by Kylie Brant
Deep as the Dead
The Mindhunters—book 9
Kylie Brant
Copyright © 2017 by Kylie Brant
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Also by Kylie Brant
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Also by Kylie Brant
The Mindhunters
Waking Nightmare
Waking Evil
Waking the Dead
Deadly Intent
Deadly Dreams
Deadly Sins
Secrets of the Dead
What the Dead Know
Deep as the Dead
Circle of Evil
Chasing Evil
Touching Evil
Facing Evil
11
Terms of Surrender
Terms of Engagement
Terms of Attraction
The Last Warrior
The Business of Strangers
Close to the Edge
In Sight of the Enemy
Alias Smith and Jones
Entrapment
Truth or Lies
Dangerous Deception
Born in Secret
Hard to Handle
Hard to Resist
Hard to Tame
Undercover Bride
Undercover Lover
Heartbreak Ranch
Falling Hard and Fast
Friday’s Child
Guarding Raine
Bringing Benjy Home
McLain’s Law
An Irresistible Man
Rancher’s Choice
Acknowledgments
This book wouldn’t have been written without the kind and generous help of a multitude of people. A big thanks goes out to vacation pals John and Sharon Barkhouse for being there to answer a barrage of questions about their province.
Canadian writing buddies Loreth Anne White and Pam Callow added necessary detail about their country and law enforcement procedure. I’ll show my appreciation soon in the bar of your choice.
A huge debt is owed to my favorite retired coroner, Chris Herndon, who left her sick bed to answer questions about a severed tongue. That’s dedication!
Keegan Davis is my go-to-guy for car information. Thanks so much for helping me catch a mistake in the story.
Much appreciation goes to D/CST Chris Gorman, Halifax Regional Police, for being a prompt source of answers to my never-ending questions regarding Canadian law enforcement process and procedures. Not sure what I would have done without you.
Christopher Grinter, Collection Manager of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, was there at the beginning when the plot was just evolving, and our long conversation about weird insect behavior got the ball rolling. Many thanks for your input.
A big note of appreciation to Fred and Jane Hutchinson, owners, Irwin Lake Chalets, who never batted an eye when I contacted them about wanting to drop a body on their property
As always, the credit for details on cool gadgets and SWAT procedure goes to Kyle Hiller, Colonel/Training Manager, Hanford Patrol Training Academy. I want to shadow you for a month sometime!
Much gratitude to Jim Swauger, Binary Intelligence, Digital Forensics for your generosity of time and for solving a critical plot point for me.
Fiction comes with its own demands. My apologies in advance for those times when details, timelines and procedures get massaged or streamlined for plot purposes. And speaking of that…while Glooscap Caves on Cape Breton’s Island is a real place, Devil’s Fingers Caves is a product of my imagination.
The fault for any factual errors in the story rests with the author.
For Sylvie Jeanne, who just has to flash that dimple to melt my heart.
Chapter One
The way of the lord is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin for those who do evil… —Proverbs 10:29
Felix Simard watched his captor with an intensity fueled by hatred. The safety goggles gave the other man a cartoonish appearance, magnifying his protruding eyes and calling attention to his sloping brow and receding chin. His remaining strands of dark hair were carefully combed in a futile attempt to cover a blotchy bald spot. With his appearance and quick skittery movements, he resembled a cockroach. Felix regretted not killing him when he’d had the chance. Would have killed him, if they hadn’t been interrupted. Then he wouldn’t be here now, trussed up like a common street punk instead of the businessman he was.
Flames of humiliation seared him. Still, he hadn’t built his empire on weakness. All he needed was one chance. And this time Felix would personally make sure Anis Tera didn’t survive.
Felix knew that wasn’t his captor’s real name, because he’d had his people investigate him when he’d first come to Felix’s attention over three years ago. Names hadn’t been important. The fact that Tera had assumed he could get away with blackmail was. The man had gambled, and he’d lost badly.
Felix’s chair was bolted to the floor, his hands and feet bound. Duct tape kept him from spitting the gag from his mouth. And yet he refused to allow himself to consider that now the tables might have been turned.
Tera turned off the machine he’d been bent over. Echoes of its shrill whine hung in the air for a few moments. He took off his heavy work gloves and ran a finger lightly across the edge of the utensil in his hand. Seemed satisfied. He didn’t remove the goggles as he approached Felix.
“You remind me of my father, you know.” Tera dragged over a portable spotlight and fussed over it a moment as he positioned it. When he flicked it on, Felix flinched and tried to turn his head away, but the blocks nailed to the chair on either side of his head made movement impossible. “Like you, he thought brute force was power. Bullies always do.” A small smile played across his lips. “But you’re both wrong. Information is power. That’s how I first learned of you three and a half years ago. It’s what brought you here this evening, as my guest.” He brought up his right hand, the item clutched in it glinting in the light’s beam.
