by Dan Padavona
“Candice just rang my phone. Time to see Weber. I gotta go. Regardless of what he says, I’ll pay your parents a visit as soon as I can.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Gardy.”
Turbulence ruined the trip to Miami. Bell remembered Gardy’s penchant for airsickness and thanked the heavens he wasn’t on the flight. The elderly woman in the next seat moved to the back of the plane to sit with her family halfway through the trip, and Bell felt comfortable removing her iPad to page through the Fair Haven Beach crime scene photographs.
The slash across Christina Wolf’s throat was clean and efficient, executed by a steady hand. This killer had experience. The ominous and familiar sack over the victim’s head haunted Bell. She’d reviewed these macabre scenes too many times, and she never got used to them.
Next she paged forward to a recent photograph of Christina Wolf. The resemblance to Logan Wolf struck her. The firm set of the mouth, the high cheekbones, the inquisitiveness of the eyes. All eerily similar.
After she read through the police report, she put the iPad away and leaned back, closing her eyes. What sent Logan Wolf over the edge? If he’d wanted to murder his sister, why wait until now?
The smothering heat of summer had left Virginia for the year, but when Bell stepped through the sliding glass doors to pick up her rental car, she found where summer hid. The wall of sun and tropical maritime air blanketed Bell as she slipped her sunglasses on and dodged the taxis and Uber drivers. She descended a short stairway to the rental lot and found her vehicle, a sporty red Kia with a long scratch across the hood. Placing her bag at her feet, Bell buckled under a wave of paranoia. A businessman talking on his phone eyed Bell curiously as she dropped to her stomach and checked the undercarriage. Clear, though the muffler was on its last legs.
The dashboard clock read noon as she fought highway traffic. Thank goodness for GPS, for she’d never visited the greater Miami area. The synthesized female voice directed her to the Fair Haven Beach police department. Checking her notes, Bell showed her badge at the front desk and asked for Detective Larrabee. As though she was poised at the door waiting for Bell, an African-American woman in a beige skirt suit and heels clicked across the operations area and held out her hand.
“Welcome to Fair Haven Beach, Agent Bell,” Detective Larrabee said, her handshake firm. “Just you?”
“My partner is indisposed this afternoon, but I hope to have him with me by tomorrow.”
“Good. Do you prefer to ride with me to the crime scene, or would you rather follow?”
Knowing by the time she finished the walk-through she’d need to hustle to the hotel and check in, Bell chose to follow Larrabee in her rental car. The trip took fifteen minutes.
Palms flanked the two-story beach house. A man and his beagle walked the otherwise empty beach as Larrabee pushed aside the yellow crime scene tape and unlocked the door.
“The owner has a house two miles south of here and rents this place during the off season. Our vic paid for a week’s stay.” The cacophony the sea breeze caused vanished when Larrabee stepped into the foyer and closed the door. “We get our share of violence in the Miami area, but Fair Haven Beach is a vacation town. This time of year, the shops and restaurants close early, and everyone knows their neighbors by name.”
Bell gave a non-committal nod and studied the layout. The foyer opened to a dated kitchen, an unusual layout for an older house. A bottle of Merlot rested on the counter beside an empty wine glass.
Slipping on a pair of gloves, Bell lifted the glass to the light and studied the edges.
“Did you test the glass for DNA?”
“We dusted for prints. You think the killer drank from the glass?”
“Just a hunch.”
Beyond the kitchen, a living room held a sectional couch, television, and two end tables. The deck beyond the sliding glass door drew Bell’s eye. Christina Wolf must have admired the ocean from the deck. God knew Bell would have.
“The killer entered through the deck door,” Larrabee said, gesturing at the door. “He broke the latch and came inside, probably while the woman was away. We found two bags from the shopping plaza. No other signs of forced entry. The screen is off its hinges in the master bedroom. Apparently, she broke the screen trying to escape.”
Larrabee led Bell up the stairs. The master bedroom lay at the end of the hallway, and one large window set on the eastern wall lent a view of the water. But the blood-soaked carpet held Bell’s attention.
