Dunham’s story was he was jumped from behind out in the fields by several men in hooded sweatshirts with bandanas around their faces. He couldn’t make out who they were. They left him for dead, but lucky for him his wife found him and called paramedics. Weissbard doubted that was particularly lucky for the wife or foster kids.
Local PD thought the story was bullshit, but couldn’t shake him from it. DNA under the fingernails said the assailant was a white male, but didn’t hit anyone in the system. Given Dunham’s reputation as a general prick, the list of suspects included most of the town, but the foster kids in the house moved to first on that list when the cops got a good look at how they were treated. But none of them matched the DNA, and all were accounted for at the time of the attack. Child Services pulled them after checking out the farm and the Dunhams were out of the child-rearing business for good.
Weissbard searched for Dunham’s current status. He didn’t lament finding the scumbag had died less than a year later, from complications of his injuries.
None of this helped explain the weak DNA hit. At seventeen, Sheridan, with his mass of anxiety problems, wasn’t going to be on a solo road trip to Virginia to murder a stranger. He’d have been a high school senior living at home that October. Weissbard could double-check that, but it would be a waste of time.
There was always that one-in-a-billion chance of duplicate DNA, the odds that the experts always allude to testifying in court. That was as likely as Sheridan running around Culpepper, Virginia last fall.
Then something clicked. Foster kids. Sheridan was adopted. Maybe the partial match wasn’t because the DNA was degraded, but because it was from a relative. If Sheridan’s birth mother gave him up, maybe a sibling was part of the package as well. How the hell that tied up a bunch of loose ends in Florida was a mystery, but his gut, the one he’d been ignoring lately, told him it was a straw worth reaching for.
Sheridan’s birth and adoption records were sealed. His parents weren’t about to unseal them and release more details about the adopted-son-turned-serial killer. That wasn’t a problem. Weissbard was on a first-name basis with a law-and-order judge always ready to cut away the veils of secrecy the government seemed way too happy to drop. Weissbard looked up the judge’s number and in his mind rehearsed his sales pitch for getting those adoption records unsealed.
Chapter Forty-Six
Day and night had lost all meaning in Brian’s perpetually lit bathroom jail cell. But when a slamming door and the sound of something dragging through the house awakened him, his internal clock told him it was past midnight. That combination of revelations made his stomach turn. On the other side of the door, Tyler was no doubt making this whole situation worse.
Brian shifted in the torture seat and the boosted blood flow to his leg made his foot throb like someone was pounding it in time with his heartbeat. He moaned and tried not to move his damaged foot. It felt two sizes too large for the boot.
A few loud thuds came from the direction of the living room. Then came the rustle of heavy plastic, followed by the zip and rip of unrolling duct tape. Brian remembered the vision of Tyler’s car trunk, the big tube of clear drop cloth, the roll of duct tape.
Oh, yeah. The situation was getting much worse.
A few minutes later, Tyler burst into the bathroom, his face flush with maniacal excitement. Brian’s heart sank at the sight.
“Little bro! C’mon! Everything is really coming together. Totally major breakthrough time.”
Tyler stepped in and tapped Brian’s broken foot with his toe. Pain exploded up Brian’s side and he yelped. He wished he could beat Tyler to death with his bare hands right now.
“Hurts like a son of a bitch, don’t it?” Tyler said. “Trust me. Been there. I feel your pain. But it’s just what you need. You’ll see.”
Tyler reached down between the legs of the wheeled chair and pulled it forward. Then he went behind him and rolled Brian out into the hallway. At this distance, Brian felt Tyler’s consciousness again, a fetid, turbulent mess of negative emotions and irrational euphoria. It was like letting his mind touch sewage. They turned right and rolled into the living room.
