The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2)

by John W. Mefford

  He tossed the soiled towel on the pile with the others coated in blood, then took a moment to look around, admire his ingenuity. He had outlined the entire windowless room with clear plastic to create his very own, private surgical facility. It was sterile…mostly. He had all the equipment any surgeon could ask for, at least for his specialty—eye extraction.

  Even though he’d spent countless hours studying medicinal practices from across the globe, he admitted that his best training had been actually performing the artwork on other mammals. He would normally have categorized them as animals with lesser intelligence, but after what he had witnessed, it was difficult to accept that description. Sometimes, whether it be because of environment or DNA, humans simply were not human.

  And then there he was, at the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum—perhaps he was an extreme example of that theory.

  He pushed that thought out of his mind. It was unproductive, and at this stage of his life, he knew it was pointless to go there. He had finally come to terms with who he really was and how he could best utilize his skills to accomplish his mission.

  He had found a place of peace, where he could exist in the real world and not have to continuously fabricate to cover up the meaning of his life. He had been able to create an entirely separate life, one that satisfied a compulsion he’d had since he was a young tike. While his new hobby had infused him with a fresh sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, it had also served as an outlet for the peaks and valleys of his emotions.

  The blue booties that covered his leather wingtips shuffled against the plastic on the old wooden floor as he brought his tools to the sink and washed them, taking care not to cut himself. When he completed cleaning each one, he held it up and admired the quality of the instrument. He had once dreamed of becoming a world-renowned heart surgeon. He knew he had the aptitude and his hands were the most precious tools he possessed. His mom said he would become the great healer, influencing the world like no person since Gandhi. She had been the one to give him the desire to learn, using a well-rounded education in math, sciences, literature, and the arts to make him into a great human being.

  But what about his soul?

  His mom. Deep down, he acknowledged that Doris was really his adoptive mom, a fact he hadn’t known until his twenties. After dealing with a rush of emotion upon learning the news that his real mother had been nothing more than a five-dollar slut, his respect for the woman who raised him increased dramatically. Perhaps realizing that the odds of making something of his life were stacked against him just by pure genetics, Doris had taken it upon herself to nurture his mind and his pride for as long as he could recall. Despite all of the opportunities for her to berate him for the missteps in his life, she instead directed her focus on educating him about how to treat women, how to exude confidence, and how to have manners and be classy.

  Everything his real mother was not.

  She was nothing more than a crack-head prostitute.

  Doris knew he deserved better, and she had proved that every day of his life right up until she passed away three months earlier.

  He glanced around the old home and realized her gift would be put to good use for many years after her heart had given out. And he gave her thanks on a daily basis, in particular on days like this.

  “Okay, Gloria, we’re about ready to wrap up the first phase of our little date.”

  She began to squirm, her face in a ball of anguish. She screamed incoherent statements.

  He shook his head and said, “I was open to having a sane, adult conversation, but if you’re going to act like a petulant child, then I’ll just leave the operating theatre and let you wallow in your sweat and blood until you calm down.”

  Her lurching ceased, and she took in huge gulps of air, hissing up phlegm when she exhaled. She was disgusting. As her chest lifted with each labored breath, he noticed her exposed breast. It sagged like a deflated water balloon. The previous night she had cupped her hand around that same breast as she leaned into the open window of his car, her eyes bloodshot and her nose begging for more blow. She thought she was enticing him to fork over his money to have sex with her. Instead, she had exposed herself for being a strung-out, gutter whore.

  Then Gloria screamed until the cords of her neck looked like they might burst through her skin.

  “Oh dear, Gloria. I might have to seek the services of an exorcist.” He chuckled as he shed his body of his surgical mask and gown. He wadded them up and tossed them by the mess of towels.

  Then it hit him. “You actually think you can get someone’s attention by screaming, don’t you? Well, I’ve got news for you, Gloria. In this neighborhood, if anyone happened to hear you, they wouldn’t give it a second thought. In this neighborhood, it’s a good day when you don’t get mugged. So consider yourself lucky. I didn’t take a dime of your slut money.”

  She gritted her teeth and grunted. Cautiously, he pulled himself closer, anxious to hear if she could actually formulate real words.

  She could.

  “You cut out my fucking eyes. You are the devil reincarnated, and you will rot in hell! Do you hear me?”

  He couldn’t dispute anything she had just said. He finished the clean-up and then injected her with a sedative that would keep her motionless during their road trip.

  He picked her up and walked out the back door. She mumbled something as her lips quivered before not moving at all.

  “Gloria, it’s time to connect with nature.” He knew he had to throw out the trash and let the sun drop below the horizon for the last time in her pathetic life.

  25

  I held the phone away from my ear, but his voice still echoed throughout the kitchen.

  Crack Daddy, legally named Jasper Finley, asked the same question for the third time. “What happened to my mother-fucking Constitutional rights?”

  I could hear the fire in his voice. He might as well have been standing on the steps of the Supreme Court with an American flag waving in the breeze behind him.

