by Elle Gray
“So, what is it you need from me?” I ask.
“I need you to find this guy,” he replies simply.
“Don’t think your guys can handle it?”
He grunts softly. “We have some very talented people. But you know the loudest voices in the room are often the least capable,” he states. “The talented people get drowned out. I think some of my guys can handle this, but it doesn’t hurt to have a little outside help. Especially help from somebody who’s got top-notch instincts and abilities… and whose only agenda is finding the truth and stopping the bad guy.”
I nod but don’t say anything for a long moment. I just let everything he’s told me soak in. I’m silently kicking myself for missing the obvious. The way Stella was displayed should have tipped me to the fact that this wasn’t a one-off murder. I should have seen it.
But I know that having access to more information can only help me catch this guy. The more I know, the more gaps will be filled. Then maybe I will be able to answer some of the questions that have been plaguing me from the start. He turns and hands me a memory stick. I reach out and take it, a small frown curling the corners of my mouth downward.
“What’s this?” I ask though I’m pretty certain I already know.
“The murder books on the first three.”
I look at the stick and nod. It’s exactly what I expected it would be. Now I find myself at a crossroads. By slipping the stick into my pocket, I’ll be signaling that I’m all in with him. Hand it back and my part in this is over.
“Please,” he whispers, steely resolve in his eyes. “I need your help, Paxton. The people of this city need your help. We have to take this guy off the street.”
It’s decision time. I bounce the memory stick up and down in my hand for a moment. Eventually, somebody is going to stumble onto the fact that I’m running a parallel investigation. TJ Lee already knows and could have already spread that around. If I go full bore on this, it won’t be long before somebody from the SPD figures it out. And once they do, things could get ugly. Do I really want to involve myself in the games and political machinations of the SPD again?
But then, as I start to hand the stick back to Gray, I hear Veronica’s voice chastising me for even thinking about walking away from this. The chance to put a serial killer away— a killer targeting young women, no less— should be more than enough motivation to pitch in. I know she’d be disappointed in me if I passed on this.
And then, in my mind’s eye, I see Stella’s face. I remember her as a little girl. I remember her laughter with Marcus as they came to my parents’ house for dinner parties and barbeques. I remember her high school graduation. I remember the horrific scene of her body. Her terrified screams in her final moments.
There is no way in hell I can walk away from this.
I drop the stick into my pocket and nod. “I’ll do what I can, Chief.”
“Thank you. That’s great news,” he says. “Just one thing. I want you to report to me, and me alone. Whatever leads or information you develop, I want you to give those to me.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’m trying to remake the department. I want the people who are good at their jobs and actually care about it getting the promotions, and justification to pass over the rest,” he tells me. “The union is a beast to deal with, so I need to be bulletproof whenever I can.”
A rueful grin touches my lips. “Still going to be about politics, huh?”
“Still?” he replies, matching my grin. “It’s always about politics.”
Seventeen
Arrington Investigations; Downtown Seattle
“Yeah, when the detectives down at SPD find out you’re running a shadow investigation— and they will— they’re going to have your head on a spike outside police HQ,” Brody says.
“I’m not sure they do that anymore,” I reply. “It may seem like the Middle Ages these days, but I’m pretty sure behaving like it is still frowned upon.”
We’re sitting in the Fishbowl the morning after my clandestine meeting with Commissioner Gray. I filled Brody in on everything, and as is completely on-brand for him, he immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario. Except that in this case, the worst-case scenario is probably the most likely one. I have no illusions about the fury I’ll be unleashing when the folks on the task force Gray is setting up find out about my involvement.
Brody chuckles. “All I’m saying is they’ll come crashing down on you like ten tons of bricks.”
“Probably closer to twenty, honestly.”
“But you’re going to do it anyway?”
I shrug. “I’m already looking into Stella’s death,” I reply. “Getting the intel on the three other victims only helps us in finding this bastard.”
Brody lets out a long breath, but I know he sees that I’m right. He’s smart enough to know having more information is a good thing and can only serve to help. It was the same way when we were hunting Alvin Perry. I slide the memory stick Gray gave me across the table to him. He picks it up and frowns but slips it into the port on his computer.
“Okay, this is going to be about as much fun as getting your wisdom teeth pulled sans Novocain, but let’s see what we’ve got,” he says.
The wall-mounted monitor comes to life and shows the four files contained on the memory stick: Stella Hughes, Dana Moore, Ashley Worthington, and Hailey Overton. Four names. Four lives snuffed out.
“Pull up their DMV photos first,” I say.
The keys on his laptop clack as he does his thing. A moment later, four pictures pop up. Immediately my eyes widen.
“They could all be sisters,” I murmur.
“Or at least, related.”
On the screen, I look at four women, who aren’t related but look incredibly similar. Three of them—Dana, Ashley, and Hailey—are all white, with dark hair and dark eyes. Even though Marcus is black, Stella’s mother was white, leaving her with lighter skin. She, too, has dark hair and eyes. They’ve all got slim, but athletic builds, and similar facial features.
