Is it possible that Colin was their killer and for whatever reason Hanna was someone he had just let go? Maybe they had consensual sex, and he decided that that was it? That that was enough?
Was it possible for a man who had already killed four women to have a normal-esque relationship with a woman and not slit her throat? To not paint her lips red?
Her thoughts turned to some of the most infamous serial killers in American history: The Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy. They lived normal lives outside of their killing sprees, hadn’t they? And the people who knew them in their everyday lives thought that they were kind, charming individuals.
So why did she find it so hard to believe that this murderer, that Colin Elliot could be the same?
Because the profile is wrong, that’s why.
The radio on her hip crackled and she brought it to her mouth.
“Sergeant Adams?”
“Go ahead.”
“We’re in position. Just give me the word and we’ll serve the arrest warrant.”
The quality of the connection was poor, and she couldn’t quite make out if it was Detective Yasiv or Drake speaking.
“You’re a go. Get this bastard and bring him in,” she said.
“Affirmative.”
The radio went silent and Chase checked her watch. It was nearing seven, and dark had already settled over New York City.
She reached for her phone next, knowing that she only had a few minutes before the next report came in. Before dialing, however, she turned to Dunbar, who was still busy punching away at his keyboard, his tongue pushed into his cheek like a teenager playing video games.
He probably wouldn’t even hear her if she made the call from within the small room, but she decided not to chance it.
“I’ve got to make a call. I’ll be right back,” she said.
Dunbar didn’t even look up.
Chase went into the hallway, and after looking around briefly and confirming that she was alone, she dialed a number.
Her husband answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” he said. He sounded sleepy.
Chase hesitated. What could she say? What could she say that she hadn’t said already? That she was sorry? That this was the last time she would miss dinner? Miss Felix’s bedtime?
“Hello?” Brad asked again.
Chase decided that she couldn’t lie to him. Not anymore.
“Brad, it’s me,” she said.
Brad sighed, and Chase knew that she didn’t have to say anything; her husband already knew what she was going to say.
“I’m not going to be home for a while, hon. Not until late again.”
The only reply was Brad’s labored breathing.
Don’t let it get the best of you, don’t let it take you over like it did in Seattle, he had said.
But Chase didn’t know any other way of doing her job. She wasn’t a manager of a supermarket. If she wanted to catch the vilest members of society that tormented New York City day and night, she was going to have to put everything she had into it.
She had to put as much effort into hunting them that the killers put into honing their craft, of feeding their disease.
“I’ll tell Felix you send your love,” Brad replied flatly.
“Thanks, Brad. I’m sorry, I really am. And we’re going to go on vacation. I promise. We’re—”
But Chase realized that the line was already dead.
He had hung up on her.
Chapter 52
Drake leaned up against the wall beside the door and looked over at Stitts, then to Yasiv and the other officers who stood behind him. He adjusted the grip on his pistol, then nodded at Stitts.
Stitts nodded back and then stepped in front of the door.
He knocked three times, hard, then stepped off to one side.
“FBI! Open the door!”
Drake counted to five, as they had discussed, and when there was no reply, indicated for Stitts to knock again. The man did, and repeated his order.
This time, however, they didn’t wait.
Drake pushed him aside and delivered a strong kick to the door, just beside the handle. The wood splintered, and on the second such blow, the door swung wide.
Agent Stitts, gun held out in front of him, rushed inside, and Drake followed.
“FBI!” he yelled.
“NYPD! Come out with your hands up!” someone behind Drake shouted.
The entrance was filled with shoes, and Drake had to step over them to avoid stumbling. The interior of the small apartment was dark save an ambient glow coming from a room near the kitchen.
Stitts cleared the first room, while Drake made his way to the second.
“Colin Elliot!” he shouted. “Come out with your hands up!”
A flicker of movement, a shadow in front of the blue light from he realized was a television, caught his eye and Drake strode forward.
His finger tensed on the trigger when a figure stepped out into the hallway.
“Dad?” a sleepy voice asked.
Drake inhaled sharply and lowered his gun. He moved protectively in front of the other officers who streamed into the house behind him, concerned at the prospect of an itchy trigger finger. Then he reached out and grabbed the little girl in his arms, hunching over her protectively.
“Girl! A little girl!” he yelled.
The girl yelped in shock and surprise. She tried to pull away, but Drake held fast.
“It’s okay, we’re the police,” he whispered. He was about to say something else, when another girl, sporting a matching set of flannel pajamas, stepped out of the TV room.
“Another one! There’s another kid in here!” he bellowed. Still cradling the first girl, he moved across the hallway to the second, wrapping her protectively in his arms with the other.
His heart was racing in his chest, and his adrenaline surged so greatly that he didn’t notice that both of the girls were scratching and clawing at his arms, trying to free themselves.
“Detective Yasiv!” he hollered. A second later, the man was at his side.
“Take them outside! Take them outside, now!”
