by Leslie Wolfe
“My son was—” John Dahler started to say.
“Our attorney will be happy to answer any pertinent questions,” Edwina replied. “Please make an appointment.”
“All right,” Tess replied. “One more thing. How did you get that scar on your lower lip?”
Edwina’s steel gaze flickered, and her pupils dilated a little.
“Matthew bit me when he was three years old,” she replied reluctantly. “It’s a phase some kids have. I’m trusting this will be all?”
They didn’t bother to answer, and the massive doors soon closed behind them.
41
Agony
It was dark, the absence of light almost complete. Darkness changes things; it alters realities. In darkness, even the tiniest sounds gain the destructive force of an explosion— terrifying, paralyzing, weakening the scared, the lame, the dying.
Noises, amplified by visual sensory deprivation, gave Julie an acute perception of where he was and what he was doing. Earlier, he’d pulled some strings, rearranging that abhorrent harness, and now she was positioned at an angle, her head higher than her body, but not fully upright. It was better, if the simple notion of better could exist in hell’s darkest corner.
She breathed shallow and fast, afraid of the sounds her breath made, afraid she’d get his attention. She watched him move around the room, calm, precise, unhurried. He was comfortable in the darkness, unhesitant. When he was absent from the room, Julie struggled to regain a shred of hope, forcing herself to believe her hell would come to an end. Surely someone must be looking for her, out there, and they would find her soon. Maybe in the next five minutes, she prayed, maybe in the next ten. Oh, God, please don’t abandon me…
She hadn’t prayed in years, since her grandmother’s funeral, and even then she’d done it for her sake, not because she believed. In here, in the hands of her tormentor, prayer came naturally, and belief was the only alternative left to undiluted despair. She prayed, instead of thinking about what had happened to her or what was about to happen again. She needed to believe she’d be safe again soon, safe in a world where pain didn’t exist anymore.
Her throat was sore from screams that no one heard, and her eyes, swollen, impaired what little night vision she had. She was exhausted, lack of sleep taking a toll and feeding her fears. Most of all, she wasn’t ready for him to come near her again, although he was preparing to. Fear choked her with a desperation to break free. Forcing herself to be rational, she didn’t try to break free anymore; she’d tried before, when she was rested and strong and had failed. She still hung from the ceiling in that horrible harness, naked and vulnerable, a marionette in the hands of a skilled torturer, primed to be preyed on. Her heart beat fast, fear fueling the adrenaline that kept her conscious, despite the endless hours of torment she’d endured. The same adrenaline probably fueled that last remaining shred of hope, the waning belief that someone would find her soon. Please, God, please, let them find me… Let them find me before he…
A noise caught her attention. He was approaching her, calm, naked, and smiling. He reached for her, gently touching her face, caressing her. Unable to control herself, she sobbed hard, desperately.
“No, no, please,” she managed to say between sobs. “Please, let me go.”
He stopped touching her and stood in front of her, feigning offense.
“My dear,” he said, “I want to hear you say yes. I don’t like hearing you say no.”
She let out a convulsive cry, gasping. “No, please… I’ll do anything.”
“Yes, darling, yes,” he said calmly, like teaching a child. He touched her swollen cheek again, caressing it, playing with her hair. “Say yes, please, and we can be friends.”
She tried to stifle her sobs and do as he’d told her. “Y—yes,” she uttered between gasps.
“Excellent,” he replied.
Then he went to the counter, barely visible in the darkness. A flip of a switch, and the room flooded with light, powerful, fluorescent light coming from the ceiling.
She gasped, knowing what was coming.
“No, please,” she whimpered, before she could stop herself.
He turned to face her, and she saw the scalpel in his hand.
“No, no,” she screamed, fighting against her restraints.
“Don’t you dare say no to me,” he whispered, so close to her face she felt his breath against her skin.
Then he went back to the counter, where he prepared another syringe with expert dexterity, pulling fluid from two vials. He tapped against the syringe body with his fingernail, and pressed the piston gently, eliminating air bubbles until the liquid was clear and all the trapped air gone. He took a cotton ball and doused it with alcohol. Then he approached her, under her terrified, rounded eyes.
“Do you know why paper cuts are so painful?” he asked.
She couldn’t bring herself to answer, her eyes fixated on the hand that held the syringe. She whimpered weakly.
“It’s because the paper only cuts the nerve endings, where they’re the most sensitive,” he explained patiently, as if he were teaching a class. “It’s a unique experience, I’m sure you agree.”
She whimpered again, trying to keep her mind from giving in to panic. Please let them find me.
“This will hurt a bit,” he added, “but don’t worry. It’s nothing compared to what’s coming.”
Scared out of her mind, she screamed and fought desperately as he came near her, syringe in hand. She must have kicked him while flailing hysterically, because she felt her foot hit something and heard him cuss under his breath.
“Bitch,” he growled, then slapped her so hard that her lip started bleeding. She froze, as he leaned forward and grabbed her torn lip between his teeth, clasping her chin with his fingers. Then he bit hard, and her mouth filled with blood, its metallic taste fueling her panic. She screamed again, and he let go of her lip and moved to her side. With a steeled grip, he grabbed her thigh and pushed the needle deep into the muscle, then thrusted the plunger forcefully.
