Blind: Killer Instincts (16 page)

Pain blossomed wherever the man touched, lighting up his face. He spat curse words and tried to move, but he couldn’t. His head was secured to something.

“If I would have known what a wimp you are, I’d have used my fist instead of the iron.” The man bent over him, filling his vision. “Smile for the camera, will you?”

The man grabbed Derrick’s face and pushed the corners of his mouth up, as if he were smiling.

“Cheese! Say hi to the rest of the Killer Club. Hi guys.” The sicko actually waved at a hand-held camera taped to the kitchen counter.

“What the hell? You’re a sick freak. Let me go.” Derrick tugged at his bonds, but he hurt—everywhere.

“Derrick here was dating Emma. You all know Emma. She’s the granddaughter of the Ration family, who I killed before I was caught about thirty years ago.” The guy stood, talking to the camera.

Why did he look familiar?

Derrick couldn’t even process what the man was saying. Where was Amanda?

“Now, Derrick here,” he grabbed Derrick’s leg, digging his fingers into his hair and pulling. “Derrick was keeping secrets from Emma. Remember Amanda? The girl I didn’t really let talk a whole lot? Well, it seems that these two have been having a rip-roaring affair together behind Emma’s back.”

“How do you know that?” Derrick demanded.

“Shut up. No one wants to hear you speak.” The guy scowled at him. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, still with the pudgy cheeks of youth. Derrick had seen that same scowl aimed at him before, but where? His attacker turned back to the camera. “Now, when I realized what was going on, well, I had to make room for them in my schedule. I couldn’t let these two live.”

Live? What was going on here?

“Where’s Amanda, you sick fuck?” Derrick tried to kick, but his legs were tied down.

The man glanced down at him. “You want to see Amanda? I’ll get Amanda.”

He took two steps and reached into the shadows next to the refrigerator. He grabbed one of the dining room chairs and pulled it closer.

“Oh God. Oh God. No. No!” Derrick tried to push backward, but his legs were restrained. He jerked against the bonds even though every movement hurt.

“Don’t be like that. Always with the screaming.” The man crossed to Derrick and stood behind him. He shoved a wad of cloth into his mouth and pushed the chair forward, toward the gruesome sight.

Derrick tried to turn away, to not see what had happened, but the man held his face.

“Look. Look at what you made me do to her,” the man said through clenched teeth.

Amanda was tied to one of the kitchen chairs. A two-by-four had been slid between her and the ladder back of the chair, creating a head support. She was taped and tied into place, a wad of cloth in her mouth as well. Her body hung lifeless, her soul gone.

Blood coated her, streams of it here and there. She’d been hurt, and for what? Getting her satisfaction from him?

The worst of it was her face. He almost couldn’t look at her.

“Do you know why I took her eyes?” the man whispered.

Derrick groaned. He was going to be sick.

“Some people say they’re the window to the soul. You know what I think?” He paused, as if Derrick would answer that. “I think they contain lifetimes of knowledge. We’re all reborn, Derrick. And now, I’m going to free you to live again, and I will take your eyes, so hopefully, next time you become a better person.”

The man circled him until he stood in front of Derrick, a broken and bloody table leg in his hand.

The gas station near Simon’s garage. That was it.

“Your future self will thank me.” He smiled, and it was terrifying.

Max stared at the two sets of eyes studying him from inside their new glass homes.

What had he done with the eyes in his previous life?

He couldn’t remember, and those little details were starting to annoy him. Did he eat the eyes to ingest and absorb the history of those other lives? Did he keep them as trophies? What?

The souls weren’t going to speak to him now, not since he was so close to their former husks. He sighed and put the two jars into his bag. It was the last thing at every scene he did before leaving. Those souls needed to know they were at rest. They’d found a friend. In him.

Behind the house, he stripped out of tonight’s clothing and changed into another nondescript set of track pants and a hoodie. He’d burn everything eventually.

Max took the woman’s keys—Amanda—and left the house the way he came, except this time he wouldn’t be on foot.

