Chapter Fifty-Seven
Mason pulled up to the bus stop to find his sister shivering with cold and clearly tired. It was getting late, and she’d probably want to head home.
“Evie,” he called over and let her in the car. They parked to talk about the latest, and even took a cigarette from the emergency supply and shared it while catching up on the details.
“So, this Wendell guy,” Mason said, taking a long, smoky draw. “He uses this motel often?”
“All the time, apparently.”
“Why not use the RV?” Since Mason had discovered it at Rigby’s and the LAPD had shown up to retrieve it, it’d been collected by its owner. He could’ve kicked himself for not having it impounded sooner.
“You said it yourself,” Evie said, taking the cigarette from him and tapping the spent ash into the Mustang’s tray, “it has no real interior. Just a tin can, right?”
It was true. But however much Mason wanted to believe Marvin Wendell would be at the motel, he had his doubts. “You coming, or do you want me to drop you home?”
Evie cracked a window and tossed the butt outside. “You’re going now?”
“I don’t want to waste any more time.”
“But you’re exhausted, and it’s a couple of hours outside the city.”
“I’ll live.” Mason knew exactly where this was headed: the ever-persistent request that she get to drive his precious Mustang. He didn’t like it—never had—but it made sense on this occasion. “Just be gentle with her, all right?”
Evie climbed out and they swapped seats. Mason reclined in the passenger seat as Evie struggled to handle the unfamiliar power of the car. He wanted to get some shut-eye—he really did—but it was impossible to relax with Evie grinding the gears.
After an hour had passed, the car was being handled better, so Mason lay back, his eyes on the sky. Was he on his way to meet Wendell, or would it be another dead end? And what about Ryan Carter? He didn’t want to admit it, but the odds weren’t in the boy’s favor.
This could be the last night the boy ever lives, he thought as he watched the passing yellow blur of streetlights. He only hoped he was wrong.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The motel was a rundown mess of a place, fit for a horror movie.
Mason was first out the car, leaving Evie trailing behind as he rushed inside to talk with the clerk. The moment he entered, he was faced with a sweaty middle-aged man who looked as sleazy as he did greasy.
“Looing for a room?” the clerk asked without looking up.
“No, actually, I’m looking for a guest.” He placed his badge on the counter and pushed it onto the man’s smut magazine, forcing him to look at it. “Goes by the name Wendell.”
“Customer confidentiality. They have their right to privacy, and I’m loyal to that.” The clerk shoved the badge back over and returned to his “reading,” rude and uninterested.
“The man’s a killer.” Mason flipped up the counter and invited himself in. He was aware of Evie entering the building when the bell jingled. But even she knew better than to get involved in this conflict.
“Hey, you can’t come back here!” The man stood up, but Mason’s hand guided him back down by his throat. He slumped into his chair, his cheeks growing rosy red.
Mason perused the bookshelf until he found a row of binders and ledgers, each labeled in date order. He took the most recent out, slid it into his large palm, and scanned through for the name. Wendell wasn’t listed, but another name caught his attention: Brahm.
Mason wondered whether the killer was using the name as a cover, or if he was cruelly mocking them, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs all the way to a dead end.
“Put that down!” the clerk yelled without standing up.
“Not until I meet this guy.” Mason looked at the attached sign-in sheet, following the point of his finger across the columns of the spreadsheet. “He’s here now?”
“Depends,” the clerk said, rubbing his throat. “What’s it to you?”
“Everything.”
“Look, man, the guy comes, pays ahead, and asks for privacy. We don’t speak.”
Mason shrugged him off and looked at the room number. “Evie, room seven.”
“Now, wait a minute.” The clerk rose, standing only for Mason to shove him back down again. “You can’t just waltz in here like you own the place. I’ll need to see—”
But Mason didn’t want to hear it. He slid the key for room seven off the hook and marched outside, Evie a few steps ahead of him. The clerk was hobbling behind, protesting his guest’s right to privacy.
“Over here,” Evie said, stopping outside the room.
“If you go in there, I’m calling the police,” the clerk said, folding his arms.
“Go ahead,” Mason told him. “Ask for Detective Bill Harvey.” He slid the key into the door and jerked it. It put up a little resistance but finally clicked and creaked open. He was expecting to be faced with the infamous Lullaby Killer but instead found something far worse.
Evie stood beside him and squinted into the dark room, their jaws both dropping at once.
What they saw was enough to give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Hurry up with that police call,” Mason yelled at the clerk. “Request an ambulance, too!”
The smell was unreal: sweat, blood and something musty. As dark as it was inside, it was clear enough to see the boy, beaten black and blue and sprawled out across the bed. He looked dead, and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t live much longer.
“Wait here,” he told Evie, stepping inside and grabbing the lamp off the cabinet. He wrapped the cord around his fist and gripped the lamp, moving to the adjoining room with his back to the wall. Anyone could be in here, he knew, and he would have to clear it before he could tend to the boy.
