by Dan Ames
Nora gasped at the information.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Do you think the person who killed them is the same person who attacked Doug?”
“It’s not out of the question,” Mack said. “I have to read the information my FBI contact sent. I have to find out more about the crime scenes and compare them to what happened to Doug. Or at least, what he said happened.”
He winced inwardly a little bit at his indelicacy. He had inadvertently suggested Doug’s version might not be the truth.
“That’s why you wanted the printer?”
Mack nodded. “Yeah, I need to print everything off and look it over before I touch base with our lovely friends from the police department. Who, by the way, didn’t bring me into the loop on these other victims. Would have been nice.”
“Jesus, what the hell am I going to do?” Nora asked. She looked off in a vague direction. “Where the hell is Doug?”
Mack shook his head. “I don’t know, Nora. I just don’t know.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Doug was awake, but barely. He’d driven all night and then taken too many pain pills and passed out in yet another cheap hotel room. He probably slept for no more than four or five hours. He was awake now, and the pain was back.
He’d never been stabbed before and it wasn’t like in the movies. Hollywood would have its leading star take a knife to the side, and then just slap a bandage on it and never mention it again.
But Doug was in a lot of pain.
There had been blood loss, but that wasn’t the problem. A stab wound was a traumatic injury. A shock to the system. The slash was closed thanks to the stitches, but there was bruising all around the wound.
And a sharp pain that took his breath away.
But he had to move.
He needed to get to the old man.
If nothing else, to warn him.
But Doug wondered why they had started with him.
It didn’t make any sense.
He got up from the bed, went into the bathroom and took half the dosage of what he’d done before. Doug would get coffee and something to eat, assuming the cops weren’t looking for him.
Hopefully, Nora had followed his instructions and hadn’t called the police. That would be bad.
Doug wasn’t about to peel away the bandage and look at his side. There was zero chance he was going to risk it bleeding again, or rip out his stitches. No, he was going to ignore it and try to do what he had to do.
It was a good thing he hadn’t brought much from home. Now, he gathered it up and carried it outside to his car. Without being obvious, he tried to survey the parking lot. There were about a half-dozen cars in the lot, but none of them looked occupied or out of place.
Doug threw his stuff into the trunk and got behind the wheel.
He pulled out of the lot, turned onto a surface street and got back on the freeway. He was on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., where the old man lived. Doug had really wanted to push through and get there last night, but he was in a fog and would have been no use.
So, instead, he had veered into the parking lot of a no-name hotel and slept in his clothes.
Now, he actually felt a little better. He stopped at a fast food place and got a greasy breakfast sandwich and a huge coffee. He dumped creamer and a boat load of sugar into the coffee while wolfing down the breakfast sandwich.
It made him feel a little sick, but he figured he might need some fuel for what was ahead. Besides, the pain pills were strong and on an empty stomach they weren’t doing him any favors.
Doug was sure the old man wouldn’t have moved. He wasn’t the type.
Doug remembered the street and the house and even how to get there. Many nights had been spent there, planning, discussing, arguing.
It had been an exciting time.
Now, he pushed those thoughts aside.
We remember.
Doug remembered, too. He remembered what had happened, and the kind of danger he could be in right now.
They had tried to kill him.
They had failed.
They would try again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was a scene that Mack figured outsiders would say appeared to be typical suburban domestic life. Mack working in Nora’s spare bedroom that was used as an office, while she made occasional trips bringing him coffee.
He had printed off most of the documents Joe Decker had sent him, and had them spread out on the floor. It wasn’t ideal. He generally preferred to work by putting things up on the wall and pacing back and forth, but since this wasn’t his home, he was making do.
Mack was also slightly frustrated by the lack of resources. Since he still did occasionally work as a consultant for the FBI, he had access to some non-classified servers and databases. Those turned out to be useful.
As a profiler, Mack had spent a career essentially studying abnormal psychology. It was what he had devoted nearly all of the second half of his career to as an agent who specialized in tracking down serial killers.
But the first half of his career had been a bit more traditional. Solving crimes that were much less sensational.
Now, he was relying on that type of expertise.
As always, it came down to intersecting patterns and commonalities. If these murders were linked, where did that linkage take place? And why?
Mack started with a clean legal pad and began to list what he saw.
The first thing was age. Nearly all of the victims’ ages fell within a spread of five years.
That was the first fact that really demanded Mack’s attention. Serial killers often chose their victims for a variety of reasons that included physical appearance, opportunity and visual cues.
Age could be a factor, but it wasn’t high on the list. So to have such a tight group on the age scale was something Mack set aside for much closer scrutiny.
