The more I thought about the evening with Cait, the more I couldn’t help but forgive her for the attempted kiss. Looking at her, having her skin against mine, it felt like old times. I was a cadet with a crush again—I still had my entire career in front of me, and I could make it whatever I wanted. There was no Abi. No Fluellen. Certainly no Lathan Collins. It was just Cait and I. We were optimistic and safe, like we had always been.
Maybe that’s what the dream was trying to tell me.
In the dream, I had specifically sought Cait for comfort. I didn’t have a sex dream about her—I had a therapy dream about her. Cait could have rescued me from the car, but she didn’t. She stood on the porch and encouraged me to fight back. It was as if I had to prove to her, and everyone else, that I actually wanted to live. That I actually wanted a normal life.
When she and I were in the car, she consoled me in ways I needed to be consoled. She was the bandage my wounded heart needed. It wasn’t about the sexual release—although that part was nice. It was that I felt desired and human again. I was no longer a frigid and hollow shell. The lust and want I felt for Cait had sparked a fire inside me. And it felt good. It was so good that I began to crave that feeling for her while awake.
I wasn’t ready to be with her last night, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be ready down the road. Would she wait that long? Would it be fair to ask? After we solved this case, she would go back to Lyons, and I would go back to being a part of her past—and she a part of mine.
After I rinsed out the shampoo and conditioner, I let the water run down me. Once I turned off the water, I wouldn’t have an excuse to stand here. And I wasn’t ready to start the day. I wanted to stay inside the shower, shielded by the curtain. I wanted to stay here, accompanied by just my thoughts. Although I was naked and rather vulnerable, the narrow tomb created by the shower walls had become my sanctuary. As soon as I slid the curtain open, I would be defenseless against the world.
The steam from the shower began to evaporate, and the cold air from the air conditioner filled the room. I could either be defenseless and warm or shielded and freezing. I turned off the faucet, squeezed the excess water from my hair, and opened the shower curtain. I reached for the towel that hung on the wall and wrapped it around my bare body.
Before I could think about another evening with Cait, I had to get through the day. In record time, I finished getting ready for work. As I grabbed my car keys, I received a text from Abi.
I’ll be home tonight. We can talk then.
Even if I didn’t know her as well as I did, I would know that she was definitely still mad. I thought about what to respond with. A simple “OK” felt dismissive. I was already late for work, so I couldn’t respond with anything that might lead to an ongoing conversation. I slipped the phone into my back pocket as I opened the front door and braced myself for the heat wave that would soon crash against me.
I quickly got into my car. The leather seats felt like oven mitts that had just taken a pie out of the oven. I turned on the air conditioning before I pulled out of the driveway. As I drove down the highway, I realized the pro to being really late for work was no traffic. But as I drove into the parking garage, I realized the con was having nowhere to park. All the spots closest to the building entrance were occupied. I drove through the entire parking garage and made a series of left-hand turns until I finally found a spot, on the third floor. That would add another five minutes to my tardiness.
When I reached my department, I walked into my office. I half-expected to see Cait waiting for me, but she wasn’t there. And if she wasn’t in my office, there was only one other place she could be.
“Evans, have a seat,” Flu said when I walked into his office. Cait sat in one of the two empty chairs across from him. She barely made eye contact with me. It was as if we were forced to sit in study hall together after a break-up. I had severely bruised her ego—maybe even cracked it a little. She would be professional for the sake of the investigation, but when it came down to being friends or evenly friendly toward me, that was out of the question. The days of her bringing me coffee were probably over too.
“What’s going on?” I asked after I closed the door and sat in the empty chair next to Cait.
Flu looked at the monitor on his desk, then to Cait, then to me. He had the same dread in his eyes that a parent has when telling the kids the family dog had been hit by a car. Cait crossed her legs at the knee and turned in her chair so that her body was closed off to me. How long had she been in Flu’s office? Did she tell him what had happened last night? It would be pretty stupid on her part if she did. She was the one who’d tried to initiate a kiss—not me. So why did I get the feeling Flu was about to lecture me?
