Chapman looked down at himself in surprise, as if he hadn’t realized his hands were in his pockets at all. He pulled them free of his baggy jacket.
Dominic opened his mouth to shout a warning, but there was no need. Levi’s hand flashed so fast Dominic almost didn’t see it move, striking Chapman’s hand away from him at an angle even as he leaned backward out of range. The knife in Chapman’s hand went soaring to land in the dirt ten feet away.
Chapman cried out in pain and shock, but he remained still, making no move to either attack or defend. Levi, who had one leg chambered for a front kick, set his foot down before he made contact. When Dominic started toward them, Levi shook his head and gestured for him to stay back.
“Oh my God, what is that?” Chapman said, staring at the weapon. It was a wicked fixed-blade hunting knife, long and sharp, glinting in a weak beam of light seeping through the bleachers. “What’s happening?”
Dominic had only seen one of the Seven of Spades’s victims in person, but this could easily have been the blade used to cut Matthew Goodwin’s throat.
“Keith, why do you have that knife?” said Levi.
Increasingly agitated, Chapman shouted, “I don’t know! It’s all a blur, don’t you understand? I don’t know where I’ve been.” He gripped his hair with both hands. “My head hurts all the time and I can’t focus. Every day it gets worse and worse!”
“I’m going to check your other pockets. Is that okay?”
Chapman didn’t respond. He just stood there, chest heaving, but he didn’t resist when Levi started patting him down.
Dominic watched tensely, ready to spring into action if Chapman showed the slightest sign of aggression. At the sound of footsteps behind him, he spun around, his hand flying to the butt of his gun.
He relaxed when he saw it was two of the local cops. They had their own guns drawn and were eyeing him warily.
“Detective Abrams?” one said.
“No.” He pointed to Levi and Chapman. “The taller one, on the right.”
As the cops moved forward, Levi stepped away from Keith with two items in his hands—a small electronic device and a vial of clear liquid.
“This is ketamine,” Levi said, reading the label on the vial. His voice was tight with stress and disbelief. “Where did you get this?”
All Chapman said was, “It makes me feel better when I can’t sit still.”
Levi turned aside as if he’d been shoved and looked down at the device, turning it over in his hand.
Dominic narrowed his eyes, trying to see better in the dim light. It looked like the receiver to a GPS tracker; he had a couple just like it in his own bag of tricks.
Levi fiddled with the device. “219 Arrowhead Drive,” he said, and then breathed out in one harsh exhalation. “God, that’s Dr. Rathaway’s home address. Benjamin Roth’s psychiatrist—”
Chapman’s face underwent a startling change then, twisting into an ugly, hateful expression of incandescent rage. “Doctors,” he spat. “They’re all the same. Tell you you’re sick and then make you sicker—they get off on it. They’re the sick ones.”
He lunged at Levi, grabbing for the device. Levi nimbly dodged out of the way, though he didn’t counterattack, and the two cops rushed to restrain Chapman.
For a few seconds, they all stood in a strained, silent tableau—Chapman panting and glowering, the cops uncertain, and Levi looking weary and betrayed. Dominic wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, but this was neither the time nor the place. He wasn’t sure Levi would accept that from him even if it was the right time and place.
Levi was the first to act, flashing the cops his badge. “Officers, could you please place this man under arrest? He’s wanted by the LVMPD in connection with multiple homicides.”
The officers cuffed Chapman, the evidence was bagged, and they emerged from the area beneath the bleachers into the dazzling sunshine. Dominic hung back at the rear of the group as they made their way through the curious crowd toward a waiting squad car.
A few hours ago, he’d been convinced that Keith Chapman was the Seven of Spades. The evidence against him was even stronger now than it had been then, and he was safely in police custody. So why didn’t Dominic feel any satisfaction?
He followed behind Chapman, watching him walk, and a chill ran down his spine. In person, he could see all the similarities that had connected Chapman’s photo to the man in the security video. That wasn’t the problem.
Same height, same build. Same coloring. Same haircut.
Different gait.
