“I saw the prints. It is a pity you weren’t able to finish, Natalie. I think it might have been helpful.”
“I wasn’t talking about prints. You gonna let me finish or not?”
Jay bit his lip on another laugh. “Of course. Apologies.”
“I was running a broad check. Stumbled across a strange news clipping, so I dug into it.”
“And?” Jay pushed when Hector fell silent. He could feel the tension even across the miles that separated them and braced for the blow.
“And I have to ask. Just how well do you know Dave Tiller?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jay returned to the house a full hour later than normal, yet even so he found himself hesitating at the door. Hector’s voice and Keira’s confirmation was still looping around his skull.
Jay shuddered. The man he had silently thanked all the gods for since this mess began. Yet Dave was not what his background check made him out to be. He hadn’t yet seen the news article Hector had referenced. Dave had not grown up in Louisiana at all, let alone be able to claim Shreveport as his home town. Elliot had promised to send Hector’s research on to Joe so that he could send it to the server Jay’s laptop was linked to.
Jay unlocked the door and entered the house. Dave glanced up from the cutting board where he appeared to be making a dozen sandwiches for an early lunch. Given his morning’s deluge, Jay couldn’t help but notice the fact that Dave was toting a large and sharp knife.
Jay shook himself and smiled in return. “I hope some of those are for me too. They look amazing.”
Dave considered him for a second. “As this,” he gestured at the platter, “is the direct result of worrying about you, I hardly think you deserve any.”
Jay chuckled. “Sorry.”
Dave scowled then sighed. “I know I nag, but can you blame me? Deadly attacks have followed you since you started this hunt. Your reputation is not of someone cautious or careful.”
“I decided I needed a sauna stay today. Exercising only helps so much.”
Dave sighed but made no comment. Jay emptied his supposedly sweaty gym gear into the washing machine and turned it on. His longer stay at the gym had not gone unnoticed by his tail either. The man had been inside the gym when Jay exited the sauna.
“So, you going to leave me some, or are you actually going to eat that all?”
Dave smiled softly. “Like I actually could.”
Jay couldn’t help but smile too. Dave was simply a likable guy.
Dave turned, and his smile faltered slightly at the look on Jay’s face. “You know, I’m not sure the gym is helping at all. Maybe you should take a break from it for a few days?”
Jay ran a hand over his hair, using it as an excuse to break eye contact. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll leave it tomorrow and see how I feel.”
Jay switched to the colder, calculating side of his nature as he thought over Hector’s news.
***
“So instead of heading out to the gym, you’ve decided to carry furniture around the house?”
Jay looked up from the large desk he had been trying to get a good grip on to find Dave leaning on the doorway looking bemused.
Jay felt his lips turn up in a grin, “I want to take over the third bedroom.”
“Whatever for? Not that I mind,” Dave added, waving Jay to one side of the desk as he took hold of the other end.
“So that I can start putting out all the puzzle pieces we’ve found.”
They lifted the desk together and began carting it up the stairs to the empty bedroom.
“I’m not sure I follow. Isn’t that what the reports you always make me write are for?” Dave asked as they dropped the desk off in the corner.
Jay nodded. “Yes, but we’ve been here for weeks with nothing to show for it. No new leads, no new hints. Nothing. I’m shaking things up a bit.”
Dave cocked an eyebrow as if wondering if Jay had finally cracked under the stress. “What do you mean, no leads? Lloyd and Gary are our leads. I’m sure something will come of it.”
Jay shook his head. “I’m not talking about the leads we’ve been presented. I mean for ourselves. Here. Help me pin these in chronological order. On the wall there.”
Dave took the folder he was handed and flipped it open. The moment was tiny, a second at most, but Jay hadn’t removed his eyes from Dave’s face. The reaction to the head shot of Miranda Williams’ corpse had not been shock or any other usual reactions. It had been annoyance.
***
The digital clock on the wall told him that it was one in the morning.
“I need to head back in three hours. Did you bring me more powdered sedative?”
His accomplice nodded. “Don’t you worry, they’re both awake so this won’t take long. And of course I have the drugs. I watched that man for four years, you can’t imagine I would forget and unleash hell?”
He smiled then slipped on his mask. He and his accomplice didn’t wear them to hide their identities in here. None of his victims had or would ever escape. No, they wore them merely to help create fear. A captor who was faceless was far scarier than one who looked human. The latter gave you hope that you could bargain. The former left you with nothing to use as a basis for a plea.
He descended into the small warren of cells he had built many years ago. Serial killers often got caught because they gave into their rituals and habits too much. It was all about balance. Carthage had been his base for years, but it wasn’t his first or his only one. Once it had served its purpose, the women that had fed his need here would get their justice in the fall guy he had set up.
He, as always, would move on. This time with a new kind of triumph under his belt. A need he hadn’t known existed within him until his father ended up on the receiving end of Jayden Roe’s investigation. That had been fifteen years ago. He had only been sixteen, but already he had more kills to his name than years.
