I stride to the stairwell that leads to the roof. Opening the door reveals an enormous pile of rubble. The concrete stairs leading to the roof have collapsed. The roof-access door lies ten feet above my head and looks rusted in place. No one has passed through it for years. If that’s the case, how would the kidnapper have placed the box up there? My gut screams that the roof is the correct location. The box must be up there, but how?
I glance around, desperate for an alternate means of access. Is there another stairwell, perhaps on the other side of the building? As I begin to walk down the hallway to investigate, my eye catches a fresh swipe in the dust of a windowsill.
I rush over and discover the building’s rusted fire escape outside the window.
Are you kidding? A fire escape?
The coalition of kidnappers has clearly done their homework on my background. They’re sure to get a kick out of the fact that venturing this way onto the roof will send me into a paroxysm of terror. But it can’t be helped.
My pulse quickens, and my mouth dries out. Moist hands slip on the windowpane as I struggle to yank it open. Figures this would be one of the few windows that hasn’t lost its glass.
The pane slides up, sending gusts of air howling through the hallway.
I glance sideways through the frame. The fire escape’s rusty structure provides a rectangular landing immediately outside the window. I set the box from the trailer park on the floor. It can stay here for the time being.
I take a deep breath. Then another.
Here goes nothing.
Don’t look down. For God’s sake, don’t look down.
The fatigued metal groans as I step onto it. From this spot, a ladder extends to the roof—not the zigzag stairs you see on a typical fire escape, but the straight variety bolted flush onto the building’s vertical surface.
I begin my ascent up the rickety ladder, anxious to complete the task before nerves send me into a tailspin. Pieces of rust come off in my hand. I pray the bolts that secure this ladder to the bricks are in better shape than these crumbling rungs.
A gust of wind tugs at me, invisible fingers trying to pry me off this precarious foothold. Refusing to lower my gaze, I squeeze the handles so tightly my palms ache.
I count down the last three rungs and pull myself onto the roof, collapsing onto its sticky asphalt surface with a gasp. Sweat pours from my forehead, and my skull throbs with the physical effort and state of near-panic that threatens to envelop my mind.
My trembling hands push me to a sitting position. No time for self-pity, not when the hourglass marking off Trin’s remaining time has nearly run out.
On rubbery legs, I stagger to the middle of the roof. The pigeon cages stand empty, faded newspapers lining the bottom of the forlorn structures. I wonder where the birds went, and what happened to Grace Mabry. Wherever she is, I hope she was able to take at least some of her brood with her.
But where is the next box of clues?
CHAPTER 31
Gusts of wind pull at my shirt, adding to the vertigo that’s steadily building the longer I stay on this roof. How much of my dizziness is a result of the concussion? Hard to say. In the past, I’ve felt just as dizzy in high places without one.
A thorough search of the birdcages fails to reveal a box.
Where to next?
Like giant chess pieces, a forest of rusted vents stand in clusters. They don’t seem quite big enough to conceal the box, but I check them out all the same.
Nothing.
A busted-in skylight catches my eye. I stagger over to it and peer down through it. Dirty shards of glass coat the twenty-first floor below.
I make it halfway around the perimeter of the skylight’s foot-high lip when a fresh pine box falls into view, nestled behind its edge.
Bingo!
I kneel and pop open the lid. No dead birds this time—just a folded note with “Farr” written across it.
Closing the box, I tuck it under my arm and make for the ladder. No point in reading it now, when I’m seconds away from a full-blown mental meltdown. Better to wait until I can actually focus on its message.
Before reaching the side of the building, I opt to tuck the box into my pants and descend with my eyes closed. Yes, it sounds stupid. But so is experiencing a mental lock-up out of fear.
A step away from the building’s edge, I squeeze my eyes shut and grope for the ladder’s side rails.
My right hand closes around one, then my left follows suit. Keeping a death-grip on the rails, I swing over a leg and fish around until it connects with the top rung—on my shin.
Ignoring this new pain, I place my other foot on the rung below and begin my descent.
Sweat from my palms mixes with the ladder’s oxidized metal, forming a slippery goo that threatens to send me plunging to my death in the parking lot below.
My hammering heart feels like it will burst through my chest. I’d swallow if I had any spit.
One rung at a time. Just take one rung at a time…
A high-pitched ringing begins to sound in my ears. I feel…lightheaded.
My lowering foot slips off the next rung…and lands on the flat surface of the twenty-first floor’s fire-escape platform.
Refusing to look down, I peek through my eyelids just enough to locate the window and launch myself through it.
I fall to the floor and remain there a minute, letting my heart rate decelerate to something approaching a normal rhythm before traveling back down all those flights of stairs to the ground floor.
My chest heaving, I pull myself up and wobble to the stairwell. Rested or not, I have to get out of this hellhole and start working on the next clue.
I pull the newest pine box from my pants. Snatching the note from the previous box, I stuff it in my pocket but leave the dead bird behind. There’s a limit to how much stuff I want to haul down all those steps.