Felix stared at the weapon, a sliver of relief working through him when he saw the rounded edge. Not a knife at all, he realized with contempt. How had he managed to be brought down by such a pathetic creature?
Tera leaned his face close to his. “You’ll think this is about revenge for nearly killing me three years ago. It’s not. I’m just the sword God has wielded. You told me once that you like to watch. You’ll watch no more.”
Comprehension slammed into Felix as the object neared his face. The first jolts of terror twisted through him. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. Felt one of them being pried open.
His screams were no less violent for being silent.
Chapter Two
Icy needles of rain pricked his face as Ethan Manning cautiously descended the embankment above Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie River. Nature had carved t
he slope steep. The downpour had slicked it to treacherous. Around midnight the heavens had opened up in a driving torrent that showed no signs of abating five hours later. That would also play hell with the evidence, a thought even more troubling.
“Is there an easier way down?” Fellow Mountie Nyle Samuels’s voice sounded from above him.
“Well, I’m not going to carry you.” His booted foot slipped then, and Ethan swore, almost landing on his ass. He managed to right himself, barely, retaining his grip on his Maglite. Its beam stabbed ineffectually at the heavy cloak of pre-dawn darkness. Pinpoints of light clustered in a tight knot two hundred feet below. He just needed to focus on joining the others without breaking his neck.
An avalanche of mud slid down behind him and Ethan nearly lost his balance again. “Dammit, move over a few feet. You’re right on top of me.”
Nyle’s voice sounded again, this time nearer. “But if I go down at least you’ll break my fall.”
Ethan gave a grim smile, one that quickly flickered out as he drew closer to the riverbank. Angry rainclouds scudded across the dark sky like battling warheads. Snippets of conversation drifted from the cluster of law enforcement below. Canopies had been erected, surrounded by four LED spotlights, their combined glow forming a dim oasis of light in the curtain of rain. Reaching the bottom, he heard a muttered obscenity behind him and nimbly jumped aside to avoid being bowled over as Nyle slid and rolled the remaining distance down the slope.
He switched his beam to the other agent’s face. “I see you found the elevator.”
“Shit.” Nyle unfolded himself and stood, twisting around to gauge the damage. “I’m covered with mud, aren’t I?”
Ethan played his flashlight over the man’s navy rain poncho and pants, which were fully coated with the reddish-brown clay soil of the area. “Nah. Clean as a whistle.”
“Dammit.”
A figure peeled away from the tight group to approach them, flashlight in hand. “I’m Robert Treelor, RCMP, Halifax H division. You Manning and Samuels?”
Ethan’s credentials hung from a lanyard around his neck, and he lifted them for the man to inspect. “I’m Manning. What do you have?”
His earlier flicker of humor had vanished, replaced by a sense of foreboding that had knotted his gut the moment the call had come in a few hours ago. The details that had been provided were compelling enough to have Ethan leaving the other three members of his team in New Brunswick and catching a red-eye flight to examine the scene. He was hoping this visit would be a wasted trip. But Treelor’s demeanor did little to lessen his trepidation.
“The body was found by a local fisherman. Constable Benton was first on the scene. He brought in provincial RCMP officer Shel Nolte.” The man nodded toward the cluster of figures standing in a tight group outside the tarp. “When he saw the condition of the corpse, Nolte rang up divisional headquarters, and we reached out to you. Helluva thing. Don’t mind saying I haven’t seen anything quite like it.” The slanting rain poured off the man’s slicker, forming a pool around his shoes. “The forensic identification unit investigators haven’t come up with much.”
One of the investigators, outfitted in a white boller suit, nitrile gloves and booties, was crouched on the riverbank. In this weather, with the number of people already around the scene, Ethan figured it’d take a miracle to come up with a shred of evidence they could use. “The medical examiner is with the body.” Treelor led the way, skirting a spotlight to make a wide arc around the sagging police tape that had been strung on three sides to form an inner perimeter.
The ground there was a muddy swamp that sucked at Ethan’s boots with every step. It was training rather than hope that’d had him shoving disposable shoe covers in his pocket before leaving the car. In all likelihood, there was no scene to worry about preserving. Nature had made sure of that.
He followed the officer to the farthest of three canopies where a trio of people squatted on a soggy tarp spread next to a body. All were clad in matching navy windbreakers with Medical Examiner emblazoned on the backs. Another forensic ident tech was photographing the body. The woman in the center sent a look over her shoulder. Her gray hair was plastered to her head and her glasses had tiny rivulets of moisture tracing down them. “Mary McFarland, Hants County Medical Examiner. I understand you’re from RCMP national headquarters. Does federal have an interest in this victim?”
