Repressed Page 16

  But the terror knew the phone was Shannon’s. The panic knew they’d taken his baby, his wife. The frenzied energy in the air knew he was helpless to save them.

  His muscles twitched involuntarily, first a leg, then an arm, electricity with nowhere to go. He stood and paced the bullpen, empty this time of night—back and forth, back and forth. He knew what would make the cool stay.

  He knew what would make him remember.

  You see me, but you don’t. But you’ll figure it out—you’ll remember me. And once you do, you’ll know exactly how to find me.

  He should have known who she was. But where—how? McCallum’s words echoed through his head: “Maybe it’s for the best that you can’t remember everything. Not all memories are useful.” But this woman, the memory of her, that was the key to finding Shannon and Evie, he could feel it, and yet he could think of no specific person with a vendetta against him outside of an angry perp or the family member of someone he’d arrested. He didn’t have a history of sordid love affairs, hadn’t even dated for years before he met Shannon—too much trouble. Too many triggers. Anything questionable he’d left behind him in California. And the caller had a vendetta against Roger, so was it someone local: someone he’d arrested and Roger had put away? But that’d be hundreds of cases. He had no time.

  You’ll do what you’re told or I’ll take it out on her. I’ll save your baby girl for when you get here, if she doesn’t starve to death first.

  Daddy’s coming, Evie. He needed to figure out how to get to Roger. Fast.

  Morrison ran a hand through his hair, ignoring the blond that stuck to his fingers, ignoring an old track mark that throbbed and stilled and pulsed again. Heroin will make it worse.

  Heroin is bliss—euphoria. The purest love I’ve ever known.

  But that wasn’t true, not anymore. Shannon’s love was real. And when he looked at Evie … was there anything more pure than the adoration in her eyes? And now they were starving her. Starving.

  He sat, letting someone else’s fingers type for him on the keyboard. Letting his mind wander to the case, to the logic, to the things that would help. Hacking, working around the number blocks, the scrambled signals … a plan. He needed a plan. He kept typing, code after code after code, but he didn’t know what the kidnapper had used, where they were scrambling the signals from. He had no idea where to look.

  Solve the case. Catch the killer. Find his wife.

  You’ll remember me. And once you do, you’ll know exactly how to find me.

  The case files on his desk whispered to him, and he ripped the top one from the stack and devoured the words as if he could tear out the throat of the kidnapper by attacking the page. Decantor’s file on the Bell case—there wasn’t much to it. Decantor had interviewed a dozen people at her apartment building, none of whom had seen anything suspicious. He tried to ignore the fire building inside him as he squinted at the notes in the margins: Stabbed in lower abdomen/genitals with rounded object, spike-like, same as Acosta case, ME says copper. Unusual for a weapon. Then came the reports from people who knew Bell personally. But this wasn’t a date rape or an acquaintance killing. If someone had killed her purposefully to get at Roger—and he had to assume so based on the phone call—they had taken Shannon with the same goal in mind: get Roger put away by forcing Morrison’s hand. But why did Bell have to die? Why her specifically? Just because she’d interviewed for the nanny position? What was he missing?

  Petrosky would be back soon. He’d have something from Shannon’s car—a fingerprint from their perp, maybe. But Morrison couldn’t sit there and do nothing until Petrosky got back. Already it felt like his brain was sizzling, every rational thought boiling and escaping like steam before it could fully form. He flipped open the Acosta file and scanned the crime scene notes, the teacher interviews, the bike information. He paused on the sheets about the tattoo parlor, the demon horse staring at him, bloodthirsty and horrid. The psychopathic circus. He’d research the band.

