Runs Deeper

by R. D. Brady

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Julie didn’t remember anything after curling up with Steve. She’d fallen asleep hard. There were no dreams, no thoughts, just energy-renewing nothingness.

  “Julie.”

  She could hear the urgency in her name, even as she fought to keep from waking.

  “Julie.”

  Slowly she swam through the dark and opened her eyes. “Pete?”

  Pete squatted down next to the couch. He gave her a small smile. “Hey. I’m sorry to wake you, but Chris is bringing someone in. He said it looks pretty bad.”

  Julie sat up, her head spinning for a minute as she jolted back to full wakefulness. “What are we talking about? Car accident?”

  Pete shook his head, darting a glance at Bess. “No. It wasn’t a car accident.”

  Julie’s heart hitched. Jack. She nodded her understanding as she stood, tucking the blankets around Bess and trying to ignore the tremor in her hands. She didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone. Declan walked over from the back of the room. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Go on.”

  Julie gripped his hand, giving it a squeeze before hurrying to follow Pete. They reached the large main doors of the firehouse, which were still opening as Chris pulled to a stop outside. Julie was still trying to get her brain back to fully functional mode. Pete left her side, pushing the stretcher right to the edge of the door.

  Julie huddled inside as the two of them maneuvered a man from the back of Chris’s squad car and onto the stretcher. With a start, Julie realized it was a stranger.

  “There’s an injury to his back,” Chris said as he and Pete rolled the stretcher into the bay. As soon as he was inside, Julie started to examine him. He had multiple stab wounds on his chest and thighs, and he was cold to the touch. “Who is he?” Julie asked.

  Chris hesitated. “He’s a reporter. He was asking questions about Steve.”

  Julie looked up at him in surprise before she resumed her inspection. He had a deep wound in the middle of his back. Julie probed it gently.

  “That was from a nail.” Chris swallowed. “We found him hanging.”

  Julie ignored the image that flashed through her mind and continued her inspection. “Where did you find him?”

  The reporter’s body was freezing, which actually was probably a good thing. It had slowed the blood loss. If it hadn’t been so cold, he probably would have bled out hours ago. Of course, that meant that now he was in danger of losing more than a few digits. Already she could see the dark color creeping across three of his fingers.

  He had multiple stab wounds along his torso and along his legs, although none looked too deep. Jack wanted you to suffer. She winced, then checked the emotions and focused on the task at hand. Horror could come later. She looked up again at Chris. “Chris, where did you find him?”

  Chris exchanged a look with Pete, who nodded back at him. “He was in your garage, Julie.”

  Julie gripped the stretcher as her knees buckled. Oh my God. “Steve?”

  Chris spoke quickly. “He’s fine. He’s right behind me.”

  As if on cue, Steve pulled in to the parking lot in Pete’s car. Julie’s breath held until she saw him step out of the car, looking perfectly fine. She let out a breath. “Okay. Let’s get him back to the med unit.”

  Pete and Chris helped her push the stretcher down the hall. Julie’s mind was already categorizing what she was going to need. But on a parallel tract, she was reeling at what had occurred. Jack had struck again. And this time he’d left them a gift in the garage like a cat leaving its master a mouse.

  But even as she thought it, she knew the metaphor wasn’t correct. They weren’t the masters. Jack was the one playing with all of them. And she also knew that he would continue to leave them gifts until he tired of the game.

  Or until they became one of the gifts.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Nevaeh stared at the garage floor. There was little to no blood, and what was there had frozen solid. It was gruesome and disturbing, but it was also informative: Phineas O’Rourke hadn’t been attacked here. He’d only been left here.

  No, displayed here.

  She’d walked around the garage and found the killer’s trail. He’d covered his tracks, refilling where he’d stepped, probably to not tip off Steve. Then the snow last night had finished the job, leaving the snow appearing untouched. The trail led through the yard that backed onto Steve’s house and to the street. He probably had a car waiting, most likely O’Rourke’s. She had an APB out on it, but she wasn’t expecting any hits.

  She turned her back on the garage as Robert walked up the driveway toward her. He’d gone to question the neighbors. “Anything?”

  “They didn’t see anything. With the storm …” Robert shrugged.

  Nevaeh blew out a breath. Of course not. But then again, even if they saw the attacker, what could they give them? Jack was smart. He would have taken pains to hide his face. The weather alone would help with that: completely covered from head to toe wouldn’t look out of place right now.

  “What do you want to do, Chief?” Robert asked.

  That was the question. Her resources were running extremely thin. At this point they had five crime scenes, and she couldn’t guard them all. She had three deputies and an additional four volunteers. “Lock it up. We’ll deal with it after we get a little more help.”

  “Any idea when that will be?”

  Nevaeh shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  She’d put in a call to the state police. She simply didn’t have the resources to deal with this many crime scenes. But the state police were also being run a little ragged with the storm. It would take at least a couple of days for them to get some help out here.

  And God knew how many more crime scenes there would be by then. She had no illusions about her ability to track Jack down. The storm was making travel impossible. People were huddled in place. Noticing anyone would be difficult, and without some sort of break, she knew it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. She couldn’t exactly conduct a house-by-house search.