Most of the furniture had been piled against the walls. Clear plastic sheeting draped everything else. Flat rectangles covered the floor, joined at the seams by slashes of silver duct tape. The recliner sat near the middle of the room, sloppily wrapped in plastic held together by a Frankenstein-caliber stitching of duct tape. The laptop he’d seen before still sat on a low table at the couch’s far end, still making the psychedelic screen saver, still an impossible dream to use. The whole room smelled of fresh plastic, the scent of wild anticipation as a kid on Christmas morning, but now just fuel to stoke anxiety. Brian had the bad feeling that he might be the one who wasn’t going to leave this well-protected killing room alive.
Tyler rolled him over and parked him a few feet across from the empty recliner. He plopped down in it and sighed with a smile.
“So, as you can see, big day. Got a whole lot done. Gonna have a major payoff, I can feel it.”
“Tyler, just kill me and get it over with. Do me that favor, as your brother.”
“Because you’re my brother, I wouldn’t even consider it. We’re on the verge of some major bonding, of you opening your eyes to the wider, brighter, freer world I’ve known for years.”
He gave Brian’s broken foot a kick. Pain flared, new and bright. Brian screamed.
“Damn, that’s gotta sting, eh?” Tyler said.
A satisfied, sadistic look crossed his face and he launched a far more savage kick at Brian’s foot. On impact, the pain turned Brian’s world white. With every ounce of his being, he wanted to tear his brother to pieces. He shrieked in fury.
“Good! Good!” Tyler said. “Now wait here and hold that thought.”
He turned away, then turned back and looked at Brian’s shorts down around his calves.
“Damn, sorry. That won’t do.”
He pulled Brian’s shorts up, dragged the waistband across his ass and up to his waist. The crooked shorts pinched Brian’s testes. Nothing compared to the pain in his foot, though.
“There we go. Much less humiliating.” Tyler practically skipped out of the room.
Brian blinked his eyes back into focus as the pain retreated. He searched for anything that might help him get free, anything he might use as a weapon. Nothing.
He thought about that brush he’d had with Tyler’s mind just then when the two of them were physically close. It was the same way he sensed his brother’s feelings in their dream connection. But Brian was awake. Tyler didn’t seem to notice his emotional bleed over. Perhaps it only went one way.
The door to the garage creaked open, followed by the click and moan of a car door or trunk. A minute later, Tyler returned with a woman slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Zip ties bound her ankles together. The blackened, dirty soles of her bare feet faced Brian as his brother entered the room. Brian couldn’t see her face but the black and red rayon shirt she wore took his breath away. Tyler slung her into the chair opposite him. He saw her face and it confirmed his worst fear.
It was Candy from the dollar store.
She looked dazed, as if whatever knockout drops Tyler used hadn’t worn off quite yet. A blue, terrycloth hand towel parted her lips and tied behind her in a big knot. A barrette pulled half her short hair back from her face, but the other side hung down like a tangled, shredded veil. Her hands were bound behind her.
“Talk about a wide load,” Tyler said. He stretched his back. “Damn near herniated myself with that one. From now on we stick to lighter victims.”
Tyler leaned over and gave her a few little taps on the cheek. When that elicited no response, he smacked her hard. She shook her head and blinked her eyes.
“There you go, Candy. Rise and shine! Now I need to get something. You two get to know
each other.”
Tyler stepped out. Brian leaned as far forward as he could. Every muscle screamed from being immobile so long.
Candy’s eyes met his. They filled with terror at the full realization of her predicament. She started to struggle. Not tied in the chair, she flopped around like a beached walrus to no avail. With her bulk, and no arms or legs for leverage, Tyler must have figured tying her into the chair wasn’t necessary.
She screamed into her gag. “It’s you!”
Brian could barely understand her. But the next few words were unmistakable.
“The Playing Card Killer!”
“No, Candy. That’s not me. It’s him. He’s the killer. We’re both victims. We need to get out of here.”
Panic had taken hold of her and wasn’t about to let go. Her face turned beet red. She bucked in the chair. Sweat-soaked skin smacked against the plastic cover. Every person had a mental breaking point, and she looked on the verge of hers.
“He’s coming back,” Brian said. “You need to fight him. We’ll both die if we don’t get away.”
