Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (53 page)

Cooper stepped closer to get a better look. “Were those there before?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, she had some light bruising. Most likely from when your suspect moved her into the box.” The woman let out another cry as the doctor continued to prod a gloved hand over the wounds. “I don’t see anyth— Wait.” He leaned closer, examining a cluster of scrapes, then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket, illuminating one of the cuts.

Cooper tried to see what the doctor had found, but he clicked the light off before she could see. “What is it?”

“Ma’am, have you had any recent surgeries, been to the hospital at all?” the doctor asked.

“No.” Dalia’s tone was panicked, but still in pain.

The doctor pulled both Cooper and Hart out of earshot from Dalia. He leaned in close, the three huddling together. “Someone made an incision between her rib cage and then stitched it up.”

“He put something inside of her.” Cooper smacked Hart on the shoulder, pulling his attention away from Dalia’s painful moans. “Get Hemsworth on the line and tell him to have a team ready. Whatever he put in there won’t be good.”

While Hart phoned the FBI and the doctor wheeled the woman into surgery, Cooper found herself wrestling with the one task that drove her mad: waiting. She bounced her knee nervously as staff members and visitors passed. The adrenaline withdrawals triggered her hands to shake, which she constantly flexed to hide the tremors.

“I found Hemsworth,” Hart said, taking a seat next to Cooper and putting his phone down. “He’s back at the station. He said he’ll have a team ready in less than an hour.”

“Good.” Despite the communication Cooper kept her wall up, though she felt herself lowering the height, one brick at a time. In silence the pair wallowed in awkward spasms and nervous habits. Cooper watched Hart twirl the wedding band around his finger again, spinning it faster and faster while she bounced her leg. Finally, taking a chance, Cooper ended the standoff. “He called me.”

With the olive branch extended Hart stopped twirling his wedding ring and ended his staring contest with the floor. “Who?”

Cooper sighed, leaning back into her chair and folding her arms across her chest as she slouched. “The killer. When I got back to my apartment. He called me.”

Hart swiveled quickly, his eyes wide. “Christ, Cooper, why didn’t you say anything? Did you tell Farnes? Or Hemsworth? Did you—”

“The number was blocked.” Cooper waved away the thoughts racing through Hart’s mind, the ones she’d already dispelled in the seconds after the call had ended. “He’s gone to too much trouble to get caught by us tracking a cell number.”

“Maybe Hemsworth has some way he can track it. He might have some resources that we don’t.”

“No,” Cooper answered. “He wanted to fuck with my head. He wants me to find him, and he wants me to have to work for it.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know
why
he wants me to find him.”

“You said it yourself, he’s a psychopath. They all want to get caught in the act sooner or later.”

Cold laughter echoed through Cooper’s mind at the remembrance of their conversation, along with her sister’s screams. She flinched involuntarily but tried to hide it by shifting in her seat. “This is different. He went out of his way to find me. Everything has been elaborate, over the top.” She buried her face in her hands then brushed her hair back, running her fingernails harshly over her scalp.

“We’ll find him, Cooper.” Hart rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to get your sister back.”

“Yeah.” And while Cooper agreed, she felt the hollowness of her own words. She thought of all of the case files on her desk, all of the murders yet to be solved. How many kinds of people like him were out there in the world? How many times had someone like him done this and walked away a free man? “He wants to watch me burn, Hart.” The revelation developed slowly in her mind. “He knows that my last connection I have is with my sister.”

“Hey.” Hart turned her head toward his, and for the first time since she was a little girl she felt the weightlessness of helplessness. “We’ll find her.”

“Detective?” The doctor pulled the surgical mask from over his mouth, his white coat flowing behind him. “You’ll want to see this.”

Cooper and Hart followed the doctor back to the x-ray room, where Dalia was still inside the MRI scanner. The doctor pointed to a few of the images of her body. “If you look here, you can see the bones of the ribcage.” He took a pen and pointed between the upper two ribs. “And this is right around where the incision was made on the patient.”

Hart squinted to get a better look. “What is that?”

