by Kylie Brant
Facing Evil
Book 3, The Circle of Evil Trilogy
By Kylie Brant
Also by Kylie Brant
Chasing Evil
Touching Evil
Published by Kylie Brant
Copyright 2014 by Kylie Brant
Cover art by Middle Child Marketing, LLC
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All characters in this book are fictional.
www.kyliebrant.com
For Bri, our soon-to-be newest member of the family. Given the number of years you've been exposed to this crew, you can never claim you didn't know what you were getting into :)
Welcome to the family!
Acknowledgements:
A special thank you to Maxine Beckner and Michelle LaCoste, who came up with a very intriguing way to kill off one of my characters. A delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Thank you, ladies!
Two days earlier
The killer briskly worked the duct tape through her captive’s bound wrists and threaded the ends through the car’s steering wheel to wrap it around the wheel several times. “You don’t remember me, I can tell.”
The retired social worker couldn’t speak. The length of tape across her mouth made it impossible. But she shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.
“You broke up my family twenty years ago. Took my son away.” Satisfied with her handiwork, she glanced at her victim. “Still nothing? Probably can’t keep count of the families you destroyed. Nosy bitch. It took me eight years to track him down to the shitty foster home you had him stashed in. But he was never right after that. Damaged his mind when you took him away from his mother. Now he’s dead, and you’re going to pay for that.”
She left the victim struggling to free herself and went to the bushes at the mouth of the overgrown drive nearby. The gas can she’d stashed there last night sloshed as she walked back to the vehicle. Taking her time, she unscrewed the cap then opened the driver’s door, waiting for the delicious moment when her victim realized her fate.
Tape muffled the social worker’s screams, but her frenzy was satisfying. The killer methodically doused the front seat of the car with the gas, smiling as she tipped the can so the gas ran over the woman’s hair. Down her face. Dousing her frumpy flowered blouse and baggy denim capris. Streaming down the woman’s spider-veined legs and pooling around feet encased in a pair of blindingly white tennis shoes.
Shaking out the last few drops, the killer tossed the now empty can onto the seat beside her captive and leaned in to turn on the ignition. Her victim was shrieking behind the tape, the guttural sound raw and primitive. “Got your attention now, don’t I? Didn’t listen worth a shit when you took Sonny away from me, though. Bet you don’t even remember recommending that my parental rights be terminated, because I didn’t deserve to ever see my son again.” She smiled, straightening to pull a pack of matches from her pocket. “Time for you to get what you deserve.”
She scraped the wooden match along the side of the box until it flared, then held it out for her victim to see. With a flick of her thumb she sent the match tumbling through the air to land in the woman’s lap.
The killer watched with fascination as the flames leaped to life. Jesus, it was fast. The blouse ignited first, shooting greedy little fingers of flame in all directions. For a moment she was sorry she’d gagged the older woman. The screams were always so very satisfying. She listened to them sometimes in her dreams, echoing and throbbing inside her, haunting reminders of her own screams all those years ago when she’d been helpless. Hopeless.
But not for a long time. Never again.
The heat from the conflagration inside the car soon forced her to retreat several feet. The social worker’s hair was on fire now and the killer chuckled at the sight. Like Bozo the Clown, only with a ring of fire instead of that wreath of red hair. Waving gaily, the killer turned, bent to retrieve the license plates and screwdriver she’d used to remove them before walking away from the abandoned building site and down the road. Her vehicle was a couple miles away. She’d be long gone before anyone figured out where the smoke was coming from.
She and her partner had planned for every contingency. Overplanned, maybe, but lack of trust would do that. And she was following their plan to a T. With a few of her own variations. She was capable of multi-tasking. And there were a few scores that needed settling.
The sun seared through her, although it was only mid-morning. July in Iowa. Why the hell hadn’t she left here a long time ago? She wouldn’t be sorry to leave this fucking state behind when the time came.
But that time wasn’t quite yet.
Her son was dead. The memory squeezed her chest. Her poor Sonny. He’d been kinda sweet as a little kid. Not all crazy like he’d been once he’d grown up. There were people directly responsible for the crazy. One of them was dying right now. The men who had hurt him way back then would all pay. It was just a bonus that death excited her. And coupling it with revenge was every bit as fulfilling as she’d remembered.
