Restoration 01 - Getting It Right (34 page)

Nate’s answer last time had been to throw himself into his work. Tonight he didn’t have an active caseload, and he wouldn’t have gone out alone anyway. He’d learned his lesson. But he needed something to do other than prowl around his own house and hope he managed a few hours of sleep.

“Why the fuck? You aren’t him.”

Nate stumbled over the edge of the area rug and caught himself on the arm of the couch.

Phantom pain spread from his neck to the top of his head. The damp, oily smell of the street choked him. More pain in his arms and legs. His ribs were on fire.

“Why the fuck? You aren’t him.”

Footsteps and gravel and being dragged and the cold, hard van floor.

Another snap of agony from that first blow to his head.

“Stop it!”

The memories drifted away like a spring fog, leaving Nate shaking and nauseated, huddled on the floor against the side of the sofa. The voice was unfamiliar, gravelly like a hoarse whisper. It had come between that first disorienting sniff of chloroform and being shoved headfirst into a car. During the initial struggle. A small bit of memory he’d lost to the trauma of the attack.

The guy who attacked me didn’t want me. He wanted someone else.

It was the only thing that explained the words. Nate hadn’t been the target that night.

So why beat the shit out of me?

He hadn’t seen a face, and the voice had been distorted. Nate had been on the street, hanging with other hookers, dressed like one.

“Shit, dude, we could pass as brothers. Throw that line at the johns. They’d pay extra to
fuck brothers.”
Wily. Joking about how they’d looked so similar. The short black hair. Tan complexion. Similar height and build.

“He was after Wily,” Nate told the living room. “He fucked up and got me instead, and then he killed Wily later.”

But the attacker hadn’t killed Nate, only brutalized him.

I might have died if I hadn’t been spotted in that alley. I’d have died, but I wouldn’t have
been raped and stabbed in the ear like those other boys.

“Fuck me sideways.” Nate tried to stand, but the room swayed so he stayed put. His case was related to the serial case. He’d been a mistake, he was positive of it. Serial killers lived for their patterns. This killer had broken his pattern because he’d grabbed the wrong victim. He hadn’t wanted Nate’s case to muck up the pattern he began with Spokes, and then went on to establish with Kincaid, Wily and Tate.

Almost nine o’clock. Did he wait and go see Danvers first thing? Call him now and throw the theory at him to see if it stuck? Run the whole thing by Carey first?

God, I wish Jay was here so I could talk this out with him.

As though conjured by his thoughts, his phone buzzed with a text. Nate nearly dropped the thing twice before managing to check the message.

James:
Need you baby please. Please come.

Nate’s heart twisted. James was drinking again, he had to be, the asshole. Nate wanted to ignore the message but he cared too much to leave James at the mercy of his own demons.

Nathan: Are you home?

James: Yes.

Nathan: On my way. Stay put. Don’t do anything stupid.

No reply.

Nate called, but James didn’t pick up. So much for his case breakthrough. Time to go babysit his drunk boyfriend.

He knocked and rang the bell when he arrived at James’s apartment. “It’s me, open up.”

Pounding on James’s door was getting really old. Nate tested the knob. It turned easily.

The dead bolt wasn’t fastened, so the door opened with no fuss.

“Jay?”

He found James sitting in the middle of the sofa, skinned down to his boxers, arms and legs akimbo, an open bottle of Bushmills on the coffee table next to a double old-fashioned glass.

The closer he got, the harder Nate’s heart pounded. The bottle was nearly two-thirds empty, and James had the glassy-eyed, sallow-skinned appearance of someone who was about six drinks past the stopping point.

“Christ, what did you do to yourself?” He had to get James’s head over the toilet and vomiting up some of that liquor before he passed out completely.

A distinct clack and snap of the dead bolt jolted surprise up Nate’s spine. He turned, hand instinctively going to his hip for a weapon he hadn’t carried in months. The figure standing by the door couldn’t have shocked him more if it had been Wily’s ghost himself.

“Grant? What the hell are you doing here?”

Grant Pfieffer grinned lazily as he raised a .38 and aimed it at Nate’s chest. “Waiting for you, of course.”

