Invitation to Die

by Jaden Skye

  Taut silence greeted Tracy on the other end of the phone.

  “Please tell me you understand,” Tracy managed, uneasy.

  “I don’t understand and I don’t like it, either,” Wess replied. “We’ll reschedule soon? That’s all you have to say?”

  Tracy took a sharp breath. She knew Wess could be stubborn, but thankfully this didn’t happen often.

  “We have to postpone our plans,” Tracy repeated firmly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take a chance.”

  “So go, if you have to.” Wess began smoldering. “But you’re taking a chance anyway, aren’t you?”

  “What chance?” Tracy asked, startled.

  “With us,” he said, and suddenly hung up the phone.

  Chapter 2

  It was good being alone on the train. Tracy put her head on the back of the seat, glad to rest before she took out her laptop to go over the files. The train whizzed by and she glanced out the window, watching the passing streets blur into one another. Dressed in brown linen slacks, loafers, and an oversized shirt, Tracy had pulled her hair back from her face and tied it in a no-nonsense manner. Wess’s reaction had surprised her, but she had to put it out of her mind now. She was on her way to the scene of the crimes, and all kinds of surprises would await her there; they always did. She had to be ready.

  Spree killers were tricky; you had no idea when they would strike again, thought Tracy. For all she knew, their culprit was out there stalking his next victim right now. There could be some young woman just living her life, unaware of the footsteps close behind her. She had no idea her days were numbered, that she was about to be grabbed and thrown into a world of terror, pain, and death.

  Tracy realized it, though. She had to get there quickly and stop it from happening. And she would.

  Hunter had made the right call telling her to get there immediately. Tracy couldn’t understand why Wess didn’t get it. Wess was tremendously smart and successful. He ran the department at the hedge fund where he worked, did more business than all of his colleagues, too. Tracy had tried to explain the urgency of her work to him several times. He always said he got it, but never really did.

  Most of the time that didn’t bother Tracy. Right from the start she’d felt comfortable and at home with Wess. There’d been a strong connection between them and that was important to her. They laughed at little things, enjoyed being together, and had similar rhythms at work. Wess also liked it that Tracy was so busy. She never bothered him about spending late nights at work or being out with clients. It was a strange kind of freedom for him. Wess was proud of Tracy, too, she knew. She had seen him boast to his co-workers that his girlfriend was a criminal profiler, and enjoy their startled reactions. It seemed he thought that it enhanced his image somehow.

  Tracy flipped open her computer and forced Wess from her mind. He’ll understand someday, she thought, as she began to scroll through the files.

  Along with photos of the two victims, both before and after their murders, the files included investigative reports and a careful list of evidence they’d found. There were summaries of the victims’ lives and a few rough crime scene sketches. Forensic results, of course, were not yet complete.

  After reading about the victims, Tracy looked at their photos. Each young woman was beautiful in her own way. They were both the same age, slender with ash-blonde hair. Beyond that, what was the connection? What had they done to attract the killer’s attention and rage?

  Tracy thought about the killer’s MO. Both victims had gone missing before they turned up dead. The killer only held the first victim a couple of days before killing her. How long had he kept the second victim alive after her kidnapping? Did he torture both of them? Forensic evidence would make that clear. Who was the last to see them both alive?

  Tracy made notes of her questions. She knew from the looks of things that law enforcement would guess they were up against a psychopathic sadist. But Tracy wasn’t sure. Right now, though, it seemed more complex than that to her. Each woman had been killed differently and dumped in a very different place as well.

  Tracy scrolled down and read the summary of their lives again, slowly this time.

  Case 1: Tina Drew, went missing April 19th.

  Tina Drew, Caucasian female, was twenty-nine, medium height, slim with ash-blonde hair. She lived on the edge of town in a neighborhood overrun with drug dealers, dance clubs, and prostitutes. Tracy looked at her picture closely, feeling a pang of sorrow for her. She would have been very pretty if she weren’t so drawn, with sunken cheekbones and a rough bruise on her jaw.

