“I don’t want that crap, Kaidlyn. I’m not cowing to a bully, and that’s what most kennel masters are. I spent my whole life avoiding the biggest tyrant I know—my mother—and I’ll be damned if I cower to a lesser asshole. All I want in the whole world is to train and teach. I’m not joining anyone. Besides, I like my autonomy. This is all I’ve ever needed, and I won’t trade it.”
“People give up a lot of things for safety,” Davey said.
“The stronger you become, the less you need to give up.”
“Some things we sacrifice to be stronger.”
“Philosophy before noon makes me tired.” Clifford wasn't in the mood to talk about sacrifice. Neither was I.
“See you later,” I said.
“Yeah,” Clifford said.
“Thanks,” Davey said.
“Yeah.”
We were down to monosyllabic responses. I was being a pain in his ass. He regretted agreeing to my request. He didn't like that Davey's plight manipulated him into playing with other mutts, as he zealously avoided doing. We left while we were ahead (though not as far ahead as we'd have been if I kept my mouth shut). Clifford and Davey would be going through a crate of Xen by the time they were through training together. I had a feeling I'd pay for all of it.
Chapter 17
I slept for a day. Possibly two. Sarakas brought boxes of files I’d requested and some old movies because I didn’t prescribe to cable or satellite television. “You’re working from home,” he said. “Stay busy and keep out of trouble.”
“Ha, sure.” I chuckled, nervously recalling how I’d run out of the house and tested fate the instant he had stepped away. He stayed for brunch and even cooked. Andreas had many talents, but neither of us were culinary artists. Still, he made good in my kitchen, whipping up a buffet quantity of macaroni and cheese, four cartons of bacon, and two pots of coffee. He’d grown accustomed to Davey’s hyperactive appetite, but the mac’n’cheese meant Sarakas was in a foul mood. Moping, even. His phone buzzed like an angry insect, which he ignored.
“Something going on at work?” I said.
“Never you mind. Want more coffee?”
“C’mon, I’ll be working from home, right? Clue me in.”
“Detective Contrell from PD keeps sending files to the office, names of people who may have gone missing at the dismemberment scene. Vagrants and druggies, mostly, seventeen so far. No luck in the missing person department, though.”
“No bodies?”
“Nothing. In case you’re getting any ideas, we gave him strict instructions not to call you and relayed that you are unfit for duty. He sends his regards.”
“Decent guy. Good cop.”
“Why does he think you know more than you’re saying?”
“Don’t know. I mean, I don’t know more than I’m saying. Any more parts?”
“With or without your name on them?”
I groaned. “What parts, where?”
“A tongue in Sector Nine.”
“South of Red,” I said, thinking.
“Mean something?”
“Not really. Maybe. Someone might be taunting people in the sector.”
“Any idea who?”
“Vaguely, no. I never met the guy. Your face is turning red.”
“Driving me crazy, woman.” His hands raked through his dark hair. “I know it’s hard to stay in the house, but I want you to know I appreciate the effort. Despite hating the phrase ‘for your own good’ I think we both recognize that this truly is. For your own good, I mean. Lay low, focus on your recovery, and you’ll be back to work soon.”
“Yeah. Cool.”
“Need anything? Food, movies, books?”
“My work computer,” I said innocently. He could trap me at home, but he couldn’t stop me from researching the current bane of my existence.
His phone rang, and he immediately answered. “Hey, sweetheart,” he cooed, voice shifting gears. I ignored the dim musical tone of Vanessa on the line. Sarakas plopped a heap of gooey pasta in front of me. I felt five years-old, the troublesome younger sibling. What a pansy I was, letting Contrell handle my case, nursing broken ribs when I damned well had the drugs to make my body better—consequences be damned—and allowing a grown man to make me dinner while his girlfriend wondered where he spent his spare time.
Not cool. I needed to fix my life, pronto, before its nasty whirlwind sucked all these good people down with me.
