by Alexa Grace
Cameron felt a stab of sympathy. “It wasn’t your fault. If the Gamers had targeted her, they would have found a way to abduct her. They grabbed Destiny Cooke in a church parking lot with thirty people waiting inside for her. They knew no fear.”
Tom’s eyes had a faraway look. “I remember like it was yesterday. Dad and I reported Marie missing and took turns looking for her. Once the cops found out she was a stripper, it didn’t seem like they were all that interested in finding her. It was the hottest summer that Indiana had had for years. But that didn’t stop Dad and me from searching. We looked for her all summer, but never found her. In the fall, some kids hiking found Marie’s body at the bottom of a ravine in a rocky creek bed. Those sick bastards murdered her, and then rolled her down the ravine. Her body was so decomposed, had it not been for her dental records, she would have never been identified.”
“Sounds like you’re angry.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? My twins are two-years-old, just babies. Thanks to those fucking animals, they are growing up without a mother. They’ll never know her touch and how much she loved them. Am I pissed? Hell, yes. We were robbed when Evan and Devan Lucas died. Because they’re dead, we won’t get to see them suffer like Marie did. They won’t be tried and punished by the justice system. They won’t get the lethal injections they deserve.”
“What about their parents, Bradley and Tisha Lucas? Should they suffer?”
Tom glanced at Cameron and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve never really given the parents much thought. I imagine those two are living in the same kind of hell we are—grieving for people they loved and lost too soon. Seems like I read in the paper they’re being harassed because they raised two serial killers. So, maybe they are already suffering.”
Cameron noticed an ancient family Bible sitting on a small table near the back door and was reminded of the name David109 used on the threatening notes. “Is your family religious, Tom?”
“We’re not Bible thumpers, but we take the kids to services at the United Methodist Church in town every Sunday. That’s a strange question to ask. Why did you want to see me, anyway? I have this feeling it wasn’t to talk about my Marie.”
“Not entirely.” Cameron admitted. “You read correctly in the paper that the parents of Evan and Devan Lucas are being harassed. I’m investigating their case.”
“So you think I might have something to do with it because their sons murdered Marie? When would I have the time? I work all day and take care of my kids at night. So there’s my alibi. Besides I wouldn’t do anything to their parents. They didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Marie.”
“So you haven’t wondered if Marie might still be alive if Tisha and Bradley Lucas had raised their sons differently.”
“No. You can’t undo what is already done. Marie is gone, and my hating the Lucases is not going to bring her back. So if you’re through with your questions, you can go.” Tom rose to his feet and glanced pointedly at the door.
Cameron obliged, but paused at the door. “Tell your father I need to talk to him, too. We can do it here, or down at the station.”
Tom’s face became red and blotchy, his temper at a flashpoint. “You’ve got to be kidding. My dad’s having a tough time grieving for Marie, but he’d never blame the killers’ parents for what happened to her. Leave him the fuck alone. The guy’s sacrificing his retirement to help me raise my kids. He put most of his savings into this house. I mean it. Leave him out of this. Get your ass out there and find the guy who is committing these crimes and leave my family alone.”
Chapter Forty-one
Brothers
It wasn’t hard for Gabe to spot his brother in the crowded diner. He was the guy in the third booth with the dark shadow of facial hair on his lean jaw, aiming himself so he could face the door, keeping aware of everything all the time. Cameron was the good-cop poster boy, honest, hardworking, and so straightforward it annoyed some of his suspects so much they flipped out and told him what he wanted to know just to get him out of the room. He was a man who could piss someone off in 2.5 seconds. Cam possessed a huge heart and was often the recipient of Brody’s “you-can’t-save-them-all” lectures. Gabe also loved Cam, regardless of whether he was angry at him.
Easing into Cameron’s booth, he tossed the menu aside. “I heard it was meatloaf special night.”
“Heard the same thing. Good to see you. Still mad at me?”
