by Mary Stone
“Codes are often the perfect tool for foiling and befuddling even those people who claim to be of superior intelligence, which is why it’s important that we learn about them. The code I’m teaching you tonight is called the Caesar Cipher.”
Calm washed over her as she stared at the numbers.
18414072112258017182123110611421158222318170
After transcribing the numbers into letters, she ended up with Rdn Gulyh Qruwk Fkduohvwrq.
Her lips parted, and her pulse drummed a furious tempo in her ears. Katarina didn’t need to brainstorm and scribble countless letter-number combinations on the damp, wadded-up napkin.
She’d already deciphered the code. She knew exactly where that monster was.
Now, she just needed to hide that newfound knowledge from Jillian and Ellie.
Katarina rose and began circling the table, shaking out her arms and hands like anxiety was back for another round.
Ellie glanced up from her napkin. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine. I was feeling stressed sitting still, so I’m walking.” She stomped a few more paces for good measure. “And I don’t need you checking in on me every few seconds like I’m a baby.”
Ellie sighed. “Great, then maybe you could help us out with the code? This was your idea, after all.”
Katarina stopped and bent over the table, making a big show of inspecting the detective’s chicken scratches. Nonsense, all of them. “Maybe we should try grouping blocks of numbers together and searching for patterns that way.” Of course, the Caesar Cipher didn’t work like that, but it should keep them busy for a while.
Jillian rubbed her eyebrow and squinted. “Okay, but how many numbers do we think form a block?”
“I don’t know, let me see.” Katarina leaned over the table and pretended to grab for Jillian’s notes, making sure to strike the coffee cup with her elbow. The cup toppled over, and the lid flew off, spilling hot brown liquid everywhere.
Jillian and Ellie both jumped out of their seats like scalded cats.
“Shit, sorry! Here, let me wipe it up.” Plucking a handful of napkins from the metal dispenser, Katarina mopped the spill off the table. On her third pass, she swept the cell phone toward the edge and into her other hand before shoving the device into her pocket. “Ugh, now I’ve got more coffee on me than on the table. Be right back. I’m going to try to wash some of this off in the bathroom.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ellie muttered.
Both the detective and her roommate were too engrossed in reorganizing the notes that had fluttered to the ground to pay her much attention. She swept the streets and spotted the bodyguard several yards away, his back to them all. Good. Hopefully, the task would distract the two little codebreakers for long enough to give Katarina time to make her escape.
While they smoothed the napkins into neat rows on the freshly mopped table, Katarina slipped into the coffee shop through the patio entrance. She beelined for the bathroom tucked into the back corner but swerved right at the last possible second, shoving out the rear exit without breaking stride.
Turned out, teamwork wasn’t for her. No surprises there. Too slow, too many rules, and too damned annoying by far.
Ellie and Jillian had served their purpose, but now it was time for Katarina to face Kingsley alone.
Hunching her shoulders against the brisk night breeze, Katarina scurried down the sidewalk, turned into the alley, and put as much distance as possible between her and the coffee shop.
In the end, this was between her and Kingsley. One sociopath to another.
For a brief period in that house in Wyoming, Katarina had imagined a new life for her and Bethany, one where Kingsley still existed, just not in her orbit. The moment he’d kidnapped Bethany, though, she’d accepted the truth.
This would never end. Not until one of them was dead.
I’m coming for you, Papa.
33
Crumpled napkins piled up in front of Ellie like discarded tissues in a melodramatic movie scene after the heroine suffered a heartbreak. The numbers on her latest attempt at deciphering the code swam before her eyes, and a knifelike pain stabbed her skull. She was a detective, not a codebreaker. She didn’t even like those stupid Sudoku puzzles her dad had encouraged her to try when she was younger. Who knew how long it would take them to crack the code? Thirty more minutes? An hour? A day?
Never?
Ellie groaned and dropped her face into her hands. They didn’t have time for this. Not her mother, and not Bethany, either. But of course, here they sat. Dancing once again to Kingsley’s tune. Was that his plan? To force them to waste time trying to solve this ridiculous puzzle? Did he even have a plan beyond his enjoyment of serving as puppet master and pulling on their collective strings?
“Wow, you two are really focused on whatever you’re doing there. In the thirty seconds I’ve been standing here, neither of you looked up once.”
Ellie lifted her head. “Sorry. This code is a killer.”
Jillian blew air from her cheeks. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re here because we could definitely use the help.”
Clay feigned rolling up his sleeves. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He scanned the patio. “Where’s Katarina?”
The question hit Ellie like an electric shock. She bolted upright and traded an alarmed glance with Jillian before searching the patio herself. No Katarina.
Jillian sprang to her feet with so much force, the plastic chair tipped and clattered to the pavement, startling Sam, who yelped and darted under the table. “You big wimp, you’re not in trouble. But you can help me look for Katarina.” She tugged the lead, and the dog trotted back out, following Jillian as she hurried around the corner.
“Shit.” Ellie watched her roommate and dog disappear while digging into her pocket for her cell phone. The line rang once. Twice. Three times.
Come on, come on, pick up, Ellie urged, her knuckles white on the case.
