Dark Prophecy Page 5

  The longer Dark stared, the more it became clear body position didn’t serve any specific torture purpose. This wasn’t like a waterboarding or asphyxiation. The man’s body was staged. It was meant to look like something. This was a ritual.

  Why did your killer do this to you, Mr. Green?

  Why did they burn your head, and nothing else?

  Why cross your legs like that? An upside-down number 4. Did that number mean something to your killer? To you?

  Who were you, Martin Green? Just the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong hour? Or did our killer choose you for this grim ritual for a specific purpose. Did he find you, study you, hunt you. Then late one night, blindside you . . .

  The fact there even was a photo amazed Dark. Special Circs took great pains to keep their cases out of the mainstream media. And the photo meant his old friend Tom Riggins had a mole in the department, or at the very least, a greedy support staff member looking to augment his meager government salary. Leaking photos like this wasn’t just a firing offense, in Riggins’s opinion. This was a torture-slowly-then-put-you-in-Gitmo kind of offense. Dark could imagine Riggins’s reaction to something like this. He’d be like a crack-addled shark right about now, making his way through the corridors, sniffing for blood.

  Dark found himself reaching for his cell phone, his thumb almost pressing the auto-dial button—number six—which would connect him with Riggins. Then he stopped. Tossed the phone back onto the morgue table.

  Riggins had made it clear: no more contact. No conversations, not even a cup of coffee and a hearty discussion of the weather. He and Riggins were through.

  chapter 11

  The cell buzzed in his pocket. Dark fished it out, recognized the number: his in-laws up in Santa Barbara. A delicate, sweet voice spoke to him: “Hi . . . Daddy?”

  It was his little girl, Sibby. Named for her mother, who had died the day their daughter was born. Little Sibby was five years old, but sounded younger on the phone, somehow.

  “Hi, baby,” Dark said, eyes still on the torture image on his wall. “How are you?”

  “I miss you, Daddy.”

  “I miss you, too, baby. What did you do today?”

  “We went on the swings, oh, and then the slide. I went down the slide thirty times!”

  “That’s good, baby.”

  “Maybe even fifty!”

  “Really,” Dark said. “That many.”

  He knew he should turn away from the wall. Close his eyes. Something, anything. Pay attention to your daughter, you asshole. But Dark’s eyes refused to move. His mind was waiting for something to snap loose in his mind. Why had the killer chosen to pose Green’s body like this? Was there something in the context of the murder scene he was missing? It was frustrating, having access to only a few of the pieces. To do this right, Dark would have to be there. See the body. Smell it. Touch it.

  After a while a sweet voice jarred him out of his fugue state.

  “Daddy?”

  “Huh? What, sweetie.”

  “Gramma says I have to go to bed now,” Sibby said.

  Before Dark could respond, there was a soft click. She was gone. Dark leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, closed his eyes. What was he doing? Why did he keep doing this to himself? This was not his case. This was not his business. Sometimes Dark wished he could just turn it off for good. Give himself just six months of being normal. Remind himself what it feels like, and maybe then he’d be okay.

  II

  the fool

  To watch Steve Dark’s personal tarot card reading,

  please log in to Level26.com and

  enter the code: fool.

  THE FOOL

  Falls Church, Virginia

  Jeb Paulson tried to remember where he was—what he was doing. He couldn’t. Which frightened the hell out of him. Even after the deepest sleep, his memory always reloaded in an instant. Stranger still was that he could see the star-studded sky, and was breathing in cold night air. There was tacky material under his fingertips. See? Nothing made sense. He wasn’t even sure what day it was. The weekend, he thought. Yeah, had to be.

  “Up,” a voice commanded.

  Metal jabbed at the side of his head. The business end of a gun. Paulson started to look in its direction when the harsh voice barked again:

  “Don’t turn around. Just get up.”

  Slowly Paulson crawled to his feet. He was shaking all over, like he had a fever. His skin felt tingly.

  “Now walk.”

  The gun jabbed him in a kidney. His muscles were ultra-sensitive. Everything felt tender. The slightest touch was agony. He hadn’t felt this bad since his last bout with the flu a couple of years ago.

  “Keep walking,” the voice continued.

  As Paulson walked across the tarred roof, he realized where he was. On top of his own apartment building. He recognized the tops of the trees across the street, the telephone lines, and the park beyond. What was he doing up here?

  Wait. It was coming back now. Last thing he remembered, he’d taken Sarge, their dog, for a walk. Sunday night, after dinner. He did some of his best thinking on those walks. So yeah, he’d been walking Sarge, and thinking about Martin Green, wondering what was next—trying to anticipate the killer’s next move. And then he woke up on the roof . . .

  No. That wasn’t it. Something happened before—Sarge barking, Paulson reaching for the door, hoping he made it back before Stephanie fell asleep.

  Oh God. Stephanie.

  “What do you want?” Paulson asked. “Do you want to talk to me? Is that it? You have something to say in private?”

  “Keep walking.”

  “You know, I’m going to run out of roof soon.”

  “Stop when you reach the edge,” the voice said. “I want to show you something, Agent Paulson.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I’ll shoot you and then go downstairs and pay a visit to Stephanie.”

