Like Chase had said, if they all stuck to their story, then there was nothing that they could do.
“My colleagues and I have decided that we are going to close this case. Craig Sloan murdered seven people, and we have no doubt that without your intervention he would have continued to kill. Although your actions were… how can I put this… unorthodox, they do not, in our opinion, constitute either a criminal or negligent act on your part.”
Beckett felt a massive weight roll off his shoulders, and he took a deep breath for the first time in what seemed like forever.
Chase was right… just stick to the script.
“However, that being said, we recommend that you take some time off, Dr. Campbell. You have been through an incredibly emotional and taxing ordeal, and we believe that it’s in everyone’s best interest for you to spend several weeks away from the NYPD, NYU, and any other related medical matters. Although we do not wish to tarnish your record by making this a formal request, I strongly suggest that you take our advice and heed our recommendation.”
Roger Albright adjusted his glasses before continuing. “Speaking plainly, Beckett, I think it’s time you took a vacation. A nice, long vacation in the sun. Get your mind off things, come back refreshed.”
Beckett glanced around nervously, not quite believing that this was finally over.
“Am I free to go?”
“You are indeed free to leave.”
Beckett shot to his feet, holding his hands out to his sides.
“Fuckin’ A. Then I’m out of here.”
He was halfway to the door, when Roger’s voice made him turn back.
“Off the record, Dr. Campbell, were you aware that Craig Sloan’s pistol was empty when he climbed from the trunk?”
In his mind, Beckett pictured the five holes in the trunk, and the one that had destroyed the lock.
“I had no idea,” he lied, and then left the room.
~
Chase was standing in the hallway, chewing her lip when Beckett skipped out of the briefing room. For a split-second he considered messing with her, telling her that he was going to prison, but seeing the concern on her face, he decided against it.
“They said I can go,” he said, eyes downcast.
Chase lunged at him and wrapped her arms around his back and shoulders.
“I told you everything would work out,” she whispered in his ear. “I told you.”
Beckett nodded and gently peeled her off him.
“What are you going to do now?” Chase asked when they were separated.
Beckett shrugged.
“Roger and his goons suggested I take a vacation, so I might just do that.”
Chase smirked.
“You lying on a beach? I don’t see it.”
“Me neither, but I guess this is the new me.”
He had meant the comment to be a joke, but there was something unintentionally profound about the comment that made him uncomfortable.
“Anywhere in particular?”
“I have a friend with connections to a very exclusive island in the Virgin Gorda—St. Thomas area. He’s always asking me to come visit, so I think it’s about time to take him up on that offer.”
Chase’s smile grew.
“Excellent. I—”
Her phone buzzed and she took it off her hip and stared at the call display.
The smile slid off her face.
“I’ve got to take this,” she said, her eyes still locked on the phone.
“Chase?” Beckett said softly.
“Yeah?”
Beckett opened his mouth to speak, but sensing that she was preoccupied, instead of the words he had initially intended, he simply said, “Thank you.”
Chase offered him a tired smile.
“Take a break, Beckett. You’ll be fine.”
With that, Chase answered her phone and turned, making her way slowly down the hallway as she barked into the mouthpiece.
Beckett watched her go.
Chase was wrong, of course; he wouldn’t be fine. In fact, he doubted he would ever be fine again. After all, Craig Sloan had changed him.
Beckett had said thank you, but what he really wanted to say was, Craig got what he deserved. I killed him because he was going to kill again. He wasn’t going to just hang it up after he completed the pathology exam—the test was only the beginning. I stopped him the only way I knew how: by killing him, by smashing his head in with the rock until it was covered in his brains and blood and bits of skull. And Chase? I liked it.
It was this last part that scared Beckett most of all.
I liked it, Chase, and I’m afraid that I’ll do it again some day.
CHAPTER 5
Drake returned to Triple D feeling as if he had just run a marathon.
Not that he had any experience with marathons.
“Fuck I’m tired,” he muttered to himself as he pulled the front door wide. He stomped his feet on the mat, a strange, beige thing with the words ‘Jump to Conclusions’ on it that Screech had purchased, then shook the cold from his body like a dog drying its fur.
“Hey, Beethoven, you alright over there?” a voice asked from the darkness.
Drake peered into the dim office, trying to locate the owner of the voice. When he didn’t immediately see anyone, he flicked on the lights
Nothing happened.
“Screech? That you?”
The man leaned out from behind a computer monitor, allowing some of the glow to illuminate his face. Screech had grown his hair out, particularly on the sides where it used to be shaved, and he had gotten rid of the peach-fuzz goatee. Drake couldn’t decide if his partner looked older or younger with these changes… just different.
Almost mature, partway to being an adult.
“Who’d you think?”
Drake ignored the question and turned his gaze skyward.
“What’s wrong with the lights? And why is your computer still working if the power’s out?”
Screech’s face moved back to the screen and out of view.
“It’s a laptop, Gramps. And the lights are out because our office is one step up from a trap house.”