As soon as Sarakas left, I forced myself into the constriction vest the hospital gave me for my broken ribs and painfully struggled into a boot. My broken foot stayed in a cast with a hard plastic frame. Reaching too far in any direction stabbed my breath away and scraped my lungs along a cheese grinder, but I was determined. I strapped on my guns, both the belly band and thigh holsters. Four guns warranted a jacket to cover at least half of them, and I evenly distributed magazines along my body. Like I prepared for war or something. Mostly, I compensated for the fact that I couldn’t move quickly without my lungs crumpling.
I secreted into my bedroom and slipped another pill from the stash under my bed. Two more Gorgonblood pills down the gullet, and I made the call.
Contrell answered on the first ring. “Aren’t supposed to talk to you.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t. Any progress on those missing persons?”
“None. It’s like they up and disappeared.”
“Do you think PD rounded them up and took them beyond city limits?”
“No one fessed up to it.” He sighed, inhaled, and I pictured him puffing on his e-cig. “Is this the reason you called?”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because I recently got word of another scene involving parts without a corpse. Figured you might have heard something.”
“Jeez, another one? Where?”
“Sector fourteen.”
“Come pick me up?” I said, “Can’t drive with my foot like this.”
“Be there in fifteen.”
I buzzed him through the subdivision gate, collected my cane, and began the trek outside. I sat on the porch, breathing heavy, and within a few minutes his car rolled to a stop near my garage. He opened the door while I struggled to my stupid feet. “Need help?”
I waved him off and lurched into the vehicle. The car smelled of cinnamon and coffee. Two cups sat in the cup holder and he handed me one. What a sweetheart.
“Thanks,” I sighed.
“I’m being rude here,” he prefaced, “but I thought the Bureau would pay their token Princess better. This duplex is antiquated.”
“They pay me fine. I spend a lot on medical bills and Davey’s education.” And ammo and illegal books.
“Should get a security upgrade,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
He shrugged and we went on our way.
“Let’s brainstorm,” he said. “Where would someone hide homeless people? Hard to be discrete about the kidnapping and transportation of over fifty people. Traffic cameras spotted a cargo van and an ice cream truck nearby, neither of which could hold that many bodies all at once. They drove in opposite directions and exited the city. None of the vehicles were registered in the last decade and the owners are listed as deceased.”
“Did any surveillance drones report a sign of the bodies or trucks?”
“Not yet,” he said. “If we’re assuming they didn’t leave of their own volition, why would someone steal homeless people?”
“I hate to imagine.”
“Try.”
I sighed. “If a normie took them, I’d say it could be for a lot of reasons. Not your typical murderer, since most of those seem to prefer a lot of one-on-one alone time. I mean, the average freak would pick them off one by one or in small groups, right?”
“Right. I got that far. Keep thinking.”
“Grabbing a whole bunch at once makes me think it’s either a big event or the murderer has a deadline. The abductors didn’t care if we knew they were up to somet
hing.”
“Up to what, though? Organ harvesting?”
“Crossed my mind. In which case we’re thinking highly specialized abductors. Might send some feelers out into whatever informants you have with an ear to the underground.”
“But so many? Maybe we’re over-estimating the number of victims.”
“Yeah, possible.”
“And if something unnatural took them?”
“Dinner, presumably.”
“God, I hate the way your brain works.”
“Seriously, I mean, fifty people could feed a lot of monsters. And I know for a fact humans grossly underestimated the number of vampires in this city and they’re actively converting.”
“How do you know that?”
“Can’t say.”
I sipped the hot black coffee while he sucked on the nicotine stick, filling the car with cinnamon. “You think vampires did it? Kaidlyn, that’s not good news.”
“I don’t think anything. We’re hypothesizing, right? For all we know, those vagrants were black-bagged to support the Beautification project.”
“Except we found pieces of people and your name smeared on the scene.”
“Yeah, there’s that. Sadly, I am incredibly unpopular with every type of everything out there, and my ugly mug hits the newsfeed constantly. Anyone with a grudge or a passionate psychosis could easily target me.”