On the way to the local police station, Keith became so disoriented that the cops rerouted to a nearby hospital. Levi and Dominic followed in Dominic’s truck—there was no way Levi was letting Keith out of his sight now.
In the ER, they were immediately escorted through the waiting room to a relatively private corner in the back of the department, where Keith was handcuffed to the bed. While the admitting nurse took his vitals, drew blood, and did her best to soothe him, Levi notified both Tina and Michelle Chapman.
The small curtained alcove was a tight fit with all the people crowded inside it, especially when one of those people was Dominic. He’d been quiet and preoccupied ever since they’d left Whalen Field, a slight frown etched into his brow that still persisted. Levi, too distracted by his own concerns, hadn’t asked what was bothering him.
His attention moved from Dominic to Keith, rambling incoherently on the hospital bed, the cotton sheet underneath his head soaked with sweat. Levi was supposed to believe that this was the same person who had meticulously planned and executed five elaborate murders without leaving any solid evidence behind? The cool, calm individual he’d spoken to on the phone, who’d covered their tracks with finesse and playfully teased Dominic and helped save his own life? This was the controlled, intelligent, ruthless serial killer who’d been fucking with Levi’s head for the past week?
Please.
“Keith.” Levi sat on the rolling stool beside the bed when the nurse moved aside and took Keith’s free hand in his. “Look at me. I want to help you, but I need you to tell me—did you kill Loretta Kane? Benjamin Roth?”
Keith looked at him with glazed eyes, uncomprehending. Then he said, “You’re the killer here,” and spat in Levi’s face.
Levi recoiled. Dominic stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re not going to get anything out of him while he’s like this,” he said under his breath.
Rising to his feet, Levi irritably shrugged off Dominic’s hand. He regretted it right away and touched his fingers to Dominic’s wrist in silent apology. Dominic nodded.
“Detective?” the resident said from just outside the curtain. “Could I have a moment?”
Levi joined her, keeping Keith in his peripheral vision.
“You suggested Mr. Chapman’s agitation and delirium is substance-induced. Can you tell me what he might have taken?”
“Not with any certainty. I mean, I know his psychiatrist has him on an antipsychotic, but . . .” Levi gestured to Keith’s restless, moaning body. “Isn’t this the kind of thing you’d use an antipsychotic to treat?”
“To ease his agitation, yes. It’s possible he’s been mixing meds—this could be a bad drug interaction. Is he on any other medications?”
“I have no idea. His wife and sister are on their way; they’ll know a lot more than I do.”
Keith was mumbling to the nurse, saying, “Make it stop, please make it stop,” over and over. She mopped his forehead and spoke to him in low, calming tones. One of the local cops had chosen to stand guard outside, but the other stood next to the bed, staring at Keith with mingled pity and dismay. He was barely more than a kid, no doubt fresh out of the academy.
“Keith also mentioned he’d been having some memory problems,” Levi told the resident. “Losing time, that kind of thing. I found a bottle of ketamine on him. He said he’s used it in the past, but I don’t know that he’s on it right now.”
“Hmm. Ketamine can cause short-term memory loss, and any number of drugs could react really badly with antipsychotics.” She entered the alcove and approached the bed. “Mr. Chapman? I’m Dr. Traeger. We’re going to run some tests, and in the meantime, I’m going to give you a low dose of a medication that will help you calm down—”
“No!” Keith yelled, so loudly that the resident took a startled step back. He fought to sit up. “Fuck you, don’t touch me! Stay the hell away from me, leave me alone—”
He yanked his bound wrist against the handcuff, thrashing violently. This time, the nurse was unable to pacify him, and his struggles only intensified as he tried to free himself.
“We need to get him into safer restraints before he hurts himself,” the resident said.
The nurse was holding Keith’s free arm, and Dominic had grabbed one of his flailing legs. Yet Keith was undeterred, wrenching his arm against the handcuff with ferocious panic as he continued screaming invectives. The cop just stood there and gaped.
“God, he’s going to break his wrist,” said the nurse.