“Our boy has a type,” I note. “These four were most definitely not picked at random.”
“You think?”
I give him a wry look, but chuckle, then turn back to the screen. I study their faces in silence for a couple of moments, feeling pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place. The picture is far from complete, but it’s giving me some ideas about our Jekyll and Hyde.
“What are you thinking?” Brody asks.
“I’m thinking that somebody who looks a whole lot like these girls did him wrong,” I muse. “Like, really wrong. Or at least, he thinks she did.”
“Clearly,” Brody responds. “So we’re looking for somebody with surgical experience, and has anger control issues and homicidal tendencies, with a complicated history with a dark-eyed brunette.”
I nod. “Yeah, that’s about it,” I tell him. “But there’s other pieces of this puzzle we need to put it all together.”
“So where do we start?”
“The murder books,” I tell him. “We need to go over them with a fine-toothed comb.”
“I’ll send these files over to your laptop.”
“Thanks.”
I sit back in my seat, my eyes still on the faces of the girls on the screen. And as I do, I feel the embers of anger stirring inside of me. The oxygen of these four faces, four young lives extinguished, their futures cut far too short, turns that smoldering anger into a bonfire.
“Has it ever crossed your mind that you’re being set up?” Brody asks.
“Set up?”
“Yeah. I mean… doesn’t it seem really strange that Gray would come to you out of the blue like that?” he presses. “That he’d ask you to run some off-book shadow investigation?”
It is definitely strange. There’s no question about that at all. But knowing what a viper pit of schemes, conspiracies, and political machinations the SPD is, it’s understandable that he’d want some discretion and
an investigation free of all the garbage inherent in the department.
“I get why he’s doing it,” I respond.
“To set you up as a scapegoat?”
“How do you figure?”
He shrugs. “If their investigation goes to crap, and they can’t catch the guy, they could blame it on you for getting in their way. Costing them time and resources,” he says. “I don’t know. You’re more political than I am, but surely there are a thousand different ways they can turn this around and blame the ‘rogue ex-cop’ for hampering an active investigation. I’ve seen movies like that.”
“And I’m pretty sure things like that only ever happen in the movies.”
“Those ideas have to come from somewhere. Don’t be naive,” he fires back. “Do you trust Gray?”
I shrug. “About as much as I trust anybody, I suppose.”
“Right. And you don’t trust anybody but me and Blake.”
“I do too trust people!” I protest.
“Anyway. So you don’t trust him. You know he’s a political animal. And what do political animals do? They take all the credit and deflect all of the blame,” he continues. “You nab this guy before they do? It’ll be because of Gray’s swift, outside the box thinking to bring you in. You don’t get him? It’s because you mucked up their investigation somehow.”
I see what he’s saying. I get it, and from a certain perspective, it kind of makes sense, I suppose. To get where he is, Gray definitely had to be a political animal. He’s been as successful as he has simply because he knows how to navigate those waters and avoid getting himself jammed up.
But even knowing that, I can’t see this as a setup. Gray would stand to lose more by admitting he brought me in to help. Except for the fact that he wants me to filter all information and leads through him. He’ll be the one parsing out what I’m feeding him and controlling the flow of information, ensuring it gets where he wants it to go, and somewhat insulating himself while propping up those he wants singled out for recognition.
When Gray had first explained it to me, it made sense. He wants to restructure the upper echelons of the SPD with good police. And I want to believe that Gray is a good man with the best of intentions. But the truth is, I don’t know him very well. And because I don’t, while also knowing he is a political animal, I know I can’t fully trust him. I can hope for the best, but I should probably prepare for disappointment. That sort of mindset has served me well all my life.
“I’ve never known you to be such a cynic,” I note.
“You must be rubbing off on me.”
“I’m a realist. Not a cynic,” I point out. “There’s a difference.”
“Realist, cynic, po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” he replies.
I grin and shake my head and pull my laptop to me, calling up the files Brody sent over. I want to get started reading all three of the new murder books. If I’m going to build an accurate profile, I need to absorb all of the information I can.
“Just watch your back, man,” Brody sighs. “Playing politics was never your strong suit.”
I laugh. “I can play politics just fine if I need to,” I reply. “I just choose not to, because it annoys the crap out of me.”
“God, this is gonna blow up in your face, Pax.”
I ignore him.
“Okay, let’s dig in.”
Eighteen
Evergreen Point Condominium Community; West Seattle
“Dr. Jekyll”
Swaddled in shadows in my car, I watch as Bethany bounds down the stairs from the front door of her condominium community, then takes a right on the sidewalk.
“And the next left,” I murmur to myself.
Right on cue, Bethany turns left at the corner and disappears from view. Already knowing where she’s headed, I start my car and head for the park, knowing I’ll arrive well before she does. Bethany is a creature of habit, which is good for me, but bad for her.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she jogs from eight to about nine, getting in about five miles, which is impressive. She supplements her routine with hot yoga on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I’ve gotten to know her very well. I know her route takes her from the front door of her community and through a winding, circuitous path around a local park.
