Dark Mind

by Jennifer Chase

  “What does this have to do…?” Emily began. She felt that familiar fight or flight response rising to the surface from her stomach. She didn’t know all of Jordan’s history and it made her feel sad, but inspired by what he had achieved in his life.

  Jordan seemed to be speechless and uncomfortable as he stood at the other end of the room.

  “I’m getting to it… Obviously, you vowed to get out to do something good. I’m just speculating here, but that’s what I would have done.” He paused and took a breath. “You excelled in college and managed to receive one of the highest scores on the FBI entrance exam, borderline genius. You have a knack for psychology and they assigned you to the Behavioral Science Unit.”

  “Lani I don’t think this is relevant.” Emily interrupted.

  “Oh, I beg to differ. It’s very relevant. Jordan worked undercover at GAMECO and managed to uncover a serial killer network. I know that I’m missing some details because all of you were involved. Except a funny thing…” He looked at Emily pointedly. “There’s no record of what or why you were involved. And just like Rick, Jordan quit the FBI. The plot thickens.”

  Emily felt her temperature rise, her face heated up, and muscles retracted. She didn’t like her friends put through this type of interrogation. It was like a modern day CSI version of an Agatha Christie novel.

  “I think you’ve made your point.” Rick remarked.

  Lani stood up. “Oh, I’m just getting started.” He gestured to the boards, lists of suspects, and clues. “This is my business.”

  “You’ve overstayed your welcome sergeant.” Rick walked up to the large man and held his ground.

  “I thought that you, all of you, were out for the truth.”

  “Look, you want us to back off the investigation. Fine. Just say so.” Emily stated.

  “That brings me to you. Emily Stone. There was an obituary for you, but yet, here you are.”

  “What do you want with Emily?” Rick asked with an accusatory tone.

  Emily stood up and used her body to break up the distance between the two men, she felt Rick’s mounting frustration and didn’t want him to do something he’d regret later.

  “Emily Stone.” Lani repeated. “Another decorated police officer for the Indiana Sheriff’s Office. Seems that there was some type of scandal at the police department that she testified against her fellow officers.” He looked at everyone individually in the room. “Shows integrity and guts, but it’s not welcomed at any police station I’m aware of. No one would trust you and it would be my guess that they wanted you dead. Interestingly, you were a child of murdered parents who ended up resigning from the police department and living in the California jurisdiction of Rick here.”

  Jordan finally spoke with a weakened tone. “I think you’ve seen too many crime dramas.”

  Lani continued with his reveal, disregarding any of their comments or questions. “It gets a bit fuzzy, but it seems that Emily is around whenever there has been a serial killer or a child abduction in California. And why do you think that is?”

  “Maybe because California has more than its fair share of serial killers?” Rick offered.

  Softening his tone, “Maybe. But more likely is that you…” He looked directly at Emily. “Have something to do with it. How do you do this? Do you just walk into a jurisdiction and say hey, here’s your investigation on a silver platter?”

  Emily bit her lower lip and turned to Rick. “Please, let me talk to Sergeant Candena alone.” She didn’t want to involve Rick and Jordan in her drama because she wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

  Rick started to protest, but decided to leave the room with Jordan.

  Emily stood her ground and asked the obvious question. “What do you want from me? If you were going to arrest me, you would have done it by now.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t think about it, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I still might.” He looked closely at her.

  “Who sent you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Emily shook her head. She knew the breed of cops well and it didn’t matter where they were from. Asking questions was like riding the Ferris wheel from the interviewee’s perspective.

  Lani sat down, pulled a chair out for Emily and explained. “Look… I’m not here to arrest you for having your name in an obituary. I don’t care about that. After I checked you guys out, I wanted to see if my instincts were correct.” He motioned at the boards. “And, yes my gut was correct.”

  Emily studied Lani. Her first instinct told her that she could trust him, but that disturbed her. It always took time to analyze and get to know someone. His kind eyes told her quite a bit, but there was sadness, like something terrible had happened to him.

  “What can I do to gain your trust?” Lani leaned back as the chair creaked.

  Emily realized that he studied her just as much as she did him. “Just come right out and ask what you want.”

  “I look at it this way. You have something I want and I have something you want.”

  “True.” Emily laughed. “I know what I want, but what is it you want?”

  “Look, I make it quite clear that I’m not experienced in homicide or serial crime. I need your expertise to find this killer. This killer is ten steps ahead of us and I don’t see us catching up anytime soon.”

  “You’re on the case?” Emily was surprised. She thought that he was a patrol sergeant.

  “I’ve been assigned to the second case because they don’t think that the two homicides are connected.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Wish I was.”

  Emily glanced at the dry eraser boards and the investigative holes seemed to jump out at her. “Can we have all the information on the cases that we need?”

  “Yes, all that I have access to.” He stared at her as he nervously clinched his fists. “It may be difficult.”

  “Autopsy reports, evidence checked into property, and crime scene photos.”

  “What I can get. You have to remember Ms. Stone is that we’re not equipped to conduct full blown homicide crime scene investigations with acute accuracy.”

