by Dana Lyons
Sobs congested his throat; anger filled his heart; and what little faith and hope he harbored vacated his existence. Now he would never understand why she couldn’t love him. “Never,” he sobbed. “Never.”
That he could be cheated so utterly and completely burned sour in his heart. He clenched his jaw as bitterness like bile flooded his soul. “Never will I know why she didn’t love me.”
He made the call to 911. The ambulance and the police came. They loaded her body and took her away, never to be seen again. He went home bursting with anger and ran to the basement in search of something to tear apart.
In the corner was a stack of clay pots. He picked up a sledge hammer, set one of the clay pots on the work table, and brought the hammer down.
Shards flew everywhere.
“You never loved me.” He smashed another clay pot. “You never told me why, Mother!” Another pot went to smithereens. “Why, Mother? Why couldn’t you love your own son?”
These questions scorched his insides, charred and twisted his guts. “Why, Mother? Why!” As he screamed, he slung the sledge hammer with full force at the basement wall.
The wall broke. Overwhelmed with rage, eyes bulging, he approached the hole in his basement wall. One cinder block was half busted out. Laboring to catch his breath, he bent over, still gasping, and peeked in the hole.
Dark. A breeze came through.
Is it possible?
A flashlight showed the hole broke into a tunnel bearing south towards the city. With the sledge hammer he enlarged the opening. He shined the flashlight in the tunnel and stuck his head through the hole.
The District was a vast warren of old tunnels, many modern, others historical, some secret; his work in the utility corridor had awakened in him a fascination for the underground. He stepped back and wiped away fresh tears, not of rage, but of joy.
Here was access better than anything he ever dreamed. He saw the opportunity presented, the opportunity to extend his search for the words.
If not from her, then from someone else.
After his mother’s death, the need to hear the words consumed him, becoming an obsession, a constant raging beast in his heart, baiting him, gnawing on him, driving him in search of the words.
“Ha!” he laughed at the conundrum of his need. “It seems, Mother, you took the words to your grave, for I can find no one else to say them.”
Haley certainly failed last night. After begging her to look at him, after revealing his need to hear her speak the words and give him relief, he removed her gag. But she couldn’t say what he needed. Her death left him bereft of hope.
Until now.
The laptop pinged and displayed a field of files. He snapped through the files, gleaning what he could, for it was scant. “You’re a very private person Michelle, or should I call you Dreya?”
A photo of her was posted in a small local paper announcing her graduation at Virginia Commonwealth. Another mentioned her military career. He closed the computer.
The loss of his Ian Zane profile, combined with Miss Love’s appearance on AlleyOop presented a possibility he couldn’t ignore. “Are you a cop looking for love? Or are you a cop looking for me?” This could simply be a coincidence. Or she could be bait. “She’s certainly perfect. But, compared to the others, she’s also rather formidable.”
Her eyes captivated him. Uppermost in his mind had always been to hear the words. Because he had yet to reach that goal, he hadn’t considered what came afterward. He closed his eyes and saw her, beautiful, loving, holding her arms out to him, speaking the words.
What happens then?
A frightening, yet exhilarating possibility formed in his mind. “Indeed,” he hummed. “What happens then?”
Her smiling face watched him from his screen. Behind her, he could make out the corner of a building with stone trim. He zoomed in on the building and remembered where he’d seen this construction material. “It’s new construction, probably fed by fiber optics. Unfortunate,” he mused. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t get in.”
* * *
That evening Dreya opened her laptop to look through her AlleyOop carousel, wanting a screen bigger than her phone so she could see their faces better. As she flipped through dozens of photos, she began to shake her head.
A soft noise, and she turned to see Rhys pull up a chair and sit behind her. He leaned close and stared over her shoulder. “First, they were funny, then they were sad. What are they now?”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Tonight, they’re all little boys with fear on their faces.”
“Really? You see that?”
“Fear resides in every face I see, Rhys, even ours—yours, mine. But these men all have the same fear of being alone, of not being loved, the fear of disappointment.” She licked her lips. “I don’t judge them, but I don’t want to be like them.”
She felt his breath as he leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. She exhaled, desperately wanting to lean against him, have him take her in his arms. Then what? Nobility made her feel like she walked a tightrope. The slightest slip and a vast unknown waited for her to tumble.
He wanted her, wanted to consummate the bond. But her fear dogged her. She barely got her feet under her before the next shift down the Noble path sent her reeling again. She closed her eyes and sought a place of warmth and safety in her mind, a place where she went to connect with Rhys, Quinn, and Simon.
Rhys waited for her. I want you.
The intensity of his desire called out. She wanted to become one with him, yet she hesitated
I’m still working on that forever thing.
I know. I’m here when you figure everything out.
There was no pressure, no demand, just love and acceptance with his raven commitment. She grabbed his hand. Have you considered what the telepathy will be like when we orgasm together?
