CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I’ve gained control of this horrible curse

I feel much better, no longer act worse

Pleasure is now the name of the game

But still I feel I’m going insane

May 26th, 2002 11:50 p.m.

Candace James could not sleep. Her husband was going to go to hell and there was no way she could prevent it. For three years now, she had lied to herself about the money, but now Nicholas was back, and everything was starting to come together.

After Nick disappeared, she and her husband had taken care of his estate, from the house to the money to the stocks and bonds. Everything was safe and secure—at least that’s what the paperwork said.

But that evening, she thought differently. Since yesterday Fredrick had been tense and short tempered. She tried to talk to him about it when he got home the night before, but he refused to speak. He went straight into his office, made some calls and looked through files then he closed the door and stayed there all night. Candace had no idea what had gotten him so upset so she waited and asked him after church that morning. He didn’t answer, only claimed that he had errands to run. The desperate note in his voice scared her. He left in a hurry, and Candace had no idea what was happening.

Chloe came for dinner, like she did every Sunday night, and she asked if her father’s absence had anything to do with the police and his old client. Nearly choking on a piece of roasted chicken, Candace waited until the coughing subsided to ask her daughter what she was talking about.

Chloe filled her in on the visit a detective had paid her at the university and the conversation she had with her father on the phone. Candace had tried to enjoy the rest of the meal for her daughter’s sake, but her mind was working on what this all might mean. They finished their meal and Chloe had to get back to cram for a test but asked Candace why her father had yet to tell her about the detective. Candace shooed her daughter from the house, giving her a hug and a kiss. She promised they would meet for lunch the following week.

After Chloe left Candace began to tremble. The small seed of doubt that sat in her subconscious for years had finally found the room to grow and it left her sick to her stomach. She went straight for her husband’s office, but the door was locked. She searched their bedroom and found a spare key taped under the second drawer in his nightstand.

Once she’d unlocked the door, Candace made haste, fearful her husband would return and find her rummaging through his things. Then she chided herself. This was her house, too. She could go into any room she wanted to.

She saw her husband’s desk, covered in records of Nick’s account as well as statements of transfers from other accounts she couldn’t remember ever seeing.

She found deposits that been transferred into an account with her husband’s name on it. The amounts varied from a thousand dollars to ten-thousand dollars and her blood ran cold. Where was this money coming from? Who was it coming from?

She found a recent statement from American Bank, showing three transfers from the unknown source but five more from Leah’s Fund. She gasped and covered her mouth.

“Candace! What the hell are you doing?” her husband shouted from the hallway. He stood outside, peering in at her. The look on his face was that of a guilty man.

She spun and looked at him, studying him as hard as she could. She had trouble reconciling the man she married with the possibly illegal dealings she’d seen in his records. “What have you done, Fred?” she asked softly, but the anger was building, and she felt it surface.

“Get out of my office. I have work to do,” he demanded as he walked around his desk.

“Fuck you,” she said.

Utter shock crossed his face. Candace never spoke to him like that. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“I said ‘fuck you’. Did I stutter, dear? Now tell me, what is going on? Where is all this money coming from? Who is it coming from and why?” she shouted, beginning to shake again.

A few moments passed as the shock of her demands sunk in. “Let me explain…” he started, wiping his eyebrow.

“No!” she shouted back. She didn’t want to be lied to anymore. “Is this how Chloe got into the U? Is this why we own three cars and a boat? Did you buy this house with that money? Fred, that is Leah’s money! Blood money!” she spat. “You said you got a promotion at work with yearly bonuses. You lied!” she took a few steps towards him.

Fredrick tried to tell Candace that he had done it all for her and their daughter. She wouldn’t hear it. Instead, she walked up and slapped him across the face. He grabbed her arms and shook her, which frightened her, but not enough for her to flee.

“Dammit, Candace just listen. Listen to me!” he yelled. “There was no other way. I wanted the best for my family, and we would have never gotten the opportunity to rise above without the help. The cars, the vacations, the university, I did it for us!”

She stared up at him, tears streaming down her face and shook her head. “You did it for you. You were never happy with what we had, with what you had. Always wanting more since the day I met you. So goddamn selfish, so don’t you dare justify this with your family, with us.” She said “family” with loathing. She watched her husband wince at her words, then she shoved him away from her. He let her go.

Now she lay on the bed in their guest room, looking up at the ceiling and feeling torn. After the guilt and betrayal receded she was left wondering what she was going to do. What her husband did was not only wrong but very illegal. Should she turn him in? Would she? Could she?

The fury returned for a moment and she picked up the phone, intent on calling the police, she dialed the area code, then hung up. She knew they would lose everything. Her daughter might even have to leave the university. She didn’t want to be responsible for ruining Chloe’s promising future; that was Fred’s responsibility.

She climbed out of bed and unlocked the guestroom door. Locking it was a last-minute decision. She needed time to cool off and didn’t want Fred popping in with more lies. She couldn’t handle any more lies. She padded down the hall and up the stairs. Seeing the light still on in her husband’s office she walked toward the door, mentally preparing the ultimatums she had carefully thought up earlier.

But she never got the chance to speak. She had just taken a step into the office, just made eye contact with her husband when she saw the flash of dark metal catch in the light. She was frozen as he raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Her screams echoed through the house.

May 27th, 2002 1:30 a.m.

The phone rang, startling Luz awake. She groggily rolled over and picked up the phone.

“Can’t a person get some sleep?” she said into the phone.

“Not tonight. Sorry, Luz, but we’re going to need you on this one,” Mike said sounding like he, too, had just been awakened.

“What happened? Another body?” She wasn’t sure she could take another victim.

“Yeah, but this wasn’t murder. It was suicide.”

Luz jolted upright, accidentally kicking Nick in the leg. “What? Who?” she asked.

“Fredrick James. He shot himself an hour ago. Used a .22 and blew half his head off.”

“Aw shit, I’ll be right there,” she said and hung up the phone. Nick turned to her, rubbing his injured shin, but she didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

“What happened, Luz?” he asked but she got up and pulled on the shoes that Nick must’ve taken off her when she passed out. How sweet was that? she thought.

“Sorry about the kick. That was Mike. We got a sui-situation and they need me. Sorry.”

“A suicide? Who was it? Do I know…” he trailed off when he looked her in the eye. She saw when the pieces slid into place and he realized it was probably someone he knew. “Fredrick?” he whispered, and she nodded. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry, Nick. I know you two were close.”

Nick looked at his hands started dressing himself.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, pulling on her holster.

“With you. Candace will be there. Besides Chloe, her family has moved out of state. She’ll need someone to comfort her. We’ve been friends for a long time, Luz. She’s like family to me.”

Luz looked at the alarm clock across the room and debated whether to leave without him. “Fine, let’s go. But I can’t have you interfering. It’s bad enough you already know these people.”

“Whatever you say. Let’s just go.”

She watched the pain contort his features and wondered how well he would hold up once he saw the body. She would have to risk it. She had to go and fighting with him would only waste more time. They left the boat and drove through the city toward the James residence.

While she drove, Luz brooded. Her only lead had just slipped away.

~

Luz pulled up to the scene and found Chloe James rushing out of her Volkswagen Passat toward the house. The officers posted at the door stopped her from entering and she became distraught. After asking Nick to wait in the car, Luz walked up the steps and took hold of her shoulder, telling the cops that the girl could enter.

Chloe allowed herself to be guided inside to the living room where her mother sat on the couch. Luz watched as the girl ran to her mother’s side, but Candace wouldn’t acknowledge her daughter’s presence. She gazed at the coffee table, but her eyes were set somewhere no one else could see. Chloe shook her mother’s shoulder, then collapsed on the floor in front of the couch, begging her mom to see her.

The whole scene was especially painful for Luz. She had never grown up with a mother and couldn’t imagine having one who wouldn’t acknowledge her when she most needed her to. She bent down and put her hand on Chloe’s head.

“Chloe, your mother’s in shock,” she explained softly. “It will be some time before she’s ready to talk about what happened. Why don’t you just sit here with her, maybe hold her? On some level, she’ll feel the comfort. Just be her rock, okay?”

Chloe looked at Luz then back at her mother. “Okay,” she whispered getting up and sitting beside Candace. She slid her arms around her mom’s shoulders and wept; Luz left them alone.

She followed an officer upstairs and down the hall to where Ben stood. He gave orders to bag up what remained of Mr. James. Luz still wasn’t sure how she felt about Ben quitting. He turned when she approached him and smiled grimly.

“This is getting to be too much. I wanted to go out with a bang but come on…” he shook his head.

“I know. This man was the key to our investigation. Without him, we’re back to square one.” She looked through the door to the office. “What do we got here?”

“The man was definitely hiding something. He left a note for his wife, but she hasn’t read it. Too shook up. There’s a bottle of Jack Daniels, two-thirds empty on his desk and another empty bottle in the trash. He must have needed a lot of liquid courage to shoot himself.”

Luz nodded and walked into the room where the crime scene crew was working. The photographer had just finished taking pictures of the scene. And what a scene it was; blood and chunks of skull were spattered on the far wall behind the desk. The chair was being cleaned. She saw Mac Dudley working on the gun and approached him.

“Hey, Mac. Flat out suicide, right?”

“Pretty much. The only thing the autopsy will show is that the guy was highly intoxicated at the time.”

“No signs of foul play?” Luz asked, hoping the killer would be connected in some way.

“No. The wife saw it all happen; poor woman may be scarred for life.”

“Thanks,” Luz said and wandered back out into the hall. She could hear Nick’s voice from downstairs and she cursed under her breath.

“Boyfriend blues?” Ben asked, and she turned around.

“No, it’s just… I didn’t want Nick involved. I have a feeling he’ll come into play somehow.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Let him help her any way he can. She needs somebody right now.”

“I know. If he can get her to release those records, maybe we can piece together some things, maybe find out if he’s connected to the case. Getting a warrant for it will take too long and time is not something I have in abundance on this case. Take the computer and the files in here and we’ll see what else we can get from the wife. I just spoke with the man two days ago and he was nervous about something. I need to find out if it’s relevant to the case.”

Ben sighed. “Just give it time, Litebrite. These people are going to be hurting.”

“I know, and I’ll wait but not too long. We need to put a lid on this thing. The media is all over us for closure.”

“The media can wait. Just do what you can for now. Chase a couple other leads and come back to this one later, maybe a day or two.”

“Eight hours, tops. There’s no way I can wait days,” she said reluctantly.

“You look happy, though,” he said, catching her off guard.

“What?” she asked, looking around the death scene.

He followed her gaze and shook his head. “Not now, but the other day. You looked happy. I’m guessing Nick’s treating you all right.”

She was uncomfortable discussing her love life with an ex-boyfriend, but she answered. “Yeah, he makes me happy.”

“Good, now hold tight to that feeling this time and don’t let your ego get in the way.”

The words hurt but rang true. She swallowed hard, ready to argue that things were different, that she was different, but Ben held up his hand.

“It’s okay. I’m not trying to attack you. I’m just saying that if he makes you happy there shouldn’t be anything more important than that, nothing, not even the job. Don’t make the same mistake we made, letting the job get in the way all of the time. We had our ups and downs but we’re better as friends. I want you to be happy,” he said, reaching out to rub her arm.

Nick cleared his throat and walked up to them. Luz hadn’t heard him coming. She wondered how much he had overheard.

“Luz, Candace’s doctor is on the way. Her daughter gave me the number, and she’s going to break down if we don’t get a sedative into her. She’s barely talking to me. Just words; no complete sentences but she keeps apologizing to me. She keeps saying sorry to me over and over again. Then she rubs her hand over her arms.”

Luz thought about the itching woman at the car garage that Manny Altek had mentioned. “Is she rubbing or scratching?” she asked quickly.

Nick looked puzzled. “Uh… like this.” He held both his arms with the opposite hands and rubbed. It didn’t look like itching to Luz. “Why?” he asked.

“No reason, I just thought of something, that’s all. Don’t worry about it. Did she say anything else?”

“No, not really. She just seems really numb right now,” he replied, glancing down the hallway towards the living room.

“Let me know when the doctor gets here. I need to ask her some questions.”

Nick looked wary. “Luz, we don’t want to upset her further. Can’t we do it some other time?”

She looked at him then at Ben, who gave her a warning look. “Sure. I can wait,” she said a little too quickly and Nick looked at Ben, eyebrows raised.

Just then Mac came out of the room. “Nothing much left to do here,” he told Luz and spotted Ben. “Hey Torres! What’s happening? I heard about the inheritance thing. Congratulations, man! Some guys get all the luck,” he said smiling broadly then turning to Luz. “Too bad you two couldn’t work things out. You would’ve been a rich woman, Santos, had you a real sugar daddy,” Mac said, elbowing her slightly in the ribs.

Luz elbowed him back roughly. “Thanks, Mac, but I’m seeing someone right now,” she said, tilting her head toward Nick. Mac’s eyes widened, and he backed up a step. “Oops my bad,” he mumbled, then went back inside the room.

“Sorry,” Luz said, turning to Nick. “Mac’s a little outspoken.”

Ben laughed “That’s a severe understatement. The man talks too much. I’d bet you anything he’s the leak. I hear he’s screwing Emily Watkins from Channel Four.”

“Shit. Mike’s gonna love that,” Luz said, letting the implications sink in.

Ben turned to Nick. “I’m sorry, Nick. I guess no one told you that Luz and I were involved. A little over two years ago, but we’re friends now.”

“Good to know.” He gave Luz an amused look. “We haven’t actually put a label on it yet. So I hear you helped Luz the night she was attacked.”

“Yeah, she called me after she was stabbed. Scariest hours of my life though.” He gave Luz a stern look. “Don’t do that to me again.”

“Would you stop talking about me as if I’m not standing right here?” Luz asked.

They laughed and shook hands. Luz hoped they would be friends. But she had more important things to worry about. “Nick, would you go down and see if Candace is talking? I’m going to run around town. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I don’t think she’ll want to talk…”

“That’s okay. I’ll stop by, just in case.”

Nick walked over to her and gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Okay. See you soon.”

She watched him walk down the stairs before turning to Ben. “Call me if anything unusual comes up.”

“Will do, but don’t push this.” He walked back and told Mac to finish up. “She’s gonna need some time.”

Luz started down the stairs and turned back. “We don’t have time.”

May 27th, 2002 2:40 p.m.

Luz went back into her office to type up the Altek report. She reported that the woman wore a brown wig, which indicated she might have been the killer, since synthetic hairs were found in the car. Luz didn’t know how that would be proven but it was the first connection they had. Second, she noted that after the auction of the knife that matched the one they had in evidence, the victims were still being cut with the same knife. There was another version of the knife floating around.

She picked up the phone and called everyone on the collector’s list, asking them to fax her proof that their knives were still in their possessions. This resulted in a lot of very annoyed knife collectors, but soon her fax machine hummed with activity as they came pouring through.

Then she went online to double check the quality of the knife and printed herself a copy from her color printer. She went downstairs to get a closer look and met Eddie on the way down.

“What’s up?” he asked her. He wore plain clothes.

“I’m just on my way to check something. Where are you headed?”

“I just got off. I have some things do to before my date tonight,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Well, well, well. Rosa finally lowered her standards, huh?”

“Hey,” Eddie replied in mock offense.

“I’m kidding, Eddie.”

“I know. I heard about Fredrick James. Too bad, huh?”

“Yeah, he was our only real link to anything. Nick’s over there now comforting Candace and Chloe. I just hope he pushes Candace to release all her husband’s records. They could be the key to a lot of things.”

They rode the elevator to the ground floor and got out. Eddie followed her to the evidence locker, still chatting about the case. They stopped at the desk and gave the officer the evidence bag number. He looked it up on the computer and came up empty. Luz looked at Eddie in shock, then back at the officer.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her heart beating wildly.

“I’m sorry, detective. I don’t have anything filed under that number.”

“Please check again,” she said and repeated the number.

The officer looked at her blankly and re-keyed the numbers. He looked up, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said. “How about date? We can look it up by date,” he suggested, his hands poised over his keyboard ready to enter the digits.

Luz looked at Eddie who said. “May 16th, the Jamison Murder downtown.” They waited as the officer typed in the new information. When he looked up at them, Luz noticed the sweat running down his hairline.

“I-I’m not showing a listing of that item under date or case name or number,” he stammered. He flinched when Luz slammed her hand down on his desk. She pushed him out of the way and typed furiously, almost desperately. The system showed no proof that the knife had even been logged. How could that be? Ben told her the knife was found and brought in. Where was it?

“Luz, are you okay?” Eddie asked.

She looked at her clenched fists and then at the officer standing beside her, who himself looked befuddled and a bit wary. She backed away from the computer and took a deep breath.

“What is your name and department code?” she asked the officer and wrote down what he told her. “Now, you listen to me, I want the name and department code or badge number of whoever worked here two days before, on and the week after the sixteenth up to today. Once you get that, I want a list sent directly to me. The item that’s missing is very pertinent to the case we’re working on.”

“The Seattle Slasher case?” he asked.

Luz looked at Eddie and then back at the young officer. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what the news is calling the case,” he said, a little slower as if he wasn’t sure if he’d crossed a line.

Luz shook her head and rubbed her temples. “I can’t believe this is happening.” She looked at Eddie again. “Tell me this is a dream. Tell me I’m going to wake up in my nice warm bed and this is all a fucking dream.”

Eddie smiled slowly. “Hey, I would if I could, but this isn’t a dream. It’s a fucking nightmare.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Control is what I seek

My façade makes me weary makes me weak

Soon my resolve will tear, will break

Leaving more bodies in my wake

May 27th, 2002 3:30 p.m.

“What the hell is going on?” Mike roared. “Evidence doesn’t just disappear!”

Luz tried to stay calm after her episode downstairs. Eddie had convinced her to relax before she approached Mike with the news. It was a good thing, too, because Mike looked like he was going to have a stroke. “I know, but it was never brought in as evidence in the first place. I’m trying to track down every officer and person at the scene, but I got there so late, the knife was already taken in, at least that’s what Ben told me,” Luz explained in a tight voice. It was taking a lot of effort to control her anger over this mishap.

“Then talk to Ben. Ask him who had the damn thing and where they were taking it! We cannot afford to lose this!” Mike roared.

Eddie spoke up. “We know it left the scene and was brought in and photographed. The next step should have been to tag it, bag it and lock it down in evidence. We figured whoever was handling it here in the building would know what happened to it.”

“So who would that be?”

Eddie shrugged. “We don’t know yet, the report wasn’t signed.”

“Well, who had access? Who took the photos of it?”

“Mike, we’re looking, we should know by the end of the day.” Luz explained.

Mike leaned back and sighed. “I can’t believe this. We’re going to look like idiots! Our only evidence and we lose it? Wait a minute…”

Luz saw a flicker in his eyes. “What is it, Mike?” she asked.

“Davis.”

“Who?”

“Last week you told me Davis down in evidence said that knife was worth a lot of money. He said something about his grandfather collecting knives or something like that.”

“I remember, but I don’t know the guy. His name tag said Officer Davis. Let me call over to human resources.” She picked up the phone on Mike’s desk. After speaking with HR, she hung up slowly and looked up at them.

“What?” Mike asked when she didn’t immediately volunteer information.

“The only Davis who works here is John Davis over in Sex Crimes and he’s black. The guy I spoke with downstairs was possibly Caucasian, maybe Hispanic. Shit, Mike, I think we’ve been scammed.”

Mike grunted, picked up the phone and dialed. Luz had only what Mike said to go on, but it was clear how the conversation went on the other end. “Yeah, Sonny?” Mike waited barely a second before speaking again. “Who brought you that knife for examination?” Mike tensed up, closed his eyes and sighed. “Uh-huh. Some guy named Davis from evidence. He took it back when you were done?” Another pause. Mike balled his hand into a fist. “Great.” Mike opened his hand and clutched it again. “No, nothing. Don’t worry about it, but thanks again. Bye.” He hung up and stared at the Luz and Eddie. Without a word he pulled out his pack of Marlboros and lit one. After a few drags he peered through the smoke at Luz.

“Santos, if we don’t get this guy, we’re all out of a job. We really messed this one up. Go. And don’t come back until you’ve got some good news.”

Luz closed the door behind her and slapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I forgot about that Davis guy.”

“Hey, you’ve been under a lot of stress. Just try to stay calm and look at this from all angles.” Eddie said.

“I’m glad I have you to help me. I have to call Nick and tell him I won’t be home again tonight.”

“Sorry, Santos, I can’t stay. It’s my night off and boy, do I need it.”

“What? Eddie come on…” Luz groaned.

“No can-do, Luz, I’m taking Rosa up to my cabin tonight and I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. I’m turning my cell phone off at midnight and that’s that.”

Luz eyed him. “Are you seriously telling me that you are putting off this case, so you can get laid?”

“Let me remind you that I work beat. I volunteered to help out, but I’m not obligated. I’ll leave the detecting to you, detective.” He winked at her.

She sighed and walked away feeling hopeless and Eddie followed her to her office. “Leave me alone. I have detecting to do, remember?” she snapped.

“Yeah okay, but don’t be mad. When this thing is over, you and Nick can come up and stay at my cabin.”

“Great, I’ll keep that in mind. Now get out,” she said.

Eddie waited around, probably for her to say something else, but left when she read through the reports on her desk without giving him another glance. After he left she picked up the phone and called the James’ household to speak with Nick. Chloe picked up.

“Hello,” Chloe answered. Her voice was weak. Broken.

“Chloe? This is Detective Santos; can I speak with Mr. Mason, please?”

“One moment.” The girl called for Nick. He replied and picked up on the other line.

“Luz this really isn’t a good time. The doctor’s here and we’re trying to get Candace to lie down.”

“Call me back soon, Nick. She may know something. We want her consent, but I’ll get a warrant if I have to,” she said. Nick sighed.

“Luz, now is really not the time,” he said, sounding a bit irritated.

“Nick, it may never be the time. The woman saw her husband kill himself, but we need to know why. Eventually, she’ll need to know why for closure. This case may weigh on that information, so please try and push it.”

The other end was silent, then Nick mumbled in agreement.

“Good. Call me back.”

“Fine,” he said.

Luz hung up. She knew he was mad and protecting his friend. She probably sounded like a cold-hearted bitch, but it was her job and she couldn’t afford to lose this case. Too many people counted on her and she didn’t plan to let them down.

May 27th, 2002 5:00 p.m.

Cliff Saunders had been up for forty-eight hours straight and thought he was hallucinating when he saw the name on the screen. Five o’clock that morning he had called a friend at work who was known for being a hacker—Marty Benedict—and asked him to come over to help track down the killer’s identity.

Marty showed up in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt completing the look with white socks and sandals. Cliff thought he looked way too relaxed for the task at hand, he half expected him to pull a margarita out of his messenger bag. As the day wore on, things got more intense and Marty sat beside him, sweating with his shirt wrinkled and a look of disbelief on his face.

Cliff filled him in on the emails but didn’t tell him of the threat to his family. He explained that he wanted to help the police find Elaine’s murderer. Marty had asked why the police weren’t searching themselves, when they had a lot more computer experts at their disposal, but he didn’t question Cliff’s explanation, or why he seemed hell-bent on finding it himself.

So they worked through the day, resting only for coffee or snacks but Cliff wouldn’t allow himself any sleep before he found what he was looking for. But nearly three days of searching had come to an end. The result was on the screen in black and white, but Cliff couldn’t believe it.

“Maybe I did something wrong?” Marty said, looking at him.

