Blood Indulgence: a serial killer thriller (Phineas and Liam Book 3)

by V. J. Chambers

  She glared at him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I know you don’t need my help. I know you’re very tough and skilled and you’re sexy with a gun, and—”

  “Stop,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said again.

  “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you,” she said. “I have to make sure the roadblocks are up to catch Worth.”

  “Oh, that’s a smart idea,” he said. “Because if she’s close, maybe we’ll stop her car or something.”

  “That’s the hope,” she said. She turned on her heel and stalked off.

  “Hey, Haysle?” he called after her.

  She kept walking. “What?”

  “I am sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” she yelled back. It wasn’t even him she was angry with, if she was honest with herself. She couldn’t believe that they were so unlucky as to have just missed Worth. She thought maybe they should have pushed the raid back to later at night, closer to 9:00 p.m. Instead, they’d gotten here around 7:30, too early. Worth had been out running errands or something, and she’d been warned off, and they’d missed her.

  Not only that, they’d only managed to save three of Worth’s followers.

  It had been four, but one of the men had managed to get a gun from one of the officers and to shoot himself in the throat.

  The truth was, she didn’t have training on how to deal with people who were all armed but not trying to use the guns to damage others, only themselves. She didn’t know what to do. Shooting the people to stop them from shooting themselves was obviously idiotic.

  If it were like the movies, where cops were expert marksmen who knew exactly where their shot would land and where a leg shot was never fatal, then maybe it could have been a viable strategy. But the truth was that even a skilled shooter didn’t always have that kind of precision, especially not with a moving target. Also, the human body was covered in arteries, and even a shot in the leg could nick one and mean a person bled out in minutes.

  So what was she supposed to have done?

  She wanted to punch things.

  They didn’t have a full body count on how many had shot themselves, but she put it close to ten.

  Ten people dead.

  Most of them right in front of her.

  She hadn’t ever seen so much death in her life.

  She wanted to cry.

  She couldn’t cry.

  She pulled out her phone and dialed.

  “Hey, Dawson,” answered a voice on the other end. “We’re set up everywhere except the ramp onto I-70 across the bridge in Maryland. Just waiting on the department there to authorize it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Great.” It was unfortunate that this area was so close to both Maryland and Virginia. It meant for a lot of coordination across various police departments in different states. “You would have called if you’d found anything.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Right. Well, let me know when the ramp’s covered.”

  “You got it.”

  She hung up and approached one of the cop cars, where one of the few remaining survivors was handcuffed.

  “This is good,” she said to the cop who was keeping watch. “Keep them away from each other. They might try to kill each other, to help each other out?”

  “Copy that,” said the cop.

  “And you make sure they’re not given anything remotely weapon-like when they go into county lock-up, got that?”

  “They’re going out to Martinsburg,” said the cop. “It’s a facility that houses the regional prison in addition to local arrests, so it should be good there.”

  “Okay,” she said. She turned in a circle. “Okay.”

  Then she spotted Liam and went back over to him. She dug out her car keys and put them in his palm. “The CCPD credit card is in the car,” she said. “It’s in my bag. Will you take the car and get us a room?”

  “One room?” he said.

  “No, two rooms, because we don’t need Captain Moore knowing anything about…” She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice. “But I don’t think I can sleep alone tonight either. Not after watching so many people die.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’ll manage. Can you handle finding a hotel for us?”

  “Yeah, I got that,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll call you when we’re wrapping up here, and I’ll need you to come get me.”

  LIAM woke with a start to sunlight streaming around the curtains in the hotel, and the sound of a phone ringing. He reached sleepily for his, but it wasn’t his ringtone, and his phone’s screen was blank and black.

  It

  Dawson answered her own phone. “Hello?” She scooted up against the headboard of the bed in the hotel room, pulling the sheet up over her body. They were both wearing pajamas. They had slept in the same bed the night before, holding each other, but they hadn’t done anything else. Well, maybe a little kissing. Neither of them had been in the mood after the bloodbath the night before. “Oh, hey, Carter.” She sat up even straighter.

  Liam sat up too. Carter? Her ex.

  “Yeah, I know I never got back in touch with you. Things have been pretty nuts with work. I’ve been traveling a lot.” A long pause. “You know, I don’t want you to get your hopes up about it. I think if you guys are thinking about pursuing other avenues, you should get started on that. I don’t know if it’s something I think I’m going to want to do.”

  Liam furrowed his brow. They must be talking about the idea of her and Carter having a child together.

  Dawson was listening. She was nodding. She tried to speak a couple of times and then stopped. Carter must be talking a lot. “All of that makes a lot of sense,” she said finally. “The thing is that I might have, um…” She glanced at Liam. “Maybe met someone?”

  Liam couldn’t help but smile at that. He liked being a someone.

  “Yeah, obviously, if I’m with a man, I’m going to want to have his children,” said Dawson. A pause. “Well, no, I haven’t been seeing him long. But you haven’t been with your boyfriend—” A pause. “Fiancé, excuse me, for very long either…. Yes, longer than I have…. This is a reason why I don’t think this would be a good idea. We would argue a lot. It wouldn’t be good for the child…. Carter, I’m going to hang up now. I just woke up. We’ll talk about this another time, okay?… I’m very sorry if you’re disappointed. Bye now.” She hung up the phone and flung it down at the foot of the bed.

