Skin Deep

by Michelle Hanson

  SKIN | DEEP

  MICHELLE HANSON

  Cover Design Copyright © 2018 by Karri Klawiter

  Book design and production by Art By Karri – www.artbykarri.com -

  Editing by Teena Parker

  Author photo by Anna Leeper

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Michelle Hanson

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Fearopoly © 2018

  Hanson, Michelle, 1979–

  Skin | Deep / Michelle Hanson – 1st ed.

  ISBN-13: 978 – 17216435703

  ISBN-10: 17216435709

  PROLOGUE

  “HEY? YOU AWAKE?”

  A single light bulb dangled perfectly still from a long cord in the center of the ceiling. It provided the only light in the desolate room. It was barely bright enough to reach the dark corner of the hotel-lobby-sized room I had been confined to, and I couldn’t see the face that belonged to the timid, female voice coming from the opposite corner.

  A blurry haze caked over my eyes as I tried to blink my vision back into focus. I could barely make out the contents of the room, as if I was looking through an out-of-focus lens. There was a damp chill in the air, and I was certain I was in a cellar.

  “Hey,” the voice whispered again.

  Beads of sweat trickled down my face, mixed with tears that had already fallen. I slid my tongue over the thick film that had formed across my teeth and opened my mouth. A putrid stench of blood and mucus emitted past my lips. I gathered the sloshy blend of bodily fluids and spit it out. It pooled onto the cement ground beneath me, where I sat, shackled at the ankle. The cold cuff hung loosely around the ball of my joint. The thick, heavy chain coiled like a spring and stretched nearly ten feet. It connected to a large metal hook affixed to the blank cement wall I was propped against.

  “You awake?” the voice repeated.

  The rattle of the restraint echoed within the room as I dragged my leg closer to my chest. The long chain scraped against the cement ground as I brought my knee under my chin. I gripped the sturdy cuff and squeezed at the hinge. The dim light reflected off the metal cuff, sending streams of light rays against the wall. I placed my thumb over the keyhole and pressed down. The small groove imprinted in my thumb, and I ran my index finger over the impression.

  It was a standard cuff, the kind my department used when transporting convicts. It wasn’t easy to pick the lock, but it was certainly possible. All I needed was something to pry the lock with. A Bobby pin or a pair of tweezers. Anything flat and slender.

  Instinctually, I reached for my gun—but it, along with the holster, was gone. My badge and cell phone were missing from my back pockets too.

  I checked my pockets knowing it was pointless. If he took my badge and gun, then he took anything else I had on me. I slid my hand inside the breast pocket of my black blazer. Then in my pants pockets. I frisked myself in the hope that maybe there was something viable I could use. But nothing. I had nothing.

  “Where—where am I?” I asked the voice.

  My right cheekbone throbbed, and I placed my free hands against my face. I winced at my own touch. A welt, the size of a walnut, had formed on the right side of my face. With each shallow breath, strands of my dark brown hair flew around my face. It chaotically hung over my eyes and clung to the sweat that dripped from my pores.

  “Did you see who took you?” she asked, slightly louder than a whisper.

  “Who took me?” I repeated. How did I get here? I remember being in Mirror Woods, too anxious to call for backup. “I was in Mirror Woods,” I said… my voice trailed off as the memory slowly came back.

  After eleven months of piecing together clues, I finally had him. I’d wandered into the woods, knowing if I’d waited for backup, he would’ve gotten away.

  I had stumbled into the woods with my gun drawn—ready to fire—and then it had gone dark, as if a hood or bag had been draped over my head. I’d spun around, blinded by the foreign fabric covering my face.

  I remembered hearing a heavy crack just as I’d felt a blunt blow to my right cheek. It had felt as if a boulder struck against my face. A low hum had rung through the back of my head as I’d fallen to the ground.

  Perilous to the darkened state, another blow landed hard into my rib cage. I’d gasped for air, the heavy fabric sealing my mouth from capturing air. And then everything had gone dark. Not as if someone had turned the lights out—but as if the light inside me had gone out.

  And now I was here.

  Adrenaline surged through my body, but I was too weak even to stand. I fought to keep my eyes open as my head bobbed up and down. I can’t fall asleep. I could have a concussion. I have to stay awake.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “I don’t know.” The voice went low again. “An hour—a day—it all feels the same.” She let out a low sigh. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Him?” I played dumb.

  “The Faceless Killer,” she answered. Hopelessness punctuated the end of her sentence. “It’s him. I know it is.”

  The Faceless Killer had wreaked havoc on the citizens of West Joseph, Ohio, for almost a year now. It was the biggest case I had ever been assigned. With at least four homicides on his resume, he was notorious for his signature kill: Each of his victims—a female in her late twenties—had her face skinned off her skull.

  The bodies were dumped somewhere in the thirty-three-hundred-acre state park known as Mirror Woods. Because we never had any faces to identify the bodies, it took weeks to put a name to the deceased, often having to use dental records if her fingerprints weren’t already in the system.

  I sucked in a shallow breath, and my chest ached as it expanded. It felt as if I had a thousand pins trapped in my lungs, and each breath sent them swirling like a tornado. They pierced my sides, trickles of blood filling my insides.