Cooper leaned forward, noticing the small sliver of an object. “The note.” She turned to the doctor. “Is it close to any organs? Can you get it out without hurting her?”

The doctor nodded. “It’s wedged inside tightly, but it’s best to retrieve it quickly before it results in any infections. We’ll get her prepped for operation immediately.”

Once the doctor left, Cooper and Hart returned to the waiting room, and if Cooper felt anxious before, then now it felt as if her head were going to explode. She paced the hall outside the operating room
.
Time stood still, and the more she paced, the more it slowed.

When the door finally opened, Cooper sprinted to it before the doctor could even step into the hall. She looked down to his hands, which were empty. And bloody. “Where is it?”

The doctor looked back inside to the nurses, and Cooper tried to lean in to get a better look, but he blocked her view. “We were able to retrieve the object, but something happened.” The color drained from his face, and that’s when Cooper noticed the amount of blood on his shirt. “There was something else hidden behind the object’s mass that we missed. A wire inside the patient’s body that ran through her small intestines was connected to the object we retrieved. When it was pulled out it triggered tears inside the body that caused her to bleed internally. With her previous injuries still healing the overall blood loss was just too much. We lost her.”

Cooper remained quiet for a moment, peering into the surgical room, and watched as one of the nurses pulled the sheet over the young woman’s face. The world slowed, and she nodded and stepped back. Hart mouthed a few words, but all Cooper heard was the thump of her own heart. Even when she saved someone, even when she played by his rules, followed the law, he could still kill who he wanted. “The note.” Her words felt slurred and dull on her tongue. “Give it to me.”

The doctor nodded, and Cooper and Hart followed him into the surgical room, where the doctor washed the blood from the small plastic case the note was placed. Cooper unfolded the paper and exposed the familiar scribbles in red crayon.

When she read the first few lines she couldn’t stop her hands from trembling. It was Hart who stepped in to make sure she was all right. But when he asked what was wrong Cooper merely handed him the paper and walked over to Dalia’s body. She placed her hand on the woman’s arm, the body still warm though the blood that kept it alive had stopped flowing. She thought of the boyfriend she had, the one that had spoken to her that very morning. Whatever happiness the two of them had found ended with her last breath.

“Christ.” The note dangled from Hart’s fingertips. “Cooper… I had no idea.”

The grief she’d buried over twenty years ago resurfaced, and it was just as paralyzing, just as powerful as she remembered. That same feeling of hopelessness, of doubt and evil crept back into her mind. “It still feels like it happened yesterday.” Hart extended the note back to Cooper, and she read it one more time.

Dear Addy,

I know how hard this is for you, trying to find me. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to not know where I am, how I’m doing. I know you’re hoping that you’ll save me, but you have to be careful of that hope. You have to make sure that it doesn’t consume you, because I know you’ve had that hope taken away from you before. Like in college.

I know we haven’t talked about it in a long time, but grief never truly leaves us, no matter how deep you try and bury it. So why don’t you let yourself finally feel it? It’s easier to just face it head on and let it happen.

I still remember the dream you told me you had about him. How you chased him along the beach, his little legs carrying him as fast as they could and his red curls bouncing in the sunlight? The laughs and smiles. You were happy then. It was the only time I’d ever seen you really happy in your entire life, even after his father left you weren’t scared.

But after the miscarriage, that piece of you died with your unborn child. But it wasn’t your fault. You were nineteen. And we both know there was a part of your soul that was glad to be relieved of the burden, it’s okay to admit that. Because you knew what it would have been like to grow up without a father, and now there wouldn’t be another child in this world that would have to go through that pain.

You were desperate then, just like you are now. Don’t lose me like you lost your child, and all of the lives that have slipped through your hands by the murderers you couldn’t catch. Stop him, Addy. For me.

Love,

Beth

A tear landed over Beth’s name, and Cooper quickly wiped its successor away. She took in a sharp breath and tightened her hand, crumpling a portion of the paper. When she did she noticed writing on the back. There was an address scribbled hastily. Cooper pulled out her phone and entered the address into her GPS.

“Where is it?” Hart asked.

The map application narrowed the search to South Baltimore, and when the software matched the address with the name of the business, the phone slipped from her hand. “Oh my god.”

