Four

by Jane Blythe

  “May I get you anything to drink?” Elijah asked as he pulled a bottle of water from a small refrigerator under his desk.

  “No, thank you,” Jack replied.

  “Are you sure? Coffee, soda, water?” Elijah persisted.

  “I'm sure, thank you,” Jack reaffirmed.

  Elijah looked to Rose, who smiled. “I'm fine, too, thanks, Mr. Jonas.”

  Elijah shrugged and opened his bottle of water, drinking several mouthfuls before setting it down. “It’s been a long day,” he told them. “Now, what can I do for you, detectives?”

  “You know what’s been going on in one of the apartment buildings you own.” Jack intended it as a statement, not a question, but Elijah nodded anyway.

  “Yes, it’s just awful,” he responded, his brown eyes wide with sympathy.

  Jack viewed it more like fake sympathy. Elijah Jonas seemed like the kind of guy who would be more worried about how the recent goings-on at one of his buildings would affect him, rather than what the victims had endured. “A murder, a rape, torture.” He paused to allow his words to hopefully sink in. “These are extremely violent crimes, Mr. Jonas. And all of them happened in one of your buildings.”

  “You think I was involved?” This time the man’s eyes widened in genuine shocked horror.

  Elijah Jonas was in his seventies, walked with a cane, and suffered from severe arthritis. He was an unlikely candidate. He wouldn’t have had the strength to cart Jessica Elgar’s unconscious body from her bedroom to her kitchen and tie her to the table. Nor did he match the description that Jessica had given. “No.” Jack shook his head. “But it would be good if you could give us a DNA sample and a sample of your fingerprints, then we can positively rule you out.”

  “I should probably check with my lawyer first.” Elijah looked hesitant.

  “If you prefer, you can call your lawyer and have him meet us as the station where we can continue our conversation,” Jack offered, standing.

  “No, no, no,” Elijah said immediately. “Here is fine, and I’ll give you the samples.”

  “We don’t think that you're involved, Mr. Jonas,” Rose assured him. “At least, not directly.”

  Bushy grey brows knitted together in confusion. “What does that mean exactly?” Elijah asked.

  “It means, Mr. Jonas, that we think it’s a possibility that you are the intended target,” Jack informed him.

  “Me? Why would I be the target?”

  “It’s your building,” Jack reminded him. “And the victims so far appear to be random?”

  “How are they random?” Elijah asked.

  “He’s working up from the first floor. Apartment 1J, then apartment 2J, then apartment 3J. The only connection between them appears to be their apartments numbers,” Rose explained. “We believe he’s simply using them to make a point to his real victim.”

  “His real victim? And you think that’s me?” Elijah looked shocked.

  “You or someone you know,” Rose replied. “He told one of the victims that she would get his message.”

  “You think he’s doing this just to get someone’s attention?”

  “Not just to get their attention, but probably also to maximize the person’s suffering—draw things out as long as possible, make sure they know what’s coming,” Jack explained.

  “I hate to point out the obvious,” Elijah began, “but I'm not a she. Are you sure that I'm the intended victim?”

  “No, we’re not,” Jack confirmed. “But we have to look into it as a possibility, especially given that it’s your building. Another possibility is that it’s one of the residents, but right now we’re looking at you. And yes, we realize you're a man, but you have to have some women in your life who this guy could be after.”

  “Well, my wife is seventy-four, and we’ve been married for nearly fifty years and I can't think of anyone who would want to hurt her.”

  “Children?” Jack prompted.

  “We don’t have any daughters, only two sons; one has never been married and the other has been divorced for nearly ten years now. We don’t have any granddaughters. No grandsons, either.”

  “Any extended family?”

  “Both my wife and I are only children, no siblings, so no nieces or nephews, and obviously, our parents are deceased. I really don’t know who in my family this killer could be after.”

  “Any close friends?” Rose asked.

  “None so close that someone would go through me to get to them,” Elijah answered.

  “I'm sorry, but I have to ask, but have you been involved with any other women over the course of your marriage?” Jack asked.

  “No, absolutely not,” Elijah stated firmly. “I have never been unfaithful to my wife.”

  “Any co-owners of the building?” Jack tried.

  “No, just me. I also own several other buildings, and I haven’t had any trouble at any of those,” Elijah informed them.

  “Has anyone made any threats against you recently?” Rose inquired.

  “No, no one has ever made threats to me in my life. Look, I'm just a regular guy, I really don’t think this guy is after me. I don’t know anyone who would behave this way. I don’t know anyone violent. I really don’t think this has anything to do with me. I think it’s just a coincidence that it’s happening at one of my buildings,” Elijah finished a little desperately.

  “Have you had any problems with any of your employees?”

  “None at all.”

  “Have any of your employees reported anything unusual at the building? Anyone hanging around who shouldn’t be? Any residents reporting break-ins or people hanging around? Any problems at all?”

  “Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm sorry, but I really don’t think I can help you.” Elijah looked like he was ready to dismiss them.

