“Yeah, sorry about the other day.” He sank into the loveseat when she waved him toward it, waiting for her to sit in the chair. “I really appreciate you agreeing to meet on a Sunday too, but is there any chance we could keep this brief? I’m in the middle of an important case.”
“I heard.” Natasha crossed her legs at the knee. “Something about a serial killer?”
His lips parted in dismay, and she smiled ruefully.
“Sorry. There’s no putting that cat back in the bag. It’s all over the department.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” After last night, though, Levi wasn’t that surprised. In the wake of Dreyer’s death, Sergeant Wen, who led their six-detective team in the Homicide Section, had reached out to nearby jurisdictions to determine if there had been any other homicides in Nevada featuring the seven of spades card. Fortunate timing too, because it was the reason the local PD had known to call them about Goodwin’s death, but too many people were in the loop at this point for the details to stay under wraps for long.
“Anyway, that’s not the reason we’re here,” said Natasha. “And yes, we can keep this brief—as long as you’re willing to actually talk about the shooting.”
“We’ve been talking about it.”
“We’ve been talking around it,” she said gently. “You’re not making any progress this way. Are you still having those nightmares?”
His fingernails scritched through the fabric on the arm of the loveseat. He nodded once, a short, jerky bob of his chin.
He had a lifelong fear of being trapped in an inescapable situation while pursued by an enemy—a classic horror movie trope that had terrified him since childhood. His decades of recurring nightmares centered on that theme, and while the details changed, the paralyzing dread they left behind remained the same.
The dreams came and went, becoming particularly frequent and intense in times of great stress. Since he’d killed Dale Slater, they were the worst they’d ever been since . . . since college.
There was a drawn-out silence while Natasha waited for him to speak and he continued to say nothing.
Clasping her hands on her top knee, she leaned forward. “Levi. You know for a fact that I can empathize with you over this in a way few other people could.”
A social worker by training, Natasha had once worked in victim advocacy, back when Levi had been a uniformed officer. While she’d been conducting a home visit with a recent victim of domestic violence, the woman’s husband had charged into the house with murderous intentions. Natasha had grabbed the couple’s two little girls and hidden them elsewhere in the house, returning to the kitchen only to find the wife dead and the husband turning on her with the knife he’d used. In the ensuing struggle, she’d been able to wrestle the knife away, and she’d had no choice but to stab the man to protect herself.
That was how she and Levi had met. He’d been the responding officer to a neighbor’s 911 call, but he’d been too late. He’d found Natasha sitting in front of the closet where the little girls were still hidden, covered in defensive wounds, her eyes empty and glazed over. She’d spent the next half an hour completely unresponsive until, after the crime scene was established and the ambulance was ready to take her away, she’d asked in a small voice for Levi to go with her to the hospital. He had stayed with her for the rest of the night.
It was the concern that she might think he didn’t trust her with this that prodded him into speaking. “I’m not worried you’ll think less of me, or something,” he said, and then hesitated. “When you— After you killed Merritt, did you ever feel . . . ashamed?”
She was silent for so long that he thought he’d offended her. “Ashamed?” she said after a while. “Not guilty?”
“Is there a difference?”
“A very important one, yes.” She settled more comfortably into her chair. “Guilt is associated with a specific action—the belief that you’ve done something wrong. Shame, on the other hand, is associated with the self. Instead of I did something wrong, it’s there’s something wrong with me.” She let that sink in, then added, “So in answer to your question, I felt guilty about killing Merritt, so guilty that I had trouble eating and sleeping for weeks afterward. But no, I never felt ashamed. I wish there had been a way out of that situation that hadn’t meant killing him, but I had a right to protect myself and those girls.”
Levi studied the texture of the nubby upholstery. He felt short of breath suddenly, and a little nauseated.
Natasha tilted her head. “Do you feel ashamed, Levi?”
“Yes,” he said, the word hardly more than an exhalation.
“Why?”
A simple question, asked without judgment or assumption. He breathed out slowly and fixed his gaze on a point on the wall beyond her shoulder.
“I’m a cop. I’m trained to handle and defuse dangerous situations without fatalities. I should have been able to save the boy without killing Slater.”
“In your official statement, and in our previous sessions, you said that Slater was panicking, that he was long past the point at which he could be reasoned with. Every witness to the incident agreed.”
Levi nodded. While fleeing pursuing officers, Slater had gotten himself trapped in a hotel lobby with people on all sides and every exit blocked. He’d seized a little boy from the crowd as a hostage. By the time Levi had responded to the call to all nearby units for backup, Slater had been in a froth of terror, knowing there was no way out. The muzzle of his gun had been jammed up underneath the boy’s chin, his finger on the trigger, spasming with nerves.
“He was moments away from killing that boy. I believed it then, and I still believe it now.” Levi palmed his face. “But I can’t help thinking that I could have handled it differently if I’d been a better cop. Tried harder to talk him down, or—or wounded him instead of killing him.”
“Why did you shoot him in the head?” she asked.
He lowered his hand and stared at her. She met his eyes calmly.
“You chose to take a headshot knowing there was no way Slater could survive it, barring some kind of freak miracle. Why?”