He squeezed her hand. She glanced at his face—he was all teeth, like a shark, only happy. She laughed.
Simon and Quinn came over. “What has the princess in such a good mood?” Simon asked. He glanced at the screen. “Oh, the loser’s club. Not them again. Any warm leads coming up through your profile?”
“I don’t have any messages yet. We really need to get into AlleyOop.”
Rhys said, “I’m going with the DA again to see the judge tomorrow. I’ll do my best to get him to open AlleyOop for us.”
Dreya closed the laptop. “Haley Summers was a nice girl who didn’t deserve to die like she did. Let’s not let that happen again.”
* * *
The following morning, Martin added a few extra pieces of equipment to his lunch box. “Three cameras. Let’s see Miss Love’s secrets.”
He arrived at Global Cabling early and cheerfully took his route packet. “Morning.”
Gregory gave him the once over. “Well. What a difference a day makes. Have you a new friend?”
“Maybe,” Martin answered. “Maybe.”
His route took him to a neighborhood not far from Dreya’s apartment building, so he drove to her street, tossed out the cones, and watched the exodus of early morning workers. As he patiently waited, a variety of people emerged from the apartments and drove off, but none were her.
At 7:00 A.M. a car pulled up to the curb and two men got out. They went into an apartment; Martin continued to look for Dreya. Fifteen minutes later, the door recently entered by the two men opened, and out she came. His heart skipped. Behind her, the two men followed.
Co-workers?
But a third man came out with them.
She has a boyfriend?
Martin didn’t mind, as long as he didn’t get in the way. The four got into the car at the curb and drove off. 7:20 A.M.
He waited ten minutes before setting his ladder against a utility pole right in front of her door. He climbed up the pole, attached a small motion activated camera, laser sighted it for her door, and came down.
Understanding how formidable she was made his heart pound, and he wip
ed his face with a towel. He grabbed his small work bag and went to her door. The exterior layout was angled to give each door some privacy—some was all he needed. He slipped on gloves and paper booties, inserted the lock pick gun, and opened the door.
Inside her apartment, his ears rang from the sound of his blood pumping so hard. He went to the bathroom and placed a camera on the corner of an air vent above the toilet, then placed another camera to sweep the front room and most of the kitchen and dining area. He picked up his bag of tools and stepped out, removed his paper boots and stuffed them in his bag before proceeding straight to his van. 7:45. He smiled.
Work that day was tedious, but that gave his mind a chance to form questions.
Who are the men? What do they mean to her? Does she love them?
He’d never known the love of a woman. His wife provided the illusion during their brief marriage, but in the end, she, too, failed him, unable to satisfy his need.
Dreya was the most beautiful embodiment for his mother yet. Even her last name, Love, was a beacon.
Perhaps now, God is giving me a second chance.
If so, there was much to learn about Dreya Michelle Love, a woman surrounded by a great deal of testosterone. “Three cameras will give me your secrets.”
* * *
The next morning, Dreya and her team were briefed by Andy from IT. “I have some news, not that you’re going to like it, but some is better than none.”
She blinked to slow her heart and catch her breath. They needed a lead on this case. “What do you have?”
He opened Haley’s laptop. “Her machine was hacked.”
“Can you tell us who did it?”
“No. This guy is good. His trail ends in the middle of nowhere. But he watched her through the laptop camera, and she had no idea he was there.”
Dreya shivered, remembering her thought at the first mention of a hacker.
Nothing is safe. Nowhere is private.
“There’s no way to find out how this happened?”
“There’s a dozen ways for him to access her laptop, from manually inserting a drive into her machine, to tapping her data line with a man-in-the-middle attack. That’s what I suspect happened here. To answer you, he wiped out his tracks.”
“Like wearing new shoes,” Quinn said softly.
“Working under the new court order,” Andy continued, “I was able to do a forensic search of Haley’s AlleyOop account and found one message that backtracked to a dead end.”
She exhaled, not exactly pleased with this information. “What’s the message?”
He took a page from the printer. Rhys took it and read. “Are you the one?”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it until a new court order comes through.”
The ride back up to her office was dismal. “I hate this,” she said. Once she reached her office, she pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, refusing to look at the board.
Counting on my eyes too much.
She started pacing. “Tell me what we have.” Their voices came at random.
“He’s a thinker.”
“Conscientious of detail.”
“High end techie.”
“Pursue that, Quinn,” she blurted. “His equipment used for hacking, sources, contacts. What else?”
“He’s invisible.”
“He leaves behind no trace.”
“He’s angry. He wants something he’s not getting.”
She stopped, her back to the board. “Something he’s not getting. Maybe something he never got. Serial killers grow up in a dysfunctional relationship with their mothers. Quinn, what did you find in the historical data? Any deaths that match our victims?”
“No matches at all. The range, two weeks in March including Maryland and Virginia, was too broad. I need to break it down.”
