Silent Graves (Brandon Fisher FBI Series)

by Carolyn Arnold

  Jack’s eyes gave plain evidence he was deep in thought.

  Zachery continued. “While part of him thinks he can win, in other words, continue on as he has been, the other part of him knows we will eventually stop him. That’s why he went after Monica. She reminds him of Keyes, and she is his grand finale.”

  “We have to carry on as if Poole and Monica are both alive. Until we know otherwise, that’s how we proceed,” Jack said, the cigarette bobbing in his lips.

  “And with Monica, the unsub never left anyone behind to report her missing,” I said.

  Zachery responded with a finger pointed to the dead body. “He was the calling card.”

  “Shh. You’ll be just fine now. You’re home.” He set her body on the couch, her blond hair cascaded over her shoulders. She resembled an angel. She truly was special.

  He grabbed a throw-blanket from a nearby sofa chair and draped it over her. The windows in the home were pinched shut, although he had no fear anyone would see him. Most people didn’t pay him much attention. Except for the women.

  Kill her!

  You don’t have the guts.

  For all she did to you. You still love her? You are weak.

  Despicable.

  “Shut up!” He gripped at his hair, pulling on it hard enough that pain screamed through his scalp. He welcomed it. He loved to feel.

  “Mmm.” The soft moan came from His Angel. He rushed to her side and knelt down.

  He had put tape across her mouth and fastened her hands together at the wrists in the same manner. He also strapped her legs together at the ankles. He couldn’t have her getting away.

  He swept a strand of hair from her face. “You are safe now. We can finally be together.”

  Her eyes fluttered behind her eyelids. The serum he had given her had put her into a deep sleep, but she could hear him. He laid a hand on her chest and looked around the room.

  Everything here had its place. The furniture was modern, but purchased from a big-box store and was probably in many houses across America. He had a large flat screen TV—didn’t everyone? Framed photographs of his mother hung on the wall. She had seen his talent if she only had time to catch a glimpse. She had brought him into the world, and it was for a purpose.

  The house was a one-story bungalow in the west end, an older neighborhood sought after by families. He had a few offers to purchase come to the door. Most homes in this area were only turned over when someone died, and he had no intention of doing that anytime soon. He only got in here because he had paid attention to an older lady named Mable Smith. She dropped dead of a heart attack two years back and had left the house to him, declaring in her Will that her children hadn’t wanted anything to do with her while she was alive so they would get nothing when she died.

  Besides the house, she had left him about twenty thousand in stocks and bonds. Most of them were locked up, and he was unable to access them without a huge hit to the bottom line. With odd jobs he did, he had enough to live on—for now anyhow.

  He gazed down on His Angel.

  Things always changed, but sometimes they came back full circle.

  Chapter 41

  Becky Tulson sat across from me at our table at The Earth and Evergreen Restaurant. “Are you sure you have time for a drink?”

  “If you keep asking that I’ll wonder if you’d rather be somewhere else.” I smiled at her, and she returned it.

  “It’s just, with the latest homicide—”

  “Well, the case technically belongs to the PWPD. I know it seems odd, but we’re to be notified of any forensic findings that might lead us to the missing woman.”

  “You FBI always have to do everything by the book.”

  “Doesn’t the PD?” I hitched an eyebrow which garnered a laugh.

  “It’s funny you’re not the type I would picture as an FBI agent.”

  “And what would that type be?”

  “Well, it’s a rumor anyhow, a bad one.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “While cops do the real work, the feds sit around thinking and analyzing. By the time they come up with the solution, the cops have wrapped it up.”

  “Y’ouch.” I winced, pretending to be insulted, but I was wondering if she were going to come back with something like that.

  “Like I said, you don’t strike me as the type.” She lifted her glass of scotch and took a sip.

  “Well, you wouldn’t strike me as the type to like scotch.”

  “Really?” She moved in her chair, hoisted a leg up, and bent it beneath her. “Why is that?”

  “You’re a woman.”

  “Oh. I’ll try not to be insulted now.”

  “I haven’t met any who like it. It’s nice to finally have that checked off the list.”

  “You have a list to check off when it comes to women and their drinks. Interesting.”

  I smiled at her. The easiness that settled into her expression, softened by the alcohol, gave her much appeal. She was pretty, bordering on beautiful at this moment. She must have sensed my thoughts as her eyes lowered, and then briefly turned away.

  “Listen, you’re not married are you?” she asked.

  “Thought we covered that on our last date.”

  “Date?” She laughed. “Is that what this is to you?”

  “A man and a woman sharing a couple drinks.”

  Her smile faded. “What is the deal between you and the female agent?”

  The mouthful of scotch partially went down the wrong pipe. I started coughing.

  “Ah, just as I thought.”

  I held up a hand as I continued trying to clear the burning sensation from my lungs. “It’s not what you think. We’re close friends.”

  “Friends don’t get so confrontational over another friend.”

  Her eyes leveled with mine. There would be no avoidance of her observation, no rebuttal that would be accepted.

