Cal struggled to place the tune as his captor continually hummed.
A rock anthem from the sixties, maybe early seventies. The lead singer had a big hooked nose. What was the band called? The song’s name? Cal tormented his brain in the effort.
The insignificant questions gnawed at him.
Cal opened his eyes. Well, one eye. The other had been swollen shut for... How long had he been sitting here? The room had no windows, no clock.
Nothing to measure the passing of time.
His bladder had emptied as he’d sat tied to the chair. That’d been a long time ago, and he’d held it forever before giving up.
Twelve hours? Twenty-four hours? Days?
He didn’t know how long or, more importantly, why he was here.
It was freezing in the room. And it stank. At first it just smelled of mold and musty disuse, but now the sharp ammonia of urine nauseated him.
He figured he was in a basement because of the low ceiling and dirt floor. Its walls were built with big bricks of concrete that gave the room an impenetrable, underground feel. Someone had taken the time to paint an American flag that covered one entire wall. Its colors were fresh and crisp.
Cal hadn’t missed the irony of being tortured in front of the symbol of freedom.
He remembered he’d been nabbed in his garage. He’d just driven in and stepped out of his truck. A powerful blow to his head had cut off the rest of his memory. Then he’d woken up here, suffering from the stepmother of all headaches. And that was when he felt good.
Closing his good eye, he tipped back his head to rest on the wooden chair. The humming continued to stab at his brain. It was the same damned song over and over. He ached to tell the hummer to shut the fuck up, but he’d already made that mistake. And now he had one functioning eye as a result of his temper. He’d never use the injured eye again and he wanted to keep the good one intact.
He kept his opinions to himself behind the foul gag in his mouth.
“You like to hunt, Cal?” The humming had stopped.
Cal didn’t answer.
“I know you do. Elk, deer, ducks. People.”
Cal’s head lurched up off the chair back. His eye opened again.
“You didn’t like that? People? I know you’ve hunted people. That’s what you did for thirty years. Right? Isn’t that one aspect of a cop’s job? A big aspect?”
The hummer stood behind him. Cal couldn’t see his face. He didn’t need to. It was rammed deep into his memory. He wouldn’t forget this guy. Ever.
“Ever kill anyone?” The hummer paused. “You don’t have to answer that. I know you didn’t. I checked. You were involved in four shootings in your career but never snuffed out a life. You ever wonder how it’d feel? To take a life? Would the guilt destroy you? Eat away at your brain? The way it did Frank Settler?”
Cal jerked in the chair, his wrists and ankles straining against their bonds. Frankie’d been dead for over twenty years. A suicide. A fellow cop, he’d accidentally shot a kid and couldn’t handle the mental and emotional aftermath. Frankie’s pain had haunted Cal for years.
Who was this guy?
“Frank must’ve been a wimp. He showed a dire lack of internal control. That’s what separates the men from the boys, Cal. You’ve gotta have power over your emotions and actions. A man can achieve whatever he wants with self-discipline. But you’ve got to exercise it, develop it.”
What the fuck?
“Ted Bundy started with firm willpower, then lost it. He made careful plans but didn’t stick to them. That’s the key to every success: stick to the plan. Bundy could’ve eluded police forever if he’d kept his head and controlled his lust.”
Disappointment rang in the man’s voice. Obviously Bundy had been a huge letdown. The fucker probably mourned after Bundy’s execution.
The hummer stopped at an Eisenhower-era folding table in front of Cal. Alarm spiked up Cal’s spine. It was a table of torture. It looked like the hummer had walked through his garage and randomly picked items to spread on the table. Hammers, rakes, a wrench, a long hose. With horrific, inspired ways, the man had adapted them to create pain.
Except the shotgun. Cal had recognized it immediately. It was his own, taken from his personal collection of guns. His heart rate spiked as the man’s hand stroked the barrel, lingering. He passed over it and moved to another item. Cal watched him open a small pink shoebox and his stomach heaved with bitter fear.
A headband?
The hummer lifted out a girl’s blue headband and gently caressed it. A soft smile graced his face and his eyes developed a distracted look of sweet memory.
“I kept this one. But I can let go of it whenever I want. It can’t control me. I’m a slave to nothing and no one.” He dropped it back in the box, crushing the lid into place.
The sweet look was gone, replaced with angry determination.
He’s fucking crazy.
“Thanks for telling me where your badge was.”
You’re welcome, asshole. Thanks for leaving me two usable fingers.
“This is just the beginning of my plan. I’m going to make the cops tear around like starving mice in a maze, searching for the cheese as I move it from corner to corner.” His eyes widened as he paced rapidly in front of the table, using Cal as his audience. “They’ll think they’re closing in on me and then I’ll vanish. They won’t have enough intelligence or control to keep up. And you and your badge are just the beginning. Well, actually you’re the second stage. I set the first stage with your badge where they can’t miss it.”
The man’s eyes took on an icy, empty cast as he halted and studied the tools on the table. Cal stiffened. He knew that look.
Humming again, the man chose the black rubber mallet, hefted it in his hands, tested its weight, and turned toward Cal.
By early evening, the police badge from the Lakefield skeletal recovery had led the detectives to a fresh murder scene.
Retired cop Calvin Trenton was dead. He’d been tortured brutally.
At the brick Oregon State Police building in downtown Portland, Detective Mason Callahan sat at his desk, deep in thought. His body, his mind, and his heart were exhausted. Mason picked at the desk’s peeling paint as he stared at the grisly photos of Trenton, letting his anger fuel his determination to find the fucker who’d committed this act of evil. Evil was the only word to describe the murder. The bastard had tortured the cop, broken his legs, and then strangled him, dumping the dead body back in Trenton’s own bed.
