[Anthology] Killer Thrillers

by Nick Thacker

  Before they fell, Mark wrapped his long arms around her. Their past was their past, and now she needed him; needed anything. She let herself be consoled for the first time in years. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable.

  She heard Mark draw a quick breath in, about to speak. “Jen—”

  He paused.

  “There’s something else. Something I didn’t show the police.”

  3

  Detective Craig Larson clenched his teeth in frustration at the unbelievable amount of people that had converged on the downtown department store. He was in one of the many toy aisles at the back of the store, searching for that perfect gift for his only grandson’s birthday.

  Unfortunately, it seemed everyone else in the Georgetown area was as well.

  This is ridiculous. It’s not even close to Christmas.

  He should have stayed home and done the shopping online, like he did for most things. At 57, an age his colleagues claimed was “esteemed,” he sometimes had a hard time with the idea of online shopping. It felt impersonal, or at least too easy.

  He was part of a generation that still believed in the value of personal relationships, communication, and taking the time to truly get to know a friend. Online shopping—as well as a slew of other similar activities like texting, online dating, and social media—felt like a violation of that belief system. It felt wrong somehow.

  Yet Larson was slowly getting indoctrinated into the culture of an interconnected world. At his daughter’s prodding, he’d finally set up a Facebook account and was soon hooked. He’d even sprung for an iPhone when his contract upgrade had come up for renewal.

  Still, he had promised himself that today he would actually get up, get in his car, and go out and shop for his grandson. He was turning six, and as his only grandchild, he was also his favorite.

  He dodged a younger couple standing smack-dab in the middle of the aisle, apparently oblivious to his presence. Two screaming kids playing tag nearly collided with him as they raced around the next corner.

  He felt his phone start to vibrate before he heard his ringtone—a throwback rotary-style sounding ring—and reached into his pocket to grab it.

  “Larson.”

  It took him a second to place the voice on the other end of the phone—familiar enough for the speaker to not introduce himself, yet the man’s name didn’t come immediately to mind.

  Finally Larson recognized the accent and realized who it was. Gregory Durand from London.

  “Shit, Greg, how are you?”

  “Fine. Listen, Craig—I’ve got something for you. A kidnapping case.”

  Detective Larson frowned. “Kidnapping?”

  “Right. A child; twelve-year-old from somewhere outside of New Bedford, Massachusetts. I have a friend of a friend who’s a cop there, and he called it up.”

  “And it got all the way to you?” Larson asked.

  “It did, but not because of the kidnapping. He was taken, but the mother found out about it at the same time she found a dead guy in her car.”

  “What do you mean, a dead guy? And who was this kid?”

  As he listened, Larson snapped his head up and peered out through a store window.

  “Yeah, a homicide. And it was the kid who was taken,” Gregory Durand said on the other end of the line. “Not by force, we don’t think, and we have no reason to suspect that the kid’s in any real immediate danger. The guy who was killed was her boss, some old professor at the university where she worked. But he had a brother, another scientist who fell off the grid years ago. We think he might have had something to do with it, and so by extension she might as well. Don’t worry about the mom or husband, though. I was hoping you could help with this kid; see if you can dig anything up about the people who took him.”

  “Right, but do you know who took him?”

  “Not yet, but it’s a bit odd. The whole thing was orchestrated well, and aside from the brutality of the murder, it’s very much like they targeted this lady, Jennifer Adams. My boss isn’t taking any chances, and he wants to make sure it stays out of the media.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course. So I’m asking for your help.”

  “I see. Why me?” He sighed. He’d been a member of the Washington police force for almost forty years, and his political connections had stacked up nicely in his favor over the course of his distinguished career.

  It seemed, though, that the older he got, the more inane the requests became. Kidnappings, car thefts, mall heists—things that in his field, at least, were considered to be the private inspector’s version of “rescuing a cat from a tree”—worthless.

  What had happened to his golden years? Car bombings, tracking terrorist infiltrations, hijacked airplanes? He was the best at what he did, and age had nothing to do with it.

  “Look, Larson, I know you’re the guy we need. Like I said, my boss told me to call you. He said this was something that fell within your ‘jurisdiction.’ It didn’t seem like he meant just your geographic area, either.”

  Detective Larson knew he didn’t. He was usually told things were in his ‘jurisdiction’ when they were political favors. Situations that required more thinking on his feet, problem-solving, and espionage activities that were not exactly considered kosher in the law-enforcement business.

  He frowned, then responded. “Okay, right. A kidnapping.” He hung on the word a bit longer. “A kidnapping that falls into my jurisdiction. Gotcha.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re on board. I’ll email the details to you as soon as I can. I’m on my way back to London now.”

  4

  “They what? They left a ransom note?” Jen’s voice was shaky, strained from the stresses of the previous few hours.

  “I know. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought the cops would put Reese in more danger. The note says—”

  “Of course the note says no cops, Mark. They always do!” Jen was standing in the kitchen, pacing in nervous anxiety as Mark sat at the kitchen table. The kidnappers’ ransom note rested in front of him, the only clue to their son’s whereabouts.

