Should Be Dead (The Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series Book 1) (16 page)

It was ten when Val finally returned to her hotel room. When she entered the room, the place was dark. That was odd, considering the fact that room service had kept a fire going every night until now. The observation didn’t give her pause though, until Val turned on the light and found Riley sitting in a chair in the corner with a gun on his lap.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at her, waiting for a reaction. Val raised her eyebrows and then proceeded to take off her jacket and hang it on the coat rack. She retrieved her cane from the place she’d left it leaning by the door, and took a few steps into the middle of the room.

“I guess you’re not here for a second round,” she said, nodding towards the bed.

“No. I’m here because we need to talk,” he said. Riley lifted the gun and pointed it at her. “Get rid of that,” he said, pointing at her shoulder holster. Val shook her head disappointedly. She tossed the gun on the bed and then leaned over to turn up the gas in the fireplace. As the fire roared to life, she turned to face him, leaning on her cane.

“How did you get in here? The door wasn’t tampered with.”

“I came in through the balcony. Took about five seconds to open that lock with a screwdriver.”

“Breaking and entering, Riley? That doesn’t sound like the golden boy I know.”

“Would you have agreed to meet with me otherwise?”

“Of course.”

“Why should I believe that, when everything else you told me has been a lie?”

“I see… so you risked all that, just so you could threaten me with a toy gun? I was trying butch you up a little, but now you come in here waving that thing around. I must say, I’m disappointed.”

“This isn’t a toy,” Riley said. He shook it as if to demonstrate the weapon’s weight. “This is a real gun.”

“Uh-huh. And Ken’s a real doll. You have one of those, too?”

“I’ll have you know that I inherited this from my grandmother, and she was a crack shot.”

“I bet she was. You do realize that twenty-two revolvers aren’t good for killing anything larger than a raccoon, right? They’re one size larger than a pellet gun. That’s why people use them for target shooting. They’re for kids… and grandmas. I don’t know what to say, Riley. You’re just one disappointment after another.”

Riley glanced at the gun and back at Val with a look on his face like she’d just kicked him between the legs. Val rolled her eyes and giggled.

“Put the gun away before you hurt yourself,” she said. “If you want to know something, just ask me.”

Riley considered for a few seconds and then struggled to get the gun back into his coat pocket. Val watched him with an amused smile. When he had settled, she pulled a chair close to him, between Riley and the fire. She settled onto it, sitting upright, trying to ignore the throbbing pain of the muscles cramping in her back. Riley was sullen, staring at her like a schoolboy in the principal’s office.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Let’s have it.”

He stared at her with a dark, unreadable expression. “Who are you?”

 “You already know that. My name is Valkyrie Smith.”

“Oh, I know that. I also know that you’re not a cop.”

Val stared at him, her face a perfect mask. “Go on.”

Riley lifted a sheet of paper off the nightstand and held it up. It was a newspaper clipping.
The
clipping. Val recognized the headline and felt a wrenching pain in her chest as she saw the word “family” in bold black lettering. The memory of that day came flooding back to her, as clear and painful as yesterday. She saw the bodies of her husband and son draped in cloth, the paramedics lifting the gurneys into an ambulance.

“You’re not a cop,” Riley repeated. “What are you, some kind of vigilante? Or are you working with the killer?”

Val snorted. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe. I know I can’t believe anything you say because so far, everything you’ve told me has been a lie.”

“That’s not true. I may have deceived you about what I am, but not
who
I am.”

“How can I believe that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose you can’t.”

Riley settled back in the chair, staring at the article. “Tell me what you’re trying to do. What’s it all about?”

“I’m a teacher,” she said. “You probably know that already. I taught grade school in Idaho Falls. My husband was an engineer. We had this crazy idea that we wanted to start a small organic farm.” Her eyes watered up, but Val continued with her gaze fixed on Riley.