  Tracy read more about her. Tina had two arrests for prostitution. The oldest child in a lower-class Catholic family, she had twin brothers. One of them, Kirk, had stayed in touch. In her late teens Tina started working as a hostess at a local dance club while trying to put herself through beauty school. It didn’t happen. By her early twenties, a full-fledged heroin addict, she became a dancer at the club. Probably did it to support her habit, thought Tracy. The tips were far better, for sure.

  Tina was forced into rehab by her brother, but ran away a few days later, the report went on. When they finally found her she was on the streets, hooking. A guy named Salty Flannigan was her pimp. That’s someone I need to talk to right away, Tracy noted. Where the heck did he get a name like Salty, anyway?

  Tina’s body was found two days after she went missing, before anyone had a chance to fully realize she was gone. A neighborhood vendor found her in the corner of a dark alley a few blocks from where she lived. Someone started to notice the stench in the alley, told him about it, and from there it was easy to spot her.

  Forensics descended on the alley and found a message beside her body, left by the killer, in blood. find me! Tina’s brother Kirk went nuts, vowed revenge, and started prowling the neighborhood like a madman, looking for the killer. So far he’d come up with nothing. Neither had the police, for that matter.

  Tracy looked at the photos taken at the crime scene where Tina’s body had been found. She’d been mutilated, her breasts and belly slashed. Naked, she was positioned in a vulgar, taunting pose. Tracy flinched. This was hideous. Tracy would never get used to looking at crime scene photos. But she forced herself to look closely anyway. The horror kept her going, made her determined to smoke out the killer no matter how long it took. How dare someone grab a person and leave them like a heap of garbage in an alley? Tracy shivered. This was personal. She knew the pain and horror of it all too well herself. It could not and would not be endured.

  Case 2 – Shannon Glaze, went missing April 28.

  This case is more alarming than the first, Hunter commented in his tiny handwriting in the margins. Why in hell did he grab her? How did she even run into the killer?

  Shannon Glaze was a lovely thirty-year-old ash-blonde mother of two young children. A nursery school teacher at the local church, she was married to a well-known lawyer, Jeffrey Glaze. The two of them lived in an upper-middle-class residential neighborhood, surrounded by friends. Shannon’s home was a few blocks from the church she worked at.

  Tracy took a deep breath. On the surface the two victims couldn’t be more different. But if Tina knew anything by now it was that surface impressions meant nothing. It was up to her to find the connections between the victims. She also had to discover the connection between the killer and these women. What in the world had drawn him to them? Shannon’s body was newly discovered and there was still a lot of information to gather. Hunter would have more for Tracy when she arrived.

  Tracy then looked at the photo of Shannon lying on the floor of the Swan Boat ride. She looked grotesque, twisted and mangled like an old cleaning cloth. Killed by strangulation, Tracy guessed. Unlike Tina, Shannon’s clothes were still on, though barely. But it was the expression in her eyes that was most horrifying. They were staring coldly, filled with terror, up at the empty sky. And, like Tina, a message in blood was left beside her on the bottom of the boat. find me. The killer was practically pleading
, taunting them.

  None of it sat well with Tracy. In both cases the killer left his victims in disarray out in public. He obviously wanted to shock and revolt those who found them, terrify the public, and let them know a killer was on the loose. She looked more closely at the notes he’d left behind and began drumming her fingers on the edge of her seat.

  Find Me, Find Me, the notes demanded.

  Okay, I got your message, buddy, Tracy murmured back at him. You want me to find you? Be ready, my friend. You have no idea what you’re asking for.

  *

  The train seemed to speed up as Tracy flipped her computer shut. There was a lot more to know about both cases, of course, but she needed time to absorb and digest the information she had. She had to discover who the women really were and what they were after. She had to go over the victims’ social media and talk to those who knew them, to separate fact from rumor.

