Face of Darkness (A Zoe Prime Mystery—Book 6)

by Blake Pierce

  “Zeke,” Buddy said, appearing behind him in the mirror’s frame. “What are you still doing here?”

  “I was just finishing up,” Zeke said, spinning around to show Buddy the bulge of his tensed bicep. “What do you think?”

  “Great stuff,” Buddy said. “Now get out of here. I’ve got to lock up and go home. Which is where you should already be.”

  Zeke resisted the urge to pout like a teenager and instead sighed, grabbing his locker key out of his pocket. “Fine, I’m going,” he said. “Hey, about that membership…”

  “Yeah, you owe me it by the end of the week,” Buddy said. “I haven’t forgotten. If you don’t pay me, Zeke, I’m going to deactivate your keycard. You won’t be able to get in.”

  Zeke’s shoulders slumped. Fine. Maybe Buddy needed a little more persuasion. He wondered if his mom would stump him the next couple of months’ membership while he worked on convincing him some more.

  He grabbed his bag out of his locker, not bothering to change out of his gym clothes as he began the walk home. Zeke wasn’t too pleased with the idea of heading back there, given that he would probably be subjected to another lecture about finding a job, but he didn’t have much choice. He was twenty-nine years old, way too old for perpetual couch-surfing. It wasn’t like he would be able to bring girls back to his place if he didn’t have a permanent residence. And given how the girls were starting to love his muscles, that would be a crying shame.

  He strolled to the bus stop and caught the ride home, noticing that it was the last one of the night on this particular route. Well, that was lucky, then. If Buddy hadn’t kicked him out, he’d have had to walk the whole way. That was what happened almost every night, and it was a cold walk at this time of year. Maybe everything happened for a reason. Zeke certainly saw things going his way, and that was enough for him. With God on his side, these muscles would net him a fortune.

  The bus ride was short, and Zeke climbed down at the stop right opposite the apartment complex. It was a pretty lucky thing that the bus stopped literally on his doorstep, too. Yep, Zeke Sewall was a lucky guy. He let it swagger his stride as he headed into the complex, then jogged up the stairs for that last bit of extra work. They were only on the second floor, anyway. Taking the elevator was just lazy.

  The apartment was quiet when he got in; Zeke figured his mom was in her room already, reading her stories. Just how Zeke liked it. He liked having the run of the place, getting to pretend like it was his own. He’d ask her for the money in the morning, when she got up for work and made him breakfast.

  Zeke flopped himself down on the couch, stretching out across its full length. He could shower later—he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity like getting the TV to himself. He switched it on and settled into the cushions, reaching over for the half a chocolate bar his mom had forgotten on the coffee table as he flicked through options with the remote.

  He settled in with a bodybuilding documentary, admiring the rippling biceps and pecs of the men on the screen. Maybe he could look for this kind of opportunity—some kind of reality show about up and coming models. Yeah, that would work great. He could see it now. They would be queuing up for endorsements from “TV’s Zeke Sewall”!

  A noise distracted him form the show, something out in the hall. It sounded as though something had scraped against the front door. Zeke put the volume down on his show and listened, cocking his head toward the entrance. Was there something…?

  He was just about to shrug and turn the volume back up when he heard it again, that scraping noise. If there was some kid out there scraping paint off the door, or drawing on the wall or something, Zeke would rip them a new one. He jumped up off the sofa and hurried over, looking through the peephole in the door to examine the corridor.

  Nothing.

  He’d heard it, though—he knew it. Maybe the kid had done their work and scurried off somewhere, back home. If he stepped out now, he might catch them on the run. Zeke yanked the door open, looking down the hall and even stepping outside for a better vantage point.

  The landing was empty. He glanced the opposite way, past his open door, but saw nothing there either. He even stepped forward to look over the rail, but the open courtyard below was empty, only parked cars with their lights and engines off. No sign of life. Zeke sighed. Whatever it was, he hadn’t caught them in time. He’d figure out what they had been doing later. Obviously, there was no point in taking action now. They were gone.

