Violence of the Father (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) (12 page)

“Do you need one? Certainly,” I say. “Should you ask for one? I wouldn’t advise it. It just makes you look guiltier.”

“God is the only judge I fear,” he says.

“Do you also not fear inmates in a supermax prison?” I ask. “Because I can tell you that they won’t fear you or your god.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asks, his voice still irritatingly calm.

“Mr. White,” Lauren says. “You know God brings the truth to the light every single time it’s hidden. You might as well confess.”

“I don’t need you to tell me about God,” he says, his lip twitching. “I have a closer relationship with Him than you will ever know.”

“
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
Gospel of John, chapter three, verse twenty,” she says. “So, the only reason you would be lying to us is that you know what you did was evil and you’re afraid that God will expose what you’ve done.”

“What I did was not evil!” he shouts, slamming his fist against his desk as he stands up, his whole body trembling. “I did it for God!”

“What did you do for God?” Lauren presses. “Kill people? Torture them?”

“It wasn’t torture,” he hisses. “I was setting them free from their sin and their bondage to this Earth. Their lives are a million times better now. I am a good man. I am a godly man. Everything I did was for the good of mankind because people need to be cleansed or else they will spend an eternity in Hell. The Son has spoken. This needs to be done. We need to save these people from eternal damnation.”

Lauren turns to me. “I think that was a full-blown confession.”

“I think it was too.” I turn to him. “Mr. White, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“No,” he says. “I won’t. I was doing good. You can’t punish me for that.”

“No, you were torturing and murdering people and that’s not good. Turn around and shut up, so I can tell you your Miranda rights, which is really just another way for me to tell you to shut up,” I say.

“Give me…give me a second to pray,” he says.

I glance at Lauren. She shrugs.

“Can you do it silently?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, sitting back down in his chair. “God knows our thoughts. I just want to direct all of my thoughts to him now.”

"Fine." I toss my handcuffs to him. "Just put these on first."

He snaps on the cuffs, then closes his eyes, clasping his hands in front of him. I always found the prayer formation peculiar—with the hands in front of the lips as if they’re making a silencing gesture. What are they supposed to be doing? If it was meant to convey them showing humility and submission, wouldn’t they press their whole body against the floor?

Lauren takes out her phone. “I’ll call everyone. We’ll need to check this whole place for evidence. Apparently, he is The Father, so we’re still looking for The Son. Maybe there’s something here.”

As she dials the number, I watch her. She’s biting her lip as she waits for someone to pick up. I still have mixed feelings about our break-up—I want her back, but I don’t want her to be part of something that makes her unhappy—but I’m glad I still get to work with her. I thought it might be painful, but it’s almost like we’re still in a relationship. It still requires trust and cooperation, maybe even more so in a work relationship than a romantic one.

I hear the scraping sound of a drawer being pulled out. As I turn to look at Patrick, he’s putting a gun to his head. Every muscle in my body tenses, then I jump at him, but he’s already pulling the trigger. There’s an explosion of sound as parts of his brain spatter against the walls. I hit against his chest, knocking his body to the floor, but I’m already too late. I’m always too late.

I can hear screaming and yelling, but I’m not sure if it’s from me, Lauren, or somebody else. I pick up what remains of Patrick’s head, but his eyes stare blankly at me. He’s gone.

There’s blood on my shirt, blood on my face, and blood on my hands. I can hear someone saying a prayer, but I can’t make sense of the words. I’m not sure what could be said to God at this point. In this moment, I wish I believed in any higher power, so I could believe this all has a purpose in some grand plan. But all I see is a mentally ill man who killed himself, leaving a mess of murders, children without a father, and the lingering question of who the mastermind of this whole thing is.

“
T
here are just
folders of expenses and children that are up for adoption,” Romano says, handing me a stack of folders.

I flip open the first one. The photo of a young, gap-toothed boy with curly blond hair is on top. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything against him.”

Patrick White’s office is filled with our forensic team and Annette Harris. They only reason they’re being so diligent is to avoid any accusations that we killed Patrick. Otherwise, this is an open and closed case.

“We have to,” Tobias says. “He committed suicide, so we can’t get a confession on tape and the abandoned building won’t be enough to convince the public. His family, friends, and clients will—pardon the pun—crucify us. If this were going to court, any lawyer could come up with enough doubt to sway a jury. We have to dig deeper.”

Romano shakes his head. “I don’t know what you expect to find. It’s not like he left a diary that talked about how much he enjoyed nailing people to a cross. If there’s going to be evidence, it would have been in the abandoned auto plant.”