Drake finally let go of the girls, and thrust them at Yasiv, who grabbed them much the way he had, and turned back toward the entrance.
“Clear the rest of the lower level,” Agent Stitts ordered from his right. “Drake, come with me upstairs.”
Drake nodded and hurried toward the stairs.
“Colin Elliot! Come out with your hands up!” Stitts yelled.
When there was no reply, they started up the stairs, side-by-side, each leading with their pistols.
Drake was breathing heavily when they made it to the landing. Stitts looked over at him, then indicated the first door on their left, which was closed, and then the one on the right. Drake, understanding his meaning, went to the door on his left first and threw it wide.
The first thing he noticed was a female figure lying on top of the sheets, sporting only a pair of underwear.
Another victim, he couldn’t help but think. He stepped into the room, and when he did, he realized that there was someone else in the room.
Someone who was trying to climb out the window.
“Stitts!” he yelled as he leveled his gun at the back of the man’s head. “Get the fuck in here!” and then, to the man, he said. “Colin, if you don’t step out of the window right now, I’m going to repaint your walls red.”
The man hesitated, and Drake rushed him. He tucked the gun in his belt as he did, and then drove his shoulder into the man’s spine.
The man’s face cracked against the half-open window, sending a spider web of cracks spiraling out from the point of impact.
Colin grunted, and fell backward.
The man was larger, much larger, than Drake expected and when he toppled backward, the brunt of the man’s weight fell on top of him.
The air was forced from Drake’s lungs, and his diaphragm spasmed in protest. Colin tried to st
ruggle to his feet again, but Drake reached out and grabbed a handful of hair.
Colin yelped, and Drake pulled his face down hard, rolling as he did.
Still unable to draw a full breath, Drake suddenly found himself on top of the other man, this time pushing his weight down on the man’s chest.
Colin stared up at him, his eyes wide, blood spilling from a cut just above his right eyebrow. Drake pulled the gun from his belt and pressed the muzzle against the man’s chin.
“You move again,” he gasped, “and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
Colin fell limp as Agent Stitts ran up beside him. To Drake’s surprise, Stitts shoved him off the shirtless man.
Rolling onto his back, he stared at the ceiling with the sound of handcuffs ratcheting in his ears.
“Call Chase,” he managed, finally catching his breath. “Call Chase and tell her that we caught the bastard.”
Chapter 53
Chase tried to ignore the shouts of the protesters outside 62nd precinct, spouting their pro-victim rhetoric. She wanted to go up to them, to each and every one of the dozen or so people holding signs, and shake them, scream at them that she was only trying to help, that she was just trying to keep them all safe.
But she did none of the above. Instead, she just watched from the shadows, her breath making puffs of fog, further obscuring her face.
We got him, Agent Stitts had told her over the radio, We’ve got Colin Elliot in custody. There was a woman with him, but she seems okay. Disoriented and bruised, but alive. EMS is looking at her now, and is going to take her to the hospital when they’re done. There were two kids here, too, Chase, but they’re fine.
Chase breathed deeply.
It had been close, too close. They had been close to losing another victim. Maybe three.
Several police cars pulled into the lot, honking to clear the crowd. She stepped forward as they made their way to the doors, and in the distance, she heard, and then saw, the rumble of Drake’s Crown Vic. She had been doubting her decision to bring him on board, but if they had just caught the man responsible for the heinous murders and the macabre stories, then it had all been worth it.
The door to the lead police car opened, and a uniformed officer stepped out. He acknowledged her, then made his way to the rear door.
“Is his head covered?” Chase asked.
The man nodded.
“Covered, just as you asked.”
“Good.”
The officer opened the back seat and pulled a man out into the cold. He was wearing a pair of track pants and a t-shirt, and the first thing that struck her was that he was larger than she expected.
Perhaps it was Agent Stitts’s profile, or Hanna’s description of him, but she hadn’t pictured Colin Elliot as a pot-bellied six-foot-two man with a slight hunch to his spine.
“Get him inside. Interrogation Room 6,” her thoughts turned to Hanna for a moment, who was still decompressing in Room 1. “Keep him on the second floor, and for no reason are you to pass the rooms on the main floor. Got it?”
The officer said he understood, and then hooked an arm roughly beneath Colin’s, and hoisted him from the vehicle.
“Don’t let him speak to anyone until I arrive,” she added as they headed into the precinct.
Chase slunk back into the shadows, watching Drake’s Crown Vic pull into a parking spot near the front of the station. Agent Stitts stepped out first, and then Drake, a scowl on the latter’s face.
Concern grew inside of her, and she wondered if it had been such a good idea to put them together.
They walked over to her and she stepped toward them as they neared.
It dawned on her that the crowd must have picked up on the fact that something was happening, something big, as their shouts increased in intensity.
Agent Stitts got to her first.
