99 Souls

  THE DETECTIVES AND FRANK excused themselves from Sarah and Jim for a moment to talk privately. Jim hugged Sarah.

  The three officers climbed into the van and closed the door.

  “We need to get Sarah back on the phone with him,” Frank said.

  “So you can try to get another shot?” Mark asked.

  “Look, I’m sorry. You were right. I shouldn’t have authorized that.”

  Mark knew he was only saying that because it had gotten a cop killed. He wasn’t sure Frank would have felt the same way if their suspect had killed Brandon instead. He might call that a casualty of war. But, since it seemed like he meant it and thus wouldn’t give another unauthorized order, Mark let it go.

  Les sat down in one of the chairs. “Let’s think about what we know. He kept referring only to himself. About him getting safe passage. So most likely there aren’t any accomplices in there.”

  Frank crossed his arms over his chest, shook his head. “I don’t like to operate on assumptions. We’ve got to be right. Speaking of which, how are we coming over there?”

  You were assuming he was the only one in there when you took a shot, weren’t you? Mark almost said.

  “Fast as I can.” Steven Hartwell didn’t take his eyes off the computer when he spoke, nor did he stop typing.

  “Look, I’ve seen hostage situations go bad in a hurry,” Frank said, directing his words once again to Mark and Les. “You started this ball rolling without the negotiator. Someone’s got to get back on the phone with him to keep the situation from getting any worse. And right now, Sarah seems like the only one he’s willing to speak with.”

  Chapter 47

  DESPITE FRANK’S INSISTENCE, MARK REFUSED to put Sarah back on the phone. “She just saw that man kill a cop. She’s in no shape to be negotiating with her son’s kidnapper, no matter what he wants.”

  Synapses fired in Mark’s brain: Frank was used to being in situations like these and certainly knew the options their technology provided them. “Why can’t you just get the negotiator on his cell phone and patch him through?” he asked. “You can do that, right?”

  “Technically, sure.”

  “Jesus, why didn’t you say something before? Why did you let me get on the phone with him?”

  “Like I said, I’ve seen these things go bad in a hurry. The last thing we need is the negotiator’s cell phone dying when he’s in the middle of a tense discussion. At least you were on the ground.”

  “Well, after what we’ve just witnessed, it’s him or no one. Which do you prefer?”

  Mark could tell Frank was sizing him up, trying to decide whether he wanted to defy the detective a second time. No doubt, Mark imagined, the lieutenant saw himself as younger, stronger, and smarter. Would he really want to take the blame if he broke the chain of command again and his decision led to another failure, another dead body?

  “We’ll do it your way,” Frank said. He pointed at Mark. “But this is on your head if the shit hits the fan.”

  “Get him on the phone.”

  NEGOTIATOR JEFF BLANK was weaving through traffic on Howell Mill Road when his cell phone rang. With a flashing red light stuck to the roof of his police-issued Nissan Murano and siren blaring, he’d been able to make good time. However, he was still five minutes away, he told Frank when he answered.

  “Okay, well, things haven’t gone well here.”

  “Oh, hell. What happened?” Jeff asked into his headset. At the same time, he looked over his shoulder, changed lanes, then changed back. If you met him on the street, Jeff appeared every bit the mild-mannered suburban dad in his sweater vest and khakis, but he was actually an adrenaline junkie. He was a master at handling high-pressure situations, and almost as good at multi-tasking.

  “We lost a hostage.”

  “Already?” He looked at his watch. “You keep up the good work and there won’t be anybody left to save when I get there.”

  “We’re going to patch you through, let you talk to him.”

  “Sounds like somebody down there’s thinking. I’m guessing that wasn’t you.”

  Jeff and Frank had worked together on seven hostage situations before today and Jeff no longer made any effort to pretend he liked Frank. “If Frank had his way,” he’d said to his captain once, “it’d be all guns blazing and I’d be out of a job.”

  Frank snorted. “Patching you through now.”

  The line rang almost twenty times before Frank disconnected the call. “Looks like he’s not answering.”

  Jeff sped through an intersection against the light. “Keep trying until I get there.”

  Chapter 48

  TREVOR STILL HAD NOT ANSWERED HIS phone by the time Jeff arrived at the scene. With the call ringing in his headset, the negotiator parked along the curb. He ducked under the yellow police tape and headed for the SWAT van.

  “Who’ve we got here?” he asked, once he saw the small crowd of strangers gathered near the rear doors.

  Detective Mark Hammond shook the negotiator’s hand while introducing himself. Then he identified Sarah—“She’s the one whose son is inside”—Les, and Jim.

  With barely a nod to Les or Jim, Jeff said to Sarah, “I’m glad you’re here. We might want you to speak with him, depending on how things go.”

  “So far, he doesn’t want to speak with anybody else,” Les said.

  “Hmm. Well, let’s see if we can change that.”

  TREVOR COULD HEAR THE phone ringing upstairs, but ignored it until he finished packing up the last of his dolls. He wanted to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. However this scene played out, he was going to get out alive, and he was going to take his children with him.