“I’m kind of hoping you did. This can’t be right, what would a man like that need with a collector’s knife?”

“Or why did he buy it from Mrs. Murphy? He has enough money to have a new one made.”

Cliff scratched at his two-day beard; this was too much to work out. He needed privacy to plan his next course of action. He got up and paced the room, stopping behind Marty’s chair.

“Thanks, Marty, I owe you one.”

Marty turned to look at him, mouth agape. “That’s it? You’re going to sit on this? This is big, Cliff. I mean, really big.”

“I know. It’s just… I may be wrong. Imagine what these kinds of implications could do to that man’s career.”

Marty shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We have to tell someone.”

“Not we, Marty, just me. I will tell someone. But not yet.”

“Man, I wish I had never picked up that phone this morning. I don’t feel safe knowing this.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

Cliff thought about the note the killer had left him and shuddered. “Marty, you should be safe, as long as you let me handle this from this point on, understand?”

Marty got up and shrugged. “Sure, no problem. Just promise me you’ll call the cops soon, okay?”

Cliff clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Okay. Now, I’ve got a lot to finish up. I’ll let you know when this whole thing blows over.” He walked his friend out to his Toyota and waved goodbye. Marty backed out of the driveway and rolled down the window.

“Cliff, man, I’m serious; don’t wait on this one,” he pleaded.

“Don’t worry about me. Thanks again, Marty,” Cliff replied.

Marty gave him a disapproving look but put the car in drive and took off down the street. Cliff watched him disappear around the corner and quickly scanned the block for anything unusual; unmarked cars, strange people who could be watching him. But all he saw was the neighbor mowing his lawn and children running in the sprinkler across the street. He breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart pounded furiously.

Turning around, he heard the phone ring inside the house. He walked through the foyer to the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello?”

Silence. He said hello again, but no one replied. He was about to hang up when he heard breathing on the other end.

“I can hear you breathing, who is this?” he asked.

The breathing stopped, and a voice came on the line. “You were warned, and you broke the rules,” the raspy voice said. “Marty will die because of you.” The line went dead.

Cliff clutched the phone and began to shake. He had been so careful and now his friend’s life was at stake. Without thinking he grabbed his car keys and hopped in his Volvo, taking off in the same direction he’d seen Marty go. But his friend’s Rav4 was nowhere to be found, so he drove to Marty’s house and waited for him to come home.

After an hour of waiting he feared that Elizabeth would be home with the kids soon and they would be unprotected at his house. There was no doubt in his mind that the killer knew where he was and what he was doing. His fear for his family overrode the fear for his friend. He turned around and went home.

~

Marty was involved; he was always involved; he hated that. He wished he’d slept over at Nina’s house the night before. Then he wouldn’t have been home when Cliff called so early in the morning.

But it was too late. He knew what he knew, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Could he? Cliff told him not to tell a soul what they learned that day. Cliff trusted Marty to keep his mouth shut, and he would. Not many people trusted him, but Cliff was different; even though he knew what Marty did outside of work, he never let it affect their friendship.

Cliff had been a good guy from the start; he always respected the opinions of those around him and appreciated the help he got from his coworkers. Though Marty was twelve years his junior, Cliff always treated him as a peer, and Marty appreciated that.

It had taken him three years to get out of the hacking business. It all started as a hobby late one night and he was surprised how good he became at it. One day, he got too good, and somebody noticed. Instead of getting him in trouble, that person asked Marty for his services. After that, Marty had many people calling him to hack into files and networks he’d never heard of. Soon he was working with two other guys and they started a small business that made a large amount of money. The only problem was that it was made illegally.

Clients ranged from suspicious husbands or wives wanting a peek at their spouse’s private filings and financial records to money hungry business owners wanting one up on the competition. Whoever his clients were, they weren’t good people, but their money was good and back then, that was all that mattered to Marty.

As time went by, the money became less important; during one of his earlier jobs he had hacked into the police department’s mainframe for a rogue cop and found out that someone was tracking his every move. He immediately ended the job, returned the cop his money and got rid of his equipment. He laid low for a while, expecting the FBI to pound down his door any minute, but they never came. Eventually, he picked up where he’d left off and was fine until he encountered the tracking system again, but this time it wouldn’t let him out of the system. It froze his computer and tracked him down frame by frame. He panicked again and barely got out before their search was complete. Again, he threw away everything he had just replaced, down to the last disk, thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment, destroyed to protect himself.

It all paid off when the police stopped by to search his house. Supposedly the FBI had narrowed the activity down to a small area in which the hacker could have lived, including Marty’s house and a four-block radius. It was all too close for comfort and Marty was sweating profusely long after the cops had come and gone.

After that day, he never thought he’d turn on another computer, never mind becoming a network manager at a software company. But he’d used his skills to get a legitimate job, and though there were those at work who suspected he might have been a hacker, the subject was never brought up. He still did small jobs once in a while but if he got so much as a whiff of trouble he backed off.

That day had been different. Instead of backing off, he dove in head first and was right back where he started. He was in his car stopped at a red light when he noticed the police station across the street. He stared so long he didn’t notice the light turn green until the person behind him laid on the horn.

He drove around the block a couple of times, mulling over whether to stop. After the fifth time around the block, he was a little dizzy. He decided to sleep on the decision and call Cliff in the morning. He checked his watch, six-fifteen. Nina would be off work soon. He decided to go home and wash up to surprise her with a night out. As he pulled into his driveway, he could have sworn he saw Cliff’s car driving down the road. He shrugged it off and went inside.

~

Cliff hung up the phone. He had called Marty’s house repeatedly, but no one picked up the line. He wasn’t sure if Marty had gotten home or not and he was sick with worry. Elizabeth arrived home soon after him and could tell something was wrong, but he put her off and continued dialing his friend’s phone number. This time he left a message.

“Marty, if you get this message, don’t waste time calling me back, just come right over, right away. You could be in danger; the killer knows you helped me; he threatened my family if I told anyone and now he knows you’re involved. Please come over right away. Do not, I repeated, do not call the cops. he’ll kill my family. I have to go. Bye.”

He hung up and waited with baited breath, what would he do if something happened to Marty? How could he forgive himself? Silently, he cursed Elaine Murphy for dragging him into this nightmare, then scolded himself for dishonoring her memory. She was just a nice old woman who didn’t know what she was getting herself into. And he was the one who convinced her to sell the knives.

“Oh god,” he moaned dropping his head into his hands. It was his fault. It was all his fault and he hid out while the killer kept on killing. But his family; he couldn’t risk losing his family. He tossed around that thought for a while until an idea came to him. He went to the kitchen where his wife was preparing dinner, walked up behind her and kissed her neck.

She relaxed against him. “Well, that was unexpected.”

He frowned. Had he been too busy to kiss his wife? He slid his arms around her waist and held her close. “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I know I’ve been busy, but I’m just about done now. I’ll have a lot more time to spend with you and the kids. Forgive me?”

She turned from the stove and looked him in the eye. “Only if you promise to never take on that much work again. I never want to feel neglected like that, and I don’t think the children liked it either.”

“I promise,” he said holding up his fingers in a boy scout salute. She laughed and hugged him close. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the familiar smell of her lavender shampoo.

“Now get out of the kitchen until dinner is ready,” she said with mock severity, pointing the wooden spoon in her hand at his chest.

“Okay,” he said and kissed her again. On his way out of the kitchen he spotted her cell phone on the charger and unplugged it. Once he was out of the kitchen, he went into the garage and dialed 911. The operator came on and he covered his mouth with his hand, disguising his voice.

“I think someone is in danger at 13452 Park Lane. Please hurry. He might be dead.”

The voice cracked on the other end. “Sir, where are you?”

“Please help him. He’s my friend,” Cliff said and hung up. Breathing easier, he hoped he had done the right thing. He went back inside and did something he hadn’t done in days—he played with his kids.

~

Marty showered and put on the cologne Nina bought him. He wasn’t particularly fond of the smell, but it drove Nina wild, so he didn’t mind smelling a little off once in a while. Besides tonight was her night—he would make it her night. He needed to keep his mind off the name he saw on Cliff’s computer screen.

He checked his wallet for cash and went to grab his car keys when the phone rang.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Mr. Benedict, this is the Carnation Police Department. Is everything all right?”

Marty was confused. He hadn’t called the police. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s going on?”

“We got an anonymous call about a disturbance at your residence. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. I don’t know who made the call, but I’m okay.” He verified his information until the officer was satisfied it was him.

“Okay. I’m sorry to disturb you. Have a nice night,” the operator said, then ended the call.

Baffled, Marty hung up the phone and noticed the blinking red light on his machine. He had two messages. He reached over and pushed play and his blood ran cold as he heard Cliff’s scared voice rambling about the killer. When the message finished, he picked the phone right back up and dialed; he got Cliff on the second ring.

“Jesus Christ, man, your message scared the shit out of me! What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“Marty, thank God you got my message. I even called the cops to come check on you. Are you okay?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I? So it was you who called the cops. Boy you panicked,” he replied.

“This is serious. Marty,” Cliff said. He relayed the events of the past few days including the note he found on his daughter the morning of Elaine’s murder. When he finished, Marty stood weak-kneed and worried. He wished he’d never met Cliff Saunders.

“Marty, you there?” Cliff asked guardedly.

Marty wiped the sweat from his forehead and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m here; barely. Cliff, I’m coming over right now and—” a sound behind him startled Marty, and he jerked around sharply, his breath catching in his throat.

“Hello? Marty? Say something dammit!” Cliff yelled on the other line.

The silence was long as Marty collected his wits. “I’m here, man. Biff, my dog just made me shit my pants. Fucking dog.” At the mention of his name the golden retriever’s tail wagged and he licked his owners shaking hand.

“I thought… well, you know what I thought. Get over here and we’ll discuss this.”

“Fine, just let me call Nina and cancel our plans, she’s going to be pissed. I promised her a night out tonight.”

“Marty, that should be the least of your worries,” Cliff scolded.

“I know. I’ll see you in about fifteen, okay, man?”

“Yeah, and Marty… hurry.”

Marty hung up but the urgency in Cliff’s voice left a nasty residue in his mind. He called Ixtapa, the Mexican restaurant where Nina worked as a bartender, and told her he would be running a little late. After all, how long would it take to convince Cliff to call the police? Marty and Nina agreed to meet at her place around nine-thirty and said goodbye. He locked up the house and left; he never heard the second message on his machine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Chaos all around and nothing I can do

I must see this all the way through

The demons inside are tearing me apart

I fear that blackness coats my heart

May 27th, 2002 6:00 p.m.

Candace James opened her eyes and stared at the textured ceiling above her bed. What was she doing in bed, she wondered. Then everything came back to her in a painful, world-crushing rush. She gasped and began to tremble.

“It’s okay,” came a voice from beside her, and she felt a hand on her leg. She lifted her head and saw Nick sitting in a chair beside her bed, a worried expression on his face. His presence alone seemed to ease her mind.

“Nick, it’s so good to see you after all these years. You look… good,” she said softly, trying hard to keep the memory of the night before under the surface.

He stood and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Candy, but let’s catch up later. You need to rest.”

It was true. She could still feel the effects of the sedative the doctor had given her earlier, but she needed to talk. She didn’t know how long Nick would be around and she needed to apologize for her husband’s actions while she could.

“Nick,” she began, unsure where to start. “Fred took… and I’m sorry… never should have touched the money… and Leah.”

“Shh. Later, Candace. It can wait,” Nick said.

“No. It can’t. My husband is dead, and it can’t wait!” she shouted shaking her head and pulling herself up into a sitting position. “Please listen to me, Nick, I’m apologizing for my husband—for his greed, for what he’s done to you, what he’s done to us…” she trailed off, her eyes filling with tears. Nick walked to her nightstand where the doctor had left a bottle of sedatives. Candace held up her hand.

“Nick, wait, please don’t. I don’t want to black out again.” She’d taken two the night before and barely recalled any of it except the parts no drug was strong enough to erase.

“Candy, you won’t black out. The doctor says these will help you calm down and sleep,” he said, unscrewing the bottle and shaking a pill out into his hand. He took the pill to her and handed her a glass of water, but she kept her hands up in protest.

“I don’t need one of those horrible pills; they make me queasy. I’ll be fine, Nick.” But when Nick shook his head her voice took on a desperate tone. “No! You don’t understand. When I sleep, when I close my eyes… the only thing I see is… is Fredrick in his office at his desk with his gun… blowing his brains…” she shuddered and wailed uncontrollably.

Nick barely caught her when she collapsed off the bed. He held her tight as she released the pain all over again. She knew this wouldn’t be the last time she broke down. The doctor said it would be a while before she would begin to cope with the situation, assuming of course that she would cope with it at all.

Nick held her trembling body and she prayed she would find the strength to get through this, not only for her own sake but for her daughter’s. Nick convinced her to take a pill and rest and she didn’t argue. Instead, she thought of the escape the pill would provide and greedily washed it down with water. Soon the edges of her vision blurred, and she sank back into blissful nothingness.

~

Chloe was holding up surprisingly well compared to her mother, but she wasn’t present when her father ended his life. Nick went downstairs and peeked into the living room to check on her. She was still on the couch, staring out the huge bay window that displayed a beautiful view of Lake Washington. From where he stood, he could see sailboats floating across the lake in the distance. The sun was setting, and the sky had turned from blue to a deep red, creating a breathtaking view.

But that beauty was lost on Chloe. She sat stiffly on the sofa, her eyes swollen and tears running down her face. Even though she had aged seven years since the last time he’d seen her she still looked like a little girl. A frightened child. He took a seat beside her, hoping to offer some comfort, but Chloe didn’t so much as blink when he put his hand on her shoulder. She kept her gaze straight and continued crying silently.

“Chloe,” he said her name softly and she came out of her daze at the sound of his voice. She turned toward him, but her eyes still held that faraway look. He wasn’t sure if she was in shock or if she was too exhausted to answer. “Chloe, your mother is doing better,” he lied but he was at a loss. “She’s sleeping upstairs, and I was wondering if you wanted to lie down for a bit.”

She was silent for a few moments before she shook her head. The motion was slow at first but soon she was thrashing her head back and forth so rapidly he feared her neck would snap.

“Chloe, stop it,” he said gently and placed his hands on the sides of her head to stop the thrashing, but she fought him. “Stop it!” he demanded and held on to her tightly. Then, like her mother, she wailed loudly and began to sputter.

“M-My father is… d-d-dead, he sh-shot himself, m-my father is dead h-he shot h-himself, my father i-is d-dead he shot hims-self…”

She repeated the phrase as if she were trying to convince herself it was true. Nick stared at her until he could take no more. He took her into his arms and began rocking. “Shh… Chloe, it’s okay, honey, shh.…” He tried to quiet her down. Her body relaxed in his arms and she ceased chanting the disturbing mantra and clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably.

When she finally fell asleep he laid her down on the couch and covered her with the throw from the recliner across the room. He was surprised at the softness of the blanket and checked the tag to see if it was cashmere. He was taken aback when the tag read one-hundred percent Pashmina. Throws like the one he held ran for three-hundred dollars or more in boutiques across the country. For the first time since his arrival he noticed how richly furnished the space was.

He walked through the house, stopping to look in the bedrooms and admire the décor. He was impressed by the interior design of the home as well as the taste in art that hung on the walls. He stopped to examine the study where Fredrick had committed suicide and was equally impressed at the furnishings in the room.

The huge desk set in the center of the office was mahogany and matched the bookcases and credenza that lined the walls. There were Remington lamps and framed paintings around the room that gave it a cozy feel. He walked closer to the desk and saw a cedar cigar box sitting on the edge of the desk. He opened it and found a half dozen Cubans inside. To be sure of their authenticity he took one out, held it under his nose and inhaled deeply. He smiled; it had been a long time since he’d smelled a cigar like that one. But what was Fredrick doing with them?

When Nick had worked for Knotts, Cane & Associates before his move to the DA’s office he had been successful and could afford luxuries like cigars and well-furnished homes, as well as boats, cars and trips to Cancun but Fredrick’s salary was miniscule in comparison. After working there for a year, Fredrick couldn’t afford a new car. Nick knew this because he’d offered to cosign when Candace mentioned it. So why did they now have this beautiful house with a view? Why was Chloe’s tuition of the University paid in full? And why were there three new cars and a boat in the garage? Did working for Yates pay that well?

He spotted a photograph on the credenza behind the desk and almost answered his own question. He picked up the picture of Fredrick and the mayor shaking hands. The sight of Anthony Yates made him sick to his stomach, but he went on staring. He couldn’t comprehend why Fred decided to work for Yates after the bastard was accused of killing Leah. Luz said he had looked out of place in the mayor’s office. She said his office had been lavishly furnished as well and also included a waterfront view. How did a man go from barely making ends meet to living as large as this?

Nick almost sat down in the chair but thought better of it, remembering that a dead man occupied it less than twelve hours before; instead he sat on the couch by the window. He thought back to Candy’s apology about Leah and let the thought drift around his mind for a while. Then something occurred to him and he jumped up from where he was lounging and went to the desk.

May 27th, 2002 6:50 p.m.

Mike’s office was filled with smoke, but Luz wasn’t about to comment on it. It was an old building and the alarms on this floor never seemed to work. He was in one of his moods, and lack of sleep and pressure from the city weren’t helping.

“Mike, I don’t want to push too far. She could snap completely, burn the files and we’d never know a thing.”

“She better not, unless she wants to sit in jail for obstruction.”

Luz gave him a wry look. “You’re going to put a woman who just saw her husband kill himself in jail?”

Mike took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled. “Well, shit, Santos what the hell should I do? Everyone is on my ass to solve this thing. We can’t keep this from the FBI any longer; they’ll have my ass if I don’t cooperate.”

Luz looked at her watch. “I’m going to head over there now to talk to Nick. Give me until tomorrow to get ahold of any other records and files. I called Candace’s doctor and he thought it would be better to give this at least twenty-four hours.”

Mike looked thoughtful for a moment then snubbed his cigarette out on the paperweight that sat on his desk. “Fine. I’ll tell Agent Adams in the morning that, as far as they know, Fredrick James’s suicide has nothing to do with this case but it’s only a matter of time before they figure it out,” he said and lit another cigarette.

“Mike, you should really cut down on the smoking.” Luz suggested, waving her hand at all the smoke that accumulated around her.

“And you should cut down on the nagging. Enough with the bullshit. Just go.”

Luz turned and left the smoke-filled office.

May 27th, 2002 7:45 p.m.

Candace James woke up crying. She didn’t wait for the memories to flood back. She sat up in bed and wiped her eyes. She listened to the silence of the house, wishing she wasn’t alone. Slowly she went to the bathroom to wash her face, but when she saw her husband’s robe on the door she decided she would avoid anything that reminded her of him. But that would be difficult, considering all the time they spent in the house. There was so much of him left that she didn’t know how she would survive the challenge. Maybe it was time to move away, start a new life. With Chloe in school, those things would have to wait.

She opened the door to her bedroom and saw the light on in the office down the hall. As she neared the room she heard a man’s voice. For a moment, she hoped with every fiber of her body that her husband’s suicide had all been a bad dream. But when she rounded the doorframe, she stopped short when she saw Nick sitting at the desk instead of Fredrick.

Nick saw her and stood up. “Candy, I’m so sorry, after what’s happened I’m sure it’s hard for you to see this room,” he said, walking to where she was leaning on the wall.

“For a moment I thought… I thought maybe Fred…”

She didn’t have to continue; Nick put his arm around her. “It’s okay Candy, I shouldn’t even be in here. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed anything.”

Candace looked around the room and shook her head. “No, it’s okay. You of all people should know what happened.”

Nick cocked his head to the side. “I don’t understand.” But Candace wasn’t able to finish the explanation she started. She simply stared at numerous things in the room as her eyes quickly filled with tears. Nick grabbed her shoulder and guided her out of the room. She didn’t resist until they came to the door of her room.

“Where’s Chloe?” she asked in a soft voice.

“She’s downstairs. Do you want to see her?”

“Yes.”

He helped her down the stairs and into the living room where Chloe slept peacefully on the couch. Candace walked over to the sofa and looked at Chloe. She reached down and touched her daughter’s face.

“She shouldn’t have to go through this; she was doing so well. This trauma might stunt her emotionally and academically.”

“Candy, it will take her time to grieve and deal with all of this, but she’ll be fine. You will both be fine.”

“I know. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” she said, her voice trembling.

“You are, and so is your daughter,” he assured her.

Candace didn’t respond she just lay down next to her daughter on the couch and caressed her face.

“I’m going to be upstairs,” Nick stated softly. It was the last thing she heard before she fell asleep.

May 27th, 2002 8:06 p.m.

Luz knocked on the door, but nobody answered. She knocked a few more times then tried the handle; it was locked. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the James’s number; she could hear the ringing through the door. A groggy voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Chloe, it’s Detective Santos. I’m at the front door. Can you let me in?” She heard shuffling around and the deadbolt pull back before the door opened. She hung up her phone and stepped inside.

“Where’s Nick?” she asked looking around.

“I don’t know. You can ask my mother though. She’s in the living room,” Chloe said shutting the door and beckoning Luz to the room on the left. Candace sat on the edge of the couch, looking as if she had just woken up.

“Hello, Candace, how are you holding up?” Luz asked.

The woman turned to her with a haunted expression and instead of speaking, she shook her head.

“Is Nick here?” Luz pushed.

“He was upstairs last I knew.”

“Can I go see him?”

“Sure,” she answered curtly.

Luz checked all the rooms on the second floor but didn’t find Nick. She returned downstairs to the living room and found the mother and daughter embracing and sobbing on the couch together. She didn’t want to interrupt them but before she could step aside, Candace caught her eye.

“He’s not upstairs. I looked in every room,” Luz said.

Without letting go of her daughter, Candace shrugged and looked out the window. “Then I’m not sure where he went. He mentioned something about getting food earlier so maybe he went out,” she said, rocking with her daughter in her arms.

Luz felt that it wasn’t the time to push for the information she needed. Seeing two people in so much pain—there was no way she would interfere. The FBI would have to seize the records in the morning. Mike would be pissed but Luz couldn’t add to the stress and sadness the family was going through. She would, for the first time in her career, back down.

“If he returns, can you tell him to call me?” Luz asked tentatively, and Candace nodded in response.

Luz decided to drive around for a while and figure things out but after a half hour she realized she was more tired than she thought, so she drove home hoping that Nick would be waiting for her. When she opened her door, Cheech was the only one who greeted her. She called Nick’s phone and left a message, letting him know where she was and to get in touch with her. After taking her dog out for his nightly ritual and a brief belly rubbing session, she settled down and went to sleep.

May 27th, 2002 11:00 p.m.

I can’t control this urge any longer; the marks on my skin are physical evidence of that fact. It has only been an hour since my last kill and yet I feel the need once again. Killing has become necessary for my survival, like an addiction that cannot be broken. I can no longer go out in public without feeling the need to take a life.

I should stay home, but that’s next to impossible. I have obligations to keep with the public; it’s part of my job. I’ve worked my whole life to get where I am today. I’ve pulled myself up from who I once was, and remade myself into an intelligent, valuable person. Now I’m surrounded with everything I ever wanted yet faced with the possibility that I’ll lose it all.

That will not happen, I will not let it happen. There are ways I can finish this thing. I need to find the person who started this madness in my mind; I need to find Nicholas Mason.

~

Marty and Cliff had been arguing for hours about the police. Marty wanted it all to be over but Cliff’s fear for his family had him thinking irrationally.

