The Luke Titan Chronicles: Books 1-4: The Luke Titan Chronicles Boxset

by David Beers

  Luke said nothing, just moved as swiftly as he had outside. He reached her desk in seconds and just as she opened her mouth to say something with quite a bit more alarm than her first few sentences, he snapped her neck, feeling the bones break beneath the strength of his hands.

  Her body tried to slump forward but Luke held her up. He lifted her as easily as a bulldozer lifted dirt, hoisting her over his shoulder and looking around the large room. Luke saw the closet immediately, brought her to it, and tossed her dead body inside. He shut the door and then turned around to survey the room once more. Everything in order besides the person missing from her station, which would be fine. He'd leave this place long before anyone noticed.

  Luke went to the dead woman's computer, the screen still on and logged in. He found the program detailing the residents’s locations and then Mr. Ranger.

  He left the room as a shadow would, nothing remaining to show he'd ever been there. Luke walked down the hallways. He moved with a purpose that would keep anyone from saying a word to him, though he saw no one as he took the two corridors to Mr. Ranger's room. He didn't knock, but simply opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him.

  Mr. Brown stood over Mr. Ranger, a discarded rag lying on the old man's face. Mr. Ranger was unconscious and Mr. Brown in some kind of trance, staring at the geriatric as if the secret to the universe resided inside his decrepit body.

  Mr. Brown looked over to Luke slowly, his brain desperately trying to bring him back to reality.

  Luke put his finger to his lips.

  "Shhh," he said.

  "HERE HE COMES," Tommy said.

  The hours had rolled by slowly. Tommy and Christian sat in the car, silent for the most part. It was four in the morning and Bradley Brown's shift was apparently over.

  "He's got the cooler," Christian said. "What do we do?"

  "What do you think?"

  "Follow him?"

  "Bingo," Tommy said.

  "We just keep following him? That's it? We can't do anything else?" Christian said as he turned the key in the ignition.

  "That's the definition of a stakeout. We watch until we see something that will let us move on him. This is the majority of detective work, kid. This and paperwork. Very little excitement."

  Brown's car left the parking lot and Christian slowly pulled out of their space. He stayed a good distance back without Tommy needing to say anything.

  "I don't like this."

  "What?" Tommy asked as they moved onto the highway.

  "It doesn't feel right. The whole thing. What was that cooler for?"

  "Could be for anything. Could be his lunch. Could be he brought lunch for the staff. Maybe he's a real nice guy outside of his penchant for cutting people's eyes out of their heads."

  "No. Something's wrong."

  "Maybe, but we can't do anything about it yet."

  "I need to think," Christian said, his voice taking on a tone of worry that Tommy thought bordered on panic. "Look, he's heading home. Can we pull over for just a second and you take the wheel? We'll catch up with him if we're fast."

  Tommy looked over at his partner. "You're serious?"

  "Yes, I'm sorry. I need to think and I can't do it while driving. It's dangerous."

  "I'm starting to wonder about you, Christian. Pull over."

  They made the switch quickly and Tommy roared the car back onto the highway. He moved down the dark road at just under a hundred miles per hour, his eyes searching for the car he wanted.

  "This might look weird," Christian said. "And if you talk to me, I won't answer. But I'm fine."

  CHRISTIAN DIDN'T GO to the room marked Surgeon.

  Instead he stood in his mansion's entrance, a large dual staircase splitting off to the right and left in front of him. A large painting of his mother hung on the wall at the beginning of the staircase, her kind face looking out on Christian's world. Telling him everything was okay, and that it always would be.

  Nothing was okay right now, though, regardless of what the painting tried to tell him.

  Christian couldn't figure out why. He couldn't figure out anything because somehow events were moving too quickly. Christian had never dealt with something that he couldn't see from all angles at once. Not until now.

  Answers were housed in this mansion, somewhere, Christian just needed to figure out where.

