The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  In this instance, the meaning didn’t matter. No fighting was necessary. It passed by four police officers without any of them giving it more than a passing glance.

  Then it was in the open air and on its way home to the master.

  23

  MAGGIE HAD WATCHED IN CONFUSION AS MARCUS CARRIED AN UNCONSCIOUS WOMAN FROM THE SUBURBAN UP TO ONE OF THE SECOND-STORY BEDROOMS. The Director had called for a doctor he could trust, but the woman looked to Maggie as though she needed to be in a hospital. She couldn’t figure out why Marcus would have brought her to the farmhouse instead. The mysterious blonde kept mumbling, saying the name Dylan, but she had obviously been under some serious sedation and had yet to recover.

  Marcus hadn’t said a word to Maggie since coming in. He had simply pulled a chair up next to the woman’s bed and held her hand. Maggie knew him well enough to see that there was no point in trying to get him to talk, at least not at the moment.

  It took the doctor whom the Director had phoned a little over an hour to arrive. He was mid-thirties and handsome but with a tired, world-weary downturn to his features. He immediately ushered Marcus from the bedroom and shut the door as he began his work.

  Marcus stood in the hall beside the door, leaning his head back against the plaster.

  Maggie joined him and said, “What happened out there? Where did she come from?”

  Marcus didn’t meet her gaze. “We followed a lead on the killer and found her instead. Andrew stayed behind to see if anyone comes back to the house where we found her.”

  “Why didn’t you take her to the hospital?”

  “Too many questions from the doctors. And when she comes out of this stupor, I want her close.”

  “Is she another of Ackerman Sr.’s victims?”

  “I think so.”

  Marcus’s eyes were focused on the floor, and he seemed much too upset about the whole situation. This was a good thing. They had rescued a woman from the clutches of a killer, and hopefully, she could provide them with information that would lead back to the man they were hunting.

  Maggie said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose and breathed deeply. “I know that woman. She was taken by my father because of me.”

  “What do you mean? Who is she?”

  “Her name is Claire Cassidy, and once upon a time back when I was a cop in New York, Claire and I were engaged.”

  Maggie felt her stomach spin and her pulse quicken. “You were going to get married?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “I don’t care how long ago it was. Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. I’ve told you everything about my past. I assumed you might mention the fact that you nearly married another woman.”

  “It was nine years ago. I never thought I’d see her again.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Maggie, I don’t want to fight. We have enough going on right now.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  “Do we have to get into this now?”

  “Considering that you were apparently never going to tell me anything about her, yeah, I think now would be good.”

  “She worked at the DA’s office. Our paths crossed. We ended up dating for about a year. She got a better job offer in Idaho. I was too wrapped up in my own career and refused to go with her. She refused to stay. That was the end of it. Not much more to tell.”

  “And you haven’t seen or spoken with her since?”

  “She came back to the city once. Maybe six months after we broke up. She stayed the weekend with me. After that, we both decided it would be too hard to ever do anything like that again. It just opened up old wounds. We completely lost touch.”

  “Why would your Ackerman Sr. kidnap your old fiancée?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  24

  THOMAS WHITE PLACED THE LAST OF THE CAMERAS ON TRIPODS POSITIONED STRATEGICALLY AROUND THE ROOM. Videography had become another of his passions. He had always recorded his experiments, but that had been more for future scientific use and for his own reliving of those special moments. Now it had become an art form. Technology was truly amazing. With a few clicks of a mouse, he could research and order the most sophisticated equipment, and with a few more clicks, he could learn how to use it.

  The cameras pumped their data into a Macbook Pro computer and then backed it up onto a firewire hard drive. Later, White could edit the video and cut between the different angles separately or arrange them together in a collage.

  Today’s procedure would eventually make it onto the Internet, but for right now, he had a specific audience in mind—the KCPD, Brad Dunham, and most importantly, his son.

  Julie Dunham lay stretched out on an operating table in the center of the room, her arms splayed out at her sides and secured with thick leather bonds. A sheet of plastic rested beneath the table, covering the hardwood floor. No reason to ruin the flooring with all that blood.

  A large mirror hung from the ceiling above her body. The kind purchased at hardcore sex shops and meant to be placed above one’s bed. White didn’t want her to miss a single exquisite moment of what was to come. The spectators for the camera show might have been the husband and the police, but Julie was also part of the audience. In fact, she had the best seat in the house.

  She had just started to wake up and fight against her bonds. He could smell her fear, and it was glorious. Her final death throes would make for a wonderful mask—another of his passions.

  His father had been a renowned mask maker in New Orleans. He had tried to pass his trade onto his son, but Thomas had never truly shown an interest. He had absorbed the knowledge, but he hadn’t invested the hours necessary to master the craft. At least, not until later in his life.

  Then he had realized that the medium was perfect for capturing a person’s final moments. Not just the pain of their death, but the fear. He could, of course, review the videos. But the masks were different. He could reach out and feel them. It brought him back to the moment. He could taste their fear over and over again, and wearing the grotesque masks of death heightened the fear of the next victim. It was as though the fear grew and spread and expanded from person to person like a cancer of the soul that could be transferred from victim to victim.