She screamed in agony. No one was coming to save her.
42
Considerations
Tess started the engine without a word, and, as soon as Michowsky closed his door, she floored it. She couldn’t breathe, and no amount of air conditioning relieved the pressure she felt in her head or the pounding in her chest.
At the corner of the street, she missed a stop sign and honked angrily at the oncoming traffic, although her flashers were off. All she’d had so far were roadblocks, obstacles of all sorts, keeping her from catching the unsub. With Julie gone more than a day and a half, and with the Dahlers fiercely protective of Matthew, what could she do? Shortlist a few properties, in the hope they’d nail the place where Matthew Dahler kept Julie? What if they were wrong? What if Edwina Dahler was about to tell Matthew the cops were looking for him? The moment he heard, he’d kill Julie and clean up the mess. They’d never find her body, not ever, not with the Glades a quick drive away.
“Son of a bitch,” she shouted, pounding her fist against the steering wheel.
Michowsky turned and stared at her.
“Mind telling me where we’re going?”
“I need to think, that’s all,” she replied. “Should I drop you off somewhere?”
“I’ll tag along,” he replied, and crossed his arms at his chest. “We’re supposed to be a team. At least in principle.”
She turned on the flashers and stepped on it, mumbling oaths under her breath. The traffic was still bad, clogged to a standstill on the Interstate, but she took the shoulder and didn’t slow down until she reached her exit.
“Did you notice?” Michowsky asked. “About the house.”
“Huh? What?”
“It faces east, and it has sand, its own beach.”
“Goddamn… no, I completely missed that.”
“Did you see Edwina out there?”
“N—no, I kept my eyes on Dahler. He was a little too forth
coming, in my opinion. Why?” She frowned, angry at herself. How the hell did she miss that?
“She was doing yoga poses facing the sun. All kinds of poses. This can’t be a coincidence. I think he’s—”
“And he bit her too,” Tess interjected. “Bit her lip, just like with some of the victims. Just like with Sonya.”
“What do you think he’s doing? Sending her a message?”
She didn’t reply for a while, frowning and white-knuckling the steering wheel, as she maneuvered through busy streets cluttered with bad drivers in rental cars. Tourists paid more attention to the ocean and the sites, than to incoming traffic. Distracted and holding phone cameras in their hands, tourist drivers made the worst of Miami’s asphalt woes.
“He could be,” she eventually replied. “He could be reliving some trauma that has something to do with his mother, that beach, and the sunrise. Or something. But he’s also experimenting, perfecting his method. That’s what Doc Rizza said, that’s what SSA McKenzie, the profiler, said, and that’s what makes the most sense to me.”
“So you’re saying he’s planning to—”
“Kill his mother, yes.”
He nodded, scratching his head.
“Family fortune aside, when do we put an APB on this scumbag? What if we can’t talk to him until next week?”
She glanced quickly in his direction and scoffed quietly.
“We don’t. The moment we do that, the family will find out, and that means Matthew will too. Someone on the force will give the Dahlers a call, either because they’re acquainted somehow, or because they want to score a quick payday. And that’s the moment Julie dies.” She bit her lip and slammed her hand into the steering wheel. “I might have killed her already.”
She didn’t say anything else, regardless of how intently Michowsky gazed at her. Eventually, he turned his head away, staring out his window, quiet. He saw it too, the possibility that their visit with the Dahlers might have spooked Matthew, and there was nothing left to say.
She pulled into Media Luna’s parking lot, close to the entrance. The lot was almost completely empty at that early afternoon hour. She recognized Catman’s Jeep Wrangler, dressed up with bull bar, winch, and roof projectors, and painted in a military camouflage pattern. A few things made Catman who he was, and that Jeep was one of them.
“You need a fix, Agent Winnett?” Michowsky asked, disappointment tinting his voice.
She smirked in his direction and went straight inside. He followed closely, his frown deep, and the corners of his mouth edging downward.
She hopped on a stool and tilted her head in response to Catman’s grin. He wiped his hands on a rag and approached them.
“Burgers and fries?” he asked.
Tess nodded once. Cat turned to Michowsky, and his grin died.
“Bud Light, was it?”
“Yeah, sure, why not,” he replied, still frowning. “If it’s a party…”
She buried her face in her hands, relishing the coolness of her fingers against her tired eyes. What the hell could they do? Maybe the guys could find something in the financials. A location, an address, another hint. For now, they were stonewalled, and she kept going over the options they still had in an obsessive, repetitive cycle, the way a computer does when it can’t process a set of data.
She hoped that through some miracle Matthew didn’t get spooked and didn’t decide to kill Julie sooner to cover up his tracks. She hoped they still had a chance. Lately though, hoping had done her little good. She hoped she’d find Matthew at his parents’ home, and from there they could tail him and find out where he’s going. She hoped she could see, beyond any doubt, that he was the killer, just by talking to him.
“Do we still have doubts that Matthew Dahler is the unsub?” Michowsky asked.
She almost flinched when she heard her thoughts spoken out loud. Sometimes Michowsky was uncanny like that. He was a good cop, who got lost a little, or got roughed up by life, and had temporarily misplaced his edge.
