AJ was naked from the waist down. Her legs were splayed open. The barrel of her gun had been shoved into her vagina and left there.
Under a layer of plaster and wood bits, her white blouse was now red with blood. Thick strings of blood lay across her face. Silver duct tape had been wound sloppily around her head, covering her eyes, but not her mouth.
Kate panted in panic at what she was seeing. She wanted to scream. She thought she might pass out.
“Don’t step in the blood,” Jack said quietly as he moved farther into the room. “Better yet, stay where you are.”
Kate was paralyzed in place, her eyes wide, unable to look away from AJ’s body. Her mind couldn’t fully take in what she was seeing. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.
She felt a tear run down her cheek. Pain bore down on her insides as she started to tremble.
Jack came back and gripped her arm. “Kate, I don’t want you going back outside alone. Can you just stand there? Don’t look at her. Just stay where you are. Don’t step in the blood. I don’t want you leaving your footprints here, contaminating the scene. Do you understand? Kate, do you understand?”
Kate nodded.
“Why don’t you watch the door?” he said.
Instead, Kate slowly lifted her arm to point.
There, in the center of AJ’s chest, sat her detective’s card.
All four corners were folded over.
“What is it?” Jack asked. “What are you pointing at?”
“That card. That’s AJ’s card. She gave me one just like it.”
“So?”
“She gave one to my brother, too. John was afraid of sharp things, like corners, so he always folded over the corners of pictures and cards.
“AJ told me that she had left her card with John, but we didn’t find it in the house.”
Jack nodded unhappily. “I guess that leaves little doubt who did this.”
Tears running down her cheeks, Kate squatted down close to AJ. She touched the woman’s cheek.
“Dear god, AJ …”
AJ’s head was turned to the side, her mouth covered in blood. Kate hoped that AJ hadn’t seen the horror of Ryan being killed.
She remembered when she had been on the phone with AJ, and the woman said she had to go because there was a commotion at the front door.
It was the devil at their door.
Kate spotted a human finger lying on the floor not far away from AJ’s head. She pointed.
“That’s not hers.”
Jack looked at it a moment. “It’s a man’s finger. It looks like she managed to bite off the finger of the killer.”
“AJ would have fought with every ounce of strength she had. She wouldn’t have gone down easily.”
“There’s no doubt she didn’t,” Jack said in soft compassion as he looked around at the wreckage of the house.
Jack squatted down and circled his arm around Kate’s shoulders. He gently lifted her to her feet, even though she didn’t want to leave AJ’s side.
“We can’t stay here, Kate. We need to leave.”
“I need to get something to cover her,” Kate said, ignoring him as she struggled to hold back a dammed-up flood of tears.
“We need to leave everything as it is. Don’t touch anything. Don’t pick up anything.”
“We need to call the police,” Kate said with a stifled sob.
She covered her nose with a hand, trying in vain to block the stench of blood and gore.
“No, we need to leave, right now,” Jack said.
Kate looked up at him. “What? But we have to.”
“No, what we have to do is keep you alive. There is nothing we can do for them, now. What happened here is over. It’s done.
“Getting you involved with the police will only put you at more risk.”
Kate’s brow bunched. “What are you talking about?”
“There will be hours and hours of questions. They will want to know what you were doing here, what your relationship was with Detective Janek. Relatives of murder victims don’t spend the night with detectives. What are you going to tell them? That you can recognize killers and you were helping AJ identify murderers?”
“But AJ would want—”
“AJ would want you to get away from here. She would know that being here could only put you at risk.”
Kate looked back at AJ’s still corpse. It somehow didn’t look real. “We can’t just leave them here like this. We have to do something for them.”
“Listen to me.” Jack gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. He leaned in close. “Listen to me. There is nothing you can do here that is going to help her, now. Nothing. We need to get out of here. You need to trust me in this. I know what I’m talking about.”
Kate’s vision was turning watery. “Are you sure we can’t—”
“I’m sure. I’ve been involved in this kind of thing before. You can’t help what’s already done. What matters now is protecting you.”
“How can we do that?”
He gripped her shoulders tighter. “You have to understand something, and you need to understand it starting right now. This is about you staying alive. The police aren’t going to help you to do that. If you lie to them they will catch you in that lie. If you tell them the truth, your story will seem so bizarre they will suspect you are somehow involved. At the very least, they will likely have you locked up for psychiatric evaluation.”
Kate blinked at him. She tried to think if what he was saying made sense.
“There are bad people in the world,” he said, “and there are good people. The police are good people. But with this business they won’t understand you. They won’t want to.”
“You want me to leave without telling the police I was here?”
“Yes. The less information the police have on record about you, the safer you will be. You must not get involved with the police. Do you hear me? They are for the most part good people, but they are bound up in a bureaucratic system where you don’t fit their official world view. You are different and you have to do things differently if you want to stay alive.”
