by Dan Padavona
“When this is over, you’ll be the detective who captured a government assassin and Christina Wolf’s murderer.”
“I should bring my partner in on this. Vargus is on the fast track to detective, and he knows how to keep a secret.”
“Sorry, I can’t take the chance. Keep this plan between the three of us.”
Larrabee released a held breath and closed her eyes.
“Okay, Agent Bell. I’m giving you forty-eight hours to prove you aren’t insane.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He hides inside a study cubicle in the library, one wide and bloodshot eye leering at them between the door and jamb.
Now and then a student passes the cubicle and interrupts his concentration. The males he ignores. His eyes linger on the girls. Young and beautiful, so much like the dozens of girls he’s claimed as his own. It would be easy, so easy, to take one today. Follow her across campus and discover where she lives. Dormitory doors are cheaply constructed and flimsy, and the pathways between the dorms and quad are dark and poorly lit compared to large university campuses. This is his hunting ground.
There will be time for the girls after. When he’s finished.
Scarlett Bell’s legs cross under the table, and she tosses her hair back as he struggles to read the female agent’s lips. Something about catching a serial killer. The thought amuses him. He’s read about the men she captured, but she’s never met one like him. He’ll enjoy cutting her open and sealing her inside the container. Keeping her forever.
But the ebony-skinned detective pulls his attention. She equals Scarlett Bell’s beauty. He hadn’t banked on the detective’s presence, nor the male agent beside Scarlett. They pose new problems he must eliminate. First, the sensual detective. He’ll deal with the man later.
Christina Wolf’s killer, the ghost who haunts America’s plains and its coasts, cities, farms, and forests, remains as patient as a stone on the bottom of a river. He waits until the three stand up from the table and agree to meet later. Except one of them won’t be alive by then.
The door whispers open on well-oiled hinges. As the three targets descend the stairs, his shadow passes across the bookcases and leaves a chill in its wake. Merging with a group of students chatting with a professor, he follows the detective through the quad after she splits from the two agents. Curvy hips fill her skirt. Heels click the concrete walkway while she hustles toward the parking lot to escape the heat.
She clicks the key fob while he presses against his van, the baked aluminum searing his flesh. Good. She drove her own car, not a police cruiser. That means she’s off the clock. The police won’t expect her back at the office.
He whispers her plate number three times and commits it to memory in case he loses her in traffic. When she closes her car door, he lifts himself into the van and follows her onto the thoroughfare, always careful to keep a few vehicles between them.
The chase takes them through the center of the village and away from the ocean. The houses shrink as though they lack the water to sustain them, and the well-manicured lawns give way to bare patches where the grass wilts under the unforgiving sun. Another stroke of luck. Fewer security systems stand in his way.
The woman pulls into a driveway, the blacktop crumbling with disrepair. She locks the car and carries her bag around the back of a small coral-painted two-story, pausing on the steps to glance back at the black van idling curbside. Did she see him in her mirrors?
Without giving the van a second glance, the detective unlocks the door and disappears inside.
Now he waits for dark.
***
Detective Larrabee didn’t anticipate the anxiety she experienced when she phoned Don Weber at the FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit. She couldn’t recall the last time she deceived another member of the law enforcement community, and Deputy Director Weber had the power to ruin her career if he suspected.
Weber came off as affable. Larrabee surmised he strove to make favorable initial impressions with the police departments his unit assisted, but she sensed a shark swimming beneath the surface. This was a man whose next move always strengthened his position.
He thanked Larrabee for expressing her concerns over Scarlett Bell’s profile, and she felt him bristle over the phone when Agent Gardy’s name came up. Larrabee only hoped Bell knew what she was doing.