“I want you to join me in the interrogation room,” she instructed. Stitts agreed. Then she turned to Drake. “You wait in the observation room. I’ll call you if—when—I want you to enter. I want this to be quick; I want to get a confession out of this bastard and put this case to rest before the news goes wide tomorrow… before the article gets published in the Times.”
Drake looked uncomfortable.
“What? What is it?”
Drake’s eyes darted to Stitts and Chase understood that he wanted to speak to her alone.
“Agent Stitts, meet me inside. Wait for me before you interrogate Colin,” she instructed.
Stitts nodded and entered the station. When he was gone, she addressed Drake directly.
“What is it? What’s the problem?”
Drake hesitated before answering.
“I have to go,” he said with something akin to shame in his voice.
Chase gawked.
“You what? Drake we—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We caught the man, and now I have to go. Not for long, but there is something I need to do first. I’m sorry.”
Drake was heading back to his car before she could even answer.
“Drake!” she shouted after him. “Drake! Drake!”
But the man didn’t turn, he simply got back into his car and sped off, barely taking a wide enough berth around the protesters to avoid running them over.
What the fuck is going on with him?
Chapter 54
The last thing that Drake wanted to do was leave Chase with Colin Elliot. They had caught the bastard, and he wanted to be there when he confessed.
And yet the voice on the phone during the car ride back to the station had been direct, unwavering in his demand.
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel.
“Fuck!”
This was the worst possible timing, but what could he do? Did he dare say no to Raul? To Ken?
The answer lay in the fact that he was once again driving across the city to meet them. Only this time it wasn’t at Smith, Smith, and Jackson, or at Ken’s penthouse apartment. On the contrary, the address that Raul had given him was a new one, one that he didn’t recognize.
The GPS on his phone indicated that it was an abandoned building near the port. He had tried to reach out to Screech, to ask him if he could dig up what the place as all about, but the man must have been airborne: his phone went directly to voicemail.
What could they possibly want now?
Drake pulled into the empty parking lot the better part of an hour later, with snow swirling in the dark sky like iridescent confetti.
Drake squinted into the night, trying to find another source of life. In the distance, he could hear the beeps of car horns, taxicabs no doubt, and the occasional squeal of air brakes, but nothing else.
As he stepped out of the Crown Vic, he felt his heart rate quicken. It thumped painfully in his chest from the bruising when Colin had fallen on him.
And yet, for some reason, despite the eerie quality to the meeting location, and the strangeness of the meeting itself, Drake knew that nothing would happen to him here. Not, at least, by Ken or Raul’s hand.
He was important to them, important enough that Ken had given him twenty-thousand dollars without so much as a hesitation—with conditions, sure, but that was different—and had sent him on his way.
Drake was important to the man who was destined to become mayor.
He just had no idea why.
“Hello?” he called into what looked like a hangar used to maintain large trucks. With two hands, he gripped the side of the corrugated sliding door and shoved. It screamed in protest, but opened wide enough for him to step inside.
But he didn’t. Despite his internal assurances that nothing would happen to him here, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew better than to walk into a dark building at night at the behest of a strange man that he barely knew.
“Hello?” he said again, trying to keep his voice from wavering.
The only reply was his own echo, and he was surprised by how scared he actually sounded.
A
gainst his better judgment, Drake felt compelled to enter.
I can just go inside, have a quick peek then get the fuck out of here. Fuck Ken and his henchman. I came, I did my part.
Drake pulled the gun from the back of his jeans and held it out in front of him. With his other hand, he grabbed his cell phone and flicked the flashlight on.
Only then did he enter the hangar.
The glow from his flashlight was weak, but acute, illuminating a cone of about six feet directly in front of him.
“Hello? Raul?” he called into the near darkness. With his limited vision, Drake determined that the hangar was almost completely empty.
Why the hell did they invite me here?
Drake took several steps forward, shuffling his feet across the concrete to avoid tripping over anything that might have been left on the floor.
“Raul? I’m going to—”
There was an audible buzz from somewhere above him, and Drake instinctively ducked.
The sound was followed by a loud click, and a bright spotlight suddenly flicked on. Drake shielded his eyes, and leaned away from the intense light that erupted from somewhere in front of him.
He swore, and made sure that his gun was still level.
Drake expected something to strike him while he was blinded, a bat to the back of the head maybe, or something more subtle like a knife to the liver.
But when he heard only the blood rushing through his ears, he realized that he was becoming accustomed to the light and managed to lower his forearm from his face.
Squinting heavily, he realized that he was no longer alone in the hangar—that he hadn’t ever been alone.
Beneath the spotlight, Drake made out the dark outline of a figure slumped over in a chair. The bright specks that flicked across his vision prevented him from making out more details, and against his better judgment, he strode forward to investigate.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
The man—it was indeed a man, he saw—was collapsed in a cheap wooden chair, the crown of his head pointed at Drake.
It was clear that his hands were bound behind him, and that this was the only thing that kept his body in the chair.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 69