by Leslie Wolfe
She smiled and waved, then danced a few moments in place, on the rhythm of another favorite song of hers. She clinked glasses and chatted and mingled, more and more aware of the tiredness in her bones, dreaming of the moment she’d kick her shoes off and lay on the bed by her husband’s side. She grinned at a wicked thought. Yeah, it felt good to know she was the one to take that sexy guy upstairs, when so many women here were drooling all over themselves whenever he looked their way. Get lost, bitches! This hunk’s mine, all mine.
Not a moment too soon, they were finally gone, or almost, as the last of them said their goodbyes and waited for their cars to be retrieved by the valet. She walked slowly to the DJ’s station and gestured with her long, thin fingers, run across her throat, to cut the music volume. He obliged in some measure, but she repeated the gesture and he cut it to normal listening levels. The party was over.
She kicked off her shoes, glad to feel the cold marble under her feet, and trotted to the caterer’s station, waving her empty glass. One of the caterers, a broad-shouldered man wearing a black name tag pinned on the lapel of his white jacket, rushed to open a fresh bottle of Dom.
Marla looked around for Adam, but he was near the front gate, saying goodbye to the film crew, and she knew from experience that could take a while. Many times, what started as casual conversation with those guys ended in a full-blown strategy session for the script and release of the next music video.
She heard the champagne bottle pop and that caught her attention. She turned to look at the caterers, two of them now that the girl who’d been serving drinks all night was also behind that counter. She smiled awkwardly as the girl offered her the chilled glass. She still looked sharp in her starched uniform; after an entire evening of making her way among people while serving food and drinks, not a single stain soiled her white jacket. Impressive.
“Um, Jeff, Angie, thank you both for tonight, you were awesome,” she said, reading the names written on their tags. “But you’re not going to believe this,” Marla added, blushing a little while she pushed the glass away. “I know Dom’s supposed to be the best, and all that, but my favorite is that cheap, Italian champagne, Martini Asti.”
Jeff looked at her with undisguised surprise. “I don’t believe we—”
“You know the one I’m talking about, right?” Marla continued. “They carry it everywhere, even at Walmart.”
The two caterers exchanged a quick glance, then Jeff nodded once, and Angie took off, car keys jiggling in her hand.
“It will only take a minute or two, ma’am,” Jeff said. “May I offer you something else while you wait?”
She inspected the counter with critical eyes, then she glanced at the devastated buffet. Not much was left.
“Would you happen to have any more of those tiny, little pastries? I know I’m not supposed to touch those, carbs and everything, but I deserve one of those.”
Jeff produced promptly a small plate with several small pastries arranged in a half-circle on a paper napkin.
“Or six,” she said giggling, taking a pastry and savoring it with her eyes half closed. “This stuff is to die for, Jeff.”
The caterer smiled, while sizing her up. His eyes lingered on her body a little longer than she would’ve wanted, but she was used to that. She wasn’t getting the creep vibe from him, so she relaxed a little. What was not to like about that tight, little body of hers?
“If I may ask, ma’am,” Jeff said, “how does it feel to have people all over you like that?”
“You mean, like this?” she asked, gesturing to the now empty yard, littered with glasses and plates that the cleaning crew was rushing to collect.
“Yes, ma’am, precisely. How does it feel to be famous?”
She looked at him intently, but he held her gaze while maintaining a polite smile.
“It’s cool, I guess. There are times when I wish no one knew me, or both of us, for that matter. Everywhere we go people are like, ‘Wow, do you know who that is?’ Then they rush to us, tug at our clothes, holler after us, take pictures. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures,” she laughed with a tinge of bitterness in her voice.
“I can only imagine how tough it can be, ma’am. I was never famous in any way, and I’ll probably never be.”
“Trust me, fame is overrated,” Marla replied, then took the last pastry from her plate and chewed it for a long moment, savoring its taste. It would probably be months before she dared indulge in another.
She looked for Adam again, still leaning against the counter at the caterer’s station, and saw he was chatting away with the film crew. Yeah… that was going to take a while.
Then Marla heard another champagne bottle pop.
“Here you go, ma’am,” Jeff said, and she turned to look at him just when he was pushing a new glass of champagne her way. The glass was well-frosted, and Angie smiled neatly, seeming a little out of breath. The poor girl must’ve run all the way to get that bottle so quickly.
“If you could have it differently, ma’am,” Jeff asked, “would you give up all the attention?”
She frowned a little, irritated by the caterer’s insistence. She understood a couple of questions, okay, but what the hell.
“Thank you both for this,” she said, gesturing with the glass. Then she reached over the counter and grabbed the bottle of Martini Asti. “You were supercool. I’ll make sure you’re happy with tonight’s gratuity.”
Then she turned away before they could thank her and walked to the far end of the pool, where the hammocks were lined up. She put the bottle carefully on a small wicker table and let herself fall onto the mesh of knotted rope. What a feeling… yeah. She took another sip of champagne and felt it travel to her weary bones, relaxing every muscle fiber and relieving all her tension.