  Perhaps once they realized Trevor already had Brandon’s soul, the creatures who’d come to bear witness would lose interest and leave. If they did, he’d once again be able to disappear into folded space.

  Or perhaps he’d be given safe passage out of the country.

  Perhaps...

  JEFF TRADED HIS BLUETOOTH for the hard line in the mobile command center.

  “Rattle his cage,” he said to Frank. “That’s something you’re good at and we’ve got to get him to—”

  “Hello,” said a voice.

  Jeff held up his hand, palm out, signaling for Frank to wait.

  Frank put on a headset. So did Mark and Les. Sarah stood outside on the street, watching the windows for any sign of her son. Jim stayed with her.

  “Trevor, I assume.”

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “You’re talking to me now. Is everything all right in there? It took you a long time to get to the phone.”

  “Everything’s fine. However, I’d prefer to speak just with Sarah.”

  “I know what you want. I know you want to leave the country. I’m the person who can make that happen, not Sarah.”

  “You know the clock’s ticking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then you know everything you need to know. I’d say your time’s better spent getting me what I want than talking to me on the phone.”

  “It’s not the simple. Regardless of whatever else you may have done, you killed a cop. I want to help you out of this situation, but I need something in return. I need to know you’re serious about letting anyone else you have in there out alive.”

  “If you don’t get me what I want, you’ll find out how serious I am,” Trevor answered. “The next time the phone rings, I expect to be speaking with Sarah.”

  Before Jeff could respond, Trevor hung up.

  Chapter 49

  IF I COULD JUST GET IN THERE, Sarah thought, as she stared between the wrought-iron posts of Trevor’s fence, I could get him out. I’m sure I could...

  INSIDE THE COMMAND center, the officers discussed their next move.

  “We need to put more pressure on this guy,” Jeff said. “We should shut off his electricity. Give him a taste of what we can do.”

  Mark shook his head. “That’s not going to get us wha
t we want.”

  “It’s procedure,” Jeff explained.

  “Okay, but could you hold off just a little bit? This guy is unpredictable. He’s already pretty upset. We should really know a little more about what is going on in that house before we decide what action to take.”

  “What we need are some eyes in there,” Frank agreed. “We need to find out if it’s just him or if there are others. And, if possible, we need to know how many hostages he has inside and how quickly he can get to them. If it’s only him and the boy, we might be able to storm in and take him down before the boy gets hurt—if he’s still alive, that is.”

  Jeff shot Frank a hateful glare. “I know you’re itching to pull the trigger, but that’s not always the best move.”

  “Look, if there’s a bunch of hostages or multiple kidnappers inside, we’ll cut their power and take our chances,” Frank responded. “But I don’t want to lose that boy. The sooner we get him out, the better.”

  “Nobody does,” Les said. “And until we know otherwise, we need to assume he’s alive.”

  Mark crossed his hands over his chest. “Getting more information would be great. But how do we do it?”

  “Let me handle that,” Frank said.

  “In the meantime, we can make him think we’re going to get him what he wants,” said Les. “Like we were going to do before.”

  Jeff turned his attention to Steve. “I want to know what you’ve found out.”

  Steven Hartwell, IT extraordinaire, shook his head. “It’s not accurate. I’m still—”

  “I don’t give a shit! I want to know what you have!”

  Steven spun in his chair to face Jeff. “All right, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. Frankly, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of this guy.”

  “So? What is it?”

  “Here’s what I know for sure: This guy’s got twelve homes in his name across the U.S. I’ve found six aliases that date back at least thirty years; anything before that gets sketchy. Not all records that far back are computerized. Anyway, he’s got passports under all his aliases that go back just as far and records of frequent trips in and out of the U.S. I’ve found seventeen bank accounts, each with close to a million dollars in it. However, I have yet to find his true identity and God knows how much more crap I’m going to dig up by the time I do.”

  “How do you know it’s not any of the names you’ve already identified?” Mark asked.

  “No birth certificate for any of them. No social security number, either. If any of these names are his real one, then he’s been walking the streets longer than those things existed.”

  Jeff drummed his fingers on the desk he was leaning against. “Could he have sneaked into the country on one of these IDs? Maybe he’s not a U.S. citizen.”

  “Not on any of these. They all start with a trip out of the U.S. But like I said, I’m still digging.”

  “All right,” Jeff said. “Get back to it.”

  When Mark heard Steven’s report, he realized this guy was hiding a secret bigger than the “God is Blind” killings. There was more. Much more.

  Jeff paced two steps, turned, and came back. “All right, we’re definitely not letting this guy out of that house unless he’s in handcuffs, no matter what con we pull on him. That’s a guy who knows how to disappear and has the means to do it. I’d wager that he’s not just involved in the ‘God is Blind’ killings—I’d wager that he’s the head of the whole thing.”

  He looked at Frank. “I think you’re right about getting eyes in there. We need to know what we’re dealing with. We need to make him think we’re going to give him what he wants—and we’re going to have to put Sarah back on to keep him occupied.”