The descent isn’t too bad. Waves of dizziness wash over me, then leave as quickly as they came. This must be due to the concussion since my vertigo has by now faded.
I plod down each flight of stairs, breathing heavy with the effort. My knees and ankles grow sore, but that can’t be helped. There’ll be plenty of time to recover when this ordeal is over.
At last, I reach the lobby, which remains empty.
I glance at my watch—two minutes ‘til ten o’clock. Unraveling the clues contained in the first three boxes has consumed twenty hours. I have only four hours left to solve the clues in the last two boxes. I’ll have to quicken my pace…or Trin dies.
CHAPTER 32
With no phone of my own, I’ll have to find someone living nearby who will let me use theirs to call Sampson. How long will it take to find someone willing to ring up an FBI agent? Only one way to find out.
I set out across the lobby, intent on finding the closest residences and ringing doorbells.
But before I reach the exit, Sampson and two other agents burst through the dilapidated doors.
She reaches me, but I don’t break stride. “I’ve got the next note. It was on the roof.”
“The roof…?” She’s known about my fear of heights for years. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“You’re not fine. You have blood on your collar.”
“Yeah, I walked in on a meth lab last night. One of their operators pegged me from behind. Didn’t wake up ‘til an hour ago.”
“I was beginning to wonder. I tried calling a few hours back and figured I’d better come down when you didn’t return my calls.”
We duck back through the empty panels of the boarded-up doors and emerge into the crisp sunshine. Brookdale’s appearance doesn’t improve in the daylight.
“You need to get your head wound looked at,” says Sampson.
“I will later. But we’re behind…seriously behind. Trin only has four hours left.”
“Let’s take a look at this latest note, then.”
We reach her Camry, the good old emerald-green one she
’s had for years. I rest the box on the trunk, open it, and withdraw the note.
Unfolding the paper reveals the next set of clues.
A jolly good time can be had
Even by those who are bad
The treats in their cones
Serve to nourish one’s bones
And makes one a happier lad
“Where is the next box?” you wonder
I’ve gone and hid it down under
Where athletes win gold
And flesh gathers mold
And machinery roars like the thunder.
Rubbing the knot at the base of my skull, I turn to Sampson. “My concussion must be worse than I realized. I have no clue what this note is trying to say. At least with the others I figured out the ‘easy’ clue pretty quickly. But this one…?” I stared at the paper, bug-eyed. “Do you understand any of this?”
She runs a hand through her hair, a habit she is wont to perform in times of extreme concentration. “Not yet. Maybe if I study it a little while…”
“We don’t have a little while! We have…let’s see…three hours and fifty minutes.”
“If you try to rush too much, you’re going to make mistakes. Then you’ll run out of time for sure.”
I take a deep breath. “You’re right. Let’s see if we can tackle this together.”
As we lean over the note, a piecemeal hotrod rumbles down a nearby side street. On the corner, a trio of hood rats looking for a drug score assemble around a half-crushed newspaper dispenser. Funny how life can roll along for some people while yards away others find themselves in the midst of a crisis.
“Grinder?” says Sampson. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I return my focus to the challenge of interpreting this latest clue. I rub my chin, baffled.
“The cases referenced by the clues so far haven’t been in any sort of chronological order, have they?” asks Sampson.
“No, but that gives me an idea. What if they’re ordered based on the order of magnitude of the cases—least serious to most serious?”
“Could be.”
I draw up short. “That would mean Trin’s kidnapper has a detailed knowledge of my case history.”
“I thought we’d already established this person knows a lot about you. Otherwise, they couldn’t have provided the clues they’ve already left.”
“True. I suppose I hadn’t realized they knew that much, but you’re right. Whoever’s organizing this knows me front to back.”
“Let’s focus on the first stanza,” suggests Sampson. “It’s been the easier of the two so far. Once we solve it, the pieces might start falling into place for the second one.”
“Yeah, good idea.” Thank God my former colleague is here. Ever since awakening in the lobby, my intellect has felt incapacitated, like a runner with a sore knee. The skills you’ve come to rely on simply aren’t there. It’s this damn concussion.
I speak the words aloud. I don’t know why. Perhaps hoping the auditory piece of my brain has a more profound link with my reasoning center?
A jolly good time can be had
Even by those who are bad
The treats in their cones
Serve to nourish one’s bones
And makes one a happier lad
“A limerick,” says Sampson. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
“The style’s different every time,” I reply. “I guess anything goes.”
“This one sounds British, don’t you think?” says Sampson. “The word usage, I mean. Did you track down any Brits before you and I worked together?”
“There was a family of British ex pats who were victims in the Montgomery murders in oh-five, but no perps.”
“So why use that phrasing?” asks my former colleague.
“To mess with me? I mean, that’s what this whole thing has been about, right?”
“Yes, but that word choice still seems important. What is it you used to say? ‘My gut tells me…’ Well, my gut is telling me it’s essential.”
Thanks to Sampson’s insistence, the pieces fall into place: I know which past case the clue references. Guess the knock on my head hasn’t shredded all my intellect. But if I’m right, things just went from bad to worse.