He flipped a switch as he entered the largest cell. He took the moments his prey were blinded to look over them. He had no sexual reactions to the two naked women. His needs had never been along those lines.
“Ms. Carmichael, so glad you could join us,” he said with a smile in his voice.
She blinked furiously as she tried to make him out. “Do I know you?”
He smiled behind his mask. “We have met more than once.”
“I know you.”
He turned to Stella Haraby and tilted his head to the side. Her honey eyes seemed to have lost most of their fight. It seemed that her witnessing Miranda’s death had broken some defense, yet her words made it clear that that hadn’t been the fatal blow. Instead, it had been the brief moment where he’d unmasked himself before she fainted.
“Clever of you, Ms. Haraby. Maybe you’re more deserving of Roe than I initially thought. But then again, I have been told that my smile is memorable. Let’s get started,” he ordered.
His accomplice stepped forward and jabbed a needle into Stella’s vein.
“It won’t knock her out entirely, will it?”
“No, just make her easily compliant.”
He could hear the smile in her voice and felt a flash of proprietary pleasure. What a wonderful weapon he had honed.
“What do you want?” Stella mumbled as she was unchained. Her words slurred as the drug took effect, but the fear in her eyes didn’t dim.
“Your favorite investigator is threatening to play outside the rules. I think he needs a reminder that you are still alive.”
The fear peaked as she was carried between them to a metal table and strapped down.
“I think her ring finger will do nicely,” he inspected her left hand.
He patted Stella’s flaxen blond hair as she tried to get a scream past her numb lips. “Shh. Don’t worry. My friend here is a trained doctor. You’ll only die when you are meant to.”
He turned to look at her as she drew her tools closer. She carefully folded and pinned Stella’s other fingers out of the way
. Then, with the same expression of calm need, she started her work. He smiled as Stella’s muffled screams ricocheted around them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jay had awoken feeling unrested again. His head ached and his limbs felt stiff. The latter told him that he seemed to have slept motionless all night. He had already deduced a likely reason given Hector’s finds. Today, he would make the final preparations to prove his enemy to himself.
First, he needed to finish his wall. Dave had not come back to the room since first helping him put up the pictures. Jay had planned an entire new section on the back of Hector’s work, and Gary’s inside man had given them a huge heap of forensic finds. It didn’t paint a good picture nor did it cast any doubt on the suspicions Hector had raised about Dave.
Jay took some coffee and toast up to the room. It was unusual for the man to sleep so late. He was usually up with the crow. Again, Jay felt the building trepidation. He could no longer stretch his credulity to the point where Dave was not involved at all. What could possibly make this charismatic man get involved with a serial killer and kidnapping?
Joe had already made contact. He had bloodangel_53’s identity. From the message, he also had more because he hadn’t given up the name, instead giving Jay a series of pass codes.
Jay looked at the wall, where twelve women, now all dead, stared blankly back. He forced his mind to remain cold, reaffirming the finds his new forensics had helped him gain.
After a moment, he turned to his laptop and started on what Joe had warned would likely take an hour or two to set up.
About half an hour in, Dave poked his head around the door.
Jay gave him a smile, pretending to himself that he knew nothing, had learned nothing. “You slept late.”
Dave shrugged, stepping into the room. “Pulled an all-nighter.”
“Oh? Find anything good?”
Dave shook his head. “Trying to track down that source you stumbled across. Just keeps coming up with Lloyd’s men.”
Jay looked down, hitting a few keys absently. “It does seem ridiculous that it would be them.”
Dave nodded emphatically and came to perch on the edge of the desk. Jay didn’t miss his covert glance at the computer screen, or the flash of irritation, before he turned to look properly, surprise on his face.
“You seem to have had more luck, despite the fact that you were out like a light by ten. What are those?”
Jay’s lips tilted in his usual smirk. “Just because I sleep, doesn’t mean I have to stop working.”
Dave raised an eyebrow, even as he smiled too. “Oh?”
“Since the first drop from whoever it is, Lloyd’s men or not, I have been keeping tabs on that same IP. Something dropped in overnight. I don’t know what yet because the files still need to be carefully extracted and encrypted. Can’t have our opponent realizing we have an in, after all.”
“Let me know when it is in.”
“Sure. What’s your game plan?”
“Lloyd’s been going to a house outside of town fairly regularly. Thought I’d hack the civil register and see if I can find anything useful.”
Jay nodded, looking impressed. “Good plan.”
“And you? Anything planned while you wait for your ingenious little program to get the files safely here and readable?”
Jay sighed and turned his head to look out of the window. “Recheck all my other guesses so far. Do you think the killer will leave another body this month?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Jay looked back as Dave stood and left without another word.
***
This had to be the strangest decoding Jay had ever had. Then again, Joe was not your regular Joe. He knew well enough that everything he had been asking for to try and save Stella would likely cost him the rest of his lifetime to pay back.
Still, getting information by playing a computer game was a little more ridiculous than he’d been expecting.
Jay clicked the mouse, and his avatar swung their sword to finishing off the opponent. He looted the body and sighed.
