by Paris Morgan
***
Chapter 3
Ryan
The bomb squad had cleared my package, but the note inside disturbed me. I’d spent most of the night pacing the kitchen, hoping that I didn’t wake Shea from her much-needed sleep.
When dawn finally rolled around, I drove straight to FBI headquarters, knowing that having them analyze the package wouldn’t produce prints.
His note had left me wondering what he could possibly want with me next.
Dear Ryan,
Don’t forget that I’m watching you and Shea. How is the baby doing? What are you going to name it? Something after your friend Jesse, in his memory? Here is a little puzzle to keep you busy during all of your spare time. It might even help you in the future. Just remember that I’m always watching, and you’ll make an amazing dad—if you live long enough.
Yours Truly,
The Zodiac Master
He was keeping watch on us and knew more about what we were doing on a regular basis than he should have. I’d had one of the officers bring me a sweeper to check for bugs, but I’d found nothing. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one, though. I just had to check again.
“Detective, you’re here early. Making up for taking the day off yesterday?” Agent Watson joked. The smile slid from his face when Leslie opened the door right behind me. “What happened?” He looked at us both anxiously.
“A package was delivered to my home last night while I was out at dinner. It held a puzzle and a note.” Leslie threw down the box containing both on the table in front of us.
“That’s why I’m here early as well. I also got a package, but I had the bomb squad clear it before I opened it.” I placed mine next to hers.
“Crap. It sounds like he doesn’t want you to get to comfortable waiting on the next case. What kind of puzzles are they?”
“I spent most of the night working mine, hoping for some hint or clue. It’s a landscape of a farm, but there aren’t any identifying marks on either the front or the back. I think it was a picture that was made into a puzzle. There wasn’t a box or anything to go with it.”
“Did you leave it together?” Agent Watson inquired, knowing Leslie would have used the proper procedures.
“Yeah, but I already sent an email to the tech team to have them run it through the recognition software. There’s a huge possibility that he’s giving us a clue.”
“Actually, working the puzzle never dawned on me,” I admitted. “From the notes he’s sent us, I believe that he has someone close to us feeding him information, or he’s bugged our homes. I did a sweep last night because there was no way I could sleep, and I didn’t find anything.”
“You know that unless they’re transmitting right then, you won’t find anything, right?” Leslie helped herself to my package to read the note.
“I did, but desperately wanted something to blame all of this on. I don’t want to start suspecting my coworkers.”
“At this point, it’s safe to assume that the Zodiac Master has people spread out in a network working for him. Kevin is supposed to meet us this evening when he gets off, but I’m not sure that he’s going to have much more information than we do.” Agent Watson shrugged. “There’s no way to find out who he might have near us, so be extremely careful.”
“With all of this, I only trust two or three people in the building to back me up. Do we have any word on what might be this month’s killer’s motive?” I looked around the room, checking for anyone who seemed to be listening closer to our conversation than they should.
“I’ll have these notes analyzed. I would go ahead and get that puzzle worked to see if anything pops out. I know it seems stupid, but it might be the only thing to yield some answers out of all the stuff we’ve tried so far. He sent it for a reason, so let’s use it.”
Leslie had already taken charge by dumping the pieces out onto the table, and busied herself by putting the edges together.
“It doesn’t bother you that we’re stuck here working a puzzle when others could be dying?”
She looked up, her eyes ringed with dark circles from lack of sleep. “Of course it does. He knows what he’s doing. It’s a multi-level game to him, this is just the psychological portion meant to prove that he has the upper hand.”
“When did you become an expert in psychological theory?” I started sifting through the pieces, trying to find a theme hidden somewhere.
“It’s the next logical step. He’s had us on the run for months, and he has to let us rest or we won’t be ready for the next portion of his plan. It’s meant to lull us into a restful state so that he can work without us knowing what he’s doing. I don’t intend to let him get the upper hand.”
“Ugh, I hate working puzzles anyway, and this one is impossible because there’s nothing to base it against,” I groaned, tossing the piece I’d been trying to match back into the pile.
“They’re just part of the larger image. I look at it as more of a challenge without the cheat sheet. Give me two hours, and then, if I we haven’t made progress, we can work on something else.”
The TV in the background was always left on the news channels in case there was breaking news, so the agents would be able to quickly catch up.
I felt like a little kid sitting there with my arms crossed, not working on the puzzle, but watching the news flash across the screen instead, without really paying attention, until something about Oregon came on.
Quickly scrambling for the remote to turn it up, I listened in horror to the report.
“Two days ago, the runner-up in the Logger’s Annual Competition, Brian O’Leary, went missing. This morning, in a strange turn of events, his body was delivered to Gresham’s Police Department. At this point, it’s unconfirmed that it is his body, but since there have been no other events of a violent or mysterious nature, we’re placing conjecture toward that being the result.