  Mark was characteristically calm, even under the present circumstances. “Jen, calm down—”

  “I’m not going to calm down!” she almost yelled, turning to face him. “Reese is gone, and you didn’t think it was important to mention that whoever took him left a ransom note?”

  He sighed, trying to explain. “No, I just thought that we should try to talk to someone else, maybe someone they won’t be able to track.”

  “We don’t even know who they are! Who are we going to talk to? Even if we went back to the police now, they’d bring us both in for not telling them about the note sooner,” Jen said.

  “I know, I know,” Mark said. “Look, let’s just see if there’s anything we can piece together. They’re obviously looking for something. Was there anything at work you were doing, something—”

  “No, I already told you it was routine stuff.” Jen couldn’t help but interrupt. Her nerves were starting to get the best of her. It was hard enough to try to forget the brutal murder that had taken place earlier that night; now it seemed possible—likely even—that her son could somehow be caught up in all of it too.

  She walked back over to the table, sliding the ransom note around in front of her and read the chilling words aloud.

  “We have your son. No police.

  Find Dr. Storm’s answer. You have four days.”

  There was no byline.

  Unlike most ransom notes she’d seen on television, this was simple copy paper that had been through a typewriter. Other than its message, it was almost indistinguishable from a normal office memo printout.

  But the importance of the note was not lost on Jen and Mark. They knew it was real. Their son had been taken almost precisely when Dr. Storm had been murdered.

  They had searched on both sides of the paper for a mark of some sort, any type of anomaly that might lead them toward an identity, but
there was nothing to be found. Even the typed words were without fault, a difficult feat for even the best typewriters still in existence.

  “We need to go to my office,” Jen said, abruptly glancing up from the paper.

  “What? Jen, we can’t,” Mark said.

  “We need to. There’s obviously something that I’m missing; something that Dr. Storm was working on.” She frowned, brainstorming out loud. “Maybe it has something to do with our last project, the studies we were running out of Pennsylvania.”

  “Jen, they’re going to be watching. Even if they aren’t keeping an eye on the university, the police will be searching Dr. Storm’s office. And the cops…” Mark’s voice still sounded steady, but Jen could hear the hidden pangs of distress. He was certainly struggling as well.

  “No. Don’t you see? They want me to find it, whatever it is,” she said. “They gave me four days, Mark. Four days to figure out what the hell Elias was working on. They need me to get it for them, and if that’s the only way to get Reese back—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, her voice cracked, and she began to choke up. Mark reached out his hand to comfort her, but she pulled away.

  “I’m going to the lab, Mark. I’m going to figure out what they’re looking for, and I’m going to get Reese back. We can get in from the back of the lobby. The police aren’t going to be watching that side of the building.”

  Mark knew he couldn’t stop her. She was as stubborn as he was.

  5

  Larson’s laptop dinged as soon as he walked in the door.

  The email was from Durand, sent through a secure address from his office in London. It was a forward of a short thread between Durand and his boss.

  >>Subject: Fwd: Re: Larson

  >>From: . Vertrund, Investigative Head, NETA

  >>Get him on it. I’ve heard of him, and he’s probably got the connections through to the top that we need on this one, but keep it quiet. We need in, if it’s going to fall the way I think it is.

  >>I looked at the file Diane sent over. If it’s related, it’s probably going to blow up. Make sure Larson stays out of the way.

  He scrolled down through the remainder of the thread.

  >Subject: Larson

  >From: G. Durand, Assistant to the Investigative Head, NETA

  >I need your approval on this one, boss. Craig Larson’s an old friend of mine, and I’d like to have him look into something for us. Last night a kidnapping coincided with the murder of a professor in Massachusetts.

  >Diane got a flag on a name related to the case: Dr. Elias Storm, who’s got a brother in the system. The kidnapping victim is the son of a woman who worked for Dr. Storm, and I just want to cover all our bases here.

  >Obviously we can’t make much noise, as it’s a little out of our area, and we don’t want to get the cops over there riled up. Larson moves under the radar, and he’s the ear we’ve got for this.

  So the Brits wanted information too. Whatever this thing was, they wanted someone with connections helping them out.

  Political connections.

  Larson knew that could mean anything, but at the very least he understood that if the British intelligence community was interested in something that had happened on American soil, the Americans surely would be interested.

  But Durand trusted him, and he had no reason to betray that trust.

  He had no political enemies in England, and he didn’t have any loyalties to the current governing administration of his home country. He’d do exactly what Durand and Vertrund asked; he’d snoop around a bit and see what was going on. If there was anything interesting to find, he’d figure out what to do with it then.

  Detective Craig Larson turned on the small 4-cup coffee pot in his kitchen. It was going to be a long night.

  6

  The car was silent. Neither of the pair had spoken a word since they’d left the apartment.

  Mark Adams knew better than to break the silence with his wife, too. Jen was on edge, terrified, and hadn’t slept in more than a day, and besides, he didn’t have anything useful to say.