Hart scooped the phone off the floor, and he quickly dialed Hemsworth. “We know the killer’s next location.” He paused, taking a moment for the panicked thoughts to form coherent words. “He’s targeting Southside Day Care.”

Chapter 10

A heightened sense of fear gripped the Baltimore police officers and federal agents that were called to the day care. It lingered in the air like a haze, and though the boots on the ground numbered close to one hundred, Cooper wasn’t sure if that was enough. She navigated the chaotic clusters of crowds, Hart close behind, that had gathered around the day care, along with the chaos of the news crews that had stationed themselves on the street. There wasn’t a reporter in the city that wasn’t on scene.

The moment one of them caught wind of Cooper’s scent questions were hurled in her direction, but when she stepped under the police line she managed to put some distance between herself and the press. She found Hemsworth near the day care’s entrance, speaking to a few of his agents.

“Detectives.” Hemsworth gave a weary nod, and Cooper noticed the beads of sweat that dotted his face, accompanied by a slight twitch in the corner of his left eye. He was nervous. Everyone was. “I have a team ready to sweep the place. Is there anything in particular we should be looking for?”

“Where are the children?” Cooper asked.

“We have them stationed in a room inside with some agents guarding them. I didn’t want to bring them out in case it would trigger something.” Hemsworth shook his head. “I don’t know what this psycho has planned.”

“Then his plan is working.” The buzz of helicopter blades sounded overhead as two birds circled the day care. “I need to speak with the children inside.”

“I’ll take you in.”

Cooper’s stomach summersaulted. She had an idea of what she was looking for, and for the first time in her career she was afraid of being right. The room where the children were held was small, and all of the kids were huddled together, sitting with their legs crossed on the carpet, their eyes wide at the team of SWAT officers dressed in all black that guarded their perimeter.

“What are we looking for, Cooper?” Hart asked.

But she remained silent as she scanned the small bodies sitting on the carpet, the walls beyond the day care buzzing with sirens, people shouting, and the drum of the helicopter blades.

“Cooper—”

“There.” She pointed and circled to the rear of the pack, her eyes glued to the curly top of a redheaded boy. He kept his head down and picked at the sticker on the side of his shoe. Cooper knelt, a few of the kids scooting closer at her presence.

“What’s going on?” The girl wore pigtails and rocked back and forth on the floor with her legs crossed. “Are we going home?”

“Your parents are coming to get you soon.” Cooper nudged the girl in the pigtails. “Do you know his name?”

The little girl looked over and nodded. “That’s Ronnie.”

“Hey, Ronnie.” Cooper kept her voice an octave higher, doing her best to mask the frenzied panic wanting to take hold of her. When the boy didn’t look up she motioned for Hart to come over. “I need you to get everyone out of the room except for him.”

“You want me to move them outside?”

“No, keep them in the building.” Hart complied with the request, and with the help of the officers and teacher they moved the kids into the main play room. The teacher stopped Ronnie at the door and once it was just the three of them, Cooper motioned for the teacher to leave, and the two were left alone. Ronnie fiddled with his tiny fingers, his chin pressed to his chest as he continued to stare at his feet. She approached slowly. “Ronnie, my name is Detective Cooper.” The boy didn’t look up, and Cooper dropped to her knees so she could meet him at eye level. “Ronnie, did someone you don’t know try and talk to you today?” The boy shifted his weight from side to side. After a few seconds he finally nodded his head. Cooper gently grasped Ronnie’s shoulders and lowered her head, trying to look him in the eye. “Was this person a man or a woman?”

“A man.”

Cooper smiled. “That’s good. You’re doing a good job, Ronnie. Now, can you tell me what he told you?” The boy paused longer this time and swung his arms as he turned his torso. “It’s okay to tell me,” Cooper encouraged him. “I want to make sure that you and your friends here are safe. Do you think you could help me do that? Help me keep them safe?” Ronnie nodded then finally looked up. Freckles dotted his nose and cheeks, and the blue eyes staring back at her were as clear as an afternoon summer sky. “What did he tell you?”