Kill Game: An Unforgettable Serial Killer Thriller

by Adam Nicholls

  Of course she’d found him. He’d been working so hard to lure her in—to tease and draw her out like a cud-chewing deer. The entire time she’d been the one hunting him.

  Salem finally found the bandage and unfurled it. Holding one end in his teeth, he wrapped the putty-beige band so tight he could feel his hand swell beneath the wound. That would have to do until he got out of there.

  His vision starting to clear, he looked around his 500-square-foot self-storage arsenal. Unlike the house he’d been squatting in, it was perfectly organized. Toolboxes and gun cabinets lined all three walls, and a small table was in the center covered in boxes of extra equipment he’d ordered as backup. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

  Of course, he hadn’t thought of an extra set of keys. That would’ve been far too convenient. His stomach knotted again with humiliated rage. The keys that would open these cabinets and allow him access to guns, money, and clothing were hanging on a little hook back on Harrison. No doubt by now Isabella had the house swarming with police, and they—along with everything else he’d been working on—were packed up in plastic somewhere ready to be examined by now.

  They’d know everything. Now he’d have to not only expedite his plan but repurchase all of the necessary supplies. Rage knocked at his skull louder this time, howling at the door for permission to enter. Salem gritted his teeth, the crunching noise audible in the silence. He reached back into the toolbox. It was the only cabinet in the unit that didn’t need a key, and ironically it was filled with all the things that weren’t going to be of any use to him. He’d already pilfered the medical supplies, and as far as he recalled, the only other things inside were soldering guns and various other tools.

  Except…

  Salem yanked open the small drawer at the top of the box. He reached into the tangle of silver wires that filled it, reaching back through the tiny scratches that spilled still more of his blood. He exhaled in a loud gust when his fingertips brushed smooth plastic.

  His brother’s old burner phone.

  He’d found it in an old bag a few months ago, before he’d moved back to Portland, and it’d never been used. As long as it still had a charge, he’d be able to call for a ride and get out of there.

  He pulled the small red flip phone from the drawer. He punched the keyboard, willing the screen to burst into light. When it did, he exhaled with relief. There was no way he could call a taxi looking the way he did. Not a lot of people were willing to pick up a shirtless, blood-soaked old man from a storage complex under the freeway in the middle of the night, but what choice did he have? With all his new plans coming to light he would have to act fast.

  Only then could he continue his game.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bella heard Captain Brooks long before he entered the room. In fact, she heard him the moment he stepped out of his car and onto the sidewalk. Everyone did. His voice boomed over the chatter—louder than the radios, the conversations, the thoughts in her own head.

  She glanced over at Kyle where he sat beside her, his pupils wide. Still holding a pack of ice to the back of his head where he’d been hit, he managed a weak smile in her direction.

  “Dad’s home,” he breathed.

  “This isn’t going to be good,” she barely managed to whisper before the door swung open.

  Captain Brooks stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the red-and-blue lights that swirled around the front yard. Bella felt every eye in the room turn to the two of them. Bella’s mouth went dry as Brooks stormed toward them, his white brow so furrowed that his eyes were lost beneath them.

  “This is absolutely against protocol, and you both know it,” he spat, as if he’d been arguing with the two of them for hours. As he advanced, Bella and Kyle shrunk into themselves, pressing back into the sunken sofa like disobedient children. “I expected more from you. Two of my best officers putting themselves and this entire investigation at risk like a couple of goddamn rookies.”

  Bella and Kyle stood up. Kyle was still worse for wear, and Bella supported him by the elbow, her face pale and ashamed.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Brooks said, motioning to the blue ice pack that Kyle still held to the back of his head.

  “Possible…” Kyle choked up, his voice failing him.

  “Possible what?” Brooks’s cheeks were two bright apples of fury.

  Kyle cleared his throat. “Possible concussion, sir. Ross struck me with something on the way out the door.”