Gabe shook his head. “You’re my brother, and I never could be mad at you too long. Besides now I have an excuse to fly out of nowhere like Cato in the Pink Panther movies and practice my martial arts skills on you. When you least expect it is when I strike best.”
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you escaped one of my wrestling holds? That would be never.”
Hailey arrived at their booth with a tall glass of sweet tea and set it in front of Gabe, then filled Cameron’s glass to the top with her pitcher.
Mollie’s daughter was growing, up but still had a rebellious lock of purple in her auburn hair near her face. She smiled at Cameron, revealing a line of silver braces.
“Good to see you, Hailey. Still passing Algebra, right?”
“Yes, Uncle Cam. I had a good tutor last year.”
A smile crinkled the corner of Cameron’s eyes as he ordered the meatloaf special.
“I’ll have the same thing,” said Gabe. “Only with extra ketchup and no gravy on the mashed potatoes.”
Cameron waited to speak until Hailey headed for the kitchen with their order. “So what about Kaitlyn? Is she still mad at me?”
Gabe cleared his throat. “Kaitlyn is another story. I picked her up last night after her Families of the Murdered meeting and she said you were a hot topic. And not in a good way.”
“No kidding.”
“She said that Margaret was especially pissed at you for all the angst and trouble you’ve stirred up for the group members.”
“Margaret’s just talking smack. She knows she’s lusting for me.”
Gabe almost choked on his drink. “In your dreams. She’s probably dialing Brody’s number right now to see if she can get you pulled off the case. She’s urging the support group to file harassment complaints on you.”
“Well, Brody’s still on his honeymoon with Carly in Orlando, so she can dial away. Harassment? Maybe Margaret has a sense of humor after all. Since when is interviewing suspects harassment?”
Hailey brought their plates of food and Cameron dived in like he hadn’t eaten for days.
Gabe reached for the ketchup bottle and squeezed extra red sauce on his meatloaf. “So how’s the Lucas case coming? Did someone in the group confess?”
“I wish. This case can’t end soon enough for me. Interviewing victims or families of victims is my least favorite thing to do. It ranks right in there with getting a root canal. Most of the time I feel like an asshole, dredging up bad memories and then asking them if they had anything to do with what is going on with Tisha and Bradley Lucas. On the other hand, I’m convinced that one of them is the perp. I just hope I can stop him before it’s too late.”
Gabe swallowed a bite of meatloaf and wiped a smear of ketchup from his mouth. “Haven’t you interviewed most, if not all of them? What do you have?”
“Well, I’ve got an all-star cast and a whole lot of nothing. First, there’s Anthony Cooke who coincidentally burned his hand the same night the Lucas mailbox was set on fire.”
“Are you talking about Destiny’s dad?”
“One and the same. Bobbie says he was sleeping next to her at the time. Do I believe her? Not sure. It wouldn’t be the first time a wife lied for her husband.”
“I can’t picture Mr. Cooke doing anything that violent.”
Cameron shrugged and continued. “Then there’s Tate Green, who was Darla Green’s big brother, who has one hell of an anger management problem. Tate punched a CSN reporter and the guy’s jaw was wired shut for ten weeks. That was Tate’s answer to a question the reporte
r had about his murdered sister. I liked him for the Lucas case, but when I looked into his alibis, they checked out.”
“Who else did you interview?”
“April Maud-Black was Sharon’s mother. She and her second husband, Dwayne are raising her daughter’s three young children. I met the two at a shooting range where Dwayne was teaching April how to shoot a twenty-gauge shotgun. Dwayne, a house painter, became a person of interest when I noticed red flecks of paint on his pants. Was it the same paint that was thrown all over the Lucas office building? Don’t know. He wouldn’t let me scope out his garage without a warrant. I don’t have enough evidence to get one, so there went that.
