Face of Fear (A Zoe Prime Mystery—Book 3)

by Blake Pierce

  She had seemed a likely target. A female, living alone, slim and not particularly tall according to her social media photos. The kind of person a killer might take down easily, if they only needed one chance to attack from behind.

  “You think he could be somewhere around here already?” Shelley asked, glancing up and down the street. They had parked right outside, eschewing anonymity in favor of convenience.

  “If he is, then he is about to get front row seats to the show,” Zoe muttered darkly. “I do not think he would try to intervene, to stop us from taking her into safety. He would rather backtrack and get one of the others. After all, a body is a body. But we should stay alert, just in case desperation changes him.”

  Shelley nodded. Her hand went back to her hip, to the gun resting in the holster there. “Got it.”

  Zoe cleared her throat and nodded her head, an attempt to appear more in control and confident than she really was. Truthfully, she was also nervous. Shelley was right to say that their killer might be somewhere nearby—after all, they figured that he must have been stalking his victims in order to be able to attack when they were alone and vulnerable.

  But there was one thing that Shelley apparently had not considered—or perhaps just did not want to bring up. That the victim might already be dead, and they were about to walk into a bloodbath. There was no scent of smoke in the air, but with his ritual already interrupted once, who was to say that he would stick to the burning for future attacks?

  Zoe steeled herself as they walked up to the front door, and then knocked on it loudly. They waited a few beats, Shelley half a step behind her, ready to drop into a different stance and aim her gun if it was needed.

  Nothing.

  In the silence, Zoe heard the chirping of a distant bird that should already have been in bed and the faint sound of traffic on nearby streets. There was no sign of movement inside the house. Not a single floorboard creak.

  She knocked again, exchanging a glance with Shelley. Again, silence, almost deafeningly loud. It was no use. No one was home—or at least, no one was coming to answer the door.

  “What now?” Shelley asked.

  Zoe turned, scanning the neighborhood from their new vantage point. Was he there…? “I do not know,” she admitted. “Maybe we wait. If the LAPD all manage to bring in their assigned victims to safety, then maybe we request backup to break down the door.”

  “Or we could see if she’s home now,” Shelley suggested, a little hesitantly.

  Zoe looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  Shelley took a piece of black fabric out of her back pocket. It was wrapped around something, small but with sharp lines. She deftly dropped it from one hand to the other, the fabric unraveling as she did, to reveal a small lockpicking kit.

  Zoe raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. She only gave a short nod. It was probably better that a superior agent did not give the order out loud for her partner to pick a lock and break into a private residence, even if there did not seem to be anyone around to hear it. You never knew.

  Later, perhaps, she would ask Shelley about that lockpicking kit and where it had come from, and how she knew how to use it.

  The door clicked open after only a short matter of seconds, leaving Zoe to believe that Shelley not only knew how to use it but had some experience and skill. She hesitated on the threshold, giving one more look at the five cars parked alongside the street and the seemingly empty windows of the houses around them. Seeing nothing, she followed Shelley inside.

  There was a palpable tension between them as they entered Kate Campbell’s home. Without discussing it, they moved as silently as possible, easing the door closed with barely a sound and then standing for a second to let their eyes adjust to the gloom. Zoe tapped Shelley’s shoulder and indicated the rooms in front of them, then pointed at herself and toward the stairs.

  Shelley nodded in understanding. It was so dark inside the house that Zoe could only pick out the areas where light reflected off her, like the glassy surfaces of her eyes, the pale highlights of her blonde hair, and the shiny skin at her brow and cheek where she was beginning to sweat.

  They separated, Shelley moving into the closest room while Zoe continued to move toward the stairs. She paused and listened at every creak of the floor that her feet accidentally made, conscious that she did not want to alert any hidden predator in the dark of her location. She took the stairs lightly, stepping slow and careful, the carpet muffling almost every sound she made.

  There was no sound from downstairs, either. No noise of Shelley stepping forward or opening doors, no shout of alarm. Her partner was good at this. Zoe pushed forward across an upstairs landing, all of her sense straining to detect any sign that they were not alone.

  One by one, she cleared each of the rooms, her gun in her hand but loose at her side. She was cautious. The last thing she wanted to do was get spooked by stumbling upon the homeowner herself, possibly just woken up with an uneasy feeling that her house was being broken into, and shoot a civilian. The very person they were there to save. Apart from the other repercussions, it would be embarrassing.

  The master bedroom was empty, the bed not slept in. That was a relief, but a short-lived one. The bathroom was en suite, meaning that she had to leave the hallway behind and cross the bedroom to ensure it was empty. She didn’t like leaving the hallway unguarded, where someone might slip past her, but it would have to be done.

  The bathroom tiles gleamed in yellow glow from the streetlight outside. For a moment, her heart pounding, Zoe flashed a fear that she would find them splattered with blood, but they were clean. She breathed again, moved back through the room and to the hall, and onto the next.

  At last, she had checked every room on her side. There was no one here.