  Most of the time a criminal profiler took the information investigators gave them and put together a picture of the killer. Before she did that, Tracy wanted to go to the crime scene herself and let it speak to her. Every crime scene had a strong atmosphere. When you steeped yourself in it, it had a lot to say. In this case, they had no idea where the killings took place, only where the bodies had been found. For now those were their crime scenes. Tracy planned to get to them as soon as possible.

  After visiting the crime scenes, Tracy planned to go to the victims’ neighborhoods and speak to people who knew them. In this way she’d find out not only more about the women, but about the killer himself. Sometimes he was even one of the people she was interviewing. She might be looking right into the killer’s eyes and have no idea it was him.

  But he couldn’t stay hidden forever. Whether he knew it or not, the killer had chosen his victims for a reason. Something about them drew him to them. Tracy didn’t believe in random killings. She believed that people were drawn to each other for a reason and that everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be at a certain moment. Tracy often thought that in a deep, unconscious way, victims drew their killers to them. Not purposely, of course. This was not at all to blame the victim. But the longer she did this work, the more Tracy felt that something in the way the victims moved about in their world, something they needed or longed for, sent out signals and subtly invited this person into their lives.

  It was essential to probe the depths of the unconscious not only of the killer but of the victims as well. What were the hidden motives that linked them in this awful dance?

  Tracy looked at her watch now and was amazed to realize her train would arrive in Boston in about fifteen minutes. After gathering her things together, she went to the bathroom to freshen up.

  Once in the bathroom, Tracy untied her long hair, brushed it gently, then put on new makeup. To her surprise, the young woman looking back at her in the mirror appeared oddly rested, and raring to go. Ready for whatever came next.

  Tracy smiled at herself approvingly. She’d come a long way and she was proud of it. She hadn’t succumbed to devastation when her own mother had gone missing when she was fourteen years old. Actually, in one way or another, Tracy had been searching for her mother for years. And she still believed in her heart that her mother was alive, somewhere. She’d find her someday. She was sure of it.

  Tracy looked around the tiny bathroom as she smoothed out her slacks. Of course, Boston was the last place she’d expected to be tonight. She thought of her plans with Wess and wondered how he was doing. She knew he’d probably made all kinds of arrangements to celebrate their engagement, including a ring he had waiting for her. Tracy had been excited about it too, ready to take the next step with Wess. There was no reason she shouldn’t. He was a good man and was there for her—most of the time, anyway. She hated that she had to disappoint him today, but that was part of the job. She’d talked to him about it several times and Wess had said it would be okay if she had to leave abruptly from time to time. Of course it was one thing to say it and another to face the situation directly. Especially on a day like today.

  Tracy put on lip gloss and then smoothed her lips together gently. She didn’t like it that Wess hadn’t called her back to see how she was doing. He was probably still nursing his wounds. Tracy shook her head lightly. It was really strange that this had happened on the day they were planning to get engaged. For all she knew this was a testing period for both of them.

  Tracy left the bathroom and went back to her seat. Once the train arrived, she would grab a cab and be at the FBI offices in no time at all. Hunter would be there waiting, along with others on staff. Tracy was excited to get there and hear what else they’d found.

  As she exited the train, her eye caught a headline blasted across the front of a newspaper. Boston Frozen with Terror; Serial Killer on the Loose! Could Be Anywhere!

  Tracy threw back her head. She was not frozen with terror, and never would be. She would find him, stop the killings.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as she got off the train, Tracy grabbed the first cab she saw. “Plaza Square,” she told the driver, “as fast as you can.”

  The cab wound its way quickly through the half-empty streets to the tall building in Plaza Square where the FBI offices were located. Grateful to be there, she gave the driver an extra-large tip, jumped out of the cab, and made her way through the large revolving doors to the security desk in the lobby. Security people always looked twice when Tracy showed them her ID. No one expected a striking, hip, well dressed young woman to be doing a job like this. She flashed her ID.

