Taker of Lives: A Gripping Crime Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  She frowned. Was this unsub a serial killer? Technically, no, but practically, yes. She was willing to bet her career on it, the rarely seen, perfect, case-solving score she’d earned and that every single one of her colleagues envied. Somewhere in the deep recesses of the unsub’s mind, a fantasy was being created and molded into the perfect shape, into the ideal scenario that would bring the ultimate illusion of power and supremacy to his feeble, shattered ego. What would that kill look like?

  “It’s interesting, you’re foreseeing his escalation, but he’s not a violent person, or hasn’t been yet, has he?” Pearson asked, but she barely registered his question.

  Would it be a public suicide he’d orchestrate somehow? Would it be video streamed on the internet, for the entire world to witness, live, as it happened? She remembered how powerless she felt when Jim Kennedy keeled over and died at her feet. There was nothing she could do, nothing that stood a chance in front of the terrible power of—

  “Winnett,” Pearson snapped, bringing her into the moment. “Are you still with me? Or just taking space here in my office?”

  “Sorry, sir,” she replied quickly, while her mind refused to let go of her chain of thought.

  Yes, he’d want the entire world to feel just as helpless as she’d felt, witnessing Kennedy’s demise. He’d want the entire world to scream, paralyzed and powerless, while their heroines, their role models, their beloved beauty queens and artists and musicians found humiliation and death at the hands of the Taker of Lives.

  But she knew how to lure him out.

  “Yes, sir?” she said smiling, waiting for Pearson to speak.

  “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” he grumbled, then repeated his question. “How sure are you that he’ll escalate, as he’s not a violent person?”

  She grinned. “For a nonviolent person, he seems to be doing just fine filling Doc Rizza’s morgue.”

  He sighed, leaning back into his chair and folding his arms at his chest. “All right, Winnett, I’ll approve the case. I could open a federal case right now, but I’d rather you work with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and get them to file a formal request.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “I thought you said you had that covered. What happened?”

  “The long weekend, I guess. People are getting distracted. I’ll remind Captain Cepeda to do it today.”

  She stood, ready to leave, feeling a wave of relief washing over her. A formal case meant access to FBI resources, labs, technical experts, the Cybercrime Unit, and last, but never least, Donovan.

  “Sit down, Winnett,” he said, this time sounding less commanding, almost like a friendly request.

  Her eyebrows shot up, as she took her seat. She watched him quietly, waiting for him to speak, but he hesitated, keeping his eyes riveted on the green folder on his desk. He drummed his fingers against it a few times, as if weighing a decision. Then he pushed the folder toward her just a little, maybe an inch or so.

  “Is your offer still on the table, Winnett?” he asked in a low, enigmatic voice.

  “Absolutely,” she replied without any hesitation. “What’s this about?”

  He didn’t reply right away. He seemed uneasy talking about whatever was in there, but eventually he opened the green folder, turned it her way, and pushed it across the desk.

  “This man is dating my daughter,” he said, tapping his index finger against a young, attractive man’s photo, affixed to a standard background printout. “He checks out,” he added, sounding doubtful. “Clean record, college grad, good job. He treats my daughter well, and she’s happy.”

  “But?” she asked, already suspecting where that was going.

  “When I look at him I get this… uneasy feeling in my gut,” he said.

  “Say no more,” she said, then reached to take the file, but Pearson still kept his hand on it.

  “My daughter’s falling for this man, Winnett,” he added, his voice carrying undertones of parental worry and sadness at the same time. “I can’t intervene directly. I can’t be involved in this in any way.”

  “I completely understand, sir.” She lowered her gaze and read the man’s name from the background printout. “Give me a day or two, and I’ll have Mr. Esteban Carrillo all figured out.”

  17

  Dark Web

  She checked the time, then walked over to Donovan’s desk with a spring in her step. It was already mid-afternoon; although she’d skipped lunch, she didn’t feel hungry, only excited at the thought of testing her theory. She could hope to lure the unsub, if Donovan found the way to convey a message to him, a message so public and so demeaning he couldn’t afford to ignore.

  She stopped in front of Donovan’s desk and waited for him to finish typing.

  “Ah, it’s you,” he said, without lifting his eyes from the screen. “The archenemy of fun, my own personal nemesis.”

  She chuckled. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m giving you an opportunity here to hunt for a criminal like none other I’ve seen.”

  He threw her a disappointed gaze, then looked at the screen again.

  “What you’re giving me is a raincheck for a long weekend in the Keys, all paid for, at a date of my choice. Deal?”

  “Sure, in principle, yeah.”

  He grinned widely, “Really? I didn’t think you’d go for it.”

  “If you can settle for Motel 6 and three fast food meals a day, I can make it happen. I’m afraid that’s all I can afford.”

  “Buzzkill.”