  Right at that moment Paulson’s blood jumped. He wanted to turn around and just obliterate this bastard for daring to threaten his wife. He’d take a bullet—or three or four if he had to, he didn’t care. Paulson needed to stop this fucker now before he found himself completely helpless. At his mercy. Unable to save Stephanie.

  But that wasn’t how a Special Circs agent was supposed to behave. You don’t corner the monster. You draw him out. Paulson cursed himself. He was smarter than this. He was letting this asshole push his buttons.

  So instead Paulson stepped toward the ledge. As he looked down his stomach fluttered. He’d never been a fan of heights. In fact, he pretty much avoided them whenever possible. But if he was forced, could he jump? There was a balcony ledge about ten feet to the right. He’d be falling too fast to grab the railing. But if he gave himself a slight running leap, even a step or two might do it . . .

  “What did you want to show me?” Paulson asked.

  “Reach into your robe pocket.”

  Paulson froze. He didn’t remember wearing a robe. He looked down to discover he was wearing someone else’s clothes. Oh Jesus. What the hell had happened? Who’d done this to him? He’d been out, just walking his dog. The last thing he remembered telling Stephanie was that he’d be right back. How long had he been gone? Stephanie must be sick with worry by now.

  Unless this same bastard had gotten to her first . . .

  “Do it. Now.”

  “Okay, okay,” Paulson said.

  Paulson reached in, preparing for the worst. He felt something hard and rubbery that felt like a plastic wire and immediately his brain screamed bomb.

  But no—there was something soft and fluttery at the end of the wire. He carefully pinched the wire between his fingers and felt something jab into his thumb pad. By the time he pulled it from his pocket, Paulson knew what the object was.

  A white rose.

  This set off worse alarm bells than the notion of a bomb. It meant his attacker was staging something. He wanted Paulson to hold this rose. Dresse
d in a robe. On the edge of a roof. All at once, at an instinctual level, he knew who was behind him. Of all the dumb newbie mistakes to make, letting a killer trace you back to your own home! Paulson yelled and turned and—

  Something hard shoved him in the back of his right thigh.

  His balance was off. Paulson tumbled off the edge. Reached out wildly for something—anything. It wasn’t until a second later that he was able to scream.

  chapter 12

  UCLA—Westwood, California

  Monday classes were over and Dark had killed enough time with the forensics trades—The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Science & Justice, the International Journal of Legal Medicine, the Forensic Science Review—in the campus library. Blake had turned out to be a no-show; Dark supposed her research paper would somehow be completed without his vital input. It was time to go home.

  Dark made his way to the parking garage via the Janss Steps, named for the brothers who sold the land to the university. They were iconic; MLK and JFK once held rallies on these steps. But every time Dark descended them, he couldn’t help but think: This would be the perfect place for a murder—something right out of Hitchcock. A slow, desperate tumble you were unable to stop, arms flailing, unforgiving slabs of concrete rushing forward to smash into your spinning body. Sure, it would be in broad daylight, but that was the beauty of it. Too many potential suspects and any potential witnesses were too focused on their own steps to pay much attention to what was happening around them.

  There you go again, Dark thought. Murder on your mind. Always. Can’t you just walk down a flight of stairs or watch a college student carve a side of roast beef without your thoughts turning to murder?

  About halfway down, a voice called out to him. “Agent Dark?”

  Dark turned, instinctively reaching for the Glock that wasn’t there. Standing a few steps above him was a woman. She wasn’t dressed like a student, and her clothes were too expensive-looking for a faculty member’s. Her bright eyes had a look of bemusement in them.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not here to attack you. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  Dark shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  The woman’s eyes turned hard and flat. “Don’t I look the slightest bit familiar to you, Agent Dark? My name is Lisa Graysmith.”

  The name was familiar, but Dark couldn’t place it. She must have caught him trying, because she quickly added: “You knew my younger sister.”

  It took Dark another few moments, but then he got it. Graysmith—Julie. Sixteen years old. Captured, tortured, and eventually left to die by a monster Special Circs called “Body Double.” This killer’s modus operandi was to impersonate someone in the victim’s life, temporarily lulling the victim into a false sense of security. A friend, maybe a family member. His disguises were never perfect. They relied too much on broad strokes—a hair style, a mannerism. The victims—usually teenagers, sometimes children—never believed the ruse for more than a few seconds. But that was all Body Double—aka Brian Russell Day—needed.

  Julie Graysmith had been his final victim. Dark and the Special Circs team caught him soon after, trying to slip into a crowd at Union Station in D.C. They forced him to reveal Julie’s location. But the team was unable to reach her in time.

  “I never met her,” Dark said.

  “I think you knew her more intimately than anybody,” Graysmith said, descending the steps. “You tried to save her—and more importantly, you caught her killer. I wanted the chance to thank you.”

  Dark considered this for a moment. If this woman really was the sister of a victim, she didn’t deserve a brush-off. Sometimes the best thing you could do for a grieving family member was simply listen. But grieving relatives sometimes wanted answers you couldn’t give. Or they wanted to drag you into some kind of legal action.

