Kill Game

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Kill Game Page 4

by Cordelia Kingsbridge


  “Fantastic,” he said wearily, and began clearing a space on his desk.

  “I’m looking for my little brother.” Dominic showed his phone to the cashier inside the gas station convenience store. “His girlfriend just dumped him, and he took off without telling anyone where he was going. I’m worried he might do something stupid.”

  He had Goodwin’s Instagram feed open to a photo of him standing on campus with his arm around a young woman, a cocky grin on his face. Dominic wasn’t sure if his powerful aversion to the photo was due to his knowledge of Goodwin’s crime, or just because the kid was so obviously a smug, smirking little prick.

  The cashier, whose nametag read SHAWN, studied the photo and then shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone who looks like this today, and I’ve been here since nine. Although . . .” His brow furrowed. “Something about him does seem familiar. Can I?”

  “Be my guest.” Dominic handed over the phone so Shawn could scroll through Goodwin’s Instagram at his own pace.

  His pursuit had led him to a generic middle-class suburb in an almost entirely residential area, block after block of cookie-cutter houses and desert landscaping. This gas station was the only business he’d come across for several miles. It was crammed full of racks of over-processed junk food, and the whole place smelled like the hot dogs turning on rollers in a machine on the counter.

  “Oh, hey!” Shawn exclaimed. “Yeah, I’ve seen this guy. I didn’t recognize him without these sunglasses.”

  He handed Dominic the phone, now open to a picture of Goodwin on the beach, wearing a pair of dark-tinted aviators.

  “So he has been here?” Dominic asked.

  “Not today. Not since . . . uh, Tuesday, I think.”

  Dominic raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re sure it was the same guy?” Four days was a long time for someone to remember a person they’d met only in passing, especially a person whose face had been partially obscured.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember him,” Shawn said with a snort. He pointed to the self-serve coffee bar on the other side of the store. “Guy spilled coffee all over the floor and didn’t try to clean it up, didn’t even apologize. Just made himself another cup and walked away without a care in the world. Douchebag.” Shawn paused, seeming to remember belatedly that Goodwin was Dominic’s “brother.” “Uh, no offense.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Dominic waved a hand to set Shawn at ease. “He’s the baby of the family—Mom and Dad always spoiled him.”

  “I got a sister like that. Drives me nuts.” Shawn heaved an exasperated sigh and said, “Anyway, your brother came in that day and bought a bunch of food, filled up a couple canisters of gasoline, and paid for everything in cash. He dropped it on the counter instead of handing it to me.”

  At least Goodwin’s assholery was working to Dominic’s advantage. “Any chance you saw what kind of car he was driving?”

  “He wasn’t. I didn’t notice him come in, obviously, but I sure as hell watched him leave. He went out the side door.”

  Dominic looked at the door in question, but saw nothing remarkable. “And?”

  “And there’s no parking out there. People who come here in cars walk in and out through the front, but we get a lot of foot traffic from the houses around here, and they use the side door. I saw your brother start walking down the sidewalk before I stopped paying attention. Never saw him get into a car.”

  “Huh.” Dominic rocked back on his heels as he considered this new information. While it was gratifying to confirm that he was on the right track, what had directed him here in the first place was the information that Goodwin had used his credit card here today. The internal sense of not right that had gripped him earlier was back in full force. “You’re absolutely sure you didn’t see him this afternoon?”

  Shawn shrugged. “I’m sure I didn’t see him. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t here, though.”

  True. There were a couple of other employees working that Dominic could question, but in the end, it didn’t matter if anyone could remember seeing Goodwin here today. The important thing was that Goodwin had been here, and was probably staying in the area.

  Dominic thanked Shawn for his time and bought a bottle of iced tea and a protein bar before going back out to his truck. He’d left Rebel behind for this one, since he didn’t know how long he’d be out, so he only had himself for company as he started the engine and left the gas station parking lot.