  Morrison pulled the keyboard closer and started with the tattoo. Websites full of Clown Alley Freaks song lyrics, fringe groups claiming to be fan clubs, and chat rooms catering to people steeped in all manner of depravity. On one message board he found a convoluted discussion of what the “artists” really meant when they sang about disemboweling a circus elephant. “It’s clearly a renouncement of the establishment, specifically of the republican right that makes things so difficult for the working class” proclaimed one man identified as Goober15. But eating raw, bloody elephant tripe seemed far less poetic and far more aggressive than any of these individuals could see. He compared IP addresses, hoping to find a clown-loving pedophile living near Acosta’s school, but none of the commenters showed up on the sex offender database in any state, and even fewer had addresses within six hundred miles. Not that this meant much—sex offenders often ran to avoid having to register and tell the neighbors that they were sick fucks, and Morrison knew from the DNA that their guy wasn’t in the system. But that didn’t mean some other pedophile wouldn’t know him, especially if they’d met over a mutual love of clowns and carnage.

  Facebook pages and Instagram stalking gave him some photos of the commenters on the Clown Alley Freaks websites, and he pulled the ones with tattoos and printed the likenesses—most so damn normal looking. He pulled the fans with dyed hair too—blond at the root, black at the tip. He’d take them back to the tattoo parlor in case one of them had made a trip to visit their pedophile at Drake’s shop, maybe to swoon over his clown ink. If they got lucky, one of these guys would be their killer.

  Through the side window, a stormy dawn was creeping through the room. He abandoned the clowns and pulled up a chat room for pedophiles. Then another. Three. Looking for clown references, mentions of spiked boots, discussions about Acosta or the #1 symbol that had been carved into Acosta’s and Bell’s skin. But was this even what he wanted? If one of their suspects wasn’t a pedophile at all, they wouldn't have met in a pedophile chat room. Maybe … fringe sexual interests? Fetishes?

  A hand on his shoulder made Morrison jump. “Anything?” Petrosky’s eyes were heavy with lost sleep and … anguish.

  “No, Boss.” The world shifted, tilted, and his bodily sensations crashed back to him with the force of being hit by a truck. His stomach, painfully clenched, forced bile into his mouth. His bladder spasmed—he had to pee. His neck was wet as the storm-drenched window. But his thoughts were suddenly stilled, frozen, as though every ounce of logic had been consumed by terror. He sucked in a shuddering breath and held onto the side of the desk. “What did the scene look like?”

  “Like a gas station.” Petrosky ran a hand over his face and Morrison could see the dew at his hairline, a subtle darkening. “Got there before the rain. Collected every fucking thing.”

  “What about her car?” It came out more like a wheeze than a question, and he pulled the chill air into his lungs and held it there, imagining the waves against the shore, the shush of the ocean in his ears, the taste of salt instead of vomit.

  “A bunch of prints on the car itself, but they’ll have to sort out which are hers, which are yours and which are from friends whose prints are supposed to be there. I’ve got the lab putting a rush on it now.”

  Morrison nodded, mute. Petrosky’s eyes were drawn, his jowly face sagging as if he’d aged ten years since he went out there last night.

  “What else?” Morrison said slowly, prolonging the moment when he’d have to hear whatever was making Petrosky’s mouth so tight. But he could feel his composure slipping away with every terrified beat of his heart, every moment one step closer to insanity.

  Petrosky met his eyes. “Blood.”

  His vision tunneled and tingling began in his fingertips—crept up his arm. Calm. Cool. Pacific. A wave of electricity passed through him and he didn’t respond to it, just let it go like the tide going out to sea. His vision opened again, but the tingling remained. “How much?”

  “Not much. Some spatter on the
headrest. Probably hit her with something to subdue her.”

  Fuck.

  “Not enough to really hurt her.”

  “Doesn’t take much with a head injury.” And she’d already had a concussion last year from Griffen, and there was always a chance for a brain bleed or—

  “Shannon’s tough as nails, Kid. And there was nothing in the back—no blood, no signs of struggle around the car seat.”

  No, because they weren’t bleeding Evie. Their pedophile strangled his victims with a T-shirt. And they were … starving her. Were they really? Or had they just told him that to fuck with him? He inhaled low and long imagining the ocean, blue as Evie’s eyes, and the air stabbed at his lungs, his belly, as if he were imbibing shards of glass.

  Petrosky peered at the screen. “Show me what you found. Then we’ll swing by to see Jenny at the tattoo shop and get another composite sketch out. Got nothing on the first.”