Drake frowned and took off his coat, placing it on the coat hanger beside the door.
“Or maybe you forgot to pay the lighting company,” he grumbled.
But he knew that Screech was speaking the truth. In fact, so many of the frosted letters on the door had fallen off that instead of reading Triple D Investigations, it now read: ri p e n est ga s.
Ripe nest gas.
He was sure that Screech might have had something to do with the exact wording, but that didn’t change the fact that the place was old, dirty, and smelled like a high school locker room.
And yet Drake was reluctant to move. After Screech had rescued Mrs. Armatridge from… well, herself, their financial issues had suddenly become an issue of the past. But he liked it here. It was like home. Screech could call it a trap house, could call it whatever he wanted, but to Drake it was an old, worn recliner.
And he liked it that way.
“It’ll come back on in a minute or two,” Screech said absently. “It’s been doing this all day. Speaking of which, I’ve been holding down the fort while you’ve been…?”
Drake started toward his office, when the lights flickered then came on.
He turned his gaze upward, squinted and then nodded.
“And they’re back.”
As he passed Screech, the man swiveled in his chair, a worn pen deep in the corner of his mouth.
“Hey? Where you been?”
“Out running errands,” Drake replied, trying to end the conversation.
Screech grunted and turned back to his computer.
Drake wasn’t sure how much Screech had figured out about his new “arrangement” with Ken Smith, but if his partner had proven anything with the Craig Sloan case, it was that he was more than just resourceful; Screech was smart and had a surprising knack for detective work.
Which Drake would never tell him, of course.
“Anything come in that isn’t Mrs. Armatridge related?”
Screech swirled around on his chair and hammered a few keys.
“Yeah; this one guy lost his boat. Wants to know if we can help him find it.”
Drake chuckled and continued toward his office.
“No, I’m serious. Buddy lost his boat, needs our help… should we take the case?”
Drake turned and was surprised to see Screech staring back, no hint of a smile on his face.
Apparently, he was serious.
“Really? How the hell do you lose a boat?”
“Here, check it out.”
Drake walked over to Screech’s computer and crouched down to get a better look at the screen.
“A boat? That’s not a boat, Screech. That’s a yacht.”
Screech shrugged.
“Whatever. You say potahto I say patayta. Forty-feet long, looks like. There was a name here somewhere… ah, there it is: B-Yacht’ch.”
Screech chuckled and turned to Drake.
Drake just shrugged.
“Seriously? B-Yacht’ch? Like biotch? Anyyyyways, the owner, Bob Bumacher wants to meet. Should we?”
Drake observed his partner closely, hoping that he was pulling his leg. Sure, Screech was resourceful, but Drake was starting to reconsider if he was actually as bright as he had first thought.
“Screech,” he said at last. “It’s a six-hundred-thousand-dollar yacht. Of course we want to meet. Mrs. Armatridge is grateful that you stopped her from Lorena Bobbitting her husband, but her gratitude won’t last forever.”
Screech blinked long and slow.
“Lorena Bobbitt? Was that a joke, Drake? Did you just… oh my god, you did! You just made a funny!”
Drake flipped him the bird.
“Set it up, Screech.”
“Alright boss, will do.”
Drake had just opened his office door, when Screech hollered after him.
“Oh, almost forgot: a package came for you today. Left it on your desk.”
Drake flicked the lights on in his office and was relieved when the lone bulb bled yellow light on the plain package sitting in the center of his desk.
“Any idea who it’s from?”
“Nope. No stamp on it either. Must have been hand delivered.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed as he made his way to his desk. He plopped down in his chair and then picked up the package.
Inside he felt something hard and thin, roughly eight-inches long and five inches wide. With a shrug, he opened the package and pulled out what, to him, looked like a miniature laptop sans keyboard.
He flipped the device over and read the words on the back out loud.
“E-reader: all your books in one place.”
He turned it over in his hands, trying to find some way to turn the damn thing on.
“What the hell is this?” he grumbled.
When he failed to find a single toggle or switch, he had no choice but to shout.
“Screech come give me a hand with this, would you?”
CHAPTER 6
Chase stepped out of her car and immediately looked around. They were an hour from Manhattan, in a rural area that she had never visited before. Her GPS told her it was technically Larchmont Village, but that was the extent of her knowledge, other than the fact that it had been at least fifteen minutes since they had passed a gas station.
Pillowy snow covered the ground in all directions, as high as a foot in some places, Chase surmised. There didn’t appear to be any fresh car tracks that couldn’t be accounted for by the police vehicles, or any discernible footprints on the road, which indicated that the killer had either walked here, or had arrived prior to the most recent snow fall.
She spotted Detective Yasiv by the side of the road, leaning against his car. When he saw her coming, he immediately straightened, moving so quickly that he spilled some of the coffee from a Styrofoam cup on his gloves.
He pretended not to notice as she approached.
“What do we have?” Chase asked, striding forward.
“One dead female, twenty to thirty years of age. Still waiting on an ID. ME hasn’t arrived yet.”