“We think the killer grabbed her at the window and pulled her back,” the detective said, dropping to one knee beside the gore. “Then he killed her here. What we don’t understand is why. Was this a random murder? Revenge?”
“Not vengeance. Not even rage.”
“I thought most violent murders were rage-based.”
“This murder is cold and calculated. No stab wounds, no strangulation. This almost looks like a contract killing.” Bell swept her thumb across her throat. “Whoever our killer is, he kept his control. And he’s done this before.”
“A serial killer?”
“Perhaps.”
After Larrabee finished the briefing, she sat in her car while Bell walked through the house. Since joining the BAU, Bell preferred to study the house alone, without the distraction of people offering opinions and breaking her concentration.
She began at the patio door. Latches on sliding glass doors are notoriously easy to jostle open. A smart killer would begin here, and Logan Wolf was the most intelligent murderer she’d studied. From the deck, he could have watched Christina. Fantasized the murder before he acted.
Sand speckled the deck, not unusual for a patio overlooking the beach. The door opened to the living room. No hiding places here, but a closet off the foyer intrigued Bell. She pictured Christina at the counter opening the bottle of wine. She might have heard the ceiling groan and gone upstairs to investigate.
No, that didn’t feel right.
Sticking to the shadows bleeding down from the walls, following the arc the killer likely would have taken, Bell stepped through the kitchen and pulled the closet door open. More sand dotted the bare wood floor. Backtracking through the living room, she discovered sand in the shadows. The cleanliness of the downstairs suggested the owner tidied up after coming inside and wouldn’t leave a speck of sand. Yes, the killer took this path and hid inside the closet.
After stepping into the closet, Bell stood in darkness. Even with the door closed, she peered through the sliver-opening between the door and jamb. She pictured Christina pouring wine at the counter, taking a sip and carrying the glass of Merlot out to the deck. For many serial killers, a voyeuristic viewing of the target offered sexual gratification. He might have fantasized. Christina Wolf was a pretty woman who kept herself in shape.
Except Logan Wolf wouldn’t fantasize about his sister.
He might have gifted Christina the Merlot. That sounded like Wolf. But little else fit beyond the precise sweep of the blade against Christina’s neck.
Now she pictured Wolf’s sister on the deck, one arm leaned against the rail as she took in the ocean view. A perfect time for the killer to emerge from the closet and climb the stairs toward the bedrooms. Christina could have turned around and looked past the deck door, the killer invisible to her inside the dark living room. He stared at her, Bell thought. The thrill of knowing she was so close yet couldn’t see him.
She replayed the murder scene in her head upstairs. Struggled to imagine Wolf in the killer’s role. Something didn’t fit.
She took pictures of the house on her way out. After suggesting Larrabee dust for prints inside the closet, she left for the hotel.
Wolf didn’t murder his sister.
CHAPTER SEVEN
From the parking garage rooftop across the street, he studies the photograph and compares it to the beautiful woman at the hotel check-in desk. Scarlett Bell, an agent with the FBI.
She’s alone. Vulnerable.
The man behind t
he desk hands her the key card, and she lifts the travel bag at her feet. Through the binoculars, he follows her to the corner room on the second floor, 215. The Florida sun scorches the pavement, but he sticks to the cool shadows and slides along the concrete wall until he stands even with her room.
Agent Bell fumbles the key card and kneels to pick it up, and he glimpses bare thigh when her skirt runs up. His heart hammers when she suddenly spins and looks directly at him. Yes, she senses him. Can feel him in the shadows the way a grasshopper does the trapdoor spider.
He edges back, ensures the darkness cloaks his presence. After a tense moment, she opens the door and disappears inside.
The man smiles. He’s butchered dozens, though never had he killed for money. For fifteen years, he’s traveled the back roads of the United States, stealing the unprotected from their families and claiming them as his own. He’s careful. Methodical. And he doesn’t make mistakes, which is why he never attracted attention. No buried bodies for a weekend warrior geologist to uncover, no manifestos sent to the nation’s largest newspapers. His trophies travel with him.
