Chase breathed deeply.
It had been close, too close. They had been close to losing another victim. Maybe three.
Several police cars pulled into the lot, honking to clear the crowd. She stepped forward as they made their way to the doors, and in the distance she heard, and then saw, the rumble of Drake’s Crown Vic. She had been doubting her decision to bring him on board, but if they had just caught the man responsible for the heinous murders and the macabre stories, then it had all been worth it.
The door to the lead police car opened, and a uniformed officer stepped out. He acknowledged her, then made his way to the rear door.
“Is his head covered?” Chase asked.
The man nodded.
“Covered, just as you asked.”
“Good.”
The officer opened the back seat and pulled a man out into the cold. He was wearing a pair of track pants and a t-shirt, and the first thing that struck her was that he was larger than she expected.
Perhaps it was Agent Stitts’s profile, or Hanna’s description of him, but she hadn’t pictured Colin Elliot as a pot-bellied six-foot-two man with a slight hunch to his spine.
“Get him inside. Interrogation Room 6,” her thoughts turned to Hanna for a moment, who was still decompressing in Room 1. “Keep him on the second floor, and for no reason are you to pass the rooms on the main floor. Got it?”
The officer said he understood, and then hooked an arm roughly beneath Colin’s, and hoisted him from the vehicle.
“Don’t let him speak to anyone until I arrive,” she added as they headed into the precinct.
Chase slunk back into the shadows, watching Drake’s Crown Vic pull into a parking spot near the front of the station. Agent Stitts stepped out first, and then Drake, a scowl on the latter’s face.
Concern grew inside of her, and she wondered if it had been such a good idea to put them together.
They walked over to her and she stepped toward them as they neared.
It dawned on her that the crowd must have picked up on the fact that something was happening, something big, as their shouts increased in intensity.
Agent Stitts got to her first.
“I want you to join me in the interrogation room,” she instructed. Stitts agreed. Then she turned to Drake. “You wait in the observation room. I’ll call you if—when—I want you to enter. I want this to be quick; I want to get a confession out of this bastard and put this case to rest before the news goes wide tomorrow… before the article gets published in the Times.”
Drake looked uncomfortable.
“What? What is it?”
Drake’s eyes darted to Stitts and Chase understood that he wanted to speak to her alone.
“Agent Stitts, meet me inside. Wait for me before you interrogate Colin,” she instructed.
Stitts nodded and entered the station. When he was gone, she addressed Drake directly.
“What is it? What’s the problem?”
Drake hesitated before answering.
“I have to go,” he said with something akin to shame in his voice.
Chase gawked.
“You what? Drake we—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We caught the man, and now I have to go. Not for long, but there is something I need to do first. I’m sorry.”
Drake was heading back to his car before she could even answer.
“Drake!” she shouted after him. “Drake! Drake!”
But the man didn’t turn, he simply got back into his car and sped off, barely taking a wide enough berth around the protesters to avoid running them over.
What the fuck is going on with him?
CHAPTER 54
The last thing that Drake wanted to do was leave Chase with Colin Elliot. They had caught the bastard, and he wanted to be there when he confessed.
And yet the voice on the phone during the car ride back to the station had been direct, unwavering in his demand.
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel.
“Fuck!”
This was the worst possible timing, but what could he do? Did he dare say no to Raul? To Ken?
The answer lay in the fact that he was once again driving across the city to meet them. Only this time it wasn’t at Smith, Smith, and Jackson, or at Ken’s penthouse apartment. On the contrary, the address that Raul had given him was a new one, one that he didn’t recognize.
The GPS on his phone indicated that it was an abandoned building near the port. He had tried to reach out to Screech, to ask him if he could dig up what the place as all about, but the man must have been airborne: his phone went directly to voice mail.
What could they possibly want now?
Drake pulled into the empty parking lot the better part of an hour later, with snow swirling in the dark sky like iridescent confetti.
Drake squinted into the night, trying to find another source of life. In the distance, he could hear the beeps of car horns, taxi cabs no doubt, and the occasional squeal of air brakes, but nothing else.
As he stepped out of the Crown Vic, he felt his heart rate quicken. It thumped painfully in his chest from the bruising when Colin had fallen on him.
And yet, for some reason, despite the eerie quality to the meeting location, and the strangeness of the meeting itself, Drake knew that nothing would happen to him here. Not, at least, by Ken or Raul’s hand.
He was important to them, important enough that Ken had given him twenty-thousand dollars without so much as a hesitation—with conditions, sure, but that was different—and had sent him on his way.
Drake was important to the man who was destined to become mayor.
He just had no idea why.
“Hello?” he called into what looked like a hangar used to maintain large trucks. With two hands, he gripped the side of the corrugated sliding door and shoved. It screamed in protest, but opened wide enough for him to step inside.
But he didn’t. Despite his internal assurances that nothing would happen to him here, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew better than to walk into a dark building at night at the behest of a strange man that he barely knew.