Tyler reentered the room, hands behind his back. Brian jerked back upright in his chair. Candy’s screams jumped up to a new level. Tears streamed from her eyes and her short hair scrubbed her flushed face as she snapped her head back and forth in a plea for mercy.
“And how are you two getting along? Hmm, no chemistry? Little bro, did your pleas to escape fall on deaf ears? She’s fat and stupid, not a winning combination. But I do have something that can cure her of her ills.”
Brian pulled his hands from behind his back. He held the velvet rope, the one Brian had so often seen in stark black and white before. The sight of it made him shiver. He’d seen it do its dirty work too many times.
Candy loosed a new round of terrified screams into her gag. Tyler’s face filled with rage. He strode over and slapped her hard across the face.
“Just shut the hell up,” Tyler said. “Or this will go way worse for you, bitch.”
Her screaming dropped to a hopeless whimper. Brian guessed she was going into some kind of mental shock, some paralysis as her brain went into full denial about this horrific reality.
Tyler turned to Brian, his face near instantly serene and smiling again. “Now, I know you’ve seen this rope, felt its power through me. Haven’t you wanted to feel that power yourself?”
“Hell no, you sick bastard.”
“You can’t lie to me, bro. I know we’re the same inside.”
Tyler stepped next to Brian. He wound the velvet rope a few times around his hand, then caressed Brian’s cheek with it. “See how soft and comforting it is?”
The idea that this same rope had ended the life of so many repulsed Brian. He jerked his head away. “Get away from me.”
“Oh, wait. Even better.” He spun the rope off his hand, then whipped it around Brian’s neck. He grabbed both ends and gave it a slight tug. “See how it feels around the neck? Soft, but firm. Like it had a job to kill you, and was going to do it, but would give you a little joy while it did.”
Tyler rocked his hands back and forth. The rope slithered around Brian’s neck, just a bit too tight for comfort. He swallowed hard.
“Catch the feel of it?” Tyler said. “Really amazing. That’s why I only wore the tips of rubber gloves during kills. Enough protection to hold back fingerprints, but not so much barrier that I missed all that sweet sensation.” He pulled it off from around Brian’s neck, then wound it around his own. He pulled it back and forth, his eyes closed. He rocked side to side, as if the sensation of the rope drove some silent, irresistible beat he had to dance to. “Seriously, I do this all the time. Really lets you know what they’re feeling when you snuff them.”
He left the rope wrapped around his neck like a scarf. If Brian’s hands had been free, he’d have grabbed both ends and really let Tyler know what it felt like to be a victim. Tyler dragged the easy chair around one hundred and eighty degrees, so the back faced Brian. Candy let out a terrified whimper.
Tyler kicked the side lever with his foot and the chair reclined enough that Brian could see the back and top of Candy’s quivering head. Tyler flipped the velvet rope into a loop and then put it around Candy’s neck. He let the two ends drape over the back of the chair.
Tyler pulled out the big knife and snapped it open. He slit the zip ties around Brian’s wrists and they fell to the floor. With all his concentration, Brian tried to lunge upward and throttle Tyler, but he could barely move.
Tyler pulled Brian’s arms forward. Brian screamed as his muscles stretched for the first time in hours. Tyler tied the ends of the velvet rope around Brian’s wrists and laid the rope against Brian’s palms. Brian’s heart sank. Tyler was about to make him the instrument of Candy’s death.
“I’m not going to do this,” Brian said.
“Sure you are,” Tyler said. “You’re going to feel the release, see the beauty, understand the freedom.”
Tyler kicked Brian’s broken foot. Waves of pain pounded his leg and Brian yelped.
“That’s the pain you’ve been missing. I’ve got to squeeze years of my torture into minutes for you.” He kicked Brian’s foot again. Harder.
Brian bit back another, louder scream, unwilling to give Tyler the satisfaction. Tyler’s face screwed up in anger. He reached down and squeezed Brian’s foot. He pressed pain all the way up Brian’s spine and through the base of his skull. This time the scream came out loud and hard.
Tyler looked up at him with a grin. “Feel that, bro?”