“Any hate mail? Any threats louder than most?”
“Other than dismembered tits? No.”
I drank the coffee, he smoked, and I began craving cinnamon rolls.
“Kaidlyn, promise not to tell Sarakas I called you. He’s likely to beat my ass for dragging you into the field.”
I chuckled. “I’ll do my best to keep it on the down low.”
“What’s up with you guys?” He waved his hand. “If you don’t mind me saying, you two are usually inseparable. Something going on?”
“Look here, detective, not everything in life is a great mystery needing to be solved.” I toyed with the lid of my coffee cup. “Just had a run of bad luck is all, and he’s worried about it.”
“Given the trail of body parts leading to you, I understand. I would have stuffed my wife into a roll of bubble wrap and shuffled her to the most secure safe house within a hundred kilometer radius. Preferably underground.”
“Well, I sure as hell am not going to be shuffled away for safe keeping.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Contrell drove west of Whitesnake Crater, the barren ground of Phoenix’s second largest mutt massacre, when a wedding went bad years past and dozens died. He approached a segmented neighborhood south of the freeway. The low-grade fence surrounding the area was a patchwork of useless materials, particle board leaning up against mounds of junk, dead cars, and scraps. As if a junk heap would protect them from a monster who could shuffle through cement walls.
A trio of girls loitered at the gate, being questioned by two police officers. The ladies wore skimpy red and black to advertise which gang protected their illegal trade. Contrell flashed his badge and drove into the neighborhood. Broken furniture on the curb, sofas and recliners on the porches. Cheap plastic liquor bottles peppered the streets.
Police vehicles cut off the street, and activity thickened around a flat, ugly, oversized building which might have once been an office complex. Its small parking lot filled with police vehicles and some civilian cars, everything from a beat up Honda to a Rolls Royce.
We parked and Contrell gave me two pairs of gloves.
One step inside, I knew two things. First, something had died in there. Second, we were in a whore house. The plush drapes, fringed curtains, and gaudy chandelier looked straight from a cheap porn set. A desk for check in, comfortable seating in a waiting area, some stools where bouncers might post, and a wide open coat room. No patrons. Low murmurs led us to the next room where the real action had occurred.
A large social area was filled with comfortable, once-luxurious furniture showing more wear than care, and to the left, a fully stocked bar. Whiskey glasses and beer bottles lay abandoned or overturned. Plush pillows askew, not a body in sight. A discoloration stained the carpet, marked with yellow evidence cones, like a macabre highway leading behind a lacy partition. PD took photos but stood back when we approached. Harrowed, sympathetic looks came my way, curdling my stomach.
My cane clicked on the floor while I lurched with as much dignity as I could muster, bracing myself. Body parts, again, but different. No epidermal layer, only red muck. My last name had been carved into the tile above it, done with such force that the surrounding tiles were all cracked like a spider web. Stretched out on display, the organ like an oddly squashed flank steak.
“Anyone know what that is?” My mouth was incredibly dry, stuck together.
“Female reproductive system.” Contrell’s voice startled me. I’d forgotten he was there. I looked at him, confused, and he said, “Fallopian tubes, ovaries, bits of bits.”
Everyone gawked at him. “My wife recently had a baby,” he said.
We stared at the girl parts on the floor while I decided, based on the quantity of blood, that the vivisection occurred while the victim breathed. Again, no body left for us to see. Why take the dead with them? Wouldn’t the impact be greater if they left the corpse behind?
“Congrats,” I said. Contrell blinked at me. “On the baby. Boy or girl?”
“Girl. We named her Rosalie.”
I nodded, brain oddly numb, like maybe the Gorgonblood turned the gelatinous mass between my ears to stone. The parts: boob, tongue, and womb, the last found at a whorehouse. Why? Surely more than shock value. In simple terms, any part of the human body could be alarming if removed from context, specifically, if severed from its owner. This killer specifically targeted the female aspect of me.