  Morrison ran Petrosky through the websites and the utter lack of useful information he’d discovered while Petrosky had been staring at his wife’s blood.

  “It’s something,” Petrosky said finally.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Simmer, California.”

  “Is that all you did, Petrosky? Just look at the car?”

  Petrosky cocked his head.

  “They texted again.” As the words came out, he immediately wished he could take them back. Maybe the killers had heard him. But Petrosky didn’t seem bothered, didn’t seem upset, and the heat crept into Morrison’s cheeks.

  “Let’s take a look and we’ll—”

  “How can you be so fucking calm?” Morrison hissed.

  Petrosky punched the desk and across the room another cop stood—when had he even gotten there?— but the guy turned away again because it was Petrosky and of course he was pissed: Petrosky was always pissed about something. But not like this. The tension in Petrosky’s jowls was more than agitation. Fear. And if Petrosky was scared, Morrison sure as hell better be.

  “We need to … work the Acosta case,” Petrosky said almost panting.

  Morrison cleared his throat, fighting to keep his voice steady—to keep his heart steady.

  “There was a print in the grass just behind her car,” Petrosky whispered. “Just one, but enough.”

  Prints? But they hadn’t found fingerprints at the other crime scenes, so why—

  Realization dawned, slow and painful in his chest, as if his heart were only now awakening to the idea that Shannon had truly been taken by a killer. “Prints from the boots.” Like Acosta. But they had killed Acosta. They’d killed Bell. And they were saving Evie for when he got there. The words rolled around in his head and settled, like marbles in a dish.

  Petrosky nodded.

  Work your case. They wanted him looking. The kidnapper wanted him to remember something. And if he did, he’d find his family—the caller had said that, right? But she’d given him no other clues. Unless … the kidnapper wanted him to fail so they’d have an excuse to hurt Shannon. An excuse to take Evie and stab her and watch her bleed.

  Morrison swallowed hard, pushing down the warm ooze trying to creep up his throat. This is about Roger. All they want is Roger.

  Petrosky glanced at the screen. “This is your call, California. Your family. We can call in the chief. The Feds.”

  And Shannon’s blood would be on his hands. Evie’s. He pictured Dylan Acosta’s body, the punctures still wet and seeping, and Shannon, begging for her life, for Evie’s life. He didn’t know what to do. Nothing felt right. His gut instincts were betraying him—he couldn’t even trust himself.

  “They’ll kill her,” he whispered. “We need to buy time.”

  “Drake’s wife should be home now, so I’ll have them meet us at his tattoo shop this morning,” Petrosky said, his voice louder than it needed to be, though perhaps that wasn’t for Morrison’s benefit—the room was filling now, all officers with families at home. Safe.

  Morrison nodded, still numb, wishing he was at home with Shannon, with Evie. He’d never leave them alone again. But he had left them alone. He’d not been there when they needed him most, and there was no fixing that. His only consolation would be to see the kidnappers’ fucking faces. Look into their eyes. Breathe their foulness, their insanity, right before he ripped them apart.

  25

  Maybe the tattoo parlor was the same, but it could have been the first time he’d ever seen it. The white door that had seemed so clean yesterday was now blank and dead, the pale face of a corpse when the blood pooled on the underside of the body. The bright and cheery pictures of potential tattoos now seemed sullen and morose, offended at his gaze. Even the yin-yang, white and black surrounded in vibrant blues and greens, burst forth with such rage that Morrison half expected it to leap from the wall, teeth bared.

  Drake paced behind the counter, his hands clasped behind his back. From the couch inside the door, a woman with green hair and arms sleeved in wildflower tattoos appraised them. When Petrosky flashed his badge, she stood and extended her hand.

  “I’m Jenny.”

  “Detective Petrosky.” She looked at Morrison, but he couldn’t find his tongue—he was watching a freckle-faced little girl coming through the back curtain to stand next to Drake, rubbing her eyes. Bib overalls. Blond hair, maybe what Jenny’s hair would look like without the dye.