  Zoe didn’t want to call out to Shelley to let her know; for all she knew, her partner was silently closing in on an intruder, ready to knock a knife out of their hands and take them down. Calling out would jeopardize the caution they had made a point of exercising so far. She headed back down the stairs with quiet caution, keeping her eyes open as far as she could make them go, trying to see more in the gloom.

  “Z?” The whisper floated up from the entrance hall, like a ghost of past sound.

  “It is me.” Zoe kept her voice as quiet as she dared, feeling like a child letting loose her secrets into the night.

  “I’m all clear.”

  “Same,” Zoe said, returning her voice to normal volume.

  Shelley blew out a noisy breath, obviously relieved. “What now?”

  There was a noise behind them, and Zoe recognized it as a set of keys rattling on their way to the lock. “We are about to find out,” she suggested.

  The door opened with a casual swiftness, the motion of someone used to opening their own door and not at all expecting to see anyone behind it. Zoe and Shelley kept hold of their guns, pointing them at the floor. Just in case. There was always a chance that it wouldn’t be the homeowner who opened the door.

  There was a moment almost of comedy as the woman looked up through her now-open doorway and saw two strange women standing in her hall, armed, looking back at her with suspicion. A moment in which none of them moved or spoke, a strange tableau of confusion.

  Then she screamed, which was a shame, because Zoe had had enough time to mentally compare her face to the images she had seen and know that it was Kate Campbell who had opened the door.

  “FBI!” she shouted, because it was the most important piece of information and thus the thing she needed to share with her the fastest. “Kate Campbell?”

  Kate, who had dropped her handbag on the floor and flown at least a foot back from the door in her shock, nodded. Her face had gone pale, and she was clearly only just fighting the urge to run because of Zoe’s words.

  “Kate, we’re here because we think you might be in danger,” Shelley said, putting her gun back in its holster and holding her open hands up in a gesture of peace. “We’re going to need to
take you down to the local precinct, for your own safety.”

  Kate looked around hurriedly, as if expecting the danger to come from anywhere at any moment. “Safety?” she repeated, her voice weak and strangled. Clearly, she had no idea what was going on.

  Shelley stepped forward, out of the house and toward Kate, holding up her badge. “I’m Special Agent Shelley Rose. This is my partner, Special Agent Zoe Prime. Have you been following the news lately?”

  Kate nodded, then blanched even further, a feat that Zoe had not expected was possible. She had put her own gun away and taken out her badge, and approached Kate now with it extended. She moved slowly and cautiously, as she had heard you would with a wild animal. “Wait,” Kate said, shaking her head. “The… the people that got set on fire?”

  Shelley nodded, putting out a hand to touch Kate’s upper arm. “Yes. I’m sorry to have to surprise you like this, but we really do feel that you may be in danger if you stay here. We’re closing in on a suspect, but until we have them behind bars, we’d like to keep you safe under our watch.”

  Kate was starting to come back to herself, to get a grip on what was happening. She fumbled at her own sides, her hands going to the pockets of her light jacket, as if looking for something. “Can I grab some things to bring with me?”

  “Of course,” Shelley said, stepping to one side and turning back to face the house. “We’ve already cleared the house, but in the interest of your safety, I’d like to accompany you. Is that all right?”

  Kate nodded stiffly, her mouth set in a firm line even as her hands shook at her sides. Zoe, sensing an opportunity to be helpful, bent to retrieve her handbag and held it out for her.

  As she waited for Shelley to reemerge with their charge, Zoe stayed outside, tapping her foot on the pavement and wondering. If he wasn’t here, then where? None of the other teams had made any report yet, at least not one that had come through to her.

  Was someone taking him down right now?

  ***

  He heard the keys rattle in the door with anticipation, but then froze. There was the sound of laughter out there, and not just from one person laughing to themselves, although that would be disturbing enough. No—it was a mixture of voices, at least three, all female.

  She was not alone.

  He dropped the knife down by his side almost immediately and stepped back further into the shadows. What could he do now? The plan was hardly going to work with interlopers in the way. What were they doing here?

  He could not take innocent lives. What he was doing here was necessary, but to go any further—that would be murder. He could not do that. There was a line that one did not cross, and this was his. Only those who bore the mark of evil needed to fall. What was the point in saving the world if you had to take down the innocent to do it?

  The merry voices moved through the hall in front of him, and he shrank back further, trying to make himself as small as possible. If they turned on the light or came into the room he was done for. What would he do then? What could he do? Throw something at them and run? He wanted to cast about himself for a sheet or some fabric, even a cushion, but he could not see and he could not risk making noise.

  He stayed still, holding his breath as they took off their shoes in the hall, heels noisily clanking down, and hung up their coats. They were chattering brightly, some nonsense about a common acquaintance and the fool she had made of herself as far as he could tell. His brow was laced with sweat. His fingers ached, and he realized that he was gripping the knife so tightly he was in danger of wearing out his muscles and dropping it. He tried to relax, but it was impossible.

  If they turned on the light now, he was done for.

  But they walked on, their voices moving further away. A light flicked on in another room, and a yellow cone of light spilled into his space, making him catch his breath and freeze even further than he had already. He did not dare move, willed even his organs to stop, his blood to lay still in his veins.