“We got Kristen Valeri’s video last night,” Flu said with a sigh.
“When?” I asked. “We were at the plaza until it closed last night.” I trusted the undercover officers. If there had been even a hint of suspicious behavior, they would have radioed us.
“Around ten o’clock,” Flu answered. “It’s a different IP address than the others. Abram is trying to pinpoint the location now. Whoever sent this didn’t do it from the plaza.”
“Last night was a waste then,” I said.
“According to the investigation? No. According to taxpayers? Yes,” Flu answered. “If I thought it was going to be a waste of time, I wouldn’t have authorized the stakeout. It’s part of the investigation process, and it needed to be crossed off the list. We used the information we were given, and we tried to use it to our advantage. That’s not a waste.”
“Do you have the video?” I asked.
“I do. It’s here.” Flu turned the monitor on his desk so that I could see it. Cait uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. She still made no acknowledgement that I was in the room, let alone sitting next to her. “Agent Porter hasn’t seen it yet, but I have.” Flu cleared his throat as he hesitated to play the video. “I should warn you both.” He paused again. “It’s… it’s as horrific as the others.” He took a deep breath and exhaled as he pressed play. He sat in his chair, facing the back of the monitor, so that it was impossible for him to watch the video with us.
The grainy resolution filled the monitor as Kristen Valeri sat upright in a metal chair in the center of a warehouse. She wore an identical outfit as the one she was wearing in the printout that had been left in the backseat of my car. Her coal-black hair laid flat over her shoulders. She held a script in her hands as she read over it. Then she closed her eyes and silently mouthed a few sentences to herself.
A bright light shot over her, casting a dark shadow inside two hollow archways that led into small nooks no bigger than jail cells. I assumed the nooks were used for storage, but they were too dark to see if anything was inside. I hadn’t noticed the two nooks in the videos before, but I was certain this was the same warehouse where Pamela Westlake and Fionna Michaels had been. And I knew Kristen was going to meet the same fate as Pamela and Fionna too.
My eyes locked on the screen, and my stomach churned. It was like watching the nature channel: The viewer can see the coyote hiding in the forest, ready to strike, as the naïve deer drinks from the brook. No matter how much the viewer wants to warn the deer of the danger lurking behind it, it’s useless. Just like the deer, Kristen Valeri couldn’t hear me. Her death was inevitable. Everyone knew it except her.
“You may begin when you’re ready,” the familiar distorted voice spoke off-camera.
Kristen nodded and took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly. She looked as if she was trying to shake out all her nerves—and to silence the voice inside her head telling her to run.
“I’ll be home late,” Kristen said as she looked up from the script in her hand. “The car is acting up again. Alternator, I think.”
“Why don’t you just get a new car? That lemon is going to send you to the poor house,” the voice said.
“Because that lemon is all I can afford.” Kristen smirked. “Are you going to buy me a ne
w car?”
“I would if I could, babe. You know that.”
“I know—that’s not how I meant it.” Kristen looked back down at the script. She mumbled a few words to herself before she looked at the person off-camera. “I’m leaving work early to drop it off at the mechanic, and then I’ll be home.”
Kristen sat still in her chair, as if she was waiting for the next line to be delivered, when a sudden skip in the video showed Kristen standing in the middle of the room. The chair was no longer there. The jump must have been caused by the person operating the camera. He must have hit “stop” and then resumed recording once Kristen had taken her place for a new scene.
Kristen paced the empty room. She acted scared. But I didn’t know if that was part of the character or her actual state of mind. Either way, “scared” would only be temporary. Within a few moments, she would feel real terror.
“Feel free to adlib the dialogue,” the distorted voice said.