“The police have taken Shannon Downs in for questioning in regards to his disappearance. With her coming in second place and Brian O’Leary being the winner, if dead, the title would be hers by default.”
Disappointed, I turned the volume back down. “I thought for a minute our killer had struck, but it was just someone out for revenge.”
“It does make you wonder, though, how he comes up with the weapons to be used for each month? It’s not like there’s a list of weapons used by killers with zodiac signs. I know, I looked.” Leslie didn’t even lose her concentration as she put another piece in the correct place.
“Did he just sit down one day and decide, ‘Hey, I’m going to gather a bunch of killers with a random weapon that fits their zodiac profiles?’” I started pacing up and down the length of the conference room.
“What did the doctor say?”
Pausing in my steps, I tried to decide how I was going to tell Leslie. There was a legal pad sitting on the table, so I ripped the top page off and wrote, “It’s a girl,” making sure to keep it covered so only she could see it.
“Aw, yeah. Was Shea excited?” she asked, continuing to sort and piece the puzzle together.
“We went to the baby store and bought all of the important things, like a crib, and car seat, etc. It took me all afternoon to put that stupid crib together. It’s like they want to test your skills as a parent to see if you’re worthy by seeing how much patience you have.”
“Oh, I believe it. I always heard to never pray for patience, because your life will go to crap while the higher being doles out problems to help you level up to the patience of a saint.”
I stopped pacing and leaned in closer to the puzzle. “Right now, I think you’re gaining lots of experience points for being able to put those pieces in the right places.”
She blushed. “Nah. It’s just how my brain works. I always loved playing Tetris as a kid. A good challenge is what motivates me most days. Maybe that’s what he’s trying to do.” She looked up at me. “He’s trying to bring out the best of our skills to help catch him.”
N
odding, I went back to pacing, which wasn’t any help to me or her, but I did find it soothing.
“I had a date last night,” Leslie announced, now that I was out of her space.
“Really? With someone new?” I took a seat on the couch at the back of the room.
“Yes. I met him on another dating site. And before you say that it’s a bad idea, I plan to go much slower with Chris, who’s a lawyer with the DA. We have more of the same passions, but only time will tell if it’s a good match. There were two others that stood out to me, but I want to see where it goes with Chris first.”
“That’s interesting,” I mumbled, closing my eyes for just a second to get rid of the picture of Leslie on a date with some guy in a suit.
Laughter woke me, to find a group of people standing around me.
“What’s going on?” I jumped up and caught my reflection in the mirror, only to find that someone had drawn a mustache on my upper lip with permanent marker. “Are we still in junior high?” I grumbled, knowing there was almost nothing that would take it off.
The crowd dispersed when I growled at them, making them scatter back to whatever assignment they’d been working on before my little mishap with the marker.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?” I gave Leslie a pointed look.
Her eyes widened innocently. “Why would I know anything? I’ve been working on this puzzle and almost have it finished. What do you say that when I’m finished, we go get some lunch? I’m starved.”
I glared at her before heading to the men’s restroom to see if I could wash some of the marker off.
Agent Watson appeared in the mirror beside me.
“Did you have a good nap?” he chuckled at my appearance.
“It was good since I didn’t sleep last night.” I glanced at my watch and found it was almost noon. I’d been asleep for over five hours.
“Here, you might need this to help take that off.” From his pocket, he produced a small bottle of makeup remover. “It works wonders.”
“Thank you.”
“We have to stick together in these times of great need.” Agent Watson winked and walked out, leaving me holding the bottle.
“Couldn’t hurt, right?” I asked myself, not feeling confident as I stared at the black streaks under my nose.
A few drops of remover with wet paper towels helped to make it fade to a lighter black, but it was still noticeable. I rinsed and repeated until my red skin almost covered up the fact that I had black marker on my face. There wasn’t anything else to do, but to go back out there and face the music.
To my surprise, no one was outside the bathroom, and I crept back down the hall to the conference room.
“There, take that!” Leslie stood up, doing a dance as I opened the door.
“You finished it?”
“I did. It took about three hours longer than I’d planned. Does anything look familiar to you?”
It was another rural setting with a field full of cows. There was a barn in the far distance that might have been the one from Leslie’s puzzle.
“Nothing’s jogging my memory. You?”
“Nope. Martha’s doing the analysis on the other one, but I doubt anything will pop with this one either. It has less identifiers than the other one did.”
“Is he just getting lonely and wanting company?”
“I think he just wants to keep us connected to the case. It’s his way of pulling us in and making sure that we have a vested interest.” Leslie frowned as she took a few pictures to send to Martha.
“Look at this tag on the cow. Could that be an identifier?” She pointed to the white thing in the cow’s ear.
“He might’ve left us a clue, or simply didn’t think that we’d be able to pull it up.”
“I’ve got a close-up. I’m going to grab a bite, and then hit Martha’s cubicle on the way back. You coming?” Leslie hopped up to head for the door.