The heat sent nasty little trickles of sweat down her spine as she walked. The trickles had become a river before she turned up the overgrown grassy drive and made her way through a grove of trees surrounding a blackened shell of a farmhouse. Detouring toward the sagging and gaping front steps, she dropped the license plates from the social worker’s car in one of the yawning cracks before continuing toward the back. Rounding the rotting home, she beelined for the car she’d left behind an old shed a hundred yards from the house. The thought of the air conditioning that awaited her in the vehicle was welcome. The sound coming from the trunk, however, was not.
“Hot enough in there, Curt?” she asked conversationally, pitching her voice over the sound of the banging and muffled curses coming from the closed trunk. “I think you’ve got a little preview of hell coming to you. Nothing less than you deserve for the way you abused my poor Sonny.”
Slipping into the car the killer turned on the ignition and was greeted by a blast of tepid air from the vents. Backing carefully down the rutted drive, she turned onto the ribbon of gravel, her mind already turning to the list she kept in her head. Not everyone on it would be as easy to pick off as the dumbass social worker and Curt. And the ones who had caused Sonny’s death would be the most challenging. The fucking cop who had followed Sonny to her place, forcing her to leave her dying boy and go on the run. And the shrink that had worked with the cops. The bitch had probably read Sonny’s demented mind like a psychotic dot-to-dot. Worse, she’d distracted Vance from their strategy.
The killer smiled, reached in her purse with gloved hands to flip open a pair of sunglasses and slip them onto her nose. Those two required something special.
And her plan for their end was nothing short of brilliant.
* * * *
Michael Frasier waved irritably at a fly and peered at his smartphone. Lingering over his morning coffee to peruse Craigslist was a daily ritual. Most people didn’t realize how often you could find free stuff on there, posted by people who just wanted someone to haul it away. He’d gotten his couch that way, and a decent entertainment center.
He’d also cased a few places worthy for a later return, which had turned out even more profitable. People stupid enough to invite strangers to their perso
nal address were, in Michael’s considered opinion, fucktards who deserved whatever they got.
Elbows propped on the diner’s cracked counter, he skimmed the day’s offerings, following links and opening pictures. Finally deeming the listings uninteresting, he switched his attention to the personal ads, which if less fruitful, were always entertaining.
A familiar heading jumped out at him. Dark Fantasies. The ad had appeared several days ago. He wondered how many others found it as intriguing as he did.
Females in Des Moines area looking for tough undomesticated males to make our rape fantasies come true. Thorough and anonymous screening process. Stringent rules applied to ensure safe, legal titillating pleasure. The phone number that followed wasn’t local.
Frasier lifted his cheap coffee mug to his lips and sipped, gaze still glued to the ad. He wasn’t exactly sure what titillating meant, but it sounded dirty. The whole thing had to be too good to be true. Some sort of police sting maybe? But they wouldn’t waste their time on what went on between consenting adults. Which meant it was legit, leaving the question what kind of women would post something like this to strangers.
He pondered that as he drained the cup and set it back on the counter, sending a commanding look toward the tight-lipped owner lurking at the far end of the scratched Formica. He and that dried up old bitch had an ongoing battle, but they’d come to terms weeks ago. She wouldn’t hassle him about his habit of coming in and paying a dollar fifty for constant coffee refills if he was out of here before the lunch crowd started. In return, he wouldn’t slash the tires on that piece of shit car she drove everyday. Silently the old bat brought a fresh pot over and set it down in front of him before sidling away again.
The women he came into contact with at the bars he hung out at wouldn’t have to put an ad in the paper. Most of the guys they were acquainted with would be all too happy to drill them anyway they wanted it and a few ways they didn’t. Which meant the women who’d posted this ad were different. They weren’t whores, strippers or addicts, and they didn’t know the kind of men who didn’t give a shit about dating and could do them hard and dirty and then walk away. Anonymous. Because the females placing the ad couldn’t afford to have people know what they were up to?
He brooded over his coffee. Bored housewives, maybe. Or some broads with important jobs who’d blown their way to the top and now couldn’t afford to have people know how kinky they really were.
Pouring himself a new cup of coffee he watched the steam roll off it. With six months left on his parole Frasier couldn’t afford to screw up and get sent back to Anamosa. But there was no way his candy-ass parole officer could find out he’d called a number in the personals, for crissakes. No harm in that. And if there was a woman out there just dying to take it rough and hard…his smile had the woman behind the counter taking a step back.
Well, then they were a perfect match.
Chapter 1
A raucous trio of crows wheeled across the summer sky, their cries splitting the reverend’s final prayers for everlasting peace to be granted to Emily Stallsmith.
Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Cam Prescott surveyed the crowd at Des Moines’ Bethel Cemetery and wondered how many of the five hundred plus people packed inside its gates actually knew the deceased. From the looks of things, a full quarter of the mob was media. Sadly, Stallsmith would always be best known as the seventh victim of the Cornbelt Killers.
It was inevitable that some airhead national news anchor would come up with a nickname for the trio that had robbed, raped, tortured and killed at least fourteen women. Just the thought of the cheesy moniker put a frown on Cam’s face as he scanned the crowd.
Seeing his expression, Sophie murmured, “Do you think Vickie Baxter is here?”
“If she is, the facial recognition software will pick her up.” Agents were scattered throughout the crowd, all of them armed with devices programmed to match Baxter’s features. Cam slanted a glance at the woman by side. “You don’t believe she’d come, even if she’s still in the vicinity.”
She looked pensive. “I don’t have reason to, no. She lacks the ego of Mason Vance. The mental illness of her son. Sonny Baxter was the one to fixate on the victims after he’d killed them. His mother is much more calculating. As soon as they were dead I think the victims ceased to exist for her.”
It would be hard to discount her words, even if he wanted to. Dr. Sophia Channing was the forensic psychologist who had worked with DCI on the case almost from the beginning. She’d narrowly avoided becoming another victim when she’d been kidnapped by Mason Vance three weeks earlier. It was Sophie who had predicted the second killer’s mental instability, even before they’d had the evidence of it.
Ice skittered down his spine at the memory of how close she’d come to dying at Vance’s hands. He’d almost lost her then. That thought was never very far from his memory. And although the bruises on her refined features had faded, the splint she still wore on her wrist was a reminder that there’d be less visible scars from the ordeal that still lingered.
He knew from personal experience how long the effects of traumatic stress could linger. And while she was a psychologist herself, it was a helluva lot different counseling patients with PTSD and grappling with it yourself.
Recognizing that kept him cautious, even as a primitive sense of protectiveness had him keeping her close. They’d known each other professionally for years. Had first been lovers for twelve glorious days in May. She’d kicked him to the curb shortly before this case had brought them back together again, platonically this time. At least at first.
The idea of platonic had been blown to bits the moment he learned a madman had kidnapped her. Somehow Sophie Channing had ignited a hunger in him that he’d yet to assuage. He was beginning to believe he never would.
She leaned into him a bit, tipping her face up to his. “Vance is in jail awaiting trial. Sonny Baxter is dead. And his mother had every reason to flee the state. There’s nothing left here for her except eventual capture. I know it’s second nature for you to be suspicious, but two out of three of the killers are accounted for. You can start to breathe a little easier any time now.”
Cam eyed her. She had a discomfiting ability to read his mind at times, a quality that could make him more than a bit uneasy. But in this case she was spot on. Vance was currently in Polk County lockup awaiting trial for the rape, torture and murder of at least six women. Sonny Baxter was dead, at his mother’s hand. And Vickie—the woman who had donned victim three’s identity and been known to them as Rhonda Klaussen—was still at large.
Cam’s team was still putting together the extent of the woman’s role in the crimes. What they now knew was that she and her son had been killing long before Mason Vance came on the scene. “I’ll relax as soon as Baxter is in a cell like Vance.” He returned his gaze to the cluster around the open grave. Some people on the fringes of the scene began to drift away.
Sophie said, “I want to speak to Kevin Stallsmith before we leave.” He nodded, and they began to make their way toward the graveside. The widower was surrounded by sympathetic well wishers and they waited for several minutes before the man spotted them and excused himself, making a beeline for Sophie.
“Dr. Channing.” Stallsmith halted in front of her. The heat had turned his square face below the blond crewcut slightly pink. “Thank you for coming.” His sidelong glance might have been meant to include Cam in the pleasantry, but it was difficult to tell. Neither of their two meetings had been under the best of circumstances. “I appreciated the note. Your words…they helped. Thank you.”
The expression on the man’s face was so rawly emotional as he took Sophie’s hand that Cam had to look away. He lacked her ease with wading through the stickier human sentiments. A moment passed and Stallsmith cleared his throat. “I wanted to thank you, too, agent.” Cam met the man’s gaze. “If you hadn’t solved this thing, I would always have wondered…”
Shaking his proff
ered hand, Cam said, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t the news we wanted to deliver, but at least it’s closure.”