She flipped the television on and kicked off her heels, then seeing nothing good was on, she shut down the TV and returned to the kitchen. Searching through the refrigerator, she settled on a yogurt and padded back to the living room with the snack. Thick drapes shut out the sun and concealed the junk pile marring her neighbor’s fenced-in front yard. This had been a nice neighborhood when she inherited the little house from her mother, and now it attracted drug users and a criminal element. Last year, her arms full with grocery bags, she heard a distinct racial slur from across the street. When she turned, she found Mr. Randolph on his front porch rocking chair, beer in hand, stained wife-beater tank drooping off his shoulders. The son-of-a-bitch lifted his middle finger when she stared too long. If he was willing to harass a cop, how would he treat another minority family?
A scratching noise against the siding caught her attention. Yanking the curtains back, she craned her head and searched the driveway. Satisfied nobody was messing with her car, she shut the curtains and checked the back door lock.
Sighing, she set the empty yogurt cup down and climbed the stairs. The bedroom was darker than the living room. She used blackout curtains so she could sleep on overnight shifts. A box fan in the corner buzzed with white noise, a sound she’d grown so accustomed to she never turned the fan off. She kept her bedroom military-neat, no laundry to trip over, the bedspread smooth as calm waters while she fished sweatpants out of the dresser. A gilded photograph of her mother and father, both gone for five years now, stood beside a jewelry box on the dresser. She touched the photo and silently asked them if she was doing the right thing, lying to one of the FBI’s most powerful agents.
Eyeing the clock, Larrabee noted she had five hours until she met with Agents Bell and Gardy at her hotel. She set her alarm to go off in three hours and curled beneath the covers, the extra pillow draped over her ear to block out the neighborhood clamor.
Larrabee didn’t sleep long.
When she sprang awake, she knew something was wrong. A sound. Someone outside…inside?…the house. Her body went rigid as though she’d fallen back on a sheet of ice.
Larrabee willed her legs to move. She drew down the blanket, the chill of the climate-controlled air coaxing her flesh to rise in goosebumps.
She reached out for her gun and remembered it was downstairs. With her phone.
Shit.
What was it she’d heard? Maybe nothing. Just the slam of a car door or one of her neighbors cursing.
She lay her head back on the pillow and strained to listen as the box fan drowned out the outside world. That’s when she knew she wasn’t alone in the house.
Larrabee crept down from the bed and slid along the wall, searching for something, anything on her desk that would serve as a weapon. The metal jewelry box had sharp edges. It wasn’t enough to kill a man, but if she brought it down at the right angle, the box would excavate a chunk of flesh and make the intruder think twice about fighting.
Lifting the box, she moved on cat’s paws to the door. She slid the door open a crack to see if anyone was on the landing.
Empty.
She exhaled a moment before a thumping noise came from behind. Inside the closet.
Larrabee spun around.
And saw the wide, psychotic eye glaring at her through the cracked open door.
She screamed and turned to run when he lunged. His hand grabbed her hair and yanked, snapping her neck back. Her feet flew out from under her, legs splayed as he climbed atop her stomach. She swung the jewelry box and knocked his head sideways. Blood trickled down his forehead as she brought the box back for another swing.
A powerful hand s
hot down and gripped her neck. Squeezed. Eyes wide and desperate, she slammed the jewelry box against his head and scraped flesh and hair away from his scalp.
Eyes rolling back, the maniac toppled over and collapsed on the floor. Larrabee screamed for help as she squirmed to get out from under him. She still lay beneath his dead weight.
Coughing, she slipped one leg free and slammed her foot into his ribs. He struggled back to his knees as she kicked out again and stung his chin, whipping his head back.
Crawling on all fours, Larrabee struggled toward the closed bedroom door. She reached the threshold, but he grabbed her ankle and dragged her back into the bedroom.
She beat her fists against his face and drove the point of her elbow against his neck. But he didn’t flinch.
The backhand slap stunned her. She stumbled backward, the room spinning, floor rising to meet her. Larrabee’s head struck the wall. Stars flashed in her eyes as she swung blindly.
