Shaken (21 page)

“I’m saying that we can only be here for so long. For some, it could be years before we leave. For others, it could be just over twenty-four and a half hours.”

He hadn’t been talking about a child’s death. He was talking about a child leaving the country. And that child was him.

“Can I come in, Ms. Dalton?”

She nodded. I still wasn’t sure why Dalton would send me on a wild goose chase. For fun? To prove he was smarter than I was? All of the books in his condo pointed to him being a true crime junkie. Maybe he just wanted to mess around with the famous cop he’d read about.

So what about all the innuendo? All the double-talk? Was Dalton even a criminal?

“Please, sit down. Would you like some coffee, Lieutenant? I can make a pot.”

I plopped onto the sofa and stifled a yawn. “No, thank you. I just have a few questions about your brother. You know he left the country a little while ago?”

She nodded, sitting on the love seat. “A dream of his, to live on an island. He worked hard his whole life, saving up money. He finally earned enough to retire.”

“What did your brother do?”

“Construction, I think. He never talked about his job. I know he made a lot of money. He helped me buy this house. You know, he told me, before he left, that someone would be stopping by here. He wanted me to give you something. Can you hold on just a moment?”

I nodded, tensing up. When Janice left the room, I reached into my blazer and unbuckled the strap on my shoulder holster, resting my hand on the butt of my Colt. But when she returned, it wasn’t with a machine gun or a live grenade. It was with a notebook.

“I have no idea what this is,” Janice said, handing the pad over.

It was a standard Mead school notebook, black cardstock cover, spiral bound, seventy pages. I flipped it open and saw it was filled with handwritten names and dates, starting in the 1970s.

I don’t think my heart actually stopped, but that’s what it felt like. Because I recognized some of those names. I began turning pages, and I watched as the dates progressed, over a hundred of them, eventually stopping two days ago. The date of the John Doe murder, the man who died on the Catherine Wheel.

This was Mr. K’s murder book. A complete list of everyone he had killed.

I had just let history’s biggest serial killer leave the country.

“Are you all right?” Janice asked me. “You just got a little pale.” I thanked her, excused myself, and managed to get out of there without having a complete and total nervous breakdown. Herb pulled up as I was walking to my Nova.

“Jack?” He hurried out of his car, his face awash with concern.

“Dalton was Mr. K,” I said, handing Herb the notebook.

“You sure?”

I nodded. “The boy in the picture. It was him. He took us for a ride, Herb. And we let him.”

Over twenty years on the force, and I’d never screwed up this big. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again. When I thought about my life, about all I’d given up just to be a cop, I couldn’t help but feel what a colossal waste it was. A failed marriage. No children. For what? What good were all the sacrifices I’d made, when the worst criminal in the history of the United States of America could play me like a cheap fiddle?

“Want to go get drunk?” Herb said.

“I want to go to Cape Verde, find the bastard, and blow his head off.”

“But you won’t.”

I searched his face. “I won’t?”

“You can break into an occasional home and hire scumbag private detectives to bend the law, but you’re still a cop, Jack. It’s in your blood, whether you like it or not. And because you’re a cop, you’re going to follow the rules. That’s what you do. That’s who you are. You know that. Which is why you know the good guys lose sometimes.”

I stared up at the sun, which was so bright it hurt. Herb was right, or course. I didn’t like it. Hell, I didn’t like myself. Maybe, if I were a stronger person, I could fly to Dalton’s little island paradise and snuff the murderous asshole.

But then again, if I were a stronger person, I probably should have quit the force years ago and started a family.

“Actually, getting drunk sounds pretty good right about now,” I said. “You got the first round?”

“Absolutely. And just remember, Jack. Guys like Dalton, they don’t just retire. I’d bet you a dozen donuts we haven’t heard the last of him.”

I stared at my partner and hoped he was right. Because if I ever got another shot at John Dalton, aka Mr. K, I wouldn’t screw it up again.

Present day

2010, August 10

I
opened my eyes and stared at John Dalton, aka Mr. K. The ball gag had been removed from my mouth, and my arms and legs were strapped to the Catherine Wheel. So was my waist, a tight canvas belt holding me to the circular plywood.

