“I should. Can’t promise though. As this fellow says, I speak to him on a visceral level. Not sure how to turn that off.”
“Animal magnetism, Conway?”
“Yeah, shut up!” I thrust the paper back at him. “You can deal with Hank. I do believe his return address is a federal prison.”
“And how did your new pal Hank get this missive of love and adoration delivered to you?”
I didn’t want to think about how an inmate got my address or how he got a letter to me out of the prison. His name wriggled about in my head then jumped in and out of old case files until a neon flashing warning sign lit the dark in my brain.
Holy fuck, Batman. I could be in trouble.
“Kurt …”
Hank liked puzzles. He liked to make puzzles out of people. It was a Delta case. When we arrested him, he told me he’d like to make a puzzle out of me. Every image associated with Hank and his fascination with jigsaw puzzles and scroll saws flooded back. Everything blurred and swayed as the horror took over. He liked to use a reciprocating saw first up then move to a scroll saw for the more intricate patterns. Two of his victims were sliced up using a band saw in welder’s workshop. I’d never seen a mess like it and hoped I never would again.
“Yes,” he said looking up from the letter. “Whoa, sit down.”
Drab confetti danced in front of my eyes and encroaching blackness threatened. I felt his hand close around my arm but couldn’t see it.
My next thought came in sharp pointy shards, it pierced the dark, creating rips big enough for me to see through. Mitch.
“El, you awake?”
Mitch.
A groan escaped as thoughts of Hank returned. I tried to push the thoughts away. He made a big mess and it was hard to scrub that from my conscious mind.
“Groaning isn’t indicative of wakeful speech, El. You need to say words.”
“Mitch … thought you were going to be late?”
“Babe, I am late. Kurt called me but I was almost home.” His fingers brushed my bangs away from my eyes. “You in there?”
“Yep.”
An inventory happened without my bidding. My mind ran through its checks.
Yep. I’m okay. No harm done.
I looked around. I lay on the sofa in the living room. My last memory was being in the kitchen and Kurt grabbing my arm.
God. I passed out. That wouldn’t go down well.
“You need sleep,” Mitch said. His tone suggested arguing was futile.
Legs wearing dark blue suit pants appeared in front of me. I followed them up to a dark blue jacket, white shirt, and striped blue-on-blue tie. Kurt.
“Sleep. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
What no questions? Color me stunned.
“Thanks for not letting me hit my head,” I said.
“You’re welcome. See you in the morning.” He frowned at me for a second. “I’ve ordered armed security for here and Mitch’s home effective immediately and until
I
say otherwise. While you were out, I did a search on Hank.” He didn’t need to carry on; I knew only too well what he found.
The sofa cushions moved as Mitch stood. I heard him and Kurt talking on the way to the front door, then the door opened and closed. Mitch’s footsteps paused at the living room door.
I sat up slowly. Everything felt okay. Nothing spun out of control, no murky gray or darkness lurking.
“All right?” he said, walking toward me.
“Yes. I’m going to go get something to eat.”
The black bear rumbling in my stomach reminded me how very hungry I was.
“Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.”
And there was the problem. Starving, but no clue what I wanted to eat.
“I’m not sure, I’ll go see what there is.”
“Can you manage?”
Can I manage?
For a second there I didn’t understand. Pain flooded back as I ran my hand through my hair, in an attempt to sweep my bangs out of my eyes. Sharp tugs as hair caught on the tape didn’t help.
“I got this.”
“I don’t doubt that, just thought I could help.”
I smiled. “No, you read the paper and relax. I’ll be back.”
Mitch liked to sit for a bit and read the paper to unwind. His was a long day and I figured I’d let him do his thing in peace. Also, fewer bothersome questions if I was in a different room.
Shattered
“Hey, I’m going up to bed,” I said from the living room door.
Mitch looked up from the newspaper, then glanced at his watch.
“Good idea.” He folded the paper and placed it on the floor by his chair. “If you can’t sleep we could watch a movie?”
“Or you could while I fall asleep,” I replied. Although, with Hank skulking in my mind at the boundary between reasonable thought and insanity, sleep might not be such an easy thing to come by.
