Her eyes shot open. “You’ve already showered, shaved and brushed your teeth. No fair.”
He grinned down at her unapologetically. “And you haven’t. I’m sorry I had to wake you. I would have asked you to join me, but you were smiling in your sleep. I like to see you smile.”
“I was having some very nice dreams. But I’ll forgive you for waking me after practically no sleep, as long as this is your method of choice.”
Holt chuckled and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. His smile dimmed. “Damian is gathering the team here. Twenty minutes.”
“Here? Why?”
“I don’t want to leave Theo and you alone.”
She shot upright in bed, pushing him off of her. She immediately regretted the action as her stiff muscles protested. “I’ve got to shower, change—” She stood and gingerly tested her right leg, grateful the ankle sprain wasn’t as bad as she’d originally thought. Still, the knee was throbbing, reminding her it was time for more pain medication too. She looked down at the floor, where her rumpled sweatshirt lay in a heap along with her jeans. “I have no clean clothes...no shoes, even.”
Holt lifted a shopping bag. “Catherine dropped off some toiletries and clothes I asked her to pick up for you.”
Sara took the bag and peeked inside. It appeared to have everything she needed. “Bless her.”
He took her shoulders and turned her toward the bathroom. “Go. Theo and I are making pancakes. You can gobble them down before the meeting.”
She could get used to waking up to Holt and Theo in her life. She stopped at the bathroom door and looked back at Holt. “What about Roscoe?”
“I haven’t called the vet yet, but he told me he’d call immediately if there was anything to be concerned about.”
A quick shower and a change of clothes later, Sara filled her tummy with blueberry pancakes across from a bright-eyed Theo and a grinning Holt.
“The vet told Dad that Roscoe’s okay.” Theo drenched his pancakes with a second helping of syrup. “And Dad says we can keep Roscoe. We’re going to pick him up this afternoon. You coming?”
Sara realized it was Saturday, but a lifetime seemed to have passed since yesterday. “I’m actually supposed to catch a flight to Mexico this afternoon.”
Holt stopped chewing a second, then swallowed. “I forgot about that.”
“I was going to spend Thanksgiving vacation there, recuperating.”
“Recuperating?”
She wanted to reach out and touch him but didn’t know if that was appropriate in front of Theo. She’d let Holt dictate the terms of this new beginning. “Sometimes you need a break when things aren’t going your way.”
“But now?”
She smiled. “Things are going rather well and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Holt took her hand where it lay on the table and threaded his fingers through hers. He reached out with his other hand toward Theo. Theo set down his fork and joined hands with each of them, completing the circuit.
“Does this mean you’re finally going to make her an official part of our family?” Theo asked, looking from Sara to Holt.
Holt smiled. “Working on it, bud.”
“Guess you should dust off those chess skills,” Sara added. After making quick work of cleaning up, they left Theo in Holt’s office watching a movie. As they moved back into the living room, Sara chewed at her lip. “No ideas where Chad is, then?”
“Given the weather and the way he disappeared, he had to have somewhere nearby to go,” Holt said. “But the address on his Academy employment application was an old one. Police are still patrolling a five-mile radius of the school, now that the roads are mostly clear.” The storm had blown through and snowplows were cleaning up in the aftermath.
The doorbell rang and Damian, Noah, Becca, Einstein and Max stood on the threshold. Holt set a fresh pot of coffee and several mugs on the living room table and they all took their seats. Sara was uncertain whether she was welcome there until Holt reached out to tug her down next to him on the couch.
“Einstein, want to start?” Damian asked.
The guy in a Geeks Need Love Too T-shirt looked up from his laptop. He was scruffy in a sexy-Colin-Farrell kind of way. A can of Red Bull sat on the side table, within arm’s reach. Sara wasn’t fooled by his nerdy image. Beneath the shirt, Einstein had some muscles. And beneath his haphazard hair, a whole lot of brain. “Sure thing. Chad White is, in fact, a real person. He was employed at the Academy using his real name and social security number. There was no reason to hide his real identity. He has no known criminal history.”