“Go over it day by day, state by state, and see if anything rises to the top. Rhys, see if your judge will allow a generic search for the message, ‘Are you the one?’”
He grimaced.
“I know,” she said. “The words are vague and all too common, but we have to at least try. We have to catch this guy somewhere before he wipes out his tracks.”
She finally felt like something was getting accomplished, even if it was grasping at straws. Andy stopped at her door. “I just briefed Jarvis. He wants to see you. Good luck.”
Jarvis waited for her, his office door open. “Close it,” he said, when she stepped in. She took a chair and eased into it, bracing herself. Jarvis inspected her over the top of his glasses, giving her the sensation of being a bug under a magnifying glass. Even so, she almost jumped when he spoke.
“Have you found a place to live yet?”
She swallowed, feeling like her tongue was stuck, and delivered herself an internal reprimand for letting him knock her off balance.
Damn Nobility.
“No sir. Haven’t had much time to look.”
“What’s new with the serial killer?”
“The bad news is he’s a hacker, sir, a penetrator. Their mind set provides a deeper challenge than your run-of-the-mill psychotic killer.”
“Use Andy from IT, he’s a bright boy. What leads are you following?”
“Historical data for a match in our active kill window. We’re also tracking his high-tech equipment trail. We did interview a man who sold a 3D printer to our guy, but we have no ID, no trace, no fingerprints, no vehicle sighting.”
“How do you know this buyer of the 3D printer is your guy?”
“The girl’s apartment was entered using a 3D printed key.” She almost said ‘and Quinn smelled his new shoes at the crime scene’, but finished with, “Traces at the crime scene indicate the killer wears new shoes, and our 3D printer seller recalled smelling new, fake leather shoes.” In spite of the absurd nature of her words, she refused to cringe.
“New shoes? Our killer wears cheap, new shoes? That’s one of your leads?”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded and held his eye.
He removed his glasses and sat back, his fingers steepled in front of his face. “That’s an odd lead to follow.”
Unsure what he was getting at, she kept her eyes on his face. But he had become increasingly difficult to read. “We’re also applying pressure to a judge to let us deeper into AlleyOop.”
His wheels were turning, she didn’t need freaky eyes to see that. Suddenly, he sat forward and picked up his glasses. She relaxed, knowing she was dismissed.
“Keep me posted on the house hunting, and the killer hunting,” he said before turning his attention to papers on his desk.
She rose and nodded even though he wasn’t looking at her, wanting out before Nobility forced her to confess what they really had.
Zip. Nada. Zilch.
6
“Come on, come on, I have to see her,” Martin complained as he guided the Prius through traffic. Once home, he hurried upstairs so he could look at the feed from the cameras in Dreya’s home.
He set up three monitors, one for each camera, and tapped on the keyboard to bring up the feed. The screens blinked and snapped hazy with static before coming on crystal clear; camera one on the front door, camera two in the bathroom, camera three in the main room. He kept them all on as he fixed his dinner and cleaned up afterward, putting off the pleasure until he could relax. Not wanting to miss a moment, he recorded everything coming in.
After dinner, he sat in his big chair with a glass of bourbon, licking his lips as the cameras revealed Dreya’s life. The front door camera was activated by sidewalk traffic, but it gave him an accurate time for all coming and going from her apartment. The bathroom cam gave him a shot of the sink and mirror. The third camera showed the living and dining area and one leg of the kitchen.
“I should have put one in the bedroom.” The thought was belated, and he shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t need to know who’s banging who.”
The men he’d seen this morning entered the apartment with h
er. She and the man with dark hair placed guns and badges on a side table.
Not a surprise.
What did surprise him was seeing the other two men never left for the evening. He sat forward in his chair, amazed at their behavior. They laughed and conversed like family. At least they appeared to behave in a fashion he imagined was ‘family’.
Without sound, he guessed at their words, but that was easy. He leaned closer to the screen to read lips when possible and examine their facial expressions. The men teased one another; she touched each one, smiled at each one, even held their hands.
He’d never experienced such closeness. He eased back in his chair. They were happy. A tear slid down his cheek. He wanted to be happy like that, but he didn’t know how. What he just witnessed was so foreign to him it may as well have come from another world.
What would I be if my mother had loved me like this?
The question made his lower lip quiver.
Cheated. I’ve always been cheated. No child should be so deprived.
The camera’s revelations answered one of his questions—she wasn’t looking for love. “So, she must be looking for me.”
He hugged his arms tight and leaned toward the monitor.
If she could make me happy like these men, if she could say the words …
Possibilities raced through his mind. The danger was undeniable, but the payout would ultimately be everything he wanted, everything he needed. But this new mix of danger required him to make new plans. He opened a laptop and logged into AlleyOop using his Elliot North profile.
“Are you the one?” he whispered as he typed the words. He hovered over the send button before clicking. “How good are you, Dreya Michelle Love? Let’s see if we’re destined to meet.”
He sent the message, and smiled.