“Any chance you could bring me something back?” I pointed to my still present mustache self-consciously.
She snickered. “I’ll bring something back for you. On the bright side, you already knocked Shea up so she can’t send you packing because of your looks. FYI, I already sent her a picture so you can’t deny it happened.”
Feeling incredibly patient, I didn’t say anything, letting her leave without a retort.
***
Chapter 4
Leslie
Martha hadn’t found anything yet, but she was going to continue to run things through the system and let me know if she found anything. I’d taken pity on Ryan and brought him a sandwich from the cafeteria.
While I could be semi-patient regarding some things, waiting for someone to die wasn’t really my style. Ryan had volunteered to stay and work with Kevin when he came in, but looking at data, hoping for something to jump out at me, wasn’t really my thing.
I’d made it out of the downtown area before the rush hour traffic started. Flora had promised to help me work on a few things, but I hadn’t had much luck in that department lately.
Feeling lighter than I had in months, I walked up to her door, ready to get started, only to find no one home.
Pulling out my phone to check my messages, I was certain that we’d had plans to meet today.
Yep, there was her message from last night. I wondered what had happened. I’d give her a few minutes in case she was running late.
After about thirty minutes, I’d started to worry and dialed her number. It went straight to voicemail.
Unable to sit in the car and wait, I walked around her small house, testing all the doors. Locked.
The gnome in the front yard caught my attention and I found her spare key.
I hoped she wouldn’t be mad, but I couldn’t not check her house to see if she was okay. Her car was in the driveway, which was normal since it was walking distance to all the buildings on the college campus.
Her house had that feel of being deserted. I still looked in all of the rooms, and as an afterthought, checked the closet. Her clothes and shoes were all there from what I could tell. There weren’t any notes on the fridge or table. Her roommate was gone for the summer on some overseas trip.
Dialing her number again, I was relieved that it didn’t ring from inside the house. There was something nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I hadn’t been able to sense more than my normal cop enhanced senses since I’d escorted those bodies out of the forest. Either my gift had only been temporary and tied to the trauma from when I was young, or I had managed to block it all off again for self-preservation. Either way, that didn’t help locate Flora.
What if she’d been kidnapped and they were luring me here with her text message? Even as the thought raced through my mind, I pushed it away as not probable. There wasn’t anything that Flora had for someone to ransom her off with.
I had a crazy idea, and while not completely legal, I wasn’t going to use that as a reason not to ask. I pulled out my phone and shot out a text.
“Mac, its Leslie. I can’t find Flora. Can you trace her cell number?”
It was a long shot, but even undercover, Mac could work miracles. I was just hoping it didn’t lead to Flora’s body lying somewhere abandoned.
He shot back a text. “Trying now…”
While I waited, I made an extra pass through her house, even checking her fridge in case she had cleaned it out.
Full of food. There was no logical explanation as to what had happened to her.
“She’s at the address of another contact a few miles away. Her phone has been at that location for two days.”
“Thanks, Mac. I owe you.”
“Speaking of that, we need to meet.”
“Our regular place?” I messaged back.
“Yep, at the witching hour.”
I chuckled at his attempt to be all clandestine.
“See you then.”
“Good luck.”
Now, I just had to find Flor
a and rescue her from whatever crazy situation she’d gotten herself into.
The neighborhood that Mac had texted didn’t seem much different than Flora’s. I drove slowly past the address, looking for any signs that I was walking into danger.
On my second pass, I pulled up in front and parked. If I felt that something was hinky, I’d be able to make it out to my car to call for back-up.
A knock at the door didn’t seem to work, so I rang the bell, which echoed loudly inside the house.
The curtains ruffled as someone stuck their head out and back down quickly.
At least there was signs of life in the house. I pushed the bell again and kept my finger on it until the sound of the locks being disengaged announced that someone was there.
“Hello, may I help you?” A frazzled looking woman stood in the crack of the doorway.
“My friend was supposed to meet with me, and her phone’s GPS said that she was here. Flora Martin.” I tried to peer past her into the house, but could only see a small human doing the same thing from between her legs.
“Yeah, she’s here. Come on in.” She moved back just far enough that I could move inside the doorway.
“Flora, someone’s here for you,” she called out half-heartedly, her voice not carrying beyond the room.
“Wait here, I’ll go get her.” She spoke the words in such a putout manner.
“Certainly.” I stood with my back to the door because you never knew when someone was going to knock you over the head. The furniture didn’t look clean, and I was afraid that the three small children now watching me would converge like wolves on a carcass.
Flora appeared from down the hallway.
“Leslie, I’m so sorry. Their grandmother is on hospice and requested someone to do a blessing over her before she moves between the worlds. Time moves differently, and I’d turned my phone off so we wouldn’t be disturbed and her spirit could be at peace. I completely forgot to turn it back on again.”
She passed a weary hand over her face. “Let me go tell the family that I’m going. I’ll need to collect my things.”