“Good. You’re awake. I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this. I know I certainly have.”

Dalton began to remove items from his bag and set them on the floor in front of me. A blow torch. A filet knife. A box of sea salt. And finally, a sledgehammer. He hefted the hammer, holding it before my face.

“Shall we get started, Jack?”

Twenty-one years ago

1989, August 17

I
scrambled backward, away from Victor Brotsky, who loomed over me with a butcher knife. His naked body was blood-soaked, with bits of what must have been Shell sticking to his matted, curly hairs, covering him neck to toes.

In my effort to get away, I got tangled up—in Shell. I pushed away warm innards, which looped around my wrists, scooting over his dead body, off the plastic tarp, and over to the back door. It was locked, with a key-entry deadbolt, the same kind as the front door.

“Where you going to, little girl cop? There is no place to run from Victor Brotsky. My house is locked tight.”

I reached for the cheap dinette set against the wall, picking up one of the kitchen chairs. It was rolled aluminum and flimsy pressboard, insubstantial, but I threw it with all that I had.

Brotsky batted it harmlessly away, like he was swatting a bothersome mosquito. I followed up with the other, matching chair, and then upended the brown, Formica table, using it as a shield.

“You are a fighter,” Brotsky said. He grinned, exposing a cavern of yellow, crooked teeth. “I like. This is a fun job for me. Kill whores. Get paid. Now I get to kill pretty girlie cop. They pay me extra for you.”

While I’d never fought for my life before, I had been in plenty of fights. I was a black belt, tae kwon do, and had been practicing the martial art since I was a girl. Squaring off against someone wasn’t foreign to me—in fact, my forte was sparring. Even against a larger opponent, I was used to confrontation, and it didn’t paralyze me.

Rather than try to control the fear, I used it, letting it fuel my muscles. When Brotsky stepped onto the tarp, I rushed him, leaping over Shell, lifting the table and ramming it into the knife. Brotsky hadn’t been ready for the attack, and he stumbled backward, falling onto his backside. I rode the table over him, like a surfboard, the slashing blade missing me as I landed on my knees in the kitchen doorway.

I ran in a direction I hadn’t gone before, hoping to find a weapon or an exit. Hurrying over the carpeted floor, I passed a bathroom—glass blocks on the window—and found a bedroom. I slammed the door behind me, pressing the cheap push-button lock, jumping onto Brotsky’s unmade bed, and pulling back the drapes.

Another barred window.

Quickly looking around, I reached for the table lamp, which was made of brass and looked heavy. Next to the bed was one of those huge cellular radio phones, a Motorola DynaTAC. I reached for it, then, on the floor, I spotted something better.

My purse, on top of a pile of my clothes.

I reached for it, hoping my gun was still inside, dumping the contents onto the bed, grabbing my Beretta and jacking a round into the chamber just as the door burst inward.

I fired, missing as Brotsky threw himself at me. In a millisecond I adjusted my aim, squeezing the trigger a second time.

Nothing happened. My semi-automatic had jammed. Then Brotsky was on top of me, swatting the gun away, his naked flesh pressing me down against the bed, his hands grabbing my wrist as his foul lips pressed hot against my ear.

“Now,
sooka
,” he cooed, “we have some fun.”

Present day

2010, August 10

P
hineas Troutt was no stranger to being hit.

When he was diagnosed with cancer—cancer that doctors told him would be fatal—he decided to drop out of life. Instead of the rat race, he chose to live in the moment, on the fringe of society, taking what he wanted, when he wanted it. This began with robbing drug dealers and gangbangers, for the sole purpose of getting some quick cash to buy drugs and booze and whores to make him forget about the immediate physical pain, and the emotional pain, of a biological death sentence.

He’d done things, many things, he wasn’t proud of, even though the people he hurt, for the most part, had it coming.

Brotsky had it coming. And if Phin had to endure a broken nose and a few cracked ribs in order to show Brotsky that evil didn’t pay, he was willing to take his lumps.

But he hadn’t expected Brotsky to be so strong. Or so savage.

