by Cole McCade
But it was one thing they could do right, regardless of everything else.
Garza stared through the observation glass at Walters, her mouth twisting, her eyes pensive. “Listen. I can’t just take him out of the system. I don’t have that kind of authority without a judicial review. But if I talk to the right people and we keep him under guard, I can at least get him in a hospital bed until I bring a social worker in for him. Say it’s a condition of his cooperation with the case. Is that a start?”
Seong-Jae inclined his head gratefully. “It is a start.”
“Seong-Jae.” Aanga drew closer, his mouth a thin, hard line. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What if he’s playing you to get himself moved somewhere with no security, so he can just…walk away once we’re not watching?”
“Then that blood will be on my hands,” Seong-Jae said. He would accept that responsibility. “But I do not think I am wrong.”
Aanga shook his head. “I don’t know if we should risk it for a leap of fai—”
The crackle of the walkie on Garza’s hip cut him off, a voice spitting out, urgent, male, broken into electronic static. “Sheriff, we got a high-priority situation in progress, call just came in from 911,” the deputy on the other end said. “You’re gonna want to get here fast. Some guy’s in the middle of a shopping mall…and he’s cutting people up in a fucking rabbit mask.”
[13: THE PRICE OF YOUR GREED]
MALCOLM GRASPED TIGHT TO THE oh-shit handle in the front seat of Garza’s patrol car while the vehicle careened through the Phoenix streets, nearly tipping onto two wheels as it took corners, flinging Seong-Jae and Joshi around the back seat.
Sirens surrounded them in screams, cop cars arrowing in from all directions toward a shopping center not far from the main Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office building. The needle pushed eighty, ninety, traffic skewing out of their way and lanes clearing in a rush as Garza pressed down harder on the gas, staring over the steering wheel with fixed intensity and her jaw so tight her jawline was a razor. Updates spat out of the radio fixed to the dash, and it was fucking harrowing—more so when this wasn’t Malcolm’s turf and he couldn’t count the seconds until he knew he was there and could do something.
Grating voices spilled through the car. “—evacuating, barricaded in—”
“—several hostages—”
“—blood everywhere—”
“—not sure how many of the hostages have been killed, we may need SWAT on the scene—”
“Fuck,” he hissed. “This is going to be hell.”
“Brace yourself,” Garza growled, before slamming on the brakes as she sent the car slewing off the road, the rear of the vehicle fishtailing and spinning about as she sent it tearing into a parking lot filled with flashing sirens.
Ambulances. Patrol vehicles. Even two fire trucks. Goddammit, there were the news vans and helicopters, and that meant keeping this case under wraps to prevent showing their hand was pretty much a complete and utter bust.
Malcolm couldn’t care about that right now.
In this moment he only cared about the cordon of police cars forming a barricade around a bath and body store, one of many shops stacked together in a long, low row in a brick-fronted strip mall.
People flooded everywhere—many civilians in the midst of fleeing the shops surrounding the scene, police officers forming a human shield and ushering them out into the parking lot, people screaming, children crying, families crashing into each other and sobbing as they reunited, others trying to claw past the officers holding everyone back from the bath and body shop.
Malcolm could only guess they had family and loved ones inside.
And from the spatters of blood on the windows…
It wasn’t looking good.
His stomach sank. But before the car had even fully pulled to a stop, he was shoving the door open, spilling out, Joshi and Seong-Jae right behind him, Garza barely missing a step as she killed the engine, vaulted out, jogged to catch up and elbow her way through.
“Garza here,” she called sharply, raising her hand to draw attention, then jerking her thumb back toward them. “They’re with me. Catch me up.”
Two officers pulled away from crouching behind an open police car door, glancing at Malcolm, Seong-Jae, and Joshi with hard, questioning eyes before one man snapped off a nod to Garza.
“We—”
A scream rose from inside the shop—chilling, terrible.
Pleading.
Sobbing.
Malcolm couldn’t understand the words, but his blood went cold and thin and trembling with the desperate need in that voice.
Begging for mercy.