  “On the way out the door.” Brooks said the words slow as if to savor them. His eyes, vulture-sharp and furious, were now examining his adopted daughter with a cruel coldness. “Seriously?”

  “I was acting on a hunch.” Bella’s voice was even smaller than Kyle’s. She hated the sound of it more than she hated the feeling of her stomach roiling somewhere down by her ankles.

  The sound of Brooks’s laughter was worse than his yelling. It filled the cluttered room, searing into her like he’d poured hot water into her ears. She squinted against it. “You were acting on a hunch? You shouldn’t have been acting at all. I gave you orders, Detective. Specific orders to stay out of this. You’d think that keeping you on house arrest would be enough. Do you know what you two have done? Do you have any idea what your little episode of Scooby Doo has cost us?”

  The other officers walked around them gingerly, collecting evidence and keeping their eyes averted in the most obvious way possible. Bella shook her head, her cheeks so hot she could feel the heat rising like the shimmer of a mirage. “No, sir.”

  “Our reputation. Sandy and her news crew are out there right now, preparing tomorrow’s top story: ‘Police find the Portland Predator only to lose him again.’ Do you have any idea how hard this is going to hit the whole department? Do you know how much ass-kissing you’re going to have to do to make up for this? You’re both this close to losing your badges!”

  He was right. She’d had Salem Ross. If only she’d kept it together, he’d be in custody right now. Bella and Kyle would be walking out of this house heroes instead of embarrassments.

  Kyle opened his mouth to speak, but Brooks silenced him by raising his finger.

  “Your jobs,” he said, bending one strong finger back. “The four officers outside your apartment, Bella. Their jobs too, that’s six. How many other people are you planning on destroying before you get what you want?”

  “Sir, this was all on me. I could’ve stopped her, but I didn’t,” Kyle pleaded.

  Bella thought she could detect the same tightness in his throat that she was fighting. He sounded strangled by his own humiliation.

  “I could’ve at least stopped him getting out of here.”

  “Detective Gray, you’re dismissed.” Captain Brooks dropped his head. There was a weariness behind his anger that was only briefly visible. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

  Kyle looked at Bella, his pupils still dilated and panicked. He hesitated for a second too long, and Brooks was in his face again, all trace of exhaustion replaced again by anger.

  “Are you seriously going to make me repeat myself?” His voice was loud enough to echo through the small house.

  “No, sir,” Kyle mumbled. He took his jacket from the couch. He gave Bella one more glance and was out the door, weaving his way through the other officers until the sea of lights and cameras outside enveloped him.

  Brooks continued to examine his daughter, searching her for some sort of explanation, as if the key to understanding her behavior was somewhere in her eyes. She was having trouble meeting his. If she did, he’d see the tears that brimmed there. The amount of humiliation that would cause her was unimaginable.

  But now they were alone, his tone softened. “Bella, look at me.”

  A sob choked her. “I screwed up,” she managed. A shiver of misery ran up her spine. She scrubbed a tear off her face, annoyed. “I’m so sorry. I screwed up so bad.”

  “Yes, you did. You real
ly did. But I need you to look at me.”

  Forcing herself to raise her eyes was a herculean effort. She expected to see his face, still twisted with rage, inches from hers. She was surprised when his face registered nothing but concern. And weariness. That was still there. The way he was looking at her, disappointed and worried, was worse than the anger he’d entered the room with. He wasn’t looking at her like her captain anymore—he’d morphed back into her dad. His hand fluttered between them, as if to reach out and comfort her. He dropped it to his side instead. “Did he touch you? Hurt you in any way?”

  Bella was speechless. She shook her head.

  Captain Brooks sighed, his hands raising up to his hips in his characteristic pose. Whenever other officers decided to mock him behind his back, that was the easiest way to nail the impression. That, and striding around yelling. Another layer of guilt added to her already thick coating of misery when she remembered all the times she’d smiled at these send-ups of the man. He loved her, and she loved him.

