I slowly nodded and kept my eyes locked on the stairs. A harrowing memory suddenly burst in front of me. “Did I… did I punch a reporter?”
“Almost,” Cait said as she took a step forward. She placed her hands gently around my arms. I instinctively jerked back, but she tightened her grip and held me in place. This was the first time I had looked at her since she rescued me from the reporters. She smiled softly.
Dark shadows from the poorly lit stairwell cast over her face as we looked at one another. The brim of my eyes swelled with tears. They lingered on the edge and pooled around the ridge before they slowly drained behind my eyes where they belonged. Cait took another step, closing in the arm’s length of space between us, and I lowered my head against her neck. She wrapped her arms around me as I leaned against her. I kept my arms at my sides.
Had Cait not been there—had she not intervened—there’s no telling what would have happened. I almost assaulted a reporter. I was on the verge of blacking out. I had no control over my actions. But I was safe now. I was with Cait, under her protection. The warmth of her body seeped into mine, and I listened to her heartbeat. It thumped in my ear as my boiling blood cooled. I took another deep breath. Cait lightly squeezed her arms around me before letting go.
“C’mon,” she said. “It’s over.”
I stood up straight before taking the four flights of stairs. I needed to walk off the anger and frustration bottled inside me. I couldn’t go into the office with fists full of fury. If my face looked as red as it felt, I needed some time to cool down.
Each step echoed in the stairwell. By the time we reached the fourth floor, the rage that raced through my veins had subsided. Whenever my mind wandered to the reporter asking her degrading question about Lathan, my muscles tensed and my breaths tightened in my chest.
“I’ll meet you in your office in a few minutes,” Cait said once we stepped onto the fourth floor from the stairwell. She slipped past me and walked toward the elevator.
Every eye in the office bored into me as I walked into my office. Had they witnessed the entire scene on television already? Is that how the uniformed officer knew to escort the reporters from the garage?
I set my badge on my desk and placed my coat across the back of the chair. Abram must have been in my office prior to my arrival. A two-page list of vacant warehouses and an access badge for Cait sat on top of the piles of miscellaneous paperwork sprawled across my desk.
Ten minutes had gone by before Cait walked into my office with two cups of coffee in her hand. She placed a paper cup with its plastic lid on my desk. “I just got you black. I couldn’t remember how you like it.” She smiled. Her entire demeanor had returned to normal, as if the incident in the parking garage never happened.
“Black, with two sugars. Or a caramel latte with an extra shot.” I appreciated her attempt at normalcy. I picked up the coffee cup from the edge of the desk, its warmth saturating my cold fingers. Drops of rain cried from the sky and landed against the office window behind me. They slid downward in a zigzag pattern. Heavy, gray clouds rolled in front of the sun and blocked its rays. “Thank you,” I said. Her simple gesture had somehow made the morning more tolerable. I opened the top desk drawer and pulled out two sugar packets before I lifted the plastic lid.
A thin trail of steam rose from the cup, and I breathed in the warm aroma. I gripped the sugar packets together at the edges and shook, sending the grains to the bottom. I ripped them both open in one motion and tapped the contents into the cup, a small sugar island building in the center before quickly submerging into the steaming liquid.
“This is for you.” I handed her the cream-colored badge. “You can access this floor from the parking garage, or any other floor in the building.”
“Thank you,” she said. She took the badge from my hand and clipped it to her lapel. In black, bold letters TEMPORARY ACCESS was printed under her name, along with her grainy black-and-white photo. “Is this the list?” Cait asked as she stood next to the vacant chair across from mine. She placed her cup of coffee on the desk and picked up the list. She counted the locations as she read over the addresses on each page. “Eleven.” She frowned.
“We can head out now if you’re ready,” I said. It wasn’t ideal weather for scouting warehouses, but it was better to get started now. In the off chance that the videos were actually filmed in West Joseph, perhaps a rainy day would discourage the video maker from moving to a new location— if he hadn’t already.
“I’m ready,” Cait said and took a sip of her coffee.
I picked up my black trench coat from the back of the chair and slipped my arms through the sleeves. I wrestled with the collar before it straightened out, and my hair fell against my back. I picked up my coffee and opened my top drawer again. The keys to my favorite city vehicle were toward the back of the drawer, and I reached my hand inside to fish them out. Cait held the list in one hand and her coffee in the other. She followed me out of my office, down the hallway, and back to the stairwell we had just come from.
“What’s the first address?” I asked Cait once we were in the garage. Thankfully, there were absolutely no signs of the reporters.
Rows of cars sparkled under the fluorescent lights mounted to the cement ceiling. Trails of rain-soaked tire marks pooled on the ground toward the entrance of the garage, and a gray haze lurked at the opening.
“There are a few listed on Woodward Avenue,” Cait said as she passed me the list.
“We’ll start there,” I said and paused as I looked over the two pages of paper.
Cait walked to the passenger’s side of the black Impala and waited for me to unlock the doors before she got in. The leather seats were cool from the damp air, and I slid into the driver’s seat before I started the car. Cait reached behind her and pulled the seatbelt over her chest and lap. She smoothed her hair as she nestled into the seat. It was strange having her sit passenger-side in a car with me again. Almost twenty years had passed since the last time we drove around the city together. But in one quick click of her seatbelt, I was transformed into smitten twenty-year-old again.
