The Holiday Killer (6 page)

The police searched Mark's house a few times a year, raiding him for children he'd bought from slavers and kidnapped from playgrounds. He used the kids for pornography, and as very underage prostitutes to rich perverts. She'd been part of the raid that ransacked his house last time, so she knew exactly where she was going.

The house was lit up in the middle of the dark street, the occupant clearly having no fear of attracting the Holiday Killer's attention. Liz parked out the front of the house, making sure to stay in the shadows as much as she could.

Without waiting for someone to open the door, she kicked it in and strode into the hall, gun up.

"Mark Windsor, Matryville Police! Get out here!"

An older woman bustled out of a room, wiping her hands on her apron. "You have no authority without a warrant, miss—"

Liz ignored her words. "If I find out you had anything to do with my son's kidnapping, I'll have you up on obstruction and as a co-conspirator," she hissed. "If I were you, I'd tell me where he took my son."

"Master Windsor has been asleep since— No, wait, you can't go in there!"

Liz kicked in the door to the bedroom, giving it a quick sweep with her gun. The bed was empty, and there was a small light peeking out from under a secret door. Liz handcuffed the older woman to the door handle, ignoring her cries, and headed for the door, gun out.

She gently pushed the door open, then stepped lightly down the stairs. She was careful not to activate a trapped board or a squeaky plank, creeping downstairs. She could hear the older woman calling out above her, but she ignored her. If there was someone down here, they already knew she was coming.

She rounded a corner at the bottom of the stairs and froze, her gun up, as she looked at the scene.

There were children in cages around the right-hand wall of the room, dressed in rags and looking strangely clean. Two of the children recoiled from her as she neared, and more than one of them was sitting in their own blood. She felt sick looking at them—not for them, but for the things they'd suffered.

On the left were shackles and other bonds, some of them covered in the darkness of dried blood. Whips, floggers, and all manner of torture devices sat in brackets on the walls, one of them still dripping blood.

Liz did a sweep around the room, ignoring the children chattering in foreign languages, and realized that there wasn't anyone there other than her and the prisoners. An open cage sat at the end of the row, food spilled across the floor, the occupant removed in a hurry. She glanced around the room again, pulling out her cell as she neared the cage, taking a few photos and dialing dispatch.

"Anyse? Liz Donhowi. I need you to send ambulances, a couple of squad cars, and forensics to Mark Windsor's house, 1250 High Street. There're kids here, about a dozen, seriously injured." She looked to the empty cage again, noticing a sock buried in the back corner.

A superhero sock, one she'd put on Jamie's foot that morning, his name stitched around the top.

She took a couple of photos, but left the item where it was for forensics. She wasn't going to jeopardize the case, no more than she already had.

"He has Jamie, Anyse. I'm going after him."

*

Liz roamed the streets in Phil's Ford without direction, thinking, searching. She couldn't help but hope that she would find Jamie, alive and struggling against his kidnapper, around the next corner. She needed to find him alive—to find him holding out his arms for a hug.

The scent went cold as soon as she left Mark Windsor's house. There were no signs of tire tracks or footprints in the snow, no sign that anyone other than herself had been on the property since the last snowfall the night before.

The squad car that showed up spilled Bill out into the snow, and he
really
wasn't happy that she'd defied orders, lied, and lost her tail in order to run her own private investigation. When she started crying, however, he pulled her into a hug and took her over to where the children were being attended by paramedics. They did a fast stitch on her hand, which she'd completely forgotten about, and turned back to the children.

Bill escorted her home, urging her to wait for news, but she hadn't been able to sit still. As soon as Phil went to the bedroom, she slipped out of the house and took off in the search for Jamie.

The cut on her hand stung like a bitch, but she wasn't going to go home, not yet. She had to find her son, and she'd start with the location of the first victim, down along Highett Street.

My baby boy. Jamie, where are you?

Suddenly a truck sounded its horn at her as she swerved dangerously across the lanes, her concentration shot from stress. She was tired, but there was no way she was going to sleep. There was no way she
could
sleep, not until Jamie was found … one way or another.

She finally pulled off the road and put her head in her bloody hands, covering her face. She sobbed, tears streaming down her face, as she screamed wordless pain at whatever god was listening. She pounded the steering wheel, bursting the seal the paramedics had patched over her wound, and not caring that she was leaving blood everywhere.

"Give him back!" she screamed, cradling her bleeding hand to her chest, her head on the steering wheel as she sobbed. "Please, just give him back to me alive. Please, God!"

*

She woke to her cell screaming in her ear. The first rays of sunlight were brightening the sky and she stared at the phone, not daring to answer it, not able to even look at the number of the caller. She couldn't face it if it was Phil, asking where she was, and if she was coming home.

She couldn't face the news of her son's death, either.

Finally the ringing stopped. But she continued to stare at the phone, the silence of the city the only noise to break her thoughts.

She jumped when the phone started ringing again. Slowly, her good hand shaking, she reached out and turned the phone over.

Her skin turned icy. It was Phil, but she didn't think it would be good news, not now.

"Hi, honey," she said, her voice trembling almost as much as her hands.

"Where are you?" he asked, his voice slurred. He sounded like he'd been drinking.

"I'm … out." She looked around the streets, trying to orient herself. Was she on Matthers Way or Flinders Street? "Have you been drinking?"

"No," he said, in a tone that told her all she needed to know. "Why haven't you come home?"

"I'm on my way home now," she said, starting the car and pulling out into the street, quiet in the pre-dawn light. "I'll see you soon."

She hung up and headed for the main streets, speeding down the road. Her injured hand, curled up in her lap, was glued shut with her blood, making it harder to steer in a straight line.