Max looked up. His jaw was covered with stubble and his eyes were red-rimmed. “So now that we know who he is, he should be easy enough for an experienced hacker like you to find.”
Einstein frowned. “Unfortunately, he’s got hacker skills too. Granted, he’s no match for me, but it’s taking some time to track him down. My guess is he’s rented or purchased a place to live under a false name, or he’s hiding out somewhere off the grid.”
Damian looked at Noah. “What have Brady and Henry given the police?”
Noah set down his coffee mug. “Brady lawyered-up quick. But Henry is cooperating, hoping for leniency. According to Henry, the predominant neurotoxin in the mix was scorpion venom from a species known as Deathstalker.”
Holt looked to Sara. “Ow. What?” She realized she had a firm grip on his forearm and loosened her hold.
“Scorpion’s Sting,” she said. “Chad told us he’d helped create that video game. The hero is a half-scorpion, half-human named Deathstalker.”
Einstein nodded. “Theo told us about that last night. I’ve been playing the game, trying to see if there are any other parallels that will help.”
“Good thinking,” Holt said. “The game certainly illustrates Toxin’s need for control of his world as well as his need to be a hero. What’s the objective?”
“Deathstalker defeats various enemies across several levels to save his queen and the prince.”
“Art imitating life.”
“What do we know about Chad’s real-life queen?” Damian asked. “I mean, before he saw Sara as a substitute.”
“I can help with that,” Becca said. “I spoke to Gloria Redding just a bit ago. It took her a while to return my calls, as it was the middle of the night. She didn’t answer when I went to her door. Apparently she uses a heavy-duty sleep-aid. And if I’d been through what she had, I would too. Chad White was her son’s biological father, but she and Chad never married. Not because he didn’t try. Apparently, he tried very hard to move them toward a commitment...so hard that something about him scared her away. It sounds like she caught glimpses of the controlling man he really was underneath his charm. She kept on a friendly basis for their son’s sake.”
“And yet he killed her father.” Max shook his head. “Some friend.”
“Things apparently went down the tubes fast after their son died. Twelve-year-old Josh White had leukemia. Toxin started killing a couple months after Josh’s death last year.”
“Grief drives people to do some pretty crazy things,” Holt said. Sara took his hand. Yeah, he’d been through the hell of losing someone. But he’d come out even stronger than the man she’d fallen in love with years ago.
“And sometimes it leads you to do beautiful things,” Holt continued. “This man thinks he’s saving the world, doing a noble thing. In reality, he’s deluded in his grief. I suspect he’s also using drugs to numb the pain. That always complicates things.”
Noah nodded. “Henry admitted he makes a special concoction that Toxin requests regularly. It’s a drug that puts him in a trance-like state so he can tune out the emotions but hone his thinking.”
“And his thinking led him to kill seven people.”
“The first victim was Chad’s employer at Technological Innovations. Chad was hired to help with video game development there.”
“What about the others?”
Einstein frowned. “Dr. Sheila Brown was an oncologist at Mercy Hospital. She treated Josh White.”
“If you say you figured out Vic Three’s connection, you deserve a bonus,” Max said.
“I did,” Einstein said with a grin. “At least, I think so. A simple online search showed that Senator Beechum didn’t support the health care bill that would have given Josh more coverage.”
“But Josh died almost a year before Beechum was murdered.”
Holt shook his head. “Toxin started with the two people he felt personally hurt his son—Joseph Kurtz and Dr. Sheila Brown. Somehow, killing them wasn’t enough. To justify taking other lives, he adopted a hero complex, but that took some time. Eventually, he wanted to do what he thought was right and just for society. He likely saw killing Beechum as serving the greater good. And the resulting media attention fed his fantasy and his need to be acknowledged, because that’s what heroes deserve.”