“Hello?” he said again, trying to keep his voice from wavering.
The only reply was his own echo, and he was surprised by how scared he actually sounded.
Against his better judgment, Drake felt compelled to enter.
I can just go inside, have a quick peek then get the fuck out of here. Fuck Ken and his henchman. I came, I did my part.
Drake pulled the gun from the back of his jeans and held it out in front of him. With his other hand, he grabbed his cell phone and flicked the flashlight on.
Only then did he enter the hangar.
The glow from his flashlight was weak, but acute, illuminating a cone of about six feet directly in front of him.
“Hello? Raul?” he called into the near darkness. With his limited vision, Drake determined that the hangar was almost completely empty.
Why the hell did they invite me here?
Drake took several steps forward, shuffling his feet across the concrete to avoid tripping over anything that might have been left on the floor.
“Raul? I’m going to—”
There was an audible buzz from somewhere above him, and Drake instinctively ducked.
The sound was followed by a loud click, and a bright spotlight suddenly flicked on. Drake shielded his eyes, and leaned away from the intense light that erupted from somewhere in front of him.
He swore, and made sure that his gun was still level.
Drake expected something to strike him while he was blinded, a bat to the back of the head maybe, or something more subtle like a knife to the liver.
But when he heard only the blood rushing through his ears, he realized that he was becoming accustomed to the light and managed to lower his forearm from his face.
Squinting heavily, he realized that he was no longer alone in the hangar—that he hadn’t ever been alone.
&
nbsp; Beneath the spotlight, Drake made out the dark outline of a figure slumped over in a chair. The bright specks that flicked across his vision prevented him from making out more details, and against his better judgment, he strode forward to investigate.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
The man—it was indeed a man, he saw—was collapsed in a cheap wooden chair, the crown of his head pointed at Drake.
It was clear that his hands were bound behind him, and that this was the only thing that kept his body in the chair.
Without thinking, Drake continued to advance. He noticed that the man had long, blond hair obscuring his face, the tips of which were tinged red.
Still blinking rapidly from the bright light off to his left, he pressed the first two fingers of his hand still holding his phone to the man’s neck.
A pulse… he has a pulse.
Drake slipped the phone into his pocket and then gingerly put a hand on the man’s chin, raising his face to look at him.
All of the breath was sucked from his lungs.
Both of the man’s eyes were dark, the surrounding area bruised, and blood trickled from his nose, sliding over the ragged piece of duct tape that covered his mouth.
And yet, despite his injuries, Drake recognized the man.
It was Ivan Meitzer.
“I see you’ve become acquainted,” a voice said from behind him, and Drake spun around, leading with the pistol.
CHAPTER 55
“I ain’t telling you shit. I don’t gotta even speak to you.”
Chase leaned away from the man, a scowl on her face.
“Listen, Colin, you can—”
“I’ve told you a hundred times already! My name is not Colin! It’s Glenn—Glenn Happ! It’s on my license,” he reached out, but the cord connecting the cuffs on his wrists to the table reached its length, and his arms snapped back.
“Shit! Just look at my wallet! I’ve got everything in there, Social Security, Driver’s License, everything!”
Chase’s frown deepened.
“If you aren’t Colin Elliot, then why were you in his bed? With his wife? That was his wife, correct? Or is this all a misunderstanding? Got the wrong house, maybe? The kids? What about the twin girls who go by the names of Colby and Juliette Elliot?”
The man who claimed not to be Colin threw his head back and swore.
“I’m not Colin! I was sleeping with his wife, but I’m not him!”
Chase turned to look at the two-way glass, behind which he knew that both Officer Dunbar and Agent Stitts were watching, and hopefully investigating the man’s claims.
“I don’t care what your name is, you can call yourself Colin or Glenn or Miss fucking Marple for all I care. You killed those girls, and we’re going to prove it in court,” Chase sighed, watching the man closely for any hint of fear, of remorse, of anything.
But all she saw was anger in his round features.
“Or you can just cut us all a break, and tell us why you did it, why you killed those girls.”
The man pushed his lips together tightly in sheer defiance.
“No? Not ready to man up and admit what you’ve done?” Chase mock checked her watch. “Fine, it’s still early. You’ve got time. Why don’t you start with the books, then? Tell me why you wrote the books. Was it just for money?”
The man’s face contorted.
“Books? Look, lady, I don’t have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I didn’t write no books.” He tried to cross his arms over his chest, but the chains were too short and he ended up just awkwardly crossing his forearms.
“What about Hanna? Tell me about Hanna. You raped her after one of your writing classes.”
“What in all hell are you talking about? Hanna? Who the fuck is Hanna? And writing classes? I’m a fucking landlord for Christ’s sake.”
There was a knock on the door, but Chase ignored it.
“I know you killed those girls, Colin,” she whispered, leaning across the table.
