by S. T. Abby
I walk out as he continues to sob, leaving him to cry in peace.
“See if you can get more out of him when the first wave of emotion is over,” I tell Donny as he meets me in the hallway. “Anything on Lana?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. I asked Hadley to see if she could get a beat on her, since Alan is covered up in searching footage for this guy.”
I head straight toward Hadley’s cubicle and find her pounding away on the keyboard. But it’s not Lana she’s looking for. She’s searching the same footage Alan is.
“What the hell? Donny said you’re trying to get a beat on Lana.”
“Lana isn’t my priority right now, Logan. An innocent girl is in the hands of a serial killer, and I’m trying to help save her life.”
I love how she makes it sound like I’m a controlling prick instead of trying to keep someone else from landing in his hands.
“We know she’ll be a target, especially now. If she wasn’t on his radar before, she is since the hospital incident.”
Hadley ignores me, still typing.
“Damn it, Hadley!”
She spins, leveling me with a cold glower. “I’m looking for the girl we know is in trouble. You deal with your girlfriend—who you barely even know—on your own. He’s more than likely not skilled enough to hack the hospital feed. It’s even more unlikely that he’d be stupid enough to have been there, given how organized and smart he apparently is, given our new predicament. Leave. Me. Alone.”
She spins back around, and I blow out a long breath. “Fine. Find Erica Norris. Find him.”
“I plan to. Thank so much for your approval,” she says snidely.
I hate to admit it, but she’s right. I have no business asking her to stop looking for a girl we know is in trouble to find my girlfriend. She’d be safe and tucked into her house with police protection if I hadn’t lost my temper in the hospital. I should have texted her. My phone was dead, and I had no idea someone would notify Duke of what happened.
I didn’t want to worry her, so I was just going to tell her about it later. When she could put her hands on me and know I was okay, see it with her own eyes. Who the fuck is notifying Duke about anything?
“Why would anyone from our department let Detective Duke in on that attack?” I ask Craig as I join at the board, where he’s staring endlessly at pictures.
Even he’s trying to stop Plemmons before he strikes again.
“I wondered the same thing,” he says absently. “His chief called him. The chief is being looped in on the case progression, considering we’re sharing this case with local law enforcement to join manpower. He called Duke as a courtesy to your girl, but said didn’t have specifics to share.” Craig turns to face me. “He had specifics. He just neglected to share, and our guys wouldn’t give her any information or forward her calls to any of our phones. She’s not on your call list.”
A chill washes over me.
“He knew she’d go there,” I say tightly.
“The chief is playing us because he wants this arrest,” Craig agrees. “His department gets the least attention because we’re their neighbors. All the high profile stuff from DC goes straight to us, along with all the outlying cities too. It’s more common here than any other place that we usually wait for an invitation for.”
“So he lets her in on it through Duke, knowing she’d rush to the hospital.”
“After we’d already told him we had local law enforcement guarding the hospital, checking anyone and everyone who resembled Plemmons. We told him we thought he’d want to find a way to observe our pain and see the fear or panic he’d caused.”
“And he wanted him to see Lana,” I bite out.
“And possibly even follow her home,” Craig says, his jaw ticking. “Fucking son of a bitch. I called patrol. They told me what happened. But I’m sending one of our guys to help watch too. We have some we can spare, even though they’re wet behind the ears still.”
At least one person understands that Lana is also a target, and where we know he’ll eventually strike if he’s even aware of her.
I don’t feel as paranoid or crazy now.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “People will see me as rational on the matter, but find it an abuse of power if you do it. It made sense for me to step in. But I’m stepping in because I see what you’re seeing. Everyone else just sees Erica Norris.” His expression turns grim. “She’s been dead since the day he took her, even if her heart is still beating right now.”
I know this, but I don’t want to say it aloud to everyone else. In the backs of their minds, they know it too.
“Our only chance of saving her was stripped away when her father played a sexual sadist’s game,” Craig adds on a long sigh. “I don’t have to be a profiler to know that much. Our only advantage is knowing Lana is most likely on his list. We should be concentrating all our efforts there.”
“But we can’t,” I say, the frustration welling inside me.
“Because they want us looking for this girl,” Craig agrees. “And Lana is pissed at you. Her car’s GPS was disabled shortly after she bought it. Found that out, unfortunately. And either her phone is dead, or she removed the battery to keep us from locating her that way. Clever if it’s the latter. Any reason your girl would work so hard to cover her trail like that?”
Even I admit that’s weirdly suspicious. “Lana is extremely private. She’s also not as trusting of law enforcement as I originally thought.”
He nods slowly. “Makes sense. Most people don’t trust the government in general right now. If she’s big on privacy and civil rights, it’d make sense. Does she even have wifi? Because I can’t seem to find that either.”
“I don’t exactly take the time to sync up to wifi when I’m there, so I have no clue.”