Fury at his helplessness filled Brian.
“You asshole!” he panted. “You sick fucking bastard!”
“That’s what we need, that anger. Work the pain and anger together.”
Brian jerked one arm toward Tyler. Tyler squeezed again. The wallop of pain turned Brian limp.
Tyler moved to behind Brian. He reached around and grabbed Brian’s wrists. He gave the rope a little tug. It tightened around Candy’s neck.
The velvet constriction seemed to shatter her stupor. A fresh, unintelligible cry sounded from behind the terrycloth gag. Candy flopped so hard in the chair that it rocked side to side. The rope jerked Brian’s arms back and forth.
“Whoa there, Nellie!” Tyler clamped his hands over Brian’s hands and squeezed them against the ropes. He gave both sides a sharp yank. Candy choked and went still. She began to cry. “Now, see, bro. This is control. This is release. This is what you’ve been missing all your life.”
Brian struggled against his brother’s grip. But his jellied muscles were weak, his brother too strong. He felt like a kitten under a tiger’s paw.
Tyler let off a little pressure. Candy sucked in a deep, jagged breath between sobs. The rope throbbed in Brian’s hands. His stomach turned as he realized it was in time with Candy’s pulse.
“Fuck you,” Brian said. “You psycho piece of—”
A wave cut him off as Tyler jammed the toe of his boot into the side of Brian’s broken foot and held it. Then he pulled Brian’s wrists back. The makeshift noose cinched around Candy’s neck. She jerked against the pressure.
“Now feel that?” Tyler said. His voice was calm, detached. “You got to play them, like setting the hook in a fish. Reel them in slowly, make them really appreciate that sweet release of death.”
Tyler pulled Brian’s hands back harder. The rope tightened. Candy gagged and pulled away. Tyler burrowed his toe deeper against Brian’s foot. Bones ground and Brian yelped. Tyler’s dark, evil cloud of emotions permeated Brian’s entire consciousness. Physically, emotionally, he felt poisoned.
“And then it’s finally time,” Tyler announced. He pulled hard and snapped the velvet rope tight. Candy made one last, great spasm. Tyler pulled his foot from Brian’s and the pain blessedly stopped. Relief washed through him just as the pressure against the rope in his hands evaporated.
Candy’s head sank back against the recliner headrest.
Brian shuddered at the horror of what he’d just done. Rationalizing his forced role in it made no difference. The combination of relief from the pain and revulsion at killing made his stomach churn.
“You asshole,” he managed to whisper.
Tyler dropped Brian’s hands and said in his ear. “See, bro? See how much better you feel with one less witch in the global coven, and so much less pain in your life? It all comes together.” Tyler stepped away so Brian could see him again. He was smiling. “Now, I need to drop her somewhere before she starts doing that bloated, rotting thing. Be right back. I’ll give you a few moments here. You’ll like to kind of savor the experience. I always do.”
Tyler untied the rope from Brian’s hands, draped it across his shoulder, and walked out of the room. The door to the garage opened and closed.
Savoring, or even acknowledging, this moment was the last thing Brian wanted to do. He closed his eyes, but the afterimage of Candy’s lifeless head seemed burned into his eyelids and inescapable. It made his skin crawl.
He noticed something about the image and popped open his eyes. The black hair barrette on the side of her head secured a few locks of her hair away from her face, the kind of practical thing someone heading to work does without thinking. A detail the usually methodical Tyler hadn’t noticed during the euphoria of her kidnapping, or he certainly would have removed it.
Something sharp, metal, strong.
Brian needed that barrette.
He reached up for it. His arms barely moved. He didn’t have time to be slow. Tyler could return at any moment. He willed his arms forward. They responded like they were moving through syrup, but they did move. His fingers finally grazed Candy’s hair. A shiver ran through him as he thought about touching a corpse. He fumbled at the barrette with clumsy fingers that seemed several sizes too large. He felt around to the back and released the clasp.
The barrette popped open and sailed out of his fingers.
The Playing Card Killer Page 21