“You were there with me. You know that forensics didn’t find anything. He was smart enough to clean his fingerprints off everything. He must have known there was a possibility that the place could be found eventually,” Tobias says.

“Or God told him to clean it up,” Romano remarks.

Tobias gives him a seething look. “Look, there has to be evidence that he knew Mary or that he was tracking our victims…something, anything,” he says. “Maybe there’s a hidden compartment in his desk.”

“This isn’t a spy film, Tobias,” Romano says. “There’s no extra space in this desk. If he had been in contact with Mary, we would have seen it in Mary’s records.”

As they continue to argue, I walk behind the desk. There are two recycling bins and a garbage can. The paper recycling bin is half full.

“You think he recycled his evidence?” Tobias asks.

I shrug. “You never know.”

As I’m about to pick up the top paper from the recycling bin—which just looks like Patrick was jotting down notes—I notice shreds of paper in his trash can. I pick them out.

“Think you found something?” Tobias asks.

“He obviously cared enough about recycling that he had his own bins in his office,” I say. “And he seemed to faithfully use it. Except for these. Why would he recycle these?”

“Because he was in a rush?”

“The bins are right next to the garbage can,” I say. “Clearly, he didn’t want anyone to have the chance to read it.”

I place the shreds of paper on the desk. I slide them around, trying to find where they fit next to each other. Tobias stands next to me.

“Here’s a few words,” I say. “It says,
It is time for you to serve God.
”

“Could that be from The Son?” Tobias mutters. “Here. I think these strips of paper come next.
God has been your shield, now it is ti
…we need the next few pieces of paper.”

I scramble to gather the next piece. So many words can start with “ti.” I push together more pieces of paper that fit together. Tobias helps me until we have three sections of the paper. We fit them all together until the strips make a whole.

“
It is time for you to serve God
,” I read. “
God has been your shield, now it is time for you to be His shield. The police will continue to harass your business. If they question you, say that you’re innocent, but act guilty. When they continue to question you, tell them that you were setting your victims free from their sin and their bondage to this Earth. Tell them that your victims’ lives are much better now. Tell them that everything you did was for the good of mankind because people need to be clean or else they will spend an eternity in Hell. Tell them The Son has spoken. Tell them you did it for God. When they try to arrest you, take your life. I know your son, Bobby. His room is filled with superheroes and there’s still a dinosaur painted on the wall from when he was a baby. If you let me down, he may suffer the consequences. This is for God and your son.”

“That doesn’t sound like Patrick White is our cold-blooded killer,” Tobias says. “That sounds like he was blackmailed.”

“By whom?” I ask. “All of the signs pointed to him. Could they all have really been planted?”

“I highly doubt that the auto factory planted,” he says. “That began months in advance. This is new trash, recently given to him. Maybe even today.”

“But Bobby came to us a few days ago,” I say. “And somebody had to convince him that Julia was the one dragging the body in the baseball field, so if it wasn’t Bobby’s father, then who was it?”

Tobias rubs his face. “The pin. Philip Herdon had a mark on his body that was similar to the pin that Patrick White was wearing. But he isn’t the only one that we’ve seen wearing that pin.”

“You mean Christopher Lush,” I say. “Are you sure? A pin doesn’t prove anything, and the last thing we need is another person giving a false confession.”

“Well, is he still here?” Tobias asks, turning to Romano. Romano shakes his head.

“Everybody was sent home,” he says.

“Great,” Tobias says. “Who wants to bet that he’s not actually home?”

“If he really is the killer, he would be making sure there’s no evidence pointing back to him,” I say. “And like you said, there’s only one other place with evidence.”

“The abandoned auto plant.”

L
auren jumps
from my car as soon as I slow down in front of the auto factory. After I park, I jump out and chase after her. She freezes near the door. I stop beside her. A young officer lies on the sidewalk, blood flowing from a hole in his head. His eyes are completely blank as he stares up.

“The killer is already inside,” I growl. I jerk open the door, stopping it short from hitting the officer, and run into the building. I can hear Lauren following me as I sprint to the stairway. In the back of my mind, I want to tell her to stay behind, because my anger is clouding everything else and I just want to end this asshole’s life. It may be incredibly Old Testament—an eye for an eye—but right now, it’s what the only way I see justice being served.

I skip every other step as I race to the second floor. Once I’m on the floor, my heart nearly stops. Three bodies are lying on the floor—from their clothing, it looks like three forensic scientists. Two of them died right beside each other, one of them collapsing on top of the other, while the third one is lying on his back with two bullet wounds—one in his neck and one in his chest.