  Emily thought about the entire situation and it had some dangers, but she wanted those reports. “I’ll have to talk to Rick and Jordan.”

  “Fine.”

  “I suppose this is to be done in secrecy, right?”

  “Yes.” Lani took a memory stick from his top pocket and aimed it at the laptop. “May I?”

  “Yes.” Emily watched as part of the investigation unveiled itself on the screen.

  Lani continued, “I have another name to add to your suspect list, Daniel Lee Cogan.”

  Emily grabbed a yellow steno pad. She yelled to the doorway. “Okay, it’s safe to come in.”

  Jordan led Rick back into the office and apparently they were just out of view, but within earshot.

  “Are we all going to play nice now?” Jordan asked.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Wednesday 2200 Hours

  He hated the sensation of being stuck in the seat of a car watching and waiting. Claustrophobic. It was hours since he had been in his nice accommodations of a motel room complete with air conditioning and room service. He waited, but his anger and desires flowed like a winter’s ocean tide.

  He had followed Jordan without detection from store to store all over the southern part of the island. It was unclear what he was doing with the purchases, but it looked like he was setting up an office.

  After he waited on the street of the luxury home and subsequent to witnessing a large Hawaiian guy enter the house, he saw Emily emerge with the big man. The rush of feelings surged in his veins of the last time they met, her strength, determination, and hatred for him. Everything came back to him in full, pulsating color.

  He knocked Emily down on her back, jumped on top of her, and wrapped his large fingers around her throat. All he had to do was squeeze
the life out of her and then ravage her body any way he pleased. He prepared to strangle her out of sheer frustration and rage. Emily was no match for him. But what he wasn’t prepared for was the walloping crack to the side of his head with a metal pipe.

  “Bitch!” He said aloud in the car. He remembered the shock and the miss of the kill.

  Unconsciously, he touched the large, jagged scar on the side of his head. The rage boiled and kept him focused. Escaping from the jail transport was the easiest task he had ever attempted because the payoff was heavenly.

  He watched Emily get into the black truck with the Hawaiian man. It was ideal because whatever they were doing would most likely be under the radar. That would be how he would strike and this time no one would be there to save her – no witnesses. He would take out the local first – quick and painless.

  Emily Stone was declared dead, but it wasn’t her ghost he had found. Leo Lewinski knew deep within his bones that she was alive, ready, waiting for him to return to her and finish what he had started.

  * * * * *

  Emily felt her stomach quiver with butterflies, not the nervous energy most people experienced when they were going to a job interview or on a first date, but real gut twisting nerves as she rode in silence.

  Emily and Lani had compared notes and were surprised to learn everything that was at the crime scenes and little background about the victims. The most intriguing aspect was the handmade, tenderly crafted totem at each scene, but it also made her anxious energy rise even more. This was an accelerated serial killer and he knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it.

  Emily and Lani’s next task was breaking into the morgue and police property facility to look at the rest of the evidence in the first investigation. Even though Lani had a key and he was a local cop, he was not given permission to look at these things, especially in the middle of the night.

  Warm and humid, the rain had subsided, but the atmospheric stickiness made the situation even more uncomfortable. Emily watched the dense palm trees pass by her window as she rolled over all of the information in her mind.

  They had decided to split up into two teams. The group then decided that Emily and Jordan split up due to their expertise in profiling, as Lani and Rick were the law enforcement side.

  Morgue bound, Emily tried not to think about the possible dangers Rick and Jordan might encounter. They were checking out an ex-felon, Daniel Lee Cogan that owned a tourist zip line business. He was known to attack women and beat various wraps for rape and assault. The more disturbing piece of the puzzle was that he was also the brother of a local cop. Emily surmised that this could be what’s impeding the investigation and why they weren’t connecting the two homicides.

  Another idea that Emily couldn’t dismiss, but she didn’t share with the group, was that Lani could be set up for his work on the second investigation. It didn’t make sense that he was in charge of a homicide investigation.

  Why else would they assign this one case to him?

  They pulled into the parking lot of the deserted morgue and drove around the back so that the truck wouldn’t attract any attention of passing cars or just the plain curious.

  Lani cut the engine, but didn’t move to open the door. “You okay with this?”

  “More than I’ll ever be.” She forced a smile and watched Lani’s face in the darkness. It was difficult to read.

  “You know Ms. Stone, I’m sorry that I came across harsh earlier, but I had to know who I was dealing with.”

  “I understand.” Emily hated having their personal lives read aloud like a felony warrant.

  “We are more alike than you know.”

  “How so?” She was skeptical, but listened patiently.

  He looked out the windshield. “I’ve never fit in here because I’m only half Hawaiian. That means the locals don’t like me and well the rest…” He unhooked his seatbelt and took out a large flashlight from the glove box. “I know what it’s like to be with a police department where you don’t really know who your friends are.” He opened the driver’s door and stepped out.

  Emily thought for a moment about what he had said and exited the vehicle. She remained quiet and followed Lani to the back door.

  Darkness loomed.