Nate clamped down hard on the icy fear trying to wrap around his guts. He didn’t know what was going on, or why a fellow officer who’d just gotten off two weeks of undercover work was in his boyfriend’s apartment. He glanced at James, who was so out of it he didn’t seem to know anyone was there, much less had a gun.

“If you wanted to chat, you could have called,” Nate said.

Pfieffer chuckled. “This requires a more personal touch. I’m tying up some loose ends before I leave town.”

The truth of the situation smacked Nate upside the head. Dread coiled inside him and made it difficult to breathe. “You killed those men.”

The sly grin was as good as a yes. “You are a very good investigator, Detective Wolf, I’ll give you that. Normally I can manage more kills before I have to move on, so bravo. Head of the class, I assume?”

More kills. “You’ve done this before?”

“Sure I have. In case you hadn’t guessed, my name isn’t Grant Pfieffer and I’m not twenty-two. It’s amazing what you can do with a little computer know-how. New identity, clean record. Watching the game from the inside is a fantastic high.”

The killer had been under their collective noses the entire time, laughing at them.

Taunting them. Hell, they’d put the killer under-fucking-cover to catch himself. The truths kept punching Nate in the gut and he pulled out another one, because he had to know.

“You’re the one who attacked me,” Nate said.

Pfieffer shrugged. “That was unfortunate, but it’s what you get when you dress up like a hooker. You were a mistake, and I made another mistake by not making sure you were dead before I left you.” He had the gall to laugh. “You’re so much prettier now.”

Nate resisted the urge to fly at the guy. He didn’t want to hear explanations or know how his twisted mind worked, but he needed time. Time to distract him and get a weapon. The table lamp base was nice and heavy. “Why did you kill them?”

“Why not?”

He couldn’t hold back a disgusted grunt.

Pfieffer moved a few feet closer, the gun never wavering. “Bad answer? Have you ever killed someone, Detective?”

“No.”

“You should. There’s no greater high than holding someone’s life in your hands. That moment when they wake up from the chloroform and realize you’re inside them. The fear. The fight. The greatest orgasms I’ve ever had are the ones that occur in the moment of death. When that file slides home and the body clenches up tight with the shock. It’s stupendous. Who wouldn’t kill for that?”

He’s insane. This is insane.

Nate considered trying to get at his phone, but the moment his hands disappeared from sight Pfieffer would notice. He was crazy, not stupid. Pfieffer had come here with a plan.

“So what now? You could have gone to my place and murdered me. Why here?”

“I could have, but there’s no artistry in that. I don’t want your death tied to my pretty young men.” Pfieffer circled the living room so he was standing on the opposite end of the couch, with James and the coffee table between them.

James’s breathing was shallower, his skin impossibly pale. Alcohol poisoning. He needed a hospital.

“If you want to kill me then do it, but James needs a doctor,” Nate said.

“Oh, I know we overdid it a bit, but I needed him docile. He’ll live long enough to get this done.”

Overdid it. Hatred boiled in Nate’s blood. “You forced him to drink all that?”

“Forced is such a harsh worse. I encouraged him.”

“With your gun?”

Pfieffer smiled. “Now, now, I’m not foolish enough to bring my own gun here. This is your gun.”

“My gun is in Danvers’s office.”

“Your service piece is, yes, but not the backup gun you bought and have kept stashed in your locker all these months, just waiting for you to return to active duty.”

Shit.
Nate hadn’t checked on that gun in a couple of days. The gun in Pfieffer’s hand looked very much like the Smith & Wesson he’d used as a backup piece for the past six years.

He could still be bluffing. The man was obviously a born actor.

“What do you want?” Nate asked.

“We’re going to create a scene that, to any good detective, will look like a lover’s quarrel gone wrong. Is it true that Dr. Taggert there is an alcoholic? I bet the fact that he came home tonight with the whiskey pisses you off.”

Nate wasn’t taking the bait. “He was doing well until you put a gun to his head and forced him to drink.”

“He’s the one who bought the whiskey, Detective. I merely encouraged him along. Took a lot more than I expected to get him compliant enough to undress.”

Two things coalesced in Nate’s mind: James was nearly naked and Pfieffer was an

admitted rapist. Nate’s gut cramped. “If you touched him, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

Pfieffer didn’t seem put off by the dark promise in Nate’s words. “Well, obviously I touched him in order to—oh. Don’t be ridiculous. Fucking Dr. Taggert is your job. After all, what’s a domestic call without a little sexual assault?”