“Well, anyway, I can’t find her. I had Sarah from white collar crimes helping me out. She said the girl knew how to keep from being found. She saw this a lot when she worked sex crimes. Women who were abused repeatedly dropped off grid and became isolated and private. I doubt that’s the case with your girl, since she seems comfortable in her own skin and unafraid, but I did find a lot of similarities in her privacy extremes to what Sarah was telling me. It’s always the first conclusion she draws.”
My stomach plummets. Nothing about her has labeled her as a victim, but I think back to when I first met her. She was more detached, readily defensive, but didn’t flinch away from my touch.
No. No. My head is too crowded right now, and I’m not thinking clearly. She’s not running from anyone. If anything, she’s too brave, not understanding the severity of her situation.
“Anyone who’d ever been physically assaulted in that way wouldn’t be turning away cops, when she knows she’s a potential victim for a sexual sadist. I want her in protective custody. The protective detail is no longer good enough. They’ll take it seriously if you back me.”
“Already tried that,” he says, grim again. “The director said you couldn’t control your girlfriend using FBI resources. He doesn’t see a threat to her that can’t be handled with extra patrol. He doesn’t see him going after her at all, since he wasn’t even aware that you were involved with someone.”
“As though he’s the most observant person in the world,” I growl.
“We focus on what we have for now,” Craig says. “They’re increasing patrol, but there’s very little they can do if she’s banned them from her property. But due to what just happened with the swat commander, we’re strapped as far as extra hands go. No one with any living family members will be allowed to know what’s happening before it actually happens. That’s a lot of background checks, and then locating him on top of that—”
“I get it. The director wants all our attention focused on the now instead of the possible future. It’s as smart as it is stupid. But I’m worried I’m biased.”
He claps my shoulder. “I may be biased too, but only because you’re one of the f
ew who knows I’m prettier than you.”
I huff out a small laugh, and he grins before heading off. I need to focus. Hopefully Lana left to find a very secure hotel, and removed her phone battery because I suggested he might be skilled with a computer.
“How did this guy know the swat commander’s name or his daughter’s?” I ask aloud to no one in particular.
“Because he does have computer skills,” Craig says immediately, as though it just dawned on him too.
“We need to get our heads cleared and start thinking like we would with any other case,” I tell the room as I turn around. “Right now, he’s in our heads, rushing our thought processes, and turning our emotions against us, me especially.”
“Turning us on each other too,” Donny says as he steps out, eyeing me. “The commander officially hates the very thing he’s always stood for. Plemmons may have a genius IQ that never got detected. There’s a reason he suddenly craved the attention. A man who’s never had something may be content in going on without it.”
“But a man who’s had a taste of something he didn’t know he wanted, will work harder to taste more,” Elise says, shocking us all as she hobbles into the room on crutches, looking battered and beaten, one arm in a sling.
“Damn it,” Craig hisses, going to grab the emergency wheelchair from the corner.
“You try to put me in that thing, and you’ll be wearing it when I’m done with you,” she snarls, stopping him cold.
Her eyes turn to me.
“I want to find this son of a bitch. He’s messed up somewhere. He’s too comfortable with this city. Too comfortable with this entire situation. He didn’t show an ounce of panic until Lisa shot him. Even then he seemed more annoyed than panicked. And if we can’t find anything on his past, it’s because he found a way to erase himself.”
“Let’s get to work then,” I tell her as she hobbles to her desk. “I get first dibbs on shooting the bastard when that time comes,” she adds under her breath, causing my lips to twitch.
As much as I fucking hate it, I have to stop concentrating on Lana. There’s a slim chance Erica Norris will survive this, but I owe it to her to give all my effort to that slim chance.
Chapter 10
Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.
—Confucius
LANA
Kenneth Ferguson weighs more than I expected. These details are usually sorted way ahead of time. This guy is an obese beast, and rolling him to the water’s edge proves difficult, especially since I’ve had to walk in the dirt and will now need to cover my tracks.
At least he lives near the water though—bright side.
Monsters can come in many forms.
A pretty girl who loves the color red, for example—the color her victims bleed when they are begging to be spared.
They can also look like balding, fat slobs who hang out in their briefs and wife-beater tanks. Yeah. Talk about stereotypes. I’ve seen more ass crack than I care to remember.
I wade out into the water, dragging the dead body with me under the cloak of darkness. I can remember a time that I was afraid of the dark. Now even the snakes fear me.
He confessed. His sins were wrung out, and he confessed it all.
Okay, I might have needed him to get to the nitty gritty that had me swallowing back my own vomit, so I tortured him. Just a little. He broke quickly.
He deserved so much more death. He deserved to die for days. But I can’t do that right now. It’s risky to be doing this at all.
I swim under the cold water, washing all the blood off me, ignoring the way my tired muscles protest the chill. Pushing that beast uphill was a struggle. Not to mention those effin’ stairs.
When I emerge, I watch him waver on top of the water. It holds him up with too much ease, despite his size.
The more body fat, the easier they float.
As soon as the current grabs him, I head back, picking up the hoe near the water’s edge, and start digging up my tracks with it. I take my route in reverse as I hold the small but bright flashlight in my mouth to see.
