Vincent sighed with relief and grabbed the file. “I’m gonna send this overnight to a friend of mine. She might be the saving grace in this whole thing.”
“Let’s hope so.” Brandt checked her watch. “Should we move? Sun is going down.”
Vincent slapped a twenty on the table for the coffee they never touched and nodded. “Let’s move,” he said as they slipped out of the booth, Delores behind the counter watching them curiously.
23
Night had fallen. Brandt and Vincent were posted up two miles from one another—Brandt parked next door from Alyssa Moore’s house, and Vincent doing the same with the Bateman residence.
Vincent had sent the package overnight containing all his fingerprint evidence linked to the homicides to Miranda Stone’s address. Just a matter of time, he thought. If anyone can pull a Hail Mary, it’s Miranda.
He checked his watch: nine forty-two p.m. It had been a little over an hour since he’d parked in front of the Bateman household, Brandt checking in over text every few minutes to see if he had any updates.
He hadn’t.
Everything was calm, quiet, and still.
At ten fourteen, Brandt dropped him a line, probably out of sheer boredom. “How are we looking?” she asked Vincent when he picked up on the second ring.
“Nothing,” Vincent replied, his eyes glued to the front of the quiet and dimly lit Bateman household. “Not a damn thing.”
“You think there’s a chance our suspects might actually try to make a move on one or more of these kids?”
“I do, yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“A hunch,” he said. “Tends to pay off more often than not.”
With a laugh, Brandt said, “I was taught by my instructors that hunches aren’t the things that solve cases.”
“Oh yeah? And what did they say does solve cases?”
“Analytics. Evidence. Facts.”
“It certainly helps,” Vincent said. “But do you know what gives the most insight to human behavior? Do you know the one thing that will end up telling you if a suspect is telling the truth or not?”
“Let me guess. Hunches.”
“You’re damn right, detective. I’m well aware of what a vital role science plays in criminal investigations. It’s the key to understanding the truth, really. There’s no fighting facts and science. But intuition, the ability to know if someone’s lying, to know what’s the truth and what isn’t, is merely that invisible sixth sense that science has yet to explain—the detective’s hunch. Their gut. And I believe, nine times out ten, that the gut is what will point you in the right direction of the culprit in any crime, of the truth. What I’m trying to say is science will one day explain that…gut instinct that people like you and I possess.”
“So,” Brandt said. “You think there’s a science to…hunches?”
“I do,” Vincent said. “I’m just not quite sure what it means or what that looks like. I don’t think anyone has. I think science hasn’t figure out all aspects of the brain, at least not yet.”
“But you’re insinuating that you have these kinds of hunches. Correct?”
Vincent was enjoying this. “Yeah,” he said. “I believe more than a few people possess it, yeah.”
He couldn’t help but think of his daughter and her natural deductive ability.
“Well,” Brandt said, “hopefully, we’ll—”
She stopped mid-sentence, nothing but silence filling the line for a few moments before Vincent asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Wait one minute,” Brandt said.
More silence.
Vincent was getting antsy. The silence coming over the line was putting his nerves on edge. “What is it?”
“Holy shit!” Brandt exclaimed.
“What? What?”
“Looks like your theory on hunches is true.” Vincent made out the sounds of her door opening over the phone. “Someone is trying to break into the Bateman household!”
Vincent hung up before Brandt had a chance to finish, started the engine, and gunned it in her direction.
Gut instinct, he thought as he jammed the gas pedal to the floor. Pays off every time.
He took his gun out of the glove box.
Vincent hit the siren on his car, not worried or even caring if anyone reported that Hollow Green’s most seasoned detective was doing police work while on suspension.
“Where are you?” he called out to Brandt, phone still connected via Bluetooth through his car.
“Approaching the front door,” Brandt said. “I saw two people dressed in white robes slip in through the back door.”
White robes?
What the hell?
“Don’t move in yet unless you hear something,” he said. “I’m thirty seconds out.”
“Wait for backup.”
“Vincent—”
“Wait! I’m almost there.”
He hung a sharp right, then a left, then another right on the street where Alyssa Moore resided. He travelled about twenty feet, threw his car into park directly behind Brandt’s and approached her.
“We need to move inside!” she said.
Vincent knocked hard three times on the front door. “Mrs. Moore!” he called out. “Mr. Moore! Alyssa! It’s Brandt and Vincent. HGPD. Open the door, please!”
Lights started turning on throughout the house. There was a crash. Then a scream. Then the cries of a man screaming for someone to “Get out!”
Brandt and Vincent both pulled their weapons.
“Do it,” Vincent said.
Brandt raised her foot, aimed it to the left of the door handle, and kicked. The door splintered on the first attempt, swinging inward as Vincent and Brandt stormed inside, Vincent covering the rear as he saw Alyssa Moore and her parents, disheveled and dressed in their pajamas, as Mr. Moore aimed a pistol at three figures dressed as ghouls standing shrouded in darkness in the kitchen to Vincent’s right.