Nate’s lungs stopped working for a moment, until things got a little gray and he sucked in air. “You’re sick.”

“I’m perfectly healthy, thank you. Now, Detective, you are going to bend Dr. Taggert over that coffee table and fuck him. Are we clear?”

“No.” Nate would sooner take a bullet than do that to James.

“No, we aren’t clear?”

“No, I won’t fuck him. Not like this, not because you said so.”

Pfieffer made a show of clicking the safety off the Smith & Wesson. “Not even now?”

“You won’t shoot me. The minute you do, a neighbor is going to hear it and call 911.

You won’t have time to make this scene what you want before backup gets here.”

Something like respect flickered in Pfieffer’s eyes. “You’re right. It’s too soon to shoot anyone. It’s quite noisy.” He reached behind his back and produced a chef’s knife. The blade gleamed in the lamplight.

Nate braced for a lunge.

Pfieffer plunged the blade into James’s left thigh. James made a gurgling noise, the pain making it through the haze of drunkenness. He listed to the side, fingers sliding uselessly against the hilt of the knife.

Rage and adrenaline sent Nate’s blood pulsing and put a bitter taste in his mouth. A brutal, uncontrollable need to protect James overtook his better sense, and he kicked the coffee table hard, shoving it across the floor.

It surged into Pfieffer’s calf and knocked him off balance. Nate circled and came in low, catching Pfieffer in the gut with his shoulder. They tumbled to the floor, Nate on top, both of his hands grasping for the gun. Pfieffer drove a knee into his ribs, and the once-broken bones screamed. The pain was dizzying, but Nate didn’t let go.

I let go and we’re both dead.

Another blow to his ribs made his vision blur. The third loosened his grip. Pfieffer tossed him off. Nate tried to roll away but his aching ribs skewed his sense of direction, and he ended up stopped short by the patio doors. He looked up, right at a sweating James, whose hazel eyes were wide with fear and pain.

He didn’t see the butt of the gun until it was between his eyes. Agony exploded in Nate’s face. Bones in his nose popped. Blood poured down his lips and chin, and more trickled into the back of his throat. He fell. Couldn’t see for the pain. Couldn’t speak for the blood. The whole world felt like a water bed, floaty and wrong.

Pfieffer was muttering something, cursing maybe. Moving around. Nate flailed, desperate to stop him. To save himself and James. His hand came away empty. More pain in his ribs, sudden and fierce, made Nate scream. His eyes watered, and he choked on the blood in his throat.

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

Something thumped. Someone groaned.

James. God, please.

“Back away, Pfieffer!”

Nate forced his stinging, bleary eyes to focus. The scene confused him. James facedown on the couch, one hand reaching blindly for Nate. Pfieffer crouched over him, upper body twisted to face the door, gun pointed that way. Pointed at Wallace Carey, whose own service piece was up, aimed at Pfieffer.

What’s he doing here?

“Well, this is unexpected,” Pfieffer said, angry for the first time.

“What the actual fuck is going on?”

“Put your gun down, Detective. It’s all just a bit of fun.”

Carey glanced at Nate, his expression grim, then took a step closer to Pfieffer. “I don’t think so. How about you put yours down?”

“Why? So we can talk about this? I don’t think so.”

“Stand up and move away from James. Now.”

“No.”

Pfieffer was trapped, and he knew it. If he stood down and let himself be arrested, he was heading for death row. He didn’t seem like the prison type. He liked control. He’d lost control, and he wasn’t going to back down.

Suicide by cop.

The anger settling into Carey’s face told Nate that he recognized it too. This was going to end badly, and Nate couldn’t move fast enough to help.

“You have been nothing but trouble since day one, Detective Wolf,” Pfieffer said without looking away from Carey. “You can thank yourself for my death, and for Detective Carey’s.”

Nate lunged. “No!”

The two gunshots banged almost simultaneously, leaving Nate’s ears ringing. Blood splattered the wall above James’s sofa. Pfieffer fell face-first to the floor with a sickly thump. A second thud. All Nate could see were the bottoms of Carey’s shoes.

“Wally!”

Nate fumbled for his phone, fingers shaking so badly he barely managed dialing 911.