  “You all right?” said Liam.

  She groaned and scooted back down under the covers. She yanked them up over her head.

  He chuckled. He scooted down, too. “So, I’m a someone you met, huh? You’re seeing me?”

  “Shut up,” she said. “How was I supposed to explain it to him? I have this fuck buddy who I’ve consented to procreate with? He’s very pretty but he has emotional baggage and it’s probably unethical for us to be sleeping together considering he’s all tangled up in the case I’m working?”

  “You think I’m pretty?” He grinned.

  She pulled the covers down from her face.

  He rolled over on his side, resting his head on his arm.

  She shook her head at him. “You know you’re gorgeous.”

  “Do I know this? Really? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say one complimentary thing about my looks.”

  “That is not true. I distinctly remember being very complimentary about your penis.”

  He snickered. “Yes, well, I feel much less objectified being called pretty.”

  “Well, then, I will be sure to prop up your ego as much as possible from now on.”

  “I’d appreciate it.” He reached out and ran his knuckles over her cheek. “You’re pretty, too, you know?”

  “Is that what I am?” she said. “Is that why you like me? Or is it because of my intriguing androgyny?”

  He scooted closer to her, brushing her hair away from
her face. “Sorry. I know you probably don’t like having your masculine attributes admired.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, shaking her head. “I know most trans people have a lot of dysphoria about their genitals and stuff, but I’ve never had that, not really. Should have been a sign. But anyway, I’m lucky. I don’t feel disgusted by my body. So, I’m okay with you liking my body hair. I like being liked.” She grinned at him, caressing his face as well.

  He leaned in and kissed her. “Well, I do like.”

  She shut her eyes as his lips met hers.

  They were quiet for long, comfortable moments. She kept her eyes closed. He absently feathered his thumb over her cheekbone.

  After a while, he broke the silence. “Can I ask you when you had your period last?”

  She opened her eyes. “Seriously?”

  “I’ve been doing research,” he said. “So, I think we can figure out when you probably ovulate, assuming that you’re regular or whatever.”

  “You did research about menstrual periods?” She raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m not like other boys, Haysle. I’m not the least bit squeamish.”

  She snorted. “Not squeamish, my ass, Mr. I-Got-Outside-Before-I-Vomited.”

  “That was a dead body,” he protested. “This is completely different.”

  “It’s still blood.”

  “Not remotely the same thing,” he said.

  “No, I guess not,” she said. She rolled over onto her side to face him. “I’ve been thinking about doing research. I mean, I do know this stuff, but it’s like when you memorize the periodic table for college chemistry, and then you need to remind yourself which ones are the noble gases?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “But I guess I’m afraid to find out. If I don’t know, then it’s not real.”

  “That kind of makes me feel bad about us being so careless. If you’re in denial about it—”

  “I didn’t say that.” She sighed. She squirmed close to him. “It was probably over about four days before we did it the first time.”

  He wrapped his arm around her. He splayed his hand over her back. “So… that first time, then, probably no. You shouldn’t have been fertile. But we need to figure out the day it started, because you probably ovulate about fourteen days after that.”

  “Well, this would have been like nine days after?”

  “It’s possible,” he said. “Sperm can live up to six days, and apparently, it takes them a while to, like, swim up there, so it’s possible.”

  “The second time was only a couple days later.”

  “Yeah, that was kind of optimal time,” he said.

  “Shit,” she breathed.

  He pulled back. “You freaked?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “Yeah.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “I can’t think about this right now, Liam. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah.” He kissed her forehead. “You have a lot to think about.”

  “I want to interrogate the surviving followers today,” she said.

  “Right.” He rubbed her back. “Do you want my help? You want me to come along?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t even know what to ask them. I also checked the list of properties we have, and this wasn’t on there. It actually doesn’t belong to the Worth family. It belongs to one of the people who shot themselves last night.”

  “So, that list of properties we have is worthless? She’s putting properties under the names of people in her little cult. How will we find her?”

  “We’ve got to convince one of the people in the jail to tell us that. How do we do that? They were ready to kill themselves for her. They’re never going to give her up. They’re loyal.”

  He rolled over onto his back. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let me know if you get any ideas,” she said.

  DAWSON got a phone call while Liam was in the shower, telling her that one of the followers had managed to get his hands on some kind of prison-made shiv and slit his own throat.

  So, they were down to two, and Dawson didn’t want to take any chances.

  She honestly didn’t even know if they warranted being in jail at all. There wasn’t necessarily evidence that they’d committed crimes, though it was likely that they’d had some part in the various murders that Worth had carried out. Even so, she spent the rest of the morning working on getting them committed to a mental health facility instead.

  She figured that a place like that would be better about suicide watch than a prison.

  She oversaw the transfer herself, her and Liam driving behind the vehicle, and she made sure that the two people—two women, identities currently unknown—were safe and secure before she and Liam headed back home.