  It’s my fault Reese’s gone, he thought. He knew it wasn’t really true; if he had been home, he might have been injured—or worse—and Reese would have been taken anyway.

  He rubbed his eyes. He had taken a nap for a couple hours after work, before Reese had gotten home from school, but the events of the evening seemed to have erased any sleep he’d had and replaced it with anxiety and fatigue.

  The car, Mark’s beat-up ’97 Ford pickup, sailed off of Main Street and onto Academy Drive, the main road leading through and around the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He circled the lot once, trying to find a secluded spot to park. Jen looked through the window out onto the well-manicured grounds, still smelling the faint scent of lawn clippings and light dew from the evening’s humidity.

  The school, established in 1891, rested on a small peninsula on Cape Cod that jutted out into the bay, about an hour south of Boston and just under an hour east of Providence. Specializing in Marine Transportation and Marine Engineering, Mass Marine had been established to serve the merchant marine transportation industry as well as the United States Navy. To this day, the Academy worked closely with the Navy for the commissioning of officers for the nation’s marine vessels.

  Jennifer Adams was brought on as an associate professor for the new Energy Systems Engineering program the school launched two years ago. Her job included teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and assisting the tenured professors in her department.

  Mainly, however, her time was usually spent assisting Dr. Elias Storm in researching submarine geothermal energy production. During her own graduate years, Jen had been recognized—and recruited—by Dr. Storm for her breakthrough work designing a structurally sound prototype for energy extraction in high-pressure environments. A week after she had her diploma in hand, she found herself side-by-side with one of the world’s renowned and leading experts on underwater energy production. The two years at Mass Marine working in the labs with Dr. Storm were some of the most challenging, rewarding, and exciting years she’d ever spent, and she loved it.

  Until now.

  It felt unbelievable, knowing someone close to her had died, but she didn’t quite realize it yet. Walking into the building with Mark, she felt like Dr. Storm would be bustling about, hurrying through the halls like a doctor in an emergency room. He would stop, as if deep in thought, quirk his head sideways, and grin when he caught sight of his younger research assistant. “Jen! Hello, I’m glad you’re here—” he would say, and before she could hear the rest of his sentence, he’d be off to another corner of the building.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight, they were alone. The walls seemed to loom over them, the darkness pressing down. She felt smaller. Are we even in the right building? she thought. She’d never been in here this late at night, before even the cleaning crews arrived.

  Rounding the first corner, they came to a long hallway. Storm’s office was on the right, the fourth door down. Before they reached it, Mark and Jen could see that this section of the hallway had been roped off with police tape.

  “Someone’s already been here,” Mark said.

  “The cops, I’d guess,” Jen said. “Maybe they just checked it out for evidence. They wouldn’t know to look for anything else, would they?”

  “Probably not. But still, I don’t want to get caught with my pants down. If they come back—”

  “They’re not coming back, Mark. At least not tonight. There’s no reason for the police to watch an empty office, especially since the murder’s already happened. Come on.”

  She started away from the intersection of the two halls and continued toward the professor’s office. Reaching the police tape, she hesitated for a moment, then ducked underneath the line of plastic caution ribbon. Storm’s office door had been left open, and she could already see as she entered that the police had rummaged through the file cabinets, desk drawers
, and shelving units lining one side of the large room.

  “Looks like they didn’t clean up after themselves very well,” Mark said as he appeared by his wife’s side. “I wonder if we should have brought gloves or something. I don’t know if they’ll send forensics or not, but I definitely don’t want to be associated with this.”

  Jen frowned, then dismissed the idea. It was so like Mark, she thought. Always afraid to get his hands dirty. He was more anxious of getting involved with things than he was in finding a solution to a problem. Maybe that was part of why his career had never really taken off.

  Mark Adams was a good security expert. Great, even. He’d been in charge of a few projects for his current company that had brought them to the forefront of the computer security and intelligence world, and he’d been the man behind most of the research and development. His boss, however, had taken most of the credit, while Mark received a small bonus and a pat on the back from management.

  It had seriously pissed Jen off. They had just finalized the separation, and tensions were high as they balanced their now-single lifestyles with their parenting duties. Jen remembered screaming at Mark—the frustratingly well-tempered man that he was—and accusing him of being a pushover. He’d argued, albeit weakly, that it “wasn’t his place,” and “he just wanted to be a good employee.”

  And he’ll always remain just a “good employee,” Jen thought to herself that night. He was the same gentle, helpful man she’d fallen in love with thirteen years ago, but what she quickly discovered that what she’d originally labeled as carefree resolve was really a lack of willingness to make important decisions.

  Jen had basically run the entire relationship, and the effect was a broken family.

  Snapping her focus back into their current world, she took another few steps into the office and glanced around. For the most part, aside from a few empty styrofoam coffee cups and the caution tape left by the police, everything was as she remembered. Books lined the shelves to her right—chemistry, physics, and a few geology numbers. On the man’s desk, which was usually kept spotlessly clean and free from clutter, sat an amethyst geode and a trilobite fossil. Papers were strewn about. They were documents and reports that Jen recognized from her work with the man.