the others followed her lead.
“Good. Dunbar, do you have someone in records you can trust? Someone who might be able to scour perps with criminal records that might have a link to the book publishing business?”
Dunbar thought about this for a moment.
“Yeah, I can ask Pauley. He might be able to do it. Good with computers, and better at being quiet.”
“Fine, get him on it. I’ll set up a press conference after visiting Charlotte’s family. Everyone else, let’s keep this book idea under wraps. The last thing we want is to turn this sick bastard into a bestselling author.”
With that, Chase made her way toward the door, Detective Yasiv, Officer Dunbar, and Agent Stitts in tow.
Before leaving the room, she turned back to Drake, who remained seated.
“Let’s catch this bastard before he kills again.”
And then they were gone, leaving Drake to his own thoughts. He looked up at the horrific images of the three dead women, a feeling of disgu
st working its way deep in the pit of his stomach like food poisoning.
Chase was right, they had to catch the killer before they struck again. Except that wasn’t their only problem here.
Chase was going to go public about another set of murders, only a few months removed from Craig Sloan’s killing spree and ultimate demise.
And there was one person who really, really wasn’t going to be happy about it.
It just so happened that Drake also worked for this man.
CHAPTER 29
“What is this place, daddy?” Colby asked from the backseat.
Colin stared at the cabin before replying. It wasn’t much from the outside—in fact, it needed quite a bit of work—but he could see deeper than the peeling paint, the lifting roof shingles, the rotting porch.
He could see a future here, one where he would spend his days fixing up the place, his evenings at the computer typing away.
The best part about the place was how far it was from any neighbors. It was at least fifteen miles from the nearest farm, and twice that from the closest real suburb.
Seclusion, freedom, but most of all it was quiet.
It was a place to gain the experiences he so adamantly espoused the importance of to the writing group.
“Right now it isn’t much,” he admitted. “Just a cabin, a cottage.”
He unbuckled his seat belt and started to get out of the car.
“Looks like a dump,” Juliette replied.
Colin shook his head and sighed as he opened the door for his girls.
They hopped out, and immediately started bickering on the front lawn.
Colin ignored them and stared at the cabin, imagining what it might look like with a new coat of paint, fresh window treatments.
The back and sides of the cabin were flanked by heavily wooded areas, adding to the feeling of seclusion. The front lawn, which extended for thirty or so feet until it met the worn path that his car had made, kept it from feeling claustrophobic.
Colin turned his gaze in the direction that he had come, noting that it seemed to disappear when it cut through a section of trees. From the main road, the path was nearly impossible to find, especially with the blanket of snow coating everything.
If you didn’t know the path was there, you would drive right by it without a second thought.
“That’s mine!” Juliette shouted, bringing Colin out of his head.
He looked over to see Colby holding her hat just out of reach. Juliette stood on her tippy-toes, but Colby turned her back to her sister, preventing her from grabbing it.
“Give it back, Colby,” Colin instructed. Either Colby didn’t hear him, or she simply chose to ignore him.
“Na-na-na boo-boo,” she said, sticking out her tongue.
“Guys, just stop fighting, would you? Let’s just enjoy the weather and take a look around. There’s a really cool and creepy basement you have to see.”
Juliette looked at him and blinked several times before speaking.
“It’s freezing out and this place looks like a dump. Can’t we just go back to school?”
Colin felt anger start to build inside of him, and for a split second, he debated throwing them both in the basement.
He shook the thought from his head.
“Fine,” he muttered. “I just need to get something from inside. You guys stop fighting and wait here?”
“Whatever,” they responded in unison.
Colin hurried through the snow to the back door, and then reached on top of the door frame for the key. When his fingers felt nothing, he stared upward.
“I know I put it here—I always put it here.”
Colin ran his fingers across the entire edge of the rotting wooden frame, but still came up empty.
“What the hell?” he said to himself. His frustration was reaching the point of no return, an apex from which no number of controlled breaths would bring him back.
“Where the fuck is the goddamn key?”
Colin tried the door handle, and while it rattled in his hand, it remained locked.
He ground his teeth and pursed his lips.
“Where the fuck did it go?”
Without thinking, his right foot shot out and connected with the bottom of the door. A resounding thud echoed off the trees behind him, and when he pulled his boot away, he saw that he had taken a chunk out of the wood.
“Goddammit,” he swore.
Colin moved away from the door and went to the window, trying to peer inside.
A white curtain blocked his view.
“Shit!”