“Differently? What do you mean?”
“You need to be a ghost in these matters. You can’t afford to get officially entangled in any of this. This is outside what law enforcement understands. AJ was a good police detective and she knew better than to trust them with John and you. She kept you and your brother a secret and didn’t tell her own department about any of this business with either of you being able to recognize killers. Did she?”
“No, but that’s not how I’ve lived. That’s not the rules I’ve lived by.”
“Rules are for people who lose fights. If you want to live, then you have to live by new rules—your own rules.”
Kate looked around at the bloody scene of destruction, at the bodies of people she knew—people she cared deeply for.
It all seemed so hopeless.
But Jack was right. She knew he was. This was the reality she had to face.
She gritted her teeth as she looked back at him. “We need to kill this bastard and end this.”
“If only it were that easy,” Jack said under his breath as he squatted down.
A cell phone lay on the floor near AJ’s bloody, torn panties. Jack pulled the sleeve of his jacket down to cover his knuckle, and then used it to press 911.
“Okay,” he said as he stood. “The police will trace this call and when they realize it’s a police officer they will descend on this place with an army. That’s the best we can do for AJ and her family. We need to be gone when they get here.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Out on the porch, in the cold air, Kate stood close beside Jack, feeling hot and light-headed and sick to her stomach. He swiped his hair back off his brow, peering out at the night as if trying to see the killer out there somewhere.
“I want you to listen to me,” he said. “We need to worry about your life, now. I need you to
go get the car.”
Kate wasn’t sure she had heard him right. “You want me to go get the car? Alone?”
“Yes. Hurry, now. Come back here and get me. Understand?”
“No. Why aren’t you coming with me?”
He gripped her upper arm and leaned toward her with grim intensity. “Kate, listen to me. You need to trust me and do as I say. I know what I’m doing. We need not to be seen here. Go get the car.”
Kate couldn’t imagine what he planned on doing inside AJ’s place. She glanced over her shoulder out into the night. When she turned back, she could see the carnage inside through the partially opened door. It was such a sickening sight that she had difficulty making her mind believe it was real. She half expected AJ to open the door and smile at her and make the whole thing evaporate like a bad dream.
But AJ was never going to smile again.
The houses were set back quite a ways from the street, with deep front yards, so none of those people across the street where the party was going on noticed Jack or Kate on the front porch of the Janek home. Older rock music was blaring. Every time the front door opened and someone went in or out, the music got louder until the door was closed again. She could hear people laughing and talking.
“Get going,” Jack said. “Don’t be slow about it.”
Kate looked out at the night. “What if he’s still out there, waiting?”
“How would he know you were coming over tonight? Besides, there are too many people coming and going for the party. He wouldn’t be able to recognize you in the dark. He wouldn’t be able to pick you out from everyone else. Go on, now. Hurry.”
As Jack went back inside, making the order final, and a sense of urgency overcame her, Kate abandoned her objections and hurried across the front lawn in the direction she had left the car. She couldn’t imagine why he was sending her alone, but she didn’t want to waste time considering the grim possibilities.
She turned up her collar against the cold night air and stuffed her trembling hands in her pockets. She walked as quickly as she could down the sidewalk without breaking into a run. If the killer was still hanging around, running might draw his attention. She told herself that there was no reason to believe he was still anywhere nearby. Like Jack had said, the killer hadn’t known that she was coming over.
Kate felt numb, her mind balancing on the razor edge of tipping over to panic and grief. She forced herself to block her emotions. This was no time to lose it.
She crossed the street and quickly made her way down the block. The car was another two streets over.
When she turned and looked back, she saw a tall man in a hoodie. He hadn’t been there a moment ago. She didn’t know how he seemed to appear so suddenly. He had his hands in the pockets of the jacket. He was following behind her.
Somehow, she was not the least bit surprised to see him.
Kate knew without a doubt that it was the man she had seen the night of John’s murder, outside his house.
It was the man who had been watching her that night.
She started moving faster. When she did, the man responded by breaking into a run toward her.
Once she saw him coming for her there was no longer any doubt as to who he was, or what he intended. Kate immediately cut through a side yard between houses. She wove through a maze of bushes, hoping he wouldn’t see which way she went. When she looked back she saw the man follow her in. As he ran under a light on the back corner of the house, she was pretty sure she could see that he was covered in blood.
Kate raced across a backyard and jumped a chain-link fence into the next backyard. As she ran across the back lawn, a dog rushed out toward her, barking like crazy. His barking set a half dozen dogs in the neighborhood to barking in response. It was clear that if the dog caught her he was big enough that he would likely take her down. She cut to the left to avoid the dog and slipped on the grass. Without pause she rolled to her feet and kept going, hardly missing a beat, then leaped over the fence on the far side just before the dog could grab her ankle in his teeth and kept running as fast as she could.
