Pinholes of light penetrated through the street-level grid-pattern glass skywalk above as he and the team descended into history. The network of underground passageways and basements in downtown Pioneer Square had originally been ground level when the city was built in the mid-nineteenth century, but the Seattle Great Fire had relegated a maze of shops and spaces to disuse. With fewer and fewer guided tours through the labyrinth, it’d been the perfect location for the Extreme Makeover Killer to dump his victims’ bodies, but Nicholas wasn’t going to let Aubrey become the newest resident.
“This guy is intelligent, beyond what we originally estimated, and dangerous. He’s planned this out from the beginning, and he won’t give Aubrey up easily. Stay alert, watch each other’s backs and keep in radio contact.”
“Striker, West, take the left corridor. James, you’re with me.” SSA Peters unholstered his weapon as they split at the first intersection of passages. “We want Dr. Caldwell alive, but if you have to shoot the bastard to protect yourself or the victim, I won’t feel bad about it.”
“Copy,” Striker said.
“See you on the other side.” West laughed, following his partner.
Exposed piping above led them deeper into the man-made caverns, past shattered window fronts and through inches of dust, ash and debris. Nicholas angled his flashlight toward the ground, sweeping it across the broken, aged cement in an effort to pick up some kind of trail. Humidity worked deep into his lungs as he scanned the inside of the old store on his right. No movement. Nothing to suggest Dr. Caldwell or Aubrey had been here at all. His pulse ticked hard at the base of his throat. These tunnels ran the length of five city blocks in some areas and had become basements to galleries, restaurants and tourist traps on the surface. The killer could’ve taken her anywhere.
A scream resonated down the tunnel.
“Aubrey.” She was alive. Nicholas bolted down the corridor in the direction he believed the sound had originated, his flashlight and weapon bouncing in his hand. His legs protested the harder he ran, but nothing would stop him from getting to her this time. The blueprint he’d memorized before they’d descended into the city’s underworld stayed fresh in his mind as he came to another break in the maze, and he pulled up short. Two directions. Nicholas searched both passages, but he couldn’t see a damn thing, couldn’t hear her. If he chose wrong, it’d cost Aubrey more time. It could cost her her life.
Pressure clawed up his throat. He couldn’t fail her again. His heart threatened to beat straight out of his chest. “Damn it.”
The sound of footsteps fell into line behind him as SSA Peters kept close on his heels. The supervisory special agent studied the patterns in the dust along the floor. “Which way?”
“I don’t know. He must’ve doubled back and covered his tracks.” He aimed his flashlight and weapon down the right corridor. He kicked at an old crate and launched it down the tunnel. “She could be anywhere.”
SSA Peters pinched the push-to-talk button on his radio and angled his chin down. “Striker, West, double back and meet us in the left tunnel.” SSA Peters circled into his peripheral vision, heavy eyebrows outlining dark eyes in the flood of his flashlight beam. “You know this guy better than any of us. You’re one of the best profilers I’ve ever worked with. You can get into his head. You can find her by knowing how he works.”
“She doesn’t have time. You heard her scream. That wasn’t a scream for help. That was a scream from pain,” Nicholas said. “He’s torturing her. He’s killing her, and I’m stuck here without a damn idea of how to get to her.”
“Say...again...Peters?” Static broke through their comms. A gunshot exploded from the corridor behind them as the connection to Striker and West cut out.
His pulse rocketed higher. Warning lightninged through him as Nicholas turned back the way they’d come. The team was under attack, but he wasn’t going to let Dr. Caldwell win this time. “The son of a bitch knows we’re here. He’s going to try to take us out one by one again, just as he did at the pier. He wants to lead us away from his victim in hopes of running out the clock.”
Stepping into his path, SSA Peters gripped Nicholas’s vest in one hand and shoved him down the right tunnel, his weapon in the other. “Do you remember what I said to you when you took this case?”
“What the hell are you doing, Peters? They need our help.” Nicholas pushed against his SSA, but Peters wouldn’t budge. Desperation to neutralize the threat knotted in his chest as the BAU team leader’s words echoed in his head.