  “I shouldn’t have done any of this,” she mumbled, “I should’ve listened to you and stayed in. I put Detective Gray at risk, and I manipulated the other officers.” Bella shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking like someone out for revenge. When that kind of poison gets into you, Bella, it spreads. It leaks out all over everyone around you.”

  Bella wiped her face, staring up at the ceiling and over her father’s head in order to steady herself. She took a deep breath. “You should take my badge,” she said quietly. “I obviously can’t handle this.”

  There was a pause so long that Bella eventually looked back at her father. He was still staring at her, his eyes red-rimmed and soft. He shook his head. “No, you’re not going to be that lucky. That kind of punishment wouldn’t teach you a damn thing, and frankly—” He sighed again, looking around at the room as if for the first time. “—you’ve gotten further on this case than anyone I put on the task force, including Gray.”

  Bella’s heart skipped a beat. She spoke before she could think better of it, blurting out excitedly. “You’re putting me on it?”

  “No. I’m putting you back at the station.”

  The lump in her throat dissolved.

  “You stay right under my nose where I can see you. That way as soon as you decide to play vigilante again, we can stop it before it starts.”

  Bella grabbed her coat, shaking her head with disagreement. “I won’t. No more vigilante, I promise.”

  “Yeah? Well, I think you’ll do it again. Prove me wrong.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A deep scratch. She’d thought of putting it on her body initially—marking her flesh on the outside for each time he wounded her on the inside. She’d pressed the end of the stick into her emaciated, bruised thigh so hard that a red halo appeared around the tip. Cutting herself would be claiming herself at this point. It was her body, after all, wasn’t it? It was becoming harder and harder to remember that. She’d pressed down harder, willing herself to slice through her skin.

  He’d see the marks though. He’d see the blood and the bruising and turn the entire basement upside down looking for whatever she’d used to do it. He’d claimed her, now. She was nothing more than an item, and her cutting herself would be punished like vandalism.

  Bella marked the walls instead. There was a scrape for every time he made his unsteady way down the stairs to breathe the air from her lungs and send her soul fluttering around the light bulb like a trapped sparrow. She took the same stick she’d written her rescue note with from under her mattress and made the tiniest mark on the bricks next to her head.

  Fourteen. He’d visited her fourteen times since she tucked the note under the dog’s collar. Had it been weeks? Months? Her ears had become tired of straining in the silence for some sort of unusual noise. For the first few days she’d been certain that any moment there would be the sound of police sirens, the flash of lights, and unfamiliar, steady voices calling out to her from the driveway.

  There had been nothing.

  The dog still came back to leave his wet nose trails across the glass, but she had nothing to give him. She’d had only that one chance, and it was wasted.

  When the marks on the wall reached twenty, she’d give up. She’d plunge that stupid shard of wood hard and deep into her wrists until she flew up and out of her body like she did whenever Salem visited her. Only this time she wasn’t going to come back. He could have her body, sick, fevered, and thin as it was. She didn’t want it anymore. It was dying—spilling her blood onto the dirty sheets and down into the cellar drain would be a relief.

  Bella lay back on the mattress. Her head spun every time she sat up lately, but she refused to lie down all day. She was only going to give up on her own terms. Now that the excitement of being rescued was waning, the excitement of ending her own life was taking its place. She’d give them six more scrapes on the brick to find her. Until that point, she needed to keep herself in her body.

  A sudden thump at the top of the stairs caused Bella to startle. She pushed herself up on her thin arms, despite the vertigo that caused the room to dip and sway beneath her. He was coming again. Her heart raced, flapping like a weak bird in her chest, and she did her best to push herself backward against the marked wall.

  The door swung open. Bella was confused as Salem’s brothers tumbled down the stairs, their dirty work boots sending up clouds of dust as they slammed on the wood. They were arguing under their breath, the older one locking the door and hissing out a string of curses.