  “We had a bit of a relationship. Once.”

  “A bit?”

  “It’s getting late.” I drained back the rest of my drink, took out a twenty, and put it on the table.

  I reached my house and wondered if Deb would ever end up coming after it.

  I had always believed in love, but these days I wasn’t too sure. Everyone, just like the killers we hunted, had an agenda. It might not include the abduction and murder of several people, it might not even include physical assault, but there was a pattern in each person’s life. Behavior wasn’t taught, it was learned.

  With my wife, we fell into the relationship quickly, everything was perfect—maybe that should have been my clue that at some point it wouldn’t be.

  Her parents were happily married, until her mother decided she had to go find herself. Deb had held a grudge against the woman for years, but, as she got older, the indiscretion became tolerable, even excusable. She began seeing her mother’s side in the situation.

  “Dad is old school. He doesn’t even want her taking classes at the local college. We’re talking about courses on gardening Brandon. Just crazy.” Deb had accentuated her statements with a shake of her head to drive home the insanity of her father’s rein on her mother. “You better never try to control me like that.”

  I think back on that now, and maybe that’s why she needed to get out. As much as she preached about not wanting to be controlled, she didn’t like my independence. She was fine when my becoming an FBI agent was talk, not that she encouraged me, but she didn’t shut the conversation down when I wanted to discuss it either.

  I went up the stairs to the bedroom without turning on the lights. I knew the path by now, and the moonlight creeping through a side window helped detail the edges of each step.

  It brought back another memory of Deb. She had insisted on getting a nightlight for the landing. I reached the top and its green glow cast over the hallway carpet. I pulled it from the wall and held it in my balled fist, the prongs sitting between two fingers.

  She didn’t control my life any longer.
She was a part of my past. I had to let her go or become crazy over something that was beyond my reach. No one could make other individuals love them. It was a volunteer job one stepped forward for, from the heart. Deb’s heart had simply resigned.

  The thought cinched my chest. The pain would go away. I was certain of it. In fact, there were times I felt like my old self, as if nothing life-changing had even transpired. There were good days and bad, and, eventually, the former would outweigh the latter—of that I had no doubt. It was just reaching that point.

  I tossed the nightlight in the garbage can in the corner of the bedroom. As I passed my punching bag, it called out to me.

  I flicked on the light in the room, wrapped up, and did my best to expel thoughts of Deb and Paige from my mind through jabs into the leather.

  Chapter 42

  “Rise and shine!” Jack’s voice was coming over the answering machine on the main level, and I could hear him upstairs.

  I rolled over, and the sheets were wrapped around me as a cocoon. I struggled to break free.

  “Son of a bitch.” I let the expletive go and finally pulled the covers off. My eyes felt like they held grits of sandpaper. I could barely open them to see the clock.

  “Seven a.m.” I let my head drop back onto the pillow.

  I should have thought the FBI thing through more—it wasn’t a standard eight to five job.

  These days it usually wasn’t a problem to wake up, but I didn’t crawl into bed until after two a.m. That fault was entirely mine, although, I would like to blame the women in my life for keeping me up and for torturing my good sense into oblivion.

  Who the hell needs this thing called love anyhow? I for one was done with it.

  I pulled my cell from the nightstand. Three missed calls. It explained why he had moved on to my home phone.

  I heard it, and it took a while to make sense of it. The doorbell.

  Shit!

  I gathered my pants from the floor and slipped on a t-shirt that was also there but stopped when I noticed my reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t answer the door like this. I had to be ready to go.

  “Come on. Answer. I know you’re in there.” Jack’s voice came over the answering machine.

  I balled my fists and found my center—something I was desperately trying to do since Deb left. Most times I wondered if I had a central point from which to derive strength.

  “Hurry up Kid. We don’t have all day.” I heard a distinct click. Jack had hung up, but he would expect me at the door in seconds.

  I slipped on a pair of dress pants and a white collared shirt. I ran the comb through my red hair, momentarily cursing it for my temper, before racing down the stairs.

  “Well, it’s about time you answered the door.” Jack stood on my steps with a cigarette perched in his lips. Beyond him, at the curb, Paige and Zachery were in the SUV. They both faced my house.

  “Just wanted to look good for you.” I smiled.

  “Hmm.”

  “What, I don’t look good? And after all the extra effort I put in.”

  Jack’s eyes snapped to mine, and he exhaled a puff of cigarette heavenward. He was the human equivalent of a chimney, and there was always a fire. “We have a lead.”

  He couldn’t keep her here forever, but it was great having her in his home. When he was gifted the house he had decided he could rise above his past. Too bad it had come barreling down after him. It ravaged him and conquered him, as a lion does its prey. He had no opportunity to flee, no means of escape. It captured him, and it would take him down. He accepted this fate, but he wouldn’t leave without at least a menial effort at proving himself.

  Her eyes fluttered open. They widened shortly afterward.

  “You are safe.” He brushed a hand across her forehead, sweat glistened there. “We are finally together. We will be forever.”