“Josh White has a social media account. An active one, actually, despite his age and his death. I’m assuming Toxin took it over as a tribute to his son.”
“And a way to keep him alive,” Holt added.
“There’s a mish-mash of posts on Josh’s page. But I was able to search where Chad had searched and follow the links he’d clicked.” Einstein’s eyes lit up as he dove into a subject that clearly fascinated him. “He’d been searching the political postings. Sites that indicate what Congressmen have been voting on, and how. And sometimes he was extremely vocal about his opinions. There are forums out there where people can share their opinions, and Chad—posting as Josh—was vocal about his desire to change the level of health care available to kids in this country.”
“So how do we find him?” Damian asked.
“The CPD is scouring the neighborhoods around the Academy,” Noah said. “Knocking on every door. We did as much as we could last night, but now that the streets are clear, we can do much more.”
Einstein tapped on his computer keyboard. “I plan to search all the forums and do anything else I can think of online until something pops up. I’ll also work on cracking the video game, in case there’s a hint in there.” His eyes sparked with the challenge. It was the same spark Sara had seen in the boys’ eyes in Toxin’s lair the night before.
Max grunted. “Tough job. Good thing all those years of playing prepared you for this. To think you could have been out meeting people face-to-face.”
“You meet some pretty interesting people online,” Einstein said in self-defense.
Sara’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Theo and Chad were talking about that last night, and how Theo hadn’t recognized playing online with Chad because of his user ID.”
Einstein’s gaze was piercing. “Toxin didn’t happen to say what that ID was, did he?”
“Yeah, something about his son. JoshCW.”
“It fits,” Holt said. “He’d want to keep his son’s memory alive...or even feel his son was alive...by keeping his identity active. Can you trace user IDs?”
“Hell, Damian wouldn’t have hired me if I couldn’t do the simple stuff.” Einstein was already typing.
Nobody spoke. All attention was on Einstein and his laptop. Holt’s hand wrapped around hers and she turned her palm over, interlacing their fingers. This had to be the answer. To think Chad would be out there another day, another hour, was unacceptable. She was eager to start her new life with Holt.
“Found him!” Einstein swung his laptop to face Damian, who read the address aloud.
Holt went still beside her. “That’s the street behind my house.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Goosebumps rose on Holt’s skin as he and Noah pulled up to the curb across the street from Chad’s rented house. They’d opted to drive the short distance in case he fled in a vehicle. Max was crossing the alley that ran between Holt’s house and Chad’s in case he escaped from the rear. The house Chad had rented was only two doors down from Holt’s. His skin crawled to think how close Chad had been all this time. To think, Mrs. Mendelson might even have bumped into him on occasion while walking Roscoe.
Noah carefully led the way up the cracked-concrete walkway to the front door and knocked sharply. “Police. Open up.”
Nobody answered. Warrant tucked in his pocket and gun in hand, he tried the doorknob. It turned without resistance and Holt’s spidey-senses went into high alert. The sound of the music and recorded punches and grunts of a video game came from a back area of the house. In the front rooms, there was a noticeable lack of furniture other than a couple chairs and a table.
Noah did a quick sweep as Holt moved toward the hallway. It was clear. Noah jerked his head toward the hall that led to the back bedrooms, the direction of the video game combat sounds.
Noah and Holt examined rooms as they passed them, heading toward the noise from the back room. Noah entered through the open door of that bedroom first, his gun at the ready. Holt gripped his pistol and mentally prepared himself to face the man who’d tried to take over his life.
As Noah shifted to the side, Holt got a view of the room from the doorway. Chad sat in bed in sweats and a T-shirt, propped against a bare wall. His eyes were glazed. A large, angry bruise covered one cheek, courtesy of Sara and her hammer. Across from him was a wall filled with television screens and equipment and wires going in every direction. It was a set-up similar to the lair he’d arranged in the attic at the Academy.