  Panic coursed through my veins like a shot of espresso. If I didn’t find a way out of here soon, I would end up like the others. I knew where I was, even if my denial didn’t want to admit it. This reality was too monstrous to ignore.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “How did you get here?”

  “Rachel,” she breathed out. “Rachel Sanzone.”

  “Rachel Sanzone,” I repeated to myself. I didn’t recognize her name from the long list of Missing Persons Reports I had read through this morning. “Is there anyone here with you?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I was leaving work,” she said. “I work at a movie theater as the closing manager. I was the last one to leave. I lock up. I’m the only one with a key…,” she trailed off. “I got into my car and then I felt something wrap around my mouth. He was in my backseat.” She started to cry. “I don’t know how. My doors were locked. And then everything went black. I woke up here.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped. “A day? A week? I’ve been fed three times since I’ve been down here. A salami sandwich each time. I’m a fucking vegetarian.” She let out a loud cry. “What’s your name?” she asked once she calmed down.

  Before I could answer, a sharp squeak pierced through the room. I held my breath as a loud thud followed. Then another thud. Then another. Each thud became louder as the pace picked up.

&n
bsp; Stairs. Whoever it was—he was coming downstairs. The pace of his steps matched the pulse of my heart as the beat rapidly increased. My lungs burned as they begged for oxygen. I took another shallow breath and quickly exhaled.

  His shoes scraped against the soot-covered ground as he walked from the stairs to the center of the room. He stopped just at the edge of where the light succumbed to the dark. The only visible parts of him were the black tips of his boots. He paused for a moment, hidden in the shadows, then took another step, his torso and legs now highlighted by the light. He stood at least six feet tall with an athletic build. His navy blue coveralls were torn and covered with grease. He smelled of motor oil and gasoline, with a hint of stale cigarette smoke.

  The West Joseph Police Department never did figure out what the Faceless Killer wanted with the faces of his victims. Some detectives hypothesized he wanted to keep them as trophies. I always feared he kept them for something more sinister.

  The man in front of me took another step into light, making himself visible from head to toe. But it wasn’t a man’s face looking down at me.

  My body involuntarily lunged forward as a string of bile rose from the pit of my stomach. It mixed with the blood that had coated the inside of my mouth, and I coughed out the foul mixture. It burned against my windpipe as another chunk spewed past my lips.

  This man—this monster—was wearing the face of his first victim.

  I recognized Angela Truman from the Missing Persons photos. Age twenty-seven. Disappeared in October of last year. Her body had been discovered in Mirror Woods Lake seven days after she had been reported missing by her boyfriend.

  At first, West JPD thought the damage to her face had been caused by wildlife or fish feasting on her exposed skin, but further examination showed no other parts of her body had gnaw marks. And the slit around her neck had been too pristine for that skin to be missing by accident. The muscular tissue left on her face had eroded from being waterlogged for more than two days. In my ten years as a detective, it was the most horrific corpse I had ever seen.

  That was until the other victims started popping up.

  Angela Truman’s skin now stretched taut across this man’s face as he stood directly in front of me. Her blond hair, matted with blood and knots, recklessly dangled over his shoulders. Her thin lips cracked in the center, having been forced to fit over his large head. The bridge of her nose stretched over his, her nostrils slashed into tiny slits, barely wide enough for him to breathe through. His breath echoed inside his human mask as he inhaled and exhaled. It reverberated around the room, melting into my skin like acid rain on a statue.

  A faint shimmer flickered across Angela’s face, as if polyurethane had been smeared across her skin. Chunks of flesh were missing from the cheeks— undoubtedly his first attempt at skinning. Maybe a combination of nerves and lack of skill had caused the messy debacle of her features?

  My lips irrepressibly contorted into disgust and sorrow. Was it his plan to wear my face? And Rachel Sanzone’s too? Was her face to become part of his wardrobe?

  And how long did we have? If he stuck to his original MO, in five days he would discreetly dispose of my faceless body in Mirror Woods. My coworkers would be forced to identify me by my fingerprints or dental records.

  He took another step, this time to the right, and walked to the opposite side of the room. A burst of light popped on as he flicked a switch above a workbench, which was covered in engine parts and greasy tin cans. Above the work station, taped to the wall, were dozens of newspaper articles written about the Faceless Killer’s victims.

  MIRROR WOODS LAKE: HOME TO ANOTHER MURDER

  I recognized the article about the second victim, Lisa Johnson. Age twenty-five. Grad student from Cleveland. Reported missing in January. The lake was too frozen for her body to be thrown in. She had been discovered fifty feet from a deserted hiking trail deep in the woods. Had she been placed there in the summer, she may never have been discovered due to overgrown weeds and shrubbery. The ground around her was too hard for a foot impression to be left behind.

  THIRD BODY DISCOVERED IN MIRROR WOODS

  Carmine Jenkins. Age twenty-eight. The oldest of the victims. Reported missing by her roommate in May and discovered on the gravel shore by the lake a few days later. She had been weighted down—rocks in the trash bag that served as her coffin. But he did a poor job sealing the bag. Instead of knotting the rope around the bag, he merely wrapped it around her ankles and abdomen. She, too, had been discovered without her face.