  He approached Julie Dunham wearing the mask of another woman about her age. He had forgotten the woman’s name, but not her fear. Julie cowered and shrieked and wet herself, the urine drizzling down onto the plastic sheet. It was glorious. White wanted to clap and giggle like a child, but instead, he said, “Are you afraid to die, Julie?”

  “Please, I’ll—”

  He hushed her with a finger to the lips. “I’ve heard it all, my dear. Nothing can save you now. Don’t waste your final moments blubbering.”

  He circled the operating table as he spoke, like a shark sensing blood in the water. “I’ve applied a local anesthetic to your limbs, and so you should feel a minimal amount of pain considering what’s about to be done to you. I’m going to slice off each of your fingers. Then your hands. Don’t worry—I’ll cauterize the wounds, so that you don’t bleed out too quickly. Then I’ll start with your feet and toes and repeat the procedure. When we’re done with that, I’ll decide whether or not I want to force you to live like that or end your suffering and cut off your head.”

  Terror spread across Julie’s beautiful features, and she screamed at the top of her lungs. She called for help, but there was no one to hear her. White drank in her fear and then began his work.

  25

  IN ORDER FOR THEIR RUSE TO BE SUCCESSFUL, BRAD DUNHAM NEEDED TO SELL HIS ROLE AS WELL. After pretending to kill the target, he ran from the dealership, jumped into his truck, and raced out of the lot. He immediately returned home and waited for contact from the abductor. In the past cases where the target had been killed, the person or the police
had received a call, telling them where to find the person’s loved ones.

  Two FBI agents were already waiting in the house when he returned home, with more police officers ready to move in from down the street. When the abductor called, they would trace the call back and track the madman down.

  At least, that was the plan.

  But it seemed to Brad that the call should have come in hours ago. What was taking the abductor so long to release his family? He had asked the agents if everything had gone well at the hospital, but they had told him to focus on his end of things.

  He had nearly worn a hole in the floor from pacing by the time the phone rang. He waited for the agents to give him the go-ahead, then he answered. “Hello?”

  “Do you think that I’m a fool, Mr. Dunham?”

  “No, I—”

  “It was a rhetorical question. I’m not a fool. I can’t be cheated. I can’t be tricked. I am five steps ahead of your friends in the FBI. I assume they’re listening and tracing this, so I’ll be brief.” The killer gave an address on the south side of Kansas City. “You’ll find a box in an alleyway there containing the remaining pieces of your wife. Check your work e-mail, and you’ll find an address linking to a video of her last moments. It’s now midnight. You have twenty-four hours to eliminate your next target or your son will share her fate. Shoot him in the head and make sure that it’s done right this time.”

  Brad’s voice shook as sobs racked his body, but he managed to say, “Wait! What next target?”

  “That’s for your ears only.”

  The killer ended the call, but Brad heard another phone ringing. He stood dazed for a moment, his mind unable to process the information bombarding it. Then he ran into the kitchen to locate the source of the ringing. The FBI agent was at his back telling him to wait, but Brad ignored the big man in the dark suit.

  The sound was coming from his wife’s purse. It was Julie’s cell phone.

  He fumbled through the contents of the purse, shoving aside her wallet and make-up and a thousand other miscellaneous items that he couldn’t identify, until he finally found the source of the ringing. He pulled it free and slid his finger across the display to answer the call.

  The killer’s familiar voice gave Brad the name and description of the next target.

  Then the phone clicked dead, and Brad stared at the strange object in his hand as if he could no longer recognize it. The FBI agent asked urgently what the killer had said, but Brad barely registered the words. He was thinking of his wife and his son and trying to make sense of events that seemed to exist only in nightmares. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. He prayed to wake up.

  But he didn’t wake up. This wasn’t a dream.

  The tears came first. Then the anger. He shattered the phone against the wall, tossed a chair from the kitchen table through the sliding glass door, and lashed out at the FBI agents. Brad was still screaming his wife’s name when they tackled him to the floor and placed the cuffs on his wrists.

  26

  MARCUS AND ANDREW REACHED THE BRIEFING ROOM AT THE KCPD METRO POLICE STATION A HALF-HOUR AFTER RECEIVING A TEXT FROM KALEB TELLING THEM ABOUT THE MURDERS AT THE HOSPITAL AND THAT THEY HAD RECEIVED A NEW VIDEO. It was six in the morning. The briefing room looked like a classroom pulled from a community college. Block walls painted white. Speckled linoleum. Bars of fluorescent lighting shining out from behind translucent tiles in the recessed ceiling. Rows of gray tables filled the space, with two whiteboards and a podium occupying the front of the room.

  Marcus found new police stations strangely disturbing. His old station house at the 77th Precinct in Brooklyn with its crumbling red brick and worn wood gave a feeling that the same rooms had been used by cops a hundred years ago and that the men and women inside were upholding a proud legacy. The new constructions were cold and institutional. No sense of history or heritage.