His phone vibrated against his hip, but he didn’t pause to look at it now. No doubt it was Mercy or Black Widow emailing him again. Joker had reached out to him, cautioning him against deviating too far from his path, which was ridiculous coming from him. They hadn’t heard from Red in months after Black Widow moved them to a new server and demanded three weeks of net-silence.

He drove a mile to the twenty-four hour market in Amanda’s car and picked up his second vehicle. It was a stolen hatchback he picked up a few hours before his date with Amanda and Derrick. He watched that house for months, keeping tabs on everyone who came and went. Installing the hidden cameras made it easier once he was able to hack the neighbor’s Wi-Fi. When he realized how often Amanda and Derrick had their dirty little trysts, he’d known he had to stop them. Emma deserved better. She was so much better than those two.

Yes, it was deviating from his plan to take them at this point, but it was necessary.

Max drove the streets, staying a few miles under the speed limit, taking an indirect path across town to where he’d stashed his truck behind a rundown, boarded-up house that had been raided a week before for drugs.

It was a long trek, but he made it all the way to his truck without being noticed or raising an alarm. Only when he was in his own vehicle did he finally check his phone.

From: Black Widow

To: Iron

Subject: Concerned about you.

Iron,

You’re doing great work. I’ve watched all your material with joy. You make TBK proud. I understand your reasoning from deviating from the plan, but I caution you from getting caught up in the moment too much.

Our mission is to pay homage to those who have come before us.

Once your job is done, go forth and do your own work. But remember, membership in the club is dependent on carrying out your killer’s murders.

Think it over. I’m here for you.

BW

J

acob stared at the two bodies, and his stomach rolled. It had been a long time since he’d lost it at a crime scene, but this was beyond anything he’d ever seen. It stretched from wall to wall on every surface of the kitchen, even the ceiling.

“This isn’t TBK’s style,” Jade said. It was the first thing any of them had spoken since the forensics team had cleared them to enter the kitchen.

“No fuck?” Mullins shook his head. “What’s she supposed to be doing? Giving him head?”

“He’s defacing the bodies. This is more personal than the others. There’s rage here. Coroner said the penis was removed postmortem.” Jade tip-toed closer to peer at the woman posed with her face resting on one of the man’s thighs.

Whoever she was, it would be a closed casket funeral now. The eyes were gone and much of the skull appeared to be crushed. She was completely unrecognizable.

“Any ID?” Brooks asked.

“Nothing,” Jacob replied. “House is registered to a Pearl Jones, who died a couple years ago. They’re still searching the house for something that will tell us who these two are, but it’s kind of a dump.” And that was before someone had splattered the kitchen with pints of blood.

“He prefers areas with hard surfaces,” Mullins said. When the man concentrated, a slight brogue slipped into his voice. “They were attacked in the living room. I’m guessing they were getting it on, killer knocked them out then dragged them in here.”

“Clean up?” Jade suggested.

Brooks shook his head. “He doesn’t bother.”

“Flat surfaces.” Jacob gestured to the same blood void they’d found at the two previous scenes. “We think he’s filming these, right? Well, he needs a flat surface to put the camera on.”

Jade, Mullins, and Brooks stared at him, similar blank expressions on their faces.

“Fuck, that’s good, Detective.” Mullins wagged his finger at him. “The living room is trashed. The lighting is bad. He drags them in here to get a better shot on the camera, and no one lets their kitchen lights burn out because how are you going to make toast without light?”

“Toast?” Jade blinked at him.

“Throwing out ideas, love.” Mullins patted Jade on the shoulder.

“Lali hasn’t been able to track down the footage since we told her Payton’s theory,” Brooks said as though he were simply thinking out loud.

“Maybe it’s a trophy?” Jacob suggested. He really should keep his mouth shut. These were the profilers, he was just a detective.

“Perhaps.” Jade shrugged. “The eyes follow the TBK MO, but he’s evolving. He’s finding his own identity.”

“We’re treating TBK and TBKiller as two separate people now?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, I think it’s safe to say that though TBKiller is inspired by TBK, he’s found himself. The question is, what is he?”