Pain expands in my chest. The scene reminds me of when my first partner was killed, along with a medical examiner and a forensic science technician. It became known as the Delray Massacre and this will be known as another massacre—one I could have prevented.

Lauren gasps behind me. I raise my gun. I can’t see the killer—he could have left before we arrived—but my instincts tell me that he came here determined enough to get rid of evidence that he killed four people. He wouldn’t leave without making sure there was nothing left. Maybe start a fire…or leave a bomb.

Great. Another thing to worry about. Not to mention the fact that if the killer is hiding, it means he saw us or heard us driving up. I step carefully on the floor, trying hard to not make any sound. The drywall panels are back up against the room where Glenn and Philip were tortured. Lauren follows my lead, making her steps as quiet as possible.

When I’m almost to the room with the drywall panels, I stop, gripping my gun tighter. I gesture with my head to Lauren. She nods. I count to three in my head before we both charge ahead. I pull the panel away from the room and point the gun inside, ready to pull the trigger.

But it’s not Christopher Lush. It’s a young woman, already dead from a bullet wound in her head.

“What the hell,” I say, lowering my gun. “I was so sure…why would they even have four forensic scientists here?”

I hear a sharp squeak. I spin around. Christopher has his hand around Lauren’s wrist, holding her own gun up to her temple with his other arm around her waist, holding her tight against him. Christopher is wearing the same blue clothes and disposable overalls as the forensic scientists.

“There weren’t four forensic scientists,” he says. “Only three. You should really make sure that the dead are truly dead, detective.”

The two bodies lying next to each other. He must have pulled the body on top of him so he could hide in plain sight.

“Let go of her, Mr. Lush,” I say. “You’re already in trouble. The last thing you want to do is add killing another officer onto your charges.”

“Let’s be honest, detective, I’m already going to be going away for life,” he says. Now that I’m looking at him more closely, there’s a bruise on his cheek that has been mostly covered by make-up. I’m willing to bet he’s the one who attacked Lauren. “So, I might as well take my chances with threatening her life.”

Christopher’s and Lauren’s hands on the gun are shaking as Lauren tries to take control. Lauren is strong, but I’m not sure if she’s strong enough to overtake Christopher, and if she tries to fight him off physically without the gun, he’ll easily shoot her.

“Stop struggling,” I say. She glares at me and continues to fight against his grip. “Christopher, we’ll let you go free. Just let her go.”

“Set down your gun,” he says. “And kick it behind you.”

“Let her go first.”

“You have nothing to bargain with,” he says. “So, put your damn gun on the floor and kick it behind you.”

I place my gun down. I kick it behind me. It rebounds off the wall, but only an inch, so I’d still have to dive backwards to grab it.

“You know, I really liked you two,” he says. “You didn’t have to come here. I gave you someone to pin it on.”

“You framed a father with several children and blackmailed him into committing suicide,” I say. “I wouldn’t say that you gave us everything.”

“God will allow him into Heaven,” he says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“See,” I say, keeping an eye on the gun. “I don’t think you’re really into this whole message. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that you are, but you’re responsible for six deaths and now you just said that you don’t think death is a big deal. You have no empathy. You don’t even see your fellow Christian as someone worthy. I think you just like to torture and kill people, and you happen to be using this religious motive as an excuse.”

“Well, you can believe whatever you like,” he says. “It changes nothing.”

“Actually, according to Lauren, it does,” I say. “If you were doing it because you truly believed you were doing it for God, no amount of reasoning would stop you. However, if you don’t truly believe that, your instinct to survive will be a big factor in your choices.”

“I’m the one with a gun,” he says. “Why do I need to worry about surviving?”

“Your best weapon isn’t a gun,” I say, shifting my gaze down to Lauren. “It’s a partner.”

Lauren stops struggling with his hand so suddenly that the loss of resistance causes Christopher to ram the gun against her head. She stumbles sideways. As he reaches forward to catch her, I dive backwards and grab my gun. As he pulls Lauren back up on her feet, he realizes his mistake, but I’m already aiming at him. I pull the trigger.

The bullet enters right below his left eye. He lurches back, blood seeping out of the wound. I pull the trigger again. It slams into the left side of his forehead and he falls onto the floor.

I run over to Lauren, who’s rubbing the side of her head. “Are you okay?”

“For the record,” she says, taking a deep breath. “I was in on that whole plan.”