  He didn't move with his usual speed inside the mansion, trusting Tommy on the outside to not rush him and leave him be for a bit. He walked up the stairs, looking at how sparsely he'd decorated the place over the years. He knew very little of fashion or interior design, but what he had in here was his and he appreciated it. The stained glass on either side of the staircase, large and full of happy scenes from his life. Those when he was around his mother or by himself, and not facing the outside world which always seemed far too daunting.

  He reached the top of the stairs and looked at a large hallway in front of him. He didn't move down it at first, but just stared, understanding that the single hallway held nearly endless more, all with rooms his mind had filled.

  He knew what he'd find if he went to the Surgeon's room, a video ready to be played—but he didn't need to see Bradley Brown kill his father.

  "Why am I here?" he said.

  To see what you're missing. Your mind's already seen it, you just haven't brought it up to your conscious yet.

  Christian meandered down the hallway, taking a right, then a left, until he found himself in front of Luke Titan's room. The writing at the top was in Luke's unique cursive.

  Why did you go to this room?

  But he knew why. Because Veronica Lopez was missing and John Presley was dead. Because Luke had stared at John Presley's body without a single bit of sadness—of humanity—and more, he didn't seem to care who saw. And that was what bothered Christian, though he hadn't put a label to it until this moment.

  Christian turned the knob and walked into his mind's record of Luke Titan.

  A large painting plastered the back wall, having been created directly on it instead of inside a portrait like his mother's. Luke Titan looked back at him, or at least a perfect replica. His brown eyes spoke of intelligence, containing simultaneously both depth and shallowness. A depth that said the thoughts which went through his head could hardly be fathomed by others, and a shallowness which belied the simplistic view he had of the world.

  Christian turned to the right and saw that the room had expanded, his knowledge of Luke increasing with the time he spent around the man. A large desk sat against the right wall and a thick, large book on top of it. Something new. Christian went to it.

  THE LIFE of Luke Titan

  HE STARED AT THE COVER, understanding that his mind had never done something like this before. His insights usually came in the form of live replays, where he stood next to people as they lived. Here, though, was something he would need to read and Christian didn't know how to feel about it.

  He turned another page and started reading.

  TOMMY LOOKED OVER AT CHRISTIAN. His eyes were open and he stared forward as if he was simply riding in the car, but Tommy knew that wasn't true. Not completely. Christian had gone somewhere—perhaps to his mansion. Tommy didn't know how he did it, or really what he was doing in that other place, besides 'thinking'.

  "Jesus Christ. I never thought it could get weirder than Luke."

  He drove on, having caught up to Brown's car. He stayed forty feet back, the first twinges of fatigue tugging at his body. Hopefully this would be over soon.

  Hopefully Christian would come back to reality sooner.

  CHAPTER 28

  "I 'm dreadfully sorry about all this, Mr. Ranger."

  Luke stood in Mr. Brown's backyard, on the patio. Mr. Ranger was in front of him, a blanket draped over his wheelchair to keep the cool night air from bothering him too much.

  Luke opened the back door with the key Mr. Brown had supplied, then he walked behind Mr. Ranger's chair and pushed the elderly gentleman into
the house.

  "I truthfully didn't know you were involved in this until you wrote me. Unfortunately, you wrote the wrong agent. My partner, Tommy Phillips, probably would have swarmed all over the letter and made sure Mr. Brown was apprehended and you were kept safe. I, on the other hand, deal with things a bit differently."

  He stopped the wheelchair just outside the kitchen. The light was on inside and Luke was glad for it. He didn't mind the dark at all, but thought Mr. Ranger might, especially being in such a strange and foreign place. One that no doubt held many dangers for the old man.

  Luke stepped in front of the wheelchair and walked to the kitchen sink where he turned to look at Mr. Ranger.

  "Our friend, Mr. Brown, is in a bit of a predicament. As are you, I'm afraid. You see, I work for the FBI in a technical sense, but I've found with life that the greatest pleasure comes from serving a higher purpose. Unfortunately for you, the FBI's purpose is not high enough for my needs, and is only a means to an end. That end having started just recently."

