Mind Games

Mind Games

By

TJ Moore

www.TJMooreBooks.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

Copyright © 2015 TJ Moore
. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

Cover design by Cassandra Swenson

Marketing Materials by Kaitlynn Wornson

Edited by Jodi Andrews

SHADOWS

San Francisco, CA  -  1265 Maple Street. Late July.

Detective Amy Har
t
painted the front door with her flashlight. The beams of white light mixed with silver streaks from the moon and reflected a bluish glow off the glass windows in the door.

Amy thought blue was supposed to be one of those mellow colors that helped people calm down, but she still felt wired, energized from her nightly run. After leaving the fourth precinct each night, Amy Hart didn’t watch TV or tend a garden.

Instead, she ran.

Tonight, after other errands, she went grocery shopping before going back to her downtown apartment. Amy filled the fridge and changed into work out clothes.

She was in the middle of her late night run when she got the call. Amy always kept her cell phone strapped to her arm. When it rang, she answered it through her thin, white headphones.

Now, as she stood outside the mansion of the recently deceased Fred Stefani, she checked her watch. The other members of the CSI team were seven minutes late. Amy regretted arriving so early, knowing the past seven minutes could have been tacked on to the end of her run.

She spoke with the police officer that originally answered the call from concerned neighbors across the street. During his initial search of Stefani’s home, the officer found the fifty-seven year old man dead, face-up in the basement.

Amy backed away from the front door and inspected the yard for anything out of the ordinary. She checked the windows, but found no signs of entry into the multi-million dollar home.

Although the sun had set two hours ago, an uncomfortable heat lingered, carried by the humidity. The sticky air hung in a suspended, greenish haze, threatening to release a spontaneous downpour. But the neighborhood trees on Maple Street did not bow or sway. Instead, their branches sagged from the humidity.

Amy moved her light away from the house and ducked under the perimeter of yellow tape. She pulled an elastic band off her left wrist and guided her chocolate-brown hair into a ponytail. She finished tying the ponytail and tightened it against the back of her head, letting several inches of hair swing across her shoulder blades.

As a homicide detective, Amy Hart had seen enough atrocities to condition her expectations. In the past two weeks alone, Amy and her team investigated four house fires. The fires were not caused by gas leaks or electrical surges. Mail bombs, intended to kill, caused them. Judging by the blast radius at each property, Amy concluded that the bombs had all been about the same size. Unfortunately, the other details, including the locations of the bombings and the events surrounding them, didn’t seem to be connected. Amy was not a ballistics expert by any standard, but she guessed the bombs had been shipped from the same sender based on similar shards of polka-dot wrapping paper found around each blast site.

“Hey, what are you doing here so early?” Detective Vince Hogan tapped a greasy corndog on Amy’s shoulder.”

Amy turned around. “Where you been, Vince? You’re late.”

“I know. Look, I had to stop and get a bite to eat. You’re still wearing your track suit under your jacket?”

“So what.” Amy tightened her zipper. “They called in the middle of my run again.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to make up the time tomorrow night.” Vince motioned towards the mansion with his corn dog. “Nice place. Does the mayor live here?”

“What do you think, Vince?”

“Well, I’m not exactly drinking buddies with the guy. I don’t get invited to those kinds of parties. What’s the situation? Another fire?”

“Vince,” Amy sighed. “Do you see a big red fire truck parked in the middle of the street?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not a fire.”

“Alright, Hart. Fill me in.”

“It’s just a dead mess. The neighbors heard a couple shots fired, called the cops...the officer found the homeowner, Mr. Fred Stefani, in the basement. And no, he’s not the mayor. The kill shots went through his gut. Seems pretty cut and dried. We should be out of here in a few hours.”

“Great,” Vince said. “I had to pause my DVR to get here. And then, on the way over, I almost hit a raccoon by the gas station. Those bastards are everywhere.”

“The coons must follow you, Vince. They probably think you’re a long lost uncle or something.”

“Eh. I could do worse.”