  They'd gotten everything out of Elijah Jonas that they were going to. It didn’t seem like he had anything helpful to offer them, anyway. It wasn't seeming likely that the intended target was Elijah or anyone in his family. “All right, thank you for your time, Mr. Jonas. We can see ourselves out,” Jack informed him.

  “Okay,” Elijah nodded eagerly. “Once again, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to be more helpful. But please let me know if there’s anything else you need to ask me.”

  They each shook Elijah’s hand and then headed for the lift. “Stephanie texted me while we were in there,” Rose told him once they were inside. “She said the fingerprints from Jessica Elgar’s house match the other two crime scenes. Confirms this one is related.”

  “This guy isn’t after Elijah Jonas,” Jack stated.

  “Agreed,” Rose nodded.

  “It’s someone in the building,” Jack noted.

  “Yep. That would explain why he told Jessica that he had to do it there. And that she would get his message. She lives in the building.”

  “We’re going to have to interview them all.” Jack couldn’t deny he felt a little daunted by the enormity of the task. There were twenty apartments per floor and fifteen floors–that made three hundred apartments. Interviewing all those people was going to take a long time. Time they didn’t seem to have. This guy was nonstop. He was focused on his task and he wanted to get to his end game as quickly as he could while still inflicting maximum fear on his intended victim.

  “But you're forgetting that he’s working the J apartments,” Rose reminded him. “I'm guessing that’s for a reason. He’s already done the first, second, and third floors; that means whoever he’s after probably lives in a J apartment on the fourth through fifteenth floor. That narrows it down to twelve apartments to check out. Then if we’re wrong, we can expand out and start checking out all the others.”

  That was true. Jack had just been too depressed about the prospect of interviewing thousands of people to think of it. “I guess we just have to hope that whoever this message is for actually gets the message. If this is some sort of psychotic stalker, then there’s no guarantee that the woman we’re looking for is even goi
ng to know that someone is after her.”

  Rose’s phone beeped the second they left the lift. “Sketch artist is already at Jessica Elgar’s, hopefully won't be too long until we get the sketch,” she announced.

  “Already? We only left Jessica’s apartment a few hours ago.”

  “The sketch artist called her pretty much as soon as we left and Jessica told her to come right over. She really wanted to do it quickly, she’s worried that he’s going to hurt someone else.”

  “She’s not the only one.” Jack held the door open for his partner as they stepped out into the hot afternoon.

  “I've been thinking about that,” Rose told him.

  He didn’t like the tone of her voice. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Rose looked at him out of the corner of her eye as they headed for the car.

  “And what were you thinking?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

  “We can't risk another attack in that building. We know he’s coming back tonight. Apartment 4J, it’s their turn. He’s going to do something to whoever lives in that apartment.”

  “Most likely,” Jack agreed warily. He was getting the feeling he wasn't going to like where his partner was going with this.

  “What if we take the residents of 4J and put them in a motel or something for the night, and then I stay there as a decoy?” Rose paused at their car.

  “No,” Jack said firmly, climbing into the car and slamming the door. No way were they deliberately putting Rose in the path of someone who enjoyed inflicting pain and terror. Of someone who had killed and raped and burned and strangled and used a knife to cut words into someone’s flesh.

  “Jack,” Rose wheedled as she joined him in the car. “We can't let him hurt someone else.”

  “So, we let him hurt you? No way.” He glared at her.

  “He won't hurt me, Jack,” Rose soothed. “I'm a cop, I know how to take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, that worked great for Paige,” he snapped snarkily. He felt a little bad for bringing what Paige had gone through into this. Jack knew that Paige blamed herself for her attack, and the rest of them blamed themselves in some way. He and Rose had been looking for whoever had been stalking her but hadn’t found them. Ryan had known that Paige was distracted and tired and blamed himself for leaving her alone. Sofia blamed herself because her stalker had started stalking Paige. However, the facts were that none of them could have predicted that the stalker would suddenly escalate to violence. But what Rose was wanting to do was different. It was deliberately putting herself into a potentially dangerous situation with a man they knew was sadistically violent.

  “Jack, that’s not fair and you know it,” Rose told him reproachfully. “What happened with Paige was completely different. Someone was stalking her, they wanted her dead, they deliberately came after her. This guy doesn’t even know me. He’s not coming after me. He won't even know that it’s me there instead of the apartment’s resident.”

  “He will as soon as he sees you,” he reminded his partner. “He knows these people. He’ll be expecting the real resident.”

  “He won't get close enough to me to notice. As soon as he’s in and we establish that it’s him, we arrest him.”

  “Or,” Jack began, “we could evacuate the apartment building so he can't get to anyone in there.”

  “Evacuate the whole building?” Rose looked at him doubtfully. “He’d notice that. He won't even come inside.”

  “At least no one will get hurt,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, but we won't get him either. He’s not going to stop. He’s invested in getting to whoever it is he’s after. If we don’t get him, he’s just going to keep going after her until he gets her. This way, we can stop him.”

  “I don’t like it,” he growled.

