He went back into his oldest daughter’s kitchen. Everyone was out at the beach. He picked up the phone and dialed in the number to his former office at the FBI out in Los Angeles. “Tyler Savoy, please.” He asked for the young man he had helped to train. Tyler was an elite profiler and was very good at what he did. If anyone could give him some answers about this case, it would be him.
“Hey, Ben, long time. What are you up to?”
“Well, kid, I’m out here sunning myself in amazing Hawaii, drinking a Mai Tai, and overlooking the surf.”
“You old dog. Then what the hell are you doing calling me?”
“I’ve got a tick bugging me. You know my daughter, Holly?”
“Sure we’ve met. She’s a crime scene specialist with San Diego.”
“That’s the one.”
“I know they’ve got a nasty case right now. In fact, looks like we might be getting involved soon. Their chief gave us a ring, and we did some checking. There was a similar murder up here in Los Angeles in ’92, a kid and his mom murdered. No leads, nothing. Is your daughter working that case in San Diego?”
“She was.” Ben filled him in on the politics and what had happened.
“We all know the politics are a bitch. So are you doing some covert hunting for her? A bit of info gathering?”
“You could say that. What I need is for you to look up crimes in which the victim’s ring finger was cut off. I’m vaguely recalling something like that about twenty-five or so years ago, before you ever came onto the scene. If my memory serves me right, and believe me it doesn’t always serve me anymore, I recall something like that with a case up in the Oakland area. I was working the LA office, but that was when profiling was just getting going. Although I don’t think that the bastard who was responsible for that murder was a serial killer, my boss noted his method only because it was so absurd.”
“And this bad man down south is cutting off ring fingers?”
“Yep.”
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll get onto the computers and see what old files I can dredge up. It might take some time. Something tells me your old hound dog nose is onto something.”
“My gut more than my nose. The whole finger thing has been bugging me for a bit now.”
“I’ll call you back.”
Two hours later and two more Mai Tais, and Tyler called Ben back. “Got something for you. Does the name Drake ring a bell?”
Ben leaned back in his chair, put his feet up in the chair. He thought for a minute. “Drake, huh? I don’t know. Should it ring a bell?”
“Maybe. If memory serves me, you had a partner named Carter, right?”
“Yeah. Jimmy Carter, like the president. We worked together for a few years until he moved back up North. We talked occasionally thereafter. Poor buzzard has Alzheimer’s now.”
“Too bad, because Jimmy worked this case up in Oakland. Husband beat the shit out of his wife in front of their three kids. The youngest was only four at the time. The oldest, a boy, was about twelve.”
“Ah, good old dad, setting up his young ones for a lifetime of psychological problems.”
“No kidding. Anyway, after he did her in, he chopped off her finger, wrapped her in some tarp, and sent her on a deep sea fishing trip in the San Francisco Bay. The dad played the bereaved husband for some time, claiming that his wife was manic and disappeared. Everyone fell for it hook, line, and sinker. But the little one kept telling her preschool teacher that Daddy had cut off Mama’s finger.”
“The mouth of babes. Their honesty is so refreshing. So how long did it take before things started happening?”
“After about a month of the little one carrying on and then showing up at school with some nasty bruises across her back and legs, the teacher grew suspect and gave the police a call. A week after that, the mother’s mangled body washed up on shore.”
“How do they know that the finger was cut off and not eaten by the fishies?”
“Straight cut across. Fish gnaw.”
“Right.”
“Dad got away. Somehow he caught wind that the police were on to him, and he’s never been seen since. Hopefully he’s lying in his own grave, but he could be on some island enjoying life. Who knows? The kids were all separated and sent to foster homes. There was suspicion that the boy was also abusing his sisters.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far.”
“No, it doesn’t. Check this. The kid spent five years in juvie after cutting the finger off of one of his foster siblings. Of course, those records are sealed, but we have our ways.”
“Are you thinking what I am?”
“That maybe this kid, who would now be a man, is the dude down south doing the terrible deeds.”
“I’m thinking it could be. I’m also thinking that I better give Holly a call. I’m worried, though. It’s eight your time, and I’ve been ringing her at the cabin she’s at in Mammoth for the last couple of hours.”
“Probably out for dinner, Pops.”
“Hey, watch who you’re calling Pops, kid.”
“I’m not exactly a kid anymore. I’m graying at the sides. Listen, why don’t I take this info to Holly myself. Claire and I need a few days away. Our two-year-old is driving us crazy running the roost. My mom has offered to step in for a couple of days, and believe it or not, things are slow for me for the time being. We love the snow, and I might do some fishing if the lakes aren’t frozen over. Claire and I’ll take a flight up in the morning. I’ll head over to Holly’s place, fill her in on what we think we know. If she wants to take it a step further, I might call in my guys and kick the asses of the SDPD coppers who pulled her from the job.”
“She might like that.”
“Are we good to go, then?”
“Yep.”
“Good. I’ll give you a call when I land and fill you in before and after I see your daughter.”
“Thanks, Tyler. I appreciate it.”
“No problem, old timer.”
