Deadly Games Read online

  Blood was caked all over her and had come from multiple gashes, including a large hole ripped into her forearm right below the tattoo of her son’s name—Jayden. I couldn’t spare the poor child the news of his mother’s untimely demise, but I could spare him this image that would haunt him forever. I could make every attempt to keep the crime scene photos and description out of his head. Hell, I’d hide the photos if I had to. No one deserved the torment she’d suffered, and no one deserved to see it.

  Chris spoke while he examined the remains. “She has the common stab wounds and burns on her feet. As you can see, though, she has the bonus torture of a hole drilled into her arm, and yes, I think he used a drill to do it. She appears malnourished and dehydrated just like the others. I also see what appears to be rodent bites on her feet. I won’t know the COD until I open her up.” He let us have a better look at her, and then he had the technicians take her away.

  “Why is he leaving the bodies out in the open like this?” Marisol wondered. “Do you suppose it’s for shock value?”

  I nodded. “Probably that, and he wants to be sure someone will find them to instill fear in the community.”

  “We should call him the St. Louis terrorist then,” she mused aloud.

  We got out of the way for the CSU technicians to process the scene and followed Liam and Eric back to our cars.

  “It takes an awful lot of rage to inflict pain on someone like that,” I mumbled on the drive back, referring to the hole in Tamara’s arm. “We should stop by her house and notify her fiancé on the way back. I have the address here in my notes.”

  “Sure, we can do that,” she responded. “They deserve closure.”

  “They do, but I don’t think they’re going to have closure until this killer fries in the electric chair,” I speculated.

  She pulled into John Washington’s driveway, and he walked out the front door. “Is this about Tamara?” he asked immediately when he recognized us.

  “Mr. Washington, let’s go inside,” I suggested.

  He crossed his arms over his broad chest and shook his head. “No, Jayden is in there. Tell me now.”

  I looked down, sensing he already knew what we had to say, and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, but her body has been found.”

  “Her body?” he squawked, and tears streamed down his face. “So, she’s gone then?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Marisol added.

  He composed himself enough to ask a follow-up question. “Is this related to the serial killer case I heard about on the news? Did he kill my girl?”

  His agonizing expression caused a shiver to run through me. “I’m afraid so, sir. We are doing everything we can to bring the person responsible to justice, and we’ll let you know when we have something.”

  “You don’t have any suspects, though. That’s what they said on the news,” he wailed.

  “We’re diligently working on it,” I assured him.

  He looked over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze. Their son was peeking through the curtains. “I’ve got to go. I have to tell Jayden his mom isn’t coming home.” He turned to walk away, but then he spun around and jabbed a finger at us. “You find this son-of-a-bitch, or I will,” he spat.

  We climbed into the car and were both silent the rest of the way back to SLCPD.

  HE DIDN’T WANT to go into work, so he called in sick. He needed to create, and he could only do that at home. He took the sketch of Detective Delossa and turned it into a vibrant painting. He used colors to make it realistic instead of using just the red. He needed more red paint anyway. He looked at the floorboards, wondering how his guest was doing. He was down to one now, so he had room for two more. One to keep Tiffany company and one for the other house. It was time to go hunting.

  First, though, he needed to check on Tiffany. He couldn’t have her dying on him until he was ready for it. He took her a meal replacement shake and ripped the tape off her mouth. She was quiet and eagerly accepted the straw.

  “This will make your tummy feel better, and I promise I didn’t put anything in it,” he claimed, and it made her pause. She must not have cared, though, because she went ahead and finished the drink off.

  He dabbed at her mouth before covering it back up with tape. He could probably leave it uncovered since he had already put the phony for sale sign in the yard, but he wanted to be certain, and he wanted to torment her for the way she’d treated him.

  “How are your hands feeling today?” he asked in a voice laced with fake concern. Tears immediately streamed down her face, so he reached out and wiped one away. “Aw, don’t cry. I’m going to give you something to take your mind off it because that’s what my dear old dad used to do for me.”

  He picked the hammer up, watching her eyes widen with terror, and swung it toward her right shin. The loud snapping sound reverberated off the concrete and mixed with her muffled shrieking. He took a few photos and was about to leave when he thought it sounded like she was trying to ask him something.

  He pulled the tape and inquired, “Did you have a question, dear?”

  Through sobs, she managed to squeak out, “Why are you doing this to me? Is it because I didn’t accept your paintings into the gallery?”

  He chuckled and replaced the tape. “Your gallery should feel honored to house my masterpieces, and I’m sure it will be doing so very soon. Once they replace you, I’ll take them to the next curator, and I imagine they’ll have better taste than you.”

  He spun on his heel and left her alone to enjoy her desolation. Then he left and drove to Sunset Hills to do his hunting. They weren’t expecting him there.