“We were going to raise goats and sell organic vegetables at the farmer’s market. Can you believe that? Can you believe how naïve we were? It was my idea, of course. Tom just went along with it because… well, he loved me. He would have done anything to make me happy. And we knew that the farm would be a nice place to raise children.

“We started small, making improvements to the property, getting drainage and irrigation rights. The old well had gone dry, but we dug a new one, and we managed to acquire enough water rights to start planting crops.”

“What does all this have to do with this killer, this Loki character?”

“I’m getting to that. When Tom and I bought the place, there was an old car in the barn. My car, the Packard my husband restored before he died. Tom spent two years working on that car. He entered it in some local car shows and won a few of them.

“One day, a man came to the farm asking to see it. He claimed to be a collector. Tom told the man he wasn’t interested in selling, but he let him see it anyway. The man looked it over, thanked Tom, and left. We thought that was the end of it.

“Later that night, the collector came back. He snuck into the house, which was easy since we didn’t even bother locking our doors. He killed my seventeen-year-old son in his bed. We were still asleep when he attacked Tom with a baseball bat. The bat broke his nose and fractured his skull. Tom tried to fight the man off, but it was over before it even started. I tried to fight too, but I was terrified. You can’t imagine how something like that would take you by surprise. I didn’t know how to defend myself.”

“How did you escape?”

“The killer tied us up. He tortured us. He raped me in front of my husband. I don’t think the man even enjoyed it. Not the sex, anyway. What got him off was the terror; the fact that we were powerless, and we both knew we were going to die. He was like a cat playing with mice. He just kept torturing us, dragging it out as long as he could.

“When we saw the chance, Tom told me to escape. I refused, but he wouldn’t allow me to stay. He made up some story about how I could run to the neighbors and call the police. Of course, Tom knew he was going to die. He was just trying to save me.

“It was night, and I ran out of the house naked and covered in blood. As soon as I crossed the front lawn, I heard the man screaming at Tom, beating him. I heard him come outside, and I knew then that I’d never get away. I looked around, trying to find a safe place to hide, and decided to climb inside the old well. I figured if I was quiet, he would never find me there in the dark.

“I hung inside the well by my fingertips. I was too exhausted, too out of sorts to support my weight for long. I slipped, and I ended up at the bottom of the well, unconscious. When I woke up, it hurt to move and my legs were numb. I thought I might have been paralyzed. I was terrified. I could see a tiny patch of clouds and sky and I kept seeing shadows moving up there. I could hear him walking around the well, searching for me. I knew that he was going to find me eventually; that he would crawl down there and finish me off. But while I was laying there in the darkness, surrounded by crawling creatures and the bodies of dead rodents who’d fallen in before me, something happened. The terror just kept building and building, up to the point that I finally snapped. I suddenly realized I wasn’t afraid anymore. I didn’t care if I died. What did I have to lose? He’d already killed my entire family. I didn’t have anything else to live for. I
wanted
to die. Suddenly, I was perfectly calm.

“For a while, it seemed like that was the end of it. I was just lying there, waiting to die. I figured the internal bleeding would finish me off, eventually. When that didn’t happen… I slowly realized that I
wasn’t
going to die. The broken back was enough to keep me at the bottom of that well, but it wasn’t enough to kill me. I might die of dehydration eventually, but that would take a while. I spent two nights down there, waiting, wondering, and planning.”

“Planning?”

“Yes. I had a lot of time to think over the events and decisions that had brought me to that place. I realized that if I’d been a little more careful, a bit less naive, I might have prevented the entire situation. I was trusting, you know? I had trusted in humanity, in the basic goodness of people; that they won’t walk into your house and kill you just because they can. But that’s not the way the world is. I suppose you could say my blinders came off.”

“What happened?”

“The killer left. He must have realized that someone would come looking for us eventually. Monday afternoon, the police found me and pulled me out of the well. I was in surgery for most of the night.”

“You said you were planning something, down in that well? Was it revenge?”

