by B. B. Hamel
“Are you sure? I could sleep next door, sneak into your room after our parents go to bed, tongue that little pussy until you moan.”
“You can’t stand being in the same house as your mother,” she said lamely.
“Maybe not, but I’d make you come so loud I’d have to put a pillow over your mouth. That might be worth it.”
“You’re changing the subject again,” she mumbled.
“So what if I am? This is a much more interesting subject.”
“I don’t know what happened to you in the FBI, but you can tell me.”
I looked out the window, out toward the normal suburban home. Lester’s knife as it flashed out, stabbing Martin in the neck. His horrified expression, Lester’s laugh. My gun firing, again and again, almost as if I couldn’t control myself.
“I don’t need a shrink,” I said. “But you could help me in other ways.”
“How?”
I grinned at her. “Let me taste that pussy in the backseat.”
She sighed and shook her head. “You never give it up.”
“I will as soon as you do.”
She didn’t say anything else, and I went back to watching the house. But even though my attention was strictly on the job, I still kept glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.
Laney was almost a mystery to me. Maybe I could guess what sort of person she was, but that didn’t mean I knew her at all. I could guess where she was from and what she did, but that didn’t tell me everything about her.
For example, it didn’t tell me why she hung around after I had barged into her room the night before to check for serial killers.
It also didn’t explain why I couldn’t get her out of my head. Ever since the incident had made me leave the FBI, I’d found that my appetite for women had declined significantly. Before that, I’d been with plenty of all shapes and sizes. But Laney was the first to pull me back into reality, to make me want to tear her clothes off.
I couldn’t get the image of her short skirts from my head. I wanted to touch her panties, to feel her soaked spot, to make her shiver and moan under my touch. I knew she’d never been with a man like me before. I could tell every time she stared at my body and my tattoos.
But she was my stepsister, which was the fucked up part. Plus, she was my employee, although my mother was footing her salary.
And every second she spent around me put her in more danger. So why hadn’t I sent her away yet?
Because I was still hoping it wasn’t true.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed. I’d gotten good at spacing out, at watching motionless as time slipped by and I fell into a quiet meditation.
And then I caught sight of the pink robe again, but this time it wasn’t from the front door.
“Upper window,” I said.
“Huh?” Laney asked, looking up from her phone.
“Look.”
I handed her the camera and she looked through the viewfinder. It took her a second, and then she began to snap pictures.
“Holy shit,” she said.
I laughed as she took pictures. Even without the camera’s zoom, I could clearly see the woman and the man standing in front of the window and gently kissing. It was almost a tender moment, and probably one shared often. I was willing to bet it turned them on to risk getting caught, though the idea that someone was actually watching never really seemed possible.
“This has to be enough proof,” Laney said.
“More than enough.”
“I’m almost disappointed.”
“Why? This is more than I normally get.”
“No, I mean in her.” She paused and lowered the camera. “She looked so normal.”
I gently took the camera from her. “She’s still normal, Laney.” I snapped a few pictures until they disappeared. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. I turned the key, the engine roaring to life, and we headed back toward the office.
I locked myself in the bathroom to develop the film while Laney busied herself with whatever she did on her laptop. I wasn’t too worried about it as I went through the usual routine.
Developing film was soothing. I liked that I knew exactly what chemicals to use in exactly what proportion and order, and I knew when it was finished. The final product was because of my own two hands.
Plus, it was an excuse to look at the file again. Once the film was hung up to dry, I reached around behind the toilet bowl and pulled the folder from its taped pouch. I sat down on the seat and opened the file.
Lester Seed. Forty-three, single, blond hair, brown eyes. Five-foot-nine and two hundred pounds. He spoke with a slight lisp, but everyone described him as friendly. Some neighbors even went so far as to say that he was the nicest man they had ever met.
He volunteered at children’s organizations, which was a detail that always made me shiver. He worked as an insurance adjuster for a large company and had never had a single complaint from a superior.
All in all, Lester seemed normal.
Except he wasn’t.
It took us over a year to track him down. I couldn’t say why, but there was something about the case that drew me to it almost immediately. It had sat in our unsolved drawer for years, and for whatever reason I had pulled it out and begun to work it from the start.
I hit the same old roadblocks as everyone else. Each victim had her fingers removed, and there were signs of sexual assault, but there was never any DNA. There were no eye witnesses, and very often we couldn’t properly I.D. the girls. They were always girls, too, young girls, but never under the age of eighteen. Lester was a killer and a sick fuck, but he didn’t hurt children.
At least, we found that out later.
It sucked me in, body, mind, and soul. My partner, Martin Rodriguez, didn’t think anything of it at the time. He used to joke that I was trying to solve the unsolvable, and that I shouldn’t waste my precious hours on useless cases.
But each night I came back to the file. We were calling him the Fingers Killer back then for a lack of a better name.