Steeling himself, Mason pushed open the door to what was a clean bathroom. The lights were on, but nobody was inside. He tried not to touch too much—this was a crime scene, and he didn’t want to contaminate it any more than he’d have to.
The next door was only a closet, with nothing inside but spare linen. Assured now they were alone, Mason dropped the lamp and ran to the boy, looking down at his body. There was blood on his shirt, right around the belly.
Mason checked for a pulse but felt nothing.
“Ugh!” The boy gasped, one last desperate ounce of life returning to him.
Mason ripped the pillowcase off a nearby pillow, scrunched it up, and pressed it to the boy’s wound. It looked like a knife tear. “Ryan Carter? You need to hang in there, okay? We’re going to get you to a hospital.” It may have been falling on deaf ears, but he imagined this was his own daughter, and nothing would stop him from trying.
“Stand back,” he called to Evie, lifting the kid in his arms and taking him outside. He needed air, space, and to get away from the crime scene. Lowering Ryan onto the ground, he held up his head.
“My God. What happened?” Evie asked, stunned.
“He’s been stabbed. He’s dehydrated, too. Where’s that ambulance?”
Evie disappeared to a nearby wall and opened up the ice dispenser.
The clerk returned with a phone in his hand. “I called them. It’s on its way. Hey, is that little boy gonna be okay?”
“He’d fucking well better be!” Mason was losing it. He couldn’t let the Lullaby Killer win. Not at the cost of this young boy, nor any other.
Evie returned with a bottle of water, trickling it between the boy’s lips.
“Easy. Don’t choke him,” Mason said.
“I wasn’t going to. Hey, look.” Evie pointed at the boy’s hand, where a reddened bandage barely covered the absence of his pinkie finger.
That son of a bitch, Mason thought.
Little Ryan Carter groaned, rolled his head to one side, and stopped breathing.
“No,” Mason said, his energy failing him. “Please, no.” And as he held the dying b
oy in his arms, all he could imagine was the face of Owen Carter as he told him he’d failed to save his son.
Chapter Sixty
The Lullaby Killer had been scoping out a new victim. He’d named this activity the School Run, and there’d been plenty to choose from. With that in mind, he’d even considered moving to the other side of San Francisco to carry out his work.
Stay unpredictable.
With the Carter twin put down once and for all, he now had the time to think about a new lullaby. It was a nice touch, he thought as he pulled onto the empty stretch of road. These little enigmas kept the police guessing—kept Mason Black guessing—for a number of years. And while they’d wasted their time trying to find some sort of a hint within the madness of his signatures, he’d simply run off into the sunset.
Wendell even liked the name; the Lullaby Killer had a nice ring to it.
The RV was a bitch to drive, but it got the job done. He continued up the road to collect the twin’s body so he could keep it concealed until the ransom was paid.
The thought of the money excited him. He could go anywhere. Do anything. All of the greatest killers in America’s history had moved around the map—some of whom had never been caught. He could become one of them. One of the greats.
“Oh, no,” he said aloud as he saw what was in the distance. “Oh. Fucking. No.”
Ahead of him, a host of police cars surrounded Romero’s Motel.
Wendell tried to tell himself they hadn’t found the body, but of course they had. Why else would they be there? He slowed down just enough to see the commotion without drawing attention upon himself.
You again. His blood began to boil at the very sight of him. Mason Black. Every time there was a bump in the road, this guy was right there. Why can’t you just leave it alone, huh?
Registering the ambulance as he drove past, and seeing the Carter kid being lifted into it, he pictured his million dollars disappearing down a deep well. With his escape gone and a new plan in mind, he carried straight on down the road.
You’re on thin ice, Mr. Black.
Chapter Sixty-One
The ambulance arrived in record time, but Bill and Owen had taken longer.
“We think he’s going to be fine,” the paramedic said. “We’ll just get him to the hospital and have him all patched up.”
Bill thanked the EMTs and sent them on their way, while forensics and police officers fluttered around them to examine the crime scene. “You did good, Mason.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “The killer’s still out there. We may have spilled the glass, but the bottle is still poisoned.” He turned back to the room where Ryan Carter had been bleeding out only a few minutes ago. He thought about how close he’d been to losing another child and shivered.
“Mr. Black,” Owen called, stepping away from the ambulance and hopping over the puddles. “I have to follow them back to the hospital, but I wanted to come and thank you.” He held out a hand and shook with Mason. “Please contact me about your fee. That million I was going to pay up, it’s yours if you want it.”
Evie had stood quietly until now. “Take it.”
Mason shook his head. “You’re just light-headed from seeing your boy again. Keep the money and scratch the bill. This has never been about the payday.”
Owen’s expression turned serious, as did Bill’s and Evie’s. “Both of my kids were abducted, and they were both returned to me alive. I’m the luckiest man on the planet.” All smiles, he headed back to his car and followed the ambulance.
“That’s some seriously good work, Mason,” Bill said.
“It was mostly Evie, you know.” Mason patted her on the back, pushing her into the spotlight, and stomped back toward his Mustang.