“Cliff, for the last time, if you do not call the police then I will.”

“You don’t understand. The killer knows my every move. If I even attempt it, he will kill us all. Don’t you get it?”

“Get Lizzy and the kids somewhere safe and Nina and I will hide out. Then you can call the police. How does that sound? Because I’m not going to sit here and argue with you anymore. This is it, Cliff, either you agree to do that, or I’ll call the police.” Marty stood his ground. The whole thing had gone on long enough and wasting time talking about it wasn’t worthwhile.

Cliff was silent for a moment, then said, “If you call the police now, we could all be in danger but if you called it in later after we find a safe place the police could start investigating the lead. I don’t want to be away from my family, but I don’t want to be selfish; it could cost us our lives. So, fine. Go get Nina and we’ll decide where we can lay low until this thing blows over. Meet me back here in forty-five minutes. I’ll have everyone ready to go.”

Marty was stunned that his ultimatum had worked. It had been over three hours since they started talking, and he didn’t think Cliff would fold. But he was glad the man was finally thinking rationally.

“Okay. Nina won’t believe all this, but she’ll come along. I don’t want her in danger. See you in forty-five,” he said, grabbing his coat and racing out the door. He hopped in his Toyota and took off for the west side of town, wondering how in the world he was going to explain everything to Nina. He had a tough time canceling his plans with her earlier, but she understood and agreed to see him later at her house.

Marty drove up the hill she lived on and parked the car at the curb. He got out and ran to the front door, hoping to catch her still awake. But when he saw the bent doorframe, his blood ran cold, and he was unable to catch his breath. He burst into the house, screaming her name but there was no answer. He ran upstairs and found both her bedroom and the guest room untouched. Sweating and panting, he ran downstairs to the dark kitchen. Two steps into the room at full speed, he tripped over something big and landed on his face. He instantly felt his cheek swell and started to get up. There was little light to see with, but Marty had already guessed the cause of his fall. He squeezed his eyes shut to hold back the flood of tears that threatened to burst free. Then he felt around with his hands until they found a handful of the soft, silky substance that was Nina’s hair.

It was then that he cried. The tears came fast, warm, and uninhibited. But the grief soon turned to anger, and Marty got up and felt his way across the room to the phone. He picked it up, dialed three digits, and waited for help.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I’ve made a decision and it’s not too late

To find and kill the one I hate

I can be free to live again

And this cursed nightmare will come to an end.

May 28th, 2002 1:30 a.m.

Luz was already awake when the phone rang beside her bed.

“Santo. Speak,” she said into the phone.

“This is Agent Adams. We have a situation here, and we can’t get answers until this man talks directly to you.”

The agent’s derogatory tone irritated Luz and she snapped back. “Well then let me talk to him.”

She heard Adams call the man over and tell him that she was on the line.

“Hello? Detective Santos?” asked a shaky voice that was vaguely familiar to her.

“Yes, this is she. Who is this?”

“This is Cliff Saunders. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the man who helped Elaine Murphy sell her knife collection.”

Luz placed the voice with the face and moved on. “Okay, I remember you. But what is it you need from me?”

“I’m so scared. My family is in danger. The killer told me that if I helped the police find out his identity, he would hurt my family. But I kept researching even though I wasn’t sure how I would get the information to you once I had it. Well a friend helped me and now his girlfriend was murdered—”

“Murdered?” she jolted upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Yes, and he called the cops and sent them over here. If the killer finds out, we’ll all be dead.”

“Just tell me who the killer is, and we won’t let that happen, sir.”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? We could end this nightmare now if you would only tell us what you know.”

“I’m not sure my information is correct. But before I say a word, I want my family relocated quickly to a safe place.”

“I’ll take care of it. Put Agent Adams back on the phone.” Luz got up and put on a robe. It was hard to be authoritative wearing her worn-out academy t-shirt.

“Yes,” Adams barked into her ear.

“What the hell are you doing there?” she demanded. “This is my investigation.”

“Not anymore, detective. I have orders from the top that if one more body is tied to this investigation—we step in. And guess what? We found a body, so you can either back out gracefully or fully cooperate. And I do mean fully.”

“Now you listen here—” she began but he interrupted.

“No, you listen, Santos. We’ve stood by and watched this maniac hack up people all over town and we’re not about to let it continue. This is my investigation now, got it?”

“Then you can deal with Mr. Saunders, good luck,” Luz said, then hung up. She was fuming. It was the first time she’d lost control of an investigation. The fact that she has lost it to the FBI was what bothered her most. How had she let this happen? Why on earth hadn’t she found the killer yet? There were clues everywhere. What were they missing?

She opted to continue working the case from her office. After a quick shower and a cup of coffee, she grabbed Cheech and headed out. Instead of taking her car she decided she would jog to work. She could feel the tension in her shoulders and hoped the jog would loosen her up and give her some time to blow off steam. She threw her holster on under her windbreaker and clipped Cheech to a leash. After locking up the boat she took off running.

She had five messages from Agent Adams when she got in the office. She chose to ignore them out of spite. But after fifteen minutes of trying to work on the case she gave in and called him back.

“What do you want?” she asked, disposing of formalities.

“Mr. Saunders refuses to cooperate with me. Would you please speak with him?” he asked sounding a bit embarrassed and quite irritated.

“Why? Just give him what he wants.”

“What he wants right now is to talk to you.”

“Fine. Put him on.” She waited a moment and then spoke to Cliff. “Mr. Saunders, why won’t you cooperate with the FBI? You could get into a lot of trouble if you don’t.”

“I can’t trust anyone, but I can trust you. Please help me.” He sounded desperate.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Move my family to an undisclosed location and I’ll give you the name of who I think might be the killer.”

“Might? I need to know for sure.” Luz didn’t want to risk accusing the wrong person.

“It’s the best I can do. But my friend, who helped track the email is a professional. He never makes mistakes.”

That was enough for Luz. “Okay, I’ll be there soon, just sit tight.” She hung up walked across the larger office to talk to Mike. She was surprised to see the light on in his office and knocked softly on the door.

“Come in,” he replied. She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. But before she could speak he held up a hand to silence her.

“There’s nothing I could do about the FBI guys taking over so don’t bust my balls okay?”

“That’s not why I’m here. It’s about the Saunders thing.”

“You mean that guy in Carnation? The one who’s driving Agent Adams crazy with demands? He sounds a little off center if you ask me.”

“If there’s truth to what he’s saying, he has reason to be. That psycho threatened his family and someone he knew was murdered last night. I believe he can help us on this. What I need from you is authorization to use our safehouse in Redmond. He won’t speak unless he and his family are safe.”

Mike sighed, and Luz noticed the bags under his eyes and the drawn look of his face. She admired his dedication to the case, but it was killing him.

“You got it. I’ll make some calls and get back to you. About the Fredrick James situation, did you get authorization?”

“Nick is working on it as we speak,” she lied.

“Good. So far the FBI hasn’t tied him in. Keep pushing, okay?”

“Will do, but I need to drive out to Carnation and I need a squad car.”

“Why? Your Eclipse could get there a lot faster.”

“I know, but I jogged in and my Eclipse is at home.”

Mike appeared incredulous. “You what? There’s a killer wandering the streets of Seattle, looking for either his next victim or for you, and you decide to take a nice jog to work?”

Luz realized his reaction stemmed from his concern for her, so she let it go instead of pressing the matter. “Let him or her come after me. I’m ready for this to end.”

Mike sighed again. “It’s not up to you to play bait, Dirty Harriet. Be more careful. That’s an order. I’ll call downstairs to get the list of open cars available.” He picked up the phone and talked to someone in the garage. When he hung up he looked at her and shook his head. “They’ve got one gassed up for you. Be careful, Santos.”

She smiled and opened the door to leave. “I’ll call you soon, but until then, Mike, get some rest. You look like shit.”

He grunted and gave her the finger.

~

She pulled into the Saunders’s driveway a half-hour later and found two FBI agents waiting for her on the porch. She would’ve gotten there sooner but had to drop Cheech back off at her brother’s place, much to the delight of the children. That dog was so spoiled.

“It’s about time,” one of them said. Luz ignored the comment and went inside. Cliff sat in the kitchen with the local sheriff and Agent Adams. He looked up when she entered the room. He stood and walked over to her. There was prominent relief in his eyes.

“Detective, thank you for coming. Is everything in order?” Cliff asked her.

“Yes, but I need a word with Agent Adams before we leave.”

“I don’t want anyone to know where we are going. Please… it’s important.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t say a word. I have other things to discuss with him.”

Cliff nodded and joined his obviously shaken family in the living room. Luz turned back to Blue and smirked.

“Needed my help after all, didn’t you? I told you, this is my case, and it will stay that way. I don’t care what you or your superiors think of that. I’m moving this man and his family to a safehouse, and when I get a name, I’ll contact you. Then you will work with me. Not the other way around. We want this bastard as much as you do, understand?”

He looked at her for a moment, then flashed a cold smile. “Whatever is in the best interest of the case,” he said.

His voice was strained but Luz was happy he complied. She nodded and went into the living room. Cliff’s daughter cried uncontrollably, and he and his wife were trying to get her to calm down.

“Is everything all right?” Luz asked, feeling out of place.

Mrs. Saunders looked up at her. “No, everything is not all right. We’re being forced out of our home because you guys can’t catch this maniac.”

“Lizzie, calm down, you’ll just frighten Lisa even more,” Cliff scolded, then led them to the front porch.

“Wait. I’ll drive the cruiser into the garage—that way you aren’t so exposed,” Luz said hurrying down the steps. After packing them into the car they hit the road. The ride was silent except for the few whimpers from the small girl, but Luz was anxious to get them to a safe place, so Cliff would give her the information she needed. She kept checking her rear-view mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed.

They pulled into a residential area about three o’clock and Luz had to check the address to make sure she had the right street. After several turns they came upon a salmon-colored house with white trim. Luz pulled up and opened the door, beckoning them to follow. They reached the door and she unlocked it.

“Mommy, this house is perfect for a princess,” Lisa said. “It’s even pink, like my room.”

Elizabeth smiled weakly at her daughter and inspected the interior of the house. “How long do we have to stay here?” she asked, observing the décor and lack of furniture.

“Hopefully not too long,” Luz said, smiling at Cliff, hoping he would take a hint that she needed his information on the killer.

“Where are the bedrooms?” he asked, and Luz told him. “Good. Now you guys unpack while I thank Detective Santos for keeping us safe,” Cliff said. Luz followed him into the kitchen and he held a disk labeled Elaine.

“Everything you need is on this disk. The name, how we got the name, and all the information from the emails I received from Elaine’s knife website.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Saunders, can’t you just tell me?”

He looked around the room as if he were searching for surveillance equipment of some kind. “Just look at the disk. I don’t want to risk anything.”

“This place is not bugged Cliff,” she stated, running out of patience. But he wasn’t going to be convinced.

“Just please, look at the disk,” he urged again.

Luz sighed heavily and nodded. “Fine. This is the only copy, right?”

“Yes, and I’ve carried it with me since I made it. No one else has had access to it and I smashed up my hard drive, so I wouldn’t be responsible for any info leaking out.”

“Good man. Okay, I’ll view the disk and be in touch. You and your family can get some rest. The fridge is stocked and the cupboards as well. I’ll call you if I have questions.”

“Thank you for all your help.”

“One more thing—your friend, the one who found his girlfriend dead. Didn’t he want protection? He’s still in danger.”

Cliff swallowed hard and tears filled his eyes. “The agent at the house didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” she asked.

“After Marty found the body, the killer found him.”

~

After leaving the house Luz called Agent Adams for an update on the murders. So far, they had cleaned up the scene and found no new evidence. They would continue working the case. Frustrated, she hung up and headed back to the office.

As she drove, she thought about Nick and why he hadn’t come back to her place the night before. The last time they talked she’d been a little cold but that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her job and she hoped he understood that. It had been admirable of him to go comfort the family of the man who stole from him and his dead wife. But Luz couldn’t help missing him when he wasn’t with her. She was better off, she reasoned, she had a case to solve. Even so, she pulled her phone out and dialed her home number to see if he was there.

Instead of ringing, there was a strange buzz on the other end, and a recorded voice told her the line was temporarily out of order. She dialed again, waited, and got the same response. Puzzled, she decided to check home before returning to the office. It was only three thirty; it wasn’t likely Mike was expecting her back so soon.

She drove through Redmond and hopped on State Route 520 back to Seattle. She took the familiar route home and was about a block from the marina when she smelled the smoke.

She rounded the corner and saw the devastation of her home. She screamed and pressed on the gas, driving up to the docks with the cruiser lights on. She hopped out and started rushing down the dock, but was held back by a steady arm.

“Luz! Thank god you’re alive!”

She tore her eyes from the wreckage at the sound of Ben’s voice. “Ben, what happened? My boat, it’s gone.” Shock rippled through her, quickly followed by fury.

Ben was astonished. “Who cares about the boat? For the last twenty minutes I thought you were in that boat. Litebrite, I thought you were dead.”

Luz looked at him, noticing the tears on his face and her expression softened at the concern she heard in his voice. “Oh, Ben,” she said and hugged him tightly. “That was my home,” she said sadly. Then a thought occurred, and her stomach sank. “Shit, Ben. What about Nick?”

Ben released her and looked toward the end of the dock where her houseboat was burning itself out. He ran down to the team of firemen who fought to control the blaze and talked with them. Then he ran back looking optimistic.

“They have a team of divers on the way. They were supposed to be looking for your body, but I told them about Nick. Once they get the fire out, the divers will go in.”

Luz exhaled. “Tell them to hurry. Call me as soon as you know.”

Ben seemed shocked. “Where are you going?”

“I have to talk to Mike. Call me, okay?” she said and hopped back into the cruiser and took off. What she had to say to Mike could wait but there was no way she could handle it if they pulled Nick’s body from the bay right in front of her. She tasted bile in the back of her throat when she thought of Nick, dead. She drove the rest of the way to work trying to think of anything else.

May 28th, 2002 6:00 a.m.

Anthony Yates watched the morning news and nearly choked on his toast when Emily Watkins of Channel Four reported that two more people had been murdered in connection with the Seattle Slasher case. He listened intently for any leads the police had, then checked the other channels for any clues about the investigation.

Yates was tired of Seattle. It rained all the time and the problems of the city only grew worse every year. He hoped that one day he would be governor or better yet, perhaps work with the president. He prided himself on his expertise and political standings, but this case could make or break him. As mayor, he strove to make Seattle the ideal place to live by ridding it of traffic issues, social problems and financial debt. Along the way his accomplishments had been added to his already long list of achievements but catching a serial killer would push him up considerably.

He finished his breakfast and went upstairs. His wife was sleeping soundly in bed, her lovely blond hair fanned out across her pillow. She was still as beautiful as the day they’d met, and he wondered why that wasn’t enough anymore.

She was so hard on him sometimes and he couldn’t figure out why. She was usually such a warm, giving person. She alone had led the city in a petition to make the schools a safer place for kids and provided them with better means to become educated. The response had been overwhelming. The city council had agreed to the new security measures, computers and books the schools received. She had always had a drive for obtaining justice that he found a little annoying at times, but that was because in his line of work, morals were the last thing considered.

When he met her, they had fallen in love quickly and she supported his every decision. While his popularity grew, he lavished her with attention and expensive gifts. At first, she refused them, telling him she didn’t deserve material things as a token of affection, but as time went on, she accepted them freely, and after more time, almost greedily. She had blossomed into a woman of stature, surrounding herself with precious things. At first, he was happy that she had become so comfortable with sharing his wealth, but as he watched her collection grow he noticed an almost obsessive quality to her collecting. She went from being grateful and modest to flaunting herself and her possessions. But she always seemed to stay somewhat grounded. If it wasn’t for her involvement with projects in the community he would have thought her snobbish. He was sure she gave that impression to more than one person, but if they got to know her they would see what a giving, wonderful person she was.

He watched her sleep for a while; caught up in the beauty of her serene expression, then he approached her and kissed her face; something he hadn’t done in a long time, at least without the public watching. She shifted her position at his touch and he pulled away quickly, smelling her strong scent. He gave her one last look to make sure she was still asleep then went to his study to make a phone call. He sat in his leather chair and picked up his private line to dial. The call was answered immediately.

“Tony is that you?” came a sultry voice on the other end.

“Yes, Madeline. I won’t be able to see you tonight,” he said. Madeline was the curator of the Seattle Art Museum and they had met one night eight years ago at a Japanese Exhibition she had put together. He was deeply impressed at the detail and beauty of the project but even more impressed by the intelligence and attractiveness of the woman. After many subtle hints on his part and obvious flirting on her part, they decided to indulge the physical desires they shared, and the affair was still in full throng. But they were careful; both had reputations they couldn’t afford to tarnish. The sex was good but not good enough to lose face over.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and he could picture her pouting on the other end. He loved the way her lower lip stuck out when she pouted, full and round and ready to nibble on. He shook the thought away and answered her question.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to spend a little more time with my wife right now.”

“That old hag? Whatever for? I thought you said you couldn’t stand being near the woman,” she said, and he cringed at the loathing in her voice.

“But I can’t give the public that impression. You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, it’s all part of being the mayor, is it not? But I still get you this weekend, right? I’m bringing the red teddy…” she said, her voice dipping seductively.

Yates felt a tightening in his pants and he chuckled lowly. “You know me so well; yes, I’ll see you this weekend. I have some conferences during the days but I’m all yours come nighttime.”

“Good. Remember to wash up thoroughly; you know how I hate dirty smelling things.” Madeline was compulsive about her cleanliness, but her body made up for her annoying little indulgence, and it he could easily overlook it once her clothes came off.

“You know I will. I always do. You wouldn’t let me in otherwise,” he whispered into the phone and smiled. “See you then.” He hung up grinning, then remembered his wife in the other room and his face heated with shame. He was playing with fire having an affair; it could ruin him worse than any political scandal, yet he couldn’t stay away from Madeline. She had him in a trance. Just thinking about her full-rounded and ample breasts, he felt his pants stiffen once more and tried to clear his mind.

Spending more time with his wife didn’t come from the public’s pressure—it stemmed from guilt. Annabel didn’t deserve what he was doing behind her back. She had come a long way with him and they supported each other in every way but one. But just because Annabel had lost her sexual passion didn’t justify his affair.

His office phone rang, and he was torn from his thoughts. “Yates,” he answered.

“Hey, Tony, it’s Mike Andrews. I’m guessing you saw the news already.”

“I have and I’m disappointed, Mike. I thought your people would have ended this much sooner.”

“I thought so too. I just called to tell you that, because the FBI is working on this case, the media is hungry for an update. So I was thinking we could put together a press conference later today. I’ve called in my people for a meeting around seven, can you make it?”

“I’ll be there. My staff is up and working by now. See you soon.” He hung up and called his driver to circle around the front. Forgetting his personal shortcomings, he left the house.

May 28th, 2002 6:52 a.m.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Sonny shouted.

Luz saw people looking in their direction. “Hey, Einstein, can you pipe down? I don’t want everyone to know what we’re looking at,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. She felt much better after Ben had called and told her they’d come up empty on bodies in the lake. Hearing that, she was able to concentrate more on the case. But she wondered where Nick was, and why he hadn’t called.

Before looking at the disk, she wanted witnesses to verify that she hadn’t tampered with it. After calling Sonny and agreeing to meet at his desk along with another detective from computer forensics, they began to piece together the information on the disk, but they weren’t happy with the result.

“This is going to make things a lot harder, you know this right?” Sonny asked, his brow furrowing.

“No shit,” the other detective added.

“We have to go to Mike with this. This is huge.”

“He called a meeting upstairs that starts in about five minutes. Let’s go,” Sonny said, grabbing the disk from the computer. Luz agreed to meet them upstairs after she ran to her office. She checked her voicemail for any messages from Nick but found none. An uneasy feeling knotted her stomach, but she had to deal with one thing at a time. She left her office and headed upstairs. She saw Eddie and Rosa in the hall; Rosa looked angry, as usual, and her skin was an odd shade of pink.

“What happened to you?” Luz asked as she passed them.

Rosa shot her an icy stare. “Why are you always so nosy, Santos?” She sneered and scratched her arms, leaving angry red marks on her already pink skin.

Eddie looked at Luz apologetically. “We were at my cabin last night and decided to take a late walk. So we took a path headed toward the lake and on the way back up to the cabin Rosa starts itching, a lot. At first, we thought it was a bug bite but her skin turned red, which was not consistent with a bite. I walked the path again to find the source. Sure enough, there were about six poison ivy plants spread out along the side she’d walked. I ran up to tell her and to try to find some aloe or calamine lotion but —”

“But the idiot didn’t have any and the next store was ten miles away. Idiot.” Rosa spat, looking at Eddie.

Eddie blushed and looked sheepishly at Luz, but Luz didn’t bother to control her laughter. “Tough break, Rosa,” she said but kept smiling. She couldn’t help but absolutely revel in Rosa’s physical misery. At least she could associate the action of arm scratching with something that brought her joy instead of sorrow.

“Fuck off, Santa.” Rosa pushed past Eddie and stormed back to her desk, scratching furiously the whole way. Once she was out of earshot Eddie joined Luz and laughed a little.

“I really do feel bad, but you should have seen her itching and bitching, it was hilarious. But I think I lost my date to the policeman’s ball.”

Luz chuckled and checked her watch. “I gotta go, man, meeting upstairs.”

“Okay, I’ll see you around. I’ve got vacation hours left and I need a nap.”

“See you around then,” she said stepping into the elevator.

Eddie waved and then stopped the doors from closing. “Luz, I heard about your boat. I’m sorry.”

She’d been trying not to think of the incident and his words made her heart sink. “Yeah, tough break for me,” she said.

“I’m not trying to get into your pants but, if you need a place to stay…”

“I’ll be fine, but thanks.”

He let go of the doors and before they shut he yelled to her; “At least you don’t have poison ivy!” She laughed the whole ride up.

~

Luz opened the door to the Storm Room and took her regular seat to the right of Mike. She leaned over to speak to him, but the mayor interrupted her.

“Detective Santos, I’m glad you’re here. We could use your perspective on the status of this case.”

Luz jumped in her seat and saw Sonny stare at her from across the table, a pained expression on his face. She gathered her wits; forced a smile.

“Yes, well so far we’ve followed every lead and we’re making progress. We have evidence in our possession that will wrap this case up in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

Stunned whispers erupted around the room and the mayor looked shocked.

“You mean, you’ve found the killer? You know who it is?” he asked.

His genuine interest and blunt statement threw Luz for a loop. She glanced back at Sonny and could tell he was thinking the same thing.

“We don’t know yet but it’s working itself out. It’s only a matter of time before we see the big picture.”

The mayor slapped Mike on the back. “That’s what I wanted to hear! I will tell the public that the case is nearly closed.”

“I wouldn’t advise that, sir,” Luz added quickly.

“Why not?” he asked.

“We don’t want the killer to hear. He might make a run for it. Or worse yet, kill again. Just let them know that we’re utilizing all resources in order to solve the case and that you’re positive that you will see results soon.”

He looked at her with what she could only guess was a twinge of pride. “Detective, you should have worked my campaign; you have a way with words.” He chuckled and turned to his advisor. “Did you write that down, Gregory?” he asked grinning.

Luz smiled weakly and looked around the room. Everyone appeared confused at this turn of events; Agent Adams looked irritated. It wasn’t a good look for him.

They wrapped things up and the group split and went separate ways. Agent Adams, Mike and Sonny surrounded Luz.