Kristen nodded as she continued to pace. An echo of chains skidding against the cement whistled from the recording as an expression of pure horror spread across Kristen’s face. She walked backward as the hooded man came into frame. He dragged the chains that I was most certain had also been used in Fionna Michaels’ video.
“Please,” Kristen begged. “Don’t.” She looked toward the off-camera man as a look of uncertainty replaced the terror on her face.
“Good, keep going,” the distorted voice said.
“I won’t call the police. Just let me go,” Kristen pleaded as the masked man stood less than ten feet in front of her. He looked down at her and gripped the chain in his right hand. “Please,” she cried. “Let me go!”
There was another sudden jump in the video, as if the recording had been stopped and restarted again. Kristen was kneeling in an execution pose. Both her arms were outstretched, crucifix-style, the chains were now wrapped around her wrists and anchored to a wall off-camera. Kristen faced the lens, and the masked man stood behind her.
She was crying—and they weren’t fake tears. Her voice trembled. Between sobs, she pleaded for them to stop. “I no longer want the part,” she cried. “Please, let me go.”
That poor, foolish woman. Somewhere, buried far beneath her fear and terror, was hope that maybe this wasn’t real. That maybe the two men who held her captive had just taken the audition too far. She was the fish at the end of the hook, beseechingly looking at the fisherman to throw her back into the lake.
Kristen lowered her head in tear-soaked defeat as she squeezed her eyes closed. The masked man reached behind his back and pulled out what looked like a wire cheese slicer. The wire was thin, like piano string, and had a wooden handle on each end. He brought the wire underneath Kristen’s chin. His arms crossed over one another, and he tightened the wire around her neck. She kept her head down, her arms outstretched, drool dripping from her mouth as she began to beg.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Don’t….”
In the seconds that felt like an eternity, Cait and I both leaned forward, as if the video had a magnetic pull to it. My voice caught in my throat as I debated whether to demand that Fluellen turn it off. I didn’t want to see this. I couldn’t watch this woman suffer through her death.
But I had to.
The masked man took a deep breath, his beer belly hanging over the waistline of his black pants. He squeezed the wooden handles and slowly uncrossed his arms. The wire cut into Kristen’s neck. Blood began to trickle toward her collarbone as the wire embedded itself into her skin. She tried to scream, but only a muffled gurgle choked from her throat as blood pooled in her mouth and seeped down her chin. As the man pulled tighter and tighter, Kristen’s body began to shake. She was no longer able to plead for her life. As her body violently shook, her face turned red and then a pale shade of blue. Her meadow-green eyes bulged from their sockets, and her eyeballs erupted into bloodshot vessels.
I briefly turned my head away in an attempt to force down the vomit that had shot up from my stomach. I just needed a moment to regroup. I had to watch this. Not just for credibility as an officer, but because I needed the image of Kristen gasping for her last breath to fuel the fire of this investigation. I needed to have her tear-stained face engrained in my vision. If I ever felt like giving up or wanting to wait until tomorrow to follow up on a clue, I needed her death to remind me who I was fighting for.
I slowly brought my eyes back to the monitor, and the beat of my heart echoed inside my chest. I watched the masked man dig his knee into Kristen Valeri’s back. Her chest shot forward as the wire sliced deeper. Blood spurted from the gash around her neck. The masked man let out of a deep sigh as he let go of the handles. Kristen’s body slumped forward, and her hair matted to her neck like a bandage.
The man took a step away from her and turned to his left as he walked off-camera. My eyes filled with tears as I stared at the cold, somber image on the screen. I wanted to jump into the video and carry Kristen out of there. She didn’t deserve to be left alone in that room, discarded and forgotten, like a carcass on a butcher’s table. I wanted to jump into the video so that I could strangle the men who did this to her.
As rage and sorrow coursed through my veins, the monitor went black. Flu leaned forward in his chair.
“I know this was upsetting to watch,” he said quietly as he focused his attention on me. I understood why he chose not to watch the video a second time. Once was enough. I blinked back the tears in my eyes and sat back in my chair. Cait remained forward. “Once Abram has a location for the new IP address, I’ll let you know.” Flu turned his monitor back toward him.
