Hot Pursuit (46 page)

He didn’t know what to do about the FBI agent.

He’d taken both of their guns, so he
could
shoot him, but he’d never owned a gun, and didn’t quite know how to use it. Besides, shooting him would mean there’d be blood spraying everywhere, and he didn’t want that.

It was bad enough that the tasering had made the man drool. He’d read on many websites—after the fiasco with the freak in New Hampshire—that it wasn’t just blood that carried the AIDS virus. It could be transmitted from other bodily fluids, too.

He’d gotten himself tested and retested after taking the homosexual ski instructor’s teeth, after being elbow deep in his blood and gore, but luckily he was clean.

Still he’d learned his lesson.

He now carefully tied up the FBI agent, just as he’d done with Alyssa—hands behind his back, ankles bound. He used an extra length of cord to tie together the ropes around both his wrists and ankles, pulling it tight so that his body was bent backwards, his hands and feet touching, so that there was no chance of his working his hands around in front of him.

The man was starting to rouse as the effect of the Taser finally began to wear off. So he quickly rummaged through his
mère’s
cabinet and found a plastic bag that was big enough. He put it over the abomination’s head, to protect himself from any flying spittle as he tasered him again. And again.

But the son of a bitch now pissed himself, which was disgusting and problematic, because now he couldn’t touch him to move him, but…

Then there it was—so obvious—the solution to his problem.

He merely had to tie—tightly around the man’s throat—that plastic bag that was already covering his head and face.

That would, most definitely, do the trick.

Alyssa was still unconscious, too, but he spoke to her anyway. “Shall we go, my dear?”

As he picked her up, he couldn’t resist pulling back her lips to touch her pretty white teeth.

The cop that Jennilyn had a crush on—Mick Callahan—showed up just as the body was being moved out of the dumpster and onto the ground.

The dead woman had been frozen, but apparently only after she’d started to decompose. It was awful—even just the bit that
Danny could see. She was in a strange, near-fetal position, her knees bent up to her chest—probably the better to fit her into a standing freezer.

The detectives were getting ready to cut open the bag that was over her head. It was one of those tan, plastic grocery-store bags, and it concealed her face. Dan didn’t particularly want to be close enough to see her when they took it off.

He wanted to find Jenn, but despite his many messages, she still hadn’t called back.

Neither had Alyssa or Jules called Sam. Danny knew that the former SEAL lieutenant was getting more and more concerned about his inability to reach them, too. And Callahan’s appearance in the alley just put the frosting on the cake.

For Dan, too. Jenn
liked
this asshole. Jesus, was this actually jealousy he was feeling?

“I can’t help but notice how the bodies didn’t start piling up until
you
hit town,” Mick said to Sam. He stood with his legs slightly apart, and that plus his smirk punctuated his words. The man was clearly trolling for a fight.

But Sam kept it together. He made himself smile, even though it didn’t come close to touching his eyes. “That’s pretty funny.”

“I’m not kidding,” Mick said, his eyes as cold as Sam’s. “You think
I’m
a suspect? Well, now I think
you
are. How do you like
that?”

I think you’re a fucking douche bag
. Dan could see the words written all over Sam’s face, but he didn’t have a chance to say them, because one of the other detectives announced, “Victim’s got what looks like a wallet in the back pocket of her jeans.”

“Her name’s Betsy MacGregor,” Sam told them, ignoring Mick. “She’s from a burb outside of Chicago and she’s been missing since August, 2007. She was abducted by a serial killer known as the Dentist, who’s still at large.”

“Illinois driver’s license,” the other detective said, as he opened the wallet, “belonging to one … Elizabeth MacGregor.”

“How the hell did you know that?” Mick said, even as Sam said, “Shit.”

“I didn’t want to be right,” the former SEAL officer added. “Betsy was this bastard’s last victim—that we know of, anyway. Before Maggie Thorndyke, that is.”

“The
Dentist,”
Mick repeated, folding his arms across his chest. “I suppose you’re going to try to pin that on me, because I just happened to mention the other day that my mother wanted me to—”

“No one’s trying to pin anything on anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” Sam said. Dan knew he was trying to be diplomatic, but he couldn’t keep his disgust from his voice. “I’m trying to help catch a killer who’s been carving up his victims since 2001. What are
you
doing here, Callahan?”