  He turned to go back inside and found himself on his knees, letting out a strangled gasp as he made contact with the floor. He could feel the cold metal of the door frame against his skin, even though he couldn’t remember getting down there. There was a heavy pain at the back of his head, like something had hit him there. Had there been something? Zeke couldn’t remember. He struggled to make sense of what had happened, pushing his hands down against the ground in an effort to stand.

  There was something around his neck—something rough pressing against his skin—and then pressing harder, all the way around—Zeke reached up by reflex, his fingers brushing against something he thought he recognized. His dazed mind slowly made sense of it as rope, but even as he did so, his fingers were yanked away—no, his fingers were in the same place; his whole body had been yanked away, backwards, making him stumble to his feet.

  He was on his feet. That was a mistake. Whoever had done this had put Zeke back on his feet, and now he was ready to fight back. He struggled to clear his vision, shaking his head from the blur, and his eyes focused on the figure in front of him. Dressed in black, they barely stood out from the shadows of the landing. He realized now they had been behind the door, as he fought for balance and stumbled back, the railing along the landing catching his momentum. Zeke braced against it, trying to bring his hands up in front of him, trying to clench them into fists so he could fight.

  She came out of nowhere. Zeke only registered the she at the last moment, his first full glimpse of her face as she charged at him, hitting him square in the chest with all of her body weight. At first he thought she was stupid, that he would be able to withstand it—but his balance was already off—he was already leaning against the railing—

  Zeke felt himself sailing backwards, through open air, and scrabbled out for some kind of purchase. For a moment he had it—his hands gripping onto the top of the iron railing—sustaining him even when the weight of his own body worked against him this time, flinging him against the railing with a crash, jolting all the way through his body. He was holding on, just barely. But he was holding on, his newly formed biceps straining, his hands locked in the wrong position—the only way he had been able to grab on in the chaos. If he could just adjust his grip, one hand at a time—

  But then Zeke felt it. A hard, sharp blow to his exposed knuckles, and he instinctively let go, before he had a chance to think better of it. Then he was hanging by just one hand, dazed, his head pounding with pain, his joints screaming in protest at the wrong-handed grip. She hit the hand still holding the rail and he gasped out in pain, made a cry that wasn’t definable by words, willing himself not to flinch away. But she hit it again and then again, and it was too much, and he heard the crack of bone as his hand finally came away from the rail, sending him plunging toward the ground.

  The relief as he came up short was brief and heady. The pain in his neck was almost worth it. But that was only a split second, the briefest possible moment in time, a shot across one synapse. Because after that there was nothing, only blackness, and Ezekiel Sewall knew nothing else.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Zoe rubbed her forehead in frustration. “You should be safe with the officers here,” she said, nodding to Angelina Orren. She wasn’t sure if she was scaring the woman or reassuring her by insisting on a police presence, but she didn’t care. There was no point in risking it.

  “But I just don’t see why this killer would target me,” Angelina insisted, her gray hair wisping around her head where it was coming out of he
r ponytail. “Harry Stout used to drink at my bar from time to time, but I don’t have any other connection to him, or to Frank Richards. And Gerry Dean—he’s harmless, really. I’m sure he wouldn’t be up to something like this.”

  “People can be deceptive, Ms. Orren,” Flynn assured her. “You never know what kind of darkness might be lurking below the surface.”

  “It’s not the darkness,” Angelina said, shaking her head. “It’s the bravery. That Gerry Dean is a coward. There’s no way he would dare to do something like this.”

  Flynn shrugged. “Either way, it’s better to be safe.” He looked over at Zoe, obviously thinking the same thing as she was: what now?

  The house and the small area around it were safe; they were sure of that now, after extensive searches. With Morrison’s men standing guard, there was little chance that the killer would be able to return, at least not tonight. If necessary, they were prepared to keep a watch on the house over the next few days, until the killer could be apprehended.

  But that left them with another problem: how to track down the killer, now that they had intervened before he could make his next attempt.