The phone rang two more times before an automated voice mail service picked up.
Ellie squeezed the phone while waiting for the beep.
“Dammit, Katarina, what the hell are you doing? Call me before you screw this all to hell.” Ellie rattled off her cell number before ending the call with a stab of her finger. She laid her head on the table, silently cursing both Katarina and herself with every breath, but mostly herself. So stupid. She’d known that Katarina would jump at any chance to find her daughter, but she’d still gone and let her guard down.
After counting to ten, she straightened and pulled up a contact. The lab tech answered on the first ring.
“This is Carl.”
Ellie mouthed a silent prayer. “Carl, it’s Ellie. Remember the phone I had you LoJack, oh,” she checked the time, “around thirty minutes or so ago?”
The tech whistled. “Don’t tell me you need me to track it down already.”
“Yup, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
He whistled. “Wow, good thing you stopped by and had me take care of that before you left the station. This might be the fastest service request ever. Never fear, I’ll get you that info quicker than Thor can reach for his hammer. Except, yeah, no good, I forgot about Avengers: Endgame.”
Ellie drummed her fingers on the table and held her impatience in check. Barely. “I don’t have time for pop culture references, Carl.”
“Right, right, sorry! I just meant, yeah, I’ll get that info to you ASAP.”
“Fantastic. Oh, and once you report back with the info, can you fill Chief Johnson in on what’s happening?” Hopefully, by the time the chief got around to checking in, Ellie would be close to catching up with Katarina. This definitely qualified as one of those “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” scenarios.
“Sure thing.”
“Thanks, you’re the best.”
“You know it.”
Clay was ready as soon as Ellie disconnected the call. “What’s the play? We going after her?”
<
br /> Beneath her rib cage, something softened at Clay’s simple assumption. We. How good that one little word sounded.
On the outside, though, she worked to project steely resolve. “The play is, I’m going after her. Solo.”
Ellie braced herself for the eruption that was guaranteed to follow. It didn’t take long. After two seconds of gazing slack-jawed at her like she’d grown a third eye in the middle of her forehead, Clay smacked his palm to the table.
“The hell you are!”
Shane appeared at their side. “What’s going on?”
Jillian had just rejoined them, but after a quick glance at their faces, began to slowly back away. “Right. So, Sam and I are heading over to help Carl out. Text me when you figure everything out, bye.” Dog by her side, she scampered off toward the street.
Clay ignored Jillian’s retreat. His mutinous gaze never left Ellie’s. She held her ground, thrusting out her chin while meeting his stare. Seconds slipped by, with neither of them backing down.
When the tension stretched Ellie’s nerves so taut she feared they might snap, she broke the silence. “I don’t want to put you in danger.” She looked over at Shane. “You either, so…you’re fired.”
Neither man moved.
Clay looked like he was chewing on nails. “I understand, and that’s very noble of you. But what you need to understand is that we make a good team. And we’re far better together than we ever could be apart.” He leaned forward and placed his hand near hers on the table, palm up. “Plus, it’s kind of my job, putting myself in danger to catch bad guys.”
Hesitating, she bit her lip. One glance into his gleaming brown eyes and her stubborn determination to track Kingsley alone flew right out the door.
Clay was right. They were more effective together.
Ellie pressed her palm to his. “Okay. Just promise not to die on me, okay? Because if you do, I’m going to be pissed.”
Clay laced their fingers together and squeezed. “Then I’ll do my damnedest to comply. I’ve seen you pissed before. It’s not pretty.”
Despite the tension clamping down on her shoulders with a vice grip, Ellie snickered. “Good.” She turned to her bodyguard, who looked like he was ready to thrash her. “This could be dangerous.”
Shane simply lifted an eyebrow.
Ellie sighed. “Okay…let’s go.”
After dumping the useless napkins into the trash, they hurried back across the street to the precinct parking lot. Shane jumped into Ellie’s Explorer while they climbed into Clay’s SUV. A minute later, they headed out.
From the passenger seat, Ellie connected her phone to Bluetooth and dialed Carl. “Ellie again, you ready for me?”
“Yup. The phone’s up in North Charleston, just off Oak Drive.”
The farther north they traveled, the smaller and less expensive the neighborhoods. As they closed in on Oak Drive, the houses turned older and more modest, showing signs of aging in the old shingle roofs and overdue paint jobs, without falling into slums.
Depending on the particular house, the front yards were either tidy and neatly mown or full of dying grass mixed with dirt. Chain-link fences were more common than white pickets, and the cars and trucks that lined cracked driveways and curbs were late models, many featuring prominent dents or missing hubcaps. An ancient pop-up camper took up space along the left side of the road. A few houses down on the right, the SUV’s headlights revealed colorful chalk drawings stretching along the asphalt.
Clay turned down another residential street, craning his neck to scan the houses on either side. “Why here?”
Ellie bounced her leg on the seat, her skin tingling. “I think Kingsley may have grown up here.”
Clay tapped the brakes in the middle of the road, lurching Ellie toward the windshield. She grabbed the ceiling handle and turned toward him. “What?”
“I don’t like this. It feels like we’re heading straight into a trap.”