“Come with me,” Adam said, startling her from her sleep a few moments later. She’d dozed off, glass empty in her hand. The cleaning crew had finished and gone, and the caterers were nowhere to be seen.
“Um, where?” she asked, struggling to keep her eyes open. She felt dizzy, confused.
“Los Angeles, for the Capitol Records meeting,” he said, seeming a little saddened that she’d forgotten. “The jet’s ready.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, it completely slipped my mind. You’re leaving now? It’s Memorial Day tomorrow; don’t those people take time off?”
“Entertainment never takes time off. I’m hot as coals right now, babe; I’m it. They want me in that office first thing tomorrow. I get new terms, new contract, we’re rocking this deal. Come with me,” he said, making small dance moves with his arms, excited like a teenager.
“I’m dead tired,” she replied, aware she was mumbling, slurring her words, despite the effort she was putting into speaking. “Why don’t you stay…”
“I can’t,” he replied, then stood, ready to leave. He leaned over her and kissed her lips once again. “Let me get you inside.”
“Uh-uh, just go,” she mumbled, already falling asleep again. “I’ll be fine.”
45
Waiting Game
The hours rushed by in a frenzy of searches and interviews. They’d brought in several people whose names were provided by Kurt Briggs, including Deanna’s estranged father, Rod Harper. Based on the background information Fradella had dug up, he’d been behaving strangely as of late, moving large amounts of money between accounts, liquidating assets, not leaving the house much. Tess cringed at the thought that a father could kill his daughter, and the man didn’t fit the profile one iota, but she interviewed him nevertheless. A wasted hour later, she’d uncovered the man was dying of cancer and keeping things quiet while putting his affairs in order, unwilling to put his family through hell.
When she returned to the conference room, the air was stale to the point of being nauseating; she left the door open and asked a uniformed cop to crank up the AC, to get some fresh air flowing. Fradella joined her moments later, after finishing his interview with Deanna’s former agent, another dead
end.
Tess looked at the dark TV screen and reluctantly turned on her laptop, then hooked it up. She dreaded what she was about to see, yet headed there implacably, as if hypnotized by the eyes of a snake. There was no other choice; if she was ever going to catch the Taker of Lives, she had to learn to live in his world, understand him better than he understood himself, even if her skin crawled at the thought of that.
Why was the Taker so different than all the other unsubs she’d understood and caught? Her gut was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t read the information clearly. It was as if she were still missing a critical piece of information, something that was right in front of her, only she couldn’t see it. There was something in the organization, the coolheadedness of this killer that made him stand out from the rest of her contributions to Florida’s death-row inmate collection. The level of planning he’d demonstrated, the way he’d orchestrated his shows, and the reason, as far she could understand it, for his actions, sent shivers down her spine.
Even a serial killer like The Family Man, the murderer of families credited with over 100 deaths, had some hint of an excuse for his actions. He’d struggled as a young boy, was severely and repeatedly abused by his parents. It was a big stretch, yet Tess could push herself to almost understand his motives. But the Taker? Hell, no. He seemed to be jealous of other people’s fame, their success. In what demented world did that make any sense?
But she knew the answer already; it was part of the profile she had already released. The world of a malignant narcissist, injured in his ego beyond the point where he could control his urge for deathly revenge. That was the nature of the animal dubbed the Taker of Lives.
The laptop chimed as it powered up, and she opened a browser window and found the Taker’s site. She expected it to be idle, considering Donovan hadn’t called yet, but it wasn’t.
Slack-jawed, she approached the screen and her hand went to her mouth without her realizing it. The site announced in bold letters, “Per FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett’s personal request, today we transmit live! You, my dear fans, get to choose the weapon. I’ll only be the hand that wields it. Ten million votes to start streaming.”
Then three buttons with vote counts were displayed underneath. One showed the pictogram of a rope and had collected over four million votes. The second one showed a handgun and had amassed almost nine million votes. The third one showed a knife and had already reached twelve million votes.
She dialed Donovan without taking her eyes off the screen, using her phone’s voice command to call the number.
He picked up after a few rings, in a sleep-loaded voice. “Yeah?”
“What the hell, Donovan,” she said, but her urge to scold him vanished, as she realized he’d been at it for more than forty-eight hours without a break. She, too, had dozed off earlier that morning, when she lost the fight to keep her eyelids open, and Doc Rizza’s leather couch happened to be nearby, not to mention his medical advice, coupled with some very direct threats.
“Don’t tell me,” he mumbled, “damn son of a bitch is at it again.”
She heard him type, then mumbled again.
“Tell me you’ve got something,” she said. “It’s almost eleven; we still have time to stop him, if your software’s giving us targets.”
“If he’s telling the truth,” Fradella chimed in.
“Yeah, it’s funny how our fierce Agent Winnett always believes this schmuck when he says his shows are live. You fall for it every time, don’t you, Winnett?”