  Zoe’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out impatiently to see Captain Lee’s number flashing on the screen. “Captain?” she asked, answering the call with a word that snapped Flynn’s attention to her immediately.

  “Agent Prime, I’ve just been informed that we have another hanging.”

  Zoe felt her heart sink. It felt like it had been liquefied, running through her gut before dropping down into her boots. “What?”

  “Across town from where you are, at an apartment complex. I’m sending you the address. We have officers on the scene right now securing the area.”

  “The suspect?” Zoe asked, closing her eyes.

  “No sightings, as far as we know. You’d better get over there fast.”

  Zoe opened her eyes again and met those of Flynn, who was looking at her with deep concern as she put the phone back into her pocket. “He took another one,” she said heavily, feeling numb, hollowed out. They had failed. How could it be that they had failed?

  ***

  It was easy for Zoe to identify the apartment building they were heading for as they approached. The police car parked below it, along with the ambulance and a vehicle bearing the logo of the ME’s office, was a giveaway. So, too, was the body: still hanging from the railing on the second floor, still and lifeless, the neck set at a disturbingly incorrect angle.

  Zoe and Flynn headed to the gaggle of officers on the ground, approaching a woman who was doing her best to control the scene by turning onlookers still in their pajamas back to the safety of their own homes. She, in turn, sent the agents in the direction of a plainclothes detective who was lounging by the wall, watching proceedings with a cigarette in hand.

  “You’re the FBI?” she asked, as Zoe and Flynn approached.

  In response, Zoe simply flipped open her badge; Flynn, beside her, gave an affirmative answer as he did the same. His flip was slower than usual, Zoe noted. She glanced at his face. There were deep circles under his eyes, and he was beginning to look rough around the edges, not quite as perfectly put-together as usual.

  “Great.” The detective straightened up from the wall and ditched her cigarette, crushing it underfoot as she moved away with a gesture over her shoulder at the body. “This is one Ezekiel Sewall. Twenty-nine years old, unemployed, former waiter. Apparently, he had a bit of an obsession with the gym, according to his mother. She’s upstairs in the apartment with one of our officers, waiting to speak to you.”

  “Was he a business owner?” Zoe asked, sure that this must be someone they had missed.

  “No,” the detective said, barking out a short and unhumorous laugh. “Living here? No. Like I said, he was just unemployed.”

  A chill went through Zoe at those words. He didn’t fit the pattern.

  Did that mean that all of the assumptions they had been working on so far were wrong?

  Flynn nodded curtly. “Anything else you can tell us? Witnesses, any signs left by the killer?”

  “Nothing yet.” The detective shrugged. “Captain’s instructions were to wait for you.”

  Zoe resisted a sigh of frustration. It wouldn’t do any good. What they needed now was to get on with the investigation—before the already slim chance of finding any new leads disappeared further.

  She was already analyzing from here the body that still hung over the railing. She could see the numbers, that they had no correlation creating a sure link with the other two victims. This man was much younger than the others, though around their same height at six foot—still within the average distinction that you would expect within any given slice of the male population. He was a hundred and fifty-seven pounds; more heavily muscled than the other two, but still the lightest one yet.

  Not only that, but there was a different method used for the hoisting of the body. This one hadn’t been hefted up somewhere, using a makeshift pulley system to lessen the weight and allow the killer to get them up high enough. No, this man had been pushed over the railing, where the weight of his own body worked against him to leave him dangling in the air. Zoe would almost have thought it might be an ill-studied copycat, if it weren’t for the fact that the rope looked very similar. She would have to get up close and examine it in person to be sure.

  “This is different from the others,” Flynn said grimly. He began to walk toward another officer who was beckoning them over to one of the doorways, and Zoe joined him. “More violent.”

  “He did not asphyxiate,” Zoe confirmed, having already read the angle of the neck for what it was. “His neck was broken by the fall.”

  “So, it’s not about the method of death so much,” Flynn said. “Not about hoisting them in the air for them to be slowly strangled.”