Chase hoped that her true suspicions didn’t come through in her words. Sure, it could all be an act, but this didn’t sound like any writer she knew. Chase had read the first two parts of Red Smile on Drake’s e-reader, and while the work was far from literary genius, it included several three syllable words that she would bet a nickel the man across from her wouldn’t be able to pronounce, let alone spell.
“I told you, I’m not Colin,” the man hissed. Then his pale lips broke into a smile, revealing a chipped front tooth. “And I’ll tell you something else, too; that dipshit Colin didn’t kill nobody, either. He’s as limp-dicked as they come. You’re barking up the wrong fucking tree, lady.”
Chase felt warmth rise in her cheeks and was about to shout something back, when the knock on the door returned.
She pointed a finger at the man’s face.
“This isn’t over,” she promised.
The man laughed as Chase made her way to the door. Agent Stitts poked his head in and indicated for her to come out.
Chase didn’t look back.
Agent Stitts was silent as he led her to the adjacent room.
“What?” Chase asked once the door was firmly closed behind them.
Still, Stitts didn’t speak. Instead, he looked over at Dunbar who, with a sour expression etched on his face, turned the laptop around for her to see.
On the screen was a photograph of the man on the other side of the two-way mirror, only younger, with slightly thicker blond hair and a front tooth that had yet to be chipped.
“Yeah, that’s him. So what?”
“Look at the name,” Stitts said, finally breaking his silence. Chase squinted and took a step forward, her eyes scanning the screen.
“Shit,” she whispered, her heart sinking.
The name at the bottom of the photograph read Glenn Happ.
Chase turned and stared at the fat man chained to the table in the other room.
“Jesus Christ, we got the wrong guy.”
And the killer’s still out there.
CHAPTER 56
“What the fuck is going on, Raul? What is Ivan doing here?” Drake asked, keeping his gun aimed directly at the center of the man’s chest.
Raul stepped out of the shadows and into the light. He wasn’t wearing his typical butler-esque attire, but something more befitting of the locale: loose fitting track pants, a dark sweat shirt, the hood of which was pulled back revealing his pitch-black hair.
Raul didn’t answer. Instead, he continued to walk toward Ivan, keeping a safe distance from Drake.
“Raul, I don’t know if your eyes are still fucked from the light, but I’ve got a gun pointed at your chest. I think it’s about time you start answering my questions.”
Raul still said nothing, and this time Drake thought he saw a smirk slide out from under his wiry black mustache.
“Raul? I’m not fucking around anymore. I’ve had one helluva a day, and I ain’t in the mood for games.”
Raul made it to Ivan, and was within half a dozen feet of Drake himself, when he reached down and grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair.
Drake saw blood on his knuckles as he yanked Ivan’s head back.
“You know Ivan, don’t you?”
This time Drake remained silent.
“Of course you do. But we know Ivan, as well.”
Raul slapped Ivan across the face, and the sound echoed throughout the hangar.
Drake’s finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger itself.
“Hit him again and I’ll put a hole in your spine, Raul. I mean it.”
Raul ignored him and waited. After several seconds, Ivan’s eyes fluttered and then they opened—wide.
His gaze jumped from Raul to Drake, and then his mouth started to move behind the duct tape, generating incomprehensible muffled.
“You see, Drake. You weren’t the only one to pay Ivan to perform a task,” Raul said, his accent suddenly so thick that Drake had a hard time understanding him.
“But there’s something that you need to know about Ken Smith. He is a man with strong loyalty; he’s loyal to his family, his friends, the people he employs, and last, but not least, to the citizens of New York. And this,” Raul reared back and slapped Ivan again, this time hard enough for the man’s head to snap backward.
“Hey!” Drake shouted, stepping forward and applying pressure to the trigger. “I warned you, Raul, step away—”
But Raul continued as if nothing had happened.
“This prick decided that it was more important to fuck you over than it was to be loyal to Mr. Smith or to New York. Seems like everyone who has read the news think they know you. But what they don’t know is that you work for us now. And with that comes a level of respect.”
Raul crouched down in front of Ivan, his back now fully turned to Drake.
Drake seized the opportunity and silently moved forward.
“Isn’t that right, Ivan?”
Drake was so close to the man now that he could smell his cheap cologne. With his free hand, he reached out and—
His phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed.
The distraction only lasted a fraction of a second, but that was all Raul needed.
Drake glanced down at his pocket, and before he could look up again, Raul had stood, turned, and somehow yanked the gun from his hand, despite his grip.
Raul was lightning fast, faster than Drake thought humanly possible.
Drake cried out and instinctively lunged for Raul, but the man easily sidestepped him and held the gun up.
Drake stumbled, landing awkwardly on Ivan’s lap. The man grunted and groaned, and Drake pushed him backward as he stood.
He glared at Raul, amazed at how quickly their roles had reversed.
“You gonna shoot me now, is that it?” he sneered.
Raul smirked again, an expression that made ice shoot up Drake’s spine.
“Is that why you brought me here? To shoot me? Kill me and Ivan so that you and Ken can… can what? Take over the world?”
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