Blood rose in his cheeks, making them tingle. Just as he concluded that the only way to get inside would be to drive his shoulder into the door, he spotted a small indentation in the snow to his left.
Bending down, he felt relief wash over him. In a tunnel of snow lay a silver key.
It must have fallen off with the snow and wind, he thought as he picked up.
Colin unlocked then opened the door, his nose immediately crinkling at the smell. He debated opening the windows and airing the place out, but a shriek from the front lawn nixed that idea.
Always fighting… always goddamn fighting… will it ever stop?
Colin spotted the worn black notepad on the counter and scooped it up.
With one final, wistful look around, he exited the way he had come, locking the door and making sure that the key was firmly butted up against the wall atop the door trim.
Book in hand, he hurried back to the front just in time to see Juliette whack Colby upside the head.
Colby stumbled, and Juliette continued with the blow, landing on top of her.
“Get off her! Juliette, get off your sister!” Colin shouted, running over to them.
Juliette didn’t listen. Instead, she grew more furious, scooping up snow in both palms before pouring it over Colby’s face.
Both girls were shrieking now.
“I said, get off her!” Colin bellowed. He ran to Juliette and grabbed her jacket, yanking her to her feet.
“Stop fighting!” he yelled in her face, his hand still gripping the hood of her jacket. His fingers twisted in the material, causing it to tighten around her throat. Juliette’s eyes started to water and her breath came out in raspy gasps.
“Next time, you listen to me,” Colin hissed, staring into his daughter’s eyes. “You got it?”
When Juliette didn’t answer immediately, he squeezed the coat even tighter.
“Got it?”
Juliette nodded and Colin finally let go. He turned to Colby, who had since gotten to her feet, her face red and wet from the snow that Juliette had piled on top of her.
“That goes for you, too—both of you. Now get in the car. And don’t you even think about telling your mother about this place.”
CHAPTER 30
The last thing that Drake wanted to do was to personally head to Dr. Kildare’s campaign office—his first choice had been Screech to do it for him, but he was meeting with Mr. Yachty—let alone go there in the middle of the day. Especially given the warning that Ken had issued about being seen.
To make things worse, ever since what had happened with Craig Sloan, and even before that with the Skeleton King, Drake was finding remaining anonymous to be increasingly difficult. The media had done a one-eighty on him when they reported that he had saved Suzan’s life, turning him from a heel to a hero.
All the media wanted was a good story, and there was no better tale than a detective who had cost his partner his life, only to save the man’s daughter who was kidnapped by yet another serial killer.
You know what else makes a good story? Red Smile…
Drake pulled his cap down low and strode across the parking lot. It was quiet, which he found surprising considering that it was a Thursday afternoon. From what he knew about politics, which was admittedly little, he figured they usually ran twenty-four seven this close to the election date.
Maybe they’re all out for lunch.
There were still plenty of cars in the parking lot, but the interior of the building, despite being brightly lit, appeared completely empty.
Drake’s brow furrowed as he approached. His mind was flooded with the idea that this was all a trap, that for some strange reason Ken wanted him to get caught, to be arrested. It didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t be this lucky.
He never was.
But as Drake came right up to the door and he still saw no movement inside, he simply shrugged.
The door will be locked and I’ll have to break in. And that’s when the police will show up.
When he tried the door and found that the knob turned easily in his hand, however, the fantasy grew less likely.
Drake tucked his chin into his coat and lowered his head. He slid his hands into his pockets, feeling the objects in each that were roughly the same size: the finger bone and the button camera.
Regardless of whether it was luck or a setup, Drake knew that he had to work quickly. He glanced around, his eyes skipping over the many desks covered in election posters, all bearing Dr. Kildare’s smiling face, as he tried to locate the best place to put his camera.
The most likely location to record the good doctor doing the bad thing with his campaign manager.
There were several offices near the back, and Drake quickly made his way toward them. The first clearly belonged to a secretary or statistician of some sort based solely on the presence of the massive stack of files on the desk, but the second one gave him pause. Unlike the rest of the warehouse, this office was clean, immaculate even. There was no other evidence that this was the doctor’s office, but something in his gut told him that it was.
Only a doctor would be this neat, this fastidious. Again thinking that his luck was about to run out, he reached for the door handle, and was surprised when it turned with ease.
His heart rate quickened with the realization that he had probably already broken a half dozen laws, but before his conscience took over, he stepped inside Dr. Kildare’s office.
The best location, he figured, was in the corner behind the desk, up near the ceiling. That would offer a clear view of the computer screen and the desk.
Download Murder Page 11