Then the maniac wrapped his hands around her throat and lifted. Suspended off the floor, eye-to-eye with the maniac, her legs kicked at him as he squeezed the life out of her.
With one hand, he propped her against the wall like a rag doll. The other hand reached behind him and removed the knife, razor sharp and bloodstained.
She knew who he was now. Christina Wolf’s serial killer. Peering into his eyes opened a window to the bodies he’d left behind. He was more than a murderer. He was a dark legend. A whisper told at midnight to frighten children. Nothing could stop him.
He came here to kill Larrabee. After he snuffed out the last remaining light in her body, he’d butcher Scarlett Bell. And Neil Gardy.
And any mortal fool enough to stand against him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The conversation with Gavin Hayward of The Informer left Bell queasy as if a thick sheen of brown grease slicked her skin.
But the bait was set. Though she discerned Hayward’s doubt—he didn’t understand why she’d contact him with classified information—the rat snatched the cheese. Now she only had to wait until the story went live on the tabloid’s website.
Outside the hotel room window, the brutal heat waned, and daylight took on orange and red tints. The sun dropped below a line of palms through the west window.
“You sure about this?” Gardy asked, checking his gun.
She wasn’t. How could she be certain about a plan she’d cobbled together in a few hours?
A text from Larrabee sat in Bell’s phone. As agreed upon, the detective had called Weber and planted the seed that something was wrong in Fair Haven Beach. The instant he found out about The Informer article, he’d contact the sniper and order the executions. But Larrabee hadn’t answered any of Bell’s texts since.
Bell fed Hayward a vague description of the meeting site so the public wouldn’t figure it out. She didn’t want a hundred vigilantes to wreck her plan. But Weber would recognize the location a mile from the beach house where the serial killer murdered Christina Wolf.
The location seemed perfect: unless the sniper broke into a populated home along the beach, the only hiding spot with an unobstructed shot was the cluster of palms and scrub on the north end of the beach. That’s where Bell would wait.
“I’m calling the police,” Bell finally said, taking one last peek through the curtains. She spotted a shadow in the parking garage. It might have been anybody, a shopper searching for his car after closing time. But the dark presence set her on edge as she searched for the black van she’d seen yesterday.
“Larrabee is on her day off,” Gardy said, holstering the gun. “Could be she wanted to unwind this evening. Or maybe she got cold feet after calling Weber.”
“It doesn’t feel right. I’m worried about her.”
Bell sneaked another look between the curtains. No sign of the man in the parking garage.
The officer who answered the phone sounded at his wit’s end as a man, probably someone the police arrested, yelled about his rights in the background. He huffed as Bell explained her concerns. Despite his reservations, the officer agreed to send a cruiser past Larrabee’s house.
After thanking the officer, Bell refreshed the main page of The Informer on her phone. The short article headlined the page in bold letters. FBI’s Scarlett Bell Meeting Serial Killer Logan Wolf. She clicked the article and skimmed the text, catching two typos in the rushed article. Hayward had come through.
“Hayward published the article,” Bell said, sliding the phone into her back pocket. “Let’s give Weber ten minutes to call his mercenary.”
“It won’t take him that long.”
Gardy’s phone rang as they prepared to leave. He mouthed, “It’s Harold,” while the analyst fed him the information he’d dug up on Weber and Logan Wolf.
“Send me the document, Harold,” Gardy said. “And I want you to send a copy to an attorney I know…right…here’s his contact information.”
Gardy read Harold the information and gave a thumbs-up to Bell.
“We’ve got Weber,” Gardy said when the call ended. “He ordered surveillance on Logan and Renee Wolf in 2013. The bastard knew the wife’s daily routine down to the minute.”
“Good move sending copies.”
“Not that anything bad will happen to Harold.”
“Or us?”
Purple gloaming made the village seem alien and otherworldly as Bell and Gardy descended the steps and crossed the vacated thoroughfare. With the shops closed, the village seemed like a ghost town. She half-expected tumbleweed roll across the road.