CHAPTER 33
My mind casts back to the case details suggested by the limerick clue.
Thanksgiving was still a few days away, but of course department stores had trotted out their Christmas decorations weeks earlier. And Black Friday ads had already inundated everyone’s mailboxes. Because what goes better with a turkey leg than battling retail crowds for a fifty-inch plasma TV for next month’s holiday?
I was floating in this pool of cynicism when Kyle, my lead agent, leaned her head over my cubicle. “Busy?”
“Same as always, Boss,” I replied, glancing at a stack of manila folders on my desk.
She grew somber. “I need you to break away for a little while. I’d like you to visit a crime scene with me.”
“Okay. We can take my car.”
I entered the address Kyle read out into my GPS and set off. The drive seemed like a good time to gather details. “Murder?”
“Yeah.” Kyle was usually talkative. Her silence worried me, but I decided to press ahead. “How many times has the perp struck before today?”
“This is the first.”
“So why bring me? Are you sure they’re going to kill again?”
“Pretty sure.”
“How can you know—?”
“Bear with me,” cut in Kyle. “And draw your own conclusions when we get there.”
We conducted rest of the drive in silence.
We pulled into Oak Woods Manor, a well-to-do apartment community in the wealthy Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. It wasn’t the typical kind of environment for a murder, especially the serial variety, but Kyle’s grim expression silenced my tongue. I’d learn the details soon enough.
Yellow police tape demarcated a unit on the second floor of a three-story building. A uniformed officer manned the door. As we fished out our IDs, another half-dozen cops could be seen milling around inside.
We crossed the threshold. An odor of decay clung to the place.
Kyle introduced us to the Atlanta PD’s Detective Okafor, who we learned would lead this investigation. The slender features of her Nigerian heritage reflected Kyle’s somber mood.
“Where…?” asked Kyle.
“In the back bedroom.” Okafor gestured with her hand towards a long hallway.
It was one of the biggest bedrooms I’ve ever seen in an apartment—a spacious area for the bed and dressers, accompanied by a small reading nook off to the side.
I turned to the nook and froze. “Christ…oh, Christ.”
A Caucasian girl of perhaps nine or ten years had been tied over the ottoman at the foot of an overstuffed chair. The girl’s hands and feet had been bound, and she wore a plastic dog cone, the kind veterinarians put on animals after surgery so they won’t lick their wounds. She looked to have been dead for at least a day.
The child was nude, except for a garrote made of some type of patterned cloth still wrapped around her neck.
For the first time, my mind vapor-locked at a crime scene. Somewhere inside my brain, a voice called out that I had to job to do, a job that would avenge this girl and keep her offender from finding other victims. But the magnitude of the depravity arrested me. I’d always felt that my mind fit a little too easily into the psyche of the offenders I chased, but this one…this was beyond me.
I turned away.
Kyle’s lower lip trembled. Her daughter had just turned eight, not much younger than this victim.
Neither of us launched into the “we’ve got to find this guy” speech. No need. We knew that without speaking.
Once my urge to vomit subsided, I turned back to the victim. I didn’t need forensics to tell me she’d been sexually assaulted. That much was tragically evident.
“Hey, Jerry,” I murmured to Jerry Higashi, a forensic
doctor I’d worked with on several past cases.
“Grinder,” he nodded without breaking off from the pictures he was taking from different angles.
“Any idea how long she was kept here before she was killed?”
“Long enough to do that.” He motioned to the blood and bruising that evidenced her sexual assault. “Beyond that, no. She’s been dead a good two days, so it’s hard to say exactly how long she was alive before then.”
Okafor stepped closer. “The parents filed a missing person’s report three and a half days ago. The fact that the perp brought her here suggests he couldn’t risk taking her to his own place. That means he probably kept her here from the time she went missing until he killed her.”
“So about a day, day and a half,” I mused. “Wait…a full day? Where are the homeowners?”
“Out of town for Thanksgiving,” replied Okafor. “They asked a neighbor to check on the place every couple days. She came over, smelled the odor, and discovered…this.”
“What’s her name?” asked Kyle.
“Melissa. Melissa Davies.”
“Do her parents know?”
“Yes,” replied Okafor. “They’ll visit the morgue to confirm her identity as soon as we wrap up here.”
“Do we know how the perp got her?” I chimed in.
“She walks two blocks home from elementary school every day. Usually the crossing guard keeps an eye on her. But she didn’t see anything the day our vic disappeared.”
“Ballsy,” I said. “The guy could have been spotted but took a chance. And got away with it.”
Kyle’s reason for bringing me out couldn’t be clearer. Such a bizarre MO all but guaranteed this whacko would continue to strike until he was stopped.
Now to the task of tracking him down. My mind whirled. This crime scene contained an orgy of information that could be used to make inferences about this pervert. With any luck, it’d help us locate him before he could find another victim. And cataloging this information as carefully as possible would prove crucial. You never knew which minute details might play a key role in solving a case.
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