The officer went white, but then continued, “We got the call through dispatch a few minutes ago. This guy just…came in wearing a weird rubber rabbit mask, knife right out in the open. People started running, screaming, some of ‘em got out before he shoved a display bed in to barricade the door, and started just…cutting people up and screaming ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ in between singing fucking nursery rhymes. Jack and Jill fell down the hill or something.”
“What the fuck?” Joshi said.
Seong-Jae shook his head. “It is not him. He has never shown remorse before, and he would not act so blatantly in a public area, with no time or privacy to dedicate solely to the commitment of his artistry. Not to mention that particular rhyme is not his hallmark.”
“Accomplice?” Aanga countered.
“Possible unwilling accessory,” Malcolm suggested. “He may have been coerced.”
Garza bared her teeth in a snarl. “I don’t care who it is or why he’s doing it, let’s just get him out of there before the body count rises. How many we got inside?”
The officer shook his head. “Not clear, but estimate’s between ten and twelve.”
The second officer, who had been silent, listening to the earpiece coiled against his ear, lifted his head. “We’ve got a shoot to kill order if it’s necessary and snipers in position.”
Even as he spoke, Malcolm caught purposeful movement, looked up—as several officers in SWAT gear took position atop buildings across the street, assembling rifles on tripods in quick-time, while others set themselves up using the barricade of parked patrol cars as shields, rapid clicks and rattles of equipment mingling with the noise of sirens, helicopters, a panicked crowd.
Fuck.
“No,” Joshi said. “Whoever’s in there may be our only chance to stop a much greater threat. He may know critical evidence.”
“Then you’d better move fucking fast and come up with a plan,” Garza snapped. “You got thirty seconds before we line up the shot and fire. He’s killing people in there.”
“Is there a back entrance?” Malcolm asked. “Employee entrance or loading dock?”
Garza hesitated, but one of the other two officers spoke up. “Should be,” he said dubiously.
“We do the obvious,” Malcolm said, speaking quickly, feeling like every word was another second lost in a countdown timer. “He doesn’t have a gun. He can’t do anything to deter inbound. So we split up, storm from the front and back, take him down. Quick. If we have to shoot, shoot to wound, but not to kill or cause any other life-threatening injury. We need his testimony.”
“We don’t know he doesn’t have a gun,” Garza said. “I say we take him out now. Don’t give him a chance to escalate and hurt our officers.”
“He won’t have a gun,” Joshi said tightly, staring up at her with something almost like desperation. “He’s not our man, but he’s connected. No guns in this case. I know the profile. I know the pattern. This is bait. Trust me, and do it Malcolm’s way.”
Garza scowled, her gaze flickering to Malcolm, then back to Joshi.
And Malcolm made a choice.
Whatever was brimming in the tension between himself and Joshi…
Right now they were on the same team.
“He’s right,” Malcolm said. “He knows the profile. The only person more familiar with the p
rofile we’re working around is Seong-Jae. If Joshi says there’s no gun, there’s no gun. Let’s do this and put an end to it.”
“Please,” Seong-Jae added—and then they were three. “Trust us. We can end this expediently without losing any more lives or a key witness in a case that could claim dozens, if not hundreds more without his testimony.”
Garza hesitated only a moment longer, before breaking down swearing, grinding the heel of her palm against her forehead. “Fuck. Fine. If this goes bad, if any of our men get shot, it’s fucking on you. I want you on the intercept team coming through the back. All three of you.” Then she snagged the mic clipped to her collar, leaning into it, barking, “I want five units with me going in the front, five with Lieutenant Jameson around the back. Circle quick, signal when you’re ready, try not to trip over the feds; they’re with you. We’re using storm tactics, shoot only if necessary, suspect is armed with a knife and no firearms.”
Then she clicked the mic off, lifting her head, looking at them gravely.
“If you’re wrong,” she said, “I will not stop until I have your fucking heads.”
“We aren’t wrong,” Joshi said. “I swear to you.” Then he tossed his head to Malcolm and Seong-Jae, pivoting on his heel. “Come on.”