  Kaleb led them inside. An FBI agent and Captain Duran looked over some case files at the podium. Most of the other tables were empty. Only the front two rows were in use by detectives from the task force who were waiting for the briefing to begin. Each of the detectives had a cup of coffee resting in front of them. The smell wafted up from their cups and made Marcus crave one.

  As if reading his mind, Kaleb said, “Coffee?”

  “Please,” Marcus said, even though he suspected it would be cheap and weak.

  “None for me,” Andrew said.

  Kaleb moved to the back of the room and filled two styrofoam cups while Marcus and Andrew sat down two rows behind the other men and women. Kaleb didn’t ask if Marcus wanted cream and sugar. He just delivered back a steaming cup of black caffeine.

  “Thanks,” Marcus said to Kaleb. “So I heard that the deal at the hospital and the car dealership was your idea?”

  Kaleb nodded and replied, “Unfortunately.”

  “It was a good idea. The fact that it didn’t work doesn’t diminish that.”

  “Tell that to Captain Duran.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Again, unfortunately.”

  “Has to be tough working for her.”

  “You have no idea. The only reason I’m still on the case after the fiasco at the hospital is because I’ve already been working with the two of you. And the funny thing is that I get it from both sides. She’s harder on me than any of the other guys, but they act like I get special treatment. Last Christmas, someone hung pacifiers on a miniature Christmas tree and left it on my desk. The star read Mama’s Boy.”

  Andrew said, “It could be worse.”

  “How’s that?”

  Marcus answered, “Your parents could be serial killers.”

  From the front of the room, Captain Duran announced, “Let’s get started, people.”

  The detectives immediately quieted down. Captain Duran was a woman who commanded immediate attention. Marcus analyzed her. Not for any particular reason, just out of habit. Maria Duran seemed to him a woman of contradictions. Her demeanor was stern and all business, but her hair and make-up looked as if they had been done by a team of beauticians. Her curly black hair cascaded over her shoulders, instead of being pulled back or put up into a more professional style. She wore a conservative gray pantsuit and light purple shirt, but the top two buttons were undone, revealing some cleavage. She put out a tough image and demanded respect, but she also wanted no one to forget that she was a woman. She invoked equal parts fear and animal desire, and she seemed to get off on both.

  She said, “Normally, we wouldn’t show this type of video to everyone. But I feel that you all need to see what’s coming for this boy if you fail to find him. Plus, we need as many sets of eyes on this as possible. Let us know if you notice anything that could help.” She asked one of the detectives to turn out the lights, and a video filled one of the whiteboards from a projector mounted on the ceiling.

  The video was similar to the others that the killer had sent the police previously. Except for the location of the killing and the mask that the madman wore. This time he wore the face of a young woman in great agony.

  To Andrew, Marcus whispered, “The masks are different in every video.”

  Kaleb overheard and said, “We’re checking on that. We think they’re custom made. Detective Lazaro is questioning custom mask designers with enough skill to have made them or taught someone else how.”

  Marcus watched as his father’s brutal depravity was put on display, but he tried not to focus on what was happening in the video. Instead, he focused on the details. He examined the gurney. The plastic sheeting. The clothes his father wore. Every detail, every frame, every sound. All of it broken down to its basic components and scrutinized.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he was on his feet saying, “Hold on.”

  Captain Duran paused the video, squinted into the dark room, and said, “Who said that?”

  Fagan’s voice echoed in Marcus’s ears, but it was too late to turn back now. He said, “I recognize the hou
se.” He walked over and flipped on the lights. Then he approached the podium. Captain Duran eyed him with confusion and suspicion as he grabbed the stack of case files from her hands and sifted through them.

  After finding the correct file, he said, “The first target was an old man named Lawrence Goodweather. He was killed in his home. His only daughter lives in California, and she put the house up for sale. But who wants to buy a house where someone was just murdered?”

  Marcus flipped through photos of the crime scene and held one up to the image that was paused on the screen. “See the woodwork, the layout of the doors, this crack in the drywall, the water damage on the ceiling here? This video was shot inside Lawrence Goodweather’s house.”

  Maria Duran and the lead FBI agent looked from the photo to the screen. Repeated the process several times. The FBI agent nodded, and Duran said, “I think you’re right.”

  Many of the detectives were already on their feet, ready to mobilize on the house. Duran stopped them. “Okay, we’re going to do this right. SWAT’s on standby. They’ll recon the place first. This may be where he’s keeping the Dunham boy, or it may be his base of operations. Or it may just be another crime scene. Either way, SWAT’s in charge. We do this by the numbers. Get to it.”

  Everyone hurried from the room, except for Marcus and Andrew.

  Marcus was still staring at the photo with a dour look on his face. Andrew asked, “I thought we were only supposed to observe.”

  “What can I say? I’m impulsive, and I have a problem with authority. My psych eval says so.”

  “So what’s on your mind now? You have that ‘something ain’t right’ look on your face. I hate it when you get that look.”

  “I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re playing his game, reacting exactly how he wants us to. We were obviously meant to find Claire. And someone else would have figured out that this was the Goodweather house if I hadn’t. I’m worried that this is part of his plan.”