After the academy, Cait and I had spent the majority of our time together at my apartment, which had been cheaply stocked with hand-me-down furniture. Although Cait had aged since the last time I saw her, I couldn’t help but see the same twenty-three-year-old that I had been so mesmerized by. She was my first of everything when it came to women. I trusted her enough to actually be myself around her—to let down my guard and explore my sexuality without restraint or shame. I had allowed myself to be fully exposed when I was with her. And, until now, I had forgotten what it was like to have the entire world in front of me. I had forgotten there was a time in my life when a missed opportunity didn’t exist—because, at that time, at that age, every road we traveled had a fork in it.
Over the past year, I had wished for my life to go back to normal—back to before the Faceless Killer murders. But maybe I had subconsciously wished for my life to truly go back to normal—long before the stress of my career had sunken its claws into me. Maybe Cait was who I needed to feel normal again. While I felt zero romantic feelings for her, there was a huge part of me that couldn’t deny how easy it was to be around her.
The monotonous click of the turn signal ticked like a time bomb before I turned left onto Woodward Avenue. I dodged numerous potholes that lay like traps in the broken asphalt. The road stretched one-mile long, and abandoned warehouses towered on each side. Gray clouds loomed over the rooftops and outlined the chipped and decayed buildings as rain splashed over the gutters that were full of nature’s debris. This area had been deserted for five years, and each warehouse was a victim of gang graffiti and damaged construction.
Something felt off about this area. Why would anyone voluntarily come here? Especially a young woman who was alone? If I had been invited to audition somewhere around here, I would have turned around and gone home by now. But I wasn’t desperate for stardom.
I turned
into the parking lot to the first warehouse on the left. The car bounced in and out of potholes disguised as puddles. The wheel jerked from my grasp, and the car bobbed up and down as the front and rear driver’s side tires rolled over a massive pothole. A wave of rainwater splashed alongside the car. Cait clutched the handle above her head and held on until I put the car into park.
The engine ran idle as we peered out the windshield; the wiper blades cleared the window with each swipe. A monstrous warehouse hovered over us like a haunted house on Halloween night. Spackle covered the chipped and peeling paint that covered the exterior of the building. The four corners of the square building met sharply together, with random rows of shattered and cracked windows that looked like a corroded checkerboard. Thin plywood covered three or four of the broken windows, and exposed iron rods pierced out of the wall like rusted jail bars.
Something was definitely off about this place and this entire street. The type of warehouse we were looking for couldn’t be here.
“Something feels off,” I said aloud. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“You feel it too?” Cait asked. She leaned forward in her seat, the seatbelt stretching from its base, and she eyed the building as if she was trying to memorize its every detail. “We should look anyway.” She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the passenger door. Thick raindrops fell onto her shoulders and dripped down her jacket. Her water-soaked hair stuck to the sides of her face as she motioned for me to follow her.
I braced myself for the rain as I turned off the car and opened the driver’s side door. The rain landed hard against my face, like sharp pellets of ice, and I jumped over large puddles in the parking lot to catch up with Cait. She stood by the only door located in the front of the building. The gray metal door had rusted at the hinges, and it screeched a high-pitch squeal when Cait turned the handle and pulled.
Support beams covered in chipped red paint lined up uniformly down the center of the open room. The checkerboard windows randomly covered by plywood on the outside were coated in soot and cobwebs on the inside. Rusted hanging lights dangled from the ceiling, like a rotted noose. Along the large brick walls, which were once evenly painted white, tattered and torn mattresses laid on the floor, with blankets and garbage bags carelessly strewn about. On the floor, ripped paper, fallen paint peels, and an array of junkyard electronics piled around each mattress.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s here now,” Cait said. “Anyone in their right mind would have turned around if they saw this place.”
“Expert fallacy,” I agreed. “The killer is coming across as a director—someone professional. That’s how he gains the victims’ trust. He uses all the lingo of a movie maker in his ad. He’s trustworthy,” I added. “This place wouldn’t make me trust him.”
“He would lose the victim’s trust if he had her come here. A director, even for an amateur film, wouldn’t use a condemned building, or any place like this, to hold auditions. I don’t feel safe here, and neither would the victim,” Cait agreed.
That was why something felt off when we pulled up. Pamela Westlake and Fionna Michaels were both too comfortable in their audition videos. They truly believed the killer was a director. If he had convincing camera equipment, the location would have to be convincing too. It would have to be in a safe area.
“Out of the eleven warehouses on the list, only two are in reputable neighborhoods,” I said. “The list isn’t exhaustive, so it still could be a needle in a haystack.”
Cait walked to the right corner and squatted next to the mattress. “We should call Narcotics, have them look this place over. The smell of urine and bile alone is evidence that only junkies live here.”
“Some of these junkies are good people,” I snapped. “They need help… not judgment.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Cait said. “What’s with you?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged off her question. I had one moment of weakness with her this morning, and now she acted as if she was my shrink. I already had one therapist—I didn’t need another. Maybe the twenty-year-old me didn’t defend “junkies” or their poor hygiene, but the forty-year-old me certainly did.