  “I know.” Rose patted his arm. “But we have to do something and we can't interview everyone in that building before tonight. And he’s almost definitely going to strike again—tonight. I can't just sit by and do nothing and let him hurt some innocent person. I'm not asking your permission, Jack,” Rose said gently. “I'm doing this.”

  This was a bad idea. He knew it was. Just like he knew there was no way to stop it from happening. He was just going to have to hope and pray that everything went smoothly and Rose wasn't about to get herself injured or killed. Jack really didn’t think he could deal with it if she did.

  * * * * *

  11:28 P.M.

  Why was she doing this again?

  Rose couldn’t deny that she was on edge. Apprehensive even, and she didn’t like to admit that she got apprehensive.

  Now that she was actually here in apartment 4J, waiting for the killer to show up, she was starting to wonder just why she had wanted to make herself bait.

  She liked to have fun, and she knew she had a dangerous job, but Rose wasn't usually one to take unnecessary risks. And putting herself directly into the line of fire of a vicious killer and torturer was certainly taking a huge and unnecessary risk.

  She had been here since six-thirty. Around five hours. Five hours was plenty of time for her anxiety to inch up to a level where she now just wanted this man to turn up so they could get this over with.

  The thirty-three-year-old woman who lived here had readily agreed to let them use her apartment. Audrey Nichols had already decided to spend the night at a friend’s. She had heard about what had happened in each of the apartments below her and had decided she didn’t want to risk anything happening to her, too.

  When Rose had arrived, she had cooked herself some dinner, taken a shower, and watched a little TV before climbing into bed. Now that she was simply lying here in bed in Audrey Nichols’ spare bedroom, her mind was beginning to wander. Beginning to conjure up images of what the man they were looking for had in mind for his next victim. She was also imagining the overwhelming fear and terror that his victims had endured at his hands.

  Would this man care that she was here instead of Audrey Nichols?

  If he was simply choosing his victims because of the apartment they lived in, then chances were if he could get away with doing to her whatever he had been planning on doing to Audrey, he most likely would. The thought left her chilled

  But, she reminded herself, he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on her.

  At least, Rose hoped he wouldn’t.

  Her colleagues were watching her. Rose knew that but the knowledge made her feel only slightly better. She was still in this on her own. After Audrey had left, CSU had set up some cameras and microphones throughout the apartment, but no one would do anything until the guy was in the apartment and they were sure he was who they were looking for.

  Even though Audrey had informed them that no one but her mother had a key, they would still need something that would hold up in court to prove that the person who broke in here was the killer. Although her colleagues were just next door—they had commandeered the two neighboring apartments—they still might not get to her before this man had a chance to hurt her.

  Jack had wanted to come and stay in here with her. But she had refused.

  They didn’t know if the killer was keeping watch on the building or even if he was indeed one of the residents. A single woman lived in apartment 4J. If the killer saw two people in there, then he could back off.

  They were already taking a chance that he wouldn’t know until he was already inside that he wasn't going to find who he was looking for. He could have already seen the swap and decided to back off. Or to go after whoever it was in this building that he really wanted. They had officers all over this place to hopefully stop that from happening. But this guy was smart, focused, and he clearly had a plan.

  Her partner wasn't the only one who hadn’t liked the idea of her staying here on her own waiting to see if the killer was going to pop up. Paige had also volunteered to come and stay here with her. Of course, Rose had nixed that idea in the bud immediately. There was no way she was having her barely-recovered friend put herself in a situat
ion that could get her hurt again.

  It had been a low blow for Jack to bring up what had happened to Paige to try and talk her out of doing this. Since she didn’t have any family left, her friends were very important to her; her friends were her family. Rose had never known her father. Her mother hadn’t even known who he was. And her mother had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Rose was eight, eventually succumbing to the disease a couple of years ago.

  So, with no siblings, no extended family, and no wish to look for her biological father, her friends had taken the place in her life that her family would have taken.

  And her friends certainly were a lot to worry about.

  She wished she knew the magic words to say to ease Paige’s constant fear of being attacked again. But she didn’t. The best she could do was just be there, keep a watch on her friend to make sure she didn’t get worse, and listen and offer advice when Paige needed it.

  She taught her friend Sofia self-defense, wanting to give her the skills to at least give her a chance at defending herself should she ever be in a situation again where she needed to. Of course, Rose hoped she never was, but it was better to be prepared than sorry.

  She kept a close watch over her partner. With his growing depression, she wasn't sure what the right thing was to do to help him was. He seemed to want to be in a committed relationship, and yet at the same time, he adamantly ignored any opportunities to date any woman who crossed his path.

  Her friends were going to make her grey before her time. Luckily, her own life was pretty dull. But mundane was good. She liked it that way.

  What she didn’t like was lying in this bed waiting for some lunatic to break in here.

  Restlessly, Rose climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She didn’t really need to go, she just needed to do something. In the bathroom, she splashed some cold water on her face, then studied herself in the mirror. Her green eyes had bags under them, she looked tense, her red hair hung messily around a pale face. She really needed to get all her friends back on track so she could start sleeping properly again instead of lying awake at night worrying.