Darc Murders Collection (The #1 Police Procedural/Hard Boiled Mystery Series)

by Hopkin, Ben

  “I’m just work the bar, but if you’re talking about the asshole that’s going around pretending that he owns the place, he was following this couple that went over that way.” He pointed to a stairwell. “Figured they were looking for someplace private, you know?”

  Darc was moving before the man stopped speaking. He hurled himself toward the stairwell in pursuit of the glowing blue lines of light that steered him up the stairs toward the second level. He heard Trey swear below him as his partner looked up at the expanse of stairs in front of him.

  “Stairs. Why is it always stairs?”

  As Darc rounded the corner that led to the second story landing, he came across a scene that stopped him cold. Caden was pressed against a wall, his arm outstretched.

  He was sobbing.

  On the opposite side of the landing, there was a man slumped down in a puddle of blood, his throat slit. To his side was Gail. With a knife held to her throat.

  The person holding the knife was Caden’s mother.

  “Mother! Please, don’t!” Caden begged.

  “Oh, come on, Caden. She’s a total hypocrite. Yelling all the time about how much she loves Jesus, and then she’s cheating on you? She deserves it.” Candice Doherty chided her son, pressing the knife against Gail’s neck. A drop of blood seeped up from under the blade and began to drip down her neck and along her collarbone.

  Darc drew his gun, but there was no clear shot, as Candice moved even further behind her human shield. Gail’s eyes were wide and staring, her breath coming in deep gasps. She opened her mouth to speak.

  “I wasn’t cheating, Mrs. Doherty. I never would. I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “Fess up, you slut,” Candice laughed, pushing the blade into the skin even more. “I saw you. He saw you, too.”

  “I was just trying to make him jealous. Please—”

  “I think I’ve heard enough of your jabbering, little lady.” Caden’s mother stopped Gail’s pleas short with another push of the blade. Candice’s eyes darted around and landed on Darc. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Detective. I didn’t expect to see you here. At least not yet.” She looked to the doorway of the stairwell, moving toward the exit to the second-story balcony. “You shoot, she dies. You know that, right?” She edged her way through the door.

  Darc followed, keeping enough distance between them to keep the woman from panicking. Candice continued to back along the balcony, moving toward the lobby and the stairwell down to the parking garage. Lovers scattered in her path, screaming in fear and running as far and as fast as they could.

  “Why?” Darc asked. Keeping the woman distracted and talking would allow Darc time to formulate a plan to extract Gail from the situation.

  “Why?” Mrs. Doherty gasped with a breathy laugh. “Because it was a turn-on, Detective. Surely you can understand that. It made him burn so bright, it was like he was searing my skin off. He did it all to control himself, but I was the one that got the benefit of it all.”

  “Your husband,” Darc stated, the pattern falling into place. “He would kill in order to satisfy his darker desires. In order to remain faithful to you.”

  “Then that shitty arthritis had to ruin it all. I figured, hey… It had been so long for him, and he’d been trying so hard. But I saw the way he was looking at that maid of ours. She was only there to help, he said. Maybe. But better safe than sorry, right?” She chuckled. “And then, when I tried it, I understood. I got why he did it. And it brought the magic back, in spite of his… condition.”

  From the other side of the balcony, Darc saw his partner Trey sneaking up behind Mrs. Doherty. How he had gotten there, Darc was not positive, but he could see what Trey’s plan would be. He would attempt to grab the woman’s hand and wrench away the knife.

  Darc could also see that it would not succeed.

  Trey lunged, pinning Candice’s knife hand with his own. The woman shrieked, spinning around while pulling her hand out of Trey’s. She lashed out, catching Trey across the chest, a deep gash opening up his shirt and coating it in red.

  There was only one available option. Darc took it.

  Flinging his body at the crazed woman, Darc tackled her, pushing her up and over the railing of the second story balcony. For a moment, Candice hung suspended in the air, her arms waving. Then she toppled down, a cry escaping her lips.