Mitch smiled and stood up. I held out my hand, he reached it in three strides. “You’re cold,” he said. His free hand touched my face. “Really cold.”
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t get warm. Cold both inside and out.
Hand in hand we climbed the stairs. Our room was dark. I wanted dark and cozy. Mitch knew, he just knew; instead of turning on the main lights he flicked on a lamp on my dresser and another on the nightstand.
Mitch stepped in front of me and looked into my eyes.
“What’s up?”
“I’m tired.”
“It’s like something extinguished your flame. This isn’t just tired.” His blue eyes searched mine. “El? What happened?”
I shook my head. I’m not sharing the Hank stuff and I didn’t want to get into Rosanne being in the house.
“My body aches. I’m tired and I can’t get warm,” I replied. It was truthful, just not the whole truth.
“Hot shower and bed,” Mitch said.
“That sounds good.” It did and I was grateful the questions had ceased. I sat down on the bed. It would be so easy to fall back and sleep but I’d bet good money on nightmares not being far away. Mitch was talking. I heard the shower running.
Talking. Time to pay attention.
“El?”
“Yep?”
“Shower?”
I stood and walked into the bathroom.
“Jump in. I’ll find you some pajamas.”
“Pajamas? Top drawer of my dresser.”
“Pajamas until you warm up,” Mitch replied with a smile.
I peeled off my jeans and dropped them in the laundry hamper. The rest of my clothes followed as quickly as the constant thrum of pain in my hand would allow.
A thought surfaced: the laundry hampers at the crime scenes were empty. Where were their worn clothes or pajamas or whatever? I needed to hang on to that thought until I could do something with it. The hot water stung my cold skin, gradually warming me.
“Okay?” Mitch asked.
“You coming in?”
He laughed. “Yep.”
The shower door opened and closed. Warmth radiated from Mitch’s body. I turned to face him. Mitch plunged his hands into my hair, pulled my face to his and kissed me until I forgot everything except that very moment.
His arms wrapped around me as I melted into him. Mitch said, “Don’t shut me out.”
Dry and in warm pajamas I snuggled in bed next to Mitch. My head rested on his chest as he flipped channels looking for a movie to watch.
He settled on
The Time Traveler’s Wife
. His left arm wrapped around me, fingers gently caressing my upper arm. The movie played. My eyes closed.
Time travel was one helluva superpower. I wanted to go back to the minutes before the first woman was killed and stop it. Bits of the movie filtered into my thoughts then became part of my internal viewing.
What if the cameras were still active when we arrived at the crime scenes? What if the Unsubs were listening to us?
I opened my eyes. “Mitch, you’re a techy kinda guy …”
“Uh huh.”
“Do you think the cameras and audio surveillance gear at the crime scenes enabled the Unsubs to—”
His arm tightened around my shoulders. “You think they were watching you?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s possible. If they had cameras at every scene, they could’ve been used for surveillance prior to the murders and then disabled via software afterward. Rinse and repeat.”
“Could’ve, might’ve, perhaps, maybe.” Not what I wanted to hear.
“This is your case. From what you know so far, what do you think?”
“I hoped they abandoned the spy gear and moved to the next place.”
Mitch played with my hair. “Go to sleep, El.”
Hank weaseled his way into my thoughts. My mind ran through a weapon inventory then our route from the bedroom to the panic room. Once satisfied I’d covered everything and knowing armed security guards were stationed outside the locked front gates, sleep hit like a sledgehammer.
One Wild Night
Sunday started with a new crime scene and more shit than I knew how to process. It felt like failing on all fronts but I’d managed a few hours’ sleep and felt physically okay. All police were asked to leave the scene before we arrived and the scene turned over to uniformed FBI. It was a strange situation and I didn’t much like shutting out local police or using uniformed agents when we usually used Sean O’Hare’s security company. I truly disliked the idea of a cop being inside this case but until we knew for sure, police involvement needed to be limited.
We waited outside for the bug experts to clear the scene. The last thing I wanted was our investigation broadcasted. After the all clear, two techs showed us four evidence bags containing cameras and audio devices.
