Sable Quinn Trilogy Boxed Set

by K. J. Dahlen

  Sable couldn’t believe it as the phone went dead in her hand. She slowly reached over and hung up the receiver. She got out of bed and hurried to get dressed. Just as she was pulling on a shirt the phone rang again. She slowly turned her head and stared at it. She was almost afraid to answer it.

  “Hello?” she whispered.

  “Sable,” she heard Nick’s voice on the other end.

  She sighed in relief. “I’m here.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “No, I was just about to call you.” She sat down on the bed. “I just had a phone call.”

  “I know,” Nick told her.

  Sable nodded. “You tapped my phone?”

  “You didn’t give me much of a choice when you refused protective custody. There’s an officer on his way to your front door. He’ll escort you in,” Nick told her briskly.

  Sable closed her eyes in frustration. “Why?”

  “I wasn’t about to leave you alone tonight, not with that maniac out there. You can be mad all you want, but as part of my team your life is more important than your pride.”

  “Did you hear the conversation?”

  “Yes and the rest of the team are being escorted in as well. No one will be left alone until this guy is caught,” he informed her.

  Sable looked up as she saw the flash of blue and red lights. “I think your escort is here now.”

  “Don’t answer the door until you hear the cop identify himself,” Nick warned.

  Sable got up and went out to the living room. Peeking out the window she could see the police car but no one came to the door. “Nick I can see the cruiser but there’s no sign of anyone coming to the house.”

  “I’m on my way. Don’t open the door to anyone but me,” Nick ordered. He didn’t like the fact that the officer wasn’t at the front door yet.

  Sable felt the fear growing inside her and she sat down on the floor. She moved over to the outside wall and tried to look outside. She listened carefully and after a moment or two she could hear the faint dinging sound. It reminded her of the sound a car door made when it was opened without the keys being taken out of the ignition.

  She crawled in the dark to the front hall. She opened the drawer where she kept her gun and reached inside. The cold steel of her weapon felt good in her hand. She stood against the door and tried to peer out the window glass.

  She could see the blue and red lights flashing in the neighborhood but nothing else was moving. There was no sign of the officer sent to bring her in. Seconds seemed like forever as she waited. She turned her head again to look out the window and almost screamed. There was a shadow just outside her door.

  Sable dropped to a squatting position and raised her weapon. Her body was on alert and she could feel a quickening rushing through her veins. Her heart was pounding so loud in her chest she almost missed hearing him whisper on the other side of the door.

  “Sabella, I know you can hear me. I can hear you breathing and I’ll bet if I listen close enough I can almost hear your heart beating in your chest. Is it racing as fast as mine, I wonder?” she heard him whisper.

  Sable felt a drop of sweat roll down her temple. She wanted to run but fear held her in place.

  “It would be very easy for me to get to you and end the game tonight, but then it would be over before it began. I know you aren’t ready for that and neither am I, but soon.”

  She heard something metal click then she heard footsteps walking away from the door and then she heard nothing at all. She strained to hear anything, but after a few minutes she still heard nothing. She stood and peeked out the window again but he was gone.

  She watched as Nick’s car pulled behind the police car and Nick jumped out. Sable fumbled for the door knob and opened the door as Nick reached the porch. Seconds later they both heard the sound of police sirens and soon there were a couple more police cars in the area.

  Sable dropped her weapon to her side and watched as Nick holstered his weapon. Nick flashed his badge and told them to search the area for both the missing officer and the suspect.

  Nick joined her on the porch and they both watched as officers began searching the area.

  “Are you ok?” Nick finally asked.

  Sable nodded. A shout was heard and two other officers ran to her neighbor’s house. Seconds later they came back into view with the missing officer. Sable could see the officer was hurt but they were too far away to tell just how badly he was injured.

  “He was here in person,” she finally told Nick. “He was standing on my porch as bold as you please.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Sable shuddered. “He said he could get me anytime he wanted.”

  “We have to get you out of here. At least until we catch him.”

  “That may not be as easy as we thought,” Sable told him.

  “What do you mean?” Nick frowned.

  “I may not be his intended target. He told me on the phone that any one of us might be his target. He may only be harassing me to get to someone else on the team,” Sable reminded him.

  “I know I heard the tapes.” Nick looked over where the officers were standing. He watched as EMT’s checked the officer’s injuries. He turned back to Sable “We need to find this creep and we need to find him quickly.”

  Sable frowned and looked over the porch. She walked to the swing, picked up the cushions, and put them back down. She turned and walked back to the front door and looked around the doorway.

  “What are you doing?” Nick finally asked.

  “Just before he walked away I thought I heard something metal clicking. I’m looking for whatever sound that could be,” Sable told him as her eyes moved over to the metal mail box on her front porch. She turned her head to Nick and saw his eyebrows go up. She reached out and lifted the cover to the mailbox. Peeking inside the box she saw a bundle of papers. Reaching inside she pulled them out.

  Walking inside her home, she snapped on a light. The papers in her hands were more of the diary pages they had found earlier.