  That night, she got a call from the mental health facility.

  One of the women had bitten off her own tongue in an attempt to choke on it. She’d failed and only succeeded in swallowing it instead, but she had been taken to the emergency room and was being treated there. She obviously wasn’t going to be able to speak if she was interrogated, and she’d need time to recover.

  Dawson drove out to the facility the next day to talk to the remaining woman. She had wanted to allow the women to have time to get a bit more comfortable and to possibly get some treatment. But at this rate, she wasn’t going to have anyone to talk to, because they’d all be dead.

  So, she sat on a chair next to the woman’s bed.

  She had been restrained and was now strapped to her bed because she’d been so adamant at doing harm to herself.

  Her blond hair fell listlessly around her face, and she turned to face the wall when Dawson came in to speak to her.

  “Hi there,” said Dawson.

  The woman started, turning to look at Dawson’s deep voice.

  Dawson chuckled. “Go on. Ask about my voice. I can tell you’re curious.”

  The woman looked her over, wary. “Were you born a man?”

  “Nope,” said Dawson. “But I thought I was one. I know about committing to an idea so deeply that you change everything about yourself. Maybe we can understand each other? What’s your name?”

  The woman didn’t say anything. She simply stared.

  Dawson felt unnerved. “When I was younger, I had trouble feeling like I fit in anywhere. I felt wrong in my own skin. And I didn’t feel like other women. I read about other people who had transitioned, and they were happy. I felt like a walking wall of pain, so I was willing to try anything. Did you ever feel that way?”

  The woman only blinked.

  “How did you get started with Destiny Worth? Were you on her forum? Did you take the online self-help course that she offered?”

  No response.

  Dawson sighed. “You know you don’t have to kill yourself, don’t you? Not for that woman. She’s using you for power. It’s not about whatever she’s told you it’s about—success or love or sacrifice or anything noble.”

  The woman turned her face away to look at the wall.

  “Hey,” said Dawson. “Look at me?”

  The woman didn’t.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RICKY Hernandez was feeling nervous.

  He’d texted Liam three times and left him a voicemail, and he’d heard nothing back from him. He’d also tried to get in touch with Dawson.

  She’d at least texted him back, saying that she wanted to get together with him to go over what he had for her, and that she’d get back in touch to set up an appointment.

  She hadn’t gotten back in touch, however.

  Hernandez had gone by Liam’s apartment and found it locked up. No one had answered when he knocked.

  He considered texting Dawson to ask if Liam was with her, but then he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.

  I’m not jealous, he tried to assure himself. Being jealous of Liam’s infidelities was stupid, because Liam was incapable of being faithful.

  Well.

&nb
sp; Maybe that wasn’t fair. Liam had told him that he was promiscuous, not that he was a habitual cheater. Hernandez didn’t know if his behavior with him had been atypical or not.

  Maybe I’m jealous, he thought.

  It was stupid, because after everything that Liam had put him through—from his ghosting to his fear of commitment to this latest atrocity, Hernandez should hate him. On paper, Liam was the least appealing man on the face of the planet. And yet, for some strange reason, he was appealing and Hernandez didn’t hate him.

  He wondered if Liam had sold his soul to the devil to make people obsessed with him, because really, how did this guy manage it? Everyone was into him, including a serial killer who wasn’t even capable of forming real attachments.

  Anyway, maybe that was why Hernandez was back at Liam’s apartment. He’d decided not to come at night, in case Liam was bunking down with Dawson all the time now. Day was better.

  So, it was late morning, around 11:00 a.m., and Hernandez was knocking on Liam’s door.

  When Liam opened the door, he was surprised. He hadn’t really expected he would be here.

  “Ricky,” said Liam, also surprised.

  “I thought maybe you were dead or something,” said Hernandez. “Because you didn’t text me back, and you weren’t home, and I just wanted to check and make sure that you were, you know, undamaged. Out of… just regular human decency, not anything else.”

  “I’ve been on the road with Dawson,” said Liam. “We missed Destiny by, I don’t know, hours? She was there, but we couldn’t find her. Roadblocks turned up nothing. I’m sorry I didn’t text back, but everything’s been crazy. Dawson said she texted you back, though?”

  “Yeah, she didn’t mention you were with her.” Hernandez shoved his hands in his pockets. Okay, now what? If my motivation was really only to see he was alive, I’ve done that. I should go. Hernandez did not move.

  “You want to come in?” said Liam.

  Hernandez stepped inside. “I have information about Worth, actually.”

  Liam closed the door behind him. “Yeah? What do you got?”

  “Well, since I’m an official consultant, Dawson put me in touch with the IT guys at the station, and I got them monitoring the LolaDust account. Just a day or two ago, they messaged me, because they noticed something odd. The IP address changed. Whoever is uploading usually obscures it and makes it look as though it’s being uploaded from Sri Lanka. But this time, they got a real location close by. They asked me if I thought it should be checked out, and I said yes, but that I would talk to Dawson about it myself. Except she hasn’t gotten back in touch with me. Should I just tell the IT guys to send her an email?”