Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) (4 page)

7

The Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Beth Mertz, had risen through the ranks of the Bureau’s anti-terrorism division. She had a PhD in Middle East studies and a near-fluent mastery of Arabic and Turkish. Stefan knocked on her door late in the evening and wasn’t surprised when she was still in. Unlike many SACs, she still put in twelve-hour days.

“Got a minute?” he said.

“Sure,” she said, not taking her eyes away from her computer monitor.

Stefan crossed the office. The windows behind her looked down to the city of Phoenix, and the light reflected off the skyscrapers made the surrounding sky a light gold. He sat down across from her with a sigh he couldn’t stifle.

“It’s that one I caught in Scottsdale. The snuff film.”

“Uh huh,” she said, still not looking up.

“I think I need some help.”

“What kind of help?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “The detectives have had it for weeks and haven’t turned up anything. There’s nothing on the video, and the people the owner supposedly bought the video from deny its existence.”

She shrugged. “You’ll catch cases that don’t lead anywhere. Happens to everybody.”

He shook his head. “Not like this. If you watch the video… I’ve never seen anything like it. The barbarity…”

She stopped typing and turned to him. “How bad?”

“There’s nothing at Quantico that prepares us to watch something like this, Beth. The man that did that isn’t human.”

Beth nodded. “Don’t ever underestimate how cruel people can be. Stick to that, and you’ll never be surprised in this job.” She glanced back at her computer screen. “Gio Adami. He’s an ASAC and one of the assistant directors for the BSU. Call him.”

“Thanks.”

He rose to leave before she said, “And Stefan? It’s going to be odd when you finally catch him. He’s not some demon. He’ll just be a man—one you may even get along with and like. Sometimes that’s harder to deal with than their actions.”

He nodded and left the office.

Stefan went back to his office. The Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was a position as prestigious as any in the Bureau. Behavioral Science used to be the go-to people for serial murder, but that changed after September 11. A lot of things had changed then. The Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI had become a research division, and the ViCAP was born. Stefan preferred the split. There were people who were good at theory and research, and there were people who were good hunters—good out in the field, chasing down their prey. Mixing the two didn’t seem like a good idea to him.

Too young to know which camp he fell into, a part of him hoped he was a research and theory guy. The hunters didn’t last long. The amount of stress from chasing serial murderers was off the charts. More than one special agent had suffered coronaries and strokes far too soon in their lives.

Stefan looked up Gio Adami on the Bureau server. A voice message told him to input his party’s extension, and he dialed the number listed on Gio’s profile. It took four rings before he picked up.

“This is Gio.”

“Oh, hi. Sorry, I was actually expecting to leave a message. Um, this is Special Agent Stefan Miles with the Phoenix office. Beth Mertz asked that I give you a call.”

“Sure, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I think maybe it’s best you watch something first.”

Stefan had uploaded the video onto the case’s official digital file yesterday. He gave Gio the case number and then waited for a call back. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Holy shit,” Gio said.

“Yeah.”

“There’s almost nothing in the file. You haven’t made any progress?”

Despite Gio’s tone being inquisitive rather than accusatory, Stefan couldn’t help being defensive. “I’ve been on the case two days, but I know when I can and can’t do something. I wanted to see if you had someone who could come out.”

There was silence on the other end for a long time.

“No, no one who could deal with something like this. I’ll come out myself.”

“Oh. All right. If you think that’s best. Sir.” He still felt defensive and slightly foolish for being roused so easily.

“Any guesses on why the number forty-two on the disc?”

“None. Sir.”

He paused. “I’m nervous it’s a victim number. That there’s at least forty-one other videos like this floating around.”

“Yeah, I did think of that, but we just don’t know.” Stefan waited a beat. “I don’t know if we’re gonna get anything on this.”

“I know someone that can help. We’ll be out in a day or two.”

“Thank you… sir.”

Stefan hung up. Something about Gio didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t that he seemed like a bad guy, but there was some authoritative streak in his manner of speaking that told Stefan they probably weren’t going to get along. Then again, every job forced people to work with others they didn’t get along with. Maybe he was just being too sensitive.

Either way, it didn’t matter. He was just relieved he wouldn’t be on this alone anymore.

8

The bookstore was nearly empty in the morning. One young woman came in and browsed through the poetry section. Other than her, Sarah hadn’t seen anyone else. A morning shift was difficult for her. Maybe it was something about being locked indoors when the sun was out. But she had agreed to cover the shift weeks ago, and she swallowed her discomfort and focused on other things.

She sat on the stool behind the cash register and watched the sunlight pouring in through the windows. Some of the newer books near the front were illuminated, glossy and eye-catching, while the older books in the middle and back of the store remained dark and seemed decrepit and unappealing.

“Excuse me,” the young woman said as she stopped in front of the register. “Do you have a compilation of Oscar Wilde’s poetry?”

“Yeah, we do. Lemme grab that for you.”

Sarah went over to the poetry section. Poetry, something women in the Amish community were not allowed to either write or read, had been a revelation when she stumbled across it later. Somehow, intuitively, she had always known that language had limits and that experience couldn’t be described. Only poetry, of everything she’d read since leaving the community, had come close.

“Here it is,” Sarah said, lifting a thick tome and passing it to the woman.

“Thanks.”

“He’s one of my favorites. I feel like too many poets take themselves too seriously, and I don’t think he did.”

The door opened and another customer walked in.