  God damn it.

  Nevaeh left Robert to lock up the garage as she headed back to the firehouse. She knew that people were fascinated by serial killers. She wasn’t sure why. They were monsters come to life. They destroyed everything they touched.

  And Jack Kane was proving to be one of the worst of the bunch. She knew that there were forty serial killers at large at any given time in the United States. Sometimes they could go days, weeks, months, even years before a follow-up kill. But Jack wasn’t waiting long at all.

  Which didn’t seem to fit his profile.

  Before he’d been incarcerated, he’d been so careful. He hadn’t even been suspected. And yet now the murders were piling up one on top of the next. And the detectives said Jack had left hair at the Hodgkins scene. That wasn’t like him. Something had changed.

  And Nevaeh knew that whatever that something was, it spelled more problems, more death for the people of Dover.

  Nevaeh pulled into the firehouse parking lot. She knew she had to question Steve, but she also knew how useless it was going to be. He was being batted around. His brother was once again trying to target him and make his life hell.

  And he was succeeding.

  Yesterday Jack had nearly taken his daughter from him. Before that, he’d nearly taken the lives of both Steve and Julie. She didn’t care what those Albany detectives thought. Steve was not the villain in this piece. He was the long-suffering victim. How could two brothers be so different?

  Nevaeh understood that there were criminals like Jack out in the world. But she always struggled to understand how they could do such things. How they could be so different from all the other normal humans that felt guilt and remorse. Jack Kane felt none of that. He couldn’t, not with all the damage he’d left in his wake.

  Nevaeh hurried into the firehouse, stepping in through the main reception area. Brandi looked up from her s
pot behind the desk. “Hey, Chief.”

  “Hey, Brandi.”

  Brandi hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Julie’s working on the guy in the back. Steve’s with Bess, Declan, and Russ. We’re turning into a full-fledged hospital here.”

  The firehouse was warm, which felt good against Nevaeh’s exposed skin, but it couldn’t seem to touch the cold that had taken ahold of her. “How’s everything else here?”

  Brandi shivered. “Better than whatever is going on out there. The whole town feels a little colder, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” she murmured. Nevaeh headed for Julie’s med area first. Julie was inside working on the reporter with Pete’s help. Chris leaned against a wall next to them. He jumped to his feet when he saw her and hurried over. “How is he?” Nevaeh asked.

  “Not good. Julie’s trying to warm him up, but with all of his injuries, she can’t keep the warming blankets on him and bandage and suture him up. She’s trying to figure out the best approach.”

  Nevaeh shook her head. “What about his injuries?”

  “He’s got six stab wounds along the torso and thighs. But the main wound is in his back. He was somehow hefted onto a nail and left hanging. Julie’s pretty sure he’s got some internal bleeding, but without scans, she can’t do anything about that, short of opening him up and looking around. He needs to get to the regular hospital. She’s going to stabilize him enough that hopefully he’ll survive the trip.”

  “How is he even alive?”

  “Julie said it was the cold. It kept the blood loss to a minimum and slowed down his heart to preserve his body. If this had happened in the summer, he never would have made it.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s said anything?”

  “Not a word.”

  Nevaeh stared at the man on the table, trying to ignore the horror crawling over her. Julie was busy. She’d get her rundown later. “Stay with her. When Julie’s got him stabilized, you’ll need to run him over to Northern. See if you can get in touch with one of the EMTs and have one of them go with you.”

  “Will do.”

  “And keep me updated.” She took a breath. “Now, where’s Steve?”

  “Down in the lounge.”

  With one last glance at the reporter, she headed down the hallway. It was barely nine a.m., and she already felt like she’d put in a full day.

  She stepped into the doorway of the lounge. Steve sat with a sleeping Bess cuddled in his lap, his head resting on the top of her head. Declan and Pete sat across from him, sipping coffee. All of the adults looked up when Nevaeh appeared in the doorway.

  Nevaeh darted a glance at Bess, keeping her voice low. “Steve, I need to speak with you.”

  Steve looked at Pete. “Can you …” He gestured to Bess.

  Pete gently took her from Steve’s arm. “I’ll stay with her.”

  Nevaeh gestured to the hall. Running his hand over Bess’s head for just a moment, Steve followed her.

  Declan stood as well, following Steve to the door. Nevaeh thought about telling him to stay back, but she could use a little bit of his insight. Nevaeh led them down the hall to the kitchen. They all settled in around the kitchen table. Nevaeh poured herself a cup of coffee and then held up the pot. Both Steve and Declan shook their heads in response.

  Setting the pot back on its cradle, she took a seat in between the two of them. She pulled out her notepad and pen. “Okay, I’m going to need you to tell me everything that happened.”

  Nevaeh hadn’t learned anything from Steve’s recitation of events. He’d been at the firehouse all night, and Chris had arrived at the house before Steve even went into it. All he’d done was discover the body. He had no new information to share, although they all knew exactly who was to blame.

  After forty minutes of questioning him and not getting anything new, she closed her notebook. “Well, I guess that’s about it.”

  Steve glanced at the doorway. “If it’s okay, I’d like to get back to Bess.”