  She didn’t know what to reply, so she didn’t. She’d always been a little uncomfortable interacting casually with her colleagues. She felt as if she always said the wrong things, insulted everyone’s sensibilities, or made people uncomfortable. She was relentlessly focused on catching her unsubs, and rarely stopped or slowed to mind the needs or wants of other people. Many believed she put her own interests above everyone else’s, and Pearson had her on an ultimatum to integrate better with the rest of the agents, to become more of a team player. She had every intention of doing that but no idea how. Fact of the matter remained, she was more comfortable interrogating an uncuffed serial killer than talking nonchalantly with a colleague. Even now, she realized Donovan had been joking about the raincheck, while she took it seriously. She wanted to kick herself.

  Instead, she pulled a chair over from a nearby desk and sat, ready to listen.

  “I heard you confirmed that potential vic,” he said.

  “Yeah, your search was spot-on. Any other names that popped up? We can start deep backgrounds already, search for any commonalities.”

  “Estelle wasn’t a one hundred percent match, because there was no suicide or suicide attempt. She’s the only one that scored high enough to be a likely match.”

  Tess had hoped to discover more victims, to help her gain a better understanding into the unsub’s motivations, his triggers, and his signature. They were back to having nothing.

  “And I have more bad news,” Donovan added. “Your unsub went Dark Web on us.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “The latest photos were posted from an encrypted peer-to-peer network, then referenced on the surface Web, to make the content searchable by engines such as Google or Yahoo. We can’t locate him using the source of these photos, because we can’t trace the source itself.”

  “How about his email? The one listed on the press releases?”

  “It’s an encrypted account, hosted online by ProtonMail. It’s free, fully encrypted, doesn’t ask for any personal information to set up an account, and it’s protected by Swiss privacy laws. I’ll get one for myself; it’s that good.”

  “What does that mean? Our unsub is learning?”

  “He’s learning faster than anyone I’ve seen. The first press release was his most vulnerable, so I went back, trying to trace the ISP where he uploaded the photos. Now we have a warrant pending for that ISP to share the account details for the user.”

 
; “How did you get a warrant going without a case number?”

  He glared at her for a brief moment. “Winnett, what the hell? Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered, all right?”

  Without blinking, she replied, “You misunderstood. I asked when will the warrant be granted?”

  He snickered quietly. “That’s better. Probably in the next few hours, but don’t hold your breath. This unsub is smart. He probably uploaded from a parked vehicle at the airport, or a Starbucks patio. We talked about this, didn’t we?”

  She sighed. Yeah, it seemed hopeless. Every way she turned was a dead end. “All right, then, let’s set up surveillance for this new account,” she said, frowning, thinking how to ask Donovan to do what she really wanted to do—bait a trap.

  “Pfft, Winnett,” he scoffed, “there’s no surveilling the Dark Web. That’s exactly the point. Not even the NSA can do that; no one can.”

  “How the hell does he know about this kind of tech?” she asked. “How difficult is it to figure out?”

  “If you ask the right questions online, it’s not that difficult. You can easily get set up in less than ten minutes, without having to graduate cum laude from some top-notch computer science program. Anyone can do it, provided they’re smart enough and reasonably computer literate.”

  “Fabulous,” she mumbled, then swallowed a long curse. “He’s getting smarter by the minute, taking care of every loose end and every angle where we had the tiniest shot.”

  “Thankfully, he still hasn’t figured out the EXIF part yet. If we lose access to time, date, and location where photos are taken, then we’ll really have absolutely nothing left to go on.”

  “How about social media?”

  “I’m willing to bet Christina knew about the assault, or sensed something was wrong, because after April 15 she turned quiet on social media. Almost no tweets or Facebook posts. Before April 15, she posted a few times a day, mostly pictures from her travels, some selfies in haute couture attire, that kind of stuff.”

  “And Estelle?”

  “There’s no change in her social media after May 10. Estelle didn’t know she was assaulted. By the way, how did she take it?”

  “Don’t ask,” Tess replied somberly. “The poor girl is with Doc Rizza, going through lab tests, but he’s unofficially evaluating her for suicide risk. On top of everything else, she feels responsible for her father’s death.”

  “Did Crime Scene find anything in the house? I didn’t get any surveillance data to pore over.”

  “They have a simplistic security system, just some sensors and a keypad. The crime scene was cleaned up twice since May 10. A regular cleaning crew comes in every Monday and does the whole house. We don’t stand a chance with these aged, trampled crime scenes. We need fresh forensics, solid evidence to track this bastard down.”

  “And how exactly do you suggest we do that?” he said, pushing back from the desk and crossing his arms at his chest.

  She smiled, one of those crooked, mischievous grins that showed her state of mind. She was about to go over her supervisor’s standing order, without hesitation and without asking for approval. She only hoped she didn’t have to ask for forgiveness at some point in the future.

  “I believe you can help me get a message to this unsub,” she said, lowering her voice and making her request sound as innocent as possible.

  “Are you crazy, Winnett?”

  “I’m as sane as they come, but desperate,” she admitted, while her smile vanished, replaced by a look of determination.

  “How exactly do you want to contact him? By email?”

  “No, that’s private,” she replied, and winked at Donovan, who raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “We want to give him the same privacy he gives his victims. He’ll have no choice but to engage.”