He touches the black van’s sliding door. The four sealed barrels stand on the other side of the door. His butterfly collection.
No mistakes. He’s a ghost.
Which makes him wonder how the FBI man wearing the blue suit, ear piece, and sunglasses found him in 2013. The government knew he was a murderer, though he doubted the FBI appreciated how many lives ended at his hands. But they didn’t arrest him. They wished to hire him.
On a hot evening in July of 2013, he crept inside the residence of Logan and Renee Wolf. His instructions were clear—slaughter the woman without leaving a trace of his presence and make the murder appear ritualistic. Interesting. He didn’t get off on the ritualistic bullshit. Taking a life and keeping it for his own satisfied him. The 2013 murder left him cold and detached. Though he enjoyed slitting the woman’s throat, stuffing her head into a black bag felt forced, contrived.
Now the FBI had found him again. He felt certain they would arrest him this time, but the new FBI agent, a thin, young man with a hawk nose, handed him three photographs. Targets. If he murdered all three, the FBI wouldn’t pursue him. They’d continue to pretend he didn’t exist. A fair deal, though temptation urged him to gut the FBI agent for threatening him.
He followed the first woman for a week before she rented the vacation home along the ocean. The attraction he felt for her mystified him. There was something dangerous about her, something clandestine, as though she clung to a dark secret. He senses she is related to the woman they asked him to eliminate in 2013. Renee Wolf.
He had his own methodologies for killing beautiful women, but the agent insisted he slit the woman’s throat and place a bag over her head as he’d done in 2013. He doesn’t understand why. Doesn’t care. Taking a life excites him and leaves him sleepless for days, and last night he relived the murder as he stared up at the ceiling in his van, the barrels beside him, the scents of metal, death, and rust stewing.
Slipping the photograph of Agent Bell into the envelope, he studies the last picture. A man. He never butchered a man before. Not for pleasure, anyway.
In the cool gloom of the garage, he unlocks the door and slides the pictures under the driver seat. Then the man pockets the keys and crosses the busy thoroughfare, heedless of the Corvette that screeches to a halt and assails him with a horn. He enters the main lobby and passes the front desk without generating interest. The hallway is dark. Voices travel from behind locked doors, unaware death passes on silent footsteps. Eschewing the elevator, he takes the stairs at the end of the corridor. Concrete and echoes.
One flight up, he edges the door open and stands outside room 215. He touches the door and imagines Agent Bell on the other side, placing her hand against the barrier to mirror his. Like lost soul mates.
He will kill her tomorrow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bell shot awake. Someone was outside the door.
Grabbing her holster off the bed, she placed her eye against the peephole. The balcony lay empty. Her nerves had gotten the better of her again.
An hour remained before she briefed the Fair Haven Beach PD, and she had no idea what to say. The BAU asserted Logan Wolf murdered his sister. She wouldn’t lie to a room of law enforcement officers.
A message arrived from Gardy. Her partner left a half-hour ago and would be in Bealton soon. Had they made the right decision by not involving the FBI at her parents’ house? To the untrained eye, the note looked like a practical joke. But Bell sensed a more ominous intent.
She showered and changed, and as she grabbed her phone off the nightstand, it rang. Except it didn’t. It took her several confused seconds before she realized the ringing came from her bag. Wolf’s burner phone.
Bell tossed the bag’s contents across the bed and snatched the phone before it stopped ringing.
“Wolf?”
She waited for the serial killer’s eerie sing-song voice. When he spoke, he sounded different. Shattered. Furious.
“You were wrong, Scarlett. I warned you not to fail me.”
Bell sat on the edge of the bed.
“The profile of Renee’s killer is correct. Now, tell me where you were last night.”
Laughter.
“Am I a suspect, dear Scarlett? Do you think I…” His voice broke. Wolf lowered the phone against his chest and composed himself. “Since the night that butcher stole Renee, I’ve tracked this killer. You told me he didn’t exist, that someone murdered my wife and set me up. But now this. My only remaining family. Gone because I believed you.”