  He would have to go through every single one of Goodwin’s family, friends, and acquaintances, looking for a connection to this town. Goodwin hadn’t ended up here by accident. If he’d decided to stick around here this long, it was because he’d known of a good hiding place—

  A billboard on the side of the road caught Dominic’s attention, and he reflexively tapped the brakes. The car behind him blared its horn.

  Sending an apologetic wave out his open window, he pulled onto the shoulder and let the car blow past him. He looked back up at the sign.

  VILLA BRILLANTE ESTATES, read bold white type atop a photograph of an attractive Spanish Mission–style house. BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SEAVER DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. And below that, in smaller letters: If you lived here, you’d be home by now!

  All perfectly normal, except that the sign was faded and weather-beaten, and there was no construction equipment that he could see beyond the brick walls that marked the entrance to the development—despite the fact that the majority of the houses were incomplete.

  A quick search on his phone confirmed it. Seaver had gone belly-up three months ago, and the land for this development hadn’t been resold yet, leaving a graveyard of abandoned, half-finished houses rife with hidey-holes for cowardly little rapists who couldn’t face the consequences of their actions.

  Dominic grinned and pulled back onto the road.

  He parked on a street a few blocks over; the sound of an engine entering the deserted housing development would be a dead giveaway. Before he left the truck, he strapped on a ballistic vest and replaced his shoulder holster and jacket on top. Couldn’t be too careful.

  He walked over to the Villa Brillante Estates and stopped just inside the low walls at the entrance, taking in the lay of the land. The houses were the same Spanish Mission–style as the one on the billboard, with low-pitched roofs, rounded windows and doors, and the beginnings of iron grillwork and decorated tiles in the houses closer to completion. He didn’t know how large the development was, which made searching it a daunting prospect, but many of the houses could be ruled out immediately—all those without a finished roof and walls, to start with.

  Most likely, Goodwin would have chosen a house deeper inside the neighborhood, away from the main road. Dominic stuck close to the sides of the half-built houses while he walked, pulling his gun once he was out of sight of any cars that might pass by.

  He was more concerned by the possibility of ambush than an escape attempt. Goodwin was smart enough to realize how stupid it would be to run—though the afternoon was winding into evening, there was plenty of daylight left, and there was no landscaping anywhere in the development, just flat, empty land interspersed with the skeletons of houses. Anyone running through here would draw immediate attention to themselves.

  No, if Goodwin realized that Dominic was coming, he would stand his ground. With no idea of Goodwin’s exact position or whether or not he had a weapon, Dominic proceeded with great care, choosing the likeliest houses and clearing them one by one.

  He hadn’t left the Army so long ago, and his Ranger training was bred into his bone and sinew anyway. True, working alone was different from working with a trusted team, but the methods and muscle memory were still there for him to rely on. He moved near silently in his soft-soled boots, slipping in and out of each house like a ghost, attentive to every small sound and slight movement in his surroundings.

  He had cleared four houses when he saw it—a portable generator on the back patio of a house a block away, with extension cords snaking in through an empty
space where a sliding glass door would have been installed if the house had been finished. That was what Goodwin had needed the gasoline for.

  Dominic crept closer to the house, his eyes intent on the windows, but he detected no movement. When he reached the patio, he found the generator silent and cold to the touch. Had Goodwin already moved on?

  Glock at the ready, he stepped into the house, moved a few paces into the living room—and gagged, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow.

  God, he knew that smell. A few years wasn’t long enough to forget the stench of dead flesh left to bake in the desert, though the last time he’d smelled it, the desert in question had been half a world away.

  He lowered his arm and forced himself to take several deep breaths, swallowing his bile until he’d acclimatized somewhat. Once he could trust himself to move without vomiting, he methodically cleared the house room by room, finishing the first floor before following the trailing extension cords up the stairs.

  Though he kept his guard up, he sensed that any danger here had long since passed. Whatever had died in this house had done so days ago.