“Remains to be seen,” Ethan replied.
She made a nearly imperceptible gesture and the two assistants flanking her rose and parted to allow Ethan and Nyle to crouch beside the body. He noticed approvingly that the hands had already been bagged. Male, he ascertained at a glance. Dark hair. Forty to forty-five years old, just under six feet, one hundred eighty pounds. Two jagged bloody holes were all that remained of the eyes and the mouth had been sewn shut with what looked like black fishing line.
“Could still be copycat,” Nyle said in a low tone.
“Guess we’ll find out at the autopsy.” Ethan slanted a look at the ME. “Any idea about what was used to remove the eyes?”
Some in her position were maddeningly reticent, unwilling to tender any opinions until the body was back at the lab. McFarland was more forthcoming. “Not a knife,” she said with certainty. “Something rounded that had been sharpened.”
“Christ,” Nyle muttered. “Like a spoon?”
“Possibly. Or a melon scooper. Did the trick.” The two Mounties exchanged a glance. “If I’m going to lose this case tell me now before I haul him back to my morgue. Your other victims missing eyes?”
“No.” Ethan’s gaze traveled lower, lingered on the neat vertical stitching of the lips. “But the same job was done on the mouth.”
McFarland nodded and got to her feet. “Will you be using the ME in Burnside on the investigation?”
He nodded. It’d be most efficient to use the pathology building minutes away from the RCMP divisional headquarters in Halifax.
The woman reached inside her jacket for her cell. “I’ll give them a call and see how they want to handle the transport.”
“Appreciate it.”
Water streamed off the edge of the canvas and Ethan rose, giving a shake to dislodge the steady cascade running down the back of his neck. The woman withdrew to huddle under the far corner of the canopy as she made the call.
“If this is our guy, it’s only been eight days since the last victim in New Brunswick.” Nyle had resurrected a tissue from somewhere and was wiping ineffectually at the mud on his slicker as he spoke. “He’s never moved this fast before. When’s Gagnon coming through with the extra assistance?”
“Hopefully soon.” The new commissioner had made plenty of promises two weeks ago when it had become clear that the most notorious serial killer in the country was active again after a three-year hiatus. Ethan was hoping the commissioner moved swiftly. He could use a larger task force in the field and more resources. What form of aid he’d get, however, remained a mystery.
He continued studying the body. Almost imagined he saw movement behind the mouth, the slightest flutter. His gut clenched, and he found himself hoping that Nyle was right, and the perpetrator had merely borrowed a sensational detail from their case. Because otherwise it meant the offender they sought was escalating rapidly. Which made it impossible to predict how soon he’d strike again.
The next day
Ethan stared out the window of the terminal at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, mentally willing the passengers to disembark from the plane more quickly. Puddles punctuated the pavement. The rain continued intermittently and the ground was saturated. Even when there was a pause in the precipitation the air was a sticky, sweaty fist of humidity.
The itinerary Dr. Hayden had sent them included a layover in Philly, turning the trip from DC into a four-and-a-half-hour flight. He glanced at his watch again. The autopsy had been scheduled for a half hour ago. He’d tried his best to get the ME to reschedule it, but hadn’t been able to sway the man. T
he recent victim had been wedged into the autopsy schedule as it was. Hopefully they’d get there in time for a verbal summary of the ME’s findings. If, that was, the passengers were ever allowed off the aircraft.
It took effort to tamp down the frustration that threatened to surge. Gagnon had made good on his promise, but his idea of assistance differed greatly from what Ethan had had in mind. Instead of more resources and manpower, he’d gotten an outside consultant. A forensic profiler with a highly specialized scientific expertise that was likely to have minimal impact on their case. He couldn’t have imagined a worse scenario if he’d tried.
“Talked to that buddy of mine from British Columbia that I told you about last night. The one who worked the Dr. Death case last year.” Nyle took a piece of gum out of his trouser pocket and thumbed the wrapper off before popping the gum into his mouth, and wadding the paper in his fingers. “Gagnon brought in an outside consultant from the States that time, too, and from the same agency as this one. Raiker Forensics. But they’re better known as—”
“The Mindhunters,” Ethan finished tersely. “I’m aware.” The issue he had with Gagnon’s decision had nothing to do with the reputation of the agency the consultant came from. The agency’s owner, Adam Raiker, was an ex-FBI profiler in the States who’d garnered near legendary status before he’d been captured and then escaped from the child killer he’d been trailing. The man had spent the last several years amassing a formidable group of experts in forensic specialties, and his private labs were said to be the best equipped in North America. Services with his company likely didn’t come cheap. Ethan wondered how much this consultant was costing the Force, and tried not to think about what sort of resources they could have added to the investigation for that price.