“I just returned from studying the murder scene, but I guess you already knew.”
“To prove I killed Christina?”
Bell held her response, searching for the right words.
“To prove to myself you didn’t.”
“I could have saved you the effort.”
“But you were there.” Quiet followed. “The bottle of Merlot. That’s something you would do.”
His silence spoke volumes.
“Yes, I left the bottle. Christina always appreciated a fine wine, and I wanted to surprise her and give her happiness. She deserved it after all she’d gone through. But I didn’t murder my sister. I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.”
“This is a problem, Wolf. Your DNA is inside the house. If the CSI crew found anything to implicate you, there’s nothing I can do.”
“I was careful. I never touched the bottle without gloves. But I could have protected Christina had I any idea she was in danger.”
Bell parted the curtain and looked down upon the hotel grounds. A pool with two children swimming, the father sipping a tropical drink. Palms swaying. A rundown hotel next door with plenty of dark shadows behind its walls.
“Are you in Fair Haven Beach, Wolf?”
“What if I am, Scarlett?”
“Leave. Someone set a trap for you. Don’t you see?”
“If you think I’ll leave with the man who killed Renee and Christina so close, you’re the one who’s insane.”
“This man didn’t kill Renee. That was a professional hit.”
“Yes, yes. You keep repeating yourself, but you’re wrong. I overestimated your profiling ability, I fear. You’ve led me to dead ends one too many times. It pains me to blame you, dear Scarlett, but you’re responsible for Christina’s death. And now you must pay. An eye for an eye.”
The call ended. Bell stared at the phone as it trembled in her hand. She dropped it to the bed as though it morphed into a scorpion.
Back at the window, she peeked between the curtains. She opened the door and swept her gaze along the street. A college age girl rode past on a bicycle. Cars motored from one red light to the next.
Her eyes stopped on the three-level parking garage across the street. A black van with tinted windows pulled out of the garage and turned the corner, speeding past the building before she got a look at the license plate.
&nb
sp; Then she spied the dark figure at the end of the block. Watching her from behind a stand of palms.
Logan Wolf.
CHAPTER NINE
“You’re sure you can’t stay for dinner?”
Gardy didn’t want to impose on Tammy Bell, and besides, he’d lied to Weber and claimed he needed to see his doctor for a second opinion on his leg. The deputy director would ask questions if Gardy lingered in Bealton.
Though Mrs Bell had placed her fingers all over the box and note, Gardy wore gloves as he searched for evidence to identify the sender. He found nothing. Whoever sent the box, he was experienced and careful.
Come home, little one. Time to sleep.
Gardy didn’t understand the meaning of the message. Mind games from the same man who placed the explosive under Bell’s vehicle?
“Smells great, Mrs Bell, but they need me back at work.”
“You’re limping, Agent Gardy.”
“It’s nothing. I pulled a muscle at the gym. I guess my back squat isn’t what it used to be.”
The level look she gave Gardy told him she wasn’t buying it.
“Well, you’d think the FBI would grant you time to heal before tossing you into the field. Speaking of which, Scarlett threw a fit over this little box. I worry she’s under too much stress. She’s not thinking straight.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her, Mrs Bell.”
“I know you will, Agent Gardy. You’re a good man. You’d make a fine husband someday, and I’ve tried to convince Scarlett to settle down—”
“I need to get back to Quantico,” Gardy said, his cheeks blooming.
He tossed the box in the trunk and pondered the note’s meaning while he followed Bealton’s roads back to the highway. The little town held ghosts. Every street corner reminded him of the God’s Hand killer and Logan Wolf, and he wondered how different Bell’s life would have been had she grown up elsewhere.
His unease grew. Something about Bell’s trip to Florida didn’t sit right in his stomach. Why hadn’t Weber sent another agent in Gardy’s place? Between the multiple attempts on their lives, neither Bell nor Gardy should have been in the field.