It was another quest. When this all started, the promise had been that the pieces will come together when he completes the quests. But this was the fifth now. If every quest was part of the information Joe had gathered, then Jay was looking at a far worse prospect than he’d initially thought.
The letter was simple. A point to an ancient temple in the game world. Yet the code Jay had been given when he first activated the avatar said something else.
He shut his eyes, visualizing the digital clue and swapping out the letters according to the code. Killer’s start was Seattle. Nineteen years ago.
Seattle. Hector had tracked Dave’s birthplace to Seattle. Jay flashed his eyes open and then jumped, letting out a muffled oath. Dave was standing in the room with a tea tray in one hand. His intense expression on his face was quickly hidden.
“Sorry. Didn’t think you’d be so focused. Have you gotten into the files from last night?”
Jay huffed a laugh to straighten his own thoughts. “No. That’s still running.”
“Then what… you’re playing a game?”
Jay shrugged, thanking him for the lunch though he had no appetite. “I can’t keep going over the same things again and again. It’ll drive me mad. So I sought an easy distraction.”
Dave looked at the screen, his brows pulled together. Jay clicked a few keys moving around for Dave’s benefit and panning the camera to show him the fully realized world.
“I don’t think I know this one.”
“You wouldn’t. This is a beta run. But the name made me laugh, so I figured why not.”
He had already determined that the perp had to be extremely smart. Even Jay could see ways in which Dave was a trap. The perfect one to take the blame.
“Well. Have fun, I guess.”
Jay gave a small grin. “Maybe you should find a distraction too. I mean, we’ve been at it non stop for too long. We’ll never solve the case on fried circuits.”
Dave half smiled, glancing back. “Don’t worry. I learned long ago to make time for myself. I won’t burn out any time soon.”
Jay smiled even as the words caused a shiver to slither up his spine. When the door closed, he pushed the plate away and got his avatar moving.
For the next three hours, he fought monsters, ransacked tombs, and out-witted NPCs. Each time, more information came. The letters leaked on the forum were the correspondence between him and Stella. Another three pointed to other areas in the US where a serial killer that matched the M.O. of theirs here. Every time, the heat rose and a culprit was caught, but every time, their conviction coincided with the start of a new kill base.
Finally, Jay reached the end of the quests, being told to collect his reward from an old innkeeper at a nearby inn.
Jay laughed out loud, quickly smothering the reaction, as his avatar came face-to-face with a digital replica of Joseph. There was even a hulking Elliot in the background.
Well done, champion. The writing read as ‘Joe’s’ mouth moved.
Three options appeared for Jay. One was for money and fame, two was for no reward but the last piece of information, the third was a request for a room.
Jay clicked option two and waited as Joe’s avatar pulled out a blob of pixels and handed it to Jay’s avatar.
He opened his items menu and felt all the air go out of him, even as his senses seemed to heighten painfully.
He finally had the identity of bloodangel_53. It was Amara Young.
CHAPTER FORTY
“You’re going to do what?” Dave asked, shock in every syllable. Until then, he had been taking Jay’s lecture on the new forensic finds perfectly well.
Jay felt his gut tighten but kept his cocky smile in place. “I’m going to leak the news that Miranda’s body has been found. It’ll bring in the press and destabilize some of this web my opponent has constructed.”
Dave stared for a moment. Jay turned back to the c
omputer as if ready to put his words into action.
“Stop,” Dave told him, seizing his wrist in a grasp far stronger than the man looked capable of. “I’m not sure you’ve thought this through.”
“What do you mean?”
“Stella. Won’t this all backlash onto her?”
Jay tilted his head to the side. “But he brought me here to fight it out, right? I mean, why leave me leads to follow if he doesn’t want to see me work?”
“I think you’re missing, or ignoring, key factors about this person’s personality.”
Jay raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Why don’t you fill me in then?”
“He needs to be the one in control. That is why the people we spoke to in Salisbury are now dead. That’s why they tried to kill Mr. Haraby.”
Jay frowned, as if in thought, even as white hot rage had begun seeping through his veins. This ploy with the media had always been the plan, but Jay knew so much more now.
He had checked everything Joe had given him against Hector’s finds. The results had been indisputable. The killing of blond, Caucasian women in their thirties had been going on for nearly two decades. Starting when Dave was only twelve. The ones in Seattle took ages to be discovered because the rate was slower and the kills were always of outsiders.
“You really think he’d kill her?”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Why do we have to keep going over this? This is a game, carefully planned. If you start breaking the rules, he will get angry. Yes, she will die but so will anyone else you’ve got ties to, like Ruby and even idiots like Gary.”
Jay caught the threat on Ruby’s life exactly as it had been intended and let out a billowing breath. “But if we don’t wrong foot him, how will we ever get a step ahead?”
“I know this is hard, but you’re letting emotion get the better of you. Turning this whole city into carrion for the news will not help anyone, including you and me.”
Jay slumped and sighed. “You’re right, you’re right. What about my finds then?”
Jayden Roe Mystery 02-The Final Lie Page 17