  Bella was immediately aware of the crunch of gravel from the driveway. Help. Someone had got her message. It had to be. Someone was here to help. Regardless of the two men storming toward her corner, Bella got up and managed to take a few stumbling steps to the window.

  The older brother yanked the cheap blind down, pulling the vinyl until it had reached its limit. He sneered at the girl making her wobbling way toward them, as wispy and intangible as a ghost.

  “Grab her,” Jim whispered at his brother. “Get her back in the corner and shut her up.”

  Scott lunged at her. She hadn’t seen either of the men since the first day they’d arrived at the farmhouse, and they were infinitely more terrifying than she remembered. The older one, Jim, was looking at her with obvious horror as she attempted to coordinate herself enough to fight back. Scott’s yellow eyes had widened as well, and he seemed to hesitate to touch her, let alone pick her up in his arms. He advanced on her carefully, spreading his tattooed arms wide to prevent her passing. There was a squeaking sound from her dry throat as he scooped her up.

  “She stinks,” Scott said, looking back over his shoulder at his brother. He pulled his head back from her where she hung limp in his arms. She’d tried to fight. She’d tell whoever was going to rescue her that she did. The man who’d shot her mother picked her up in his arms with no more effort that picking up a kitten. “Jesus Christ. She reeks. Isn’t he giving her a bath or nothing?”

  Jim ran his hands over his bald head, watching Scott carry her back to the mattress in the corner.

  “What the hell has he done to her?” he said, his voice lowered. “Did you know what he was doing down here?”

  Scott dropped the girl’s body onto the mattress. Her limbs folded up on themselves. She looked up at the two men standing over her. She was nothing like the girl they’d brought home in the back of the car a couple of months ago. She felt so light with weight-loss, and she glared up at them, vibrant with fever. Her thin chest rose and fell rapidly as she struggled for breath.

  “What did you think he was going to do with her?” Scott spat.

  “Is that…” Jim pointed at the stained sheets. “That’s a lot of blood.”

  The sound of footfalls on the front steps silenced the men. Bella struggled against her own weakness to raise herself again, but she was stopped by Jim. He sat on the mattress beside her, clamping one hand over her mouth. The smell of
cigarettes on his skin made her gag.

  “Just shut up,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t say a damn thing.”

  The house had fallen silent again, like it always did when an outsider arrived. It held its breath along with the rest of them as the sound of the front door creaking became audible. Salem’s voice—charming and full of down-home goodness—carried down the steps soon after it.

  “Good afternoon, Officer, what can I help you with?”

  Bella’s heart leapt. Her muscles strained with a sudden burst of energy she hadn’t felt in weeks. Officer. There was a police car outside and an officer at the door. She was going to be saved.

  She heard the officer introduce himself. She listened carefully, straining for every word beneath the rapid in-and-out of Jim’s panicked breath in her ear. It was hard to make out the police officer’s words, but Salem’s were as clear as if he were in the room with them.

  “Missing for how long? Well, that’s a shame. Pretty little thing, too. How old did you say she was?”

  “Eight. We believe the same people who shot her mother are responsible for her kidnapping.”

  Salem clicked his tongue. “Pity, sweet child like that. Can’t say I’ve seen her around though. I can ask my brothers when they get back, but I haven’t seen a kid around these parts in months, let alone a lost little girl.”

  “Kidnapped,” the officer corrected. His voice was warm, but expressionless. “Kidnapped little girl. Not lost. Your neighbor mentioned he’d found some kind of note? Under his dog’s collar? It’s probably nothing, but we just wanted to check the area to see if anyone had seen anything unusual.”

  Salem scoffed. There was an edge to the laugh that Bella had heard before. She breathed in the cigarette stink of Jim’s hand over her mouth, feeling the sweat from his palm at the sound of his brother’s icy tone.

  “A dog’s collar? Yeah, I wouldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw him, tell you that. He’s a drunk. Heavy alcoholic. I hate to talk harsh about a neighbor, but he’s about as reliable as those old cars he keeps on blocks over there.”