“I’m gonna kick the crap out of you when I see you if you don’t knock this old timer shit off with me.”
“Go drink a Mai Tai for me.”
Ben laughed and hung up the phone. Although he knew Tyler was a very good agent and that he’d be true to his word about going to see Holly, Ben still couldn’t help thinking time was of the essence.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Holly was trying to remain calm. She knew the importance of doing so for the girls’ sakes.
Gunter made Holly tie up the girls on the bed. He kept the gun going back and forth, pointing it between Chloe and Meg.
“I’m sorry girls, but Mommy and I need to talk, and we can’t be interrupted. Good job, Mommy. Now, no funny business.” Gunter inspected the knots while keeping the gun on the girls. “I’m a nice guy, you’ll see.”
Holly watched as Chloe’s eyes filled with tears. She shook her head no and made their little wave at her with her pinky. She knew it wasn’t much consolation, but hopefully it made her daughter feel a hint safer. Meg looked wide-eyed and completely frightened.
“Alrighty then, Mommy, you did a good knot.”
Hopefully Meg had been a girl scout, because Holly devised a knot that a girl scout might be able to get out of. Hopefully. This nut job hadn’t been a boy scout, that was for damn sure.
“Mommy and I are going in the other room to have a talk and then we’ll come back and tuck everyone in.”
He gave Holly a shove out the door. Once around the corner, he smacked her hard on her butt. “Nice,” he said.
She cringed.
“Okay, babe. Well, I’m hungry and want some dinner. You think you could get things going for me?”
“Do you think you could perhaps keep the gun out of my face?” she asked, trying hard to sound pleasant.
“Yes, I do see your point. Okay, I can do that, but here’s the deal. If you do anything funny, anything at all, my little handy dandy phone here . . .” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “I’m a
gifted man, and I read a lot. A real lot. It is amazing what you can discover on the internet. Not only can you learn the smartest way to stalk people and find out things about them that not even their mothers or best friends know, but you can also learn how to build a bomb. Kaboom! So what I did, just to ensure that our little engagement and future happen smoothly, is I placed an explosive device in the crawl space under the cabin, and if anyone does anything to mess with our relationship, then I will flip open my phone, press one number on the keypad, and we will all be sent skyward in a matter of seconds.”
“Why would you want to kill yourself?” Holly wasn’t buying it. Most psychopaths were so ego-oriented that suicide was not a method they chose. Unless they thought someone else might try and take them out first.
“Because, sweetie, what would life be without you? You are perfect. I’ve been watching, waiting, seeing you work your case, trying so hard to find me. You knew that eventually you would, and now you have. It was destiny.”
She took out some bacon and started frying it up for him. She didn’t want to believe him about the bomb, and if it was just her here in the cabin, she’d take her chances. But she had Meg and Chloe here, and she would not risk their safety on a hunch.
She would play along. She would follow his lead in this sick game. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Now you truly are a woman who understands a man, aren’t you?”
“I do.” She forced a shy smile.
“Ooh, I love the sound of those words. I do, I do, I do. And you will, too! Oh, yes, you will. I’m not a big drinker, but I do like wine.”
“I’ve got a bottle chilled in the fridge.”
“Nice. A chardonnay?”
“Yes.”
She took the bottle out and wondered what the odds were of being able to get him drunk enough that she could get the phone away from him. If she could do that, she could also get the gun out of his pants. It was slim to none that he would get plastered, even if he drank the bottle.
She poured him the glass. “Thanks, honey. Do you remember the first time we met?”
Holly stared long and hard at him. “Why don’t you tell the story again? You do it so much better than me.”
“Children’s Hospital. You brought Chloe there in the middle of the night with a fever. I checked her chart later after you left, and poor thing—a bladder infection.”
Holly remembered him now. Not only were his eyes the same as the boy’s in the picture she’d received earlier, but also the same as the man in the receiving area at Children’s Hospital. The one who’d followed her out that night as she put Chloe into the car. That was how he found his victims. It had nothing to do with dating services. That was simply coincidental. But there was still something here regarding William James and Darla Monroe. Then it clicked—Darla Monroe was Jennifer Drake. The man before her sipping wine was Gunter Drake.
Darla was also Lady Godiva, and he was Daddyman.
Oh, God. They were involved in some twisted incestual thing.
She couldn’t let on that she knew anything about any of it. She would have to play this game as long as possible in order to keep herself and the girls alive.
Her brain was swimming as she pieced together Gunter’s story. And William James was their patsy.
“You know, Chloe is still not well. In fact, she has another infection and hasn’t taken her medicine. I really should take her to the bathroom.”
“She’s fine,” he replied coldly and sipped his wine.
Holly finished fixing him a BLT sandwich with chips and orange slices. She took her time, letting him drink the wine, refilling his glass.
“Trying to get me in the mood, huh, babe? You don’t have to work too hard, I’m already there.” He grabbed his crotch.
Her only hope was to get him out of the house and away from the girls, then pray either Meg could undo the restraints and get them away, or that someone came looking for them. The phone lines had been dead all evening. She now knew that they’d been cut rather than downed from a storm. “Listen, I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s another thing I like about you, honey, you’re smart. So tell me, what’s going on upstairs in that pretty little head of yours?”