  “Who—”

  “Hush now. It is time we—”

  Kill her!

  Take off her head!

  She destroyed you!

  He pulled back from her and shook his head. The voice still came to him, haunting him.

  Do it now!

  “It’s time we made—”

  Off with her head!

  “Shut up! Just shut up!” He paced around the fold-out bed where she was lying.

  Her eyes followed him as he moved, but his attention was on that voice—the one that never shut up.

  “We made what?”

  Her voice broke through the nightmare that lived in his mind which controlled him like a puppet. He would come out of this. He would return to a normal life. She—His Angel—would help him.

  He stopped pacing and bent over. “Time we made love again.” The phrase make love always came foreign to him, but he hoped, with repetition, he would come to experience it.

  Tears seeped from her eyes. “Please don’t do this to me. Please.”

  “You don’t want my love? We are destined to be.”

  You are a loser!

  She cried. It stole her breath and heaves racked her body.

  “I would never hurt you.” He caressed both her breasts. They were round and firm. She wanted him as much as he craved her. “You remember when we had champagne in the afternoon?”

  “What do you want? Do you want money?” She pulled on her wrists. They were secured to the bed frame above her head and didn’t give her much leeway.

  “Why try to escape when you know our love is meant to be? Why leave?”

  Her eyes pinched shut and her body became rigid. She had submitted herself to his will.

  He unfastened his belt buckle and let his pants fall to the floor. He stepped out of his boxers and made his way to the bed, coming up the end and affording himself the full view of her soft womanhood, open and in want.

  “Please…don’t…do this.” Her words broke through panting breaths.

  It confirmed that she yearned for him too. She craved more than his touch—she hungered for his possession. He moved up the bed and positioned himself over her. Her smell reached his nose, and he inhaled appreciatively. Her desire was confirmed.

  “Nadia got the employment records from Fitness Guru. She’s working on the rest.” Paige filled me in once I got into the back of the SUV with her. “There’s one man of interest. His name is Chad Holmes.”

  “And we are interested in him why?” I took the coffee Zachery extended from the passenger seat and nodded with appreciation.

  “Because he was let go two weeks ago from Fitness Guru. Keyes confirmed the reason was he had become unpredictable. He would show up for some classes and not others.”

  “Classes?”

  “He taught cycle class there.”

  “It would align with what we’ve said about him fitting in and being attractive to the women he abducts,” Zachery said.

  “Very true. Was he always this way for Keyes, or did it begin recently?” I asked. “How long did he work there?”

  “Guess he has had issues off and on. He’s worked there for over six years. Keyes is digging up his resume as we speak, but from what he remembers his career references were all for brief stints, nothing substantial there,” Paige said.

  “That would put him there before Leslie disappeared. Keyes remembers all that about his resume?”

  “He said that it was one thing that made him leery of hiring Holmes in the first place.”

  “Hmm.” I uttered the expression, and it had everyone looking at me, including Jack, who peered into the rearview mirror.

  I cracked the lid on the to-go cup and drained back some coffee. I had a feeling it was going to be a long day, and this might be the last time I’d get a coffee. “Did Keyes remember conducting any reference checks? Calling these places up?”

  Paige shook her head. “Said he didn’t have time. They needed someone fast.”

  “Does the guy have a record?”

  “Nope.”

  “And we’re certain this could be our guy?”

  “There’s o
nly one way to find out Pending,” Zachery said.

  Jack pulled the SUV into an older, established neighborhood.

  “Doesn’t look like the house of an unraveling psychopath,” I said, taking in the grounds, which were well maintained. The garden beds had flowering perennials, and the walkway to the front door looked swept. Heavy drapes were drawn in the front window. “This place is nowhere near where the remains of Harris or Rogers were found.”

  “Minor details,” Zachery said.

  “How are we going to approach this?”

  Jack turned off the ignition and spoke over his shoulder. “You and I are going to ring the doorbell.”

  He really had a thing with ringing doorbells today. I buried my sour expression behind the lip of the cup.

  Chapter 43

  “You give people five seconds to answer the door. After that, it becomes suspicious.”

  I glanced at Jack. “Five seconds? You must have been ready to break down my door.”

  “No, but I was right, wasn’t I.”

  “Right about what?”

  “The fact that you stayed up too late and slept through your alarm—again. You have a problem with alarm clocks. I’ll get you one for Christmas.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be honored I made his shopping list or insulted by the item I would be getting.

  “Second ring. Never a good—”

  The door cracked open to a man in his mid-twenties. His hair was slightly disheveled as if we had pulled him from bed. In contrast, his eyes were alert. His hair was gray, despite his age. He studied both Jack and me in less than a second and looked past us, I assumed to the SUV in his driveway and the two other people who occupied it.

  “We’re FBI Special Agents Harper and Fisher,” Jack said. “You’re Chad Holmes.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes wouldn’t stay focused on us. “What do you want with me?”

  “Do you have a few minutes?” Jack didn’t pose the request as a proposition that insinuated a choice. He moved toward the man which caused him to step back into the house.