  Then again, Dark wasn’t with Special Circs anymore. There was only so far this woman could drag him.

  “There’s a place nearby,” he said.

  Graysmith offered to drive. Dark agreed. It would give him the opportunity to look at her car, which turned out to be a spotless BMW. A high-end rental—he saw the telltale bar code in the windshield, which the agency used to check vehicles in and out of the lot. Once inside the brewpub, the woman claiming to be “Lisa Graysmith” ordered an iced tea. Dark asked for a draft beer. A row of flat-screen TVs displayed sports-highlights shows.

  “Thank you for the beer.”

  Graysmith said, “You left Special Circs in June.”

  Dark looked at her. Not many people knew about Special Circs, let alone the comings and goings of its agents. The press covered Brian Russell Day’s arrest, but never mentioned his nickname nor Special Circs’s involvement. Officially, it was the FBI who caught him. Day was awaiting execution in Washington.

  Dark sipped his beer, saying nothing.

  “You don’t have to be coy with me, Agent Dark,” Graysmith said. “After that son of a bitch was arrested, I wanted to learn everything I could about the man who caught him. I asked around about you.”

  “Who did you ask?”

  “Let’s put it this way. We’ve probably passed each other in the hall a few times in the last five years.”

  Was Graysmith trying to tell him she worked for the Defense Department? That she knew about Wycoff, and his secret control of Special Circs?

  She leaned forward, placed her fingertips on Dark’s hand. “I also know about Wycoff ’s little eight-pound indiscretion.”

  Dark took his hand away, picked up his beer, had another swallow. Now she was showing off. Almost nobody knew about Wycoff’s illegitimate child. Or its connection to the Sqweegel murders.

  “You’re giving me peeks at your hand,” Dark said, “but I don’t even know what game we’re playing. If you want something, go ahead and ask. If you’re trying to draw something out of me, just ask. Other than that, we can finish our drinks and then we can go.”

  “You caught Day. You’ve caught many monsters over the years. You’re the best at what you do, and you’ve stopped. I don’t know why, but I think it’s a mistake.”

  “Thank you for your concern,” Dark said.

  “That’s not good enough. You can’t quit now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think serial killers are like cancer. If you can catch them early enough, you save lives.”

  “The FBI does that, Ms. Graysmith.”

  “Not like you. That’s why you left, isn’t it? They moved too slow for you, muddled in bureaucracy. They didn’t trust your gut—even after all of this time. They kept you playing by their rules, and as a result, lots of innocent people died.”

  “That was nice. Do you mind if I write that down?”

  Graysmith leaned back and smiled. “You’re not taking me seriously, and why would you? I’m just some woman you met on the steps at UCLA.”

  “Not just some woman,” Dark said. “You’re quite attractive.”

  “I thought about the various ways I might approach you. I had all kinds of dramatic scenarios built up in my mind.”

  “Did you.”

  “I thought you’d appreciate the direct approach most of all. I suppose I was wrong.”

  “There’s nothing direct about this approach, Ms. Graysmith.”

  “Then here it is. I want to give you the tools you need to catch budding serial killers. Funding, equipment, access—everything. You report to no one. Not even me. That’s my offer.”

  An “offer” that was too good to be true. For all Dark knew, she could be someone Wycoff sent to trap him. Coax him out of retirement just long enough to arrest him.

  “No thanks,” Dark said. “I’m busy teaching and working on my house.”

  Graysmith’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she quickly recovered. “You’re testing me. You want me to come up with some kind of proof that I’m serious, is that it?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. I’m just going to sit here
and finish my beer.”

  Graysmith smiled, then made her way around the table. She touched Dark’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “See you later.”

  A few minutes after she left, Dark drained the rest of his beer, then used a napkin to carefully pick up Graysmith’s iced-tea glass by the bottom. He dumped a half-glass worth of iced tea into his pint glass, shaking it a few times. Then he pulled a plastic baggie out of his bag—he always carried a few around, out of habit—and tucked the glass into the bag.

  What troubled Dark was not Graysmith’s offer. It was that he had a hard time reading her at all. Clearly, she was as good at reading people as Dark. She sidestepped all of the major tells. She skimmed along on the surface, like an insect on a pond. Dark had no doubt she’d show up later. When she did, he’d be ready.

  chapter 13

  First, Dark made sure he wasn’t followed. That meant an insanely circuitous route up Westwood to Sunset to Coldwater Canyon Drive, through Studio City, back up to Mulholland, then a few shortcuts he knew that led him back down to West Hollywood. If anyone had managed to follow him, well then they deserved to be parked up his ass. After easing the car into his driveway and double-checking the locks, Dark disengaged the security system and recovered his Glock 22 from his hiding spot in the living room. The mag was still full.

  Downstairs in his basement lair, Dark pulled the murder book on Brian Russell Day. He fed Julie Graysmith’s social into his database, then pulled up family info. Turns out there was one sibling: an older sister. Alisa.

  Or: “Lisa.”

  Dark clicked on her social and found that her records were sealed—by order of the Department of Defense. Interesting.