They just stood there. Unmoving.
“What the fuck,” Brandt said as she took aim.
The ghouls turned on a dime and fled.
“No, no. Don’t run!” Vincent shouted as he pursued them.
But the ghouls were faster than he was. Much faster. They were in an all-out sprint. They ditched out through the already ajar back door leading into the kitchen, hooked a left, then cut through the Moores’ backyard and hopped the picket fence separating it from the neighbor’s property.
Damn! These guys are fast, Vincent thought.
He kept running, though, gun still clutched in his hand as he vaulted the fence and gained some yards on the ghouls. “Freeze!” he shouted. “Police!”
The ghouls turned their heads briefly, the crooked smiles on their latex faces grinning mockingly in Vincent’s direction.
Vincent attempted to get a better look at their builds, their frames—anything and everything about their physical appearances was logged away in his brain for future use. It was difficult, though; the robes obscured their natural builds.
They hopped another fence, cutting to their right, hopped over a hedge, and landed on the pavement of the street before moving toward a trio of bikes they had stashed away in a hedge.
“Shit,” Vincent said, about ten feet from them now as they mounted their bikes and started to pedal. “Freeze! Or I’ll shoot!”
He wasn’t going to. He was just hoping that the threat would give them pause.
It didn’t.
The ghouls were on their bikes and pedaling away now, leaving Vincent to eat their dust as he gave up chase after two more blocks.
Panting, he pocketed his sidearm and watched the ghouls turn into dots in the distance.
“Damn it,” Vincent said under his breath, bent over with his hands on his knees, defeated in the middle of the street.
24
The Moore household was alive with red and blue lights when Vincent made his way back on the scene. A group of police cruisers were parked outside the la
wn, and none other than Chief Riley was standing guard near the front door. Vincent took a breath, prepared himself for the tirade the chief was going to unleash on him, and moved toward the house.
“Everybody okay?” Riley asked the Moore family, gathered together on the stoop and clutching each other tightly.
Mr. Moore nodded. “Sons of bitches came in through the back door,” he said. “I heard them picking the lock. I grabbed the gun from my safe, came downstairs, and spotted them. That’s when the cops showed up.”
Riley threw a glare in Brandt’s direction, standing directly next to him with her arms crossed and a frustrated and guilt-laced expression on her face. “Was it this officer?” he asked Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Him, too.” He pointed at Vincent as he approached Chief Riley cautiously.
“Son of a bitch,” Riley said. He looked at the Moores’. “Stay here for a moment, folks. I’m going to talk to my officers. If you could go inside, wait in the kitchen, someone will be inside to talk to you momentarily.”
Riley nodded over his shoulder, and Brandt and Vincent followed him to a secluded part of the Moores’ lawn after sending two officers inside to keep an eye on the family. Once they were out of earshot, Riley opened his mouth and unloaded on them both like a semiautomatic.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?”
“Preventing another murder,” Brandt stated flatly.
Riley pointed a finger. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re in, detective.” He then pointed at Vincent. “You as well, Vincent. You’re on suspension. There is zero reason for you to be here right now.”
“I was just in the area, sir,” Vincent said. “I was speaking to Brandt over the phone when she told me she saw someone breaking into the Moores’ house.”
Riley laughed. “In the area. That’s a load of horseshit.”
“It’s not, sir,” Brandt said. “I was patrolling the area when I saw three figures dressed in Halloween costumes attempting to enter the residence through the back door.”
“Two questions, then,” Riley said. “First off, why were you in the area? And second, what the hell were you talking to Vincent about over the phone? He’s on suspension!”
“Does that mean he’s not allowed to talk to his friends?” Brandt asked.
“It means he shouldn’t be talking to officers involved in an ongoing investigation, is what it means. And it still doesn’t answer the question as to why you were in this neighborhood, Brandt.”
Brandt looked at Vincent. Should we tell him?
Vincent weighed his options and took his time before he nodded.
“Sir,” Brandt said, “we have reason to believe that two of our victims were a part of a group of friends at the high school who are being targeted by a group of individuals.”
“Targeted?”
“Yes, sir. Our first and second victims, Ethan Travis and Desiree Messenger, were involved with four other students in a group called the A-Listers. They’re like a little white-gloves society within the school. They’ve been noted as being bullies to the other students. We believe that someone—three of them, apparently—are most likely targeting the A-Listers in some kind of act of retribution.”
Riley let that sink in.
He wasn’t buying it.
“What a load of shit,” he said. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
Vincent looked away and rolled his eyes.
Of course, you don’t.
“I don’t need two detectives,” Riley continued, “who are colluding behind the scenes for heinous reasons, twisting the facts of what happened here tonight was nothing more than three punks trying to steal a television set.”
“Jesus Christ,” Vincent said, shaking his head and unable to prevent himself from reacting to Riley’s absurd deduction.