  Donovan leaned his forehead into his left hand and massaged it a little.

  “I believe I can pull that off,” he said after a little while. “The site where he posted the photos, not the actual press release, has a comments section. Want to use that?”

  “Might work,” she replied, leaning closer to the monitor. “Show me. How much traffic does it get?”

  “It gets tens of views per day, maybe over a hundred,” he replied. “I’m talking about Estelle’s page, she’s the most recent and the most famous. Christina’s traffic has dropped; the posting is too old.”

  “Any other comments already listed there?”

  “Yeah, mostly appreciative of his work. The sick bastard has a fan club, can you believe it?”

  “Not only do I believe it, but I know for sure that’s what he’s after.”

  Donovan opened a new comment on that page, and changed his default screen name to Hornydog17, then waited, his fingers hovering above the keyboard, ready to type.

  “Say this: ‘If you had real cojones, you’d be streaming live. That girl looks like she’s dead. Are you a coward? Or a necrophile?’”

  He typed it quickly, then looked at her again before posting it.

  “He could flip and go on a killing spree. I hope you know what you’re doing, Winnett.”

  “I hope so too,” she said quietly, then pressed the return key on his keyboard.

  The message was live.

  18

  Me: Enraged

  “What? No,” I bellowed, staring at the comment displayed on the screen. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about, you stupid piece of human refuse.” I slammed my open hand against the desk surface, making everything on it rattle. The idiocy of these morons ticked me off every single time. I bet this one weighs three hundred pounds, sports a Duck Dynasty beard and a pot belly, so large and overflowing he hasn’t seen his own dick in a long time, and almost forgotten how minuscule and shriveled it is. Maybe I’ll remind him… yeah.

  It was one of many comments that I didn’t appreciate, but this particular nastygram hurt like hell. That asshole shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer. He shouldn’t exist and, because he nevertheless exists, should definitely be prohibited from procreating. What does he know, really, to have an opinion? Everyone else seems to understand the value of what I’m doing, except this asinine being who calls himself Hornydog17. What kind of screen name is that, anyway? I’ll tell you: a retarded one.

  “I thought of live streaming first, motherfucker!” I heard my voice reverberate against the windows, echoing back at me in an illustration of how my anger can’t reach him, wherever the sorry excuse for a human being might be.

  Thankfully, his comment will soon be buried among other, more recent ones, and forever forgotten. No one will remember that he mentioned live streaming before I had the opportunity to announce it to my fans. He won’t matter, because what he says doesn’t matter. He’s a nobody, jerking off when he sees my work, completely missing the point of what I’m doing and why. No, really, how could he not? Ugh… necrophile, my ass.

  I stood and angrily paced the room, going over the things I still had to do to start streaming my shows on video. It was my idea, not his! He had no right to take it! Rampant thoughts swirled in my mind, making me angrier than I’d been in a long time, and that was not good. What I do doesn’t jive with angry. Getting caught and thrown in jail jives with angry, or the other way around. Whatever.

  I was almost ready, anyway, just as planned. I wanted to schedule a big announcement, to make everyone aware of what’s coming, but I’ll compensate somehow. I doubt that his comment was read by too many people anyway. He’s a nobody, while I’m finally standing on the verge of greatness.

  The benefit of greatness is that people quickly learn about it and swarm and follow, because that’s what people do. Show people the right stuff, dangle the right kind of lure in front of their primal senses, and they won’t stop coming, attracted by the powerful resonance with their deepest, darkest fantasies, their most secret desires, or even their most horrifying nightmares. That’s why that piece of shit Hornydog17 is not going to matter. He’s a nobody, born that way and
destined to die that way. One day soon, I hope.

  I looked at the screen, eager to see how deeply the jerk’s comment had already been buried. I searched for him in the lower section of the page, even scrolled down a little, but then I had to scroll back up. His comment still ranked first and had three likes! Three other morons, cowards who didn’t dare post themselves, gave that idiot a thumbs up because they felt the same. Because Hornydog17 had influenced their limited thinking and entertained them for yet another meaningless moment of their lives. At my expense!

  The tiny number three next to the thumbs-up pictorial turned into a four, then into a five, and I heard myself scream with rage. Hornydog17, be thankful I’m not into working on men. If you keep pushing it, I might become interested in experimenting.

  If you knew what’s coming, you’d choke on your filthy tongue and die.

  19

  Moonlighting

  Tess fired up her engine and set the AC temperature to 68 degrees, enjoying the cool breeze coming from the dashboard vents. It wasn’t summer yet, but the South Florida sun shone brightly, heating up her black Suburban to the point where it burned her hand when she touched the steering wheel. She wondered for a moment why fleet managers were so stubborn and so set in their ways. What was the logic of driving black cars in hot climates? For the entire southern United States, black law enforcement vehicles made absolutely no sense; maybe the color choice served a purpose of intimidation, but to the detriment of climate, fuel efficiency, and passenger comfort. She’d seen some county sheriff’s offices get white SUVs to replace the old, black ones, but only a few. Miami-Dade County was one of the pioneers. The regional bureau was not.