“You know, I haven’t seen any letters around here.” Mullins paced into the living room and back. “Have you?”

“Once TBK hit the media he eased off sending letters to the victims ahead of time. There were notes and hints of who he would go after in the letters he sent to the police and newspaper, but that was it.” Jade shrugged.

“Neither of these fit the clues in the last letters, though. It doesn’t make any sense.” Jacob stroked his chin.

“You’re right. What if these two weren’t on his radar until something else happened?” Brooks scooted past Jacob to stand with his back to the blood void on the kitchen counter, facing the victims. “What if he was supposed to kill someone else? The first scene was neat, almost as if each blood splatter was intentional. The second kill—something happened there. He got violent. Or maybe it was the sound? I need to see the second kill photographs again. Something changed with that scene to lead to this.”

But what?

And how could they figure it out before it was too late?

Emma lifted her welder’s mask and glanced around. Sunday at Simon’s garage was a ghost town. Usually the guys tinkered on their own bikes or a friend’s truck, but everyone had somewhere else to be. It was just her, the latest sculpture, and a blowtorch. Normally welding was soothing. She could get out of her head and let the metal and flame speak to her, but today she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was watching.

Since Jacob had left to go to the station that morning, she’d decided to try to get some more work done. The break-up with Derrick had interrupted her production schedule and she needed to make up some ground on custom pieces she’d promised clients.

If Jacob knew she was out here, he’d be pissed beyond belief. He only suspected the copycat might be interested in her. He didn’t know she was firmly in the cross hairs.

Maybe she should tell him?

She took a swig of water before lowering her welder’s mask and starting the torch up again.

If she told him, her ass would land in protective custody. She’d suffocate with that many cops crawling up her ass.

The skin between her shoulder blades crawled. He was there. Somewhere. Watching her.

She glanced in the reflective surface of a tinted car window, but nothing was behind her. Nothing was out of place.

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She was too distracted to get much more work finished, and besides, the sun was reaching its zenith. From there it would be too hot to work with the torch.

She shoved the mask up once more and hurried to get her glove off to press the flickering answer button.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ms. Ration?”

“Yeah?” Who the fuck called her Ms. Ration?

“My name is Ryan Brooks. I’m with the FBI. We’d like to see your collection of TBK documents and ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“This about the copycat?” Shit. Did Jacob know this was happening? Hadn’t he mentioned an Agent Brooks at some point last night?

“I’d rather not say. Do you think you could come in?”

“Yeah, it’ll be a little bit, though. I’ve been out working, and I need to clean up a bit.”

“That’s fine. Could you be here around, say five o’ clock?”

“I can do that.” She didn’t want to, but she would. The truth was, as much as she wanted to understand this copycat and the senseless violence of it all, she wasn’t going to be the one who took him down. That was a job for the cops. But fuck if she didn’t want to give the asshole a black eye.

It took her most of an hour to clean up and put her latest sculpture back in the shed Simon had said she could use until she found a new studio space. By then, her nerves were clamoring so hard between being watched and her impending date with the feds that she couldn’t even pretend to be hungry. She headed out to the station early to at least get it over with.

The quicker she wrapped the meeting up, the sooner she could be hungry. Hell, maybe Jacob would like to go have dinner with her and take a break. He was getting in too deep with this case and she knew how much it could stir up the darkness inside.

She focused on Jacob during her drive to the downtown station in Oklahoma City. His smile. The blueness of his eyes. The scars that told the story of a man so intent on getting his guy, sometimes he used his own body as a tool.

He was also a target. Or maybe it was because he was a cop that made the copycat reach out to him. TBK had liked an audience and he’d flirted with the authorities for years before they caught him.

She parked her truck and took the file box with all the precious history inside the station. An attendant signed her in, put her through a metal detector, and showed her back into the bowels of the building. There was no way she’d figure out how to get out of here on her own.

“Ms. Ration?” A clean-cut blond man approached her. He couldn’t be a local, not in a long-sleeved shirt and a flashy pink tie.