  Darc rushed to the balcony and peered down. The wife of the Kupid Killer had been impaled on the arrow of the ice sculpture in the lobby. The point of the arrow protruded through her sternum as she stared with glassy eyes up at the ceiling. Blood poured down the statue, pooling in the bowl designed to catch the melted water runoff.

  Turning to face his partner, Darc took stock of Trey’s wound. It was bleeding profusely, but seemed relatively shallow. Darc arched an eyebrow, asking the question.

  Trey shrugged, wincing when the movement pulled on his wound. “I was tired. I took the elevator.”

  * * *

  It was after midnight.

  Trey was bandaged up, Gail and Caden were in each other’s arms answering questions from the police, and papa Doherty was in custody. Darc had gone home to his empty apartment after Trey had made sure he’d eaten some dinner. He couldn’t force his partner to eat all the time, but Trey’d make sure he was extra vigilant over the course of the next few weeks. Darc wouldn’t starve, at least.

  And now Trey was staring at the door to Maggie’s apartment.

  He shouldn’t be here. He knew he shouldn’t be here. If there was one takeaway lesson from this whole case, it should be that cheaters end up with their throats slit.

  And yet…

  And yet, somehow, what Trey was taking away from it was that life was short. Way too short. And that people deserved to be able to find happiness wherever they could. Right?

  He sighed, and turned to go. He wanted nothing more than to stay, but he was going to go anyway. That’s what a good partner would do.

  And he would have. Totally. Except for one thing.

  Maggie opened up the door.

  Trey stood there motionless for a moment. “Hey,” he finally said.

  “Hey.”

  “How did you know I was here?” Trey asked.

  “Saw your Land Rover parked on the street.” Maggie was wearing sweats, and her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. Trey thought she had never been sexier. “Waited for you to ring the doorbell. Then, after twenty minutes of watching you through the peephole, I figured I’d give you a little nudge.”

  “I made you a mix tape.” Trey held up a cassette, with a homemade collage covering the paper insert. “A bunch of songs from the year you were born. ‘Bicycle Race.’ ‘Come Back Jonee.’ ‘Come Sail Away.’”

  Maggie took the tape from him and turned it over in her hands. “I love all of these. But they came out in 1978. I’m only 28.”

  Trey just looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Maggie managed to hold out for almost an entire minute before they both broke down in laughter. They laughed for a good long while about that, and then the mirth started to subside as they both realized what they were doing. Trey cleared his throat.

  “We probably shouldn’t do this,” Trey murmured.

  “Yeah.” Maggie scratched at her cheek. “Probably not. But come in anyway.”

  “You sure?”

  “No, I’m not.” She sighed, then smiled at him. “C’mon. I’ll make you a BLT.”

  Breakfast meats. Trey could never say no to breakfast meats.

  9th CIRCLE – 9 Circles, Infinite Ways to Die – The full-length novel that started it all!

  PROLOGUE

  Henry whistled as he crossed the street toward the slaughterhouse. For most of the men working there, it was just a job, and not a great one. They made their way through the shifts bitching the whole time about how miserable their lives were. They made Henry laugh. Not a set of stones between ‘em.

  The building was not all that much to look at. Okay it was downright ugly. Down in the wa
rehouse district, not a lot of time or effort was put toward curb appeal. The real action always happened inside. And inside this building there was more action than anyone could ever hope for.

  Walking in the front door past the office, Henry gave his daily greeting to the old lady who manned the phones. It was something between a grunt and a hello, but he didn’t even know why he bothered. She rarely looked up from what she was doing to even glance his way. And when she did, the look she gave was what you made when you smelled something bad.

  Whatever. She wasn’t long for this world anyway. He moved past her and around the corner and opened the door into the main floor, where they did most of the final prep before sending the carcasses out. The smell hit him like a strong jab to the face. He inhaled deeply, taking in the scent. It was a heady mix of decaying flesh and iron, and it was part of what Henry loved about his job.

  One of the day-shift guys, Carl, was poking around, apparently trying to do as little as possible. He looked up from the cutting table in front of him and gave Henry a mock glare.