“Were you?” I tease. I kiss her temple, despite knowing that I shouldn’t. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

She wraps her arms around my waist and presses her face against my chest. Her body begins to shake, so I set the gun down and rub her back.

Nothing is going to be okay, but that can change with time.

I
once had
a case where a Buddhist monk was killed. While interviewing his fellow monks, one of them asked me what I most wanted out of life. He was troubled when I couldn’t name anything, but I spend a lot of time since then, wondering about his question. Happiness is an obvious answer, but if happiness was really my goal, I don’t think I would be a policeman.

And now a father is dead by his own hand, three forensic scientists were killed, two more victims were killed, and a serial killer was killed by my hand. I still have a serial killer on the loose, and my girlfriend of the last five months has broken up with me. If my goal in life is to be happy, I am failing so miserably, I might as well not be trying.

“Are you going to change out of your clothes at some point?” Lauren asks, as I step down to the sidewalk in front of the police station. I check my shirt—stained with blood from Patrick’s suicide—and then look back up at her.

“Nah. It freaks out Captain Mattinson and keeps him away from me. I managed to fill out my papers for everything that happened without him bothering me once.”

“Well, he did say he was leaving after our killer for Glenn and Philip were found, so I guess he gets to leave this mess,” she says.

“Do you want to leave it?” I ask. “I mean, if you had a job offer somewhere else, would you leave?”

“No,” she says. “I would never leave a serial killer to some future detective. We know this case better than anyone and we’re going to solve it.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I also keep believing it.”

I cross my arms over my chest, the blood on my shirt spreading from the physical contact. Since she had cried after I shot Christopher Lush, she’s returned to acting like we need to keep our relationship platonic. I should know it was too much for me to hope that she would change her mind after a life-altering moment, but I suppose her optimism has rubbed off on me too.

"Some officers went to Patrick White's house," she says. "Apparently, Christopher watched over Bobby and some of Patrick's other kids while Patrick was working, and Christopher convinced Bobby that Julia was the one dragging the body to the baseball field."

"He was very smart," I say. "I don't want to know what that means about this guy, The Son."

"It means we're one step closer to finding him," she says. "His two accomplices are finished. He has to come out in the open now."

"And how many people have to die while he does that?"

"We'll catch him before he kills," she says.

I shake my head and look away from her.

“My apartment was done being investigated this morning, so I’m going to go home and shower for an hour,” I say. “Hopefully, I won’t find any of Patrick White’s brain in any of my orifices because the image of it against the wall is already more than I can take. But Christopher Lush’s death doesn’t really bother me. Maybe it just hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“Tobias, you know you can still confide in me,” Lauren says.

“I did confide in you,” I say. “About my ex-girlfriend’s miscarriage. And you brushed it off.”

“I didn’t mean to make it seem like it was unimportant,” she says. “I just don’t want something like that holding you back from what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” I say. “And I know that you don’t know what I want because I don’t know what I want. Lauren…you should go home, too. There’s nothing left for us to do today. Everyone will be done investigating by tomorrow morning and journalists will be swarming us to find out what happened with Patrick White’s death and Christopher Lush’s.”

“I’m going to stay here,” she says. “I just needed some fresh air. I need to look over all of Christopher Lush’s information, see who he’s been in contact with, all of it. The same day that we sent Mary Fitzgerald to prison, Christopher or this other serial killer left a body for us to find. I need to find this third guy before another murder is committed.”

I shake my head. “Half a day isn’t going to make a difference, especially after what we witnessed. It’s going to bother you and you’re not going to get anything done.”

“Just go, Tobias,” she says, walking back up to the station. “Try to get some rest. I’ll call you if I find anything significant.”

The door snaps shut behind her. I would have preferred if she slammed it shut.

I take out my cell phone, wanting to reach out to someone—anyone—and have a conversation that isn’t carried by confusion and stress, but there isn’t anybody for me to call. I’ve never had a close relationship with anyone.

It’s amazing Lauren tolerated me for this long. I turn and walk away from the station. At least I have my apartment back, although I’ll have to be on the lookout for anybody strange lingering in the building. We would normally have another police officer watching out for me in a case like this, but we don’t have any concrete proof that there’s a third serial killer involved. In fact, for all we know, this third person hasn’t killed anybody.

We could just have an accessory-before-the-fact asshole.

As I’m about to open my car door, there’s a noise so loud that I feel like my eardrums are broken. But they can’t be broken because I can hear the sound of concrete crashing to the ground. As I turn around, dust is already flooding the street and consuming the back half of the police station.

Somebody set off a bomb.

“Lauren!” I scream. “Lauren!”