“All good?” I asked. Paid to double check.
“Yes. We did a thorough sweep of the entire building. Nothing else is present,” said a female agent.
The thought of being overheard and watched still gnawed at me.
“Any way to tell if the Unsub was monitoring police presence in the houses after the deaths?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled. “Happy to come out whenever Delta need us.”
“Log those items with Delta A and use this case number, please. Three zero six dash HQ dash six five zero nine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ma’am. Seemed like maybe I should just go with it. She was twelve. One day some twelve-year-old fresh-faced agent would be calling her ma’am. They took the devices with them and left the scene.
I struggled with my nitrile gloves ‒ no way I was getting my taped-up fingers in one hole.
“Here,” Kurt said handing me one of his gloves. “Wear this one on the broken hand. It’s a large.”
“Thanks.” I looked at him for second as I tried to decide if I should mention the possibility of aspects of our investigation being overheard.
“Something on your mind, Conway?”
“The surveillance at the crime scenes. If we were listened to, the Unsubs will know about my newfound ability.” I eased the glove over my fingers. “It bothers me.”
“I’ve given that some thought as well.”
“And?”
“I think if they’d heard anything, they would’ve used it by now, somehow. We didn’t do a lot of talking in the camera areas.”
Good point.
“Maybe.”
Once I was gloved up, Kurt tapped my shoulder. “Let’s get in there.”
I steeled myself for what I was about to see and followed Kurt into the house. A uniformed FBI agent directed us to the bathroom.
“She’s a husk,” I said, staring at another young woman’s drained body, in another spotless bathroom, in another immaculate house.
“Good description,” Kurt replied.
“Sidney Churchill, age twenty-nine. Worked in the paleontology department of the Smithsonian,” I said, reading from the notes given to me by the first agent on scene. I looked down at the once-animated face of a slim blonde blue-eyed young woman. Frosty tentacles slithered into my bones. “She’s also a Republican.” Another Republican bites the dust. Political motivation didn’t feel right. Perhaps it was opportunity? “Hey, did we find out if any of these women attended support groups of any kind?”
“As far as I know Sam and Lee are working on that. Places like AA don’t keep records of people attending. Anonymous still means something in a few circles.”
“I suppose it does.” I stiffened and sucked in air as another raging, cold torrent raced up my spine.
A light frown creased Kurt’s forehead as he looked up at me. “I get why the strong reaction to that letter last night. Before I picked you up today, I had a look at some of the crime-scene photos from the ‘Hank “Saw” Creole’ case.”
I nodded. “We are not having a conversation about that.”
“Fair enough.”
Kurt would add my reaction to his mental folder labeled PTSD. I knew that and didn’t care. One day it’d be a thing that I couldn’t ignore but not yet. My mind, already busy with thoughts of our current case, had no room for jailbirds like Hank Creole and his warped love letters.
“Eight victims.”
I knew as soon as I said it that was wrong.
“Nine,” Kurt said, letting the shower curtain fall back into place. “Violet Cramer in Winchester, remember. There are nine.”
Yeah, nine. Nine victims, two Unsubs or four, depending on whether or not Stevens and Fallon were involved.
With the body hidden by the shower curtain, it was just a bathroom. A very clean bathroom.
White tile walls and a canary yellow splashback behind the sink. I crouched down and scanned the room. Where was Sidney’s note? A small white triangle peeked out from under the vanity unit. Pleased to have found it, I wiggled out the paper with my gloved fingers. Unfolding it with care.
“What’s it say?” Kurt asked.
“I think the better question is ‘why hide the notes?’”
“And your theory is?”
“It’s some kind of game. They’re not hidden well enough to make it too hard.”
“Why bother at all?”
“Because it amuses them for whatever sick reason. If it didn’t, then surely the notes would be left in the open.”
“Or, it reminds us that they did not feel hurried and had time to conceal something.”
“I think you have something there, Kurt.”
He smiled. “What does that note say?”
“‘Taking the light with you,’” I replied, handing it to him then standing up and moving back to the door. My head swam. I waited. A few deep breaths and it subsided.