“Do you?”
“He fits,” Michowsky replied, thanking Cat with a hand gesture for the beer in front of him. “As much as I hate to admit it, he fits. We could probably get a warrant at this point. There’s a judge in Palm Beach County who’s not intimidated much by money. He might go for it.”
“We need an address, Michowsky. We can’t ask for a blanket warrant, covering all his property. He owns too much, and the judge will never go for it. Not to mention he could be using some business space or some property that belongs to his parents. Who knows. We ain’t got it, not yet.” She gulped her drink thirstily, stopping only when she was about to choke on the mint leaves.
“Whoa, easy there,” Michowsky muttered. “We got time. Assuming he didn’t freak out, we got time. It’s only the second day.”
She slammed her hands against the bar counter so hard that their drinks clattered, and Cat turned his head, watching her carefully.
“You think we got time, Michowsky?” she shouted, ignoring the few other customers. “That’s what you think, huh? That she’s at a spa somewhere, getting her fucking nails done? Have you even seen the other victims? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Catman quietly replaced her empty glass with a full one, sweaty and murky, filled to the brim. Then he disappeared without a word.
Michowsky glared at her with his jaw dropped. “I didn’t mean—”
“People never recover from this, Gary, they almost never do. There’s no time. There never was. Not since he grabbed her.”
She closed her eyes, and memories of her own nightmare invaded her. She remembered trying to run, to free herself from her attacker’s grip. Squirming under his heavy body, trying to claw and bite and kick. Feeling overpowered, defeated, just before the pain came. She shuddered and discreetly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She took another mouthful of icy, soothing liquid, feeling its coolness dissipate the ghosts and restore normalcy.
Michowsky’s phone rang, in time to save her from having to apologize for her outburst. He put the phone on the counter between them and took the call on speaker.
“Fradella and Brooks here. We have info on his locations.”
“Shoot,” Tess replied, invigorated.
“We’ve narrowed the list of possible locations in Florida. Seven years ago he bought a villa on the north end of Palm Beach Island. He paid for the whole thing in cash, and he’s been paying its taxes in cash too. It’s a wonder it’s under his legal name,” Fradella said. “We got lucky.”
“Address?”
“In your inbox. But there’s more. The only thing he’s done in all the states where he’s killed was rent cargo containers on shipping docks. That’s the only common denominator we could find.”
“Why did we miss that before?” Michowsky asked.
“Because he didn’t pay for them with his own credit cards. He used various business subsidiaries to pay for the containers. Invoices, checks, everything to make them look legit. By the way, your man Donovan is one hell of an analyst.”
“He is… please give him my thanks,” Tess replied.
A moment of silence, then quiet snickering from either Fradella or Brooks; Tess couldn’t tell.
“Umm... we did, and he said to tell you to go screw yourself too.”
She cringed, remembering the coffee disaster only two days before.
“It’s an internal joke we have,” she managed to say. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, there’s a cargo container in Florida too. We assumed he’d use his home if he’s killing here, locally, but there’s a 30-foot container on a long-term storage lease, parked at the Port of Palm Beach.”
“Isn’t that across from—” Tess started, hesitantly.
“Yeah, it’s right across the water from his paid-in-cash home.”
“Brooks, any installations of gym equipment?”
“It’s the weekend, so it’s been hard to find people. We’re still waiting on two companies, but nothing so
far.”
She gritted her teeth.
“All right, call me as soon as you know, and Brooks? Pound on some damn doors, don’t wait. I need that info now.”
She grabbed a handful of fries and shoved them in her mouth, the first she’d touched since Catman brought her the plate.
“Ready for that warrant now?” Michowsky asked.
“Nope, I’m ready to go,” she said, hopping off her stool and grabbing a few more fries. “That’s it, we got him.”
“Where? Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the Port of Palm Beach. I’ll visit that container first, then go to the house.”
“The hell you are!” Michowsky said, grabbing her arm. “Maybe after you sleep it off.”
“Huh? Take your fucking hand off me,” she growled, frozen by his touch. “Before I break it.”
Michowsky let go of her arm, like it was burning his skin, and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.
Cat approached silently, his eyes dead serious, and his fisted hands shoved deep in his pockets. He got near Michowsky, his eyes drilling into him, and put his hands on the counter.
“At least down some coffee, Winnett, what the hell?” Michowsky insisted.
“I’m about to break the law in many ways, Michowsky. Trust me when I tell you to back off. Sit this one out.”
“What happened to getting a warrant?”
She didn’t bother to answer, just left, car keys jiggling in her hand.
Michowsky shook his head, getting ready to chase after her, but turned to Cat.
“Why don’t you stop her from driving?”
“Now why the hell would I do that?” Cat asked calmly, not a hint of humor on his face.
“That’s why,” Gary pointed at Tess’s empty glasses. “Three mojitos are reason enough in my book.”
“They’re just virgin mojitos,” Cat laughed.
“Huh?”
“Mint lemonades,” he explained, continuing to laugh. “You’re the only one who had any alcohol here. You shouldn’t drive, buddy, all right?”