Lost Girls: A gripping thriller that will have you hooked (Ben Forrester FBI Thrillers Book 1)

by Jon Mills

  Crime scene investigation and guys from Bangor FBI were having a bit of a spat over the way things were being handled. Ben didn’t want to get caught up in it, instead he decided to go and have a few words with Douglas Adams. Dakota had already warned him that the young park ranger wasn’t exactly all there. He was a little slow and because of that people tended to walk over the kid.

  Ben cast a glance back at officers who were now in thick yellow raincoats scouring the woods for more evidence. He took out his phone and used the video on it to capture what he could of the scene. He wanted something to look back on later that evening. He moved three hundred and sixty degrees until he had what he needed.

  He had to find the connection. There was always a reason why they took them. For Henri Bruns it was the use of their bodies as living sculptures. It was a sick fantasy, but he truly believed he was giving back to the world. Instead of working with those who wanted to donate their body for medical purposes, he murdered people, stripped them of their flesh, and began his sick game of turning them into human sculptures through plastination. It was macabre but then again he was disturbing.

  What was really strange about this murder site was no birds or animals could be heard. It was almost as if they sensed death and went around it. Or perhaps it was the rumble of thunder in the distance as a storm approached. They would have to work fast if they didn’t want to lose any vital evidence.

  “Speed it up, folks,” Ben said nervously, looking up at a gray sky. He approached Douglas with Dakota.

  “Dougy, this is Benjamin Forrester, he has a few questions for you.”

  His eyes sunk back in his skull and he had deep black circles beneath them. He also spoke with a slight stutter.

  “How can I help?”

  “You’ve called in the deaths of the last two women. I have to ask myself — why you and not one of the other rangers? I mean there are two hundred and fifty of you in the summer period. It strikes me as a little odd.”

  He shrugged and got this faraway look in his eyes as if he was zoning out.

  Dakota snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Dougy.”

  “What?”

  “Answer the man.”

  “I don’t know. I work a lot of shifts.”

  “But some of the areas that the women were found in were off-limits to the public because of nesting. Why would you be up in those areas?”

  Again he shrugged. Ben knew that trying to extract any information from him wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Come, walk with me,” Ben said to him. He motioned to Dakota that he wanted to go alone. They walked a short distance away.

  “How long have you been doing this, Dougy?” Ben asked.

  “Five years.”

  “You like it?”

  “Oh yeah, I get to come out here and see all the birds and animals, I love it.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend, Dougy?”

  He hesitated to reply to that so Ben continued.

  “Doesn’t matter. Where do you live?”

  He pointed to the west.

  “Tremont?”

  He didn’t reply again. On Mount Desert Island there were four towns, Eden, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont. Each of those areas had smaller villages. Ben continued to give him a nudge in a direction.

  “Which one?”

  “In a cabin. I live in one of the cabins near Echo Lake.”

  They passed by a group of officers, Danvers looked over and scowled. Two game warden officers were having a cigarette close to the road. One of them was Ted Bishop.

  “You live alone?”

  “Yeah,” Douglas replied.

  “What do you like to do when you’re not working? Got any hobbies?”

  As they continued walking closer to the road, Douglas began to get all twitchy and nervous, looking like he couldn’t figure out where Ben was leading him. A few cars drove by and Douglas slowed his pace. Ben motioned him on using the back of his hand on the small of his back.

  “I don’t have any. I work.”

  “Come on. You’re telling me you live out in this beautiful area and all you do is work?”

  He ummed and arghed. Ben glanced around as he continued walking. His eyes scanning the groups of people who were behind the police tape as well as those who were helping. Often curiosity would get the better of a serial killer. It was common to find them at the crime scene watching from a distance. They loved to return and see who was working the case. Next to taking their victims, the thrill of being within a few feet of investigators turned them on.

  Ben thought of the many high-profile criminals he had visited behind bars. He went in to understand how they thought. Why they did what they had. He learned more in those years interviewing them than he ever did at the academy or on the job. It was the reason why the FBI pulled him in on some of the toughest cases. He had a way of getting underneath the skin of killers, and for the longest time it had worked until Henri. He was a completely different breed of killer. He had an understanding of psychology and used it to taunt the police.

  “I hunt.”

  Two words but it was the beginning.

  “What do you hunt?”

  “Whitetail bucks, moose, and bear.”

  “But you can’t do that in Acadia, right? Hunting and trapping are prohibited. So where do you go?”

  “Vassalboro.”

  “Two hours’ drive. That’s quite a distance.”

  “Not really. It’s quite scenic.”

  Ben clasped his hands behind his back and nodded slowly. A few more trucks and cars passed them until they reached the edge of the road.

  “You like the hunt or the kill?”

  “Bringing them home.”

  Ben nodded. “I bet you have quite a collection.”

  “Yeah…” he trailed off.

  “Maybe I can come out and take a look.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t own the place.”

  He could see Douglas’s hands shaking slightly out the corner of his eye. Earlier, Dakota had told him that Douglas had nearly lost his job for taking medication and being found asleep behind the wheel. Another time a report had come in about him spying on a group of teens bathing. He’d denied it of course but it was enough to consider him a likely suspect.