Flushing with indignation, Levi said, “He was using the boy as a shield, completely covering center mass. His gun hand was in front of the boy’s throat. And if I’d shot him in the leg, he almost certainly would have fired, whether he meant to or not. I shot him in the head because it was the only available—”
He stopped there, comprehension dawning. She watched him with a small smile.
“I get your point,” he said.
“You didn’t kill Slater because you’re incompetent, or any more sinister reason,” she said, driving it home anyway. “You killed him because you had two options: spare his life, or save the boy. Slater knew what he was doing when he robbed that store, assaulted the clerk, and took a hostage. He put his life on the line of his own free will. Would it have been better if there had been a way for them both to survive? Yes, of course. But there wasn’t, and that’s not your fault. It’s his.”
Levi closed his eyes for a moment, a bit of the ever-present tightness in his chest easing. He couldn’t quite take Natasha’s words to heart, not when he’d spent the past few weeks stewing in his own regret and self-loathing. For the first time since the shooting, though, he felt like maybe he could move past this eventually.
“Thank you,” he said, opening his eyes.
“That’s what I’m here for.” She nudged a tin of homemade cookies closer to him on the coffee table. “Now, do you mind if we talk a little about how your colleagues have reacted?”
He agreed, and the rest of the session felt more like a friendly conversation than professional counseling. True to her word, Natasha ended things after thirty minutes rather than the required hour, sending him on his way with a wink and some cookies to give to Martine.
As Levi exited the office, he bumped into someone hovering just outside. He apologized automatically, then did a double take. “Keith?”
“Hey, Det
ective,” Keith Chapman said, managing a strained smile. He looked like shit, his skin a pasty white and his eyes red-rimmed, the circles beneath them so dark they could have been mistaken for bruises.
“Are you okay?” Levi asked, though he already knew the answer was no. Keith was on administrative leave after he’d beaten a suspect during arrest so badly the man had wound up in the hospital. While he had yet to be formally charged with battery, the case against him was strong; even if he didn’t do jail time, the suspect’s notorious pit bull of a lawyer would certainly ensure he lost his job.
Keith nodded. The movement turned into a strange sideways jerk that seemed involuntary, and he grimaced and blinked several times before saying, “I’m just here to see Natasha.”
“Of course.” Levi stepped aside to let Keith enter the office, frowning at the door as it closed.
His cell phone rang then, and he put Keith out of his mind, heading back to the bullpen. He retrieved the phone from his pocket and glanced at the caller ID before answering. “Hi, Mom.”
“Levi, it’s your mother.” Nancy Abrams’s voice was subtly flavored with a North Jersey twang. She was talking way too loudly, a sure sign she had the phone on speaker.
His lips twitched. “Yes, I know. Hi.”
“Your father’s on too.”
“Hi, Levi!” Saul shouted from the other end.
Wincing, Levi pulled the phone away from his ear. “Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
“What’s this we’re hearing about you not going to your counseling sessions?” Nancy asked.
He stopped short in the middle of the hallway. “What?”
“Your young man gave us a call yesterday. He’s very concerned about you, bubbeleh.”
In the three years Levi had been dating Stanton, his mother almost always referred to him as your young man rather than by his name. Levi had yet to figure out why.
“What did he say, exactly?” Levi started walking again—faster now that irritation powered his steps. This wasn’t the first time Stanton had gone behind his back to consult his parents when he thought Levi wasn’t caring for himself properly. It always made Levi feel like Stanton saw himself in a quasi-parental role to him, which was not the kind of relationship he wanted with his boyfriend.
“That you won’t talk to him or anyone else about what happened.” Nancy sighed, the sound laden with genuine concern. “That you’re having those nightmares again, and you wake up in the middle of the night so upset you can’t go back to sleep. That you’ve been avoiding your therapist.”
“She’s not a therapist, she’s a peer counselor,” Levi said, because that was the only statement she’d made that wasn’t accurate. “You know Natasha, you’ve met her.”
“Oh, yeah, I liked her,” said Saul. “The pretty redhead, right?”
“What do you know about pretty redheads?” Nancy demanded.
“What, a man can’t look?”
“Guys, please,” Levi interrupted, before they could really get on a tear. He entered the bullpen, finding Martine absent from her desk; he dropped the bag of cookies next to her computer keyboard and sat in his own chair. “I just left a counseling session right now. I’m fine, I promise.”
“You know how much we worry about you. Such a dangerous job, and you’re so far away—”
“You’re welcome to come out here whenever you want. We love having you.” Levi jogged his mouse to wake up his computer. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work, okay?”
“All right,” Nancy said. “Don’t be too mad at your young man for calling us. He loves you very much.”
“I know.”
“Not as much as we love you.”
“Mom,” Levi said in exasperation. He logged into his account, looked up—and blinked when he saw Dominic Russo walking through the bullpen, a visitor’s badge pinned to his jacket and two cups from a local coffee shop in his hands.
“For God’s sake, Nancy, let the boy do his job,” Saul was saying.
“I know, I know. Be careful out there, Levi, and go to your counseling sessions. Don’t forget that your grandparents’ anniversary is this week. Make sure you send them a card and . . .”