“Those reporters. They really got to you, didn’t they?” Cait asked.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I took a step back from her.
“You don’t want to talk about this? Or, you don’t want to talk about this with me?” Cait insisted.
“Does it matter?” I snapped.
The soles of my shoes crunched on top of the paint peels and debris that was scattered across the cement floor. Both Cait and I agreed there was no cause for suspicion here—at least not in regard to the Casting Call Killer. My eyes immediately rolled to the back of my head. The catchy name the media conjured up to boost ratings had stuck so well that even I referred to him by it.
I made my way to the metal door, turned the slender handle, and pushed it forward.
Nothing.
The handle turned all the way down, but the door didn’t budge. I shook the handle and pushed again. The door was stuck.
“Let me,” Cait said. She walked over and moved me to the side. She pushed down on the handle and leaned forward as if she expected the minimal effort she put into it would actually open the door. It didn’t budge for her either.
I cleared my throat in a petulant attempt to declare my victory. Cait whipped her head back at me and glared before she turned her attention back to the door. She placed her left hand against the door and pushed down on the handle again before she slammed her right shoulder and hip against it.
She bounced off the door. A dull thud echoed throughout the titanic tomb we were trapped in. I took a deep breath and held it; laughter tickled the back of my throat.
“Don’t laugh,” she snapped. “The door is stuck.” She motioned for me to stand by her as she gripped a firmer hold on the handle. “One, two, three,” she counted. On three, she pushed down the handle and we both slammed our bodies into the door in the hope that our combined weight would be enough to separate the warped trim from the door. “This doesn’t make sense,” Cait said.
She slid her 9mm from her holster and walked to the opposite side of the warehouse. I took my gun out of its holster and held it loosely at my side as I followed her to the back corner that led to another part of the warehouse.
The rain had finally stopped, and the sun had peeked far enough past the gray clouds that it lit the warehouse through the broken windows. Cait turned the handle of an identical door at the back of the building, and it screeched open with ease. We looked out the door that faced the back parking lot. Gravel mixed with broken glass created a stone beach that stretched twenty feet before landing against a set of train tracks.
Cait walked outside, sharp beams of sunlight hitting against her as she moved. I walked alongside her as we made two left turns toward the front of the building where I had parked. My shoes scraped along the gravel and left uneven footprints behind us. A gentle breeze picked up and created ripples in the puddles in the parking lot.
My lips parted as my jaw fell open. The driver’s side back window to the car had been shattered. Broken glass dangled around the frame of the window, like dead leaves on a tree. Cait pointed her gun at the car as she slowly walked closer to it. With my gun drawn, I searched the area and looked for any sign that someone might be close by.
Across the street was another vacant warehouse. Overgrown weeds stood three feet tall in the cracks of the sidewalk. The only car in sight was mine. There was no sign of who could have done this. We would have heard another car pull up, and no one had followed us into the warehouse—at least not that I noticed.
“Cait,” I said and gestured to the warehouse door we couldn’t open earlier.
Underneath the door handle was a small shovel, not more than four feet tall. It was wedged between the ground and door handle. That would explain why we couldn’t get the door open.
“There’s a note,” Cait said as she stoo
d next to the car. She put her gun back in its holster and reached through the broken window.
“Be careful,” I warned. My gun was still drawn as I continued to scan the horizon.
Cait stood from the car, a white note folded into fours gripped in her hand. She unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed out the crease in the center. “It’s a picture,” she said as she held it out.
I placed my gun back in its holster and took the paper from her. It was a pixelated screen capture. A young woman was in the same warehouse from the previous videos—but this wasn’t Pamela Westlake or Fionna Michaels. This woman had bright green eyes and dark brown hair. She looked away from the camera as a nervous smile crawled out from her thin lips, and she wore a form fitting T-shirt that accentuated her large breasts.
“Do you recognize her?” Cait asked.
“No,” I shook my head slowly. “We haven’t received this video yet.”
CHAPTER | EIGHT
“BEFORE WE BEGIN, I want to create your Distress Scale,” Dr. Tillman said. The curtains, which were usually open to allow the bright sun to step into her office, had been drawn closed. Instead, thin fragments of light outlined the sides of the heavy curtains. Small dust particles, illuminated by the slivers of sunbeams, danced in the air as the strips of sun reflected off the beige carpet.
Dr. Tillman sat in the chair across from me, her legs crossed as she balanced her notepad on her knee, and she began to write. “Zero is the most comfortable you’ve ever been,” she said, “and one hundred is seeing red—you’re in extreme emotional distress,” she clarified. “How do you feel right now?”
“About twenty,” I said.
Inside Dr. Tillman’s office was the only place I felt relaxed. Once I was past her office doors and in the real world, my Distress Scale—as she referred to it—was at forty or higher. No matter where I was or who I was with, I was constantly on edge, as if I was waiting for a bomb attached to my chest to go off. My muscles were constantly tense, and my arms dragged at my sides as if I was carrying fifty-pound dumbbells.
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