  FACELESS KILLER STRIKES FOR FOURTH TIME

  Sophia Good. Age twenty-seven. Reported missing by her husband almost a week after she disappeared. He said they were going through a messy divorce, and he thought she had skipped town because she could be “rather dramatic at times.” When he checked the credit card statements and noticed no new transactions—along with no new outgoing calls or text messages on their phone bill—he called her mother to see if Sophia had contacted her family. When her mother said no, he reported her missing.

  Her body had been discovered a few weeks ago, in late August, a few days before she had been reported missing. Classified as a Jane Doe, West JPD believed she had put up a fight, as she had several defensive wounds on her forearms. She also differed from the first victims in that she had been fully decapitated instead of just skinned. With no prints in the system, her husband had to come in to identify her body based solely on a tribal tattoo on her lower back.

  With the exception of one, all of the other articles were follow-ups on each victim, with an emphasis on how frustrated the citizens of West Joseph had become with the police department for letting this psychopath run rampant. I couldn’t really fault them for their frustrations. TV crime shows molded viewers into believing any homicide could be solved in two days. But killers rarely left behind the type of proof needed to catch them, and crime labs didn’t have a turnaround time of thirty minutes after the evidence was collected.

  The article that really stuck out from the rest was the one with my photograph in the center. Although I wasn’t able to read the text from where I sat, I knew what it was about. I had that same article in the top drawer of my desk.

  The reporter did an excellent job of letting the public know just who was responsible for this case, blaming everything on my “sloppy detective work.” He gave a recap of all the victims, statements from their families, and a nice reminder that West JPD still hadn’t named a suspect, let alone had anyone in custody.

  If I was indeed in the Faceless Killer’s trophy room, then who better to flaunt it to than the one person who was assigned to catch him.

  On the workbench, mixed with the scattered pieces of car parts, I noticed my gun and badge. With his back to me, I could see his salt-and-pepper hair stuck to the back of his neck, below the three-inch gap that Angela Truman’s scalp wasn’t able to cover. He picked up my gun and slid the clip from the handle. He counted the bullets in the magazine and slid it into his back pocket. He placed my empty gun back onto the workbench and tapped the black leather case that held my detective’s badge. He flipped open the leather case like a book and ran his fingertips over my ID. He caressed my photo for a few moments. Then, in a quick swoop, he picked up my badge and turned to face me.

  One step.

  Two steps.

  Three steps.

  He squatted in front of me. Angela Truman’s face stared back at me as a subtle bump emerged from her cheekbones. Underneath her face, he was smiling at me—his teeth fully exposed between her lips.

  “Detective Sergeant Lena Evans,” he said, smirking under Angela’s face. He held my badge at eye level as he examined my photo. From Angela’s shallow eye sockets, his icy blue eyes shot back and forth from my photo to my face. “I like you better when you’re all cleaned up,” he said, a shallow tone of sympathy washing through his voice. He reached into the pocket of his coveralls and fished out a small bottle. The contents rattled inside. He gently shook it in front of my face
and popped the lid open with his thumb. “It’s just aspirin,” he said. “It should help with the swelling and pain.” His speech was articulate and distinct. The profiler assigned to the case had assessed the killer was likely educated, good with his hands, and a loner. So far the profiler was at least one for three.

  “You know who I am,” I dryly snapped. “So you know my entire department and SWAT will be looking for me.”

  “Oh, I’m counting on it.” An ominous laugh grumbled from his throat. Dark shadows filled the gaps between his face and Angela’s.

  He clutched the bottle tight in his hand, the pills rattling once more, as he skimmed my swollen cheek with his fingertips. I jerked from his touch, my head hitting the back of the wall, and I kicked my leg out. The heel of my boot dug into his thigh, and he looked down at my foot, slowly shaking his head, as if debating whether to reprimand my feeble attempt at self-defense. He brought his cold stare back to my eyes. “Don’t be stupid,” he growled, caressing my jaw line and lightly brushing the tip of my nose with his index finger.

  He held the pill bottle in front of me and waited as I held out my hand. He dumped three aspirin into my palm, the pills rolling around like dice on a Craps table, and he snapped the lid back onto the bottle. I studied the pills, as if somehow I could magically decipher if they were poisoned just by looking at them. Even if they were poisoned, that would be a better fate than what he had in store for me during the next five days.

  With a sigh of disgust, as if he was offended that I didn’t trust him, he took two aspirin from the bottle, lifted his mask at the chin, popped the pills into his mouth and dramatically swallowed. He exposed his whole mouth and opened it wide, sticking out his tongue to show me he had swallowed the pills.

  If I was going to meet my demise at the hands of this maniac, it was going to be on my terms.

  I slowly brought the pills to my mouth and let them fall past my lips. The bitter taste of chalk fizzed on my tongue, and I collected as much saliva as I could to dry-swallow the pills. A wave of coughing erupted from my chest. I leaned to the side, away from the monster in front of me, and tried to catch my breath.