  He parked outside the shopping plaza and scanned the pedestrians mindlessly bustling in and out of stores. They just had no idea what could rain down on them on a whim. They barely looked both ways before crossing the street, so of course, they didn’t notice him. He played eeny meeny miny moe until he chose him. His next guest was a tall, lanky redheaded man, who was too busy digging in his pocket for his keys to notice the pretty blond woman checking him out. He popped his hood to draw the redhead’s attention, and it worked. Men always took the bait when he lured them with car trouble. It was the macho need to prove their worth that drew them in. Every guy suddenly becomes a car expert.

  “Do you need some help?” the redhead asked.

  He looked over and smiled at the volunteer. “Yeah, I can’t get her to turn over, and I don’t know much about cars. I think it might be my ignition switch though.” He pointed to the steering column.

  “All right. Let me take a look at it,” the other man suggested.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” he said as he climbed out of the SUV.

  Once the redhead was in the driver’s seat and checking the switch out, he leaned over with the taser and pressed it into the man’s waist. The man wiggled and then slumped over. Making sure no one was watching, he shoved him over in the bench seat, which was a wonderful feature in his Suburban. Then he shut the hood and quickly drove away before someone saw what he was up to.

  He injected the man with scopolamine before pulling into a gas station. That was the bad thing about the SUV—it was a gas hog. The redhead was slumped against the passenger door, looking like he was asleep, so no one was the wiser. He paid at the pump and filled up the tank before heading home, making sure he drove the speed limit. He couldn’t risk getting stopped again.

  CHRIS NOTIFIED US when he was ready to start the autopsy in case we wanted to observe. The others told him no thanks, but I went and recorded the findings.

  “Like I said at the dump site, she is malnourished and dehydrated, she has multiple stab wounds, rodent bites, and of course the hole drilled into her forearm. She al
so has burn marks on her feet.” He paused to stare at the lifeless mess, and it made me wonder how he coped with his job. He literally stared death in the face every day.

  “Do you have the cause of death?” I inquired impatiently.

  “Yes, and it’s not pleasant. She died from drowning in her vomit, which was nothing but stomach juice and a small amount of water. I assume it was her body’s reaction to the hole being drilled into her arm. She probably went into shock first, and since her mouth was covered—”

  I filled in the blanks for myself, so I held my hand up to stop him. I couldn’t bear to hear the words. The mental image was more than enough. Actually, it was too much.

  “I found something different on her than the others besides the obvious hole. I found burns on her neck that are consistent with a taser,” he informed me.

  I paced the floor in the cold room while rubbing my arms to warm them up. “So, chloroform wasn’t his go-to kidnapping aid with her. I wonder why. Did something prevent it, or is he just changing up his methodology?” I was speaking to myself, but he shrugged in response. “Was there anything in her toxicology report?”

  “No. She had no drugs in her system,” he quickly replied. “The only trace was metallic shavings in the wound on her forearm, which just confirms that a drill was used.”

  I grunted in frustration. “What is the time of death?”

  “Well, she wasn’t as cold as the others, so she wasn’t refrigerated as long. She could have been killed as late as yesterday,” he replied somberly.

  I cracked my knuckles and mentally scolded myself for doing so. “That gave him nine days to torture her,” I calculated. “Good God. I can’t even imagine.”

  He nodded while stitching the corpse back up. “I bet most prisoners of war are treated better,” he mumbled.

  I shook my head in disgust and took a copy of his report back upstairs to inform the others. I found them huddled together by Eric’s desk.

  “What’s going on?” I inquired.

  Liam looked up from the computer monitor and told me, “There’s been a mass murder in a parking garage near the Arch, and it appears to be gang-related.”

  I was stunned, and it took a long moment to find my voice. “How many fatalities are there?”

  He rubbed his hands together and frowned. “Six fatalities. Four tourists were shot and killed, while two were repeatedly stabbed.”

  I felt sick to my stomach, and my palms began to sweat. There were roughly between eighty to one hundred gangs in St. Louis, but one came to mind—the Bloods. Maria said they were going to do something to flush me out. Taking me to a crime scene was a good way to do that, except for the fact that I wouldn’t be alone. Although, they wouldn’t be alone either, and I had no idea how many members ran with each pack. They constantly grew in numbers only to shrink after territory wars.

  “Do we have any witnesses?” I squawked.

  “Not yet we don’t,” he said with a scowl. “Of course, if there are any, they might be afraid to come forward.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Mounted cops are usually patrolling the area, so that might be why they chose a parking garage. Didn’t the attendant know anything?”

  He shook his head and looked back at Eric’s computer. I nudged in to get a better look at what they were doing. They were going over surveillance footage from the security cameras in the garage. After another minute, the carnage blurred by, so Eric backed it up several frames.

  Eric froze the first frame and pointed to the top right of the screen. “They approached the victims from this direction at 10:07 according to the time stamp.”

  We watched in horror as five gang members took out a crowd of people coming off the elevator on the third level of the parking garage. The chaos was gut-wrenching as bodies crumpled to the ground in a large pile of death and decay, and we all gasped. The video footage was in black and white, so we couldn’t see the gang’s colors, but I didn’t need to. I recognized two of the gang members as Bloods from my days in the Drug Unit.