“We never really had a proper ceremony. Maybe we should.”
“Well, damned if I wasn’t thinking that myself.”
“I am an old-fashioned girl, and I’d like to be married before we, you know, consummate anything.”
“I don’t know about that.” He set his wine down and shook his head. “I’m a horny guy. I’ve got needs, Mommy. And looking at you drives me wild.” He slid his tongue across his lips.
Holly lowered her voice. “But the girls.”
He finished off his second glass of wine. Holly went to pour him another. He held his hand up. “That’s enough for me.”
Damn.
“I see your point. But maybe a little preview would hold me over.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you come here?” He pulled out the cell phone and showed it to her, then put it back in his pocket.
She had no choice. She came over to him. He slid his hands under her shirt, then under her bra, groping her breasts. He shoved his tongue in her mouth. Her entire body went ice cold.
“Mhhm. I wonder how you taste, huh?” He reached his hand lower, into her pants. His fingers sinking into her skin as he moved between her legs, violating her. She wanted to scream. She thought about kneeing him hard in the groin, then maybe luck would be on her side and she could at least get the gun and kill him in time. Her mind flashed back to the mutilated bodies of Patricia Collins, Shannon McKay, and her friend Lynne. He brought his fingers up to his nose, smelled them, licked them. She thought she would definitely be sick.
“You know, I think I would like a glass of wine,” she said, her voice shaking. Anything to kill more time. She needed to keep her head on, stay straight, but after what had just happened, some liquid courage might help to get them out of this.
“Yes. The wine might help you loosen up, honey. You seem on edge.”
She walked back around the kitchen counter and took the bottle of wine, pouring herself a glass and forcing back the bile that had risen moments earlier. “Look, you know I’m good on my word, and I’ve let you have your preview of things to come. But please, will you allow this to happen out of here. There are children, and you work around children and understand them. It might take some time for them to appreciate our relationship.”
He looked like he was pondering this. “Okay. But, hear this, baby, tomorrow morning you and I take off, get married, and then I’m gonna fuck you like there’s no tomorrow. You’ll be sore for days.” He grabbed himself again.
He was so foul and so repulsive. Holly hated this man with every fiber, every nerve ending, every part of her. She tried to control her shaking. Before he ever laid another hand on her, she would go down fighting. “I hear you.”
“Looks like we’ve got a few hours to kill. It’s only eleven.”
She couldn’t believe he’d already been in the house for almost two hours. “I should really go check on the girls.”
“Okay, babe, but no crazy ideas, or boom! Kaboom, sayonara, see you later alligator. Hasta la vista, baby.”
“No crazy ideas,” she assured him.
Holly went back into the room where the girls were. They were both still tied together on the bed. Holly could see that Chloe had fallen asleep, tear stains across her face. Meg was watching her. She took the tape off of Meg. “Shhh. He’s here still, and he has a bomb. I’m going to try and get him out of the house before the morning. The knot I made can be worked with. I want you to work the knot loose and go for help. Wait ten minutes after we’re gone, okay?”
Meg nodded. Chloe moved. “I’m going to take the tape off of her, too. Neither one of you can talk or cry out, or he’ll make me put it back on.” She slowly removed the tape from Chloe who opened her eyes i
n horror. “No, no baby. It’s going to be all right, okay? Meg is going to take care of you through the night, and by morning everything will be okay. I promise. Mommy will get rid of the bad guy just like Charlie’s Angels. But do everything Meg tells you.”
Chloe nodded.
“Okay. Listen for the door to close. I have faith in you. It’s going to be just fine.” She kissed both of them on top of their heads, held back her own tears, and went into the other room.
“The munchkins are sound asleep.”
“Good.”
“You know, instead of waiting until tomorrow, there has to be a justice of the peace open somewhere. We are pretty close to the Nevada border.”
He studied her.
“Let’s get married tonight. The girls are asleep, they won’t know the difference. Then you can get what you wanted much sooner than day break.”
“I like that idea. And just in case you’re not telling me the truth about them being asleep, that’s okay, because if they somehow get loose and open the door, if anyone opens the door, then the cell will ring.” Gunter grinned. “This place will blow sky high! Good protection, huh?”
Holly gasped. Now what? He walked over, took her by the hand.
“No worries, darling. As long as they’re good little girls and stay inside while Mommy and I are gone, there won’t be any problems. I’ve already set everything in place, and the only way for the bomb to be disarmed is if I do it myself. I’ll grab us a couple of jackets in the hall closet. No one would do anything stupid, right?” He held up the cell phone. “I’d hate to have to blow my new family out of this world, especially since this is a new start for all of us.”
Holly nodded. “No one is going to do anything stupid. Why don’t you go ahead and grab those jackets.”
Gunter walked out of the room. It took all her mental strength not to bum rush the door and get the girls out of there. But even if there wasn’t the threat of a bomb, Holly knew she couldn’t get the girls untied, out the back room, and through the front door before he came back into the room with the gun. She didn’t even have time to tell Meg about the bomb. He came back with the jackets.
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