Entering the parking garage prickled her skin again. Gardy glared at her when she pulled to a stop on the second level.
“What’s wrong?”
She swung her eyes through the garage, past the concrete beams to the darkness gathering along the far wall.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Gardy remained silent during the ride across the village. This was how he acted when a case made him nervous. She kept checking the mirrors, expecting to see a trailing vehicle, but the roads remained empty except for a few cars entering parking lots for big box stores and chain restaurants. Bell caught herself gripping the steering wheel and eased off, forcing herself to regulate her breathing. The plan seemed foolhardy as they approached the coast. She feared for Gardy, the senior agent who’d looked after Bell through her first years with the BAU. An unwanted memory flashed in her mind—Gardy bent over the steering wheel, head dripping blood after they crashed in Coral Lake, New York. She didn’t know what she’d do without him in her life.
He caught her staring.
“We always find a way,” Gardy said, sensing her doubt. “Stay focused on what we need to do. It’s a solid plan.”
It isn’t, she thought. Too many loose ends, too much potential for the case to blow up in their faces. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had followed her since she arrived in Fair Haven Beach.
The beach house came into view when she rounded a dogleg curve that deposited them onto the coast road. The steepled roof looked like a shark fin. Yellow crime scene tape glowed in the fading light.
Bell parked along the road, and they walked down to the palm grove, unconcerned about anyone seeing the rental car. She wanted to announce her presence, make sure the sniper knew where to find them.
Guns in hand, they sifted through the trees. Nobody was here. Good. They had time to scope out the area before the sniper arrived.
Dusk turned to dark, and the dark turned black and oily. A brisk wind off the ocean tickled the fronds and hurled breakers against the sand. But still no sign of the shooter.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bell asked when Gardy left their hiding spot and headed toward the beach.
“We’re supposed to be meeting Logan Wolf. Somebody needs to play the part, and I’m a more convincing male.”
She wanted to say something snarky. Break the tension threatening to tear them in half. She couldn’t. The words died on Bell’s lips when he abandone
d her.
Then she barely saw him anymore as he merged with the night. He holstered his gun and concealed it beneath his t-shirt as he paced the beach. Gardy stopped near the shoreline and waited. Solemn as a statue.
She never heard the footsteps approach from behind.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The callused hand covered Bell’s mouth and yanked her backward. She swung her elbow back at his head, but her assailant ducked the blow and placed a knife against her throat.
“Shh,” her abductor said, whispering in her ear.
His forearm clamped against her chest and held her in place. She sank her teeth into his flesh. No effect. The man didn’t flinch.
Powerful arms spun her around, and she stared into the black, depthless eyes of Logan Wolf. He placed his forefinger against his lips and pointed past the trees. At first, she didn’t see anything. Then stone crackled underfoot as someone approached along the gravel shoulder off the coast road.
The wicked edge of his knife poised beneath her chin. But he made no move to sweep the blade through her flesh. Instead, he tilted his head, an indication he wanted her to circle around the grove.
A shadow drifted among the trees. Deadly and silent. She spotted the rifle a moment before the man ducked out of sight.
Her heart hammered. Gardy stood inside the shooter’s scope. A sitting duck.
“He won’t shoot yet,” Wolf said, his face close to hers. “He wants all three of us.”
Bell nodded. How the hell did Wolf know their plan? He must have followed Bell and Gardy. That would explain the sensation of being watched, but Bell sensed something darker in the night. Pure evil.
Wolf sheathed the knife and pushed her shoulder.
“Go.”
Bell moved on all fours through the grove. The wind and waves masked her progress, but she couldn’t see the sniper anymore. Assuming the assassin set up his shot at the edge of the grove, Bell worked toward the beach. The sea breeze threw sand in her eyes, blurring her vision. Then she spied the barrel poking out from the trees. God, she’d almost crawled into the shooter.