  The old man did nothing, only stared at Luke with an obviously intense mixture of hate and fear.

  "I won't lie to you and say that you're going to live through this. You won't, but I do promise you're not going to feel the amount of pain that Mr. Brown wants you to. That would be cruel and you don't deserve that. Just the wrong place at the wrong time, but take solace, Mr. Ranger, in that you lived a long, full life and will leave behind children that remember you fondly."

  The old man motioned in the air with his hands.

  "Paper and pen?"

  Mr. Ranger nodded.

  "Let me see what I can find." Luke walked down the hall to Mr. Brown's room and saw what he needed, returning as quickly as possible. "Here you go."

  The old man bared down on the legal pad and scribbled for a few seconds before turning it around to Luke.

  Fuck you, you fucking psycho. I hope Bradley scrapes your eyes out.

  A slow smile spread over Luke's face.

  "Oh, you've got some kick in you, don't you, Mr. Ranger?" Lights flashed across the back wall and Luke looked up. "Speak of the devil and he'll show up. Bradley’s home, so let's see whose eyeballs end up getting scraped from their skulls, shall we?"

  BRADLEY WAS INDEED HOME and not happy. Rage had been replaced with fear and confusion. Perhaps not fully, as Bradley still wanted to squish Charlie's fucking eyeballs in his hands, but things were ...

  Out of control, he thought.

  He parked the car in his driveway, knowing that the FBI was behind him somewhere. Watching his every move.

  No matter what happened, Bradley always told himself he would be more careful than the people he studied. And somehow, everything he'd planned and hoped for was being dashed. He was quickly seeing there might not be a way out, that he might go down just like every other serial killer.

  He still had the cooler, though. He still had his batch of blue eyeballs—as long as he had them, things weren't fully lost.

  He knew the man that showed up to Charlie's room; Bradley saw him on TV when the FBI announced they were taking over the case. And, apparently, this was the man who'd been texting him. Helping him. An FBI agent.

  "Jesus-H-Christ," he said, still sitting in the driveway. "What the fuck am I going to do?"

  He had listened to the FBI agent's spiel, detailing out that other agents were following him, and would continue to, until they either had a warrant or Bradley slipped up. The thin agent said they were watching him at that very moment and if he left with Charlie, he'd be arrested within minutes.

  "I still want to help," the agent had said, and Bradley kept listening, mainly because he could find no words of his own.

  He ended up giving the FBI agent his house key and agreed to stay for the rest of his shift. What else could he do? An FBI agent had caught him dispensing chloroform to an elderly man before telling him his whole world would end if he didn't listen.

  And now Bradley sat outside his house, hoping that the agent hadn't been bullshitting him and was inside with Charlie.

  But what are you going to do when you get in there? You two going to drink a few brews and talk about how funny this whole thing is?

  Bradley didn't know.

  He looked in his rearview mirror, wanting to see if he could spot an FBI car—but just as the agent said, he couldn't.

  Bradley got out of his own car and locked the door. He walked up the driveway and twisted the doorknob; it was unlocked, as the agent said it would be.

  He walked inside.

  "We're in here, Mr. Brown," the agent said. Bradley hadn't even asked the man's name; he'd been too thrown off to say anything back at the nursing home.

  Bradley walked to the kitchen, and sure enough, the thin, lithe man stood leaning against the kitchen counter while Charlie sat bundled up in his wheelchair, a legal pad on his lap.

  "Mr. Ranger here was just describing how he wanted you to scrape my eyes out before this was all over. Perhaps you'll have that chance."

  "Why are you helping me?" Bradley asked. "And what is your name?"

  "Luke Titan," he said. "I'm helping you because, for the time being, your goals and mine intersect."

  Bradley stared at the man and tried to think of what to say next. None of this made any sense, but he felt he didn't have any choice except to be here looking at this person named Luke Titan. Somehow he'd lost control over this, and now someone he didn't know stood in his kitchen with all the answers.