Which is perfect.
I pull to a stop outside the glow of a streetlight and get out of my car. I slip my backpack on over my shoulders and look around. It’s a residential area, so I do a few quick stretches, taking in the neighborhood around me, but don’t see anybody out and about or peering out of their windows. Confident I’m not being watched, I take off at a jog, heading into the park.
I make my way quickly to the place I had already picked out. It’s a small clearing within a small copse of trees, roughly a hundred yards from a playground. I don’t know how many people frequent this park, but even on a sparsely populated day, she should be found pretty quickly.
Which is what I want. I want everybody to see her for what she is. A liar. A manipulator. A cheater. And a whore. I want them to see what I’ve done. See how I’ve thrown her out like the trash she is. I want them all to bear witness to the disgusting, immoral, and filthy women I am exposing.
But more than that, I want them to think about the choices they’re making. I want everybody to see these women and understand what it is they’ve done to end up like this. And maybe, just maybe, those women will make different decisions. Maybe they’ll think twice before they do what Moira did to me.
Not that I expect them to. But all I can do is lead them to water. I can’t make them drink. But even knowing that, I’ll continue trying to teach them all.
Of course, outside of those who see my work in person, my lessons aren’t getting very far. My message thus far has not been received by those who need it most. I blame the media. They seem so obsessed with reporting on our ridiculous celebrity culture; they aren’t doing their jobs. They aren’t reporting on my work. They aren’t getting my message out to the women of Seattle— no, the women of this world— that they need to consider their actions. That they need to stop betraying their men.
I’m going to need to do something about that.
I check my watch and settle down behind a screen of bushes. It won’t be long now. I turn my head and watch the path Bethany will be coming down, feeling that familiar churning in my belly. As I wait, my mind drifts back to the first time I killed; it seems like something from an entirely different life.
It was an accident. We were out one night. I thought things were going well. We had a nice dinner, a few drinks, and the conversation flowed, light and easy… really, we were having a wonderful time. We ended up fooling around in the back seat of my car when her phone rang. Being interrupted in the middle of things by a phone ringing is mood killer enough. But when it became clear she was talking to her husband, I lost it.
I snatched the phone out of her hand and smashed it. She freaked out and slapped me so hard; I lost a filling. After that, I only saw red. I remember reaching out and wrapping my hands around her throat. And I squeezed.
I shouted at her as I watched her turning shades of red, then purple, and finally blue. And I kept squeezing, the rage consuming me as I told her what a filthy, deceitful, manipulative whore she was the whole time.
It wasn’t long before she lay there unmoving. I remember the way her eyes looked with vivid clarity. They were wide, almost bulging. They were glassy yet unfocused. It was like she was seeing everything but nothing at the same time. She was just staring into a void.
I remember it sent a cold chill down my spine, but it also sent a charge of excitement coursing through me.
I’ve never felt more powerful or been more aroused in all my life. As I looked at her corpse, her skirt pushed up around her waist, revealing everything to me, I briefly considered finishing what we started when we climbed into the back seat to begin with. I quickly rejected the idea, though. She was dirty. Filthy. I would never have sex with somebody so horribly deceitful. S
he didn’t deserve to have me inside of her anyway. She was unworthy.
I remember it was such a strange feeling. It was like I was standing outside of the car looking in, watching myself. Moira had unlocked it, but that night was the first time I’d truly let that monster inside of me out of its cage. I let the beast— my own Mr. Jekyll— take control of my body. It had punished her like she deserved.
Although I never meant to let it get that far, I was glad for what it became. She got what she deserved, and I felt a previously unimaginable power flowing through me. It gave me a confidence I’d never known before. For the first time, I was on a path to fulfilling my true potential. To becoming the man I was always meant to be.
That was the night I realized what I am. That I’m actually two men, both of them capable of achieving greatness: one dedicated to saving lives, and one dedicated to taking them. I’m not just some run of the mill murderer. I’d never stoop so low or be so common as to take a life for no reason other than the thrill of it, though I won’t deny there are plenty of thrills to be had. No, I kill for a purpose, not for the pleasure of it. I take life to teach a very valuable lesson.
In time, the world will see what it is I am showing them. And maybe then, the false women, the whores who like to lie and deceive, who use men for their own ends and purposes will wake up and give us the respect we deserve. Because at the heart of things, that is my true mission— teach men to seize their own power and teach women to be faithful and respectful. The world would be such a better place if those things were as common as what I’m trying to eradicate.
As I crouch behind the bushes, a soft breeze rustling the leaves and branches around me, I hear her coming. I hear the soft slap-slap-slap of her running shoes on the pavement. My stomach tightens, and I feel the gentle flutter of butterfly wings battering my insides. The smile curls my lips upward, and the rush of adrenaline and excitement washes through me.
I pull my mottled black and gray balaclava down, so only my eyes are visible, and slip on a pair of black nitrile gloves. With slow, measured movements, I peer over the top of the bushes. Bethany is jogging straight toward me, her earbuds in, lost in her music.