“Has this been sent to the media?” Cait finally said, her voice caked in empathy.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Flu said. He adjusted his monitor and clasped his hands on top of his desk as he spoke to us. “This guy wants attention. More attention than what we’re giving him.” He knew as well as I did that sending the video to the media would ensure a great deal of attention. “I can’t put a gag order on every news station in the state, so we’ll just have to hope this case doesn’t get as big as….” Flu paused and his eyes slowly drifted upon me. “Well, you know….” He trailed off, as if he didn’t want to say Lathan Collins’ name in front of me. “Let’s just figure this out so that we can put a stop to it,” he said.
Cait finally looked at me, her eyes glossed in tears. “Should we go to your office?” she asked.
I stood from the chair and led the way down the hall to my office. Cait’s footsteps clunked closely behind me. As much as I wanted to address what had happened last night, I couldn’t get the images of Kristen Valeri out of my mind. The video was a shock, even to a seasoned officer, and I was no exception.
I walked into my office and stood behind my desk. I looked at my phone to see if I had any missed calls. Cait walked in seconds after me.
The door clicked closed as Cait stood opposite of me, her head down as if she was trying to remember the words of a well-rehearsed speech.
“I’m sorry,” she said and paused to look at me. “About last night.” She wasn’t the type of person who often apologized. If it was a formality, she could do it. If the apology was to a victim of a crime, for instance, the words “I’m sorry” rolled off her tongue like a soccer ball down a steep hill. But when it came to actually admitting she was wrong—that happened as often as civilians actually getting out of speeding tickets. “It won’t happen again.” She forced a half-smile.
Did she really mean that? I had finally warmed up to the idea of getting close to someone. “It’s fine,” I said, trying to save face.
“No, it isn’t.” She sighed. “I just… got caught up in the moment. We were talking and getting along, and a part of me felt like I was twenty-three again. It was nice.”
“It was.”
“Still—that’s no excuse.”
“Really, it’s fine,” I said. “It was very much needed. I haven’t felt wanted for a long time.” That was true. Abi ha
d tried her hardest to keep us close during the months I had taken off work, but I just didn’t feel it. So it was nice to feel wanted by someone—and by someone I wanted in return.
“I find that hard to believe.” Cait smiled. “So, we’re good? Back to being partners?”
“Back to being partners.”
“Good,” she said as she sat in the chair across from my desk. “This case needs our full attention.”
It was impossible to disagree with her. Part of me wanted to focus on the possibility of us being together, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized Cait was right. We had both been caught up in the magic of reminiscing. She didn’t want me; she wanted to be twenty-three again. And I didn’t want her; I just wanted to be normal again. We could provide that for one another.
“That video… it got me thinking,” Cait said.
“About what?”
“How much do you know about the Internet?” she asked. Her mouth parted at the lips like she was deep in thought.
“I know enough to get by. Why?”
“Just thinking, that’s all….”
“Do you have a theory?” I recognized her behavior. She stopped her speech, as if there was something more she wanted to say.
“More like a hypothesis.” She licked her lips and zoned out, as if she debated on whether to tell me. “Do you know what the Deep Web is?”
“The part of the Internet where pedophiles and drug dealers rub elbows?” I shrugged. I didn’t need to know much about the World Wide Web to know that the Deep Web was an all-inclusive resort for career criminals.
“More or less,” Cait laughed. “There are two parts of the Internet: the Surface Web and the Deep Web.”
“Okay….” She had started to lose me. I knew enough about the Internet to utilize it for my job. But once the fancy lingo came into play, I was out.
“It’s usually described like this,” she said. “An iceberg has two parts. The tip, above the water. And the bottom, which is underwater. The tip of the iceberg is the Surface Web. The bottom of the iceberg—the part that’s underwater—is the Deep Web.”
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