“You wanna explain that little episode, Santos?” Mike asked.

Luz opened her mouth but once again the mayor interrupted her.

“Mike, I have some last-minute things to ask you about,” he said, demanding the captain’s attention. “In private,” he added.

“Sure, let’s go down to my office,” Mike said. Luz got up to leave also.

“Detective Santos, I want a word with you,” Agent Adams called from across the room.

Luz winced at the tone of his voice. She didn’t want to discuss her findings with anyone until she’d had a chance to speak with Mike. “I’m really busy right now, Blue. Maybe later,” she said absently. He walked up to her and leaned in close.

“If you have information pertinent to this case and refuse disclosing that information to me, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble,” he said.

Luz just looked up at him. “Now why in the world would I do that?” she asked, smiling at him.

He shook his head. “Suit yourself, detective.” He walked out of the room.

Sonny gave her a sympathetic glance. “Oh, Santos, you’re in for it now. The FBI will have your balls in a vice if they find out you’re hiding something from them.”

She smiled, grabbing her crotch. “Then I guess I have nothing to worry about.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I strive for love from those around

But emptiness is all I’ve found

Within this void I grow alone

I’ll show the world all I’ve known.

May 28th, 2002 9:15 a.m.

“He’s still in there?” Luz asked Rosa, who stood guard outside of Mike’s office.

“Yes. He’s with the mayor, Santos,” she stated then began typing only to stop to scratch at her arms again.

Luz smiled. “I know, which means he’s probably in there blowing hot air around the room. Can you call me when they’re through?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Rosa said. She grabbed a bottle of calamine lotion and squirted a quarter-sized glob onto her hand. Before rubbing it in she looked up at a smiling Luz. “You think this is funny, Santos?” she asked. “I hate the smell of this crap and now I have to work all day with it and I’m uncomfortable to top it off, so get off my case, will you?”

“Sure. Sorry, Rosa,” Luz said, heading for her office but when she heard Mike’s door open she turned around.

“Okay, Tony. Thanks for coming by,” Mike said shaking the mayor’s hand.

“No problem. I’ll be out of town this weekend, so—” the man stopped as though he’d hit a brick wall. His nose scrunched up. “What is that? Is that calamine lotion?” Yates said sniffing the air. “What a god-awful smell. Who is that?” he demanded.

Rosa quickly closed the bottle and put it in her drawer, but her pink skin gave her away. Yates pointed at her.

“You there. Is that you?”

Rosa’s cheeks reddened slightly. “Yes, I got poison ivy this—”

“Never mind that,” Yates interrupted. “My wife has diabetes and sometimes it causes her skin to dry out and itch, but no matter how many times I ask her to use aloe she insists on calamine. I have a… friend who uses calamine for her skin as well; she has some sort of blood disorder that also dries her skin out. With all the lotions and creams they have out nowadays you’d think there would be a better treatment but everywhere I look—there’s calamine,” he ended gruffly. A tense silence followed.

“Well, Tony, thanks again for stopping by,” Mike said breaking the strain.

The mayor’s attention turned back to business. “Sure. If you need to reach me call my cell. I want to be the first to know when this case breaks.”

“Will do,” Mike replied. After mayor was out of hearing range, everyone turned to Rosa.

“What was that about?” Mike asked.

“The man obviously hates the smell of calamine,” Rosa replied, watching the mayor retreat toward the elevators.

“With a passion,” Luz added.

Mike placed a hand on Luz’s shoulder. “We need to talk. In my office.”

Once inside Mike’s office, Luz could barely contain herself. “I think we’ve got something,” she said.

“After that little scene upstairs, I figured as much. Fill me in,” Mike said, arms crossed.

Luz took a deep breath and spoke. “Anthony Yates.”

“What?”

“That was the name on the disk Cliff Saunders gave me.”

“What? The guy who tracked the email from the Murphy murder?”

“Yes. He tracked it on his own; actually, he had a friend help him. I had Sonny look into the friend and he used to be a professional hacker, kind of a legend in that realm, so he knew what he was doing. I did a background check on him and as far as I could tell, the man has no connections to Yates, therefore no reason to sabotage the search to point it toward the mayor.”

“That can’t be right, Luz. We’ve checked Yates. He’s clean.”

“I don’t think you wanted to investigate hard enough and I understand why. The man’s your boss, but I think he deserves a second look.”

“Luz…” he said holding his head in his hands. “This is the last thing I need right now.”

“Dammit, Mike, if he is the killer—or if he’s connected to the killer—we have to know about it.”

“So wait… you’re telling me that this is what you meant when you told the mayor you had a lead? Shit, Santos.” He slammed his hands down on the desk.

“Why are you fighting me on this? This is the first piece of hard evidence we’ve had, and you’re refusing to acknowledge it.”

“No, I’m refusing to acknowledge what it could mean.” He sighed heavily. “Fine. What do you want me to do about this?”

“Nothing obvious to start with; just keep an eye on him. Day and night.”

“Do you know how hard that will be? He’s got a small army watching him already.”

“I know you can do it, Mike. We’ve got the resources,” she said.

“Fine. Anything else?”

“Yes. I’ll need a record of where he was every minute for the past ten days.”

“You want miracles, Santos,” Mike said, rolling his eyes.

“No, Mike. I just want answers,” she responded, staring at him.

“Fine. I’ll get people on it right away. Where are you going?”

“First of all, I need a place to stay,”

“Any idea on who might have done it?” Mike asked, referring to her now-burnt down boat house.

“No. But whoever it was thought I was home. My car was there. It has to be the same person who defaced my car. I must be getting close for the killer to try to burn me to death. I’m just glad I took Cheech with me before I left and I’m glad Nick wasn’t there. I still need to find him.”

Mike gave her a questioning look.

“Don’t even think about it, Mike. He’s got nothing to do with this case anymore. I haven’t heard from him since yesterday and I’m starting to worry.”

“Worry about what?” he asked.

“Well, he was at the James’s residence all day then he just up and left.”

“Speaking of that, has Candace consented to release the files to us?”

“No. That’s another thing I need to do today. I’ve already called in a warrant so if she refuses, I’ll have to take them by force. Hopefully that’s a last resort.”

“Good. Tell me what you find. You might want to take Sonny along—those computer files will have locks on them, but he can bypass them. We searched Fredrick’s office downtown earlier and came up empty. All we know is that he wasn’t well liked, and nobody there seems to miss him. Not even the mayor seemed distressed, but he’ll change his tune once the press asks him about it. Fredrick James didn’t leave much behind.”

“For our sake, I hope he did. I’ll call you later with what we find. Until then, I want you to promise me you’ll take this mayor thing seriously.”

“I told you I would,” Mike said with a scowl. “Just worry about your part.”

Luz left the office, but she could smell the smoke from his cigarette before she closed the door.

May 28th, 2002 11:15 a.m.

Nick woke up to pure darkness. His first reaction was to feel around for his surroundings but when he tried to move he found his arms and legs were tightly bound with a rope. He took a deep breath to fight down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, but his heart was beating too fast.

Where am I? What am I doing here? How did I get here? Who brought me here? He tried to remember where he was before blacking out, but his memory was hazy. He concluded that haziness was due to a sore spot he felt on the top of his head, where someone must have struck him—hard. He rolled off his side onto his back and took another breath, trying to find a more comfortable position. It was then he felt the material covering his eyes; he was blindfolded.

The last thing he remembered was walking downtown, on his way back to the marina to find Luz when… when someone hit him? He couldn’t remember what happened next. All he knew was that he was in a dark place. Alone.

He thought back to what happened before he left the James’s house. After Candace curled up on the couch with her daughter, Nick went back up to Fredrick’s office to finish the research he’d started. Up to that point he’d found nothing more than a few statements from the bank showing large deposits from an unknown account and illegal withdrawals from the trust fund set up in Leah’s name. So he kept looking. But once he found what he was looking for, he was sorry he’d found it.

Someone was paying Fredrick James an immense amount of money in exchange for his cooperation. He didn’t know why, but the funds were coming from an account in Oregon. The name on the account was A. Yates. After learning this, Nick had gone straight to Yates’s house to confront him but thought better of it when he pulled up to the house and noticed the security measures Yates had in place. Instead, he turned around with the intention of getting help from the police.

The only thing that bothered him was the fact that the money started coming to Fredrick a week after Leah was killed. Different questions came to mind when he found this out; did someone pay Fredrick to kill Leah? Why? Is that how he accumulated his wealth? The timing was too coincidental, but the only one who knew for sure had shot himself two nights before. So that left the person who had paid him to do the deed.

Nick tried to convince himself that Fredrick wasn’t capable of killing, but the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Nick remembered seeing a note under the pillow on Candace’s bed. Was that a letter from Fred? A suicide note? Of course Fred would have left some sort of confession in the letter. He’d have to check that. He pulled at the rope that bound his hands behind his back and huffed through the gag.

He might never get the chance.

May 28th, 2002 12:52 a.m.

Candace James stared out the window towards the lake; her eyes swollen from crying. Just when she thought she had dried up, the tears came harder and faster. In her hand she held the answer to her husband’s suicide. The letter he left for her dangled from her shaking hand. She discovered it when she woke from her nap and found herself cradling Fredrick’s pillow, the sharp point of the paper poking her hand. She’d immediately shoved it back under the pillow, not wanting to read it, not wanting to know the last words her husband wrote for her.

The decision to read the letter came from the overwhelming need to justify her husband’s actions over the last seven years leading up to his death. Even though she had proof of his wrongdoing right in front of her, in his own handwriting, it was too difficult for her to believe he was capable of such malice and scandal.

But it wouldn’t be difficult for the media to believe, and they would not only believe it—they would make sure everyone else did, too. She wouldn’t let that happen, she couldn’t; it was bad enough Fredrick had killed himself. She would not have his name, or hers, publicly slandered.

She sighed, all she wanted was to mourn in peace and move on with her life the best she could. Handing the letter over to the police could only mean trouble for her and her daughter. Poor Chloe. If the letter went public she’d deal with nothing but ridicule at the university and in her fragile emotional state, Candace doubted she could handle it. She looked down at the tear-streaked paper in her hand. She stared long and hard before she made her decision, but before she could find a match to burn the letter with, Chloe entered her room.

Chloe found her mother in the den staring out the window. “Mother there you are,” she said, crossing the room to embrace her only parent. She saw her mother tense up and shove something behind the couch. “What was that?” she asked.

Her mother’s brow furrowed then quickly smoothed out as a smile came to her face. “Just some tissues, honey, I’ve been leaving them everywhere.”

“But why hide them?”

“I wasn’t hiding them from you; it’s just that I want to be strong for you. I can’t be crying every time you see me. It will only upset you more.”

With the reminder of her father’s death, Chloe forgot her suspicion and hugged her mother close. “I miss Daddy,” she said in a little girl’s voice and Candace’s chest tightened. She reached down and caressed her daughter’s face. “I do, too,” she said, promising herself she would destroy the letter on the floor behind the couch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

May 28th, 2002 1:30 p.m.

A door opened, and Nick’s body stiffened with fear. He held his breath and listened for movement. He heard footsteps as someone crossed the room and stopped in front of where he lay. Then, with a crushing blow, his captor kicked him in the ribs. His muffled scream caught in the gag and he twisted against his bonds.

“Good, just making sure you were awake,” a cold, feminine voice announced.

Nick stayed still. The woman clicked her tongue. “Tsk, tsk, Nicholas Mason. You have caused me so much trouble. I thought I would kill you the moment I found you. But after thinking about it; maybe you can play a bigger part in my scheme.”

Nick moved his head and struggled to see through the crack of his blindfold, but the woman kicked him again, this time in the head. Pain exploded, and lights flashed behind his eyelids. His body spasmed wildly. The woman’s laughter echoed through the room.

“See what happens when you try to resist? Do it again and I won’t stop kicking until I see a crack in your skull,” she warned him.

Nick moaned, and she bent down so close he could smell the coffee on her breath. There was another scent as well—is that calamine?

“Are you trying to say something?” she asked, removing the gag. “Here’s your chance.

Nick tried to gather the scattered thoughts in his mind but all that came out was one word. “Why…”

“Why, you ask? Well it’s a long story. But I’ll indulge your request with a shorter version. Your slut wife was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was disposed of. Since then, I’ve learned how to kill for the right reasons. Then you got in the way. I will deal with you when the time comes.”

She replaced the gag and Nick heard her walk across the room and pick something up. The footsteps grew closer again and he winced, expecting more torture. But no blows came. Instead, his head was pulled up from behind and a cold steel blade rested against his throat. Death spoke in his ear.

“How does it feel, Nick?” she asked, breathing hard. “How does it feel knowing you’ll soon join your beloved in the afterlife?”

Nick didn’t flinch. The point of the knife was so close to his throat, one wrong move and she’d slice through. The woman laughed and removed the knife, landing one more kick before walking away. “I’ve got plans for you, Nick.” The door opened and closed, and the lock slid into place.

His body went limp with relief and he lay on the floor gasping for breath. Anger replaced the fear that gripped him moments before. Who was this woman and what right did she have to say those things about Leah? Better yet, why did she hold him responsible for her rage?

May 28th, 2002 2:30 p.m.

The woman left the room shaking. She wanted to take the knife and end Nicholas Mason’s life. Holding herself back was a challenge she hadn’t expected to face. She’d always been able to kill whom she wanted when she wanted; exercising self-control with a victim had never been an issue.

Soon, she told herself, soon this will all be over. Not only would she kill Mason, but she would kill Luz Santos. A slow smile spread over her face and quickly disappeared when the urge to scratch interrupted her thoughts.

She quickly walked to the bathroom and almost screamed from frustration when her calamine lotion wasn’t where it was supposed to be. She composed herself, checked her purse and found it at the bottom.

Relieved, she lathered her body with the lotion and redressed carefully to avoid pink smudges on her clothes. She still felt the itching, but it wasn’t so intense. She got into her car, and as she drove, she decided that the best way to stop the itching was to give into the need.

4:00 p.m.

Luz pulled into the James’s empty driveway and got out. But before she got to the front door, another car pulled into the driveway. Candace and Chloe got out and walked to where she stood.

“Detective Santos, is there something I can help you with?” Mrs. James asked. Luz thought she looked nervous but shrugged it off; the woman’s husband had just died.

“I tried calling earlier and couldn’t reach you,” she said.

“We’ve been making funeral arrangements for Fredrick,” Candace replied, blinking back tears.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Luz said, looking at Chloe, who was also crying. “I need to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

Candace looked hesitant “Detective, we’re in mourning. Can’t you and everyone else leave us alone?” she snipped, turning on her heel toward the front door.

“Mrs. James, I understand you’ve been through quite an ordeal but—”

“You understand? How would you understand? Did your husband kill himself two nights ago?” she screamed, her face turning redder by the minute.

“Mother, stop,” Chloe screamed and ran into the house.

Candance pointed at Luz. “Do you see what you’ve done?” she asked, still pointing. Her hands shook.

“I haven’t done anything, Mrs. James. But I am going to have to do something soon if I can’t get your cooperation.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Candace asked.

“It means that if we aren’t allowed access to your husband’s accounts, I can get a warrant down here in five minutes. But I’m trying to be sensitive to your situation.”

Candace looked at her and said, “Then I’ll see you in five minutes.” She marched into the house and slammed the door.

Luz looked at her watch. “Aw, shit.”

~

Candace James walked quickly to the den knowing she had only five minutes to destroy the letter. She looked behind the couch but didn’t find it there. Panicked, she moved the couch to look underneath and came up empty again. What the hell? she thought as she dropped to her hands and knees, frantically searching beneath the furniture.

“Looking for this?” Chloe asked from the doorway. Candace was so startled, she banged her head on an end table. She looked up at her daughter and gasped.

“Where did you find that?” she asked.

“You know where I found it, Mother, but I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you destroy this letter,” Chloe said.

“You give me that letter right now, you hear me?” Candace started toward her daughter, but Chloe backed out of the room and ran upstairs.

“No!” Chloe screamed down the staircase. “I will not have both of my parents corrupt! It’s bad enough my father was a felon. I won’t have my mother break the law as well!”

There was a knock at the front door, but Candace ignored it. “Chloe, don’t you understand? If the police get that letter, the media will too; and whether I committed a crime won’t matter to them. They’ll paint our whole family as crooks. Everyone will see us that way,” she yelled up to the top of the staircase where he daughter stood, crying.

Chloe looked down at her mother and waved the letter around. “But at least I would know the truth; at least I would know that my mother did the right thing! And destroying this letter is not the right thing, Mom. It’s too late for me to learn any more from Dad but it’s not too late for you.” Voice cracking, Chloe burst into tears again.

Candace looked up at her daughter and smiled sadly. The knock at the front door grew more insistent but she ignored it as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “I-I don’t know what’s right anymore, Chloe. I wish this would all go away,” she said.

Chloe walked down the stairs past Candace to the front door. Before she opened it, she gave her mom one last look. Candace had never been prouder of her daughter and knew that whatever wrongs Fredrick had done, none of it affected his daughter’s will. She smiled and nodded at Chloe.

Luz impatiently waited for the warrant to arrive and when Eddie pulled up and delivered it to her, she went right to the door and knocked hard. She waited a minute before knocking again and when she received no response the second time, she turned to Eddie.

“It’s solid Oak but the lock doesn’t seem too strong. You think you could take it?” she asked him. Before he had a chance to reply, the door slowly opened, and Chloe stood behind it, looking distraught and holding out a piece of paper.

“This is the letter my father left when he… died. My mother and I… we’re trusting you to be responsible with the information it contains,” she said.

“Where is your mother?” Luz asked, a little annoyed

“She’s inside but if this is all you came for, I’d rather you left us alone for a while.”

Luz took the letter and skimmed it briefly. Fredrick James had not been a good person at all. So many lies, so much coverup and for what? Greed could really twist people up and Fredrick had been a casualty of his own greed and manipulation. How in the world was she going to break this to Nick? As far as she could tell, it was genuine. She looked up at the young woman who, at that moment, looked much older than her years, and said, “We may need to come by later for your dad’s files, but this works for now. Thank you, Chloe.”

Chloe nodded and closed the door softly. Luz looked at Eddie and he shrugged.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m just as confused as you are. But we got the letter. Let’s go.”

5:50 p.m.

The mayor checked the time and decided to call it a day. He had just returned to his office from a stressful meeting with the governor and was tired from the verbal combat that had taken place. It was time to go home.

But he didn’t want to go home. The calamine incident at the police station had stayed in the back of his mind all day. He opened his top drawer and grabbed a ring holding two keys and unlocked the file cabinet across the room. He went through several keys and drawers before locating his hidden cell phone It was all so secretive, but he needed to keep some things to himself and the extra precautionary efforts had paid off. No one knew about Madeline. It was better that way.

He went back to his desk and notified his secretary to hold his calls for the next twenty minutes. Then he picked up the cell phone and checked it for tampering. When he’d ensured his own safety, he turned on the power and dialed a number.

“Hello?” said a woman on the other line; she sounded preoccupied.

“It’s me, can you talk?”

“Let me go to my office.” He heard her discuss work issues with others at the Museum and some shuffling sounds. Finally, he heard a door shut.

“I’m here, lover. What did you need?” she asked.

“I need you,” he replied, already aroused by her husky voice.

“Well, you’ll have me this weekend. Is that why you called?”

“Actually yes, it is…”

“Dammit, Tony, are you canceling on me again?” she asked, the sultry tone in her voice gone.

“Calm down. I’m not canceling. I’m actually calling to see if we could get together tonight.”

There was a pause on the other end that stretched a little too long. “What is it? he asked impatiently.

“What happened to spending quality time with your wife?” she asked softly.

The question irritated him. He didn’t feel he had to justify anything to this woman. “Listen, if you don’t want to see me tonight you don’t have to. I don’t go where I’m not welcome.”

“Oh, Tony, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, you sounded so insistent this morning and I wanted to be sure you wouldn’t change your mind,” she explained.

“So you will see me?” he asked.

“Of course. Oh… wait.”

“What?”

“We’re getting in some pieces from South America tonight. Midnight shipment,” she said, a note of disappointment in her words.

“We’ll be done by then. I can let you go back to work.”

“Really?” she almost sounded disappointed and he hurriedly reassured her it wasn’t his sexual performance that would cause the visit to be quick.

“Yes. This Seattle Slasher case is taking up all my time. In addition to that, I have nothing on my schedule that would take me out of town tonight, so I’ll have to sleep at home anyway.”

They talked a little more, dropping sexual innuendos throughout the conversation. Once everything was set for the evening they ended their call. The mayor went back through the routine of hiding his cell phone. He still had an erection when he left the office.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

May 28th, 2002 10:19 p.m.

For the first time in a long time, Mike Andrews was at a loss for words. For the last two hours his team of experts had worked on the James case from three different angles and every one of them led to the same conclusion—Anthony Yates was a killer.

“Do you believe me now?” Luz asked exasperated.

He turned to her and said, “Do you ever have those moments where you know that whatever you end up doing will be the wrong thing?” She nodded. “Well, this is one of those fucking moments. Christ, Santos.” He buried his head in his hands.

“So Anthony Yates definitely had something to do with the murder of Leah Mason. If not, why did he pay off Fredrick James? All the money is from an out of state account under A. Yates. Plus, we can’t account for his whereabouts for most of the TODs.”

Before Mike could reply Sonny came running into the Storm Room, waving a newspaper. “You will not believe what I just found out!” he yelled, jogging over and placing the paper in front of Luz. “Read the last article on the bottom,” he said excitedly.

She picked it up and read aloud, “The Music Man will be performed at the 5th Avenue Theatre next month—”

Sonny interrupted her. “Not that article, the one next to it. Just gimme the paper,” he said. He snatched it from her and read aloud:

“Mayor Sold a Fake. Ethan Petry of Petry’s Rare Knives and Swords based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the highest bidder on a collector’s knife from an auction hosted by the mayor this month. The knife was thought to be the original copy but before adding it to his collection, Petry had the knife appraised. It was then he learned that the piece was a fake. Petry, who had paid four thousand dollars for the knife, says that he plans to speak to the mayor personally on this matter and blah blah blah, you get the gist of it,” he concluded.

Luz looked at Mike who was searching his pockets for a lighter. “It’s no use, Mike, you can’t smoke on this floor. The sprinklers could go off.”

Mike stopped his search and took the paper from Sonny. The room was quiet as they waited for him to finish reading. Finally, he looked at Luz. “I have one question. How does Francis Aberleen fit into all of this? Before today, we thought the killer was a woman.”

“The only thing I could come up with that maybe Francis had contact with the knife after the first couple of murders. Since the knife was found on Nick, who was homeless, maybe Francis is still homeless. Maybe she walked by and dropped it on him,” Eddie suggested.

“Is that all we’ve got?” Mike asked. “We need to find a connection between that woman and the mayor before we move on this thing.”

“She could be his mistress,” Luz suggested.

Mike looked a little annoyed. “Now we are pulling at straws, dammit!” The phone on the table rang and Mike picked it up. After a few “yeahs” and “shits”, he hung up looking forlorn.

“What happened?” Eddie asked.

“We got another body.”

“Do we know where Yates is?” Luz asked. Mike gave her a stern look and picked up the phone. After speaking briefly with the mayor’s office and his home security offices, he hung up.

“Shit. The mayor’s missing.”

Everyone in the room turned and looked at Mike.

“What do you mean the mayor’s missing? Mayors just don’t disappear,” Sonny said.

“Well, this one did. He told his office he was going home, and he told his wife he was working late. According to his driver, his car’s at the office but he isn’t.”