  “Of course,” Nevaeh said, suddenly feeling bone tired.

  Steve stood. “I’m really sorry about all of this.”

  “Do not take the blame for this, Steve. That’s all on your brother,” Nevaeh said.

  “Still makes me feel guilty. As if somehow I’m the reason all of this is happening.”

  Declan shook his head. “If you had never existed, Jack would still be doing this. People like him, they’re not made, they’re born. There’s no world in which Jack would have been a good, decent human being. You didn’t cause this.”

  Nevaeh could tell that Steve didn’t entirely believe either of them. But he nodded and headed out the door.

  “I hate that he’s going through this again,” Declan said.

  “It’s amazing how two brothers can be so different,” she said, vocalizing her thought from earlier.

  The two of them fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Last night, Nevaeh had reviewed the cases that had been attributed to Jack. It had not been enjoyable reading. Her sleep had been decidedly unrestful following it.

  And it hadn’t offered any insight. Jack’s victims varied: men, women, adults, children, race, age. There was no pattern, which was why it had been so hard to link them together.

  And his actions here were no less complicated. It seemed anyone, anytime was fair game.

  Nevaeh rubbed her forehead. “Here’s what I don’t get. Jack was always so careful. No one even suspected him for years. And yet now he’s doing these attacks one right after the next. It feels like something’s changed.”

  Declan looked even more tired than Nevaeh felt. “There are some who say that Jack is now rivaling Ted Bundy for being one of the most prolific and well-known serial killers of the modern age.”

  Nevaeh pictured the infamous serial killer. Unlike Jack, he’d actually been suspected early on, but the cops had discounted him almost immediately. He was a law student and looked so clean-cut and handsome that they couldn’t wrap their minds around the possibility that he could be their man. A lot of lives could have been saved if they had looked underneath the surface.

  But that was back in the seventies. Criminal profiling had been in its infancy. People didn’t understand psychopaths. They didn’t understand that a monster could hide behind a pretty face.

  “I get the parallels. Bundy was supposed to have killed almost forty people, although the actual number is still a matter of debate. He confessed to twenty-eight, right?” Nevaeh asked.

  “Yeah. Some people maintain he killed over a hundred. His last victim was a twelve-year-old girl.”

  Nevaeh shivered, picturing young Kimberley Leach. She’d been in the seventh grade and had disappeared in the middle of a school day. Her body had been found two months later. Bundy was found guilty of her murder, although he’d never confessed to her death.

  “Bundy was also rather careful. He used a fake cast to get women to help him carry books back to his car. Once they were there, he would club them over the head, and that would be it.”

  “It was a smart tactic.” Nevaeh had always thought that preying on women’s compassionate natures was a smart approach—sick and disgusting but smart.

  Declan nodded. “He was smart. But after he was arrested, things changed. He actually escaped jail twice. The second time, he killed the two nursing students at the Chi Omega house. In fact, he killed five people within twenty-four hours. He was spiraling, losing it.”

  Nevaeh eyed Declan. “You think that’s what’s happening here?”

  Declan shrugged. “Not sure. But you’re right, things have changed. Jack’s not being careful anymore. It’s one body after another. When serial killers spiral, they stop being careful, and there’s a better chance of catching them.”

  “But it also means Jack’s even more dangerous right now.”

  Declan nodded slowly. “Yes, right now he’s probably the most dangerous he’s ever been.”

  Nevaeh shivered. God help us all.

  Chapter Sevent
y

  The Dover Village police cruiser sat idling outside the firehouse. Puffs of white smoke curled away from the exhaust pipe as it met the cold air. Nevaeh watched it through the rearview mirror, making no move to put the car into gear. It was warm and toasty in here, but it didn’t dislodge the ball of ice that had developed in the middle of her chest.

  She had just helped load Phineas O’Rourke into the back of the ambulance. Chris was driving, and Aiden Fairfield was in the back with O’Rourke. The man hadn’t regained consciousness. And Julie said it was still only a fifty-fifty chance that he’d survive, but she’d done all she could here. He needed the hospital’s resources.

  Nevaeh rubbed her hands together, an old habit that helped her think. But it wasn’t helping her today. Phineas O’Rourke was a freelance writer from Albany. A quick internet search had told her that much. Jared had filled in that he’d been staying at the bed and breakfast until yesterday morning, when he checked out. A credit card check showed he’d checked into a Super 8 by the highway that afternoon. But after that, the trail went cold. There was no information about when he’d returned to town and how he’d ended up in Steve and Julie’s garage.

  In her gut she knew Jack Kane was the one responsible for Phineas. But there’d been no sightings of him. He was like a ghost slipping through Dover, leaving horror and devastation in his wake.

  And that was the part she couldn’t understand. She knew that with the storm everyone was bundled up and staying home. But someone had to have seen him. Dover simply wasn’t that big. And Jack had to be staying somewhere. He’d stayed at Laura’s for a while. And she’d had Joan and Chris check Miss Minnie’s—he’d stayed there as well. He’d probably been there when they’d found her body. It wasn’t standard procedure to investigate a victim’s home, but if they had, maybe they would have found him already.