“What about?” I asked. Normally, I wouldn’t be alarmed. Good people talked about Lathan Collins all the time. It was one thing to research him and his murders for a college essay, but I had my doubts whether anyone in those forums was there for scholastic conversation. This was talk on the Deep Web. What could people possibly be saying about Lathan Collins that they wanted to remain anonymous?
“Singing his praises,” Cait said. “He doesn’t have a cult following,” she added, “so that’s reassuring. But he does have a fan club.” She paused as if she was waiting for me to ask another question. “There are several conversation topics. One is about his childhood, a few are dedicated to each victim… and there’s one about you.”
“Me?” The entire thought was ridiculous. “Is that where you found my name?” That would make more sense than finding my name associated with these new murders.
“Yes,” Cait nodded.
“What do people say?”
“Some feel that you murdered a legend. That you stole the one person they had to look up to,” Cait said slowly, as if she feared repeating their words would somehow mean that she shared their delusion. “No one has threatened revenge, per se,” she quickly added, “so I don’t think you’re in any real physical harm. Most of the conversations are at least six months old—some more than nine months.”
“Are they local?” I asked.
Cait shrugged. “There’s no way for me to know.”
“Anonymous,” I mumbled to myself. That was the whole point of the Deep Web. “What about the victims?” I asked. “What does his fan club have to say about them?”
“They say the victims should be honored that they died at the hands of a true artist.” Cait closed her eyes, as if she was trying to recite the text from memory. “They go into detail about the ways the victims were murdered. They even go so far as to critique the killings, like they’re at an art gallery or something.” She shook the thought from her head after opening her eyes. “I saved what I could from the forums, mostly screen captures of the conversations. I was going to give the flash drive to Fluell—”
“No,” I quickly said. “Please, don’t tell him. Not yet. He’ll overreact and put me in witness protection or something.” It was extreme but something I could imagine Flu doing. “I’ll be taken off this case,” I added.
“Lena….”
“You said yourself that you didn’t think I was in any real harm.” I used her words against her. “Let’s just ride it out.” I paused as I thought about the last time I intentionally didn’t bring something to Flu’s attention. I had thought I could take on Lathan Collins by myself, but all that got me was a bump on the head and a lifetime worth of PTSD. “If something happens, then we can tell him,” I said.
“Like what?” Cait asked, as if she wasn’t convinced she shouldn’t pull the trigger.
“Anything,” I quickly said. “The first sign that someone is after me, we’ll go straight to Flu.”
“There is a first sign,” Cait said sternly. “The most recent post. It was written in April, I think. Someone with the username ‘Alfa Mike,’ with an F,” she added. “He wrote ‘In honor of Lathan’s one year, there will be a big surprise coming.’ But I don’t know what the ‘one year’ signifies… Lathan’s death, or when Lathan started killing.” She shrugged. “There’s no telling what these people see as an anniversary worth celebrating.”
“Okay, then, the second sign.” I tried to joke, but the harsh look across Cait’s face told me she wasn’t in a mood to laugh. “Please, Cait,” I begged. “I can’t be taken off this case. Not yet. Not without warrant.”
This case was the only thing worthwhile in my life. It gave me purpose. I could use what I went through as the driving force to help the Casting Call Killer’s victims. No one in the department had the same dedication and drive I did. I was the best person for this case, and I didn’t want the victims to suffer any more than they already had. The victims didn’t deserve to be dumped on the caseload of another detective who didn’t care about them as much as I did.
Cait clenched her jaw and looked out the window, her knee bouncing in unison with the ticking clock above her. “Okay,” she finally conceded. “But I mean it.” She slightly raised her voice. “The next indication that you are in any harm….” Her voice trailed off, but her eyes stayed locked on mine.
“I promise,” I agreed. “You can go to Fluellen.”
A momentary silence broke through the room as Cait continued her deadlock on me, her posture stiff and full of dominance. She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe she’d actually agreed to stay quiet for now, and she let her body sink into the chair.
With the threat of Lathan Collins behind us, I shifted my thoughts to the Casting Call Killer. There was something bothering me about Kristen Valeri’s video—aside from her brutal murder, that is.
“Do you remember the video from yesterday?” I asked Cait.
She perked up in her seat. “Who could forget?”
“Remember the jumps in the tape? Like the recording had been stopped and started again?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“I don’t know….” I paused. “That was the first video that had a jump in the middle. Almost as if they purposely had to stop the recording.”
“Maybe they did. Kristen was in a completely different position after the jumps.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe she put up a fight? And the person behind the camera had to intervene?”
“But why wouldn’t they leave that in?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be seen,” I said. “If he isn’t wearing a mask…”
“…then we’ll see his face,” Cait nodded along.
“I was planning on re-watching the videos today. You’re welcome to join me if you’re up for it.”
“I am.” Cait looked at the clock above her. “Can I get coffee first?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you in the conference room.” My office was too small and my desk was too cluttered to have two people hovered over it all day. Cait and I stood at the same time, and I followed behind her as we walked out of my office.
Once I stepped foot into the hallway, I kept my distance from Cait as she made her way toward the elevator. As I walked down the hallway, I saw Flu standing outside his office.