It’s two in the morning, but I had to wait until now to dump his body. The bastard has neighbors within earshot, so torturing him was a pain in the ass. Fortunately, he had a basement.
Hence the damn stairs I was referring to.
I also had to hose said basement down with bleach and water to get rid of the blood. Counter forensic measures were needed for once.
Killing is so much easier when it’s on my list. Less cleanup.
I want them found when they’re on the list.
Kenneth has too much trace evidence that has to be destroyed, so the large body of salt water will do the trick. Not to mention all the little critters in the sea will get a nibble before or if he’s found.
The pictures I found in his nightstand told the story before he could. Seventy small children were in those pictures, mostly naked. Polaroids are a terrible creation, and pedophiles love their pictures.
There was one picture out of all of those that I took. I’m not sure why I took it. But it was Hadley at age eleven. He labeled them. Marked their ages too.
For some reason I know she won’t enjoy her coworkers seeing her face on their board if his body is ever found and those pictures are discovered. She’s strong and prideful, and most likely felt like it really was in her head all this time.
They convinced her she was crazy. Her own mother convinced her she was making it up. Paid a professional to aide in this, simply because the woman couldn’t come to grip with the possibility she was married to a pervert who was molesting her daughter.
Hadley ran away.
She ran because she thought she was dirty and wrong.
So many good people in this world, and it took a monster to end the suffering of so many innocent children.
I have no reason to feel indebted to a girl who wants to take me down, but there’s something forcing me to feel as though we’re kindred. I’d have gone crazy or killed myself without Jake.
She never had a Jake.
Maybe Logan is the closest thing to Jake she has, which is why she came after someone she thought was playing him.
I’d kill a bitch for Jake.
Hadley doesn’t deserve to be broken, so she’ll never see that picture.
I change out of my clothes on the gravel driveway, carefully watching anything that falls off me. My hair is bound tightly to my head and covered with a plastic wrap under a beanie.
My clothes are nothing special—generic brand things bought at any local store. I’m careful to buy all things that are found everywhere, so as to have nothing special isolating me.
The nail falls from my pocket, and I lean over, picking it up. I’m not sure why I’m taking a nail from his house. He’s not on the list. Maybe it’s a habit. Or maybe I really have adopted the serial method of trophy collecting.
Where they die, a nail gets taken.
His nail will go beside the others, finding a home with other perverted sons of bitches.
Warm and toasty in my clean, dry clothes, I drive back to the drop spot, making one detour.
An old woodshed is twenty miles down the road, resting on private hunting ground. I open the door, and hear a scurrying of motion.
Scared eyes meet mine from the kid huddled in the corner. She’s dirty, scared, and all alone.
“I’m here to save you from the monster,” I say softly into the dark shed.
The shaking slowly stops as she peers at me, her eyes wide and hopeful.
“Are you an angel?” she asks, her throat raw and raspy, as though she’s dehydrated.
“Compared to him, yes,” I say honestly.
She slowly stands, warily looking at me. She can’t be older than eight.
“Do you know if he has anyone else?” I ask her, knowing he swore it was just her, but it could be more.
She shakes her head. “The other girl didn’t come back.”
My heart clenches. “Come on
. I’m going to take you somewhere you’ll be safe.”
She nods, and even though she’s terrified, she comes to me, ready to face anything terrible I could do versus anything he could come back and do more of.
When she stumbles, I grab her, and she doesn’t flinch away. Brave girl.
She lets me help her to my car, and she slides in on the passenger side, tears already leaking from her eyes. Her hope was gone until this moment.
I jog around to the driver’s side, a risky plan forming. There’s one place she can go to be safe.
“You don’t have a family, do you?”
She shakes her head.
“I have a friend—a woman—I knew in another life. She’d be a good momma. She’d take care of you.”
She pushes her dirty hair out of her eyes. “Really? She’ll keep me safe from him?”
“I’ll keep you safe from him. I can promise he’ll never return. Okay?”
She studies me for a long time, more tears building in her eyes. I’ve scared the shit out of her now. Damn it.
“You really are an angel,” she says at last, causing my heart to flip.
I don’t say anything else as I drive toward Lindy May’s house. She’s one person who can see a ghost but not flinch.
“What’s your name?” I ask the girl who is relaxing more by the minute.
“He called me Pup. But my name is Laurel,” she says around a yawn, leaning against the window.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel, wishing I’d cut that dick off and sewn it into his mouth.
Lindy May’s house comes into view, and I debate this for a few minutes. She’s a good woman. Just like Diana. Both of whom tried to seek justice for me. Lindy suffered a terrible fate because of that. She was five years older than me the night they robbed me of everything.
“I’ll call the FBI!” Lindy shouts.
“Go ahead, cunt. The FBI didn’t give a damn about their father, did they?” Kyle taunts, smirking.
Dev holds her back, his face grim as she struggles to get to me.
“I’ll teach that bitch a lesson later,” Kyle mutters under his breath.