  The extension cords led into the master bedroom, so he left that one for last, clearing the other rooms on the floor to ensure he was alone in the house. Then he pushed open the master’s half-ajar door.

  “Ah, shit,” he said, lowering his gun.

  Matthew Goodwin sure as hell wasn’t smirking anymore.

  What had once been a handsome young man was now a darkened, bloated corpse buzzing with flies. He sat propped against the far wall, on a mattress set on the floor. His throat had been cut in one long slice, and his clothes and the bedsheets were black with dried blood.

  Careful to keep his hands to himself, Dominic ventured further into the room. Goodwin was facing a small television—the final destination of the extension cords connected to the generator outside—though the screen was blank now with the loss of power. Most bizarrely, his left hand was wrapped around a beer bottle, resting at his side as if he’d just taken a sip.

  How was that even possible? And was there something . . .

  Dominic frowned and peered more closely at Goodwin’s hand. There was something tucked into it, right where his thumb and fingers met around the glass.

  It was an ordinary playing card—the seven of spades.

  “Are you going to say it, or am I?” Martine Valcourt asked Levi, her tone thick with an irony Dominic didn’t understand.

  Levi blew out a breath and raked a hand through his short curls. He didn’t answer.

  The house was swarming with personnel from the local police department, who had kept Dominic here for hours. He was exhausted and edgy, irritated by the loss of his bounty and rattled by the gruesome circumstances. All he wanted was to go home and crash, but instead, he’d had to call Jasmine to ask her to look after Rebel because the cops had kept him hanging around with his thumb up his ass until, for some inexplicable reason, Levi and Martine showed up.

  “I don’t get what you guys are doing here,” he said. His customary patience was slipping away like sand through his fingers. “You’re way outside your jurisdiction.”

  “We were invited,” Levi said shortly.

  Dominic was in less than no mood for Levi’s attitude tonight. “Why am I still here, then? I already gave my statement.”

  “Did you touch the body at all?” Levi asked, his eyes on Goodwin’s corpse.

  Dominic’s nostrils flared. “Of course I didn’t touch the body. What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

  “You’re not wearing gloves.”

  “I was hunting a bounty, for God’s sake. I didn’t realize I’d be walking into a crime scene. I haven’t touched anything in here, either when I found Goodwin or afterward.”

  “We’ll still need fingerprints for elimination.” Levi’s eyes fell to Dominic’s feet. “Boot prints, too.”

  “I’ll give you a boot print, all right,” said Dominic. “Right in your goddamn—”

  Martine cleared her throat. Dominic subsided, ashamed of his loss of temper. He just wasn’t himself when he was tired and hungry.

  “I know you gave your statement to the locals,” she said, “but would you mind going over it one more time with us?”

  “Sure, no problem.” Dominic had always liked Martine, who was unfazed by his size though he was over a foot taller than her. He gave them a brief rundown of why he’d been looking for Goodwin and how he’d located him. As he was wrapping up, he glanced back at Goodwin’s corpse and said, “I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies in my time, but never one that’s been . . . posed.”

  That was what disturbed him about the scene more than anything else. Earlier, he’d heard the coroner investigator saying that Goodwin’s hand had been glued to the beer bottle to keep it in place. Glued.

  Watching Dominic’s face, Martine said, “Maybe we should step out in the hall.”

  He didn’t argue. He’d spent most of the past few hours out on the house’s patio, away from the smell; he’d only returned to the bedroom when Levi and Martine had arrived, and he’d be happy to never step foot inside it again.

  The three of them went out to the landing by the staircase. “An accused rapist,” Levi mumbled.

  Though to Dominic it had sounded like Levi was talking to himself, Martine hummed acknowledgement. “Yeah. And this one died before Dreyer.”

  “Three bodies in less than a week—that’s quite a timeline.”

  “Is one of you planning on telling me what the hell is going on here?” Dominic interrupted.