Malcolm exchanged a look with Seong-Jae, and for a moment Seong-Jae lingered on him, brushing his arm wordlessly with a subtle nod, before Malcolm smiled faintly, tightly.
Before turning to sprint after Joshi, jogging toward the phalanx of uniformed officers racing in tight formation toward the far end of the single-building shopping center.
They caught up with the officers within seconds, Joshi flashing his badge and a quick murmured explanation before they fell into stride—moving low but quick, rounding the building and slipping into the back alley, footsteps tromping to the rhythm of heart-pounding tension, breathless rush-rush adrenaline. Lieutenant Jameson was a tall man in a Kevlar jacket, buzz-cut, no-nonsense, and he was quick counting down doors to the right one, moving past multiple identical rear entrances in a narrow street until he stopped just outside an unmarked door with only a few scratches in the paint distinguishing it from others.
Scratches, and the sounds of screams filtering from under the door, muted and shrill and hideous.
Malcolm slipped his hand into his coat and let one of his Glocks fall from its shoulder holster into his palm, pointing it downward and keeping his finger light on the trigger; Seong-Jae did the same, while Joshi produced a Beretta from inside his suit, holding it in a relaxed, confident grip. Jameson glanced back at them, lifting his chin in question; Joshi nodded, and Jameson murmured “Move in” into his vest mic before flicking his fingers in the signal to go.
It happened in a burst explosion of noise: door slammed open, banging off the wall, screams erupting from distant muted sounds into electric shrilling clarity, shouts of hands up! Everybody get your hands up! This is the police! as they charged through the rear storeroom and burst into the storefront—just as the front window of the store shattered open in shards of glittering glass, the bed barricading the door shoved aside by a wall of riot shields, Garza and her officers flooding in with their weapons raised.
The charge propelled Malcolm forward, chest tight, carrying him through tight confines in a crush of people, pressed up close against Seong-Jae only to break apart as they spilled onto the main shop floor, shelves toppling over and glass candles breaking and molded decorative soaps tumbling everywhere.
And scattering across a scene of carnage.
A man in a dark slate-colored janitor’s jumpsuit, workman’s gloves, and a rabbit mask stood over a huddled cluster of ten people pushed into a corner against a display of potpourri satchets—women, men, children, all of them sprayed in blood like splattered paint, clutching at each other, sobbing, shrieking, holding fast and several suffering from surface cuts to their arms, faces, hands, torsos. Only one person wasn’t conscious: a young man wearing a nametag that said Brian, sprawled close by in a spreading pool of his own blood, dark stains beneath him turning the navy blue carpet black, his blank face and the second smile on his throat saying…he wasn’t getting up again.
The man in the rabbit mask was covered in blood, saturated into his gloves and jumpsuit, splashed in macabre red arcs across the rubbery face of the mask.
And he held a long, vicious-looking kitchen knife, dipped in sticky, clinging red, poised over his head and prepared to stab downward.
But he froze, as the cordon of officers closed in on him.
“Drop the weapon,” Garza said, slow and firm. “Drop it right now and we won’t shoot.”
The rabbit head turned left, then right, staring first at Garza’s team, then at Jameson…then looking past at Malcolm, for just a moment. Past the mask Malcolm caught eyes wide with fear; it wasn’t the same mask as the one in the videos. In the video, the rabbit mask had been white, and pseudo-realistic enough to be uncanny, disturbing, especially with the surreally realistic shape of the mask contrasted against its massive cartoon eyes; this one was gray, white, cartoon caricature exaggerations. That one had had mesh over the eyes so it was hard to see past the costume; this one had empty cutouts where the irises should be, so that a pair of light brown, glazed, utterly terrified eyes could stare through.
Malcolm kept his gun lowered, as he held those eyes. The man was trembling, and yet his grip tightened on the knife; he was on the verge of panicking, snapping, breaking, possibly doing something reckless—if not to the victims, then to himself.
Slowly, Malcolm edged forward. “Listen to her,” he said carefully.