The resident turned back toward the curtain, causing a moment of confusion as she stepped into Levi’s path. Then, to Levi’s horror, the cop fumbled a key off his belt and bent to unlock Keith’s handcuff.
“Don’t!” Levi cried out, dashing forward—but the couple of seconds it took him to maneuver around the stunned resident were two seconds too many to prevent what happened next.
Keith shoved the nurse with frenzied strength, sending her tumbling sideways into Dominic, who released Keith’s foot as he caught her. They crashed into a rolling cart, and only Dominic’s quick reflexes kept them from both going down with it in a shower of medical supplies.
Leaping from the bed, Keith grabbed the cop’s gun from his holster, flung an arm around his neck, and backed up against the wall, dragging the man with him as a shield. He pressed the gun to the cop’s temple.
Levi and Dominic drew their own guns simultaneously. The resident raced out into the department, shouting for security.
This can’t be happening again.
For a moment, all Levi could see was Dale Slater, holding a gun to a little boy and threatening to blow his head off if the cops didn’t let him go. Slater’s desperation, the boy’s terror, Levi’s own aghast realization of what he’d have to do . . . God, this could not be happening to him again.
He glanced sideways. Dominic’s face was blank, his eyes flat and cold in a way Levi had never seen before. His two-handed grip on his gun was rock-solid, even though the position must have been putting a painful strain on his injured shoulder.
“Stand behind me,” Dominic said to the nurse. She slipped behind his back, where her entire body was easily obscured by his sheer mass.
“Keith,” Levi said, “what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not my fault.” Despite the wild light in his eyes, Keith sounded more coherent now. “None of this is my fault. You’re trying to send me to prison, but I won’t let you. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Innocent people don’t take hostages.”
Running feet pounded up behind Levi, then came to a stop as the security guards took in the situation. The petrified cop looked at Levi, his eyes wide and pleading. He might have been trained to handle something like this, but fear could wipe the mind blank in an instant.
“Let him go,” Levi said. “Please, Keith, this isn’t you. Let me help you. We can figure out what’s going on.”
Keith licked his lips, his eyes jumping from Levi to Dominic to the security guards. There were two bright red spots on his cheeks, the only color in his entire face.
“What’s going on?” he said with a harsh laugh. “What’s going on is that I keep blacking out for no reason. I wake up with blood on my clothes and no idea where I’ve been. My wife and children are afraid of me. I’m afraid of myself.”
Levi took a step forward. Keith tightened his grip on the cop, digging the gun harder into his forehead. The cop let out a ragged moan, and Levi stayed where he was.
“I can help you—”
Mockingly, Keith repeated, “Oh, you can help me? How? By sending me to a doctor who’ll tell me it’s all in my head? Tell me I’m crazy and then give me pills that fuck me up even more?” His hand spasmed on the gun; the cop flinched and whimpered. “No. Everything’s been taken from me, and I don’t even know why. It won’t stop. It’ll never stop.”
Levi heard the distant wail of approaching sirens, the sounds of frightened people rushing around and shouting as the ER was evacuated. Inside their little bubble, however, there was absolute stillness.
“Keith.” Levi had to know, he had to. “Are you the Seven of Spades?”
A strange expression settled on Keith’s face, resolve hardened by desperation. “There’s one way to find out.”
He pressed the gun underneath his own chin and pulled the trigger.
Levi’s shocked cry was drowned out by the cop’s scream of pain. Keith crumpled to the floor; the cop collapsed as well, both hands clutching the ear that had been next to the gun.
Holstering his own gun, Levi ran forward and dropped to his knees beside Keith. He felt for a pulse, even though there was a gaping hole in the back of Keith’s skull and the wall was spattered with blood and brain matter.
He was dimly aware of the pandemonium that had broken out, of Dominic speaking to him in urgent tones, but it was all background noise. Kneeling on the hospital floor, sickened and stunned, he could only think one thing.
Keith Chapman was dead, and the truth had died with him.