“Where’re you going?” Bill called after him.
“The hospital. That boy needs to give a statement when he comes around.” It wasn’t something he was proud of, but Mason understood they’d just deprived a serial killer of a million bucks and knew that if that were him, he’d be looking for vengeance.
“Christ, buddy. Take a day off. Recharge your batteries.”
Mason got in the car and saw Evie running around to climb in. “He’s right,” she said as she buckled up. “I mean, I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth whether you want me to or not. But you need to slow down from time to time—think things through.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure.”
Mason rubbed his eyes. “Good, then you can follow me to the hospital. I’ll take the day off when I’ve stopped this maniac.” With that, he revved the car to life and sped toward the hospital to question the nine-year-old killer.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Night had fallen by the time Ryan Carter opened his eyes. They were wandering, lost, looking around as if to identify his surroundings. When asked if he was prepared to talk, he stared with vacant eyes before giving a shallow nod of the head.
Mason led with the simple questions while Bill and Owen stood quietly at the back of the room. The deal was that he could get whatever he needed from the boy before the police swooped in with their special brand of questioning.
“How are you feeling?” Mason asked, settling him gently.
A quick adjustment and a wince. “It hurts.”
“That will pass. Ryan, I need you to tell me everything you can, all right?”
The boy nodded.
“Did you speak with the killer?”
“Yes.”
Mason removed a sweet picture of Thea Peters, the girl who’d been hanged from the curtain pole only one day earlier. “Do you recognize this girl?”
The heart rate monitor beeped as if it to shout, objection!
Ryan’s lips moved without a sound, his eyes filling with tears as he shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Listen to me, Ryan. You’re not in any trouble, but you need to tell us what happened.”
A pause, then a wet sniff. “He made me do it.”
The boy couldn’t have been talking about hanging the girl—there was no way a nine-year-old boy had the strength to haul her up that high, especially if she’d been resisting. It was the writing on the wall that Mason was accusing him of.
“What did he make you do, Ryan?”
Ryan’s eyes rolled up as if remembering something he didn’t want to. “Often through my curtains peep,” he said. “Often through my curtains peep.”
Mason’s eyes went to the kid’s hand that lacked a pinkie. How could he do this to such an innocent kid? “It’s okay, Ryan. Calm down. What can you tell me about the killer? Did he say where he was going?”
“No.” Ryan rolled his head away.
“Did he say what his plans were?”
“No.”
“What about the next victim? Has he chosen yet?”
“I don’t know!” Ryan screamed a shrill, piercing shriek. “I don’t know! I don’t know! Just leave me alone!”
Owen Carter came lunging forward to cradle his son, who was thrashing in protest. The heart rate monitor was beeping off the charts, and the bed shook like it was possessed.
Mason went to the back of the room, out the way. I pushed him too far.
“You’d better leave, Mr. Black,” Owen said. “Thank you for your help, but he’s had enough.” He shot Mason a cold look, but Mason didn’t blame him.
“We’re putting surveillance on your house for the next week,” Bill told Owen while holding the door for Mason. “If you need anything more from us, you let me know.”
Outside the room, where nurses passed every couple of seconds in heavy hospital traffic, Bill patted Mason on the back. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know.”
“You look pretty drained,” Evie said, getting up from a chair in the corridor. “Will you please go home and get some sleep? I know you’re determined—you have nothing to prove there—but you’re useless unless your eyes are wide open.”
I guess she has a point. Mason tried to th
ink of a way he could accept defeat with grace. He turned and headed for the exit. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
“Swing by in the morning,” Evie called after him.
Mason gave a thumbs-up but didn’t turn back. Sure, he could go home and try and sleep it off, but he had a strong suspicion the horrifying look on Ryan’s face would haunt him all night long. Desperate to avoid a night of agitated tossing and turning, he went to the Mustang, knowing that the next stop of the night was not his last.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Rather than heading to Bill’s, Mason had dared to go to his own home, stopping to grab a cheap bouquet of flowers on the way. Sandra would think he wanted something from her, but he just wanted to familiarize himself with the only life he’d known for the past decade.
Now he stood at the front door, unwilling to use his key—mostly dreading she’d changed the locks. With a steady knock and a glance at his Rolex, Mason stood waiting.
Eventually, the door popped open. Mason pushed the flowers into Sandra’s chest and let himself in, heading straight to the kitchen to pour himself a drink.
Sandra caught up to him. “Sure, invite yourself in,” she said.
“I just came to talk. You owe me that.” The Jack Daniels spilled into the tumbler as he cleared his throat and prepared himself for the first satisfying gulp.
“Because you got me flowers? They can’t buy me back.”
“I’m not trying to buy you back. Just… ease off the throttle, will you?”
Sandra drew a deep breath and looked away. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you for the flowers.” She went to the cupboard to fetch a vase.
Just then, Joshua walked into the room, looking like a deer in headlights. “What’re you doing here?” he said after composing himself. “Get out of our house.”
Mason & Morgan- The Serial Killer Collection Page 13