  “Hey Dougy,” Ted Bishop called out to him. “Danvers wants a word with you.”

  “I gotta go.”

  “Good talking with you, Dougy. We’ll chat again.”

  Ben watched him stroll back. Ted met him and cast a glance over his shoulder at Ben. Dakota walked over.

  “So any luck with the birdman of Alcatraz?”

  He shook his head. “What’s the deal between Dougy and Ted Bishop?”

  “Ah, he’s like Ted’s shadow. He wanted to follow in his footsteps but didn’t get hired by the Maine Warden Service.”

  “Where’s Ted live?”

  “Locally. In town. Eden.”

  “Any word from officers on interviews done with other park rangers?”

  “Nothing so far. You really think it’s a park ranger?”

  “Two women disappear every summer. There are eighty park rangers, that number swells to two hundred and fifty in the summer. What happens to the other one hundred and seventy after the summer?”

  “It’s usually part-time work or they return to other national parks in the area. They go where the need is.”

  “So it’s possible that someone could do the killings then leave again. Might explain why they only occur in the summer.”

  “Maybe. Then again the winters here are brutal. No one is going to want to be in those woods in the winter.”

  “Perhaps that’s why he keeps a few, to tide him over until the following summer. I want the addresses of both Douglas and Ted.”

  “Ben, you’re going to need a warrant if you want to search their residence.”

  “Then let’s make it happen.”

  A light rain began to fall. Within an hour it had turned into a
heavy downpour. What little hope they had of retaining evidence would likely be washed away. That was the challenge of dealing with cases on the coast. In a moment’s notice the weather could change and you could be dealing with gale force winds coming off the North Atlantic Ocean, and rain that soaked you to the bone. Every hour that passed ate away at Ben’s insides.

  When his phone rang again Ben was seeking shelter under a tree with another group of officers. The body had been taken to the medical examiner’s office. They would soon have a clearer idea of how she died. He jabbed accept on the phone call. The sound of Henri’s voice only chewed him up more.

  “Found another, haven’t you, Ben?”

  Ben clenched his jaw. “What do you want?”

  “Let’s talk.”

  Chapter 26

  He studied Dr. Benjamin Forrester from a distance. He’d never had an FBI agent on his tail before. The police sure, but they were chumps and barely capable of doing their own job. But he’d read about Forrester. The man who profiled serial killers and caught the best of them and now he was hunting him.

  It was amusing to watch them chase their tails as they tried to join the dots and piece together how he operated. There was something sexually arousing about it all. Outwitting, outsmarting, and staying one step ahead of them gave him a great deal of pleasure.

  He knew all about Forrester. His background, his loss, and his obsession with catching Skinner. Now there was a killer who had earned his respect. If anyone had proven they were capable of eluding the cops, it was him.

  Oh, how he missed seeing the reports on the news about his latest victim, or the case they had been building.

  He’d read through Forrester’s book. Why did he write it? He must have thought he was so smart revealing how he had outwitted those he caught, but had he realized he had revealed how to avoid being detected?

  That’s why this worked so well.

  Forrester’s book was one among many books he had read. Long before he started taking women he had studied how Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, the Green River Killer, and many others had been caught. It always came down to a few mistakes. Letting a victim escape, killing prostitutes, sticking to one method of taking them. They were all idiots. But not him. He was going to follow in the footsteps of Skinner and remain uncaught.

  Behind the yellow tape he watched as Ben spoke on the phone. He looked distraught, a mere shell of a man that was clinging to past successes. He must have thought he was a big shot telling others what to do when he had no clue. He wasn’t close to catching him. His questions were leading nowhere except to the death of his own daughter.

  Chloe, she was a sweet one. He couldn’t see a resemblance of her in Forrester’s face. She must have looked more like her mother. He chuckled to himself thinking about how Skinner had taken the life of Forrester’s wife and son. You play with the bull you get the horns.

  Skinner was a master at it. He had set the bar high, but it was one that he was more than prepared to meet. Of course this meant having his own reasons for killing, his own unique style. Something that would set him apart from the others and make him go down in history as one of the best, or in their minds, worst serial killers that Maine had seen.

  He was tempted to go up and speak to him, ask him for his autograph. He played it out in his mind. “Dr. Forrester, could I get an autograph?” he would mumble as he handed him his book. “Can you make it out to Chloe, my mother?” Oh to peer into his eyes as he heard his daughter’s name.

  Keeping his eyes fixed on him, he walked parallel to him as Forrester went over to that bitch Dakota. Now there was a woman he had considered taking. How easy it would be. He’d sat many a night outside her home watching her. A quick shot from the Taser and she wouldn’t be able to go for her gun. What a rush that would be!

  His eyes surveyed the numerous police and FBI milling around with their hands in their pockets. That’s it, keep it up, you idiots. He couldn’t believe people paid these imbeciles to catch someone of his artistic talent. For all their studying and droning on about how they had caught serial killers, they still weren’t even close to nabbing him. Maybe he would send them a note. Give them a little teaser of what was about to come. Help them. Help? Did he really want to help them catch him?