Lights flashed in her rearview mirror and Liz sighed in frustration, then pulled over. She turned the engine off and sat back, glowering out of the window. There were no other cars on the road; somehow, she'd run afoul of the only cop in sight.

"Detective Donhowi!" the uniform exclaimed, wiping sweat from his brow. "Jesus, I wouldn't have pulled you over, if I knew—"

"What are you babbling about, Officer?" she asked, a little more roughly than she'd meant to.

"I just … well, I assumed you'd heard."

Liz rubbed at her forehead, glancing at her phone. On the screen, she could see three missed messages. "Heard what, Fitzsimons? I'm in a bit of a hurry."

The man swallowed. "They found your boy, ma'am. Near the station, at the sewerage outlet."

Liz froze, staring at the officer. "Do you need to book me for anything?" she asked, her hands trembling as she put them on the steering wheel. "Can I go? I have somewhere important I have to be."

"No, you're free to go." The man stepped away from the car. "I'm sorry, Detective."

Liz didn't even bother to grunt. She turned the ignition, shifted into gear, and leapt down the road, heading for the sewer outlet near the police station at almost twice the speed limit.

As she drove, she tried to convince herself that Jamie was alive, that the police had found him, cold, alone and shivering, at the outlet; that the Holiday Killer changed his mind and decided killing a policewoman's son on Christmas was too much. That she could hold him close and tell him that there was nothing more to be afraid of.

But the traffic cop's final words kept playing in her head.
I'm sorry.
He was apologizing, as though he knew something terrible had happened—that Liz needed consoling and comforting.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry…

Before she knew it, she was pulling up in front of the sewer main, surrounded by emergency vehicles and press vans. She climbed out of the car, her legs almost giving way, and slipped under the police tape. She flashed her ID at the cops who moved to stop her, and almost ran down the embankment to where the outlet hit the river.

When she saw her son, her legs did collapse.

"Oh God, oh God, no!"

Liz covered her face, forcing her injured hand open, trying to rub the image of her son from her eyes, but knowing that she would never be able to un-see him like this. Tears and blood covered her face, even as people yelled to get her out of there.

Jamie was strung up over the main outflow, his arms held out by a clean, transparent rope made of fishing line, almost invisible in the dawn light. His arms were almost completely straight, despite the weight of his body pulling down on his joints. His head hung limp, his chin on his chest, which had been stripped to the bone, revealing his ribs.

"No, let me be!" she screamed, pushing off her fellows' hands. "Jamie! Dear God, Jamie!"

More details assaulted her memory as she fought the people holding her, trying to get to her son. His eyes had been removed, the holes where they had sat leaking blood down his cheeks, in a desperate parody of her grief-filled tears.

"Come on, Liz, let's go, you don't need to see this—"

"Get off me, get away from me!" She hit at the hands holding her, recognizing Lisa's voice but not responding to it. She shoved and bit, breaking free for a second before being set upon again.

"Dear God, not him, please! My baby! Jamie!"

His fingers had been cut off and shoved under his lips like grotesque teeth, probably secured with wire around his actual teeth. The skin of his legs and feet had been flayed off, hanging loose from his toes to flap in the small amount of wind. The forensics team was already starting to lower his body, trying to avoid dropping it into the sewer water below.

"Liz, come with us," Lisa said, twisting Liz's good arm up behind her back and trying to turn her away from Jamie—away from the grizzly crime scene in front of her. "You have to calm down before you pass out. If you do that, I'll have to get Officer Clements and his partner to help me carry you up to the road, and you know I hate owing the uniforms. Come on, we'll go talk to Bill, he'll know more."

Liz stumbled and reached out with her bloody injured hand to catch herself, her mind letting go of everything. She let Lisa lead her away, tears, blood and spit on her face, distressed and distant, Lisa pulling her in to cry on her shoulder.

Phil was waiting for her at the top of the hill. Two officers had their hands on his shoulders, holding him back. Liz broke away from Lisa's loosening grip and dove into his arms to cry into his shoulder instead.

"Is it bad?" he asked Lisa, his voice strained and his hug tight. He looked strangely detached, his father heading over to where they all stood.

"I can't comment, you know that, Phil," Lisa said quietly, looking at the media cameras over their shoulders, trying to get any scrap of information they could. "I think you should take her home and keep her there until someone comes to talk to you both. I'll bring her car around when we're done here. Make sure you do something about her hand."

Phil nodded, pulling Liz close and turning her back to the cruiser that had driven him. "I will. Just…" His voice broke and he swallowed hard, looking to his father, who had come to stand beside him. "Just keep him as safe as you can, okay?"

Lisa nodded as Phil helped Liz to the passenger door. "Stick her in a bath, Phil. Help her forget what she saw."

Bill clapped his hand on Phil's shoulder, squeezing, and Phil nodded. "Thank you, Lisa."

Lisa nodded, tight-lipped, and gestured for the uniforms in the front seat to start the car.

"I'll come with you. There's nothing I can do here, and I've seen enough parents go to pieces recently to guess at how to help you both," Bill said quietly, his other hand on Liz's shoulder. "Liz, we'll get through this—"

"'Get through this'?" she demanded, turning on her father-in-law. "Get over it? That's my son hanging from fishing line! Your goddamn grandson is dead because I couldn't find the bastard in time! This is my fault!"

"No, Liz," Phil said as Bill lifted his hands in defense, stepping back from the steel in her voice. "This is not your fault."

She climbed into the cruiser, slamming the door, and leaned forward, her head in her hands, her body shaking with sobs.