“Someone is offended by me,” I said.
“You think?”
“Because I’m a girl, I mean. Society attributes a lot of labels to me, and all of them could easily be targeted by hate groups. I’m a federal agent, a merc, a mutt-killer, the poster child for a government crusade who has also been linked to vampires, plus various other roles—” pirate, murderer, atheist, hypocrite—“but this murderer says what offends him most. He hates that I’m a girl.”
“Stupid thing to protest in this day and age, isn’t it?”
“Not if I belittled him. An embarrassed dude is a dangerous thing, but to be embarrassed by someone he considers inferior? That’s so much worse. He’s pissed and deeply offended, partly because I’m female.”
“The question becomes, who did you piss off? Scorned lover? A secret admirer?”
“Dude, it’s not like that. This mug only looks good after newsfeed photo edits.” I shrugged. He kicked his shoe and tried to speak, but I interrupted. “Let’s hypothesize.”
“Fine. You’re implying the killer is a sexist, egotistical, possibly narcissistic jackoff with a bad temper.”
“Maybe not much of a temper. I mean, this isn’t a rage kill. This is methodical. Deliberate.”
He crossed his arms. “Maybe the killer is not as restrained as he is efficient. I mean, he knew he had a timeline. He needed to get in, abduct or kill two dozen people, leave a message, and get out without raising the alarm. Seems like he satisfied all requirements.”
I nodded.
“Who have you offended?”
I snickered. “Who haven’t I? I mean, I shove priests and scorn the church, I hate PETA and they hate me, I instigate vampires, I shoot people on a weekly basis, I haven’t had a real relationship in a long time, and an assassin tried to blow me up on federal property. It is harder to find someone not offended by me than someone who is.”
“I’d wager more than one man is behind this,” he said. “Imagine trying to run off with a few dozen people. How do you get them out, unnoticed?”
“I’d use a big team and a lot of tranquilizers.”
“Exactly. This—” he waved at the ovaries �
�—probably represents a secondary agenda.”
“Makes sense. Unfortunately, that theory makes it less likely I can help identify this group. I mean, if they’re not out to get me specifically but wanted to make a statement, then we have to look at people who are only kind of irritated by me, which makes for a much longer docket.”
“Start thinking. I want names. Pages of names. This cannot continue.”
“Agreed.”
An officer came in from a room branching to the left, deeper in the house. Plump, sweaty, pale. “We found a survivor.”
We abandoned our brainstorming session and scurried to the next room to meet our potential witness, who had tucked herself into the closet to hide from the monster. She was young.
Contrell introduced himself to a perturbed, road-weary thirteen year-old whore. Her red and white dress zipped up the front for easy access.
“You’re safe now,” Contrell said, and then he asked where her mother was.
After a round of hysterical chuckles, she pouted with a sickening imitation of womanly seduction. “I could be your mommy,” she cooed.
“Out,” I said. I pushed the closet door further open, edged past Contrell, and pointed with the cane. Her eyes dropped to my weaponry. The butt of a .45 conveyed more than my body language. She crossed her skinny arms and clammed up.
He turned to the nearest officer. “Get CPS, a blanket, and a bottle of water.”
Blood dried on her fingers, and her hair was awry, but she looked more irritated than traumatized. Very unusual. Most people who witnessed murders were significantly more stressed, blubbery, and grateful to be alive. Not like a spoiled child who lost cell phone privileges.
“Would you like to come out of there?” She shook her head.
We should have removed her from the scene before questioning her, but she didn’t feel right.
“Are you wounded?” I said. She shrugged.
“How much did you see?” I said.
She snorted and didn’t answer. Hostile witness.
“I need you to tell us what you heard or witnessed,” I said. “You’re impeding a federal investigation.”
“What are you gonna do?” she said. “I’m twelve. You can’t process me. If you put me in the system, my daddy will steal me back, and then he’ll put me to work. You can’t stop it.”
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