“The interesting thing about the Blacks is they’re smarter than they look. They got an attorney and they’re filing a lawsuit against the Lucas couple for negligence. They’re contacting other victim families to get enough people for a class-action. Hopefully, Bradley Lucas has the deep pockets he brags about, because these people may have a strong case, considering he provided the work van his sons used to abduct women and transport their bodies. He also gave Devan and Evan one of the storage units he owns.”
“Do you think they are the ones harassing the Lucas couple?”
“I can’t see April harming a fly. Dwayne, with his cowboy hat and all-black Johnny Cash getup was pretty defensive, but his tough-guy act might be all show. He’s working night and day supporting his family. Besides, the Blacks live over an hour away. I can’t see him doing the drive and the crimes, as much as I want to.”
“Who else did you talk to in Indy?”
“Charity Cassity. If you looked up the word ‘bitterness’ in the dictionary, you’d see her photo right next to the definition. This lady is a piece of work. She’d kicked her daughter out of her house just prior to the girl’s murder. Does she feel guilty about that? Hell no, she’s too busy focusing her anger toward the police, the killers, and interestingly enough toward Bradley and Tisha Lucas. Do I consider her a serious suspect? Not really. She’s got a work schedule from hell. Besides that, she’s joining the Black’s lawsuit. She thinks the Lucases owe her for being such rotten parents that their sons became serial killers.”
“Charity doesn’t sound like the ideal parent herself.”
“You got that right.”
“And last but not least…”
Gabe held up his hand. “Wait a minute. Where does Kaitlyn fit in all this?”
Cameron arched a brow mockingly. “Seriously, Gabe? Kaitlyn would never do all the nasty things that have been done to Tisha and Bradley. Not in a million years. I had Robynn interview her because I had to, or I’d get accused of conflict of interest. Kaitlyn’s the best. You’re a smart man for bringing her into our family.”
Gabe smiled with satisfaction. “So who’s the last suspect?”
“Well, he’s really not the last because I haven’t interviewed his father yet. But I talked with Tom Engle last night. Just between you and me, I don’t want it to be Tom. He’s a nice guy coping with some very hard breaks. He and his dad take shifts to raise his two-year-old twins. His father bought a nice place outside Morel to get the kids away from city crime. Tom’s angry as hell at the Gamers, but not their parents. I can’t see him taking the time to harass Tisha and Bradley. He’s too focused on his little family.”
“So that leaves the father.”
“Yes, Thomas Engle, Sr. I left a message with Tom for his dad to call me to set up a time to talk, but I haven’t heard from him yet. I’ll give him a couple of days, and then I’ll go out there again.”
Chapter Forty-two
Bradley
There was a line at the hotel elevator, so Bradley dashed up the stairs two at a time, feeling like he was in his twenties rather than his fifties. Reaching the fifth floor, he dashed to his room. He couldn’t wait to tell Tisha the good news. He’d made three huge sales that would keep his company running for several years in the black. All three were for architectural plans and building town-center-style malls at various Indiana sites.
Reaching his room door, he swiped the key card, rushed into the room, plopped down on the bed, and dialed his home number on the hotel room phone. He listened to five rings before he hung up and reached into his jacket for his cell. Punching Tisha’s cell number, he waited for her to answer, but the call went to voice mail. He shouldn’t be surprised. His calls had gone to voice mail since they’d had their argument a few nights ago, when he’d said things to his wife that he shouldn’t have.
How could he have called her paranoid when he was experiencing the same fears that Tisha was? Who wouldn’t be frightened, knowing a madman was seeking payback for the atrocities their sons had committed?
Whenever he thought of his sons, the visual was always the two boys in their childhood, laughing and racing through the house. They collected bugs in Mason jars and small rodents in traps. How did they go from collecting insects and mice to collecting bodies? When was it that they crossed the line that separates us as human from monsters? At what point did his sons slip beyond his grasp and spin out of control? How in the hell had he missed the warning signs?