  “I’ve got some things for you to look at,” Jenny said, and moved with the light steps of a dancer to stand beside her husband and the girl. “Go finish your homework, baby,” she said and patted the girl’s shoulder, so kind. The girl scampered off.

  Morrison watched her go, heart wrenching, and when he pictured Evie as she might look at that age, the wound in his heart expanded like a black hole, widening as if each and every breath he took enhanced its emptiness.

  Jenny reached beneath the front counter and produced a folder, manila like jaundiced skin, containing a photograph-quality sketch: a man with scraggly brown hair and a thin mouth. Squirrelly. Despite the light hue of his beady eyes, the man’s gaze was blank—dead, vile. Zachary Reynolds’s attacker. Their pedophile. But Drake was right—it was far better quality than the composite.

  Petrosky pulled the sheet closer to him, and Morrison laid his folder on the counter, showing her the photos of the Clown Alley Freaks fans. Drake and Jenny both leaned close to examine them, eyebrows furrowed. Petrosky did too, glancing back and forth from the mug shots to the picture Jenny had drawn. Heads shook. They flipped through the entire stack.

  “Nothing?” Morrison asked.

  “Sorry, I don’t see anyone familiar,” Jenny said. Drake nodded agreement, shrugging his shoulders like it was no big fucking deal that Morrison was no closer to finding his starving baby girl while Drake’s own daughter was happy and safe in the back room.

  Morrison tossed the sheets back into the folder, stepped back, and dumped the whole mess into the trash can with enough force that the wire basket shook, stuttering and rocking, before settling with a clang. He clenched his fist, trying not to kick the thing over.

  “Sorry, man,” Drake said, and Morrison could hear the tension in his voice. Petrosky stood like a bulldog, ready to block the path to the counter if Morrison should prove to be unstable.

  He was unstable.

  “Do you recall anything about his voice?” Petrosky asked the couple over his shoulder. “Anything strange? Higher than normal?”

  Petrosky was asking whether their suspect sounded like a little bitch.

  “Nope, just … normal.” Normal. Their perp fit in, walking among them, raping children, kidnapping families, starving babies. And passerby never saw the evil in his stare.

  “What about badges, name tags, anything he said about interests or how he spent his time?”

  She pursed her lips, then shook her head. “No, nothing about himself. Sometimes he told stories about his … daughter.”

  Daughter? This guy had a daughter? If he did, she was in trouble.

&nb
sp; “What’d he say about her, ma’am?” Petrosky said quickly, his shoulders high and rigid.

  “Oh, well, I think it was his stepdaughter actually. And it was nothing strange—just that she was really smart, that he was planning on having her take up flute. Asked if I ever took music lessons—you know, normal things parents say. I remember thinking it was nice that he was taking such an interest in her.” She winced.

  “He give a name? An age?”

  She shook her head again. “He played everything close to the vest. I guess now I know why, but I wish …”

  A daughter. Morrison took out his phone and held it over Jenny’s sketch on the counter. They needed to get the photo out on the streets, on the news, find this fuck. But Petrosky’s hand on his wrist stopped him just shy of snapping the picture. Petrosky shook his head and pointed to the phone.

  Right. Someone might have his phone tapped, and they didn’t want the kidnappers to know that they had this asshole’s picture until absolutely necessary—or to know they’d connected the Zachary Reynolds case. Morrison would have just fucked them all, maybe killed the people he loved. But … they’d asked him to keep investigating, right? Do your job.

  And that was why Petrosky hadn’t called him from Toledo; he must have thought Morrison’s phone was tapped too. But if Morrison shut it down, maybe tried to track the bug inside it … they probably had a safeguard. They’d know. He was good at cracking codes, but not perfect, and the stakes were too high.

  “They want an excuse,” Petrosky whispered. An excuse—to hurt Shannon and Evie.

  “Do you have a fax machine?” Petrosky said to Drake, but he dug his fingers into Morrison’s wrist until Morrison registered the pressure, took his hand back, and dropped the phone into his pocket.

  “Of course.” Jenny gestured to the picture. “Does this help?”

  Petrosky nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Better than our sketch artist did.”

  She smiled. “Well if you’re ever in the market for some ink…”