  “Man, late again. I was starting to imagine this was you here on the table. I got my lady to get home to, and she don’t like it when I take too long.”

  “What can I say? Busy life.”

  Carl huffed, blowing out his cheeks like a chipmunk. “Whatever. We had a banner day and left it all for you to clean up.”

  “Cool.”

  Henry moved toward the gutting room, pushing the door open in front of him. If the scent out in the main room was strong, this was enough to kill a horse.

  The scene in front of him was right out of a slasher flick. Puddles of blood with bits of viscera floating about covered the floor, with gobbets of flesh dripping red down the walls around him. Henry started whistling again.

  Carl poked his head in and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Dude, how can you stand that smell?”

  “You get used to it.” Henry looked back and Carl and gave him a wide grin. Carl did a double take, then shook his head in disbelief.

  “You are one sick puppy, dude.”

  “Yeah, ain’t we all?”

  Carl retreated out the door, rubbing at his nose. Henry went back to his survey of the room, before grabbing the high-pressure hose and turning it on. The water mixed with the blood and began to swirl in pink clouds toward the drain. Henry was sure he had never seen anything quite so pretty.

  Man, he loved his job.

  CHAPTER 1

  Bang.

  Detective Trey Keane’s hand flew to his weapon. Okay, so his hand was shaking and maybe it only jerked upward, but it still got to his gun pretty quickly. Of course his “partner,” Detective Robi Darcmel, didn’t even blink. Maybe Darc had chalked the noise up to a car’s backfire and not a gunshot. In this neighborhood, though? The odds favored a shot.

  Or maybe Darc was so deep in his head that he didn’t even register the loud sound. They could have been in the middle of the O.K. Corral, the Kevin Costner version with full Dolby surround sound, and Darc wouldn’t have care. Not with a child’s life on the line.

  As the sun dipped down on another gorgeously drippy Northwestern day, Trey scanned their surroundings, trying to shake off the jitters. The decaying apartment complex did little to calm his fears. The building sat squat in the middle of South Park, which didn’t resemble the Comedy Central show one bit. Nope, this South Park—the locals called it SP—was pretty much the only Latino barrio in Seattle. The sound from a soccer match spilled out from an open window on the front side of the complex, the voice screaming in an extended “Goooooaaaaaal!”

  Latinos weren’t necessarily the first thing you thought of about Emerald City, but here you could often find quinceañeras and Cinco de Mayo celebrations with banda music pumping out into the street when the doors opened for a new visitor.

  There was none of that now. Not as night approached and families headed inside and locked their doors when the more criminal elements in their ranks took over the streets. As an example, the only music playing right now came from an El Camino with souped-up suspension blaring reggaeton as it bounced past. The bandanna-clad driver eyed the two white detectives suspiciously as he settled farther back into his already nearly horizontal seat.

  The peeling paint and sagging walls of this particular housing tenement declared to anybody foolhardy enough to come into the area in the first place that this was not the residence they were looking for. As they approached the building’s entrance, Trey could tell that Darc wasn’t picking up what this building was laying down, but Trey was. Totally.

  But that was just Darc’s style. A complete and utter obliviousness to his own personal safety. Oh, and that of his partner, of course. Darc was very equal opportunity about his endangerment policies. Trey tried to remember any time Darc had actually taken basic precautions. Yep, Trey came up with a big fat zero. Ah, well. C’est la vie.

  As another “backfire” sounded in the distance, Trey caught up with his partner. “Remind me again why we’re checking out this part of town?”

  Darc, of course, didn’t answer. You’d think that Trey would have gotten used to that, given Darc’s Asperger’s syndrome, but he hadn’t. After four years, it still felt as if Darc was being rude on purpose. That wasn’t the case. Trey knew that intellectually. He knew that only if his partner saw a need to share would he do so. If he didn’t…well, you were just out of luck.

  In Darc’s world, answering was completely optional.