Arms crossed, a man in a dark t-shirt and a pair of stained jeans emerged from his garage and stood in the driveway, fixing Clay with a suspicious stare. Clay eased his foot off the brake, and the SUV rolled forward at a snail’s pace.
Ellie rubbed her arms and suppressed a shiver. “I don’t like it either, but we don’t have much choice. Unless you have a better idea?”
Clay’s knuckles blanched as he squeezed the steering wheel. With a muffled curse, he pushed harder on the gas, and the SUV gained speed.
“The final address appears to be 1303 Oak Drive,” Carl said. “The phone went inside and hasn’t come out.”
With the next turn, they left the residential area and found themselves on a road leading back into a wooded area. Clay stopped and pointed at something glimmering ahead. The sticker on a mailbox reflecting the light.
“Twenty bucks says that’s 1303.”
Ellie squinted but couldn’t quite see the number. “The road circles around, so keep going and don’t stop.”
Clay and Ellie inspected what they could see of the house as they cruised past, Shane a few hundred yards behind them. Clay continued driving until he reached the end of the street, made a U-turn, and then headed back. A quarter of a mile away, he pulled the SUV off the road around a curve.
“What now?”
They both stared at the house. 1303 Oak Drive was an unassuming single-story dwelling. Like the neighboring residences, the home emitting the LoJack signal was small and modest, with blue paint faded to almost white and a little patch of grass out front shadowed by a giant tree. A few shingles were missing from the roof, and the front window appeared boarded up, but other than that, there was nothing special about the house one way or another. Nothing to suggest a serial killer had spent his boyhood years behind those walls.
“Let’s get closer.”
With few functioning streetlamps, the area relied on the moon to ease the darkness. The overall effect was dim and eerie, like the calm before the storm. Down the block, a dog barked before abruptly silencing.
The hairs along the nape of Ellie’s neck bristled. She stroked the gun in her holster for reassurance before lunging for the door handle. She stopped short of opening it, though, pressing her forehead to the cool glass and inhaling through her nose.
Don’t just act. Think.
Her impulses screamed to leap from the vehicle and charge inside. Logic dictated restraint. They were flying blind. No blueprints, no intel of any kind, no idea at all of what awaited them on the other side of that door.
But what if Kingsley was in the middle of a new round of Die, Bitch! Die? Except instead of Ellie and the short, dark-haired woman, the current contestants were Bethany and her mom?
The memory of Ellie’s own scream ricocheted through her head. Die, Bitch! Die!
What if he’d already played his game and vanished, leaving her mom’s bloody, tortured body strewn across the floor for Ellie to discover? Hacked up like the dark-haired woman, her arms bloody stumps where her hands used to be.
The terrible image seared her lungs shut, and she gasped, squeezing the door handle. She had to stop him. For good.
The leather seat creaked. “Are you okay?”
Clay’s steady calm acted like a bucket of ice water, shocking Ellie free of terror’s grip.
Stop. You’re not a vulnerable, foolish teenager anymore. You’re a grown woman. A trained detective with the Charleston PD. Start acting like one.
Ellie straightened from the window. Calmed her breathing. She could do this. She had to do this.
“Ellie? What do you want to do?”
She held up a hand while she considered the options. There weren’t many.
Option one: she, Clay, and Shane charged inside, guns blazing, and hoped like hell they didn’t walk into a trap or turn a bad situation worse.
Option two: call in and wait for backup.
Neither option was ideal, but only one was motivated by deep-seated fury and a desire to punish.
Ellie rubbed her hands up and down he
r pants, concentrating on the sensation of the fabric against her palms to center herself. “If we go in now, I’m scared of how I’ll react if he’s hurt either of them.” Ellie met Clay’s eyes. “I don’t want to give him the chance to play me like that, to make me forget who I am, what I stand for. I don’t want one of his games to trigger me to do something I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting.”
Throughout her hesitant confession, Clay’s expression never once changed. “I hear you. Just know that no matter what happens in there, I’ll be right here with you.”
His unwavering support humbled Ellie, cutting through the last of the indecision trapping her in limbo. Clay was good for his word. He’d stand by her side however this played out.
The burden was now on Ellie to prove herself worthy of such unreserved confidence. “Thank you.” Her voice trembled with emotion, but her hands were steady as she pulled out her phone to dial Chief Browning.
Before she could, it started ringing. Speak of the devil. “Chief?”
“Detective Kline. Carl alerted me to the situation. What’s your current location?”
“We followed Kingsley’s phone to a house on Oak Drive.” She rattled off the street number.
“Is he inside?”
“No confirmation one way or another, but I suspect so, yes. Want us to do recon?”
“No, sit tight. We’re only twenty minutes out.”
Relief warred with impatience. Ellie was tempted to protest, but caution won. The chief was right. Waiting for backup was the smart play. “All right, I’ll—”
A gunshot boomed, piercing the quiet neighborhood. Ellie froze as her imagination conjured a new vision of her mom…falling, arms outstretched with a perfect round hole in the middle of her forehead. Gasping for breath and bleeding out while Kingsley threw back his head and laughed.
No.
The thought of losing her mother to Kingsley was worse than imagining her own cold death.