  “Only the hanging is important,” Zoe said. While she could see Flynn’s reasoning, she didn’t want him to lose sight of the potential motivation here. The rope was still an integral part of the whole method. Whatever that signified, Zoe knew it was going to be important when they finally figured this all out.

  “What’s going on?” Flynn asked, as they approached the man who had been beckoning them over, to an open doorway of one of the first-floor apartments.

  “I’ve got the eyewitness who first reported the murder,” he said, gesturing inside with a tilt of his head. “She’s a bit shaken up. Figured you ought to talk to her first, get it out of the way.”

  Flynn stiffened slightly; Zoe noticed he hated when people told him what to do, especially people who weren’t his superiors. But the officer was right. They should get it out of the way, before heading up to deal with a body that wasn’t going anywhere. This woman had the best chance of having witnessed the killer, so Zoe nodded and headed inside silently.

  “Ma’am,” she said, trying to ignore the numbers that insisted on telling her the woman’s height and weight, the dimensions of the room, the number of tiles visible on the kitchen wall (extrapolated by the length of the room, as calculated by a look at the outer wall, to give the total number of tiles within). Those numbers weren’t important. But this woman might be able to give her something that was. “I understand that you found the body?”

  “If you can call it that,” the woman said, and shuddered. She was wearing fluffy slippers with rabbit ears, worn down and stained from years of use. “I didn’t know what I was looking at, at first. I thought it was a prank. I was about to go out there and yell at that Ezekiel, tell him not to hang his Halloween props over my window—and especially not in February.”

  “Then you realized it was real?” Flynn prompted, raising an eyebrow.

  Zoe walked over to the window and twitched back the curtain. Ezekiel Sewall’s two legs were just visible from mid-calf down, his sneakers hanging uselessly in the air. Zoe let the curtain drop back into place.

  “It was when I stepped outside and saw the rest of him,” the woman said, covering
her face momentarily. “I couldn’t believe it. When I yelled out, his mother appeared and started wailing. I’ve never heard anything like it. I called nine-one-one immediately. God, what a tragedy—a parent burying her child like that!”

  “It is terrible,” Flynn agreed sympathetically, flipping out his notebook. “Do you recall seeing or hearing anything else? Anything to suggest there was another person nearby?”

  “I don’t think so,” the woman said. “At first I wasn’t thinking about anything like that. I mean, it’s the middle of the night. I wouldn’t have been awake myself, but it’s my bladder, you see. Wakes me up. And then I thought I’d just look outside at the moon—it’s framed so nicely on a night like this…”

  Zoe let the woman’s words tune out into a drone of numbers only, hearing only syntax and rhythm. She wasn’t going to be any help, and Zoe’s skills were better used elsewhere. With a nod at Flynn which he returned seriously, Zoe slipped out and went to the stairs, where twelve steps brought her to the next level of the complex.

  Zoe got down onto her knees on the floor with her hands behind her back, to be sure that she wouldn’t touch anything and mess up any fingerprints. She stared at the rope intently, analyzing it fiber by fiber. It was definitely the same rope, she concluded; taken from the same manufacturer, perhaps even cut from the same length. This was their killer, all right. There could be no mistaking his hand. And if it was him, Zoe was under no false hope that they would find useful prints or other DNA evidence. He had been too careful so far. He was wearing gloves, perhaps covering his hair. Not a single trace had been found at the other scenes, and there was no reason for that to change now.

  Zoe blinked a few times, trying to clear her eyes. Things were getting bleary, and it was hard to focus. She rubbed her hands over her eyes, frustrated at her own self for being this tired. There wasn’t time to be tired. She had promised herself, not to mention Maitland, that she would catch this killer before he took another life. Now he’d done it again, and in such a public way—it was almost as though he were mocking her. She hated this part of the job—the deaths. If it was all just puzzles, it would have been so much easier to take. But then, maybe she wouldn’t also have this same drive, the fire that made her want to solve everything immediately, to save as many lives as possible.