She continued on with her usual warnings and exhortations, but Levi was distracted by Dominic coming to stand right next to his desk, looking down at Levi from his ridiculous height.
“Okay, I promise,” Levi said, very conscious of the fact that Dominic was listening and only half-aware of what he was agreeing to. “Yes, yeah— Love you both. Bye.” He hung up and dropped the phone on his desk.
“Everything okay?” Dominic asked.
“Fine. My mother just gets a little . . .” Levi huffed out a breath and shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Right,” said Dominic. “Because Italian American mothers are famously chill and hands-off.”
Levi snorted, amused despite himself. “What are you doing here?” he said, not unkindly.
Dominic extended one of the coffee cups. “Peace offering.”
Levi was immediately swamped with guilt. He knew his behavior last night had left a lot to be desired; he’d seen how tired and upset Dominic was and had pushed him anyway, just because he’d been stressed out himself. For Dominic to come out here and take the high road . . .
His cheeks heating with embarrassment, Levi made no move to accept the cup. “You don’t have to—”
Wiggling the cup from side to side, Dominic said, “Come on. You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” Levi said, taking the coffee.
“Okay if I sit?” Dominic pointed to Martine’s empty chair.
“Sure. I have no idea where Martine went.”
Dominic lowered himself into the chair, which creaked under his weight. God, he was huge, like a statue carved from granite. Where did he even get shirts that fit across those ludicrous shoulders?
After taking a sip from his own drink, Dominic set the cup down and folded his arms on the desk. “I was a dick last night. I’m not usually—”
“No, please don’t apologize,” Levi said quickly. “I know I provoked you, I’m sorry. I wasn’t in the best headspace.”
Dominic regarded him for a moment without speaking. “Martine explained part of why that might be,” he said, his tone carefully neutral.
Levi glanced away. “She shouldn’t make excuses for me.”
“Said she explained it, not excused it.”
Needing a way out of this conversation, Levi finally sipped his coffee. He swallowed, gasped, and pressed his free hand to his mouth as he coughed. “Oh my God, what is this?” he asked once he’d recovered his voice.
“Black coffee with as many espresso shots as I could sweet-talk the barista into adding,” Dominic said. “It’s basically jet fuel. Why, isn’t that how you take it?”
“Yeah. I just wasn’t expecting . . .”
Wasn’t expecting Dominic to know his coffee order, really—which was shortsighted, because they’d been thrown together in plenty of social situations over the years which had involved drinking coffee. Dominic was a bounty hunter, and before that, he’d been a Ranger; he relied on his observational skills just as much as Levi did. And Levi knew how Dominic took his coffee, full of milk and sugar and any flavored syrups he could get his hands on.
Now that he was prepared for it, Levi took another sip, savoring the rush of a deliciously unhealthy amount of caffeine. “Is coffee diplomacy really the only reason you came to see me?”
“Nope,” Dominic said with an easy grin. “I was hoping a good night’s sleep would have loosened you up a little.”
“That’s assuming I had a good night’s sleep.”
Dominic raised his eyebrows, not taking the bait.
“All right,” Levi said. “For the record, you are a civilian, and I do believe it’s inappropriate to share details of an active investigation with you. Considering the unusual circumstances, however—and knowing what I do about your personality—I can acknowledge that kee
ping you completely in the dark might be more dangerous than answering your questions.”
“That’s a lot of verbal gymnastics to say, ‘Sure, I’ll share some information.’”
“Do you want to know what’s going on or not?” Levi snapped, though without real heat. The coffee had gone a long way toward putting him in a better mood.
Dominic lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Was I right, then? Is it a serial killer?”
“That’s what it looks like. Three bodies now, all with the same MO—throats cut, bodies posed like they’re still alive, the seven of spades playing card left on the corpse. The only concrete connection the victims have is that they’d all been accused of serious crimes, though none had served jail time.”
“Nothing else in common?”
Levi shrugged. “They were all white men, but that could just be a coincidence. Goodwin was much younger than the other two, they were all from different socioeconomic classes and educational backgrounds—their lives didn’t overlap at all.”
“If they were targeted by a serial killer because of their criminal behavior,” Dominic said, “then that means—”
“That the killer probably sees themselves as a vigilante. Yes.”
Dominic leaned back in Martine’s chair and let out a low whistle. “There were no signs of struggle at Goodwin’s crime scene. The blood spatter was all wrong—it almost looked like he’d been asleep when his throat was slit.”
“That’s another element that was common to all three murders.” Levi was privately impressed that Dominic had picked up on it. He debated over sharing the rest, then decided there wasn’t any harm; unlike many of the people in the department, Dominic could at least be trusted to keep his mouth shut about the important details. “The first victim had ketamine in his system when he died. That wasn’t unusual for him, but it took on new significance when we noticed the lack of struggle in the other two vics. I’m waiting for tox reports to confirm.”
“Ketamine, huh?” said Dominic. “That’s a party drug. Not as popular as some others, but I see it passed around at Stingray.”
“We’ve reached out to Narcotics for any leads they can provide.”
Kill Game Page 5