  “Finley—”

  “Don’t talk down to me. I’m sick and tired of everyone messing with me and my business. I’m an entrepreneur, no different than the punks who come out of MIT or Harvard and get backed by some type of fancy fund to create a start-up. I created a business from the ground up, and I didn’t get any type of million-dollar seed money. It’s just me, Crack Daddy, doing what I can to put food on the table and create job opportunities for men and women in my community.”

  He paused, and all I could hear was his panting breath.

  “Are you finished giving your ‘woe is me’ speech?”

  More panting. “I’m tired of this crap. It’s discrimination.”

  “Discrimination of what?”

  “Everyone likes to think they’re the morality police, and then what happens? I’ll tell you what. They get caught in the bathroom stall screwing the tollbooth operator, or taking money under the table to award a multimillion dollar contract to a so-called acquaintance.”

  His belligerent tone was starting to annoy me. Actually, it was starting to bore me. He wouldn’t let me finish a sentence to find out why he’d actually called. I scrolled through my email as he continued flapping his gums.

  “It’s all bullshit! But because of my address, because I don’t have that fancy degree, or wear the kind of clothes that make people think I’m connected and intelligent, everyone wants to point fingers. Point all you want, but stop fucking taking my girls away from me!”

  He barked twice, which actually woke me from my daze.

  “Did you just say something about someone taking your girls away?”

  “Yeah, aren’t you listening, Agent Troutt?”

  I bit my tongue and stayed on point. “Who is missing? When did this happen?”

  “Tricia, one of my best. Usually one of my high-end girls. Brings in top dollar. She usually doesn’t work the streets, but I didn’t have any rich clients for her, so she decided to spin the wheel on the s
treets.”

  “How do you know someone took her? Isn’t that really what you want, for someone to pick her up?

  “Are you hard of hearing, FBI?”

  “The name is Special Agent Troutt.”

  “Troutt mouth, whatever. Tricia is a savvy businesswoman. She’s not some strung-out junkie with no self-respect. She knows what she’s doing. And besides, my boy Romeo here saw it all go down. He saw the man reach over and grab her wrist, pull her into his car, and then take off. Practically dragged her down the street. She was screaming bloody murder.”

  This wasn’t happening…again. “Crap. You’re telling me the truth.”

  “Really, Sherlock?”

  “Do you have a picture of her?”

  “Of course. How else do you think I sell her services? Damn, woman…”

  “Send it to me, and I’ll have my team contact all the local police departments. They’ll put out local APBs for her. What’s her last name?”

  “Rompola. Tricia Rompola.”

  “Is that her real name?”

  “I don’t do W-9 forms.”

  Not surprising. Crack Daddy shouted at his boy, Romeo, to send him the photo of Tricia.

  “It’s on the way,” he said to me. “I don’t get too attached to my contractors, but with Candy being killed and all, do you think Tricia’s going to be okay?”

  He sounded like a different person. More like a Jasper Finley, less like a Crack Daddy.

  “We’ll do everything we can to find her.”

  “Alive,” he insisted.

  “I hope.”

  ***

  The wooden porch creaked in protest as Terri and I attempted to peek through windows.

  “I’ll look; you keep an eye on our backs,” I said, knowing this neighborhood had the highest crime rate in New England.

  “Who would live in this dump?” she asked from behind me.

  “Look around. It blends in.”

  “I suppose. It’s just hard to imagine the guy you described—educated, good-natured, well-dressed, charming, attractive—would live in this shithole.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear the entire story.” I thought I saw something through a crack in the paisley curtains.

  “No, I was stuck in the tree. While my ass and back are screaming at me now, it was worth it to watch that slimeball get caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”

  One hunch had paid off. Tripuka had returned to the garage with a sixteen-year-old girl at his side, apparently to pick up a doll stored inside the dusty old car. Terri called in the cavalry, and three black-and-whites were on the scene in five minutes. Not completely under his pheromone spell, the girl told them everything, including how he tried to convince her to have phone sex. Even with his Wise Ass attorney, Tripuka was in all likelihood going back to the big house where he would be someone’s bitch for years to come.

  “The scoop on Colin’s dream pad?” Terri reminded me.

  “According to Gretchen, this is a rental property. It used to be in his mother’s maiden name, Doris Smith, and just recently was transferred to his name.”

  Jerry had sent agents Mason and Silvagni to Brewer’s downtown loft. They got the condo manager to open the door, but they found no one inside and no sign of foul play.

  I moved to the other window, cupping my hand against a pane of glass with a spiderweb of cracks. I could only see a single ottoman just beneath the windowsill.

  “So, like I asked earlier, who would want to rent this dump?”

  “Gretchen said it had been rented out to two men in the last year who were truck drivers.”

  “Which means they were rarely here.”

  I listened for any noise inside. It was all quiet. I asked Terri to go around back and let me know if she saw anything. A dog barked in the distance. It sounded angry and possibly hurt. I wondered how it was being treated.

  My phone buzzed, and I answered Terri’s call. “I only see the kitchen table from here,” she said. “Kind of messy and dirty, but no sign of anything human. I think I saw a mouse.”

  I knocked on the door, and no one answered. I tried turning the knob, and as expected, it was locked. Same result from the back, she said. We were going in. I drew my Glock and used it to bust out a pane of glass next to the doorknob. I coiled my arm inside and unlocked the door.

