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The problem with him was that he was reckless with his kills. Killing people who had ties to our family was just plain stupid. He risked capture, and possible exposure of our tangled family history.
So I paid a lot of money to have someone from my security team spike his espresso with a hallucinogenic one morning at the Has Bean café, and chaos and death ensued.
I’d already pre-arranged for Dr. Barnard to accept him into the Blackthorne Institute, and thanks to a combination of my generous payments and my threats to Dr. Barnard, my brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia with homicidal ideation. Who knows, the diagnosis might even have been accurate.
Charlemagne was a John Doe when he was arrested. Still is. He refused to reveal his real name. Our past is the kind that’s better left buried.
“That sounds like a man who’s got no control over his actions.” Carter looks at me suspiciously. “Crazy, not evil.”
I’d admire his cleverness if I had the time to waste, but I don’t, so I speak quickly. “In all honesty, I set him up to be committed, but it had to be done for the safety of the public. He… We share certain inclinations. I have channeled mine in a more useful direction—taking out the trash, so to speak—while he just killed people for fun.”
His brow is still creased with skepticism. “So you’re asking me to believe that you’re an ethical serial killer and your brother is Ted Bundy reincarnated.”
“Sergeant Carter, I never said I was any kind of serial killer, did I? It looks like you’re drawing your own conclusions.” I shake my head chidingly. “I called you in because you seem disillusioned with the system, and I thought you might be willing to work outside it to help save a girl who’s the same age your daughter was when she died.” That’s me, playing dirty pool. “I was able to review your records, and I see that you’ve been accused of use of excessive force against rapists and child molesters. On multiple occasions, you’ve been suspected of planting drugs in order to arrest dealers when you couldn’t find any evidence on them. Your career is hanging by a thread.”
He clears his throat defensively. “If I ever did any of that shit, and I’m not saying I did, it was to scumbag shit-heels who had it coming.”
“So there we are.” I flash him a winning smile. I’ve got a list of smile types stored away in my mental filing cabinet. This one is my “closing the deal” smile, minus any hint of menace, as opposed to my “you’re about to die now” smile, or my “do what I want or I’ll fucking cut you” smile. “Two peas in a pod. You’ve broken the law on many occasions, in the service of the greater good. I might have gone a little further than you, although I’m not saying I did. But I am saying that you have no moral high ground here.”
“You still haven’t explained to me why you didn’t come right out and say that Tamara was, as you put it, ‘staying with you’.” He makes actual air quotes.
“Well, if you’re the one who finds her, you can ask her anything you want.” I’m clearly brushing aside the question. And I know she might tell him everything, which means I risk going to prison for the rest of my life. But she’s worth the risk. And too much time has passed already, and I haven’t been able to find a thing. As good as I am at hacking, as good as Garret is, Carter will have more resources than I do—if he’s willing to bend…no, break the law to help a damsel in distress.
“What about that security guard who disappeared?”
Damn, the man has a steel trap memory. That whole shambling, disheveled exterior…it’s an act. Like the TV detective Colombo. Acts like a half-wit so everyone underestimates him, gathers the clues, and then pounces.
“The security guard tried to rape Tamara. He’s…gone. I could show you that video too.”
“Do it.”
“Seriously?” I throw my hands up in frustration. “What part of ‘a woman is being tortured by a fucking serial killerright now’are you not getting?”
He doesn’t budge. “I’m risking what’s left of my career here, and I’m considering working with someone who’s all but admitted he’s at best a vigilante murderer, and at worst…God only knows. So yeah, you’re going to show me the fucking video.”
I was hoping we could dispense with all this moral posturing. Who is he to act all self-righteous when he’s broken the law as often as I have?
But Saint Carter has to feel right about this, or he won’t help me.
I open up another file on the USB and show him the video of the guard trying to rape Tamara. “See?” I say impatiently, turning the video off.
He still looks skeptical, but he shrugs. “Tell me everything you can about your brother and Tamara.”
I give him my version of events from yesterday—my brother hacked into my security system, Tamara and I made a run for it, and my brother blew up the house.
I hacked into traffic cameras and traced him as far as a parking garage in downtown Boston. Unfortunately, I lost track of him. He must have switched cars there. A man on my security team found the abandoned van, and I have no idea where he went from there. It was rush hour when he entered the parking garage, and there were dozens of cars streaming in and out.
“I might be able to get access to the garage’s records and their security tapes,” Carter says, frowning in thought. “He wouldn’t have hung out in that garage for too long. We can start with all the cars that left the garage within, say, two to three hours after the van entered. Run their plates, process of elimination, figure out which vehicle he was driving. What else can you tell me? What did he do after he busted out? Where was he staying?”
“I know that he spent a considerable amount of time in New York, because I’ve determined that he actually went to my office several times, and he came to my apartment here as well. He was the one who was sending information to the police about me. I haven’t been able to find out where he was staying. Also, unfortunately, he embezzled an enormous sum of money from me, so he’s got a lot of funds.” I’m thinking out loud. “Okay. He was sending the police information about me, messing with me, giving you just enough to question me but not enough to arrest me. Can you trace the source of those messages?”
He shakes his head decisively. “No, we tried.” No surprise there.
“What did he tell you about me?”
He scowls, thinking about it before he tells me. “He told us that you were behind the disappearance of the security guard, and Baxter Warburton. And Tamara. And Heather. And he said that you were behind the disappearance of a bunch of other women, but he didn’t name them.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?” I say with exasperation. “He told you some half-truths and then a major lie. He didn’t name the other women because there were no other women.”