  "What's your plan, then?" Bradley asked.

  CHAPTER 29

  T he Life of Luke Titan

  AN INTRODUCTION

  I KNOW HIS BIRTHDATE. I read that on the Internet. I know where he was born, and I know his parents's names, but all of that means little.

  Because I don't know anything else about him.

  But that's not completely true, is it? Because I know that he looks through people and I've even said it to him. I know that when I watched him stare at John Presley's dead body—and his wife’s—I saw a person showing no emotion. Not anger. Not hate. Not sadness. Not even a sense that something wrong had been done.

  He stared at those bodies like I imagine a psychopath would when his rage is finished, and he's looking at the victim he just finished raping. The person lying there, writhing in pain, crying, while the psychopath stares on as if an ant was crawling around on the floor beneath him.

  This book is in place of a video because I can't see into him. If I wanted, I could probably go to Tommy's room, that sits in one of my corridors, and watch much of his life play out in front of me. Instead of a video though, my mind has created this—a collection of thoughts that I haven't been able to bring to my conscious mind for a multitude of reasons. It may be titled The Life of Luke Titan, but so far that's a misnomer.

  It should be called, The Lack of Luke Titan's Life as no one really knows a thing about him.

  What else haven't I allowed myself to consider?

  I pushed away Veronica Lopez's hypothesis: the people who challenged Luke died. Yet, she was challenging him and now she's missing. I pushed it away, though, because the logic behind it makes no sense, even if my gut tells me something different. He's a world renowned scientist, doctor, and will eventually be known as perhaps the greatest FBI agent ever to exist as well. What reason does he have to murder, or at least create circumstances for people to be killed? His entire career, and life, would end if he did that, because eventually he'd be caught. Eventually, everyone is caught.

  But, that's not true either is it? If Luke is doing these things, he is a psychopath. Killers have avoided the police, even if only a few. Jack The Ripper. The Zodiac Killer. Others that no one knows—how many unsolved murders are there a year?

  If Luke's a psychopath, is he betting that he's smarter than anyone else, and thinks he can't be caught?

  Here, in your mansion, Christian, you can think these thoughts without needing to push them away. Here, if nowhere else.

  So, what do I do? Because I'
m heading to The Surgeon's house and yet I'm inside my own mind, focusing on Luke Titan.

  What do I know? John Presley's murder doesn't match with the others; that's a fact. He died after speaking to Veronica Lopez about Luke. Veronica Lopez went missing shortly after talking to me.

  Did Luke kill Presley, mimicking The Surgeon? And if he did, what does that have to do with The Surgeon? It's a separate crime, yet you're here instead of in his room.

  Those are the questions I've been avoiding.

  What has Luke done on this case, truthfully? Nothing. No great breaks. He works a lot of hours, but in those hours, what is he accomplishing? Neither Tommy nor myself have noticed because we've been too preoccupied. But, it's true. Tommy worked the angles I gave him, but Luke has given very little.

  The question I need to answer tonight is what connection exists between Luke and Bradley Brown?

  CHAPTER 30

  C hristian opened his eyes and saw Bradley Brown's street in front of him.

  "How long have we been here?" he asked.

  "Fifteen minutes," Tommy said. Christian didn't look over to him but could see Tommy staring from across the car. "What just happened?"

  "I went to my mansion. I needed to put some pieces together. I'd been ignoring it for too long and missing things."

  "Well, did you put them together?" Tommy asked.

  "Some."

  "Care to share?"

  Here was the time to allow Tommy to hear this theory—which seemed so insane under the bright light of reality.

  No, Melissa said. Christian didn't turn around, though he heard her voice in his backseat. Not yet. If you tell him now, he won't believe you. You'll isolate and ostracize yourself because you have nothing but the book inside your head.

  "Later," Christian said. "We need to get in Brown's house, though. Now, not later."