“What part of ‘case closed’ do you not understand?” Sergeant Wen said, sitting across from Levi at his desk on Monday morning.
Levi took a deep breath and reined in his temper. “Sir—”
“Keith Chapman was in possession of the murder weapon used in the Seven of Spades homicides, as well as ketamine that traced back to one of the batches stolen in the local burglaries. He had the key to the private mailbox used in the ketamine deliveries hidden in his motel room. His clothing was found in a Dumpster near his motel, stained with the most recent victims’ blood. And he admitted in front of multiple witnesses that he’d been blacking out and losing time, and that he himself could not deny that he was the killer. What more do you want?”
The physical evidence against Keith seemed conclusive, but Levi was no more convinced today than he had been yesterday. “You saw his tox report. He was swimming in half a dozen different drugs, all of them contraindicated by each other.”
“Yes, and that, combined with the stress of his suspension and subsequent firing, drove him crazy until he snapped.”
“The Seven of Spades may be crazy, but not in any way that implies a loss of self-control,” Levi said, frustrated. Why couldn’t anyone see that but him? “I double-checked—Keith had absolutely no prior history of mental illness in himself or any close relatives. Then these extreme paranoid delusions spring up out of nowhere after he’s suspended and get steadily worse despite the treatment he was receiving? No. I don’t think Keith was ill at all; he was being poisoned. The real Seven of Spades was pumping him full of drugs somehow and gaslighting him into thinking he might be the killer while they set him up.”
Wen stared at him. “Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”
Levi sighed and looked away.
“If Keith was being poisoned, that would have been discovered eventually and blown the frame job. Why bother?”
“The Seven of Spades didn’t need Keith to be convicted of their crimes—just deflect suspicion long enough for them to get away clean. They couldn’t have known he’d kill himself. I don’t think that was part of the plan.”
“Good God.” Wen pinched the bridge of his nose. “There is no conspiracy here, Abrams. No villainous mastermind working behind the scenes to pull Chapman’s puppet strings. Just a very ill man who spiraled out of control in a way nobody could have anticipated.”
> “But—”
“Enough,” Wen barked with startling vehemence. “I will not have one of my best detectives embarrassing himself or my squad with this kind of baseless paranoia. If you continue down this road, you will not enjoy the consequences. Is that understood?”
His hands clenched into fists in his lap, Levi considered whether he should continue arguing his case. He knew in his gut that Keith had been a patsy—but he didn’t have a shred of physical evidence that couldn’t be reasoned away. He could understand that he might sound ridiculous to someone who hadn’t witnessed Keith’s behavior firsthand.
Still, it was unlike Wen to be so inflexible and heavy-handed. He must be under a ton of pressure from the higher-ups to close this case.
“Yes, sir,” Levi said grudgingly.
“Good. Don’t think it’s escaped my notice that you haven’t finished your mandated peer counseling sessions, either. Have them completed by the end of the month or you’ll be facing suspension.”
Levi inclined his head in a gesture so stiff it could barely be called a nod.
“You’re dismissed,” said Wen. His stern face softened a bit. “And Abrams? Take the rest of the day off. I think this case has been burning you out.”
Levi left Wen’s office without protest. His refusal to accept that Keith Chapman had been the Seven of Spades could be disastrous for his career if he kept harping on it with no proof. That didn’t mean he was going to meekly shut his mouth and let it go, of course. But it would be smarter to keep his beliefs—and his continued investigation—under wraps for the time being.
Rather than head straight for the bullpen, he decided to stop by Natasha’s office. He needed to schedule his two remaining sessions, and he wanted to check on her anyway.
“Come in!” she called at his knock on her closed door. When Levi entered, he found her hastily dabbing her eyes with a tissue, face flushed and nose swollen from crying.
“I’m sorry,” he said, freezing in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, Levi, come in.” Natasha blew her nose, tossed the tissue in the wastebasket, and left her desk to join him at the cozier seating arrangement in front of it. She smoothed her fingertips beneath her eyes and gave him a watery smile. “Crying in the office—not very professional.”
Kill Game Page 24