She snatched a quick look back and saw the man kick the dog so hard it was sent tumbling. The dog yelped in pain. A light on the back of the house flicked on. As tempting as it was to get the attention of the people who had turned on the light, she knew she dared not stop. Besides, what were they going to do against such a vicious killer? Kate didn’t want them to end up dead as well.
When she looked back, the man was over the fence and still coming.
Kate raced between sheds and detached garages, taking whatever opening presented itself, trying to make sure she didn’t get boxed in, always keeping in mind where her car was. She knew, though, that with as close as the man was behind her, even if she made it to her car she would never get it unlocked and have time to jump in, start it, and drive away before he pounced.
She ran as hard as she could, trying not to think of the inevitable. She had to get away. It was as simple as that.
As she wove her way through obstacles in the older neighborhood, jumping over lawn mowers, woodpiles, and a pair of rusted bicycles, she fought back her burgeoning sense of panic. She was well aware that if she let panic have control of her, she would die. She knew that her only hope to live was to keep her head. She had to find a way to get away from the man.
The thought of him catching her, and what he would do to her when he did, fueled her straining muscles.
Branches of bushes snatched at her as she raced past. She had to bat some of them out of the way. As she went past a ladder leaning up against the side of a house, she pulled it down behind her, hoping to block the way or at least slow her pursuer. The aluminum ladder banged down against the ground.
She didn’t take the time to slow to look back to see if the ladder slowed her pursuer. She skidded to a stop momentarily in the alley behind a garage, looking both ways, trying to pick the best route. She quickly decided to cross the alley and go between garages, hoping that in the dark they would hide which direction she had gone.
As she burst through a narrow space left in junk piles between the garages, the man abruptly stepped out in front of her, blocking her way. He had apparently seen which way she had gone and with his longer legs raced around the garage to intercept her.
Kate skidded to a halt before she crashed into him. Panting hard to catch her breath, before he could snatch her she immediately shot away to the right, jumping one fence and charging though the open gate of another.
Now out of the alleyways and side yards, she raced across the open front yards. The light on the closest light pole was out, leaving her in a pool of darkness between distant streetlights.
The man, his shadowed form looking like he could be the grim reaper himself, raced out from between the houses, angling right toward her. In that instant, as close as he was, Kate knew that he was faster than her and she wasn’t going to get away.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
As the man charged in at her, he lifted his arms to tackle her. He was too close for her to escape. Before Kate had even given it any thought, she acted out of instinct. She spun around and threw a side kick into the center of his chest. The man staggered back a couple of steps, but kept his balance.
This was the man who had killed John. He had left AJ’s card with the bent corners from John’s house on AJ’s body. It was his calling card. He wanted her to know it was him. It was a message, the same way moving her underwear was a message.
This was the monster who had butchered AJ, Mike, and Ryan.
She could see that his left hand was wrapped in a bloody hand towel. She knew that he would be missing a finger.
The injury didn’t look to be slowing him down, nor did her kick. His arms were long and she had been fixated on keeping him from getting close, so he had been a little too far away for her kick to do much damage.
This was a predator. The instinct of a predator was to chase down prey. When they had prey in sight, on
the run, nothing else mattered to them except taking that prey to the ground. Kate was now the prey he was after.
She knew that, as close as he was, if she ran he would be on her in a flash. He was going to keep coming no matter what.
When he rushed toward her again, she knew that she had no choice. Whatever hesitations she’d had in the past now seemed foolish. This was about her life, and whether she would willingly give it up or fight for it.
Running now would be a foolish mistake, so she didn’t run. Kate instead bladed her body and covered her center. Even though there wasn’t a lot of light, she could see him grin when she took a stance to stand her ground. That was what he wanted—a helpless victim that he could overpower.
Kate kept her left fist near her stomach and put the thumb of her open right hand under her chin to coil the strength of her right arm. When he closed the distance to her she twisted her weight toward him and thrust her arm out with lightning speed, adding the force of her weight to the strike, hitting his left ear with her cupped hand.
The blast of pressure from her cupped hand slamming his ear that hard blew out his eardrum. The man cried out in pain as he twisted to the side, holding the side of his head.
The pause only lasted a moment, and then he was coming again. Kate realized immediately that it was a mistake for her to wait to see if her blow would stop him. She admonished herself in that instant not to make that mistake again.
To prevent him from pushing her into a retreat and then overpowering her, she instead drove in toward him and cleared the line of his arms. Almost right up against his chest, she threw her weight into a punch to his throat. Before he could react, she kept herself close inside his defenses and unleashed chain strikes as fast as she could, the way she punched the bag in her basement when she was angry. She had practiced those rapid-fire punches most of her life, except that now it was for her life.
She ducked under his arm when he swung at her, and punched upward with a blow to his midsection. He let out a grunt. He struck out at her again. She ducked under his arms again, came around his side, and drove her closed fist into his kidney.