  “FBI are expecting me,” Tracy said as the security officers looked over her identification.

  “Go right up,” the guy replied, looking a little nervous. Of course he had a right to be nervous, thought Tracy. The whole city was on edge. Don’t worry, it’s fine, Tracy wanted to say to him. I’m going to get the killer. We’re all safe.

  Tracy took her ID and walked a few steps quickly onto the elevator.. As it rose she was excited, t, waiting for it to land on the eleventh floor. Hunter would be glad to see her. She wondered who else would be waiting for her there? Probably Clay or Dan, or some former colleagues she’d worked with before. Even though they were older than her, these guys treated her as one of them, and Tracy was grateful for it.

  The elevator stopped and Tracy walked briskly down the empty hall straight to the FBI offices. It was after hours, and they were locked. She rang the buzzer and to her surprise, in a few seconds Hunter himself appeared at the door, opening it for her.

  As usual, and despite the emergency they were facing, Hunter Jordan looked flawless and buttoned up. In his early forties, and extremely good looking with dark brown hair, he was impeccably dressed in a tailored summer suit and cream-colored shirt. Tracy noticed a quick glint in his eyes when he saw her. He must be relieved to have all the help he can get, she thought, pleased.

  “Come in, you made good time.” Hunter held the door open.

  “I’m relieved to be here,” Tracy nodded, as she walked past him into the long, corridor with offices lined up on both sides. Tracy felt comfortable with Hunter, although they’d never spent personal time together. It was all business from start to finish, but they trusted each other and worked together beautifully. Tracy had given Hunter leads he needed to break open the past cases they’d worked on. Hunter liked her and listened to her perspective. He also reined Tracy in when he felt she went too far, or her imagination got the better of her. Of course Tracy never felt that her imagination got the better of her. She used it and relied on it to the max. It was a great tool to help her understand people better.

  Tracy walked with Hunter into his office, where another agent, Clay, was seated near the desk.

  “Great to see you, Tracy,” Clay stood up and extended his hand, a warm smile on his face. Clay was a little older than Hunter, married with kids, and loved his job with the FBI. He was steady and smart, one of the most dependable agents on the force.

  “Clay’s a rising st
ar,” Hunter had once told Tracy happy about it. Hunter wasn’t threatened by anyone, wanted good people around him, was truly dedicated to solving crimes. Clay thought the world of Hunter, too, was protective of him. Last time she’d seen him, Clay told Tracy that Hunter was involved in a bitter divorce. It was so hard on him, Hunter said he had no intention of dating or marrying again. Tracy had been surprised to hear it. She also felt that Hunter’s decision could serve him well in his career. It was easy to get distracted and pulled off course, way too easy.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Clay,” Tracy said to him now.

  “I was thrilled when Hunter told me he’d gotten you on board,” Clay responded. “We’ll close in on the killer, fast, now.”

  Tracy smiled. “Thanks.” Clay was always positive about whatever went on. Positive, but not stupid. He didn’t take chances he shouldn’t take. Tracy had noticed that about him before. She liked him and could learn a lot from him, too.

  Hunter interrupted the banter. “Okay, enough, let’s get to work. We’ve got more information now than when I spoke to you, Tracy. I want to go over it and let you know what we think. Naturally, I’m also interested in anything you might want to add.”

  “Let’s go for it.” Tracy tossed her dark red leather bag on the small couch in the corner. Then she pulled out a chair opposite Hunter at his desk.

  “Wait a minute, just a second,” Clay interrupted. “You just had a long trip. Want a cup of coffee or Danish?”

  Hunter looked disconcerted, but Tracy appreciated Clay’s concern. “Thanks so much, but I’m fine, Clay.” She smiled at him.

  “Just checking,” said Clay. “We’ve got a long road to go.”

  Hunter took the seat opposite Tracy, opened his computer forcefully, and stared at it unblinkingly. Then he rubbed his forehead slowly. It was an old habit of his that Tracy remembered.