  “They’re Bloods members,” I announced. “They are a part of the Tenth Street crew”—I pointed to the frozen frame on the screen—“I recognize him and him.”

  Liam picked up Eric’s desk phone while telling us, “I’m going to send SWAT in for a raid. I’ll tell them to bring in as many members as they can, and we’ll try to match them up to the footage. Eric, print a few of the frames out, so we have a visual.” He turned toward me. “Do you have the autopsy results?”

  “Yes,” I answered and then rattled off Chris’s findings. They wondered the same thing I did about the taser—why the change up? “It could be because he runs the risk of killing them with the chloroform, and he’d rather do it slowly through torture,” I theorized.

  “Or maybe he has a partner,” Marisol mentioned. “We’ve considered it before.”

  I paced the area in front of my desk while I reconsidered that possibility. “In killing teams, someone is usually the dominant partner. I suppose the submissive one could be abducting the victims while the dominant one inflicts the torture, but that doesn’t answer the question of why change from chloroform to a taser unless they both do abductions.”

  “Regardless, without any trace evidence or eyewitnesses, we don’t have any suspects,” Eric muttered. “So, that leaves us at ground zero.”

  Before we could continue the conversation, Jamie Tinsley stepped into the office. “What’s up, Jamie?” I asked. “Please don’t tell us there’s another missing person.”

  He looked down at his shoes before speaking. “I guess I won’t be very popular today then because there is. A young man went missing from Sunset Hills, so the SHPD called us. They’re worried it has to do with your open case.” He handed me a piece of paper that had the man’s information on it.

  I read it aloud for the others. “According to his wife, Jake Bennett was headed to the shopping plaza on Watson Road to do some shopping at the Home Depot early this morning, and he never came home or called. His car is still in the parking lot, but he’s nowhere around. He was paged in all the stores, and he’s not answering his phone. The car has already been processed, and there are no signs of a struggle.”

  “Damn!” Eric yelped and slammed his fist down on his desk, causing his coffee to spill onto the floor, which he didn’t seem to mind. “How do you go missing in broad daylight from a crowded plaza?”

  It was a viable question. “Are the police sure he just didn’t take off with someone willingly? Did they make sure there weren’t marital problems that would cause him to run off?” I wondered while trying to find my answers in the report.

  “Yes, all that was asked. She swears they are two peas in a pod, and he would never leave her. He was there to buy supplies for decorating the nursery; she’s six months pregnant,” Jamie responded.

  “We need to get his photo all over the news. Someone in that parking lot or in the store had to see what happened,” I declared. “He didn’t just vanish into thin air.” That gave me an idea. “Liam, what do you think about setting up a press conference to talk about the case? Without giving the specific details, of course, we can just brag about how we have leads we are looking into. I think that will put the heat on him and make him finally screw up.”

  He opened his hands in a shrug. “Run it by the captain, and if he says okay, then I think you should do it since the killer is fixated on you.”

  “Of course, that might put you at more risk,” Marisol mentioned.

  I nodded. “I know, but it goes with the job.” I went to the captain’s office and got his permission to proceed, so I called the KMOV station and set it up. Liam went with me, while Eric and Marisol remained at the station to work on the mass murder
case involving the Bloods.

  We met with Ronnie Maylor, one of the news anchors, and began the interview. She said it would air on the evening news tonight. I didn’t discuss the specifics of the case, such as the killer’s MO or signature, but I did allude to the fact that we had suspects in mind without specifically saying so.

  I told her the killer was likely intelligent, charming, attractive, around thirty years old, organized, and well-educated. I also mentioned he was probably employed and single.

  At the end of the interview, I looked into the camera and said, “This has been a traumatic time for the St. Louis area, but we have direction, and it’s only a matter of time before justice is served. We encourage anyone with information that can help us with his capture to come forward.”

  Liam raised a brow at me when I was finished and ready to leave. “Where did all that come from?”

  I smiled up at him. “FBI profiling one-o-one.”

  He clapped his hands together. “All right then. Let’s hope it works and pisses him off enough to start slipping up.

  HE WENT TO the basement to check on the curator and his new arrival, who spent several hours out of it from the scopolamine injection. It had been too difficult to stand him up against the wall because the drug made his legs like rubber, so he chained him to a table instead. He was okay with that because it was new to him. It kept the thrill for him fresh.

  He visited the curator first and offered her a drink of water. Then he picked up the leather flogger he’d purchased at an adult store in town and fondled it while she watched with gaping eyes. His dream about the detective had given him the idea, and he was anxious to try it out. He taped her mouth up first because he had a headache and didn’t want to hear her screams. She shook her head rapidly though.

  “Oh don’t worry. It only stings a little bit. A lot of people actually enjoy using the toy,” he told her in a soft voice. “I’ve never tried it myself, but there’s no time like the present.”