“Evans.” He motioned for me to come over. I turned to the left and walked the twenty feet between Flu and I. Cait was alone in front of the elevator. “I’m glad I caught you before I left,” he said. It was unusual for Flu to leave the station early, even if it was a Friday.
We stood just outside his office door next to the bulletin board reserved for department announcements. Headshots of all the new hires from the past year were evenly spaced apart along the board. Along with Abram’s headshot from his February hire date, the newest detective was also on the board. He and I had never been assigned a case together, but from what Flu told me, the detective was extremely knowledgeable—except when it came to proofreading his own reports.
“You’re leaving early?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ll be back early Sunday afternoon—I’m going to my daughter’s house for the weekend,” he added. “Anyway, I talked to Abram about the new IP address from the most recent video.”
“Did he find a location?” I asked.
“Yes… and no.” Flu shrugged. “He narrowed it down to somewhere near Mirror Woods. There’s another plaza there, so the person who sent the video probably used a restaurant’s Wi-Fi,” Flu explained. “Same MO, just a different location.”
“Should I organize another stakeout for Wednesday?”
“Hold off for now, but I wouldn’t rule it out.” He scratched his head as he looked over my shoulder. I turned to see what had caught his attention. Cait was waiting by the elevators, in route to her morning coffee. “How are things going between you two?” he asked.
“Fine….” I scrunched my eyebrows together. “Why do you ask?” He ha
d never asked me about a case partner before.
“Just curious,” he said. “She must have really wanted to work with you.” A low chuckle came from his mouth.
“Why do you say that?”
“She asked to come here,” Flu answered. “Another Agent had initially volunteered to come, but she pulled rank to get the assignment.”
“I wonder why?” I played dumb.
“So do I.” Flu fell silent as we watched Cait get into the elevator. “I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted you to know what Abram found,” he said once the elevator doors closed. “Oh, Abram also said to tell you that he checked Fionna Michaels’ computer. She answered a series of ads looking for an actress. No one answered her inquiries, though. If you have any questions, Abram said he’ll be at his desk all day.”
“Thanks, boss.” I sighed. “Have a nice weekend.”
“You too, Evans,” Flu said and went back to his office.
My shoes clicked against the tile floor as I walked into the conference room. It was surprising to learn that Cait had “pulled rank,” as Flu described it, to work on this case with me. She did say she was aware that I was the detective assigned to the case—did she really want to see me that badly? After all the time and distance between us, why would she care to go to such an extreme measure to work with me? If she wanted to see me, why didn’t she just call?
In the twenty years that had passed, I had only thought of her a couple of times. I’d wondered how she was and had hoped she was happy, but my curiosity was never strong enough to actually look her up. I’d assumed it was the same for her. Apparently I was wrong.
As I waited for Cait to return to the conference room with her coffee, I decided I wasn’t going to mention that I knew she pulled strings to come here. It was best for us to concentrate on the case. But the more time I spent with Cait, the harder it was becoming to see her as just a case partner. The feelings I had for her, no matter how dust-covered they were, had started to resurface. New life had been breathed into them, and I had to keep myself from wondering if we were meant to find each other again. We had both matured since we were in our early twenties. Maybe our time was now.
The laptop in the conference room was already on, and I logged into the shared server. I navigated through folders until I found where the video files had been stored. As I clicked on Pamela Westlake’s video, Cait walked into the room, a cup of coffee in each hand. She closed the door with the heel of her foot and walked to the center of the room. She set one cup on the table and slid it in my direction before she took a seat across from me.
“Black, two sugars, right?” She scooted her chair closer to the table.
“Right.” I smiled as I reached for the cup. “I pulled up Pamela Westlake’s video,” I said as Cait made herself comfortable. The laptop was attached to a projector that would play the video on the large dry-erase board on the wall in front of us. My intent was to watch every single video until I could make sense of the “why.”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” I said.
Cait looked around the room. She stopped when she noticed the stack of notepads on the corner table. She stood from the table and walked to the corner of the room and picked up two of the notepads and two pens. She came back to the table, notepads and pens in hand, and slid one of each to me, like a bartender slinging beers to the patrons at the end of the bar. “I’m ready,” she said.
As the video played, I paid close attention to the dialogue and background. The scene that Pamela read revealed that the character she played was a grad student. The warehouse was bare; only the chair she sat in filled the room. Behind her were two small storage areas. One had been sealed off with bricks, and the other was wide open.
The next video was Fionna Michaels’. From what I could tell from the script, her character was a neglected wife on the verge of divorce. The warehouse was bare, except for the chair she sat in and the hook that dangled from the ceiling. The hook was incredibly noticeable now that I knew its purpose. The cement walls were covered in soot, and the storage areas were both sealed off with bricks.
I scrolled the cursor over Kristen Valeri’s video, and I prepared to watch one of the most brutal murders I had ever worked on. Kristen sat in the same warehouse as Pamela and Fionna; the two archways above the storage rooms lurked in the background like ghostly black eyes. They were completely vacant as Kristen read the role of a woman on her way to the mechanic.