Chase frowned, knowing that her friend wouldn’t be the ME on duty.
“Where’s the body?”
Detective Yasiv pointed to a barn with a partially collapsed roof about forty yards from the road.
“In there. Tucked beneath some hay.”
Chase nodded and looked around again. The only tracks leading from the road to the barn were in a neat line that made a wide arc to the latter.
These belonged to the detectives and uniforms, she knew.
Chase moved toward these foot steps and started along their path as Yasiv fell into step beside her.
“Who owns the barn?” she asked as she made her way down the small embankment to what she suspected was a corn field during the warmer months.
“A, uh, a Mr. Francis Dolan. Detective Simmons has gone to speak to him, but over the phone he claimed he abandoned it many years ago. He’s in his late eighties.”
Up close, the barn was in better shape than it appeared from the road. Only a few of the boards were missing on one side, and the part of the roof that had collapsed had done so in a way that maintained the integrity of the structure.
A man in his late eighties would have a hard time carrying a body down from the road, let alone doing so without leaving any tracks.
And walking forty yards in the heavy snow… in this weather…
Chase was already starting to rule out the old man as a suspect.
“Sergeant Adams,” Detective Yasiv introduced her to the two uniforms standing in front of the barn entrance.
“Gentlemen,” Chase said with a nod. They stepped aside and allowed her to enter.
If Francis Dolan had abandoned this place years ago, as he had told Detective Simmons, then it had remained in pretty good shape over that time.
The interior appeared to have been a horse barn before it fell into disuse, divided evenly into eight stalls, four on either side. Chase’s eyes went to the floor next, noting that unlike just outside the door, it was fairly dry and covered in a thick layer of hay.
“The body is in the second stall,” Yasiv said. Chase followed his finger.
Yasiv was indicating the second on the left.
As Chase made her way over to the stall, she kept her eyes on the ground, trying to identify any recent tracks, broken hay, trace evidence of any sort.
Nothing seemed out of place.
With a deep breath, Chase turned the corner and peered into the stall.
The victim was in a seated position, her legs splayed out in front of her, her back propped up against the back wall. Her hands were at her sides, palms up. Hay covered her midsection and thighs haphazardly like some sort of rough blanket.
Stiff black hair hung in front of her face, obscuring her features.
Chase strode forward.
“The body was moved here after death,” Detective Yasiv said quietly.
Chase nodded. She knew that already; the woman’s wrists were covered in slashes, wounds both old and new, but there was no blood on the hay or the walls.
Careful not to disturb any potential evidence, Chase squatted on her haunches in front of the victim. She pulled a pen from her pocket and used it to move some of the woman’s hair from her face.
The woman’s eyes were wide, her expression one of sheer terror. But it was the victim’s lips that drew, and held, Chase’s attention. They were a dirty brown, a smear that extended a sloppy inch from the corners of her mouth.
It didn’t look like lipstick to Chase.
It looked like blood.
A quick glance at the wounds on her arms, and Chase realized that there was no blood on her skin at all. She had been wiped clean.
Except for her mouth.
Chase suddenly stood and turned to Detective Yasiv.<
br />
“Did you check the other stalls?” she asked quickly.
Yasiv’s smooth features contorted.
“I just got here a minute before you, I—” Yasiv, his face turning red, spun around and addressed the nearest uniform, “Officer Hewart did you check the other stalls?”
Hewart’s mouth twitched.
“Not yet, just trying to warm up first,” after noticing the stern expression on Chase’s face, he smiled a gap-toothed grin, “but we’re plenty warm now. We’ll start right away.”
Chase, still frowning, watched him go.
“Who found the body?” she asked.
“A drifter. She was looking for a place to stay, to get out of the cold,” Yasiv replied.
Chase frowned, remembering how pristine the snow had been from the road to the barn.
“No footprints?”
“I noticed that, too, and I asked her about it; she said she went around the back, through the forest. Had to walk six miles before she found someone with a phone.
Chase’s frown deepened. Like the elderly Mr. Dolan, this drifter didn’t sound like a suspect, either.
“Did you take her statement?”
Detective Yasiv nodded.
“Yes. Have her at a halfway house closer to the city, with eyes on her. If she starts to move, we’ll know.”
Chase nodded.
“Good. I don’t think—”
“Jesus Christ!”
Chase spun away from Detective Yasiv, and bolted toward the corridor that divided the barn.
“What? What is it?” she asked as she hurried toward the voice.
Chase found Officer Hewart in the last horse stall on the right. He looked up at her as she entered, fear in his eyes.
“There’s another one here,” the man almost whispered. He leaned to one side, giving Chase a clear view of another woman. Only this victim wasn’t propped up like the first; this one was almost completely buried in the hay. Most of her face was covered, including her eyes and chin, and yet Chase could see that her mouth was smeared with what she suspected was blood.
For nearly a minute, the three of them stood in silence, observing the dead.
Eventually, Chase pulled out her cell phone and started to dial.
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