And neatly pulled the covers up to the victim’s chin.
It was as if the killer was taunting the police. Mason jammed a pencil in his automatic sharpener, let it whir, and then pulled it out. A perfect point.
He studied the fresh tip as the smell of wood and lead touched his nose. What would happen if he shoved it in the killer’s eye?
One of Trenton’s eyes had been destroyed.
Calvin Trenton had been off the job for five years. Divorced for twenty, he’d lived with his current companion, a big Rottweiler mix. Police had found the protective dog camped under Trenton’s bed. The dog had snapped and growled at anyone who’d tried to approach the body. Animal control had to be brought in before anyone could reach the corpse.
Two of the responding cops had shed tears as they gaped at Trenton in his bed, unable to act because of the sharp teeth of the dog. Trenton just lay there, obviously dead, and the cops couldn’t do anything but stare.
Mason didn’t like coincidences, and this new case had too fucking many. He liked his cases to be neat and tidy, but that was usually the exception instead of the rule. This case was pureed clam chowder.
He tipped back in his chair, tapping the pencil on the edge of his desk, and studied his big dry-erase chart for the tenth time in ten minutes. Suzanne Mills’s name sat directly in the center in blue ink with red arrows pointing out from her name to four other names. Green arrows made connections between the names on the periphery. So far he knew:
One of the forensics workers, Dr. Lacey Campbell, knew Suzanne Mills and identified her at the recovery site.
Mills was a victim of the Co-Ed Slayer, Dave DeCosta, a decade ago.
Dr. Campbell nearly became a victim of DeCosta a decade ago.
Jack Harper owned the building where Suzanne Mills had been found.
Jack Harper just happened to be standing there as the anthropologist walked up with Trenton’s police badge.
Jack Harper recognized Cal Trenton’s police badge.
Years ago, Jack Harper had partnered with Calvin Trenton on the Lakefield police force.
The chart was a mess of colorful crisscrossing arrows. But nothing made sense.
Why had Cal Trenton’s murder been purposefully linked to Suzanne Mills’s bones?
Mason eyed Lacey Campbell’s name. He dropped his pencil, grabbed a dry-erase marker, and drew a green dotted arrow to Calvin Trenton and stared at his work. His gut told him there was a connection. He just had to find it.
He needed to interview Dr. Campbell again.
Mason’s stomach churned. He’d put the Co-Ed Slayer case to bed years ago, and now it was trying to crawl out from under the covers.
He deliberately pulled his strained gaze from the drawing and glanced at his partner, who was deep in concentration in front of his computer screen. If Mason said a word, Ray would never hear it. The man had extreme linear focus. One thing at a time was how the detective worked, but damn, Ray was thorough and sharp. Ray’s big shoulders strained the seams of his suit jacket, his power tie askew—a sure sign the precise man was as frustrated as Mason about the case.
Mason glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock on a Saturday night. Ray’s wife, Jill, should be calling any second. Too often the job of a detective demanded a cop put his work first, but Ray managed a healthy balance. His wife and two kids were the priorities in his life, and Ray made sure they knew it. Secretly, Mason envied Ray’s marriage and family life. He’d watch Ray and Jill as they finished each other’s sentences or silently communicated with eyes and facial expressions. He’d never had that type of connection with a woman. Especially his ex-wife.
Mason discretely studied his partner. If Ray ever discovered how he felt, he’d have his wife setting Mason up with blind dates every weekend.
Jill invited Mason over for dinner at least twice a month, but he rarely went. Lusco’s preteen kids were cool, easy to tease, and kicked his butt at every video game on the market, but Mason hated the depression that slapped him in the face each time he left their warm home. The kids made him want to see his son, Jake, who was almost seventeen...shit. Jake was almost eighteen.
Had it been seven years since his marriage went down the crapper? Frowning, Mason counted back on his fingers. He’d dated here and there, some even seriously, but it’d never lasted. Now he was forty-seven and still single. His wife...ex-wife...had had two more kids with the new husband, a CPA. Jake lived with his mom and stepdad. The man kept banker’s hours and coached Little League and soccer, all while maintaining an active social calendar. He always had a grin and handshake ready for Mason.
Mason hated him.
Mason tossed the dry-erase marker onto Ray’s keyboard and it clattered across the keys.
“Damn it! What was that for?” Ray glared, swiped up the marker, and hurled it back. Mason easily ducked. Ray was rather predictable.
“Go home, Ray. Eat the dinner your sexy wife made for you. Then pull her into the bedroom and—”
“Shut up.” Ray glanced at this watch. “Look at the time! Fuck. I gotta get out of here.” Ray stood and slapped his papers into piles and binders.
Mason rubbed at his chest and watched Ray wrestle on his overcoat.
“Aren’t you going home?” Ray stopped with his arm halfway in his coat sleeve, his pale eyes probing and his brows narrowing into concerned lines below his blunt military haircut.
“Naw. I’m right in the middle of something. I’ll go soon.”
Ray looked away and finished pulling on the thick overcoat. “All right.” He wrapped a black scarf neatly around his neck. “You’ll be over for the game tomorrow? Jill’s making that nacho dip you like.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Mason picked up his pencil, twisting it in his fingers. “See you tomorrow.”
“Later.” Ray sped toward the door but glanced back. “Go home, Callahan.”
“I will, I will. Get out of here.”
Ray vanished around the corner, and Mason blew out a sigh. He sank deeper into his chair and swung it around to face the white board. The chair creaked and complained as he leaned back, cracking his knuckles as he studied his artwork, directing his mind back into the case.
What the fuck was going on?