She groaned in frustration but realized there was little she could say in her defense. Yes, she chose to believe the Taker every time, because she couldn’t bring herself to accept she had no control whatsoever and no hope to save those girls. That meant she’d already lost and the Taker of Lives had already won, and he could keep on killing for as long as he damn well pleased.
“Where are we with that software?” she asked, instead of saying what she was going to say in reaction to his comment.
“We have a working model,” Fradella announced excitedly. “Well, Donovan has,” he quickly added apologetically, “I was only manual backup for on-the-spot verifications.”
“Walk me through it,” she requested, her voice much harsher than she’d wanted. “Please,” she added.
“Simply put, we’ve built a system of points,” Donovan said, and Tess chuckled softly. Nothing that brainiac ever did was simple.
“For each follower, regardless of social media platform, the woman gets one point,” Fradella explained. “No more elimination of duplicates; just simple arithmetic.”
“Then why don’t we have results yet?” Tess asked, trying and failing to hide her impatience. She understood what she was asking for wasn’t easy.
Donovan scoffed. “Seriously? Because there are two-point-five million Caucasian women in Florida between the ages of sixteen and thirty years old, that’s why. Because we had to restart the engine once we removed the blonde hair filter, and that added almost two million people, and because we couldn’t get a single, damn social media platform to cooperate and give us database downloads with the numbers we’re looking for; not a single one. All of them have lawyers and promised they’d fight our court orders to the full extent of the law.”
“They wouldn’t share the info? It’s public, it’s displayed in plain view on those profiles,” Tess reacted. “Did you tell them what it’s for?”
“No, ’cause I’m an idiot who can’t think for himself,” he reacted. “Of course, I did,” he added, a moment later, probably after taking a sip of fruit water. “They’re afraid of being perceived as cooperating with law enforcement at the cost of their users’ data privacy. I’ve built a piece of software that searches and screen-scrapes the information. Only it’s not easy for it to run, and it takes a while.”
“How sure are we this is it?” Tess asked, shooting a worried glance at the digital clock displayed on the screen. Time was running out.
“All simulations returned the right girls, the existing victims in the right order.”
“How far along has it processed, your miracle software? How many of the two-point-five million women?”
“About seventy percent.”
She paced the room, thinking what they could do instead of waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the killer to stab the next victim to death. The knife was leading in the vote collection race by several million votes.
Why stab? The majority of people preferred guns for killing; more than fifty percent did, and that included serial killers. All statistics agreed. Why the discrepancy then?
Her eyes stared at the gun pictogram, then at the knife, then back. What was different, in terms of homicidal reward? Stabbing was a metaphor for sexual assault; many times, repeated stabbing in the abdominal area was the preferred MO for impotent lust killers. For killers who couldn’t perform the rape because, she thought, because they weren’t there in person. Yes, it had to be. All those millions of voters were murderers by proxy, most of them lust-driven, their homicidal urges carefully nurtured and fueled by the Taker of Lives, who took them with him in his journey of self-discovery, of becoming cold-blooded murderer themselves.
The Taker of Lives was giving millions of people a taste of what it meant to kill.
She shuddered, feeling ice shards traveling though her veins.
“I know you can’t trace these people, D, but can you at least tell how many are American?”
“Why?” Fradella asked, popping his head up from behind his laptop screen.
“Because some of these people will become addicted to the thrill of killing. After the Taker is done with his charade, they’ll come out to hunt on their own.”
“I can’t estimate that,” Donovan said after a few moments, “because almost all the users are browsing via—”
“Yeah, you told me, encrypted browsing and all that.”
“But there’s the occasional unencrypted IP I can see, and one of those fools is
right there with you, in your precinct.”
46
Live
Tess turned toward Fradella, fuming with rage. How could a cop, one of the good guys, engage with the Taker of Lives and endorse his action with a vote? “Get IT in here, discreetly.”
A moment later, a middle-aged guy with a potbelly and scruffy jeans walked through the door. Fradella closed the door behind him and pointed toward a chair. The man sat, but an expression of wariness lingered on his face. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“Please keep your voice down,” Tess asked, throwing a concerned glance at the glass wall separating them from the squad room. “Do you have a list of all users in this building and their IPs?”
“Uh-huh,” he replied, shooting her an inquisitive look from underneath a furrowed brow.
“Trace this one, please: 24.238.3.142,” Fradella said, reading the numbers off a bright yellow sticky note. “Do you know who that is?”
“I’ll find out,” he replied with a groan, as if searching a database was a terrible effort. He typed something on his iPad and then replied, shooting them each a disgusted look. “Officer Delacruz.”
“Where does he sit?” Tess asked, itching to go after Delacruz.
“Over there,” Fradella pointed out a man in his late twenties. “The one with the goatee.”
“Oh, I know him,” Tess replied. “I remember him from the profile delivery. Get his ass in here, now.”
Fradella hesitated a little, but then brought Delacruz into the conference room, holding him by his arm, like a perp.