  There was nothing. They had not turned back to look—just gone into the living area to sit in front of the television, now switching on with a clatter of noise. He breathed again, adjusted his grip on the knife.

  So be it, then. There was no way he could sneak out without being seen.

  He would just have to wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “I do not like this,” Zoe said, running her hands over the top of her head and through her short hair. The motion was supposed to be soothing, but it only made her feel like gripping hold of the ends and pulling. “How are we going to make it stick?”

  Shelley sighed. It was a habit that she seemed to have picked up around Zoe lately. “We can worry about that when we get to it.”

  Zoe was too far down the track of the thought to turn back now. “We made a mistake,” she said. “We acted too soon. We should have done something else. Laid a trap. We could have brought all of them but one into protection, and left that one as bait. Caught him in the act.”

  “We agreed it was too much of a risk,” Shelley said.

  Zoe shook her head wildly. “No, you said it was too much of a risk. I did not change my mind. What if he never strikes again?”

  Shelley looked at her with a strange expression. “Are you saying that you want someone else to die?”

  “No—of course not—I…” Zoe struggled for words, feeling very much like kicking something might be a better way to express her feelings at that moment. “I want to catch him. Bring him to justice. What if he just goes underground for a while, and finds a new way to get at his victims? Starts a different MO and takes more of them because no one can make the connection to stop him?”

  “Just calm down. We’ll do what we said we were going to do. Investigate the other employees at Dead Eye Dave’s, one by one. There will be at least one of them who doesn’t have alibis for the times of the murders.”

  “And then what?” Zoe snapped. “How is that going to have any weight in a courtroom? You were the one who said a lack of alibi and connection to the victims was not going to be enough. If he knows we are coming for him, we will not find any evidence. There will not be a murder weapon or trophies from the victims. And even if he has researched serial numbers or has some obsession with the occult, a good lawyer could easily defeat that kind of evidence at trial.”

  Shelley bit her lip, looking away. “What’s more important? Stopping him from killing, or bringing him to justice?”

  “Both,” Zoe said flatly. “And if he is not brought to justice, he might kill again. Even one more victim, and the blood will be on our hands.”

  There was a long pause in the room. Zoe had not realized how hard she had been fighting, and she struggled for breath. Shelley wouldn’t look at her.

  “What’s done is done,” Shelley said, eventually. “We can’t go back.”

  “So then what?” Zoe asked. And she was really asking. She was so strung out on anger, turned in on herself, and desperate frustration that she could barely force a thought through the clinging mud of her brain.

  The mud was made up of facts, and most prevalent amongst them was this: the fact that every single one of the four people from her shortlist had been found, brought in safely, and then left in the care of LAPD officers to ensure that they would not try to go back home or fall victim some other way. They were all accounted for. Which meant that the killer no longer had a target.

  It was all for nothing. All of her work, the deductions she had made—in the end, they weren’t going to be able to come up with a viable suspect. Not now that he had no targets left.

  “It was always going to be a long shot,” Shelley said. She sounded resigned, defeated. “We didn’t even know for sure that we had all of the right victim profiles. We could easily have missed one.”

  Zoe shot her a look. “That is not true. I went through everything carefully. I did not make any mistakes. These are the only four who fit the profile.”

  “Well, sure,” Shelley said. “From Jasper Franks’s
appointment book. But if the killer is an employee at Dead Eye Dave’s, he wouldn’t just be targeting people because they came to Franks. It could have been any of the other tattoo artists as well.”

  “I already thought of that,” Zoe said. “I asked the officers to make checks when they spoke to the other tattooists. Franks was the only one at Dead Eye Dave’s willing to do the serial numbers. After he was arrested for his ties to the Aryan Brotherhood, most of the local artists stopped handling anything connected to the Holocaust in any way. Before that, it was not yet a trend. No one else at Dead Eye Dave’s ever did a serial number tattoo.”

  Shelley shrugged one shoulder, a lopsided gesture that temporarily threw her body off. “That doesn’t mean we didn’t miss something. I mean, think about it. John Dowling got that cover-up done over the original tattoo. People change their minds all the time. And they might go for symbolism, like Naomi Karling did. How would we know that it was supposed to represent a Holocaust survivor if the notation in the appointments book just read ‘tiger’?”

  Zoe felt as though a tunnel were opening up right at her feet, a whirling vortex threatening to suck her in. And why not? She deserved it. She had missed such a big hole in her own logic.

  “What can we do?” she asked in horror. “Go through each and every customer? How would we be able to do that? It would take us hours—days, even.”

  “We can go to the horse’s mouth,” Shelley said. She picked up her jacket, which she had abandoned over the back of a chair on their return to the precinct. “Come on. Come with me. We still have Jasper Franks in custody.”

  ***

  Jasper Franks’s body language had changed immeasurably since Zoe had seen him last. He was slumped back in his chair, his hands lying on his lap, open and unmoving. He looked like he had given up the ghost, all of the energy drained out of him. He barely looked up as they entered the room.