  There were no lights shining in the back and she supposed that’s why he chose this particular means of entry. She glanced up and didn’t see any video cameras affixed above the door in the eaves.

  Lani turned the key and opened the door, the buzz of the security alarm hummed on a low frequency. He punched in six numbers and it stopped.

  An eeriness to the darkened building enveloped Emily’s thoughts and motivations to why she agreed to this midnight excursion.

  Lani stepped inside, Emily followed. The door closed behind them with a distinct click.

  It took a moment for Emily’s eyes to become accustomed to the dark and the faint glowing security lights were obvious. It seemed like several minutes passed before she followed Lani further into the abyss of the departed.

  They walked by several offices, a storage area, and the examination room before they stood before the refrigerated chambers of those less fortunate. It was then that Lani flipped on his flashlight. The beam bounced off the stainless in light streams reminiscent of Star Wars.

  Emily uncomfortably looked around, felt conspicuous, like prey to the undertakers. A pungent odor of strong disinfectants rattled her senses. It wasn’t difficult to realize where you were standing at the front of the metal refrigerators. A low hum of the electrical throughout the building kept a basic tempo for the keepers of the dead and storage of police evidence.

  Lani scanned the numbers and then stopped on a lower level, pulled open the lever and slid out the tray. Covered with a plain, industrial sheet, it revealed an outline of a body.

  As Lani removed the sheet, he said. “This is the first victim Carolyn Sax. She was found at the abandoned sugar plantation.”

  Emily knelt down on the cold tile floor. She could feel the chill through her jeans as she reached for her digital camera. It was never easy viewing someone who had been cut down before their time in such a brutal manner.

  “Did you find any pieces of clothing?”

  “Not that I’m aware of and there’s no mention of it in the reports.”

  Emily noted the restraint markings on the wrists and ankles, deep purple bruising obvious, but the brutality of the stab wounds to the chest and abdomen reflected the frenzied approach in a circular motion. She snapped several photos. Wanting to be thorough, she gently picked up the woman’s left arm to examine it. A small, red pin dot on the back of her arm indicated an injection sight. Another flash of a photo documented the evidence.

  Lani interrupted her process. He had pulled out another body tray. “Here’s the second victim.”

  “Okay.” Emily didn’t look up, she stayed focused on Carolyn.

  “I’m going to get the autopsy and evidence files and see what else I can find.” He opened a cupboard and retrieved a small flashlight. “Here, you might need this.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lani left the room.

  Emily could hear his heavy, but agile footsteps trail down the hallway. A soft whoosh of a door opening and then silence, she was alone. She focused on her work, the investigation, and not on the fact that she was inside a morgue in the middle of the night.

  She continued to document the bodies and evidence. The second victim was more disturbing, but there was something that struck Emily immediately, both victims looked similar through their facial features, body build, and the same brown hair.

  Scrape.

  Emily looked up from the body of Amanda Zeller and expected to see Lani walking into the room. She turned the flashlight at the doorway, but no one was there. Waiting for a full minute, she turned her attention back to the body.

  Click.

  Okay, Emily thought, someone is out there. She quietly returned the metal body slabs into their rightful place.

&nb
sp; Darkening the room, she inched her way to the hallway listening for anything that sounded out of the ordinary. She looked for the familiar streams of light from Lani’s flashlight, but it remained dark.

  A crash of metal objects battered the floor at the other end of the hall from a distant room.

  Emily moved cautiously down the hallway in the direction of the noise. Two swinging doors were up ahead and a faint flashlight beam bounced all around. Her instinct told her that it wasn’t Lani. Her breath tightened in her chest as she side walked toward the doors.

  Bang.

  The doors burst open and a dark figure rushed out and knocked Emily to the floor. She smacked her head against a desk and everything went dark.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  Wednesday 2230 Hours

  “What is that?”

  “I can’t tell yet.”

  “Why is so damn dark?”

  Rick and Jordan trekked through a back trail to get to the tourist spot of Zip Line Adventures owned by Daniel Lee Cogan – a person of interest in the investigation. It wasn’t a place they wanted to drive up and park in the middle of the night, so the men decided to sneak in the back way, come down a trail, and check out the office and working facility.

  “Shut up.” Rick said annoyed. He felt like he had lost the coin toss and ended up with Jordan.

  “Oh what, like who’s going to hear us out in the middle of the jungle in the dead of night?” He complained. He began rapidly scratching his arms in disgust. “I think there are man eating mosquitoes out here.”

  “Man up Jordan.” Rick saw the platform where tourists, hooked up, and zipped along the treetops to gaze at the panoramic jungle view.

  Jordan saw the zip line platform too. “Cool.”

  The evening was clear, the moon and stars sparkled, which gave them just enough light to see the trail. Even though the weather was clear, the humidity had risen. Rick could feel his skin hot and sticky, but there was an added sensation. He knew it well from when he was a rookie cop searching a field or park for a body. The closer to the body, the more sensations heightened, and a sickness in the stomach, felt heavy. Walking through the Kauai jungle, he felt the same reaction.