  Which left Trey to try and fill in the missing pieces. The only problem with that? Um, he wasn’t very good at it, even on the best of days. And on this one? On this case? None of it made a lick of sense. All of the other victims had been found in environments very similar to their homes. Which were upper-middle income to filthy rich. So far the abductions had taken place in areas like Bellevue, Mercer Island, West Seattle. You know, the kinds of places where Bill Gates hung out. Nowhere near the south end of Duwamish. The kids were Caucasian, snatched from predominately upper-income streets and dumped in upscale neighborhoods.

  Nothing in the case pointed south.

  That is, until they found the cab. The one with the bodies. Just like the other three cabs they’d found over the past few months. Dead parents. Missing child. In each of those cases they had found the child, only hours too late.

  Would this time be any different? Sure, the killer had left another clue. Actually, another set of clues. Latin symbols or maybe Norse runes or something else ancient were scrawled all over the cab’s windows. He really wasn’t sure, since they all looked Greek to Trey.

  This time, though, it was like Darc was hit by lightning or a thunderbolt or some other electrifying force that never got close to Trey. Something in those symbols sent Darc heading straight to SP. Which, again, made no sense, since it didn’t come anywhere close to the pattern the killer had set up so far.

  Taking the few steps up to the door, Trey tried to give prudence another go. You know, just for kicks. “Guess you’re not feeling the need to call for backup?”

  Darc grabbed the handle of the door and pulled. There was no resistance as it swung open.

  “Guess that’s a big fat no?” Trey responded. Darc didn’t even look his way.

  Trey could always call for backup on his own, but what, exactly, would he tell the dispatcher? “A bandannaed man looked at me sideways?” “Oh no, I’m scared?” Trey was not making that call. Not again. He didn’t mind a little heckling around the bullpen, but getting called Scaredy-Cat Keane for a whole month was a bit much.

  As Darc charged down the hallway, Trey cowboyed up and followed. The one unbroken fluorescent light flickered, casting crazy shadows in front of them. Trey glanced at his partner, seeing Darc’s jaw tense. Okay, if Mr. Nothing Fazes Me was stressed, this was some serious shiz up ahead.

  Darc moved without hesitation, seeming to know exactly where he was going, although Trey knew they had never been here before. His partner made a beeline for the stairwell, bypassing the elevator withou
t even glancing at the Out of Order sign falling off of its door.

  They ran up two flights of stairs, Trey trying to clear the corners as his partner continued, heedless of any lurking danger. His intent solely on the clues left by the killer. As they exited the stairwell on the third floor, Darc turned to the right, following the numbers until he got to apartment 333.

  Even though this hallway looked like nearly every other run-down urban hallway in the city, something felt wrong. Horribly wrong.

  Trey gulped. He’d felt this way before. The last time they had found a child. Dead. The room riddled with booby traps set up for the first responders.

  “One more time, Darc,” Trey pleaded. “Can we call for backup? Please?”

  In answer, Darc placed his hand on the doorknob.

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it,” Trey conceded. Traps or no, imminent danger or no, Darc was going in. Which meant Trey was going in. “Just give me a sec, okay?” He rolled his neck from side to side, cracking the vertebrae, before taking a wider stance and lifting his gun to eye level. Trey nodded his readiness.

  Darc turned the knob, opening the door on blackness. He turned to Trey, his gaze intent. Forewarning. But of what? With Darc, you never quite knew. The ball of tension in Trey’s gut, already snarled and tangled into a Gordian knot, clamped down.

  Taking out his flashlight and flipping it on, Darc pierced the darkness with its beam. The light scythed back and forth across the walls of the empty apartment. Not quite empty.

  Blood covered the floor.

  Swaths of red crisscrossed the walls and ceiling. It dripped from above. It streamed down the walls, tracking around and across the symbols traced in crimson there.

  And then the smell hit Trey.

  “Sonofa…ah, oh.” Trey covered his mouth, trying not to empty the contents of his stomach. This was bad enough without his contaminating the crime scene.

  He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. “Yeah, dispatch, this is badge number 4421. We are definitely going to need backup.”

  And then his partner walked right into the middle of the room.