“Of course. But I knew that goal was a long way off. I didn’t even know if I’d survive. I just knew what I wanted to do
if I survived.
After my surgery, it took several months to recover. The doctors said I would probably never walk again, but I did. I made it to my feet, and I relearned how to walk.

“After they released me, I still had to go through more than a year of therapy. But it was time to put my plan into action. I had to learn how to defend myself. I took martial arts and self-defense classes. I learned how to shoot, and how to fight. I sold the farm. I sold everything except the car, and put the money in different bank accounts under various corporate entities that I created. I formed an alliance with my son’s best friend, a computer hacker. Between the two of us, we swore to bring the killer to justice.”

“Michael Barnes?”

“No. Michael Barnes isn’t the killer. He’s just a copycat. An apprentice, you might say. I followed the trail of the killer here. He calls himself by the name Odin.”

“Odin?” said Riley. “Your name is Valkyrie, and the killer calls himself Odin?”

“I’m afraid so. I was the first of his victims to survive. Somehow, in his lunatic mind, he decided that since I was named Valkyrie that he must be the Norse god Odin. He took on that persona because of me. Now, when he kills his victims, he hangs them upside down from a tree and drives a spear through their hearts. My name inspired all of that.”

“And Michael Barnes?”

“He’s local. I believe Barnes is taking lessons from Odin, learning his style. Barnes calls himself Loki now.”

Riley leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and ran a hand through his hair. He gave her an anguished look. He still wasn’t sure he could trust her.

“Let me show you something,” Val said.

She pulled the projector out of the closet and set it up as quickly as she could. Her back was stiff, her muscles aching, and Riley kindly assisted her. Even with that gun in his pocket, he couldn’t stop being a nice guy.

As before, Valkyrie connected the projector to her laptop and loaded a series of panoramic images. The first scene came to life - the interior of the Brooks home after the murders- and Riley’s jaw dropped. He rose from his chair and turned slowly, scanning the image from wall to wall.

“How did you get this?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is this…” Val pointed at the runic writing on the wall, using the laser pointer on the remote. “Do you know what this says?”

Riley shook his head mutely.

“It says:
I am Loki. I shake the earth.
It’s an ancient alphabet used by the Vikings.”

“Loki. That’s Michael Barnes?”

“The only reason he would have taken that identity is because of Odin. At first, I thought Loki might be a copycat, but when I looked at the rest of the scene… when I saw the bodies out back, I knew.”

She clicked the remote, and the image of the backyard came to life. “This is Odin’s work. He cuts throats. He tortures. This is his M.O. The public doesn’t know about this yet.”

She clicked the remote again, and the image switched to a similar scene. The landscape was different, and the display showed the bodies of a young couple next to a backyard swimming pool. She clicked again, pulling in for a close-up of the bodies. “These victims also had their throats cut. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that all that changed with the Brooks family. Those murders were far more violent. Loki is the reason for that.”

Riley had begun to pace, wringing his hands, forcing his gaze from the grisly images to the floor, only to continually glance back a moment later.

“What does it mean?” he said. “Why are they working together?”

“It depends. It’s possible they just happened to meet, and to join up. It’s also possible that Odin chose his student for a purpose.”

“Like what?”

“To dilute the trail. With two of them doing the same thing, it will be impossible to track them both. That way, Loki is a distraction.”

“This is insane.” He turned his gaze on Valkyrie. “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you let the police handle it… the
real feds?
”

“They had their chance. I spent two years recovering from what Odin did to me. Two years of surgeries and physical therapy, tai chi, acupuncture. All that time, I kept calling them, asking if they had him yet. What do you think they told me?”

“What?”

“That they were very busy, and if anything changed, they would contact me. During all that time, how close do you think they got?”

Riley winced. “Not very, I’m guessing.”

“Exactly. The feds don’t care about Odin. He’s just one serial killer out of dozens. They don’t have the resources to track down every tip, or interview every witness. That’s not the way it works. They don’t actively pursue a case like mine unless it gets national attention. All along, Odin just keeps killing.”