“You know what this means, Mike…” Luz began.

“It means we got ourselves a suspect,” he said before turning to address the rest of the room. “Anyone got a fucking light?”

Earlier 6:00 p.m.

Anthony Yates basked in the afterglow of his adulterous deed; and it was because Madeline Baker was not only a generous lover—she was inventive as well. They were lying naked on her bed, still panting and enjoying the moment. Smiling, he reached over and stroked her hair.

“Woman, you’ve done it again,” he said.

“Hmm?” she said lazily, reaching over to play with the hairs on his chest.

“That was amazing, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it two times, but you proved me wrong. How do you do it?”

She smiled. “You bring out my wild side, Tony.”

They lay there a little longer and when she tried to get up he protested and pulled her close to him. She resisted and left for the bathroom. He listened to the water running and became irritated. The woman knew how to please him but her constant cleansing routine ruined the mood. He sighed. He didn’t know what else to expect from someone who suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, and so he abhorred her rituals. The water turned off and she walked out of the bathroom in a silk robe.

“Tony, get up and wash. I have to take the sheets off the bed,” she ordered quietly.

Yates reluctantly swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up. This wasn’t his first rodeo. He walked to the bathroom and turned the shower on. He avoided looking in the mirror, which he always did at Madeline’s house because he did not want to face himself; he did not want to see the guilty man staring back at him. He opened the shower door and stepped under the hot water, letting it wash away the smells of sex. As he reached for the shampoo, he heard the bathroom door open.

“Madeline is that you?” he purred. “Why don’t you hop in here with me and we’ll see if we can make the third time a charm?”

He stood under the water, his eyes closed while he rinsed the shampoo. He felt a sudden pressure as someone grabbed his face and yanked back his head.

“What the…” he began but never finished. He couldn’t finish; he had a gaping gash in his throat. His last effort was to face his attacker, but he never made it that far. Instead his body slumped to the floor of the shower. He watched as his blood swirled down the drain until death claimed him.

May 28th, 2002 6:52pm

Nick was nearly asleep when he heard the door open. He held his breath and waited for the brutal beating he was sure would come. But as time passed, the room remained silent. Then he heard her voice.

“I just killed again. It was almost too easy. I prefer more of a challenge but what’s done is done.” Her voice was sounded so detached, it scared Nick. This woman was escalating for sure. He didn’t move. The silence stretched on again and then she spoke.

“People might call me a serial killer but I’m more of a…” she paused. “Cleaning service.” She said it so matter-of-factly Nick was sure she believed it. It made his skin crawl; the woman was certifiably crazy.

“It’s like the maids who come and clean for the rich people. They’re doing a service for the people who would rather not deal with the mess but need it done. I do society a favor. The homeless are leeches on this city; filthy parasites who litter our streets and waste our resources. They are despicable, foul people who blame society for their misgivings. They don’t take opportunities to better themselves when the resources are available all around them. They just sit in their dirty clothes, drinking and smoking and digging in the garbage. But you know what the worst thing is?” she asked slowly. “Those people, after living off the upper class, after deciding to live forever on the streets, they reproduce!”

She said the last sentence with such loathing that the hairs on the back of Nick’s neck stood up straight. He didn’t agree with her assessment of the poor and homeless people of Seattle. He believed most were victims of bad circumstances, but he kept his thoughts on the topic to himself.

As if reading his mind, she spoke up. “You think my opinions are misplaced, but that’s because you were one of them. If I had seen you that night in the alley, I would have killed you. But I didn’t see you. I tripped and dropped my knife. I thought I had tripped over trash, but I realized it must have been you.” She was quiet for a moment before she continued. “But look at you, you are living proof that the homeless can rise up and be an active part of society. It’s too bad I can’t let you live to be an example to the others. You just know too much.”

Nick wouldn’t have been able to rejoin society if he hadn’t stashed money away before becoming homeless. He also may have never made the move back into society without Luz’s confidence in him. This woman, who claimed to know who he was, didn’t seem to know him very well.

“My mother was homeless, the filthy bitch. She tried to raise me on the streets before giving me away to people even worse than her. I was made to live in a shithole. The people around me were horrible. My family consisted of prostitutes, alcoholics and drug dealers who only cared for themselves. It was the worst childhood and I didn’t deserve to be put through that. No child does.”

Nick expected her to go on but instead she retreated to the door, left and put the lock in place. He let out a sigh and freed his body of tension. He wondered if he would get out of this alive. Then he remembered his killer’s promise of death and he knew he’d die at the hands of a madwoman.

7:20 p.m.

Luz was tired of looking at dead bodies and didn’t know how much more she could take. The body she searched had no identification but there was no question the man had been homeless. She studied the wound in the corpse’s neck. It wasn’t the usual slash pattern.

“The killer’s out of control,” she said.

“All killers are out of control. It’s in their nature,” Ben replied.

“Well, this killer started off in control. He, or she, killed in a relatively controlled manner—a quick cut and that was it. But this looks like the killer hacked at this guy’s throat. There are at least three separate cuts here. The killer’s mind is slipping, and we’ve got to catch them before they go over the edge.”

“You keep saying ‘they’ and ‘them’. You’ve been on this case for two weeks now and you don’t know if the killer is a man or a woman?” Ben asked, eyebrows raised.

“We’ve got it narrowed down and the signs point toward a male,” she said, examining the body once more.

“Well I’ll leave the detective work up to you, but it would have to be a pretty strong woman to take this guy down. He’s got to be at least two hundred pounds.”

“Yeah but the killer had the element of surprise —” Luz started to explain but was interrupted by her phone ringing. She answered it.

“Santos.”

“Luz, you need to get over here right away,” her boss demanded.

“What happened?”

“The mayor’s dead.”

~

She pulled up to the scene twenty minutes later. Mike met her halfway down the walk.

“The FBI has taken over the case, but I wanted you here anyway. I’ve already gotten clearance from Agent Adams for you to look over the scene after they’ve processed it.”

“Bullshit. I’m going in now,” she said and walked toward the house.

Mike sighed and let her go. Luz climbed the stairs and went into the front room where a man in a black suit stopped her.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but you can’t be in here.”

Luz flashed her badge. “Let me speak to Agent Blue Adams, pronto,” she ordered, but the man didn’t move. She tried to pass him, but he blocked her way.

“Listen, if you don’t let me in now I will—”

“Let her in, Abe, she’s here to talk to me,” a voice came from behind her.

Luz turned and saw Blue coming her way. “My, my, my! You have a way with words. So you want in?” he asked.

She shrugged. “This is my case.”

“Correction, this is my case now.” He stared down at her. “But the damage has been done and we’re pretty much done here so go ahead and take a look around. Let me fill you in, we have two bodies—”

“Two?” she interrupted.

“One is the mayor; the second belongs to a woman named Madeline Baker. She’s the curator at the Seattle Art Museum. From what we’ve found, the two were having sexual relations, but we don’t know for how long. She was killed downstairs in the laundry room and he was killed in the shower. Same knife that was used in the other killings.”

“Who found them?” Luz asked, taking down notes.

“Andrew Netti. Ms. Baker’s assistant at the museum. He was helping her with an exhibit from South America. Some pieces were flown in today and some were scheduled for a shipment later tonight. But the plane never took off and the shipment was rescheduled for tomorrow morning. When he called to let her know, she didn’t pick up. So he tried her cell phone, which he claims she always answers, and didn’t get a response. So he thought he’d drive over on his way home. He said the door was wide open when he got here and that’s when he called the police.”

“Where is this guy now?” Luz asked.

“He’s outside sitting in the black BMW across the street. We checked his background and when nothing came up, we told him to go home but he’s been there ever since.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, running outside. She spotted the car and crossed the street. The windows were darkly tinted, and she couldn’t see inside. She knocked on the glass and the window came down about three inches, revealing wide, fearful eyes.

“Mr. Netti?” she asked.

“Yes?” he replied.

“My name is Detective Santos. I work with the Seattle Police department. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“The-the FBI already asked me questions.” His red-rimmed eyes filled with fresh tears. She’d have to handle him with kid gloves.

“I understand that, but I would like to ask you a few more, is that okay?” She waited for his reply. Instead of agreeing verbally, he got out of the car. He wore a black turtleneck tucked into a pair of Dockers, and he was very, very thin. His eyes were swollen from crying and he looked frail.

“How long have you known Madeline Baker?” She pulled out her pad and pen.

“Well, about five years and four months now.”

“How well would you say you knew her?”

“It was mostly a professional relationship.”

“Mostly? Could you explain?” she prodded.

“Well, we worked together most of the time, but we would go out for dinner or drinks once in a while. I’ve been to her house maybe ten times for dinner parties and such.”

“Was there any romantic involvement?”

He laughed quickly before answering. “No, there was no romantic involvement, Ms. Santos.”

“Why is that funny?”

“It’s actually not funny, seeing how they just trucked her body off to the morgue, but let me just say that Madeline and I had the same taste in men.”

When she got the implication, she moved on. “So, was she ever involved with anyone else?”

“She dated a couple of men here and there but nothing serious. She gave off this vibe like she was already seriously involved with somebody.”

“What made you think that?” Luz asked, thinking of the mayor.

“She was always taking secret calls in her office, always leaving work, you know, taking long lunches. She’d get flowers from an admirer, and extravagant presents. She also took more vacation days than anyone else in the museum. We all kind of guessed that she was seeing somebody, but we would have never guessed that it was the mayor.”

“You keep saying ‘we’, who is ‘we’?”

“Oh, that means me and a couple of other people on staff who run in the same circles.”

“Okay. On a different subject, has there been anything odd recently at the museum? Anyone suspicious lurking around?”

“Not that I’ve seen. Well… wait. A couple days ago a woman came in asking about Madeline. She said she worked for an art magazine and wanted to do an article on the upcoming exhibit. But when I went to fetch Madeline, the woman was already gone. We just dismissed it and went back to work. I didn’t think of that until now. Should I tell the FBI?”

“I will let them know. One last thing—could you describe this woman in detail?” She wrote down the description as he told her and thanked him for his time. Then she crossed the street and entered the house, keeping her notes to herself.

The bodies had already been removed. Luz was grateful that she didn’t have to see more bodies that day. She went to the laundry room where an FBI tech was still taking apart the place piece by piece.

“Anything?” she asked.

He looked up and shook his head. “No. This woman must have been compulsive about her cleaning, cuz I can’t even find a dust bunny.”

“From what I hear she was an obsessive compulsive,” Agent Adams said from the doorway. “You probably won’t find much, but if you do, I want to be the first to know,” he said, glancing at Luz.

The tech continued working and Luz headed upstairs with Blue on her heels.

“Did Netti help at all?” he asked.

Luz stopped midway up the stairs and stared back at him. At that moment, her phone rang. She answered it but heard nothing.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“…Luz…”

It sounded like Nick. “Nick? Is that you?” She heard the something that could have been duct tape in the background, then someone came on the line.

“Missing your lover boy?”

The voice was electronically altered but she could tell it belonged to a woman. She took a moment to respond, pushing down the fear of what Nick must be going through. “Who is this?”

“This is the person you’ve been looking for. I’ve got something of yours,” she teased.

“Where is Nick?” Luz asked as her heart skipped a beat. She tried not to let fear seep into her voice.

“He’s here with me.”

“What have you done with him?”

“Let’s cut this short. If you don’t want him to end up like the mayor, you’ll back off this case.”

“I can’t do that,” Luz said gaining back some confidence. But she didn’t want to sound too arrogant; Nick’s life was on the line.

“I knew you’d say that. That’s why I have a plan. If you solve this case in twelve hours, Nick lives and you’ll be the hero of the day. But if you don’t, Nick dies, and you’ll never find me. The clock’s ticking.”

The line went dead, and Luz sat down on the stairs. Agent Adams grabbed her arm. “What the hell was that about?”

She repeated what the woman had told her and by the time she finished he already had her phone tapped and ready for another call.

We’ll have to wait for her to call again.”

“She won’t call again,” Luz said and walked out the door. Blue followed her to her car.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I have to solve this, or Nick is dead.”

“I know that, but where are you going?”

“I’m going to the museum to get a security tape of last week. I’m hoping the woman who showed up there will be on the tape.”

“What woman?” he asked, and she relayed her interview with Mr. Netti to him.

“We can help. We’ve got all the equipment you need.”

“You want to help me?” she turned to him in shock.

“I want to help, period,” he replied staring down at her.

She looked at him and smiled weakly. “Thank God, because right now, I need all the help I can get.”

8:10 p.m.

Nick struggled with his bonds, but it was no use. He gave up and tried to relax, but after hearing what his captor told Luz, it was hard to calm down. He prayed that Luz would find him in time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

9:14 p.m.

Luz, Mike, Eddie, Sonny and Agent Adams gathered in the Storm Room, watching the surveillance tape.

“There!” Luz said. “Sonny, back that up.” Sonny rewound the tape and let it play again. “Now freeze it there,” Luz ordered.

The tape froze the scene, and everyone was silent.

“I don’t see anyone who matches her description,” Mike said.

Luz pointed to the upper right part of the screen and asked Sonny to zoom in.

“See? Right there. Hold on.” She looked at Eddie. “Bring Netti in.”

Eddie left the room and was gone ten minutes before he returned with Andrew Netti. Luz asked Netti to view that tape up to the point where she’d frozen it. She asked him if the woman on the upper right part of the screen was the woman they were looking for.

“That could be her, but I can only see her legs.”

“But that’s where she would be, right? That’s where you spoke with her?

Netti looked at the screen for a few more seconds, then nodded. “Correct.”

Luz looked at Sonny and gestured for him to play the tape. They watched for a few more moments until Netti came into the screen.

“There I am. Yes. That must be her. The timing is right.”

Luz looked pleased, but Mike wasn’t impressed. “But look, we don’t have a front shot; we can only see the back of her head.”

“Annabel Yates,” Blue exclaimed.

“What?” Mike asked looking from him to Luz and back. “Somebody explain.”

“A. Yates, we thought the A stood for Anthony, but we never considered Annabel.”

“The wife?” Eddie asked, his face a mask of shock.

“Who else would kill her husband and his lover? The wife!” Luz said, not worried how visible her excitement was. Nick, I’m coming, she thought.

“One problem,” Mike said.

“What?” Luz asked.

“The mayor’s wife was in D.C. up until an hour ago.”

Almost in unison the rest of the room said, “Shit!”

10:00 p.m.

Annabel Yates could not stop the itching. She had already used a bottle of calamine lotion since she got off the plane, but nothing helped. She hopped in the shower and rinsed it off, letting the hot water temporarily relieve the discomfort. After twenty minutes she turned the water off and got out. She was rubbing on more lotion when she heard the phone ring in the other room. She took her time putting on her robe. Then she walked to the bedside table and picked up the phone.

“Mrs. Yates?”

“Yes.”

“This is Agent Blue Adams from the FBI. I’m working the Seattle Slasher case.”

“Did you want to talk to my husband? He isn’t here right now, but I believe you can reach him at his office.”

“Actually, that is what I’m calling about.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mrs. Yates, your husband was found dead an hour ago.”

Annabel squeezed the phone tightly before she fainted.

Fifteen minutes later, Luz arrived with her team in tow just in time to see the mayor’s wife come to. “Where am I?” she asked softly.

Agent Adams responded. “You are in your living room, ma’am. You fainted and went into shock after my call, so we came over to make sure you were okay.”

Annabel looked at Luz and Mike. “Michael, why are all these people here? Get them out of my house this instant.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mrs. Yates,” Mike replied. “Or do you prefer I call you Francis?”

Luz watched Annabel’s face for any flicker of recognition and when she saw one, she got out her handcuffs and started toward the woman. She grabbed both arms, cuffed them tightly and said, “Francis Annabel Aberleen, you are under arrest for the murder of Anthony Yates, Madeline Baker, and many others—possibly including Nicholas Mason.”

Annabel looked confused then lowered her head. “I didn’t kill anyone. I was in Washington D.C.”

“That’s what we thought, until we found out you took an earlier flight home. The time frame fits,” Agent Adams stated.

Mike pulled out a picture of a young woman, but there was no mistaking that the woman in the picture and the woman sitting in handcuffs were the same person.

Annabel gasped. “Where on earth did you get that?”

“Well, it seems you left a trail. But when you disappear and start a new life you have to make sure all pictures from your past life are destroyed. Now, we searched old yearbooks, family photos, police records and we couldn’t locate one picture of you. Until of course we offered a reward back in your home town. This picture was faxed to us a half hour ago from the town of Lyons, New York from a Miss Betty Ray. She used to watch you and your siblings before your mother dragged you to the city—”

Annabel shot up out of her chair. “NO! Leave me alone!” She tried to run but with her hands cuffed behind her she couldn’t quite catch her balance and Luz tackled her to the ground. After securing her legs, the police searched the house while Luz met with Mike.

“Did you get the other pictures verified?” he asked her.

“Yeah. Altek, the man at the auto storage, says that the woman who took the car from him looked a lot like the picture of Mrs. Yates.”

“Great. Good job, Santos.”

“But he didn’t sound too sure. Neither did Netti when I showed him the picture. They both agreed that the woman they spoke with closely resembled Annabel, but neither sounded like they were convinced.”

Mike waved her off. “Luz, we’ve found the killer. This woman killed her own family—”

“Captain, we found something, over here!” one of the officers called. They all followed him through the house down to the building Luz recognized as the place Anthony Yates kept his knives.

The officer stopped short of the entrance and led them around the small structure to a metal box mounted to the wall. It looked like a fuse box of some sort but there was a pink smudge around the handle.

“Open it,” Mike ordered.

The officer complied. And a knife fell to the ground. The knife.

Luz looked closely at it and verified it was the murder weapon. “Get this bagged up and sent to the lab ASAP. I want results in an hour on prints, DNA, or whatever else they can come up with,” she told Eddie, then she turned to Mike. “But where the hell is Nick?”

11:25 p.m.

“New York wants her,” Mike stated calmly.

“I don’t care. This is our case and we’re going to prosecute her here first,” Luz demanded. “She killed the fucking mayor, and I’ll need to talk to her about Nick’s location.”

Agent Adams stepped forward. “Luz, she says she doesn’t know a thing about Nick, only that she remembers him from the murder case her husband was a suspect in eight years ago.”

“Let me talk to her,” Luz said, coming out from behind the desk.

“All right. Follow me.” Blue led the way to the interrogation room and opened the door. Annabel Yates sat at the table with her attorney and didn’t look up when Luz entered the room. Luz closed the door behind her and asked the attorney to leave.

“I will not let my client’s rights—”

“Robert, please go,” Annabel said softly.

“But… you—”

“Go. Thank you,” she said.

The attorney obliged, leaving Luz and Annabel alone. Luz took a seat across the table and stared hard at the woman in front of her.

“Where’s Nick?” she asked.

“If I knew I would tell you, you nasty little woman.”

“Do you remember Leah Mason?”

“The woman my husband was accused of killing? Yes.”

“Do you remember much about her?”

“I don’t see where you are going with this,” Annabel said impatiently.

“Wasn’t the story the prosecution used that Yates was having an affair with Leah and that he killed her after she threatened to go public?”

Her lip curled in disgust. “That was one of their stories, yes.”

“Tell me about your childhood, Annabel. Or would you rather I call you Francis?”

Annabel scoffed. “Don’t call me that dreadful name. I left that person behind years ago.”

“You grew up on the streets. You were poor. Your mother was an alcoholic, your sister a prostitute and when your brother wasn’t fucking her he was pimping her on the streets. Is that right?”

“You have no right!” Annabel screamed. “No right to my life. You have no idea what I went through as a child! Living in cars, in dirty boxes and wearing dirty clothes, digging through the garbage for food. I hated my mother for putting me through that. I begged my sister and brother for help, but they were lost in their lives on the streets. I didn’t deserve it!” Breathing heavily, she sat back in her chair and looked down at her hands.

“But look at you now. You’re a killer. No matter how hard you tried to leave your past behind, it still haunts you to this day.”

Annabel looked at her squarely. “Look at me now, detective; I have more than you ever will. A beautiful house; beautiful things; a smart, successful family. I pulled myself up and remade myself into the beautiful, elegant person you met last week. I’ve got so much money now, so much prestige…” she trailed off her eyes defocusing momentarily.

Luz stayed quiet while she studied the woman in front of her. Finally, she broke the silence. “Leah Mason was a beautiful woman.”

“I’ve never met her, so I wouldn’t know,” Annabel replied stiffly.

“She was successful. Came from money, and was very, very pretty. I could see why someone like, say, your husband would find her attractive.”

Annabel bit down on her lip and stared hard at Luz. Luz continued. “If I were you and I found out my husband was sleeping with such a perfect woman, I would be pretty upset. I mean, it’s hard for a person like you to compete with a person like her.”

“You bitch!” Annabel screamed and dove across the table. She grabbed Luz’s hair and punched her in the face. Luz struggled with her and shouted for help. Eddie and Blue burst into the room and tore the crazed woman off her. They led a shrieking, out of control Annabel out of the room.

“Damn, what did you say to her?” Eddie asked

“We got it all on tape,” Blue said, holding up a mini recorder.

“Where was that?” Luz asked.

“Taped under the table.”

“Let me guess, FBI procedure?” Luz asked wryly, then turned serious. “She didn’t tell me where Nick is. I’ve got eight hours.”

“Eight hours until what?” Eddie asked.

“When she called me, the killer said the clock is ticking. If Annabel Yates is the killer, she probably has Nick strapped to something that’s on a timer.”

Eddie’s eyes opened wide. “You mean like a bomb or something?”

“Or something,” Luz said with a grimace. “We’ve got to find him.”

May 29th, 2002 12:50 a.m.

Sonny was on his ninth cup of coffee and running high. He had already traced the bank account in California back to Annabel Yates and was still sorting through most of the records when Luz walked in.

“Have you found anything?” she asked hopefully.

“I’m still on the financial records. I’ve gone through the bank records and it looks like Annabel was paying Fredrick James for some reason. I’m guessing he somehow knew she killed that Mason woman and was milking her for all she had.”

“That’s great, Sonny, but I need some clue as to where Nick might be.”

“If you want to stick around and wait, you’re welcome to.”

Luz pulled up a chair and sat.

“I’ll wait. But dammit, Einstein, please hurry.”

It was two in the morning when Sonny woke her up. She lifted her head and looked around. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“I found it,” Sonny said.

Luz sat up, instantly awake. “Found what?”

“Back in 1999, a small house on the lake, not too far from the mayor’s house, was purchased under the name Annabel Aberleen. The mortgage loan was granted by a small private bank in Seattle.”

“Call Mike and Eddie and have them meet me there.”

“You’re going alone?”

“Yes.”

2:25 a.m.

Luz drove well. She pushed her car through traffic at eighty-six miles an hour. She looked at her watch, it was two-thirty, she’d be there in minutes.

She pulled off at the next exit and followed the directions through the residential streets to a small cul-de-sac. A house matching the description Sonny gave her sat at the rear of the street. She pulled up and got out of the car with her gun drawn. Crouching low, she ran to the front door and knocked hard.

“Police! Open up now!” she yelled. She remained crouched; out of view of both front windows. After getting no response she crept around the house and looked through the windows. From what she could see the house looked normal. The furniture was draped with sheets and the lights were off. She went back to the front of the house and knocked on the door again. She might have left then if she hadn’t noticed a spot on the door frame.