“I told you it isn’t every day we find out the people we trust the most aren’t who they seem, but what I should’ve said was, it isn’t every day we let the people we trust show us who they really are. What Cole Presley did is unforgivable, but Aubrey Flood isn’t the man who betrayed you, Nicholas. Don’t let that old bastard keep you from finally being happy.” SSA Peters released his hold, and Nicholas stepped back. “Go. Find Dr. Flood and get her the hell out of here. We’ll handle Caldwell.”
“Watch your back.” Nicholas nodded. He knew who Aubrey really was. He’d known from the moment he’d met her during the X Marks the Spot Killer investigation, but his own fear of trusting the wrong person again, of not being able to see the threat coming, had shut down the possibility of something more between them. He wanted her. He wanted to trust her, to be close to her more than he’d ever wanted another human being. Cole Presley had shown him the worst mankind had to offer, but Aubrey had shown him the best, and without her, he feared he’d never let anyone get close again.
“Watch yours.” SSA Peters disappeared down the corridor.
Nicholas faced two historical streets leading in separate directions. Peters would take care of the team. He had to focus on finding Aubrey. She’d been taken down one of these passages, and from the sound of her scream, time was running out. “Which direction, Doc? Give me another hint.”
The calm space he used to deep dive into the case demanded focus, and Nicholas automatically went back to that moment in Aubrey’s apartment building, the one when she’d framed his face between her hands and leveled those honey-warm eyes on his. Her voice faded in and out and settled the fire burning through him. Seattle’s underground phased out as the details of the investigation pushed to the front of his mind. Aubrey. He forced stillness through his body and closed his eyes. His pulse steadied, his breathing evening out.
Caldwell’s compulsion to kill was a combination of pride and a need for attention. The King County medical examiner had formed an unhealthy attachment to Aubrey. The pathologist felt as though she’d taken the limelight from him. He wouldn’t kill her quickly. Not unless forced, but he would want to display his handiwork when he was finished. That was why he’d used the spotlight in the slaughterhouse. There was a chance Caldwell would want to do it again, which meant he’d need electricity.
Nicholas raised his flashlight to the ceiling. Different sizes of aluminum piping and electrical wiring ran through the rafters above. Broken light bulbs reached down from the ceiling in equidistant measurements. He wasn’t looking for something as old as the shops and tunnels themselves. Caldwell would’ve had to upgrade the wiring to fit his needs. There. He separated a single bright orange extension cord from the darker, dust-covered collection, and followed it down the corridor to the right. Weapon aimed high, he listened for signs of movement as he searched each storefront before moving on to the next. “Come on. I know you’re here somewhere.”
The corridor ended ahead. There weren’t any more shops to search.
He’d reached a dead end.
Nicholas lowered his flashlight and weapon but hesitated. The beam from his flashlight cut in half, one side highlighting the wall to his right, the other landing on the wall in front of him. Not a solid wall. He took a step forward, then another, before realizing the dead end wasn’t the end at all. The brick turned a corner into a wall of brick that’d been disassemble
d. This section hadn’t been noted in the blueprints West pulled from the city, but Caldwell had known about it somehow. Keeping his back to one wall, Nicholas ducked through the opening. More brick. More dust. More silence. Bright light hit him in the face, and he raised one hand to block the onslaught to his vision.
“Is someone there?” a soft voice asked.
“Doc, is that you?” He dropped his hand, trying to get eyes on her. He wasn’t too late. She was still alive. “Where is he? Where’s Caldwell?”
“I knew you’d find me,” she said.
“Aubrey?” His eyes adjusted slower than he needed them to, then he saw her. Bound in a chair, her head slumped forward as though she’d simply fallen asleep. The spotlight reflected back from a scalpel buried in her left wrist. The blade had pinned her to the chair, and she couldn’t use her other arm to get free. Nicholas holstered his weapon and crouched in front of her. Blood. There was so much blood. Not only running from her pinned wrist but from around her mouth. “Aubrey, wake up. Stay with me.”