Perhaps Tisha was right about him being clueless and in denial. Maybe he didn’t listen to her concerns about Devan and Evan because he didn’t want to know. The darkest possibilities were scary places to visit, and no amount of military training could keep him safe from the nightmares. What might have changed if he’d focused more on being a better father, and less on saving face? Would his sons have received the psychiatric attention they obviously needed? Would the lives of seven innocent girls be saved? Would their grieving families be spared the private nightmares in which they currently existed?
If the answers to any of these questions were “yes,” then he was just as guilty as Evan and Devan. He could have changed everything if he had behaved as a responsible father, starting with taking their mother seriously when she’s sounded the alarm outside Evan’s hospital room the day he fell from the roof.
As guilt consumed him, so did anger. How naïve he’d been to believe every little lie his sons had spun. He’d bought it hook, line and sinker, that night at the dinner table when they convinced him that the garage would be as neatly arranged as he wanted if he’d just give them one of the storage units he owned for their athletic equipment. They must have thought he was a simpleton or a sucker when he gave them the key to one of the units. Good old Dad, the easy touch.
Had they laughed at him behind his back when he offered them a work van to get to and from athletic practices at school? A work van they used to transport the dead bodies of young women who had everything to live for, but were unlucky targets of his sons, who carefully planned to snuff out those lives as some sort of a sick game.
He thought of the families of the girls who were murdered. What would he have done if the circumstances were exchanged, and the police had informed him that his daughter had been tortured, murdered and then tossed aside as if she were trash? He would have reacted as they did. He would have grieved for the daughter he lost, and his would be the loudest voice to seek punishment, preferably execution, of the men who’d killed her. Would Bradley Lucas seek retribution? Hell, yes. He’d want the parents of the killers to hurt as much as he was hurting. He’d want them to pay for spawning monsters.
But he wasn’t told that his daughter had died at the hands of killers. He was told that his sons were the ones who had murdered their daughters, sisters, mothers, or wives. And as much as he tried initially to deny it, the reality was the sons he’d loved since the day they were born had turned into serial killers.
A ping from his cell phone reminded him it was time for the next session to start. Making a mental note to call Tisha again that evening, he left the room and headed for the elevator.
Chapter Forty-three
Guilt, Shame and Payback
Though more thunderstorms were predicted for the evening, the day was glorious as Tisha walked slowly toward her mailbox, checking her flower beds and trees al
ong the way. In one bed, her daffodils bloomed, while her tulips pushed their way back up through the dark soil. Cherry blossoms were heavy on the branches of two trees in front of the house, and the lilac bushes would burst into fragrant blooms any day now. She inhaled deeply the floral scents, the newly turned earth for her vegetable gardens, and the clean damp smell left behind by the rain the night before.
Pulling four pieces of correspondence from the mailbox, she sifted through the stack to find three bills and one letter with no return address. Her stomach clenched as she thought of letters of the past from anonymous people who spewed their hatred into the written word. Right after the discovery of the storage unit and the murders, the letters came by the hundreds, some with the hopes their sons would burn in hell, and others bearing religious scriptures. Tisha debated whether or not she would read the letter.
Reaching the house, she went inside, and headed toward the kitchen, where she poured herself a strong cup of coffee. Sitting at the breakfast table, Tisha separated the bills from the personal letter, which she laid out separately to study the handwriting as she sipped her coffee and tried to decide whether she would open it. Curiosity won out, and she sliced open the first envelope with a long fingernail and pulled out the letter, whispering a prayer that it not be from David109.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lucas,
I’ve heard about the threatening notes and damage to your home and business as a result of someone seeking retribution for the acts of your sons. I’m sorry this is happening to you.
I know you must be mourning for your sons as much as I am grieving for my sister. I believe you loved your sons as much as I loved Abby. I’m sure you raised them as best you could and wanted them to become the best of men. I don’t think what was broken in them was anyone’s fault. Certainly not yours.