“Jesus Christ,” gasped the detective who’d cut open the bag, and
Jesus Christ
was right. Dan turned away, having gotten only a glimpse of what was left of the poor woman’s face.

“Alyssa and I found another of his victims,” Sam said tightly, and for once Mick Callahan had nothing to say. “A girl named Amanda. He left her looking a lot like Betsy, here.”

One of the FBI agents vomited behind the dumpster as Dan focused on his phone, taking the opportunity to dial Jenn’s number again.

But again, she didn’t pick up.

“Jenni, just call me back,” Dan said. “Please.”

“He takes their teeth,” Sam said quietly. “Believe me, seeing this is something that you’ll never forget. I never did. So if you’re done screwing with me, Callahan, I’d like to go find my wife, so we can catch this motherfucker.”

Mick’s face was pale as he nodded. “On July 30, ’07, my father had a heart attack. It was a bad one. He was in the hospital—Mt. Sinai—for the entire month of August. I was there, with him, every day.” He cleared his throat. “But if you still think I might be the
monster who did this, then I’ll make your job easier and I’ll go in right now, and I’ll sit in the police station …”

Dan didn’t hear what Sam said to Mick, because—finally—his phone vibrated. It was Jenn, sending a text message. But the relief didn’t last as he read the words …

Alyssa has nice teeth
.

“Lieutenant,” he interrupted Starrett, as the realization of what that message meant chilled him to the soul.

Holy Jesus, the son of a bitch had them both.

J
enn played dead as the door she’d found in the wall opened. She hadn’t figured out how to unlatch it—it was possible it was locked from the other side—but she
had
found it.

Without her glasses, she couldn’t see very far. Still, she squinted, peering out between her eyelashes at the shape of a man carrying something—some
one
—into the room.

He put whoever it was down, almost gently, onto the floor, then went back out again. It sounded as if he were sending a text message from her phone, the keys making familiar bell-like tones. But he shut the door tightly behind him and the sound was gone.

Jenn waited. Five seconds, ten, fifteen … By twenty, when the door didn’t open again, she shifted around, moving awkwardly—but moving—toward the person on the floor.

It was Alyssa Locke.

Whoever the man was, he’d tied her up, too. Alyssa’s hands were secured behind her back with the same kind of rope that held Jenn, her ankles also bound. And it looked as if he’d hit her. There was blood on her head, in her hair.

With the gag in her mouth, Jenn couldn’t speak, but she could make sounds, and she did so now, nudging Alyssa with her head, trying to get her to wake up.

Please, God, wake up. …

And then, thank you,
thank you
, Alyssa’s lids began to flutter and she opened her eyes, pulling away from Jenn with a gasp, and then looking sharply around.

She wasn’t gagged and she said, “Jenni. All you all right?”

Jenn nodded yes, which was pretty stupid, because she was the furthest thing from all right that she’d ever been in her life, although granted, now that Alyssa was here, she was doing much, much better.

Except, they were both tied up.

“Turn around, turn around,” Alyssa commanded, her voice low in case the man could hear them, and Jenn scrambled to obey, because—yes! Alyssa shifted, too, so that her back was to Jenn, her fingers working to explore the rope that chaffed against Jenn’s wrists. But then she shifted again, and Jenn knew she’d turned so she could look at the knot.

She moved again, and Jenn felt Alyssa’s fingers again—icy cold against her skin.

“We are going to get out of here,” Alyssa told her, over and over again, in that same rich, low, soothing voice. “We are
going
to get out of here. …”

Sam didn’t allow himself to think.

That monster had Alyssa, and he couldn’t think about what that meant, because if he thought about it too hard he’d know a terrible truth—if this son of a bitch
had
somehow taken Alyssa, then Jules was dead.

He was out of Mick Callahan’s car and running up the steps to the house where Douglas Forsythe lived, Dan and Mick on his heels.

He was filled with a sense of dread. Forsythe surely knew that Sam and the entire FBI knew that Alyssa and Jules had come to his house. So why send that text message, unless he was long gone?