She thought back to the search of the mayor’s mansion and remembered how odd it was that Annabel Yates owned about a case of calamine lotion. She had just applied some before fainting and Agent Adams had wondered at her pink-tinted arms when they’d arrived at the house. Even though the mayor mentioned his wife’s tendency to use the pink balm. Luz wondered why she needed so much.

Luz bent to sniff the rose smudge but couldn’t quite make out the scent of calamine. She pulled out her phone and dialed. Mike answered almost immediately.

“Dammit, Luz, you can’t just go running off—”

“Mike,” she cut him off. “I need Sonny to bring me a bottle of calamine lotion and a lab kit.”

“What the hell?” he said slowly.

She explained why her finding was relevant. It all added up to evidence, the more she collected the stronger their case would be when they caught this maniac and put them away. Mike said he’d be there in fifteen minutes. Luz waited until he pulled up behind her car and got out before asking him for the lotion. He walked quickly to where she stood. He instructed the crime scene guys to process the front end of the house and while they were busy, he scolded Luz for messing up a possible murder scene.

Luz took the scolding badly. “Murder scene?” she asked fearfully.

Mike ignored her and made a call on his cell phone. After hanging up, he spoke with the techs. Then he walked back to her, shaking his head. “Been inside?”

Luz looked at the house. “There’s no way in without breaking down the door. Mike, I think Nick is inside.”

Mike nodded. “I do, too, but we’ll have to wait. I’ve got some guys coming who will make sure we aren’t walking into a trap. When they give us the okay, we can search the house.”

Luz exhaled. “How long?” she asked.

“As long as it takes. But there’s no guarantee that Nick is in there. And if he is, there’s no guarantee that he’s alive.”

“I know that,” Luz snapped. With every cell in her body she wished for Nick to be alive.

~

Why is it so cold? Nick thought. He’d been shivering for what felt like forever and couldn’t make himself stop. It was summertime. It should be warm inside the building. Unless he was in shock. Or underground,

He rolled over to get a feel for the floor. The second he touched it, he recognized the texture; it was concrete. He didn’t know what he should do with his discovery. If anything, being underground lessened his chances of discovery.

He thought about his captor. She left him some time ago and hadn’t returned. He tried to think which would be worse—starving to death or having his throat cut. Either way would be painful, but the latter would be quicker. He moaned loudly, it wouldn’t matter what he thought about starving to death. The killer had been clear on her desire to kill him; she had meant it when she said she would end his life. But then where is she?

He forced himself to stop thinking about the woman who planned to kill him and thought of Luz instead.

He loved Luz; loved her more than he had wanted to admit so soon, and the fear of losing that love overcame the fear of losing his life. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes. The killer said she would take care of Luz; said she’d make her pay. It would be the second time he couldn’t save the woman he loved.

He would rather die than live through that again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

May 29th, 2002 4:58 a.m.

Luz never wanted to choke someone as badly as she wanted to choke Mike. She’d been waiting for close to two hours and still wasn’t allowed to enter the house. It was like they were taking their time to piss her off. She shook her head and groaned; she understood procedure, and how long it took, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were running out of time.

“Santos, over here!” Mike yelled from the porch. Luz rushed to meet him, but he looked unhappy.

Her first thought was that they’d found Nick and he was dead. Mike must have seen the color drain from her face.

“Calm down, Luz. We haven’t found him yet, but we did find this,” he said, holding up a plastic bag with a box inside. Luz took the bag from him and looked at the box closely.

“Did you look inside?” she asked.

Mike produced a second bag that held papers. Luz looked at them and gasped. “Mike, those are the papers to the knife that Elaine Murphy sold to the killer. Cliff told me she kept them in a box like this.”

“Good. That’s one connection. I’ll send this to the lab and we’ll know for sure in about an hour. It makes sense now; Annabel Yates would have been the only other person with access to the mayor’s knife collection. This whole thing is a mess.” He shook his head.

Luz was growing impatient. “Mike, can I go in now?” Just then, Sonny came out of the house shaking his head slowly. Luz’s heart jumped to her throat at the expression on his face.

“He’s not in there,” he told her.

“Bullshit!” she yelled. “I know he’s in there!”

Sonny stepped aside and pointed to the house. “Be my guest. We’ve cleared the house.” Luz brushed past him and ran inside with her fists clenched. The techs gave her a look, but no one tried to stop her.

An hour later, exhausted and fear-stricken, Luz sank to the floor of the kitchen, her head in her hands. She heard someone walk through the doorway but didn’t care. She felt so helpless and she knew others weren’t used to seeing this side of her. They viewed her as being emotionally in check. She realized then that Nicholas Mason meant more to her than anyone had in a long time.

Luz looked up and saw her boss.

“Leave me alone, Mike.”

“It’s not your fault, you just need to—”

“I said leave me alone,” she yelled at him. “Look at the time, Mike! I’ve failed! Nick is dead because of me!” She spun around and kicked the cabinets closest to her. The door buckled and flew open with the force of her kick. Luz and Mike stared at the opening in front of them. Instead of three large cabinets with separate doors—it was one large door made to look like a separate piece.

Luz started through the opening, but Mike held her back. “You don’t know who or what is down there. If this is a trap, you’ll be walking right into it!”

She shrugged him off and walked a couple of feet into the opening. Then she stopped when she noticed a blinking red light at the end of the short passageway. She turned and walked back out into the kitchen. Mike was shouting at Sonny to get a bomb tech down there fast and the tech guys prepared to follow her in.

“There’s a blinking light on a console at the end of the passageway. There’s a steel door at the end. I want that door opened now,” she ordered Mike.

“I’m doing the best I can, Santos. Calm down and remember who’s the boss here.”

She took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. Eddie approached her and addressed her in a soothing tone. “If he’s in there, Luz, we’ll get him out.”

Luz smiled weakly and nodded. “I know. It’s just that… I wish I knew if he was still alive. If not here, then somewhere. I don’t know if I could…” her voice cracked, and she left the sentence unfinished.

A tall blond man entered the room and Mike brought him over to Luz. “Santos, this is Cody Everett. He’s the bomb tech. Walk him to the console you told me about and we’ll see if we can get the door opened.”

Luz shook Cody’s hand and led him through the passageway to the steel door. She held a flashlight as he studied the console. Fifteen minutes went by and she couldn’t hold her curiosity any longer. “What do you think it is?” she asked.

Everett had removed the console casing and worked his way through several wires underneath. He used his sleeve to wipe his forehead and turned to her. “Just your basic trip sequence. Had we tried to dial in the code it would have triggered an explosion of some sort. Except that these wires aren’t used for an explosive device. From what I can see it looks like they connect to a pump of some sort.” He got up and Luz followed him back out of the tunnel-like space to where Mike stood waiting.

“I’m going to need the blueprints of this property,” Everett stated.

Sonny walked over. “I’m way ahead of you, I have them, but they aren’t much help if there’s a bomb.” Everett went to the counter where the blueprints were laid out.

“What’s this?” he asked pointing to the section of wall under the sink.

“Water pipes,” Sonny replied, but Luz knew where Everett was going.

“No,” she said pointing to another set of pipes on the drawing. “These are the water pipes, these are the gas pipes.”

Everett stood and looked at a tech across the room. “Eric, come over here,” he called, and the young man walked over.

“What do you suppose these pipes are for?” he asked the young man then explained that Eric had worked in home construction before joining the force. Eric leaned over the drawing, studied it intently, then stood up.

“Those aren’t pipes; it’s a ventilation system. Probably built to filter cold air into a refrigerated room of some sort.”

Luz nodded. “Of course. It’s a giant freezer. The mayor and his wife would have had small dinner parties here. This is where they must have stored the food for their guests.”

Everett looked back to the blueprint and followed the pipes to the other side of the kitchen. He walked over to where a painting of fruit hung and moved the picture aside.

There, on the wall, were the controls to the freezing unit.

“Shit!” he uttered, and Luz walked over to where he stood. “The setting is jammed to high.”

“But wouldn’t we hear the generator powering this room?” Luz asked.

“We did,” Eric said and they all turned to him. “We were down in the basement and assumed it was the furnace or something.”

They followed him to the sound and Everett nodded. “That’s it, but it doesn’t sound like it’s fully functional.” Just then the mild hum they heard grew louder.

“What happened?” Luz asked and ran upstairs to the kitchen, she raced down the small passageway and saw that the red light was now green and felt that the steel door was growing cold. Fast.

“Everett!” she yelled. “Get in here now!” He came down the tunnel. “What happened?”

He studied the wires once more and shook his head. “I didn’t see it before but there’s a small timer on this and it stopped at twelve.”

Luz looked at her watch; it had been exactly twelve hours since the killer had called her. Her blood ran cold. Nick was inside. She turned to Everett. “Get this door open now or Nick will freeze to death!” she cried frantically but Everett retreated out of the tunnel looking grim.

“The door is steel and sealed tight. The lock would take hours to break,” he explained.

“Get started, then. We don’t have hours,” Luz ordered.

“I don’t have the resources—” he started.

“The FBI will get you everything you need. Just, please hurry!” she said. They got to work.

~

Nick heard the hum get louder and didn’t know what it was. Blindfolded, he couldn’t see anything, so he was unable to guess at the source of the sound. But when the cold air filtered in and the temperature dropped, his guess was that he was in a giant freezer. That would explain the cold, he thought.

The temperature was decreasing at an alarming rate and his back was already pained from his constant shivering. This is it; this is how I’m going to die, he thought. At least with the knife he knew it would be quick, but freezing to death? He would suffer a long, long time.

Shaking uncontrollably, he closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself for the oncoming pain.

~

Luz tapped her foot on the tiles of the kitchen and looked at her watch for the hundredth time. She pictured finding Nick’s cold, lifeless body frozen in an agonizing position on the floor of the freezer and her heart filled with pain.

Cody Everett had been cutting away at the lock for an hour and a half now and he was only halfway through. She couldn’t wait another hour and a half; she had to get in. She pushed past the others in the tunnel and was about to call for Everett when they all heard a loud bang. She quickly made her way through the tunnel to where Everett stood with a big smile on his face.

“The lock gave way under pressure. It’s all yours.”

Luz wanted to kiss him. Instead, she turned to the ruined door and gave it a good kick. The lock fell through and Luz reached in and pulled the latch and opened the door. She burst into the room but didn’t see Nick. She ran through shelves of frozen meat, but the room simply ended.

“What the fuck?” she yelled. She spotted a small door on the opposite wall with a simple deadbolt on it. She took out her gun, took aim and shot the lock off the door. At the sound of the shot the others ran into the room. She took no notice of them. She swung open the door and saw Nick lying bound and gagged on the floor across the room. The new room was colder than the last and Luz could see her breath clearly.

She rushed to Nick, overjoyed at having found him. Dread replaced her joy as she turned him over and felt his skin. He was ice cold and he didn’t appear to be breathing. A thin layer of frost coated his face and his lips were blue.

Her eyes filled with tears and she let out a loud sob.

Mike, Eddie and Sonny ran over to her. “Luz, I called for an ambulance, they’ll be here any minute,” Eddie said.

But Luz ignored him. “Nick, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Oh god. Nick!”

The paramedics arrived. Eddie and Mike pulled her away so that they could take a look.

“He’s still breathing,” one of them said.

Luz clung to those three words all the way to the hospital.

10:30 a.m.

Nick woke up and saw Luz smiling down at him. “Hi,” she said, and he smiled. “Don’t try to talk; I’m just happy you woke up.”

He stared at her a while longer and closed his eyes. Luz watched him drift off and bent to kiss his lips. She whispered, “I love you.”

The Next Day

Annabel Yates would be tried for every murder in Seattle, but she refused to budge on her story. It was her resistance to cooperate that bothered Luz the most. She admitted to killing her family, claiming abuse from her mother, brother and sister. She also told them she’d known about her husband’s affair years earlier but refused to admit to killing Leah Mason. Even after Nick had woken up, his statement about the woman who tried to kill him matched everything they had. But why then, wasn’t Luz satisfied?

A knock at the door caught her attention. “Come in,” she said, and opened the door to an enormous vase of tiger lilies. Nick lowered the vase.

“Hey beautiful,” he said.

Luz stood up and came around the desk to take the flowers from him. “Hey. I thought they weren’t going to let you out until this afternoon,” she said, checking her watch.

“Well they checked me over and decided I’d be okay,” he said, taking her into his arms. “Plus, I couldn’t wait one more minute to see you.” He kissed her lightly on the lips. They stayed locked together for a while longer, the kissing getting more and more hungry. All the tension and worry that had built up the last week leaked out with every touch, and the need to be together was stronger than ever. When Luz remembered where she was, she had to break the connection.

“I think I’ll be getting off early today,” she said a bit breathless. It felt so good to feel his warm skin on her own. She was still processing the horror of the last few days but the feeling of his ice-cold skin when she’d found him was one memory she was hoping to forget.

He smiled and took a seat. “So what are you working on?”

“The case, what else? But there are a lot of things we overlooked.” She related all the details along with her doubts about the killer. Nick listened intently. “I think we were all so eager to find one killer that we didn’t find the killer; you know what I’m saying?”

Nick nodded. “Can I be of some help? Maybe I can be a witness or something. I don’t know, but I want that woman behind bars,” he said with a shudder.

“No. We have enough witnesses so far. The problem is that their recollection seems to be hazy. But if we need you, we’ll call you. Your testimony of her state of mind might be useful. Your captor’s speech about being homeless and hating her family matches what Annabel—I mean Francis—told us about her past. Hopefully that will be enough for the judge. We also found out that Annabel knew the codes to her husband’s vault of knives. She won’t admit to using them but knowing them should be enough.”

Nick leaned back in the chair. “So you’ve got your hands full.” He sighed. “I was hoping maybe you would have some time for lunch.”

“Sure. Just let me wrap this up here and we can leave. I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” she said placing some files back in her drawer.

About forty-five minutes later she’d sent the last of the reports to her boss and was ready to go.

She grabbed her jacket and opened the door but stopped when the phone rang. “Dammit. I was so close!” She walked back to her desk and plopped down in her chair. She pressed the speakerphone button. “Yes?”

“Santa.”

“What, Rosa? What could you possibly want now?” The woman exasperated her.

“I’ve been dealing with the press all day and I dealt with them all day yesterday. You need to come do your job.” The admin sounded especially aggressive.

“Rosa, that’s your job.”

Rosa ignored her. “Mike is meeting with the city council about the mayor and I can’t handle…” while she went on and on, Luz rolled her eyes and looked over at Nick. She ceased her mockery when she saw that his face was white, and his eyes were frozen, locked on the phone in her hand. Luz tried to get his attention by snapping her fingers, but he only stared, as though he were in a trance, or catatonic.

“Rosa, I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone.

“Oh no you don’t. You will not ignore me!” Rosa yelled back.

“Dammit Rosa, Nick is in my office…” she began and saw Nick shake his head vigorously, but she didn’t understand what he wasn’t agreeing to. “…and we have to go.”

The other line was quiet, then Rosa disconnected the call. Luz went to Nick and put her arms around him. “Nick, are you okay?” Nick’s eyes held such a haunted look that Luz had to turn away. She sat next to him and waited for his panic to subside. When his breathing evened out he turned to Luz.

“That was her,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“What? That was Rosa, my boss’s assistant.”

Nick turned to her, looking her straight in the eyes. “No. That was her.”

Then, all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER THIRTY

May 30th, 2002 11:45 a.m.

Eddie and Leroy had just finished closing off the front entrance of the precinct building when Luz ran toward them.

“They’re almost done searching the building, but I think she’s already gone,” she said.

“There’s no way she could have gotten out so fast,” Leroy said.

“There are ways out of this building that you don’t even know about,” Luz said holding up a file. “I’ve got her information. I’m going to her house. Anyway, who’s up to joining me?” she asked looking at Eddie.

“What about Nick?” Leroy asked.

“He’s going to wait for me in my office. I said I’d be right back.”

“But—”

“There are no buts. If I told him I was leaving, he would insist on coming and I don’t want to worry about him again. I’ll call him when I’m on the road and tell him. Better yet, Leroy would you go and tell him I was called out?”

Leroy backed up. “Oh no, I’m not getting involved—”

“Please. I need this favor. I’ll owe you.”

Leroy reluctantly agreed. “Fine, but you do owe me,” he said.

“As long as you keep your mind out of the gutter, I’m all yours,” she said and turned to leave with Eddie in tow.

They pulled up to a small apartment building ten minutes later and Eddie looked up at the place. “What are we doing here?” he asked.

“This is the address in Rosa’s file.”

“Well, this isn’t where I dropped her off yesterday,” he complained, and Luz double checked the file.

“But this is it; this is what the file says,” Luz said, a sick feeling coming over her. She put the key back in the ignition. “Then show me where you dropped her off,” she ordered him, and they tore away from the sidewalk.

He took her two miles north toward Greenlake and they stopped in front of an old house with a modest lawn and a tiny front porch.

“This is it,” Eddie said getting out of the car.

Luz met him on the sidewalk with her gun out. “Call for backup. If she’s in here, we’ll need the street blocked off. We’ll need four or five units immediately.”

Eddie radioed it all in and they decided to enter the house through the front door. They got on the porch and Eddie knocked, staying clear of any windows or possible lines of sight.

When no one came to the door, Luz took a peek through one of the front windows. “Shit, have you ever been inside?”

“No, I just dropped her off. Why?”

Luz moved out of the way. “Take a look.” They switched places and Eddie looked inside.

“It looks vacant. I’m going to run the address,” he said, reaching for his radio. A few minutes later he got an answer. “The house is under the name Francis Aberleen.”

Luz looked at him. “What? What the hell is the connection?” Eddie shook his head and looked at her blankly.

Police cars pulled up to the house and Luz organized a barrier so that whoever they found in the house would not be able to go very far. Mike had arrived at the scene and bee-lined it straight for Luz.

“What the hell is going on Santos?”

“It’s Rosa. She’s the killer.”

“That’s what I hear but shouldn’t we be looking for her at her apartment?”

Eddie spoke up. “This is where I picked her up and dropped her off.”

“But she lives in an apartment. I already sent two units over there to secure the place.”

Eddie was insistent. “This is where I picked her up and dropped her off. This house. I saw her walk out of this front door.”

Luz looked at Mike. “We need to look inside. Set up an entry team and we’ll go in and see. I need to know why Rosa was coming out of a house owned by the mayor’s wife.”

Mike raised his eyebrows but didn’t say a word. He organized a team for entry. When everything was ready, Luz stood aside while the door was forced open. One by one they cleared the rooms of the house but found nothing. The only room that looked used was the upstairs bedroom and what they found in that bedroom chilled Luz to the bone.

“Christ, it looks like Hate fest 2002 in here,” Mike said.

The walls were lined with paper clippings on all the murders from Leah Mason to the mayor’s recent articles. Pictures of each victim were pasted in a row with a timeline drawn on the bottom with dates and words underneath. Under Leah Mason’s picture was the word SLUT. Under Mildred Jamison’s picture was the word WHY. Under the mayor’s picture was the word SLEAZY and under Madeline Baker’s picture was the word WHORE. What scared Luz the most was seeing her own picture; it was all over the walls. Pictures from articles in which she’d been recognized for her abilities in the field, and from various award ceremonies held at city hall. When she looked more closely she found a few snapshots of herself and recognized one of them from the picnic she had with Nick, while another was from her night out with Mike to the mayor’s mansion. Some of her pictures were slashed up and others had tacks pushed so far in they looked permanently embedded into the wall. Chills ran through her. She swallowed hard, fighting down the terror that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Whoa,” Eddie said in a scared voice and Luz understood his fear. Not three days before he had gone away alone with that woman. Luz wondered why she hadn’t killed him then.

“It looks like she’s fixated on me the most. I mean, looking at this timeline, she’s tracking her killings one by one. Even here where she wrote the word ‘why’ under some of her victim’s names, that shows her confusion and doubt. She seems to think she had motive killing most of these people, but the random killings show that her thinking became irrational and unjustifiable. She was having problems facing her crimes and—” Luz was interrupted

“Captain!” called one of the officers; “You better come see this!” Everyone stopped what they were doing and followed Mike into the adjoining bathroom.

“Oh shit,” Mike said. The bathroom floor was littered with empty bottles of calamine lotion. The bathtub was filled to the brim with them, as were the sink and toilet. Everywhere they looked were piles of the pink bottles. Mike turned to the officer. “I want this place dusted for prints and sent off. I need to know if these prints match the ones in Rosa Acker’s file.” The officer nodded and set to work.

~

Francis Aberleen (a.k.a. Annabel Yates) hovered over the toilet with her nose crinkled in disgust. She rarely used public toilets due to the bacteria that surely thrived there, but she was forced to use the toilet in her cell. She had avoided using it for as long as her bladder would allow and now she tried her hardest not to touch the repulsive bowl, knowing that whoever used it last wouldn’t have been hygiene conscious at all.

She finished and looked over at the roll of single-ply toilet paper bolted in the wall. The last thing she wanted to do was drip dry, so she took her chances with the tissue. Pulling off about five squares she folded them carefully, while keeping her balance, and wiped clean. She stood up and pulled her underwear back into place, letting her long skirt fall back to her ankles and sat down.

Thoughts of the murders rolled through her mind and she wondered anew how anyone would think her responsible. But she didn’t wonder long because the same answer came to her over and over again.

She thought back to her life in New York, when she lived in her mother Meredith’s beat up Cadillac with her brother and sister. Life had been tough back then, but that was no reason for her mother to make it harder. Her mother had married her father at eighteen and had all three children soon thereafter. But her mother had been an abusive and unfaithful woman and one day her father got fed up and left. After that, they lost the house and almost everything inside. Her mother had a hair-brained idea and that idea entailed going to New York City.

When they arrived, Meredith set to work trying to find modelling gigs for her oldest daughter Suzanne. Meanwhile, Francis and her brother, Ritchie, were left in the car almost nine hours at a time to fend for themselves. Most of the time they would venture out into the city in search of food or money, but they were so young, and the big city was a bit scary.

It didn’t take long for the fear to wear off. When her brother turned fifteen, another birthday gone uncelebrated, he got tired of sitting in the car and foraging for food. He decided he would make his own money and disappeared for three weeks. When her mother found out she didn’t seem to care; one less mouth to feed.

After that Meredith took her along on their daily outings to what Francis thought was a modeling company. Francis was thirteen years old at that time, but having lived on the streets for nine months, was no longer naive. The first time she had walked into the small building and seen the people and equipment inside she knew at once that it wasn’t a modeling agency. It was a pornography studio.

Her mother made her sit and watch her sister being used day in and day out for months. The images of that time still made her sick. One day, her mother told her that the sleazy director had his eye on her and that he wanted her to star in a movie. To any other thirteen-year-old, acting in a movie would seem like a dream come true but Francis had seen enough to know that it would be a nightmare.

She pleaded with her mom for protection, but her mother just looked at her with disdain and asked why she didn’t want to contribute to the family’s wellbeing. Her mother explained that these movies were what had fed and clothed them for the past year. What Meredith didn’t mention was that the movies had also supported her own addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

One morning her mother woke her up in the back seat of the car and told her that today was the day she would be a star. Francis resisted. She screamed, kicked and bit her mother so badly that Meredith left her and took Suzanne to work. That day Francis planned her escape. She packed up what little she had and decided to run away. She hadn’t gone far when she ran into her brother.