He had over twelve victims that we knew about. We suspected he could have upwards of twenty, especially since the bodies ranged so far through time. He’d been active for over fifteen years, and we worried it could go even further back.
I worked that case harder than I’d ever worked anything in my life. I was obsessed, falling deeper and deeper into the pit as I learned more and more about the town. He was based in Wilder Town, Mississippi, a tiny place just like Mishawaka. Maybe that was what drew me to it from the start.
Maybe I was trying to avenge the ghosts of the dead girls because I felt like I knew every single one of them.
I got my first break after a month. I noticed a pattern to the bodies based on geography, and when we traced the pattern to some of its logical conclusions, we found more bodies.
And more bodies meant more evidence. Suddenly, the Fingerless Killer case was blown wide open. We had another six victims, one of which went back twenty years.
That girl from twenty years ago, she was Lester’s biggest mistake. I figured she was his first, though I never knew about it.
Lester Seed still haunted my dreams. Lester was one of the smartest, most dangerous men I had ever come across, even as an FBI agent who dealt exclusively with smart and dangerous men.
And I was terrified that he was back. He was supposed to be dead, shot in the chest by my gun. He was supposed to be buried somewhere deep, deep down.
But the girl without the fingers and the other bodies that kept cropping up said otherwise.
I shook my head, trying to dispel the ghosts.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was just a copycat. But I had a feeling, a sinking stone in my gut, that made me think something horrible was going on. Something that was just outside my reach.
“You almost done?” I heard Laney call.
I looked up, surprised. I must have been in the bathroom
for a while.
“Yeah,” I called back, hastily pushing the file back into its hiding spot. “Just finished.”
I glanced down at my feet. I wasn’t done with Lester. He wasn’t letting me go.
I opened the door and quickly shut it behind me.
“You’re going to turn into a vampire if you stay in there any longer,” Laney said, smiling.
I grinned back. “If only you knew.”
7
Laney
She looked pissed.
“I don’t believe it.”
I watched as the woman leafed through the pictures Easton had just handed to her. She was in her mid-fifties, not exactly in the best physical shape, but I could tell she was still pretty underneath all that stress. Frankly, she looked haggard.
“I’m sorry,” Easton said, “but it’s true.”
“Marcy would never do this.”
I leaned up against the filing cabinet and frowned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jenkins, but it’s the truth. I was there, too.”
She gave me a dirty look. “Who’s this?”
“My assistant,” Easton said.
“What’s some silly little girl doing helping you?”
I gaped at her. I had never met a stranger that just randomly insulted me. Easton glanced at me and then back at Mrs. Jenkins.
“I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Jenkins, but this is the truth.”
She shook her head violently. “No. Not with Marcy.” She looked at me. “This is your fault, I bet. You took these pictures. You don’t know what you’re doing.” She seemed hysterical.
I couldn’t believe she was blaming me, but I was beginning to understand what Easton meant. People came to him when they were desperate. In a lot of ways, he was a last resort for these people, and they often were not exactly in the best way mentally or even financially. Easton’s job was to confirm suspicions, but very often the truth was so much worse.
I wondered if anyone was better off knowing. At least this woman knew not to trust her best friend and her husband anymore. At least now she could move on, even if it was painful.
“I took the pictures,” Easton said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jenkins.”
She leaned back in her chair, defeated.
The look on her face was almost heartbreaking. I had never seen an adult look so broken down and depressed before. She was probably on the verge of tears.
I walked over to her and knelt down next to her chair. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be okay.”
And then it happened so fast. Easton went to say something as I reached out to comfort Mrs. Jenkins. However, she reacted so fast that I didn’t have time to even think about it. Suddenly her arms whipped out, knocking me back and away, sending the mug of coffee on Easton’s desk sprawling.
“Get away from me!” she shrieked.
I sat back on my hands, covered in coffee. The woman looked like a dog backed into a corner. Easton quickly moved around his desk.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“Fine,” I said, standing up.
Mrs. Jenkins stared and slowly regained control of herself. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Clean up in the bathroom,” Easton said softly in my ear. “I’ll take care of her.”
“I’m really fine,” I said back, and he nodded.
I walked off, back toward the bathroom. I shut the door behind me and leaned up against the wall facing the toilet.
I was fine, but shaken. I had never seen a person react like that, with such animal instinct and revulsion. Easton had probably been trying to warn me away from trying to touch her; he’d probably seen that before. For me, though, it was totally new, and it seriously shook me.
I let out a breath and looked down. Right then, something caught my eye. It looked like the corner of a file folder poking out from behind the toilet. It was just a corner, but it was definitely there.
Curious, I knelt down next to the bowl and reached around. Taped to the back of the toilet in a little nest was a thick file folder. Without thinking, I grabbed it and pulled it out.
It was heavy and full of images. Written on the tab were the words “The Fingerless Killer” in black ink.