Cameron Frost pulled up in an S.U.V. and joined Amy and Vince just outside the yellow tape. As he approached, Cameron brushed his knuckles across the few-days stubble around his jawline. At six-feet-three-inches, Cameron Frost towered over five-foot Amy. His broad shoulders and fit torso cast a shadow onto the pavement, announcing his presence the way a greyhound might stand before a hunt.

Cameron’s hazel eyes were equal parts gold and silver, and had grown accustomed to working in the dark chapters of the night. The sheen that highlighted his jet-black hair matched the flash of his grin.

Back when he was still a rookie, he used to think solving murders would come with a measurable amount of glory, as if they’d praise his brilliance across news networks the world over. However, this imagined glory never really unfolded in reality.

Vince, on the other hand, continued to maintain arrogance in all its forms – a trait he used to compensate for his less manly figure. “Cameron, what’s up?” Vince tried to imitate Cameron’s smooth stride. Then, he punched Cameron’s leather jacket with his fist. “Cam the man. Here to catch the bad guys with a fast shutter speed.”

“You need some new material, Vince.” Cameron strapped on his DSLR camera and inserted a new memory card.

Vince ran his bony fingers through his matted hair. “Hey, not every photographer gets to tag along with the two best detectives in the state. You should be shining my boots, Cam.”

“It’s a little early for your bullshit, Vince.”

“It’s never too early.”

“When are you going to stop acting like I’m a new addition to the team?”

Vince kicked at the boulevard. “When you stop dressing like some punk-ass kid from the eighties.”

“You’re just jealous you can’t pull off this look.” Cameron flexed, and his leather jacket almost ripped at the seams. “I don’t need a gun when I’ve got these bad boys.”

Vince clicked his tongue and tapped his holstered Glock. “Yes, but when push comes to shove, I’ll shoot someone’s ass long before you beat them to death with your camera.”

“Ladies. Please,” Amy twirled her flashlight. “You’re both pretty. Alright, Cam. You ready?”

“Let’s go.” Cameron lifted the yellow tape.

Vince shoved the rest of his corndog into his mouth and chucked the wooden stick to the gutter.

The investigation team entered the house, moving past a curved staircase leading to the second floor. Amy clicked on her flashlight. The wooden floorboards squeaked as she moved into the kitchen.

“The body’s in the basement.”

Even after the all clear, danger still echoed through the large house. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes and empty TV dinners. Amy kicked away several pieces of garbage before she saw fresh, muddy boot-prints trailing out the kitchen window just above the sink. Shifting her gaze, Amy followed the muddy prints down from the kitchen counter across the wood flooring to an open door: the entrance to the Fred Stefani’s basement.

“Down here,” Amy said.

Vince pulled a thin chain, turning on the bare bulb at the top of the stairs. The light caused beer bottles along the steps to stretch into shadows. Besides the woody creaks of the floorboards, the clinking light bulb was the only constant sound in the house.

Amy still didn’t trust the near-silence. There was still a chance the killer was lurking somewhere in the huge estate. This was the moment that always heightened Amy’s senses: the anticipation of what lay ahead. Every crime scene had its thrills, but Amy always got a kick of adrenaline from the reveal.

Even years of investigative experience could not fully prepare Amy for each dark night. Under the beam of her flashlight, the night had an ever-revolving quality.

Amy earned a strong reputation in San Francisco for her sharp intellect and analytical skills. At thirty-five years old, she helped to solve more murders than most of her colleagues combined. But Amy’s skills weren’t perfect. There were still six homicide cases in the past year that she just couldn’t crack. Those killers were still out there, and this truth kept her up many nights. In a way, she felt responsible that such evil was still at large. Sometimes, the weight of the open cases pressed against her, threatening to crush her. And most recently, the unknown identity of the notorious San Fran Bomber carried the heaviest weight.

Amy knew there was no such thing as guaranteed safety. During one of her initial explorations of another case, the killer was waiting for the CSI team but with a grin. In the aftermath of his crime, he was actually smiling. And only a month earlier, Amy narrowly escaped a deranged thief with bolt cutters.