  Chapter 50

  SARAH HAD CALMED DOWN SOME SINCE She’d seen the dead officer get tossed out the front door. When Jeff explained they still needed her help, she agreed to get back on the phone with Trevor.

  “Don’t talk about any of the people he’s killed,” Jeff cautioned her before she picked up the receiver. “Focus on the positive. Look for some common ground. Your primary purpose here is to keep him busy while Frank’s team finds out what’s going on inside.”

  Sarah nodded and pressed zero to ring the house.

  “Hi, Sarah,” Trevor said when he answered.

  SARAH EASED TREVOR INTO a discussion about the night they met, gambling he would be willing to reminisce with her. At the same time, two men under Frank’s command scoured the exterior of Trevor’s house, looking for a vent.

  When they found one, they were able to determine that the passage would be too tight for a person to crawl through. They had expected as much. Fortunately, with the Robotic Remote Viewer 1200 having been a part of their standard scene equipment since April of the year before, they didn’t have to send a man in.

  The RRV 1200 looked a little like a miniature titanium shoebox with a collapsible periscope and wheels on it. All right angles, its body was six inches long, three inches wide, and two inches high. It had a camera and a small light built into each of its four vertical sides. It maintained balance and stayed upright using lasers and bubble vials, and could independently extend each wheel seven inches and retract it two.

  The remote control for the RRV had a split screen and two control sticks on it. Much like the remote controls for some toy cars, one stick would drive the RRV forward and backward, while the other turned it left and right. The left side of the split screen was used for navigating the RRV, and the right was used for viewing through the periscope lens. At the flip of a switch, the two control sticks could be used to man the periscope instead of driving the RRV. At the turn of a dial, the driver could rotate through all four cameras on the body.

  Using a screwdriver, one of the men removed the vent cover while the other prepared the remote viewer for use. Once the cover was off, the RRV was sent gently into the darkness.

  SHE COULDN’T HAVE SAID why, but the longer Sarah talked with Trevor, the less intimidated she was by him. However, she was having trouble pushing the conversation along. Trevor wasn’t saying a lot.

  Jeff Blank asked Frank to check the status of the RRV.

  “They’re inside, but they still don’t know anything,” Frank whispered to him.

  Jeff rolled his finger at Sarah to tell her to keep talking. They wanted Trevor distracted as long as possible so he was less likely to notice the periscope peeking through the vents along the floorboards.

  Buoyed by her new courage, Sarah changed the course of the conversation and asked, “What is this all about, anyway? All this killing? What does it have to do with my son? Why can’t you just let him go?”

  Trevor was silent for a moment. “It’s not what you think it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “The world is a cruel place. It’s hurt too many of my children. I’m just collecting them to protect them from any more suffering.”

  THE RRV ROLLED FORWARD until it came across the first vent. The driver raised the periscope. As the camera made its way into the house, he found himself looking at a library of sorts. He rotated the periscope three hundred and sixty degrees, allowing him to see the whole room.

  The decor looked like it had sprung forth from a Dickens’ novel: a pair of upholstered wingback armchairs with a small table and reading lamp positioned between them, one wall lined with bookshelves, a fireplace that had the charred remains of burnt timber.

  After determining there was no one there—captor or captive—he lowered the periscope and moved on.

  “Clear,” the drive said, as he navigated away.

  The man he was talking to was holding an iPad that gathered additional information from the RRV. This information would help the SWAT team understand the layout of the house, as well as exactly where the rover was. He entered the update.

  TOO MANY OF MY CHILDREN.

  They hadn’t wanted Sarah to mention the other murders, but it did help them understand a bit more: He was a serial breeder. Mark hadn’t hea
rd of anything like that before, but it certainly wasn’t any stranger than being a serial killer. Still, it didn’t add up. Some of the victims had been far too old to be his children.

  What is he after with an answer like that? Mark wondered.

  Maybe, if he is leading the “God is Blind” killers, his followers had taken the lives of the older victims. Even if that were true, though, it seemed to raise more questions than it answered.

  “BRANDON HASN’T HAD a hard life,” Sarah told Trevor. “What suffering are you saving him from?”

  “Everyone suffers.” This was the first time Sarah had heard him express any true emotion since she had arrived on the scene. “Right now, it’s just kids teasing him in the schoolyard, but that won’t be the end of it. Even the best life is marred by tears. I won’t have that, not for my children.”

  “That’s it,” Jeff whispered to her. He was excited. “You’ve touched a nerve. Stay on it. It will keep him talking.”

  “But there are a lot of good things about being alive, also,” she said to Trevor. “Like friends and birthdays and your wedding day—”

  “Wedding day, huh? How did that work out for you?”

  Trevor’s words stung. Apparently he knew her husband was dead. She refrained from striking back, choosing instead to focus on the positive aspects of her married life. “I cherish the time I had with my husband, as brief as it was. That’s the thing about life—there’s always going to be pain, but there are these moments of joy that make the pain worth suffering through.”

  “Why have you kept everyone at arm’s length since your husband died, then?”

  SUDDENLY, THERE WAS a lot of commotion outside, voices shouting questions that were swallowed up by other voices.

  “We want to...”