“Hands up,” Noah said clearly and calmly. “Get off the bed and face the wall.”
Chad ignored Noah and briefly turned his attention to Holt. Otherwise, he didn’t move except for his fingers, which pressed buttons on a game controller. “Welcome to my home. Wanna play?”
“I think I’ve played enough of your games.” Holt’s gaze shifted back to the screen where Deathstalker was taking down a foe. After ending the enemy’s life in one quick thrust of Deathstalker’s tail, Chad grinned.
“You’re under arrest.” Noah proceeded to read Chad his Miranda rights.
Ignoring Noah, Chad struggled to focus his hazy gaze on Holt. “How’s Theo?”
Holt stiffened. “He’ll be fine, with his family.”
Chad sighed. “Yes. I suppose he will. And I’ll be fine with mine.” He made a great show of raising his hands in the air, as if in surrender. The controller still hung from one of them, dangling by the cord, and he slowly moved to put it on the bedside table. That was when Holt spied the tiny capsule there. As if in one motion, Chad put the controller down, scooped the capsule up and popped it into his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He grinned at Holt. “I’ll be with Josh again soon.”
“Stop!” Holt shouted. “Call an ambulance,” he told Noah. But help would be too late. Chad’s body was already shaking with convulsions. “Another gift from Henry. He must have had a Plan B in place all along.”
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Families were supposed to be able to face their loved ones’ killer in a court of law. But then, perhaps this was the ultimate justice.
Holt hurried to the bedside and checked for hidden weapons within Chad’s reach. He needn’t have worried. Chad—Toxin—was already dead.
* * *
Damian looked up as Holt and Einstein entered his office. “You requested a meeting?”
They took seats across from him. Holt seemed uncertain. His fingers picked at the seam of his jeans. “We have something to talk to you about.”
Einstein’s hands were clenched together so tightly his fingers had turned white. His laptop, an extra appendage he never went anywhere without, lay across his lap.
“Is this about Sam?”
Alongside a police d
etective with experience in computers, Einstein had spent the afternoon going through the computer system from Chad White’s apartment. On the one hand, Damian was dying to know if Chad had found anything new about Sam. On the other, he’d long ago learned not to hope—it only led to disappointment. Over the past two decades, he’d dreamed of the numerous creative, often deadly, ways he would take down the person responsible for his daughter’s death. And yet, day after day, year after year, justice evaded him. Despite success finding some monsters, he’d failed to find his own.
“We discovered a document on White’s computer that we thought you’d find interesting.” Holt’s hesitance was a red flag.
“But?”
“Please, take what we say with a heavy dose of caution.”
“I always do.” Damian gave a grim smile. “I’ve learned a thing or two over the decades. One of them is not to count your chickens before they’ve hatched. But if there’s something—anything—to what Chad said he found, I need to follow up on it. I owe it to Sam to pursue any lead possible. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had any leads.” Despite his desire to remain impassive, hope flared, so hot and desperate it made his chest ache.
Einstein opened his laptop and typed for a moment. “I just forwarded you the document. It’s a journal, of sorts, begun this past summer.”
“The first entry is the date of my news segment,” Holt explained, “when the press first asked me about SSAM joining the hunt for the killer and he called the tip hotline to proclaim his name was Toxin. That’s when his fascination with me began. He journaled almost daily after that. At first, it was mostly about what he’d observed between me and Theo through my windows.” Holt looked away a moment, clearly upset by the thought of being under a killer’s microscope.
“He only saw snapshots,” Damian assured him. “He wasn’t living your life.”
“Once he got a job at the school, he began writing about Sara and his observations of the Academy. He also made extensive diagrams of the floor plan and crawl spaces of the school. Just as his obsession was spreading from me to her, it was also spreading to SSAM and its members. He indicated it was a hero’s duty to understand his enemies. In his notes about SSAM, most of them were about you.”
Deadly Bonds Page 29