Adrenaline. Stress. Fear. Devastation. These were the words Amy associated with solving crimes. And although she fought them, they always returned. But even in the ugliness of the recent bombings, Amy had found a new word to guide her: discovery.

Each discovery was no doubt exciting, but it was the fear that made her focus. It was the fear that kept her coming back.

As she led her team down the stairs, Amy raised the flashlight over the steps, and the darkness ahead swallowed the light.

This particular basement was more vile than most. It felt more like a large cellar than a proper basement. The bare brick walls seemed to barely support the main level above, and cracks reached out across the walls like long fingers. Orange grime oozed and solidified among the cracks, and some of the bricks were mismatched. A few even stuck out of the wall like Jenga pieces. Blue moonlight punched through microscopic gaps in the walls, creating small speckles of light that seemed to mimic the summer stars. But these were only ghostly shadows. Amy moved her light up along the bricks, reaching to the corner. Cobwebs cluttered the crumbling bricks, and the pungent smell of mold permeated the air.

Vince sneezed. Twice. “Man, this place doesn’t look anything like the street view.” The dank environment irritated his chronic allergies. Vince spent many hours of his life as a bachelor living in basements, but he was thankful his current apartment wasn’t this eerie.

Amy pressed on and found a large, rectangular fish tank balanced on stacks of old magazines and newspapers. It looked as though it was about to slip off their glossy covers and shatter onto the floor. Yet, it remained poised.

Amy’s flashlight pierced through the foggy tank revealing bits of floating sediment. Amidst the cloudy water, seven gold fish bobbed belly-up.

Vince tapped on the glass. “Fish sticks anyone?”

Amy inspected each fish with her light, letting the laser-like beam refract inside their glassy eyes. “Our first victims. These fish died recently. The pigment in their scales is still vibrant.”

“What are you, some sort of marine biologist?” Vince tapped on the glass harder until a hairline crack jutted across the tank. The water rippled, and the fish swayed along its surface, but the tank stayed poised on its glossy perch.

Amy guided her flashlight to a billiards table next to the fish tank. A couple small packages of cocaine rested upon the wooden perimeter of the pool table, leaving a trail of white powder on the green felt.

“Looks like a drug deal gone wrong,” she said.

Amy began collecting the evidence, sealing it inside small plastic baggies. She followed the trail of cocaine off the edge of the pool table and down to the victim’s body. “Here he is. Mr. Fred Stefani.”

Vince kicked the limp body lightly on the foot. “I guess it’s hard to feed the fish when you’re dead.”

“Have a little respect,” Cameron said. He snapped complete coverage of the room with the evidence camera. The constant flashes lit up the basement as if it were alive with electrical impulses. Then, he photographed the bullet wound in Stefani’s gut. A halo of blood had pooled around the man’s midsection. “How long do your think this guy’s been out?”

Vince leaned over the body and lifted Fred Stefani’s left hand. Tiny shards of glass fell from his wrist. “His Rolex must have cracked when he fell. 8:26PM. About four hours ago.”

Amy turned around. “Four hours? The officer said the neighbors heard three gunshots less than an hour ago. What took them so long to call it in?”

Vince took a closer look at the body. “Hold up, I know this guy. Yeah, how could I forget an ugly mug like that? This is the man that sold me that lemon car! That explains this massive house. This guy lies for a living.”

Cameron shook his head. “Vince, why do you always know the victims?”

“Man, I don’t know…this is one messed up city.”

“Maybe you just hang out with a lot of scumbags.”

“What are you implying?”

“You’re a scumbag magnet, Vince.”

“Come on, guys. Let’s keep going.”

Amy wasn’t thrilled to be paired with Vince. Although his cunning wit often provided insight into criminal minds, Vince’s lack of maturity soured his reputation. Amy saw something special in him and put a word in with the Lieutenant. Her recommendation eventually led to a promotion for Vince as a SFPD detective. By working with Amy, he sharpened his skills as a criminal profiler.