  “The bastard’s got balls, I’ll give him that,” Nick said sarcastically.

  Sable looked over at him. “Yeah and I’d like to shove those balls right down his throat.”

  Chapter Three

  All the members of Nick’s team were in the office by the time the sun came up. They were trying to remain calm, but there was an underlying sense of tension in the air as they listened to the recorded tape of Sable’s conversation with the killer.

  At the end of the tape, Brandi threw the pen in her hand onto the table. “Great, that’s just freaking wonderful. He’s probably had time to watch all of us.”

  Nick nodded. “He also claims he can get to any of us at any time.”

  After a moment of silence Sable suggested, “Then let’s take back the element of surprise.”

  “What do you mean?” Nick frowned. “We don’t have the element of surprise, he does.”

  Sable shook her head. “No, he only thinks he does. Right now he’s thinking that he has us quaking in fear and that’s where he wants to keep us.”

  “Sweetheart, we are quaking in fear,” Quentin reminded her.

  “What if we turn the tables on him?” Sable suggested.

  “What are you saying?” Nick asked.

  “He thinks he can get to any of us any time he wants. What would happen if he can’t?” Sable let them think about that for a moment. “The game will be tipped in our favor then, not his.”

  “Go on,” Nick nodded.

  “The five of us could work out of a different office. If we can get another crew in here to pretend to be us, we could use the time it takes him to realize we’re not really here to find out as much as we can about him.” She pointed out. “The extra pages he left in my mailbox last night might give us more of the puzzle.”

  “That might just work.”

  Sable turned worried eyes at Nick. “We would have to protect our families. If he can’t find us, he could use
them as leverage.”

  “I agree. We don’t want to put anyone in his path. Ok people, call your immediate families and get them out of town until we catch this guy. I’ll make arrangements for an office downstairs,” Nick ordered.

  The next two hours were busy as everyone packed up and moved to another office. They didn’t want to be too far away, just out of sight. Nick had set up the other crew for appearances. When they were settled in, Sable put the new pages up on the board with the other pages. As she read them, she began to learn more about the man who wrote the pages.

  “So what are your first thoughts about this guy?” Nick asked her.

  Sable pointed to one of the pages. “This is one very disturbed individual. He’s intelligent, very organized and in plain terms, he really enjoys what he does. At first his targets were random but as time passed he became more selective. The more selective he became the more time he took with his victims.”

  “In other words he refined his craft,” Nick surmised. “We may never know the number of women he’s murdered.”

  Sable grimaced. “That’s about the sum of it. If we ever catch him, he might tell us.” She nodded toward the board. “He writes in great detail what he did to all of them.”

  “Is that all the information you have?’

  Sable shook her head. “I doubt he realized it but he’s given us a way to track his movements and Brandi is making a map of the places he’s been.” Nick turned to check with Brandi when Sable spoke his name, “Nick, there’s something you should know…”

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a gap in the timeline. There’s about five years missing. On one page he’s just entering a small town in Texas and the next thing he’s leaving Chicago. He talks about leaving something behind.”

  “I wonder what that something was?” Nick asked.

  Sable shrugged. “I don’t think whatever it was it was all that important to him.”

  “How close to present day do these pages bring us?”

  “These pages bring us up to about ten years ago. Even with the five year gap.”

  “Does he mention what he does for a living in any of his writings?”

  Sable nodded. “As a matter of fact he claims that thanks to his grandfather, he doesn’t have to look for employment. I took that to mean that someone is supplying him with funds.”

  “Can we trace the money part of it backward to find out where the money is coming from?”

  Sable shook her head. “He doesn’t give us enough detail about that. I doubt that he’s carrying that much cash around with him all this time.”

  Nick looked at Brandi. “Maybe there’s a pattern of return visits or something like that.”

  A few minutes later they were all gathered around Brandi. Looking at the map she was working on they all noticed one thing. “It seems every so often he returns to one place, Chicago,” Nick surmised. The map showed Chicago was the one place that he always returned to.

  “Great, he could be one of millions of people living in and around the city. That really narrows the scope,” Max grumbled.

  “Let’s start checking the missing person’s files. Maybe if this guy ran away all those years ago somebody reported him missing,” Nick suggested. “We have to start somewhere.”

  “How far back do we go?” Brandi wanted to know.

  “I’m not sure, maybe thirty years.” Nick shrugged. “He would have been a teenager from a family with money.”

  Brandi made a face. “Do you have any idea how many people have disappeared from Chicago on a daily basis? Let alone in the past thirty years?”

  Nick glanced at her. “I know it’s going to be a daunting task, but we have to start somewhere. Time is not on our side. If and when this guy discovers that we’re not where we are supposed to be, he’s going to be pissed. We don’t know what he’s capable of, and I don’t want a blood bath in the city when he can’t find us.”

  “I’ll go back to the letters and see if I can find anything else we can use to find him,” Sable said.

  “And I’ll hit the police missing person’s files,” Brandi said.