  Four steps in and I could hear Terri walking in the kitchen. “See anything?” I called out.

  “Nothing back here.”

  With my senses on high alert, I stepped through the house. A single picture hung in the living room above the fireplace, some type of ugly contemporary art. It looked like a ten-dollar print from Walmart. A low-back chair with no seat cushion and a small side table were in the corner. Terri and I met in the dining room. There was a card table set up, the layer of vinyl sliced open, and a folding chair next to it.

  “It’s like dining at the Ritz,” Terri said.

  “I wouldn’t know.” I tilted my head back to the east side of the house and found a hallway. First door led to a bathroom. Toilet seat was up, so I knew a guy had used it last.

  Second door was a bedroom. It had sheets, a brown cover, and a pillow. “Looks like someone slept in it recently,” Terri said.

  “Slept or was held hostage.”

  She nodded.

  Third door was just a few more steps down the hallway. The door was on tracks and looked new. I met Terri’s eyes, and she readied her gun at her side. I then slid it open, and she walked inside. It was dark, so I flipped on the light switch. Nothing happened. I took out my phone and shined my flashlight around the room. Terri did the same. We both zeroed in on what looked like a doctor’s examination table. I walked closer, careful not to touch it.

  “See anything?” Terri asked, walking up next to me.

  “There.” I pointed at a burgundy spot on the white wall. “Blood.” Swinging my light around the room, I noticed a sink. It was clean, but I saw drops of water clinging to the side.

  “Someone used this recently,” I said.

  “Check it out.” Terri pointed her light at a small built-in bookcase in the corner of the room; a spotlight was clipped to the edge. At another corner of the room, two more spotlights were clipped to a two-by-four nailed at an angle to the wall.

  I opened the cabinet above the sink, and bile shot into the back of my throat.

  Glass jars were lined up in a row. And they were looking at me.

  Eyeballs.

  Terry flinched, nearly knocking me in the head with her gun. “Holy shit.”

  I forced myself to look away. I couldn’t dwell on the disturbing images. It would lead me to thinking about Erin, even if she didn’t fit the profile of the victims—at least the ones we knew about. I took another glance at the shelf with the jars…too many to count.

  On the shelf below, a row of scalpels sat on a paper towel. Gauze and other medical supplies were also in the cabinet.

  Raking my fingers through my hair, I took a step back. “I thought Colin was one of the good guys. He helped me take down that ogre at Dr. Strickler’s office. He was kind and gentle.”

  “To you. But he clearly has a beef against hookers. Why? I have no idea. He’s just fucking sick, demented, and—” She turned away from the cabinet.

  “The question is: where is he? And is Tricia with him?” Moving to a crouching position, I swung around the room, pausing my flashlight every few seconds. I made it three hundred sixty degrees.

  “Nothing.” Just as I turned away, a sparkle caught my eye. “Hold on.” I crawled under the table, reached across a support beam, and picked up a gold earring.

  “Do you think it’s Tricia’s?” Terri asked, huddling over me.

  I brought it a few inches from my face. It was a gold hoop with the letters TR in the middle. “I’d say yes.” We locked eyes.

  “Crap. We’ve got to figure out where they went.”

  Terri started opening every door and drawer she could find, and I jumped to my feet and followed suit.
I moved to the bathroom, unsure what we could find that might give us a clue, or even a hint. I could hear doors slamming from the adjacent room. Under the sink I found a plunger and a container of disinfectant.

  “Alex, in here. Quick!”

  I ran out of the room and cut around the corner where I found Terri on her knees next to an armoire, both doors open. I could see colorful dresses and scarves hanging inside. But Terri’s head was buried behind the dresses. She then stood up and pushed the dresses to the side.

  “Shit.” A painting of a woman faced me. She had long, dirty-blond hair that spilled over her shoulders. Her lips were full and moist. She wore a strapless gown, purple and gold. But none of that stood out. Not like the two dots of white canvas on either side of her nose. “No eyes.”

  I pulled out my phone and thumbed through a few photos to find the one Finley had sent me. I brought up Tricia’s picture where Terri could see it over my shoulder. She had circles under her eyes in the phone image. Other than that, she was a match for the painting—the cheekbones, the shape of her ears, and the straw-colored hair.

  Terri pulled the painting out and held it up.

  “What is it?”

  Her jaw began to quiver.

  “Terri, do you know her or something?”

  I could see her knuckles turn white, the painting shaking from her jittery arms.

  “Terri…” I put my hand on her back. “Put the painting down,” I said, knowing we needed to preserve the evidence. “What’s triggering this reaction?”

  Shaking her head, she set the canvas down, and it plopped against the armoire. She brought a hand to her face, now splotchy red. The first tear rolled off her cheek.

  “You can tell me, Terri. What is it?”

  “I know where this is,” she gasped, as more tears escaped faster than she could wipe them away.

  “That’s great. Where is it?”

  “North side of the Mystic River in an area of trees by the river. It’s a reservation. You see the river there, in between those bushy trees?” She pointed at a dark blue area between the trees, and then a low, westerly sun cutting across the body of water.