  Both detectives turned to him with bland expressions. “What do you mean?” Levi asked.

  “Cut the bullshit.” Dominic irritably shrugged out of his jacket. He’d taken off his ballistic vest a while ago, but it was still too warm in the house without air-conditioning. “The local PD wouldn’t call in detectives from the LVMPD for an ordinary homicide. And while we’re at it, ordinary murderers don’t arrange their kills into creepy little tableaus. This is some psychopath nonsense.”

  Levi said, “We can’t share details of an active investig—”

  “I was lured here.” When Dominic was met with puzzled looks, he clarified, “Well, not me specifically. Anyone who was looking for Goodwin.”

  “How so?” Martine asked, her brow furrowed.

  Dominic had explained why he’d been searching for Goodwin in this housing development, but he hadn’t gone into detail about what had drawn him to the area in the first place. “The only reason I was looking for Goodwin in this town was because his credit card was used at a nearby gas station. Used today.”

  Martine and Levi exchanged a startled glance. Dominic saw them arriving at the same conclusions he’d drawn himself once he’d processed the shock of stumbling into a crime scene.

  “The killer realized they’d made a mistake,” Levi said. “They were able to find Goodwin, but they didn’t anticipate that nobody else would. If they hadn’t drawn attention to the area, his body could have remained undiscovered for days or weeks or even longer.”

  “Which is another thing,” said Dominic. “Most murderers go out of their way to avoid people finding the bodies they’ve dropped. They don’t leave them out in the open and put up smoke signals. You know who does that?” He crossed his arms. “Crazy-ass serial killers.”

  “There’s no—”

  “Three bodies,” Dominic said, talking right over him. “That’s what you said. I have a right to know what’s going—”

  Levi slashed a hand through the air and snapped, “No, you don’t. You’re not a soldier anymore, Dominic, and you’ve never been law enforcement. You are a civilian. So if you want information on a case, you can file an official request with the department just like everyone else.”

  He whirled around and stalked back into the master bedroom. Dominic stared after him, thrumming with resentment, barely restraining the urge to pursue him and press the issue. Instead, he cracked his neck and unfolded his arms, forcing himself
to relax. His professional reputation was at stake here.

  “The stick up his ass grow spikes or something?” he said to Martine.

  She gave him a lopsided smile. “Sort of. He’s been extra-touchy since his OIS.”

  Dominic blinked in astonishment. “Levi had an officer-involved shooting?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you hear about it?” she said, surprised now herself. “That hostage situation at the Tropicana a few weeks ago?”

  Dominic had heard about that, of course—everyone in Las Vegas had. A guy had knocked over a Circle K off the Strip, shooting the clerk in the process, and then fled toward the Strip with the cops hot on his trail. When he’d ended up trapped in the lobby of the Tropicana, he’d snatched a little boy from among the bystanders to use as a human shield. An officer on the scene had been forced to bring him down. Dominic just hadn’t known that Levi had been that officer.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. Shit. He’d been in Levi’s shoes before, and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

  “In the interests of getting you home sometime before midnight,” Martine said, pulling out a pad and pen, “can you tell me when and where Goodwin’s card was used?”

  Levi knocked on the door to Natasha Stone’s office, entering at her cheerful, “Come in!”

  Though tiny, the office was a warm, welcoming space, centered around an overstuffed armchair and loveseat that faced each other across a low coffee table. A small desk was jammed into one corner, the surface cluttered with books and framed photos of Natasha’s husband and son. Pop art motivational posters with messages like If you never try, you’ll never know! hung on the wall.

  Yet the homey atmosphere wasn’t enough to ease Levi’s anxiety.

  Natasha had a smattering of freckles across her moon-pale skin, and her auburn hair was swept into a chignon at the base of her neck. “I’m glad you could make it,” she said, and while another person might have laced the words with sarcasm, her voice was one hundred percent sincere.

 

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