I sat on the toilet and opened the folder.
The writing was in his handwriting. It was Easton’s, obviously from back when he’d worked for the FBI. The first page was a field report, really dry at first until I got to the crime scene description.
Dead girl, fingers missing, possible sexual assault. No DNA or any other evidence found.
I blinked, suddenly remembering the day Easton had come and checked on me. That had happened right after he’d read a story about a woman that had had her fingers cut off.
It had to be a coincidence. But then again, why was he hiding a file from me?
Nervous, I turned on the water in the sink to mask any sounds I made. I knew I should just put it back, not read it at all, but I couldn’t help myself. This might even be the reason he had been so angry at me for going through his files when I’d first started.
It was like the holy grail. The right thing to do was to put it back and pretend like I had never seen it. But sometimes the wrong thing seemed so much better.
I began to read, skimming through it. There were pictures, horrible pictures of crime scenes and bodies, and I tried to skip over those. But what disturbed me more and more was the narrative that began to cohere.
Lester Seed was a serial killer working out of the Dallas area. He had a lot of victims, at least ten that I noticed as I skimmed, probably more. Some of the cases dated back a pretty long time, and it looked like the farther back I went through the file, the more the handwriting all changed.
It had clearly been worked by a few different people. But Easton and his partner were the most recent two names that I kept seeing come up again and again.
Lester Seed. He’d been caught by a freak accident almost. Apparently they found an old victim, extremely old, and got a piece of his DNA from her body. Maybe he had been sloppy early on, Easton speculated in some field notes. Maybe he wanted to be caught one day.
Easton and his partner, Martin, found Lester when his DNA matched a database of blood donors. They had staked him out, followed him around, taken countless hours of observations.
And then something had happened.
My eyes widened as I read the last field report, the grisly details becoming clear.
Slowly it dawned on me exactly why Easton had left the FBI, and why he was drinking so much.
Easton had become convinced that Lester was about to kill again. He had pushed for the bureau to do something, but they didn’t feel that they had enough evidence and wanted to continue to observe. Going against orders, Easton followed Lester Seed to his home and confronted him.
Seed turned violent. In the ensuing struggle and chase, Martin Rodriguez was stabbed in the neck and eventually died of his wounds in the hospital. Easton shot Seed four times in the chest, killing him instantly.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Easton’s partner had been murdered, and Easton had killed a man. All in a single moment. All in some freak accident.
Then there was a knock at the door.
I almost jumped out of my pants.
My heart was pounding and my mind was stuck imagining that night. Lester running through his house and then popping out from behind a door, stabbing Martin in the neck. I could only guess at the fear and the emotions Easton felt, then and now.
“You okay in there?” I heard him say.
“Yeah, fine,” I said quickly. I closed the folder and dropped to my knees, gently placing it back into the little taped holder he had made.
“You fall in?”
“I didn’t fall in,” I said, annoyed.
I quickly got up and grabbed some toilet paper and began to dab at my pants. I opened the door after a second.
He grinned in at me. “Crazy,
huh?”
“Totally insane,” I said.
But I couldn’t help but see the person who was hiding behind his gaze, the person who had lost his partner. The person who had gotten too close to a case and had lost everything.
“That’s not even the worst I’ve seen,” he said.
“Is she gone?”
He nodded. “We won’t see her again.” He paused, and I saw him quickly glance at the toilet. I held my breath, but he looked back at me and smirked. “Paid pretty well, though.”
“Oh good,” I said and began to dab at my pants again.
“Need a hand with that?” he asked.
“I think I can handle it myself.”
“Good. I’m only good at getting you wet, anyway.”
I gave him a withering look. “How about a little privacy.”
“Whatever you want, sis.” He turned and walked out.
I closed the door behind him and let out a long breath.
I had no clue what I was going to do with this information, but it did speak to something scary happening. That article had mentioned that the body was relatively near Mishawaka, and Easton was clearly paranoid if he was willing to come check on me.
Did Lester Seed somehow survive? I couldn’t see how, not based on what I had read. But I understood why Easton was worried. Seed had a particular killing style, and that murder matched it very well. As far as I could tell, it was Lester Seed, back from the dead.
But people didn’t come back from the dead.
I dabbed dry paper on my pants and quickly cleaned up. I needed to get myself together before I went out and looked at Easton again.
So much was suddenly clicking into place, and yet it opened up so many other questions.
I dried my hands, opened the door, and walked back into the office, not sure about anything.
8
Easton
Not a single call for the rest of the day.
That crazy lady’s money would pay my rent, and maybe buy some groceries, but I needed more clients, preferably high-paying ones that needed someone for long-term work.
Unfortunately, small towns rarely had a high need for a private detective, which meant that I was constantly just barely scraping by. That suited me, more or less; I’d never cared before. But suddenly with Laney around, I cared about the condition of the office, cared about needing to keep the electricity running.