“It’s actually for a paper,” the woman said. “I know I could go online and read everything he’s ever written, but I like holding a book in my hands, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. It feels real. Lets you know that these dead people actually did leave something behind.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty cool when you can bore people even when you’re dead.”

Sarah giggled and then stopped when she recognized the person who had walked into the store.

Giovanni Adami wore a gray suit and green tie. His shirt wasn’t buttoned at the top, and the suit coat hung lazily off his body, giving him a more languid appearance. He smiled, and Sarah looked away before she excused herself to the customer.

Sarah ignored him and went to the register. She contemplated leaving the store entirely and then thought how silly that would look, so instead she pulled up some boxes of receipts and began going through them. She’d already entered them all into QuickBooks but needed something to distract herself right now.

“How are you?” Gio said, walking up to the register with his hands in his pockets.

“Fine.” Without looking up, she began sorting the receipts on the counter. “What’re you doing here?”

“Can’t an old flame just stop by to talk?”

“Not when that old flame is an asshole.”

He grinned, looking down at the receipts. “If I recall, you dumped me.”

“I dumped you because you wanted me to be a whore and nothing else.”

“No, I didn’t. You wanted to move in after—”

The customer walked up and laid the Oscar Wilde book on the counter. Sarah rang it up, shoved the book in a large green bag, and handed it to her with her credit card receipt.

“I’m not here for that,” Gio said softly. “I’m sorry it happened, and I’d love to talk to you about it sometime, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“I have something I need your help on.”

She chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to help you.”

She hurried away from the register to a rolling cart full of books and began shelving them, her back to him.

“I know you’ll never join the Bureau. That’s not what I’m asking.”

“What
are
you asking, Gio? Because from here it looks like you broke my heart and now you’re asking for a favor.”

A long silence.

“I didn’t know it hurt you that bad. I’m sorry.” He moved closer and leaned against the bookshelf she was stocking. “You know my favorite part of our whole thing? When I’d come pick you up. I’d text you and then have to wait to see what you looked like that night. You always looked beautiful, but I could never predict how beautiful. I could never imagine correctly how beautiful you really were.”

She exhaled and turned around, leaning against the bookshelf. “What do you want from me?” she said softly.

“I want to talk. Can you come get a cup of coffee with me? Please, don’t say no. Just fifteen minutes over a cup of coffee.”

Sarah wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him to get out of her store and never come back. But his eyes always held a little glint of mischief, and his smile… His smile said he didn’t give a damn what the rest of the world thought about him, and it all drew her in. She found her lips saying the word, “Yes,” and before she knew it, she had locked up the store and was following him around the corner to the coffee shop.

It was morning, and the coffee shop had a good crowd. A man with a beard and horn-rimmed glasses played acoustic guitar on a stage in the front, and several works of art hung on what would otherwise be bare cement walls. Sarah asked for a latte, and Gio ordered a mineral water. They sat down at a table close to the windows but away from the stage.

“I should tell you,” Gio said, “it scared me how quickly we moved. You gotta understand that when I got back from Iraq, I was different. I had this, like, wall around me. And I wouldn’t let people past that wall. You helped break that down… and for that, I can’t ever repay you.”

She shook her head. “It was a weird time for both of us, I think. I shouldn’t blame you. I had a hand in it, too.”

He grinned. “You still in the same place?”

“No, I moved to another apartment building. It’s a little cheaper and a little smaller. Suits me fine.”

He exhaled loudly. “I miss Arnold. When he died… I thought I might quit the Bureau. I saw so many people die in that damn desert, and I didn’t want to start seeing it here, too.” He looked her in the eyes. “But I realized what we do is important, chasing the monsters. It has to be done, and the sooner we catch them, the more lives we save. It’s important, Sarah.”

“I don’t want to be an FBI agent.”

He shook his head. “I know. This life isn’t for you. But I need your help on something. Just as a consultant. It’s a video found in a man’s home in Scottsdale, Arizona. I watched it. The things this guy does to children… I can’t even put it into words.” He paused. “I had to take a break after watching it. I went up to the roof and did some exercises and then just stared out at the city for a while. Nothing’s affected me like that in a long time.”

She took a sip of her drink, her eyes on the table. “I don’t want to do that anymore, Gio. The last time I helped you, Arnold was killed.”

“And how many lives were saved by stopping—”

“I know. I remember. But I don’t want to open myself up that way again.”

He hesitated, leaning back in his chair. “How is your… gift?”

“It comes and goes. Sometimes I can go for weeks without anything. And then sometimes it’ll hit me five or six times in a day. I’ve also seen that the pain can be… transferred.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I’m feeling something, if I touch someone else, they can sometimes feel it, too. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“You still having nightmares?”

She nodded.

“Have you ever thought—and this is just guesswork—but have you ever thought that maybe the nightmares are there because you don’t exercise it? I mean, maybe you were given this thing for a reason?”

“I don’t know. But I do know I don’t want those images in my head anymore. I’ve seen enough blood.”

He nodded sadly. “Well, I guess I’ve done all I can do. I’m flying out to Arizona day after tomorrow. If you change your mind, please call me. You have my number, right?”

“No, I deleted it when we broke up.”

He grinned and pulled out a card. Gio wrote his cell number on the back and slid it to her across the table. “I could really use your help. My fear for this thing is that it’s a pattern. The words
Murder 42
were on the DVD. There might be at least forty-one more.” He rose and slid his hands into his pockets. “It was good seeing you. I mean that.”

“I know you do.”

She gave him a shy grin before he glanced at the man with the acoustic guitar and then left the coffee shop.