He wasn’t a medical professional. He didn’t know how to pull the scalpel from her wrist without putting her in more danger of bleeding out. “You need to tell me what to do, Doc. You have to help me get you out of here.”
“Severed radial artery. Can’t...pull it out.” She lifted her head, those warm eyes brightening. The spotlight washed color from her features and intensified the dried blood around her mouth. “Caldwell killed...Kara. He killed Paige. He compromised the evidence, but... I have proof.”
“That doesn’t matter right now. I’m going to get you out of here. Okay? But first, you need to tell me how to stop you from bleeding out if I remove the scalpel,” he said.
“I bit him. I swallowed...the evidence.” Sweat built along her temple as she closed her eyes. She was losing consciousness. “You can prove...he did it.”
Nicholas attached his flashlight to his vest and unholstered the blade at his ankle. He cut through the rope binding her wrist and both feet. “Come on, Doc. Don’t give up on me now. Tell me how to stop the bleeding.”
The spotlight lost power, throwing them into darkness.
“I’m afraid it’s a little too late for that, Agent James.” Archer Caldwell lunged.
* * *
HER FINGERS IN her left hand had gone numb.
Aubrey tried to curl them around the end of the chair’s arm—to feel something, anything—but the scalpel hadn’t only severed her radial artery, it’d most likely damaged the nerves in her hand.
She dragged her head over her shoulder, trying to locate Nicholas, but the spotlight had lost power. The only light came from a flashlight swinging wildly through the small area Dr. Caldwell had brought her. A fist connected with flesh and bone, and a deep growl registered through the dark. “Nicholas.”
Dr. Caldwell would kill him if given the opportunity.
She had to help him. Aubrey forced her eyes open. She was losing blood for the second time in under a week. Her body had yet to recover from Dr. Caldwell’s first attempt to exsanguinate her, but she couldn’t leave Nicholas to fight this battle on his own. No matter what’d happened between them. He didn’t deserve to die because of her. She leaned forward in the chair. The rope around her ankles and left wrist had been cut away and cracked under the weight of her feet as she straightened. The pain in her scapula and broken ribs tore a sob from her throat. The rotation in her right arm had been severely limited since her injury, but Nicholas needed her help. She wasn’t going to let Archer Caldwell win.
Nicholas’s scream filled the underground chamber and severed the detachment she’d forced on herself since their conversation in the observation room. Agony ripped across her back and down her right side as she cleared the rest of her forearm from the sling, and an answering sob ricocheted off the exposed brick.
“Do you hear that, Agent James? She’s dying, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. No one can stop me.” Dr. Caldwell’s outline separated from the shadows with the help of Nicholas’s flashlight strapped to his vest. He stood over Nicholas and thrust a hard kick to the profiler’s rib cage. A hard exhale rushed from Nicholas’s mouth, and he curled in on himself. Caldwell slammed his fist into Nicholas’s face, and her partner’s head snapped back against the concrete.
Nicholas went still.
“Stop. Stop it.” Aubrey pressed her weight into her left elbow. Anger tore up her throat. It mixed with Dr. Caldwell’s blood still coating her mouth, burning, twisting and carving her into pieces. No. She’d already lost Kara. She couldn’t lose Nicholas, too. The past few days had broken her down to nothing, but Nicholas had gone out of his way to help her rebuild. He’d put her needs first, made her feel wanted. Made her feel loved. She didn’t care if it’d surfaced out of the trauma she’d sustained from discovering her sister’s body or nearly dying in that slaughterhouse. Her feelings were real. They mattered, and no one was going to take that away from her. Least of all a copycat killer who blamed her for his own weaknesses. “Get away from him.”
She used her last ounces of strength and endurance to raise her right arm and wrap her hand around the scalpel pinning her wrist to the chair. The blade had most likely severed her radial artery. If she pulled it out without stanching the blood flow, she’d lose consciousness within thirty seconds and bleed out within two minutes.
Nicholas kicked out and shoved his attacker back into a standing tray of surgical instruments a few feet away, dislodging his flashlight in the process. The beam spun wildly across the floor then steadied on the collection of tools that’d hit the concrete. Her heart jerked in her chest as shadows consumed her partner, the fight growing more brutal, more violent. There. Dr. Caldwell’s clamp had landed less than three feet away, but without the use of both hands, it’d take a miracle to reach it.