The older man—he had to be in his sixties—was apparently releasing all the pent-up rage that had built up during his years of incarceration. He tackled Phin, driving him to the floor, pinning him down. Phin took a shot in the kidneys, then was smothered by Brotsky’s flabby, sweaty neck, which smelled like powdered eggs.

Phin tried to heave the larger man off of him, but Brotsky was too big, too strong. Phin reached up, trying to scratch his eyes, but Brotsky craned his head back.

So Phin went for his nose. Making is index finger stiff, he jammed it into one of Victor Brotsky’s flaring nostrils, up past the second knuckle, trying to drive it all the way to the bastard’s brain.

Brotsky recoiled, pulling away, giving Phin the opportunity to slide out from under him.

Phin got onto his knees just as Brotsky rose to his feet. Roaring, snorting a clot of blood from his nose, Brotsky charged again. Phin timed the punch perfectly, catching Brotsky under the chin as he barreled toward him. The uppercut staggered the inmate, but didn’t drop him. Phin followed up with a solid jab between the man’s legs, but Brotsky twisted at the last moment, Phin’s hand bouncing off his meaty thigh.

Phin dropped a shoulder and rolled left. Momentum carried him to the cot. He reached for it, pulling himself up on the frame, which was bolted to the floor, and turned around to face Brotsky.

So far, Phin’s attempt to coerce the killer into a confession wasn’t going too well.

“This cop,” Brotsky said, wiping the back of his hairy paw against his bloody nose, “she is your girlfriend, yes?”

Jack was more than a girlfriend to Phin. In the sinkhole of chaos his life had become, Jack had been a constant, bright light. She was his friend, but also his ideal. To Phin, Jacqueline Daniels represented all that was good about humanity. Simply having her in his world was enough to kick Phin out of his dark depression and bring him back to the world of the living. She’d not only saved his life. She had also saved his soul.

“I love her,” Phin said. This surprised him, because as close as he and Jack had been, he’d never said these words to her.

Now, facing the man who was responsible for abducting her, Phin realized he should have said them sooner. On one hand, he hadn’t wanted to burden Jack with the responsibility of yet another man in her life. She’d had it rough lately, both personally and professionally. Phin didn’t want to scare her away.

But he should have told her just the same. Jack didn’t scare easily. And the mantra of their relationship—taking things one day at a time—had been exploded by the revelation that she was pregnant.

Not much scared Phin. But the thought that he’d never have a chance to tell the mother of his child how much he loved her was easily the most terrifying thing he’d ever endured.

“Did your woman tell you what Victor Brotsky did to her?” The prisoner grinned, blood running into his mouth and staining his crooked teeth red. “I hurt the sooka. I hurt her.
Real good
.”

Acting on anger, Phin threw himself at Brotsky. The larger man had anticipated the move, and his fist shot out, connecting with the side of Phin’s head. Phin staggered to the side, his vision blurring, and then he dropped to his knees.

“And now,” Victor Brotsky said, “I am going to hurt you.
Real good
.”

Twenty-one years ago

1989, August 17

B
rotsky on top of me, sweating, grunting, crushing me with his obscene weight, was the most disgusting, horrifying feeling I’d ever experienced. It was even worse than him chasing me with the knife.

I felt his teeth on my neck, biting, harder than any lover would, his fat knees pushing against mine, forcing my legs apart.

Every instinct, every nerve in my body, screamed
FIGHT HIM!

But I didn’t.

Rapists liked the fighting back. Control and violence were part of the turn-on. Before joining Vice, I’d talked to a dozen streetwalkers in preparation for my undercover work. They had an almost universal response when johns got too violent.

Get the control back.

Obviously, I couldn’t get control by fighting someone bigger and stronger. So I did it by confusing him.

Squeezing my eyes closed, fighting the urge to vomit, I made myself meet his clumsy kiss, pressing my lips to his. At the same time, I worked my free hand between our nude bodies, grasping him between the legs like I wanted him.

Brotsky’s reaction was instantaneous, doing the same thing any man did when you grabbed his dumb-stick. He sighed, going lax. Then he kissed me back, his hand slipping around my waist, a guttural moan escaping his throat.