On his initial read-through, Mack had noted the geographic proximity of the victims. It was a strange one. The victims did fall within an area that could be clearly delineated, but something struck Mack as wrong. The pattern wasn’t what he would call a hunting ground.
One murder took place on a street.
Another in the library of an expensive mansion during a large party.
And the other in a private residence.
They weren’t the kind of crime scenes that Mack would associate with a serial killer who often relied on unpredictable opportunities. Some killers often stalked their victims for extended periods of time. Maybe the killer had chosen the victim and spent a great deal of time pursuing their prey before making the kill.
However, the gender equation threw that off a bit as well. Many psychopaths killed both men and women, but there was usually a gender preference. Additionally, often the crimes involved killing people of both genders simultaneously.
It was rare for a killer to single out, pursue and kill multiple women, and then suddenly do the same thing with a man.
What Mack really had was the consistent of age and method of killing.
He considered what that meant.
“I’m afraid to bring you more coffee,” Nora said. “You’ve got enough caffeine in you to run a marathon at this point.”
She had peeked her head into the room and looked at the papers spread out.
“This isn’t good, is it?” she asked.
“Too early to tell,” Mack said. He debated about telling her any of the details, but he suddenly felt sorry for her. “The good news, I guess, is that Doug is the anomaly here.”
“What do you mean?”
He explained to her the commonality of age. Doug was nearly double the age of the other victims.
“Yeah, I guess that’s good news,” Nora said. “But the flip side is the cops can interpret that as Doug is the one doing the killing. That maybe he wasn’t stabbed, but he got wounded in the process of killing someone else.”
Mack had considered that.
“Well, we both know Doug,” M
ack said. “And we know he didn’t do it.”
Nora nodded.
Mack wished he had sounded more confident in his assessment.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The devil is in the details.
Mack didn’t know how often during his time at the Bureau he had thought of that phrase. It had taken on such a powerful meaning for him as he hunted individuals who could kill a fellow human being without a second thought.
Often, finding them was in the details.
The tiny, overlooked, seemingly inconsequential fact that only appeared after long periods of study.
He had pored over each individual’s history. Birth. Family members. Schools. Public records.
He was missing something.
Something big.
And it was gnawing at him that he couldn’t see it. In the old days, he would gather a few colleagues, share the highlights of the data, and ask the team if there was something he was missing.
Now, he didn’t have a team.
But he did have Nora.
He got up, left the office, and found her in the backyard. She was trimming some of the landscaping.
Mack studied her a hair too long. The shape of her behind in a pair of shorts, the muscle tone of her legs, the precision with which she did her task.
Again, he shook the feeling off. He didn’t want to be a voyeur.
“Amazing how fast it comes back, isn’t it?” he asked, referring to how quickly everything in Florida grew.
“Yeah, I could practically do this every day,” she said.
“Want some iced tea or something?” he asked. Mack didn’t know if she had any, but he figured he could make some.
Nora made a final few snips and then straightened up and rejoined Mack on the back patio.
She took off her gardening hat and gloves before setting down her garden shears.
“That sounds great, I’ve got some in the fridge,” she said.
They both went inside and Mack retrieved two glasses while Nora pulled the glass pitcher of iced tea from the fridge.
Nora had a thin line of sweat along her forehead and a smudge of dirt on her face.
She had never looked sexier to Mack than she did just then.
“Are you taking a break?” she asked.
Mack nodded. “Yeah, something is staring me in the face and I just can’t see it.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“That’s what I had in mind,” he said.
“Let’s sit outside,” she said. “Put the umbrella up. There’s a nice breeze, and it won’t get too hot. Maybe you need some fresh air.”
“Or some fresh ideas.”
They went out to the back, took seats next to each other at the patio table with the umbrella tilted perfectly to block the sun.
Nora was right, there was a nice breeze.
“So tell me what you’ve found,” she said.
Mack went through it all, starting from the beginning, hitting the highlights along the way.
“What about money?” she asked. “Could there be some sort of financial angle to all of this? The woman who was killed in Palm Beach. You know there was a lot of money at that party.”
“Maybe,” Mack said. He’d been unable to find any signs of financial angles that would merit murder. Besides, both Brad Golding and Brielle Lozen had filed very average tax returns. Brielle, especially, was not doing all that well in terms of money.
“What about the past?” Nora asked. “Did they go to the same schools?”
“No, all three went to different high schools and colleges,” he said.
Nora sighed. “And I’m sure you looked at their employment histories,” she said. “A disgruntled coworker kind of thing–”
Mack suddenly sat straight up in his chair.
“Mack!” Nora exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”
He lunged up from his chair, raced into the office, and dug through his briefcase. He pulled out a map, and stuck it to the wall. Quickly, he gathered up three separate sheets of paper, confirmed what he had realized.