He was on a street corner dealing drugs to a younger crowd when she happened upon them. Already upset that her own mother would subject her to perverts she took her anger out on Ritchie. She walked up to him and began scolding him loudly, making a scene on the street. Her brother’s customers ran away, and Ritchie turned to her. Seeing his face, she knew he was not the little boy she had grown to count on as a brother. His face looked years older and his eyes were crazed and wild. He wasn’t only selling drugs—he was taking them as well. He took one look at her and backhanded her across the face, sending her flying to the ground.

Crying, she picked herself up and started back toward the Cadillac. If she couldn’t trust her family not to hurt her then she couldn’t trust anyone else. He followed her to the car, ranting and raving the whole way. Francis was scared and locked him out of the car. He stood outside, sputtered obscenities and waved his arms. Seeing him like that, Francis doubted even he knew who she was.

Her doubts were confirmed when he broke the rear window and let himself in the car. He grabbed for her and she shied away screaming at him to leave her alone. He called her a bitch and accused her of stealing his money and then began beating her over and over. He only stopped when her cries ceased. He left her alone, bloodied and bruised, to suffer in peace.

Her mother and sister returned but neither of them seemed alarmed or offered help. Instead, they ignored her until most of her injuries healed. She hated them for that and she hated her brother for hurting her so bad. But she didn’t say a word. It would have fallen on deaf ears. She let the rage build inside, unaware of the damage she was doing to herself.

A year passed, and her brother had become a notorious drug dealer on the streets. Her sister was a prostitute and her mother was a drunken whore of a woman who cared for no one but herself. Francis managed to get paid washing cars. It had taken a while, but she had saved up two hundred dollars and hid it in the ashtray in her section of the Caddy. One day she came back to the car to find her brother and mother sitting on the trunk of the car smoking crack while her sister earned a living in the back seat.

Horrified, she yelled at her mother to make her sister stop and get out of the car. Her mother cussed at her and slapped her hard, warning her to keep her mouth shut. Francis lashed out at her mother, but Meredith only smiled and held up a small wad of money; her money. Full of rage, Francis ran at her mother, knocking her off the car and hitting her in the face. Her brother laughed and pulled her off and pushed her into the street. Her mother recovered and got to her feet, yelling at her to never come back, telling her she was good for nothing, calling her a little whore.

Francis ran and ran. Tears blinded her, but she didn’t stop until her legs could no longer carry her. She rested for a while, still seething with rage at the betrayal of her own family; at the revolting things they did to survive, at the sickening things they expected her to do to stay alive. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the man come up behind her. By the time she did notice him he was almost on top of her. She jumped to her feet, but he already had a hold of her. She struggled and screamed but he placed his hand over her mouth and began ripping off her pants.

At that point she knew what it was he wanted from her. There was no point resisting any further. He was too strong. Terror gripped her, and she fought him, but it was useless, so she lay limply, and he raped her until he lost interest, which didn’t take long.

Hurt, abused, neglected and in pain, she plotted her revenge as she lay on the cold cement of the alleyway. Eventually she got up and went to the little smoke shop down the street. She had been in the store a couple of times and noticed that they sold more than cigarettes. She walked through the entrance and made her way to the back of the shop where they kept the shelves of knives. Then she counted her day’s earnings—twenty-eight dollars and sixty-seven cents—and picked out the knife she could afford. She bought it without incident and left the store with blood on her mind.

It was dark when she returned to the Cadillac. Her brother was sleeping in the open trunk and her sister and mother were inside. She crept over to make sure they were all asleep and then took out the knife. She didn’t allow herself the chance to second guess her next move. The horrific life she had been living had to come to an end if she were going to ever become a normal person.

She killed her brother first. He had barely woken up when she stabbed him in the throat and once in the chest. She listened to him choke on his own blood for a moment, then opened the back door. Her sister was asleep but smelled like sex and that smell nauseated Francis, fueling her fury. She quickly cut her throat, but not before Suzanne woke up and screamed.

Her mother woke in a drunken stupor and when she saw Francis she began screaming at her again. Francis merely pointed at her dead sister and held up the knife covered with the blood of her siblings. Her mother stopped mid-sentence and stared at her daughter as if realizing a mistake had been made. Francis told her mother of her hate, told her how much better she would feel after she killed her. Meredith pleaded with her daughter, telling her lies, telling her that she loved her and that she had always been her favorite.

Francis let her mother whine until she couldn’t bear to hear the sound of her pathetic apologies any longer. She simply jammed the knife into Meredith’s throat and twisted the handle until her mother’s eyes were vacant and her breath no more.

~

Someone coughed, and Annabel looked across the hall to the occupied cell where an old man was staring at her. She lay down in bed and pulled the blanket over her. She didn’t want to return to the past, but it was the only thing she could think about. Nothing came to mind in that hellish place other than what had put her there.

After killing her family, Francis roamed the city, increasingly aware of her growing belly. She had tried repeatedly to lose the baby—falling for no reason, picking fights with others on the street—but all her efforts failed, so she chose to ignore the fact that she was five months pregnant.

Surprisingly, the police never found her, if they were even looking. The bigger she got, the less work she could find for herself. No one wanted to hire a fourteen-year-old, pregnant and homeless girl. Instead, she spent her days in a library and her nights in shelters throughout the city. She taught herself everything from mathematics and science to history and art. Soon she began daydreaming about the life she would one day live, a life where she would have everything she wanted; where she would be respected and never have to live on the streets again.

She hung on tight to that dream and began educating herself so that one day it would come true. But she got so caught up that she had forgotten the baby she carried inside; one day on her way to the shelter she felt a strong pain in her abdomen and then felt warm liquid running down her leg and saw it puddling on the dirty sidewalk. The pain increased, and she barely made it to the steps of a nearby church when the pains developed into full-blown labor. She crouched on the steps of the church, crying out, wishing there was someone to help her, but no one came. The last thing she remembered was passing out cold.

She awoke in a warm bed unaware that a nun had heard her cries and taken her in. The baby, she was told, was alive and well and being cleaned and looked after in the other room. Not surprising at all that she didn’t care much about the baby she had given birth to. It merely represented the traumatic events that were her pathetic existence up to this point. The only thing that mattered was the fact that she was closer to finding a better life for herself.

The nuns came to her with the baby, expecting her to be happy and ready to hold it. At first, she wanted nothing to do with the child, but curiosity won out and eventually she consented to seeing the child. Holding her daughter for the first time brought back memories of the man who raped her, and she called for the nuns to take the baby away. They didn’t understand her repulsion with the baby but took her to the nursery anyway. Days later, one of the nuns approached her and asked her to name the baby. She asked them what they had been calling her and the nun told her they had given her the name Rosary—Rosa for short. Francis nodded and told her that that name would do and asked when she would be able to leave. The nun explained about the birth and how much damage Francis had sustained to her lower area and Francis cringed with the memory of Rosa’s conception, remembering the pain of that night, not just the rape, but the murder of her family.

The next day she was preparing to leave when the same nun walked in carrying her baby and asking when she would leave with her child. Francis stated that she didn’t want anything to do with the baby and the nun called her a bad mother. The accusation reminded her of her own mother and the life she had given her children; it was then that she decided to take her baby with her.

She found a place to live with a friend from her old job and set out to look for work. She was totally unprepared for the responsibilities of motherhood. The baby was too needy and suffered from colic and after three months she buckled and left her child with her friend, Lynne. She felt no remorse for her actions; instead, she felt an odd sense of freedom.

After that she made her way to Seattle. She had read that scholarships were vastly available to underprivileged kids of her age and felt she had a shot if she could just pass the test for her GED. Surprisingly enough, she did pass the test and began her new life, never looking back at who and what she left behind.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

May 30th, 2002 3:10 p.m.

Rosa Aberleen had a horrible childhood, and that was an understatement. She had blocked most of it out to get on with her life but every so often she would have a dream, or a flashback and it would make her sick. Being beaten for no reason, being physically, sexually and emotionally abused. Having cigarettes put out on her hands and feet, being locked outside without food, sleeping on the street. Being forced to do the sickest things in order to meet her most basic needs. All these things and more were locked up in her mind, finally finding release. It was a release that made everything feel better, but unfortunately the only release she had was killing. Well, it was unfortunate for her victims. For her it was the only way to obtain the peace she so desperately wanted.

She had found her mother ten years ago, but the reunion was anything but loving. Her mother had shunned her, telling Rosa to stay out of her life, that she had no room for her now. But Rosa wouldn’t listen. She insisted that she wasn’t there to ruin her mother’s new life; she just wanted to know the woman who had given birth to her. But Annabel wouldn’t listen; she refused to acknowledge her own daughter.

That was over the phone. Rosa began showing up at her mother’s place of work and her mother became afraid that those around her would learn of her background and the things she had done when she was younger. Rosa was the only link to her past and her mother wanted to keep her quiet.

Finally, she started to show love and understanding, promising that someday Rosa would be a part of her life again. She set up an account where money could be deposited, and she paid her daughter to stay away. At first, Rosa took the money, thinking it a token of motherly love, that her mother wanted a better life for her. But after her mother’s husband became mayor she knew her chance at a real family was slipping away.

So she drove to her mother’s new luxurious mansion, intent on asking why she wanted her daughter out of her life. But her mother wasn’t there; instead she got a peek at the man she had chosen to marry. Curious and very interested, she followed Anthony Yates across town to a small marina. She watched him get out of his car and walk down a long dock out of sight. She waited two hours for him to come back to his car, but he took his time. So she got out of the car to find out where he had gone. It was dark on the dock and she couldn’t see very far but when she heard voices, she hid behind the marina’s supply shed and listened.

What she heard was not what she expected. Two people agreeing to meet again soon. One of them was Yates and the other was a woman. They were exchanging sexual suggestions and praising each other on their abilities in bed. The woman was insulting her mother, claiming she, the whore, was the one who could make him happy.

Rosa fumed, knowing at once what needed to be done. She waited until they had kissed goodbye and she watched Anthony Yates walk back to his car. She looked down the dock and saw a woman standing outside on the deck of a houseboat. She returned to her car, found some gloves under the seat and walked toward the boat. She assumed the woman was the mayor’s mistress, she assumed this woman was the slut he was sleeping with, that this woman could cause her mother to lose everything; in turn causing her to lose everything. She was shaking with anger by the time she reached the boat, but the woman was nowhere to be found.

Climbing onto the boat, careful not to cause too much swaying, she spotted the open door and stepped quietly inside. One light was on down the hall but first she stopped in the kitchen for a knife. The kitchen was modern and bigger than she thought it should be for a boat. Frantically, she opened three drawers before she found a large carving knife. She then crept down the hall toward the back of the boat, as silent as possible. She reached the door of the lighted room and peeked inside. The woman was reading in bed, the lamp beside her was on. Rosa opened the door, but the woman didn’t look up.

“Nick?” the woman asked. She looked up when she didn’t get a response. Her eyes grew wide and filled with fear. “Who are you?” she asked but Rosa was already closing the space between them. Immediately the woman jumped out of bed and grabbed the lamp. Rosa held up her weapon and watched the woman shake as the implication sank in.

Before she knew it, the woman threw the lamp at her and ran for the door, but Rosa was quick and caught up to her as she was about to run onto the deck, probably to scream for help. Rosa tackled the woman and grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head up, almost snapping her neck. The woman cried and begged but her pleas went unanswered. Feeling with every bone in her body that it was right to do so, Rosa slit Leah Mason’s throat.

She got up quickly to avoid getting blood on herself and left the boat in a hurry. When she got to her car she was breathing hard, but not from exertion. There was an excitement to what she had just done that, strangely enough, delighted her. In the back of her mind she told herself that it was wrong and that she was a monster, but she couldn’t keep from smiling, from feeling the power she had never experienced before.

She brushed away all her thoughts but one; to find her mother and get her back.

~

Annabel stared at the ceiling of her cell thinking about her only daughter. Things should have been different, but it was too late to change anything. She should have put her daughter away a long time ago. Then she could have avoided this mess. Why. Oh why didn’t I do it? She asked herself. But deep down, she knew the answer: because she’s your daughter and you are her mother. It was a way to prove to herself that she hadn’t completely failed Rosa. What gift is better than the gift of freedom? She sighed and looked around; freedom was a gift she herself would never receive.

She thought back to the night Rosa had come to her after killing Leah Mason. Rosa had called her and asked to come over. Annabel had refused on the spot, telling her daughter that it wasn’t safe for her to do so. Rosa had threatened to tell the press everything about her mother and Annabel relented and agreed to meet her at a house they owned across town.

On the drive over, she wondered what could be so important that Rosa had to drag her out of bed in the middle of the night. When she got to the house she found her daughter smiling, almost giddy. Before she had a chance to ask what was going on, Rosa blurted out what had happened.

Horrified, Annabel had yelled at Rosa, explaining the enormity of the deed that had been done. Outwardly she was enraged at her daughter’s lack of sense; inwardly she was fearful that her own legacy had been passed down somehow. She could almost picture the dark twisted strands of their shared DNA, knotted, bulbous and dripping with blood. Either way it was her own fault. She had left her daughter with people of questionable character. She’d left her child to suffer the same life she had tried so hard to leave behind herself.

Annabel looked at her daughter in a new light and listened to what she had to say. Rosa, with no remorse in her voice, told her that she had done it all for Annabel. She wanted her mother to know that her husband was cheating on her but that she had taken care of it all. The shock of Anthony’s infidelity didn’t outweigh the fact that her daughter was seriously disturbed. But instead of showing revulsion, Annabel simply smiled down at Rosa and thanked her politely.

Rosa beamed at the praise and after that everything between them went smoothly until the night Annabel got a call. It was from a man named Fredrick James, the man who knew too much. He told her that he saw Rosa leave that night and followed her to their meeting place, and after looking up the address he figured out that Annabel was the mayor’s wife. He also assumed she’d ordered the killing of her husband’s mistress and he knew that her husband would be the key suspect in Leah Mason’s murder.

Annabel panicked and asked him what he wanted. It was simple enough: he wanted money. They worked out a deal: he would stay silent about what he knew—or thought he knew—and she would make his life very comfortable. She set him up with a job on her husband’s staff, set his family up with a house and even paid for his daughter’s tuition to college. She assumed that would be enough, but the man got greedy and made threats and she was tempted to kill him herself but the risk to her was too great. Instead, they set up a fund in Leah Mason’s name, with which she could deposit a set amount of money and he would have access to that wherever and whenever he chose. This arrangement suited him just fine and it went on like that for nearly eight years until a few days before when the man took his own life.

She was grateful that she no longer had to pay for his luxuries; she didn’t fear detection because the fund was legal in every aspect. But she was still stretched financially because she had bought a house in her old name so that her daughter would have a place to live. Rosa had rented an apartment so no one would become suspicious about her salary and the big roomy house she lived in. They kept in touch for the most part, secretly of course, but lately she hadn’t heard from her daughter at all.

And then the killing began. Annabel tried to convince herself they had nothing to do with her daughter, but her heart knew the truth. She knew what her daughter went through after the first killing, the feelings of power and supremacy, and getting away with Leah Mason’s murder had just added to her twisted ego. Annabel had gone through the same emotions after killing her own family but overcame the need to kill again by justifying her motive.

Her daughter hadn’t done that. Rosa had given in to the need. Unlike Annabel, who after killing, vowed never to be a victim again, her daughter had worn her victim cape proudly, always feeling entitled, always justifying every wrong decision she made because she’d had a crappy childhood.

Annabel sighed. There was nothing she could do for her daughter. She had become someone and something else altogether and she had no desire to hold onto her any longer. But then why hadn’t she told the police about Rosa? She could be exonerated for all the local murders and only stand trial for the ones in New York. Why was she protecting her daughter? After all, Rosa had killed Anthony in cold blood. Lying, cheating Anthony and his whore of a mistress. She should feel grateful, but instead she worried that she would be next. Her daughter was sinking deeper into a black hole every day. What would stop her from turning on her own mother? Hadn’t Annabel done that very thing?

Was it because she was already going down for three murders? Why not make it twenty? It wouldn’t matter; she would sit in jail for the rest of her life anyway. It may even be the safer option. After trying so hard to live the life she’d always dreamed of, surrounding herself with rich and beautiful things, with powerful and wealthy people, she still ended up at the bottom of the barrel. What was that saying? What goes around comes around.

But her daughter deserved the punishment much more than she. Then she realized that any punishment Rosa was given would be better than the life she endured every day. That’s why she was protecting her daughter; because it was the only way she knew how to love her.

Annabel had married, given birth to a son, and loved him with all her heart. Given him the childhood she’d always wanted, and he would be completing college in the fall and would grow up to be a very successful man. But what had she given Rosa? The answer was nothing.

That wasn’t true; she had given Rosa something, the worst gift any parent could ever give: the need to kill.

~

Rosa stopped thinking about her past long enough to peek out of the vent. The hall was swarming with officers and she could feel the walls closing in. After hearing that Nick was not only in the office when she’d called Luz but had heard her voice on speakerphone, she hung up and ran. She knew the building very well. She had made a point of memorizing escape routes should she ever be caught. But how had they figured it out? How did they get Nick free in time? She left no clues. She clenched her hands hard, her nails breaking skin.

She had been so busy doing her job as executive assistant to the captain, dealing with the press, and the fact that her boss had become quite close-lipped about the investigation. She realized it was because he feared a leak in the department. For the last forty-eight hours he’d instituted a “need to know” policy around the office. If you needed to know, he’d let you know; other than that he held his cards close to his chest. At one point she tried warming up to Eddie, but he told her the investigation was on lockdown and that he couldn’t share any details outside of the task force. But now, Nick was free of the trap she had set and now she was in big trouble. How did this happen?

The hunter had become the hunted. It was not a good feeling.

She thought of Luz Santos and anger boiled below the surface. She knew the itching would begin if she allowed herself to get worked up and it wasn’t something she could afford to deal with at that point. Instead, she snuck another peek through the vent and waited for her chance to run. The sooner she got out of that stuffy place the better. It reminded her too much of the closet she was forced to sleep in as a child, but she wouldn’t think about that.

The vent in the ceiling of the hallway that led to the reception area of her floor was the closest escape route she could use after learning that Nick was free and on the premises. She had run to the bathroom, praying no one else was inside. When she found it empty she jumped on the sink, pushed the drop ceiling tile over and pulled herself up. She had made her way above the hallway where the elevators were, so she would be able to leave the floor at the first possibility of escape. Those yoga classes she’d taken had really paid off as she easily and quietly worked her way through the building.

Since working at the police department she had begun physical training exercises to stay in shape, knowing that one day she might be faced with a situation like the one she was in. She was fit and intelligent and knew how to take care of herself. She had various disguises to avoid detection when she was out on the street and she’d learned to use different weapons with which to defend herself, but more importantly, with which to kill.

The knife had been her favorite early on but there needed to be a special connection with the knife and she had only felt that way about one knife. It was when she’d started learning about her mother; she used to dress up and attend functions at the mayor’s mansion, touring with her boss and other people to different parts of the house. When she had been shown the extensive collection, she was captivated by a particular knife. After telling her mom of Leah Mason’s death, she asked for access to that knife. Her mother outright refused but after some cajoling on her part, Annabel gave in. Rosa was given passwords and codes to the small building in exchange for distance from her mother and her mother’s affairs. She had readily agreed and took the knife when she chose, at first just to get a feel for it, but the knife coupled with her lust to kill again gave her the extra push she needed into madness.

She put the imitation knife back into the mayor’s collection and kept the real one for herself. When she lost the real knife, she panicked. She went back to the mayor’s collection but found that the imitation knife had been auctioned off. So very carefully she had risked discovery when she recovered the knife from the evidence locker at work.

At first, she didn’t know what to do; she couldn’t just go around killing people without a purpose. She became obsessed with finding a reason to kill, never asking herself why she wanted to kill in the first place. She was on autopilot, the murder switch thrown. Then she thought of her childhood and where she came from and she made up her mind that the homeless were to blame. To anyone else it would sound irrational but to her it was a perfect fit, and how convenient it was that Mildred Jamison crossed her path on her way home one day.

After the first kill, the others came easily. Seattle had a vast population of homeless people and her selection was immense. Slowly she began to kill but then something unexpected happened. She lost all reason. She tried to control whom she killed and when she killed but she couldn’t help herself. Then the itching came, relentless and unforgiving.

When she was a child and she was upset or mad with someone, her skin would itch a lot, but she would calm herself by imagining hurting that person the way they had hurt her, and the itching would cease. Hives, the doctors told her. She’d been prescribed antihistamines and sent her on her way. She never took them; they made her groggy and with a hobby like hers, slow reflexes could mean the end to a murder career that had barely even started. It was the same when the desire to kill came along, except this time the itching was worse. It became unbearable. Her passion became a curse and she lost control.

Then Luz Santos got involved and she found her purpose once more. Kill all those who tried to learn her identity and all those who helped them. First, she tried to kill Luz but when that failed she began eliminating everyone who was a danger to her. She had started with Elaine Murphy, Marty Benedict, Nina Everly and almost Eddie Lopez, but that would have been too obvious, so she let him live. She paid dearly for that allowance; her itching was worse than ever. She had tried to kill Luz again, believing her to be at home sleeping when she broke in. But the place was empty, and, in her frustration, she torched the boat.

She clenched her fists in fury; Luz Santos had spoiled her plans and outsmarted her. She had arrested her mother on charges of murder and forced her to give up the deception she had worked so hard to keep intact. Luz Santos had ruined her life and now she would pay.

~

The guard let Luz into the holding room where Annabel was sitting. Luz rounded the table and sat in the seat on the opposite end of the table.

“How are you, Mrs. Yates?” she asked.

Annabel stared at her with obvious hatred. “Please spare me the nice cop routine, what do you want?” she said bluntly.

Luz cleared her throat. “Rosa Ackers is your daughter.”

The silence seemed to last forever. Luz looked at Annabel and saw no sign of recognition in her eyes, but she could tell her words had affected the woman.

“I don’t know what—”

“Don’t bother lying. It won’t help you.”

“Nothing will help me, will it?” she snapped.

Luz went on, ignoring Annabel’s attitude. “Rosa is your daughter, Annabel, or Christine, or whatever your name is,” she led.

The other woman’s head lifted, and she wore a look of surprise. “How did you know that?”

“The nuns who were there for Rosa’s birth had pictures of you and your baby; it wasn’t hard to see that it was you at fourteen. You told them your name was Christine.”

“But how did you trace it? I was very careful, very, very careful,” she insisted and for the first time Luz saw a chink in her armor.

“We found where Rosa lived. The apartment was under your old name. From there, we tracked down both your blood types to see if there was even a possibility you were related. Two murderers in one family, far-fetched, or it would seem so. The DNA matched so we started digging, calling up people and tracking the information. You might have been careful, but Rosa wasn’t. After checking her employee file, we learned that most of her information was false, except for one of her references. A Ms. Rebecca Albert from Rosa’s old neighborhood. They had an agreement that if anyone were to call, that Ms. Albert was to pretend she was an old co-worker and give the best reference possible. But when I spoke to Ms. Albert and told her what Rosa had done and is still capable of doing, she cooperated fully. I got Rosa’s old address, if you can call it an address, and had the local cops visit your old friend Lynne Ackers. Does any of this ring a bell?”