In the car, Sam had called Izzy, who was back at the hotel, telling him to fire up the computer that held the GPS tracking system. He and Alyssa both had GPS systems in their phones that allowed them to be traced, provided they stayed close to their phones.

The front door was locked, and Dan put his shoulder into trying to break it down, but he bounced off, while Sam went for the window.

He was up and through it with a crash, feet first, as the FBI team members were yammering about warrants.

Mick was right behind him, an unlikely ally, his weapon drawn, like Sam. The cop stopped to unlock the door in a palatial foyer, letting the FBI in, and checking the ancient security control panel that was by the door.

“Security system is not activated,” he reported, before Sam shut him up with a finger to his lips.

But Dan had gone through the other window with an equally loud crash, with Carol right behind him, and they both came out of what looked like an old-fashioned front parlor, with their weapons held at ready.

Sam again signaled that he now wanted silence, then gestured with his sidearm for Mick and Carol to go upstairs. He and Dan—used to working together—would sweep through the rooms on the first floor.

He could hear music coming from a room in the back of the house. Dan nodded, he heard it, too, as they went through a living room and a formal dining room.

The place was right out of a horror movie, with uncomfortable-looking antique furniture that had to be worth a fortune. Except there were no cobwebs or dust. At first glance, at least, it seemed clean.

Sam found a door that was locked with the kind of ancient but still effective latch that couldn’t be opened from the other side, not even with a key, so he went past it.

There was light—and that music, from some kind of badly EQ’ed radio—coming from behind a door that didn’t have a knob or a latch. Sam didn’t break stride as he glanced at Dan, who nodded. He, too, was ready.

Sam swiftly pulled the door open rather than pushing it, hoping for the element of surprise, but the kitchen—it was a kitchen and it was much smaller than he’d expected—was empty. The only people in there were lying on the floor.

And, shit, one of them was Jules. He was tied so tightly he was bent almost backwards, and he had a plastic bag over his head.

“Agent down!” Sam shouted, as Dan quickly moved toward the other prone figure.

“Jesus!” Dan exclaimed.

“Tell me it’s not Alyssa or Jenn,” Sam ordered the younger man, as he saw that Jules was still alive, he was breathing—he’d managed to tear a hole in the thin plastic with his teeth.

“It’s not,” Dan confirmed, his voice tight. “It’s another victim like Betsy, but… elderly and …”

Sam ripped the bag the rest of the way open, pulling it off Jules. And even though the FBI agent looked like death warmed over, he immediately said, “Douglas Forsythe. He has at least two handguns, and a handheld Taser set on holy fucking turbo.”

“And Alyssa,” Sam added, as he used one of the kitchen knives to cut the rope that tied him, and Jules nodded.

“And he also has Alyssa,” he agreed grimly.

“Did you see Jenn?” Dan asked.

“No,” Jules answered, rubbing his wrists. “I’m sorry. When we approached the house, Forsythe opened the door, appearing to be in distress. He told us his mother had had a heart attack, so we came in to assist. He tased me first, while Alyssa was tending to his mother. Is she dead?”

“She’s been dead for a while,” Dan reported.

Jules nodded. “I went down and hit my head, which was when
he must’ve tased Alyssa. I’m telling you, I’ve been tased before, but that thing was juiced—the world went black and white. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t make a sound—I couldn’t fucking
breathe.”

“Second and third floors are clear,” Carol reported as she came into the kitchen. “No forensic evidence of homicide. And an ambulance is on its way.” She nodded to Jules. “Glad to see you, sir.”

“What I really need,” Jules said, looking down at himself, “is a new pair of pants. He tased me again—I was pretty sure he was going to keep doing it, and I didn’t think I’d survive, so I kind of… went for full loss of bodily control, in hopes that he’d back off. Which he did. But now I’m soggy …”

“Does this place have a basement?” Dan asked.

“Back this way,” Sam said, leading the way to that bolted door that he’d bypassed.

But Mick had already found it and opened it, and sure enough there were stairs leading down. A light switch had been flipped on, and okay. This was where the dust and cobwebs lived. Still, the stairs were clear enough to make Sam believe that someone had made use of them somewhat regularly.