She had to try.
Blood trickled down the inside of her wrist. The only thing keeping her from bleeding out was the scalpel, but it was also what was killing her. Aubrey pressed herself out of the chair and extended her right leg. The agony in her wrist and opposite shoulder threatened to pull her back into unconsciousness, but she couldn’t give up. Not until she and Nicholas were safe. Tears burned down her face as another sob broke free. She could make it. She had to make it. She slid her foot along the floor and stretched as far as her boot would reach. Her toes scraped along the side of the clamp but only managed to push it farther away. “Come on.”
“You’ll never lay another hand on her, you son of a bitch.” Nicholas surged off the floor and attacked with a brutalness she’d never seen in person. He slammed Dr. Caldwell back into a pillar. Once. Twice. The pathologist’s groan filled the corridor as Nicholas threw a right hook, then a left.
Her eyes adjusted as the fight unfolded. Blood sprayed across the floor and up her leg, and her heart rocketed into her throat. Whether it’d come from Nicholas or Dr. Caldwell, she didn’t know, but the sight of those drops pushed her harder. She had to get to the clamp, but the fact she couldn’t turn her wrist with the scalpel still pinning her to the chair put it that much farther out of reach. She pointed her toes as much as her boot would let her and swept her leg across the floor. The clamp skidded closer. A burst of relieved laughter escaped up her throat, and she pulled her leg back toward her. She could almost reach the instrument. Just a few more inches. Agonizing pressure built in her fractured shoulder as she crouched and straightened her arm. The pain stole the oxygen from her lungs. The tip of her middle finger glided across the clamp’s handle.
The spotlight switched back on.
She closed her eyes and turned her head away, losing contact with the instrument.
“I haven’t given you enough credit, Dr. Flood. Once again, I’ve underestimated your determination to ruin my plans.” Dr. Caldwell swiped blood from his face with the back of a bloodied hand and stalked toward her. “You can’t even die the way I want you to.”
She gasped at the sight of Nicholas’s prone outline across the room. He wasn’t dead. She had to believe that. She had to believe Dr. Caldwell would stick to the MO and only kill his intended victim, but she wasn’t an expert in profiling or psychology. She didn’t know how far a killer would go to stop anyone who got in their way. It didn’t matter. If she left the scalpel in her wrist, both she and Nicholas would die down here. “What did you do?”
Caldwell maneuvered around the spotlight, closing in on her. He wrapped his fingers around the scalpel and twisted the blade through her wrist. “Did you really think I was going to let him take you from me, Aubrey? How many times do I have to make my point? You did everything you could to keep me in your shadow, but now I’m the one with the power. I’m the one who is going to be remembered years from now, and you’ll be nothing more than a footnote.”
Her scream ricocheted inside her head, over and over, until she wasn’t sure if she was still conscious. She slumped against the chair. Wood cut into her uninjured ribs, and the pain in her hand and wrist vanished. A crash of metal pierced through the haze suffocating her. The scalpel had shifted in her wrist. She was losing blood faster than before. The clamp. She needed the clamp.
“I’m not finished with you.” Nicholas’s voice chased back the numbness clawing up her arm and into her chest. He sounded closer. Almost within arm’s reach.
“I’m not...finished with you...either.” Aubrey dragged her eyes open as another crash reverberated through the room. Nicholas and Caldwell battled for dominance, each trying to physically break the other, but she only had attention for the clamp. Reaching down, she didn’t even feel the pain in her shoulder and wrapped her fingers around the stainless-steel instrument. She pressed her elbow against the chair and hauled herself off the floor. Blood pulsed out of her wrist, every second draining precious milliliters she couldn’t afford to lose. She set the clamp on her lap and gripped the scalpel. She had less than thirty seconds to secure the clamp before she lost consciousness and never woke up. Shadows shifted in her peripheral vision, the ringing in her ears too loud.
Profiling a Killer Page 17