Riley was now staring laser beams at Vincent. “You have no idea the shit storm that’s about to rain down on you, Vincent. Not in the slightest. Your presence here tonight does nothing more than add to the already growing list of infractions you’ve committed. I want you gone. Out of here. Now. If I found out you’re lingering around the station, crime scenes, whatever—I’ll have you arrested on sight. Consider yourself under house arrest until the state’s attorney says otherwise.”
Vincent smirked. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you? Or maybe you do, and you’re just pretending to be stupid for some other reason.”
Riley gritted his teeth. “Leave,” he said. “Now.”
Vincent stared the man dead in the eye, and then left.
“As for you,” Riley said, his attention now on Brandt. “You’re suspended, as of right now. Two weeks.” He moved toward the house. “Now get the hell out of my sight.”
Brandt took a moment to let reality catch up to her before she followed Vincent. “Some night, huh?”
Vincent cast a quick look over his shoulder at the house as he moved toward his car. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I think what just happened was my fault.”
Brandt shook her head. “It’s not. What happened, happened. It doesn’t change a damn thing.”
They arrived at his car, Brandt staring Vincent fiercely in his eyes. “What now?” she asked. “What do we do next?”
“We’re both suspended,” he said. “Do you really want to face the repercussions of what might happen if we keep pursuing this?”
She shrugged. “I know you’re not going to back off this, so why should I? We’re partners, aren’t we?”
Vincent shook his head. “No way. Someone is trying to set me up. The last thing I need is for them to decide their coming after you. With the chief on us both and whoever this is on our tail… Could be formidable foes, even for crafty detectives like us.”
Brandt rested her arm on Vincent’s shoulder. “Sounds like a party. All the more reason for us to join. I’m going to the station to collect what I’ve got on the case. I’ll meet you at the diner in three hours.”
She said nothing more before returning to her car. Vincent was happy to know that she, despite all the chaos that ensued, was still on his side.
Before slipping behind the wheel, Vincent took a look around and saw a handful of people watching with intense stares on their faces. He wondered how long it would take before that turned into feelings of worry and acts of vigilantism.
The last time that tempers were on high in Hollow Green, the residents damn near burned the place to the ground.
25
Vincent didn’t realize it was November fifth until he saw the date broadcasted in the diner when he arrived the morning after the events at the Moore’s. He was tired, hungry, and wishing for nothing more than a quick resolution to the case, and that, in turn, would offer him the time that he wanted to spend with Claire.
“Did you sleep at all?” Brandt asked him when he arrived.
“You asked me that last time,” he said as he sat at the table.
Brandt gestured to Delores. “Think she’s getting a little upset,” she whispered, hiding her mouth by sipping on her coffee. “That’s last couple of times we’ve been here all we’ve ordered was coffee.”
Vincent waved Brandt off. “Don’t worry about it. Delores is very low-key. She doesn’t mind.”
Brandt sighed. “I don’t know, but I’m willing to take your word for it.” She took another sip of her coffee. “So. What do we do now?”
“Let’s go over what happened last night.”
“Right. Well, I was talking to you on the phone. I was parked one house down from the Moore’s on the right side of the street, so I actually had a good view into the backyard. When I was talking to you, I spotted three people in Halloween costumes hopping over the hedge and moving to the back door. That’s when I told you I saw something.”
Vincent remembered the rest of the event fairly well. “Mr. Moore said they picked the locks to get inside the house.”
“Right.”
“And that doesn’t seem odd
to you?”
Brandt squinted. “No. Not entirely. Why?”
“Well,” Vincent said, “I checked out the back door when I came back to the house right before I talked to you and Riley—there wasn’t a scratch on it.”
“So these three guys used some kind of lock pick. I assume. It’s likely. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“That’s what’s piquing my curiosity—they fact that they were so adept. Between that and how elaborate the displays of the victims’ bodies were at the crime scenes, it speaks well for these three…ghouls and their intelligence.”
“It does. So what’s your hold-up?”
Vincent shrugged. “How the hell can kids be this organized? I mean, didn’t we come to the conclusion that this must be some sort of retaliation on behalf of at least one of the kids who were wronged by the A-Listers?”
“That’s the going theory.”
“Okay. If that’s the case, then someone, maybe multiple people, are helping them.”
The two of them sat in silence for a few moments while they thought it over, Brandt finally breaking the silence when she said, “Who could be helping them? And why?”
“That’s what we have to figure out,” Vincent said. “And it’s started me thinking that maybe our motive runs a little deeper than just kids looking for vengeance. We should still get someone to talk to kids at the school, see if any of them had run-ins with the A-Listers.”
“How? Both of us are supposed to steer miles clear of this thing.”
Vincent held up a finger. “I talked to Officer Brackett last night when I got home. He’s more than willing to give us an assist.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Vincent said. “The kid likes me, and he’s always wanted to play detective, so…”
“Well, that’s great. We just need him to move as fast as possible. We can’t say exactly when Riley and the state’s attorney is going to call you in, so we need to move.”
Vincent’s cell rang. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller ID—Miranda Stone.
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