Annabel didn’t answer; she simply looked shocked. Luz continued. “So, Lynne tells them that you used to work together until you disappeared. When she saw you again, you had your new baby girl with you, and that baby’s name was Rosa. You told her that you lived at a church; St. Joseph’s. She said that you tried your best to be a good mother but ended up giving up and left your baby for her to raise. I asked her why she didn’t try to find you or why she kept the child. She says she could never have any kids of her own, that her husband would beat her so badly every time she was pregnant, she’d lose the baby. In addition to that fact, they were poor and homeless a lot of the time. This way the baby was already born, and she decided to take her chances. She was hoping the baby could help her receive handouts that were previously denied to her.” Luz looked straight at Annabel. “She didn’t do a very good job. She told us that her husband didn’t take to the new baby and was very abusive. Lynne, herself admits to abusing Rosa occasionally. I found hospital records showing broken bones at two and six years old, a concussion at seven and burns and bruises at ten, and that is just what was reported. I wonder what else she went through that no one ever saw. Sounds like a pretty shitty childhood if you ask me.”

Luz watched Annabel closely; she knew that what she was saying was harsh, but she wasn’t finished. “How could a mother do that?” she asked. “How could you walk away from your own flesh and blood?”

The woman glared at her. “Don’t presume to know me, detective. You know nothing about who I am.”

“What’s to know? You murdered your family, gave birth to a daughter you left behind, started a new life here and lived under a false identity. What more is there?”

“Shut up!” yelled Annabel, visibly shaken. “I had my reasons and I don’t need to explain myself to you!”

Luz leaned toward the woman. “That’s where you’re wrong. You do have to explain yourself to me. You are a killer and your daughter is killing people all over my city, so yes, you do have to cooperate!” She watched Annabel’s hands ball up and remembered the attack the last time she visited. As much as she wanted to add assaulting an officer to the list of the woman’s charges, she didn’t want a black eye, so she stepped back.

“What my daughter does is none of my concern. I gave up being her mother a long time ago.”

Luz was prepared for this answer and gave one of her own. “What about Theodore? Did you give up on him as well?” She could see the confusion on Annabel’s face. “Rosa killed your husband. She wants her mother all to herself. What will stop her from going after your son?”

“She wouldn’t…” Annabel started but didn’t finish.

Her face went white “You have to help my son. Teddy doesn’t know about Rosa, he doesn’t even know about me. Nothing can happen to him,” she implored, tears running down her cheeks.

Luz heard the desperation in her voice. “I’ll help him, if you help me. I need to know everything about Rosa.”

Annabel hesitated for a single second and began talking.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

May 30th, 2002 4:43 P.M.

Nick was upset. Luz had left him in her office to chase after the killer without knowing how dangerous she actually was. He would have followed her if he had known where she went, but all he could do was stay put. If any word came in about her, the police station was the best place to be. Officer Leroy Sacks had promised to keep him posted.

He was scared for Luz. She was unpredictable and impulsive; two traits that could cause both positive and negative results. He hoped this time they were positive. He hoped Luz found the woman who captured and tortured him with promises of death. Shivers raced down his spine and he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Fatigue swept over him and he closed his eyes to rest. He was still recovering and not yet back to one hundred percent. He must have dozed for a couple of minutes before he was awoken by a small scratching sound. He opened his eyes a crack, but he was the only one in the office. He shut his eyes again to listen for the sound, but he didn’t hear it and he dozed off once more.

Then all at once the noise returned, louder and the sound of something heavy dropping woke him. His eyes flew open and he found a woman standing in front of him. She was medium height and build with short blond hair that curled around her ears. The odd thing was that she was covered in what looked like dust and she was smiling but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. He looked up and saw the vent in the ceiling had been kicked out.

“We meet again,” she said, and Nick’s mind spun with sudden recognition at the sound of her voice. She had come back, and this time she would finish him off.

~

Luz went back to the house owned by Francis Aberleen in Greenlake. Police officers and FBI agents were scattered all over the property, combing for clues to the killer’s whereabouts. Agent Adams met her at the front door with a grim expression. Instead of stopping to chat, she brushed past him and motioned for him to follow. He followed her to the shed in the back yard.

“In the mood for gardening?” he asked when she started pulling out old flower pots. She gave him a wry expression and continued pulling out the pots until the floor of the shed was clear. Then she reached down with the butt of her gun and pounded on the surface. Agent Adams walked over scratching his head. “Hollow?” he asked, and Luz nodded.

Together they removed the metal sheet and found three small books containing about sixty pages each. Luz opened the first and read aloud. “The rage inside me has found its way free

The need for evil burns inside of me, the way to quench this thirst to kill, is to give in to this wicked thrill.” She looked up at Blue with raised eyebrows.

“It looks like we have a psychotic poet on our hands,” he said, scratching his head.

Luz read down the page and shook her head. “These are her diaries; this is a journal of her thoughts. I bet there are confessions of every killing in these journals.” She skipped through the writings skimming each page until she came to a page where the writing was more erratic and less legible and showed it to Blue.

“The more I read the more obvious it becomes that her mental state is deteriorating. Read this section about her mother, this woman is in a lot of pain.”

Blue grunted. “She’ll be in a lot more pain before this thing is through.”

“Her mother told me these were here. She said when Rosa resurfaced in her life that she held a lot of anguish and resentment. Annabel suggested she write down her feelings, hoping it would help. Rosa had told her mother of the diaries but not of the murders and atrocities that she wrote about.” She looked at Blue and found him reading one of the books and shaking his head. He gave a low whistle and took out his cell phone.

“I’m going to need a shrink to decipher all this shit and maybe it will lead us to where she’s at now,” he said before walking away, talking into his phone.

Luz continued to look through the writings, hoping she’d pick up a clue before the FBI had a chance to go after Rosa. She noticed a pattern. Rosa would regress into her past before her killings. On one occasion she had written for fifteen pages about her childhood before stopping. Always, the next entry mentioned a killing. Was it that she was trying to justify the killings? Was she telling herself that the homeless were responsible for her pain, and therefore didn’t deserve to live? She worked herself into a tizzy, so amped up that the only way down was to take a life.

Luz was ready to give up when she picked up the third journal and began reading. This journal was newer. The binding was barely cracked, and the entries started with the date of only two weeks prior. The writings in this book were different. The other two were written in chronological order according to the killings. This book focused on Cliff Saunders, Eddie Lopez and Nicholas Mason. She read a little more and found her name among them and tried to find what one thing she and the others had in common. Then it hit her; she was one of the targets that got away. The killer had threatened Cliff but never got to him, Rosa wanted to kill Eddie but couldn’t without attracting attention to herself, Nicholas had disappeared in the middle of her plan and Luz had escaped the killer more than once. The last entry was made a few days before, then nothing else. That worried her more than anything considering all of the daily entries she could see throughout the journals.

Chills ran down her back when she realized how enraged Rosa must have been when her continued efforts to eliminate these people failed time and again. Luckily, Cliff was in the safe house, which no one knew about except her and Mike. She and Eddie were armed and safe for the time being and Nick was back at the station. She pulled out her cell phone and called Sonny.

“Sonny, will you do me a favor?” she asked when he picked up.

“Sure, what is it you need, my dear?”

“Go to my office and check on Nick.”

“Okay, did you want to stay on the line or should I call you back?”

“I can wait. Go ahead.” She heard him open the door to his office and step into the noisy bullpen beyond. He knocked once on her office door. When there was no answer, Luz heard him open the door.

“You!” she heard him yell. There was a crash and the sound of someone falling to the floor.

“Sonny! What happened? Sonny!” she called but there was no answer. Then someone picked up the phone and spoke one word.

“Bitch.”

The line went dead.

There was no mistaking the voice or its intent. Luz ran through the house calling for Blue to follow her to the police station where the killer was. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched her run out the front door to her car. Agent Adams barely caught up to her before she sped away.

“You’re serious?” he asked.

“We need to go!” she shouted. She left him on the sidewalk staring after her. She watched him in her rearview mirror as she drove away. He ran back toward the house shouting orders. She boosted her car to fifty and prayed to God they weren’t too late.

~

Rosa stood over the limp body of Sonny Malone and smiled. “You were always too smart for your own good, Einstein,” she said. She pulled the gun from his holster and pointed it at Nick.

She walked over to him and shoved the barrel of the gun in his face. “I hate guns; they give people a false sense of power. Anyone can shoot a gun, but not everyone can wield a knife like I can. Not everyone can stand to feel the life drain out of another human being.”

Her words were ice cold and Nick felt a coldness run through his veins that made him shudder. At that moment, he would take a bullet over a blade; at least it would be quick and painless.

She shoved him toward the door and whispered in his ear. “But don’t think for a minute that I would hesitate to shoot you if you don’t do as I say.”

She gripped him by the neck and opened the door. Everyone on the floor seemed to be busy doing their jobs and no one looked in their direction.

“Don’t say a word and walk with me toward the elevators,” she whispered sharply in Nick’s ear.

They walked down the hall, past the officers at their desks. Nick desperately tried not to panic but he knew that once they were out of the building any hope of escape would wash away. They were almost to the elevators when Nick spotted Eddie across the lobby. In his mind Nick willed Eddie to look at him. Shouldn’t someone be watching the elevators? he asked himself. But to his surprise, Rosa propelled him past the elevators and around the corner to a door leading to the stairs. Frantically, Nick tried to look back to where Eddie was standing but Rosa caught the effort and cuffed him hard with the butt of the gun. His vision blurred for a moment and he struggled to remain standing.

“Try that shit again, Nick, and you can kiss your life goodbye, now go!” she ordered and pushed him through the door. They were just through when they heard voices from the other side. Someone had seen them, and they were alerting the other officers. Rosa rushed him down the stairs, keeping the barrel of the pistol pressed firmly against his temple. Nick was terrified. One wrong step and Rosa would inadvertently blow his brains out. Not that it mattered. She would intentionally kill him soon enough.

But he had no time to think about that. He had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and taking one flight of stairs at a time. The door opened above them and they heard voices from above.

“Rosa! Stop where you are!” Eddie shouted.

“Kiss my ass, Lopez! You come after me and Nick here gets a bullet in his head!” she kept descending the stairs while she shouted, not slowing her pace. They could hear sounds of pursuit, but Rosa had no fear, she just stayed out of shooting range against the wall and kept going.

Suddenly the door opened one floor below them and Rosa pulled to a stop. She peered over the side of the railing. Then Nick saw the gun come up as she took aim and fired. The sound of the shot was deafening in the stairwell, but Rosa took advantage of the confusion it caused, grabbed Nick and started down once more. When they passed the fallen officer, Nick saw the blood pooled behind his head and his vacant eyes staring off into the afterlife.

Finally, they made it to the bottom and there were two doors, one leading to the lobby, which was sure to be swarming with cops and the other straight outside. Rosa chose the latter and opened the door with the intention of running. Slowly, she opened the door and shoved Nick out in front of her, using him as a shield.

That’s when they saw Luz standing twenty feet from the exit. She had her gun drawn and pointed at Rosa’s head. Rosa quickly pulled her pistol up to Nick’s temple and backed up against the wall of the building.

“Rosa, put the gun down or I’ll shoot,” Luz said calmly but Nick could see the fear in her eyes.

“You shoot me, I shoot him it’s as simple as that,” Rosa spat in frustration. “Dammit Santos, can’t you ever just let things go?”

“I know about you Rosa,” Luz started.

“You know nothing about me!” she yelled back, slowly backing away, dragging Nick with her.

~

Luz looked at the woman, her clothes covered in dirt and her eyes wild with a look of desperation. “What do you want, Rosa?”

Rosa stopped walking. “What?” she asked, looking around like an animal trapped.

“What do you want?” Luz repeated.

“What do you mean what do I want?” Exasperated and confused Rosa was sure the question led into a trap.

“I mean, what will it take to get you to stop this? Why are you doing this?” Luz asked again.

Rosa laughed. “I want to kill Nick, and when I’m done with him I want to kill you!”

“Then what?” Luz asked taking the tiniest step forward.

“Stop it!” Rosa screamed. “Stop trying to analyze me!”

“I’m just asking you a question. When will this all stop? After Nick? After me? We know you. You won’t get very far.”

“Don’t be too sure. I got this far, didn’t I?” Rosa replied a little less steady.

“It’s over Rosa, put the gun down,” Luz said.

Rosa pulled Nick along the wall, keeping her eyes on Luz. She stopped when she came to a dumpster along the wall, blocking her way. Frantically, she put as much room between her and the dumpster as possible. Luz saw this and wondered if it had to do with Rosa’s obsession with homeless people.

“Afraid of getting a little dirty?” she asked nodding her head towards the trash bin.

“Dumpsters are filthy! There’s no reason I should be near one.”

“You used to climb in dumpsters all the time as a kid,” Luz pushed while taking advantage of Rosa’s agitated state to take another small step forward.

“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screamed.

“Rosa, I know all about your childhood. I know about the Ackers and I know about the abuse. I know you used to sleep outside on the streets as well. I know all about the pains of being poor. I was poor myself once,” Luz confessed.

“I know that! I know about you, too,” she sneered. “About coming from a poor family but look at you now! Your clothes, your car, your house. You’re fucking perfect and I hate you for it!”

Luz now understood why Rosa had chosen to fixate on her. She was living the life Rosa always wanted but never got. “But I was never abused, I was never homeless. Rosa, you need help. Let me get you that.”

“I don’t need your help and I certainly don’t need your pity. I don’t regret killing any of those people and I doubt anyone else cares that I took out those homeless morons. I did society a favor. If I enjoyed any of it, then we’ll call that icing on the cake!” She laughed manically. “How fitting that I get to send Nick off like I sent his wife off.”

She watched the blood drain from Nick’s face but she pushed through her own shock to ask the question. “What are you talking about?”

A slow smile spread across Rosa’s face. “Do I have to spell it out for you detective? I killed Leah Mason. At the time, I thought she was sleeping with Anthony Yates, my mother’s husband. He could’ve ruined everything for me, so I had no choice. It came to light recently that it wasn’t Leah he was screwing that night but some bitch in the boat next door. Madeline, I think her name was. She got what was coming to her eventually, but you know all about that right?”

Luz wanted to throw up. This fucked up woman was responsible for ruining so many lives, and Nick. Poor Nick. Leah’s death destroyed him causing him to give up life as he knew it. “You’re sick, Rosa, and you need help. What is happening to you mentally will kill you if you don’t stop it all here and now,” Luz promised but she knew deep down that there wasn’t a shred of humanity left inside the monster that stood before her.

Rosa pressed the gun on Nick’s temple and looked straight at Luz. Luz saw the madness take hold.

Headlights.

A baseball bat covered in blood.

Crazed eyes promising pain staring her down.

Luz blinked away the images. She couldn’t afford to freeze up. She took a deep breath, steadying the gun in her hand. “If I die, Nick dies with me,” Rosa said, and Luz could see her finger tense on the trigger.

Wasting no time, Luz held her breath and pulled the trigger.

~

After hearing Rosa confess to killing Leah, Nick barely heard the rest of the exchange. His mind grew fuzzy as he tried to piece together what it meant. He knew who had taken his wife from him. And it wasn’t Anthony Yates. So much time wasted! Rage burned hot and strong in his belly and he felt it build until it was a barely contained explosion. Slowly everything came back in startling detail. In front of him, Luz tried to talk Rosa down but behind him Rosa was more tense and desperate, he could feel it in her grip. He felt the cold steel against his face and imagined how it would feel to die. Would he see Leah again? He could finally apologize… but for what? That some psycho woman killed the wrong person? There was no way he could’ve foreseen such a random act of violence. He felt the fight drain from him as the burden of her death finally lifted. In its place was the desire to live, to push on and honor her memory by living a full life helping others and forgiving himself for all those years of torment. Taking in the situation he was in, he wasn’t sure he’d get that chance.

Suddenly, Luz took a shot and he felt the bullet tear into his shoulder and rip out of his back. He staggered back. Then, the edges of his sight blurred until they were black.

~

Rosa felt her control slip with every word Luz spoke, but she didn’t want this to end quite yet. Her mind raced with options, but she kept coming up empty and her desperation grew. She couldn’t figure out why Luz was trying to help her, after everything that has happened so far. Then she remembered Nick and Luz’s blossoming relationship and realized that she was being talked down out of fear for his safety.

Angrier than ever, she held the gun tight against Nick’s head and prepared to pull the trigger, but Luz was quicker and shot first. The bullet hit Nick in the shoulder and he lurched back with the impact.

Rosa was so surprised that Luz had chosen to shoot Nick that she didn’t notice the bullet had gone through him and into her chest. It was when she tried to speak that she saw the damage done to her body.

Pain spread through her chest and everything went numb. She stumbled and fell, landing on the ground with Nick on top of her. She tried to push him off, but her strength failed her, and she lay gasping on the hard cement. The dirty cement. She knew her lung had collapsed, and she was losing a lot of blood. Too much blood. Thoughts of dying played in her mind. How sad that one who came from the streets would die on the streets. After everything she’d done to leave her past behind, it caught up with her. Her premonition about Luz had proven true and she would die. She wouldn’t survive prison, anyway. At least the itching would stop. She closed her eyes against the pain and welcomed death with a smile on her face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Agent Adams had witnessed the whole scene and was surprised that Luz shot Nick. He had only been five minutes behind her driving from the house and had just pulled up to the building. Running inside he found everything in chaos. One of his agents told him the killer had been spotted running down the stairs but that she had a hostage. They were standing guard at both staircase doors that led to the lobby waiting for her to emerge.

Frustrated, Blue opened the door and realized there was another door that led outside. He was about to go through the door when he heard voices on the other side. Detective Santos was involved in some sort of confrontation with the killer. He quickly ran back out of the building and circled around just in time to see Luz shoot Nick and he watched as both the hostage and the killer went down in one tangled heap.

He rushed to them, arriving at the same time as Luz, and he watched her face go pale. “Call for an ambulance!” she shouted to him. She moved Nick gently so that he was no longer lying on Rosa but flat on the ground.

Blue pulled out his phone and called for help but wondered what good it would do; the man looked as if he had lost more blood than the woman the bullet was intended to kill.

Luz laid Nick out as gently as she could, but she worried about the damage she had caused. It had been a split-second decision; the only way for her to get Rosa was to go through Nick. Nick’s wound was bleeding, spreading out on the cement. Please don’t die, she thought, applying pressure to both sides of the wound.

She heard a cough behind her and turned to see Rosa’s mouth spurt blood. She hated the woman but felt sorry it all had to end this way. “Rosa?” she said softly but could tell by Rosa’s empty stare that she was dead.

Tears came to her eyes and she turned back to Nick. His face was pale and his breathing shallow. Just one more miracle, she prayed. Her prayers were answered when she heard sirens a block away.

~

Nick felt the sun on his face as he woke up. Someone had left the blinds open in his room. He heard soft breathing from the side of him. He turned his head and saw Luz asleep in a chair next to his bed. Her face devoid of the stress that usually coated her features when she was working on something. He took a few quiet moments to gaze at her before lightly tapping her shoulder.

She opened her eyes and focused on him, then she jumped up. “Hey, you. How are you feeling?”

“Groggy. How long was I out?” he asked. His voice was scratchy and his mouth felt like he’d been stuck in the desert for days.

Anticipating his needs, Luz picked up a nearby cup of water and brought it to him, sticking the straw in his dry lips and watched him drink. Her face was a mask of regret when she explained what happened.

“When you came in, they got to work on you right away. You lost a lot of blood, so they pushed you right through to surgery, worked on you for a few hours and put you in here to recover.” She moved up to the head of the bed, looking nervous. “Nick I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to shoot you. But I could tell Rosa was about to shoot you, so I did the only thing I could think of and took her out first. I was hoping for a clean shot, but she kept using you as a shield. The bullet did pass through your shoulder before killing her, but it tore through your muscle. The doctor feels that with some physical therapy you’ll be back to a hundred percent in no time.”

She reached up and brushed his hair from his forehead. He could see the emotions warring across her face. He imagined she was torturing herself with consequences of shooting him. He grabbed her hand and stared into her beautiful emerald eyes, watching her take a deep breath and exhaling.

“Nick, I’m so—”

He shushed her and pulled her closer. “Please don’t apologize, Luz, you are a seasoned police detective. If you believed the only way to stop that madwoman was shooting her through me, then you made the right choice. I hold no ill will towards you and respect the decision you had to make in such a tough situation. Please believe that, so we can move on from this.”

Luz looked away for a moment then turned back to him, her eyes full of tears. “I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered, and he felt something slide into place inside of him. This beautiful, intelligent, frustrating woman loved him and it made him feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

“But you didn’t. I’m right here, so it looks like you’re stuck with me.” He tightened his hold on her with his good arm.

She laughed and placed a kiss on his mouth gently. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

THE END.

EPILOGUE

“I still have nightmares.” Luz shifted on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position as she spoke to the department psychiatrist, Quinn Presley. It was funny she on the couch but not as a patient.

“Do you feel they’re getting worse?” asked the doctor and Luz thought back to the last few bad dreams she’d endured.

Blood

Darkness

The blast of a gunshot

Screams.

She shuddered.

“Not exactly. It’s the same boy and it always ends with me shooting his father. So much blood…” she trailed off.

Quinn eyed her colleague and now friend. “What about what happened after that? I mean, does the dream stop after you shoot him?”

Luz nodded. “Most of the time it does. Sometimes he morphs into Rosa, holding a gun to Nick’s head. It’s terrifying.Brings back the pain and panic from that day. How am I supposed to move on when I have ghosts haunting me?”

“Ah, okay. So there’s more recent trauma mixing with the old trauma,” Quinn explained crossing the room and sitting down next to Luz. She placed a hand on the detective’s arm. “Take a deep breath,” she ordered. Luz complied, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly.

“Now listen up because I’m only going to say this once,” Quinn said, her tone serious. Luz feared what she was about to hear. “You, my friend are blessed. You have a wonderfully supportive family, a great career and I’ve heard through the grapevine that the FBI wants to make you yet another offer. You also have a very handsome, very talented boyfriend, who I hear is already making a difference in this community with his homeless shelter as well as offering his legal skills pro bono to those who find themselves in difficult circumstances.” She smiled warmly but wasn’t through yet. “And finally, not to toot my own horn, but you are recently befriended a pretty awesome chick here at work who won’t stop helping you until she knows that you believe that you are one, badass woman.”

Warmth spread through Luz’s body and she couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. She and Quinn had visited a few times since the case closed and so far, it had proven beneficial in a multitude of ways. Besides a crass sense of humor, they found they had a lot in common and Luz believed the common ground they shared made a strong foundation for a friendship.

“Well I know I’m pretty badass, so you might know what you’re talking about,” Luz quipped, laughing lightly.

“All of those diplomas hanging on my wall say I do know what I’m talking about.” Quinn sighed and got to her feet, pulling Luz up with her. “It’s time to let go, Luz. At this point I think you might be getting in your own way. Retrain your brain and start living your life again. You have so much going for you right now, try to enjoy—”

Luz’s phone began ringing, cutting Quinn off. “Sorry,” Luz said and answered her phone. It was short conversation and she hung up quickly, turning back to her friend. “Gotta go,” she said grabbing her coat from the hook behind the door.

“I understand, call me later!” Quinn waved her off and Luz stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She called Nick on her way out of the building.

“Hello beautiful,” he answered.

“Hello yourself. Hey, I’m going to be late tonight. I just caught a case and it’s bad. Real bad. Two parents dead and their eleven-year-old son is the primary suspect.”

There was a pause on the other line before he asked. “Will you be okay?”

“We’ll have to see. I have to go now. Just wanted to check in with you. I guess I needed to let a little light in before I wade through what should be a very dark crime scene”

Luz heard the concern in Nick’s voice. “Okay but remember; I’m the light at the end of the tunnel, too. Take care of my cop.”

Warmth

Safety

Love.

She was going to be okay.

“Always,” she replied then hung up.

It was time to do the job.

Dear book lover,

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