  But that was it. The thrill wasn’t in taking the women or keeping them for his own purposes, neither was it the excitement of getting away with it. He’d thought long and hard about this. It was the exhilaration of nearly getting caught. Every time they had got close, he felt the rush.

  So go ahead, try to catch me. You won’t!

  Chapter 27

  Chloe’s hands and feet were finally free. She blinked hard coming out of the coma-like state. What was he using? She was so groggy and barely able to keep her eyes open. But she had to, she had to get out of here.

  There’d only ever been one time she recalled being this badly drugged, and that was a year ago when she had some alcohol and completely forgot that she’d taken medication earlier that day. It felt like a weight crushing down on her. The fear of falling asleep and never waking up kept her blinking hard. She rolled off the bed onto the hard floor completely naked. He hadn’t left anything on her. Where were her clothes?

  She reached for the glass of water on the side table. Her vision doubled as her hand reached and then knocked it over. Water trickled over the edge. She patted it with her hands and brought it to her face, allowing the cold and wet to shock her multiple times. She needed to stay awake.

  Her eyes fell on a mound beneath the bed. What was that? She reached under, raking the granite stone with her fingers until she caught hold of material. It was a pair of jeans. She hadn’t worn jeans, had she? Her memory was sketchy. Her eyes opened and shut as whatever he had given her tried to force her back into a slumber.

  Her vision doubled then corrected itself.

  She fell hard against the bed trying to get back into the jeans. Unable, she tossed them to one side and stumbled around the room like a penned animal. It wasn’t a room but a torture chamber with chains that hung loosely at the far side. Below that, a pool of dry blood. This was worse than any prison. Who had been in here before? One of the women they had found dead?

  The granite was harsh and cold against her feet. She staggered over to the metal door and fell against it before tugging at the handle. To her surprise it opened. She tried to recall what had happened, but the drugs fragmented her mind. Had he forgotten to lock it? Was he still here? How much time had passed since she last woke up? Peering out of the cell she found the outside to look even more frightening. It was dark and dingy. A musty smell stung her nostrils.

  Were these mining tunnels?

  Wherever she was it wasn’t a place that had been used in a long time. Small dim lights flickered above her. The strained sound of sobbing could be heard throughout. Music? Like a symphony orchestra it was low and barely audible.

  She rubbed her side, which throbbed after falling against the bed. A cool wind howled and nipped at her skin. All she could see were multiple doors to other rooms. All of them were the same as hers. A thick, heavy metal with bolts on the outside.

  She moved along the tunnel, keeping her back pushed against it. There was no way of knowing where he was or what he would do if he caught her. She palmed her head, trying to push back the pain of a headache.

  Where was she? Could this be a basement? No, it couldn’t be, there was water seeping down the stone.

  She kept moving towards a glimmer of light farther down the tunnel. She desperately wanted to run but without any shoes, not knowing where she was, and feeling groggy, it was too dangerous. Suddenly she gripped the stone wall and vomited. It came out hard. The stomach acid burned her throat.

  The closer she got to the room with the light, the more fearful she became. Rounding the corner, she found herself in a small room with a table and chair. Her captor wasn’t there but masks were. He was wearing a mask. There were two on the side of the table, old and wrinkly, makeup to the left of t
hat, and animal heads all over the walls. I’ve got to find something, anything to defend myself, she thought. Her vision doubled again and her head dropped. Stay awake. She reached out for the table to steady her. Her hands groped for anything that could be used as a weapon. On the side was a pair of scissors. Small, like the kind that was used to cut hair. She snatched them up and staggered backwards. Her body fell hard against a wooden door. The door swung open and she landed flat on her ass. Twisting around, she peered into the darkness.

  “Hello?” she muttered, seeing what she thought were people. Darkness crept in at the sides of her eyes. No, no, I must stay awake, she told herself.

  Pushing up on her elbows, then her palms, she staggered to her feet and leaned against the wall. It was wet and reeked of a smell so putrid it made her want to be sick again. She ran her hand up the stone looking for a light switch, then back and forth in front of her in the darkness until she caught hold of a string. As soon as she yanked it, she thought she was in hell.

  All around her were human bodies in various stages of decomposition. Oh my god. Her eyes fixed on the back of one of them. The skin was brown and haggard as if it had aged and dried up. From the neck down to the butt cheeks the flesh had been slashed and sewn together. Pieces of stuffing spilled out the seam. In some of them was wood shavings, in others a precast urethane mold. It was human taxidermy. Gasping for air and stumbling backwards she fell against one, its stiff hand touched her skin. Collapsing, two of the bodies toppled onto her. Their dead eyes peered into hers. It was a grisly sight that she wasn’t prepared for. You could never be prepared for this. She fought her way out from underneath the mutilated corpses. There had to have been at least thirty bodies, most didn’t even resemble humans anymore. The skin had changed. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the horror from her mind.

  As she tried to make her way back to the door, the full effect of whatever he had given her was overwhelming. She could barely stay awake, let alone stand.