Jameson’s head snapped toward him, his gun remaining trained on the suspect. “What are you—”
“Sst,” Garza interrupted, a dart of her eyes quite clearly saying shut up.
Malcolm edged out in front of Jameson, keeping his posture low, non-threatening. “Just set the knife down and kick it toward me,” he said. Pacing every word, giving it time to sink in past adrenaline and panic to make sure the suspect understood. Then, on a hunch, he added carefully, “We know you didn’t want to do this. We know he made you do it. It’s not your fault.”
The rabbit shook his head. “Bu-but…I…I…look what I did…”
The boy on the floor, he meant, his head darting toward the corpse, then away, as if he couldn’t stand to look. His eyes locked on Malcolm again, pleading.
“You don’t have to do it again,” Malcolm said. “You can stop. He’s not here. He can’t make you do anything else. He can’t make you hurt anyone else. You can let these people go. You can let yourself go.”
“I…I-I…”
The man whined in the back of his throat, trailing into a piteous whimper. For a moment that gloved hand tightened on the knife again. The man in the rabbit mask whimpered as he angled the blade toward himself, holding his arm up higher, his entire body shaking wildly, violently.
“No.” Malcolm shook his head, reaching one hand out. “No more pain. You don’t have to hurt.”
The man in the rabbit mask jerked his arm, starting to plunge downward.
Then stopped.
Before he let out a low, wretched sob and slumped forward, shuddering, his arm falling limply and the knife dangling from his hand. One of the hostages let out a scream, but he didn’t respond.
And his fingers went lax.
His fingers went lax, and the knife clattered to the floor.
“Oh, thank God,” he whimpered, hitching and broken into the mask, turned hollow and frightened and strange. “Thank God. I’m sorry, I’m so so s-sorry…thank you.”
For a moment the entire scene remained frozen, silent save for the sounds of his hoarse, body-shaking sobs and the whimpers and shallow breaths of the hostages.
Before the man in the rabbit mask shifted just enough to kick the knife away from himself, sending it spinning toward Garza.
And the police swarmed in.
They hit the suspect like a freight train, tackling him to the ground—but
at least the guns were holstered. Guns holstered, and it was just hands and handcuffs and the man crying as his hands were wrenched behind his back and his wrists forced into cuffs.
Malcolm sagged, exhaling sharply, and slid his Glock away. Across the room, Garza caught his eye, lips quirking wryly as she gave him a grudging nod of approval.
While on the floor…
One of the officers caught the rabbit mask and ripped it off.
Revealing the face of Kevin Arnsford, striated in red veins and streaked with tears.
C
AANGA JOSHI STOOD OUTSIDE IN the parking lot beneath the glare of the Arizona sun, and watched as Garza and her men manhandled Arnsford into the back of a patrol car with firm efficiency. Patrol units milled everywhere, taking witness statements and trying to keep the reporters past the cordon. The forensics van had rolled up minutes ago, scene containment in progress. Paramedics had the victims, already bundling them into ambulances and checking their injuries, stanching the bleeding, calming frightened people and sorting out family from the watching crowds to accompany their loved ones.
And the one body bag, black and ominous.
He couldn’t have been more than twenty-something.
Just wanted to get his shift over, and ended up dead.
“And then there were five,” he said, smoothing his tie with a sigh. “We’ll have to find out what the Golden Ratio Killer did to him, to make him willing to play decoy.”
“We’re dealing with a monster. I think the question is more what he wouldn’t do,” Malcolm Khalaji said at his shoulder; he and Seong-Jae stood just behind Aanga, watching as well. Khalaji just looked tired…but Seong-Jae looked blank. Dead. Empty. His eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them, not really.
Aanga was starting to think he’d really fucked up, bringing Seong-Jae on his case.
But there was no way he could solve it without him.
The Golden Ratio Killer’s files had sat in the unsolved cold cases for years, over a decade, before Seong-Jae had taken one look and seen the pattern instantly.
There was something special about Seong-Jae.