After Kristen Valeri let out her last breath, I stopped the video and turned off the projector. I stood from the chair, and nausea curdled in my stomach, I walked to the dry-erase board. The felt-tip marker squeaked as I wrote “Pamela Westlake,” “Fionna Michaels,” and “Kristen Valeri” on the board. Next to each name, I drew a hyphen and wrote my corresponding notes.
“Pamela Westlake,” I said aloud. “Grad student.” I jotted it down and turned to Cait. “Anything else about her video or her character?”
“Her character is killed on campus,” Cait added.
I nodded as I wrote down the information. “Did you notice the wall behind her? One of the storage areas was sealed—the other wasn’t.”
“I didn’t notice that in her video, but I did notice it in Kristen Valeri’s,” Cait said as she flipped through her notepad.
“Fionna Michaels,” I wrote as I spoke. “Arguing with her husband. And both storage areas were sealed.”
“Strangled and then gutted,” Cait added and shook her head as if she sympathized for the victim. “Potential divorce.”
“Kristen Valeri, on her way to the mechanic—neither storage area is sealed.”
“That’s when I noticed the difference in the wall behind her,” Cait said. “Strangled with a wire. And there are the jumps in her video,” she added.
I finished writing the additional information and took a few steps away from the board. I read the notes silently to myself, over and over, until the words sounded like a séance in my mind.
“What if…?” I mumbled as I stared at the number of vacant storage areas in the videos. “Pamela had one area sealed. Fionna had two. Kristen had none.” I continued to stare at the board. “But how can that be? Did he knock the bricks down to open the areas?”
“That wouldn’t make sense,” Cait added. “It’s easier to lay brick than it is to knock it down.”
My eyes widened as Cait’s words sank in. “Kristen was reported missing July eleventh,” I recalled from memory. “Pamela, July eighteenth. And Fionna, July twenty-fourth.” I grabbed the dry-erase marker from the tray and wrote the number “1” next to Kristen’s name, the number “2” next to Pamela’s name, and the number “3” next to Fionna’s name. “We didn’t get the videos in the order they were made,” I exclaimed.
What had seemed like a minor detail at the time might have become a major turning point in the case. Noticing the differences in the warehouse walls may have also solved an important unanswered question.
When we received the first video, some officers thought it was a joke. Who would send us a video of their own crime? And where was the body? No body, no crime. But the videos may have held the answer to where the bodies were buried—we just didn’t know we were looking at them.
“The bodies,” I said. “They’re in the walls. Behind those bricks.” I looked at Cait, a horrific epiphany in my stare. “That’s why we can’t find them. They haven’t been dumped anywhere. They’re still at the original crime scene.”
“So once we find the original crime scene, we’ll find the bodies,” Cait reiterated. “So that still leaves the question—where’s the crime scene?”
Her question was like a pin to my overinflated balloon. Our small victory had just been popped. We may have known where the bodies were, but we didn’t know how to get there. I was holding a map with a giant “X” on it, but none of the roads had names. “You really know how to knock someone off their horse, don’t you?” I walked back to the chair and plopped down, my victory deflating as quickly as it ha
d filled.
“I’m sorry.” Cait refrained from ending her apology with a laugh. She knew what it felt like to take one step forward only to be pushed two steps back.
I sat in the chair and broke up the information next to each victim as I concentrated on the characters they’d played. This time, however, I read through the information in the order of their disappearances—not in the order we’d received their videos.
“In need of a mechanic,” I muttered. “Grad student. Divorcee.” I repeated the words over and over in my head. “Mechanic. Student. Divorcee.” I read them so fast, I wanted to add oh my! at the end.
Cait and I sat in silence as we both stared at the board. Mechanic. The more I said the roles, the more familiar each seemed. The last time the word “mechanic” was associated with a case, it was Lathan Collins. He was a mechanic.
As thoughts of Lathan lurked in my brain, a tight pressure rolled through my body, like a can of pop shaken by a hyperactive seven-year-old. But it wasn’t carbonation that bubbled and fizzed through my body. Disquiet coursed through my veins, ready to explode.
I moved on to the next word, to try to rid my thoughts of Lathan. Grad student. Pamela Westlake played a grad student. That, too, seemed eerily familiar, as if I had read those words a hundred times before. I let the words sink into my memory, hoping something would surface. The last time I’d dealt with a grad student was… Lathan Collins.
The memory of Lathan’s second victim, Lisa Johnson, came flooding into my mind. She was a grad student from Cleveland. Her body had been found on the hiking trails in Mirror Woods. I didn’t need her case file in front of me. I remembered everything about her—and the other victims too.
Was Lathan’s association with “mechanic” and “grad student” just a coincidence? I moved on to the last word. Divorcee. Lathan wasn’t divorced. As far as West JPD knew, he was a friendless hermit who liked to repair cars—and skin his victims.
Although Lathan wasn’t going through a divorce, Sophia Good was. Lathan’s fourth victim. She had been reported missing by her soon-to-be ex-husband. Was it also a coincidence that Fionna Michaels’ character was going through a divorce too?
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