  “I’ll follow up on the victims that we know about.” Max reached for the phone. “Maybe we’ll find out more about how they died so we can establish some kind of M.O.”

  Nick nodded and motioned Quentin away from the group. He spoke to him in a low voice and Quentin nodded. A few minutes later Quentin got busy with another task.

  Nick walked to the board and read the pages again. He was hoping that his eyes would pick up on something Sable and Brandi missed. After awhile he had to stop reading. The images that filled his head more than disturbed him.

  “Not exactly light reading is it?” Sable commented.

  “The ranting of a madman usually isn’t,” Nick told her. “But these aren’t the worst I’ve read.”

  Sable frowned and was about to ask what he meant when Nick asked her, “Did you find anything new?”

  “Actually, I think I did.” Sable walked down the board about half way and pointed out something. Nick followed her and reread what she pointed to.

  The pain of yet another name being added to the list of so many

  is barely felt. I almost wish I could feel what every one else feels.

  Everyday emotion might be welcome rather than the dismal abyss I

  feel right now.

  “What about it?” Nick shrugged.

  “What would give you pain? I doubt it’s the pain of writing another name down on paper. Could he be referring to something like a tattoo?”

  “Maybe or maybe it’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Some people take a knife and cut themselves. If he carves his victim’s name on his body somewhere, that would be more painful than a tattoo.”

  Sable shuddered. “I guess that would be. It might be worth a try though checking with the tattoo parlors.”

  “You can try, but tattoo parlors probably aren’t going to remember somebody asking for a name to be tattooed on their body. They get that sort of thing all the time.” Nick reminded her.

  “That would depend on how many names are already there.” Sable shrugged.

  “You can try but don’t be disappointed if you don’t find anything.”

  Sable sat down at the table and pulled the phone to her. She reached over and grabbed the thick Chicago phone book and began flipping through the pages.

  Several hours later she was surprised when the phone she’d been using rang. She looked at Nick. Nick moved toward her and nodded at the phone. “I forwarded your number to this phone. We couldn’t just disappear without having some link to the killer.”

  Sable took a deep breath and reached for the phone. “Hello?”

  “Sabella, where are you?” His voice came over the line very clear. He seemed mildly annoyed.

  “I’m right here, where are you?”

  “I’m inside your house. If you really want to know, I’m standing in your bedroom. I’ve been by your office but you don’t seem to be there either.”

  “Did you miss me?” Sable asked him sweetly. She was a little surprised to find that he had invaded her home.

  “Do you think you can hide from me?”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing? “

  “Not only you but everyone you’re working with," he snarled

  “Oh dear, aren’t we playing the game right?” Sabel was trying to piss him off. “As long as we’re talking about playing a game, what do I call you? You know my name but I don’t know yours.” Sable heard him hesitate and pushed him even further. “Never mind, I’ll just make up a name. How do you like Oscar? Or Gary. You know Gary don’t you? He’s the snail on Sponge Bob Squarepants.”

  “You think I’m a cartoon snail?” His voice was incredulous.

  “Not really, snails don’t have much of a brain. On second thought maybe Oscar suits you better. You have proven you have a brain. As demented as it is you still have one. Ok, I�
�ll call you Oscar.”

  “You think you’re so clever don’t you?”

  “Not really, I just wanted to put a name with the voice. I don’t know who you are yet I have to call you something,” Sable said.

  “Since you aren’t playing the game correctly maybe its time I upped the stakes,” he told her.

  “You don’t really scare me, you know,” Sable insisted.

  “Oh I think I do. I frighten the hell out of you,” Oscar said

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You’re hiding from me aren’t you? And it’s early in the game yet.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to play your game?”

  Oscar chuckled. “No not really. As a member of law enforcement you should be interested in getting me off the streets. As a human being you should be interested in self preservation.”

  “This conversation is getting boring. Did you have a reason for calling me? I mean other than trying to scare me?”

  Sable heard the sudden intake of his breath. “You really don’t want to make me mad,” he warned.

  “Why? Are you going to have a fit?”

  “Lady, if I have a fit you’ll know it.”

  “Yeah I know, you’ll go out and kill somebody and their death will be on my head. You know what, Oscar, killing somebody is what you do. You’ve gotten very good at it. You even enjoy it. For you, killing is as simple as breathing. You may kill someone tonight and I would feel bad about that, but what’s to say that if you did kill tonight, it would have anything to do with the fact that you’re ticked off at me? Maybe the lust you talk about so much is getting to you and you have to kill again just to calm down.”

  “If you aren’t afraid of me, prove it. If you and your friends really aren’t afraid, come out of hiding and play the game fair.”

  “I’m not scared of you but I’m not a fool either. You threatened not only my life but also the members of the team I work with. We aren’t going to put our lives on the line for you to pick us off one at a time. Don’t be an ass.”

  “Your smart mouth is going to cost you,” he threatened.

  You can stick your threats where the sun doesn’t shine,” Sable told him then she slammed the phone down.