Nora appeared in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s great,” he said, almost breathless. From the desk, he found push pins. The colored plastic kind. He chose three yellow pins, and after verifying the addresses on the sheets, placed all three push pins into the map.
“Almost fifteen years ago, all three of them were living in roughly the same area,” Mack said. “I know it because I wondered if they’d gone to the same school. But they hadn’t. One went to the public school, one went to a Catholic school, and the other, a private prep academy. I made the mistake of shutting my mind to the coincidence.”
“I still don’t get it,” Nora said.
He then grabbed a red push pin.
Before he placed it, he turned to Nora. “I didn’t either. Not until you mentioned employment. Again, I was stupid. I figured they didn’t have jobs at the time, and they were too young, anyway. So once again, I closed my mind to it.”
She stared at the cluster of pins. They formed a circle. Not a perfect circle, but enough to show the layout Mack was willing her to see.
And then she too saw it.
Nora gasped.
“Not their employment,” she said.
Her hands went to her mouth.
Mack pushed the pin into the center of the circle, equidistant from each yellow pin.
“Right. Not theirs,” Mack said. “Doug’s.”
He tapped the red pin.
“Advanced Biologies.”
EMOTION
Chapter Thirty-Five
The old man had been right.
His name was Oliver.
Despite the fact that he had an intense hatred for the old man, hardened and crystallized over the years, Oliver had to admit he was a bit impressed.
The old man hadn’t seen him in years and to recognize him was a feat. Especially considering he looked almost nothing like the very young man from over a decade ago.
The pleasure in killing the old man had been monumental. One of the greatest experiences of his life. Better than the best sex.
Which made Oliver think of Jenny.
Poor Jenny.
She’d botched the attack on Doug Brooks.
In his world, there was no room for failure.
Even if it was a woman whose body had once given him so much pleasure.
Now, he sat in the old man’s car he’d stolen and driven all the way back to Florida. He was parked and took the opportunity to peruse the wallet in his hands. Some credit cards, a driver’s license and less than a hundred bucks in cash. He also had the old man’s cell phone, although it looked like it was rarely used.
It had begun to rain and as the wipers cleared the water on the windshield, he saw the bar where he’d asked Jenny to join him for a short meeting. Oliver took the cash out of the wallet, locked the car and ducked inside.
The bar was an after-work kind of place, now occupied by a few brave corporate zombies who’d worked up the nerve to sneak out of the office a little early for a drink before getting home to their mortgage.
Oliver took a booth at the back, giving him a clear view of the door. He ordered a beer for himself and a chardonnay for Jenny.
He found himself looking forward to seeing her.
And killing her.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Can you remember?”
A notepad was on the table between Mack and Nora.
“That was a crazy time,” she answered.
The time period when all of the victims had been living nearly identical distances from Advanced Biologies was not long after Doug and Nora had moved to the area and Doug had begun his work.
Mack had asked her to think back and remember anything she could about what Doug may have said about his work.
“He never talked about work. Even now, he rarely said anything about his day. No specifics. Ever.”
She must have seen the look on his face.
&n
bsp; “Now we know why, right?” she asked. “Christ, you’re married to someone for so long and you never really know them, do you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he answered. He’d meant for it to come off as some sort of compassionate sentiment, but it sounded wrong and he regretted saying it.
“What were they doing at that place?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Mack said. “Maybe nothing. It could be a coincidence.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I don’t have enough information right now.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“Anything,” Mack said as he waited. “Did he complain about a coworker? A boss? Did he ever mention anyone by name?”
Nora sighed and shook her head.
“It was so long ago,” she said. And then her face changed as her memory stumbled over something. “There was one guy, not a boss but maybe an older colleague. Doug said something once. It was a gripe. You know, Doug never talked about work, so when he complained about something, I guess I noticed. And it was a funny name and I made a joke out of it a couple of times. But then he told me to stop.”
Mack stayed quiet. To speak now would be to interrupt her natural thought process.
“Ugh,” she said.
He looked down at his coffee, taking his eyes off her.
It must have done the trick because she suddenly sat bolt upright.
“Dezzotel! That’s it,” she said. “My joke was Dezzotel can go to hell!”
Nora smiled, and Mack laughed. “I like it,” he said. “Dezzotel can go to hell.”
Mack was punching the name into his phone, using Google search. He figured out the most likely spelling and then sent it to Joe Decker.
“Is that helping?” she asked.
“I think so.”
After he sent the note to Decker, he was about to close his mobile browser when he saw an entry for a William Dezzotel, linked to a news story. It was a scientific article about brain waves.
Mack used the same browser and typed in “Dr. William Dezzotel,” guessing that anyone who was writing articles about brain waves was probably a doctor.
